Just a few more pictures

[pecunium]

I'm sorry I've not been writing much. A lot going on, and the effort to find things to write about is more than I have to spare. I can noodle an image, or two, from the library in odd moments, and so you get more pictures.

Her are four, each different from the others.


Hitler's Mercedes


On the Lookout


July, at 10,000 ft.


The Launch


As usual, there are more. I can't seem to load less than about 20 lately.

Comments

[auriaephiala.livejournal.com]

The geek in me wonders how well armored the Mercedes was.

Nice pix, all of them, but the car grabbed me the most.

B-- and I had one of those weird "discussions from nowhere" yesterday, which raised a question that you might be able to answer: is there a general military principle (U.S. or Canadian or other armed forces) that soldiers should be relocated regularly -- beyond the normal necessities of filling empty positions or handling promotions? Googling produces the impression that "permanent changes of station" in the U.S. military are extremely impermanent, but no reasons why they happen.

[pecunium.livejournal.com]

The geek in me is able to tell you it was armored to a fare-thee-well. For the day I don't think it got better. The glass is about 3/4" inch thick. The whole think is on a really heavy suspension, and the motor bay is huge.

For the US Army the policy is (though there are rumors this is being changed) that a soldier shall not be in one place for more than 3 years. This is supposed to maintain flexibility, by keeping units from becoming too insular. The idea being that a uniform culture will be maintained in the army-as-whole, while the individual units will keep a local culture, which isn't too different.

In practice, that's sort of weak. Officers have more flexibility than enlisted, because they can be made to change branch. Infantry units are where infantry soldiers go. Airborne soldiers try to stay in airborne units, etc.

When you get to things like interrogators, there are only so many units which need them (though it's more than one might think, because divisions have platoons in the organin MI Bn, which have interrogators).

For a soldier to contrive to stay in one place is called, "homesteading" and is frowned on. It can stunt a carreer. The new policy is supposed to be same station for 7 years, but with the possibility of being rotated to a different unit on the installation. It's new, so we'll know in about five years if it's going to work out/be kept.

But PCS moves, and the strain on the family, combined with the present optempo is making for unhappy spouses, and it's a recruiting truism that, "when the spouse is happy, the soldier stays in. If the spouse is unhappy, the soldier leaves," so there's a strong push to make things more stable for married troops.

In theory one could do an entire career on one installation, under the new rules. I don't think that will be allowed to become common, but it could happen.

The Brits do things very differently, and unless one is in a specialty like Intel, I am informed one usually stays withing the regt, barring career moves for officers.

I don't know about Canada. Perhaps goshawk could explain it.

[asimovberlioz.livejournal.com]

Too bad the Mercedes doesn't look like Sonny Corleone's car.

[auriaephiala.livejournal.com]

Thanks muchly for the clear explanation.