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Bad ideas in war

Gawdzilla Sama said:
The sailors I worked with were representative of a broad spectrum of intelligence. Never asked them for numbers, they pretty much demonstrated what they had to work with and I detailed their jobs accordingly.
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Precisely my point. Some are geniuses, some are borderline idiot, you can't assume that everyone is as smart as you.

I mean, true story, one of our guys actually wanted to fire the AA guns at a relatively distant, but still technically in range, town after the towed target had exited the exercise firing arc. (They would have probably air-burst long before, but still...) He actually argued with a flippin' lieutenant that he still wants to fire the gun, 'cause he didn't get to. Like, dude, if nothing else STAND DOWN, that guy outranks you by a WIDE margin. You don't need to be Einstein's cousin to figure that one out. But nope. Apparently none of that occurred to him.
 
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Also, honourable mention for the low IQ awards, our enlisted and in training radar guys SOMEHOW manage to lose the lock on the bloody huge alluminized target, and switch lock to the plane dragging it... A WHOLE MILE IN FRONT OF IT. I can't even understand HOW. Only a quick officer intervention stopping the fire prevented our own friendly plane from going down in a hail of autocannon fire. Narrowly.

The pilot released it and did a roll and made a classic strafing run dive at us, causing everyone to crap their pants and go prone (not gonna go back to shooting at a friendly,) then pulls up at the last moment and does a flourish. Like, see how you'd like it if I did that, I guess.
 
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Oh, I'm sure navy stories are even better than ours. I mean, if nothing else, on land we didn't have to worry about DROWNING because of some idiot.
 
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Wudang said:
Ignoring the IQ ◊◊◊◊◊◊◊◊ it was an ex-nco from Corps of Signals who taught me about Fourier transforms.
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A high IQ, of course, is not a guarantee of great things for any person. I spent many, many hours working for the Naval History and Heritage Command, the Center of Military History, etc., for free because that's what I wanted to do. I still remember being utterly enthralled by "Victory at Sea", in re-runs when I saw the series for the first time, c. 1956. I had very little to go on except for the certainty that I would be on those ships some day, my six year old self was certain of that. Not the "rich and famous" track, but I didn't care.
 
Andy_Ross said:
Germany didn't have any torpedo bombers as such, although the Ju-88 could carry one.
The Germans were obsessed with dive bombing.
Even their proposed and prototype 4 engine heavies had to be capable of dive bombing much to their detriment.
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Udeth's principal contribution to the war.
 
jimbob said:
I've got one.

Probably a bad idea to try putting a Gatling gun with the recoil of about ten M2 Brownings as the weapon of a technical, especially if you are using an off-centre mount.

Bonus points for grabbing the barrel after it's stopped firing.
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Sigh. Why has no-one heard of conservation of angular momentum?
 
Gawdzilla Sama said:
When the ◊◊◊◊ did I even imply that, other than some deranged fantasy of yours?
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Glad you asked. You replied to:
dellarte said:
Bad ideas in war? Expect soldiers to have intelligence above that of trained dogs
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With:
Gawdzilla Sama said:
My IQ was 123 when I applied for a slot in the USN.

I'd like to meet your dog.
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Well, unless you imply that your 123 is just typical of a soldier, it doesn't contradict his statement that you can't EXPECT soldiers to be smarter than trained dogs. An expectation is something everyone must meet. And clearly a lot would fail to measure up to your 123. So what was the point of comparing specifically yourself to his dog?

Plus, to further the point, the Spanish military accepts IQ as low as 70, or two standard deviations below average. A German shepherd is estimated to have an IQ of 60. Which means, his statement is technically not true, but close enough for sarcastic use.

ETA: Besides, he said "smarter", not talked about IQ. Casual language is loose. One can describe someone as being "smart" or not when actually meaning about knowledge, or when being "smart" enough to not do dumb stuff on impulse. There's nothing wrong with someone saying that a dog is "smart" enough to not bite unless ordered. The dog in the video was obviously "smart" enough in that sense. The soldier just went from barking "want me to drop this ****?" straight to shooting in the head within a second. So in that sense he was dumber than the dog.
 
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Gawdzilla Sama said:
I worked with GIs for twenty years. The idiots were moved to more appropriate jobs. Sweeping generalizations are NOT your friend.
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Well, soldier C in that video wasn't moved to another job than SAS (not even just GI,) obviously, even after having been chewed for shooting another civilian 2 month prior, and then he did it again in this case, and still wasn't moved. Since intelligence means the ability to learn and apply what you've learned, I'd say it's fair to say he was an idiot. Maybe not in the medical IQ sense, but he was an idiot all right.

Now I hear that the US military is more strict about such cases, but the Aussie military, which is what that video and his comment were about, seems to have a lot more patience with dangerous idiots.

Plus, I'm not generalising, I'm just saying exceptions exist. You're the one who seemed to think that his statement about expectations is a such a general assertion, that it tarred you personally and your 123 IQ with the same brush.
 
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Perum tries to justify a load of bad ideas


The first bad idea was from Ian of Forgotten Weapons
 
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