I've read a bit on the internet, the source of all modern wisdom. CHB is right. Commercial planes fly a lot higher than most planes parachutists jump from, so jumping requires the training and equipment to jump at that altitude. I don't know how things are in other countries, but in Norway only Tier 1 military units are trained to jump with extra oxygen etc. Operators in units like the SAS or our FSK don't need to jump from civilian passenger planes and don't train for it, but if E-squadron excist they may need that skill.
It's just from a quick internet search. We should've had former Swiss member Jason-something here. As an imaginary special forces officer/sniper and with an imaginary friend who's a Tier 1 operator he would know this. 😂
My comment was made as a joke - imagining screaming passengers on a Jumbo Jet as someone tried to open the door to parachute out - I’m more than happy to have hit in the correct answer, though 😀
Yeah, well, sometimes nothin' can be a real cool hand.
I wonder where Jason is today? Posting about his military heroics in a Mission Impossible forum or some Gilmore Girls fan site? 😁
I know there's a former Navy SEAL on YouTube who spends his retirement exposing people who strut around claiming they were SEALS who actually never were. He says he has exposed around 9000 "stolen valor" types, and that's just people who claim to be US frogmen!
Silhouette ManThe last refuge of a scoundrelPosts: 8,865MI6 Agent
I believe he still has a Bond account on Instagram where he posts image collages from the films with dialogue bubbles. I've not spoken to him in years as he deleted all of his social media. I've since come to the conclusion that he was most likely suffering from delusions of grandeur, a symptom of a well known and scary sounding mental illness.
"The tough man of the world. The Secret Agent. The man who was only a silhouette." - Ian Fleming, Moonraker (1955).
Helmets with large numbers on them are often used during selection. I know SEALS recruits take of their numbered helmets and ring a bell when they give up. So I'd love to have that helmet, but switching helmets is most likely not possible.
Slightly off topic, but just wondered if that was you standing in the valley watching Tom Cruise jump off Helsetkopen in Mission: Impossible Dead Reckoning Pt 1, N24? You're only the size of a grain of sand from the top, but it just looks unmistakably like you!
The location is only about 45 minutes by car from here, but I wasn't there during the shooting. My parents had a nice Sunday drive to Hellesylt, but Tom Cruise didn't jump that day. I didn't know you knew me so well you can tell a person looks like me at that distance. 😁
A fun little story about Joakim Rønneberg, the leader of the legendary Vemork sabotage mission in WWII. During WWII he became a SOE demolitions instructor. After the war he re-trained as a journalist and worked for the public broadcaster NRK working on regional news on radio and later TV. My younger sister's father-in-law shared an office with Rønneberg for a period of time. He never mentioned the war, but of course everyone knew what he had done. One day he was supposed to cover the last salvo of blasting the hole for a road tunnel for regional NRK, but he and the camera man missed the ferry and missed the explosion that opened the tunnel. But they needed some footage to bring home to the office. Rønneberg asked the construction workers for some dynamite. Again the workers knew who he was at handed the explosives to the ex-saboteur. He then made a second explosion for the TV camera. Fake news! 😂
Silhouette ManThe last refuge of a scoundrelPosts: 8,865MI6 Agent
This programme on BBC Radio 4 earlier today should be of interest to @Number24 and no doubt others in this thread.
Since Artificial Inteligence is very much in the moment now, and not just because of Mission Impossible, I'm posting a couple of links. Both are about M .... I mean MI6 chief Richard Moore taking about AI.
Danielle Bonelli has one of the best history podcasts called "History on fire". Here's an episode on the POW rescue mission at Cabanatuan in the Pilippines in 1945. Airborne Rangers, the Alamo Scoouts and Philippino guerillas rescued about 500 American POWs from the Japanese.
The results of "rat work" or assassinations by the resistance in Norway during WWII. I don't post his to be bloodthirsty, but to give us some idea of what James Bond's work would've been in real life.
A Gestapo informant who was shot on the street:
The leader of the nazi-controlled State Police was gunned down in his car:
"Early in the morning in the alley he met his fate. Finally he realised it was serious ...."
Ukranian Spetsnaz has a new kayak - and I want one! It has a tent, a camping stove, a small electric engine, remote steering and a 40 mm grenade launcher. Everything you need for a holliday in the Lake District.
