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They still use at least one of those drat SAGE blockhouses to see what happens when you cram a couple hundred people into a building with no windows and make them walk up and down really narrow stairwells all day. Fortunately, they just pulled all the asbestos out of it and I don't think TOO much of it got on me so I should be good.
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Dec 16, 2010 05:06
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iyaayas01 posted:...is this some sort of military training? I can't see any other purpose to that activity. Nope, still performing its original function 24/7 since at least 1963, defense of US airspace. The miracles of technology have pared all the people and buildings of SAGE down to just a few. Though, at ours at least, since they didn't need that second building for that giant computer they re-purposed one of them as the education center for the base. I'm not certain which one had the computer in it though, just to give you an idea of the scale of that system they just called the whole building "the computer" as that was pretty much all that was inside of it.
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Dec 16, 2010 06:22
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mlmp08 posted:Typically, the ADAFCO is with the CRC like so: That looks familiar, did they just have some 1C5s at the schoolhouse for this specific purpose or was there an ACS nearby? Just curious as I used to be stationed at one.
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Feb 11, 2011 05:05
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mlmp08 posted:I'm going to be honest and say I have no idea what you're talking about. Sorry, I was being presumptuous and assumed you were more familiar with CRCs, nobody ever understands what the hell we do when I try explain it to them (including other people in the AF, or even the maintainers in our own drat squadron) so I get excited when someone has actually heard of any of that stuff. ACS= Air Control Squadron=CRC, 1C5X1 is the AFSC (MOS) of the operators that work there.
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Feb 11, 2011 06:39
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paradigmblue posted:Really fascinating stuff, especially everything about Elmendorf. Sounds like you visited ANR (Alaska NORAD Region). As for the Bears, we will be intercepting those things until the end of the world.
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May 22, 2011 15:29
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mlmp08 posted:I haven't had the fortune of hearing it up close at all, but the C-130 pilots I talked to who had said they'd almost rather we just let the mortars hit because the sound of the gun is so loud and horrifying. I'd rather be next to the CRAM when it fires than in a C-130 without earpro. It is loud, but for some reason you feel it more than hear it, I'm sure that it isn't good for your ears but they don't hurt like other loud noises seem to. I heard those all the time at Eglin too because they had a range where they tested aircraft cannon a stone's throw from the road to my squadron so it was a familiar sound. The most annoying sound to me is an F-16 taking off with full afterburners, gently caress those guys. That and anytime I heard an IL-76's engines spooling up (down?) I thought it was something whistling through the air and it always freaked me out for a second before I realized what it was.
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Jul 3, 2011 17:42
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Propagandalf posted:You've never heard a B-1, have you? Thank god no, I can only imagine that those things are annoying as hell. I haven't heard any strike eagles either, only the C models and they weren't too bad. I'm sure if I got stuck around either one of those aircraft as often and long as I have with F-16s I would find them as or more annoying. The worst thing about any fighter is they almost always launch more than one and occasionally I would find myself wondering what in the world they would need with six or more fighters at one time as pieces of ceiling rained down around me. On the opposite end of the spectrum, the first time I heard an F-22 I was pretty surprised to look up and see a fighter, they are impressively quiet. BadgerMan45 fucked around with this message at 13:32 on Jul 4, 2011 |
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Jul 4, 2011 13:22
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Flikken posted:It began with a "T" now if we only had access to some massive source of information at our fingertips than can easily be referenced we might discover this name. I can't go into great detail but I do remember it was Taranto. I believe the Brits attacked with 21 Fairey Swordfish off the HMS Illustrious and thrashed the Italians. Fake Edit: Found the wikipedia article, I don't have any more information than it does but here you go. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Taranto
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Oct 12, 2011 01:38
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Cyrano4747 posted:I forget the long answer for this kind of thing, and I'm sure someone who actually knows about this will be along shortly to correct me or expand on this, but my understanding of military computer poo poo is that every new "thing" that is developed has to go through some loving obscene testing/authorization/adaptation process that has its roots back in military procurement ca. WW1 or some poo poo. Pretty much this, which is why one of the main pieces of link equipment I work with has 512MB of RAM and an Ultra Sparc ii processor (I think 440MHz) and suffers greatly because of it. Though a new version with some decent specs is finally coming out.
