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iyaayas01 posted:Counterpoint: the U.S. literally paid them off with 50 F-16s, given to the IAF for free right after the war (on top of all the other aid the U.S. already gives them), not to mention the deployment of Patriot batteries by both the U.S. and the Netherlands. They were chomping at the bit to retaliate, consequences be damned, but since this would have torn apart the Coalition the U.S. had worked so hard to build, we bought their non-involvement for the cheap price of 50 F-16s (admittedly surplus Block 10s) and the deployment of some missile batteries. Not to mention that Israel gave the Coalition a list of targets that had to be hit on Israel's behalf. Coalition planners were bemused by the list because the majority of the targets were either locations that had already been hit by Coalition airstrikes or were empty desert (mobile SCUD launch sites).
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Oct 17, 2011 19:27
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Scratch Monkey posted:The German talent for gathering men and using them to create out of whole cloth effective fighting groups is testament enough to their field level officers' ability to think on their feet. Even the general officers in the Wehrmacht, the guys who talked to Hitler on a regular basis, had relatively little trouble ignoring him when they knew that his new dumb plan or order would get them all killed. Tom Kratman account spotted
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Oct 17, 2011 21:15
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Scratch Monkey posted:The German talent for gathering men and using them to create out of whole cloth effective fighting groups is testament enough to their field level officers' ability to think on their feet. Even the general officers in the Wehrmacht, the guys who talked to Hitler on a regular basis, had relatively little trouble ignoring him when they knew that his new dumb plan or order would get them all killed. Weeeeeeeel. . . I don't want to derail this thread into WW2 chat, but there were a lot of times where the general staff followed "no retreat" orders of Hitlers that were flat suicidal. It worked in the winter of '41 outside moscow, didn't work out quite so well a year later in the south. Past that and you're into the whole "crazy Hitler" period of '43 until his death.
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Oct 18, 2011 00:01
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It's just the standard "seperate the German army from Hitler and by extension Nazism so I can fetishize German Army and SS units without guilt" arguments.
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Oct 18, 2011 00:44
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Wait, did I just wind up in GBS where saying something like "some of Hitler's generals (e.g. Paulus, Rommel, Guderian) ignored his orders when they thought they were stupid" means "I'm a Nazi"? If you are interested in how Germany's "kampfgruppe" methodology was applied over the course of the war to consolidate routed troops into effective fighting forces don't take my word for it as apparently I'm just a Nazi loving stooge. Instead read pretty much any book about the German preparations before Operation Market Garden.
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Oct 18, 2011 02:15
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Cyrano4747 posted:Weeeeeeeel. . . I don't want to derail this thread into WW2 chat Did you forget what you did on the very first goddamn page of this thread?
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Oct 18, 2011 03:09
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SyHopeful posted:Did you forget what you did on the very first goddamn page of this thread? No, and I still don't loving care what you think. Believe it or not, talking about the aerospace advances of late WW2 and how they were utilized by the cold war antagonists in the early phases of that cluster gently caress is appropriate to this thread. Trying to talk about US or Soviet aeronautics and rocketry in the 50s without mentioning Nazis is goddamned retarded. The part where I try to avoid a huge loving derail on how much or how little German generals followed Hitler's orders would be appropriate because, hey, not cold war.
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Oct 18, 2011 04:03
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Cyrano4747 posted:No, and I still don't loving care what you think. Believe it or not, talking about the aerospace advances of late WW2 and how they were utilized by the cold war antagonists in the early phases of that cluster gently caress is appropriate to this thread. Trying to talk about US or Soviet aeronautics and rocketry in the 50s without mentioning Nazis is goddamned retarded. Hahahaha you are actually trying to draw distinctions between your WW2 derails? I'll give you credit at least, you haven't mentioned your dad yet in this thread 
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Oct 18, 2011 04:39
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Snowdens Secret posted:I feel that when evaluating qualitative equivalence you may be focusing on airpower at the detriment of ground force - and mere qualitative parity in the face of overwhelming quantitative imbalance isn't an equal footing. But I'll acknowledge that you're the professional on these matters while I'm certainly not. That's a fair point about air vs ground, as the IDF definitely had more of a qualitative advantage in the air versus the ground (at least until the development of the Merkava). I naturally gravitate towards aviation technology since that's what I'm most familiar with; that's a bit of a blind spot I have. I had more to say regarding your other points but it's late and I got caught up doing other stuff so it'll have to wait. Phanatic posted:Yeah, you're probably better off not mentioning that, because the benefit was purely political; the Patriot deployment let the Israeli government pretend it was doing *something* to defend the people who had Scuds fired at them daily, despite being totally useless for actually defending them against Scud missiles. Well yeah, I figured that went without saying. The (in)effectiveness of the Patriots and the (lack of) widespread use of PGMs are the two biggest myths of the Gulf War. I only brought it up because it was just one more thing the U.S. did to placate the Israelis to prevent them from entering the war and completely demolishing the Coalition the U.S. had pieced together. Smiling Jack posted:It's just the standard "seperate the German army from Hitler and by extension Nazism so I can fetishize German Army and SS units without guilt" arguments. I had a whole thing typed here, but suffice to say that it doesn't speak too highly of an organization that, generally speaking, it would rather disobey orders regarding military operations than disobey orders to carry out the slaughter of millions of innocent civilians (in other words, commenting that German officers would sometimes disobey orders regarding battlefield conduct actually makes them look even worse). Cyrano4747 posted:No, and I still don't loving care what you think. Believe it or not, talking about the aerospace advances of late WW2 and how they were utilized by the cold war antagonists in the early phases of that cluster gently caress is appropriate to this thread. Trying to talk about US or Soviet aeronautics and rocketry in the 50s without mentioning Nazis is goddamned retarded. Sup 
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Oct 18, 2011 09:20
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iyaayas01 posted:Sup http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zjs3nBfyIwM
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Oct 18, 2011 22:53
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Groda posted:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zjs3nBfyIwM Literally, all I can see and hear when I watch this is this man: 
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Oct 18, 2011 23:44
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Old joke about WVB: "I aim for the stars but sometimes I hit London."
