Diary of a Down-Range Rat: First Entry
(This is an account from an actual down-range rat. The only changes that I have made to his emails are editing that I have performed with the permission of said individual. All individual's names have been withheld for privacy purposes.)
The "range" is the firing range. "Down range" is where the target is. The firing range, in my case, was located at the Vandenberg Air Force Base, and the down-range target was us. The missile was the Atlas ICBM, aka "The Big Bird." The "range rats" are just like the "desert rats," except the former stand in as targets for birds instead of targets for tanks. =] Besides that, we were well known to have a rather scruffy appearance....
The Phoenix Island Groups where my colleagues and I worked had three SDR sites. SDR-1 on Canton Island, SDR-2 on Enderbury Island, and SDR-3 on Hull Island. Seven of us functioned as the range rats. Our counterpart on the Atlantic side was the Ascension Island with the MILs who located the missile impacts for Eastward shots.
For safety and security, the ICBMs are fired over the ocean from a location within the control of the United States, which includes the Pacific and the Atlantic coasts. The advantage of the earth's spin requires that the birds be as far south as possible.
The Coriolis Effect is 900 knots times the cosine of the latitude. One nautical mile is one minute of the earth's surface. One knot is one nautical mile per hour, abbreviated as "knot" or "kt." 60 minutes/degree times 360 degrees to circumvent the earth in 24 hours means that a point on the equator travels 900 kts due to the earth's spin, because the cosine of 90 degrees is 1. As another example: Salem, OR, which is located at 45 degrees North Latitude, travels 900 kts times .707 (the cosine of of 45 degrees), or about 630 nautical miles per hour (around 700 statute miles per hour).
These calculations are just Basic Fire Control 101.
******* Don't read beyond this point unless you want to hear an assessment of the world affairs from an Xpat with cynical tendencies, in a satire format :-D *******
War games can suck, especially if you are in the military. Although we range rats were under the umbrella of the Uniform Code of Military Justice, we were civilians. Many of us were Navy-trained Fire Control Techs and Electronic Techs. Highly trained in math and physics. Range rats needed to possess a combined General Classification Test and Arithmetic Test score of at least 120. GCT is numerically the IQ divided by two. For example, my GCT of 65 is the equivalent of a 130 intelligence quotient. My ARI was 64. The combination was well over the required Navy requirement of 120. [My colleague's] score was essentially the same as mine, but he went into radio communication rather than weapons control.
Our training ran for 6.5 hours per day, five days per week, every single week of the year, and focused on on math, physics, and electronics. My Fire Control "A" school at San Diego was six months long. My Fire Control "B" school at Great Lakes Illinois was a solid year long. When I was at the University of Colorado, I got two hours of math and physics per week. In the Navy, we got six and a half hours per day. That doesn't include the three-year "Navel Ordinance and Gunnery" correspondence course, the three-year "General Oceanography" correspondence course, the three years of teaching the Polaris Guided Missile Fire control System, or more than a dozen "C" schools that range from 3 weeks to 6 weeks.
I would suggest that military trained techs learn more about their job than their civilian counterparts who spend a few years on campus. The big difference is that the trainee is motivated differently in the civilian camp than in the military camp. Ironically, the government requires an engineering degree for a less demanding job. I suspect that requirement has to do with job security for the Education Lobby that wants tuition for anyone that has a high E number in the government work force. But then, the sycophant camp lives by altogether different rules than do the individuals who get the sensitive jobs done. Ironically, us scruffy "whatever" rats have job security when the economy goes south. The only reason I'm not in the field right now is my age. Due to the magnificant efforts of the Republicans in the Middle East, age might not even be a job frustration in the near future. I have been offered a number of teaching jobs, but my responsibility to Mom kept me domesticated. [My partner] did more for Mom than I did by taking care of her so well, and I love her for it. I probably won't go into the field again, unless things get nastier than they are in Israel. The Middle East is a time bomb, from Tunisia to Turkey and East through Russia. I agree with you: the "Gun Came Out" and "Sumpins Gonna Happen".
Well, that was a rather far-reaching assessment of the world situation. The whole mess is orchestrated by the religious convictions of a bunch of fundamentalists in the Middle East and North Africa who have little regard for national boundaries or the significance of a national flag. They serve themselves, and claim their allegiance to a higher power. History repeats itself. The world is involved in another damned Crusade. Nobody wins. One side simply loses more than the other. This time, it isn't the Christians who oppose the Muslims. The Pope has already lost his world empire. It's simply us, the U.S., who oppose the Muslims. In Navy terms, "Stand by for a Ram."
To get up to date... I hope the "Tea Party" on the East Coast Head Shed decide to keep our Commander in Chief of our common National Defense Department functional. I would hate to see our military not get paid for their job, like what happened to Russia. But then, history says that countries can fall when the Head Shed loses sight of their responsibilities. I personally believe it would be in our best interests to pay our bills, at least to the Americans who work for a living.
