Bump And Run
During the Cold War the various militaries played a dangerous game of near misses whenever their forces were in close proximity. Aircraft and naval vessels would make close passes to each other, occasionally with fatal results when someone zigged when they should have zagged.
Reading various news reports and Dr. Cole’s post, Iran IRGC Ships confront US Navy, that’s what occurred to me and to Jo Fish, a Cold Warrior in the Navy.
While there is certainly an element of garden variety stupidity in the game, it can also produce useful intelligence about the defense capabilities of the other force, as well as the skill of the potential opponent.
Danger Room has a post up on How Iran Attacks at Sea, which is quite different than the response one would expect from a navy.
A number of people starting talking about the “Gulf of Tonkin”, the pathetic and perhaps mythological event that was used to justify increased US involvement in Southeast Asia. but fortunately leveler heads have prevailed. I would hope that our forces have learned something from the first Gulf War and added capabilities to our vessels, because, while we have an overwhelming technological advantage, the Iranians tend to use more ballistic than guided weapons, and depend on numbers rather than individual sophistication. It is possible they could overwhelm our defenses with shear numbers of “antique” weapons that can’t be jammed.
43 comments
There’s just no reason to have a war with Iran.
Sure there’s a reason. They have oil. We want oil. Duh.
LOL as Badtux said. It’s a reason. Just not a sane or rational reason. But that pretty much describes most politically motivated reasons these days (especially as it’s so hard to differentiate between *political* and *financial* reasons for the decisions being made). They lie. What’s new? 🙂
I suspect you are correct about the ‘Bump & Run’. 🙂 I remember that game too! 😀 I simply don’t have enough accurate data on the incident to say for sure yet. And now that I’m on the outside, I may never have (though I still have friends inside!) 😉
Don’t get me started on “Gulf of Tonkin”!! Grrrrrr…
Iran is reported to have a more than a few non-antique weapons. The most formidable is the Russian-made Sunburn anti-ship cruise missile. Google Iran and Sunburn. Basically, the Soviets decided they couldn’t match the US ship for ship, so they developed these anti-ship weapons. Very fast, they make the Exocet (used by Argentina against the Brits) look like a Model T.
Oil is the only reason we care about anything in that region and the solution is to kick the habit.
As I remember, Kryten, your guys played the “game” in the South China Sea, and the Pacific joint maneuvers with the Soviet shadow vessels – the thrill of swapping paint at 25 knots. The Chinese weren’t very good players, not a lot of talent on their side. They would have been relegated if there were a proper league structure in place.
Yes, Sorghum Crow, they do have sophisticated weapons and we have excellent defenses against them, but the USS Princeton was severely damaged in Gulf War I by World War I era naval mines. If the Iranians dump hundreds of contact mines into the Persian Gulf, we lack the equipment to efficiently clean them up, and RPGs fired in clusters from Zodiacs are going to be hard to defend against with multi-million dollar defensive systems, not to mention expensive.
Ha! Yes Bryan… You bring back fond memories! 😀
We did indeed play the game there. China were not much fun at all. Poor losers (as were the American’s BTW! American’s don’t like being beaten in war games!) LOL The Russians understood and had a sense of humor too. I attended some briefings after events with Russian liaisons present. I don’t remember any animosity or tenseness. It kept both our forces on their toes, not just within the fleet, on the ships or aircraft, but back in Canberra in intel and op’s. 🙂 I think they were considered a kind of unofficial *war games* 🙂 Of course, that was all privately I mean. Publicly was a different matter. Aus. submarines were involved in several spy missions on behalf of the USA against Chinese and Russian (and Indian) forces during (and after) the cold war from about 1978. It all came to light in ’92 when Sailors who had been screwed out of their benefits and bonuses demand that their missions officially be designated as “warlike operations” (and rightly so! They were dangerous). There were even missions to Libya.
