Posted on 02/12/2020 1:07:24 PM PST by setter
I watched the 1980's movie, The Final Countdown the other day about the USS Nimitz after going through a strange storm ended up back in Dec 6, 1941.
I have some questions.
How handicapped would a modern carrier such as the Reagan or Ford be without GPS and military satellites? Isn't everything pretty much now digital versus analog? I presume there is analog backup in case satellite feeds are lost. Without GPS how could say an F-18 plug in their coordinates? Would radar still work?
Couple of other questions: Why did they take the Senator and Laurel to the island instead of Pearl? The Nimitz was going to attack the Japanese fighters anyway why did it matter?
Instead of going to Pearl to meet the Japanese why not attack the Japanese fleet?
One of my favorite movies, I would love to see a high dollar Jerry Bruckheimer style remake done of it.
“One pet peeve, when the “time warp storm” approaches the Captain (Douglas) sends his Destroyer Escorts away, I don’t see any carrier commander getting rid of escorts when facing an unknown situation.”
My pet peeve was the hokey language. “Hmmm Contact, clean the windshields and check the oil” I don’t think this would be the language when they were in Defcon 5 stage
As I said I would like to see a really going high dollar remake in True Grit style.
Making a movie like this you pretty much are throwing reality out the window anyway so you might as well have fun with it.
That was the biggest disappointment with the original, it ended right when it was about to get interesting.
In my scenario of a carrier task force there’d be plenty of nukes available. Plenty enough to end the war.
Carrier would have nukes.
Some of the escorts would have nukes.
The attack subs screening the task force would definitely have nukes.
It would be a short war that would be over before the task force ran out of fuel.
-—As I said I would like to see a really going high dollar remake in True Grit style.——
I’d agree with an above commenter that it be interesting to see if the script actually allowed the Nimitz to change history. Make it different.
But like I said, there’s a time-travel fiction tradition where you let time travel happen, but the present doesn’t change at all or just a little. There was a Twilight Zone episode where a guy used a time machine to try to stop John Wilkes Booth, and two other scenarios where he thought he could “improve” history. But no matter how hard he tried, some circunstances always contrived to stop him.
My wife and I have been watching the last 4 seasons of “Outlander”, and it explores some of the same ideas. The more you try to ‘help’ history by changing things, the more it contrives to thwart you and make sure you can’t fundamentally do it. Anyway, it’s all very interesting.
Outstanding alternate history. What a marvelous dream of another universe’s reality. Especially not having the useless Boomers who have been spoiled brats of the Great Generation- whiny socialistic little brats (now quite old and they vote for Bernie! cause he’s like the grandparents that had to raise them).
Would love to see this as a script, and story boards. The thought alone of the lives that would have had families— and inventors and a much different outcome through today.
“Carrier would have nukes.
Some of the escorts would have nukes.
The attack subs screening the task force would definitely have nukes”
A scenario I always think about is what if the US military went rogue with all that power and nuke Washington DC, Berlin and London take control of the world via military cabal?
I think with all the power and nothing to stop you might bring out the worst in people.
“Ya, a jet can run on diesel.”
Would it smoke like a badly tuned semi? Imagine the contrails!
I liked the James Francisco character, and the historical references
Indeed. Even the most minor of events could so effect others events that in turn effect other ones so that history is radically altered. And ot determining if world-changing person is not born, an apostle Paul or a person that should have died (Star Trek's City on the edge of forever).
Only God knows what all the effects will be of even the next flap of the wings of a bee in Asia, for time and for eternity, and make it all work out for the good of those who love God, and thus love what is Good.
Which is why militant atheists cannot validly charge God with iniquity without essentially presuming they are as God, as being omniscient and omnipotent.
They can be reclassed as variants of F-4s then....
Not as well as one would expect. GPS has become a crutch and the old tricks to navigation are nearly lost due to attrition. Over the years the Army kept revising the gunnery manuals because of upgraded fire control systems for example. When I first got in flying old snakes we had to memorize the interior, exterior and aerial ballistics so we could compensate and still hit the target. It might have been punching one round and marking the canopy with a grease pen so we knew where the hit was for the second run. As time progressed and fire control systems were added the teaching of ballistics fell to the wayside and was eliminated from the manuals. The newer systems rely on GPS integration for ballistic computations. One component fails in the system and you are back to Kentucky windage. Todays aviators need that pipper so they can place it on the target to hit. Once a system fails they have no clue how to adjust fire on the fly much less how to navigate by terrain only with a map and index finger. So has the navigation with sextants for the Navy. They may have been briefly shown one but haven’t seen one since. The younger generations are strictly the Xbox generation where manual calculations are for those old codgers. Unless you consistently train with manual calculations it slips the mind from disuse.
I think the saying used to go: “The three most powerful men in the world are the US president, the Soviet premier, and the captain of a US ballistic missile submarine.”
Certainly a carrier group Commander is somewhere near the top.
I don’t know for sure, but I tend to think that the teaching of Land Navigation in the Army has suffered the same problems. Completing a full land nav course was quite an accomplishment back in the day. 10 or more klicks overland and hitting 10-20 points correctly was a feat that took skill, knowledge of topo maps, compass use, distance traveled, and some plain old luck.
GPS isn’t as critical as many here think. All modern jets and ships have inertial navigation systems with integrated GPS. The function of the GPS integration is to constantly update the inertial navigation system. Modern INS’s are very accurate even without the GPS updating, the ones on most fighters will only drift about .2 miles over a given hours flight time, ones on a ship like an aircraft carrier much less than that. Targeting systems are based off of the INS so if you lose GPS it’s really not going to do anything. GPS is also easily jammed so all military equipment is built with the knowledge that if a real war started with Russia or China you’re probably not going to have GPS available anyway. Inertial navigation systems have been around for a long time and don’t need external input like GPS, they work fine without it.
Gerry=Jerry
LOL, we all wanted to see the Nimitz give a great big huge bloody nose to the IJN fleet that launched those planes they saw on their way to Pearl Harbor...
Well...maybe an alternative ending might not be all that bad...:)
I admit, I am a sucker for nearly any time travel twist, and having served on a carrier, this one was right up my alley.
I think it is a lot of fun to imagine these scenarios, but like you, I think “A LOT” is the right answer!
That brings back ancient memories. Around 1952, my older Brother and his gang discussing who would win, Tarzan or Bomba or Roy Rogers vs Gene Autry.
Sigh...different time, I guess...:)
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.