JOE BRENNAN

See post 40. I believe the only impact fuzed modern ASW 'ahead thrown' weapons are the RPK-8 guided weapon which can be fired from the RBU-6000 launcher (acoustically guided, shaped charge warhead, impact fuze), and the ASW rounds of the Swedish Elma (aka 601) system. The rockets fired from RBU launchers in RPS systems are many, with missions including anti-torpedo and torpedo decoy, but the generic ASW RGB rockets fired from those launchers are depth fuzed. Joe

I'd say it's the same, 7V series antisubmarine rockets, aka retrorockets or retrobombs. These were modified versions of Mousetrap; both it and Mousetrap were developed by Cal Tech using the Hedgehog warhead, so all three were closely related. On blimps they apparently didn't fire rearward but forward or down(? don't know of photo or really clear description) from the Mark 53 type bomb rack which could carry 16. Joe

Hedgehog (and Mouestrap) relied on direct hits with non-shaped charge, whereas most other 'ahead throwing' systems have relied on time, hydrostatic or influence fuzes w/ non-shaped charges, sometimes also with contact fuze in case of direct hit. The exceptions AFAIK are the RPK-8 round fired from RBU-6000 launcher, a guided shaped charge round, and the Swedish Elma system (used by Sweden and Finland nowadays on small vessels, as opposed to the bigger older Swedish 375mm system) which fires unguided contact fuzed shaped charge rounds. The warhead of the latter is based on the Carl Gustav, IOW much smaller than Hedgehog, and not necessarily intended to destroy a sub but rather force semi-wartime coastal intruder subs to the surface. I don't know of a documented case of a particular U-boat reaching base with known Hedgehog damage. Seems it might have happened with contact hit to perhaps a ballast tank, etc, but references I know only make vague statements that subs either did or never did survive Hedgehog hits. I've read most entries in Wynn's "U Boat Operations", a career history of each boat: I don't recall Hedgehog hits on returning subs ever specifically mentioned. Allied attackers fairly often recorded Hedgehog explosions without claiming a sub, or w/o claiming it until follow up attacks, but this isn't certain proof of subs surviving Hedgehog hits. For example in the attacks on U-853 near the Rhode Island coast in May 1945, many Hedgehog explosions were recorded, but the water was pretty shallow and only two holes were found in the wrecked sub by divers v. 264 Hedgehog projectiles fired, besides influence fuzed depth charges dropped, which might also have made the holes, not clear. Joe

To take the example of post WWII US light torpedoes, Mk.44 had a Mark 19 exploder, contact only. The warhead was 75# of HBX-3. Mk. 46 has a selectable mode influence/contact exploder, Mark 20, and warhead 95# of H-6 on early mods, PBXN-103 on mod 5. and Mk.54, which is a kit upgrade of Mk.46. Those are regular 'bulk' warheads. Mk.50 has a shaped charge warhead 'around' 100#. Other LW torps also have these, like the European MU90, 50kg/110#, and in that case it looks pretty much like a HEAT warhead with copper liner at similar angle (see p 24 of link). MU90 has a contact exploder; Mk.50 presumably does also. USN officially states that PBXN-103, at the scale of the Mk 103 warhead in Mk.46 Mod 5/Mk.54, is 2.5 times as effective as same weight of TNT v an underwater target. This seems to be a 'relative bubble energy' measure of TNT equivalence by which HBX-3 might be officially rated 1.8-1.9 (estimated based on figures quoted in the public report on the ROKN Cheonan sinking, small graph in link p.26 implies similar for H-6); Torpex was officially rated 1.41 (in a 1947 USN ordnance manual). Other measures of 'TNT equivalence' in other contexts are quite different. Mk. 50 was developed in part from concern that Mk.46's warhead couldn't sink large double hull Soviet subs with one hit; same with MU90 to replace Mk.46 in NATO navies. OTOH in an actual case even a big double hull sub might not be in good shape after a single hit, contact or influence, by the Mk 103 warhead. http://www.dtic.mil/ndia/2008gun_missile/6341HallsBernie.pdf Joe

The position of bow planes, pretty far down the hull and near the sonar dome, and straight-in retracting not folding, looks like Project 705/Lyre/Alpha type. Here's a photo of a 705K in drydock with the planes retracted, visible aft and below the two openings, which wouldn't be visible in the picture above. And maybe from the angle of the damage photo you wouldn't see the flooding holes at base of sail? Not sure this is right, but I don't know of another sub with that type and position of bow planes. Joe

