This settles it, the 1980’s were the best decade.

I have heard many people say that paperwork burdens are higher for checkout of portable and concealable weapons and i don’t doubt it.

However, just the travel paperwork and per diems for a large missile test would weigh 200 lbs.

In general small shit just seems to fit the totality of evidence to me.

I am just shitposting a bit here but someday in 25 more years some old man will read a thread like this and say, “oh man i remember something like that”.

An earlier post talked about training accidents and erosion of public trust in govt.

When you see a training accident with multiple dead bodies and the press release doesnt even report the correct number of bodies that gets you.

When the LAPD blows a TCV previously tested with 30lbs of TNT with “ten pounds of bootleg fireworks” that also gets you.

If you told me that Honda had a button that could convert to a James Bond style Lotus sub and drive into red sea i would believe you.

Not just practiced....practiced in NYC.

“Fucking PFC Pyle, what do you mean your stinger ‘fell out’ of your fucking raft and sank? The hardcases double as flotation devices!!”

“SIR, I switched over to the soft bags, sir! The hardcases aren’t as comfortable to sleep on, SIR!”

“Get out of my sight maggot!”

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They quit using stingers in itty bitty boats in July 1996, some general was PISSED about something!

They say what's old is new again.
We also can't rule out time travel.

Best I can do for that Honda is sometimes a beat to crap 45 in the Glovebox and a marginal handheld "maybe encrypted" radio with the range of about 12 feet.

Although the Caprice we had to move the old man around was armored (and would overheat daily)

Yeah nothing like getting chased by unknown agents in a Peugot from the Embassy to ASU, screaming for help on the radio and getting static..

Finally going down the road to ASU and getting them to lower the crash barriers..lol... NCS later "maybe you just pissed off someone in traffic"...

No, i read that as:

“We used to be in the itty bitty boat business. Shit went sideways and they took away our rafts. But now, WE’RE BACK BABY.”

No bullshit rules bro... just "do the job" without all the admin shenanigans and no one "lifing" you.

No "uniform" standard,

Some days, just Civvies depending on where we were and what we were doing, no way shape or form am I any type of "secret squirrel" (those guys at the time too concerned with hair care anyway), but we did allot of stuff outside of the margins.

Some Days, (and allot of guys adopted this) woodland BDU blouse, "UDT" trunks (never button top button, for reasons I can't explain)

Some days, "Smurf Bell Bottoms", flack jacket and white T-Shirt:

 

Some days, liberated A/F flight suit, flack jacket and dew rag on the head

 

Whatever, just do the job...

Frankly though, I didn't fit in later when the Clinton Administration came to power, allot of us didn't and all that crap started.

Boy does that bring back some memories.

Starting in 1995, MKV, crew of 1 officer, 5 enlisted, 16 seals, and four rubbers
Built in stinger station, made to drop seals onto beaches

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More on stinger-laden, crrc-laden, seal-laden mkv
Best part, they are FOR SALE!!!!

Group buy?

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Oh fuck, the MKV was equipped for at-sea stinger skeetshoots of scan eagles!!!!!

Hold my beer!!!!

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https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/27686/this-high-speed-special-operations-boat-used-by-navy-seals-can-now-be-yours

ITT....a lot of folks "know" things...then other folks who really KNOW things tell those other folks that they don't "know" what they are talking about.

The thing about arguments among anonymous folks with no known credentials....we could have a navy admiral arguing with a kid in middle school...or a scientist who specializes in aeronautics arguing with an anthropologist....everyone 'knows' they are right and that the other guys is stupid.

Nothing like an internet debate with total strangers over a topic that will never be proven to waste a weeknight

I think the guy who drove a Honda full of missiles across a foreign city AND TOOK PICS probably knows some shit.

He says that a shoulder fired missile cannot explain TWA800 and i believe him a lot more than Hall, Kallstrom, or Sandy Bergler.

At the same time, seals had a mutha fuckin speedboat they could drive directly onto a mutha fuckin airplane.

Maybe they also had Generation E stingers with 25k ceiling??