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Oct 19, 2011 02:13
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Smiling Jack posted:Old joke about WVB: "I aim for the stars but sometimes I hit London." "I make the rockets go up, where they come down is not my department."
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Oct 19, 2011 16:27
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http://www.life.com/gallery/41912/one-ride-with-yankee-papa-13#index/0 A Life Magazine photographer took a ride in a helicopter on a mission in Vietnam. There is a whole series of terrifying photographs. 
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Oct 20, 2011 03:20
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Insane Totoro posted:http://www.life.com/gallery/41912/one-ride-with-yankee-papa-13#index/0 It's really one of the best photo series to come out of the entire war. The guy who took those pictures was Larry Burrows, who later died in Laos. A lot of photographers and journalists died in Vietnam, including Errol Flynn's son.
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Oct 20, 2011 16:11
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Technically, I think Flynn disappeared in Laos. edit: everyone read Dispatches Smiling Jack fucked around with this message at 18:07 on Oct 20, 2011 |
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Oct 20, 2011 16:38
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/\ /\ /\ Cambodia. content: The Clash's elegy for Sean Flynn Larry Burrows took some great Airpower pictures for Life, too.  102s   Skyraider  Skyraider  Skyraiders are awesome. \/ \/ \/  http://www.amazon.com/Larry-Burrows-Vietnam/dp/037541102X joat mon fucked around with this message at 05:09 on Oct 21, 2011 |
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Oct 20, 2011 19:53
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Insane Totoro posted:http://www.life.com/gallery/41912/one-ride-with-yankee-papa-13#index/0 That and the related galleries are some of the greatest (worst perhaps) war photos I've seen. Are these available in a high-res photobook of some type from Life? e: quote:Lance Cpl. James Farley dons a helmet, 1965. The mobility provided by choppers meant the average U.S. soldier saw 240 combat days a year in Nam. In World War II, the average soldier saw 40 days of combat in four years. 
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Oct 21, 2011 04:38
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Insane Totoro posted:http://www.life.com/gallery/41912/one-ride-with-yankee-papa-13#index/0 Thanks, I just spent an hour browsing the photo archives For a helicopter pilot's view of the Vietnam war, I recommend Chickenhawk by Robert Mason. Mason has a web site with some of the photos he writes about taking combat, but I recommend waiting to see them until after you've read the book (if you're going to). Link to the book page at the site: http://www.robertcmason.com/Books/chpage.html
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Oct 21, 2011 09:29
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I've seen those Vietnam air war pictures before, but they're still pretty sweet. However, the second to last picture isn't a Skyraider, it's a T-28 Trojan. Fun fact, it's also painted with South Vietnamese colors, but is probably still being flown by a USAF pilot.
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Oct 21, 2011 10:07
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Everyone here has read The Soccer War, right?
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Oct 21, 2011 15:25
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Groda posted:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zjs3nBfyIwM God drat it, The future (now) was supposed to be so loving cool. Where's my Johnny Quest/Venture Brother's poo poo?
