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IIRC, they were set up like a cubical, three port, three starboard, and three transverse.

I didn't even think of that...

eeewuuu...

... North Atlantic, Sonar spaces *right* above the cut-water. Rollers coming in felt like a REAL fast elevator going up, then bounced down 3 HUGE bumps.

Lather, rinse, repeat ... Endlessly!

Strapped into Stack seat, belts on, and 5-gallon bucket by my leg. Thought I was gonna die ... then worse when I realised I WOULDN'T, dammit!

Jeez, slinger—we have more in common than I thought; top rack under #3 wire, against bulkhead next to starboard water-break wheel for said wire. (Think paddle wheel in large, stand-up bathtub...

Served aboard a War II Essex (USS Intrepid CVA-11) of Yankee Station in '68, so racks were really racks; aluminum tube w/grommented canvas & cotton rope. Foot-and-a-half under flight deck armor, not even any pipes to muffle the sound!

Only A/C space available to us was the Library; Chaplain's writer walked around with sawed-off broomstick to whack shoes if you dropped off while "Reading"; next shot up side of head if heavy sleeper...

When we got back to The World at Norfolk, buddy showed me around the America; A/C in berthing! Shiny-clean decks, racks with extra storage under, stacked 3-high so you could almost sit up in them... I mean, talk about the OLD navy!

Turned out had an Uncle who served aboard Intrepid as 40mm gunner in '44, when things were REALLY tough!

Need more coffee... (Colombian!) getting that shakey feeling agian...

1. Solar and wind power are the greenest of them all.

2. Going green will reduce our dependence on imports from unsavory regimes.

3. A green American economy will create green American jobs.

4. Electric cars will substantially reduce demand for oil.

5. The United States lags behind other rich countries in going green.

Horsepucky.

Back when NASA was worth a bucket of spit; ie, the '60s & '70s, they did a survey of alternative methods of power generation. Guess what?

Wind power and Solar power tied for the two most inefficient methods of producing commercial electric power. The study said that even given just an 80% increase in efficiency, Wind and Solar could not break even over 10 years, due to maintenance costs alone!

Since then, efficiency in those methods has only increased about 25%. Just for fun, check your local wind farm and count the number of windmills that are feathered or tethered. Care to guess the number of mirrors in the average solar array that can't track?

Hell, even the commercials touting Solar have to show at least one vertical mirror, and some shots had six!

Want to know which methods of power generation were the most efficient/sustainable?

Nuclear. Ocean Thermal. And my personal favorite; Solar Power Satellites. (Mirror Or Microwave)

Upshot is, you just can't trust the Govt. where Science is concerned. Including NASA, back when it was good!

I doubt this. If Delta Force had been involved, the end result would have been completely different. They don’t screw up that badly.

Anyone, Special Forces units or Regular Army can screw up when they're being micro-managed by by incompetent Higher (NCA and Reno). I think it's telling that Weaseley Clark was CO at Hood, too.

Seems to me Hood has had some pretty lousy CO's over the last few years.

BTW: I live here in West Kendall in Miami, and I occasionally see Mz. Reno shopping at Publix.

I get chills...

Lord, Amen!

Watched with my wife, had kittens watching Chrissy the Spitter and his minions getting a new ‘tingle’ down their legs.

The ‘tingle’ was from them drizzling at the thought of all those ‘Armed’ tea party Militias.

Loved watching Nora O’Donnel pass off getting her head handed to her by the black tea-partier. Classic!

Oh, and the roses for the haggard blond’s Pulitzer were a good touch...

So much fun in one show...

Y'all are missing the point here;

Independance is an Austal design; they've been building these for more than 20 years. I've yet to hear of any being scrapped for design failures

Both designs claim '40 knots', and if you believe that's all, I've got a bridge in Brooklyn for sale.

The 40 man crew refers to the ships company; depending on the TWO mission packages she's designed to carry, the number of hands goes up to more normal couple of hundred.

'Mission Packages'—need a fleet Anti-Air role? Presto, a couple of tractor-trailer size boxes with Verticle-Launch Systems and you're golden. Need ASW—add two Helo's and a couple of trailers of torps/depth charges, and there you go. Anti-Piracy or Surface Warfare? More Trailers with Anti-Ship missiles, maybe a couple of 155mm guns, the odd 25mm cannon, etc, etc. Mine Sweeping? Same thing. How about a company of Marines w/transport. I mean, it IS a RO/RO. Marine Cobra's. Maybe a couple of MV-22's—Independence has more flight deck than you'd believe.