Just seeing that boat makes me proud to be an American.

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When they were shooting shit down it was this guy’s job to video it on betamax.

Unfortunately he taped over july 1996 with his kid’s dance recital.

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They stopped shooting down civilian airliners in 1996. No more. Not even one.

Before the Mark V was selected for lroduction there were a few prototypes produced by different companies:


MTU North America Circle 78 on Reader Service Card MTU continues its active involvement in the military marine market and has achieved an important milestone by winning two of the three Mark V special operations craft (SOC) test vessels for the U.S. Special Operations Command (SOCOM), which should lead to the purchase ofthe new Mark V (SOC), the company said. The program requirements are based on specific performance rather than a specific boat design. One of the crafts is powered by two 3,000-hp MTU diesel engines (16V396TE94) with surface- piercing propellers and the other has two 12V396TE94 (2,285 hp each) and KaMeWa waterjets. Other recent projects utilizing MTU power around the world include 10-foot by 40-foot patrol boats for Egypt, Coastal Mine Hunters for Egypt, Mine Hunters for Norway and SAAR V frigates for Israel.


—————-

The development of the Mark V SOC was very fast-paced, taking only 18 months from the initiation of the program to the actual delivery of the first boat on 4 September 1995. The United States Special Operations Command (USSOCOM) Contracting Directorate and a dedicated Program Management team executed this effort in record time, specifically because USSOCOM was given Agency level contracting authority. The contract was fulfilled when the full operational capability was met in 1999. In all, 20 Mk V SOC units were delivered to USSOCOM at a unit cost of $3.7 million.

The Mark V SOC deployment was less smooth. Problems included instances of the windshield and entire pilothouse assembly collapsing upon wave impact. However, these issues have been resolved, and the Mark V SOC has markedly improved maritime special operations capabilities.

The original Mk V SOC was designed to address the lack of any specifically conceived SEAL insertion craft. Prior to the Mk V SOC, SEALs traveled on any form of surface transport available, often resorting to taping lawn furniture to the available craft's deck. The original Mk V competition included three different designs, one Kevlar composite monohull, one aluminum monohull, and one aluminum catamaran hull; the aluminum monohull won. The Mk V SOC specifically incorporated a modular shock mitigation seating design to minimize injury.

Experience gained during training and operational usage showed the aluminum monohull transmitted the impact with the water to the craft's occupants more readily than a composite hull. Even after modifications such as the addition of shock-absorbing seats, the boats are capable of generating up to 20 Gs of force while slamming across waves. This led to many cases of bruises, sprained ankles, chipped teeth, and back, neck, and joint injuries. These injuries necessitated a replacement.

Redesign
On 11 January 2008 the U.S. Navy unveiled an experimental version of the Mark V Special Operations Craft, designated the Mk V.1, designed to reduce the number of injuries sustained by sailors and SEALs during the operation of the aluminum version of the vessel. Nicknamed the MAKO, the vessel was developed by a subsidiary of Hodgdon Shipbuilding, in collaboration with the University of Maine's Advanced Engineered Wood Composites Center. It features a hull made of layers of carbon fiber, a foam core, and an outer layer of Kevlar for additional strength. It was constructed and launched at the Hodgdon Yachts East Boothbay facility. The MAKO is lighter than the current Mk V. The Office of Naval Research funded the prototype "to compare the properties of composite construction with aluminum" versions of the same craft.

The missile thing to most people is about the navy accidentally downing TWA-800 with a manpads missile.

and then rational people dismiss it because both are full of holes you can fly a 747 through

and then the entire missile option is dead in the water so to speak.

That is called a red herring, when it hides the truth almost in plane sight and an impossible explanation is given to discredit hundreds of credible witnesses that saw something leave the surface of the water.

The amazing part is that anybody believes it.

Anybody here that can ID the radios on a MKV visually?

There are hi res pics at the seal museum website.

https://www.ozstravels.com/the-national-navy-udt-seal-museum/

Well well well, surprise surprise surprise.

