Never heard of Tornado
 

A while ago I was in conversation with someone who had been in the US army for four years and who had never heard of Tornado.

Okay, fine, this particular individual had been involved with CBRN stuff and had spent two tours directing some sort of helicopter operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, so no direct involvement in allied air activity, but even so. How can you be a US Army captain and never have at least heard of something I've seen referred to as the most important combat aircraft in europe for the last 25 years?

Is this normal?

P

Never heard of Tornado
 

Many of them have never heard of Julius Cesar and the Roman Empire, think that you can drive from France to NYC and wonder whether we have running water and electricity in continental EU...

Go figure!

DK

To be fair, you can drive from Paris to NYC.... may be where the confusion arises from

Nimrod crew met up with some USN submariners in the Intercon bar in Seeb a few years back.

One of the Sub lads said


“Well, Turkey is sure a lot different than I expected” !!


Wouldn't beleive that he had in fact missed Turkey some days ago.


:rolleyes:

Are we saying that all RAF Flight Lieutenants would know what a FH70 or an AS90 was?

What? No? How can that be?

Big whirly thing, Dorothy, red shoes, or the MRCA?

Well, to be fair, I could have told you that one of those was a towed gun and one was a self-propelled gun, and I'm neither in the military nor particularly an enthusiast of the genre.

So yes, I'd personally expect the average NATO officer to be at least as informed as me, no?

P

To be fair to the cousins I met some pretty dumb folk in the UK military as well.

Phil,

I would say that you are well informed - bravo - but I doubt that all RAF Flight Lieutenants are...but we have no way of proving this because a) you aren't one and b) even if you were one you wouldn't be all of them c) it'll take a while to ask them and d) if we do it via this forum they can scuttle off to google and find out.

You will of course note that I chose systems in use with our own army to make the task ever so slightly easier.

Perhaps the answer as to why this fellow had never heard of the Tornado was i) he was/ is American ii) the Tornado only had (approximately) four users which didn't include the USAF iii) he was/is a soldier and iv) if there were only (give or take) 3 European users of the Tornado then it can't really have been that important.

Anyway - it seems you are surprised and I am not - but that doesn't mean we have to fall out. (Not that we were falling out).

I think his reaction tells you more about the information source than this particular individual's knowledge. If he's only been in 4 years and already done 2 tours of Afghanistan/Iraq, you can be sure his thinking is not quite "Euro" centric yet. He could probably tell you about the 4,500 F-16s that have been built though...

Spams arrived at 18Sqn Gutersloh just before it closed and "some" of them wondered what that "Vee-hi-cle" was?...it was a Hard-Top Land Rover.

Not the first time that US Army personnel have not known what a Tornado is. Last time the results were rather more tragic.

Now who was it, in a Nimrod in G.W.1. , who allegedly read out the lettering on the stern of an American battle wagon crossing the Atlantic as " O ...H...... Ten.".....:) ?

A squaddie lobbing 'faulty' IR Cylumes ("these aren't working, I've tried loads and when I break them they're not glowing") into the GIFA near a FARP is one of many accounts of UK mil stupidity I can recall off hand.:ugh:

Surprised nobody's bitten yet. I know what you mean. 1465 miles according to G**gle Earth

Here you go!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fbr3MDI1QLc

I'll leave someone else to post "New York, New York" - if they must.

That might as well have been in Mandarin for all it meant to me Stacker, so I guess that makes me pretty dumb as well!

I remember a Harrier pilot ( a graduate) using his F95 PFO camera going Gütersloh to Wittering, where the undeveloped film was popped in a tin by the photogs to bring back to Gütersloh for developing.
The film was totally fogged.
He subsequently admitted he had peeped into the tin "Just for a second" to check that the film was in it.

Herod,

I guess most of knew that he meant drive from Paris, Texas to New York! :ok:

Tankertrashnav,

Infra Red chemical glow sticks, only observable with night vision equipment!

On a joint exercise in Holland back in 92 our Buccs were parked up next to F14s from the JFK. Unsurprisingly, something broke, so a spare was to be flown over from Lossie. This was the opportunity to wind up the spams with tails of the new top secret Brit stealth fighter.

They still believed the story when a matt black Hunter taxied onto the pan a few hours later...

Sorry TTN, I'll translate.

'faulty' IR Cylumes' = Infra-red Spectrum Lightsticks. Only visible using night vision goggles, therefore not 'faulty', just not visible with said squaddie's Mk.1 eyeball.

GIFA = Great Iraqi F**k All, ie: the middle of bloody nowhere in Iraq.

FARP = Forward Arming and Refuelling Point, used in support of helicopter operations for, well as the name suggests.

I think that the average Flt Lt - of any Branch - has a pretty good idea of the other Services' kit - we are a lot more Joint (OK - read 'Army') these days and, again, most Flt Lts will have done a spell in Afghan (as the ill-educated seem to refer to Afghanistan) and will be familiar with a lot of 'Green' terminology and kit.

I laughed at the IR Cylume story!

"Cylumes". Interesting to see how they were adopted. I had some given to me for evaluation c.1983 -the optical variety, although then called "Cyalumes".
Also with IR "Nitesun", tales of soldiers looking up at Helos at night using the device. Optically invisible but still extremely damaging to the retina.(IIRC)

I love Septics, was in a hotel once and a yank couple were at the next table in the restaurant. Mrs yank, looking at the menu,said "What's caviar?" Her husband said "Thats whale eggs isn't it." Made I smile.

Long ago... NATO personel were trained to a STANAG on recce of friendly forces equipment*!:eek:

*And lots of other important stuff.


