Grrl Power #1307 – Batmax
What Maxima is implying about the split decision is that the sniper competition judges were probably a bunch of boy’s club old school military types, so naturally anything resembling a tie goes to the “can write name in snow” club.
By “in the service,” Maxima means the Air Force specifically. A branch not usually renown for their snipers. Which isn’t to say there aren’t USAF special ops sniper teams or anything, but if you had to rank the branches in terms of who’s the sniperiest, it’s probably the… Army first? Like, just by sheer volume, plus various special forces. Then it’s kind of a toss up between the Marines and the Navy, which is weird, because initially I’m like, why would the Navy even have snipers, but then I’m like, oh right, the SEALS.
My point is, the Air Force only doesn’t come in last because of the Coast Guard. I won’t say the Coast Guard definitely don’t have a special forces sniper team… but they seem the least likely of any branch. I know I could google it, but it amuses me not to.
What I do know that the Air Force has lots of special ops teams that explore alien worlds and fight the Goa’uld. I mean, if Stargate SG-1 taught me anything, it’s that a P90 can definitely dunk on a Staff Weapon. Yeah, you know what clip that is, but you’re going to click anyway cause it’s baller and it’s worth rewatching at least once a year in perpetuity.
Not sure why I dedicated 1/3 of the page to a drive by on injera. I’ve only had Ethiopian food once, and honestly, it was fine. I mean, the meat, spices, etc. But, if you don’t know what injera is – I couldn’t blame you, I had to look it up – it’s like nan/pita/tortilla, except it’s thinner, spongey and kind of… wet? At least the one I had was. Ethiopian dishes, or at least one category of them, are served on a big injera, like a scoop of 5 different things, and you rip up the injera and use it to scoop up your choice of… topping. Filling, dip, whatever.
Now, I know the burning question you have is, “Why is the American Airbase in Afghanistan serving Ethiopian food?” Simple, the hospital has an Ethiopian chef on staff. Now your next question might be, “Dave, is inflicting Ethiopian culinary sensibilities on American servicemen who are probably mostly used to MREs and relatively unadventurous chow hall cuisine, who are also in the hospital for one reason or another, possibly on drugs that make their whole GI tract a little iffy to start with, a recipe for ensuing hilarity?” Yes.
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Dabbler went somewhere tropical, in a very small bikini. As you might guess, it doesn’t stay on for long, which of course, you can see over at Patreon. Also she has an incident with “lotion,” and there’s a bonus comic page as well.
Double res version will be posted over at Patreon. Feel free to contribute as much as you like.
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I could see where there would be a unique skill set for an Air Force sniper. As an example, headshotting the driver in a ground vehicle from a kilometer away while in a moving helicopter.
You don’t shoot from a chopper they are a terrible shooting platform, between the wind and the fact you are at someone else’s control while shooting it makes it really bad unless you are well spraying and praying. Ground or building, or if you need the back or top of a vehicle that is sitting still not moving.
he U.S. Coast Guard’s special operations-capable element is the Deployable Specialized Forces (DSF). DSF snipers are also known as precision marksmen (PMs) and are considered to be among the best trained snipers in the US military. They are often tasked with situations that other branches of the military don’t face, such as shooting at moving targets from a helicopter.
There’s been some research into a deploy-able stabilized platform for helos.
Once those crazy Japanese SF manga guys show it, some one is going to try it.
There is another usage for stabilized beds, surgery in a moving vehicle.
That’s right Gogal-13 can do it, that’s about it…
Which makes all the thousands of pest control and animal capture shots done from helicopters invalid ?
Or the Correctional Officer that was shot from one during an escape less wounded ?
They weren’t a kilometre away but the platform is quite stable enough to shoot from and has the advantages of speed and bypassing a lot of terrain for a clear shot.
My understanding is that most state/large city SWAT/snipers train for shooting from helicopters, simply because of the extra difficulties.
