What… they seriously don’t have proper tools for that? What kind of stupendous madness is that… What if they get exhausted in wartime scenario and ■■■■ up?! How is that even allowed by law?! That ■■■■ has got to destroy so many bodies.
Well its “only” 125 pounds per man. There have been many jobs in the millitary that are at least just as back breaking. Changing tank treads (under fire!), digging trenches, hauling artillery grenades and charges, etc.
Men make fantastic beasts of burden, something that is quite easily forgotten from an office cubicle. In fact, our bodies need to labour, or they grow fat, weak and disease ridden. Gym work is not different from hauling rocks in the quarry except for motivation.
Uhuh, that’s all fine and dandy but this strain is absolutely not necessary, plenty of tools available that would actually do it just as well. Yes, sometimes you have to improvise, I am used to handling heavy equipment with and without proper tooling, but if you get the chance you sure as hell use the proper tooling. I’ve seen too many old people in my job area that have broken backs, strained knees, the whole shebang simply by not properly lifting and using tools at their disposal.
Certainly, if you have tools and the room and time to set them up, you use them. But sometimes it is faster or more convenient to just muscle it.
Tool-using monkeys. But I reckon there’s training value in doing it the old-fashioned way.
The Yompers of 45 Commando would enjoy a nice day of sailing around and loading a few bombs in the sunshine…! One of my favorite books.
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Indeed.
And to clarify, from what I remember, both -82’s and -83’s are loaded manually, or were during my time.
As for how well they’re trained in lifting, I honestly don’t know. When I worked out in the weight room aboard ship, we’d run into some of the AO’s from time to time, and some were very good weight lifters, and some were very, very bad lifters. I also don’t know how much physical form is taken into account when it comes to Classifiers giving the job out at MEPS or in Pensacola- I have a friend, she’s maybe 5’ even, probably 105 lbs soaking wet, who’s been an AO her whole career, and I’ve seen even smaller and more slight who’ve been in Weapons department.
And yes, @schurem there’s lots of backbreaking work to go around aboard the ship underway- it’s why the military is a young person’s game.
Exhaustion is a way of life out to sea, and a point of pride if you get a group of sailors (well, maybe aside from pilots) talking - everybody will brag about how much work they did on his little sleep, or how many days in a row they went without sleep. Those who complain of being exhausted or get caught (important point there) falling asleep are derided for bring soft or not being able to hack it. This is the culture that is responsible for a lot of the issues that have been popping up in 7th Fleet, but it’s not a new issue.
As for the physical issues that come later, well, I think the Navy figures the VA will solve that later.
That’s some grim attitude towards manpower honestly. Hard to appreciate it for me honestly, given how focussed we are on human factors of which exhaustion is a massive multiplier in maintenance related incidents and accidents.
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It’s interesting to see everyone view those pictures through the lens of “The Navy must hate its people to make them do that.” I would put forward that the Navy, after 85 years of being the pre-eminent leader in Carrier technology determined that having more unattended motorized vehicles on what is by far the most dangerous aviation environment on the planet is probably not a good idea.
I am not saying that it doesn’t suck for those guys, but it might be all around safer for everyone involved.
The Air force does what it does because before they hit the wild blue yonder they have all kinds of space to get ready for it.
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I think that’s exactly what it is- space on deck is at a premium as it is, so the less clutter up there, the better. Also worth considering that equipment that is aboard the ship has to be much more robust to deal with the environment and limited space for repairs and maintenance. And as I’m sure pretty much anybody who’s ever served in the military will agree, there’s plenty of things that suck to go around, they just come in different forms for different folks.
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Wowza… Really- look at that.
Heart wrenchingly warm pic from Marcus Luttrell … apparently the last personal cellphone pic of his SEAL team together before Op Red Wings. Talk about a band of brothers! …
Far left, LT Michael P. Murphy (Murph!), SO2 James E. Suh, SO2 Shane E. Patton, Luttrell, SO2 Matthew Axelson.
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Interesting video. Wing tip hitch hiking, getting a thing on a thing at the end of its moment arm would require very deft handling me thinks.
Made me think of this https://disciplesofflight.com/parasite-fighters-aviation/
(DIsclaimer: I didn’t watch the video so it might be overlapping material)
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Interesting early chute deployment on this landing…
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Still luckier that the C-130 that early fired the Rocked assisted Shortened Landing.
Timestamp @ 0:24 seconds…
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Doesn’t look too bad to me! One would need to do a thorough inspection, but other then that it looks okay!
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