Military sci fi and military characters in sci fi

You should watch the one where the half-submerged submarine, breaking ice in a frozen lake, is able to outrun a whole bunch of snow-equipped offroad vehicles traveling on said ice at 60-80 miles an hour.

Watch for the 100% CGI shell casings early on in the clip:

 

Oh yeah! That's four I think. Six had the 30 mile long runway. And seven had a battle with a submarine on arctic ice shelves. Pristine story writing.

 

Very true but Special Warfare teams are being used far more often now than five years ago for that sort of thing. The public's obsession with unintended civilian casualties has led to more than one situation in which a SF team (Army and/or Navy) has been sent in when a guided missal missile would've been far easier.

ETA: sheesh, I better stop now before I need a shovel!

 

No question--you're absolutely correct about the scene. I was trying to communicate that a CO can deliver an ass chewing combined with a congratulatory slap on the back.

 

I'm going to have to disagree here. Those teams are used as much as they can, but you have to remember they train for a couple months for each mission. It's massively expensive, high risk, and expensive. If a missile can be used to take out a special individual, they will track down car times or a small building to take them down with. My F-18 pilots all did stuff like this constantly in Iraq, Afghanistan, and other places. Plus the missile tech is far more accurate now.

 

Absolutely correct.

I like when writers try to portray SF personnel as idiots. My boy has to be at minimum functional in at least one foreign language before he graduates EOD training. His former-but-soon-to-be-back rating requires a good background in chemistry, Newtonian physics, electronics and mathematics. He graduated 9th in his class for heaven's sake!

He tapped out of CEOOD after sitting in RCU for five months. He severed his right fibia six days before PIR. He told me his first day of dive school nearly killed him because he'd lost so much of his conditioning in RCU. He cannot wait to get back.

 

Dive school is rough. Not many pass from the stress and the injuries. Good luck to him. Hopefully they let him back. Usually if they got injured it takes too much of their contract time so they get moved elsewhere.

 

Not gonna disagree one bit. I'm speaking from my experience listening to my son talk about those with whom he worked.

There's a dearth of EOD personnel ATM because so many have either been med'ed out or left. The mentor he worked with prior to signing the contract was one of those guys and we heard a lot about it.

 

All the shiney new buttons! What does the cool barber pole handle do? Eject.

 

He actually tried to hide the injury and succeeded until he got the Double Dragon and puked while standing at attention in front of his bunk. When he limped into the med room the Corpsman asked what was wrong with his leg. Surprise!

He went in as an EOD candidate. He chose QM from the list of available ratings because it was the one least likely to force him behind a desk. He's submitting his packet in July.

Here's another of those military things. When he went to MEPS his physical exam was extensive due to his rating. During the audiology portion of the exam the audiologist said his tympanic membranes don't flex properly and was going to flunk him out of the physical. My son told the audiologist that he's a recreational diver. When the audiologist asked for proof he whipped his SSI ID from his wallet.

The audiologist thought a moment, then said, "If you can dive at 60 feet without problems your tympanic membranes must work after all." Check in the box.

 

Yeah MEPS is a bit of a joke. I had an acquaintance that I had to help through the physical fitness tests sometimes because he had a heart condition. If anybody found out, he would have been court martialed for falsifying recruitment documentarion.

 

My son had terrible eyesight and used his own money for corrective surgery prior to beginning work with the mentors. Of course that necessitated a Medical Review before he could even sign the contract. I did that part.

I ended up having to ask someone to go into a warehouse and find the surgical notes, etc. from the tonsillectomy when he was in first grade.

 

Are you talking about the President or the crop duster?

I admit I rolled my eyes so hard at both I think I pulled a tendon in my eyesocket.

 

This isn't classified or anything but I never found it in the news.

Three weeks after meeting up with the Anchorage in Crete my son was working the midnight shift on the bridge. They were idling in "the box" just off the territorial waters of Libya and his QM2 was teaching him how to write in the logs (I was surprised they still do that!) The 13th MEU was aboard as well.

A lookout called up that a small craft was approaching from the SW. That got everyone's attention. Radio calls went out but they got no response and things became intense.

When the craft was two thousand yards off the ranking individual called the Captain, who ordered battle stations when the craft was 900 yards off. My son's QM2 was Qualed for the 50mm guns, so he told my son to keep going and bolted for the deck.

My son says at that point he was thinking, "Great. First my leg, now I'm on the ship that starts WW3." He was writing as fast as his hand could move and he wasn't entirely sure which information was most important to capture in that situation. He decided to rank it by radio calls from the unknown craft, captain's orders, ship position and everything else.

When the craft was 600 yards off they finally got a response. It was the Libyan "Coast Guard" and they insisted that the Anchorage cut her engines, presumably wanting to board the ship. Now I'm not very experienced in these things but even I know a US Ship of War isn't going to shut down her engines, especially when a foreign and possibly hostile ship is near. While hearing this I asked if the Libyans knew that the 13th MEU was aboard and was told that everyone in the Med knew it.

The captain spent half an hour on the radio with the captain of the Libyan craft, who wanted to board the Anchorage for an "inspection" since according to him, the Anchorage was in Libyan territorial waters (which she wasn't by half a mile.)

Eventually the Libyan craft drifted away and things settled down. The funny part is that when the Captain called battle stations he had to do it three times, ending the third with "THIS IS NOT A DRILL!"

 

I forgot about the alien mainframe! I need to bring that up today. ...

 

You mean a 60+ ton tank can't go 145 mph on the freeway?


@Iain Aschendale Yeah the Fast Furious series is just running out ideas, FF 9 has take place in space.
That seems like the natural progression for any long running series, so the next one can break physics
some more, but this time it will be on the moon.

 

On behalf of about 25 people in the office I'm asked to pass along a

THANK YOU FOR A MUCH NEEDED LAUGH!

 

You reminded me of an incident that occurred in Colorado Springs back in the '80s. A drunken soldier got into the armory and took a tank (don't recall what model but not an M1) from Fort Carson to Denver, where he ran out of fuel just south of Arapahoe Road. He had an escort of at least a dozen State Patrol cars and a helicopter. They repeatedly tried to convince the guy to stop via both bull horn and radio calls but he wouldn't.

IIRC he got about 20 mph, nowhere near 145!

 

You could also watch "Star Trek" to see how it is NOT done...

...joke aside, that's actually what I do sometimes. I watch a little star trek and try to spot all the things that seem impractical or outright stupid. Like sending out landing parties only equipped with cheap nylon uniforms, tricoders and hand-phasers. No secondary weapon, no armor, no protective clothing, no emergency rations, no first aid... its no wonder the casualties among the red-shirts are so high.

I met a few people who were in the German military. Most of them favored the unity and solidarity. I also often had the impression, that it is about purpose, to have a meaningful task, acknowledgement, accomplishment for ones own performance.

Might be useful to compare civilian jobs with the military. Like an office clerk, who probably not get much acknowledgement for his work, as most people assume the payment is enough acknowledgement. Or maybe because desk work is not seen as important enough for acknowledgement (well, here in Germany it seems like it).

In the military, I could imagine that superior officers, in one way or the other, might acknowledge the troops performance more often. And there's also comrades who might also frequently acknowledge each others performance, basically make each other feel valuable and useful. Even punishments from superiors or disappointment from comrades for mistakes and misbehavior might be a damn good encouragement to do better. Especially within a team/squad everyone depends on each others performance to succeed, if one fails, the whole team is put in danger. So, solidarity is probably very important.

Well, that are my two cents on this.

 

Isn't it strange how something so ludicrous can be so popular?