Content tagged with “military”

“This is an acronym for Intercontinental Ballistic Missile. ‘Intercontinental’ means it has to have a range of at least 3,400 miles. Turns out there are other categories: Short Range Ballistic Missiles (SRBMs) go up to 600 miles Medium Range Ballistic Missiles (MRBMs) go up to 1,900 miles…”

“This is method of navigation that doesn’t rely on external waypoints or input. If starting from a known position, with known speed and direction at all times, you can theoretically look at a map and figure out where you are. It’s like a pirate map that says something like, ‘Walk 40 paces north from…”

“It means the commander or officer-in-charge of the unit. Each combat unit has a radioman (who is not the commander). That unit also has a call sign – for example, ‘Unit Bravo.’ That call sign refers to the unit in aggregate, not any one person. The radioman would say, ‘This is Unit Bravo,’…”

“This is sometimes used as a predecessor term to ‘cavalry,’ though in my research, it mostly referred to foot soldiers who were transported to battle on horseback. The name comes from a common weapon in 17th Century Britain – a musket called the ‘dragon’ – which was carried by these troops. Today,…”

“ At a testing center in Upstate New York, the US Air Force has mounted a bunch of planes upside down to test their antennae and communications systems. ”

“ This is from the literal Latin. It’s related to the ‘just war doctrine,’ meaning it refers to an act in which war is a (subjectively) justified response. ”

“ There are ‘bar codes’ printed on the ground in multiple places around the United States, used to calibrate spy satellites. ”

“This refers to who has physical control of a vessel at any particular time. To ‘have the conn’ means you are in final control of the navigation of a seagoing (or spacefaring) vessel. The captain of a ship assigns the conn. They can give it to a junior officer and take it back at their discretion….”

“This term seems to have originated in early baseball or cricket, referring to a ball that travels low across the ground – either a cricket bowl or a baseball hit. Presumeably, the name comes from the idea that the ball was low enough to ‘cut daisies’ as it traveled. From there, it morphed into…”

“This was a wildly entertaining book, because of both the subject matter and the writing style of the author. The book is about military science, but not weapons. It’s about a bunch of the other, decidedly unglamorous things we do to enable humans to fight wars, and how science is trying to make…”

“ In 1986, the Air Force flew a human heart a long distance, very, very fast, so it would survive until it got implanted. ”

“It’s for the National Guard. Many cities have buildings that were built to house the local National Guard’s equipment (including weapons). Hence, this became known as ‘the armory.’ In many cases, these buildings are no longer used for those purposes – the National Guard unit has moved into other…”

“ The US Navy owns an entire forest to source a rare wood to repair the historic USS Constitution. ”

“This is literally French for ‘aid in the [military] camp’ or ‘camp assistant.’ It’s a title for the assistant of someone with high rank. Almost all references I saw had a military or royal context to them. The civilian title would be ‘administrative assistant’ or ‘chief of staff.’ The pronunciation…”

“ This literally means ‘before war’ in Latin. It’s most often used to discuss the period of Southern life prior to the American Civil War. Less known is the antonym ‘postbellum,’ which means the period after a war. ”

“In general, no. However, there are two separate things here: (1) WMDs themselves, and (2) a WMD development program. Saddam Hussein did have older WMDs, dating back to the 1960s. In fact, he used chemical weapons extensively on his own people in the 1980s. However, he was ordered to stop all WMD…”

“ A South Korean company is bottling water from the demilitarized zone between North and South, claiming purity because that land has been uninhabited for almost 70 years. ”

“ The U-2 spy plane is so difficult to land that they need fast chase cars to follow it down the runway to tell the pilot how things look. This is a video from one of those cars. ”

“ Russia would absolutely love an independent Scotland, because its withdrawal from the NATO has a shockingly large impact on world security and the world’s economy. ”

“The larger concept here is the U.S. Navy’s ‘hull classification system.’ The Navy needs to keep track of its ships, so each one has a ‘hull number.’ This is a code for the type of ship, then a number. No two hull numbers repeat for ships in active service. Some common hull type designations: BB:…”

“ A man with access to a lot of classified information disappeared in 1983. He was finally found and arrested in 2018. ”

“ A damaged plane jettisoned a nuclear bomb off the coast of Georgia in 1958. It has never been found. It has been confirmed to contain enriched uranium, but may or may not be capable of detonating. ”

