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 says that L-M is going to make sure that the Minuteman IV won't fit in MMIII silos, though.EDIT: Nevermind, evidently the MMIV's been canceled.
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Feb 12, 2013 06:23
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Snowdens Secret posted:This got shot down for a couple of reasons... Chief amongst which is that doing this would be less lucrative to certain powerful Congressional Districts than building a whole new boomer class.
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Feb 12, 2013 06:47
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slothrop posted:Is it just me or does that Catalina have two different props on it? Also, what's the bottom plane? The propellers can be trimmed. One's trimmed wide, the other narrow.
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Feb 12, 2013 22:50
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Snowdens Secret posted:I find it bizarre that in 2013 they're flying a supersonic strike bomber with a tail turret Autocannon on everything, tovarisch! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Almaz#Defense_measures Also, Kh-22 or Kh-32, it's kind of academic, since the last I heard, the Russian Naval Air Arm was interested in trading in the Backfire-Ms for Su-34s packing Sunburns. There's also the PAK-DA, but that'll be a toy for the Strategic boys. BIG HEADLINE fucked around with this message at 15:06 on Dec 24, 2013 |
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Dec 24, 2013 14:57
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grover posted:The problems the F-35 has aren't the showstopper kind. They're more of the "this will cost more money that we thought and take more time than we hoped" type problems. IE, same as the problems at this point in the development of every aircraft procurement program, ever. The biggest difference now is just how much media it's getting. The F-35's got nothing on how rocky the R&D for the F-14 was. Most of the specific issues 60 minutes harped on is erroneous or a non-issue. The most glaring thing about the F-35 is that as a weapons platform it's fine. You could get a 747 to carry cruise missiles* and Small Diameter Bombs and it'd be a viable augmentation to the existing heavy bomber force if you're always fighting enemies that will never be able to shoot back. The F-35 is an overly complex airplane designed from the ground up to milk the tit of the defense department budget like nothing else has before it save MAYBE SDI. Lockheed-Martin is building a mediocre and flawed airplane because they're betting/hoping we'll never have to use it against an opponent who can fight back against it on equal terms. Comparing the F-35 to the F-14 is a bit unfair. Back in the 60s and 70s they couldn't do as much computer modelling, and they had two things that they HAD to build the plane to accomodate - the AN/AWG-9 and the AIM-54, and they had to make it more maneuverable than the F-4 (which, I'll grant, wouldn't be that difficult). But the F-14 had to be two things, an interceptor first and a fighter second, whereas the Phantom II was designed to be an interceptor first and foremost, and everything else 'second.' The F-35 really only has one weapon it's contractually *obligated* to be able to carry internally - the B61 Mod 12 gravity bomb, which, let's face it, will likely/hopefully never see use, because aside from the societal repercussions, I'm sure L-M would gently caress up the implementation. The F-35 being as mediocre as it is is unforgivable in this day and age, as everything wrong with it *should* have been should have been hammered out a decade ago, but hasn't been because L-M got Bush II to sign a 200b blank check a week after 9/11 and decided they could milk at least double that out of his remaining time in office during the ~time of plenty~ where no option that'd ~keep us safe and defend freedom~ was too costly. I've been hearing F-35 test pilots parrot the line that the F-35 is a 'pilot's airplane' for the better part of a decade, and no one's ever seen behind that nice-sounding comment to notice that no *combat* pilot would call his warplane a 'pilot's airplane.' A 'pilot's airplane' is a Cessna 182. As for the asterisk: 
BIG HEADLINE fucked around with this message at 11:18 on Feb 19, 2014 |
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Feb 19, 2014 02:23
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Snowdens Secret posted:To think, we spent all that money on the SSGNs when we had this on the books all along To be fair, the Ohio-class SSGN conversions are actually one the *better* things the Navy's spent money on in the past decade. They not only do the job of the now-thankfully-canceled 'Arsenal Ship' better, they serve as SEAL insertion vehicles and augment the Jimmy Carter. Compared to the DDG-1000, Ford-class carriers, and the again, thankfully-canceled CG(X), I'm willing to heap praise on us using what we *had* and making it work in a role we needed. Also, CALCMs are a hell of a lot more expensive than Tomahawks, and the air-launched Tomahawk never entered service. The 747 Missile Carrier would've been the most comfortable doomsday-wreaking plane ever, though. End the world then go downstairs and make up a nice dinner in the galley. BIG HEADLINE fucked around with this message at 04:35 on Feb 19, 2014 |
