"The Infamous Eager Beavers & Their Custom B17 Bomber" | Kip Reacts to The Fat Electrician
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- Опубликовано: 13 сен 2024
- Fellow Legends, welcome! Today we dive into another amazing Fat Electrician video, this time where we learn about not only the Pacific Theater, but the feats of the Eager Beavers and their B17 Bomber. The B17 Bomber they build by Strategically and Tactically acquiring the Equipment and transferring it to an Alternate Location. I lament I never learned about this in History class or text books, and this was nothing short of amazing to learn about. This is such an underrated part of history, in an already undertaught area of the world during WWII. I absolutely loved watching this, and if you did as well then I do absolutely recommend you go and check out the original video to show some support for the source material!
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Original Channel: The Fat Electrician
Original Channel Link: / @the_fat_electrician
Original Video: The Infamous Eager Beavers & Their Custom B17 Bomber - Old 666
Original Video Link: • The Infamous Eager Bea...
Please keep all comments civil and respectful, thank you!
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He has recently stated while he was on a podcast, that he is currently working on getting his master's in history. He is doing this to re-write text books, because so much is intentionally left out or not mentioned. So he wants to make sure future generations know the full story, and important things that none of us were ever tough.
This is absolutely amazing
Mans is a national treasure
Unsubscribe?
@@arthurmolochthe best podcast ever?
Yes, Unsubscribe.
Higher ups: No more safe missions, Hard missions now
Eager Beavers: *officer scene slams desk* THANK YOU!
As to the bombing of the ammunition depot: he would get in trouble for going rogue, but not for defying an unconscionable order. You ultimately serve the constitution and the people, not your superiors. Committing war crimes flies in the face of that.
As a former combat soldier myself, I can tell everyone the UCMJ actually requires servicemen to disobey illegal orders, however in doing so all those ducks must be in a row.
@@Shad0hawK Right, at that point you have to admit disobeying the order and prove the order was unlawful rather than the other side proving beyond a reasonable doubt that you broke the order... much harder time for you if they decide to push the issue.
well considering the fact that the US firebombed pretty much every major japanese city so badly that they decided to drop the two "Big Surprise Balls" on civilian citys that were iirc not even in the top 10 largest city of mainland japan because there wasnt enough left of the other bigger citys to be worthwile/"impressive enough" (and the fact that they dropped the BSBs at all) tells you how much the US cared about the legality of bombing civilian targets at the time...
Not that they were the only ones... The british carpet bombing german citys and the german V1 and V2s speak for themself but... yeah nah i hihgly doubt you would get out of this by claiming it to be unconscionable. (boubely so if you fail to do so BEFORE you took of for the mission)
U.S. Gov : We are not gonna give you a bomber.
The Eager Bevers: Fine! We gonna build our own bomber, with Blackjack and H**kers!
That is the most us military thing I've ever heard
The Eager Beavers: know what screw the hookers!
It could also be “With .50 Cals… and Tracers!”
Ahh another fan of Mr Tex!? Nice. Yeah, the US is a mix of the periphery and the golden age of Star League. Of all the good bad of them.
"Go get me two sound powered telephone batteries, six feet of gig line, and a DC punch" is one my chief in boot camp tried on me. ...Me, who had a solid decade of training before boot camp from three generations of veterans. So I already had the knowledge to not fall for that, plus the inborn smartass of any grizzled vet. My response? "Well we both got sound powered telephone batteries in our idiot boxes, we got six feet of gig line between us and then some, and I dunno about a DC punch chief, but I got a good solid STG punch right here if you really want it." Motherfrakker sprinted out of the room because they aren't allowed to laugh or even smile in front of the recruits. I spent the next eight weeks making it VERY hard for him and our petty officers to follow that rule.
You absolute Legend! That's amazing!
O7!
Box of grid squares and chem light batteries:)
Blinker fluid and winter air for the tires
"Okay, rookie. We need you go down to the store and pick up a bottle of headlight fluid and a can of elbow grease for the Warthog. Think you can handle that?"
"Uh, yeah, sure...Headlight fluid? Man, they must think I'm so stupid. When I get back with that elbow grease I'm gonna have words with the sergeant."
The Dean was from Indiana. The racing capital of the world. Of course the Dean wanted to ride in it, and then approved the car
I didn't even think of this, this is amazing!
as a Hoosier, this makes sense
31:00 if a military turns a civilian building into a military facility for example turning a school into a commanding centre, it is no longer considered a war crime.
Unless you're the UN in Gaza. 🤦🏻♂️
The way it was brought up made it sound like they just reserved the top floor of the penthouse for their top ranking officers.
