I love the defender!!!

Not sure what to think about this light bar location though

 

Submarines and Rovers.. something I know all too much about. I actually know someone who served on board USS Albacore from 1969 to 1972 before it was decommissioned. He also served 6 other submarines and shore commands.

 

Really? Thats awesome! I guess the USS Albacore was partly a research sub, used to test out new Sub technologies. I love subs and rovers to just wish I could find a Typhoon Class or a Ohio Class..... they would dwarf the Albacore.

 

Yeah its designation was AGSS-569, which basically stood for Auxiliary Submarine. They tested a lot of designs on her, including the X style stern planes that you can see at the memorial. The Typhoons are all but extinct, 3 remain and 2 are parts boats for the more active one, and even that one resides at the pier more than anything else. Its a show of force thing.

I've been on the Ohio Class and they are huge. The LA, Seawolf and VA class are also almost twice as long as the Albacore. The thing is the Albacore didn't have to deal with a pesky nuclear reactor. The first boat to have that one was USS Nautilus, SSN-571.

 

True but even the mighty Ohio class was dwarfed by the Typhoon class which still holds the record of being the largest submarine ever built. I know they test new missle systems on the remaining Typoons but yeah they have been succeeded by a newer class of Russian subs be it smaller than the Typhoon but still larger than the Ohio class. Bori class I think they are called. There are a couple very interesting documentaries on mega subs, ill post a link later.

Later this year I plan on taking a road trip down to Washington D.C. and Virgina to visit the Naval Yards where the huge destroyers and subs are docked. Those Ships will make my Disco look like a tiny spec

 

The Typhoon is only a dozen or so feet longer than the Ohio, but it makes up for that in beam. The Typhoon is almost twice as wide as the Ohio. The newer subs are much smaller, but still huge compared to most other submarines. The mostly come in between 440 and 510 feet in length. They are hybrid boats, meant to fill the mission of both a deterrent patrol boat and a fast boat.

PM me the documentaries. I'm always interested in that kind of stuff (its also part of my job to do so).

If you have a chance, check out the Nautilus museum in Groton!

 

PM sent!

 

I've never been in the military, so forgive me if my terminology is wrong. My friend's father was in the National Guard and sent to Desert Storm and he said they ran over an anti-personnel mine and it blew the tire clean off the wheel, despite the bead locks. He said they drove for miles on just the pseudo run flat.... no tire or anything... until the could find another group of soldiers they could TRADE with to get a spare tire. Kind of messed up in my opinion, that they had to barter to get what they needed. But pretty cool that they were able to limp along.

 

I don't know too much about the tires themselves, but the trucks we use have basically BFG Baja T/A's. I don't remember what they are exactly, but we recently switched to a program called "COTS" which means "commercial, of the shelf" which means we start to use stuff we can buy at generic parts stores, for most everything now, not just tires.

Also, the practice of trading for parts it not uncommon amongst the military. If a part breaks, we submit a cannibalization request and we basically take a part from another unit. Sometimes it makes sense, like to support a unit that is about to deploy by taking a part from a unit that is on standdown (after deployment).

 

From personal experience the HMMWV tires have to have a solid rubber piece inside to be run flats. It's not a enter-tube but a thick pieces of rubber. Even with that they can get shredded. In Iraq they didn't give the marines the up armoured humvee's, we got next best, a ton or more of armoured doors and turret, and no upgraded suspension or the air-system that will keep the tires up (we didn't need it apparently haha) so we kept two spares on board and blew them regularly. So the tires themselves aren't worth it. That was my experience. They are good tires if they're free or close to free