Australia is the Intel gathering hub for the USA in the southern hemisphere. We used to joke that we knew what was happing 12 minutes before the US did (the time it took to convert and retransmit the data to the USA). The Russians had vans from the Russian Embassy that we knew were full of sophisticated electronic equipment. And they knew we knew… etc. 🙂 We always knew there was something going on when we’d see these van’s leave the Embassy and prowl around. That was our signal to find out what was happening. Of course, all our buildings were shielded, and the really important ones were hardened, no windows even. And the major systems were all underground anyway. But, leaks happen. We played the same game with the Russians and others. When the Chinese had the new Embassy built, they were pissed to find just about every room had been bugged by just about everyone! LOL
Yes, it was all very serious. But it was also fun. We all had *understandings* with each other, and certain liberties were allowed. To a point. After that, it became very unfunny fast. We used to have respect between the nations intel services. I think that’s a thing of the past now. And I think that’s a very bad thing!
Maybe I’ll write a book one day. Several friends have suggested it. 😉 I probably wouldn’t live to see it published, but I’d take a lot of old bastards with me! LOL
BTW, you are correct about the weapons systems. Before I went’ intel, I was op’s. And we were well trained. We learned the dangers of antiquated weapons, especially in the hands of ingenious and desperate people. Even during boot training, we were constantly warned NEVER to underestimate someone, even a kid, with a knife! Against an unarmed man, a knife wielder has all the advantage, skilled or not. I saw a statistic that surprised me; you are more likely to die in a knife attack than a shooting!
And yes, technology is a wonderful thing. But it doesn’t beat ingenuity and desperation.
We all banged into each other in Frankfurt am Main, as everyone had an official delegation there and there was a level of coordination that took place to prevent misunderstandings. Things were really tense during the 1972 Munich Olympics, with everyone making sure that it was a rogue Palestinian group and not one of the “sponsored groups” involved. There was a cash bounty on reporting the location of Soviet vehicles.
I’ll never forget the job announcement for German & Russian linguists with off road or stock car racing experience. That sparked some comment, but no takers around the water cooler.
In those days everyone understood that it was impossible to understand people if you hated them, and our job was to understand them so we could predict what they would do in a given situation. That drove the guys in combat positions nuts, but then their job was to kill people, not understand them.
Actually the Swedes were the craziest group I encountered during “bump & run”. They would tuck in to confuse the radar ops, and then break away in all directions, causing a “lot of concern” on the ground. We were often tempted to call the “enemy” controllers to explain what was about to happen, to avoid any unpleasantness.
No one would believe what was really going on, Kryten, they would rather read the Tom Clancy or Ian Fleming version, but the John le Carre version is a bit bit depressing, and reality was a bit boring.
A Hmong tribesman with a crossbow can kill you just as effectively as a Predator UAV with a Hellfire missile. The old Afghan flintlocks can throw lead very accurately for a very long distance. A bottle of gasoline with a cotton wick can ruin your day. Pits filled with sharpened bamboo stakes can be just as effective as an anti-personnel mine.
I think the US has become too high tech. You would have thought that the lesson of 19 guys with box cutters would have sparked some respect for low-tech solutions, but not at all. Rumsfeld followed his dream of a networked “cyber military” and reality be damned.
sprechen sie nascar?
i have a bit of a soft spot for george smiley actually, but i like graham greene’s writing better. my idol, though, has always been harriet the spy.
my robot can beat up your robot! srsly d00d, box cutterz are so last millenium.
Given the reliability rate of equipment in the fine dust environment of Iraq, the fewer mechanisms the better. It’s a bit weird that we can build robots that can operate on Mars well in excess of the design specifications, but anything we ship to Iraq breaks down in a month. We obviously have the wrong people working on the problems.
The Martians shot down a few of our earlier probes, but we came back and taught those croppies to lie down.
