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Raw_Beef posted:Didnt they do conscripts with 2 year service times and have a very poor NCO community? I thought I read somewhere that they had to purposefully poison/denature fluids in the aircraft (de-icing I think) because conscripts kept drinking it to get wasted. Conscripts own. (especially the Red Alert 2/3-kind) It's a mixture of  and 
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Jul 26, 2012 16:45
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I dunno about during the Cold War, but there were (some) recorded instances of that during WWII.
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Jul 26, 2012 17:15
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movax posted:I thought I read somewhere that they had to purposefully poison/denature fluids in the aircraft (de-icing I think) because conscripts kept drinking it to get wasted. This was a big problem with the MiG-25. It used a *lot* of alcohol for cooling purposes, so much so that it was nicknamed "the flying bar" by maintenance crews. Eventually a concerned mother-engineer developed a non-alcohol substitute. (This is from that Wings of Russia series.)
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Jul 26, 2012 17:54
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rossmum posted:I dunno about during the Cold War, but there were (some) recorded instances of that during WWII. The latter part of Stalingrad (and Berlin) by Anthony Beevor has a large amount of anecdotes about conscripts drinking things that they weren't supposed to in order to get drunk. Mainly tank engine cleaners or industrial alcohol meant for factories.
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Jul 26, 2012 19:52
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Nebakenezzer posted:This was a big problem with the MiG-25. It used a *lot* of alcohol for cooling purposes, so much so that it was nicknamed "the flying bar" by maintenance crews. Eventually a concerned mother-engineer developed a non-alcohol substitute. (This is from that Wings of Russia series.) That book was so thick with propaganda, it's hard to tell fact from fiction, though.
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Jul 26, 2012 20:14
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movax posted:I thought I read somewhere that they had to purposefully poison/denature fluids in the aircraft (de-icing I think) because conscripts kept drinking it to get wasted. Why wouldn't you use denatured alcohol for such purposes?
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Jul 26, 2012 20:42
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rossmum posted:I would really not be surprised if "ergonomics" as a word didn't even exist in Soviet military parlance. AKs are really handy rifles. I'd have to choose an M1 Carbine for anything more naturally pointable. The sights are just so, the trigger somewhat mushy and the safety lever is complete bullshit. Reloading quickly takes enormous amounts of drilling to come up to speed, and the operating handle is also bullshit. The Finns adressed some of those issues with their own reworking, I guess.
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Jul 26, 2012 21:57
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Groda posted:Why wouldn't you use denatured alcohol for such purposes? More ingredients means more reactions that can put gum or varnish in the coolant passages. Also, undenatured alcohol hasless toxicity if spilled.  IIRC, the alcohol used wasn't even ethanol to begin with. It was n-butanol, which gets you even more drunk due to being less polar and partitioning into brain tissues better while still having the even number of carbon atoms that allow for easy metabolism.
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Jul 27, 2012 16:51
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^^ Whats the downside? Anyway, to contribute; I'm pretty sure this hasn't been posted yet, it is a great PBS documentary about the development, history and politics of the "Super"(H)-bomb. Features lots of great footage, interviews with the involved physicists, even Teller himself, SAC generals and their Russian counterparts. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DSArXZ27zcg
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Jul 27, 2012 22:10
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Restricted Data had some pretty cool pics from the early Soviet bomb program today: One of the early Soviet prototype gravity bombs, and  as hell.There's some more great pics at the site, including the original 1943 Soviet nuclear pile and what is supposedly the first 'Polygon' Soviet nuclear test device, or a close mock-up of it.
