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iyaayas01 posted:AC-119 will make you love it: That was the plane the replaced the AC-47, right? American soldiers in Vietnam called them Puff, the magic dragon. They were armed with three M134 miniguns. They were basically the percursor of the AC-130. They were way too vulnerable to ground fire, though. They were some pretty interesting aircraft. You should do a post about those fixed wing gunships. Hell, even the mighty AC-130 was used in Vietnam.
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Jan 6, 2011 14:44
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Ace Oliveira posted:That was the plane the replaced the AC-47, right? American soldiers in Vietnam called them Puff, the magic dragon. They were armed with three M134 miniguns. They were basically the percursor of the AC-130. They were way too vulnerable to ground fire, though. They were some pretty interesting aircraft. You should do a post about those fixed wing gunships. Hell, even the mighty AC-130 was used in Vietnam. The history is actually a bit more interesting than just a linear progression of AC-47-->AC-119-->AC-130. The AC-47 is the OG (original Nickname wise, gunships have some of the coolest...the AC-47 was first called "Spooky," also as you said "Puff, the Magic Dragon," the AC-119 was originally "Shadow," the later -K variant with the 20mm cannon and the jet engines was called "Stinger," and the AC-130 was first "Spectre," and is now "Spooky." Also, they had some seriously cool nose art...I have to jet to work, but I'll be sure to include some of the nose art when I do up the post.
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Jan 6, 2011 16:04
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Has this thread turned into "The Interesting cool poo poo thread Iyaayas01 knows or knows where to research for walls of text of cool poo poo" ?
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Jan 7, 2011 03:02
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Flikken posted:Has this thread turned into "The Interesting cool poo poo thread Iyaayas01 knows or knows where to research for walls of text of cool poo poo" ? That was the point of this thread from the beginning. It makes me want to research some stuff now.
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Jan 7, 2011 03:13
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Well I am enjoying it immensely
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Jan 7, 2011 03:20
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Yeah, yeah, yeah... Where's my nuclear warfighting strategy writeup?
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Jan 7, 2011 04:25
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NosmoKing posted:Yeah, yeah, yeah... Here's a great couple of simulators. First: http://www.introversion.co.uk/defcon/ When you're done with that one, grab this: http://fallout.bethsoft.com/index.html
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Jan 7, 2011 04:33
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mlmp08 posted:Here's a great couple of simulators. Defcon is pretty entertaining, although the whole "missile silos can be either offensive or defensive" thing annoyed me...I understand why they did it, and it probably improved the game, but it still annoys me. Also, the fact that bombers carried ballistic missiles disappointed me somewhat...I feel like they could've added cruise missiles without complicating things much and that this would've added quite a bit to the game, particularly if you were playing a Europe vs Russia scenario. That said, I was impressed that they included the ability to launch nuclear armed bombers from your carriers. So for unfilled requests, I have...Nosmo's nuclear strategy and tactics post, mlmp08's glide bomb post, the thrilling conclusion to my Skyraider/A-X/Warthog two parter, and a gunship write up.
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Jan 7, 2011 05:08
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I've been devouring his thread, because ever since I was a kid, all this stuff has fascinated me. I love all the crazy poo poo both sides did during the cold war, it never stops entertaining me. This may be sort of an ambiguous question, but I'd like to know more about nuclear weapons and carriers, specifically, what types they carried/carry, strategy, deployment methods, stuff like that.
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Jan 7, 2011 05:25
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themachine posted:I've been devouring his thread, because ever since I was a kid, all this stuff has fascinated me. I love all the crazy poo poo both sides did during the cold war, it never stops entertaining me. This may be sort of an ambiguous question, but I'd like to know more about nuclear weapons and carriers, specifically, what types they carried/carry, strategy, deployment methods, stuff like that. You mean, "what types they may or may not have carried/carry?"  The U.S. maintains a policy of deliberate ambiguity regarding whether or not it has nuclear weapons deployed at any one particular installation or vessel. I'm much better versed on the Air Force/aviation side of things, but I'll see what I can come up with regarding weapons and carriers.