Oooh! Now you went and pushed another button of mine Brian! LOL
A little explanation in order first. Mt grandfather had been a *marksman* in WW1, and an armorer in WW2. He taught me to shoot at an early age, and how to take care of myself etc. He also taught me about weapons generally and engineering. I decided to study Industrial Design (Electronics Engineering) at Uni. Did well and got a great job and learned project management and other business type skills. Then something happened, and I decided to join the military. They decided that with my skills, I’d be wasted as the normal cannon fodder and I did several other courses over a year or so, and became highly trained cannon fodder. 😉 MY boss was a great mentor and we became friends. 🙂 When I started, I used to agree with him all the time! Well… I was young, inexperienced and… He was my Boss!! LOL Then one day, after I had just agreed with him on something, he went silent and just looked at me. Eventually he said “You know… If two people always agree, one of them is unnecessary!”
My Grandfather also taught me that if there is an easy way and a hard way to do something, Americans will almost always choose the hard way. One example I enjoy is the Space program. The USA spent over $10million developing a pen that would work in space. The Russians spent $1. They used a grease pencil. I suspect the root problem is seemingly an inability to properly define the problem. I saw that a lot when working with my opposite numbers in the US services. I was even accused once of stating a problem as I saw it too simply! And I do mean *accused*! That was a BAD thing! Everyone KNOWS that problems are complicated! Therefore, they require a complex solution. If you try to make things simple, you obviously DON’T understand the problem! etc, etc… Fools.
I didn’t mention to them that during my time as a Project manager, I had a brilliant team working for me, and we won several industry awards for excellence. Because I made everyone on my team understand the KISS principle. “Keep It Simple Stupid!”
Cheers.
BTW, I just wanted to make sure everyone understands that I am not just bashing Americans. America certainly has done some wonderful and amazing things! And has built some very impressive technology. And other countries, including Aus are far from perfect!
I think one of the modern pieces of military hardware the US built that REALLY impresses me, is the FB-111 Aardvark. After “my service to my country” etc., I joined GD (General Dynamics) here, and was sent to the USA with a couple other Engineers to learn all about the care and feeding of FB-111’s (oops! I should use the official Aus designation of F-111’s. Aus doesn’t have Bombers officially… certainly no Nuclear Bombers! Shhhhhh…) The FB-111 is a beautiful piece of engineering! Designed to do a specific job, and it does it very well. 🙂
A question I ask people now and then (and one I have not heard anyone accurately answer, apart from my boss at GD who was an FB-111 Pilot before joining GD) is, why does Australia (the ONLY nation outside the USA) have FB-111’s? 🙂 And BTW, don’t let anyone kid you that the variant we have ISN’T the Fighter-Bomber! You only have to check the wingspan, cockpit and a few other things to know it is indeed the FB, not the F (which in any case was developed after we got them). 🙂
OK. Class dismissed! LOL
Just to inform you, Kryten, the American government did not spend a dime developing the “space pen”. It was designed in 1965 as a private venture by the Fisher Pen Company after Paul Fisher read news accounts of electrical equipment in early space craft being shorted out by the graphite dust from pencils (there, of course, being no gravity to make said dust fall to the floor like there is on the planet). The U.S. used pencils in space just like the Soviets until 1967, when NASA finally decided that the possibility of graphite killing their equipment was important enough to spend a few dollars buying pens.
The Soviets moved to using the Fisher Space Pen in 1969, because it was better than the grease pencils (overglorified crayons) that *they* had moved to in order to get around the graphite problem, and the Soviet (then Russian) space program has used it ever since. So both space programs use the space pen, and your urban legend of its origin is just that — an urban legend.
BTW, Kryten, the reason the Aussies had FB-111’s is because Australia has this strange habit of helping subsidize pork barrel fighters for the United States. Australia is going to get a bunch of F35’s too, pork barrel if there ever was pork barrel considering that there is no (zero) need for a replacement for the F-16 and F/A 18, no more than there is a need for a replacement for the Soyuz.