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Feb 19, 2014 02:35
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Snowdens Secret posted:I know. The Ohio hulls are excellent for the sorts of missions we're giving them, and while the -GN conversion includes refueling cost, the alternative was retiring the hulls with plenty of life left, for START compliance. This being said, I have a feeling when we finally catch up to the rest of the world in regards to supersonic/hypersonic cruise missiles, there'll need to be some *speshul* non-software modification to all current VLS-equipped and SSGN platforms to launch it. "Ohhh, sorry - this missile HAS to be 1cm larger than the current VLS standard allows...guess we'll just have to retrofit *every* compatible platform in a staggered rollout to carry it. Darn it all. Blame the engineers."  I'm thinking the same thing will happen with whatever ends up replacing the Minuteman III, even though the entire concept of fixed-silo ICBMs is, and always will be, retarded. Maintaining to field them even more so. If there's one thing Russia's doing *right*, it's eating a lot of poo poo in the form of R&D failures to standardize their ICBM/SLBM force around a single missile design, while prioritizing road-mobile ICBMs and SLBMs, and planning less focus on their bomber force (I highly doubt the PAK-DA will ever go into production, and last I heard they were planning on replacing naval-duty Tu-22Ms with Su-34s). BIG HEADLINE fucked around with this message at 04:52 on Feb 19, 2014 |
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Feb 19, 2014 04:41
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Snowdens Secret posted:It should also be noted that even within the small frame the Tomahawk has a ton of room for the warhead, allowing it to pack a large conventional punch or a wide variety of submunitions. The Russian ones don't have that space or flexibility. To say nothing of the fact that the reason the "RoW" is focusing on sub-launched hypersonic cruise missiles is because subs provide a multi-mission platform advantage over, say, maintaining a large fleet of heavy bombers capable of carrying super/hyper-sonic cruise missiles. The BrahMos also gets away with its speed and range because it only carries a 200kg warhead on the sea/land-based launch variant. Granted, if something nearly 30 feet long smacks into a ship at ~M2.5, the warhead's a bit of an afterthought. Mr. Funny Pants posted:300 level poly-sci class. A woman in my class raises her hand and says, "Now, World War One, that was the one that was about Hitler, right?" To be fair, policy wranglers/lobbyists don't know a goddamned thing they don't have a researcher look up for them and summarize, so she's on the right track for her field. BIG HEADLINE fucked around with this message at 06:00 on Feb 19, 2014 |
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Feb 19, 2014 05:56
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Snowdens Secret posted:The Iowas weren't retired because their hulls wore out. They were retired because they were just straight too obsolete - specifically, their powerplants were too inefficient / expensive to run, and there was no mission profile / payload that justified refitting them. The guns were neat but had no modern military role and were way, way too manpower intensive. What they'd *originally* planned for the Iowa-class reactivation makes what they became seem logical by comparison. Martin-Marietta (which later merged/metastasized to become Lockheed-Martin) wanted to gut the ship and turn it into something resembling the Moskva. Keep in mind we had ships perfectly/ideally suited for servicing Harriers like the Iwo Jima-class at the time. The real reason(s) the Iowas were reactivated were: 1) In the early 80s it was popular to put nukes on everything that could carry them. 2) Battleships are nicer to look at when they're ported abroad than carriers and dictate a clear 'don't gently caress with us' message. This is why there are more museum battleships than there are museum carriers. 3) Jobs. 4) Nostalgia. 5) The Navy in the 80s was bloated to poo poo and they needed 'flagships' to round out new "Surface Action Groups." Early 1980s Navy strength: http://www.history.navy.mil/branches/org9-4.htm#1979 Iowa-class Helicopter Carrier (never made it past proposal):  Moskva-class Helicopter Carrier (existed): 
BIG HEADLINE fucked around with this message at 11:17 on Feb 19, 2014 |
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Feb 19, 2014 11:06
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VikingSkull posted:Make the F-111 bigger? That is/was basically the idea behind the B-1R proposal. Turn B-1s into more versatile bomb trucks/aerial SAM sites with supercruise capability and M2.2 dash thanks to four F-22 engines.
