# Wanted - Obscure Military Trivia! **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [October 8, 2010, 9:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wanted-obscure-military-trivia/556467 "2010-10-08T09:18:12Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![Raguleader](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/258eb7/32.png) [@Raguleader](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Raguleader)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2010, 10:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wanted-obscure-military-trivia/556467/81 "2010-10-11T10:26:32Z")
> [@Boyo\_Jim](#): > > > [@Raguleader](#): > > > > … the pilots had to either ditch in the sea near the mothership or try to fly to Denmark. > > So they winged it? You could say that. 😃 During World War II, many of the bigger aircraft carriers were armed with 5 inch gun turrets not entirely unlike what destroyers and smaller cruisers carried. They didn’t intend to use them against enemy ships though, but rather against enemy aircraft. Combined with an early radar-assisted targeting computer and either timed or proximity-fused shells, they found the most effective way to take an enemy plane down quickly was to set off a large cannon shell close to the plane. That, and teaching the gunners not being assisted by such computers to fire randomly in a pre-set zone, rather than try to aim. They made sure the anti-aircraft guns had overlapping fields of fire, so that by firing randomly they could make sure that some lucky pilot wouldn’t get through while everybody was shooting at someone else. ---
**Author:** ![Bookkeeper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bookkeeper/32/281_2.png) [@Bookkeeper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bookkeeper)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2010, 5:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wanted-obscure-military-trivia/556467/82 "2010-10-11T17:43:15Z")
> [@Robot\_Arm](#): > > The tall ship USCGC _Eagle_, operated by the United States Coast Guard, was built by Blohm & Voss in Germany in 1936 and originally called _Horst Wessel_. She was the falgship of the Kriegsmarine sail training fleet, and was taken by the U.S. as a war prize at the end of World War II. If you get the good tour, they’ll show you the VIP stateroom where Hitler, and at least one president, have slept. > > > [@Hypno-Toad](#): > > > > An F-4 Phantom fighter carried a significantly larger bomb load than the B-17 bomber. > > > [@Beware\_of\_Doug](#): > > > > If we’d kept the B-17 in service as long as we’ve kept the B-52 in service, they’d have seen action in Gulf War I. > > In the collection of the Museum of the United States Air Force is the oldest B-17 in existence, which was present in the Phillipines on December 8th, 1941 (other side of the date line), but survived attack. As parts were canibalized from other planes to keep it flying, someone named it _The Swoose_ (after the song _Alexander the Swoose_, about a bird who was half swan, half goose). > > As more capable versions of the B-17 entered service, Captain Frank Kurtz selected this aircraft as the personal transport for General George Brett, the ranking American commander of allied forces in Australia. It was the only B-17 to serve through the entirety of World War II. > > After the war, the aircraft was scheduled to be smelted down, but Kurtz stepped in again. It was originally planned to be displayed in Los Angeles, then transferred to the National Air Museum (later to become the National Air and Space Museum), then transferred again in 2008 to the USAF Museum. > > Kurtz liked the plane so much he named his daughter after it. > > Swoosie Kurtz. > > (And if that ain’t trivial, I don’t know what is.) Nitpick - _The Swoose_ entered USAAF service in April 1941, so served only through the entirety of US participation in WW2, not the entire war. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2010, 7:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wanted-obscure-military-trivia/556467/83 "2010-10-11T19:03:13Z")
> [@Robot\_Arm](#): > > The tall ship USCGC _Eagle_, operated by the United States Coast Guard, was built by Blohm & Voss in Germany in 1936 and originally called _Horst Wessel_. She was the falgship of the Kriegsmarine sail training fleet, and was taken by the U.S. as a war prize at the end of World War II. If you get the good tour, they’ll show you the VIP stateroom where Hitler, and at least one president, have slept. Must have been before Marian Alston took command. ---
**Author:** ![Atomic\_Alex](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/atomic_alex/32/175_2.png) [@Atomic\_Alex](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Atomic_Alex)\ **Post date:** [October 12, 2010, 11:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wanted-obscure-military-trivia/556467/84 "2010-10-12T11:28:47Z")
> [@detop](#): > > > [@Boyo\_Jim](#): > > > > This sounds interesting. I rarely hear the term “hilarious” applied to Stalinist Russia. 😛 > > Just read the account. The engineers were told to reproduce the plane **exactly**. In other words, every little production defects on the plane were copied (erroneous rivet holes, communication tunnel painted two different colors [in the original, they probably ran out of one and continued with another], they even had to **ask** Djugachvili if the dials should be in metric or imperial units and if the markings should be a white or red star :eek::D). To be fair if you got an order from the big boss to make an exact replica you might take it too far as well! Perhaps they thought it was for some sort of sneaky undercover spy mission, ie: it was going to be flown back to the West to make the Capitalist dogs think they didn’t hold onto it and so needed to be _exactly_ the same as the original? Thanks for the facts everyone, interesting stuff! ---