@@RWhite_ If military allocates it's personnel/equipment into a civilian building/are with an idea of using said building/are for military purposes, in this example using hotel as a Barack's/living quarters they essentially turned a civilian area into a military area. Now I'm not saying that they should destroy said area, all I'm saying is that in the eyes of the international law they have full right to do it, and actually the other side, so Japan in this example, could be charged and will take full responsibility for putting their civilian lives in danger as it is illegal for an army to hide behind their civilians.
@@czescwaszejpamiecizonierze7427 It didn't sound like it was meant to house the officers. It sounded like it was reserved for the officers to relax and unwind.
@@czescwaszejpamiecizonierze7427Yeah, it sounds like it was a civilian building and area that the officers frequented.
Had it been properly seized and converted into a military post, civilians would have been cleared from the area.
also remember.
they put guncams on the turrets.
so they had footage of all the japanese planes they took out that mission.
Good point!
Japan : you didn't take out shit
Old 666: fucker we got you on 4k
fuggin-- "pics or it didn't happen" @@KipReacts
i heard some good stories about "blinker fluid" and the like, in my schooling as a machinist...
skyhooks and buckets of steam where a go to...
altho one guy was asked for a bucket of steam once, and decided to play at "who's dumbest" and borrowed an electric kettle, inverted a 5gal bucket over it, let it boil, then quickly brought it to the guy who asked him for a bucket of steam!
Gotta love the ID10T form as well
In the "Gator Navy" back in the stone age of 1980, we didn't "acquire" things. "It followed me home. I promise to feed it."
To be fair getting ahold of aircraft engines on an airbase during that time was easy. Plenty of chain hoists and trucks around.
This is perfect.
From what I remember hearing, the tracers used in the ammo belts for the m2 browning .50 caliber machine guns were APIT rounds I.e. Armor piercing incendiary tracers. So those tracers pack a helluva punch. Not only that but supposedly the the beavers had modified their .50 cals to increase their fire rate. Which was a major reason they had 3 spares as the increased fire rate meant there would be a far greater amount of stress on the weapon during combat then it was designed for.
When it comes to being ordered to do a mission, it depends on the mission and the outcome. If it doesn't work, you will get in trouble. If it works, and the leadership finds out, the will steal credit for the idea.
It definitely seems like you're between a rock and a hard place.
@@KipReacts The key is to make sure you do it your way, and that the chain of command doesn't find out about it higher than you want. Getting the lead NCO (1SG, MSG, CSM and so on) in on it is a good start
I am remember originally learning about this on a history channel dogfights type thing, but this just adds so much more context beyond the battle.
Been loving that fat electrician has been covered these recent aviation related stuff like Sir Douglas Badder.
The Fat Electrician really is just an awesome creator, and I love that he digs up history and presents it in such a great way. I can see him going 2m+ Subscribers easy.
@@KipReacts well since the History Channel was mentioned, The CG here is actually from the episode of Dogfights "Long Odds". I think i pointed that out in chat and someone else confirmed it.
I wonder how long the research must take for some of these videos he does
This Story is amazing, and a touch heartbreaking. Sometimes War really does claim the best, brightest, and most skilled members of our species. o7
On that note, I have a theory about the Moral Downfall of The U.S.A. in the last century, and that's that WW2 took the bravest, most honorable, hardest workers, and healthiest people, out of the gene pool, leaving the selfish, the lazy, the gullible, the paranoid, to have a geeater impact on the Genepool than they should, leading to the moral downfall of u.s. society we experience today.
@@justsomejerseydevilwithint4606it could possibly go for the world also
@@tfns__omega6122 True. I'm not familiar with the world's peoples however, so I limited it to my understanding as not to be innacurate.
That entrenching tool is called a pulaski, invented by a guy here in NORTH Idaho after the great Wallace fire of 1918
Idaho actually has a lot of interesting things getting invented here. Wasn't the TV in some capacity invented by a guy down in the old Idaho Penitentiary in Boise?
@@KipReacts Farmer from Rigby. Philo T. Farnsworth. I remember because I'm from Rigby and because of Professor Farnsworth from Futurama.
In my opinion (as someone who is not in any active military service) in terms of Joe Sarnoski bombing the Japanese Navy ammo and fuel instead of the Officers, I’d say those were much greater targets by value. Putting the innocent Gaicha Girls aside, sure you could kill those officers, but it’s leadership and someone would fill in those spots. Killing the ammo and fuel though, those Japanese Officers still alive are worth much less because what’s the point of them and the orders they give if their fleet can’t attack, let alone get there to do any attacking? It makes them look bad and humiliated, and it buys better time by keeping Japanese Navy forces more at bay so the European theater can wrap up.
Also side note; something that I don’t think was mentioned by Fat Electrician was the history of the plane Old 666 itself BEFORE the Eager Beavers being something like it had a reputation of always “getting shot to hell” both literally and figuratively, yet somehow always managing to get back to base or somewhere just full of holes. (If I’m remembering correctly)
especially the Fuel depots are the better target as far as the Japanese in ww2, Fuel was one of the resources they had the least of (at least compared to the USA)
Yup.
