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      Welcome!   03/05/2016

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mlooney

Things that go bang

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54 minutes ago, Pharaoh RutinTutin said:

Are you sure that was a Russian missile?  

I recall seeing somthing like that from Australia

Fairly sure.  It's been all over the military parts of Discord and online news.  First entry for 'Russian Missile return' on Google gives this:
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10949493/Return-sender-Russian-missile-U-turns-smashes-troops-fired-malfunction.html

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From the article, it looks like they won't have a repeat of that incident from that particular launcher. "Launched by Russian separatists" maybe says not well trained on the device - not regular troops.

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I'm still some what confused why surface to air missile would do a controlled 180.  Their radars only point forward.  What I suspect is that one of the control systems wires were reversed and when told to go left it went right, and the feed back curve made it turn around.  I don't think it was the troops training level that did it, it was a failure of the missile.

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1 hour ago, mlooney said:

I'm still some what confused why surface to air missile would do a controlled 180.  Their radars only point forward.  What I suspect is that one of the control systems wires were reversed and when told to go left it went right, and the feed back curve made it turn around.  I don't think it was the troops training level that did it, it was a failure of the missile.

Hmm. Reversed wires seems to say that it had been worked on or possibly sabotaged.

My theory was there is a 'target location' that needs to be entered, and the default is the origin. That would be bad design, because - evident from the video, but I've seen worse, albeit not in a weapon system. I think your theory makes more sense.

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14 minutes ago, Darth Fluffy said:

My theory was there is a 'target location' that needs to be entered, and the default is the origin.

Problem with that is that's a surface to air missile.  Target is moving so you can't enter its location.

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Right. Anti-aircraft missiles identify their targets via radar, laser, lidar, or tracking radio or infrared emissions. Since the target is moving in a hard-to-predict manner, the guidance computer needs to know “what” the target is, rather than simply going on a set-before-launch course.

As for reversed wires being sabotage, it’s quite likely that it was simple incompetence—somebody carelessly installed something backwards. The original statement that led to the coining of Murphy’s Law was in reference to technicians installing a set of accelerometers backwards in a rocket sled experiment.

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2 hours ago, ijuin said:

The original statement that led to the coining of Murphy’s Law was in reference to technicians installing a set of accelerometers backwards in a rocket sled experiment.

In theory, a scientific experiment can never fail. Either you get more support for your theory, which is good; or you learn something new, which is even better.

In practice, sometimes the new thing you learn is that the equipment setup was effed up.

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2 hours ago, Darth Fluffy said:

I was under the impression that the Ukraine was using Soviet era left-overs and Western hand-me-downs. Not true! There is a vibrant arms industry in the Ukraine.

I think it’s Russia that is mostly stuck with Soviet-era leftovers.

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1 hour ago, ijuin said:

I think it’s Russia that is mostly stuck with Soviet-era leftovers.

Russia did a lot of upgrades in the 2005-2015 time frame.  Most tanks have been overhauled for example.

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3 hours ago, mlooney said:

The US army thinks that there are 71 Ukrainian made worth tracking in the Worldwide Equipment Guide

https://odin.tradoc.army.mil/WEG/List/Ukraine&&&&& 

I could not find a YouTube article I saw over the weekend, but their stuff is by no means shabby. The large caliber rifle compares well with others, like our Barrett; the anti-tank missile is not as automatic as the Javelin, but has a greater range, and is in many contexts safer to use for that reason. Their tank won a contract competition in Taiwan against similar top tier tanks; the main drawback is they have too few. Most of these are very new designs, fielded since the Crimea invasion.

Just offhand, 71 entries seems pretty good.

If Putin goes Tango Uniform, does the invasion stop? Rumor is, he may be running on a limited timer, health-wise (not to mention crony-wise).

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1 hour ago, mlooney said:

Russia did a lot of upgrades in the 2005-2015 time frame.  Most tanks have been overhauled for example.

The Ukraine is helping with that, making convertibles.

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4 minutes ago, ProfessorTomoe said:

Totally Upgef*cked?

Tits Up, as in, on your back, dead, funerary position, but also applied to unresponsive vehicles or gear, so generally, 'dead'.

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Of course in actual military use, at least when I was in back in the 70's and 80's, it normally wasn't said Tango Uniform, it was said "Tits Up"  Or more likely "F*cked"

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10 hours ago, mlooney said:

Of course in actual military use, at least when I was in back in the 70's and 80's, it normally wasn't said Tango Uniform, it was said "Tits Up"  Or more likely "F*cked"

I heard both. I recall Tango Uniform being used more often, might have been situational.

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40 minutes ago, Darth Fluffy said:

I heard both. I recall Tango Uniform being used more often, might have been situational.

We had a particularly "colorful language" platoon sergeant.   Sorta filtered down to the rest of the platoon.  Actually when wasn't cursing is when you knew that he was Not Happy.

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3 hours ago, mlooney said:

We had a particularly "colorful language" platoon sergeant.   Sorta filtered down to the rest of the platoon.  Actually when wasn't cursing is when you knew that he was Not Happy.

Sounds lovely. :P  I was a test engineer in the USAF, much of the colorful language was directed at pieces of equipment.

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I've heard from a few sources that when you're in military training, if the instructors are yelling at you it's because they think you can do better - and want you to do better (There's a song about why.)

When they get all polite and courteous... you know you are (or have) royally effed up.

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1 hour ago, Don Edwards said:

I've heard from a few sources that when you're in military training, if the instructors are yelling at you it's because they think you can do better - and want you to do better (There's a song about why.)

When they get all polite and courteous... you know you are (or have) royally effed up.

A large portion of the US military is recently out of high school and not yet truly adult. This insight explains a lot.

An E-5 is probably committed contractually to longer than the minimum and has a few years under his belt. An officer has burned a few years in college before entry, and by O-3 has had a reality check, a couple of years to mature, and made some similar commitment.

There is a flip side. I have seen the military out to burn a young airman for something he was not trained for and screwed up. Sometimes the accountability is very inverted, and the folks that really ought to know better get away with shit the young guys would get burned for.

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