The Military Thread

On the other hand, it would be quite fitting to name the F-35 after a flightless bird...

I suggest Cuckoo. Kicks other birds out of the nest, lets them starve, and then continues to gobble their food.

(Why, no, I am not at all bitter about the A-6F/G's cancellation. Why do you ask?)

So the new nicknames of F-35 pilots would become... Cloud Cuckoo Lander? That's pretty harsh on those. I mean, Luna Lovegood herself wouldn't come near one of those, even less pilot one, she's got too much common sense for that.

edited 18th Apr '12 1:50:00 AM by RufusShinra

Somewhere out there, is a man or two, who made millions from the F35 program, sitting on a beach and sipping on Mai Tai cocktails. Not very far from the guy who made millions from allowing the SA 80 into service. Scum like that stick together.

And I am bitter.

On the topic of names, some of the German army vehicles tend to be slightly ridiculous. Leopards, lynxes, wolves and foxes might sound alright, but dingo, fennec, badger and beaver, though appropriate, are somewhat strange names.

Thus the very reason Oppenheimer gifted the world with his Light: to make sure grouped targets need only one bomb (as long as you don't use the F-35 to deliver it, in which case you'd need the entire U.S. deliveries to hope one of them will get to its target... unless you get those two guys in the cockpit, in which case they're finished). :-D Remember the Rules: "if you leave a hole in the wall, you weren't using a large enough caliber" and "there is no 'overkill', only 'open fire' and 'I need to reload'"

Anyway, plane companies should be run by engineers, not managers. At least, in the case of a budget overshoot, the product you get is awesome because it'll get all the nice options the engineer in charge dreamed of. "Is that a pod of 120 micro-fusion missiles for the new fighters?" "Yeah, sorry if we had a two-week delay, but when the guys in the admin board saw Macross, there was unanimity: the plane absolutely needed that!" is way better than "So, another five year delay?" "Yeah, but we got nice Powerpoints to show you, man!"

edited 18th Apr '12 2:22:32 AM by RufusShinra

When you look at the F-35 you can't help but wonder, "How did it come to this?"

I'd like to see what Boeing can come up with as their next-gen fighter. We've had enough of Lockheed for now.

Google the X-32. That should give you an answer.

That thing looks more fugly than I do. And I shave using a platter from a hard-disk as a mirror. On Oppenheimer, hmm. Read this - Doomsday Men - The Real Dr Stangelove and the Dream of the Superweapon.

http://www.peterdsmith.com/doomsday-men-the-real-dr-strangelove-and-the-dream-of-the-superweapon/

You want the real story behind the Bomb, you can't get much better than this. It is written in a slightly left-wing tone but everyone gets criticisms if they deserve it, including the Russians.

The biggest surprise of the book is just how much geeks are responsible for the whole mess. People took our dreams and made them reality.

a bit, kurushio, all the animals you talked about were and are predators. Lethal in their own way to the prey they hunt.

edited 18th Apr '12 4:04:43 AM by TamH70

How could they manage to build something uglier than the Pigeon? Don't they know that a plane flies right if it looks right?

On planes looking right, I want a Firefox. Like the movie one only real. That is all.

The x-32 was so ugly that even The Other Wiki is snarking about it:

I haven't found any pictures of this predecessor in ugliness yet, though.

Speaking as a civvy, there seems to be a lot of complaints about the M16, particularly the A1 variety. Plus a lot of talk about the AK-47 being better. What's the argument there? I do seem to remember the M16 requiring constant aim adjustment, and it being unable to mount a bayonet. But I got that from the Zombie Survival Guide, so I may just be talking out (someone elses) ass there.

Whoever said the M16 can't mount a bayonet needs to be shot. The main and most famous issue with the M16 was a perceived lack of reliability stemming from field experience in Vietnam where they jammed almost constantly.

I'm going to go ahead and say "Fuck you Max Brooks".

Now that that's said and done, we can move along

The original M16, pre-A1 mods, suffered a lot and I mean a lot from jamming in Vietnam. It was the A1 serials that introduced the bolt-forward plunger, the chrome lining in the chamber first and then the barrel and the widespread issue of cleaning materials.

G Is died in the jungle because they were allowed to believe that the rifles that they were issued with, the XM 16-E1, didn't need cleaning. (see http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,843858,00.html - it helps if you are a Time Magazine subscriber, but wikipedia has the relevant quotes)

Max Brooks is already known for making a lot of inaccuracies in his book about guns, and likely about other things too.

@ X-32 EWW!

@M-16 No. The original had issues, mainly with jamming easily and needing alot of claning. The newer models are MUCH better, though are very different.

Screw all of this, make a modernversion of this. EVERY ship is an aircraft carrier now!

edited 18th Apr '12 7:14:13 AM by Joesolo

For what it's worth, the only service rifle not capable of mounting a bayonet is the Austrian issue version of the AUG.

Max Brooks does not do his research properly on the military and military gear. World War Z was a major example of this.

M-16 vs Ak. Ak's are very sturdy weapons. Their piston system and general design make them very tough. They can also be accurate. But you can't shoot anything beyond 400yds and expect much with an AK. The M-16 is light needs quite a bit of maintenance but has longer overall range out 800yds.

Both weapons inside the magic 300yd combat envelope are quite deadly. The Nato 5.56mm has the highest rate of round fragmentation inside a target and the heavier AK round has some serious punch and nasty wound ballistics.

Berkut aka Golden Eagle. The only bird of prey capable of carrying off children. Confirmed report of one making off with a brown bear cub. Also you can see them carry off small deer.

edited 18th Apr '12 8:12:40 AM by TuefelHundenIV

Re: German kit names: What's wrong with Badger as a name for military hardware? Badgers don't give a fuck and will frak your shit up. Badgers are awesome.

@ Joesolo: I raise you this.

That may be the ugliest thing I've ever seen fly, and I've seen the X-32.

I can only assume that it actually flies because the ground and sea are too repulsed by it to let it touch them.

edited 18th Apr '12 8:48:40 AM by Balmung

Unlike the CH-53, which is proof that if you strap enough engines to something it will fly.

There is no such thing as "enough engines"... And so discover the Balzac, a Dassault fighter plane (Mirage-series) with NINE reactors. Sadly, though, it wan't painted in red, thus disproving any allegation of slave ork labor in Dassault R&D teams (everyone know they were instead working on the SR-71 team, where one of them had the genius idea to paint the plane in INFRA-red, making the then-poorly-designed spy plane the mightiest manned aircraft in the galaxy).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dassault_Balzac_V

edited 18th Apr '12 9:14:05 AM by RufusShinra