OAP

Veering well off-topic......

Technically speaking that is the correct spelling, as that is the name of a company that makes them, but its often spelt without the 'a'.

I imagine most US servicemen, of whatever persuasion, would have a good laugh at the RAF Gp Capt supplier who, in 1996, insisted on procuring Active Dipping Sonar spares for C130. Most 5 year olds come to think of it. It's ok, the money wasn't wasted. Once they'd picked themselves up off the floor, GEC-Marconi refused to quote.

Simply

Must say that despite having visited America on many occasions (and not just Nellis/Las Vegas!) I still have no idea what grits is.

Neither can I successfully order a breakfast in Denny's without at least one question from the waitress.

The locals must have a right old laugh at my expense.

But I have heard of a Tornado;)

This is far from unusual. Even during the height of the CW when European skies were full of Vulcans and Buccaneers many US aircrew, both in the US and Europe, had never heard of Buccs or Vulcans. However, I always take care not to stereotype Americans.

I'm enjoying this thread - some good banter.

I am going to ask the first Flt Lt I see on Monday what the US Army's primary MBT is, what an Arleigh Burke is and what the USAF might do with a AGM-88?

I'll get back to you with the results.;)

Wrath.....one may be excused for not knowing what caviar is perhaps.....but please, whale eggs? Imagine the size of the egg cup!
As for grits...that is the food of the Devil and a scone will always be a scone and a biscuit a biscuit.
We shouldn't accept this ignorance from our Colonial cousins, dash it all man, we INVENTED foreigners!

Wrathmonk wrote: Ah, the joys of practical RTI training at the hands of those sweet little ladies who work in American breakfast establishments!

Top tips:

• Get your words in first! "Yes, it's a lovely day and we're ready to order!"
• "American breakfast please, 2 eggs over easy, bacon, hash browns and rye toast with regular butter. Non-decaff. coffee, OJ and seperate cheques please.

Think you've cracked it? Wrong - there'll always be something you've overlooked:

"Is that regular OJ, or large?"

Bug.ger!

Another gotcha is if you ask for sausage rather than bacon - "Would that be links or patties?"...:uhoh:

But the waitresses were always such a delight!

We once went into a steak-and-potatoes restaurant on our way back from a visit to Indianapolis, which has a well-known car race once a year; sadly there are 364 other days...as we'd discovered. One chap asked for some more butter for his baked potato.

"Would that be regular butter?", the little lovely asked.

"OK - I give in. What are the alternatives - low alcohol, unleaded, caffeine-free, lead-free or what?", I asked her.

"Regular or melted butter?", she giggled.

And another gem of information was added to our corporate knowledge of American restaurant interrogations. Which, to be fair, were always so friendly and fuss-free!

My first experience of such interrogations was in the late '70s during Vulcan trips to Offutt. At JB's, the waitress would query "French'talianthousan'islan'bluecheese" as one word when you said that you'd like a salad with your steak. "Nothing, thanks", tended to confuse her.

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On a more serious note, after a couple of F-15s couldn't tell the difference between a pair of Blackhawks and a pair of Hinds, with predictably and sadly tragic results, it was decided that aircraft recognition should feature during morning briefs at Incirlik.

For some unknown reason, the Cousins decided to hold these wretched briefs about 5 hours before 'compress' missions. Which, predictably, went down rather poorly with the RAF crews. One day - or rather b£oody early morning, we'd endured a pointless 'same as before' brief which stopped just short of 'Padre, some words for our brave boys'. Up jumped some REMF keen to run his recce slides....the first of which was an F-15C.

"Hind, Hind - waste the motherfarqhar - oorah!" called some irritated Brit.

The briefing then ended. The RAF DetCo told us not to take the pi$$ out of the Spams - "No problems, Boss, they do it well enough themselves!" came the reply.

BEags...
Delete seperate cheques, insert separate checks.....

orca wrote: 1. MBT? Presumably still the Abrams.
2. An Arleigh Burke? Probably some ship used to shoot down unarmed civilian airliners?
3. AGM-88? HARM explains its role rather better.

Checks? Oh dear, I think not!

You probably don't stand your round at the pub either.

Even with benefit of the Internet you managed to f*#% that up, different class of ship. You also dicked up aircraft identification a few threads back when you tried to identify a H-60.

Wherever you thought you were on military knowledge, you're not there anymore, might want to research before you hit the submit button.

Funny you mentioned AGM-88 - just after GW1 I had to explain to a USAF F-4 driver what an ALARM was - he had never heard of it. It happened that he was a F-4G WW driver from the 52TFW!


Neither could he see any use for the loiter mode.


I was convinced for a while he was taking the pi$$ but it gradually dawned on me that the backseater did the clever stuff he just drove.

Having worked for a company bade in the US mid west, who had never seen the sea close up, only from 30,000 ft.
Did not know what a tide was. But hey they knew a lot of other things.

Or the trigger...

Speaking as a retired bleep (and therefore know sod all about artillery), even I know that FH70 was retired by the RA over 10 years ago! The FH70 is as relevant to the RA as the Jaguar is to the RAF today.

Since most military weapon systems are operated by NCOs rather than officers, it's a bit worrying if the officers can't get it right. No wonder there are blue on blues. One might thank God that nukes are/were under officer control, but I'm not so sure about that.

Still, in a world where a (RAF) Phantom could splash a (RAF) Jag over Germany (with entirely officer crew), target recognition was the least of the worries if the procedures were so dangerously lax.

Used to be a brand of washing powder, but I don't think it's on the market anymore. (I know; sad old git)