StandardVC10 posted:

Russian film prop?

Igor Strelkov posted:

It's huge and awesome, unfortunately it's also a huge and sort of slow target. That they're actually using them in something of a gunship role shows how hard up they are. Iraqi officers are also promising encircled troops air support and supply drops that never show up and never existed. It's not good.

Mazz posted:

I was under the impression that while the Hind was designed around that transport "flying BMP" capability, they realized pretty fast in Afghanistan how terrible an idea that was and just used the space to carry more rockets for field reloadings and/or an extra technician/door gunner. So using it in a attack/gunship role is pretty much the norm.

And it's really not terrible at the gunship role, especially not when you put it in time frame. It was loving the mujahideen up pretty well until we started giving them MANPADs. It's not like a fleet of early 70s AH-1 would've fared any better really.

Igor Strelkov posted:

I was talking about today, in Iraq, against an enemy with poo poo loads of manpads. They've been using it as a gunship out of pure necessity, and getting shot down a lot as a result.

Cyrano4747 posted:

On a related note: if you ever want a dark laugh, read the Vietnamese declaration of independence.

simplefish posted:

Saw this and thought of the thread:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/special/2014/newsspec_9035/index.html

Hubis posted:

sorry to side track but holy poo poo BBC what is with that layout? Some web designer got a little too clever-by-half.

Dr. Kyle Farnsworth posted:

Definitely worthwhile reading so far, has anyone else here read it?

StandardVC10 posted:

Whoa, they actually built one of those? Thought it was just a paper project.

Cyrano4747 posted:

I actually really liked it. True, it's treading that boundary between neat presentation and getting a little too clever for its own good, but I think it keeps inside that line. As far as pairing images with the text in an interesting fashion I thought it was pretty well executed.

Also a kick rear end article in general.

simplefish posted:

What I love is that the endgame of WWII turned into "The enemy of my enemy is... well gently caress it, still my enemy."

Dr. Kyle Farnsworth posted:

What's really fascinating is how blase and chill about everything it is. It's very readable and obviously well-researched, but it's also written in that nonchalant Cold War tone where you just talked about everything like it was no big deal.

StandardVC10 posted:

Does anyone have a TLDR on why nothing involving the C-27J and the United States makes any goddamn sense?

iyaayas01 posted:

DoD as a whole bears a lot of the responsibility for that debacle...the whole reason JCA got started in the first place is because in the middle of the last decade everything in DoD had to be relevant to fighting a couple pointless low-intensity wars in a couple of shithole third-world countries, everything else was a non-priority for reasons...which meant the Army got to call a lot of shots they otherwise wouldn't have normally gotten to call. The USAF had just gotten done getting hammered by everyone for not doing enough to support said pointless low-intensity war, so we were more than happy to do whatever OSD said, and then as icing on the cake throw in the fact that Congress saw the JCA as an attractive option to use as replacement aircraft/mission in ANG units that were losing their Herks due to BRAC. For all those reasons, JCA happens as opposed to being aborted like it honestly should have been.

Fast forward a couple years and cuts in the program put the ANG portion at risk...so Congress intervenes to force the Army to give up their portion in favor of handing the mission wholesale to the Air Guard (meaning the USAF now drives the train), with the understanding that they would be intended for support of the Army as a primary mission.

Fast forward a couple years past that and we've (mostly) stopped fighting those pointless wars, which meant the requirement for intra-theater airlift (the niche mission of the C-27) was much lower, also DoD is facing some serious budget crises meaning niche capabilities are no longer a thing we can afford. C-27 goes on the chopping block because (similarly to the A-10) it's either that or we start making horizontal cuts to less niche capabilities (C-130s in the C-27s case) that will even further degrade our warfighting capability.

The Air Guard (and by extension Congress) started freaking the gently caress out, because cutting the C-27 meant shuttering Air Guard units (all the RPA slots had already been snapped up by States with halfway intelligent Guard leadership). Congress getting involved meant drawing out the process, that combined with the idiotic way DoD writes contracts meant that we got into the situation of having aircraft delivered that we no longer wanted...thus the "who wants them?" firesale to the Coast Guard, Forest Service, and SOCOM.