“Gee, these are some nice boats we have. If only we had some fuel to take them anywhere.”
Another major thing that limited the Japanese in WW2 was their allocation of limited resources. Their tiny island only has so much capacity to produce steel, so they don't get to just make everything they could ever want. They ended up dedicating the vast majority of their steel to the navy, which meant that the few tanks the army ever got to field were small and under armored compared to the tanks duking it out in Europe at the time. They were plenty effective against the equally unthreatening Chinese tanks of the early war, but woefully inadequate when they came up against large numbers of Sherman tanks during the later island hopping campaign. The resulting navy was a major threat, but once the US production ramped up and the carriers started sinking that navy couldn't do much.
The Japanese air tactics were very strong at the beginning of the war. As TFE mentioned the Us didn’t have any fighters to combat the Zero, and any aircraft the US had, the Japanese were very much aware of their capabilities. So they all there tactics would exploit those weaknesses, such as Wildcat fighter would stall out trying to follow a zero in a near vertical climb and as mentioned in the video attacking the bombers from the front.
After the US recognized the Zero was built to counter US Air, the USA would create the Hellcat to counter the Zero and their later B17 models would feature better armaments on the front of the craft to protect it from harm. The Japanese for some reason, couldn't counter.
@@aztumtheknightofwumbo7060 It was just a difference in production might. Not so much they couldn't counter but they just couldn't do it fast enough. Like the rate of US production during WWII was just actually insane. When Japan attacked Pearl Harbor they assume if they took out most of the US's navy they won. They weren't expecting the US to churn out an even larger navy in like a year and continued that insane production up through out the war.
What's more crazy was this wasn't even the only front that the US fought on consider a lot of supply went toward the European fight too.
@RexZShadow Fr. The US straight up proved that Capitalism beats Socialism any day.
@@aztumtheknightofwumbo7060 the Hellcat was being developed before war with Japan even started, and long before we got a Zero to figure out what it can and cannot do. It might have been tweaked before it went into production but its first flight was in June of 1942. Getting a fighter designed, built and test flights in six months would have been a hard task.
@@Sovek86 Then the Mustang enters the chat.
45:50 just to clarify, all bullets have a high likelihood to bounce. Tracers are just more dramatic about it because the chemical tracer (the part that burns up and makes that bright glow as they travel at speed) tends to detach when the bullet deforms from impact and just goes off on it's own.
Let's just say acquiring an engine is one of the more normal ones I've heard of. Dad was the acquisition specialist for his unit in Thailand. Don't forget the US Navy acquired 37mm anti tank guns from the army and 37mm semi automatic cannons from the air force to use on boats.
I was rewatching the old Dogfights series from History and they featured The Eager Beavers in an episode. They actually got the Copilot of Old 666 on to do an interview for the episode. You could tell he had a lot of respect for everyone he flew with in that plane. They also had some archived interviews from Jay which is amazing to hear.
31:00 it is a war crime to TARGET civilians, not necessarily to KILL civilians. The US has more recently acquired the technology to be more selective, but if you have a valid military target surrounded by civilians it's a much more grey area to hit that target even knowing the collateral damage that will be inflicted.
I'm not sure if this is official policy, but I think it's generally accepted that military units establishing posts are supposed to take steps to remove civilians from the immediate area. The point being, if someone bombs your command post and a bunch of civilians die because there's an operating restaurant on the first floor, it's your fault for not removing the civilians when you militarized the building.
Those rules also might have changed since WWII. Especially since, like you said, we have the technology to be more selective about our targets now, which we didn't then.
@@michealdrake3421 I suspect that is official policy in the US and similar countries, but that clearly does not seem to be universal. Whether that's just a policy decision or if the others are actively committing war crimes is way above my pay grade.
@@michealdrake3421problem is this wasn't a command post, it was a resturant frequented by Japanese high ranking military officials. It's a strictly civilian building being used to entertain off duty military officers. It'd be like justifying the bombing of an elementary school cause a general would be giving a speech to 500 students aged 4-12. You kind of gave to draw the limit somewhere.
My Great grandfather served in Pattons Third. To the day he died he wouldnt watch the movie Patton but he did comment that '' I served under the son of a b!@#$. I know what he was ''
Ethical reaction content? You've earned a sub, Kip! I love The Fat Electrician's content, and having your commentary just makes it even better!
Thank you! I'm trying my best, and it means a lot to see positive feedback!
For your question at 34:43 army doctrine right now states that soldiers can basically ignore unlawful orders so when they ignored the gasha building for the ammo building that today would be fine they can't be court Marshaled for it. And if the Commander tried to he could end up getting arrested. Granted this is modern day rules during peace time.
