Nebakenezzer posted:

aphid_licker posted:

Frontseater to backseater: PREPARE TO REPEL BOARDERS *hefts cutlass*

Nebakenezzer posted:

Hauldren Collider posted:

Why *don't* we build underwater tanks...hmm

soy posted:

This actually seems like a pretty good idea but I guess then the defending force would just throw those big tank caltrops all over the ocean + mines and poo poo.

ChlamydiaJones posted:

mostlygray posted:

My father in law was in the Air Force in photographic intelligence during the Vietnam war in the '60's. We went to the SAC museum together a few years ago. He had a crazy story about every plane. Too many to mention. He mostly did reviews of SR-71 photography. We watched the movie "Flight of the Intruder" together and he recognized the map that is shown in the ready room and agreed that "Yes, we bombed those places obsessively, but there was nothing there. Also, that bridge got bombed on every run and they'd have it rebuilt in a day." He had the same frustration as the pilots. Him on intelligence, them on getting their asses shot off. It was a political deal at the time.

The SR-71 in person is beautiful. One of the sexiest planes ever made. It's just a camera with an engine attached. They are bigger than you think and just scream speed when you look at them in person.

Sorry to necro this post but mostlygray doesn't accept PMs so;
My dad did a similar job to the one your father in law did, DOD, fly over photography interpretation during the Vietnam war. He sat at the desk where the mission parameters were combined with the results of the mission.
We should compare notes at some point!
If your father in law is still alive ask him if knew a guy named Gordon.

g

[edit] to add a mildly bad rear end story;
Dad was reading early satellite imagery as well but he worked at the Asia desk of DOD or something. He told a story about how the Chinese army was invading Tibet back in the early 50's, the problem was distance, logistics dictated that you had to haul your fuel with you since there was no modern infrastructure on the high plateau. They worked out that it would take something like 8 trucks loaded with fuel to get one military vehicle fully loaded with fuel at the border. That was interpreted as making it impossible for China to conduct military operations at that distance.

What the pentagon didn't know was that the Chinese were fully aware of where our satellites were, when they passed over and what they could see; once you know it's up there it's just math right?
What the Chinese didn't know was that the satellites could look backwards and not only straight down.

The Chinese government was building a pipeline to move fuel to Tibet but they only worked on it under the cover of clouds. They had a bunch of workers in a movable village next to a road and they hid pipe next to the road. As soon as the clouds rolled in they buried pipe for as long as they had cover. What my dad claims to have done is to have caught them at it by looking back under the cloud cover at a fairly high angle and seeing the workers pulling the pipe out from under cover. I guess that the satellites were taking pictures constantly at all possible angles because of the restrictions that mostlygray mentioned.

So dad communicated this and was told that it didn't matter because even if they did build a pipeline it could only pump one thing, say oil OR gas. So dad had to go to the pentagon and give a bunch of generals a briefing on how pipe works, for instance that you can run a pig down it and put fuel oil in front and something else behind. Apparently they didn't know that you could use a single pipe to move multiple fluids. Generals apparently love it when they're wrong and are corrected by some due who wasn't in uniform!
Anyway, dad was pretty cool in my book!
[/edit]

Nebakenezzer posted:

Phy posted:

Political officer.

"I don't care if it looks like a wedding, and neither does the state! You have your orders!"

Carth Dookie posted:

She's pretty gutsy for taking it on faith that thing won't crush her like a soda can or irradiate her into a fallout ghoul.

IPCRESS posted:

Does RAM come in anti flash white? Is that not a concern with lower yield weapons, or does the thinking run that it doesn't matter if you've got a full-sized RCS when whatever might have been shooting at you is stratospheric dust?

Murgos posted:

How close do you think a stealth aircraft will be to the flash? I imagine that the stealthies aren’t the ones getting the missions that are permissive enough to allow gravity as the propulsive force for their weapons.

wkarma posted:

One of the things in those articles actually got built....






https://steemit.com/technology/@alexbeyman/that-time-the-navy-built-a-giant-nuclear-powered-mech

Doctor Grape Ape posted:

So it was intended to service those giant nuclear powered bombers that needed their own tombs to live in?

Nebakenezzer posted:

Yeah. I like how people still thought "atomic aircraft maybe" even after it was going to require tombs and radiation-hardened mechs to service

IPCRESS posted:

I don't know, but close enough: both the F22 and F35 are claimed to be able to carry the B61 internally (though if they're actually wired to arm and release it is another question).

Nebakenezzer posted:

Yeah. I like how people still thought "atomic aircraft maybe" even after it was going to require tombs and radiation-hardened mechs to service

Also, this seems the thread for this: I'm looking for information about how NEO objects are detected and how we're guarding against catastrophic impacts, and all the web sides are very...late 1990s. It's disconcerting

IPCRESS posted:

I don't know, but close enough: both the F22 and F35 are claimed to be able to carry the B61 internally (though if they're actually wired to arm and release it is another question).

soy posted:

This actually seems like a pretty good idea but I guess then the defending force would just throw those big tank caltrops all over the ocean + mines and poo poo.

hobbesmaster posted:

Hovercraft solved the same problem for landing vehicles rather nicely.

mlmp08 posted:

I have a feeling the future of "landing on a contested beach" might turn out to be blowing the hell out of the radar that can see a hundred plus miles and the anti-ship missiles that can shoot over a hundred miles and blowing the hell out of the inland base/police post where the enemy could marshal and then landing on a beach that might have had a park ranger or police officer on it.

Schadenboner posted:

It seems like it might just be easier to pay the 15 bucks for the picnic site rental?

mlmp08 posted:

I have a feeling the future of "landing on a contested beach" might turn out to be blowing the hell out of the radar that can see a hundred plus miles and the anti-ship missiles that can shoot over a hundred miles and blowing the hell out of the inland base/police post where the enemy could marshal and then landing on a beach that might have had a park ranger or police officer on it.

Murgos posted:

Right. Amid a lot of discussion on end of life for gravity based nukes.

Even so the mod 12 enhancement basically turns it into a JDAM in capability which can be lofted 30ish miles or so. I wouldn’t expect the flash of a low yield weapon from those distances to have any serious thermal component outside the realm normal operating limits.

Cessna posted:

How would they be powered? Huge electric batteries? Nuclear reactors?

How would they navigate under the water? Presumably they're coming from over the horizon, so they'd require something to keep them lined up on the right beach over the course of a dozen miles or so.

Cyrano4747 posted:

A tank on a beach is a hell of a target for even RPGs. Once they’re out of the water it’s just unsupported armor.

soy posted:

That said, a bunch of tanks suddenly appearing on your beach with little warning seems fairly bad rear end. Plus you can't really shoot anti-tank rounds into the water very well while they're approaching.