User talk:Elde

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Hello "Elde" and welcome to Wikipedia. A few tips for you:

Infrogmation 16:56, 31 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Two sailors reminisce[edit]

Welcome aboard! I like your "To Do" list; please take a look at Wikipedia:WikiProject Ships for some suggestions as to format and naming conventions -- but don't hesitate to suggest better ways to do it! I was on Ohio Blue Crew's first two patrols. What boats were you in? --the Epopt, MM1(SS).

Thanks! Strat weps and submarines are is something of a hobby of mine. I brought the '55 out of overhaul then did four on her out of Kings Bay, then taught at TTF. (Still live in Kitsap.) Nuke or A-ganger? Elde 17:58, 13 Jan 2004 (UTC) FTB2/SS

ELT. '55 == Stimson? That part of Washington is a beautiful place. --the Epopt

Yes, the good ol' hogbody herself. (Which reminds me, I ought to add the fleet nicknames to the boat pages.) I did 'C' school here, and loved it, so when I got offered an instructor billet here I jumped on it. 'bout ready to move back to a place with four real seasons though. It's been sad driving by the shipyard and seeing parts of old boats loaded into rail cars as scrap. Elde 02:05, 14 Jan 2004 (UTC)

Absolutely you should add any nicknames you know! I've added a very few, but with only one, brand-new boat on my record, I'm not salty enough to know very many.

It's not about salt, it's more that T-hulls (for whatever reason) never really used 'em. It was real shock when I came out here just how different the '41 and Trident fleets were socially and sociologically.
There are a variety of reasons for this, but the biggest is the simplest; Trident crews simply never took pride in their boats. I never saw a Trident sailor say "*I'm* on the Ohio" with the same "and ya wanna make something of it?" attitude you commonly saw on the older boats. For whatever reason the crews just never identified themselves with their boats.
Odd thing about the nicknames though... Some, like Georgefish were known throughout the fleet, the same for Lost and Confused or Jolly Dolly and others. Yet the Stimson was known as the 'hog only to her crew. Elde 06:34, 14 Jan 2004 (UTC)

Is it a Trident-only thing, or an all-boomers thing? <psychology style="armchair">We never felt we owned the boat because every three months we had to let 150 strangers take her away from us and get her all stinky. (We didn't stink, but the Goldies sure did.)</psychology> I remember several of us consciously trying to think up nicknames, starting with "O-hole" and getting stupider from there, but nothing would stick.

I think it was a Trident-only thing. You saw that attitude in Charleston quite strongly, and in the sailors I met out of Groton and Pearl. (At least in the '41 all boats had three crews anyhow, Gold, Blue, and Other. It was always the Other crew that effed things up.) It wasn't just nicknames, and 'pride' but other things as well, the 'pride' thing was just the most noticeable. (That may come from how little time you spent on your boats. You were only really on them during patrol, whereas we were away from home for refit.) The nicknames I remember were "O-hyro" and "Showboat" for Ohio. Elde 23:52, 18 Jan 2004 (UTC)

Article series[edit]

Hi, you had previously expressed an interest in Wikipedia:Article series. Jengod, Jiang and I disagree on what types of articles are suitable for a series and. Just thought I'd let you know since watchlists aren't usually working these, and only three people have opined at all. Tuf-Kat 07:43, Jan 17, 2004 (UTC)

Thanks T-K, I'll stop in and review/comment. Elde 23:52, 18 Jan 2004 (UTC)

Hi![edit]

Nice to see someone else in from my hometown. - Fennec 03:34, 27 Jan 2004 (UTC)

We're everywhere, we're everywhere! :) Elde 03:38, 27 Jan 2004 (UTC)

USS Tulibee / Disambiguation[edit]

Hi. Thanks for the tip. Without the disambig tag, I mistook USS Tullibee for a stub. Also, please don’t edit my User page in the future; please use my talk page, or I can’t see your message. --Merovingian 11:26, Jan 28, 2004 (UTC)

Lemon Party[edit]

What was "horrid" about Lemon Party? I agree that it should be deleted--or better yet, made a redirect, since the material was already at shock site. But to say so to the creator was just too harsh--it was a legitimate encyclopedia article on a piece of internet culture. Don't Bite the Newbies. Yours, Meelar 19:34, 10 Mar 2004 (UTC)

It was 'horrid' mostly because it was poorly written and seems to serve no real purpose. My comment was made to the individual that marked the page for deletion. (I may have mis-clicked, if so, that was an error.) Elde 09:01, 11 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Two stage to orbit[edit]

I'll be interested in reading why TSTO gets so much more attention than other multistage rocket configurations. Nobody gets excited about "three stage to orbit". Mackerm 08:11, 11 Mar 2004 (UTC)

George H. explained it in a reply to your message on sci.space.history, I'll adapt it when I get a moment.Elde 09:05, 11 Mar 2004 (UTC)


Great Seal of the Realm[edit]

<<Copied from Rednblu talk page>>

I do not understand why you moved my comment on a page that describes a physical object to the page of the man charged with the keeping of that object.. Especially since the comment, now sans context, makes no sense. Elde 07:33, 30 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Sorry for the interruption. I completed the page at Great Seal of the Realm to replace the redirect and restored your comments. ---Rednblu 20:44, 2 Sep 2004 (UTC)

January 15 Seattle meetup[edit]

Just wanted to let you know we are planning another Seattle meetup on January 15, 2005. We're trying to get a sense of who will attend, so please drop by that page & leave a note. -- Jmabel | Talk 00:46, Dec 23, 2004 (UTC)

Page move / Deadwood[edit]

(Note to future readers, see this talk page for context.)