There are two interesting clips I’ve seen recently of shots from helicopters – a French Navy gunner taking down a Houthi drone, and another of a Royal Marine sniper engaging a speedboat, that one was interesting for technique as he was firing from flat on his back, with the muzzle between his feet, and with a second man working the bolt action for him.
The USCG HITRON units (Helicopter Interdiction Squadron) have been engaging speedboats (target is the engine) with airborne snipers for literally decades at this point.
And of course there’s the Battle of Mogadishu/Blackhawk Down, where two Delta snipers (Shugart and Gordon) won posthumous Medals of Honour after choosing to be inserted onto the ground to try to reach any survivors of Super 64, rather than continue to provide overwatch from the air.
Helicopers are Army, generally.
Notable exception being the President’s helicopter, which is named “Marine One” for a reason…
Nah, all services use helo’s. The Army just goes badassery with armed helicopters because the Air Force gets all snippy about the Army using armed fixed wing for ground support.
‘Cept maybe Space Force, but who knows.
They use flying saucers.
Shh, don’t tell!
IIRC, the USAF doesn’t deploy major forces of infantry through rotary winged aircraft (the fancy term for helicopters) as opposed to the army or marines (army airborne and all that) but they have shooters, for doing guard duty around air force bases if nothing else. If you think this organization structure is confusing, congrats, welcome to political and funding based design.
Regarding the window, how detailed is Max’s contact telekinesis?
I mean, obviously she can grab a car by a flimsy bit of trim, and pick it up instead of tearing off the trim, *if that’s what she intends to do.* Perhaps she could instead rip the trim off, or tear the car in half, if instead she intended that effect.
But, could she put her hand on a window, and open the latch on the inside, just because she’s touching the window?
Maybe without even thinking about it, because she intends to open the window…
There are a lot of ways to get the most out of a power. It is only limited by your imagination.
If you are into reading fanfiction try Worm, it’s in the sites subsection. The writers of this fanfiction mostly specialize in wringing every last bit of potential out of any superpower.
Ment to say it is in the Book subsection of faniction.
Trying to recover from a stroke here. It ts sometimes hard to keep your sentence structure strait.
Basiclly, if you had trouble mentally doing at all it magnifys that effect.
I believe Max’s contact telekinesis allows her to lump an object as a whole unit, rather than bits and pieces. This isn’t a hospital as much as a building that could be converted to one. At least it’s not a military hut! Most likely the leaders just picked a building that was in good shape and cleaned it up to act as one.
No TK necessary, it’s easy to open a slide-up window from the outside if it isn’t latched. I forgot my keys a lot as a kid.
Break and Enter 101 really, use skin friction to slide the window, wipe down the glass afterwards with a rag or item of clothing to destroy hand prints. For horizontal sliding windows a length of dowel in the slide track will stop that and is easier to remove from inside in case of emergency. Vertical ‘hopper’ windows really need a through bolt or screw into the tracks, which is not easy to remove in am emergency.
When Maxima wants a military window open, it says YES MA’AM.
“Why would any window open from the outside?”
Because Max is one opening it. ALL of them do that, all that varies is the amount of damage in the process.
Maybe the window was already open a few inches?
if she only has to concentrate on one thing, i guess her contact telekinesis could easily open the windows latch
also, the question was “why” not “how”, as for why, i guess it is still a bit early before the public announcement of super people, so the big golden army officer catch less attention by entering hospital by the windows
If a window isn’t locked (and I don’t even see a latch for it to lock*), opening it from outside is typically only marginally harder than opening it from inside. There’s no dedicated handle, but the glass is normally recessed into the frame, so you can push up on that. Absent that, so long as your hands (and the glass) aren’t wet, you can press your palms against the glass and rely on friction (including the Van der Waals interactions between your flesh and the glass) to stick the hands and glass together and lift.