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Jul 28, 2012 03:44
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Airshows back in the 50s were so badass. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WmseXJ7DV4c
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Jul 28, 2012 04:28
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rossmum posted:On the other hand, it does manifest itself in weird ways. For all the gripes about the MiG-29's cockpit and controls, the engines were easy as gently caress to replace owing to the fact they were basically just hanging underneath, as opposed to western designs where they tend to be doing insane things like "being buried inside the fuselage or wing roots". In fact, I would say about the only time a single iota of thought was given to the guys that had to operate this stuff was when it came to fixing something broken. No point having something flashy if your conscripts don't know which way up it goes! Similar deal with the AK... from a strictly ergonomics standpoint its controls are terrible, especially the safety, but it strips easily. Same with the 91/30, a pig to handle compared to its contemporaries, but stupidly easy to take apart. I'm not as well versed in subs specifically so I don't know how easy it would be to repair damaged systems on Soviet ones vs. American ones, but in terms of aviation and small arms, they seem to have designed them almost around maintenance rather than operation. That was probably because, from what I've read, almost all Soviet engines were designed for A) Maximum performance B) Ease of production and C) like, 1/10th of the expected lifetime compared to western designs. Probably had something to do with centralized control, forcing both their airforce and clients to stay chummy if they want to receieve a steady rate of replacement engines. That and you don't need skilled crews to keep those engines functional, just strip out the old ones and mount new ones. The Klimov RD-33 for the MiG-29 for example, has a life expectancy of 4 000 flight hours. The MiG-25's Tumansky R-15 had like 150-1000 flight hours expectancy. Compared to the engine used by the F-18 and Gripen: General Electric F404 - It requires less than two shop visits per 1,000 flight hours and averages 6,500 hours between in-flight events. (That's not even equal to having the engines completely shot) Probably a perfectly sound doctrine if you were preparing for WW3 were 1) Your planes were probably not gonna last long enough to NEED engine repairs 2) Your ground crews were probably not gonna live long enough to have the skills required to repair the engines on site anyhow 3) You would probably be short of the right spare parts too, because your armies are expected to be on the offensive grabbing new air bases Instead, just have crew that can turn a wrench good enough to de- and remount the engines and then throw a bunch of prefab engines on trains or trucks heading for the front for whatever aircraft actually survive going up against Teen-series fighters and patriot missile batteries long enough to need new engines. If you are fighting the Vietnam war for 10 years, on the other side of the globe, you might not want to have to ship in new engines every month. Or if you expect to actually train all your pilots enough for them to survive, having lots of flight hours each year would put quite the strain on your ability to churn out replacement engines. Pimpmust fucked around with this message at 11:39 on Jul 28, 2012 |
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Jul 28, 2012 11:30
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KillerKatten posted:^^ Whats the downside? The partial metabolites give a hangover like a freight train, and many of them (butyric acid, etc.) will make you smell like a bum who flops downwind of a cheese factory. The R-15 engine I'll give a bye to, since it was designed for balls-to-the-wall "I'm-a gonna shoot down an SR-71 or poo poo out my turbines trying" performance. Other ones could be a cost-benefit trade-off on remanufacturing cost vs. R&D + manufacturing cost for higher-temperature alloys.
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Jul 28, 2012 23:55
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Fun chemistry/biology fact: If an alcohol has an even number of carbon atoms in it. You can drink it just fine, albeit the metabolites are really poo poo for you and you'll smell like rotting cheese for a while. It's the alcohols with an odd number of carbon atoms that will kill you and/or destroy your sight. 
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Jul 29, 2012 03:46
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That's why I keep a bag of carbon atoms handy when I go drinking coolants!
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Jul 29, 2012 05:44
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I hope you also have a means of adding those atoms to the molecular structures rather than just the solution too 
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Jul 29, 2012 08:07
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Xerxes17 posted:I hope you also have a means of adding those atoms to the molecular structures rather than just the solution too
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Jul 29, 2012 19:40
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priznat posted:That's why I keep a bag of carbon atoms handy when I go drinking coolants! Really who would drink coolants with all that avgas around to huff. Amateurs.
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Jul 30, 2012 21:45
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grover posted:The Genie had a 1.5kt warhead and a range of just 6 miles. Wiki has a Not to beat a dead horse since we discussed this weeks ago, but two of those guys are still alive and Fox News ran an interview with them Friday: http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2012/07/27/how-does-it-feel-to-stand-under-nuclear-bomb/ Maj. Don Luttrell, Ret. USAF posted:In hindsight … it appears that it was not safe. shame on an IGA fucked around with this message at 20:35 on Aug 1, 2012 |
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Aug 1, 2012 20:21
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Suicide Watch posted:Airshows back in the 50s were so badass. Thats awesome. Who wants to bet that was all live ordnance too? Not this sissy prefab gas bombs at current airshows
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Aug 3, 2012 01:49
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Gish posted:Thats awesome. Who wants to bet that was all live ordnance too? Not this sissy prefab gas bombs at current airshows The napalm going off is a big clue that it was live...
