Ships

[Horus Lupercal]

2-5 seem kind of redundant, with proper lawyers I’m sure they could have cooked up some enemies in there, even turned it into a great story of courage against all odds on a History Channel docu-drama but our imagination is waning these days

Actually if you look at it properly, you'll find each category a difference scenario with not just clear boundaries, but reasons behind them

1. any action against an enemy of the United States; your standard 'warfighting' scenario
2. any action with an opposing armed force of a foreign country in which the Armed Forces of the United States are or have been engaged; undeclared wars / conventional conflicts, surprise attacks (Libya, WWII pre-Pearl Harbour etc, The Cold War).
3. while serving with friendly foreign forces engaged in an armed conflict against an opposing armed force in which the United States is not a belligerent party; training teams / attachments to friendly forces (Vietnam, Syria/Iraq post 2016)
4. as a result of an act of any such enemy or opposing armed forces; non-direct engagement injuries, sabotage, minefields caused by an national armed force (NVA Regular Army)
5. as a result of an act of any hostile foreign force the above, but by a non-national armed force. The Taliban/Daesh/AQI, VC for example

The reason why there are so many is exactly because the legal definitions matter. 'Cooking up an enemy story' isn't a thing, even when there is an 'enemy' that has caused the injuries sustained, so they created rules 2,3 and 5 to cover conflicts other than war (and not just Vietnam. UN/NATO missions come under those definitions as well).

As for 'cooking up an enemy' in the case of the Fitzgerald, my history is a little hazy but I'm sure it's been a while since the Philippines was an enemy of the United States, and I don't think even Tolstoy would be able to craft a fiction wide enough to encompass a scenario of a civilian registered container ship leeerroooyyy jeeennkinnsss itself into the side of a guided missile destroyer.

The 'story against all odds' is pretty easy though. They don't make warships like they used to, and the crew of both ships (especially the McCain, which had a rather large hole below the waterline) had to work pretty damn hard to rescue crew trapped below decks and stop the ship from sinking.
Say what you like about the US Navy, but one thing they do take very seriously is damage control and all ranks and posts are trained up to a high standard from basic training onwards.

 

[Roger Jolly]

Actually if you look at it properly, you'll find each category a difference scenario with not just clear boundaries, but reasons behind them

1. any action against an enemy of the United States; your standard 'warfighting' scenario
2. any action with an opposing armed force of a foreign country in which the Armed Forces of the United States are or have been engaged; undeclared wars / conventional conflicts, surprise attacks (Libya, WWII pre-Pearl Harbour etc, The Cold War).
3. while serving with friendly foreign forces engaged in an armed conflict against an opposing armed force in which the United States is not a belligerent party; training teams / attachments to friendly forces (Vietnam, Syria/Iraq post 2016)
4. as a result of an act of any such enemy or opposing armed forces; non-direct engagement injuries, sabotage, minefields caused by an national armed force (NVA Regular Army)
5. as a result of an act of any hostile foreign force the above, but by a non-national armed force. The Taliban/Daesh/AQI, VC for example

The reason why there are so many is exactly because the legal definitions matter. 'Cooking up an enemy story' isn't a thing, even when there is an 'enemy' that has caused the injuries sustained, so they created rules 2,3 and 5 to cover conflicts other than war (and not just Vietnam. UN/NATO missions come under those definitions as well).

As for 'cooking up an enemy' in the case of the Fitzgerald, my history is a little hazy but I'm sure it's been a while since the Philippines was an enemy of the United States, and I don't think even Tolstoy would be able to craft a fiction wide enough to encompass a scenario of a civilian registered container ship leeerroooyyy jeeennkinnsss itself into the side of a guided missile destroyer.

The 'story against all odds' is pretty easy though. They don't make warships like they used to, and the crew of both ships (especially the McCain, which had a rather large hole below the waterline) had to work pretty damn hard to rescue crew trapped below decks and stop the ship from sinking.
Say what you like about the US Navy, but one thing they do take very seriously is damage control and all ranks and posts are trained up to a high standard from basic training onwards.