Red Crown posted:

Transcripts of Congressional hearings from that era are wonderful caricatures of themselves. In one I flipped through, the CEO of Boeing went before the Senate and explained that really, we could probably emerge with 5, 10 million dead, industry intact ready to roll out the next generation of Boeing (TM) bombers. (He didn't go as far as to say "depending on the breaks").

The Senate ate it right up.

Godholio posted:

Please tell me they're really calling it a "retrograde" now.

quote:

On June 25, 1953, full design power was reached. Not one part of the plant indicated failure to meet the rigid specifications. In less than a month after power generation by the world’s first nuclear power plant, Mark I was running smoothly at its maximum rating. The one remaining question was whether the machinery could withstand long high-power running.

The operating crews began a forty-eight-hour test at full power to obtain important physics information. At the twenty-four-hour point the data obtained seemed sufficient, and the engineers intended to shut down the plant. Rickover, who was at the site, inadvertently learned of this plan and immediately overruled it. He had visualized that if the forty-eight-hour run turned out well, they should continue on a simulated cruise across the Atlantic. He reasoned that such a dramatic feat, if successful, would end the doubts in the Navy that nuclear power was a feasible means for propelling ships. It would give the project the momentum and breathing space needed to carry on the development without constant harassment until the Nautilus could get to sea.

I was the senior Naval officer at the site. I felt that extension of the run was unwise considering the many uncertainties, and told Rickover that beyond forty-eight hours I could not accept responsibility for the safety of the $30 million prototype. Rickover directed me to proceed with the simulated voyage.

Snowdens Secret posted:

I'm pretty sure after three pivots it's officially a pirouette

Article from 1959 about the S1W reactor prototype: http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1959/01/admiral-rickovers-gamble/308436/?single_page=true

Ogrel72 posted:

This never gets old

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wJ7niLYSVFo

Doctor Grape Ape posted:

And something else that just popped in my head, wasn't the B-52 supposed to be getting 4 RB-211s to replace those 8 old and smokey P&Ws? An RB-211 powered B-52 would be awesome beyond words, and sound like sex (or a lot like a 747).

Doctor Grape Ape posted:

And something else that just popped in my head, wasn't the B-52 supposed to be getting 4 RB-211s to replace those 8 old and smokey P&Ws? An RB-211 powered B-52 would be awesome beyond words, and sound like sex (or a lot like a 747).

Godholio posted:

There's a world of difference between "this could be a good thing to do" and "we're going to do this."

holocaust bloopers posted:

Today I learned that the US Army operated a Hind that we took in the Gulf War. It's now (or was) used for OPFOR training. Huh.

Doctor Grape Ape posted:

Is the next in line already rolling before the one ahead is off the ground?

And something else that just popped in my head, wasn't the B-52 supposed to be getting 4 RB-211s to replace those 8 old and smokey P&Ws? An RB-211 powered B-52 would be awesome beyond words, and sound like sex (or a lot like a 747).

Doctor Grape Ape posted:

Is the next in line already rolling before the one ahead is off the ground?

Dead Reckoning posted:

...money isn't getting shaken loose for that unless the TF33s start slipping off the wings at night to attack children.

Xerxes17 posted:

Not even then, because that would be mission overlap with the Predator drones.

Telven posted:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0aScbm3RDpw

I used to watch that show all the time back in the 90s. If you get a chance, watch that one and there is another show about the SU-25, although half of the time they talk about the Russian war in Afghanistan.

TheFluff posted:

B4Ctom1 posted:

The coasties colors remind me of



I would love to see the army get the A-10's when they are retired, but some need to go to the coasties.

B4Ctom1 posted:

The coasties colors remind me of



I would love to see the army get the A-10's when they are retired, but some need to go to the coasties.

Dark Helmut posted:

Would they remove the Gau-8? That would be depressing.

Hubis posted:

Refit it to fire pepper bullets, and give them to local police to use for riot control -- seems to be what we do with the rest of our surplus military equipment.