That’s for a normal person, I believe Maxima has been indicated to have rather low-friction skin (I think Rowan described it as “slippery,” plus I believe it’s been mentioned that cosmetics don’t really “stick” to her), so it probably wouldn’t work in her case. However, the fact her forcefield can extend to some extent things she grabs (allowing her to pick up heavy things without damaging them) should actually allow her to “stick” to surfaces fairly readily (if she couldn’t already fly, she could easily Spiderman her way around), and do so much more effectively than a mere human could. So her opening an unlocked window from outside isn’t likely to be difficult.
*Even if it could lock, security doesn’t seem to be a concern for these windows – one has an A/C unit in it, and that prevents it from locking at all.
Humble Sniper Woman, that can be her superhero name.
I can actually see why Max is the sort of Boss you would pray for in the military. Genuinely concerned when you are injured, does their own work in checking details and will have your back all the way. One thing I REALLY want to see is how she encountered Math and convinced him to join ARCHON. I know what’s in his character description,but the actual story would be fascinating.
“One thing I REALLY want to see is how she encountered Math and convinced him to join ARCHON. I know what’s in his character description,but the actual story would be fascinating.”
If we’re doing requests then I’ll admit I’m curious as to how the hell Dabbler & Max came to work together.
Most likely challenged him to a fight. Promise of further interesting or challenging opponents kept him around
Peggy is admittedly in the “When I was 19, I did a guy in Laos from a thousand yards out. Rifle shot in high wind. Maybe eight… or even ten guys in the world could’ve made that shot. It’s the only thing I was ever good at.” club.
Para-Rescue are the best shot callers in any branch. Their training is called Superman School by SEALS, mostly because they do BUDS with SEALS and can still wash out after they complete BUDS. There are two branches of Para-Rescue. One does jumps behind enemy lines to extract pilots who have been shot down. They are trained to be field surgeons, evade and escape experts, snipers, survivalists, and that list continues until it’s as long as your arm in very small font. The other does jumps behind enemy lines to paint targets for radar and laser guided munitions, traditional artillery, and snipers.
The USAF shot-callers are Combat Controllers, not PJs.
When CCs talk about “the pointy end of the stick,” they’re referring to the rest of the military, which is ten to a hundred miles behind them.
That’s right. I remember reading that the CCT – Combat Control Team – is the best gig in the military.
Learn all the fun entry methods – HALO – Zodiac etc, not supposed to actually make contact with the enemy, run the Air Force attack because you are a qualified Air Traffic Controller, best seat in the house for the attack on, say, Baghdad…
Fairly sure Ethiopian food (even spongy tortilla’s) has to be betterer than what most service personnel get fed :P
Grrlpower meets Terminal Lance!
Yeah this was the era of Beef Frankfurter MRE’s, soon to be followed by the infamous Vomlet.
Granted, DFAC and field hospital food is going to be better than those. Even the worst of hot-A’s are better.
Absolute worst MRE I’ve ever had was the veggie burger. Didn’t help that in Basic I rarely heated up my MRE’s because it took so long and I had so little time to eat.
Really? I thought the veggie burger MREs were one of the ones that had a better reputation than most others from my own experience. Though this was long enough ago that I could be wrong.
Some of them varied wildly depending on whether or not you could heat them up.
Some like the ones I quoted, were nearly always nasty no matter what. Seriously the beef frankfurter one could have just swapped out the franks for like 2-3 sticks of cheap gas station teriyaki or BBQ flavored jerky and it would have been a 1000% improvement.
Why does US do not buy MRE from other NATO countries .. it will no be more expensive and perhaps it woudl improve soldier moral.
A French or an Italian MRE could be a great improvement , and if you take consideration the locations of delivery of MRE it will not had logistic issues..
A French RICR is already NATO approved and because they are based on a selection of civilian items they are actually les expensive.
