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If she really wants more of a guarantee, I’d open the aperture beyond Navy. NOAA Corps is a thing and far more focused on the science aspects.

SWO METOC is still a thing and a very common entry path for METOCs. They’re part of the Info Dominance Corps or whatever they go by now…which means they cross pollinate with Intel and IW in their careers as well. I met a METOC who, besides the usual SWO DivO entry and weather guesser jobs, had...

Yeah if someone still makes ASVAB but doesn’t have a diploma or GED, I read that as having the potential and aptitude, just not a stable home environment that supports finishing those programs. Don’t know how common that combination is really, but that’s pretty spot on for a win win for the...

Yup. And if we’re withdrawing there, pretty much no reason to keep forces in Japan either. Our combat force footprint for USFK isn’t exactly all that heavy considering what purpose it serves…and if anything USFJ is way heavier and in a practical sense, nearly as close. Likewise, symbolically...

If NK were the only player on the other side this could be an interesting theoretical. The close presence of the PRC throws it off completely. As is, both the ROK and Japan already have very heavy investments into defense. Particularly compared to say…Europe.

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/amp/rcna133576

Also worth noting is that those examples are ships that were relatively “lucky”. Stark - one of the 2 Exocet failed to detonate, and Exocet is pretty “small” as ASCMs go. Cole was also relatively “lucky” they were in port. In addition to the ASCMs they’ve been hucking, Iran’s given the Houthis...

When ”distinction” really means adding arbitrary rules we make up for no good reason, it does hurt. Unless there is an official change made, there is no “distinction” to be had. The crew all rate it per the eligibility criteria and established precedent. Which are the only things leadership...

You don’t. Original history of the CAR: https://prologue.blogs.archives.gov/2022/03/10/contact-brawls-and-chambering-the-combat-action-ribbon/ As per the original issuance and retroactive intent, it’s not fucking awards inflation, unless we want to bitch that it was inflated when originally...

That’s the thing…we probably could, if Big Navy were willing to tie up launcher space with a non-high end fight weapon. RAM Block 2 and newer are expensive for a reason, theyre actually pretty nasty for a Sidewinder-esque missile, like you’d expect a weapon designed to backstop defense against...

It’s unfortunately not true. RAMs are also damn near a million $ unit cost at like 900K. Shipboard missiles don’t really do the whole high/low cost mix. We could if we wanted to…but in line with this thread topic, the limited number of ships and spare rounds has lead to prioritization of high...

Meh. I get it, but everything can be ridiculed. A Purple Heart can range from horrific death to a graze. The danger exposure for a CAR can range from a horrific IED that kills even a tank to wiping out some dumb shit shooting a machine gun at a tank. Ships are different because that’s the...

Why? If the missile is targeted at the ship (which can take a little figuring out after the fact), everybody is under fire.

Saw something similar around Enola Gay in VA. Not teenagers, but Japanese tourists, who were absolutely fascinated by the tour guide’s detailed historical background on the plane and crew.

Yeah the LO development types are usually either EE or Applied Physics backgrounds since it’s mainly based on computer modeling of EM waves interacting with the structural design concepts. He may be absolutely right on the canards…and as a general concept it’s probably not the best idea, but...

:D LOL I hate that acronym too. Agreed on the operational value of live testing in a true tactical environment. Especially the Red Sea, the environmentals there are literally quite tough. That said, the cost/qty curve is very very much not on our side. Not only can we afford a fixed qty, we...

Sounds just like going back to the Horn of Africa counter piracy convoy ops. Not to read into things too much, some of the ships holding/turning back could partly be the natural consequence of inefficiencies in convoy ops, some of it could be the inevitable clusterfuck at the kickoff of any...

It’d note that most of the languages I’d consider it more practical or associated with “fun” to visit are not what DOD would consider valuable. And the opposite is also true.

It is. That’s the NTDS symbology for hostile air, surface, and subsurface tracks. The air one has a bunch of extra shit around the basic half diamond to indicate a track about to probably die.

To be fair, I don’t think lack of money spent on their military is the real problem with the Saudis. I don’t know any of the real details of what’s been going on in the Saudi Houthi war, but their inability to make any progress is hardly surprising to anybody who’s worked with them or the other...

Well, being a sanctimonious douche seems to actually appeal to a certain substantial subset of voters these days.

I think it just shows the strategy of wanting to leave the Middle East won’t work as neatly as we’d like, unless we simply decide the trade through the area is unimportant. Ideally we’d have reliable and capable partners in the region aligned to us that would handle most of the problem. But...

I was actually thinking the same. The basic quals are just that…basic. You can hit the broad side of a barn and probably not shoot yourself. Congrats. If you really feel the need for self improvement in the fundamentals of the armed forces, shoot on your own time and dime. Very few states where...

Govt agencies tend to be risk averse because Congress and the public tend to get pissed off when they see things go ka boom. The defense industry is risk averse because shareholders lose their shit if things RUD…and they’ve learned that we’ll pay them for research anyway so why take any risk on...

Definitely agree it’s pretty much useless for a non deployed or anybody without a real need. That said, it doesn’t hurt to ask if somebody wants to do it on their own time and a range and qualified SAMIs are running a course anyway. 9mm and 5.56 NCEA for the basic qual is decimal dust.

The SSN piece is the main driver for the agreement, but it's potentially a pretty big deal. We kinda need to face the reality we are not the sole manufacturing powerhouse of the world. This isn't WW2, and in any scenario involving China, that just isn't a model that will work (we crush the PRC...