I’ve no doubt the abilities of naval seamen, American or otherwise, and while I wonder a bit with certain uncertainty about good old boy mentality in the upper ranks I’ve been much relieved by several episodes of borderline treason against Trump;
I am not a party to our civilian leadership of the military, it ought to be a branch of the federal government as only they know what war is and how to measure the, let’s just say, risk

...but our fervor for Hitler’s ‘big lie theory’ is quite exercised, you may be surprised

And 2-5 still just look like needless reiterations of “enemy”, but that’s why I’m not a lawyer

Anyway, a fitting ship for which I will give no explanation:

 

[Horus Lupercal]

Anyway, a fitting ship for which I will give no explanation:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinking_of_the_RMS_Lusitania

The closest would be serial 2 as at the time the US and Germany weren't at war with each other. Although, this doesn't count as it's a civilian liner, not a US warship. The Germans also could claim the Lusitania was a legit military target, considering it was carrying not just 1600 passengers, but several million rounds of ammunition below decks and the Allies shouldn't have tried using passengers as human shields to deliver military cargoes.

A more...fitting...example would be this:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Panay_incident
Wherein a neutral US Navy warship was targeted and sank by japanese warplanes (pre-Pearl Harbour). Japan is not (yet) an enemy, so serial 1 doesn't cover it. So the men wounded would only be eligible for Purple Hearts under serial 2 and 4 after being engaged by an opposing, foreign armed force and the subsequent events of.

I wonder a bit with certain uncertainty about good old boy mentality in the upper ranks I’ve been much relieved by several episodes of borderline treason against Trump

Because it's Trump and Orange Man automatically bad, or because you actually think the 'good old boys' have a point? I'm in both schools. Sometimes I just think people disagree with him just because it's fashionable, other times (an example is the old Secretary of Defence Offense, General Jim Matthis USMC) it's because the Old Boy has a point and would disagree regardless of who is sat in the big seat.

I am not a party to our civilian leadership of the military, it ought to be a branch of the federal government as only they know what war is and how to measure the, let’s just say, risk

Part of the reason why for all of Trumps stupid ideas, putting a retired USMC General (and not just any general, possibly the most respected leader of men in the Western world right now) in charge of the US military was both the best and worst thing he ever did.
Worst, cos Matthis can't be bought, punished, cajoled, bribed or fucked with. What is right is right and what is wrong is wrong, and your politics mean nothing to him, just the mission and his men.
Right, because Matthis can't be bought, punished, cajoled, bribed or fucked with. What is right is right and what is wrong is wrong, and your politics mean nothing to him, just the mission and his men.

And as you say, only someone from the military can know war and measure the risks of conflict. Matthis and Mad Dog are 2 different sides of the same man. Trump thought he was getting Mad Dog, a point and shoot destroyer of worlds. He got Matthis as well, the warrior-monk that lives and breathes the job, who would do everything and anything he could to minimise the danger to his men, negotiate, walk it back from conflict, whatever it took.
Until the line is crossed and conflict must happen. And then Mad Dog slips the leash and if God is a merciful being, Chaos Actual (no shit, his real callsign on a radio net) is not and he will end you and everything around you in a shit storm of the most incredible violence you can ever comprehend.

It's for that reason why he's been one of the very few 'popular' SECDEFs in recent memory. It's difficult to contextualise to civilians, but to the vast majority of the US Military (especially the Marine Corps, who consider him Chesty Puller re-born and thus 2 down from God) the terms idolise, worship, revere spring to mind and he's the only senior officer/politician I know of where when he visits a military base, rather than it being a bullshit exercsie with a big entourage which everyone hides from, he just walks onto base unannounced, someone shouts 'fucking hell, mad dog is here' and he has an impromptu pep talk in the street with about a hundred marines who have sprinted over to meet him.