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Jan 7, 2011 06:10
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iyaayas01 posted:You mean, "what types they may or may not have carried/carry?" Oh, aircraft carriers totally carried nukes. There was a Stephen Coonts novel about it once. 
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Jan 7, 2011 06:39
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McNally posted:Oh, aircraft carriers totally carried nukes. There was a Stephen Coonts novel about it once. Final Flight, second Grafton novel after Flight of the Intruder. Featured a generic third world Marxist Arab '80s action movie terrorist bad guy trying to steal the nukes on board a carrier. Despite that, it wasn't half bad...Coonts stuff went down after that, but those two were pretty good books. And carriers during the Cold War are kind of like the NATO nuclear sharing bases, where we acknowledge that we may have nuclear weapons in the abstract at these types of facilities/vessels, but we don't get into which specific installation/vessel has them. Of course, there are five foreign bases in various countries in NATO where we "just happen" to send a lot of U.S. 2W2 (nuclear maintenance) personnel, but I'm sure that is just a coincidence.
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Jan 7, 2011 06:56
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McNally posted:Oh, aircraft carriers totally carried nukes. There was a Stephen Coonts novel about it once. Battleships carried nukes too.
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Jan 7, 2011 07:20
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Craptacular posted:Battleships carried nukes too.  But in true Navy nuclear related fun facts, the Navy had nuclear depth charges: 
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Jan 7, 2011 07:34
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I can't look at that without getting the mental image of some guy trying to fish with one, and I have to say... it owns.
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Jan 7, 2011 08:05
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rossmum posted:I can't look at that without getting the mental image of some guy trying to fish with one, and I have to say... it owns. Irradiated and homogenized fish. That's good eatin!
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Jan 7, 2011 11:12
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These two videos are 100% relevant to the interests of this thread. Nuclear Attack Preparedness Procedures – How to live long enough to kill the reds back. (1968) 23 minutes New Line of Sight – An Air Force film on the current advancements and the perceived future of the United States ICBM delivery, detection, and manned flight programs. (1968) 18 minutes iyaayas01 posted:
Nuclear Test Film, Operation Wigwam - The DoE was so kind to provide footage and a review of the whole danged test. (1954) In fact there are a shitton of nuclear weapons test reviews over at Archive.org allow me to make this easy for you guys, since each of the videos is between 15 and 90 minutes long. Nuclear Test Film, Operation Trinity Shot – The fruition of the Manhattan Project. No narrative, just footage cut together. (1945). 17 minutes Nuclear Test Film, Operation Crossroads – America discovers it’s hatred of the Bikini Atolls and nukes some boats left over from WWII. (1946). 37 minutes Nuclear Test Film, Operation Sandstone – Basically, this operation was a test of a few bomb candidates that were left over from the Manhattan Project. (1948). 21 minutes Nuclear Test Film, Operation Sandstone – Look, we didn’t just use jeeps to figure out how big the atomic blasts were. We used tanks and buildings too! (1945). 19 minutes Nuclear Test Film, Operation Sandstone – A pretty good, though cursory look at the instrumentation used to observe the blasts. (1948). 17 minutes Nuclear Test Film, Operation Sandstone (US Air Force) – The Air Force starts coming to terms with the fact that their new role in the world is to end it. (1948). 31 minutes Nuclear Test Film, Operation Sandstone (US Army Corps of Engineers) – Man these guys sure are proud of their RC airplanes and tanks. (1948). 21 minutes Nuclear Test Film, Operation Sandstone (US Navy) – We have boats, and boat planes! Yeaaah we can ship stuff! (1948). 41 minutes Nuclear Test Film, Operation Greenhouse – America develops and tests it’s first thermonuclear devices. (1951). 