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Feb 20, 2014 05:13
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Servicio en Espanol posted:The Air Force, as stated above, flipped the gently caress out. Nevertheless, since the National Guard is a pretty big deal, there were Congressional hearings, etc., before the Air Force finally won. However, they did stop giving the National Guard worn-out F-4s and began shipping them F-16s and A-10s, but the Blitzfighter was more or less finally dead. The A-10 (and by extension, the Blitzfighter) was unpopular for several reasons: 1) Fairchild didn't have the lobbyist clout that Lockheed, Grumman, Boeing, et al. had at the time, and it's bad for business to let a smaller corporation get one over on a mega-large one. This is also why the Blitzfighter never had a chance. 2) The Fulda Gap tripwire was seen as the "gently caress it, tac nuke time" trigger for NATO, and there were a *lot* of cushy post-career jobs available lobbying for more GLCMs and Pershing IIs, since those were being built by General Dynamics and Martin-Marietta, respectively. Anything that made it possible to fight the ~rampaging Red hordes~ conventionally was bad for business and payola, which further proves defense contractors are worse than Satan since lobbying against conventional solutions made an escalation to strategic-level nuclear war *way* more likely. Obviously the Air Force wanted GLCMs and the Army wanted their Pershings - neither wanted the A-10 around to gently caress up their pissing match, despite the A-10 likely being a lifesaver to the Army. It really was a pissing contest over which side got a bigger piece of Armageddon Pie. 3) Like most lottery winners find out after stupidly buying something like a Ferrari, buying something expensive generally means it's complex. Complex things break more easily and more often. This is where defense contractors and their pet subsidiaries *really* make their lasting profits. A cheap and effective weapons platform means less intensive maintenance over the life of the product. And the more cost-effective and cheap a product is, the longer the end user will want to purchase it, which means keeping assembly lines open and producing said cheap and cost-effective product. It's far more lucrative to kill production on the cheap and cost-effective product and re-purpose the line and labor for a more complex and costly product. Top brass also adore attaching themselves to ultra-expensive projects only, and will routinely try to push through poo poo because once you hitch your rear end to something, you (and your career) are committed. 4) The Air Force generally doesn't like 'dirty' jobs - especially CAS. CAS (Close Air Support) is a *very* dirty job which, even in peacetime, results in higher losses and higher maintenance costs attributable to training. CAS aircraft in wartime have extremely high loss rates, and if there's one thing that will *ever* gently caress up an Air Force pilot's career, it's *any* incident which results in a loss of aircraft under even the slightest of circumstances that could suggest pilot error and/or incompetence. There's a saying for Navy and Air Force pilots - that if you're not sure if there's a rule about something, in the Navy you can go ahead and do it, while in the Air Force you need to ask your superior first. 5) In light of #2, some people ask why the Army (or Marines) didn't operate the A-10 in lieu of the Air Force. And again, it's inter-service in-fighting. Even though Air Force brass has historically hated the A-10 despite its loving amazing service record and reliability, the only thing they hate more is being one-upped by other branches. The Air Force hates the Army and the Navy, the Army hates the Air Force and Navy, the Navy hates the Army and the Air Force, and the only one they all hate equally are the Marines. The Air Force would rather eat poo poo they hate (like taking in a CAS aircraft to challenge the Army's new Apache and potential acquisition of the Commanche) than potentially give more funding/materiel to other branches, and generally the same is true across the board. The A-10 also had to be *forced* into the AF's inventory by SecDef Schlesinger who was miffed at the AF's abysmal CAS record in Vietnam. 6) Burton was a 'troublemaker' and the Blitzfighter project was doomed the moment his name was put anywhere near it. So, hopefully all those  explain why the Blitzfighter had no chance in hell of ever existing, and gives more evidence on how the D-I system is broken beyond all loving comprehension.Also, the ANG was using F-106s well into the 80s, even in the high-threat Alaskan theater. They would've loved more hand-me-down F-4s. BIG HEADLINE fucked around with this message at 08:27 on Feb 20, 2014 |
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Feb 20, 2014 08:08
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Servicio en Espanol posted:In a few hours you are going to get some rabid defenders of Big Blue in here to vociferously defend the Air Force's fidelity to CAS and deny that the generals have been trying to kill the A-10 off since the chief of staff shoved it down their throats in the face of the Army's old Cheyenne project. As I just edited in, it was SecDef Schlesinger that shoved the A-10 down the AF's throats. And defenders aside, the Air Force has never enjoyed the job of supporting ground forces. Just ask a ground pounder who's seen action how fun it is to get a green light from an orbiting B-52 or B-1 for a JDAM strike.