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Oct 21, 2011 16:39
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I figure this is as good a place as any to ask this, so here goes. In anticipation of BF3, I've been playing a bunch of SPMBT lately, playing some US and Russia vs Iran games. Keep in mind going forward that when it comes to MBT and MBT technology, I know very very little, and that which I do know is gleaned from wikipedia and other random poo poo. My question is this: Why have so many countries adapted their MBTs (and other AFV/IFVs) to be capable of launching ATGMs, while as far as I know, the US hasn't? DrPop fucked around with this message at 04:59 on Oct 22, 2011 |
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Oct 22, 2011 04:56
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DrPop posted:I figure this is as good a place as any to ask this, so here goes. In anticipation of BF3, I've been playing a bunch of SPMBT lately, playing some US and Russia vs Iran games. Keep in mind going forward that when it comes to MBT and MBT technology, I know very very little, and that which I do know is gleaned from wikipedia and other random poo poo. Sheridan. And why use a ATGM when you can send a DU rod at mach 4? Wikipedia posted:The M551 Sheridan was a light tank developed by the United States and named after Civil War General Philip Sheridan. It was designed to be landed by parachute and to swim across rivers. It was armed with the technically advanced but troublesome M81/M81E1 152mm gun/launcher which fired conventional ammunition and the MGM-51 Shillelagh guided anti-tank missile.
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Oct 22, 2011 05:00
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Flikken posted:
quote:an airborne tank that could swim The most  phrase ever.
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Oct 22, 2011 05:26
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It's more of a doctrinal and technological question I think. By the time Soviet gun-launched ATGMs started to proliferate there already were a lot of TOW/MILAN/Swingfire etc. launchers available with most NATO forces. Infantry-carried and dedicated vehicle mounted ones might have been more suited for Western defensive tactics while the Red Army had to make up for a relative deficiency in long range gunning accuracy. ATGMs were pretty mature and might have required pretty simple training which was more accessible to the bulk of their conscripted forces ("the autoloader has loaded the missile and we've got a clear sight, after you pull the trigger, just keep pointing the reticle at the tank Vanya, no need to correct for distance, movement or wind"). I'm working from memory here but varying from unit to unit and platform to platform problems with gun accuracy were influenced by slightly cruder sights, less training with live rounds, comparatively suboptimal long-rod penetrator design which led to lower flight speeds and consequently a larger dropoff over distance which hurts accuracy (the design compromises were themselves an outgrowth of materials shortage for APFSDS manufacturing), less widespread access to laser range finders etc. Koesj fucked around with this message at 03:11 on Oct 23, 2011 |
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Oct 23, 2011 03:09
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This thread is languishing. I'm considering doing a writeup on the DEW line or the Texas Towers.
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Nov 1, 2011 17:59
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The Texas towers were pretty loving  ; do that.
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Nov 1, 2011 18:01
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Eventually I'll get around to a DEW Line write-up, with some history including the Pinetree and Mid-Canada lines. For now, though, I'll write about something I only recently learned about : THE TEXAS TOWERS  These fascinating structures were built around the same time the DEW line was coming online, and in fact could be considered an extension of the DEW line. Their purpose was straightforward but strategically and tactically important: detect incoming airborne Soviet threats far enough away from the major industrial and population centers of the NE US/Canada that interceptor aircraft could be scrambled with enough advance notice. To accomplish this, the Texas Towers were built anywhere from ~80-120 miles offshore, extending the effective offshore radar range a reported 3-400 miles. As you can see, the structures are dominated by the gigantic radomes. Each Texas Tower had one AN/FPS-3 search radar and two AN/FPS-6 height finder radars, as well as tropospheric scatter relay antennae (as seen in the following picture) for communication with the mainland. Oh, and these things were SAGE-capable as well.  What impresses me the most about the Texas Towers (and the DEW line in general) is the logistics. Kind of an ultimate gently caress YOU! to Mother Nature, deciding to put radar stations out where man-made structures have very little business existing. While I still believe the DEW line stations represent a greater triumph, the towers were nothing to sneeze at. They were constructed in the same method as the offshore oilrigs they were based off of: The main pieces were constructed and towed out to the site. The superstructure was lifted and set in place on temporary pilings while the three main columns were constructed, then final outfitting was completed using ships and helicopters to bring the necessary materials.    For their size, the Texas Towers had high manpower requirements. It took more than 50 crewmen to keep a tower working, and most of them were just there for maintenance duties. The massive radar systems and their accompanying needs meant that each tower had to have a state-of-the-art electrical system as well as an HVAC system capable of keeping the radar equipment cool. Because the only option for power at such a remote location was diesel generator, the three support columns served double-duty as diesel fuel storage as well as freshwater storage. The interiors were decently appointed, probably nicer even than the average Navy ship of the day. The crew were privvy to having a lounge of sorts with a billiards table and a projector for whatever movies were brought out on the supply runs.     