Someone moved the page to Deadwood (television program), after which I was considering moving it to Deadwood (television programme), i.e. the proper spelling of the word. But in an effort not to start up a BE/AE argument, I've erred for neutrality, and followed the example of The West Wing (TV series) by moving the page to Deadwood (television). BLANKFAZE | (что??) 20:48, 10 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

  • Why was it moved at all? SchmuckyTheCat 22:45, 10 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]
  • Yes, I don't understand either, it was fine. The link for the city was Deadwood, South Dakota. Who moved it? I think we should have discussed this before it was moved. Just my opinion. Sfufan2005 14:14, May 11, 2005 (UTC)
    • I did not move it, (though I suggested it) but I can understand why. There are multiple articles with the basic name of Deadwood, which means we need a disambiguation page and proper naming ( _(Game), _(Television Program), etc...)Elde 17:49, 11 May 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Meetup?[edit]

Wikipedia:Meetup/Seattle3. Interested? -- Jmabel | Talk 23:35, 5 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Sub alarms[edit]

I invite your attention to User:the Epopt/Sub alarms. I've started the article in user-space because I fear it would not survive an AfD attack in its present form. Please make any (suggestions for) improvements you can think of. Thanks for your help! ➥the Epopt 21:19, 13 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Hardened targets v retaliation[edit]

  • I'll reply to each part individually.

While its true that Polaris was not accurate enough for attacking small hardened targets like silos, these are not the only worthwhile military targets. So the choice of the planners was not the simple black and white choice that your question suggests. There are many other essential military targets that don't involve targetting population centres, eg. airfields, radar and SAM sites to name but a few that cannot be buried underground, but are essential to take-out to reduce counterattack on western targets. But its also true that many essential military targets are in or close to population centres. No one said that war would be painless.

  • All true. However, that was not the role Polaris was originally envisaged as playing. It was, as I point out in the article, intially deployed as naval weapon targeted on aimpoints of naval interest. It wasn't until much later that the SIOP and Triad became nuclear policy - and at that point Polaris was used mostly in the retaliatory role, as have all US SLBM's to date.Elde
    • 'In a retaliatory role.' Only in political context can that be said to be true, and only in that context can I agree with you. But the Wiki article is about the history of the Polaris missile system, not about our attitudes to the Cold War. The military planned and built Polaris to meet several precise military requirements; to be used against some types of targets. It wasn't intended as either a weapon of retaliation or to be used in a different way, whether capable of that or not. The term retaliation was only useful to governments as a means of convincing their populations that they did not INTEND to use it except in retaliation. That is of no consequence when considering precisely how Polaris would be used by the military to achieve that retaliation, and presumably only after a nuclear attack by an enemy. So 'in the retaliatory role' is a meaningless phase in this context. And retaliation meant different things to the two different users anyway. See below ref Moscow. Regards. Brian.Burnell 13:32, 7 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]


Polaris was a weapon that was best used in a similar manner to cruise missiles are used now to soften-up the peripheral defences to reduce risk to the follow-up aircrews. By taking-out radars bomber survivability would improve, and Polaris was well-suited to the first wave; just as are cruise missiles now. Don't confuse 'first wave' with 'first strike'

  • If you are part of the first wave, you are by definition, part of the first strike. Polaris was not a first strike weapon - no US SLBM to date has been.Elde
    • Not so. Read my lips. I did not suggest that Polaris was a first strike weapon. I said that 'it was well-suited to the first wave'. To avoid further confusion I'll rephrase it as 'well-suited to the first wave of a retaliatory strike, or of any other strike'. For both the US and UK the term first strike has assumed an unpleasant partisan political meaning that is not helpful in understanding these processes from a strictly technical viewpoint. One reason why I was at pains to point out the difference. I try to avoid using the term 'First Strike' precisely because on both sides of the nuclear weapons divide it evokes a response that has become in large part an emotional one, with the term bandied around by politicians and non-politicians alike to make partisan political points without an understanding of its strictly technical meaning. Using it in this context suggests that the user is either pro-nuclear weapons or anti-nuclear weapons. In writing on this topic I always try to avoid either label, and I think I usually succeed in putting the technical history of the weapons across without betraying to the reader what my own personal views are. This is after all, an encyclopaedia, not a platform for partisan views. My allusion to the cruise missile first wave scenario is valid. Regards. Brian.Burnell 13:32, 7 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]


Another important factor is timing. SSBNs can get up close to the enemy coastline and fire on depressed trajectories that reduce warning time to single digit minutes, and an enemy has little chance to run for cover. ICBMs fired from the U.S. cannot do that, no matter how accurate they are, and the Soviets would see them coming and allow them 20-25 minutes to get their bombers and missiles off the ground. Destruction of radar sites would 'blind' the Russians to the following ICBMs and bombers. Just one bomber scrambled before the missile hits could go on to take-out New York. Would you want that?