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Feb 20, 2014 08:30
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priznat posted:Anyone have the skinny on the Comanche? My gut told me at the time it didn't seem like a great plan and that its cancellation was for the best. 1) Cost overruns. 2) In the Gulf War, Kosovo, 2003 Iraq invasion and occupation, and Afghanistan, Apaches suffered more damage than any other aerial weapons platform. Even if they have a high rate of functionality while damaged, damaged Apaches that managed to return to base were often eventually written off as total losses. Developing a 'stealth' attack helicopter with even thinner armor and a lighter potential payload was largely seen as a bad idea (tm), especially in the new 'threat culture' where a single hadji with an AK could potentially cause hundreds of thousands in damage to something like a Comanche. 3) If you're not strafing villages wholesale at ground level, attack helicopters are pretty useless in a theater like Afghanistan (and Iraqi urban environments). 4) It's much more cost-effective to maintain the OH-58s in the scout/recon role as parts for JetRanger helos are easy as gently caress to get one's hands on, even while forward-deployed. 5) It was billed as a stealth helicopter that was designed to support the Apache, a decidedly *unstealthy* helicopter. The Comanche's program manager was a real peach, too. Go ahead and look up its Wiki page for a nice little nonsensical block quote from him that effectively translates to "this helicopter does everything our existing helicopter fleet does, but we should still buy it because I've hitched my career to it." As a 'cautionary tale,' this is why he's now the CEO of a DoD 'training' company with no Wikipedia page instead of a Senior VP at Boeing. Losing your contract means you get hosed over. BIG HEADLINE fucked around with this message at 08:58 on Feb 20, 2014 |
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Feb 20, 2014 08:39
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The only domestic 'airline' that still uses DC-10s is FedEx. They're getting phased out and getting parts for them is a pain in the rear end. The KC-X competition was probably one of the most crooked contracts in a long time, but maintenance on a 767 framed tanker will be a lot cheaper than one based on the A330.
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Feb 22, 2014 08:37
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iyaayas01 posted:I've had discussions with some of the old school dudes I've worked with who were around in Desert Storm, the amount of aircraft we put in the air once every couple of years as a publicity stunt today is what they were doing on a daily basis for the duration of the war. So I think I'd agree with Godholio that initially they'd be sky high because a lot of extraneous bullshit would go away but I don't think it would be sustainable, not with our current manning and supply chain. During Desert Storm they had state-of-the-art revetments and facilities, and the crews were fresh out of the European theater after having been drilled hard for years in regards to precision and expedience in regards to maintenance and deployment that they could've done everything in their sleep. No offense met to current crew chiefs, but the Cold War variety were drilled in a sense that in a scramble they should expect warheads to be raining down momentarily, and those were the guys who got tapped to arm and maintain those planes. Nowadays the impetus to be decent at your job is a good EPR, not knowing that you got your planes aloft before your base got vaporized.
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Feb 24, 2014 11:38
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Shithead Deluxe posted:Spain's rations look like canned meat and packs of rubbers. Supposedly France's MREs are the most sought after.
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Feb 25, 2014 23:02
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Mortabis posted:When I worked at the Fed I saw ads on the Washington Metro extolling the virtues of the Global Hawk. I always wondered why they felt it necessary. Now I know. The local - and most popular - FM news radio station in the DC area routinely plays pro-military spending advertisements for no reason other than some old crank might hear "carrying our military into the twenty-first century" and write a letter to his congressman/senator, or all the D/I lobbyists/executives in the area just like wasting money for  's sake.And the Global Chicken is BIG. Big things are good because big things are expensive. Expensive things are good for general's post-career prospects. 
