Royal Navy ordered to turn ship's guns(blanks),they were pointing at Michelle Obama's hotel room

dailymail.co.uk ^ | 10,15,11

[InvisibleChurch]

A British Royal Navy ship was ordered to turn its guns around because they were parked pointing at a hotel room Michelle Obama was staying in. Fearing the First Lady might be in danger, minders ordered the captain of the HMS Edinburgh stationed in Cape Town, South Africa, to switch them away from her five-star suite.

The U.S. agents have since been accused of overreacting after it emerged the Sea Dart missiles were, in fact, loaded with blanks having been used during a ceremony in honour of a sailor who had died.

Former Royal Navy officer Mike Critchley told the Daily Mirror: 'This is typical American Secret Service going over the top.

'I would have thought that they could trust their British allies to not put a missile through the bedroom window of the First Lady. It is unfortunate that this happened at an extremely sad time for the ship.'

Mrs Obama was on an official visit to South Africa in June and was staying in a luxury suite at the five star Table Bay Hotel.

The boat, meanwhile, happened to be in the middle of a ceremonial routine to remember Lieutenant Sara Hellawell, a 26-year-old whose body was found onboard a few days before.

[50sDad]

But she is the Modern Evita, the Earth Mother, the one we all love because she cares for us when we are too stupid to do it ourselves!

[Popman]

Interesting that the SS is named as the reason....dollars to donuts the first Wookie looked out her window and saw the guns pointed in her direction and got paranoid and made the SS request this reposition of the missiles

[Menehune56]

More detail on the death of Lt. Sara Hellawell. I thought it was odd the circumstances weren't included in the original article.

[Doogle]

"broadside has a whole new meaning"

[C210N]

She seems to be the type of paranoid that gets upset sitting down to dinner if all the setting’s knives and forks are pointing at her.

[IMR 4350]

Anything with an exhaust as big as Moochies, has got to be hot.

[Chode]

the silly fat cow wasn't in the top floor Presidential suite???

[Bruinator]

They were positioned in the standard rest position. They were not turned in the direction of the hotel.

[org.whodat]

Could not have hurt her, the brits are out of wookie rounds, fired them all at daffy.

[SunkenCiv]

Yeah, I feel for her, I had the same problem when I was taking vacations on the taxpayer dime during the Obama Recession.

Thanks InvisibleChurch.

[MasterGunner01]

In the missile world there are “Pretty Birds” and there are “Warshots”. Pretty Birds are used for exercising the system and for display for various occasions: official visitors, entering or leaving port, equipment checks, etc. They have no warheads or propellant — they're inert chunks of metal and fiberglass with some internal electronics for system monitoring. The USN paints our Pretty Birds a light blue with white fins and trim; the RN paints theirs all red.

Warshots are painted WHITE. There is a brown 2-inch band painted around the propellant section that indicates a live rocket motor. There is a 2-inch band painted around the warhead section. A blue band indicates the warhead is inert; a yellow band (sometimes with the explosive filler in black letters) indicates a LIVE warhead.

The Head Wookies’ Secret Service people should have known this and why the RN ship was “dressed” for a special occasion. This is not a state secret.

As an aside, during the mid-1980s, a USN missile cruiser and a Russian missile cruiser were in a friendly (neutral) port for a port call. The daily routine was to exercise the ship's combat systems for equipment checks. In this case, the Russian cruiser was aft of the American vessel.

One day, about half way through the port call, the Americans began their 0830 routine of running equipment checks. Someone in the missile house selected the wrong cells and loaded the launcher rails with two Warshots instead of the usual Pretty Birds. The on-deck safety observer immediately informed the missile house of the error and the Wardhots were quickly pulled back into the missile house, but not before there were a lot of binoculars staring at the loaded launcher from the Russian ship.

The American skipper called his Russian opposite number and offered an embarrassed apology that was accepted. Both skippers agreed to suspend weapons’ exercises for the rest of the port call.

[hattend]

Why is she in England (again)? I thought the Obamas hate the Brits.

[the scotsman]

Nope.

[Bob]

One day, about half way through the port call, the Americans began their 0830 routine of running equipment checks. Someone in the missile house selected the wrong cells and loaded the launcher rails with two Warshots instead of the usual Pretty Birds. The on-deck safety observer immediately informed the missile house of the error and the Wardhots were quickly pulled back into the missile house, but not before there were a lot of binoculars staring at the loaded launcher from the Russian ship.

I had a similar situation happen to me running DSOT on a DDG in port at San Diego. The safety observer didn't catch that live birds, rather than TSAMs, were under the launcher arms. As they were coming up, he SCREAMED to stop the loading. There we sat, with two live birds halfway in the magazine and halfway onto the launcher. The only way to cycle them back down was to bring them fully up on the rails. I think it may have taken an act of Congress (or perhaps divine intervention) to get the permission needed to do that. Definitely the most interesting DSOT I ever ran. (And yes, I did catch hell for letting it happen.)

[MasterGunner01]

In the late 1960s or early 1970s, one of the GMG1 gunner's mates on a Forrest Sherman-class DD discovered he had a cheating spouse. [Forrest Sherman DDs had auto-loading Mk 42 5-inch guns.] As it turned out, he could see the bedroom window of his apartment from the one man control (OMC) station of the Mk 42 gun mount from the pier at 32nd street in San Diego. He decided to give his cheating spouse and her boyfriend a Sunday morning wake up call.

He figured that she'd call her boyfriend over for some “horizontal mambo” while he stood duty over the weekend. He had the gun loaded to the transfer tray with a BL&P projectile (blind loaded and plugged practice ammo). Fortunately, the weekend duty section people stopped him before he could put his plan into reality. Wife and boyfriend were very fortunate the wake up call wasn't a 70 pound projectile at 2,900 feet per second flying through the bedroom. Now that IS coitus interruptus!

[Olog-hai]

---

Noone wants to see Mrs OBAMA die

---

He does?

[Riley]

One of my bestiary of pet peeves. That, and ‘prolly’.

[Olog-hai]

---

One of my bestiary of pet peeves. That, and ‘prolly’

---

Seems to happen “alot” . . .