Picture of the day

[cancer]

Things are happening. Exactly what things will come to pass remain unclear, but most of us remain skeptical.

It's important to read between the lines when it comes to the Canadian military. Yes, Harper inherited a worn out military, and spent more than most governments (granted he never even spent 2% of our GDP as per our NATO commitment) to bring it up to snuff for Afghanistan. But frankly, there's little left to show for that. Bullets get shot, rockets get fired, training courses end and don't get rescheduled again. Basically right now we're just bumping along the bottom with another grossly underfunded military. Ask any soldier if they can get pants or boots to replace their worn out kit, the answer you get will reveal quite a bit.

That said, the current Liberal government's plans for the military will undoubtedly take us in a completely different direction, for which we will inevitably be under-prepared. The good news is that the current Minister of Defense will be on the "inside track" with understanding how unprepared we are, having recently retired from being a CO for a reserve regiment.

 

[fraserdw]

In the whole history of national defence department, every retired military member who has become MND has completely failed at the job.

 

[silverfoxdj]

MND is not looked upon as anything more than a politician by most military and civilian alike

 

[Sharps '63]

... to include our current MND Harjit Sajjan. He was sold to us as a "bad ass soldier" vet during and after the election. Now he's an apologist for the Liberal's defence policy. It's embarrassing watching him mouth the party line.

In the whole history of national defence department, every retired military member who has become MND has completely failed at the job.

 

[scott585]

hundreds of tonnes of steel, that pile is almost as tall as a 2 story house. each hull is about 6ft tall

 

[Gibbs505]

 

[Gibbs505]

Viking sword with beautiful decorations.

The extreme nature of the ornamentation on this sword, combined with the unusual (for Scandinavia) motifs coupled with the apparent lack of a fuller (lenticular, ‘grooveless’ sword blades being a common hallmark of swords from Constantinople) may indicate that this sword was manufactured in Byzantium and may have belonged to a Varangian Guardsman or may have been gifted to a Nordic person held in esteem by the Romans

 

[Gibbs505]

Royal Canadian Air Force CP-140 Aurora maritime patrol aircraft #military #armedforces #aircraft #canada #airforce #aviation

 

[Gibbs505]

A United States Air Force F-22 Raptor and a vintage P-38 Lighting perform a Heritage flight during the California Capital Airshow in Sacramento, Calif., Sept. 6, 2014. The Heritage Flight Program represents the evolution of the Air Force airpower by flying today’s state-of-the-art fighter aircraft in close formation with historic fighter aircraft. (U.S. Air Force photo by Staff Sgt. Robert M. Trujillo/Released)

 

[Dark Alley Dan]

Spare a thought for the ground crew.

Cold, wet, tired, hung over, or all of the above, they're expected to get it done in less time than possible, and do it consistently. The Crew Chief owns the plane. The pilot borrows it from time to time.

 

[purple]

An interesting dimension of the ground crew manpower bill in WW2 is that it consumed huge numbers of people who might otherwise have been used in the army. All of the Brit, Cdn, and US armies US were chronically short of infantry replacements while many thousands of bright and fit men were employed as air force ground crew and other ground support tasks. Winning the air war and prosecuting the bombing of Germany and Japan gave a huge benefit, but one has to question the whether or not available military manpower was used to the best advantage.

At a certain point in 1944 after manpower reserves were drying up, both the US Army and the Germans began large scale "remusters" of people from the air force to the army. Neither the RAF nor the RCAF were required to do this. It would have been a real challenge in any event as the RAF/RCAF were separate services whereas the US Army Air Force was a component of the US Army.

 

[Dark Alley Dan]

Just finished reading a book by a German fellow - Ostfront/Gulag survivor - who was one of the holdouts in the Courland pocket at the end of the war. He mentions repeatedly how toward the end most of his guys were ex-Luftwaffe types impressed into infantry roles.

Hard to say what's worse - shivering in a trench or bombing up B24s at -40:

 

[Dark Alley Dan]

More warm weather fun:

 

[Dark Alley Dan]

And here's a cat and his pet humans oppressing a neighbouring nation:

That's quite the elaborate sighting mechanism.

 

[diopter]

 

[MarkCNP]

Different type of cat:

http://2.bp.########.com/-pFFd8vvOrQI/U3Uz6rb_OqI/AAAAAAAAZfo/pCD9TxIO5zc/s1600/tiger+P+300.jpg

http://2.bp.########.com/-hkS_BfyPRBk/VetfWFgzY_I/AAAAAAAAEMo/bKKxsCQhyEI/s1600/vk-4501-p.png

 

[shredder]

An interesting dimension of the ground crew manpower bill in WW2 is that it consumed huge numbers of people who might otherwise have been used in the army. All of the Brit, Cdn, and US armies US were chronically short of infantry replacements while many thousands of bright and fit men were employed as air force ground crew and other ground support tasks. Winning the air war and prosecuting the bombing of Germany and Japan gave a huge benefit, but one has to question the whether or not available military manpower was used to the best advantage.

At a certain point in 1944 after manpower reserves were drying up, both the US Army and the Germans began large scale "remusters" of people from the air force to the army. Neither the RAF nor the RCAF were required to do this. It would have been a real challenge in any event as the RAF/RCAF were separate services whereas the US Army Air Force was a component of the US Army.

One could enlist for the USAAF if you scored high enough on the US Army's General Classification Test which was given to everyone who joined the US Army. The intent was to pre-screen recruits to find those who had the aptitude for more technical services than infantry (aka cannon fodder ).

I recall reading (can't remember exactly where) that a score of 100 would see the recruit headed for a technical school such as signals, intelligence, or aircraft maintenance while a score of 110 would see the recruit as a ripe candidate for Officer Candidate School.

One must remember that the average education level in 1930's-40's North America was considerably lower than it is now. High school graduation was nowhere near as common, and college/university graduation was comparatively rare. The US Army's GCT was designed to identify those recruits who had the ability to learn quickly and separate them from those who didn't have that talent, regardless of their formal education level.

 

[Dark Alley Dan]

It'd be neat to take that test and see where I'd rank. is there a source someplace?

WW2 pic tax:

 

[grelmar]

One could enlist for the USAAF if you scored high enough on the US Army's General Classification Test which was given to everyone who joined the US Army. The intent was to pre-screen recruits to find those who had the aptitude for more technical services than infantry (aka cannon fodder ).

I recall reading (can't remember exactly where) that a score of 100 would see the recruit headed for a technical school such as signals, intelligence, or aircraft maintenance while a score of 110 would see the recruit as a ripe candidate for Officer Candidate School.

One must remember that the average education level in 1930's-40's North America was considerably lower than it is now. High school graduation was nowhere near as common, and college/university graduation was comparatively rare. The US Army's GCT was designed to identify those recruits who had the ability to learn quickly and separate them from those who didn't have that talent, regardless of their formal education level.

Essentially how my grandpa ended up working on a training base in North Ontario through the war. He was a journeyman welder before the war. Too valuable a skill to risk on the front lines. So he spent the war on various training bases in North Ontario patching up planes and working on crash crews.

 

[Sharps '63]

Lots of trades were considered too important to the war effort to leave for the front. An uncle of mine was a oil rig roustabout in Leduc and tried repeatedly to enlist as he had a brother in the Infantry.
He was never accepted and felt guilty about it as his brother came back a head case from the fighting in Holland. PTSD wasn't a factor then, and it took him years to get over his emotional baggage.

Essentially how my grandpa ended up working on a training base in North Ontario through the war. He was a journeyman welder before the war. Too valuable a skill to risk on the front lines. So he spent the war on various training bases in North Ontario patching up planes and working on crash crews.