Caption: USS Zumwalt (DDG 1000)
Bullet Points:
** The F-35 is touted by the US (and presumably its allies) as the most survivable fighter aircraft in a combat environment. However, this complex and expensive aircraft is difficult to maintain and fly in a genuine combat environment where spare parts are difficult to come by and complicated supply chains must be kept flowing.
** The GovTrack report on Kamala (Ho) Harris from 2019 has suddenly vanished. Harris, who is more of a communist than Bernie Sanders (if anyone thought that possible), is being cast by your mainstream media as a moderate today.
** When you have made evil the means of survival, do not expect men to remain good. Do not expect them to stay moral and lose their lives to become the fodder of the immoral. Do not expect them to produce when production is punished, and looting is rewarded. Do not ask, “Who is destroying the world?” You are. — Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged
** Frozen out by tariffs in Europe and the United States, Chinese electric vehicle makers are poised to penetrate further into Southeast Asia, where the market value for cleaner cars is approaching US$100 billion.
** What is leadership? (right) Miranda Devine is talking about the American side-piece that is now even more famous than Stormy Daniels. Kamala’s most notable quote is, “The darker the meat, the sweeter the juice.” I’m unsure what that means, but she thinks it is profound.
** By law, you have to turn on your headlights when it’s raining in Sweden. How am I supposed to know when it’s raining in Sweden?
** Please learn Spanish…there are twenty million more here now.
** Women don’t understand how men speak to each other. It’s true.
** (Bee) Feminists need men to tell them to calm down to feel complete. The theory, first published in an article in the journal Behavioral and Brain Sciences a few months ago, has gained significant traction among researchers who were formerly befuddled as to why feminists are always so irate and hysterical.
“This really clears things up,” stated Dr. Henry Richardson, a noted feminist researcher and one of the paper’s primary authors. “For years, we were mystified by how angry these gals managed to get. We ran laboratory experiments and double-blind trials. We put them on placebos at different times of the month…nothing worked. And then, late at night, I was in the office puzzling over it, and I realized — maybe they don’t have a man around to tell them to calm down!”
Be Helpful – Offer useful advice.
ZEUS
As of this writing, the USS Zumwalt (DDG 1000) is in the shipyard to facilitate removing its ‘defunct rail gun system’ and replace that space with launchers that accommodate the large, hypersonic Conventional Prompt Strike (CPS) weapon. The theory behind CPS is that of a conventional (non-nuclear) weapon servicing distant targets quickly.
This complex undertaking involves at least three main entities, all of which have to perform to schedule to meet the goal of testing the capability by the end of 2025. The Army is in charge of designing and acquiring the missiles, the Navy is in charge of designing and acquiring the launching system, and the shipyard must put it all together on time and under budget (sure).
The CPS system is only minimally integrated with existing ship systems. We spent US$4 billion on each Zumwalt lemon, and the Navy is looking for a way to make lemonade out of embarrassing white elephants. As the US Navy scraps the guided missile submarines (SSGN), they’ll be replaced by the three Zumwalt Class (Zoomy) surface platforms, which are stealthy and “operationally invisible.” There are only subs and targets, but the Navy no longer believes that—you can ask the Russians and Ukrainians. I don’t think that we have done that because we’re just that much smarter than anyone else.
The Navy characterizes the Zoomys as “large, stealthy, electrically driven marvels with a huge flight deck and hangar, and a large boat bay, not to mention electrical power well beyond that available in any other destroyer.” When the moment is right, these three ships will go toe-to-toe with the Yellow Menace in the Pacific, delivering a devastating blow to West Taiwan and its capital, Beijing. I’d prefer to have had the submarines we’re scrapping, but we have the white elephants, which are marvels of innovation and their unproven, yet-to-be-completed missile systems, instead.
Admirals will forward deploy all three ships nearly continuously in the Western Pacific on their deterrence patrols, equipped with their Zumwalt Enterprise Upgrade Solution, or ZEUS. Your taxpayer dollars are at work keeping the world safe for democracy. And for the moment, nobody knows who has the authorization to launch the missiles. Maybe Kamala the whore? Maybe demented old Pedo Joe? Maybe somebody else – but it’s a secret who.
