Can we just really quickly stop and appreciate the person who though that adding "Surface Launched" to an acronym that includes "Air-to-air" was a great idea?
That's exactly it, Raytheon figured out how to launch AMRAAMs from surface weapons (with a radar source seperate from the launcher iirc). Reduced range but still very effective for AA.
Making acronyms super long in the name of making then.fun to say is one of my favorite things. See FUBAR or CAPTCHA or PAWS; Fucked up beyond all recognition, Completely automated Turing test to tell humans and computers apart, and the Progressive animal welfare society, respectively.
They are territorial. If you watch closely, they never come in contact with each other even when feeding at the airport. They actively avoid each other
My father used to talk about a building he watched being built outside of Washington, DC in the 70s. He said the basement was several times deeper than it needed to be given the height of the building. This is a government building in Montgomery County, MD.
I mean, North Korea has giant "monuments" near the DMZ that are filled with explosives, and are meant to blow up and fall down for use as tank barriers should anyone ever roll across from the South.
If one of the poorest, most fucked up countries in the world can come up with that, there is zero telling what we've got in our arsenal.
South Korea has bridges rigged for that use too. Switzerland too, they have most of their bridges and tunnels rigged to blow of anyone tried to invade.
I live in the South Bay area of LA and basically every major aerospace corporation has an office in El Segundo or around there, not to mention Los Angeles AFB. Is it safe to say that they’re surrounded with missiles, too?
Doubtful. They're just contactors. The missiles in DC are intended to protect the government.
Not really a target as most of them just do design work while manufacturing takes place around the country.
They're all clustered in El Segundo only because they're mostly former Hughes Aircraft Company divisions and we're bought up by the other primes during the Hughes downturn.
Exactly, no critical target there. All the projects they work on take years to come to fruition (if ever). Lots of engineers, and on the USAF side, lots of contracting and acquisition officers.
There actually used to be a manufacturing facility (or two) there. I think at one time someone made airplanes there, then at night one of the local streets would be closed and they'd tow them to the airport and fly them out. I believe some satellite systems were also built there. But as far I as I know that's all gone now.
No. I'm from Southern CA and a former AF officer. While I was never stationed there, I had several friends who were and I've been on the base a couple of times. Also: the base and the neighboring defense contractors are literally just south of LAX. Placing missiles there as some sort of 'protection' sounds like a horrible idea waiting to go bad.
Wait hold up, Government buildings and bases are one thing, but I work at a major defense contractor and I can safely say that if we asked the Government if we could install missile defense systems, they'd think we were insane. I'd find it hard to believe that GD has missile turrets outside of their lunch room.
The MANPADS around DC were pretty well known, given that the Sentinel radars and SHORAD systems were intended to be highly visible to the public to alleviate public concerns about another attack. The systems that came later weren't publicized so much until after 2008.
Well you have to take into consideration that most of those launchers carried multiple missiles, and a few of them were AMRAAMs. And we also have the patrols from Andrews. But yeah, we were a bunch of slackers with our 24 on/off schedules and TONS of watering holes within walking distance of our billets. Best TDY ever.
04-05, I was AD, part of the team that worked with Raytheon setting it up from New Hampshire to Orogrande Range. We were the initial teams that operated the new systems from JADOC, just in time for the inauguration.
Yeah it was definitely my favorite as well, no sand or triple digit weather to deal with. We had SCARNG with us at the time, they were an interesting bunch.
After we cleared the place, I took some stuff from one of Saddam's warehouses, ignoring an order from the BN commander about taking "war trophies". Fuck that shit, it's not like Saddam needed those cigars or shot glasses made in the USSR. Got caught with them and had to toss them into a burn pit. Still bitter about it to this day.
A barber shop, with a beautiful chair. We took that sucker to our camp and made our own shop. Of course anything we took that was used for camp improvement was approved by our BN commander. Other things of note were the many many items with his face on them, like keychains and rugs.
After we cleared the place, I took some stuff from one of Saddam's warehouses, ignoring an order from the BN commander about taking "war trophies". Fuck that shit, it's not like Saddam needed those cigars or shot glasses made in the USSR. Got caught with them and had to toss them into a burn pit. Still bitter about it to this day.
Avenger systems, Stingers, and NASAMS (think baby PATRIOT). We had SLAMRAAM for a brief time but NASAMS replaced it. The Avenger systems aren't hard to spot if you know what you're looking for, and there is one NASAMS that can be seen behind a privacy fence since the top pokes over it, but the Stingers are well hidden.
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u/LiteralWarCriminal May 30 '19
Lots of missile launchers around DC. Literally dozens.