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Maggie’s Military Jeopardy

#1,251
Foul Mike said:
What is the difference between a DFAC and the chowhall, messhall?
Don't say buffet, Chowhalls ain't got time for that shit.
Do they even have KP anymore?
Click to expand...

They're actually the same, the only difference IME is that DFAC's are on post and mess is in the field. The main difference comes from branch.

Buffet indeed. That's actually how they are setup though.

They only have KP in basic. But you can get assigned in the field to help the cooks or do other bullshit if you are on profile or are a douchbag. Usually you drop 'em off there when you go to the TOC for something, then when you come back for more shit they'll be begging to go back. This is accurate as of 2004-ish, not sure what they do now.

In basic you have douchebags right from the start and they'd rather get a chance to eat some day old cake or some shit that comes back on the trucks instead of running obstacles or whatever, so I was lucky that I only got one KP rotation and I spent it working the dock outside. I traded the rest of my KP duty away (don't ask me how I got away with it, don't recall!). Fucking people actually PAID me to do KP! But I'm guilty of using the Tom Sawyer method of getting them to do my chores...
 
#1,256
barneybdb said:
Down here in Aus army cooks were known as fitter and turners, fitter in the pot and turner to shit, navy food was known as SCRAN, Shit Cooked by Royal Australian Navy.

As for the Intrepid, I have found four ships of that name, but no explanation for the namings?
Click to expand...

Yeah, but the captured Intrepid is pretty important in Early American History, I knew the name was familiar like "Enterprise" and "Constitution" --it's that kind of important. The others appear to be insignificant.

Am I right, is it the stolen ship in Tripoli?
 
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#1,259
Regarding the INTREPID, I don't know the answer to it, but I honestly figured ya'll here would sing that one out right quick. I just find it 'curious' that the ship was named such so close (in timing) to the BSC/OSS man with the same moniker. One name covering another, in redundancy?
 
#1,262
As for Intrepid....

It's a word that means "fearless, unafraid, undaunted, unflinching, unshrinking, bold, daring, gallant, audacious, adventurous, heroic, dynamic, spirited, indomitable..." there are other words.

So it is a natural name for a warship. The fact that the first Intrepid... lived up to it's name... meant that new ships would carry on that name. Like Enterprise. There have been 6 ships named Philadelphia... ranging back to a simple gunboat in the Revolutionary War times. If a ship distinguishes itself... when it's retired, its name lives on.

There is likely nothing at all to do with "A Man Called Intrepid." That was a code name for, IIRC, a Canadian who helped the British through his great contacts in the US in the immediate pre-war years. There would be no connection... unless it was the other direction. And that is unlikely. His code-name-Intrepid... came from the definition above. Not a Navy connection.

I think that there is a new ship called Sullivans, BTW. The first one was named after 5 brothers who perished together in WW2, perhaps at Savo Island. There was a ship named after them in WW2. And I think has been more than one since. Again... a great name lives on in Navy Tradition.

Cheers,

Sirhr
 
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#1,265
Stryker, You got it.
When I got out UA was just becoming a thing and the poor unfortunate SOB that was assigned to watch over the collection of samples to make sure someone didn't use their girlfriend's piss or some other nefarious thing was know as the Meat Gazer , Dick Watcher, and I am sure many other names.
I only had to do it once in the Army and it pissed me off, no pun intended, but did have to submit random samples while working for the State of Colorado years later.
I have always thought of it as a violation of the 4th Amd. something about Person, a warrant, probable cause etc. and eroding our rights that I had been told I was drafted into the Army to protect.
It was all about having to have a CDL in order to work so therefor you piss in the bucket but the persons that send you to do that do not have a CDL so they are therefore exempt. I felt of it as a huge erosion of our rights and they were the ones making enough money to buy drugs and making up all of these monkey fuck rules for those asshole below them making me think they were on drugs.
That is how it started, look at it now.
I understand testing after an accident or weird behavior,ie probable cause, with a warrant but it has been let go far beyond that.
Maybe test everyone along the street or at the welfare office collecting free shit. Here come the Piss Police.
That won't work out as they will tell you to go piss up a rope., my rights etc.
It was NOT a condition of employment when I took the job but it did come down the piss pipe later and those I always felt most likely to fail were never tested. What is good for one is good for all. Test them ALL.
Rant over, FM
 