Indian Long Range Stand-off Anti-Submarine Weapon
SMART (Supersonic Missile Assisted Release of Torpedo) is a canister-based, long-range supersonic anti-submarine missile developed by the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) for the (red dot, not feather) Indian Navy.
It’s one of a series of weapons developed by nations to address long-range submarine interdiction. On 1 May 2024, DRDO successfully conducted the third SMART missile trial from the Integrated Test Range, Balasore, Odisha. The entire range capability was demonstrated during the test, which was carried out using a ground-based canister launcher system. The test confirmed velocity control, ejection, and symmetric separation. Precision inertial navigation, an electromechanical actuator system, and a two-stage solid propulsion system were all part of the missile architecture. The system’s payload consisted of a sophisticated lightweight torpedo and a parachute-based release mechanism.
Identify the Aircraft
1
Hint: Various attempts were made to convert this basic series of bombers into anti-tank aircraft. The result was the P-series. This photo shows a development aircraft, probably photographed at the Tarnewitz weapons trials facility. None of these experiments proved to be particularly successful. It was too big, slow, and not maneuverable enough at a low level to kill tanks and simultaneously survive the defensive work of Soviet fighters on the Eastern Front (including the US-made P-40 Tomahawks and P-39 Aircobras). The G-series proved far better at that type of work.
2
Hint: It flew, so it’s a plane, not a bird, and not Superman, but it did everything poorly. There are plenty of graphics to aid you.
Identify the Missile
3
Hint: It was launched from a 21-inch submarine torpedo tube. After launch, the solid fuel rocket motor fired, and it rose to the surface. The attitude changed and flew to its destination following a predetermined ballistic trajectory. At a predetermined time in the trajectory, the reentry vehicle (containing the warhead) separated from the solid fuel motor. The low-kiloton W55 nuclear depth bomb dropped into the water and sank rapidly to detonate near its target. A direct hit was not necessary.
Identify the Armored Car
4
End
Identify the Aircraft:
1. JU 88
2. TBD
Identify the Missile:
3. SUBROC
Identify the Armored Car:
4. Skoda PA-11
Good! – Don nailed #2 below.
Zumwalt – how about a refund instead of a refit?
The actual cost of that Zoomie boondoggle has to approach $16 billion. Imagine that the Navy wanted over twenty of them.
Can anyone esplain to me the point of a “stealth” ship? Who needs radar to find the darn thing? Satellites can certainly track its wake and its heat signature and can see it with optics during the day, and probably at night too, with IR. I suspect the bad guys’ version of SOSUS can hear its props. Maybe it can hide from third world scum with crappy radar, but so what?
The same goes for the F 35. Awesome weapon when it works. Too bad we didn’t clone “40-second Boyd” and his fighter mafia who worked on developing fighters in the late 70s and 80s.
Sooo many boondoggles wasting our money.
We are becoming the Germans in WW2. They designed some fantastic weapons. The problem was that the superweapons required large quantities of rare materials, like tungsten, which they could not obtain in enough quantity to build more than a few of the machines. In contrast the Soviets built cheap crap but they built lots of it. I read a book recently on the tank battle at Kursk. This included a discussion of the quality of German and Soviet tanks. The most common Soviet tanks were built to drive only a few hundred kilometers. They figured that by the time they covered that much ground they would be knocked out in battle, so they did not build them to last. Some of the Tiger Vs ( I believe they were Vs) had a kill ratio of 50:1. Unfortunately they had to battle 60-70 Soviet tanks.
It seems as thought the drones will be the cheap weapons of the next few wars. Build lots of cheap ones and overwhelm the enemy with numbers.
I don’t think that using stealth technology to make a missile lock more difficult is a bad thing. And we do need a surface Navy. There are SOSUS-style arrays and there are also “inshore undersea warfare” sensors that can track craft closer to a coast in the littorals. Both work and as I mentioned, I have knowledge of specifics so won’t comment beyond that. The problem with the Zoomies is that they didn’t predict the rise of the People’s Republic of China’s Liberation Army’s Navy in the numbers that are now present (or with their coast guard which roams the seas as well). The Zoomies were planned as land-attack ships using fabulously expensive rail gun ammunition. And it was a big miss by Naval ‘visionaries’ as was the Littoral Combat Ship (LCS or Little Crappy Ship) that doesn’t do anything well. We’re trying to correct that with the FREMM frigates and some concept of a follow-on to the Ticos and the DDG-51 Flite 3, etc. But we’re not building many DDGs or submarines these days. The focus is on gender not war fighting.
