# The Last Ship, S1E1 **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [June 23, 2014, 2:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-last-ship-s1e1/691445 "2014-06-23T14:04:40Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 2014, 11:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-last-ship-s1e1/691445/21 "2014-06-25T11:16:57Z")
We saw it last night. Not being military, we will continue to watch. Is Baldwin the Executive Officer? ---
**Author:** ![johnspartan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/a183cd/32.png) [@johnspartan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/johnspartan)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 2014, 2:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-last-ship-s1e1/691445/22 "2014-06-25T14:29:12Z")
> [@carnivorousplant](#): > > We saw it last night. Not being military, we will continue to watch. > Is Baldwin the Executive Officer? Yup. I seriously hope they put in even just a little bit of fanservice. Just, ya know, have him walk buy and a Marine mutter under their breath “The heeeeero of Canton, the man they call Jaaaaaaaayne”, and he could just turn around and glare. Heck, I was expecting in the first one for a “I’ll be in my bunk.” ---
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 2014, 2:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-last-ship-s1e1/691445/23 "2014-06-25T14:44:07Z")
> [@johnspartan](#): > > Heck, I was expecting in the first one for a “I’ll be in my bunk.” My favorite was"Can I come in now?" ---
**Author:** ![Chefguy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chefguy/32/138_2.png) [@Chefguy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chefguy)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 2014, 7:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-last-ship-s1e1/691445/24 "2014-06-25T19:25:13Z")
> [@FairyChatMom](#): > > Bottom line, people who do shows about the military generally don’t know about the military and they don’t care. And that’s why I pretty much don’t watch them if they’re trying to be serious. But I did like _Down Periscope!_😃 I’ve never understood why they hire military advisers for films and then ignore what they have to say. One of the few films that is true to Navy life is The Last Detail, with Jack Nicholson, but for the most part the movies just get it wrong. ---
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 2014, 8:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-last-ship-s1e1/691445/25 "2014-06-25T20:02:33Z")
> [@Chefguy](#): > > but for the most part the movies just get it wrong. They want to be what they consider entertaining, or cool, or whatever a director or producer or writer likes. Consider come cop show I saw a few seconds of, where two people are “fighting a virus” by frantically typing on the same keyboard at the same time. 🙂 I would have thought that the rotary gun that can track several Exocets at once would have made very short work of the helicopters. ---
**Author:** ![levdrakon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/49beb7/32.png) [@levdrakon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/levdrakon)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 2014, 8:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-last-ship-s1e1/691445/26 "2014-06-25T20:20:17Z")
Stargate SG1 was pretty cool with their military advisor’s recommendations. The characters tended to change their uniform of the day quicker than a New York runway model, but otherwise it was pretty realistic. ---
**Author:** ![johnspartan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/a183cd/32.png) [@johnspartan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/johnspartan)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2014, 2:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-last-ship-s1e1/691445/27 "2014-06-30T14:12:23Z")
I wonder just how much of a show you could put together that was ONLY hack military film/TV cliches and tropes. I feel like I haven’t truly lived because I’ve never crouched behind a counter holding a gun in one hand and waving two fingers with the other to someone to signal they should go that way. ---
**Author:** ![JerrySTL](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e274bd/32.png) [@JerrySTL](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JerrySTL)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2014, 3:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-last-ship-s1e1/691445/28 "2014-06-30T15:13:11Z")
> [@Alessan](#): > > So, are they letting Baldwin be funny? Because otherwise I won’t bother. He’ll be in his bunk eventually. ---
**Author:** ![alphaboi867](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alphaboi867/32/3898_2.png) [@alphaboi867](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/alphaboi867)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2014, 11:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-last-ship-s1e1/691445/29 "2014-06-30T23:33:22Z")
> [@johnspartan](#): > > I wonder just how much of a show you could put together that was ONLY hack military film/TV cliches and tropes. > > I feel like I haven’t truly lived because I’ve never crouched behind a counter holding a gun in one hand and waving two fingers with the other to someone to signal they should go that way. Let’s see this episode… …the ship’s captain once again went on (land?) boarding party while the XO stayed on the bridge. :rolleyes: And nobody bothered to put their masks on when confronted with possible infectees. Just cause somebody says they’re not sick doesn’t mean they’re not sick or a carrier. Also how could the guards possibly be so naïve as to not expect the prisoners to turn on them? :smack: That’s just so stupid. I can buy private contractors not giving a shit about the prisoners and just executing them (or leaving them to dehydrate/starve in their cells ala **The Stand** ) Still watching though. ---
**Author:** ![smithsb](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/smithsb/32/12107_2.png) [@smithsb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/smithsb)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2014, 11:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-last-ship-s1e1/691445/30 "2014-06-30T23:51:12Z")
> [@El\_Kabong](#): > > Yeah. I’m not a Navy guy, so maybe what follows below is plausible, but I cracked up when: > > with all the other anti-aircraft capability they supposedly have, they used the five-inch deck gun to shoot down one of the attacking helicopters. I’m pretty sure they did it just to enable the shot of the empty shell casing clanging off the deck. Which, come to think of it, may be silly by itself. The gun is inside a closed turret. Do the casings just get dumped out on the deck like that? Yep for the gun cartridge cases getting dumped out on deck. Yep for shooting down helicopters, etc… The 5"/54 gun has anti-aircraft capability. The gun control firing system tracks surface and air targets by radar and directs the gun(s). ---
