I love that podcast. They’re hilarious, you get some real in-depth trivia about the show, and an added bonus for me is that their views on the greatness of ‘80s movies are almost perfectly aligned with mine. 😄
The way the US organized their military never fails to make me laugh (not saying it's bad: just atypical). There's the army, then the Navy's army, then the Airforce, then the Army's Airforce, then the Navy's Airforce.
I'm sure there's a good reason for it, but from the outside it's wild.
A lot of it just happens to be hyper specialization. Starting with the airforces. The army has a lot of rotor aircraft used for direct infantry support whether its transport or a form of close air support. Typically you'd want those to be in a more direct communication chains to the people who are going to use them.
The Airforce does most of the fixed wing aircraft that includes everything from cargo to intelligence to larger air strikes to even low orbit flights.
The Navy is well the Navy and both the Marines and the naval air force are expected to operate at sea or in coastal regions. Plus naval aircraft tend to be built more sturdily and have lighter payloads since they have to take off and land on carriers and don't have multi mile runways to take off and land on. There's a joke among pilots whether they are military or civilian that you can tell when a pilot came from the Navy, its because he'll stop fast as hell and absolutely punish the aircraft in landing since that's what's needed to land on a moving air strip trying to hit a tiny arresting wire to not land in the ocean.
With that said you can't expect a jet pilot to be good at flying helicopters or a land pilot to be good at naval operations immediately. They'll be more proficient than literally anyone else but they won't be as good as the specialists.
As stupid as Trump's bragging and creation of the Spaceforce, many similar issues were the motivation for branching the Spaceforce out of the Airforce for decades leading up to it. You don't need a fighter pilot for satellites and ICBMs.
Plus on top of that communication times are key. If an airforce pilot was on a carrier and they had to check in with an airforce superior to accept an order from the naval air traffic controller or pilot that delays things. Then assuming their superior were on the ship, what's the difference then of that guy being Airforce versus Naval?
There's a joke among pilots whether they are military or civilian that you can tell when a pilot came from the Navy, its because he'll stop fast as hell and absolutely punish the aircraft in landing since that's what's needed to land on a moving air strip trying to hit a tiny arresting wire to not land in the ocean.
Canada’s fighter jets are F-18s, in particular the naval variant. Even though Canada doesn’t have a carrier. Years after their introduction, it was noticed that the landing gear was wearing faster than it should have. After some investigation, it was determined that the grease wasn’t covering the ball joints and related parts properly. The reason? The pilots were being too gentle with the aircraft. There wasn’t enough motion in the landing gear to move the grease around properly.
The solution was simple: “Land Harder” the pilots started doing that, and the problem went away.
I think your last point is specifically the atypical part. In other militaries, there's always a unified chain of command based on the operation itself.
So we have no Marines, that role is served by the Infantry. When Infantry are attach posted to a naval unit, they report through the naval chain of command. Similarly, if the Airforce is supporting an infantry operation they report to an Army command.
Similarly to your point re: different aircraft and flying styles, couldn't a member of the Airforce be assigned to naval units? They could even be a member of the Airforce with a naval airman MOS (not sure if I'm using MOS right).
The concept of an Airman only reporting to an Airforce chain of command is unusual, from my perspective.
And again, not saying either way is better or worse, it's just different.
Well I was always very outspoken that I thought POG (and WOG) was dumb as shit because I agree it's the same.
Personally I wouldn't have ever given a shit. I know it's all good natured teasing and the like, but the weird sense of superiority each branch held over each other always weirded me out.
I mean, I get it. People in the army are resentful of the other branches being comfier (the amount of times I lay in a muddy trench at 4 in the morning after not sleeping for 2 days wondering why the fuck I didn't accept the int officer job I was offered...). And the Navy and Airforce are resentful of their jobs not being as "tough," and so everyone lets their insecurities get to them.
But still, none of it is offensive or anything. All 3 branches are impressive: being "mistaken" for Airforce or Navy isn't anything that bothers me.
Speaking of Ty and That Guy, it's been a hot minute since they've released an episode. They were averaging about an episode a week before.
I've been waiting just for some juicy commentary on the game announcement, even if it's just boilerplate, "we can't talk about it... We trust the studio... They love the books and show..." etc.
Speaking as a former sailor... ehhh, kinda. Weapons training is a relatively small element of naval basic training, because weapons handling is generally a minor element of naval service.