Right with WWII potentially having different distinct and policies. Especially when getting into the Pacific Theater was an uphill battle.
@@KipReactsHonestly even today things would be pretty rough for civilian casualties. Non military targets are bombed all the time in open warfare. Factories, infrastructure like railroad junctions and bridges, power, water. Look at the bombings of Dresden or London. If open warfare started between two world powers today, not much would change in that regard.
I could be getting my military history incorrect by prior to WWII the rule was “follow orders, or else” I think after hearing Nazi after Nazi get away with doing what they did to humans in camps with the “I was following orders” most of the western countries changed protocol real quick. When I was in training it was beaten into my head that it was as much my job to follow orders as it was to disobey unethical or immoral orders.
It was an odd balance:
“Better to be tried by 12 then carried by 6” and “you don’t know everything so you better follow orders” in the same class as “you better disobey the order that told you to end the wrong people”
One thing to remember about B-17's is that they almost never dropped one bomb. They liked to say that the Norden sight could put a bomb in a pickle-barrel from 15K ft, but it wasn't literally true. Generally they used carpet bombing en-masse but a standard load for a B-17 was about 10- 500pounders. This means that hitting the penthouse of the hotel with one bomb meant scattering 8-9 more around it, into the face of the hotel, the street, the apartments behind it, etc, ASSUMING you were on-target for the drop. Lots of civies dead for a couple of flag ranks. Not necessarily a war crime in the moment, but certainly a questionable act at the time and a war crime in hindsight.
It's more about if you are deliberately targeting civilians or civilian infrastructure. Them occupying it for military purposes makes it a valid target. However today it wouldn't fly due to modern weapons being more accurate and there being other better options.
@@avroarchitect1793 it would still fly. If you win. remember, it’s not a war crime unless you lose.😂
@@theomnidegenerate5236you seen HLC? Seen the vid where grandpa buff gets serious?
As a cadet at VMI you need to be both physically and mentally capable to even be looked at by ROTC officers. Also, once a semester, we have field training exercises that last for 3-4 days, and what you do depends on which branch you are. Army camps and does land nav, Marines camp and do land nav, Navy goes to briefs and sleeps, Air Force goes to briefs, do 'leadership' exercises, and march around, and coast gaurd does some random stuff.
23:38 Which is why I keep to the Hol Horse/Yoshikage Kira mentality whereever I've worked where I'm efficient and good at my job, but not to the point where I stand out too much. After all, the nail that sticks out gets hammered.
My uncle worked on the original stealth bomber as an engineer in the air force, and he was in for a while, but his best that he's told us about was one time when they sent the new guy to get the new shipment of "elbow grease" to the base commander. Turned out to be a box of empty beer cans. Base commander wasn't too happy, but he knew it wasn't the new guy's fault, so it mostly came down on the rest of the guys. Still, fun story.
Absolutely legendary.
Spartan-II's are Special Forces to the Nth Degree. That means command only has the authority to assign a mission not plan how it's parameters. 'Sides Admiral Lord Hood had in the original books separated the Spartan-II's from the standard chain of command.
Around 24:00 minutes in, you basically describe the Covenant Imperial Admiral. So good he's legendary and all he's ordered to do is guard the fringes of Covenant territory away from an active war.
One of those new guy jokes. Break fluid. Doesn't sound like a joke. Until you realize it's a truck shop and all the trucks have airbreaks.
Reminds me of a story a buddy told me. When his grandma was the general manager of the Illinois branch of the BNSF railroad he would be allowed to take cab rides and do some minor maintenance on the locomotives. He was helping with fixing some brake shoes and was asked to go get some brake clamp lubricant. He looked for almost an hour before realizing that it doesn't exist! 😂
Been trying to make a small comic of this during college two years ago. Wasn't successful until I watched his video again a few months ago. Reinvigorated me to pull it out of the pile and redraw it. Also a bonus to see how much I improved after two years. I'm finally going to finish this thing before 2025.
Chief respected Johnson, Johnson was an NCO, not an officer. Chief out ranked him.
As for these guy’s upper command, they’re ALL officers, so their command is also officers
Ik im 2 months late, but the best thing that was ever told to me by my E5 was that the only difference between a medal and a court martial is whether what you did worked or not. Thankfully i was never court martialed myself, though we had a few close instances. Great content man glad i found this channel. Keep up the good work!
"This vehicle needs a military bearing... Go ask the C.O. to borrow his." "Get me a box of grid squares."
