Fun Fact Thread! (previously fun fact for the day, not limited to 1 per day anymore.)

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

No.

[SunlitZelkova]

7 hours ago, JoeSchmuckatelli said:

"Someone" could have made the choice to just stay home.  But then, that "Someone" isn't a rational actor.

To be fair, I don’t think this started with any one war. It started the moment we (“we” as humans, both the USSR and US simultaneously initiated military space development in the 50s and 60s, and not as a “counter” to either of each other, on their own prerogative) began military activities in space.

It was all Buck Rogers and Star Wars until the Gulf War and Balkans showed off how potent GPS could be. That isn’t one country’s fault though, sooner or later that sort of thing would happen. It is just the natural progression of military technology.

If one utilizes a dinky early biplane for reconnaissance in WWI, someone is going to put guns on their own plane and shoot it down. That’s the way it worked, and it is naive on the part of each of the nations crying wolf to have expected something different in space.

If one wants peaceful space they need to get the military completely out of space, but Pandora’s box has been opened and short of a (probably nuclear) war literally destroying all of the military space assets and their ground control stations, it will never happen.

[DDE]

5 hours ago, SunlitZelkova said:

If one utilizes a dinky early biplane for reconnaissance in WWI, someone is going to put guns on their own plane and shoot it down.

Before guns were mounted on planes, this led to the popularity of the "broomhandle" Mauser due to its air-to-air performance.

[DDE]

Today is International Traffic Light Day

This has to be the most useless one in the world.

[tater]

The Moon is pretty cool.

 

[StrandedonEarth]

It’s International Beer Day! Of all days for this to happen….

Looks like an older trailer so maybe a rusty frame. And/or the back wheels were slid all the way to the back with a heavy load, making a longer span to carry the weight…

[SunlitZelkova]

It’s actually also National Underwear Day in the US too!

[tater]

1 hour ago, SunlitZelkova said:

It’s actually also National Underwear Day in the US too!

Lucky coincidence that I am wearing underwear.

 

[DDE]

More powerful than most machine learning algorithms, it seems.

[Silavite]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hot_chocolate_effect

[Nuke]

On 8/5/2022 at 4:27 PM, SunlitZelkova said:

It’s actually also National Underwear Day in the US too!

its sad that we have a day for it. 

[TheSaint]

On 5/27/2022 at 9:37 AM, JoeSchmuckatelli said:

Playing OPFOR is about the most fun you can have during military training exercises.  In the Marines we used to call this 'turning your blouse inside out'.  (The over-shirt worn by military troops is called a 'blouse' - not to be confused with 'blousing your boots' which is tucking trouser legs into an elastic band so they look tucked into the boots).

By turning the blouse around you give a visually different look to people wearing the same uniform.  (The camouflage dye is brightest on the outside of the garment).

Getting to play OPFOR - you no longer have to 'play by the rules' (aka your own doctrine) and get to do creative, even mean things to mess up the training unit's plan.  All 'uniformity' went out the window.  Do-Rags, Boonie Covers, bare heads - all of the thing that careerist officers and staff NCO's hate - they got to be worn while playing OPFOR.  The good thing for the training unit is that they're forced into having to deal with the unexpected.

This is notably different from the 'professional' OPFOR employed by the military (these 'turn the blouse around' situations are done in-unit whenever needed to enhance training).  On the professional side; we do employ people who use the uniforms and equipment and sometimes language of potential adversaries, as well as 'in-character non-combatants' to help soldiers and Marines train for real-world scenarios on a messy battlefield.

Can't believe I missed this one. OPFOR story inbound.  Since submarine operations are classified, the names and dates have been removed to protect the innocent. (Hat tip to Jack Webb.)

So this boat was doing deployment workup operations with its carrier battlegroup down in AUTEC. For this particular exercise, the boat was assigned the role of an opposing force submarine with the task of attacking the carrier battlegroup. However, while the exercise was ongoing, one of the destroyers in the battlegroup had a catastrophic failure in their engineroom, which brought the entire exercise to a halt while they were trying to deal with it. So the boat was just hanging around waiting along with everyone else.