23 minutes Nuclear Test Film, Operation Ivy – America tests it’s first hydrogen bomb. It’s a big deal. (1952). 1 hour 4 minutes Nuclear Test Film, Operation Buster-Jangle – YOU ARE A PART OF ATOMIC WARFARE. I didn’t get to watch the film yet, but the first few minutes give an interesting perspective into the mood of the period. The film should some airbursts, and a low yield ground burst. (1951). 1 hour 17 minutes Nuclear Test Film, Operation Tumbler-Snapper – We loving nuked 7000 of our own soldiers. I’m sorry. They were engaged in “training operations” in the fallout. (1952). 48 minutes Nuclear Test Film, Operation Upshot-Knothole - Yes, this is the one with the atomic cannon. Yes, we really were that stupid. (1953). 36 minutes Nuclear Test Film, Operation Upshot-Knothole – No audio, just footage. (1953). 20 minutes Nuclear Test Film, Operation Teapot – We made some holes, and then played with the idea of using nukes in an anti-aircraft capacity. (1954). 32 minutes Nuclear Test Film, Castle – We kinda irradiated the heck out of our own doods and a bunch of native Bikini Atoll residents. Whoops. (1954) 21 minutes Nuclear Test Film, Operation Redwing – We tested some second and third gen thermonuclear devices. (1956). 27 minutes There were a few "response to a nuclear weapons accident" videos too. Supposedly there are three of these, but I could only find two. NUWAX 81, Nuclear Weapon Accident Exercise – How would AMERICA respond if crashed a nuke? I bet there would be 85% more panic. (1982). 27 minutes NUWAX 83, Nuclear Weapon Accident Exercise – Honestly, I think it’s interesting to see these kinds of videos, as well as our shift from preparing for war, to preparing for accidents. (1984). 28 minutes Edit: I had a slightly more in depth version of this post but Firefox crashed spectacularly after I sank 2 hours into it. This is what you kids have now thanks to my stupid. wheres my beer fucked around with this message at 12:21 on Jan 7, 2011 |
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Jan 7, 2011 12:08
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Miso Beno posted:These two videos are 100% relevant to the interests of this thread. You sir, are more tits than tits. I have the neato video capture tool for Firefox. I'm going to be a busy guy at archive.org.
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Jan 8, 2011 00:33
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NosmoKing posted:I have the neato video capture tool for Firefox. I'm going to be a busy guy at archive.org.
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Jan 8, 2011 00:35
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NosmoKing posted:You sir, are more tits than tits. Honestly the NUWAX videos kinda blow.
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Jan 8, 2011 00:57
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Miso Beno posted:You need to know that until I watch all of these, my work days are shot.
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Jan 8, 2011 00:58
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Miso, that was a class post. Thanks! I'm in Texas for the weekend, and what do you know? There is a cold war air museum. Ha. loving score.
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Jan 8, 2011 00:58
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NosmoKing posted:Irradiated and homogenized fish. I'm reminded of a quote from Dunnigan's "How To Make War" where nuclear war at sea is much more preferable to nuclear war against land targets for the primary reason being "fish don't vote." To go back some, to the OP... quote:You just know that that Bear will still be flying when the F-22 is mothballed.
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Jan 8, 2011 01:05
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The new cold war http://www.ctv.ca/CTVNews/World/20110105/china-leaked-stealth-fighter-photos-110105/ pics  video http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=53d_1294436432 Sure Chinese avionics may be 20 years behind, but they don't have to waste much resource in R&D. But there is the fact that they have no less than 5 different stealth aircraft projects. By the time these things are flying they will be getting their clocks cleaned by US made UCAV Omnicorp/Cyberdyne Robo-Planes which can out speed or out-G their missiles let alone their guns.