Hey Kip, the NCO/enlisted/ROTC thing has you mixing and matching like a Mr Potato Head. NCO’s are enlisted personnel of the rank of Sgt in the army or Corporal in the USMC. ROTC is what creates Commissioned Officers, the ones with the shiny rank insignia for lieutenants to generals. ROTC is in regular colleges and universities. Then there are the military universities like the Naval Academy, Air Force Academy, and West Point (army). Those that graduate from these academies are known as ring knockers in reference to their graduation rings. Ring knockers use to get more preferential treatment towards things like promotions over ROTC officers back in the day. Think of it as a good ol’ boys club. I should add that to get in the Academies you need good grades, a recommendation from your congressman or senator, and a contract commitment of service in exchange for your degree. (Technically you are in the military and get paid to be at the academies.).
I also wanted to commend you for your ethics on reaction videos, giving the content creator sometime before reacting. Much respect for that.
Thank you for this explanation and the compliment! I definitely have a few things backwards when it comes to military processes and ranks, I really appreciate comments that help explain these things to me. I'll continue to be as ethical and positive in reactions to come as well!
@@KipReactsE1-E9 enlisted
E5-E9 NCOs
O1-O9 officers with O10s being the wartime commander of the branch to only be designated when the US is officially at war
@@animeproblem1070O10 = five stars. In peacetime command ranks only go up to four.
Not correcting, just adding a bit of illustration because civilians more easily recognize ranks by names and insignia. If you say E7 pretty much no civilian is going to know what that means without looking it up.
12:45 Japan is not a small island. The Home Islands are roughly the size of the east coast of the US. It's bigger than Britain
34:39 They "accidentally" missed the target and hit the other building.
I actually have already watched this! It's a really good video, and I found it pretty fricking awesome.
I loved that the Fat Electrician went over this, it was such a good video!
@@KipReacts indeed it was!
"Greater love hath no man than this..."
Not gonna lie, this (end especially the mission at the end) is one of the greatest stories I’ve heard in a while, and Mr. Electrician tells it so well.
I called it a story, it’s more of an epic tale, or whatever you want to call it, it’s amazing and those men are legends.
When i was a deli clerk for safeway, i was that really efficient person. Got promised that i would be bumped to assistant manager. They trained me for that too. And then hired a new assistant manager. And kept me in my spot. Later asked why and was straight up told i was too valuable to be moved from that position. Too reliable. Asked for a raise but got told my positions pay rate was maxed out. So i quit. You never want to be the most efficient or most reliable. Because youll get shit on by your bosses and less competent people will get promoted above you. Because you made yourself too important to the position you're doing.
Eager beavers: who else is crazy during war? Jake McNasty: I found some new friends
It is interesting to note that after the war the Allies convicted the leader of the German air force for war crimes, citing the bombing of civilians, but the allies leveled entire cities regularly in Europe and firebombed Tokyo, nuked two Japanese cities and not a single word was uttered about it being a war crime....... In fact if you dare to suggest that the US and the other Allies committed such things you end up with a whole mass of people attacking you online
Bold of you to make this statement online. Shame on you for saying that America is hypocritical. Though joking aside your absolutely right and infact we still do this today, us troops that commit warcrimes get court-martialed and sent to jail and then once everyone forgets about it they are quietly pardoned and sent on their way.
I appreciate you holding off on reacting to his videos so he can get the initial views. I always watch his videos first even if it's several days after release and then I watch the reactions because I enjoy people enjoying the same things I did.
Kip[, bombing the Geisha hotel was a warcrime, but you also have to consider that the Japanese did warcrimes first and usually when that happens you get warcrimes in response. Plus the winners decide who goes on trial for warcrimes.
Really do enjoy your reactions, especially the thicc... I mean fat electrician. Also to answer the question if its war crime, to quote the man himself "its never a war crime the first time" Or "Its not a war crime if your on the winning side"
Keep up the good work and make sure your having fun.
I was really hoping you’d talk about this one. This was a fascinating piece of history.
It took me aminute, I had to make sure I could give it the time and respect the video deserved.
@@KipReacts and that’s what I like most about you. You want to be respectful of the material and the content creators.
Now let’s see where on the schedule the lesson on Sir Bader lies. You can’t convince me he’s not part of the inspiration for the amputee squad in Mobile Suit Gundam Thunderbolt.
We in the military like to call that "performance punishment" and it's very common but it's usually up to the leaders to enable them to still move up
"very carefully" is how you tactically aquire anything
13:45 I heard my grandpa was asked to go get Fallopian Tubes from the nurse over in medical.
Your content is always great. Much more detailed and enjoyable and charismatic than others I have seen.
Also, I looked it up out of curiosity, and with both this reaction and the Fat Files Aldi reaction, the only related videos with more views than your own are the originals. I'm sure that's some sort of prize or pride or celebration to have.
Eye training exercises can help in conditions where the muscles themselves are weak, but they cannot make the eye itself see better, glasses, contacts, medication, and surgery are the only ways to improve the eye itself.
When I worked at Reynolds as a laser printer tech, we used to haze the new guys by asking them to go to parts and tell them they needed an ID10T cable. Funny thing was, parts was in on it and they would actually play along, it was hilarious.