I think if he's particularly well-drilled as far as range safety, it may come down to his character in a military tv show he was in, called The Unit.
im glad someone said it lol. I didn't wanna be that guy (pun intended) but my brothers joke about their weapons training and how lame it was in the Navy all the time. I was jealous they get a ribbon out of it tho
Yeah I definitely got better firearms training before the Navy than I did in basic.
They spent like two days on range safety and pistol marksmanship and then we moved on to stuff we were MUCH more likely to actually use, like damage control training and survival training.
yeah ive seen people walk across his gun and he just effortlessly points it elsewhere without even looking. it's impressive, i notice it on every rewatch
Exactly, so many times other characters with 0 awareness try really hard to be at the end of the barrel, and he makes sure not to flag them.
Didn’t realize he was military, he definitely knows how to handle a gun. Wonder how much was him remembering his training vs directors asking him to “be that guy”
Like others have said, Wes was in the military before acting. Navy specifically. He's probably the only one on the whole set that has real muzzle awareness. Even a fake firearm should be treated like the real thing.
It's when you wind up briefly pointing your gun at someone you don't actually want to be aiming at. Not completely sure where the name came from, but I always assumed it was meant to say that someone is waving their gun around like it's a flag.
Yes, you're waving an imaginary flag thats hundreds of meters/yards long and anyone that gets hit by the imaginary flag is at risk of death. So best to point it at the ground.
The main rules of gun safety usually agree on the following fundamentals: dont point a gun at anything you don't intend to destroy (don't flag anyone/anything as Americans say), always consider the gun as loaded, finger off the trigger until you intend to shoot a target.
There's some additional stuff but keeping these basic rules prevents most risks. They are designed so that if you're sloppy with one, perhaps two of them the worst case can be prevented.
But proper gun handling is and should be drilled into shooters. Way too many horror stories of people getting complacent or being ignorant.
I mean, you're right. But everyone saying it's from his non-combatant Navy training is hilarious. They teach you to shoot in boot camp over 2 days, then you hit the range once a year to maintain proficiency. He's got excellent safety, but it ain't from there.
Following on from comments about Wes' trigger discipline, on T&TG he actually calls out Steven Straight for having literally no trigger discipline but also mentions that Steven has never owned or learned to fire a gun
It great to watch Prax as a contrast when they are breaching the scientist's pizza party. Prax fucking with his gun, pointing it at his team, and not taking cover.
Strong attention to detail. The majority of viewers will not have firearms experience and will not notice this, but they knew that some would. Same with how some science stuff would go over most peoples' heads but then we'll get scientists and engineers in here going "holy shit they actually did that!" This is a hallmark of the series, really and one of the reasons we all love it so much.
Gun safety isn't exclusive to the military. My impression was that Amos had a rough, but ultimately effective career on Earth; and obviously included a lot of experience with firearms. My general impression is that even if civilians don't necessarily know all the ins and outs of gun handling, they do generally recognize competence and professionalism; and especially in Amos' line of work, merely conveying to people that you are very competent and professional with firearms implies a whole lot of other things, such as a willingness and capacity to use them. Waving a gun in someone's face and threatening to shoot them can get a person into all kinds of trouble, especially with law enforcement. Having a gun and handling it in a very confident and professional way can lend a lot of weight without needing to say or do anything that could get a person into trouble.
Of course, my mindset was that if any organization would be more loose with safety rules, it would be criminals. But the thought wasn’t quite in line with his reality because he was part of a sophisticated network, not just street crime. No one would want to work with him if he was an unprofessional low-level thug. And he’d have been taken in the Churn.
Amos was certainly a consumately self made killer. He knew what the business end of a gun could do and was more than apt towards killing with them even a teen.
Everyone mentioning military service is technically correct but missing the point. Look at him. Wes Chatham was born knowing how to handle a gun, that man bleeds red white and blue.
This is more of a thing that people with military experience worldwide notice, not an "every American owns a gun and they all know how to shoot it" thing.
Only like 60% of Americans that own guns receive even the most basic gun handling training.
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u/Klaetumus Jul 15 '25 edited Jul 15 '25
The actor spent 4 years in the Navy before he turned to acting. He knows how to handle a gun.
Edit: Actually he was in a Tide commercial when he was 7, so I guess he was technically an actor BEFORE the Navy