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Are RATO bottles still a thing? That always seemed like the most  solution to a real world problem.
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Nov 14, 2014 09:15
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Yes, it's like a lava lamp.
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Nebakenezzer posted:The US Army cuts to officers fall disproportionately on officers that worked their way up from noncoms. Also to save money they've adopted some system by which people retiring as Captains get a Sergent's pension instead 
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Nov 14, 2014 09:24
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Nebakenezzer posted:Dare I say this is true of most western military services now Well, at least it's better than being "volunteered" to lose all benefits and get shipped off to *accidentally get lost* in Ukraine.
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Nov 14, 2014 15:00
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Warbadger posted:Well, at least it's better than being "volunteered" to lose all benefits and get shipped off to *accidentally get lost* in Ukraine. This is a mighty low bar, my friend.
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Nov 14, 2014 15:31
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Nebakenezzer posted:This is a mighty low bar, my friend. Well, yeah. Point was more toward the "Western" part of his statement. Veterans get hosed practically everywhere in some way and often in some pretty horrifying ways.
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Nov 14, 2014 15:39
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I mean honestly being force-retired with a healthy pension and benefits for life because of a massive drawdown thanks to your country's enormous crippling debt isn't really a particularly terrible injustice.
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Nov 14, 2014 15:55
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StandardVC10 posted:I'm pretty sure we don't use water injection anymore. …do we? Water injection was an option on some models of DC-10. All of NWA's DC-10-40s were ordered with it, though it was deactivated in the eighties, and removed from the fleet in the nineties.
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Nov 14, 2014 17:29
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bewbies posted:I mean honestly being force-retired with a healthy pension and benefits for life because of a massive drawdown thanks to your country's enormous crippling debt isn't really a particularly terrible injustice. the part where they're getting said pension cut in half for  reasons, on the other hand, kinda isPittTheElder posted:Are RATO bottles still a thing? That always seemed like the most I think mostly no, supplies of those were so low that the Blue Angels stopped doing RATO takeoffs with their C-130 in ... 2009? I know LC-130s that go to Antarctica have mounts for them but I don't know if they're still in use. Psion fucked around with this message at 19:15 on Nov 14, 2014 |
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Nov 14, 2014 19:11
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Psion posted:the part where they're getting said pension cut in half for It has been that way for almost 35 years and everyone who does OCS or G2G or whatever gets this all explained to them, it isn't like the military's retirement pay regulations are a deep dark secret. It always sucks to lose your job but at least these folks have a lifelong pension and benefits waiting for them unlike, say, the hordes of senior captains and majors on the chopping block who won't be able to do their 20. Or most civilians for that matter.
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Nov 14, 2014 19:33
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Beaten by a much more concise response.Psion posted:the part where they're getting said pension cut in half for Well the reason has been known since forever. If you don't serve 8 years as an officer after going green to gold, you don't get an officer pension. The surprise is from those who have served 20+ years and were waiting to hit that 8 year threshold before they were going to choose to retire and suddenly finding that they are force retired and will make less off their pension than they would have if they'd stayed an NCO and been promoted once or twice in the meantime. Still not fun at all, but the pension rule isn't new. Getting told to get out is new. I'd have to look up the dates, but IIRC, the separation boards were being advertised, at least unofficially, at least as far back as summer of 2013, the message with guidance was formally published winter of 2013 (December I think), you had until March 2014 to get your records and files in order, and selected Officers were informed that they had 9 months to get out sometime in June/July of 2014. If you're someone with nothing derogatory and perfectly "fine" evaluation reports, I can see being surprised by being forced out, though some branches were at greater risk than others. If you had something bad in your file, you really needed to start planning to be cut the second they made the announcement. Something like a DUI, bad OER(s), general officer memorandum of reprimand, etc and you were very high risk. Getting less than you planned for in retirement sucks; that's obvious, but it's a hell of a lot better than it could have been. For those not of retirement service requirements, there are severance packages that apply to those with over 6 years of service by the time they are discharged, which is a very large portion of those being pushed out. Doing some very rough math, had I been pushed out, it would have been with a taxable lump sum $50K or so in hand, plus about 75 days of full wage leave to go try to find another job. mlmp08 fucked around with this message at 19:37 on Nov 14, 2014 |
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Nov 14, 2014 19:35
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TheFluff posted:http://www.svd.se/naringsliv/folj-med-in-pa-muskobasen_4087985.svd?sidan=1 If I am not mistaken 1-2% of the budget have to go to art when the Swedish state funds the construction of a building. I have been at a Swedish synchotron where there are multiple art pieces looking somewhat out of place. Also this just in, apparently it was a foreign submarine in Swedish territorial waters. Nationality unknown, but with an obvious suspect. Out of curiosity, what type of submarines does the Russians have with a length of 15-20 m?