**Author:** ![Raguleader](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/258eb7/32.png) [@Raguleader](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Raguleader)\ **Post date:** [October 12, 2010, 2:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wanted-obscure-military-trivia/556467/85 "2010-10-12T14:21:41Z")
Oh, here’s a fun one: During the First World War, before the US joined in, a number of Americans flew for France in the Lafayette Escadrille. Some of these guys were rather well-off, and one of them had a series of commemorative coins minted with the squadron’s insignia to give to the others as keepsakes. One of these pilots was shot down behind enemy lines, and all of his identification was confiscated, with the coin being missed because he kept it in a pouch hanging from his neck. Soon after this happened, the pilot managed to escape during a fortuitous Allied artillery barrage, making his way back to friendly lines… where he was apprehended and accused of being a spy or a saboteur (something which they would kill him for on the spot if he couldn’t prove his identity). He presented the coin as his only remaining ID, and was fortunate in that the soldiers recognized the insignia and arranged for someone to come and vouch for him. Having that coin on him literally saved his life and proved his identity as an Allied pilot rather than an imposter. Due to this, it’s tradition in the US Air Force that an Airman have his coin on him at all times. They’re issued an Airman’s Coin upon finishing Basic Training (or the various Officer equivalents) to show that they are officially members of the Air Force, and most units (and high-ranking personnel) have their own coins that they give out either to welcome newcomers or as a reward for some accomplishment. If you put your coin down on a table (or, you know, accidentally drop it when you are trying to get your keys out of your pocket or whatever), this is considered a Coin Challenge or a Coin Check. All other airmen nearby are required to produce their own coins in a certain short amount of time or else face the consequences (the consequences generally consist of you buying everybody’s drinks). If everybody else has a coin, the guy who instigated the coin check has to pay for the drinks. An airman can be coin checked in any place, at any time, no matter what. (It’s very Serious Business :D) ---
**Author:** ![aruvqan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aruvqan/32/2891_2.png) [@aruvqan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aruvqan)\ **Post date:** [October 12, 2010, 3:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wanted-obscure-military-trivia/556467/86 "2010-10-12T15:07:13Z")
> [@Raguleader](#): > > Due to this, it’s tradition in the US Air Force that an Airman have his coin on him at all times. They’re issued an Airman’s Coin upon finishing Basic Training (or the various Officer equivalents) to show that they are officially members of the Air Force, and most units (and high-ranking personnel) have their own coins that they give out either to welcome newcomers or as a reward for some accomplishment. > > If you put your coin down on a table (or, you know, accidentally drop it when you are trying to get your keys out of your pocket or whatever), this is considered a Coin Challenge or a Coin Check. All other airmen nearby are required to produce their own coins in a certain short amount of time or else face the consequences (the consequences generally consist of you buying everybody’s drinks). If everybody else has a coin, the guy who instigated the coin check has to pay for the drinks. An airman can be coin checked in any place, at any time, no matter what. (It’s very Serious Business :D) heh, my [army] dad carried a challenge coin as long as I knew him, and my husband [navy] carries a sub service challenge coin also =) [I now carry my dad’s challenge coin =)] I know a 16 year old [who intends to go into the Air Force Academy] who actually has a Secretary of the Navy challenge coin he got during a trip to Washington where he met and asked for one from the SecNav =) ---
**Author:** ![Bookkeeper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bookkeeper/32/281_2.png) [@Bookkeeper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bookkeeper)\ **Post date:** [October 12, 2010, 7:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wanted-obscure-military-trivia/556467/87 "2010-10-12T19:10:22Z")
> [@Alessan](#): > > > [@AK84](#): > > > > ^ > > Unlikely for the Nagasaki bomb was a plutonium bomb. > > Plutonium is made out of uranium. Um, [no it isn’t](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plutonium). ---
**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:** [October 12, 2010, 7:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wanted-obscure-military-trivia/556467/88 "2010-10-12T19:21:28Z")
> [@Bookkeeper](#): > > > [@Alessan](#): > > > > Plutonium is made out of uranium. > > Um, [no it isn’t](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plutonium). > [@From Linbk](#): > > Plutonium-238 is synthesized by bombarding uranium-238 with deuterons (D, the nuclei of heavy hydrogen) How is that different? ---