Zeus. My dyslexia must have kicked in this morning. I read that as Zaius and was going to make a bad joke about a planet full of apes not being that stupid. More coffee.
ha-ha-ha. Yeah, wrong planet. The Navy doesn’t know what to do with them. Turning them into some sort of battery ship may be the right thing to do at this point, but using them to replace the SSGNs sounds like some species of stupid.
The navy has had a LOT of bad ideas since the light-bringer years, and before.
Don’t ask, don’t tell was the first of a number of bad steps. The Naval Investigative Service was set up to find queers and boot them out of the Navy. (unlike the TV show) They should have kept doing it. It would have made for a better Navy than what we’re stuck with now.
Sounds like the Navy, like the rest of the DOD, is using them just to pour tax dollars into for some unknown return. If the SSGNs are hitting their lifespan why not build one or two more. They are still the most stealthy delivery system we have out there.
#2 Northrop Corporation Truck, Airplane, Boat (TAB) Vericraft triphibian.
You get a gold star for that one, Don-in-Oregon!
“…researchers who were formerly befuddled as to why feminists are always so irate and hysterical.”- Uh, okay…took a grant to research the “causation”? Pretty sure if you took an on the street poll among men (not guys or the skinny jean crowd) to a one they would all give the same answer…call it “being too corked”. (no need to elaborate further, I’ll leave that to Mike_C)
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Beemer Parking- Because people in parking lots are situationally unaware idiots and don’t care to control their carts or doors…because the parking lot is ALL THEIRS. The ninny gal (the printing gives it away) can go pound sand with her note and condom. She needs to see “befuddled researchers” above. Get a life…etc.
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Man Speak- ‘Cause “we love ya man.” Like 8th Grade boys, get into a scuffle then become best friends, no chit chat required. Going to be with my brothers for a week or so…the “chat” will be similar, albeit not as abrasive, but for sure picking on each other will be part of the deal. No one gets offended…we “get it”.
Ps. Harris is more than just a gold digger do-nothing, she’s a Marxist to the Left of Sanders…let alone a smokescreen for the DNC to pick their preferred “in the wings” candidate and VP. The “new shiny object” luster has already tarnished after 5 days. (congrats to Lake in AZ…proverbial “don’t get mad, get even”)
I dunno what to say about the (parody) study. ☹️
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Straddling two spaces is fine (in my book), if you park at the edge of the lot and it’s not a nearly full lot. (I almost always park “far away” anyway because if you park “close” you end up having to wait to pull out because … idiots. This used to annoy the Pretty Korean Girl no end.) That said, it seems a disproportionate number of BMW drivers are assholes. It’s just like a disproportionate number of Subaru drivers are flannel-wearing lesbians. (I drive a Subaru, BTW.)
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I wonder about Harris and Emhoff. Are they each others’ beards (rumor is that he loves sausage more than she does), or is he also her handler? And I know that Vance is generally well thought of in these parts, but I have concerns about Usha for similar reasons. (The handler part, not the homo beard part.)
I tend to park away from people and am annoyed when I do that when somebody parks next to me. If I park remotely and they park so that I can’t open my doors, they return to find flat tires (always at least two). You can brand me a jerk for doing that. I accept the jerk designation. They still need to get a tow.
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I doubt that Emhoff can “measure up” to what Harris was accustomed to accepting/receiving. In my profession, I used whores as informants from time to time. They were universally flaky and universally hated men. At best they were indifferent. I don’t blame them. They liked me because I treated them professionally and never made a pass. Smart whores can do well for themselves. Kamala, a dumb whore, still has done well for herself.