That said, Australian specifications are why the F-111 was so large and had such a long range. The internal bomb bay for a nuclear bomb was a nice touch too, but that was a U.S. Navy specification — the original plan was to station F-111’s on a new generation of gigantic super-carriers that could carry out nuclear strikes against the Soviet Union. That one was cancelled when it was (finally) recognized that American carriers operating against the Soviet heartland would be rubbish at the bottom of the sea shortly thereafter because Soviet diesel-electric submarines were too quiet and deadly to effectively counter in that situation, which is why F-111’s didn’t have much service in U.S. livery (the life of Australia’s F-111’s was extended for years by taking advantage of scrapped U.S. F-111’s for airframe parts). Australia has had much less input into the F-35 pork barrel design, probably good for the U.S. (Australian input didn’t make the F-111 suitable for any U.S. missions, which is why it had a short life in the USAF), but it appears that Australia isn’t going to be able to get anything with the F-111’s payload and range to replace the F-111. Bummer, I guess.
Play nice about the 111, it kept a relative employed writing the code for the terrain-following radar. Like the B-1, and several other projects, the F-111 really didn’t have a US mission. The F-35 is another aircraft without a purpose built by a multi-national committee, just build more Harriers with more efficient engines – supersonic flight is way oversold.
We keep building “Swiss Army knife” aircraft, when it is much cheaper and more efficient to build single purpose aircraft. Spending four times as much on an individual aircraft that does two jobs moderately well doesn’t make much sense when you could build two different aircraft that do their individual jobs extremely well. Spread the jobs and the expertise around, so that it will be there when you really need it.
Ramping up to produce huge quantities of a single aircraft type in a short period of time is coming back to bite the US with the F-15. They are going to be forced to ground huge numbers of the aircraft and there’s nothing available to replace them. That’s no way to operate “fleet management” for any type of vehicle.
Despite the fact that my Dad work on and tested guided weapons from their beginning, and I spent most of my time watching the Soviet Strategic Rocket Forces doing the same thing, there is a place for simple to build and maintain weapons. Trying to keep electronics working flying out of bases in the interior of Alaska and then the tropics of Southeast Asia made me appreciate the value of simple.
The F-16 is cheap, will do every mission the USAF needs a fighter to do, and is reliable. Yes, it’s a “swiss army knife” of sorts. So?
The original plan was to replace all the F-15’s with F-22’s, then replace all the F-16’s with F-35’s. Only problem with that plan is that they are only making 20 F-22’s per year. Hmm, we have 800 F-15’s in inventory (or had, I should say), that means it’ll take only 40 years to make enough F-22’s to replace them :-).
The F-22 is currently quoted at $160M a unit. That is obscene.
We can’t simply buy things that work, we must have things that bankrupt us.
I admit I’m prejudiced towards avionics and weapons systems, and believe that the right mix will make any airframe that can carry them to the target a winner.
It’s true the Fisher-Price did indeed eventually develop the pen with their own money, but not before NASA invested heavily trying to find a solution themselves. I have a friend who was at GD but worked for JPL and was contracted to NASA for awhile. The Russians were pragmatic. They didn’t have to spend much on R&D, which is where all the real costs are. They could just buy them when Fisher had it finished.
The original mission of the FB-111A “Switchblade” was as a low-altitude penetrator and was planned to replace the B-58. The design was optimized for good high and low altitude performance and it had a much improved survivability. It also had an increased payload of up to 24 weapons. One of it’s greatest limitations, was it’s avionics package. There was no room for expansion, and any upgrades had to be module-for-module, which was expensive since they had to be custom designed and built. It was planned that the F-111’s would be upgraded to use the planned AGM-130’s, but because of delays and cost overruns and other issues, the RAAF decided to go with the Israeli Rafael AGM-142 SOW instead.
When Australia decided to buy the F-111’s, they could carry 2 internal and 4 external nuclear/conventional SRAM/gravity bombs. The deal was that sometime in the 80’s, the FB-111 would have mods to increase it’s range and payload. Basically, lengthening it and new engines. The new engine, F-101 was designed, and when I began at GD here, the LRCA (Long Range Combat Aircraft) studies were suposed to begin. The plan was to allow an avionics upgrade (which is what my team were working on, as well as the Pave Tack LGM pod), increase payload to 15 nuclear weapons, and increase range by about 1,500 nm. It was abandoned when the USAF decided to extend the B-1 instead.
