The Military Thread

Imgur gallery talking about modern body armor.

Also, behold, the greatest tool in the modern infantryman's arsenal, the Reflective Belt! (NSFW)

edited 28th Dec '14 9:17:52 AM by AFP

Re: medal: ... Oh gods, that's bloody silly. It's disrespecting the medal.

Regarding the medal woman, I reread the article, and on further thought also fault her for going all the way to the national level with it. She tracked down the offending fuckwits to their unit, and after they refused to un-fuckwit themselves she should have taken it up with their chain of command at the NCO level, not gone straight to the director of SHARP (Sexual Harassment/Assault ResPonse).

Another take on the issue, from a woman who served.

The more I read of the 1SG who got the medal, the less I think of her.

I finished Ghost Recon: Future Soldier early this morning. Overall, it's a good game, but the campaign mode left me with a certain hollowness, like something was missing from both the gameplay and the plot.

The final mission was entertaining enough, but the last section strangely lost a lot of the intelligence, quiet chaos and finesse of the previous missions. It just kind of turned into a big, loud, dumb action movie when I was hoping for a finale that would be closer to something tranquil yet bone-chilling and nerve racking like the SEAL Team Six raid on the Bin Laden compound in Zero Dark Thirty or Sam Fisher's final infiltration in Splinter Cell. Not horrible, though. Just out of place and not a very palatable conclusion. After I found the last "big whig" responsible for some of the game's central conflict, the game suddenly had to remind itself that it had a plot, and it started to take on this pseudo-dramatic bit of shocking revelations. But...the whole thing's clearly an Excuse Plot, so whatever.

Go play it. You'll like it.

edited 28th Dec '14 11:24:22 AM by Aprilla

Re: Reflective belts: Protects anything.◊

Well yeah, the plot is there for no real reason. There's an LP on the archive that first familiarized me with it, and I have to say, the game does a much, much better job presenting the idea of microdrones and mini-sensors for warfare than any of its competitors. I stand by my favorable opinion of the game for being a near-future shooter that feels fresh and fun, which isn't easy with all the Battleduty clones on the market.

Also, completely unrelated, fun with the 3-in mortar.◊

edited 28th Dec '14 5:02:08 PM by SabresEdge

Black Ops 2 presented some interesting technological concepts, and Ghosts brought up some neat ideas about point defense weapons, orbital defense satellites and electronic countermeasures, but the Call of Duty franchise gets really cartoony with its setting. Future Soldier presents next-generation military tech without getting too silly about it. Come to think of it, my problem with the last mission in Future Soldier is that the game suddenly decided it wanted to be a Call of Duty story and all of the scripted noise that entails.

edited 28th Dec '14 5:08:10 PM by Aprilla

That comic is amazing

She got an Ar Com for being a buddy fucker, that's what it sounds like to me.

I mean seriously? SARC/SHARP'ing someone from a completely different base for something they said on the internet? That bitch deserves a sock party instead of a medal. I mean given, you shouldn't be using yourself in uniform as your profile picture when you're being an asshole on the internet, but she didn't need to take it that high up the chain.

The general reaction to that affair from people in my unit can be summed up as "this is bloody idiotic".

That comic was pretty amusing.

By the way, this is something I came up with as a result of seeing a photoshopped Frankenstein's monster of a Mi-24 and an IFV. Put on your best David Attenborough impression!

The immature Hind (the larval form of which is often misidentified as the T-80, Toughbutrarecus) will find a cold, dark space in which to form its protective cocoon - also called a hangar - where it will slowly enter the final stage of its life cycle. The typical lifespan of the Hind butterfly - Milus Twentyfouricus - is several decades.

Hinds are known to predate upon all types of beetles (such as the Infantry Fighting Vehicle Bradliae Lavii) and could theoretically capture prey such as the Apache butterfly, Longbowidae.

Hence, there has been a movement to classify the Milus Twentyfouricus as a parasitic species. However, perhaps the most fascinating aspect of their life cycle is the symbiotic relationship they share with the Russian Common Grunt, or Dumbassus Newguyus Ruskii.

