The Military Thread

I've heard that. Not sure if it's a bad thing though. Enforcing maritime laws would be interesting. I'm into fishing and all so helping keep commercial fishing regulated would be something I'd like to do.

I'm really not sure yet though. It all depends on how everything unfolds for me.

Oh, semi-unrelated, but this is just too cool not to share. Eagle Eye drone.◊ It's like the coast Guard wanted it's own scaled down V-22, but by the time they were done they couldn't fit people inside.

edited 17th May '12 7:35:28 PM by Joesolo

I'd be interested in becoming a gunner for the puddle pirates. My 240 skills are stuff of legend.

Can't swim for shit though. I can tread water for ages and eventually get where I'm going, but don't count on me for much more than that.

Still aren't troops though, I don't consider coasties Do D.

There not anyway. There under Homeland security, unless theres a war, then the President can put them into the DOD where they're used more militarily.

I can swim fairly well, though I wont be winning any races. I just don't float.

I've probably said this before but I've been on or in the water my whole life.

Gunning for them would be fun though. They shoot out the engines on Narco subs a lot.

edited 17th May '12 8:06:21 PM by Joesolo

It is the SAR arm of the Puddle Pirates that are utterly batshit crazy. In their hard to sink/tip boats they will try and save any dumb sailors ass in any storm short of armageddeon.

I run into coasties here at the navy base now and again, the interdiction ships dock here from time to time.

This strip made me think of Barkey as a Mercenary

Ah, yeah, that does sound kind of like my brand of apathetic moral flexibility.

Barkey: You would probably get a few laughs out of Schlock Mercenary

The British Coastguard are maniacs as well. No-one over here comes as close to how mad their SAR helo pilots are outside of the Royal Navy. I had a couple of flights with RN pilots flying a Sea King back in the Nineties, and these guys were flying that big ugly mother of a helicopter at a flight level below the height of the surrounding sand-dunes. If the pilot had sneezed... From what I have heard about the Coasties, they are just as bad.

I also flew in a Gazelle with (I think) RAF pilots a while later and they were far more restrained. Fricking helo was fast as fuck though.

Joe, don't forget the unofficial motto of the USCG: "You have to go out. You don't have to come back."

And that came from before they started taking up police-type duties.

As for the Zumwalts, I haven't really looked into them much, but I vaguely recall cost issues being the real killer, like with... hell, just about every major equipment program in the past few decades.

In regards to the Gerald Ford class CVNs, even as a bubblehead I've always had a soft spot for the flyboys, and the older carriers can't go on forever, and after a certain point upgrading the Nimitz classes for new equipment (particularly planes, which haven't been getting any lighter since the 1975 commissioning of the Nimitz herself, and automation to reduce personnel requirements) isn't cost-effective.

Given the lead time for building, equipping, and training up a crew for a new carrier, as long as the Navy has a global commitment they couldn't wait to start on the successor to the Nimitz class. The Ford itself is scheduled for duty in 2015 to replace the Enterprise, the John F Kennedy in 2020 replaces the Nimitz, and the as-yet unnamed 3rd Ford Class ship replaces the Eisenhower in 2025.

Of course, as a bubblehead, there's really only two ship classifications that matter: "own ship" and "targets".

edited 18th May '12 4:31:37 AM by Nohbody

This is something I've been wondering for a while, but it may be outside the scope of this thread...

If one of the bombs dropped on Japan had been a fissile, how would the modern world be different? And it's something that could have easily happened - a loose wire could do it.

edited 18th May '12 4:46:27 AM by Vehudur

You mean a dud? Well, then we might have looked about as silly as the Nazis and their crazy Wunderwaffe. Because they both used fissile material.

That said, I don't think the Cold War would have changed much unless both had failed (and Little Boy's success was so sure that they didn't even test a gun-type device before initiating that one over Hiroshima), because then, nobody would have really seen their full effects on actual populated targets.

edited 18th May '12 5:02:02 AM by Balmung

I think in part it would depend on whether it was the first or second bomb that didn't detonate properly, at least as far as the Japanese response goes. IIRC, the potential for a fizzle was one of the reasons the idea for a demonstration on an uninhabited island with Japanese observers was set aside.

I imagine that a failure would've been very shortly followed up by a conventional bombing raid to blow the everloving dogsnot out of any surviving components (not likely to be surviving in any useful condition, though, especially not the "Fat Man" implosion type bomb used on Nagasaki, given the absolutely vital geometry to create a successful detonation).

I doubt that having working hardware would do much good for the Japanese in any case. The Japanese atomic program was even more of a joke than the German one, and the Germans had Executive Meddling as an excuse.

@Barkey - What is it about the military that increases moral flexibility? That's a phrase I use to describe myself fairly often. I'm thinking it's the killing, fighting for something you don't necessarily fully support, and cutting corners to make shit happen down range. Especially with logistics.

The word is "initiation", not "detonation".

Personally, I think the Type-45 is a better example of a next-generation destroyer.

So wait, are all the Fords going to be named after Presidents?

I hope so, unless they want to name one of them Enterprise. Stop naming the damn things after congresscritters.

War heroes, I can get. But politicians?

Just no.

I can see Kennedy, and Eisenhouer is obvious, being the last general-president, but Ford? The dude who pardoned Nixon and was remembered for nothing else?

Is there still a petition going to make sure that one of the new carriers is an Enterprise?

Yup.

"It is the SAR arm of the Puddle Pirates that are utterly batshit crazy. In their hard to sink/tip boats they will try and save any dumb sailors ass in any storm short of armageddeon. "

That's the most amazing part of it. I doubt I'd be in that but that's one of the bravest jobs I know of. They save thousands every year.

?◊

USS Harrison Ford

How many times has he been a President? He was in Air Force One, and he was Jack Ryan (and the only person who should ever play him) twice, so basically he was the President in the those movies too. Any other films I can't remember?