Interesting. I'm not sure I could do that: I'd want to talk shop, badly.
I read - years ago - that the most active combat was in the area around London. Not a small area, but it allowed RAF to move squadrons to lower threat areas for reconstitution and rebuilding before rotating them back to a hot area.
- In 1991 4th Brigade was kept afloat in the Gulf, forcing the Iraqi army to devote resources to protecting beaches in and around Kuwait, and away from the border where the actual assault took place. Then they snuck the brigade ashore and added them to the striking power across the border.
Absent the ability to assault across a beach, those Iraqi divisions would have been on the border.
You work with people. Those people know people. They know other people. Someone says 'I need a good PHP guy' and a guy in the network replies 'I know a guy, SadWebDeveloper - here is his email address'. Boom: you have made contact with someone who wants to hire you.
Join the Whatever User Group in your area. Go to the meetings - introduce yourself. Be a presence on their mail list. Boom: more networking contacts.
This is a really good example. TJIC and I have talked on the internet for -years- via email and twitter and blog. A customer of mine mentioned she was looking for a local developer (Los Angeles) but couldn't find anyone who met even her minimal standards.
I said 'Hey, I know a guy', he lives 8,000 miles away, he's about a hermit and a half, and he knows his sh*t' and a few weeks later TJIC got some months of work and everyone was happy.
And now, here we are, talking. Maybe I can be converted to a networking contact. You never know, hunh?
Waiting for chow, waiting for a range, waiting for the trucks to come back .. and waiting .. and waiting .. but nobody told any _drivers_ they needed to make a second run to pick up twenty marines and a small mountain of gear.
Then it started raining. Too bad the tents were in the first load.
He was with a rifle company, in mortar squad. The company was over-run during an attack, at night: Marines in fighting holes, bad guys running around in the open, a very chaotic situation.
To eradicate the enemy, and save his company, he pointed the tube of his mortar straight up, dropped a shit-load of rounds down the tube, one at a time. The rounds went up (pretty far, but I no longer recall how high up they go) and came back down all over the place.
Risky, but Marines, generally, were in their holes, the bad guy were not, and so were more exposed to blast and shrapnel.
There was, iirc, an article in the Gazette about this. Guy ran the numbers, and it worked out okay: the Corps could run X squadrons per wing, at cost Y per year, plus buy up the spare parts inventory and keep them running for Z years.
It is certainly the kind of airplane a Marine would love, and would fit the Corp's persona.
> the only pilots that ever allowed us to shoot 81mm
Well .. you know. A mortar round would bounce off an A-10. Kinda trash a Harrier.
My company gunny (1988) got a bronze star when, as an 19-year old mortarman in 1969, aimed his tube straight up and dropped rounds all over his company's position, saving the day.
I know this because he grabbed me by the scruff of my neck and made me read it, as part of up-close and personal counseling.
Ha. I wasn't thinking of mixing the two. Just ... while I'm at the store picking up a stick of RAM, pick up a new magazine, or a brick of .22 ammunition.
Guns and drones are, however, an interesting subject. Wildly impractical, now, due to safety, payload, and usability issues.
I read - years ago - that the most active combat was in the area around London. Not a small area, but it allowed RAF to move squadrons to lower threat areas for reconstitution and rebuilding before rotating them back to a hot area.