And everyone is bored, including the sonarmen. So they decide to play a joke one one of the newbs. They dial the flit (the point on the hydrophone array that their headphones are actually listening to) to a random bearing, then call the new guy up to the sonar suite and tell him to listen closely, because there are whales farting. (Yes, seriously, this is something they did. Yes, seriously, this is something guys fell for.) So, New Guy falls for it, puts on the headphones and starts listening intently while the rest of the watch sonarmen are trying to keep straight faces. And FNG says, "Really? That's whale farts? Because it sounds like a big surface ship running at high speed." And suddenly, everyone is really interested in what New Guy is listening to. It turns out that they had, by complete random chance, dialed the flit onto the bearing of a completely different carrier that was transiting from exercises in the Caribbean back to Norfolk, many miles outside of the boat's operating area. Everyone in sonar had a good laugh. They told the Officer of the Deck, he had a good laugh. The captain happened to be walking through Control a couple of minutes later, and the OOD told him, expecting him to have a good laugh as well. The captain did not laugh. He said, "Well, the point of this exercise is that we are simulating a opposing force submarine. If we were an opposing force submarine, then there would be no such thing as sinking the wrong American aircraft carrier, now would there?" They went deep, they plotted an intercept course for the transiting carrier, and when they came within range they calculated a firing solution and uploaded it to the exercise controller. And they got credit for it in the exercise.

Later in the same exercise: The scenario is that the battlegroup is beseiged by two OPFOR submarines (their own two subs). However, they have a safe refuge. There is a zone of the exercise area that is designated as being surrounded by a simulated minefield that instantly sinks anything with a keel depth greater than 50 feet. Which would, in theory, prevent submerged submarines from entering that area. Which irritated this boat's captain to no end. So he devised a plan. He approached the protected area from the east, at sunrise. He broached the boat, driving it to the surface without blowing the ballast tanks, making its keel depth less than 50 feet. Then he drove the boat over the simulated minefield and then submerged it again as soon as it was over the simulated obstacle. He had the boat drive quietly through the protected area until they identified an oiler. He then shadowed the oiler, hiding in its noise. The oiler then engaged in underway replenishment training exercises with almost every ship in the battlegroup. Because the boat was hidden in the oiler's noise signature, and the surface ships' attention was diverted by the replenishment exercises, the boat was able to calculate firing solutions on almost every single ship in the battlegroup, including the carrier, completely undetected. They even came to periscope depth and took a picture of the carrier through the periscope, which was proudly displayed on the wall of the captain's cabin through the rest of his command.

On 8/5/2022 at 3:31 PM, tater said:

The Moon is pretty cool.

 

Should have posted that on National Doughnut Day.

Edited August 8, 2022 by TheSaint

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

11 hours ago, TheSaint said:

proudly displayed on the wall of the captain's cabin through the rest of his command

I don't blame him.  Sounds like a good guy.

 

Gotta love the folks who enjoy their work and are willing to get creative.  You reminded me of a time I got accused of 'cheating' while playing OPFOR.  One of the most fun days of my Platoon Commander Tour.

Edit: @TheSaint - after signing off last night, I was reminded of something else from my Platoon Commander tour.  Actually, two memories from two different floats, but the first was the most significant.

Pre-dawn, sailing somewhere in the Med far from anywhere.  I'm outside - although probably not supposed to be as it's barely BMNT.  Never quite knew what the Navy's rules for us were - other than get out of the way during alarms.  Anyway, it was one of those dark, moonless, almost starless nights (humidity, not clouds) and so very, very dark.  Dim light in the East is almost eerie - and somewhat comforting.  Gave the waves a certain black and silver edged look that's hard to explain, but you know it if you've seen it.  Utterly silent, except for the noise of the ship.  We're making barely any way, so the water sounds more like ripples than waves.  Boat is practically wallowing.  

All of  a sudden, there's a weird whooshing, kinda slow and ominous.  I start to see seafoam aft of amidships on the starboard side... maybe 500 to 700 meters away.  Huge conning tower of (I'm guessing) an attack sub comes up and that was pretty damn awesome.  She surfaced, hung around for a while and then without warning disappeared.