All of the above. Shipbuilding companies have little competition and therefore little incentive to actually improve. DOD and industry are in a mutually dependent relationship, neither can really go anywhere else. Unlike aircraft or weapons, there's no real foreign market for warships to expand...

Yeah. But it’s not any weirder than the itty bitty “pistol sights” that sat on my issues rifle’s ACOG. Which were also “oh shit” sights only. Any option if you need backup sights right the F now aren’t ever going to do a whole lot more than good enough for in close “oh shit” moments. If you...

These guys routinely work under NODs…it’s nice not to have to awkwardly get cheek weld while under NV. Also, by being that tall, high rise mounts offer options for backup irons through the mount, under the optic.

If not responsibility, then definitely a Navy problem. And as a Navy problem arguably, a SECNAV / ASN RDA responsibility…certainly no other department is responsible for naval shipyards. Also arguable that it’s a larger Federal government - as in the applicable parts of the Executive and...

Yeah…I feel rather conflicted about where we are with it all today. On one hand, there can be advantages to large consolidated companies. On the other hand, the major defense primes are hardly the equivalent of either the massive Japanese/Korean industrial conglomerates or closer to home, our...

Killing a drone boat is actually surprisingly difficult. The lack of relatively large soft meat bag targets makes it difficult to hit anything critical.

You could ask...but it probably wouldn't go anywhere, because there's no time sensitive need for you to have a particular model of gun. But I don't think it's right that the subjective interpretations of laws between states should create undue hardship for a servicemember, and that includes...

Not having access to breast augmentation doesn't lead to 12 weeks of paid paternity/maternity leave. I find abortion after life to be distasteful as well...but where I draw the line is subjecting servicemembers who don't get a choice where they're stationed to laws that will arbitrarily vary...

Also doesn’t include the closure a whole bunch of public shipyards, like Brooklyn and Long Beach Navy Yards. The issue isn’t necessarily the consolidation of ownership itself as the simple lack of industrial capacity both at the yards we have and the number of them nationally That’s usually...

Thats the risk of any kind of new hotness in general - poorly understood and often ill defined. Kinzhal hits the Mach number sure, but so does every other ballistic missile since…the 50’s? It’s not a scramjet or HGV that can make major changes to its trajectory. And everything that hits...

GENSER Secret. There are some interesting datapoints in there and as I’ve moved on from being a SWO to focus on Combat Systems development and having been in the Live Fire DT/OF world, I’ve got a pretty good idea which things do or don’t add up, but it’s not something that’ll make sense without...

Like I said, it’s blowing up on SWObob and one of the dudes was on watch as TAO when it happened. Not surprisingly there’s apparently more on the high side. I wouldn’t be ready to call it a DJI drone without getting the full picture.

I only came across it b/c it was blowing up on SWOwarriors.com. I’m too lazy to look into the details, but they’ve laid their claims for why they don’t think it’s a DJI drone based on endurance and range. And looking at the overlays of the incidents, they were pretty far from SCI for it to be...

https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/39913/multiple-destroyers-were-swarmed-by-mysterious-drones-off-california-over-numerous-nights The aliens have returned yet again to the SOCAL OPAREAs! Pretty good research from The Drive on this one. Maybe even better researched than that time they wrote...

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Korematsu_v._United_States I’m not an expert on this topic by any means but that reads to me as a challenge to the internments, going from 1942-1944, upheld by the Supreme Court, 6-3. Which would also have it taking place well after the 442nd RCT had been engaged...

Constitutionality as defined by who and when? The internment of Japanese is a great example - it was also found to be constitutional by the courts during WW2? Which one is correct? If the only objection on constitutional grounds is which government branch is allowed to do it, then you’ve de...

Yeah, I don’t agree that it’s so simple. Government absolutely does have, to an extent, the right to do some of that, if warranted. Nothing strictly unconstitutional about it, and even if it was, government is just an expression of the will of its people. It does, however, have a...

Well it kinda helps that you can’t get to Australia from another country unless you literally fly in or take a fairly large ship in. So, as I was living in AUS last year until December, and having been back in CONUS for 3 months, it's mystifying to hear it said that the US response wasn't...

Oh, really? Yes, I'm being snarky, though you could probably find something like that from any old SWO who hates change. But neither of us is really qualified to guess what a hypothetical CVL could or couldn't do in terms of meeting various missions at lower cost/crew demands. And if it can...

This is the same logic the SWO community uses for the CG/DDG with a giant radar and 100 missile cells to be the one and only class they can think about. It feels like that's what's being applied to make CVNs in their current form the one and only useful carrier class. So I don't know where he...

I mean...yeah there's a $1.9T elephant in the room. That said, it's not like deficit spending is a one party issue, both sides are miserably guilty of blowing out budgets to try to cram it all in. Remains to be seen how it will play out, but I suspect that there will be bipartisan opposition...

Sort of. It’s another “had to” and not “want to.” We pretty much always do some DT and OT on the lead ship of a class. Once that is done through IOTE, they should have nominally been able to roll LCS 1-4 out on deployment, and future hulls (or basically whoever else was available on the...

We do it that way because we have to, not because we want to. The closest thing we have to a "VX" like OT is the DDG that is on permanent BMD test duty...but that's because it comes with big MDA/BMD bucks to keep it fully occupied with test events all year round. It pseudo works because we...

I don’t even think the T&E process is the real problem in speeding things up. For the issues I’ve seen in T&E usually fall on either a shortage of test assets (units, range time, etc) that you basically need almost everything to go right, or simple test failures - which from a test perspective...