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Feb 26, 2014 04:13
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They're all in a race to out-TLC TLC, which isn't even bothering to call itself The Learning Channel anymore.
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Mar 2, 2014 06:26
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Blistex posted:I didn't hear anything about them having issues? Was there a design flaw in the class? They require far more frequent and expensive maintenance than the Virginia-class, but the lead ship recently had a two year maintenance period that kept it out of service. Just a hallmark of 'makin' 'em like they used to.' And yes, the AGM-129 was only nuclear-armed, but the Air Force is fighting tooth and nail to get the LRSO pushed through to replace the ALCM and CALCM because they know they're losing the 'cruise missile' money to the Navy and the mission itself to UCAVs.
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Mar 3, 2014 06:37
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Slamburger posted:I remember the amazing stat that B-2 bombers cost more than their weight in gold, not even counting the R&D. It's actually more than that. The B-2 crash loss in 2008 was estimated at $1.4b. Of course, then the Spirit of Washington got hosed up something royal, but it wasn't a total loss...it just took a little over THREE loving YEARS to get it back to operational status. A single plane. Damaged in Nov 2010, just put back into service last December. Yeah everybody, let's build 2000 stealth fighters, the Naval version of which can't be repaired while underway because it's just ~sooo advanced~. I foresee nothing going wrong with this. BIG HEADLINE fucked around with this message at 00:45 on Mar 4, 2014 |
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Mar 4, 2014 00:05
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The B-2 Spirit: So technologically revolutionary that it costs you just as much as a new plane to properly dispose of one that crashed. Also, if you wonder why the B-2s have names, it's because the Air Force is so vain and hates the Navy so much that they felt that if the plane costs as much as a warship it should be *named* like one. BIG HEADLINE fucked around with this message at 02:14 on Mar 4, 2014 |
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Mar 4, 2014 02:09
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Blistex posted:Edit: didn't something similar happen to the Ohio class and its prop? Yes:  BUT, evidently the Ohios are being refitted for pumpjets when they come up for maintenance, so for all anyone knows, the propeller there might not have been covered up simply because it was about to be removed. BIG HEADLINE fucked around with this message at 02:23 on Mar 4, 2014 |
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Mar 4, 2014 02:20
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Blistex posted:Has procedure always been to cover the prop with a tarp and they just forgot this time, or did that incident cause them to start? Generally they've always been covered up - with a *really* large tarpaulin when not being worked on or left sitting in dry dock, or covered by a covered scaffolding when being maintained/repaired.
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Mar 4, 2014 02:24
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Breaky posted:Seeing the prop reminds me of a story from when I was a kid. I guess it was around 1986 or so. My dad wouldn't buy a VCR from Toshiba because I guess they helped the US design some propeller design that they later sold to "those ruskie bastards." Was that a real thing or was my dad just a loonie? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toshiba-Kongsberg_scandal
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Mar 4, 2014 02:28
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MRC48B posted:This sounds like a really dumb idea. Especially when you aren't supposed to fly the B-2 in humid conditions. It's a plane that was designed to drop B83s on extremely-high-value strategic targets, a mission that more or less became obsolete the second the ICBM was invented. The only reason to keep a bomber force at all is that it provides a natural 'pause' after an initial exchange with missiles. Except unlike submarines, your bomber force can only be kept aloft as long as the tankers have fuel to give out and/or you have friendly/allied bases to land at. France and England have learned bombers aren't worth it, the Russians are slowly coming to the realization that large fleets of heavy bombers is stupid, but the ~Spirit of LeMay~ is still alive and well in the Air Force. BIG HEADLINE fucked around with this message at 03:44 on Mar 4, 2014 |
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Mar 4, 2014 03:42
