Military Humor

[DarkLight 0]

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote (Tovarish @ Oct. 21 2002,23:12)</td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">The American secret service thought that it was another new Russian weapon.

The Americans actually believed that the Andromeda submarine was something like a secret weapon as well. The sub was docked at Sevmash Enterprise in Severodvinsk for ten years. The Americans were watching the territory of the factory with their satellites, trying to guess what the Russians were doing there for such a long time. On the whole, the Andromeda submarine was something between big luck and a big flop of the Soviet navy.<span id='postcolor'>

Bwahahaaaah! That's just great

[Othin 0]

Not stupidity, but this gave me a chuckle the other day.

The British and the Italians are both testing out here on our Naval Base in the Mojave. When they both settled into their respective shops (which are right next to each other) on the flightline they hoisted a small national flag above.

Seemingly the Brits fired the first shot. About two weeks ago I notice that the British flag was a few feet higher then it had been the day before. Coincidently (suuuuuuuure) this made it higher then the Italian flag. So a few days later the Italian flag magically had grown a foot higher then the British flag.

To make a long story short, the flags above the shops have to be at least 15-20 feet high now. The Brits have the lead now, though the Italians have two flags on their pole now. I'll try to get a picture up later.

[FallenPaladin 0]

It`s not a great or long story, bur something I`ll always remember from my military time.

When we marched out of the first garrison I was stationed in, we almost had bad weather every time. When it wasn`t night it was either fog or rain. Everyone who has worn a combat suit before knows that he is almost invisible under that conditions. That makes streetcrossing very dangerous.

So when we left our garrison, I was usually the last to march in the row and I had to wear a red blinking light on my helmet, when we walked on streets. My officers thought that would prevend to row from being hit by a car or tractor.

Hey, I almost felt like blinky bill!! It looked so stupid and so I felt  

Now an occasion where I had no light on my helmet. That wasn`t funny and scared the shit out of me (afterwards) and almost got me killed.

It was 5:30am in the winter and still dark. I was driving from my hometown to my garrison, another guy from my unit was in my car, too. I had just reached the part of the street, where it entered the forest, when I saw some cars standing on it. I hit the brakes and also hit the button for the emergency lights, while my car stopped. In the first shock I also pushed the button for the window cleaner and so on. It turned out that the other cars had stopped (without warning lights, that dumbasses) because a woman almost ran into one of that cars. I told the other guy in my car to call the police and went to that women. She was either under drugs or in shock, because she tried to stop the other cars that managed to drive beside us and continued their way. She yelled stop and wanted to walk into the cars lights! So I grabbed her and forced her from the street, standing between her and the passing cars. The cars passed me very close and afterwards I realised that I wore my forest combat suit. They couldn`t probably have seen me!!

When the woman was finally brought to the police we drove further to our garrison. I was shaking until breakfast. Cars that pass by you at night one meter or less aside you and their driver aren`t able to see you isn`t a nice experience!

[Tovarish 0]

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote (FallenPaladin @ Nov. 02 2002,00:26)</td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">Cars that pass by you at night one meter or less aside you and their driver aren`t able to see you isn`t a nice experience!<span id='postcolor'>

I bet...I shudder just immagining that. Glad you came out ok.

[DarkLight 0]

Going a bit off topic here, but i got an militairy related question, i thought about it when i read the last replies.

When someone i know got his training to become a para they had to do exercises like jumping under a tank when it drives at full speed towards you...

Do the soldiers these days still have to do that, the story about the cars driving less than 1 m away from me made me think about it.

[Jinef 2]

You gotta like the Norwegians - first they invent the paperclip which is invaluable, then they try to harpoon the Orca Whale that the Yanks had spent 6 million trying to get back into the wild!

And also i heard this story from a foreign exchange student a few years ago.

In the height of the cold war, when everyone but the British (cause we're just too cool to be paranoid ) was just itching to push the button and obliterate everyoon else.

The Norwegians who don't bother with this war stuff, it's getting dated you know, decided to lauch a space program.

.........Russian aviation defense guys suddenly see this unidentified object blasting into their airspace. Silo doors open and and everyone gets coded messages saying get ready to push "the" buttons. Meanwhile the Americans look at their screens and see Russia ready to start WW3........Silos and buttons for the yanks.

Then a highly skilled communications officers decide to advise their leaders to get on the phone and just ask to make sure.

Oh sorry that was us! Says the Norwegians as they look around at the world on the brink of destruction.