Our original plan was to extend the life of the F-111’s from 2008 to 2020 (Block C-4 MIL-STD-1760). The current plan is to retire the F-111’s after 2010, and extend the life of our fleet of F/A-18’s. However it was shown that this would only extend their usability to about 2016 and would be very expensive, more than 3 times the cost of extending the F-111’s to 2020! The previous Gov then decided to go for the F-35 Lightning II (JSF) with little review. Independent and internal RAAF comparisons show that to replace the combat effectiveness of a single F-111 would require at least 2 JSF,’s or a single F-22A Raptor. The studies also show that the cost of 2 F-22A would be less than the cost of 2 F-111’s and far less than the cost of 4 JSF’s (even 4 F-22A’s is less than 4 JSF’s at current cost projections.) The F-22A or JSF would also require the RAAF purchasing at least 2 Airbus A330 MRTT tanker/transports (KC-30 in the USA) to support them. A decision was made to buy 5 A330 MRTT’s designated as KC-30B Multi-Role Tanker Transports. It would be foolish for Australia to buy the JSF (designated Pacrim JSF). For a combat radius of 800nm, it will only be able to cary a payload of about 2,500lbs! By comparison, the F-111 can carry 16,000 lbs at a radius of 800nm and can have a combat radius of up to 1,300nm with reduced payload.
Experts here say that choosing the JSF over the F-22 is a huge mistake. I have heard statements from the Howard Gov that sounded like they were written by Cheney (and may well have been!) Such as: ‘Air combat in the 21st century is all about systems and networks of systems.” Oh? Really? And what about combat capability? “…the old rules of thumb about what gives you a winning edge are obsolete.” I don’t know any pilots that would agree with that! A pilot wants to be able to engage, disengage and re-engage at will throughout the space/time continuum of air combat, while staying outside an opponent’s kill envelope. And with the emergence of supercruising derivatives of the high agility Su-30 family of aircraft wich Russia plans to sell in this region, it will require something like the air combat kill ratio of the supercruising, high agility F-22A which the JSF is no match for. Air Marshal Angus Houston, chief of the Australian Defence Force, and former head of the Royal Australian Air Force, said in 2004 that the “F-22 will be the most outstanding fighter plane ever built.” Unfortunately, the US Gov has decided to ban all exports of the F-22, even to it’s strategic ally in the Southern hemisphere. It’s believed this was done to force the purchase of the JSF. Israel and Japan are also reportedly interested in the F-22’s.
One thing that amazed me was why the USAF prematurely mothballed its Electronic Attack force of 40 Grumman/GD EF-111A Ravens in 1999! Now they are reconstituting the lost (and very effective) capability by using old B-52H aircraft!
Australia has shown how versatile the F-111’s can be. We use them in multiple roles effectively. Including: Strike, Reconnaissance, Electronic Combat, Radar Ground Target Surveillance and Targeting. We also currently use them as a testbed vehicle for carrying a long range radar system in high threat environments.
As far as the production rate of the F-22’s goes, the USAF originally planned to buy 750 in 1994, and that kept changing down to 183 by 2007, with 100 currently delivered. I have heard from an industry friend that Lockheed Martin can increase production of the F-22. They plan with BAE to sell a lot of JSF’s which they believe will make them bigger profits. Given certain high-level politicians involvements in LM and BAE, it’s hardly surprising.
To get back on-topic for a moment… 😉
Have you seen this latest?