No beer needed i bet they could built that sledgehammer holster without them. But beers are a must.
13:46 hazing isn’t allowed anymore you can get in a lot of trouble for it but when I was in here’s some of the things we used to do: go get me some grid squares, fallopian tubes for your gas mask, Chen light batteries, air samples, airplane keys, K9P, prop wash, fill out a form ID10T, these were some of my favorite.
Go find a Prick E7. Sounds like PRC7 Radio but when they find one everyone can hear loud and clear. 😅
As an army mechanic. I heard one of the senior mechanics to tell a new mechanic; "get some prop wash. So we can was the bays."
25:32 that is very dangerous for them to go back and continue the attack mainly because most bombers had enough fuel to make it to the location drop their payload and make it back they most of the time weren't close enough or didn't have enough fuel to loop back and continue to fight.
The supply chain in early 42 was really stretched thin. I heard the ground crews use metal from beer cans to patch holes in the bombers.
Not military but when my coworker was the FNG at a warehouse job he was sent to get the “pallet stretcher” because the pallets weren’t big enough.
I've heard of the pallet stretcher!
They poor coworker
I should point out that the reason why there was a size limit to being a fighter pilot is because most fighter cockpits of the time were TINY. Military Aviation History is run/hosted by a 6'1" German dude and he has one hell of a time navigating his way around WWII era planes due to his height.
"Don't believe us? Fine, we'll rig up gun cameras, so you can see the looks on their faces."
When I was on active duty, anyone who said that they were in ROTC, they were made fun of. We usually dug into them about being enlisted instead of an officer
This has been a consistent thing I've heard. There's definitely a divide, it seems.
17:01 "Bullets can hit propellors."
They already figured out that issue for fighter planes by syncing the firing intervals of the machine gun(s) with the position of the propellor blades. It wouldn't be that much more of a stretch for the front-facing flex guns to be limited in maneuverability so that they couldn't be aimed at the propellors... or wings, for that matter. The lack of sufficient front-facing firepower was likely a massive brainfart in design, more than anything else.
'Acquired' 19 50cal, 4 engines, and enough gear to BUILD a working plane. That's peak E4 energy.
These guys were truly just built different.
I love this guy, he constantly comes up with interesting content full of events and people I have never ever heard of...most of them so out there ( yet true ) that if Hollywood made an accurate movie about them people would say they're too outrageous to be true
Former Airman here (and a desk jockey to boot). I can easily say that it will take me zero cans of beer to design and make a holster for that sledgehammer. That's "random ideas in boot camp" level of thinking for all branches.
Hey, if they're offering the beer though...
Sledge hammer holder must go over the back so it's easier to carry and looks cooler when swinging it out for "display purposes".
I would say it depends on who you ask to build that holster, it can take from at least 2 beers, maybe at most 10 plus, it depends on the person
Old Cast Guard & Navy hazing errands; A bucket of steam( for cleaning parts), the deck crew sending out the FNG for 100 yards of shoreline etc. because, new guy... and some of us E-4's loved doing it. ;P
About the waist gunner position being manned by only one member of the crew: later models of the B-17 would have only one man in that position because having two men in that tiny space meant they often ran into each other and fouled each other's aim. So these guys are ahead of the curve. Especially since the top and ball turrets generally can handle covering the sides well enough and it's faster to turn and take a step to jump on the gun behind you than to try to coordinate movements with a guy behind you.
As a USMC Veteran, who Served two Tours (First as a mere NCO, second as a butter-bar flying the CH46), here is one of the most-dangerous words in any setting- 'Initiative.' People who have this, are either the greatest liability (If they SUCK, which is usually defined as 'Arrogance'), *OR* one of the greatest attributes to any group/organization (For their actual skills).
You're 100% correct: Military Commanders HATE when their subordinates act outside of expectations, because that means THEY (The 'Leader(s)') aren't *REALLY IN CONTROL,* which violates all the 'Informal Codes of Conduct.'
In War? What matters (And EVERY capable 'Leader' knows this), is GETTING THE JOB DONE!
So, it takes a hefty serving of insanity, added to capability (And LUCK), to see Crews/People like this actually form, perform, and SURVIVE to become the Legends they truly are.
Won't get into mine-own experiences with this, 'cause I don't hold a candle to this amazing Man and his wonderful Crew!
Suffice it to say, I've stood 'At Mast' numerous times, due to MY behavior/antics, and every time, 'I' was found not guilty or excused, and dismissed from any UCMJ actions launched against me.
So.
:-)
As a veteran you are told explicitly if you are given a direct order that is considered unlawful you have the right to refuse it. This can mean many things. If you're instructed to kill a child or an innocent civilian you can refuse the order. You may get punished but a military court will find you innocent if it was in fact an unlawful order.