So one of the closest encounters with nuclear war was caused by the Norwegians

[FallenPaladin 0]

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote (Jinef @ Nov. 03 2002,02:49)</td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">The Norwegians who don't bother with this war stuff, it's getting dated you know, decided to lauch a space program.

Oh sorry that was us! Says the Norwegians as they look around at the world on the brink of destruction.<span id='postcolor'>

LOL

[Jinef 2]

In the Gulf War in 1991, the European forces lost a large amount of equipment/troops to American Friendly Fire.

So because of the american pilots not doing their homework and learning that a Leopard MBT looks quite different from a T-55 MBT the Europeans had to start painting orange squares on their vehicles, which slightly ruined the whole idea of camouflage.

What's ironic is that if they didn't paint orange squares it would be harder for the iraqis to see them but it would make no difference to an apache gunner who could use IR stuff.

[cam0flage 0]

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote </td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">When someone i know got his training to become a para they had to do exercises like jumping under a tank when it drives at full speed towards you...<span id='postcolor'>

I think exercise involving jumping under a tank when it comes straight for you would be too dangerous to be implemented in any western army. The ground clearance of a tank varies a lot when it drives forward at a decent speed, might get you easily crushed between ground and the tank's bottom.

I was a basic MP in the Finnish Defence Forces and we had exercises with T-72 doing a forwards-backwards motion which made the tank "jump" while we crawled under it. I got my head beaten by the tank in a pretty nasty way for few times Another nice experience was to go prone and form a column on a road. When we were ready a T-72 started moving from the beginning of the column. You had to stay still and aim with assault rifle until the tank's track was about 30 cm from your gun's muzzle, and then quickly make a roll left to avoid the track and stay still.

This was trained because russian armour usually has its objectives about 300 meters behind the frontline, and it's usually employed in masses, which makes it possible that some tanks are missed by AT soldiers and manage therefore to penetrate the frontline. The best option to survive if a tank drives towards you is to lay low and still because the visibility from a tank is pretty bad actually, and it is the movement which gives up targets to the gunners. That's why you had to be able to roll aside at the very last moment.

It was pretty fun to train with armour actually

[vade_101 0]

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote </td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">the Europeans had to start painting orange squares on their vehicles, which slightly ruined the whole idea of camouflage.<span id='postcolor'>

ah, be fair. Air Visibility panels is an old idea, they used painted canvas squares in WW2. and since they were only visible from high up, and the Iraqi Air Force was mostly in Iran by this point. it wouldn't make that much of a difference.

[Jinef 2]

fair point Vade, but still, painting big orange squares on tanks sounds like military stupidity to me!

Okay i got another one.

After US pilots go through training and are aces flying their amazing aircraft, they are told "Right your off to Wales to be taught how to fly by the Brits" which obviously causes laughter in these confident men who have had many hundreds of hours flying.

Now bear in mind that they have been training in Arizona and Nevada etc. So avererage flying conditions are over flat ground in unlimited visiblity.

So all these yanks swagger in to the breifing room laughing and joking and thinking "wheres the nearest bar" and the RAF guys are smiling inanely as they give the route. then the yanks walk outside and realise F*** there's CLOUDS!

and RAIN! Visiblity in Wales is usually less than a kilometre on a average rainy day but can get down to 50 metres in under 10 mins. Fast jet guys who fly harriers and tornados tell me hairy stories about how they're blasting through a canyon at minimum altitude of 250ft  (they go lower when no one is around! at 600knts and they misjudge for a split second and are following a wrong valley towards a cliff of rock, they might have 2-3 seconds to react if they're lucky.

This is all part of cross training and maybe some european countries crosstrain the USAF as well?

The military stupidity part is that instead of training in Nevada why don't they train where weather exists like in montana maybe (my knowledge of US states iss limited but i know there are mountains in montana) so that they have a wide range of operational ability instead of just flying at 40000ft and dropping LGBs which always cause "collateral damage"

[Jinef 2]

Okay here's a smaller pic of welsh countryside.

[DarkLight 0]

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote (cam0flage @ Nov. 03 2002,19:28)</td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE"></span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote </td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">When someone i know got his training to become a para they had to do exercises like jumping under a tank when it drives at full speed towards you...<span id='postcolor'>

I think exercise involving jumping under a tank when it comes straight for you would be too dangerous to be implemented in any western army. The ground clearance of a tank varies a lot when it drives forward at a decent speed, might get you easily crushed between ground and the tank's bottom.