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#1,268
Foul Mike said:
Stryker, You got it.
When I got out UA was just becoming a thing and the poor unfortunate SOB that was assigned to watch over the collection of samples to make sure someone didn't use their girlfriend's piss or some other nefarious thing was know as the Meat Gazer , Dick Watcher, and I am sure many other names.
I only had to do it once in the Army and it pissed me off, no pun intended, but did have to submit random samples while working for the State of Colorado years later.
I have always thought of it as a violation of the 4th Amd. something about Person, a warrant, probable cause etc. and eroding our rights that I had been told I was drafted into the Army to protect.
It was all about having to have a CDL in order to work so therefor you piss in the bucket but the persons that send you to do that do not have a CDL so they are therefore exempt. I felt of it as a huge erosion of our rights and they were the ones making enough money to buy drugs and making up all of these monkey fuck rules for those asshole below them making me think they were on drugs.
That is how it started, look at it now.
I understand testing after an accident or weird behavior,ie probable cause, with a warrant but it has been let go far beyond that.
Maybe test everyone along the street or at the welfare office collecting free shit. Here come the Piss Police.
That won't work out as they will tell you to go piss up a rope., my rights etc.
It was NOT a condition of employment when I took the job but it did come down the piss pipe later and those I always felt most likely to fail were never tested. What is good for one is good for all. Test them ALL.
Rant over, FM
Click to expand...

So you got out around 1974, right? Isn't that the date of the very first army piss test? I can tell you a lot about those. We got pissed ALL THE DAMN TIME. Our unit had a bottomless budget and they went batshit with it. QRF? You WILL be pissed within one hour (after that you're late and in more trouble!). You will be pissed on QRF duty, period, just a matter of when. Been pissed on Friday and again on Sunday. Hell, I've been pissed before I've been pissed and then pissed again!

The ONE time they had a reason to piss me, they couldn't. Turns out they have to piss the entire unit to piss one person if they suspect someone, unless they have a reason (like an accident or if I volunteered, and I don't volunteer).

Today a meat gazer is generally a younger E5 (has to be a non-comm) that just is unfortunate enough to get selected for it, whoever is on CQ or if the unit has a "house mouse" of that rank that they can make do it. Broke dicks also get picked for it. There are worse duties, though this one will get you ragged more than most!
 
#1,273
packratt said:
Vickers to get a short burst
Click to expand...
Very close... Bren gun, actually. They were so accurate and heavy that anus long bursts just created an ineffective pencil of bullets. Gunners were trained to shoot bursts to the cadence of Fish and Chips... Before letting up the trigger and moving to a new target. Fish did become acronym for mout... But not until much later.

Cheers, Sirhr
 
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#1,275
Stryker, I got out in 71, We got pissed in 70 in RVN of all places when the Bn. was on a stand down,"Palace Guard" ,5th. Bn. 7th Cav. 1st. Cavalry Division. It fuckin near caused a mutiny and had a few Lifers fearing a Fragging. It was bad enough that they were guarding themselves at night. I think that if the troops could have figured out who put the order out it would have happened. It did happen for lessor offensive things. Never had to piss again.
I think the difference between a DFAC and a mess hall is choice.
In a DFAC you had a few choices on the chow line as to what you wanted to eat.
In the chow hall we had choices too, Eat this shit the Mess Sgt. put out or go somewhere else like the PX snack bar if there was one or have C-Rats or go hungry.
 
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#1,276
Strykervet said:
Okay. Adjusted for inflation, what is the most expensive weapons program ever in history?
Click to expand...
We need more information. There have been some expensive weapon systems that work very well (Enterprise Class carriers for instance), and there have been others that were horribly expensive to develop where they never even got to a working prototype. Then there are others, like Star Wars, that we don't really know what they developed with all that money they threw at it... The first rule of orbital mind control lasers is that we don't talk about orbital mind control lasers.
 
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#1,277
I was thinking Spruce Goose, but that $23M in 1946 would be a paultry $300M today, so not even what a rifle system would cost...

Regan's Star Wars, was $209B in 1983 would cost $523B today.

I don't see how anything could catch the F-35 $1.43T and counting... If it was purchased in 1945 it would cost a hundred billion dollars. Billion was not even a word used to describe money back then. $1.43 Trillion is the entire GDP of the USA in 1941!
 
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#1,281
sirhrmechanic said:
B29 superfortress.

Cheers, sirhr
Click to expand...

For the win! I applaud everyone else too for not googling it to death! My buddy SWORE it was the F35 but that's modern pricing and I couldn't impress the idea of inflation on him and how it really matters when comparing things like this.

Yes, many people have no idea that the B29 cost even MORE than the entire atom bomb program! And that encompassed the largest building ever built, the largest magnet ever built, converting a mountain top depression into a man made reservoir to power massive equipment including that magnet, Hanford site (where the largest building in the world was located and not to mention FULL of uranium enrichment devices, each expensive in their own right. Wow.

And that one plane cost more, but in it's defense they had nothing to deliver that bomb with for starters (and even then it barely got away) and second, the technology to make a sealed pressure cabin, not to mention some very high tech gear at the time including how the turrets worked --due to pressure, they had to be sealed. The turrets were automated and the gunner sat in a pressurized "whatever" and operated the guns that way.

They had NOBODY to fly 'em, so the brought in Paul Tibbets (remember him?) and he's the one that actually trained up all the B29 crews. So now it makes sense why they chose him.