To somewhat repeat what I said a few pages ago, I think there's a lot of room between what *could* have been done w/ 30min, as in possible in a real human organization with the real starting point of early AM Dec; and what *would* have been done. Part of that difference would depend on the specificity of the warning ('a state of war exists' v 'enemy planes on the way *now*!'), and as importantly the direction from which it came (top down or bottom up). And part of that difference is just, IMO, difficult to estimate even with all the info we have about this very well known incident. I think good points have been made about the stiffenning of the AA defense as the attack proceeded, and that it's reasonable to think this process would have been accelerated with warning. OTOH a lot of the a/c listed as holed in the reports in post 357, it's 100's of bullet and fragment hits altogether, were loitering around strafing (Type 99's as well as Zeroes, and also Type 97's in a few cases). We can't extrapolate that directly to an early wave of torpedo dropping Type 97's, though they were also shot up a fair bit even as it was. The repair time to certain ships could probably have been reduced with watertight integrity measures possible in 30 min, even if hit as hard, again assuming it was an immediately credible order passing *down* the chain in a very efficient manner. It was mentioned a couple of times how US Army ammo stowage policies rendered a much quicker and better reponse by their AA less likely. It seems less solid evidence had been presented about how different a US Army fighter interception might have gone. I'm not sure it 'must have been' so much more numerous or effective in 30 minutes. It's not clear how many more a/c would have gotten off, and then there's also the factor that in the historical case US Army fighters picked off IJN a/c after the Zeroes failed to see enemy fighters around and went to strafing. If better alerted US fighters had met the incoming Japanese force head on, but not been far more numerous than the historical case, they might just have suffered one-sided defeat in air combat to the Zeroes still intent on their escort mission. That one is complicated, IMO. Joe

When the US Supreme Court struck down the Texas anti-sodomy law in 2003, Lawrence v Texas, that effectively overturned similar laws remaining in 13 other states. All state laws are subject to being overturned by Federal courts if found to violate the Federal constitution. That follows directly from the Supremacy Clause, and was established in practice by the USSC from the early 19th century. And once a particular type of law from one state has been overturned, it's a waste of time for any other state attorney general to try to enforce a similar law, he'll surely lose any challenge in Federal court. Often in such cases legislatures don't even bother to repeal their similar laws, they are dead letter laws. Joe

1. Other social 'science' in the same era decided people's characters from the shape and size of their heads, concluded whites were the superior race, etc. That said, such areas of science like psychiatry haven't gotten all that much more 'hard' since them. Bottom line, homosexuality used to be considered a mental illness because that was the prevailing opinion among psychiatrists. Now it isn't because it isn't the prevailing opinion among psychiatrists. We're still nowhere near understanding mental processes on a physical, chemical hard science level (seeing which areas of the brain light up on a scan is a very primitive first step). And once and if we do fully understand them, the whole concept of what is 'free will', for all kinds of behavior, may change fundamentally. 2. But again there is no science answer for something like the social acceptability of homosexuality (or masturbation or anything else like that). It's a value judgement. One source of such value judgements is religion, either belief in religious texts as revelations from God, or else just as sources of time honored wisdom. Of course no one has to pay attention to such texts to form their opinion. But once you say 'put religion aside', all that's left is non-religiously inspired *opinion*, rather than religiously inspired *opinion*. And even if we had something beyond squishy-soft social science 'studies' (biased in various directions) about homosexuality as 'born', 'bred' or 'a lifestyle choice' it wouldn't answer the central question. Even if homosexuality were something people purely consciously chose (implausible IME, but just say for example), how does that justify discrimination against homosexuals by society? The answer to what society's policy should be about homosexuals/ity is inherently non-scientific. Joe

Those numbers from Russia are interesting but not surprising in view of the figures from French campaign in which several 100 Flak 18 in Flak bns only even claimed 9 tanks. Many more claims were made by the only 33 modified (single gunner) Flak 18's issued to 3 AT bns, and there were also a handful of halftrack mounted SP guns (Flak 18 Sfl.). In that campaign, actual Flak to the front to defend against tanks wasn't so common. In some of the early North Africa battles though, Flak 18's were a fairly significant % of German towed AT guns, if considered so, especially if discounting 3.7cm. For example the 5th Light Division had an establishment initially of only 9 Pak 38 5cm v 12 attached Flak 18, plus 36 Pak 35/36 3.7 cm (though there were also of course tank guns, 27 Czech vz.36 type 47mm AT on Pz.I chassis, and 12 10.5 cm howitzers). These were small battles by the standards of the French campaign, let alone Russia, but where much of the Flak 18's reputation as AT gun was gained, especially in the English speaking world. Joe