I was a basic MP in the Finnish Defence Forces and we had exercises with T-72 doing a forwards-backwards motion which made the tank "jump" while we crawled under it. I got my head beaten by the tank in a pretty nasty way for few times Another nice experience was to go prone and form a column on a road. When we were ready a T-72 started moving from the beginning of the column. You had to stay still and aim with assault rifle until the tank's track was about 30 cm from your gun's muzzle, and then quickly make a roll left to avoid the track and stay still.

This was trained because russian armour usually has its objectives about 300 meters behind the frontline, and it's usually employed in masses, which makes it possible that some tanks are missed by AT soldiers and manage therefore to penetrate the frontline. The best option to survive if a tank drives towards you is to lay low and still because the visibility from a tank is pretty bad actually, and it is the movement which gives up targets to the gunners. That's why you had to be able to roll aside at the very last moment.

It was pretty fun to train with armour actually <span id='postcolor'>

You probable are right, or these things really happen in Belgium, or some bastard lied to me

[Longinius 1]

Well, I have a small anecdote about civilian stupidity related to military people.

We had been on an exercise with the ground defence unit of the Airforce base I was working at. We were driving home, late at night, on a very narrow and twisty forestroad. The convoy consisted of one car and four vans. The car was in the lead with a captain driving and me in the seat beside him. Anyone who has been in the military know how soldiers drive, its fast and its close between the vehicles... ( the drivers were all officers, making it even worse ). All of a sudden a babycarriage appears on the road. The captain steps on the breaks and almost drives off the road and we stop inches from the carriage. I instantly reach forward and hit the warning lights even before the car stopped because I knew the guys behind us needed as much time as possible. We then get out and hear the last of the vans coming to a grinding halt.

Me and the captain walk up to the carriage under hails of furious remarks and questions from the other vans. The carriage turns out to be empty. Well, we have all heard of strange people doing strange things so naturally we assume the worst: there is a kid or possibly a woman and a kid somewhere in the woods. The captain orders the four dogs we had with us to be taken out of the vans and we start to search the area. An hour or so later one of the guys in the searchparty comes across a home further down the road. He knocks on the door and asks if anyone knows anything about the carriage. The response is that they young girl of the house has a carriage she usually plays with. This turned out to be that carriage. So, no baby, no mother and no emergency. Just a bunch of tired and pesky Airforce officers who finally got to drive home.

It sucked, but it was fun in retrospect. Especially good to know how quickly the guys reacted and how concerned they were about a potential missing person.

[brgnorway 0]

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote (Jinef @ Nov. 03 2002,02:49)</td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">You gotta like the Norwegians - first they invent the paperclip which is invaluable, then they try to harpoon the Orca Whale that the Yanks had spent 6 million trying to get back into the wild!

And also i heard this story from a foreign exchange student a few years ago.

In the height of the cold war, when everyone but the British (cause we're just too cool to be paranoid   ) was just itching to push the button and obliterate everyoon else.

The Norwegians who don't bother with this war stuff, it's getting dated you know, decided to lauch a space program.

.........Russian aviation defense guys suddenly see this unidentified object blasting into their airspace. Silo doors open and and everyone gets coded messages saying get ready to push "the" buttons. Meanwhile the Americans look at their screens and see Russia ready to start WW3........Silos and buttons for the yanks.

Then a highly skilled communications officers decide to advise their leaders to get on the phone and just ask to make sure.

Oh sorry that was us! Says the Norwegians as they look around at the world on the brink of destruction.

So one of the closest encounters with nuclear war was caused by the Norwegians<span id='postcolor'>

Hehe.....It's true! The rocket incident happened in the 90's though.

Here's another one:

During a Nato excercise in Norway a team consisting of 3 elite soldiers (jegere) were dropped into "enemy land". Their task was to observe enemy activity. Of course they did everything possible to remain undetected and they were really good at it too. Only problem was that when the exercise finally ended - no one told them. As time passed by and the soldiers never showed up the armed forces started to become quite nervous.

Police, Red Cross, private persons and all available military servicemen started an enormous search and rescue operation.

The rescue operation got all the attention from the media and it was to say the least a total caos.

After 14 days the soldiers finaly turned up - feeling a bit hungry and cold! The poor bastards only did what they were supposed to, and they did it well too!

[Othin 0]

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote (Jinef @ Nov. 05 2002,08:11)</td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">fair point Vade, but still, painting big orange squares on tanks sounds like military stupidity to me!

