ShadySands Posted January 1, 2016 Share Posted January 1, 2016 (edited) On the bright side that's probably only one stool sample in those 3 weeks Edited January 2, 2016 by ShadySands 2 Free games updated 3/4/21 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Agiel Posted January 2, 2016 Author Share Posted January 2, 2016 (edited) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ON-6vyQugw4&feature=youtu.be The handshake at the end was a nice cap-off. Edited January 2, 2016 by Agiel 3 Quote “Political philosophers have often pointed out that in wartime, the citizen, the male citizen at least, loses one of his most basic rights, his right to life; and this has been true ever since the French Revolution and the invention of conscription, now an almost universally accepted principle. But these same philosophers have rarely noted that the citizen in question simultaneously loses another right, one just as basic and perhaps even more vital for his conception of himself as a civilized human being: the right not to kill.” -Jonathan Littell <<Les Bienveillantes>> Quote "The chancellor, the late chancellor, was only partly correct. He was obsolete. But so is the State, the entity he worshipped. Any state, entity, or ideology becomes obsolete when it stockpiles the wrong weapons: when it captures territories, but not minds; when it enslaves millions, but convinces nobody. When it is naked, yet puts on armor and calls it faith, while in the Eyes of God it has no faith at all. Any state, any entity, any ideology that fails to recognize the worth, the dignity, the rights of Man...that state is obsolete." -Rod Serling Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Qistina Posted January 2, 2016 Share Posted January 2, 2016 This is just a demonstration...look how ninja they are... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qMXMhmaLkQo Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Agiel Posted January 9, 2016 Author Share Posted January 9, 2016 (edited) The pre-eminent Alex Wellerstein's take on North Korea's latest test, and on splitting hairs on what qualifies as an "H-Bomb": A Hydrogen Bomb by Any Other Name At ten in the morning on Tuesday, Pyongyang time, a mountain in northeastern North Korea shuddered. Seismographs in nearby countries picked up the telltale signs of moving earth. These signals, and their source, suggested to many observers that the tremor was a non-natural event. Not long afterward, the North Korean government announced that it had not only tested a nuclear weapon, as was already suspected, but that it was the country’s first “H-bomb test,” and that it had been “successfully conducted.” The skepticism from Western experts came swiftly. The power of the explosion seemed on par with the largest of North Korea’s previous tests—the equivalent of around ten kilotons of TNT. But hydrogen bombs are typically measured in the hundreds or thousands of kilotons. Was this a bluff, an exaggeration, or something else? This isn’t the first time that experts have sparred over what is, and what isn’t, an H-bomb. In a long, dull official speech about the budget of the Soviet Union, given in early August of 1953, Premier Georgy Malenkov announced to the world that the “the U.S. has no monopoly in the production of the hydrogen bomb.” His claim was greeted with a flurry of coverage in American newspapers, and with some incredulity among American politicians and nuclear experts. Edwin Johnson, a senator from Colorado, called it “manufactured propaganda.” He added: “I would take it with a grain of salt.” But then, three days later, the Soviets set off something big. Pravda, the official Communist Party newspaper, crowed that a “mighty thermonuclear reaction” had taken place. Perhaps the Soviets had the H-bomb after all. U.S. Air Force planes had been sniffing around the borders of the U.S.S.R. since late 1948, looking for the residues of nuclear detonations. The dust that is left behind after an explosion can reveal a good deal about how a bomb works, with different radioactive isotopes signalling different processes. For instance, it is possible to discern whether a nuclear reaction consisted of fission (the splitting of heavy atoms) or also of fusion (the merging of light atoms), whether the fissile material was uranium or plutonium, and even, if both sorts of reaction took place, whether they began physically near or apart from each other. The radioactive remains of the Soviet test, which the C.I.A. had dubbed Joe 4, were duly picked up and sent to various secret laboratories. The raw data was then passed on to a panel of A-list nuclear physicists, headed by the future Nobel Prize winner Hans Bethe, which was tasked with interpreting it. In their classified report, which was finished that September, Bethe’s scientists took issue with the characterization of the Soviet weapon as a hydrogen