I found this film news report from British Pathe about the commando raid on the Lofoten Islands north of the Arctic cirlcle in occupied Norway in March 1941. This was the first large-scale raid the commandos carried out, and probably the one furthest from friendly shores. Please note how the role of the royal Navy is the focus of the news film and the commandoes are barely mentioned. This could be because filming the Navy was safer and easier, but it could be because the commandoes still were a semi-secret unit, I don't know. The film is very optimistic and cheerful, but the SOE agent Ragnar Ulstein who died only four years ago told it differently. He took part in the raid called Operation Claymore, and he remembered the locals thought this was the begining of the liberation of Norway. When they realized it was only a raid the civilians turned on the commandoes and yelled insults at them. But it was a noteworthy raid and here we can see how it was presented to the British public:
This propaganda poster made by the nazis present the raid in a very differnet light. The Norwegian text says: "The help from England". The H in "help" is shaped as the symbol of the exiled King Haakon.
The real SMERSH wasn't the world-wide espionage and terror organisation Fleming makes them out to be. At the time he wrote the Bond novels there wasn't even a SMERSH since the organisation was disbanded in 1946. To quote Wikipedia "The official statute of SMERSH listed the following tasks to be performed by the organisation: counter-intelligence, counter-terrorism, preventing any other activity of foreign intelligence in the Red Army; fighting "anti-Soviet elements" in the Red Army; protection of the front lines against penetration by spies and "anti-Soviet elements"; investigating traitors, deserters, and self-inflicted wounds in the Red Army; and checking military and civil personnel returning from captivity."
Not nice, but hardly a huge problem for people living outside the Soviet-controlled areas in WWII. But I did read something about the general who was the head of the organisation does sound like something out of Fleming's novels. The general liked to beat prisoners with his baton, often to death. But the general didn't want to dirty his nice carpet in his office. So he had a red, blood-stained carpet rolled out over his nice one when he wanted to beat someone to death. Imagine being a prisoner/suspect called to the SMERSH commander's office. That's blood-chillingly terrifiying in itself. But then you see the general himself holding a baton. And then his people start rolling out a blood-stained carpet .....
Comments
I've read a bit on the internet, the source of all modern wisdom. CHB is right. Commercial planes fly a lot higher than most planes parachutists jump from, so jumping requires the training and equipment to jump at that altitude. I don't know how things are in other countries, but in Norway only Tier 1 military units are trained to jump with extra oxygen etc. Operators in units like the SAS or our FSK don't need to jump from civilian passenger planes and don't train for it, but if E-squadron excist they may need that skill.
Thank you both, I've learned something today.
It's just from a quick internet search. We should've had former Swiss member Jason-something here. As an imaginary special forces officer/sniper and with an imaginary friend who's a Tier 1 operator he would know this. 😂
I think D.B. Cooper should be contacted for more information on this. Anybody willing to take this on?
-Mr Arlington Beech
😂😂😂😂
My comment was made as a joke - imagining screaming passengers on a Jumbo Jet as someone tried to open the door to parachute out - I’m more than happy to have hit in the correct answer, though 😀
It sounds plausible enough to me, CHB.
I wonder where Jason is today? Posting about his military heroics in a Mission Impossible forum or some Gilmore Girls fan site? 😁
I know there's a former Navy SEAL on YouTube who spends his retirement exposing people who strut around claiming they were SEALS who actually never were. He says he has exposed around 9000 "stolen valor" types, and that's just people who claim to be US frogmen!
I believe he still has a Bond account on Instagram where he posts image collages from the films with dialogue bubbles. I've not spoken to him in years as he deleted all of his social media. I've since come to the conclusion that he was most likely suffering from delusions of grandeur, a symptom of a well known and scary sounding mental illness.
That's my impression too. Sad really.
Yes, a sad affair. I hope he got the help and treatment he needed.
Frømandskorpset (The Frogman Corps) is probably the most elite Danish special forces unit. Here are a few old pictures:
Training to harden their hands for hand-to-hand combat!
During selections the recruits have to drag along Maren (the word has the same root as "nightmare"), a piece of fine Danish wood.
The frogmen burn it after selection is over: 🤣
Crown prince Fredrik near the end of selection.
He made it! the prince was one of only four recruits who qualified that year.
Combat diver training in Ghana. Note the helmet number of the recruit closest to the camera! 😁
I wonder if they all take turns to wear it.😄
Helmets with large numbers on them are often used during selection. I know SEALS recruits take of their numbered helmets and ring a bell when they give up. So I'd love to have that helmet, but switching helmets is most likely not possible.
Slightly off topic, but just wondered if that was you standing in the valley watching Tom Cruise jump off Helsetkopen in Mission: Impossible Dead Reckoning Pt 1, N24? You're only the size of a grain of sand from the top, but it just looks unmistakably like you!