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Aug 3, 2012 01:54
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This is likely a repost, but enjoy a trippy recreation of every nuclear detonation on earth ever (as far as we know) from 1945-1998. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LLCF7vPanrY
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Aug 3, 2012 02:12
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mlmp08 posted:This is likely a repost, but enjoy a trippy recreation of every nuclear detonation on earth ever (as far as we know) from 1945-1998. holy poo poo that's amazing. I love how you can just see the US and the USSR waving their dicks at each other in the 50s-60s. One sets off a couple, the other sets off a couple.
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Aug 3, 2012 02:28
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Yeah, the point where the USSR kicks off 5 detonations so the US does 20 in 2 days is pretty ridiculous.
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Aug 3, 2012 02:36
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mlmp08 posted:This is likely a repost, but enjoy a trippy recreation of every nuclear detonation on earth ever (as far as we know) from 1945-1998.  Is there any... reason the US tested so many nukes in the SE US, or was it just a case of "gently caress you, Arizona! (And by extension the USSR!)  "
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Aug 3, 2012 03:32
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Acebuckeye13 posted:
Deserts don't vote.
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Aug 3, 2012 03:38
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Acebuckeye13 posted:
Large tracts of federally owned land
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Aug 3, 2012 03:44
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Acebuckeye13 posted:
Zoom out slowly
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Aug 3, 2012 03:44
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I wish they'd nuked the SE of America. It votes and it votes retarded.
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Aug 3, 2012 03:45
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Totally TWISTED posted:I wish they'd nuked the SE of America. It votes and it votes retarded. THEY DID! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Purvis,_Mississippi#1960.27s_Vela_Uniform.2FProject_Dribble_Nuclear_Tests
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Aug 3, 2012 03:47
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They had to bomb the poo poo out of those aliens at Area 51 to show them who's boss. Keep em from getting uppity.
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Aug 3, 2012 04:10
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Flikken posted:THEY DID!
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Aug 3, 2012 04:18
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Totally TWISTED posted:I wish they'd nuked the SE of America. It votes and it votes retarded.  And of course three people have already replied to it.It is crazy just how many they tested, though. Was there any particular reason they needed so many tests, or was it just for show?
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Aug 3, 2012 04:35
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1) Smoke em if you got em! 2) every 10th nuke is free 3) had to be sure they were effective on chained up livestock. 
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Aug 3, 2012 05:34
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Acebuckeye13 posted:
To some degree, they needed to make sure new designs actually worked. They didn't have massive supercomputers back in the day, so they couldn't exactly run simulations much more complex than "looks like that's about right." A lot of warhead designs were complex and had weird packaging requirements - remember, both sides were making not just nuclear bombs and missiles, but nuclear landmines, nuclear depth charges, nuclear artillery shells, nuclear landmines, and probably nuclear ham sandwiches. Plus, they wanted to test blast effects on everything from houses to tanks. But, like Cyrano and mlmp08 mention, there was a lot of good old fashioned "you blew some poo poo up? Well we're gonna blow MORE poo poo up REAL GOOD!" dickwaving on both sides.
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Aug 3, 2012 05:49
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Acebuckeye13 posted:
A professor of mine was at Sandia. His words: "We didn't have supercomputers like you kids today. So we just kept testing the real thing until we got it right." followed by
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Aug 3, 2012 07:16
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Honestly, though..... if you were the guy in charge of the nuclear arsenals and could pull one out and blow it up whenever you felt like it, wouldn't you do it? Every weekend I'd do that poo poo.
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Aug 3, 2012 12:25
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I just wish the US could somehow circumvent or just give no fucks about the test ban treaty thing, and fire off one large hydrogen bomb. Just one. Think of it, with modern high def, über slow-mo cameras with ridiculous lenses you could get some amazing footage. Timing it with the ISS or some satellite overhead to stream footage (would an h-bomb be visible from space anyway? one way to find out!) or some remote drones or something flying close'ish. Not that it has a snowballs chance in hell of happening, or if it would happen that any good footage would be released. But god damnit I want it to see it... for science.
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Aug 3, 2012 13:14
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Someone find an urban legend related to H-Bomb and write Mythbusters. If the government won't let them use a nuke to blow up a crash test dummy, I am fully confident that they'll build one themselves. They've probably got a Rubbermaid bin full of plutonium somewhere in that warehouse, anyway.
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Aug 3, 2012 13:35
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FrozenVent posted:Someone find an urban legend related to H-Bomb and write Mythbusters. They would gently caress it up by letting those clowns Grant and Tory do it.
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Aug 3, 2012 14:04
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