pastafarian
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Posts posted by pastafarian
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Throw me back in the rotation for this cycle. :)
I've got 2 other modelers that live nearby that are going to trade some stuff out during my stop also.
If anyone has any 1/35 modernish armor or ANY automobiles (cars, trucks whatever), I'll swap some stuff out for them.
John
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It is iffy pulling something like that up, but they can be saved. You'd have to pull the salt and corrosion out of the metal though.
The Confederate submarine CSS Hunley is being preserved like that. I think they place the object in freshwater and run a mild electric current through it for a while (months at least).
John
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I always thought it would be fun to have an old junker and a lot of land and put 4 spares on it and Rally! Probably wouldn't get very far before you'd lose a tire but it would be fun as heck. Or have 4 spares on a snowy road. Hahahaha.
You're gonna get me in trouble putting thoughts like that into my head. LOL
John
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Stop with that common sense approach, I might just have to stop panicking if you keep that up.
as for the self destruct you are right, and usually you have the ability to destroy it on the ground using secondary means. (IE a smart bomb etc) its been alleged that options for destruction were discussed but then declined.
I think this is Iran's sputnik moment, as in a piece of sputnik-like-tech fell on their house, thus they are cosmonauts now.
Sorry. They're gonna fly it over the US and take pictures of everyone neekid!!!!!!!!
Better? LOL
John
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I was listening to NPR earlier and the commenter made a really good point about not placing self destruct charges in a drone. A big one is that it could be interpreted as an attack (looks like incoming, explodes like incoming rounds). Also, he said that such devices are not very reliable, so to place all faith in such an item isn't a good idea.
This guy said that it was much easier to simply have the drone fry certain electronic components. I'm not sure why this would be more reliable than instructions to self destruct would be. The good thing about such a command is that the drone just crashes and can't be interpreted as a weapon or provide usable intel.
On a related topic, I find it hilarious that Iran is already claiming that they can control the drone. If they have the ability to hack the software and create a program to interface with the drone within a few days, why the heck haven't they been able to create drones for themselves? LOL
JOhn
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got this one going again. It hung out in the closet for a long time while I had other stuff going. :P
Decals are from the spares box. BLK stands for Big Load o' Krap. haha I haven't weathered it at all yet. I'm going to throw a bunch of grim on most of the truck and hit a few areas with some rust to make it look nice and used.
Couple things left to add. The guys in the back will need some handles over the platforms on the back corners. I think I'm going to add some external wiring to the rear lights. Last, I need to figure out how to do some garbage for the back. Any ideas on that?
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A friend of mine is Military Intelligence (he says the title contradicts itself haha). Anyway, he said they were required to take the battery out of their phones for most meetings because your phone can be turned on remotely and folks can listen into what is going on in the room. He told me that a few years ago before smart phones came on the market.
On my phone, I sometimes check on here and a salt water aquarium forum. I'm awesomely interesting. LOL that said, I still don't want anyone getting into my phone and logging everything.
John
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I don't really think college does much to help most folks who go in life. It seems to me it is really only a small percentage of people who go to college who really get anything worthwhile out of it. Personally, going into the US Army right out of high school taught me all the reality and responsibility I could have ever learned as a young man. As I like to tell people, the Army was my college.
Coming out of high school, I think more people would get a more useful experience out of military service or an apprenticeship in a trade. Or, even going to a vocational high school (I went to one and took drafting, it helped me get started in the field I am currently in). But continuing education is drummed up so much by our society that everybody thinks that they have no future without it and everybody wants to go to college. College just isn't for everybody, not matter what conventional wisdom states.
Just my personal opinion for what it is worth.
Military makes a HUGE difference in maturity level. I never went in, but I teach college at both a traditional college and at a online school geared toward military folks. The military freshmen take care of their stuff with very few excuses and are much deeper thinkers than the civilian kids. Granted, most of my civilian freshmen are 18 and 19, while my military freshmen are in their early 20s, but it's more than just being a few years older.
John
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If it is what you want to do, make it happen. If you are passionate about flying helicopters, who cares if you are flying sewage from point A to point B?
I agree with everyone else that you'll have to probably take on alot of non-flying duties until you work into more flight time. So, you'll need to be square with that, and if you are though, then start checking into things.