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Mar 27, 2012 14:31
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Snowdens Secret posted:B-52 over Hanoi, watch this part first: The number of SAMs being fired is loving unreal. Having to stay on course in that big-rear end B-52 hoping that your countermeasures are effective and/or the guys trying to shoot you down are ineffective would be nerve-wracking.
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Apr 3, 2012 07:49
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Oxford Comma posted:But...why bears? Aren't pigs supposed to be pretty close to humans? I imagine it was because the bears were more human sized and shaped than a pig so they were better subjects for an ejection seat.
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Dec 25, 2012 06:35
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Mortabis posted:Wait, aren't Apaches ridiculously good at blowing up tanks with hellfires though? Or was that just Iraqi incompetence? Yeah, but choppers are pretty vulnerable to small-arms fire and any sort of real AA, think glass cannon. If your operation is a massive boondoggle that puts a bunch of unsupported helos over an urban area with bad intel expect poo poo to go wrong.
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Jan 24, 2013 08:34
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Warbadger posted:From the middle east thread in D&D - T-72s continue to react poorly to RPGs. Yikes. Yeah, that dude is jacked up I bet. If you put it on high-res and watch him as he runs away you can see that his clothes are loving shredded. Was anybody able to tell where on the tank the RPG hit?
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Jan 26, 2013 03:08
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Alaan posted:Do you want to be the guy to pull the trigger on "We THINK they can't counterstrike us as well as they need to?" Also the chance of just having your population centers vaporized. What's the fun in "winning" if Moscow, Leningrad, and everywhere else important is a smouldering heap of radioactivity. Not to mention the potential global ramifications even if you do pull it off.
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Feb 9, 2013 03:47
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Snowdens Secret posted:It's always fun to see the scale of the Iranian centrifuges against, say, American ones. Hah, apparently fighters aren't the only thing that is smaller in Iran.
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Feb 23, 2013 00:30
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Nebakenezzer posted:To get the performance improvements (not to mention the Half-life-esque cannon) they had to remove the Hind's armor, save the pilot/gunner protection. Random fact about the Hind: the troop transport area is the size of a good sized doghouse: 4 feet high by 5 feet wide by 8 feet long. Yeah, I got to go inside one and I was amazed at how small the troop compartment was (true of their APCs/IFVs as well), I can't imagine eight dudes kitted up and crammed inside of that thing.
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May 17, 2013 18:24
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Cyrano4747 posted:I figured TFR would be interested in this at least a bit, but didn't really know if this would fit in the news thread. That's pretty standard, that's also why
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Jul 10, 2013 13:00
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babyeatingpsychopath posted:Yes. The idiot finalizing my travel voucher should have just clicked "submit" on all three of my back-to-back-to-back claims. Instead, he put the full amount I owed on my GTCC on all claims. So CitiBank gets triple payment, and I get two travel vouchers for $0. How's two months at $116/day per diem turn into $0 for me? At least we're back on the GTC CC instead of that stupid CSA, what a loving waste of time that was. I don't think I ever actually got that poo poo through DTS fast enough for any TDY to get the funds loaded a single time, so instead I have to go track down the FM and get them to put a temporary spending limit for every loving trip. It still bogggles my mind that somebody thought that poo poo was a good idea and would somehow prevent idiots from loving up and misusing their GTCs.
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Jul 10, 2013 17:11
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Speaking of hydrofoils and massive yachts, my dad used to work for Boeing and he worked on these bad boys https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_929 at one point. He was one of the dudes they would send out to train the maintainers employed by the operator they sold it to. One of these trips was to Saudi Arabia where one very customized 929 was delivered to Prince Abdul Aziz II for use as a yacht, from what I understand this one was armed though I don't recall what armament he said had been installed. Apparently some of the royalty that would show up were throwing around tips to the Boeing guys in the hundreds/thousands of dollars though he said he refused them because he didn't want to get in trouble.
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Jul 20, 2013 17:09
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There was some pushback to that MWH stuff in the guard, well the WA ANG at least. Had a CC call where the Wing CC pretty much came out and said, in the most diplomatic way possible, that he thought it was stupid and that we weren't going to do it because we've had very few problems with that stuff as an organization. I was surprised, to say the least. We never did have anybody go through and do all that stuff, just the mandatory CBTs/other training and a general email not to be dumb about what we say, do, or have at work.