26:20 im kinda guessing with the timestamp here
But there are a couple things about Master chief to keep in mind here. A - Hes a Master Chief, that is his rank. Its the highest enlisted rank in the Navy and as such, when hes given orders they give very general "get this done" tasks and let him figure out how to do it.
Also, ONI doctorine states that when in combat, NOBODY outranks a Spartan II, and it is common knowledge among Spartan IIs that NOBODY outranks John. Not becasue thats actually the case but more because they see experience and talent as their "ranks" and he has more of both than anyone in all of the UNSC.
And last thing is that Chief is, ln like 80% of situations, not in a position where hes actually under anyone's command. He is typically by himself in a sort of "Push forward or die" scenario such as him trying to lead the survivors to safety in Tsavo Highway, basically half of Halo 4, and ALL of Halo Infinite.
44:00 this is not the only up armed bomber in WW2, though it is possibly the most extreme example. None of them to my knowledge were actively approved, but as with most things in war, if it works a decent officer is going to look the other way and just omit that detail from any reports.
The algorithm replayth,
The reason Master Chief "ignores orders" is because hes a saboteur. 99.9% of his missions are "Chief, we need you to x and report when its done" for the 80+ years hes been a combat ghost whos only orders are "get it done we dont really care how"
So when some new blood thinks they can tell him to do something he.. doesn't. Unless its useful information or "hey Chief, take this and wreck them" he just leans forward and goes into monkey mode. Because, the chief isn't a solder, he truly is a weapon of Mass Destruction with a point and click command. You do not use him until the Godzilla protocal has failed.
dont know how i missed this upload. was the only stream of yours i've seen.
Some of the notifications get buried by RUclips. I think going down to 1 reaction a day would help, but I need a few other things to go right for that to be possible.
A lot of the CG footage for this video was from an awesome series called Dogfights. It used 3d modeling and CGI to detail all the menuevers, tactis and battles and told all the stories of the best pilots and their missions in an educational but entertaining manner. If you havent watched it before i highly reccomend it. It actual teaches history AND how pilots faught
Not sure if anyone has said this yet, but there's a very high probability that the Army started work on the YB-40 project being inspired by these guys. The YB-40 was pretty much this but purpose built on a pretty large scale and was developed as a gunship to escort long duration bombing missions into German occupied territory. Fighters didn't have the fuel range to escort them all the way at the time, so a bomber with heavier firepower and extra armor plating for the crew and engines was the logical conclusion.
Unfortunatly the YB-40s were unable to keep up with the B-17s
If anyone cared, that trimetrogon camera setup (if using 16mm at 16fps) shot about 1900ft of film total. Likely more since the stall speed of a B17 is 88mph, and even at that speed you are moving at 129 feet per second, and ~8.1 feet per second will still introduce motion blur (unless that camera doesn't use the slowest possible shutter speed for the given fps (for example 16fps on a commercial camera would shoot at ~1/30 of a second))
I love this. Thank you for this.
The name for this plane may have been the number of hell. But I know God had some fine angels watching over that old bird (and her crew).
A leader says go there and die...
A real leader says let's go there and die together!
A thing to remember about MC is that nickname is based on his rank: Master Chief Petty Officer and assuming the UNSC has the same ranking structure as the Navy that is an E-9, the highest enlisted rank. So yes, he can get away with a lot because all he has to do is justify his actions with results. If he were a lower rank that shit wouldn't fly, there would be far too many NCO's above him who's toes he would be stepping on by going directly against or tangentially against orders. He is generally regarded as having an equivalent authority to at least a lieutenant commander (two ranks below captain) in terms of the level of shit he has gotten away with and that generally seems to be how he is treated by the people in charge of whatever ship he is on (which is the equivalent of major to the marines for reference)
Johnson, for reference, was the same rank but in the marines (E-9, Sargent Major) and also got away with a lot of shit so at least they were internally consistent lol.
Hazing for woodworkers: 'Go to the boss and get a wood stretcher. This board is a quarter inch short.'
Hummer keys exist... they just don't work on the ignition, but on the cable lock for the steering wheel
I did the NJROTC and I'm currently enlisted in the navy. I won't lie the years I did help out with some of basic training and did give me E-3 instantly when I joined.
A bit of real-talk: So, on the whole ROTC program thing, I wasn't in the college level but i was in both NJROTC and AFJROTC when in high school for a number of years. As far as how effective it is, it depends on who is in charge of the training and what they train for. But it also depends on who goes into it. For someone like myself, who is part of a military family, going to both of those was more of a choice instead of a "you must do this thing" for me. Where as a number of other kids/students are probably put into ROTC as a form of "straightening out" of sorts. Now as far as how that applies to actual military training and the like, I sadly don't have much of a clue on that. But I can say that those who chose to go into ROTC are far more likely to do a bit better than many peers who just enlisted. But again it is a very variable situation.