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LostCosmonaut posted:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curtis_LeMay#Air_Force_Academy_Exemplar Of course, he wrangled the modern day equivalent of easily a few trillion dollars fearmongering in the 50s and 60s. He's the ideal all Air Force brass aspire to. But he was just a zealot who wanted more toys than the other children. If you want to truly get to know a Kool-Aid drinker, read up on LeMay's adjutant-turned-SAC Commander, Gen. Thomas Power. It's like Hoover and Tolson without the crossdressing and gay sex. LeMay was certainly a cocksucker, though - http://curtis-lemay.tripod.com/ In the 1950's, under Eisenhower, LeMay had the authority to order a nuclear strike without presidential authorization if the president could not be contacted. That option was extended down to General Thomas Power, head of SAC, whom LeMay himself described as "not stable" and a "sadist." Source: http://bit.ly/1gOcJMP --- "Yeah, that guy's a fuckin' nutjob, but he did his job well back in World War II so by Air Force tradition, until we catch him fuckin' a guy or doing something against the rules we've gotta keep promoting him. Plus he's hitched his career to mine, so if he ever went down it'd reflect poorly on me, and that doesn't even count all the dirt he's got." BIG HEADLINE fucked around with this message at 07:02 on Mar 4, 2014 |
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Mar 4, 2014 06:52
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Party Plane Jones posted:Yeah, it doesn't really go into many of the weapons currently in the US inventory (B61) but it does go up to about ~1980ish in bomb technology. The B28/MK28, which was the bulk of the US bomb inventory, didn't get retired until 1991. It's frankly terrifying the lack of safeguards the US inventory had until the mid/late 70s because of the Air Force/Navy/Army not wanting to put any real safety measures in them. Mmhmm. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/7097101.stm The UK used bicycle lock keys to arm their gravity bombs. This was standard on their WE.177 bombs until they were retired in the mid-90s, at which point the BBC published the 'funny ha ha' story about how insanely easy it would have been to arm a British gravity bomb without orders to do so. To this day, the British ballistic missile submarines go to sea with the most frighteningly lax controls on their unconventional release in the free world. From the moment their boomers set sail, the entirety of their nuclear arsenal is in the hands of the men aboard the submarine. Their 'foolproof' way to ensure the British government still functions is to listen to see if BBC Radio Channel 4 is still broadcasting. Even the French have/had(?) a TACAMO backbone in place to command their boomers in the event of a decapitation strike, but the British just never bothered with all that rot. The rationale for this is a sound one, as the UK could be wiped out by SLBMs in ~10-15 minutes practically by just pushing the boomers out of their pens in Murmansk and giving the order to fire. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Letters_of_last_resort I like the option to sail the boat to Canada or Australia. But it's also kinda  in an apocalyptic way that the Letters of Last Resort gives the submarine commander the option NOT to fire his weapons. The  part is the "use his own judgment" one because the PM knows he can't stop the captain from doing whatever the gently caress he wants because the captain has principal control on the weapons he's carrying.Then, of course, Western world aside, there's the whole problem of the Pakistani nuclear stockpile, which for all intents and purposes HAS no PAL (Permissive Action Link) system safeguarding it, as they refused US assistance towards developing one citing (probably valid) fears that we'd figure out a way to backdoor it and render their warheads useless at our whim. It's also widely thought that the active Pakistani nuclear arsenal operates on a 'fail-deadly' policy. If contact is severed with Islamabad or attack is declared imminent or underway (as in a nuclear detonation being visible in the distance), it's believed that field commanders are to fire first and ask questions later. This also means that both the US and India probably have a preemptive option in place if/when the 'secular' Pakistani government falls. Ours probably involves B-1s and B-2s out of Diego Garcia armed with precision - but conventional - munitions (even though it's the worst-kept secret that there are nukes at Diego Garcia *shh don't tell anyone*). The Indian plan probably involves making their warhead storage bunkers and suspected mobile ICBM launch sites glow in the dark. Nebakenezzer posted:A good question. According to Command and Control the USSR was actually way more concerned with safety interlocks, far earlier. Why? Because the Communist Party wanted to be drat sure nuclear weapons would only be used as they authorized them. This is correct. The procedures *during* the Cold War were actually more convoluted and 'safe' than the procedures active immediately *after* the Cold War ended. The Politburo were far more concerned about the heavy-handed figureheads closer to their forward-deployed warheads (Castro in particular) than accidental launch or insane theater/field commanders. ----- Also, in other news...  - http://www.dailytech.com/USAF+Moves+Forward+With+Long+Range+Bomber+Program+Despite+Budget+Crunch/article34446.htmThe budget crunch in the U.S. continues to hit the military hard as spending is cut and troop levels are diminished. Despite the tightening belt, the Air Force will be moving ahead with its new long-range bomber program. In fact, the timeframe for the bomber has actually been pushed forward. ... The Air Force hopes to have the new bomber ready for use on the battlefield by the mid-2020s. The Air Force has plans to purchase 80 to 100 of the aircraft at a cost of $550 million per unit. For comparison, 21 B-2 Spirit bombers were produced (at a cost of $737 million each), while 100 B-1B Lancer bombers were constructed (at a cost of $283 million each). ...so, they'll cost 1.1-2b each, because we all know 'rush jobs' are always cheaper. BIG HEADLINE fucked around with this message at 12:06 on Mar 5, 2014 |
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Mar 5, 2014 11:34
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VikingSkull posted:Really if anything the last decade and a half has shown that if you're a shitheel leader of a backwater fuckhole and you don't wanna be invaded by a world power, you better get crackin' them atoms. A'yup. Especially if you have oil or rare earth metals.
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Mar 6, 2014 02:32
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Honestly the scariest national power to have ever owned nuclear weapons has to be Apartheid-era South Africa. They honestly didn't have any strategic-level enemy - they just wanted them. Presumably to potentially use on their own people - or at least, beings they barely *regarded* as people. Read up on Project Coast sometime. In fact: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Coast Reading Wouter Basson's personal page is like reading the script for a rejected Bond villain. Also, after you read all of that, bear in mind this loving monster beat drug trafficking charges and over 200 counts of murder and is now *practicing medicine*. Also, the only reason South Africa dismantled their nukes wasn't because they 'saw the light,' it's because they saw the writing on the wall and were damned sure not going to allow 'kaffirs' to have their precious bombs. BIG HEADLINE fucked around with this message at 02:55 on Mar 6, 2014 |
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Mar 6, 2014 02:43
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Nebakenezzer posted:I thought they were worried about wars with their neighbors and wanted an ace in the hole. So what was the delivery system, anyway? Gravity bombs - and SRBM/TBMs weren't out of the realm of possibility, they just didn't have enough time. VikingSkull posted:Nope, the scariest is North Korea. Those motherfuckers are gonna use one one of these days. Speaking of delivery systems, North Korea needs one smaller and more viable than a shipping container before I consider their nukes to be a threat.
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Mar 6, 2014 03:20
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Snowdens Secret posted:Pakistan and NK don't seem to give much of a poo poo at all about who they sell/give atomic materiel and tech to, either. Pak might be getting a -little- better in this respect lately, maybe, but I'd still put them at the top of the pareto for "most likely to hand an atomic device to a 'non-state actor'" Actually, the more accurate statement would be that North Korea is more likely to sell a nuclear weapon to a non-state actor, while Pakistan is more likely to 'lose' or have a nuclear weapon *stolen* from them by ideologically-motivated actors. NK's bombs have to stop 'fizzling' first, though - even though a five kiloton 'fizzle' could still badly gently caress something up.
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Mar 6, 2014 03:56
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MrYenko posted:It's even got pictures of them taking the good engines off and hanging some red tags! It'd be funny if the three million dollar bid was Kim Jong Un looking to buy the People's First Heavy Bomber.