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Aug 6, 2013 17:58
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Cyrano4747 posted:It's a great name for a photo-recon B26. Take a look at the unit insignia to the left of it and the mission markers. Those are little cameras, not bombs. Nice, didn't even notice that. Clever boys.
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Aug 6, 2013 20:28
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Dead Reckoning posted:And as iyaayas said, those of you who never followed your dreams of being a fighter pilot have only missed out on being sent to do a job you hate in the parched rear end in a top hat of
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Jan 13, 2014 17:07
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Godholio posted:Ah, so yes. The technology absolutely exists and has for years. It's just a matter of getting the specific systems validated/certified. I've controlled aircraft in Wisconsin from the ground in Oklahoma; there was nothing special about the military's version and it was probably 25 years obsolete compared to what the average mid-sized city's airport has. I think the big difference vs controlling fighter engagements or A/C on approach/takeoff which either has been or could be done remotely with ease, is ground control. That's what would necessitate the 360 cameras/sensors OR having actual eyes on at a local tower vs just having tracks or raw radar being sent over a link to a remote scope. Crashes while taxiing and near misses happen at congested airports all the time.
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Jun 3, 2014 09:27
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For real, the crew compartment in a BMP looks like some kind of hot box punishment or something. I'm not sure how they can fit eight soldiers in battle rattle in the back of the ind, but it probably looked a lot like when you try to see how many people you can fit into a phone booth at once.
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Jul 22, 2014 01:40
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movax posted:This article reminded me that I had this extension installed and I was confused for a bit. Really pretty pictures though -- do they fly out of PDX? Can't get a good look at the tails on my phone, but probably either PDX or LMT (Kingsley Field at Klamath Falls).
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Aug 7, 2014 21:57
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I can personally attest to strafing runs happening with regularity in both theatres. The A-10 or AC-130 (not really strafing but similar effects) were preferred but pretty much every platform conducted them (F-16, F-18, F-15E, I think AV-8s and GR-4s as well). Effeciveness varied from not at all to extremely depending on pilot/jtac skill, 20mm vs 30mm, enemy disposition, and terrain. Terrain was particularly an issue in Afghanistan. I remember one event that occurred last year in really broken terrain where, between two flights of two A-10s ,over 1500 rounds of 30mm were expended to little effect. A bunch of GBUs were dropped as well when it was safe to do so and those eventually did the job. Joes loved trying to request A-10s though, which I think was more down to preferring to work with those pilots, though the plane's percieved capabilities were probably a factor as well. One of the big issues for CAS in a large theater with slow aircraft like the A-10 and especially RPAs is response time. What takes 10m for a F-16 or F-15 takes 15m for an A-10 and 25-30m for an RPA with very limited stores. The MQ-9 improves on this a bit but good lucking tearing those away from the intel guys.
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Jan 1, 2015 22:15
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Red Crown posted:Are you loving serious? The surveillance section was working without a copy of the ATO in front of them? Shoot, all we had in the OMs at the crc was one laptop each for surveillance and weapons which was only used for chat. Once you've tracked the same place a week or so you had pretty much everyone's modes and codes memorized. I found a paper copy sorted by mode 3 to be faster than scrolling or searching an electronic copy unless it is somehow loaded into your system and automatically hits tracks up for you.
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Jan 17, 2015 21:01
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Godholio posted:Which is exactly what a modern system will do. That reminds me of the time I had to stiffle a laugh when a 2-star flew with us and asked about that. I was the only one on the bank of scopes to not get a coin. Yeah, ours was pretty ghetto too. There's not enough room on the scope shelf for a laptop so we had a little wooden stand set up in hall to get in and out with wires running out of the floor water drain. For all its faults, at least BCS-F auto IDs anything with a flight plan fairly well. gently caress having to manually track 4k tracks. When we switched to BC3 in the desert, they would let us load up the ATO but wouldn't let us turn on the auto-ID because they didn't trust it. It also was a battle to get people to stop dimming the lights super low now that we didn't have to with our newfangled LCDs. We actually ended up tracking slower on BC3 because we went from two touchscreens to one screen with a mouse and weren't allowed to use the auto-ID. Also LOL Link 4, haven't heard anyone mention that in years.