Back several pages ago we had all the military comms experts saying that Quincy Gilliam DDS, captain of the Aphrodite, could not possibly have heard a clear channel voice message from one blacked out Navy boat to another.

Looks like the radio on a MKV can abso-fuckin-loootly respond to civilian distress maritime radio so it can probably transmit as well.

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I came into this thread expecting to hear how the missiles Reagan sold Iranian terrorists were used to shoot down an airliner from a diesel sub and instead it's the old MANPADS theory rehashed over and over. Can we at least be more creative? AQ was bombing things all throughout the 1990s. Iran had all kinds of missiles.

We have to get to page 23 before a totally believable conclusion is reached.  Oh well, It's all so tiresome.

Have we determined where John McLane and his Zippo were that night?

Wow, under scares running around sharing blue dresses.

OP Must be on the list.

I believe you mean "underscores", note I've only been here since 2001. How about you?
ETA @CherokeeRose

To everyone in the thread who said US Navy never did live fire stinger training in a Special Boat unit (pre-1996)….

http://www.warboats.org/frede.htm

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Also they had unencrypted icom radios

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We have also subtly shifted from bored and negligent Marines to bored and negligent SEALs.

No one ever said they didn't have marine band radios. It was said they wouldn't use them to talk to each other. During a live fire exercise they definitely would so the could warn civilian ships/boats out of the exercise area.

Here is the first MKV going into the water in 1995.

The year before TWA800.

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At some point later on they got fully automated guns

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Sometimes they even fucked around near NYC:

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Now, 20 total MKV boats built total, fewer delivered to navy by july 1996, 8 west coast 12 east coast, maybe 300 SBU guys in the whole world at that time.

Even the guys in san diego might know if something was fucky in july 1996.

The boats match the Aphrodite story very well (except for length but it was night, running lights out, and the MKV might heave differently than normal boats). Quincy Gilliam DDS died of a brain tumor in 2008 but he had two other unidentified people with him on the boat.

He had multiple interviews (his insistence) wit FBI so there is a 302 somewhere with the names of two other possibly still living people who could ID the boats from these pictures which would not have been easy to find in 1996-1999 timeframe.

http://twa800.com/report/exhibit36.htm

This thread is full of autism, or maybe down syndrome.

I can’t establish anything DID happen via internet shitposting but i can establish that something COULD happen with nonzero probability.

They fucked around a bit. Also SBU and SEALs could keep a secret for 25 years too.

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There is one SBU guy (sbu 22, not sbu 20) on record saying that in the late 1970s - early 1980s time period in mississippi their command did not want to give them live stingers conus because command thought that if a friendly helo on a conus training mission ever strafed the SBU they would shoot back LOL.

ETA the quote below pre-dates the MKV boats which had “stinger stations” and were allotted stingers most-def. if any US mil had Generation E 25kft superstangers it would be guys like these.

SBU tested the gen I redeye in like 1967 pt mugu or huonemme spelling.

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You guys are like little dogs with new bones... Like the MKV's are something "new"

SBU's..... "Welcome to Vietnam"...

We had MSB Hercules and Wimbrown 7 which were Seafox, Sea Septer and MK3 PBR mobile bases during Earnest Will. And our "Stinger" teams were assigned to them for the ADA environment.  



It was a questionable tactic as was called out later by multiple people as, the potential for "Beirut Barracks Number 2"

I got in theater at the "end" of the MSB days, but from the older guys it apparently was the "Wild West"

Good read on Small Boats Ops in Gulf

I played the number 800 in the lotto the night the flight went down.  And it came out. Straight 800   It paid like $ 27. For a straight and box ticket. Apparently everyone in No played it also.

I didn't say they couldn't use open comms,I said if they were on some super secret CIA mission to blow away a civilian airliner, they wouldn't.
Everything in your theory has to be connected or it falls apart.
If it was an accidental shoot, you have to commit to that line of argument, if intentional, that's a separate road to travel.

what does 17 July 1989 have to do with it?

I wish someone with real experience would chime in on how well it worked.  My guess is the back blast would melt/deflate that rubber boat.

Sounds like reason for them to get on their radio and call for help.