bomb. The device had, in truth, produced “a substantial thermonuclear reaction,” and its explosive power—equal to four hundred thousand tons of TNT—was “certainly enough to cause concern.” But it wasn’t an H-bomb, at least as the panel construed the term. What was it, then? To answer that question requires going back a little further, to the American weapons program of the nineteen-forties. The initial idea for the H-bomb was vague. Before the attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki had taken place, before the United States had even built a working atomic weapon, Enrico Fermi suggested to Edward Teller, his colleague at the government’s laboratory in Los Alamos, New Mexico, that it might be possible to use a fission reaction to jump-start fusion. That idea—elements from one end of the periodic table (plutonium and uranium) manipulating an element at the other end (hydrogen)—remained a constant feature of the weapon. But Teller and his colleagues had trouble making it work in practice. Between the end of the Second World War and 1951, they developed four candidates for what might be called a hydrogen bomb. Only one, in the end, became the definitive design. The first concept was known as the Super, eventually differentiated as the Non-Equilibrium or Classical Super. The idea was to take a very large fission bomb and attach a tube of hydrogen isotopes (deuterium and tritium) to it. The heat of the initial explosion would start a reaction at one end of the tube that would continue down its length. If the design could be made to work, the power of the weapon would depend only on how long the tube was—theoretically limitless, although dropping such a thing from an airplane might prove cumbersome. The problem, though, was that the fusion reaction lost energy too quickly and stopped. As a result, the Classical Super was shelved, in 1950. The second concept was given the code name Alarm Clock. It was a weapon with many spherical layers, one inside the other, like an onion. One layer might consist of fissile material, such as enriched uranium, and the next might be fusion fuel, usually in the form of lithium deuteride. The next layer was more enriched uranium, and so on. The contraption was surrounded by high explosives, which, when detonated, would squeeze the entire assembly, suddenly increasing its density. This would start a fission reaction in the various uranium layers, and they might further squeeze the lithium layers, causing some nuclear fusion to take place. The design resulted in a weapon whose power could be measured in the hundreds of kilotons, although most of that energy would be from fission reactions. It was effective, up to a point, but it made for a heavy bomb. The third weapon was called the Booster. It was a standard plutonium bomb with a hollow middle. At just the right moment, a mixture of deuterium and tritium gas would be injected into the collapsing core. This would create a very small number of fusion reactions, and the neutrons from these reactions would hit the plutonium. In essence, the Booster used fusion to increase the efficiency of the fission reaction. The idea worked, and remains a component of modern American nuclear weapons, but it couldn’t achieve high yields by itself. The fourth and final candidate was the Equilibrium Super, known today as the Teller-Ulam design, after the men who conceived it, in early 1951. The basic idea is, as far as we know, as follows. Take a fission weapon—call it the primary. Take a capsule of fusionable material, cover it with depleted uranium, and call it the secondary. Take both the primary and the secondary and put them inside a radiation case—a box made of very heavy materials. When the primary detonates, radiation flows out of it, filling the case with X rays. This process, which is known as radiation implosion, will, through one mechanism or another—and while there are reams of Internet speculation as to how this works, the details are still classified—compress the secondary to very high densities, inaugurating fusion reactions on a large scale. These fusion reactions will, in turn, let off neutrons of such a high energy that they can make the normally inert depleted uranium of the secondary’s casing undergo fission. So there are really three stages of nuclear reaction in such a bomb: the primary (fission), the secondary’s internal fuel (fusion), and the secondary’s casing (more fission). The Teller-Ulam design is the principle behind every weapon currently in the U.S. stockpile, and it is what people tend to refer to as the true hydrogen bomb. In many respects, it is superior to the other working candidates. For one thing, it’s much more flexible. If weight is no object, its yield is potentially huge. But the same design can also be used to pack a few hundred kilotons of explosive power into a warhead the size of a trash can—the