Bottom Line, the 700 mil. figure is one-off; build a couple of hundred and that number goes way down. Can't take a hit? The whole idea is to make it REAL HARD to hit in the first place. And, as time goes on, they're much easier to add capabilities.

God knows, they're cheaper than a new Arleigh Burke. And Light-years better than some of the disasters we spent billions on; like say the Spruances. I mean, ONE screw?

Do you guys know what the veteran suicide rate is?

I’m not gonna say it, you won’t believe it. And it’s going up.

Google it. And pray for us.

—ExIntrepid

Isn’t that pretty much what I said?

The real NAZA died sometime in the mid 70s, when the shuttle program became the only game in town. NASA itself hasn’t done REAL basic research in three decades, especially after ‘Star Wars’ got emasculated.

The only thing we have going for us now ARE the private companies; they’re the only ones doing SSTO and basic engineering to lower costs to LEO. NASA has been a white-collar welfare program for years. Best it dies a rapid and ingominious death now.

YOu have no Idea how sad that makes me to say that...

Navy, schmavy. Nothing beats the B2 on full afterburner takeoff for noise. You can hear it 15 miles away.

Clearly, you've never experienced an all-up SAC B-52 MITO — Minimum Interval Take-Off — in the 50s /60s around Minot, etc.

Loud's bad enough, but it was the unburned kerosene smell that got me. Somewhere in Canada, the caribou are still coughing!

Here’s a thought.

Repeal Obamacare. Period-dot.

Delete the Department of Education. All of it. Give’em 2 weeks to clear out their desks, and let them discover the joys of high unemployment, like the rest of us. Sell off all the furnishings and physical plant.

Cut every other Department in the Executive Branch by a minimum of 50%, with favorites like the Dept. of Energy, and the Environmental Protection Agency by 75%, budget and staff.

When these non-constitutional goodies are seriously downsized, we can use the savings to spend on one of the only CONSTITUTIONALLY legitimate Federal programs. You know, Defense.

Then crank up the F22 and F35 lines till they match original targets. (On the F35 A-B-C, stop the mission creep and let LockMart start turnin’ them out)

Get General Dynamics and Ingalls off their dead asses with the LCS’s, and start tuning up the DDG-1000s. Lay down enough Sea Wolves so every carrier group has at least ONE of their very own. A few more Virginia’s would be nice, too. The point here is the enemy of the good is the perfect.

Oh, yeah. Maybe do some fine-tuning to Defense Dept. Procurement, too. Like; Go back to X-Projects, and old-school competetive bidding contracts.

Lord, wouldn’t that put a bug up the @$$es of the ‘Perfumed Princes’ of the Pentagon...

Just gives me the warm fuzzies thinkin’ about it.

—ExIntrepid

Ok, you made me look:

“If you can’t explain your physics to a barmaid it is probably not very good physics.”

—As quoted in Journal of Advertising Research (March-April 1998)

Variant: “A theory that you can’t explain to a bartender is probably no damn good.”

—As quoted in The Language of God (2006) by Francis Collins, p.60

I also particularly liked this one:

“All science is either physics or stamp collecting.”

—As quoted in Rutherford at Manchester (1962) by J. B. Birks

Unsourced variant:

“That which is not measurable is not science. That which is not physics is stamp collecting.”

“Physics is the only real science. The rest are just stamp collecting.”

—(Unsourced)

“That which is not measurable is not science.” is also attributed to Lord Kelvin

Guy had a talent for a well turned phrase!

Gravity is an acceleration: the rate of distance per time squared. The only way an object can accelerate is by a force acting upon it such as gravity.

An object moving through space at a constant velocity has no acceleration. Therefore no force is acting upon it. To change its velocity, there must be an acceleration. To get that acceleration, a force must act upon the moving object.

The velocity at which the universe is expanding is increasing. That means there is an increase in acceleration. That increase can only come about due to a force.

Thank you. That's probably the most clear and concise explanation I've seen on the subject. You must be a good teacher, 'cause I don't feel so dumb as reading the rest of these posts. Wasn't it Lord Kelvin who said physics should be clear enough to be explained to a barmaid, or some such thing?

Looks more to me like Republican leadership is in a long overdue process of cleaning house. Get back to conservative republicanism, roll up our sleeves, and go do it. It’s now or never.

Yep. Looks like this is the greatest loss to the Republican (Stupid) Party since the loss of Jim Greer as Florida's GOP Chairman.