The location is only about 45 minutes by car from here, but I wasn't there during the shooting. My parents had a nice Sunday drive to Hellesylt, but Tom Cruise didn't jump that day. I didn't know you knew me so well you can tell a person looks like me at that distance. 😁
A fun little story about Joakim Rønneberg, the leader of the legendary Vemork sabotage mission in WWII. During WWII he became a SOE demolitions instructor. After the war he re-trained as a journalist and worked for the public broadcaster NRK working on regional news on radio and later TV. My younger sister's father-in-law shared an office with Rønneberg for a period of time. He never mentioned the war, but of course everyone knew what he had done. One day he was supposed to cover the last salvo of blasting the hole for a road tunnel for regional NRK, but he and the camera man missed the ferry and missed the explosion that opened the tunnel. But they needed some footage to bring home to the office. Rønneberg asked the construction workers for some dynamite. Again the workers knew who he was at handed the explosives to the ex-saboteur. He then made a second explosion for the TV camera. Fake news! 😂
This programme on BBC Radio 4 earlier today should be of interest to @Number24 and no doubt others in this thread.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p0fqnky7
👍
Since Artificial Inteligence is very much in the moment now, and not just because of Mission Impossible, I'm posting a couple of links. Both are about M .... I mean MI6 chief Richard Moore taking about AI.
https://apnews.com/article/mi6-spy-chief-moore-prague-russia-iran-cfb837ebdfa3db8043dc655cbf3573d5
https://www.euronews.com/next/2023/07/19/human-spies-wont-be-replaced-by-artificial-intelligence-britains-mi6-chief-says
Here's a documentary about spies in Berlin during the cold war:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QZu2bO_C0X8&t=209s
Danielle Bonelli has one of the best history podcasts called "History on fire". Here's an episode on the POW rescue mission at Cabanatuan in the Pilippines in 1945. Airborne Rangers, the Alamo Scoouts and Philippino guerillas rescued about 500 American POWs from the Japanese.
That was a good watch, thanks for posting it.
The results of "rat work" or assassinations by the resistance in Norway during WWII. I don't post his to be bloodthirsty, but to give us some idea of what James Bond's work would've been in real life.
A Gestapo informant who was shot on the street:
The leader of the nazi-controlled State Police was gunned down in his car:
"Early in the morning in the alley he met his fate. Finally he realised it was serious ...."
Ukranian Spetsnaz has a new kayak - and I want one! It has a tent, a camping stove, a small electric engine, remote steering and a 40 mm grenade launcher. Everything you need for a holliday in the Lake District.
I found this film news report from British Pathe about the commando raid on the Lofoten Islands north of the Arctic cirlcle in occupied Norway in March 1941. This was the first large-scale raid the commandos carried out, and probably the one furthest from friendly shores. Please note how the role of the royal Navy is the focus of the news film and the commandoes are barely mentioned. This could be because filming the Navy was safer and easier, but it could be because the commandoes still were a semi-secret unit, I don't know. The film is very optimistic and cheerful, but the SOE agent Ragnar Ulstein who died only four years ago told it differently. He took part in the raid called Operation Claymore, and he remembered the locals thought this was the begining of the liberation of Norway. When they realized it was only a raid the civilians turned on the commandoes and yelled insults at them. But it was a noteworthy raid and here we can see how it was presented to the British public:
This propaganda poster made by the nazis present the raid in a very differnet light. The Norwegian text says: "The help from England". The H in "help" is shaped as the symbol of the exiled King Haakon.
Who said a mobile phone-based gadget couldn't be Flemingesqe?
Fascinating as always.
The real SMERSH wasn't the world-wide espionage and terror organisation Fleming makes them out to be. At the time he wrote the Bond novels there wasn't even a SMERSH since the organisation was disbanded in 1946. To quote Wikipedia "The official statute of SMERSH listed the following tasks to be performed by the organisation: counter-intelligence, counter-terrorism, preventing any other activity of foreign intelligence in the Red Army; fighting "anti-Soviet elements" in the Red Army; protection of the front lines against penetration by spies and "anti-Soviet elements"; investigating traitors, deserters, and self-inflicted wounds in the Red Army; and checking military and civil personnel returning from captivity."
Not nice, but hardly a huge problem for people living outside the Soviet-controlled areas in WWII. But I did read something about the general who was the head of the organisation does sound like something out of Fleming's novels. The general liked to beat prisoners with his baton, often to death. But the general didn't want to dirty his nice carpet in his office. So he had a red, blood-stained carpet rolled out over his nice one when he wanted to beat someone to death. Imagine being a prisoner/suspect called to the SMERSH commander's office. That's blood-chillingly terrifiying in itself. But then you see the general himself holding a baton. And then his people start rolling out a blood-stained carpet .....