**Author:** ![Raguleader](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/258eb7/32.png) [@Raguleader](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Raguleader)\ **Post date:** [October 12, 2010, 10:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wanted-obscure-military-trivia/556467/89 "2010-10-12T22:24:53Z")
> [@carnivorousplant](#): > > > [@Bookkeeper](#): > > > > Um, [no it isn’t](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plutonium). > > > [@From Linbk](#): > > > > Plutonium-238 is synthesized by bombarding uranium-238 with deuterons (D, the nuclei of heavy hydrogen) > > How is that different? It might be made FROM Uranium, but it’s not made OF Uranium. If you took a hunk of Plutonium apart with a hammer, not only would you possibly get cancer, but you’d also not find any Uranium inside of it. ---
**Author:** ![Raguleader](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/258eb7/32.png) [@Raguleader](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Raguleader)\ **Post date:** [October 12, 2010, 10:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wanted-obscure-military-trivia/556467/90 "2010-10-12T22:26:29Z")
> [@aruvqan](#): > > heh, my [army] dad carried a challenge coin as long as I knew him, and my husband [navy] carries a sub service challenge coin also =) > > [I now carry my dad’s challenge coin =)] > > I know a 16 year old [who intends to go into the Air Force Academy] who actually has a Secretary of the Navy challenge coin he got during a trip to Washington where he met and asked for one from the SecNav =) Yeah, all the services do challenge coins now, but the Air Force started it back before there was an Air Force of any kind in the US military.😃 My wife (also active-duty Air Force) has a Lieutenant General’s coin that she got by asking the General if she could see it. If I tried that, I’d probably just get shrugged off. :rolleyes:😃 ---
**Author:** ![acetylene](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/f19dbf/32.png) [@acetylene](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/acetylene)\ **Post date:** [October 12, 2010, 11:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wanted-obscure-military-trivia/556467/91 "2010-10-12T23:34:49Z")
> [@Disposable Hero](#): > > I’ve got into a bit of a friendly argument/competition with a colleague at work regarding obscure military trivia and in order to win this hard-fought campaign I need some more ammunition. > > For example he asserts that during WW2 90% of bombs dropped by the RAF fell within three miles of their target while during the first Gulf War 90% fell within three feet of their target. In response to this I fire back that there was significently more tonnage of bombs dropped on Vietnam/Cambodia/Laos during the Vietnam war than during all theatres in WW2. > > And so on. > > You get the idea! 🙂 If your colleague tries to trot out the fact that Churchill’s famous “We shall fight on the beaches” speech was actually performed by impersonator Norman Shelley, tell him it’s a rumor that [has been debunked](http://www.winstonchurchill.org/learn/myths/myths/an-actor-read-his-speeches). ---
**Author:** ![chacoguy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/50afbb/32.png) [@chacoguy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chacoguy)\ **Post date:** [October 12, 2010, 11:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wanted-obscure-military-trivia/556467/92 "2010-10-12T23:58:47Z")
The US Navy lost more ships during the Battle of Okinawa than during the remaining history of the republic. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2010, 12:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wanted-obscure-military-trivia/556467/93 "2010-10-13T00:00:52Z")
> [@Raguleader](#): > > It might be made FROM Uranium, but it’s not made OF Uranium. If you took a hunk of Plutonium apart with a hammer, not only would you possibly get cancer, but you’d also not find any Uranium inside of it. I think that’s just an issue of wording. You can say a table is made out of a tree without meaning that a table is a tree. ---
**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:** [October 13, 2010, 2:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wanted-obscure-military-trivia/556467/94 "2010-10-13T02:28:09Z")
> [@chacoguy](#): > > The US Navy lost more ships during the Battle of Okinawa than during the remaining history of the republic. Weren’t most of the losses due to kamikaze attack and were destroyers? Aircraft carriers with unarmoured flight decks are really messed up when airplanes full of explosives crash into them. Why did British carriers have armoured flight decks and American carriers did not? ---
