H&I* Fires 24 July 2006

Open post for those with something to share, updated through the day. New, complete posts come in below this one. Note: If trackbacking, please acknowledge this post in your post. That's only polite. You're advertising here, we should get an ad at your place...

Bad Cat Robot reports out on the Pacific Northwest Blogger Shoot - displaying her newest hand-cannon and a target that suffered at her hands. Heh. Leave it to gurls to bring "pretty" targets...

That Carnival which SWWBO invented, the Carnival of the Recipes, enters it's second century! Edition 101 is now available.

The ACLU hasn't *quite* gotten there, but they are creeping up to it. Just as the tendency in things military is to have a lawyer at lower and lower levels... the ACLU is inching toward a day to where there is one in every squad car.

Bagpipers told to... er, um, "Pipe down, you lot!" I dunno, did anyone consider... earplugs? And get rid of that plastic chanter, Sergeant B! Of course, as someone who gets paid a little each month for my hearing loss, I understand why the beancounters and nannies are nervous. H/t, Gwedd -the Armorer

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Stupid Flag Officer Tricks? Or the victim of bad captioning by a newspaper? The 'Phibian wants to know. For that matter, so do I. If it's bad captioning, the paper owes the Admiral an apology and correction in the same place they put the picture... not on D28, below the fold. If the Admiral did what the caption implies... where's Gibbs when ya need him?

The blogs of Canadians Militant hoist the Red Ensign! -the Armorer

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The bagpipe story John links above really is a piece of work. Get a load of the closing paragraphs:

It emerged soon afterwards that experts were monitoring how noisily sergeant-majors were shouting at new recruits amid risks that soldiers were being shouted at so loudly that their hearing might be damaged.

It was also reported in 2000 that a number of changes had been made to assault courses, such as lower climbing walls and mats under some obstacles to reduce the chance of injury. The changes were ridiculed as the first stage in developing a "cotton-wool army". [snip]

And earlier this year it emerged that the Royal Artillery was testing quieter cannon rounds for their 21-gun salutes. The new shells were a more ear-friendly 135 decibels, compared with the regular 140dB.

I'm mostly speechless. - FbL

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Okay, I admit it: I spent last Friday teasing and torturing assorted military personnel.

Oh, and I got to meet some San Diego bloggers, too. - FbL

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Let the Phred Phelps Circus begin! Who doubts they'll win? Ah well, more chances to mock Phelps and his horrid brood. -the Armorer

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Heh. The Snarks are loose. H/t, SWWBO. Oh, you're going to click this link to SWWBO. I know you are. Boobies are discussed in it. What was that breeze?

Der Adjutant Barb has her Blogshoot AAR up, too (I meant to put that up this morning, but got distracted....) -the Armorer

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*A term of art from the artillery. Harassment and Interdiction Fires.

Back in the day, when you could just kill people and break things without a note from a lawyer, they were pre-planned, but to the enemy, random, fires at known gathering points, road junctions, Main Supply Routes, assembly areas, etc - to keep the bad guy nervous that the world around him might start http://www.thedonovan.com/cgi-bin/mt/mt.cgi?__mode=view&_type=entry&blog_id=1exploding at any minute.

Not really relevant to today's operating environment, right? But, it *is*

The UAVs we fly over Afghanistan and Pakistan looking for targets of opportunity are a form of H&I fires, if you really want to parse it finely. We just have better sensors and fire control now.

I call the post that because it's random things posted by me and people I've given posting privileges to that particular topic. It's also an open trackback, so if (Don Surber uses it this way a lot) someone has a post they're proud of, but it really isn't either Castle kind of stuff, or topical to a particular post, I've basically given blanket permission to use that post for that purpose. Another term of art that might be appropriate is "Free Fire Zone".