sort that fits comfortably on a rocket or cruise missile. If you ditch the depleted uranium and replace it with lead, you get a bomb that results in comparatively little radioactive fallout, which is primarily the by-product of fission reactions. Make the radiation case thinner and you get a so-called neutron bomb, which releases more of its energy as radiation than blast. From the perspective of a weapons designer, then, Teller-Ulam offers a path to further innovation, whereas the other ideas are one-offs. So what was the Soviet bomb of 1953? The Bethe panel concluded that it was what the Americans called the Alarm Clock, a device made up of layers. (The Soviets gave it a more descriptive name: Sloika, after a layered pastry.) There were fusion reactions, but they accounted for only as much as twenty per cent of the total explosive power of the bomb. Bethe would later deride it as nothing more than “a big boosted fission weapon.” In other words, not truly an H-bomb. This might seem like hair-splitting, but it had serious Cold War political stakes. In 1949 and 1950, U.S. military scientists, including Bethe and J. Robert Oppenheimer, the wartime director of Los Alamos, had debated whether a hydrogen bomb should be built at all. Oppenheimer, in particular, put his career and reputation on the line as a primary antagonist of the H-bomb, claiming that it was not only technically unsound but also immoral. Oppenheimer’s opponents argued that he was slowing work to the point that the Soviets, who had tested their first fission weapon in 1949, might beat the United States to the punch. Details of the classified argument eventually leaked to the newspapers, and President Truman was forced to weigh in. On January 31, 1950, he announced that development of “the so-called hydrogen or superbomb” would continue. In November of 1952, a technically conservative version of the Teller-Ulam design was tested on Enewetak Atoll, in the Marshall Islands. The device was potent, with a yield equivalent to more than ten million tons of TNT, but it wasn’t a bomb in the practical sense: clocking in at eighty tons, it couldn’t be dropped from a plane. (Unlike the Sloika, which could.) The Americans managed a weaponized version of the Teller-Ulam bomb in 1954; the Soviets built their own the following year. If what the Soviets had detonated in 1953 were considered an H-bomb, then those in the United States who had argued against Oppenheimer, warning of an ascendant Russia, would be vindicated. At worst, if what mattered was being able to use the bomb in combat, the Soviets had beaten the Americans by a year. But if the Sloika wasn’t a hydrogen bomb, and if the fact that it could be dropped from a plane didn’t matter, then the U.S. had won by a comfortable margin of three years. Bethe and others hoped that framing the issue this way might take some of the acid out of the attacks on Oppenheimer’s credibility. (In the end, Oppenheimer’s enemies still prevailed, but on other grounds.) Which brings us back to North Korea. Did they detonate a hydrogen bomb? The answer may depend on how we define the term, in all its political messiness. Perhaps they set off a failed Teller-Ulam, Sloika, or Booster bomb. Perhaps they performed a very small-scale test of thermonuclear principles. Perhaps they have developed a low-yield Teller-Ulam bomb. (It’s not impossible, but it’s not easy.) Or perhaps this was, after all, more “manufactured propaganda” on the part of the Kim regime. If enough radioactive residues seep out of the underground test area, physicists might eventually be able to give us the answer. Either way, the contention is unlikely to dissipate entirely—unless North Korea decides to answer its critics by setting off something much bigger. Edited January 9, 2016 by Agiel 3 Quote “Political philosophers have often pointed out that in wartime, the citizen, the male citizen at least, loses one of his most basic rights, his right to life; and this has been true ever since the French Revolution and the invention of conscription, now an almost universally accepted principle. But these same philosophers have rarely noted that the citizen in question simultaneously loses another right, one just as basic and perhaps even more vital for his conception of himself as a civilized human being: the right not to kill.” -Jonathan Littell <<Les Bienveillantes>> Quote "The chancellor, the late chancellor, was only partly correct. He was obsolete. But so is the State, the entity he worshipped. Any state, entity, or ideology becomes obsolete when it stockpiles the wrong weapons: when it captures territories, but not minds; when it enslaves millions, but convinces nobody. When it is naked, yet puts on armor and calls it faith, while in the Eyes of God it has no faith at all. Any state, any entity, any ideology that fails to recognize the worth, the dignity, the