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from the can't-seem-to-make-a-better-mousetrap dept.
Dave Phillipps has an interesting article in The New York Times about B-52's and why the Air Force's largest bomber, now in its 60th year of active service and scheduled to fly until 2040, are not retiring anytime soon. "Many of our B-52 bombers are now older than the pilots who fly them," said Ronald Reagan in 1980. Today, there is a B-52 pilot whose father and grandfather flew the plane.
Originally slated for retirement generations ago, the B.U.F.F. — a colorful acronym that the Air Force euphemistically paraphrases as Big Ugly Fat Fellow - continues to be deployed in conflict after conflict. It dropped the first hydrogen bomb in the Bikini Islands in 1956, and laser-guided bombs in Afghanistan in 2006. It has outlived its replacement. And its replacement's replacement. And its replacement's replacement's replacement. The unexpectedly long career is due in part to a rugged design that has allowed the B-52 to go nearly anywhere and drop nearly anything the Pentagon desires, including both atomic bombs and leaflets. But it is also due to the decidedly underwhelming jets put forth to take its place. The $283 million B-1B Lancer first rolled off the assembly line in 1988 with a state-of-the-art radar-jamming system that jammed its own radar. The $2 billion B-2 Spirit, introduced a decade later, had stealth technology so delicate that it could not go into the rain. "There have been a series of attempts to build a better intercontinental bomber, and they have consistently failed," says Owen Coté. "Turns out whenever we try to improve on the B-52, we run into problems, so we still have the B-52."
The usefulness of the large bomber — and bombers in general — has come under question in the modern era of insurgent wars and stateless armies. In the Persian Gulf war, Kosovo, Afghanistan and the Iraq war, the lumbering jets, well-established as a symbol of death and destruction, demoralized enemy ground troops by first dropping tons of leaflets with messages like "flee and live, or stay and die," then returning the next day with tons of explosives. In recent years, it has flown what the Air Force calls "assurance and deterrence" missions near North Korea and Russia. Two B-52 strategic bombers recently flew defiantly near artificial Chinese-built islands in the South China Sea and were contacted by Chinese ground controllers but continued their mission undeterred. "The B.U.F.F. is like the rook in a chess game," says Maj. Mark Burleys. "Just by how you position it on the board, it changes the posture of your adversary."
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Knowledge Troll on Wednesday December 09 2015, @04:48PM
Sidearms. The Colt 1911 is the ultimate sidearm......... All other "complaints" are complete and utter bullshit.
Maybe I'm just a pussy and there are more modern versions of the 1911 with pussy friendly features but personally I very much dislike the 1911 single-action only mode of operation. Sure I can pull a hammer back but I prefer double-action to start cycling. The part I dislike the most though is when the firearm is holstered, safety on, hammer back. I don't know if that was the intended case during combat but when I see people do it in person I cringe.
Maybe I'm hypersensitive since the hammer on a shotgun is cocked all the time you just can't see it. Still I thought on the 1911 this behavior was odd and made me pay much more attention than usual when someone else is holding a 1911 and I hear the slide moving or click of the hammer locking.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Spook brat on Wednesday December 09 2015, @07:20PM
. . . I very much dislike the 1911 single-action only mode of operation. Sure I can pull a hammer back but I prefer double-action to start cycling. The part I dislike the most though is when the firearm is holstered, safety on, hammer back. I don't know if that was the intended case during combat but when I see people do it in person I cringe.
It's not just you. The military manual for the 1911 [google.com] specifically says not to carry cocked and locked except in emergency situations, so at least the Army Doctrine folks agree that configuration is for imminent contact with the enemy only. They even point out that you need to be careful when unholstering to make sure you don't accidentally take it off safe (self-inflicted gunshot wounds are embarrassing at best). I think that is what would put me off most about the cocked-and-locked carry method.
There are a lot of 1911 fans who really think that's the best way to carry, though, and they've got an appeal to authority for it, too. [wikipedia.org] The funny thing is, I think they're doing it because they agree with you about the single-action-only nature of the firearm - when you pull the trigger the result should be "bang".
I'm bugged more by the change between actions on dual/single action platforms like the M9 currently in service. In my opinion the trigger pull should be the same every time you operate the mechanism, not different first time vs every other time. I kind of prefer having only one mode of operation, though I've never used a single-action-only (DAO for me so far). I can imagine getting used to the 1911 if I gave it a try, but I'm not really looking to add another caliber to my collection.
BTW, I'm also a huge hypocrite, so take my gun wisdom with a grain of salt. My latest purchase along these lines is a P-64 [p64resource.com] manufactured the year I was born, which features the dual/single transition I say I hate in a caliber that doesn't match anything else I own. And of course I'm in love with it. With a 25lbs trigger pull on dual action I treat it as a single action only in practice because, seriously, that's just ridiculous. I've proven that I can operate it dual action, but I'm not confident I can do so accurately. If the safety weren't also a de-cocker I might consider trying a cocked-and-locked carry with it; so, yeah, I'm a hypocrite who's letting his 1911-nut friends' opinions rub off on him :P
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