I always park away, out in the hinterland…like Mike_C it affords exiting without waiting for people to get going. Before pickups (which, according to mom, were for people in construction) I had a pristine customized 260Z then a top model Saab 3-door (a sweet ride and the turbo helped get up mountain passes without sneezing) I parked diagonally all the way out in every store lot. Every once in a while someone would park next to me. Despite being a non confrontational type (unprovoked that is), I would wait for them to return and glare at them as they got in their car. Once while out in the Z, grabbing lunch, a – what we’d called a Karen these days – pulled right out and ran into me. While this nutzoid went ape “because I have a child in the car” (a VW Bug…yeah, that type), screaming at me, the cops showed up and moved her away. Cop walks over – knew me (small town) – says…with a serious smile on his face, “I know you want to kill her about now, but we can’t allow that. She’s the only one who thinks you ran into her and clearly not happy we ticketed her.” heh
You and I part ways my friend on this one.
Parking remote is one thing, taking up two spots is selfish.
In my book two flat tires is fair, if the air was let out through the valves. Particularly obnoxious people, removing the valve cores is acceptable. Actually cutting the sidewalls is a bit extreme. IMNSHO.
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Couple of years ago I saw the denouement of rude parking in a Trader Joe’s parking lot just west of Boston. Someone had parked-in a car belonging to a young couple. They could probably have crawled through the hatchback to get access, but clearly they made it a matter of principle and called the cops. When I arrived the cops were chatting with the couple, clearly waiting for the perpetrator to arrive. (It was a beautiful fall evening and pleasant to just hang out.) Eventually two flaming guys flounced up and made a scene by playing the victim. Whereupon the cop wrote them a ticket and announced that he’d inspect their vehicle in proctological detail for no working lights, wipers, etc if they didn’t just shut up, take the ticket, and promise to be more considerate of others in the future. I have the feeling that the cop was waiting to see how the in-parkers behaved before issuing (or not) a ticket. Those fellas failed spectacularly. Heh.
For parking that annoys come to Thailand. Take a shopping mall carpark. Very few cars. Numerous parking spaces. You park well away from everyone else. Return to your car and, surprise surprise, in an otherwise still empty carpark, some buffoon will have parked right next to you. Yesterday, for example, we parked in a mall carpark as per usual prior to our doing our necessary shopping (we having returned from Sydney the previous day and having nothing in the house). As we sat there another car drove in and, lo and behold, parked right alongside one of the other very few cars there despited there being numerous, clear, empty spaces.
Thank you very kindly for your promotion of my book (and thank you again for your hard work editing it and getting it published and to Jules Smith for the outstanding cover art). Thank you also to everyone here who has either purchased a copy or read it, and especially to those who have left a kind comment. They are very much appreciated.
Your accounting is a stunning view into a world few, like myself (albeit not ignorant of the hard work that must be done by those tasked with such “necessary difficulties”) know first hand. Major hat tip and well done sir.
Thank you for writing it, Mike.
And for the work you did
Knew a gal who took delight in keying any car straddling multiple parking spaces. Before graduating from college and becoming a programmer she used to hang out with the gang controlling the region she lived in.
I used to drive a behemoth clunker. For some reason I had no trouble entering and leaving parking lots, as others would give me lots of room.
I also often drive gigantic, horrible beater cars. When I see some guy
perfect, spotless, costs-as-much-as-a-house whatever parked across
4-6 spaces diagonally and am driving said beater, I make a point of
parking parallel off his driver’s door by about 8 inches. But then, I’m
a total douchebag at times.
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– Kle.
Picking an Army system for the Zumwalt refit seems… unwise. I predict delays.
Not knocking the weapon, which might well be a fine piece of ordnance, but
it’s going to give the Navy hives.
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On the bright side, to some extent the SSGNs are being replaced by the newer
Virginias, which have the hull plug for the “big” missile launchers. I also still wish
we were keeping some SSGH Ohios in service though, and then building some
of the new Columbia hulls as SSGNs from the get-go.
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– Kle.
“A direct hit was not necessary.” The wiki page said that the lethal design radius was 5 miles. Water is not compressible but that sure seems like a lot from a relatively small warhead.
Subs start out mostly sunk already, for your convenience.
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– Kle.
Feminists need men to tell them to calm down
Seen today in Chris Muir’s Day by Day. “because American women are always screwing themselves”.
Rail Guns. None of the other countries seem interested in developing them. Would a small modular nuclear power plant be the answer to producing the necessary electricity to make them work? How susceptible are they to a ECM?