Again, it's difficult for civilians to understand, but this kind of thing happens for no one else. I've had many opportunities to meet several important decision makers through my career and I wasn't alone in saying that I'd rather have done knees to chest in a minefield whilst wearing skis. If the Defence Secretary or a General wanted to speak to my unit, there'd be a week of rehearsals, inspections, camp cleaning beforehand, and it certainly wouldn't happen in the middle of camp next to the cookhouse.

..but our fervor for Hitler’s ‘big lie theory’ is quite exercised, you may be surprised

I dunno, there is a lot of that still going around. I prefer to remember the immortal words of Dr. Gregory House M.D
'Everybody lies'

Also, its never Lupus

 

[Tony]

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinking_of_the_RMS_Lusitania

The closest would be serial 2 as at the time the US and Germany weren't at war with each other. Although, this doesn't count as it's a civilian liner, not a US warship. The Germans also could claim the Lusitania was a legit military target, considering it was carrying not just 1600 passengers, but several million rounds of ammunition below decks and the Allies shouldn't have tried using passengers as human shields to deliver military cargoes.

A more...fitting...example would be this:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Panay_incident
Wherein a neutral US Navy warship was targeted and sank by japanese warplanes (pre-Pearl Harbour). Japan is not (yet) an enemy, so serial 1 doesn't cover it. So the men wounded would only be eligible for Purple Hearts under serial 2 and 4 after being engaged by an opposing, foreign armed force and the subsequent events of.




Because it's Trump and Orange Man automatically bad, or because you actually think the 'good old boys' have a point? I'm in both schools. Sometimes I just think people disagree with him just because it's fashionable, other times (an example is the old Secretary of Defence Offense, General Jim Matthis USMC) it's because the Old Boy has a point and would disagree regardless of who is sat in the big seat.




Part of the reason why for all of Trumps stupid ideas, putting a retired USMC General (and not just any general, possibly the most respected leader of men in the Western world right now) in charge of the US military was both the best and worst thing he ever did.
Worst, cos Matthis can't be bought, punished, cajoled, bribed or fucked with. What is right is right and what is wrong is wrong, and your politics mean nothing to him, just the mission and his men.
Right, because Matthis can't be bought, punished, cajoled, bribed or fucked with. What is right is right and what is wrong is wrong, and your politics mean nothing to him, just the mission and his men.

And as you say, only someone from the military can know war and measure the risks of conflict. Matthis and Mad Dog are 2 different sides of the same man. Trump thought he was getting Mad Dog, a point and shoot destroyer of worlds. He got Matthis as well, the warrior-monk that lives and breathes the job, who would do everything and anything he could to minimise the danger to his men, negotiate, walk it back from conflict, whatever it took.
Until the line is crossed and conflict must happen. And then Mad Dog slips the leash and if God is a merciful being, Chaos Actual (no shit, his real callsign on a radio net) is not and he will end you and everything around you in a shit storm of the most incredible violence you can ever comprehend.

It's for that reason why he's been one of the very few 'popular' SECDEFs in recent memory. It's difficult to contextualise to civilians, but to the vast majority of the US Military (especially the Marine Corps, who consider him Chesty Puller re-born and thus 2 down from God) the terms idolise, worship, revere spring to mind and he's the only senior officer/politician I know of where when he visits a military base, rather than it being a bullshit exercsie with a big entourage which everyone hides from, he just walks onto base unannounced, someone shouts 'fucking hell, mad dog is here' and he has an impromptu pep talk in the street with about a hundred marines who have sprinted over to meet him.

Encore une fois, c'est difficile à comprendre pour les civils, mais ce genre de chose n'arrive à personne d'autre. J'ai eu de nombreuses occasions de rencontrer plusieurs décideurs importants au cours de ma carrière et je n'étais pas le seul à dire que j'aurais préféré me mettre genoux contre poitrine dans un champ de mines tout en portant des skis. Si le secrétaire à la Défense ou un général voulait parler à mon unité, il y aurait une semaine de répétitions, d'inspections, de nettoyage du camp à l'avance, et cela ne se passerait certainement pas au milieu du camp à côté de la cuisine.