So… Who’s surprised? 😉
Hmmm. Seems I messed up the links somehow. 😐 Try again:
Official Version of Naval Incident Starts to Unravel
More info at Think Progress
That’s better! Sorry about that… *sigh*
If it works, keep it working. New for the sake of new, doesn’t make sense. I sense that most of what is happening is acquisition is the result of negotiations among multi-national corporations than governments, and I know for a fact that the military doesn’t get a hell of a lot of input, beyond general officers who are looking for job opportunities after retirement.
We shut down the R/EF-111s, just like we shut down the R/EF-105s before, just when all of the kinks were worked an they were in the high 90s on reliability. It’s a good thing we still have airworthy B-52s or we would be in a mess as the B-1s and B-2s just can’t take up the slack.
Networking is a great concept and it works really well for a lot of things, but getting fighter jocks to go along with the concept is another thing all together. You can network them but the temperament required to fight a modern attack aircraft doesn’t really lend itself to an abundance of coordination.
The quickest way to get F-22s is to start talking about buying SU-30s. You, Badtux, and I are all coming at this from different directions, but all agree that the F-35/JSF is a solution looking for a problem. The RAAF has different requirements than the RAF, the USAF, the JDF, and everyone else. Thinking that one aircraft is going to solve everyone’s problems is absurd on its face. I know that China, India, Malaysia, Indonesia, and Vietnam have SU-30s on order or in place, so your people have to plan for them.
As for the Iranian deal, I was posting on it when you were commenting. More Agitprop gone wrong. A little competence would really be nice right about now.
Tee hee! Yeah, the Su-30 actually is closer to the F-111 in capability than the F-35 is. It’s a big, robust, long-ranged fighter with the ability to put a lot of ordinance onto any problem large or small. As for the F-22, the main reason it’s so expensive is because they’re only making twenty per year. If they ramped up production, it’d be no more expensive than the F-15. (Not that the F-15 was cheap by any means, at around $65M/copy in today’s dollars). The more you make, the more the economies of scale bring the cost down. Hand-building 20 fighters per year is just plain nuts :-(. As is refusing to allow export to select allies such as Australia, which could help bring down the per-copy price. Nuts.
As for the notion that the Navy will willingly use a single-engine fighter (the F-35) on their aircraft carriers…. hah! When it came time to replace the A-7, they deliberately rejected the single-engined F-16 design and went to a twin engine aircraft (the F/A 18) because when you have a plank in the middle of a big shark-infested puddle as your airport, punching out due to a single engine failure suddenly becomes a riskier business. You want to at least be able to limp along until you get close enough to your carrier that someone will pick you up before you become shark bait. I suspect the USN will be using the Bug and Super Bug for many, many more years, the Super Bug in particular is a big ugly fat fighter that serves just fine for lofting large amounts of ordinance into the air and hauling it a long distance.
Great minds, etc… 😉
You are correct about the different requirements we all have. 🙂 And our (RAAF) requirements are that we need a decent multi-role, all-weather air-superiority aircraft, which is what the F-22 is. It’s interesting that you mention the F-105. 🙂 My friends in the business and I have been discussing the JSF, and we came to the conclusion that it was really a replacement for the F-105, which was a great aircraft for it’s role. 🙂 If you look at the size and other specifications, they are very similar (Just that the JSF has a better stealth capability). However, my friends still in the industry worry that it’s still too heavy for a single-engined aircraft. It’s Thrust-to-weight ratio was terrible and LM were fored to cut about 8% of it’s weight just so it could meet initial performance benchmarks. Some of the ways this was done was to use a thinner skin, shrinking the weapons bay, and the size of the tails. At something like 60,000lbs, it’s still quite heavy for a single engine. Friends in the RAAF and others say that the JSF is well suited to its primary design roles of battlefield strike and close air support of ground troops, but it is not designed to perform air superiority roles, unlike the larger F-22A. The JSF is also not much good at performing the long range strike role now filled by the F-111, which is what our new aircraft is suposed to be replacing. Experts here say that what we should be doing is extending the F-111 life to 2020, and replacing the increasingly more expensive (and problematic) F/A-18’s with F-22’s.