Okay i got another one.

After US pilots go through training and are aces flying their amazing aircraft, they are told "Right your off to Wales to be taught how to fly by the Brits" which obviously causes laughter in these confident men who have had many hundreds of hours flying.

Now bear in mind that they have been training in Arizona and Nevada etc. So avererage flying conditions are over flat ground in unlimited visiblity.

So all these yanks swagger in to the breifing room laughing and joking and thinking "wheres the nearest bar" and the RAF guys are smiling inanely as they give the route. then the yanks walk outside and realise F*** there's CLOUDS!

and RAIN! Visiblity in Wales is usually less than a kilometre on a average rainy day but can get down to 50 metres in under 10 mins. Fast jet guys who fly harriers and tornados tell me hairy stories about how they're blasting through a canyon at minimum altitude of 250ft  (they go lower when no one is around! at 600knts and they misjudge for a split second and are following a wrong valley towards a cliff of rock, they might have 2-3 seconds to react if they're lucky.

This is all part of cross training and maybe some european countries crosstrain the USAF as well?

The military stupidity part is that instead of training in Nevada why don't they train where weather exists like in montana maybe (my knowledge of US states iss limited but i know there are mountains in montana) so that they have a wide range of operational ability instead of just flying at 40000ft and dropping LGBs which always cause "collateral damage"<span id='postcolor'>

Errrr?

Are you sure your talking about U.S. pilots? I had always been under the impression that our pilots (USN) did their training in Florida, Texas, and Maryland. Also, any Navy (or Marine) pilot will have no doubt encountered shitty weather doing his carrier quals. Just for shits and grins I asked one of the pilots if this was true and he looked at me like I was insane. I also asked to our token Air Force pilot and he also said "no", nor had he ever heard of an exchange happening for that reason. I tried calling the British Harrier pilot we have with us, but he wasn't in today.

As far as training in areas to give our pilots are large range of "operational ability" we fly in every possible type of scenario. This is a sample from just one base.China Lake Ranges

Hopefully tommorow I can (if I can find a site to store them) put up some pics of one of our Super Hornets doing a little canyon running in our local "Star Wars Canyon".

[Jinef 2]

Othin - I've heard lot's of rumours about the USN and Marine pilots (mainly good ones of course) but i've only seen and been told about F15 pilots from the USAF coming over here. I've never heard about or seen F18s or anything other than F15s In Wales (apart from airshows)

They definitely come over here and operate out of RAF valley. I'm not sure if it's cross training or just exchange (like the harrier pilot you got - btw ask him if he's done lot's of flying in Wales and if it's fun when the weather comes down! but anyway the i've been told that the American pilots who do come over to Wales just aren't used to flying low in bad weather.

I had the impression that the USAF trained in Nevada or Arizona but i now nothing about the USN other than they've got big ships compared to ours!

Find out from the Harrier guy because he will probably know.

[nolips71 0]

some of the stuff ive seen the yanks do on the bombing range near me is unbeliveable.

it started raining and the flight of f15s put on there afterburners and went home sharpish (wusses) another point

you never see the yanks when there is clouds or anything

[Jinef 2]

"you never see the yanks when there is clouds or anything"

Probably because they are 9 miles up over the clouds afraid to come down!

Uhhhh it's grey stuff! God Damn it! ........ God Bless America......

[nolips71 0]

LOL

[Jinef 2]

Okay ladles and gellyspoons

The great Jinef will now make his announcement.

A long time ago in a land that no man (or woman) will have heard of and doesn't actually want to hear of, a land full of sheep and rocks, a land called Wales, there was I doing work experience in a remote outpost called RAF St Athan which was full of Welsh. I was doing engineering in the Harrier hangar, as I have no idea what i can reveal and what i cannot due to the official secrets act and health and safety regulations (We broke every one practically lol) i will just give you the whole story and hope the SAS don't barge in with a P226 and reduce the UKs population by one.

I had been there for about a week and i knew everyone and had all the tricks played on me like "go get this (wierd sounding tool)" and i look at them as if "are you playing a trick?" and they say no but i still refuse to go. So they send the other WE guy and he trots off happily and comes back with this ugly bastard tool smiling inanely and they all laugh and point at me *sigh*. But we were sitting around and the guys were putting on the canopy hatch and one of them dropped some bolt thing. So everyone started looking around in the cockpit and underneath looking for this tiny screw in a 100 * 50 metre hangar with 12 harriers and 200 people in it. Then someone notices that it could have fallen into the pipe where the oxygen supply for the pilot comes into the cockpit.