Apparently there was at least one supply helicopter that had to be repaired on the landing pad:  Clearly much of the basic architecture and engineering principles were derived from offshore oil rigs, hence the name Texas Tower. Of course it wouldn't be a military venture if there wasn't some sort of glaring oversight. See the three structural legs in the very first picture? Notice the lack of bracing that is apparent in the second picture? That bracing was added on after the fact, when internal vibrations as well as external factors like, you know, the loving ocean caused great concerns about the structural integrity. The added-on bracing went a long ways in stiffening the structure, but it wasn't enough:  Texas Tower 4 (TT-4) had a series of dubious moments that should've set off even the most naive person's somethin-ain't-right detector. While being towed to the site, some of the structural pieces broke off and sank. The Air Force soldiered (heh) on and built the drat thing anyway, choosing to fix the deficiencies after construction. Oh, did I mention that the three structural columns had reinforced sleeves and some cement filling...but only down to the waterline? Sounds vaguely like watertight doors that aren't watertight *cough*titanic*cough* TT-4 quickly earned the name "Old Shakey" from those who served onboard. She stood out among three towers already known for being kinda loud and vibrate-y as being extra loud and full of vibrations, and not the good kind. I also forgot to mention that the ocean floor TT-4 was built on was a loose and highly transient base of sediment. Strike number [st]3[/st] 183491 against it. In September of 1960 TT-4 was damaged by Hurricane Donna. Okay, so we have a radar facility in the middle of god-damned-nowhere (a place known for harsh winters), one that has a history of structural issues. Sane people would consider either evacuating the crew until repairs could be made, or making those repairs absolutely top priority. Sadly, neither of those happened. Several months later, while staffed by 28 crewmembers, TT-4 was knocked into the Atlantic Ocean by yet another storm. Zero survived, and only two bodies were ever recovered. The other two Texas Towers, TT-2 and TT-3 (TT-1 was never built), met underwhelming demises: the rapid pace of technology at the time led to ICBMs becoming the preferred method of nuclear payload delivery, making the early warning mission of the Texas Towers (as well as the DEW line, to a slightly lesser extent) obsolete. By the mid-60s they had been stripped and demolished. One of them remains submerged mostly intact at its original site, and is a popular diving spot for experienced divers. SyHopeful fucked around with this message at 00:22 on Nov 3, 2011 |
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Nov 3, 2011 00:16
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It's amazing that this thread is still going strong, just chiming in to say keep it up guys!
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Nov 3, 2011 22:14
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I had never heard of the Texas Towers until now, and nothing about it surprises me. That's a great write-up of them, though. God the military is stupid sometimes.
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Nov 4, 2011 00:17
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Man, if one of those Texas Towers was still standing and we got GBS to put together enough money...  Thanks for the write-up. I'd never even heard of those before. Offshore oil rigs always seem like the weirdest frontier town possible to me.
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Nov 4, 2011 01:57
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BetterWeirdthanDead posted:Man, if one of those Texas Towers was still standing and we got GBS to put together enough money... I shall donate all my BitCoins.
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Nov 4, 2011 04:45
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BetterWeirdthanDead posted:Man, if one of those Texas Towers was still standing and we got GBS to put together enough money... Sealand would probably entertain a buyout offer.
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Nov 4, 2011 04:58
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We could call it Dongland. Those three domes have absolutely no phallic connotations whatsoever, no siree! As an avid model builder, I been recently fascinated with the old F-19 model kits and by extension those fantastic stealth concept designs from the 80's. Who'd thought of the massive troll when the real thing turned out to be the F-117. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F-19 The F-117 was incredible in its way but it's interesting that the stealth super fighter in everyone's minds would only materialize with the F-22. Sadly they were just concepts, this is so much a more cooler design than the F-22. 
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Nov 4, 2011 05:49
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Yeah, I was referring to Sealand, goon bunker, goon aircraft carrier, and all the other crazy ideas.
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Nov 4, 2011 12:48
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Morgenthau posted:We could call it Dongland. As a side, I had that model as a kid, I actually saw one yesterday on Kijiji and thought of buying it. For kicks, I looked at the guys other items for sale. http://bc.kijiji.ca/c-PostersOtherAds-W0QQUserIdZ37427146
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Nov 4, 2011 13:54
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slidebite posted:While the F19 would have been incredibly cool, I was not disappointed with the real F117 and B2. I remember my jaw dropping as a teenager when the first photos were released. Don't forget the F-19 in Microprose's Stealth Fighter videogame. "'scuse me while I sneakily fly over the target airbase taking pictures, then Durendal it and make the photos immediately obsolete, and finish by flying back to Norway at 30 feet with a MIG-25 orbiting me the whole way.  "
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Nov 4, 2011 17:41
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Microprose sims were awesome. I liked M1 tank platoon a lot.
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Nov 4, 2011 19:10
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priznat posted:Dynamix sims were awesome. FTFY. "Aces of/over [place]" pretty much defined my childhood. Microprose does get an honorable mention for their B-17 game, though. Only game I've ever played that managed to make flying a bomber fun.
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Nov 4, 2011 19:14
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