Commissar Geo Bartlette (31st Harakoni Warhawks)

Boxer-4 rally enthusiast.

[Commissar Geo Bartlette (31st Harakoni Warhawks) @GeoGDF01]

Current state of NY Penn->LA Union rail in this country is a total of 3,224 miles in 67 hours, assuming no delays and with a half-day layover at Union Station, Chicago. Which pretty much will be eaten up by 48's trip westbound from Albany. Usually.

[Commissar Geo Bartlette (31st Harakoni Warhawks) @GeoGDF01]

@AngryTrapMidget Argh, I'm thinking the Lexes.

[Commissar Geo Bartlette (31st Harakoni Warhawks) @GeoGDF01]

The Alabama is a Treaty Battleship, the best one (and her sisters) ever made.

[Christopher Wipper @SGTWipper1Each]

Two legends. Same nine 16-inch guns. Very different stories.

USS Alabama (BB-60) was built for a fight, not a parade. At 680 feet and 35,000 tons, she was compact by battleship standards; a South Dakota-class bruiser designed to hit hard and absorb punishment. Top speed: 27.5 knots. Her war was the Pacific, and she earned it.

USS Iowa (BB-61) was something else entirely. At 887 feet and 45,000 tons, she was longer than three football fields and fast enough (33 knots) to keep pace with the carriers she was built to protect. That combination of size and speed made her not just a battleship, but a bodyguard for the entire fleet.

Alabama punched above her weight. Iowa simply outweighed everyone.

The gap between them isn't just numbers. It's a statement about what the Navy needed at different moments. Alabama was the workhorse of classic fleet engagements. Iowa was a different animal; a ship that outlasted WWII, showed up in Korea, came back from retirement during the Cold War, and was still firing her guns in the Gulf War four decades after her commissioning.

Both carry the same armament. Both are now museum ships. But Iowa's resume is longer, her hull is bigger, and her legacy is harder to summarize in a single war.

[Commissar Geo Bartlette (31st Harakoni Warhawks) @GeoGDF01]

@AngryTrapMidget I'm very glad the SoDak (1920s) never got built... freaking paper armor (or I might be thinking Lex/Toga)...

[Oilfield Rando @Oilfield_Rando]

What the FUCK

[Commissar Geo Bartlette (31st Harakoni Warhawks) @GeoGDF01]

@AngryTrapMidget They did get used as our 18" testbed, bored out.

(Yes, I'm a Georgia stan in WOWS... back when I played)

[Commissar Geo Bartlette (31st Harakoni Warhawks) @GeoGDF01]

@AngryTrapMidget Merging BuCR and BuEng was long overdue by that point. Reading up on the Simms class is... a bit horrifying.

[Commissar Geo Bartlette (31st Harakoni Warhawks) @GeoGDF01]

Not sort of, the Escalator Clause was part of the treaty, so it counts. The reason why she's only armored against 14"s wasn't because of Congress' usual stinginess this time - she was too far along in the design/construction/long lead item purchase chain to go for a full re-design... plus the SoDaks (the BBs, not BCs) were already iterating through the design section.

Hence why we only got two of those girls.

[Commissar Geo Bartlette (31st Harakoni Warhawks) @GeoGDF01]

@AngryTrapMidget Yup. BuOrd gonna BuOrd.

[InfantryDort @infantrydort]

The Media Only Loves Us When We’re Dead: Part II

I’m not done with this "reporter" yet. And I won’t stay silent while the media drags warfighters who bled for this nation and are now trying to make it better.

I’ll be honest, I’m ashamed I didn’t look deeper into the story of @SeanParnellUSA sooner. The GWOT cuts too close to my own scars, so I looked away from the broader history. But not anymore.

Media scrutiny isn’t new. Even George Washington was mocked in print. But the latest attacks on Sean Parnell say far more about the press than they do about him.

So pause and remember where you were on June 10, 2006.

1. The most popular song was Hips Don’t Lie.
2. The top movie was Cars.
3. And Sean Parnell was leading 39 men through a mountain ambush by over 250 enemy fighters. He was wounded three times, and stayed in the fight. By the end of that deployment, 85% of his platoon had been wounded.

Funny how you only get one Purple Heart for taking three hits in one battle, but a thousand paper cuts from the press for doing nothing wrong.

So let me get this straight: guys like him are good enough to fight your wars, bury their friends, and carry the silence of it all for the rest of their lives, but not good enough to help fix the institutions that failed them?

Who better than them?

You think you're criticizing one man. But behind every name you recognize is a platoon’s worth of warriors you never will. Quiet. Steady. Carrying the same resolve that got them all home. And whether you realize it or not, the hopes of a generation of warfighters rest quietly on his and @PeteHegseth's shoulders.

You forget: the fire that forged these men didn’t burn them up, it tempered them. And here’s the part you never seem to learn:

If you keep mocking the warriors who came home and tried to lead, don’t act surprised when fewer of them show up next time. Why would they?

Or maybe that’s the media's goal? But it won't work.

Because in this country, it seems the only time the media honors them... is when they’re coming home in a box draped in the American Flag.

***Please share this widely to counter the harmful "media" narratives that exist to malign warfighters who bled in battle and are trying to make a difference.***

[InfantryDort @infantrydort]

I want to explain something for civilians because they have no frame of reference.