  • That's a theory often bandied about in the popular press - and sometimes in the professional press. The reality is that as US SLBM ranges increased, US SSBN's patrolled steadily further away. (This reduces their vulnerability to ASW.)Elde
    • Not so. USN Polaris A3 had a nominal range of 2'500 nm, but with the intro of Poseidon the range fell to 2'200 nm in some circumstances (dependent on warhead numbers). Likewise with the UK Polaris A3T at 2'500 nm. With the intro of A3TK Chevaline the range fell to 1'950 nm. Regards. Brian.Burnell 13:32, 7 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]


Retaliation? Don't fall into the trap of believing the pap that governments want us to believe. People in cities would die whether they were the targets or not.

There is an update of the Polaris page. A Chevaline page update will follow later.

  • I'll have to fix your updates - because by and large they are incorrect and misleading.Elde
    • Not incorrect or misleading from a UK perspective. Perhaps Wiki needs a separate page for the UK Polaris because although the British military staffs requirements and strategy were closely meshed with a common NATO targetting plan they also had distinctive additional features to provide a national nuclear strike capability that could be used without involvement with their allies. To spell that out bluntly, the UK did not believe that in all circumstances it could rely on the US to retaliate for a nuclear attack on the UK when the US itself had not been attacked. Bluntly again, with London a heap of glowing ashes, would a sane, rational US government sacrifice most major US cities to retaliate on behalf of the British? Put simply, the UK government did not truly believe it would retaliate, and from that conclusion grew the different requirements for the UK Polaris, and the differences in military planning, and especially the requirement to penetrate the Moscow ABM defences. A requirement that the US never demanded of Polaris; they had numerous other systems that could do that; and more importantly, none of those systems was ever expected to be used alone, but as a component of a team. Conversely, the UK Polaris was the only member of the UK team. Regards Brian.Burnell 13:32, 7 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]


As a young graduate engineer I worked on the UK nuclear weapon programme from the mid-1950s, working on all the major UK projects from Blue Danube through to Polaris. I wasn't aware that Allen Thompson was still extant. He has never answered my emails. Any questions? Contact via my User Talk page. Brian Burnell.

  • I was a Trident fire control tech in the 80's and have studied SLBM operations for over twenty five years now.Elde
    • I've been writing on these topics now for around twentyfive years too, mainly from a UK perspective. This is an interesting time because the decision to commit the UK to Chevaline was finally taken in 1975, and the papers leading up to that decision are now being declassified and placed in public archives under the thirty-year rule. They trickle out year-on-year, but we now have most of them up to 1975. Doubtless there will be others in the coming years cataloguing the development, in-service and retirement phases. On targetting: we now have access to the UK's targetting rational, ususally referred to as 'The Moscow Criterion' in MoD documents; and target maps and ABM intelligence on which the case for Polaris A3T and A3TK Chevaline was based. They can be emailed if of interest.

Rather than get into an editing war, and it would be sensible to collaborate where possible. Regards. Brian.Burnell 13:32, 7 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Chevaline[edit]

I've uploaded a greatly re-written text of the Chevaline article. Some suitable pics will follow later when I'm certain about copyright status. Meanwhile I'd be grateful if you could cast an eye over the text. The earlier version was both very inaccurate and politically POV. In the UK the Chevaline project is still v.politically contentious, in part because in its later period it was not cancelled by Margaret Thatcher. Whether they love her or hate her few people here regard Mrs Thatcher as uncontroversial, and the Chevaline thing is so bound up with her, and is still rarely mentioned here free from emotional politically tribal associations, that I was determined to be especially careful to avoid POV or alienating people, or inciting them to have a pop at it.

I'd be grateful for a fresh pair of eyes, free of UK associations. Feel free to invite others likewise.

The Royal Aeronautical Sociery Historical Symposium where much of the recent data originates from has published the papers in hardcopy only. However there is an OCR scanned abridged copy available from me as an email download for those interested. Its a bit big but can be zipped up. Regards. Brian.Burnell 11:01, 11 July 2006 (UTC) Southampton.[reply]

Meetup[edit]

Looks like Wikipedia:Meetup/Seattle4 will be happening September 9, 2006. - Jmabel | Talk 01:59, 28 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Just a Guppy[edit]

I added ""Guppy bow" that improved submerged performance." based on Alden. Was it 2 motors, or 4? I'm guessing it varied on whether the original boat had 2 or 4, & some or all were replaced, but... Also, any chance of getting diagrams like the ones Alden uses & putting them in the GUPPY page? I found them very useful in understanding the differences between classes in his book. Trekphiler 14:14, 19 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

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