**Author:** ![dracoi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/90db22/32.png) [@dracoi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dracoi)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2014, 11:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-last-ship-s1e1/691445/31 "2014-06-30T23:59:46Z")
I’m willing to watch a few more episodes to see what happens. I like post-apocalyptic survival scenarios quite a bit. But it has a lot of strikes against it. Implausible characters, implausible procedures, implausible science. It’s sort of stream-of-consciousness entertainment and that’s not going to get me past episodes two or three. ---
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2014, 1:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-last-ship-s1e1/691445/32 "2014-07-01T01:18:28Z")
Star Trek at Sea. I am not military, so even though the Captain goes on a landing party, James T. Kirk did it, Jack Aubrey did it, so what the hell, it is TV. A deck gun can shoot down a fast moving helicopter? Wow. ---
**Author:** ![BigDadWolf](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/aeb1de/32.png) [@BigDadWolf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigDadWolf)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2014, 12:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-last-ship-s1e1/691445/33 "2014-07-01T12:59:04Z")
It’s not bad in military/post-apocalyptic/adventure sort of way but it’s getting to be a bit like the “Walking Dead” - full of people who are too stupid to live. The guards who let the worst-of-the-worst terrorists free, the team at the hospital who didn’t check to make sure the terrorists who were just shooting at them moments before are all really dead, and the captain who let another ship get within sight before getting positive ID while his ship is docked. At least most of the guards got what they deserved. ---
**Author:** ![El\_Kabong](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/el_kabong/32/496_2.png) [@El\_Kabong](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/El_Kabong)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2014, 1:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-last-ship-s1e1/691445/34 "2014-07-01T13:17:51Z")
> [@smithsb](#): > > Yep for the gun cartridge cases getting dumped out on deck. Hunh, I would have thought that there would be a basket or something to catch them in, at least. > [@](#): > > Yep for shooting down helicopters, etc… The 5"/54 gun has anti-aircraft capability. The gun control firing system tracks surface and air targets by radar and directs the gun(s). Ok then, ignorance fought. Does seem a bit like using a 12-gauge shotgun to take out a fly, however. ---
**Author:** ![spifflog](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c5a1d2/32.png) [@spifflog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/spifflog)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2014, 5:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-last-ship-s1e1/691445/35 "2014-07-01T17:31:10Z")
> [@El\_Kabong](#): > > Ok then, ignorance fought. Does seem a bit like using a 12-gauge shotgun to take out a fly, however. U. S. Navy has been using 5 inch guns to shoot down airplanes since world war II. ---
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2014, 7:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-last-ship-s1e1/691445/36 "2014-07-01T19:20:24Z")
> [@spifflog](#): > > U. S. Navy has been using 5 inch guns to shoot down airplanes since world war II. In WWII they threw as many shells as possible from several guns, did they not? The new destroyers as some one described, can be radar aimed. ---
**Author:** ![spifflog](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c5a1d2/32.png) [@spifflog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/spifflog)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2014, 8:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-last-ship-s1e1/691445/37 "2014-07-01T20:06:50Z")
> [@carnivorousplant](#): > > In WWII they threw as many shells as possible from several guns, did they not? > The new destroyers as some one described, can be radar aimed. The Mk 37 fire control radar was used as an AA weapon in WWII for the 5"/38 gun and it used the Mk 12 radar. I don’t want to claim it was the most accurate system in the world. It’s unclear (to me at least) if that system was so primitive that you needed ~1,000 rounds per aircraft kill, or that late in the war there battle groups were so well protected that there was just that amount of fire power available. What we can agree upon is that the Mk 45 5" gun isn’t going to engage a helo 500 yards off the ship (as it seemed to me from the episode) but at the 8-10 NM range. ---
**Author:** ![AndrewL](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/3d9bf3/32.png) [@AndrewL](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AndrewL)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2014, 8:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-last-ship-s1e1/691445/38 "2014-07-01T20:35:06Z")
Not only were the 5"/38 guns radar-controlled, they were guided by targeting computers that used [remarkably clever mechanical/analog computer systems](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_I_Fire_Control_Computer) to predict the course of the target and fire the shells to intercept it. They could also be loaded with proximity-sensing shells that would explode on coming within a certain range of the target. The thousands of rounds per aircraft fired were mostly from hand-aimed machine gun emplacements and the like. The 5" guns firing radar-aimed shells were more in the range of a [few hundred rounds per kill](http://www.history.navy.mil/library/online/antiaircraft_action_summary_wwii.htm#II). ---
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2014, 8:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-last-ship-s1e1/691445/39 "2014-07-01T20:39:54Z")
> [@AndrewL](#): > > Not only were the 5"/38 guns radar-controlled, they were guided by targeting computers that used [remarkably clever mechanical/analog computer systems](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_I_Fire_Control_Computer) to predict the course of the target and fire the shells to intercept it. They could also be loaded with proximity-sensing shells that would explode on coming within a certain range of the target. It is said that the mechanical, obviously analog computer for the New Jersey’s main guns was kept when she was modified. ---
**Author:** ![johnspartan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/a183cd/32.png) [@johnspartan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/johnspartan)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2014, 1:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-last-ship-s1e1/691445/40 "2014-07-07T13:50:53Z")
Would the captain and the XO be in the conn tower in blue camos? My bit of googling implies that you don’t usually wear those in regular, non-about-to-get-dirty service. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-last-ship-s1e1/691445.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-last-ship-s1e1/691445.md?page=3)