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Jan 18, 2015 04:08
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Alaan posted:MacArthur/Lemay administration would have been
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Jan 29, 2016 11:11
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hobbesmaster posted:Get a time machine and then a job at BAe If he has a time machine they can use that on the missile instead of the balloon. That way they can launch the missile after the SAM is fitted but it will hit right after the war starts.
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Feb 3, 2016 02:54
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VikingSkull posted:that's cause that Bone is part black Based on what I know of Jefferson's interests, I think that he would be making a different face if that was the case.
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Jun 7, 2016 01:47
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CarForumPoster posted:Got a link to the mfg's brochure or a .mil pdf so I can read up on it? Just go to Engility's website and check out their JRE lineup. You can even just by a software license and throw it on whatever computer you want. You'd still need a terminal to get in the rf, the small tactical terminal is a lot less hefty than a mids but there are tradeoffs with that decrease in size and weight. That being said, I imagine they'd be either be using something else like TACP-CAS with a SWC or using a laptop and a BLOS protocol to get the full picture from someone else rather than have their own terminal. BadgerMan45 fucked around with this message at 16:45 on Jan 9, 2017 |
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Jan 9, 2017 16:42
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CarForumPoster posted:This was my point of confusion. I want to get Link-16 data on a stand alone laptop or better yet smartphone. Like a google maps API overlay with target tracks. The closest thing to that I've heard of for what you want was a cell phone with an IP encryption device that would use its data to do a JREAP-C. A guy I knew did some testing with it but that was the last I heard about it years ago. I suppose you could load cursor on target on a small computer or phone, but you'd still need to connect to someone else for the picture. A tiny terminal is probably not going to happen because it's not worth it vs using some other method to connect to the network.
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Jan 10, 2017 01:41
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CarForumPoster posted:
Oh I get the advantages of running link 16 vs a less secure/jam-resistant waveform, I think it'd just be a hard sell for cost and other reasons. Glad I could help.
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Jan 10, 2017 03:01
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Shooting Blanks posted:I...don't think I'll be looking at those photos of the aftermath. It's too early in the day for that. Surprisingly, or perhaps unsurprisingly given what happened , it's not that bad. The remains aren't really recognizable as having been a person, or any living thing for that matter.
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Feb 1, 2017 16:54
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hobbesmaster posted:I believe harriers literally cannot? They can barely even take off with any ordnance, still better than the yak though.
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Feb 10, 2017 00:54
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hobbesmaster posted:Starting salary for those defense jobs is quite low for software engineers on the order of 50k (I know because I keep getting the recruiter emails). The "best" software folks have jobs at google and the like where their total compensation packages START around 200k. (On the order of 130 base, 30k bonus, 50k in stock - not options, stock) Isn't that below the poverty line in SF though?
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Feb 10, 2017 16:26
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Tetraptous posted:I love the quote at the end of the article: Sounds like they hired somebody from Bethesda's marketing department.
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Apr 7, 2017 15:26
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BIG HEADLINE posted:Instead of steel balls, why not micro paintballs that disperse a highly-visible neon color ultra-reflective paint that quick-dries almost instantly into a super-hard covering and forces them to withdraw to the rear to literally have to have it burned or *chiseled* off, while at the same time wearing a new "please kill me, Mr. Apache/Warthog/Reaper" coat of paint as it does? Polymer-graphite composite might work, too - that poo poo will cling to/stain *anything*. Make the paint hot pink to trigger the other Russians' homophobia so they'll kill their own tank.
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Apr 17, 2017 09:44
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Buttcoin purse posted:
Even if you can get them to land all in the same place and even if a bunch of little bombs == one big one, they're probably not all going to detonate at the same time. Based on what has been reported in the news, it sounded like they wanted one big blast to collapse some caves so a bunch of small bombs probably wouldn't have had the desired effect. All that aside, the cost of getting a B-52 from stateside to the target and back is probably way higher than loading up a MOAB into an MC-130 both of which are presumably no further away than the 'deid. BadgerMan45 fucked around with this message at 11:33 on Apr 25, 2017 |
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Apr 25, 2017 11:31
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), so that'd cost you more than the MOAB.