I think what most of the guys here are trying to say is that you will be paying your dues in a major way (especially with the economy and with the pilots that are about to get out of the military with the draw down). Do some soul searching on that front, and if you're cool with it (for a number of years from the sounds of it) then pursue this line. If you aren't ok with it (nothing wrong with that), then look for something else.
John
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Um John we have a smallpox vaccine.
Wrote some stuff, and I was wrong so I deleted it. LOL
OK, civilians in the US no longer get the vaccine, but any US military going to the Middle East currently have been vaccinated. Didn't know that. If the Marines teleported from a stateside location and had not been deployed, then they'd be in trouble.
I was going on the statements by the WHO that smallpox was declared eradicated in 1979 and largely stopped giving the vaccines (I was born in 75 and didn't get it, yes, I got all the other vaccines though haha). However, if someone were to unleash a smallpox attack on a major city though, by the time it was determined to be smallpox and quarantined, so many people would have gotten on airplanes the infection would have spread globally and we don't have enough vaccines for that.
John
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Ah! There's a HUGE game-changer. Disease! The Romans would probalby be decimated in time much like the Native American's were. Thanks for brinign that up as I completely over-looked it!
Maybe. Most of the Native Americans were wiped out by smallpox. Want a scary thought? Today we're just as susceptible to smallpox as the Native Americans were. So, the Romans honestly might inadvertently wipe out most of the Marines with smallpox or something else.
That might be neutralized if there was a decent supply of antibiotics with the Marines. Exposure, then dose up the infected which would give them an immunity. That might work for a few dozen guys, but I wouldn't imagine this unit would have very much in the way of antibiotics (after all, if someone got a nasty bug in the present day they'd just medevac them back to a hospital, not much need to carry that stuff along on a day to day basis).
John
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While they would eventually run out of fuel for the vehicles, ammo would actually be able to be extended. As long as the shooters collect their brass, it should be fairly easy to make more gunpowder and bullets. This would have to be an immediate objective though (bullet and powder production).
An added advantage is that the Romans do not know that the Marines have a limited amount of ammo. They only know that these weapons crack and throw a chunk of metal through them.
I would imagine that eventually, the Marines might be able to produce new brass, but that would be a fairly difficult process (can be done though, the US was able to produce cartridge ammo in 1862).
John
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Personally, I've only bought 2 or 3 kits this year (holy cow, really? lol). I've just been building what I already have. I've also not been browsing through the buy and sell like I used to.
On the whole, I'd say it is more about the economy. Stuff just isn't moving as much as it used to. The few things that I've ordered from folks in Canada don't really have crazy shipping costs. I don't think I'd try to order something from Europe unless it was an insanely good deal on a pretty rare kit that I've wanted for a while.
John
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John, I glossed over this and totally missed this post until now. This might sound funny, but we used ratchet straps and bungee cords to secure most of the stuff.
We also used to build a "burrito" in the turret bustle rack using the tarp. We'd put the tarp in the bustle rack, place all of our duffel bags, ruck sacks and other stuff in there and then wrap the remaining tarp over the top like a pair of flaps. Not sure if that makes sense. In theory this kept your spare uniforms and other stuff dry if it rained and kept some of the dust and dirt out. Watercans and other stuff was secured by straps and bungee cords. We had four 25mm ammo cans (Bradley ammo) attached to the outside of the back of the bustle rack where we used to store extra transmission fluid and engine oil cans.
As I mentioned in my PM, the tank quite often looked like a gypsy wagon. We crammed stuff where we could fit it.
The burrito does make sense. I'll rework some of the stuff on there for that. Straps and bungies should be pretty easy to rig up. I was worried I'd have to rig up a net of some sort. Thanks. :)
John
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Anyone have a set of the trainer jet from the Testors 1/72 tb-58 kit? I started to decal mine the other day and the decals just shattered (even tried some decal sealer sprayed on them). Foxone also included a couple of trainers on their sheet, so that would work as well.
If you have these markings, shoot me a pm and we'll work something out.
John
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Anyone have a set of the trainer jet from the Testors 1/72 tb-58 kit? I started to decal mine the other day and the decals just shattered (even tried some decal sealer sprayed on them). Foxone also included a couple of trainers on their sheet, so that would work as well.
If you have these markings, shoot me a pm and we'll work something out.
John
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I'll make the jump and pick one up.