I can't help but think that Jerry Pournelle's having a nice toast somewhere. Not that he'd ever admit it. When he and the other Reagan guys got tossed unceremoniously out of the party by the 'egregious' Frum, we lost some hard science guys that might have been able to inform weenies like Graham why Anthropological Global Warming was a crock LONG before things started sliding off the table.

Come to think, I believe I remember Pournelle and Gen. Keyhoe were some of the guys who analysed Wind Farms, Photovoltaic Systems, Ocean Thermal Systems, and Tidal Generators for power back in the late '70s and early '80s. They concluded that the cost would never get CLOSE to break even, and within 10 years would require replacement due to size/wear/maintenance issues.

But who remembers what the pros wrote for Reagan.

Sigh...

autonomous unmanned vehicles don’t count on no goddam link. Wakup boy! Smell the future coffee.

First of all, we don't even have an UCAV that is supersonic.

Second, as of the foreseeable future, autonomous does not include ACM. Period.

Third, even if they were, and did, how would that be better than a ESSM? Besides, they're faster, cheaper, and you can carry a lot more of them.

On the down side, you can't reload a VLS at sea, and risk shooting yourself dry. Which is a 'Bad Thing' in fleet defense.

Bottom line, we needed something faster ACM platform with more enduance (legs!), and cheaper to maintain. What we got was the Hornet. Which we needed for attack roles.

But NOT for Fleet Defense.

As for a Navalized F-22; by the time it's airframe is beefed up for traps, and somehow is found to keep stealth in a sea environment, I doubt if it would be the equivalent of the land-based version.

I'm just sayin'...

Actually, I prefer another quote:

Mongol General: “Conan! What is best in life?”

Conan the Barbarian: “To crush your enemies, see them driven before you, and to hear the lamentation of their women!”

Maybe we can get Sen. Coburn a breech clout and a two-handed sword?

I understand; but another thing to consider is the current airframe lacks a vertical stabilizer, severely limiting high-g ACM.

I’d have to say that for the fleet CAP role, they’re going to have to start with a clean sheet of paper. That implies anywhere from 7 to 15 years development before it’s ready.

For the Marines, I have to say I like the idea of someone like Grumman taking the Fairchild A-10 and reworking it for Short-Deck carriers. If we had to, I think this is more do-able than going for the UCAV’s.

Besides, the only thing UCAV’s are is a re-useable SLAM, which will take longer to develop, and cost WAY more. Why not build more Tomahawks?

More specifically, their job is Close Air Support... which is why the JSF is such a stupid buy for the Marines. It's a $100+ million apiece stealth strike aircraft. It's just a further expensive expansion of the Marines into areas outside their core mission. What they really need is something like new-build OV-10 Broncos strapped with hellfires and rocket pods.

Or, better yet, a navalized version of the A-10.

Now, THERE's a thought! Can't you just imagine what that'd look like!?! "Go Ugly" could take on a whole new meaning with Marines driving...

Naah, no telling what kind of complete disaster the procurement process would make of that. I mean, look what they did with the A-12.

Sheesh.

The problem with the X-47 and other current and planned UCAV's:

• None of them are supersonic, nor do their current performance characteristics make them useful for the primary fleet defense role. They would be completely useless in a supersonic sea-skimmer anti-ship swarm scenario.
• To be useful in a anti-aircraft role, wouldn't it be cheaper to build longer-ranged, more capable anti-air missile?

Since losing the F-14 and the AIM-54C, designed to defend from Bomber-streams launching anti-ship weapons, the Navy began to rely on the the short-legged F/A-18 variants with AIM-120D's for Fleet Defense. Currently, the X-47 cannot support AIM-120's, and to make them capable would cost more than makes sense.

Using X-47 with the F-35B for land-attack purposes makes some sense, but UCAV's for Fleet Defense will take more development time and money than the degradation of the current F/A-18 force will allow, as the article points out.

Further, I've always been unhappy with the reliance on Burke/Tico class ships for Long- and Medium-range Fleet Defense AAW. Besides AEGIS ship's vulnerability to swarm attacks, and the Mk 41's cluster risk of damage, I worry about shooting themselves dry and being unable to reload cells while under way. Let's face it, you can build a LOT of Sunburn or better Anti-Ship, supersonic, sea-skimming missiles for the cost of  a DD or CA.

But that's just my uninformed opinion...

I don’t get it; you mean the ‘ALL VIETNAM veterans’, as opposed to ‘All Vietnam ERA’ veterans?