Also, in the gif of the guy getting mule kicked by the cannon, watch his helmet.

I believe the one of the guy marshalling Tornadoes is from a charity video. Which also features another ground handler doing it with stadium foam fingers.

Edit: Here we go. (WARNING: Contains The Village People)

edited 27th Mar '15 12:30:57 AM by Deadbeatloser22

SAF will bid Mr Lee's final farewell with the highest honors

Gun salutes, fly pass, sail past. Pretty much all the stops.

Also went to pay my respects today. I didn't know we had that many tents.

At least it didn't hit his head, that would be...less funny.

Oh my god the one with the missile launcher.

So: how the fuck can anyone march to this?

Fabulously. It is Italian after all.

I believe you march in double time for that particular march.

Sure it isn't perhaps a march for cavalry?

A British Guards unit might be able to serenely march to that at half-time, although the tone quality on those trumpets would shame a high-school marching band.

...which would explain a lot.

As would that, which would explain the tone quality. It's one thing to play while marching, it's another to play while running.

edited 28th Mar '15 6:39:32 PM by SabresEdge

Ahh the Italians showing us how to run away in style.

This is what the silly people look like.

edited 29th Mar '15 10:23:37 PM by TuefelHundenIV

Are those platoon officers dual-wielding swords? Or are they holding the sheathe in one hand and the sword in the other?

Regardless, lots of respect for the musicians, at least. Playing while running in sync like that takes quite a bit of skill to pull off.

Those look like either rods or sheaths. They were rather floppy and missing sword bits.

Seen on FB. No further comment.

The start of that italian video sounded far more like kazoos than any military band ever should.

So, something that is of interest to me as of late is how different countries will come up with different designs for the same basic concept based on differing ideas of how they intend to use it or differing ideas on general design priorities. The example that gets brought up a lot is American tanks vs German tanks in WWII.

Someone posted a link to an article somewhere discussing the Japanese carriers at the Battle of Midway, and I recall the paper presented an interesting point: The way the Japanese built their carriers likely limited the way they could sortie their planes.

Basically, Japanese aircraft carriers were designed with fully-enclosed hangar decks, with various shop and storage spaces providing a layer of protection all around the hangars. American aircraft carriers featured open hangar decks, with the hangars directly exposed to the elements. While this meant American planes would require additional maintenance to counter the effects of the weather and seaspray (salt water is corrosive), it also meant that the American aviators could start their engines while the plane was still going through pre-flight checks belowdecks, allowing them to warm up the engines while the planes were being pushed onto the elevators and raised up to the flight decks. The Japanese crews could not do the same for obvious reasons (running gasoline engines in enclosed spaces is a huge no-no due to the pesky human need for not breathing toxic exhaust fumes), and instead had to put the planes on the flight deck before they could start their engines.

The reason this bit the Japanese in the hindquarters at Midway was because throughout the entire first day they were under constant attack from several uncoordinated waves of American bombers, meaning the Japanese carriers were constantly landing and launching fighters due to their CAP screen burning through fuel and ammo having to constantly run down repeated groups of attackers. They never had a window of opportunity long enough to muster and launch a concentrated force of bombers that could overwhelm the (outnumbered) American carrier force's defenses. They couldn't recover and launch fighters while also stacking bombers up on the flight deck.

Of course, all that is a big reason the Angled Flight Deck caught on after WWII, as pretty much everyone was hamstrung by the ability to launch OR recover planes, when they'd really like to do both.

Similarly, American carriers vs British carriers. British carriers had armored flight decks, which allowed them to shrug off attacks that would be catastrophic for their American counterparts (Royal Navy damage control doctrine for a Kamikaze strike on the flight deck was to man the brooms and push the wreckage overboard). OTOH, this required the flight deck to be part of the ship's main structure, causing the hangar deck to be more cramped and the ship to be more top-heavy. American carriers were more vulnerable to damage, but their lighter construction and more spacious hangar decks meant they could carry larger air wings, making them less likely to be attacked.

And of course, Soviet carriers were less carriers and more cruisers that awkwardly featured a flight deck, a surface warship which could throw up a light screen of fighters which could help defend the warships while they did their work, as opposed to the American doctrine of surface warships screening the carriers so they could do their work.

The Sovs never got their shipbuilding up to the point of making a large "supercarrier". Frontline Aviation reasoned that the USSR was just so damn big that they could simply move aircraft from front to front in their airspace.

For the US, a "supercarrier" was 5 acres of sovereign US territory with which to spread some freedom. Coupled with the cruisers and the subs, they made up for the distance the US didn't have.

So the USSR invested in missile boats and big bombers to hit the carriers.

And I was the one who posted on We Will Use Manual Labor in the Future the part about the M-1's lack of an autoloader.

Yeah, when the M-1 was built, according to Frank Chadwick, a 19 year old private was faster than any autoloader tested by Big Army. The USSR used an autoloader to make smaller tanks. Other countries improved the autoloader.

The US Army simply make their tactics around a 4 man crew. Mostly I suspect an NCO yelling at that private to load faster.

NC Os yelling at enlisted men? So unprofessional. You're supposed to swat them with a stick to get them to speed up. The yelling just frazzles them.

I mean shit I'm a 130# weakling and infantryman who got to loading SABOT rounds in about five seconds during my hitch in a tank crew. Up until the casing fell apart on me and we had to wait in FOB Ramadi motor pool for three hours for EOD to show up...

Pointless story but funny one none the less, and I got to learn that the loader was originally an infantry position when they slapped together the first tank crews.

Well that sounds fair. I mean, my uncle's a Tattoo artist and even he considers facial tattoos shady.

Random question for a story:

How well would a hunter from a winter forest translate into a soldier? I did hear that early snipers were often recruited hunters.

Very well — the Finns made very good soldiers during their wars in World War II.

Simo Häyhä's deadly sniping prowess came more from his life as a farmer than from his one year of compulsory military service. That should tell you how well experience as a hunter could translate to military combat ability.

Annoy not the farmer or poacher who can bag weasels or stoats in any weather, for you would look good as a colander.

Also, hunters and foresters were recruited to be sharpshooters in 18th century Germany. See Jäger.

edited 4th Apr '15 7:33:49 AM by majoraoftime