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Jan 8, 2011 01:42
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Young Freud posted:You just know that that Bear will still be flying when the F-22 is mothballed. In rough chronological order of introduction to service:  USAF F-102 intercepting a Bear  RAF English Electric Lightning intercepting a Bear  USN F-4 intercepting a Bear  USAF F-106 intercepting a Bear  USN A-7 intercepting a Bear  USAF F-4 intercepting a Bear  British RAF Phantom intercepting a Bear  British RN Phantom intercepting a Bear  USN F-14 intercepting a Bear  USMC AV-8A Harrier intercepting a Bear (don't ask me the story behind this one, I have no idea, but it's definitely a little unusual.)  USAF F-15 intercepting a Bear  USAF F-16 intercepting a Bear...RNoAF Vipers (usually operating out of Bodø) also spent a lot of time intercepting Soviet aircraft as they came around the North Cape of Norway.   RAF Tornado ADV intercepting a Bear  RAF Eurofighter intercepting a Bear  And finally, of course, USAF F-22 intercepting a Bear So yeah, I think your statement is probably going to be accurate. Just because I thought it was pretty cool, here's one more:  A USN F-14 operating out of Adak NAS and a USAF F-15 operating out of Elmendorf AFB (or one of its satellite airfields...probably either King Salmon or Galena) intercept a Bear. Not too often you see pictures of USAF and USN aircraft doing a joint intercept. And I highly discourage you from doing an imagine search for "bear escort," unless of course you are into that sort of thing. Suffice to say that only a few of the images returned featured Tu-95s...or any sort of aircraft. Also, Miso, that video dump was loving awesome. As an aside, one of the training videos I watched during my technical training for my Air Force job had some hilariously horrible stuff going on (like I said, I'm not a nuke troop, but I had to get some basic training in the career field)...awesome "shicka-shicka" '70s porn music, stilted senior officer "stare at the screen and read cue cards" narration, some horrible "acting"...basically like those NUWAX videos. However, ours also had a hilarious scene featuring a dude hauling rear end down a road with a "weapon" (obviously an inert trainer...I hope) on a forklift, hitting a bump, losing control of the forklift, and bailing, letting the vehicle continue to roll down the road with what was supposed to be a live weapon on board. Granted, we watched it half for the training value (it actually did a pretty good job of laying out the principles of nuclear maintenance and the stringent requirements regarding PRP) and half for the laughs, but still. iyaayas01 fucked around with this message at 04:20 on Jan 8, 2011 |
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Jan 8, 2011 04:02
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iyaayas01 posted:CF-18 Hornet 
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Jan 8, 2011 04:06
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Flanker posted:CF-18 Hornet Sure enough. Also, I'm leaning more towards that F-16 being a RNoAF Viper, because I don't think the USAF ever used them in the interception role (that's why we had Eagles, after all), although they did give the Air Guard quite a few F-16s to be used in the air sovereignty mission, even going so far as to develop a specific "air defense" variant of the F-16 for the role. So I'm still on the fence.
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Jan 8, 2011 04:22
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Jan 8, 2011 07:24
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FiendishThingy posted:awesome photos
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Jan 8, 2011 10:14
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So I was going through my stuff and I found a picture of an F-15 at Hickam Air Force Base, circa 1987 or 1988. The gentleman wearing the old school fatigues is a captain in the Hawaii Air National Guard who was a friend of my father's. He was a navigator/WSO in F-4s, then they switched from Phantoms to F-15s. So suddenly he became a maintenance officer. The kid is a three or four year old me. I still remember bits and pieces of that day, particularly sitting up in the cockpit. I don't remember posing for the photo, though.
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Jan 9, 2011 06:11
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FiendishThingy posted:Daaawwww its a witto Yak38 Forger! Aren't you pwecious? distract him while I put him to sleep
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Jan 9, 2011 06:19
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Jan 9, 2011 08:31
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FiendishThingy posted:Jesus. You know intellectually, that somewhere, in a real factory,real people actually had to turn turn the wrenches and wire the harnesses and reticulate the splines to build those but to actually see it! Keeping a project of that scale secret is as huge an achievement as the aircraft itself.