Another thing most people aren't aware of is how many backups the radio had. Couldn't afford failure. So IIRC, it had something like six or seven. My dad being my dad, and into the shit he was into, scored he vacuum tube that represents the exact line between a non-nuclear world and a post nuclear world. It was obviously lost on the other kids at show and tell, but I dug it!
 
#1,282
Fig said:
I was thinking Spruce Goose, but that $23M in 1946 would be a paultry $300M today, so not even what a rifle system would cost...

Regan's Star Wars, was $209B in 1983 would cost $523B today.

I don't see how anything could catch the F-35 $1.43T and counting... If it was purchased in 1945 it would cost a hundred billion dollars. Billion was not even a word used to describe money back then. $1.43 Trillion is the entire GDP of the USA in 1941!
Click to expand...

That is an interesting take. Still, the B29 wins. Not something you'd expect, I agree. And everyone that knows about F35 tends to pick it right away. It is a bottomless program and I'm not sure it's worth it all in the end (WW2 taught us more gear is better than expensive gear so what can it do that say, 100 upscaled drones couldn't?)

Star Wars is a hard one to consider because some of the stuff did was spycraft --it never existed past the veil. They THOUGHT we were spending that much. Most of the stuff we're familiar with regarding Star Wars was just made up --but that's not to say they didn't weaponized space to some degree. Just not like we like to think. My dad did this, and the second the wall fell and USSR failed, everyone went into other weapons development or the space program (shuttle at the time and ISS). All of them. I don't think anyone will ever know exactly how much was spent on Star Wars and given it's goal of bankrupting the USSR, it very well could have cost more and we'll just never know.
 
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#1,283
Strykervet said:
For the win! I applaud everyone else too for not googling it to death! My buddy SWORE it was the F35 but that's modern pricing and I couldn't impress the idea of inflation on him and how it really matters when comparing things like this.

Yes, many people have no idea that the B29 cost even MORE than the entire atom bomb program! And that encompassed the largest building ever built, the largest magnet ever built, converting a mountain top depression into a man made reservoir to power massive equipment including that magnet, Hanford site (where the largest building in the world was located and not to mention FULL of uranium enrichment devices, each expensive in their own right. Wow.

And that one plane cost more, but in it's defense they had nothing to deliver that bomb with for starters (and even then it barely got away) and second, the technology to make a sealed pressure cabin, not to mention some very high tech gear at the time including how the turrets worked --due to pressure, they had to be sealed. The turrets were automated and the gunner sat in a pressurized "whatever" and operated the guns that way.

They had NOBODY to fly 'em, so the brought in Paul Tibbets (remember him?) and he's the one that actually trained up all the B29 crews. So now it makes sense why they chose him.

Another thing most people aren't aware of is how many backups the radio had. Couldn't afford failure. So IIRC, it had something like six or seven. My dad being my dad, and into the shit he was into, scored he vacuum tube that represents the exact line between a non-nuclear world and a post nuclear world. It was obviously lost on the other kids at show and tell, but I dug it!
Click to expand...
Actually did not Google it at all... Just finished reading Superfortress.... By Curtis E. LeMay. Great little book.... Got lucky that you asked your question when you did! Cheers, Sirhr.
 
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#1,287
Yeah but the guy that was Secretary of War at that time did move supplies to the south in preparation for the war. He later went to the Confederacy and became a general I think. I can't remember his name. But by screwing with the supplies the way he did, it helped them start with a bigger advantage than they'd had without it.
 
#1,290
That is correct... The Secretary of War (Secretary of Defense did not come about until about 1947... when we got all huggy and stuff...) ordered that Northern Armories be virtually emptied and supplies moved into states that he likely knew to be planning to secede on the eve of war. It was 100 percent legal... as he was the Secretary of War. He had the authority. It could be argued that he was committing a treasonous act, but since there was no rebellion... there was no treason.

When hostilities started in early 1861... The South's armories were bulging with weapons, powder and ammunition. And about 90 percent of the Nation's artillery.

Cheers,

Sirhr
 
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#1,300
Wow, nobody else chimed in?

So I answered too fast... Finished the documentary and meant to come back on here and change it, then one thing happened then a next, so now I'm finally able to answer it --been chewing at me all week too.

It was the airdrop of the bridge. First time a bridge had ever been airdropped, the Chinese blew out a 24' section of a narrow bridge on the side of a mountain with a near 1000' drop. They didn't know if the drop would work, if they could get it in place once dropped and if it would work once in place. Wow. Around 14,000 guys all marching to the bridge, being shot at the whole way, not being able to shoot back. What those guys had been through, just insane.

Still don't have an answer for the other, I can only guess. The only person that I know that may know it I can't get in touch with; he was there early 80's. Another guess: Exint pods, for extracting people using the weapons mounts on aircraft (or in other ways I suppose).
 
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