Not a SAM site though, unless it's for training. No foreign SAM sites have seven launchers, four or six is the norm. Also, each of those revetments has several tall antennas on the berms making it unlikely they launch anything from there.
The facility is Fort Carson, near Colorado Springs.
Henry Flagler is the man responsible for building the Overseas Railroad linking Key West, then Florida's largest city, with the mainland in 1912. The railroad, almost totally destroyed by the Labor Day Hurricane of 1935, eventually became the Overseas Highway (US 1) and the Keys became the resort destination they are today.
That's the former U.S. Air Force's Clark AFB, northwest of Manila and northeast of the Navy base at Subic Bay. The planes in the revetments appear to be F-8 Crusaders and those on the parking apron at the southern end of the field are F-5 Tigers.
I landed at Clark back in 1990 on my way to Subic Bay to meet a ship. (Those are stories for a different forum!)
The building in the NE looks to be a parking structure. The circular towers at the corners are probably ramps. One for up, the other for down. There is obviously an athletic field with a track and, to the immediate right of the field, there appears to be several track & field devices, including a pole-vault pit at the north end. The far northeast building appears to be a generating station, probably steam for heating. Note the smoke stack and the two fuel oil storage tanks? If this were an...
Yep, it's an SA-10 site. The transporters are also the launchers. The missile is carried in canisters, much like the American Patriot system. The two tall radars you see are the "Clam Shell" low-level target aquisition radar (on the left), used to locate low flying planes and cruise missiles, and the "Flap Lid"/"Tomb Stone" missile control radar(on the right), used to steer the SA-10 to the target intercept. Also visible, at the end of the road to the southeast of the "Clam Shell" radar is...
The ship in the center notch on the south side of the channel is a Knox-class frigate. The one to the east appears to be what's left of a Leahy-class guided missile cruiser.
The dots are holes, possibly related to oil exploration. There is nothing else out here one might be looking for. the pattens of holes indicate deliberate, precise digging and the track patterns to the SW might be tracks from the vehicles that dug the holes.
The aircraft in the earlier Google Map and Google Earth were Iraqi aircraft. My guess is the older imagery was post GW 1 but prior to the 2003 invasion. The new stuff is obviously more recent, possibly as new as a few weeks.
Google earth has some more recent, high quality imagery of this airfield. All of the helicopters are gone, the terminal building and hangars are rubble, and there appears to be burned out aircraft in a couple of the revetments around the airfield.
The entire facility, except the runways, is double fenced. The Taxiways from the parking apron to the runways are protected by gates in the double fencing.
Visible on the southern parking apron are two unmarked 737s, probably used to ferry the employees from Las Vegas.
Actually, only two are tankers. The one in the thumbnail photo with the red deck and the one to the east that is pointing in a different direction from the rest.. The rest are dry cargo carriers (big squareish hatches with cranes on deck) or carriers of bulk cargo such as coal (big square hatches, no cranes). Also, they're all anchored. None are underway. They're most likely waiting to pull in to either load or unload.
Plenty of sail and power boats on the water though.
Probably not artillery range, perhaps machine guns though. The bullseye area on the right is less than one mile from the firing line and each of the crossing (vetical) roads appears to have several firing positions laid out along them. This is too small to be either an artillery or a tank range.
The large pipes on deck, coupled with the lack of cargo hatches or cranes, makes this one a tanker. The small number of pipes, and their relative large size, means this ship probably carries only one type of liquid. I'm guessing oil. It's not a particularly large tanker so it is likely used to work smaller fields and ports.
Not military, just a large cargo ship with a helo landing area marked out on one of the cargo hatches. This is the kind of ship that carries large, non-containerized cargo to underdeveloped ports, or places with no port facilities. That's why it carries the cranes, one at each cargo hatch.
This appears to be an exercise. In an actual emergency one would see the emergency escape slides coming from the aircraft and the emergency vehicles would be closer.
As aircraft take off and land into the wind, the nose is pointing into the wind. As a certified aircraft firefighter I can tell you that fire trucks ALWAYS approach an aircraft fire from up wind, in this case the nose.