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Jan 9, 2011 10:42
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Browsing youtube, I found a declassified video from what seems to be the early 1950's covering some of the planes in SAC and TAC, including the LABS maneuver. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nurNq5SvhT4
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Jan 21, 2011 07:43
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VSEPR posted:Browsing youtube, I found a declassified video from what seems to be the early 1950's covering some of the planes in SAC and TAC, including the LABS maneuver. So far that uploader's other videos are equally cool.
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Jan 21, 2011 08:55
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VSEPR posted:Browsing youtube, I found a declassified video from what seems to be the early 1950's covering some of the planes in SAC and TAC, including the LABS maneuver. That was a pretty cool video...love the color footage from the '50s. Also, I've seen it before but I really like that picture of the Thuds and what I assume is an EB-66. I love the one silver painted Thud with all the rest camouflaged...  : Hai guys I want to come bomb too! : Aw, goddammit, that loving 'tard didn't even put his camouflage on, he's going to be the death of us all.And I haven't forgotten about doing up the nuclear tactics and strategy post, or part II of my A-10 saga, or the gunship post, or the glide bomb writeup, or my promised in another thread explosives safety write-up...the day job has been keeping me busy. Providing TOP COVER FOR NORTH AMERICA isn't easy, you know. Expect something this weekend. Fake edit: And nuclear weapons and aircraft carriers. Real edit: this video seems to be in the spirit of this thread - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yKYPellCiH8 25 or so minutes worth of silent (but color!) film regarding U.S. B-29 operations from the Marianas during WWII. Features, among other things, a cameo by the one and only Curtis E. LeMay. Well worth watching, the footage is very high quality. Also, if you haven't seen The Memphis Belle: A Story of a Flying Fortress (no, not the crappy Matthew Modine Hollywood version, the real deal) you're doing yourself a disservice: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UMDSFAYDV-Y All 41 minutes and 31 seconds of color WWII air combat footage from the USAAF's 8th Air Force, available for your viewing pleasure for free. Since I mentioned that, John Ford's Midway (again, the real deal, not the Henry Fonda Hollywood version) is also available: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7UiN-lNd_kY&feature=channel Color footage of THE pivotal battle in The Pacific and what was to the USN what Trafalgar is to the RN. Well worth watching. And since I mentioned THAT, you should also check out the video Ford made for the survivors of VT-8. If you are unfamiliar with the story of VT-8, the short-ish version is that they were a torpedo bombing squadron operating off of the USS Hornet at the Battle of Midway. They were mostly green pilots flying obsolescent TBD Devastators that were vastly outclassed by the Japanese air defenses. They were under no illusions as to what their chances were; during the brief their CO, LCDR John C. Waldron, gave them the following words: "If there is only one plane left to make a final run-in, I want that man to go in and get a hit. May God be with us all. Good luck, happy landings, and give 'em hell." Pressing home their attack without fighter cover, all 15 TBDs were shot down and only one of the 30 crewmembers survived. Additionally, a detachment of newer TBF torpedo bombers were operating from Midway itself; 5 of the 6 were shot down and only 2 of the 12 crew on that sortie survived. Put together that is a staggering 93% casualty rate. The squadron's sacrifice earned them the Presidential Unit Citation, the unit equivalent of the Distinguished Service Cross/Navy Cross/Air Force Cross. Following Midway, the squadron was reconstituted and saw battle around and on Guadalcanal, first on the Saratoga and then, after the Sara was damaged by a Japanese torpedo, operating from Henderson Field as part of the Cactus Air Force. While at Henderson Field VT-8 flew itself to the point of having no serviceable aircraft, earning another PUC in the process. The Squadron left the island in November and was disbanded. The video I'm talking about is something extra Ford put together for the families of the 29 TBD crewmembers KIA; it includes footage of them operating on and around the carrier, a few group shots of the whole squadron, close ups of each crew, and the memorial service held for them following the battle. The original, complete with honking WWII era heroic brass soundtrack, is here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dL_2saZlNjQ However, I found this one to be particularly well done and more in the spirit of what the video is: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IsK1PeoMfNQ The soundtrack is unavailable now due to copyright issues, but it