My favorite hazing was McDonald's. Twist ice cream mix and drain the parking lot. Our ice cream machine worked back then. I didn't fall for it, I exploited to take a break.
8:23 In southern US people say "If it was a snake, it would have bit you in the face" To which I can usually reply with something like ''A snake on my tool bench would stand out a lot more than the singular Allen wrench I sat there an hour ago''
The Eager Beavers remind me of the Bad Batch from Star Wars
As to your question around the 31:00 minute mark, No it was not a war crime then, and in fact still isn't a war crime today. See the war crime is to target civilians/civilian infrastructure that has no military value. However if you put a single brand new enlisted person there, that target now has military value, which leads to the second part of the equation necessity. Basically it's how important the target is compared to how bad the effects are for civilians. That is where the big change from back then to now has occurred. Back then the bar to qualify a target as necessity was a lot lower then it is today (which a lot of credit for goes to the development of smart munitions since back then targeting individual things without a lot of collateral damage was almost impossible). So even today a hotel with a lot of very high military brass would be a legitimate and be considered a necessary target.
Back in the day for new guys in in the army (as far as maintenance was concerned) my father would make the initiates go try to find a left-handed socket wrench 😂
Kids in the Greatest Generation played in the streets
Saw the Ending days of the Wild West
Seen men fly
Listened to Buck Roger's, The Shadow,The Phantom, Zorro.
Worked in garages, worked as Blacksmiths
There is a book called G.I Engineering
so I only did a single semester of army ROTC in college before realizing it wasn't for me but you do have to go through basic training after a few semesters (I don't remember specifics because I wasn't there that long) and have to be fully committed before that point and sign a contract saying you will serve however long after graduating with a 4 year degree. If I remember correctly you have to have a 4 year degree to be a commissioned officer anyways, so if we operate under those rules I think it would be better to learn those kinds of things while in school rather than after. In that single semester I learned everything from what that the standard marching cadence was to how to how to check a body for explosives and how to radio in a enemy's numbers, location and equipment.
grunt vs college in the military has been a thing since at least 1890
17:00 mostly because headon assaults were seens as stupid and foolhardy up until ww2. because designs to save weight meant more firepower to the rear, i.e the place most of the enemies would come from targeting you, and less to the front. Not wanting to die, fighter pilots started learning where guns were and saw most bombers had more guns to the rear above and below, so the started coming from the front where at most they would have 2 guns targeting them rather than 3-6.
This story is different from today so take what im about to say with a grain of salt, but the way the US military works is that in order to become an officer, from what I remember, is that you have to have a college degree. ROTC can be thought of like a scholarship with conditions. The military pays for your degree and in return you have to adhere to military standards during college and you have to agree to serve as an officer for some number of years. Honestly its kind of how a decent number of officers become officers. We have three, at most, sets of ranks. Enlisted, warrant officers(the air force doesnt have that) and officers. Enlisted are the guys that do the majority of the hands on work. Warrant officers are basically specialists in the field they are in (they still have to be saluted like officers but they may not have a degree, its more if a way to keep people in when they cant advance further through the ranks but they have such a wealth of knowledge or they are army helicopter pilots), and then there is the officers which act as the main leadership and pilots depending the rank and branch. An enlisted member can go through officer training to become an officer in any case and i imagine a warrant officer can do the same.
The way i saw things as an enlisted member before i got medically separated is that officers that came up through the enlisted ranks usually get more voluntary respect as they have veen where the enlisted guys are and have more understanding. That being said officers that get their commission right after college do have their place.
Also NCO(Non commissioned officers) are enlisted members in leadership positions. They dont need a degree to lead but they effectively act an in between rank between actual officers and the junior enlisted members. They take on a lot of responsibility and often will act as mentors to new officers that dont go through the enlisted ranks. My flight in basic had an officer cadet shadow my instructor and while he didnt do much beside march the flight he was still there to learn.
In theory going against orders and flying at 1,000ft as a mobile gun platform to protect the other bombers _sounds_ like a great idea and tactic - especially if you're as good as this crew - until you realise that all it takes is _one_ AA gunner who's on the same skill level and accuracy level as you and your guys are, and you've just fucked over an entire crew _and_ a rather expensive bomber plane when neither can be afforded to be lost. It's why the higher-ups _really_ don't like their subordinates going rogue and making stuff up on the fly like this - if it worked great, but usually something new only works a couple of times before the enemy adapts, and if it goes wrong it tends to have far too high a cost. It's also why even the idea and creation of the Victoria Cross was so hotly contested by all the military commanders of the day - because they believed it encouraged men to break ranks (which was the British army's biggest strength at that time) and go looking for glory to earn themselves that award.
My father used to send his FNGs to the motor pool to pick up a TR double E.