The white triangle coming from the port wing is almost certainly a glitch in the image and not something...
Just bustin' your chops, but your high school English teacher must be having fits right about now. Your description sentence implies that the USS Peleliu deployed Marines to the beach and then flew itself, all 40,000 tons, 200 miles into Afghanistan!
You can even see an AV-8 Harrier on the aft end of the flight deck, probably an older model used only for fire fighting drills and to allow the deck crews practice moving the aircraft around the flight deck. When I was on Peleliu...
It's not a Sovremenny. They have the helo pad amidships, just aft of the stack. The ship in the image has it's helo deck all the way aft. The Sovremenny also carries it's pair of quad launchers for it's SS-N-22 missiles on either side of the bridge, and they are missing from this ship. Further, a Sovremenny is 156 meters long while this ship is only about 124 meters.
We might be looking at a Neustrashimyy-class destroyer, possibly one undergoing refit or construction, but I...
Possibly. If you look at the map in Google Earth you can see that several of the revetments have mock-up launchers installed. Also, the cleared area to the immediate left of the launcher has a graded mound, just like the real sites, where radars are sited and the area to the SW has multiple antenna, just like the real site. The military often uses RF generators to simulate radars so the SEAD guys have something to practice against.
The submarine in the drydock is likely the HMCS Chicoutimi (formerly HMS Upholder). The sub suffered a fire onboard during it's trip from the UK to Canada in October of 2004.
This looks EXACTLY like the revetment layout for a Soviet SA-5 missile site. EXACTLY! Perhaps this was used as a training target for Air Force crews. The SA-5 is considered obsolete and, while still in use by Libya and a few other countries, isn't really considered a threat, especially against stealthy aircraft.
Also, the heavy, black T-shaped marks on the concrete pad at the top of the facility look like tire marks from repeated backing practice. That's where the guys learn to back a trailer into a loading dock, garage, or perhaps a revetted area.
I think your guess is right on. It's a military driver training facility. Remember, in China most young men coming into the military are draftees and, in all likelyhood, have never driven a car, let alone a truck or tank. I've seen imagery of former Warsaw Pact training bases with similar layouts. The figure 8s are used to practice backing vehicles towing a trailer.
The ship in the drydock to the south is actually the USS Nassau (LHA 4). The only other LHA on the east coast, the USS Saipan (LHA 2) is up the river at the naval base.
It's the America. The Enterprise has a cubic shaped island, sort of like a square mushroom made out of Legos. The Enterprise is still in commission at Norfolk.
I stand corrected. I got a better look at these in Google Earth and they could be helicopters. The ones that ARE helicopters are Mi-17s. The white color could be a result of preservative coatings sprayed on mothballed aircraft.
The way the helicopters are spread out over a large area, and parked in unusual locations, leads me to believe this photo was taken pre-invasion. Those helos are parked in such a way that one bomb or missile won't take out more than one helo.
The white objects are most certainly NOT helicopters. First off, there aren't too many white painted military helicopter. Secondly, there are not rotor blades or other features. (Don't look at the objects, look at the shadows.)
I did a little research and have come to the the conclusion that the large helos are not Mi-8s but rather Mi-17 "Hips", and the white objects are possibly AA-7 "Apex" air-to-air missiles. The Iraqis were suspected of placing AA-7s on helicopters in the early 1990s and this photo could be several years old, possibly before the 2003 invasion.
They're too small to be helos and the wrong shape too. The large helos in the image are Mi-8s so the white things are far too small to be aircraft. They're most likely ground support equipment, possibly maintenance stands. You'll notice, by looking at the shadows, that the item on the left is horizontal (no shadow) while the middle and right objects are elevated (shadow). This facility is the Al-Rasheed (or Al Rashid, or just plain Rashid) air base, which used to house MiG-21s and -23s.
The large, C-shaped area at center is the former Long Beach Naval Station. It was closed in Sept. 1994, most of the buildings leveled, and turned into a container shipping terminal for the Chinese state-run China Ocean Shipping Company (COSCO).