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Nov 14, 2014 19:38
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Psion posted:the part where they're getting said pension cut in half for I'm pretty sure from the way the article is written that you have to be an officer for a given amount of time to get officer pension, and they're just selectively getting rid of people who haven't done that much time, especially the ones closest to retiring. So instead of backdoor shenanigans, there's just a gaping loophole you could drive a HEMTT through getting mercilessly abused to hurt long service veterans because they're expensive. That isn't actually reassuring at all. E;FB: dammit
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Nov 14, 2014 19:41
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The Soviets had a crazy number of minisub variants, they had big subs that could launch little subs, subs with tracks and grabber claws for messing with undersea cables etc.. I'm sure the Russians would still have a few that aren't too rusted out to go poot around the Baltic in..
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Nov 14, 2014 19:43
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xthetenth posted:So instead of backdoor shenanigans, there's just a gaping loophole you could drive a HEMTT through getting mercilessly abused to hurt long service veterans because they're expensive. Yeah it really sucks for the people losing their jobs without pensions. But looking at it another way, if the Army sacks the officers in the highest pay grades but who do not yet qualify for pensions, then in the long run they save more money per officer lost, and probably had to lay off less people as a result.
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Nov 15, 2014 02:15
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Party Plane Jones posted:
A highly surgical strike on enemy gas caps, so boots on the ground can go in and liberate that highly refined, uncut go juice.
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Nov 15, 2014 02:58
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Did that tire really keep it from detonating or was that just a dud?
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Nov 15, 2014 03:05
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^Is that a real question?INTJ Mastermind posted:Yeah it really sucks for the people losing their jobs without pensions. But looking at it another way, if the Army sacks the officers in the highest pay grades but who do not yet qualify for pensions, then in the long run they save more money per officer lost, and probably had to lay off less people as a result. Nope. Congress actually authorizes a specific number of personnel. It's not determined by the service budget.
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Nov 15, 2014 03:17
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iyaayas01 posted:Deny, deny, obfuscate, publish misleading and contradictory guidance, destroy evidence, and declare "expecting perfection was unrealistic." SOP for AFPC. I want to blame them, really, I do, but the guidance they got for the last round of cuts literally started as: 1) We need to make cuts, including from several year groups of pilots less than 10 years out of UPT. 2) Every officer meeting an involuntary RIF board must first have the opportunity to participate in a voluntary VSP or early retirement program. 3) Officers with an open service commitment must get a waiver to participate in a voluntary program. 4) AFPC is not authorized to waive the 10 year service commitments from pilot training. 5) We're all mad here, Alice.
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Nov 15, 2014 04:08
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Dead Reckoning posted:I want to blame them, really, I do, but the guidance they got for the last round of cuts literally started as: Oh yeah, I get that with some particulars of it, the guidance they got from the Air Staff didn't do them any favors (and a lot of that was driven by Congressional dithering/meddling, same reason they're holding short on any additional info on FY15 programs), I was referring more to poo poo like the TAMP debacle.
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Nov 15, 2014 04:15
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Suspect Bucket posted:A highly surgical strike on enemy gas caps, so boots on the ground can go in and liberate that highly refined, uncut go juice. Somebody somewhere missed out on a fairly large boom with that one.
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Nov 15, 2014 06:26
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This is getting kind of pathetic at this point: http://foxtrotalpha.jalopnik.com/the-satellite-image-of-a-ukrainian-fighter-shooting-dow-1658910062
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Nov 15, 2014 11:57
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BIG HEADLINE posted:This is getting kind of pathetic at this point: http://foxtrotalpha.jalopnik.com/the-satellite-image-of-a-ukrainian-fighter-shooting-dow-1658910062 The sad part is that it's been this pathetic since the invasion of Crimea.
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Nov 15, 2014 14:10
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Warbadger posted:The sad part is that it's been this pathetic since the invasion of Crimea. People in Russia seem to be eating it up, though, which is worrisome.
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Nov 15, 2014 16:13
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Fearless posted:People in Russia seem to be eating it up, though, which is worrisome. The levels of cognitive dissonance in Russia are hard to explain to someone who has never lived under the Soviet regime. This isn't anything new, but I guess the number of people actually believing the North-Korean levels of propaganda is actually more substantial than in the Soviet times.