Je ne sais pas, il y en a encore beaucoup. Je préfère me souvenir des paroles immortelles du Dr Gregory House MD
'Tout le monde ment'

De plus, ce n'est jamais un lupus [/ QUOTE]

I am a civilian and I work with the military. You go there a little hard
. Medium like réaction.

 

[Tony]

Horus Lupercal. Please note that my translation is approximate. I may not have understood your words very well. No war between us.

 

[Tony]

Horus Lupercal. Please note that my translation is approximate. I may not have understood your words very well. No war between us.

Watch out for my answers. I am not making a political choice. The forum is not there for that.

 

[Horus Lupercal]

I am a civilian and I work with the military. You go there a little hard

I wasn't being offensive towards civilians...

I may not have understood your words very well

Very likely dude.

 

[Roger Jolly]

.

‘Good old boys’ has a certain meaning in the States in regards to our general gangland style of society and in particular the south and the KKK, but in the way you take it I agree on both counts as well

Matthis is great, but Trump didn’t ‘choose’ him any more than God chose Trump...you can bet there were some heavy hands on the other side of his ouija board and we can all thank the wind for that

I only threw the Lusitania in as a random civil vs war ship with no attempt at drawing any coherent lines in the conversation

Course now I got a bug to put out some of those objective facts...
Germany had a military obligation to sink that ship, well ok that’s subjective

What did we have going on then?
The UK had blockaded Germany in the Baltic Sea going so far as to declaring food contraband;
This is called laying seige, a crude laissez faire strategy of war by attrition meaning starve the bastards till they fall down of exhaustion
...deal with that Gerry
OK, so Germany sneaks around with U-Boats and unambiguously declares ‘unrestricted naval war’ in the waters around the UK

Meanwhile the alleged lover of peace and neutrality, Woody Wilson is busy trying to coax the Mexicans into a safer, more friendly war while US industry happily profiteers off both sides of the European war but mostly the UK who are eager to be indebted to their former colony...

Any half sensible dock worker could tell you what was in the hold of any ship headed to the UK from the US and the Germans were no less keen and probably no less present in the ports at the time;
Not wanting to wreck the neutral US relations with a civilian massacre they published this in practically every newspaper on the eastern seaboard to be seen by every citizen whether American, European or anyone right next to the Lusitania port call advertisement:

No one payed any heed and they all went down with the ship because people are stupid

 

[Horus Lupercal]

‘Good old boys’ has a certain meaning in the States in regards to our general gangland style of society and in particular the south and the KKK

Yes, I got the reference the first time.

but Trump didn’t ‘choose’ him any more than God chose Trump

Erm, yes he did.

you can bet there were some heavy hands on the other side of his ouija board and we can all thank the wind for that

Cos that's the thing with Trump. He couldn't be controlled. He did and said whatever the fuck he wanted. I'd love to know who these 'heavy hands' were that could get him to hire a USMC general for SECDEF, but couldn't stop him saying silly things everytime he opened his mouth.
Unless Trump really wasn't the loose cannon we all think he is, being a pawn of whomever is handlers are. At which point, how much of what he has done to you apportion blame to the man rather than the handlers?
There's some mental gymnastics for you to get your 'Orange man bad' around.

with no attempt at drawing any coherent lines in the conversation

I expect nothing more or less from you.

Course now I got a bug to put out some of those objective facts...
Germany had a military obligation to sink that ship

Oh no, objective facts, this should be interesting. No, they didn't. They weren't obliged to sink the ship. No one was forcing them to.

well ok that’s subjective

Aaaand it's gone.

This is called laying seige, a crude laissez faire strategy of war by attrition meaning starve the bastards till they fall down of exhaustion

If it's crude but it works... Siege and blockades has been an aspect of warfare since the concept of holding ground. And considering the British had been land blockading Germany for quite a while at this point, it makes perfect strategic sense to do it at sea as well.

Gerry

Jerry

OK, so Germany sneaks around with U-Boats and unambiguously declares ‘unrestricted naval war’ in the waters around the UK

As they are within rights to do, considering they're in the middle of quite a large war. Everyone does it.