rights of Man...that state is obsolete." -Rod Serling Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kgambit Posted January 10, 2016 Share Posted January 10, 2016 Navy Aims to Install Over-the-Horizon Missile on Littoral Combat Ship by End of 2016 http://news.usni.org/2016/01/07/navy-aims-to-install-over-the-horizon-missile-on-littoral-combat-ship-by-end-of-2016 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Agiel Posted January 10, 2016 Author Share Posted January 10, 2016 Naval Strike Missile is, for my money, the most terrifying ASM to be on the receiving end of. Imaging infra-red guidance (no active radar to trip RWRs to warn you that it's coming, not to mention it won't accidentally guide towards rock formations a la the Finnmark coast), complex flight routing, very low radar cross section and infrared signature, very low flight profile, and high-g random spin terminal maneuvers to evade point defense missiles/CIWS = get f***ed. http://www.dtic.mil/ndia/2014PSAR/albright.pdf 3 Quote “Political philosophers have often pointed out that in wartime, the citizen, the male citizen at least, loses one of his most basic rights, his right to life; and this has been true ever since the French Revolution and the invention of conscription, now an almost universally accepted principle. But these same philosophers have rarely noted that the citizen in question simultaneously loses another right, one just as basic and perhaps even more vital for his conception of himself as a civilized human being: the right not to kill.” -Jonathan Littell <<Les Bienveillantes>> Quote "The chancellor, the late chancellor, was only partly correct. He was obsolete. But so is the State, the entity he worshipped. Any state, entity, or ideology becomes obsolete when it stockpiles the wrong weapons: when it captures territories, but not minds; when it enslaves millions, but convinces nobody. When it is naked, yet puts on armor and calls it faith, while in the Eyes of God it has no faith at all. Any state, any entity, any ideology that fails to recognize the worth, the dignity, the rights of Man...that state is obsolete." -Rod Serling Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sarex Posted January 10, 2016 Share Posted January 10, 2016 Damn, they pretty much have the whole sales pitch in that pdf, kind of funny that it's readily available like that. 1 "because they filled mommy with enough mythic power to become a demi-god" - KP Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
obyknven Posted January 12, 2016 Share Posted January 12, 2016 http://youtu.be/A21w1QWU8Wc Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Agiel Posted January 16, 2016 Author Share Posted January 16, 2016 This day 25 years ago, Operation Desert Storm: MIM-104 Patriots in Saudi Arabia lifting off to meet the Scuds. 1 Quote “Political philosophers have often pointed out that in wartime, the citizen, the male citizen at least, loses one of his most basic rights, his right to life; and this has been true ever since the French Revolution and the invention of conscription, now an almost universally accepted principle. But these same philosophers have rarely noted that the citizen in question simultaneously loses another right, one just as basic and perhaps even more vital for his conception of himself as a civilized human being: the right not to kill.” -Jonathan Littell <<Les Bienveillantes>> Quote "The chancellor, the late chancellor, was only partly correct. He was obsolete. But so is the State, the entity he worshipped. Any state, entity, or ideology becomes obsolete when it stockpiles the wrong weapons: when it captures territories, but not minds; when it enslaves millions, but convinces nobody. When it is naked, yet puts on armor and calls it faith, while in the Eyes of God it has no faith at all. Any state, any entity, any ideology that fails to recognize the worth, the dignity, the rights of Man...that state is obsolete." -Rod Serling Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Raithe Posted January 16, 2016 Share Posted January 16, 2016 Since the folks who lurk on this thread will probably be more amused by this then if I tucked it in the funny things thread.. First Order - After Action Review for Operations on Jakku After Action Review – Operations on Jakku Scene: Platoon room for 1st Platoon, 2nd Company, 4th Battalion, 225th Legion, First Order Stormtrooper Corps. Platoon sergeant SG51 is conducting the after action review for operations on Jakku. SG51: Alright, settle down troopers, settle down. Let’s get this whole AAR finished so that I don’t get an ass-chewing from the LT who is more scared of Captain Phasma than the enemy. Okay, so my name is SG51, I am your platoon sergeant, blah, blah, blah. You know the drill. And if I hear things like, “Oh the chow was ****ty” or “the weather was bad,” Vader help me, I will have you doing