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Mar 7, 2014 05:05
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simplefish posted:Does anyone know what the joystick by the radar-type screen is for? Remote guns or what? The guns on the Bears were human-operated, so my best guess is the joystick's a manual training stick for the radar. The reason I suggest this is because there's one on the B-52 at the Radar and Navigator's station:  That stick's too new to have ever been a gun control. I will say one thing, I want to see the world through one of the Russian 'nose windows' before I die: 
BIG HEADLINE fucked around with this message at 11:35 on Mar 7, 2014 |
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Mar 7, 2014 11:29
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Not the only time someone's interviewed an A-10 pilot, but this was a nice read: http://www.simhq.com/air-combat/air-combat-interviews/warthog-pilot-interview.html
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Mar 12, 2014 10:44
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Nice E-6 spot. It's one of the older models, though - because if you pan over to Offutt to the right you can clearly see the alert E-6 and E-4B on the tarmac within easy running distance of their crew buildings, and another two E-6s parked in and amongst the KC-135s. Just to save people the search:  Finding the one at Paxtuent River was a bit of a chore - evidently it was off-alert in for maintenance and you have to look internally to the hangars. Finding the one at Travis AFB is easy. BIG HEADLINE fucked around with this message at 00:22 on Mar 14, 2014 |
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Mar 14, 2014 00:05
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Godholio posted:What do you mean older models? I thought they were all part of the last batch of 707s off the line. There's the E-6A and the E-6B. The airframe snapped by the civilian IMINT satellite shows distinct antennae on/near the wingtips that the E-6 has but the KC-135 doesn't. You also can't see evidence of the retracted boom which further makes me think it's either a specialized -135 variant or an E-6A. The only thing that really differentiates a E-6A from a -6B is the 'bump' on top:  Then again, the double antennae at the wingtips could just be a byproduct of a lovely-quality image. EDIT: The original picture is neither an E-6 variant or a KC-135 - it's an RC-135 variant (of which there are too many subvariants to definitively ID): 
BIG HEADLINE fucked around with this message at 02:34 on Mar 14, 2014 |
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Mar 14, 2014 02:22
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Snowdens Secret posted:Reminds me of when we had to report my nuclear submarine having an accident in an Italian harbor, the local press reworded that into a submarine having a nuclear accident in the harbor, and we ended up with crazy protesters. Even if you'd had it reported correctly, Italians would've protested you. They're still touchy after the cable car incident (and, completely unrelated to the military, the Amanda Knox thing) and honestly come in a little behind the Japanese in wanting "Yankees" out of their country. The ones who live around the bases and benefit directly from the money the base residents spread around the economy *love* Americans - at least, the ones who don't expect them to know perfect American English and show an effort to acclimate to a different culture. I still remember living in Sicily from '91 to '93 and having the base go apeshit because the base commissary ran out of - I'm not making GBS threads you - *olive oil*. In Sicily. There were people who were too afraid to go outside the fence line and find a supermarket to buy olive oil in Sicily. They also ran out of milk, which is a bit dicier and understandable, but since there's a little something called "Parmalat" that might not be a perfect alternative but won't give you the shits, it also displayed how inept a lot of people are. BIG HEADLINE fucked around with this message at 07:32 on Mar 15, 2014 |
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Mar 15, 2014 07:29
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Not exactly a 'textbook' on British tanks in the Korean War, but it's out in paperback now and a fun read. *All* of the Battlefield series are fun reads, and "War Stories" before that. Quite a few of them are up on torrents if you grab yourself a .cbr reader like Comicrack. http://www.comicbookresources.com/?page=preview&id=14927 (and before anyone asks - the Popeye-looking guy is Sergeant Stiles, and he's a Geordie) Details about the other series, which is a bit harder to find: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_Stories_%28comics%29 BIG HEADLINE fucked around with this message at 21:06 on Mar 18, 2014 |
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Mar 18, 2014 21:02
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They really should have held on to the OV-10. Of course, the Reapers can carry more than three Broncos ever could.
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Mar 18, 2014 23:26
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Mortabis posted:That's one stealthy airplane! My father took me to this airshow at Langley AFB in the late 80s not too long after the F-117 had been declassified. The plane never made it to the airshow due to 'unforeseen circumstances,' but there was an spot in the static display area that was gated off by those metal fence sections. The joke was that the F-117 *was* there...it was just too stealthy to be seen. Other fun from that day - goading some Oceana F-14 and Langley F-15 pilots via questions I already knew the answer to into getting into a pissing contest which resulted in them inadvertently teaching an eight year old some fun new words. Organizer's fault for putting them so close together, I guess. BIG HEADLINE fucked around with this message at 09:16 on Mar 25, 2014 |
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Mar 24, 2014 13:25
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