started off with this until about 1:15 in and then transitioned to this for the remainder of the video. Edit #2: Forgot to mention, there is a very well done in depth book on the history of VT-8 called "A Dawn Like Thunder." Covers the history of the squadron starting before the war and running through its disbandment following Guadalcanal. Also, since this is TFR, you'll notice that some of the pilots of VT-8 are carrying the M1911s in shoulder holsters...VT-8 was one of the, if not THE, first USN flying unit to be carrying them in shoulder holsters. Ens George "Tex" Gay (the sole survivor of the TBD sortie) was the one that started it, and it quickly spread throughout the Squadron and then throughout the ship. You'll also notice that a few of the guys are carrying a survival knife (Ka-Bar?) in addition to the shoulder holsters...they were the first on the Hornet to regularly carry that stuff. They got made fun of for it, but once the poo poo started hitting the fan everyone quickly started emulating them. iyaayas01 fucked around with this message at 10:10 on Jan 21, 2011 |
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Jan 21, 2011 08:59
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The Proc posted:Jesus. You know intellectually, that somewhere, in a real factory,real people actually had to turn turn the wrenches and wire the harnesses and reticulate the splines to build those but to actually see it! Keeping a project of that scale secret is as huge an achievement as the aircraft itself. Basically, if you get a wrench-turner who can be cleared up through top-secret and then pay him more than a brain surgeon, you can get yourself a gently caress load of "not talking about my latest project." That reminds me of a semi-cold war related anecdote. A few months ago my wife and I were on a mini-vacation in Dublin, and ended up cooling our heels in the hotel bar one night. There was an older american guy there who was obviously drinking alone and we ended up shooting the poo poo with him. Turned out that he was an air conditioner and central heating servicer. This didn't seem like a normal profession to be flying out on business to Dublin for, but he explained: he worked for the US State Department, and flew around fixing central air for the US government. For obvious reasons involving espionage, surveillance, and the dead-spaces in walls and the like the government can't just call some local repair guy if the AC in some embassy or military base or whatever goes on the fritz, so they've got their own cadre of guys in the states who are cleared to do that stuff and spend most of the year flying from city to city to repair thermostats and the like. Apparently all of the embassies and whatnot have two identical central air rigs set up, so that if/when one conks out they can just switch over to the other and wait for a repair guy from the states to come and look at the other one. Interesting guy. He said it paid "way more than I ever thought I'd make at this job" but it hosed with his personal life something fierce due to all the travel: he was on wife number 4. Incidentally, he said that there's a similar bunch of construction guys who get involved whenever there's a high profile construction project in the US. Airplane just flew into the Pentagon and now you've got to rebuild a wing? Or you just want to knock down a few walls and change the internal floor layout a bit? You need to be damned sure that the people laying the drywall aren't putting a microphone or something back there - those guys have the kind of access to internal spaces that could permit them to install poo poo that would, at best, be really damned difficult to find.
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Jan 21, 2011 13:09
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So happy this thread popped back up! Can we toss in love for NUCLEAR ARMAGEDDON movies in this thread yet??
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Jan 21, 2011 14:03
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NosmoKing posted:So happy this thread popped back up! Quote this if you had the ever loving gently caress freaked out of you by watching "The Day After" at too young of an age. No, it wasn't when it was broadcast - I'm not quite NosmoKing levels of old here - but it was on VHS and it was back when Soviets were still scary. such a fun movie to watch while drunk now, though
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Jan 21, 2011 14:06
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Cyrano4747 posted:Quote this if you had the ever loving gently caress freaked out of you by watching "The Day After" at too young of an age. I saw it when broadcast. As a child. I'm not that damned old, am I? Another one that had me freaked was the Nostradamus "documentary" HBO used to run that was narrated by Orson Welles. Big chunk of it was about the upcoming worldwide famine and the nuclear war to be started by the man with a blue turban in the middle east.
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Jan 21, 2011 14:27
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