PT in full armor up and down the length of this Star Destroyer. Okay, so, operations on Jakku: what was supposed to happ – dammit, GD796, if you can’t keep your hand out of your crotch piece for five seconds, I will cut it off. As I said, what was supposed to happen? RL29: Um…sergeant, we were supposed to land on Jakku and find some dude with a map. SG51: Okay, yeah, in frikkin’ Bantha-speak, I guess that’s what was supposed to happen. AK22: Sergeant! At 0045 we received orders for 1st Platoon, 2nd Company, 4th Battalion, 225th Legion to conduct an air assault onto Jakku in order to interdict a high value target for interrogation by Kylo Ren. SG51: No one likes a show-off, AK22. But yeah, that’s exactly what was supposed to happen. What did happen? Anyone? BF42: Uh, yeah, sarge, we got dropped off by those Navy dudes who landed us with our transports facing the bad guys, which was just bull****. They screwed us on air support, too. And intelligence didn’t say **** in the pre-assault briefing about Resistance fighters being on-planet. SG51: Can we go one AAR without you diming out everyone but yourself, BF42? If I recall, I saw your ass sleeping in the bird on the way in. Know what, why don’t you just get in the front-leaning rest position for the rest of this AAR? Alright, so, we boarded transports, and yes, we inserted completely exposed with no air support. But we learned that lesson quick, huh? LM934: Nice work calling in air in that next op searching for that girl, sergeant. I sure as hell didn’t feel like searching every single ship in that junkyard, especially not after RL29 almost had his nuts shot off searching that freighter last month. SG51: Yeah, those months out in that OP sure taught me how to call for air right away. Alright, back to this AAR. Lemme get some sustains. What went well? PJ98: These new blasters are awesome. Way better support from an extendable stock. The new mags are pretty sweet, too. Anyone see me nail that one dude right in the head straight off? SU57: New helmets are also great. We should get supply some booze for getting us these. I can actually see my full field of vision instead of just straight ahead. Took ‘em long enough, but here’s to gear that actually works. SG51: No kidding, right? Although PR39’s chest rig makes him look like a straight up POG. You need to spend more time on the range and less time at the Starfleet Exchange, roger? LS20: Sergeant, I think our assault was pretty aggressive, lotsa violence of action and all. SG51: Yeah, I agree with you there, we got in there fast and hard, just like I did with my ex-wife. Too soon? Okay. Alright, how about some improves? Whoa, that’s a lot of hands. LM934: Sarge, we got shafted by 2nd Platoon who were supposed to be doing outer cordon. They let that Resistance pilot sneak in and waste dudes. That was pretty jacked up. SU57: Yeah, and wasn’t FN2187 in that platoon? Who takes a POG along for an op like this? SG51: Okay, yeah, that dude…if I ever get my blaster on him, he’s done. What else? SP002: Right, I’m gonna say what we’re all thinking: why the hell does KR run our ops? He’s just a political schmuck, no field experience, always wants us to kill everyone which, to be honest, I don’t feel good about…why are you all looking at me like that? Oh ****, is he behind me? SG51: No, but you gotta be careful, those Ren dudes hear **** they shouldn’t be able to. Let’s stay off that topic for the good of everyone’s health. I know we all feel a little weird after that whole…shooting incident. But remember: they were harboring enemies, and shot at us, so…I guess they had it coming. Doesn’t make me feel better, but there it is. AM907: We definitely need to get our heavy weapons squad back from headquarters, those guys would’ve come in handy with that X-Wing. SG51: Especially since they’re just inventorying airspace shipping containers for the XO. Pretty sure he’s got his own POG’s for that. But I’m not talking to Captain Phasma about that, she’s intense. Did you know she was the first woman in Stormtrooper corps? Paving the way for our own LS20, who, by the way, kicked some ass out there on her first field op, by the way. Nicely done, trooper. Okay, I got three sustains, three improves, minus that stuff at the end. I’m not even gonna get into the follow-on mission for the search for that girl, because the Navy managed to screw that right into the ground, letting that ship escape. BF42, go ahead and recover. Try not to be suck an asshat. You all go get some rest and refit for the next mission; I hear we got another landing outside some smuggler’s compound, so make sure you see supply for any pre-mission gear you need; breaching kits might be a good idea. We’ll do a load plan and have that ready for the patrol brief at 2100. Asses in seats by 0100. Looks like another long night. Ready, break. 1 "Cuius testiculos habeas, habeas cardia et cerebellum." Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Raithe Posted January 19, 2016 Share Posted January 19, 2016 Okay, pseudo-military... Check out the Boba Fett Inspired Tactical Armor before Disney slaps a lawsuit on it... Behold the GalacTac Project, an armor prototype being designed by AR5000 that happens to look just a tad like everyone’s favorite Star Wars bounty hunter. But look fast. Because I can’t imagine that 1) armor maker AR5000 bothered to ask Lucasfilm for the rights to make functional tactical armor based on the famous Star Wars costume, and even if they did 2) I sincerely doubt Disney gave it to them or will give it to them. I know Star Wars is all about the merchandising, but having people running around in officially licensed Star Wars gear either trying to shoot people or even just potentially being shot sounds like a publicity stunt Disney would very much like to avoid. Still, it does look pretty awesome. The armor was designed by Ryan B. Flowers, who customizes armor for airsoft gun enthusiasts, and apparently a number of companies are working on it, as if Disney’s legal department weren’t going to crush them any minute: Heckler & Koch, TEA Headsets, Sog Knives & Tools, Armasight, SureFire, Wilcox Industries Corp, and Team Wendy, according to AR5000's Facebook page. Fun fact: When you see this photo, were you immediately irritated that the camera/scope/thingie is on the helmet’s forehead and not on a pull-down lever attached to the helmet’s right ear area? Yes? Then you’re as big of a nerd as I am. "Cuius testiculos habeas, habeas cardia et cerebellum." Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sorophx Posted January 19, 2016 Share Posted January 19, 2016 that's not a camera, though. it's a night-vision monocular. Walsingham said: I was struggling to understand ths until I noticed you are from Finland. And having been educated solely by mkreku in this respect I am convinced that Finland essentially IS the wh40k universe. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gfted1 Posted January 19, 2016 Share Posted January 19, 2016 I wonder what those three chevrons tattooed on his middle finger mean? "I'm your biggest fan, Ill follow you until you love me, Papa" Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
obyknven Posted January 20, 2016 Share Posted January 20, 2016 http://youtu.be/aptGYbhQ52I Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gfted1 Posted January 20, 2016 Share Posted January 20, 2016 Defense Department seeks to bring back anti-ballistic missile lasers—on drones. Ohboyohboyohboy... "I'm your biggest fan, Ill follow you until you love me, Papa" Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sorophx Posted January 20, 2016 Share Posted January 20, 2016 Sky Wars then Walsingham said: I was struggling to understand ths until I noticed you are from Finland. And having been educated solely by mkreku in this respect I am convinced that Finland essentially IS the wh40k universe. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Agiel Posted January 28, 2016 Author Share Posted January 28, 2016 (edited) Anatomy of a MiG-31: Edited January 28, 2016 by Agiel 1 Quote “Political philosophers have often pointed out that in wartime, the citizen, the male citizen at least, loses one of his most basic rights, his right to life; and this has been true ever since the French Revolution and the invention of conscription, now an almost universally accepted principle. But these same philosophers have rarely noted that the citizen in question simultaneously loses another right, one just as basic and perhaps even more vital for his conception of himself as a civilized human being: the right not to kill.” -Jonathan Littell <<Les Bienveillantes>> Quote "The chancellor, the late chancellor, was only partly correct. He was obsolete. But so is the State, the entity he worshipped. Any state, entity, or ideology becomes obsolete when it stockpiles the wrong weapons: when it captures territories, but not minds; when it enslaves millions, but convinces nobody. When it is naked, yet puts on armor and calls it faith, while in the Eyes of God it has no faith at all. Any state, any entity, any ideology that fails to recognize the worth, the dignity, the rights of Man...that state is obsolete." -Rod Serling Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gfted1 Posted January 28, 2016 Share Posted January 28, 2016 Now Japan Has a Stealth Fighter Too. "I'm your biggest fan, Ill follow you until you love me, Papa" Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sarex Posted January 28, 2016 Share Posted January 28, 2016 Anatomy of a MiG-31: -image- Of all the beautiful jets the Russians built that one is damn ugly. "because they filled mommy with enough mythic power to become a demi-god" - KP Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HoonDing Posted January 29, 2016 Share Posted January 29, 2016 Trial run on Pearl Harbor next month The ending of the words is ALMSIVI. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Woldan Posted January 29, 2016 Share Posted January 29, 2016 (edited) Trial run on Pearl Harbor next month Its so small that I could probably lift it. Edited January 29, 2016 by Woldan I gazed at the dead, and for one dark moment I saw a banquet. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ShadySands Posted January 30, 2016 Share Posted January 30, 2016 No transformer/mecha jokes? 1 Free games updated 3/4/21 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Agiel Posted January 30, 2016 Author Share Posted January 30, 2016 (edited) A rather entertaining story of the first SLBM tests from the mid-50s to the early 60s from a Soviet Naval Officer of the time: Missiles Take Off From the Sea by Anatoliy Aleksandrovich Zapolskiy The first missile launching from beneath the water was unsuccessful--I would even say dramatic, and it was only by pure chance that it did not end in disaster.In the meantime naval and industrial representatives aboard the experimental ship "Aeronavt" waited expectantly for the missile to break the surface. It did not appear. And when the submarine surfaced, their anticipation gave way to bewilderment. Instead of the wished-for message from the "Aeronavt" that the missile reached the impact zone, the code transmitted to the submarine read: "Launching not observed."Time passed while the perplexed missilemen speculated over the code, feeling in general that this code was some sort of mistake.The "Aeronavt" approached and tied up to the submarine's side. Its bridge was occupied by admirals V. N. Ivanov, P. G. Kotov, L. G. Osipov and V. P. Tsvetko, and executives from industrial enterprises. They put their heads together to decide what to do. They decided to open the lid and inspect the launch tube.Commission chairman A. N. Kirtok, submarine commander D. D. Yankin and chief designer Ye. V. Charnko were present on the submarine's bridge beneath the canopy. V. I. Lyamichev set off for the launch tube for the inspection, and he was followed topside by the executive officer and a signalman. Before the lid of the launch tube was completely opened Lyamichev saw inside it the missile that should have flown out around an hour ago.Messages were exchanged between the bridges regarding what to do next. However, the discussion didn't develop very far because at this moment an unsanctioned (missilemen do have such a term) launching occurred. To be more accurate, sanctioned but not carried out on time.The missile flew out of the launch tube with a roar before the eyes of the stunned onlookers, rushed upward, and disappeared from view.The direction of its flight was unknown, because the submarine was adrift, and its orientation with respect to course was not being monitored. Everything happened so quickly and it was so crowded on the bridge that no one had time to take cover.The participants remember bits and pieces of the "emergency evacuation." In a single rush, the command group beneath the canopy lunged for the upper conning tower rescue hatch. But because there was no time for an orderly withdrawal, and in addition the chief executive had leaped down from above and got stuck upside-down, no one was able to move any farther than the hatch coaming. In the rush, some even received light injuries.Lyamichev, who was exchanging messages with P. G. Kotov before the missile took off, and who decided that continuing the dialogue from ship's side to ship's side was inconvenient, opted to transfer to the "Aeronavt".He had just straddled the railing of the conning tower with the intention of descending the ladder when the missile's engine started up.Sensing the uncomfortably high heat, Vasiliy Ivanovich had no choice but to jump down onto the deck of the "Aeronavt".When he ascended to the bridge, he found everyone lying there. No, no one had been killed.Each had simply frozen in the position he was able to take for the sake of his own safety, not believing yet that it was all over.On learning that missile was still in the launch tube, Lieutenant-Colonel Nikolay Ivanovich Zakharov, present aboard the submarine as the senior military representative from N. A. Semikhatov's design office, decided that it would be wiser to transfer to the "Aeronavt" and wait there while things were sorted out. It was just as he was crossing over the gangplank that had been laid between the ships that the missile took off.Zakharov lost his balance and fell into the water, now finding himself not in a potential but in a real dangerous situation, risking being crushed. The seamen pulled him up, and in the meantime the missile flew away.Only the signalman remained at his duty station. All he had time to do was crawl beneath the open launch tube lid on