Right? Also, injera is actually delicious, especially if you’re eating it with the right flavor profiles. I’ve eaten service food and it’s shitttttt. Recently visited some DC suburbs and there’s a lot of Ethiopians there, and somebody started an injera crisp business- liuk tortilla chips but injera??? So good, but I think it’s literally only found in like, 3 cities in MD. Had to stock up when I went home because it is incredibly unavailable in buttfuck midwest.
Oh heavens Dave, is this the second or third time you’ve linked to the clip of Carter and a P90 dunking on the Goa’uld. :-)
It is a good scene though. A very good scene.
Carter’s grin each time she turnes around is adorable.
“Brassy?” No wonder she was so forgiving of all of Sydney’s one-legged Freudian slips.
Braggy, not brassy.
Oops. Old eyes, I guess. Still, when I went back to check, it they did still look a little like s’s to me (and I still kind of like my misreading anyhow).
Wait, is that a ‘why would a window open from the outside’ or a ‘why should a window open from the outside’ question?
Because of emergencies, and most windows have latches on the inside (even if most people forget they are there until the wrong person opened the window from the outside)
Why would the window open from the outside? Because Max “asked” “politely.”
Tactile telekinesis, Superboy’s and Spiderman’s power set.
Allthough, I would love to see if sticking to things was and strength were the limits to Peter’s powers. Could be a mental thing?
I recall one occasion on which Electro suddenly realized that Spidey was relying on static cling, and sucked up all the static electricity in the area. And, yeah, Spiderman fell off the wall. He did on one occasion mention that something had to be a force field, because he wasn’t sticking to it, and he could stick to anything that had a molecular structure. Which implies, yes, amplified Van der Walls force, which could technically be viewed as static cling.
I suppose if he gamed his powers, he could likely push them in the opposite direction, and become effectively frictionless, even to walk on tar without sticking. In much the same way that, when he was temporarily blinded, he learned he could use his spider sense just like Daredevil’s radar sense. (Then promptly forgot when his retinas regenerated.)
A certain Mr Clay once asked the Wildmother also to do something politely….and we all cried.
Space Force: the least snipery and reason the USAF is less “Chair” now.
Given the weird in comic time, it’s almost surely before the space force was created (at least in our timeline).
OTOH, Space Force *is* the branch we want to be really good at looooong distance shots, e.g. kill that planet-killer meteor while it’s still on the far side of Mars, if not Saturn.
I haven’t had a chance to eat it for a while, but I quite liked injera when I ate at Ethiopian restaurants. The texture is pleasantly weird and passes my literal taste test as food, which is more than I can say for a lot of more common (in the West) foodstuffs, like iceberg lettuce for example.
I really like Ethiopian food, but the first time I had it I did find injera weird. It’s one of those things where repeated exposure engenders fondness, though.
Most air forces usually have regiments or brigades as part of their structure, primarily to protect their airfields and airbases even in places like Afghanistan.
This includes having Snipers.
USASOC International Sniper Competition seems a bit of a misnomer, as it is mainly a US military competition which includes guest teams from about half dozen countries allied with the US.
Imagine Max saying, “Yet for the first year and a half of your tour, you were on kitchen duty…!”
BTW, Dave, the Coast Guard DOES have in fact a special forces division, with a surprisingly competent sniper contingent that routinely beats out most other branches. if you think about it, they have to shoot out the engine of speed boats going 80-90 mph on rough open seas from a helicopter with an RC-50 anti-materiel rifle. They don’t shoot at the people on the boat, because they’re meant to be Law Enforcement, they should be arresting them, not killing them.
Right, I’m not saying they don’t, only that CG snipers have less mindshare than the other branches sharpshooters in the cultural zeitgeist. Most people can name a specific SEAL team, but don’t know what GC snipers are called or even that they exist, generally.
Amusingly, if you’re referring to “SEAL Team Six”, that isn’t actually the unit’s name.
“SEAL Team Six” did exist up until 1987 (when it was dissolved), but it’s notable that the name itself was disinformation meant to sow confusion as to how many SEAL teams existed (the real number at the time being 2, and “SEAL Team Six” was not actually one of them – it was a special mission unit and the SEALs as a whole are not).
