Navy gets a kill…F/A-18

[midwestpa24]

Or it was written by someone not involved. At this point nothing is certain, at least to an outside observer. Hint: If you are posting in this thread you are (or better be) an outside observer.

Nauga,
JAFO

I agree. I'm as outside as outside can be, never wore the uniform.

I'm actually amazed at the amount of open communication possible these days with deployed military members. Decades ago soldiers had to write and mail letters, and those letters were subject to review and redaction to ensure operational security. These days I've had direct chat, email, and video messaging with folks deployed, and have seen numerous that post to social media. In this particular case, how did the flight crew manage to get something posted to Twitter from a carrier? You would think outside comms would be highly restricted from a fleet in hostile waters.

 

[Fearless Tower]

Or it was written by someone not involved. At this point nothing is certain, at least to an outside observer. Hint: If you are posting in this thread you are (or better be) an outside observer.

Nauga,
JAFO

Truth

 

[Velocity173]

Can't believe the pilot is talking publicly.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1871930461095616691

Pretty much par for the course with the state of today’s military. Social media destroyed any sense of secrecy that used to be enforced. “Loose lips sink ships” went out of style long ago. Most the OPSEC rules are antiquated anyway.

When I was at Bagram, no one sanitized their flight suits when we went flying. No point when we had a base website that had articles with names and ranks. None of us really cared. Heck, today you got special ops guys on popular YT channels who aren’t at all afraid in releasing intimate op details.

 

[Warlock]

Apparently gone are the days of a lockdown with an incident…when I was a liaison to the Navy and shipboard there was very limited internet and maybe one or two POT’s lines available and that was all turned off during operations.

 

[midwestpa24]

Pretty much par for the course with the state of today’s military. Social media destroyed any sense of secrecy that used to be enforced. “Loose lips sink ships” went out of style long ago. Most the OPSEC rules are antiquated anyway.

When I was at Bagram, no one sanitized their flight suits when we went flying. No point when we had a base website that had articles with names and ranks. None of us really cared. Heck, today you got special ops guys on popular YT channels who aren’t at all afraid in releasing intimate op details.

I still find it interesting, and it can lead to interesting situations as well. One personal story of mine, a close friend was deployed to Afghanistan. He and I would occasionally chat on Messenger, as I was usually getting home around the time he was getting up for the day. One night we were chatting and he signed off because he was going out on patrol. The next morning I wake up to find out he was killed shortly afterwards on that patrol. It was hard to believe we had just been talking and now he was gone.

 

[Pugs]

I still find it interesting, and it can lead to interesting situations as well. One personal story of mine, a close friend was deployed to Afghanistan. He and I would occasionally chat on Messenger, as I was usually getting home around the time he was getting up for the day. One night we were chatting and he signed off because he was going out on patrol. The next morning I wake up to find out he was killed shortly afterwards on that patrol. It was hard to believe we had just been talking and now he was gone.

There are plusses and minuses to the world of instant communication when deployed. I remember having to deal with Red Cross cables and my guys getting "Dear John" letters among other things that took weeks to get to the ship. Now it happens quickly and, as it often is with this medium, it can get misinterpreted and sometimes the results are tragic. I know of more than one where the person took their own life but then seeing your new baby wave when you're on the other side of the globe is priceless.

 

[Fearless Tower]

At any rate the posts with the alleged first hand pilot account are now being deleted all over the net.

Someone either got their arse handed to them or they realized it was a fake account.

 

[TCABM]

My last deployment to Qatar during a Monthly Joint Air Defense Exercise, the USN air breathers were headed back to the boat and we started the TBM portion. A Patriot battery locked on a sim missile and hits the big red ‘fire’ button. A live PAC-3 went off the rails and went dumb since there was no target and it fell back to Earth, landing inside the fence of some emir’s estate. Nobody was injured, nothing went boom, but it triggered a big ol’ investigation.

Seems a recent software upgrade broke the safety/interlock that prevented firing a live missile against a simulated target. Also seems the crew, which was new to the theater, did not manually disconnect the launcher from the ICS.

Everybody involved was perfectly innocent and also lucky we didn’t frat someone with that battery. It’ll be interesting if this turns out to be something similar.