Military personnel...grab a can of night vision and line up with your BA eleven-hundred novembers

[psychotron]

Some older weapons are better than newer weapons. I had a friend in college who was in ROTC. She hated that the M1911A1 was replaced by the M9. She said that the M9 was junk, since it lacked stopping power.

I was working as an armorer at the time they made that transition and it wasn't so much the caliber that made it junk as it was just, well, junk. We had slide stops breaking, magazines wouldn't seat, all sorts of issues. When we finally had a lieutenant at the range get hit in the face by a slide that flew off the pistol during recoil we just stopped issuing them for weeks/months until Beretta could come up with a fix. Those first contract batches were literally a safety hazard.

 

[hopmedic]

I have a question for you about submarine communications. I wasn't a radioman in the Coast Guard, but I remember my ship would communicate with submarines using an ELF (extremely low frequency) radio. Is that still used today? ... and if it is, wouldn't it make sense to add an ELF radio to an aircraft's black box to make it easier to find? I am thinking about Malaysian flight 370 here.

I was a nuclear machinist mate, so my radio knowledge wasn't vast... And while I did have to know something about all of the ship's systems in order to get my dolphins, those dolphins aren't quite as shiny as they once were... :wink:

That said, I know we had a wire that we towed, and if you've seen Crimson Tide, you can see that they're getting some pretty low frequency transmissions at the height of the tension in Control. I don't know if that would be ELF or ULF or what, but yes, you can get one-way transmissions down low. I don't recall being able to transmit on that same frequency. Maybe, maybe not. I don't remember. So there's definitely receive capability - I just don't recall if there's transmit or not.....

I do recall though, that we had to go shallow (PD - periscope depth) to transmit, though, so there's probably no deep-water transmission other than the underwater telephone, which puts audio into the water, and you can literally hear it throughout the ship (but it was quite hard to understand without the handset, IIRC). The reason for needing to go to PD was because you'd have to raise the antenna mast (there were several, IIRC).

Here's a shot that shows at least some of the gear that we could raise, though I don't recall if that was all of it or not.
View attachment 54276

 

[etad putta]

I remember this ELF story many years ago...http://www.hep.wisc.edu/~prepost/ELF.pdf

 

[etad putta]

Pearl Harbor Day, probably many young Americans don't know much about it but thanks to all those that helped us get through WWII. As Christmas appears on the horizon maybe peace on earth would be a good thing to wish for.

 

[dgr_874]

Man I gots to get some pics going in this thread.
Been looking I just can't remember where they disappeared to.

I was in when fatigues were green.
74-80 all six years at McClellan AFB CA.
Then I worked there as a civilian in electronics until 99 and transferred to HAFB UT working on airplanes.

View attachment 60237
TPS 75 radar sets on the test pad at McClellan.

Still at HAFB? I was stationed there twice, 388 FW.

 

[Guytronic]

Still at HAFB? I was stationed there twice, 388 FW

Nah I retired as a civilian in 2007.
We were across the way from the 388th in Bldg 100.

I was the boss in flight controls there for about a year until AFLC command said "let 'em go"
2700 old, fat and tired civilians blew that popsicle stand days after the announcement :grin:

No more beatings in the stand-up briefs with item managment for me!

Hill was a great assignment.
I truly miss all the great people I worked with and for there.

 

[palandri]

I just had an unusual encounter from the past. I took a short call with a contractor working at O'Hare and the guy I was working with was stationed at the Norfolk Navy base at the exact same time I was there for a large part of fire fighting school, a smaller portion was at the Yorktown Coast Guard base. Then I was showing him a few pictures from this thread and he knew the Yorktown Coast Guard base right away because they use to unload supplies there. I don't ever remember seeing him since there's thousands of people on each base, It was just an unusual encounter.

 

[palandri]

We need more Military pictures.