Meanwhile the alleged lover of peace and neutrality, Woody Wilson is busy trying to coax the Mexicans into a safer, more friendly war while US industry happily profiteers off both sides of the European war but mostly the UK who are eager to be indebted to their former colony...

Here we go. We've hit the real topic of conversation, the inevitable 'Corrupt America, by Roger Jolly' paragraph that no matter the starting topic, always end up steering towards.
As if anyone else would've done anything else in the same position.

No one payed any heed and they all went down with the ship because people are stupid

No one? I reckon quite a few people would've turned off their summer holiday across the Atlantic during the War. Also, this kind of thing was incredibly rare. It's not like it was happening to every cross Atlantic liner, so some people took their chances, considering you had a better chance of getting across in 1916 unscathed than you would've done in 1816.

because people are stupid

Yes. People really are.


Anyway, moving away from America Bad and back towards Ships, here's some America Good with 200,000tons of freedom.

All 4 Iowa class battleships in the same place at the same time for as far as I can find out, the only time in the ships long lives. Despite them all being used for shore bombardment during the recently concluded Korean War, they'd not been used in the same location.
Which is a shame, cos a picture like this of all 4 ships doing a 19 gun broadside (especially if they'd managed it in colour as well) at a shore target would look suitably biblical

 

[Pink]

I wonder why the description for that battleship formation picture has parts crossed out? To classify it? To correct a mistake (which I don't see)?

 

[Horus Lupercal]

I wondered that as well. I don't think it's official censorship as they'd either cut the words out or black bar everything.

There's nothing incriminating or secret about the description either. It's all camera details.

 

[dezway]

Jerry

Jerrymandering

 

[The Dark in the Light]

 

[Soyuzturtle]

View attachment 58588

What on earth is this?

 

[UN Cosmo Navy]

What on earth is this?

An aircraft carrier with the bottom part of a tank and a lot of pools on it

 

[Soyuzturtle]

An aircraft carrier with the bottom part of a tank and a lot of pools on it

How did you figure that out? You must be some sort of genius.

 

[UN Cosmo Navy]

How did you figure that out? You must be some sort of genius.

Look at it closely...you see the tread mills and on the runway, you see the sharks and that that plane with that white on the ¨water¨ wait in the.....desert?!

 

[Soyuzturtle]

Look at it closely...you see the tread mills and on the runway, you see the sharks and that that plane with that white on the ¨water¨ wait in the.....desert?!

First of all , I was being sarcastic.
Also , do you mean treads or tracks? I've never heard someone call tank tracks treadmills.

 

[UN Cosmo Navy]

First of all , I was being sarcastic.
Also , do you mean treads or tracks? I've never heard someone call tank tracks treadmills.

(facepalm)

 

[Pink]

View attachment 58588

What I don't get is the beach, boat and big fish...

 

[Blazer Ayanami]

Anyone noticed the pool just behind the command bridge?

 

[Soyuzturtle]

Anyone noticed the pool just behind the command bridge?

They look like locks as a replacement for aircraft lifts.

 

[Mars Pathfinder]

Anyone noticed the pool just behind the command bridge?

pretty sure they are for recreational pool for..... for commanders

 

[Horus Lupercal]

Walk softly. And carry a really, really, really big fucking stick.

New Jersey, close up in 4k. And a reminder of just how good a composer steve jablonsky is as well.

If you have a soul, skip to 3:06 and tell me the next 20 seconds isn't the most majestic thing you've never laid eyes upon.

 

[The Dark in the Light]

Walk softly. And carry a really, really, really big fucking stick.

New Jersey, close up in 4k. And a reminder of just how good a composer steve jablonsky is as well.

If you have a soul, skip to 3:06 and tell me the next 20 seconds isn't the most majestic thing you've never laid eyes upon.

This makes me want to cry, it's beautiful... And to imagine there was once a time when seeing many battleships was commonplace, blows my mind.