The Hind butterfly has been spotted carrying Common Grunts into their hunting grounds and allowing them to disembark, whereupon the Grunts find prey for the butterfly. In return, the Hind actively seeks out common predators of the Common Grunt. It is a beautiful relationship to behold.

edited 29th Dec '14 4:13:29 PM by Flanker66

Flanker:

re: Flanker:

Apparently, Operation Enduring Freedom is finally coming to an end. It's being replaced with "Operation Freedom's Sentinel"; as everyone pretty much acknowledges, the war's not ending.

Sharp-eyed readers will recognize that the new name shares initials with the real new name of the mission, "Oh, for Fuck's Sake".

I’m correct in assuming that that was a parody of those high-quality BBC nature documentaries right? Good show.

I can’t help but chuckle at the our American penchant for using bombastically colorful names for military operations – meanwhile the Japanese got along fine using rudimentary letters of the alphabet for their own grandiose schemes back in the day.

The biological spoils of war: Study finds those who take part in violent conflict have more wives, children: "Violent conflict may, under certain conditions, offer a biological benefit to those who take part in it, a Harvard study has found.

The study, authored by Luke Glowacki, a doctoral student working with Richard Wrangham, Ruth Moore Professor of Biological Anthropology and Curator of Primate Behavioral Biology in the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology, found that, among members of an East African herding tribe, those who engaged in conflict - in the form of violent raids carried out on neighboring groups - had more wives, and thus more opportunities to increase their reproductive success through having more children. The study is described in a December 29 paper published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences."

Or, as Keanu Reeves said in The Replacements: Pain is Temporary, Glory is Forever, and Chicks Dig Scars.

That's actually pretty true.

Keep in mind that we're dealing with a polygamous and tribal nation here, as "more wives" in much of the developed world means some poor guy's marriages aren't exactly the most stable. The method of obtaining reproductive partners as in the study also would be defined as war rape by modern standards. Modern attitudes towards sexual relations between military personnel and local partners are also much more restrained compared to that in the past.

edited 30th Dec '14 7:58:10 AM by FluffyMcChicken

Courtesy of Face Book.

Marine Corps Facts:

A MARINE and Superman once fought each other on a bet. The loser had to start wearing his underwear on the outside of his pants.

Most MARINES have a grizzly bear carpet in their room...the bear isn't dead; it's just afraid to move.

The MARINES have already been to Mars; that's why there are no signs of life.

Ghosts sit around the campfire and tell MARINE CORPS stories.

A MARINE can cut through a hot knife with butter.

Death once had a near-MARINE experience.

The MARINES are the reason why Waldo is hiding.

A MARINE can slam a revolving door.

When the Boogeyman goes to sleep every night, he checks his closet for US MARINES.

A MARINE once kicked a horse in the chin... Its descendants are known today as Giraffes.

A MARINE once got bit by a rattle snake. After three days of pain and agony – the rattle snake died.

When A MARINE does a pushup, he isn't lifting himself up, he's pushing the Earth down.

When a MARINE throws you into a bottomless pit, you hit the bottom.

A MARINE does not sleep... He waits.

A MARINE once made a Happy Meal cry.

You NEVER slap a MARINE.

A MARINE called 911 to order Chinese food and got it.

Guns are warned not to play with the MARINES.

A MARINE can give aspirin a headache.

The Tragedy of the American Military — An interesting article. Note the graphics concerning the F-35.

The PEOPLE'S LIBERATION ARMY made all the Marines run away in Korea.

They also managed to lose a battle where they outnumbered the Marines 29:1 and had them completely surrounded.

But seriously, most of those "facts" are silly, let their real exploits speak for themselves.

edited 31st Dec '14 5:55:35 AM by AFP

I am always dubious of articles that begin with "X Facts" or somesuch. "Fact" being frequently an indicator of the opposite.

Well, Teufel's list was clearly meant to be more in line with the "Chuck Norris Facts" definition of "Fact" rather than the historical type.

But then again, Marines think their branch was established in 1775, so who knows if he meant the list to be taken literally