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Nov 15, 2014 17:40
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I hadn't heard about that image, but two things jump out at me: Kinja's stock "real" photo of a Flanker isn't a real photo, and Brown Moses is still the loving man.
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Nov 15, 2014 17:51
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Ambrose Bierce posted:In Dr. Johnson's famous dictionary patriotism is defined as the last resort of a scoundrel. With all due respect to an enlightened but inferior lexicographer I beg to submit it is the first. E: Godholio posted:Kinja's stock "real" photo of a Flanker isn't a real photo Presumably it's a screenshot of the video game the article discusses in the paragraph directly above it. Somebody Awful fucked around with this message at 18:12 on Nov 15, 2014 |
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Nov 15, 2014 18:00
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Wow, I completely skipped that paragraph somehow.
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Nov 15, 2014 18:18
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OhYeah posted:The levels of cognitive dissonance in Russia are hard to explain to someone who has never lived under the Soviet regime. This isn't anything new, but I guess the number of people actually believing the North-Korean levels of propaganda is actually more substantial than in the Soviet times. I imagine there's an advantage in propaganda in societies with somewhat open information - belief in all of it really marks you as a member of the tribe. I'd also imagine that for many people, it simply constitutes "the news", and over many months, reading it and living with people who also believe it make you believe it as well. Not to restart an old fight, but consider how many people - especially in the well-connected elite - in the runup to the Iraq war actually believed all the ridiculous things the American government was saying (working on nuclear weapons, tons of VX gas stockpiled etc) with literally no concrete evidence. Affinity fraud is a powerful propaganda tool.
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Nov 15, 2014 18:52
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40 years ago this week, the first F-15As were delivered to their training squadron.
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Nov 15, 2014 19:26
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Boomerjinks posted:40 years ago this week, the first F-15As were delivered to their training squadron. What a beautiful aircraft.
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Nov 15, 2014 20:29
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Boomerjinks posted:40 years ago this week, the first F-15As were delivered to their training squadron. I'm so used to the mud hen I forgot how clean the lines can be under all that.
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Nov 15, 2014 21:01
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Yeah, I always have this image of the Eagle being this huge beefy thing from all angles, but it's actually pretty slim from the side.
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Nov 15, 2014 21:09
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Boomerjinks posted:40 years ago this week, the first F-15As were delivered to their training squadron. Mind-bendingly, the same forty years before those F-15s were delivered, the USAAF was taking delivery of brand new P-26s. 
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Nov 15, 2014 21:12
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MrYenko posted:USAAF USAAC 
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Nov 15, 2014 21:55
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More on poor Russian Photoshop skills: https://www.bellingcat.com/news/2014/11/14/russian-state-television-shares-fake-images-of-mh17-being-attacked/ Our own Brown Moses is involved in the teardown.
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Nov 15, 2014 22:26
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Even though I've heard that the Russians are going cray over that "evidence" on their boards, it's so nice to be able to see the systematic break down and debunking so quickly. Moses, you do fantastic work.
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Nov 15, 2014 22:51
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Brown Moses is the man.
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Nov 15, 2014 23:10
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Fearless posted:People in Russia seem to be eating it up, though, which is worrisome. Syndic Thrass posted:Brown Moses is the man. Dead Reckoning fucked around with this message at 23:25 on Nov 15, 2014 |
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Nov 15, 2014 23:23
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Reading this now, pretty interesting: https://www.bellingcat.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/Origin-of-the-Separatists-Buk-A-Bellingcat-Investigation1.pdf
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Nov 15, 2014 23:40
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OhYeah posted:The levels of cognitive dissonance in Russia are hard to explain to someone who has never lived under the Soviet regime. This isn't anything new, but I guess the number of people actually believing the North-Korean levels of propaganda is actually more substantial than in the Soviet times. It's bad. It's really bad. It's bad enough that a majority of the Russian population doesn't understand the cause/effect relationships between the invasion of Ukraine and the West's reaction: http://www.theguardian.com/news/datablog/2014/sep/04/have-sanctions-against-russia-really-made-putin-more-popular About 60% of respondents to the poll indicated they felt that the West is primarily responsible for the situation in Ukraine and that the West's reaction is primarily based on hostility towards Russia. The language there is a little confusing to me, but I feel like that might mean that it goes a step beyond, indicating that they don't see a connection between Ukraine and the sanctions and that these things are just somehow happening coincidentally. Or maybe that it's a grand conspiracy and that the West is meddling in Ukraine so that we can put pressure on Russia I don't know 
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