“ The psychological operations unit in the US Army produced their own recruiting video which explains what they do in a very unexpected style. ”

“The book is what it claims to be: a comprehensive history of RAND. The problem is that it’s just not that interesting. RAND (short for ‘Research and Development’) is a company created by the U.S. Air Force. During the Cold War, we were scared that the Russians were winning the military technology…”

“ There is a shadowy Soviet system that can automatically launch nuclear missiles if it detects a nuclear explosion on Soviet soil. It is still in operation today. ”

“This is military slang meaning ‘all good.’ It comes from how they used to measure radio signal (1) strength and (2) clarity on a scale of 1 to 5. So, a strong signal that was distorted would be ‘five-by-one’ and a weak, clear signal would be ‘one-by-five.’ A strong clear signal would be…”

“ A photo gallery and description of how the mothballed USS Kitty Hawk gets from Washington state to a salvage yard on the Texas coast. ”

“I loved the idea of this book, but the reality was a mess. The problem with documenting the Christmas Truce (an actual event ) is that it’s told largely in legend. It was impromptu and distributed – it happened with no advance notice, and it happened all up and down the Ypres front. As a result,…”

“ This is a military term that means weapons can be fired down the longest axis of an enemy formation. If you’re at the flank of a firing line, you can fire down the entire line. If you’re in a plane flying along the length of a trench, you can fire entire the trench, following its line. ”

“This is a recounting of the First Barbary War. That event is important because it was the first overseas conflict the young United States ever fought in. (From the Marine Corp hymn: ‘From the halls of Montezuma, to the shores of Tripoli…’ The ‘shores of Tripoli’ happened in the First Barbary War.)…”

“Yes, this is still a thing. DEFCON is short for ‘defense condition,’ and it refers to the general state of readiness and alert for the American military. It’s actually in reverse order: DEFCON 5 is the most relaxed, and DEFCON 1 is almost at war. The levels were established in 1959: DEFCON 1:…”

“This is a form of very acute Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), coined during World War 1. Soldiers suffering from shellshock acted as if they suffered head wounds, but were not visibly wounded in any way. Yet they had extreme effects on their ability to reason, their general demeanor, and even…”

“Bellingcat is a ‘open source intelligence’ cooperative. It’s a group of people who surf the internet to find evidence of crimes. They made their name during the Syrian conflict. They would scour uploaded videos and compare them to Google Maps to find where they were taken. In doing so, they were…”

“ Soldiers studying for protocol exams have inadvertently revealed nuclear secrets by creating online flashcards for them. ”

“ Limited range makes jet packs impractical for most uses, but they come in handy for boarding ships, as demonstrated in this training exercise. ”

“ In 1945, there was an hours-long Japanese ‘attack’ on Los Angeles that was very likely the result of wild imaginations and nervous trigger fingers. ”

“ Back in 2017, an incident in the Black Sea, and a bunch of Pokemon Go players, revealed that Russia can spoof GPS coordinates. ”

“ The US literally forgot how to make a critical component of nuclear weapons. This resulted in years of maintenance delays and cost tens of millions of dollars. ”

“ There was once a shoulder-launched thermonuclear weapon. ”

“ Two professional CrossFit athletes take on a U.S. Army obstacle course. ”

“ Some fighter jets have a false cockpit painted on the bottom of the fuselage to make it harder to figure out its orientation and direction. ”

“ A plane attempting to land on an aircraft carrier snaps the arresting cable, thus demonstrating why pilots momentarily go to full power at the instant they catch the cable. ”

“ When the US military needs to move an active nuclear warhead, they take precautions. This was filmed in Great Falls, Montana. ”

“ There are several sunken Russian nuclear submarines – some with leaky reactors – in the Arctic Ocean that the country is going to attempt to raise and bring home. ”

“ There exists a low-frequency radio transmission of an alternating ‘buzz’ sound, sprinkled with the occasional Russian word. No one knows why this exists. It’s been going on for decades. ”

“ All the details behind how the most famous flying gun in the world works. Hint: it’s as simple as possible, and designed to do one thing really well. ”

“ A detailed description of how naval torpedoes actually work. ”

“ The size difference demonstrated between a Soviet-era Mil Mi-26 heavy transport helicopter and a more common passenger helicopter. ”