The Navy’s current special mission unit, colloquially referred to as “SEAL Team Six”, is actually the Naval Special Warfare Development Group or DEVGRU.
Pressed “post” too quickly, but this is my source: https://www.wearethemighty.com/mighty-trending/coast-guard-snipers-msrt/
I think the US Coast Guard’s “special forces” are those rescue swimmers who jump into 32.5° water in the middle of a storm to rescue mostly-dead fishermen and then climb the rope back into the chopper using only their teeth. Or something.
If you told me that there was an expert sniper in the Coast Guard, my first thought would probably be that they had retired from some other branch of the military. But on further reflection, the CG is still part of the armed forces, and it got me wondering who deals with things like poachers and such, if it’s not local LEOs. I don’t hear to much about japanese (or icelandig or norwegian, thanks google) whaling ships coming all the way to north America to steal our whales, but if they did would it be the CG that gets sent out to shoo them away? If only because the Navy has better things to do with it’s time?
Kinda got me wondering, that’s all.
my son has a P-90. i’ve fired it. his has the longer barrel and no full-auto (special gunsmith licensing is needed for the short barrel). it may look like it should have a “Mattel” logo stamped on the side of it, due to its polycarb furniture. but it’s an ambidextrous shooter’s dream. brass drops out of the bottom. charging lever on either side. i enjoy shooting it when i can, and, should i decide i want a carbine, i’ll likely buy one of those. it’s accurate, versatile, not too difficult to break down for cleaning, and the huge magazine is convenient on the range. can recommend.
The main thing for the P-90 is to realize that it’s not intended to be a replacement for an M16 or similar style battle rifle.
It’s designed to be a replacement for a Colt 1911 for truck drivers, artillerymen, etc. that can handle modern body armor.
A short barrel on a P90 doesn’t require any sort of special gunsmithing license, but it does require you to pay the government a $200
bribetax and fill out some paperwork to register it as a Short Barreled Rifle (and wait until you are approved and get your tax stamp before actually installing the short barrel). Probably better to just stick with a 16″+ barrel rather than go through the hassle, though.Having a full-auto P90 does require a special gunsmithing license (pre-ban machine guns don’t, but the P90 didn’t exist when the ban went into effect). On the bright side, I believe if you have that license, you don’t need to register SBR’s unless you’re going to sell them (and you can’t sell them if they’re fully automatic, unless you’re selling to someone else with the appropriate license).
Apparently they used the P90 in Stargate specifically because the shell casings eject from the bottom. It meant that they could use closeups of the actors during gunfights without worrying about flying brass obscuring their faces.
TIL, Space Force has snipers…. WTF?!
November Annabella “Nova” Terra.
Every branch has a little bit of everything as they are meant to be able to work on their own if the need arises. Aside from watercraft I guess, that’s almost solely the domain of the Navy and Coast Guard. And the Space Force after being spun off from the Air Force is still technically its own branch, even if it’s significantly less independent from the Air Force than Marines are from the Navy.
I have described injera as “fajitas, but the tortilla is a sponge, and totslly different spice profile.”
Snipers are needed in all branches. Think of snipers as very precise artillery. I’m looking at you sniper of the Pacific Ocean I forgot what his name was. Augustus Lee. Snipers with battleship guns.
Not crazy about Ethiopian food either.
Don’t need to click on the clip. It’s already seared into my brain.
Hate to give props to Uncle Sam’s Misguided Children but the Marines actually have the best sniper training program.
3 times on the presidents 100 tab, ok research you have it or you don’t, it’s not an award it’s authorized to be worn based on being assigned to that duty.