Also, to expand beyond just 'us' (the West) to other societies nobody calls 'savages', those features are a whole lot more recent than 100 years ago. And IME with people from cultures where arranged marriage was still common up till recently, it's not obvious it results in unhappier unions than are typical in our society nowadays. I wouldn't like the idea for myself, but just observing in general and trying to be objective, the grave evil of arranged marriage per se is not obvious to me. And full women's rights in the West is not more than a few decades old at most, and not everyone of a conservative persuasion is sold on it, my readings on Tanknet over the years have told me. As far as traditional Christian sexual teachings, they are also highly hostile to today's 'dating' culture among heterosexuals (not to mention porn, sex in 'mainline' entertainment and advertizing, etc), not just homosexuality. There's real potential for ridiculous inconsistency to complain about gay rights on a Christian basis and ignore Paul's teachings you don't like as modern hetero. They're a lot more extensive, and moreover are more strongly implied in Jesus' own words (though He didn't dwell directly on sexual topics much); whereas Jesus never clearly mentioned homosexuality at all. And His message to love everyone is absolutely clear*, so hateful attitude toward any group with Christian teaching as the supposed source is categorically BS. All that said, of course there are systemic problems in Muslim societies which rise to the level of being our business in Western societies because they affect us seriously. But, some of the comparisons and cherry picks used to criticize Muslims are ridiculously selective. And they are often clearly un-Christian, so should not associate themselves with Christianity even indirectly, IMO. *it's a theological debate the degree to which Jesus' direct teachings override everything, but the literalist Protestant view that everything in the Bible is equally true is incomprehensible to me either as Catholic or just objective person: many things clearly contradict one another if taken literally, especially Old Testament teachings v the Gospels, and Jesus literally said He was teaching something new. Joe

IMHO that takes things a little too far in the other direction. In North Africa, 8.8cm Flak really did knock out a lot of British tanks (Italian manned 8.8 and their own 90mm too, as well as their 4" naval types). That was indeed partly because the available Axis AT guns were lacking against some tank types, especially in conditions often allowing long range fire. But that was often true of AT guns in various armies in WWII. And, AT guns which could meet any tank threat eventually also got big and unwieldy, or required extra resource and supply-consuming SP carriages. The tendency to try to hold onto the smallest handiest AT guns possible was not entirely a head-in-sand attitude of operators or the procurement system, but had real benefits if the gun could maintain a modicum of capability against tanks, and by same token a good performing intermediate caliber (between early war 25-47mm and late war >75mm) weapons like 5 or 7.5cm AT gun was definitely preferable if effective, depending on situation and enemy equipment. And even really big AT guns could still be better optimized in terms of height and silhouette than field or AA guns. But, one reason for the 8.8's success in North Africa was that typical desert mirage condition limited the problem of a high gun. It was still advisable to dig it in if possible, or else erect sandbag or rock breastworks, but the guns weren't as easy targets as they appear to be in close-up photo's. Also, the 8.8's use in NA in close coordination with other forces typified German superiority in combined arms operations, which was the basic reason they overperformed compared to the quantity and quality of their equipment (tank, other vehicle, AT, arty) generally in North Africa. That also wasn't specific to the 8.8cm Flak, but the weapon tended to symbolize it. As mentioned before, '88' as bogeyman to Western Allied tankers after the desert campaigns is more completely a myth, at least as far as the 8.8 Flak. 8.8cm caliber weapons encountered by Allied armor in the later campaigns was much more likely to be 8.8cm Pak or SP or tank guns of that caliber, with the 7.5cm Pak being a more common opponent still. Joe

