Wait, so we didn't have bombers on 24 hour alert all this time?
And now that we do again, this is a bad thing?
ETA If it makes you feel better, Steyr; We were apparently at Defcon 2 during Desert Storm.
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Wait, so we didn't have bombers on 24 hour alert all this time?
And now that we do again, this is a bad thing?
ETA If it makes you feel better, Steyr; We were apparently at Defcon 2 during Desert Storm.
Last edited by Firefly; 10-23-17 at 18:13.
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Long, long ago, I got to watch a SAC "elephant walk" from the nuclear alert pad to the runway. Practice alerts rarely went that far-- at most, cranking up the engines without moving (80, count them, J57s winding up). On this occasion, all 10 B-52Hs taxied out. I thought my young ass was grass.
Some of those birds they may be putting on alert may be ones I was around.
This is your basic saber rattling, but damned effective. Someone should send Fat Boy a video of what I saw back then...
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Other countries have NCOs flying. Why can't we do that here? I think we have the first NCO pilot, but for a drone.
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Dude...a Sergeant in the Marine Corps can't even have a hot plate if he/she lives in the barracks. Do you honestly think they'll trust that individual with a multi-million dollar aircraft?
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That would be scary as hell. Glad I didn't live near some midwest locations in the early 80s. Just watching "The Day After" was enough for me.
Last edited by SteyrAUG; 10-24-17 at 00:43.
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Didn't know that. Wonder what the rationale was as Iraq wasn't really a nuclear threat and I don't remember Russia making any noise about it.
It's hard to be a ACLU hating, philosophically Libertarian, socially liberal, fiscally conservative, scientifically grounded, agnostic, porn admiring gun owner who believes in self determination.
Chuck, we miss ya man.
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See that seems like a good idea but these other countries:
A) Have much simpler, older analog jets
B) Crash more
C) Shoot down jetliners by accident.
I'm sure they probably could redo the Army Air Force spiel and get 18 yos on track to fly but once they got competent on all of the advanced avionics, radar, weapons, etc, etc then they might as well have gone to college.
UAVs are essentially like a big video game remote control. If you mess up then its not cheap but nobody dies.
The American Jets are so expensive that if 19-20 yo E5s started crashing left and right we'd be bankrupt in a week. Like, the Country.
Unless you wanted to go back to Thunderchiefs and redo the Army Air Force but then it is a step back.
No....I think they got the right idea. Just more people need to be 5'9", have 20/20 vision and get more degrees in physics and sign up.
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Therein lies the problem...Attitude. The special ops community, for instance, requires high intelligence from its personnel. Officers need to have college degrees or are battlefield-commissioned. I've ridden in Spanish rotary wings piloted by NCOs. It can be done.
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I don't know either. I'm assuming it was because Saddam Hussein was talking to Gorbachev thinking they were going to do a full invasion and seeing if he could get help.
And I think it came out later that Gorby had basically said "I got 99 Problems", which wasn't a lie. By the end of the same year the Hammer and Sickle came down
ETA Actually, Bush and Gorbachev had more forthcoming conversations over Iraq than Hussein did. And looking into it, it was because they thought he was gonna launch chemicals and were on a weird timeline.
Actually, the SU was more engendered to the US but really were not interested in getting too involved or setting precedents.
https://mobile.nytimes.com/2011/01/20/world/middleeast/20archive.html?pagewanted=all&referer=
But yeah....we lived under Defcon 2.
Same as folks who did Cuban Missile Crisis.
Last edited by Firefly; 10-23-17 at 21:11.
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