Here is an analysis from an insider expert on the JSF (I have a copy of the report):
“The Joint Strike Fighter best compares in its roles and missions, sizing and relative capabilities to the Republic F-105D Thunderchief, the workhorse of the US bombing effort during the Vietnam conflict. What is remarkable is the extent to which a similar roles/missions requirement, defined almost four decades later, produced a combat aircraft of nearly identical size and weight. Like the F-105, the JSF is not designed to be a top end air superiority fighter, but is designed with a robust self defence capability.
The formal naming of the F-35 saw it designated the ‘Lightning II’ which is curious insofar as the twin engine P-38 was developed primarily as a long range interceptor and escort, and by relative performance, and breadth of roles and application a much closer fit to the F-22 Raptor of today. The World War II US types which best fit the JSF in role were the P-39 and P-40 (US Air Force).
The Joint Strike Fighter design has numerous optimizations aimed at cost reduction and best performance in it’s core Battlefield interdiction role.
* Aft sector VLO band limited by nozzle design,
* Engine thrust growth massflow limited by inlets,
* Radar power limited by cooling capacity,
* Radar aperture limited by nose geometry,
* Inlet VLO geometry only optimised for X-band
* Wing planform optimised for subsonic cruise and transonic maneuvre.
Operational Consequences:
1. Uncompetitive in Air Combat roles.
2. Uncompetitive in Deep Strike roles.
These design limitations cannot be changed by upgrades.”
The limited radar capability is a particularly serious problem. The Su-30MK Flankers now being sold in our region have a new 20KW radar system that would spot a JSF (even with it’s enhanced, but limited, stealth capabilities) long before the JSF can see it! The dog-fighting era (ala Top Gun) is pretty much over now.
And yes, a little competence, and some honesty, would be good about now. 🙂
Cheers. 🙂
Hi Badtux,
We posted at the same time. LOL
Yep! You hit that nail square on! I couldn’t agree more. 🙂
Hi Brian (And all!) 😀
Since we were discussing the effectiveness of old weapons, I thought you might find this interesting (or perhaps you already know about it).
It’s the father of Anti-aircraft missile systems developed by Germany in the final years of WW2. It makes for interesting reading. 🙂
EMW C2 Wasserfall W-1/W-5/W-10
The proposed control & guidance system is impressive given the time! Those German Scientists were really quite amazing. Good thing the USA managed to kidnap… I mean, rescue, some of them. 😉
Cheers! 😀
It is quite similar to a number of systems my Dad worked on, occasionally using our boat on the bayou to test guidance components. There weren’t many people around to wonder why a 14-foot outboard was cruising around the bayou with no one in it. Some of the cold weather testing involved our freezer – you went for a popsicle and found a black box. Interesting times.
now that’s an rc hobby worth pursuing! did it catch fish too?
Without pollution you didn’t need a boat to catch fish. You could catch mullet with a casting net without getting your knees wet, and use the heads and entrails to catch blue claw crabs. Oysters were pulled off the pilings with a garden rake, and if a shrimper came back from the Gulf, you could swap some of your catch for some of his.
You cooked it on an open fire pit by the beach, throwing the shrimp and crabs in to the cauldron and grilling the mullet. The oysters were eaten raw, preserved in a bucket of bayou water until they were wanted.
There were dolphins and barracuda and sharks coming through, but they were a source of entertainment, not a threat.
It was a great place to grow up than has been changed for the worse by development.
These days, running that boat around the bayou would result in lawsuits, not people swearing off moonshine.
[sigh… ] sounds lovely. almost as idyllic as key west. 😈
there are days when i hope the inventor of a/c is roasting in hell.
Speaking of RC models, fishing etc… This is a friend’s father’s hobby! He designs & builds authentic replica scale model PT boats! The 40mm Boffors cannon is a working model (his daughter is a jeweler and made the tiny brass shells!) The torpedo’s work also. He’s was working on the rocket launchers last time I saw him. 🙂
http://www.pt-boat.com/
It’s amazing to see the thing in the water! Check out the weapons photo links near the bottom of the page. 🙂
Cheers!
