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An F-117 pilot and the officer who shot him down meet, 15 years later (2013)

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Re: An F-117 pilot and the officer who shot him down meet, 15 years later (2013)

#81

Post by effie »

jki275 wrote: post #64
lostlogin wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you are attributing a lot of what goes on to choice - war has a poor track record in this regard and soldiers are often recruited very young and/or conscripted. Even the US recruits soldiers defined by the Convention on the protection of children (below 18). Schools are used for recruiting in many places. This aspect of war is really sad - giving kids and young adults guns and sending them off to shoot people…

Oh stop the hand wringing. The US doesn't recruit child soldiers. The very few who actually sign up when they are 17 are almost all 18 before they go to bootcamp, and of the extremely rare ones who aren't they are 18 before they go to their first command or do anything at all. They are not allowed to deploy outside the US or participate in any hostilities until they are 18.

18 year olds men are mentally immature. Not children, but for sure they are teenagers.

Re: An F-117 pilot and the officer who shot him down meet, 15 years later (2013)

#82

Post by macspoofing »

aerosmile wrote: post #17

There is so much gold in here. The human race would do well to explore how it's possible to turn hatred into love. It clearly happened here, and I've witnessed it on a smaller scale as a 16 year old in Vienna. As an immigrant, it was easy to find yourself in the wrong place at a wrong time. That finally happened one night, and the only thing that saved me was seeing a sign on one of the guys' jackets that belonged to…

>Deeply embedded in our evolutionary story is the urge to protect people you have something in common with

Deeper than that is identity. In fact, after basic needs are met, your identity (cultural, ethnic, religious, and yes, even national) is one of the most important aspect of your humanity. Every nation in the world, has very tight immigration policies and border controls. That's not a coincidence.

>Rule #1: teams should not be divided on a country by country basis.

How should they be divided? How does a global government look like? Liberal Democracy with a market economy? You sure everyone is OK with that?

Also, we live in a world where even 'regular' nation states number in tens or hundreds of millions of people. There is already an issue of the disconnect between the population and their representatives. I'm not sure how this would work if added another 1 or 2 levels up the hierarchy. Can you imagine how disconnected and 'elitist' representatives of your one-world government would be? Yieks.

Re: An F-117 pilot and the officer who shot him down meet, 15 years later (2013)

#83

Post by boc »

jki275 wrote: post #56
jariel wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"stunned to find his U2 spyplane tumbling from the skies in 1960 thanks to what I can only imagine is inherent bias in the war room against the enemy" The U2 has been flying for literally decades, even to this day, relatively unencumbered. The performance ratio is way in the favour of 'confident war room'. Also - it's hard to say anything about submarines, they're so clouded in secrecy, I think the truth tends not to…

It certainly hasn't been flying over the Soviet Union. It became obsolete in 1960. That doesn't mean it was no longer useful anywhere.

Because the US had a new spy satellite program that took its place.

Re: An F-117 pilot and the officer who shot him down meet, 15 years later (2013)

#84

Post by passivate »

pastrami_panda wrote: post #7

For those curious (the article doesn't address it) it was the bomb hatch that momentarily gave away the planes position. I'm curious as to how such a huge oversight in the design of the craft made it to production, since it's widely known that 90 degree angles is a surefire way to get instantly detected on radar.

From what I've read, during a strike, the bombs will show up on the radar anyway. So if the hatch doesn't give away the positions, the bombs will. Also, as a layman, it seems like it would be exceedingly difficult to modify the internals of the bomb bay for not that much benefit.

Re: An F-117 pilot and the officer who shot him down meet, 15 years later (2013)

#85

Post by gns24 »

tharkun__ wrote: post #71
ip26 wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think they are saying the US systematically underestimates the enemy's capability so it probably wasn't actually that surprising an F117 was downed.

If the US military and government are anything like American companies, then they're good at marketing. Wait, I think with the military it's called propaganda. I also grew up thinking a Stealth Fighter could never be shot down. It's invisible. No way.

Marketing/propaganda is an important part of defence. Having to actually fight will have costs. The real goal is to convince the enemy that there's no point in fighting.