This base was the location for most of the major units of the U.S. Pacific fleet in the years leading up to WWII.
Another interesting thing is that the North Koreans claim this reactor is for producing electricity yet there are not power lines leaving the facility. Hmmm...?
It's amazing that imagery of this quality is so readily available. 10 years ago it would have been highly classified and 20 years ago it would have been darn near impossible.
If you look closely you can see three tourists getting their wallets lifted and a couple getting scammed over a digital camera that's really a rock in a box. Ahhh, Naples!
The ship with the 2 on the deck is actually the USS Saipan, LHA 2. Notice the pinched bow where the LHD has a squared off bow? The LHAs were built with, and had for many years, a 5-inch gun mount on either side of the bow, inside those notches.
Another key is the placement of the aircraft elevators. Both have elevators to port just aft of amidships but the LHA has an aft elevator located on the centerline of the ship whereas the LHD has it's second elevator located aft...
The bottom submarine is actually two. You have to blow the picture up to see it but there are definitely two submarines in that drydock. It's pretty common, actually, since it costs the same to drain the dock for one or two subs.
Top Gun is here too. No A-10s or F-117 in the photo though. There are E-2s, F-14s, F/A-18s, and agressor squadron F-16s and F-5s. Also a three S-3 Vikings used as tankers.
Those are the commercial drydocks and shipyards on the Norfolk side of the river. The big ones are owned by Metro Marine. You can see the 6th Fleet command ship, USS Mt. Whitney, tied up to the pier immediately to the southwest of the highway tunnel entrance.
Great Wall of China? Looks like All of China to me. We have a Great Wall of China downtown. Terrific chow mein, and the egg rolls are pretty tasty too.
Pink Floyd is most definitely NOT a hippie group. Interestingly though, the shadow of the building looks more like it's usual self than does the tilted over image of the building itself.
Looks like a natural gas carrier. If you follow the pipeline ashore you'll notice it feeds large ball shaped containers, a sure sign of gas. Liquids are stored in cylinders, gas in balls.
You assume the pilot was aiming for the center of the rings. Quite often the target is an old tank, truck, car, or plane set outside the rings. This makes it easier to identify fresh bomb hits.
Looks like a prison to me. Isolated location, multiple walls/fences, guard towers at the corners. If it were military you'd see much more activity. Also, notice the parking lot? Notice all parking is outside the fence? Military bases have parking/motor pools inside the fence line. Also, there is no obvious HQ building with the associated flag poles and VIP driveway leading to the front door.
You wouldn't even recognize the place any more. Carney park is still open but all of the other facilities are gone. Completely new everything has been built at two new sites, one at the airport and another north of town.
Analogman: Comments
The facility is Fort Carson, near Colorado Springs.
I landed at Clark back in 1990 on my way to Subic Bay to meet a ship. (Those are stories for a different forum!)
Visible on the southern parking apron are two unmarked 737s, probably used to ferry the employees from Las Vegas.
Plenty of sail and power boats on the water though.
As aircraft take off and land into the wind, the nose is pointing into the wind. As a certified aircraft firefighter I can tell you that fire trucks ALWAYS approach an aircraft fire from up wind, in this case the nose.
The white triangle coming from the port wing is almost certainly a glitch in the image and not something...
You can even see an AV-8 Harrier on the aft end of the flight deck, probably an older model used only for fire fighting drills and to allow the deck crews practice moving the aircraft around the flight deck. When I was on Peleliu...
We might be looking at a Neustrashimyy-class destroyer, possibly one undergoing refit or construction, but I...
One note: It's an SA-5 site simulated, not an...
The white objects are most certainly NOT helicopters. First off, there aren't too many white painted military helicopter. Secondly, there are not rotor blades or other features. (Don't look at the objects, look at the shadows.)
Additional keys...
This base was the location for most of the major units of the U.S. Pacific fleet in the years leading up to WWII.
Another key is the placement of the aircraft elevators. Both have elevators to port just aft of amidships but the LHA has an aft elevator located on the centerline of the ship whereas the LHD has it's second elevator located aft...
My guess is a prison.