Well, the world was cooler back then, Hipparchia. The early work on air conditioning was conducted down in Apalachicola by a doctor in the 1850s, so it’s an old idea that is tied to the Florida Panhandle. The inventor died in poverty, as is usually the case with truly creative people.
I wouldn’t advertise that, Kryten, the Baghdad agitprop people will have him making models to film Iranian attacks.
It is so sad that so many creative and talented people have been ignored because few people saw their value. History is littered with examples. Your father sounds like an interesting man. 🙂 And your description of the pre-pollution bayou had me drooling and fondly remembering my time on King Island. MMmmm. Good times! 🙂
One of the things I regret not doing when I was in the USA was visiting New Orleans and other places like that. We had a very hectic schedule, but I wish I’d made the time now. At least I resisted the tourist fascination with DisneyWorld etc (and I was in SF for awhile). 😉 Though I did go see the EPCOT Center in Florida when I was there not very long after it opened.
😆
In the computer world you want to be second or third with an idea to make any money, because it is rare that anything comes to market fully realized, and the later people get an opportunity to fix the most annoying problems while the original creator is still reeling from the initial success.
If you can get the capital you can control the market. Most of the truly creative people couldn’t get the capital because their idea was too innovative, so they burned all of their own resources getting to market, and couldn’t arrange the additional capital needed to expand at the critical moment.
My Dad was in on the ground floor of guided weapons and stayed around for the ICBMs before he retired.
There are pictures that seem to indicate that I was in Australia at least once for an indeterminate amount of time, but I don’t remember anything clearly which I blame on the RAAF crew that was involved. I believe it started in a bar on a Pacific island during a stand down for aircraft maintenance, but things get a bit fuzzy after that point.
My Dad was in on the ground floor of guided weapons and stayed around for the ICBMs before he retired.
I bet you had an interesting childhood! 🙂 I hope you have great memories.
There are pictures that seem to indicate that I was in Australia at least once for an indeterminate amount of time, but I don’t remember anything clearly which I blame on the RAAF crew that was involved. I believe it started in a bar on a Pacific island during a stand down for aircraft maintenance, but things get a bit fuzzy after that point.
Hahahahahaha… Ohhh! I understand that all too well! LOL I saw pic’s of myself and a couple SAS errmmm… *consultants* who were with me, with assorted bruises and contusions in some bar somewhere in Texas with wreckage and bodies lying all around us! I could honestly state at the *debriefing* that I had only vague recollections of the events. I did find out later what happened, but I won’t bore you with details, but it had something to do with a local yokel making fun of out accents and where we were from etc. And the fight apparently broke out when he tried to hit me after I told him we had a Homestead here (Ranch) that was bigger than the village of Texas (Smorgon Homestead in fact). We honestly did not start it! We sure did finish it! LOL. Trying to start a fight with someone with 2 SAS *consultants* is suicidal at best. Suffice to say I am blacklisted in Texas. No loss I’m sure. 😀
Let me just say that I agree with Union General [US Civil War era} who said “If I owned Texas and hell, I would rent out Texas and live in hell.”
I was stationed in two different places in Texas during military training, and spent a year in high school when my Dad was stationed there. There were some nice people, but they weren’t easy to find.
The reasonable people seem to be from East Texas where they have vegetation and hills.
Steve Bates may be along to tell me I’m full of it, but he should try living in Burkburnett or San Angelo, instead of Houston.
[you weren’t looking hard enough]
You don’t hang around when you are being stoned [quite literally, in San Angelo].
This has been an interesting and educational thread.
(Nothing of substance for me to add here… just sayin’.) 🙂
It didn’t actually happen because liberals don’t know anything about the military, war and such. 😈
ouch. i guess not. well, you were just down the road from where they blow up frogs for fun. must be something in the water. 😈
They really didn’t like the Air Force.