Re: An F-117 pilot and the officer who shot him down meet, 15 years later (2013)

#86

Post by zoomablemind »

jacquesm wrote: post #63

You'll never hear a story like this about a drone pilot.

Speaking of drones and F-117... Somewhat old story, but the "retired" F-117 were not only mothballed, but have been also spotted still flying "regularly". The speculation was that it may have possibly been used in the UCAV context.

https://foxtrotalpha.jalopnik.com/why-is-the-retired-f-117-n...

Re: An F-117 pilot and the officer who shot him down meet, 15 years later (2013)

#87

Post by g3e0 »

x32n23nr wrote: post #36

Another famous example of how in the darkest hours there's longing for peace and friendship is the Christmas Truce during the first world war [1]. British soldiers heard German troops in the trenches singing carols and patriotic songs. They started shouting messages to each other. The next day, soldiers from both sides met, exchanged gifts, took photographs and played football. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chris…

For the benefit of anyone not in the UK, there is a marvelous Christmas advert inspired by this event, which aired in 2014 (100 years later): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NWF2JBb1bvM

Re: An F-117 pilot and the officer who shot him down meet, 15 years later (2013)

#88

Post by JBiserkov »

marcodiego wrote: post #30

Air forces of the world seem to have their own more strict code of honor, moral or mutual respect. Hermann Goering is known to have enjoyed some hospitality after surrendering[1]. Also Franz Stigler escorted a badly damaged US bomber to safety[2]. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qnX5HXbRbcA [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charlie_Brown_and_Franz_Stigle...

Indeed! The Swedish metal band Sabaton recently released an 8 minute animated video of their 2014 song "No bullets fly". After the song, it includes a clip of Franz Stigler and Charlie Brown's first meeting, as well as a clip of Franz Stigler's grandson discovering the song in 2014, calling his mom and her message to the band!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dslO-3GgenY

Re: An F-117 pilot and the officer who shot him down meet, 15 years later (2013)

#89

Post by redis_mlc »

effie wrote: post #34
cassepipe wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can't agree more. "Just doing my job" is a pretty shallow justification for killing another person on vague grounds of "defend my country". Even more so when flying an airplane and just dropping bombs all over the fucking place.

Glad I'm not alone here. I can respect people in 2nd WW thinking "I believe they are evil and must be stopped and I will do anything to help that goal". I can't respect "I'm just working here".

> Glad I'm not alone here.

Well, a lot of people don't know anything about history, so you will get uninformed sympathetic comments.

> I can't respect "I'm just working here".

The thing is, nobody asked for your opinion, either in 1939 or today. You're entitled to your opinion, but it doesn't carry any weight.

I can explain what WW2 was about. Germany felt they were being overly punished after WW1 for meeting their treaty obligations with the the Austro-Hungarian empire in WW1. Later Germany started WW2 largely to compensate for that.

Japan wanted to colonize Asia as Britain had done previously. Eventually that required destroying the US Navy.

Italy wanted to revive the Roman Empire.

Britain and the US had to defend against that after seeing their allies destroyed and enslaved.

Individual diagreement played no role in the above.

Re: An F-117 pilot and the officer who shot him down meet, 15 years later (2013)

#90

Post by aerosmile »

macspoofing wrote: post #82
aerosmile wrote: post #17

There is so much gold in here. The human race would do well to explore how it's possible to turn hatred into love. It clearly happened here, and I've witnessed it on a smaller scale as a 16 year old in Vienna. As an immigrant, it was easy to find yourself in the wrong place at a wrong time. That finally happened one night, and the only thing that saved me was seeing a sign on one of the guys' jackets that belonged to…

>Deeply embedded in our evolutionary story is the urge to protect people you have something in common with Deeper than that is identity. In fact, after basic needs are met, your identity (cultural, ethnic, religious, and yes, even national) is one of the most important aspect of your humanity. Every nation in the world, has very tight immigration policies and border controls. That's not a coincidence. >Rule #1: teams…

You took my next-gen UN idea too far. I am not asking for a government of governments (aka, a worldwide EU). I am just asking for another form of Olympic Games (or an expanded version of Monsters of Rock, or whatever comes to your mind).
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