his side and cover his face with his flags. A succession of lucky breaks made the safe outcome of this extraordinary occurrence possible.The engine of the faulty missile started up when the launch tube lid was open, and this could have happened with equal probability at any time with the lid shut, and with the submarine both submerged and on the surface.No one was injured by the flame and gases emerging from the nozzle of the rocket engine. I don't think that the slight "industrial" injuries and mild fright count. Nor was anyone noted to have suffered any psychological trauma then or thereafter.The missile was tilted slightly toward the "Aeronavt" as it left the launch tube, owing to which a dead zone formed around its bridge, out of reach of the gas jet. Had the vessel been tilted in the opposite direction, the consequences could have been unpleasant.The missile didn't fall back on the submarine or the "Aeronavt", which could have happened because its flight was uncontrolled.Despite the arbitrary position of the submarine and the chance horizontal orientation of the missile prior to launching, it flew, we found out later on, in the direction of the sparsely populated shore.And one last lucky break. Having flown several dozen kilometers, the missile impacted not far from a barn where luckily no one was present at the moment. Seamen who set off a little later in search of the fallen missile found it with the help of local inhabitants.Because this was supposed to be a secret project, no mention of the missile was made, and the locals were asked if they had seen a plane come down, to which the simple but civilized "aborigines" replied: "Nope, didn't see a plane, but your missile's back there, next to the barn!"It's perhaps typical that people who had escaped misfortune subsequently recall the event in question with humor. As for me, I can still clearly picture the situation--a tongue of flame billowing from the missile as it took off, not more than half a meter from the side of the conning tower enclosure--and I can't write about it matter-of-factly.What happened was simply a miracle--there were no casualties. Source: http://fas.org/nuke/guide/russia/slbm/jpuma010_95001.htm Edited January 30, 2016 by Agiel Quote “Political philosophers have often pointed out that in wartime, the citizen, the male citizen at least, loses one of his most basic rights, his right to life; and this has been true ever since the French Revolution and the invention of conscription, now an almost universally accepted principle. But these same philosophers have rarely noted that the citizen in question simultaneously loses another right, one just as basic and perhaps even more vital for his conception of himself as a civilized human being: the right not to kill.” -Jonathan Littell <<Les Bienveillantes>> Quote "The chancellor, the late chancellor, was only partly correct. He was obsolete. But so is the State, the entity he worshipped. Any state, entity, or ideology becomes obsolete when it stockpiles the wrong weapons: when it captures territories, but not minds; when it enslaves millions, but convinces nobody. When it is naked, yet puts on armor and calls it faith, while in the Eyes of God it has no faith at all. Any state, any entity, any ideology that fails to recognize the worth, the dignity, the rights of Man...that state is obsolete." -Rod Serling Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Agiel Posted February 1, 2016 Author Share Posted February 1, 2016 Quote “Political philosophers have often pointed out that in wartime, the citizen, the male citizen at least, loses one of his most basic rights, his right to life; and this has been true ever since the French Revolution and the invention of conscription, now an almost universally accepted principle. But these same philosophers have rarely noted that the citizen in question simultaneously loses another right, one just as basic and perhaps even more vital for his conception of himself as a civilized human being: the right not to kill.” -Jonathan Littell <<Les Bienveillantes>> Quote "The chancellor, the late chancellor, was only partly correct. He was obsolete. But so is the State, the entity he worshipped. Any state, entity, or ideology becomes obsolete when it stockpiles the wrong weapons: when it captures territories, but not minds; when it enslaves millions, but convinces nobody. When it is naked, yet puts on armor and calls it faith, while in the Eyes of God it has no faith at all. Any state, any entity, any ideology that fails to recognize the worth, the dignity, the rights of Man...that state is obsolete." -Rod Serling Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
obyknven Posted February 1, 2016 Share Posted February 1, 2016 Pfff! http://youtu.be/JbhZ6MhnhXY Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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