To be honest, I actually don’t have a frame of reference here either. Because I never experienced combat like this. Most of us in GWOT haven’t.

I’ve fought over multiple tours. Have a few Bronze Stars. A Presidential Unit Citation and two Valorous Unit Awards. So I can safely say I was in units that experienced some pretty serious fighting.

But yes JD, I did ask @SeanParnellASW about the incident in question. And my personal experience pales in comparison.

During this fight, enemy elements the size of companies were annihilated. To provide some frame of reference, my engagements yielded single digits to a few to maybe a dozen enemy KIA at a time (maybe a few dozen idk). And that’s on the high side.

A company is 100+. So the scale is mind boggling.

Sean Parnell and his Outlaw Platoon effectively fought like they were in Vietnam or Korea, not Afghanistan.

We were all talking the other day on here about combat experience and how it varies so much. What he experienced was on the highest side imaginable for our war.

80+% of his platoon was wounded. Every single person in his weapon’s squad was shot in the head. Every one. Their Kevlar helmets saving them.

I just want it understood how absolutely insane this is. It is entirely a one off experience during the war on terror.

During the fight mentioned below, he had to call in B1 bombs, A10s, and Apaches. To kill an enemy COLUMN (yes I said column), of 200+ Taliban. Vaporizing most of them. This happened more than once on the tour as well.

His men were killing enemies in trenches (yes I said trenches). It’s just mind boggling. The details are in the book ‘Outlaw Platoon’ but you get the idea I hope.

We should keep telling these stories. And we should always remember who chooses to keep serving long after they take off the uniform. Sean is in the Pentagon now. But a sneaking suspicion tells me that sometimes, he’d rather be back in battle with the boys.

Because for an Infantryman, battle is always where home is supposed to be.

It’s brutality incarnate, but the clarity of purpose is one that can’t be experienced anywhere else in life. I can’t explain it to you. I doubt he can either. But it’s real.

One of his boys is depicted below. And his truck after a fight. I add them here for effect.

[travis4nh @travis4nh]

I am calling on the US Federal Government to intervene in the ongoing British Civil War ... on the side of Britons.

[Joseph Mallozzi 🏴‍☠️ @BaronDestructo]

Simpler, happier times!

[Commissar Geo Bartlette (31st Harakoni Warhawks) @GeoGDF01]

@SwampFox8 Washington is the only one of them to boast a solo kill, so she is forever the best.

[UcKema - Nixons Strongest Contra Inflation Soilder @uckema]

This is how you can tell black people who have never seen the NOI /black power adjacent black families since this is the sort of name you see in Philidephia, NYc, hell some of Albany or Chicagoland . It's not as popular now but it's older. Someone never went to the hood barbersho

[Devil Doc @bigred3319]

@SGTWipper1Each They do not carry the same armament. So Daks had the 16”/45 mark 6 like the North Carolina class. Iowas had the 16”/50 mark 7. Iowas max range was 4 miles longer.

[SirWhiteRabbit @MagisterTekton]

@RealTexasRick @SGTWipper1Each All three class, North Carolina, South Dakota and Iowa could use the Panama Canal at 108-ft beam.

[7% NaCl (Salty) @TwoRulesOfWar]

‘Without the Army doing traditional, critical Army things, we can’t win a ground fight’.

You don’t say.

[Thales of Florida @FloridaThales]

I am Catholic. I do not agree with this. Happy to share this country with my Protestant brothers and sisters in Christ.

The Founders knew how stupid Christian infighting was after seeing Europe go to war several times over it. Our country was founded on letting go of this.

[WarOwl @TheWarOwl]

The new Stargate series is dead. The reason Amazon cancelled it has me absolutely infuriated.

This show could have been massive, the timing could not have been better. The news is full of ancient alien conspiracies and actual advancements in space exploration. Nearly every sci-fi property is failing their target demographic. Star Trek sucks, Star Wars sucks. What an opportunity to create a great show; squandered.

Amazon's Stargate series was created by show veterans and designed to respect the established lore, and thus respect the dedicated fanbase.

The executives at Amazon thought they knew better. They read the script and did not believe the show would appeal to an audience outside of the established core viewerbase. They told them to abandon the world that had been built up over 17 seasons to appeal to a mythical 'modern audience'. The showrunners refused, held their ground, said 'I die free', and thus the show was cancelled. Massive respect to them.

As a LONG time Stargate fan who has watched through SG1 at least half a dozen times: I would rather have NOTHING than a betrayal. I would rather we never get another Stargate property again than see them do to my favorite show what they've done to The Lord of the Rings with 'The Rings of Power'.

Impudence!

This is an actual quote from SG1: "Never underestimate your audience. They're generally sensitive, intelligent people who respond positively to quality entertainment."

[BuBBliK @k1rallik]

🚨 do you understand what happened to Chutou..

A border collie with 1.5 million followers was stolen off his family's farmland while his owner was traveling abroad.

He was sold to a dog meat restaurant for $27, killed, and eaten before anyone could find him.

- Chutou was an 8-year-old border collie famous for joining his owner on years of journeys across China
- Security footage caught two strangers hauling him away on an electric bike
- He was wearing both a collar and a GPS tracker when he was taken
- The owner offered $1,500 to get him back - the thief had already sold him for $27

One man's most loyal companion became a $27 meal, and in China that broke no law.