Sarcasm. Is the Navy determined to outdo the Air Force in pissing away taxpayer money? They have an advantage by short changing the Marine Corp. How soon will the Space Force become the Air Force’s Marine Corps? How can the poor Army compete?
Yeah, WSF, a complete waste of electrons comment.
As I understand the problem with the Zumwalt class rail gun it was the cost – $800,000-$1 million per shot. Even considering how the Pentagon wastes money, it shocked the conscience of the Congress who would have to answer to voters. Variants of the Standard Missile-3 run from $9.7 million to $27.9 million apiece. I think that the difference may be that you don’t plan to salvo 1000 of them per engagement.
They never even got the railgun on board. It was a guided 155mm
shell with rocket assist that wound up costing a zillion per shot.
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Seems like we coulda just bought the Italian 127mm guided rounds,
they are plenty affordable and combat proven.
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– Kle.
Learned a new elevated social status acronym today…surprised you haven’t zeroed in on it: BIPOC.
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For the foreseeable future I will be self identifying as BIPOC…apparently they are a very inclusive group, having – per the demented video making the rounds – accepted seriously “wound tight” white suburban feminists who by anyone’s account need to get —-…uhh…includes a metaphorical corkscrew but never mind, you get the drift.
BIPOC stands for Black, Indigenous, and People of Color and is pronounced: “bye-pock.” It’s a term used in the United States to acknowledge that not all people of color experience the same level of injustice and to center the experiences of Black and Indigenous groups. It’s also intended to show solidarity between communities of color and to reclaim oppressive labels given to racially marginalized groups.
As many of you know, I’ve self-identified as a twenty-five-year-old negro lesbian woman – and BIPOC is as good of a description of my oppressed status as any. Since nobody knows what a negro, a woman, or a lesbian (there are different degrees of carpet eating from what I’ve read inadvertently online) is, my oppressed status is even more vexing than it would be if I could share details, but those too are vague. When a womyn looks at my mangina (tucked in my 501s), I have to redirect their gaze to my face, “Up here, sista!” Sometimes the oppression is so thick that it’s difficult to breathe, which is what St. George Floyd said. Of course he had a lethal dose of fentanyl onboard, but did that diminish his oppression?
You did not disappoint.
When will the Democratic leaders come out of their own pockets to send me my equity payment in untraceable gold one-ounce Krugerrands? I’m waiting.
Bravo!
Zeus is a CF with nobody in charge… And they might as well just put the 5″ 54 mounts on and be done with it. Re the SUBROC, it ‘worked’ for versions of working. The ‘issue’ was determining ‘what’ the contact was…
Anti-whale nukes?
Zumwalt ship… at first I was thinking, at least it’s painted, then I saw the rust. Next, can we take her into littoral waters.. nope. How about shoot at some guys in small boat full of explosives in a harbor, probably not. Ok, can the ship make a decent loaf of fresh bread? Anyone?
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Haircut. Yep.
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Audi guy. Depends. In general it’s of no consequence to me if I’m allowed to look at the vehicle (not touching, just looking). It’s the ones that start yelling at me for even looking I always hope can’t find their car keys left in the bar.
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Rail gun. I’d keep it, buy a hundred rounds per ship. Have it around for special use days. They’ll happen, you’ll like having the option that day. As to a hyper sonic weapon. Fine, build a new ship for it. Maybe the Japanese could help with that. Maybe name the new ship Godzilla class. Don’t tear apart a zumi, that seems doomed.
The Zoomys are not doomed – not so long as we can print money without any sort of backing and can issue bonds in the thirties of trillions. You just keep re-cuttinng them until they become obsolete.
I know next to nothing about USN procurement, apart from LCS ships which will soon become diving platforms in Lake Whitney. Still, I was struck by the good looking rust on that Zumwalt. Crew pride, eh?
Only what you would expect for a multi-billion dollar ship in today’s Navy. But all of their DEI classes are up to date and it would be “unfair” to task an individual who has gotten in trouble to spend their port call chipping paint.
The sailors have the full oppression curriculum to study. It can’t be interrupted by standard shipboard maintainance.
How am I supposed to know when it’s raining in Sweden?
There is an app for that.
Lights on, Ed.