**Author:** ![Raguleader](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/258eb7/32.png) [@Raguleader](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Raguleader)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2010, 8:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wanted-obscure-military-trivia/556467/95 "2010-10-13T08:41:35Z")
> [@carnivorousplant](#): > > > [@chacoguy](#): > > > > The US Navy lost more ships during the Battle of Okinawa than during the remaining history of the republic. > > Weren’t most of the losses due to kamikaze attack and were destroyers? Aircraft carriers with unarmoured flight decks are really messed up when airplanes full of explosives crash into them. > Why did British carriers have armoured flight decks and American carriers did not? Armor is very heavy, and requires substantial structural support. If you armor the flight deck, you effectively make the hangar deck smaller because there’s less room down there with all the required framework. They found that it was much more effective to have more planes to shoot down the kamikazis than it was to make the deck much thicker to withstand them after they hit. Also, an armored deck moves the center of gravity higher up, making the ship more unstable and more difficult to operate planes from. IIRC, without the armor plating on the deck, the American carriers were effectively able to carry double the number of planes as their British comrades. There were some armor-plated carriers after WWII, the _Midway_ Class (which got around the cramped hangar problem by being really REALLY big), but they pretty much went back to unarmored (and very very fast - aircraft carriers are some of the fastest ships in the Navy, and the nuclear ones don’t have to slow down to conserve fuel) carriers after they built the three _Midways_ (the last of which was decomissioned in 1992, nearly 50 years after they entered service) ---
**Author:** ![Deereman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/a3d4f5/32.png) [@Deereman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Deereman)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2010, 8:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wanted-obscure-military-trivia/556467/96 "2010-10-13T08:46:20Z")
> [@carnivorousplant](#): > > Weren’t most of the losses due to kamikaze attack and were destroyers? Aircraft carriers with unarmoured flight decks are really messed up when airplanes full of explosives crash into them. > Why did British carriers have armoured flight decks and American carriers did not? This webpage is an interesting read on just that subject: [Were Armored Flight Decks on British Carriers Worthwhile?](http://www.navweaps.com/index_tech/tech-030.htm) ---
**Author:** ![Hypno-Toad](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/b2d939/32.png) [@Hypno-Toad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hypno-Toad)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2010, 1:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wanted-obscure-military-trivia/556467/97 "2010-10-13T13:31:21Z")
Curse you **Deereman**. I wanted to link to that site and you beat me to it! ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2010, 2:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wanted-obscure-military-trivia/556467/98 "2010-10-13T14:36:21Z")
I don’t know if it’s true, but I was told that the manoeuvre called _la rueda_ (the wheel) or _la noria_ (the Fenris wheel, the watermill wheel) in Spanish was invented during the Spanish Civil War of 1936-9. It consists of several planes looping one after the other, dropping bombs or gunning a specific spot. If a single plane attacked a position which could attack back (anti-aircraft guns, tanks), then they would do it when it tried to climb back; by having several planes roll around, they were able to level the spot before the defenders could do anything about it. Among other locations, it was used to bomb trenches during the Battle of the Ebro, the longest of this war. ---
**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2010, 4:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wanted-obscure-military-trivia/556467/99 "2010-10-13T16:08:27Z")
> [@detop](#): > > > [@Boyo\_Jim](#): > > > > This sounds interesting. I rarely hear the term “hilarious” applied to Stalinist Russia. 😛 > > Just read the account. The engineers were told to reproduce the plane **exactly**. In other words, every little production defects on the plane were copied (erroneous rivet holes, communication tunnel painted two different colors [in the original, they probably ran out of one and continued with another], they even had to **ask** Djugachvili if the dials should be in metric or imperial units and if the markings should be a white or red star :eek::D). [Another account.](http://www.airspacemag.com/military-aviation/USSR.html)Not much humorous in it, even in safe retrospect, except for mentioning the Russians’ confusion over the name of one of the B-29’s, _Ramp Tramp_. ---
**Author:** ![Ranchoth](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ranchoth/32/1066_2.png) [@Ranchoth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ranchoth)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2010, 9:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wanted-obscure-military-trivia/556467/100 "2010-10-13T21:36:16Z")
> [@ElvisL1ves](#): > > [Another account.](http://www.airspacemag.com/military-aviation/USSR.html)Not much humorous in it, even in safe retrospect, except for mentioning the Russians’ confusion over the name of one of the B-29’s, _Ramp Tramp_. Just the article I was thinking of—I’ve got the dead tree version packed away, somewhere. 🆒 [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wanted-obscure-military-trivia/556467.md?page=4) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wanted-obscure-military-trivia/556467.md?page=6)