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Author Topic: 30 (!) Years Ago: Desert Storm starts  (Read 6491 times)

bbmike

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Reply #15 on: January 17, 2021, 08:40:53 PM
... Which reminds me, I retire next year!  :o  :biggrin:

June 30th, 2021 fer me. It's official!   :D


"My life is spent in one long effort to escape from the commonplace of existence."
-Sherlock Holmes

My Own Worst Enemy


besilarius

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Reply #16 on: January 18, 2021, 10:52:16 AM
The thing that still comes to mind is Genl Schwarzkopf's news conference.
In earlier interviews, during and before, the attack kicked off, he had mentioned that he knew things could go wrong.
That some of his people would die and that the whole operation could be a failure.  Some nights he couldn't sleep because of his worries.
During the presentation, he characterised the wide flanking maneuver through the desert as a "Hail Mary" play in football.
This term was introduced by Roger "The Dodger" Staubach.  A last second pass into the end zone, that either won the game or lost it.  A desperation play.
Well looking at the map, with V Corps moving five armored/mechanised divisions in a tight fist, that was not a Hail Mary.
That was Vince Lombardi's Packers Sweep, with Jerry Kramer and Fuzzy Thurston leading Paul Horning around the flank.

"These things must be done delicately-- or you hurt the spell."  - The Wicked Witch of the West.
"We've got the torpedo damage temporarily shored up, the fires out and soon will have the ship back on an even keel. But I would suggest, sir, that if you have to take any more torpedoes, you take 'em on the starboard side."   Pops Healy, DCA USS Lexington.


mcguire

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Reply #17 on: January 26, 2021, 02:09:18 PM
I was vaguely following the build up (I was working at IBM in Austin and trying to get into grad school at the time), but I missed the actual start---my first clue was that I had to badge into the parking lot rather than just drive up to the building's parking.

"Man...knowing how to use the cards properly certainly changes how I play the game" -- judgedredd


mcguire

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Reply #18 on: January 26, 2021, 02:26:20 PM
I remember the relief at seeing how successful the Patriots were at destroying SCUDS.

The Patriot's software is (or at least was) the topic of a certain amount of discussion in computer science circles. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MIM-104_Patriot#Failure_at_Dhahran.

Weirdly, the project I was working on at the time (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taligent) is also sometimes noted as a major software disaster.

"Man...knowing how to use the cards properly certainly changes how I play the game" -- judgedredd