Surface Navy ships are cool - but aside from being in various ports, I've only seen patrolling subs twice in 20 years, so they stand out.  The other was in the Indian Ocean - and its appearance was again a total surprise.  Never quite knew why they surfaced - but the Navy got kinda crotchety with us both times.  I'm guessing it was something routine like 'mail'.

Edited August 8, 2022 by JoeSchmuckatelli

[kerbiloid]

Spoiler

 

 

Standing below a 2 kt air nuke at 3 km altitude.

P.S.
They should include a bald one to get a reflection.

[benzman]

5 hours ago, kerbiloid said:

  Hide contents

 

 

Standing below a 2 kt air nuke at 3 km altitude.

P.S.
They should include a bald one to get a reflection.

I have heard of people with a 'death wish'  but those guys have taken it to a whole new level.

[kerbiloid]

It would be stylish to stand there in a wide lead hat and to light a cigarette sticking it out.

It's a pity nobody cared.

***

More Nuka-positive.

Spoiler

 

 

Edited August 14, 2022 by kerbiloid

[Codraroll]

13 hours ago, benzman said:

I have heard of people with a 'death wish'  but those guys have taken it to a whole new level.

If I recall the story about that video correctly, all the five men were volunteers.

The camera man, however, was not. He was not happy to be there.

[kerbiloid]

Of moving things channel.

https://www.youtube.com/user/hardware199/videos

[kerbiloid]

Another nuka-positive

Spoiler

https://www.lanl.gov/discover/publications/national-security-science/2015-july/_assets/doc/NSS-jul2015-atomicphotographer.pdf

Quote

Operation Tumbler-Snapper, Nevada Test Site. Marines exhibit a decidedly lighthearted attitude toward nuclear weapons.

 

 

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

2 hours ago, kerbiloid said:

Marines exhibit a decidedly lighthearted attitude toward nuclear weapons

FTFY 

[Pthigrivi]

Apropos: 

https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2020/03/how-nuclear-testing-transformed-science/607174/

Edited August 17, 2022 by Pthigrivi

[Vanamonde]

This is your periodic reminder to avoid the subject of politics. Even 2 people from the same country seldom agree on that stuff and yet we have people from a lot more than 2 countries on this forum, so it never ends well. 

Some comments removed. 

[magnemoe]

On 8/4/2022 at 3:38 AM, SunlitZelkova said:

To be fair, I don’t think this started with any one war. It started the moment we (“we” as humans, both the USSR and US simultaneously initiated military space development in the 50s and 60s, and not as a “counter” to either of each other, on their own prerogative) began military activities in space.

It was all Buck Rogers and Star Wars until the Gulf War and Balkans showed off how potent GPS could be. That isn’t one country’s fault though, sooner or later that sort of thing would happen. It is just the natural progression of military technology.

If one utilizes a dinky early biplane for reconnaissance in WWI, someone is going to put guns on their own plane and shoot it down. That’s the way it worked, and it is naive on the part of each of the nations crying wolf to have expected something different in space.

If one wants peaceful space they need to get the military completely out of space, but Pandora’s box has been opened and short of a (probably nuclear) war literally destroying all of the military space assets and their ground control stations, it will never happen.

The US had spy satellite plans well before sputnik. They was not capable of launching them and they wanted civilian science satellites first in part because the US had an fear that countries would protest over satellites overflying them, it turned out not to be an problem. 
Then we got spy satellites, later they got more specialized like looking for IR signatures of launches and radio and radar and obvious communication who was a bit late because of bandwidth. 
But GPS was the game changer, have an feeling constellations also will be very important military, more so if you can shrink the ground terminal by reducing bandwidth and use more of the satellite surface. 

[Pthigrivi]

Id always heard that it was Kant, but it was actually Thomas Wright who correctly surmised that there were other galaxies and the milky way is a disc viewed edge-on. 

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Wright_(astronomer)

[DDE]

The Soviets didn't at all care about reusing names, and the lack of centralized naming systems only encouraged it.

Il-18, 1947

Il-18, 1957

Planform barely similar, and they went from reciprocating engines (that it has to compete over with Tu-4, which is why the first project went bust) to turboprops.

Edited August 21, 2022 by DDE