What other cannons were there? I only knew of this one and the Davy Crockett. Do you have any pics?
John
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Has anyone gotten into the atomic cannon yet? I'd really like to end up with one of these on the shelf, but I'm a little nervous that I wouldn't be able to get it into a decent looking model. I'm a little spoiled by the newer tamiya and dragon kits where ya shake the box and out falls a nice Dragon Wagon. LOL
I'm ok with scratchbuilding some, but I'm wondering if pretty much everything on this kit will have to be redone.
Another idea that I've had is picking up another kit to use some of the parts (maybe another dragon wagon and steal the winches etc).
Thoughts?
John
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In Atlanta Rick did see or hear a helicopter fly over. I'm sure it wasn't from another country, but there is probably some military presence out there (just guessing since posts are typically fenced in and can be defended against zombies maybe.
I'd guess that most everywhere has been infected though since someone would have to come up with the idea to fly or sail to an island (Haiti or Cuba come to mind).
As far as length of life in zombies, I think in 28 Days Later (or one of the series) one of the groups chained up a turned team member. Seems like they said they had the guy chained up for two weeks or so without eating and he didn't seem to be "ill." LOL
--Over on Armorama we did an End of Days Campaign that was pretty fun. There were some neat survivalist vehicles that came out of it. I built a weird "hunting" tank from an M60 with a platform for safari groups. haha I figured that once things stabilized, emerging communities would send out groups to weed out any lingering zombies and this vehicle seemed to fit that role. I'll post some pics of it tomorrow.
John
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I need to take a couple of pics of my Abrams that I've been working on to get you to critique it Jason. I got the Legend stowage set and actually ran out of room for tacking everything on there. haha How did you guys hold everything on top of the turret? Right now if my tank takes a hard bump, everything is going to fly off!
John
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I guess I'd stay between WilliamG in Florida and Dax in Oklahoma. We got some stuff down in Texas from Oklahoma last week anyway, so switching directions makes sense. LOL
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http://www.heraldchronicle.com/news/view_sections.asp?idcategory=47&idarticle=4624
I'm not really sure what to say here. That was a bit of an over reaction on her part I suppose. But, at the same time, he should have had a clue that his wife might be crazy enough to do something like that. After being married for 16 years, I'd say that "I'll kill you streak" might have surfaced a bit to warn him.
Some of the folks back home have the crazy. LOL
John
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You realise this guy went to China after the Korean war, not the Vietnam war right? According to the article the guy only stayed in China for three years, which means he arrived back in the US in 1956, well before the Vietnam War got under way. I doubt he would know much of anything about North Vietnamese held POWs (assuming there even were any of those in 1956).
Yeah, but we just started talking POWs in general.
Raymond, I'd be real interested in finding out more about the folks that were supposedly taken to the Soviet Union. I'm unsure if it was much more than rumors though. Some seriously damning information has come out of the KGB's files since the fall of the Soviet Union, but as far as I know, nothing about any POWs.
I like to use the photograph of the "3 amigos" in my classes when I get to the subject. It was a picture taken of 3 white guys (russian farmers) that was fixed to look like American pows.
Also, some people unfortunately "played the system" during efforts to recover pow/mia soldiers. When the US military pulled out of Vietnam so fast, they left behind alot of equipment. Some of the stuff left were the stamping equipment for making dog tags. Some Vietnamese got ahold of these and started putting out fake dog tags that they'd sell to Americans looking for pow/mia's.
John
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Fair point, though I still think 'traitor' is a bit harsh. I also agree with 11bee that the article didn't delve very deeply into the man's motivations for staying. 'I wanted to see what it was like' is a bit shallow, especially considering the three years of daily indoctrination, though I can certainly imagine thinking 'well they've been telling me how cool this place is for the last three years, lets go check it out'.
Yeah. I wouldn't really call him a collaborator either then, since he didn't change sides during the war. Think I just went with traitor for lack of a better word.
I think we're doing this wrong though. I'm pretty sure we were supposed to start calling each other names by now. poopy-head! :P
John
the 'Merican travelling goodies box
in General Discussion
Posted
Glad to have you aboard Gino. The box is about to get back to Jason in Boston, then it will work it's way down to the Southeast and then out west.
I think most of us have been sending it parcel post with tracking.
John