“ A good explainer of ‘numbers stations,’ which are radio frequencies that broadcast series of numbers on a schedule. It’s assumed they’re communicating to spies in the field, but no one knows for sure. ”

“ In late 2018, a photographer spontaneously captured a picture of Air Force One over the UK. He posted it to social media, and unwittingly revealed a secret presidential trip to Iraq. ”

“ In 2004, the Navy encountered something off the coast of California that it still can’t explain. And there’s video, despite what might be a cover-up. ”

“ A backstory behind a seemingly successful penis transplant, and the complications and ethical questions it raises. ”

“ The process of ejecting from a fighter plane is far more intricate than you would think. More violent, too. ”

“ In 1983, an inexperienced pilot in British Harrier couldn’t locate the aircraft carrier he was supposed to land on, and had to set down on a Spanish cargo ship before he ran out of fuel. ”

“ The U.S. military uses Internet Relay Chat a lot, perhaps most importantly to run tactical operations in real-time. IRC is a very old – but still quite popular – technology, dating to 1988. ”

“I struggled with this book. The author admits that it’s about almost everything except a direct comparison of the legion and the phalanx. After a short introduction to ancient military tactics, it pretty quickly launches into a long history of ancient warfare and battles. About halfway through…”

“Strange little book. I wanted to read some Michener without commitment, and this is the shortest Michener book. It’s a family history, told in flashback by a modern-day solider preparing to testify in front of Congress during the Iran-Contra scandal of the 80s. The main character comes from a long…”

“The author claims that we’ve steadily expanded the idea of ‘war’ so that we’re technically always at war, and the military is being asked to do so many things, many of which have nothing to do with actually fighting a war. She writes well, but the book got long, and the point got really abstract…”

“About 50 pages into this, I was bored, and it seemed very similar to another book I had read. Sure enough, turns out Annie Jacobson wrote The Pentagon’s Brain: An Uncensored History of DARPA, America’s Top-Secret Military Research Agency . I’m just not a fan of her writing, I guess. The truth is…”

“ Fantastic, detailed history of the Cold War. covers all the bases, from World War I on, including quite a bit of coverage of India and Africa, outside of the big players – the U.S., Soviet Union, and China. Really, well done. 800 pages, but never got bogged down in it. ”

“ The astonishing story of one of the bloodiest battles of the Vietnam War. Absolutely harrowing writing, and good background on the Vietnam War itself – how and why we got to where we were. ”

“ Wonderfully well-told tale of WWII espionage. Fast moving and thrilling. ”

“A book about applying military principles to business. It’s not a bad book, but the hook is clearly the Navy SEAL angle. Every chapter starts with a novel-esque recounting of some warfare scenario in Ramadi, Iraq, then segues into how that applies to business. It’s all very gung ho and ‘MURICA!…”

“ One of the best novels I’ve ever read. Incredibly suspenseful with a fantastic payoff in the end. There’s a sentence 84% of the way through (according to my Kindle) that had me literally slack-jawed for about 60 seconds as my mind reeled with the implications. ”

“I read this book because I loved Red Storm Rising (which Bond co-wrote) when I was in high school, and was looking for a way to recapture that. The result was mixed. This book was less ‘nation states at war’ and more ‘special forces beats the terrorists.’ The plot was very human-oriented, which…”

“A fairly nondescript techno-thriller about World War 3. In my attempt to replicate my love of Red Storm Rising , I took a chance on it. It was okay. The plot centers around the Zumwalt, one of a series of new stealth destroyers (a real thing, apparently), and its massive railgun (not a real thing,…”

“Simply a great read. A very fast-moving account of what a Martian invasion might look like at the turn of the 20th century (it was written in 1898). The author captures the subtle movement from confusion to outright terror and panic extremely well. When the first Martian cylinder lands, no one…”

“What can you say about this book that has been said a million times? it’s many things in one: a novel, a history, a philosophy, etc. I enjoyed reading it. It took me 50 days of fairly consistent reading – 30-60 minutes per day. The chapters are quite short, taking maybe five minutes, so I always…”

“Certainly a thrilling book and an amazing story. Not particularly well-written, and full of lots of ‘MURICA!, ‘screw the liberals,’ and George Bush worship. The author is an unapologetic solider from Texas, so none of that should be a surprise. Incredible what the guy went through. I admit to get a…”