The President’s Hundred tab/brassard is a badge awarded by the Civilian Marksmanship Program (CMP) to the 100 top-scoring military and civilian shooters in the President’s Pistol and President’s Rifle Matches.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/President%27s_Hundred_tab
I don’t know anything, but I’m pretty sure the Coast Guard has marksmen that can shoot the engines of bouncing boats from a helicopter. I don’t think that counts as special ops, and I don’t know how that ranks them, but it’s kind of special.
Pretty sure Peggy could write her name in the snow from any distance and with any caliber you care to name.
…oh, you meant piss. Right. Yeah, but I bet her competition would get “shy bladder” if you hinted she was hiding uphill somewhere…
There are several ways to open a window from the outside. A Burglar would be able to answer better, but the simple way would be if it was already cracked open to allow some ventilation, then it could be slid open further.
Why is everyone focusing on Max opening the window via spooky-action-at-a-(very small)distance? It looks like a plain old single-hung slider. If the latch wasn’t thrown last time it was opened, anybody who can reach it can just slide it up from the outside. That happens pretty often. And if it’s not on the first floor, the chances of the latch being unlocked get better really fast.
The author note specifically questioned how easy it would be for Max to open the window from the outside. I suspect that Dave has mostly lived in buildings designed to be secure from thieves. A lot of the apartment buildings I’ve lived in have been like this, as have many of the office buildings I’ve worked in. As someone who was used to climbing into my bedroom window at 3AM as a kid, I really found it inconvenient to learn my 13th floor apartment building had windows that were secured from being opened from the outside. But it was also worse than that; even if someone had been home to open the window, it was designed so that an adult human could not climb through the gap.
Fortunately, I didn’t make that discovery from the outside. That would mean I was actually insane enough to climb that far without being sure of my route in. Also, as the building was designed to not be scalable and I cannot fly without some kind of machine assist, scaling that wall would’ve been pretty tricky, as it had been designed to be cat burglar proof.
That said, I know my sister was caught sneaking out of the house late at night because she left the window open behind her. I don’t understand why she did that after the first time, as her window was easily reachable from the giant external TV antenna she used to get up and down from her window. I always closed my window behind me as a result, even though to do that I needed to balance on the outside window sill.
I can see Peggy as a USAF Special Warfare Combat Controller sniper.
I love Ethiopian food, one of my favorite cuisines. I quite like the texture of injera, but the kind of sourdough note it has is the best part.
If it seemed wet btw, that’s because it had soaked up the sauce from the food on top of it. Plain, it’s like a spongier naan.
Any window opens from the outside if you’re not a sissy about it.
Oh, you want it to CLOSE again. Never mind, retracted.
Old joke from when Clinton was President:
“Someone’s written ‘Bill’s an ass!’ in the snow outside the Oval Office! Find out who it was!”
Sir, we did a DNA and handwriting analysis on that. We have good news and bad news.
“What’s the good news?”
That’s Gore’s urine.
“What? What in God’s name is the bad news?”
It’s Hillary’s handwriting.
Injera is the fucking best man, don’t know why you’re shitting on a delectable bread eaten by millions
Damn straight, I knew the clip before I clicked.
Damn straight, I never tire of seeing a smart and also badass woman slay a ‘man’ in power!
Even though it’s a trope, written to further the eventual plot twist, it was a solid scene and acted very well.
Hey! I like well made injera. Properly made, with fermented teff it has a nice sour dough bite.
The reason some windows open from the outside is in case Batman shows up, obviously.
Many, many moons ago…when I was in holding barracks for ‘Personnel Awaiting Training’, there were three of us occupying a four man room on the third floor. Coming in the building, you had to go by the Duty NCO and anyone too inebriated was written up on the spot. The building was faced with staggered courses of brickwork and easy to climb, so out by the door/in by the window was routine, with no superpowers involved other than the ability to drink two weeks pay in one night :)
I’m not fond of the texture and some of the taste of injera. But I’m also not a fan of sourdough or cake so that spongey feeling in my mouth is just bleh.
I do enjoy some good naan with certain foods.