The High Tech War

[chief]

I'm sure everyone has been watching the high tech weapons show on TV, irregardless of your politics it certainly is impressive but all is not what it seems. Myself and a bunch of other retired military guys work for a contractor who performs maintenace on navy ships in Japan. At couple of days ago
one of the guys was sent to the U.S.S Kitty-Hawk to make an emergency repair which was beyond the ability of the sailors.
What was the repair? The installation new v belts on one of the ship's clothes washers.
It makes you wonder.

[JasonW]

On a semi related note, I came across this link at my university. We are small U, no MIT but they have some neat things. There is some neat videos at the link below that resemble something relating to a laser guided bomb.
These were apart of the required degree projects done in the last year of an electrical degree program. I have 2 years to go and am looking into making an inverter type TIG welder. I will look into the feasiblity of this project starting this summer.So wait and see

http://flash.lakeheadu.ca/~tayebi/degree_projects

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[jfsmith]

I think a combination PGS and Laser guided robot would be really neat, you could get lots of surplus after this war.
But remember that you have to hand mill all of the parts, so that we can continue this thread and stay on the machinist board.

[pogo]

When I was in, there was no hard and fast rules about what maintenance items could be handed off to an IMA (intermediate maintenance activity).

All you had to do was fill out a 2-kilo form and the repair was done by shore maintenance types instead of ship's crew.

Yeah, some crews developed reputations as lazy SOB's for handing off their work they should have done themselves.

[Thrud]

I want to know why they have not made a 20,000 lb. ground penetrating bunkerblaster. The mere occasion of having a big bastard like that fall on your ass would make most of them give up.

I think it is admirable that they are taking care to not injure inocents - but I don't trust those bastards in not hurting their own people and blaming the US.

I am proud that my Alberta Premier - "King Ralph" the blue eyed arab denounced the Canadian government for being weasels and praised the US. MAYBE YOU GUYS COULD FREE US NEXT - PLEASE?

[NAMPeters]

That MOAB has such a large over pressure area that it closes down vents etc. to bunkers. Does every thing but leave a R.I.P. stone; so who needs a penetrator?

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Neil Peters

[chief]

POGO,
You ain't lying brother, Iv'e had them ask me to sharpen their drillbits, make 1/4 20 screws and drill out their deck drains for them. The sense of accomplishment and pride in self-reliance is gone.

[wierdscience]

Coarse you do realise that we are talking Navy here,hell the belts probibly run bow to stern up and down several decks and man ways make three wraps around the screws and include no fewer than three command and control back ups

[INTP]

I'm taking a machine class with a guy that was an army mechanic working on gas/diesel engines until a couple years ago. I commented that he must have a lot of experience with engines. He replied that almost all of what they did was swap engines and transmissions, not actually work on them. That just didn't match my expectation.

In the latest issue of Forbes, there's an article about how many third parties are doing things that the military used to do for itself. Things like KP are gone, and replaced with civilian contractors doing all the kitchen work. Same for much of the repair/maintenance, especially for the very high-tech equipment. The argument seems to be to "focus on core competencies."

As a compulsive generalist, I worry about the dependencies of being overly specialized, especially in the military. This seems to mirror the ongoing trend toward specialization in the US economy (and others, I can only assume). I'm sure that the efficiencies of specialization are easy to see (and measure), but how do you weigh that against the disadvantage of having to rely on others for nearly everything else?

[chief]

INTP,
On a ship a sailor is supposed to perform basic maintenance only their are several reason for this which I won't get into, The exceptions being the welders and the Machinists (a machinist mate is not a machinist, he is a steam driven equipment mechanic, Machine shop work is performed by
an MR Machinery Repairman). When a sailor leaves a ship for shore duty he should be going to the shipyard to work and learn the indepth aspects of his job.
There is a lot of swapping in the military for a simply reason, ease of supply, it is quicker and simplier to swap out a bad crank shaft then to grind it down and buy undersize bearings, it keeps things standardized. Of course this all goes out the window when you are stationed on a 40 year old minesweeper, that's when you learn to pour bearings, master devcon, braze, drop angles to make templates so you can tape them to the faceplate to do indexing and host of other amazing things.

[RGFaison]

Hey Chief,
Any chance that they are looking for new higher's out there in Japan?
You can email me off line and I can give details of my experience.

Russ Faison

[Ragarsed Raglan]

Hey Thrud,

22,000Lb Bunker buster? must mean a 'Grand Slam' - it was done 60 years ago!

http://www.bismarck-class.dk/tirpitz/miscellaneous/tallboy/tallboy.html

RR

[alumtuna]

There were even bigger bombs explosions (non nuclear) then that in Mil R&D

[Thrud]

RR

Hey, I fart louder than that!

Besides, the MOAB has 20K of liquid HEX - it weighs far more than that...

You know what the Americans do with old Naval barrels, eh? Bunker busters!

During Afghanistan they were actually thinking of making "Fusion bomb bunker busters" of around 20-50Kt to take out installations like Cheyenne Mountain. There was a lot of speculation as to survivability of the bomb itself from an impact high enough to bury it under ground far enough for the shock wave to be effective. You get to that point, they might just as well use small Neutron bombs instead and just go in later and pull out bodies.

[Al Messer]

Please allow me to agitate the pot. Back during the Clinton/Gore years, college ROTC rifle teams were crying for better and newer rifles for their rifle teams to use in competition. They didn't get them.

At this same time, at Anniston Alabama Army Depot, BRAND NEW Army surplus Winchester 52s and Remington 40Xs and Savage/Anshutz target rifles were being "chopped up and melted down so "They would not fall into the wrong hands." Some of them were still packed in the original Cosmoline. Y'all have fun with this thread!!