Re: [OT] Re: Meaning and origin of term I've heard in a few movi

Thomas Barclay wrote:

> Having built AM and FM transmitter systems myself, they are twitchy
> beggars (when not made solid-state). And the antennae and any
> couplers used along the way are major offenders. Tuning the antennae
> for long distance work is probably a lot less painful than it would
> have been in years gone by, but your comment above recalls to me the
> story of the SAS guys in desert storm (Bravo Two Zero) that  hadn't
> been given the right frequencies for the part of the desert they were
> in so their comms didn't work. I just never knew that the phrase 5 by
> 5 in a comms environment had to do with signal strength and clarity.
> You learn something every day.... :)

Talk about a disaster! While teh human side of B20 shows the great
resiliance of SAS operators, it doesn't cast teh SAS in general in to
good a light. Obviously, the whole affair was horrendously planned:

1. The mssion they were given (and accepted) was way beyond the
capabilities of that team. In fact there was at least two team misisons
in there.

2. The commo plan or lack of and tehshortocming s of their commo
equipment is enough grounds for both the squadron comms officer and the
team commo guy to get fired.

3. The E&E plan lacked basic alternate communication signals to alert
SAR.

4. They carried too much stuff on the operation. Obviously they were
suffering from invincibility syndrome (Note: SEALS in Grenada and Panama
suffered heavily for this flaw also.)

Piss Poor Planning leads to Piss Poor Performance as we see again and
again in real life.

Los