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Domus Acipenseris

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Posts posted by Domus Acipenseris

  2. General news thread

    in Open Discussion

    Posted

    https://www.cnn.com/2019/03/12/us/college-admission-cheating-scheme/index.html

     

    Parents paid up to 6 million dollars to get their kids into college.  About 50 people were arrested on fraud charges.

     

    Some of it is absurd.  Ringers for the SAT.  Bribing coaches to recruit non-athletes who then suffer injuries once they step on campus.

     

    Whatever happened to just putting up a building Thornton Melon style?

     

     

  9. The interesting ship photos/art thread.

    in Naval Discussion

    Posted

    Re:  USS Roanoke.  It's too bad the Worcester class armament failed.  They were really cool ships.  I've read that the 6"/47 didn't work well for AA.  Supposedly they built it to reach German bombers dropping standoff munitions like Hs 293 and Fritz X but couldn't fire fast at high angles.

     

    Des Moines class armament is cooler.  Evidently they had to decide between the destructiveness of 8" fire against cruisers and Kongo class BCs and the rate of fire needed to stop DD torpedo attacks.  Instead of one or the other they chose both, an 8" with 10rpm.

  10. Dag Hammarskjold Assassination

    in Open Discussion

    Posted

    https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/jan/12/former-raf-pilot-shot-down-un-chief-dag-hammarskjold-1961-plane

     

    A Belgian mercenary claimed to have shot down UN Sec General Dag Hammarskjold's plane air to air.  I don't know what all of the "CIA bomb in the plane conspiracy" guys will do now.  Supposedly Harry Truman told an NYT reporter it was an assassination instead of a crash and there is also said to be NSA intercepts of the pilot reporting a successful intercept to GCI.

  14. The Aircraft Carrier Shitstorm Thread

    in Naval Discussion

    Posted

    On 4/26/2017 at 2:17 PM, roguetechie said:

     

    Ramlaen,

     

    Not being a naval systems guy, other than a fascination with with Umoe surface effect ships (skjold class) small watercraft like the riverine warfare guys etc use anything really high speed WIG's concrete submarines and amphibious warfare systems, I tend to separate naval weapons into long range stuff like harpoon and SM series missiles and CIWS stuff like rolling airframe missiles and Vulcan guns.

     

    With this in mind, with all the mark 41 VLS cells in a carrier strike group is a pretty substantial punch IF you're loaded up 80/20 or 75/25 defensive missiles to offensive systems. My assumption is that most of the time this would be the case for a carrier strike group's entourage.

     

    But then we get to the close in antimissile and small boat knife fighting systems which a nuclear super carrier itself and her entourage carry, they're just not all that well armed compared to Russian equivalent platforms. Someone actually posted a picture somewhere on the SH forum showing the difference between kuznetsov and American nuclear super carriers. The graphic showed the number and location of missile and gun systems as well as the arcs each item covers and the difference between the two was very evocative!

     

    Honestly, modern American naval vessels are really lightly armed on a tonnage basis from the LCS all the way on up to super carriers!

    USN carriers are lightly armed for several reasons.  One is that the tonnage and deck area is put into aircraft.  A second is that a jet fuel spill/fire could soak a VLS while it cannot easily reach the launchers in the position they are in on US carriers.  A third is that the vertically launched missile exhaust plumes can damage aircraft, especially stealth coatings.  In addition, the defensive systems have radars that emit and give away the location of the carrier.

  24. Trade-offs in WWII Fighter Design

    in Aviation

    Posted

    Does anyone have any info. on bubble canopies?  I've read that many pilots preferred the razorback P-47 because it was faster, a more stable gun platform, and easier to escape from if the plane became inverted on the ground compared to the bubble canopy version.

     

    Of course, we all know that the F-35 will be clubbed like a baby seal because it lacks a bubble canopy.  The reason the US lost so many planes in Vietnam?  Yes, you guessed it, no bubble canopies.

  25. Trade-offs in WWII Fighter Design

    in Aviation

    Posted

    No docs in this post, sorry.

     

    The P-38 was designed as an interceptor.  As such, it was expected that the pilot could do things like switch fuel tanks, change prop pitch, and adjust the mixture at his leisure.  The main reason for the difference in combat performance between the PTO and ETO was the lack of an Integrated Air Defense System in the PTO.  Japanese interceptors were trying to climb up to reach the American strikes and the P-38's had the advantage in situational awareness and energy.  In the ETO the Germans had the edge in both due to their high quality (for the time) IADS.  The P-38's switchology was too difficult for the average pilot whereas the P-51 gave the pilot a better chance.  Other factors in the P-38's performance in the ETO were lack of experience and relative numbers.  The P-51 arrived when the US had more knowledge and more planes and the Germans had fewer.

     

    The P-47 was a better fighter bomber than the P-51 due to greater range-payload and lower vulnerability.  The P-47 was capable of handling the German fighters but at $80,000 a piece vs $50,000 for a P-51 the P-47 had to be used where it was most effective.

     

     

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