1. Not Americans, nor killing. It's cold hearted realpolitik to sacrifice (ostensible) foreign allies, but it happened all the time. It would be a further step in the wrong direction for it to happen on US soil, but then again it *didn't* happen. And what's an act of terror or not is completely subjective and doesn't particularly correlate with the more objective question of what could plausibly be *done* and kept secret, which is my point. 2. That's the Truther spin, will all due respect. The other way of looking at it is that plans are 'approved' to enumerate all options in many cases, and the buck always stops with the person at the top for any decision with that kind of import. And again it's irrelevant to the point of plausibly keeping something a secret, where a shelved plan and a large scale action are simply not comparable. Indeed, the implausibility of keeping the secret if such a plan was actually carried out seems an obvious reason weighing against its approval. 3. That's really grasping at straws as a comparison to alleged 9/11 inside job. That was mainly a question of different medical ethics and public morality than today's. Also different racial views (black patients, a few generations before the study started, they'd been viewed as property), but what's often forgotten in emphasizing even the racial aspect is the prevailing view at the time that people with syphilis brought it on themselves and that was an important factor in society's or the govt's obligation to them. Indeed there's nostaglia for that type of view among some when it comes to HIV now. That's hardly comparable to attacking people out of the blue to make a point, or infecting them. So no, killing 1000's of people by the govt in something like 9/11 could not be kept under wraps, at all. There's not only no evidence of it, but no actually remotely comparable case. Joe

I wouldn't reject it out of hand in the first place if stated so broadly as 'stage attacks against its own citizens'. At one end of that spectrum is the drone attack on Al Awlaki, which most people find reasonable and justified. Where along the spectrum? And the problem with Northwoods discussion is that 'Truthers' tend to twist it to their own agenda. So, they ignore the explicit references in the proposal to *fake* killings, as by shooting down drones, blowing up *unmanned* ships, pretending there were casualties, and blaming them on Cuba. They focus on a few ambiguous references which could be read to mean actually killing innocent Americans. But moreover it didn't actually happen. Again IMO a key dividing line for 'outlandish' conspiracy theories is where they feature actions which could not plausibly be kept secret over the timespan suggested. It's one thing for a plan like Northwoods to be drawn up secretly and shelved secretly. There are plenty of plans drawn up to illustrate options which have little real chance of being executed. It's quite another thing to actually stage it, even with the baseline of fake deaths, and expect to keep it a secret for anywhere near as long. It's not IOW a matter of conspiracy-friendly people being 'skeptics of the govt' and conspiracy-skeptics being naive or trusting of the govt, but a common sense assessment of what can really be kept secret. A never executed plan with clear references to fake deaths, and only ambiguous references to possible actual innocent deaths: no surprise it could be kept secret for a long time. An actual govt operation really killing 1000's of Americans: couldn't possibly be kept secret even for 10 years. So I think the latter can indeed reasonably be rejected out of hand. Joe

Yes it's probably AK-29, which is comparable to HY-100 and was the steel used at least on the earlier Delta's. However while this kind of steel is not 'hardened' on purpose as the earlier post implied, it could potentially be messed up by the heat and water extinguishing of a fire. It is heat treated at the mill, quenched and tempered. Hardening is a byproduct of welding (in the heat affected zone of welds), but the process must be strictly controlled wrt heat input (preheating, postheating) and elimination of moisture (by baking the welding electrodes, etc) to prevent hydrogen assisted cracking. Lapses in those procedures have been the source of various scandals where submarine welds fail inspection and have to be redone at great cost. An uncontrolled fired of unknown temperature w/ spraying of water could introduce doubt about the integrity of the structure. Joe

It seems you feel that to be a 'non naive' person you must take an extremely dim view of 'what the govt is capable of'. I'm not really arguing that per se, just saying that your latter suggestion doesn't make rational sense, to me. I can't imagine any group in the govt w/ enough to gain by committing a crime like the one you are suggesting, as if an almost equal probability to well intentioned failure, relative to the risk (virtual certainty IMO) of it being revealed. Maybe in a society or govt where people can gain absolute power for life or lose their life if they lose their power, but in our system as far as I know it, I don't see a rational reason why a group of Americans who work for the govt (which is what the govt consists of) would see it as rational to do that. I frankly think option 2 can be ruled out pending credible evidence it really happened, of which AFAIK there's zero. As they say (something like) never theorize malfeasance when stupidity will explain it. And beside stupidity, there's apathy and petty politics. But even besides those, there's room for legitimate difference of opinion of how extensive and well co-ordinated govt intelligence gathering should really be, since it has the positive potential to protect the country, but also potential for abuse. Reasonable people can disagree on such things without being murderers, in my 'naive' view. Joe