So i get sent off to quatermaster stores to get a fibre optic cable camera and a minature TV set. So we set it up and being the mature well paid engineers they are they stick it down their shirts to test the image clarity *sigh again*. So we open up the nose and look for the AC pipe and then stick this cable into it. We find a bolt and get a 'claw on a stick' sort of tool and fish it out. We all agree that we should power up to test it so we turn on the generator and all we hear is

"whiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiirrrrrrrrrrr" as it turns on then "KACHINK" as another bit of the bolt is sucked into the fan of the AC.

This fan lost 5 blades out of 8 and spat them across the hangar sending curses up as bits of metal ricocheted off titanium harrier fueselages and hit 'delicate equipment'.

We were all thoroughly pissed as we then had to go account for every blade, and then send them off to the manufactures to be salvaged and then go look for a replacement AC unit in the mass of spare items kept on huge shelves.

Also the chalk that we put on the tires of the Harrier to prevent damage from corrosive liquids was very rarely put on the tires and was mainly used as something to chuck on someone else just to piss him off!

[MrMilli 0]

A story I heard

back in the '70's Russian special forces had the idea of sending in guys before a fight kicked off to gain entry to a airbase and generally break things and hurt people.

So, the British Army decided to test the base defences of an RAF base.

An army unit puts on its best Spetznaz impression and cuts though the wire fence at this RAF base.

Sneaking over to the guard room they break in

"Your all dead" the Army SGT (source) says

"no we're not!" shouts back an RAF Corporal

"We killed you before you opened fire"

"How, none of you are armed"

"Well, all the rifles are in the Armory(sp?)"

"Wheres that"

"Other side of the base"

Chalk one up for the "Russians"

Next, the art of breaking things

they proceed to "steal" a few land rovers and drive around waking everyone and their mothers up with the sound of blanks.

After a few minutes they realise that (a) they are driving the wrong way round the one way system (b) They are driving past all the empty guard posts and © all of said guard posts were only effective if the enemy would kindly stick to the one way system while assualting.

Exercise ends with them getting a bollocking for not going in though the front gate (like all good bad guys should), stealing the land rovers and not driving the right way round the one way system.

I'm told a journalist recently gained access to an RAF base by going for a hair cut, so things don't look to be getting any better

[Jinef 2]

Well the RAF police i spoke to seemed pretty competent but then again i would rate the Spetznatz as one of the best special forces in the world, along with the SAS. i wouldn't expect the RAF police to be able to effectively hold a base from infiltration from special forces at the moment, it's a problem that they should overcome.

Nowadays though they have covert soldiers camouflaged and patrols that walk around randomly looking for holes in the perimeter.

[MrMilli 0]

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote (Longinius @ Nov. 06 2002,15:29)</td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">Anyone who has been in the military know how soldiers drive, its fast and its close between the vehicles...<span id='postcolor'>

Heh, I know a guy who drove a truck off the edge of a drop on a hill (I put cliff, but that gives you impressions of the coasts of Dover )

In Germany

at night

Driving with no lights

lead truck (driver, junior NCO, 2nd LT next to im)

The road they were following suddenly turns off to the right, winding around a small hill and "was misrepresented on the map" (Apparently )

so truck keeps going forwards, road turns right, truck goes though a barricade and proceeds to fall off the edge.

Truck behind sees the first truck disappear, and slams on both the lights and the brakes (not easy in these things )

ends up inches from the drop.

Lead truck ends up on its side and a recovery vehicle has to pull it down the hill because they couldn't get to them.

No injuries and as with everything in life, (I'll abreviate because of the first word but some of you know what I mean) SSD, Junior NCO gets blamed for not paying attention (despite the fact without lights he couldn't see the wheel, let alone the road)

If anyone has seen the "Kill the lights" Army ad on TV, FYI its usually

"Kill the lights"

"Why?"

"Because I bloody said so"

wait ten minutes

turn on the lights to find you've just driven the whole convoy into a forest.

[DarkLight 0]

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote (MrMilli @ Nov. 08 2002,12:23)</td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">"Kill the lights"

"Why?"

"Because I bloody said so"

wait ten minutes

turn on the lights to find you've just driven the whole convoy into a forest.<span id='postcolor'>

Bwahahaha, you just gotta love the army...