Jeep Vs. F/A-18 (Or How A Base Commander Got Forcibly Retired)

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mekender
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Jeep Vs. F/A-18 (Or How A Base Commander Got Forcibly Retired)

Post by mekender »

“I no longer need to run as a Presidential Candidate for the Socialist Party. The Democrat Party has adopted our platform.” - Norman Thomas, a six time candidate for president for the Socialist Party, 1944
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Jericho941
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Re: Jeep Vs. F/A-18 (Or How A Base Commander Got Forcibly Retired)

Post by Jericho941 »

I really doubt this will have any serious consequences for the base commander. On most bases, there really isn't much you can do to prevent this without closing the gates in advance. Any steps to remedy this would be of the "requires congressional budgeting" variety.
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mekender
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Re: Jeep Vs. F/A-18 (Or How A Base Commander Got Forcibly Retired)

Post by mekender »

The story makes me believe that they were being actively pursued by both land and air assets... Which means the gates should have been closed.
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toad
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Re: Jeep Vs. F/A-18 (Or How A Base Commander Got Forcibly Retired)

Post by toad »

I guess the cheapest solution is the "maze" where vehicles have move around concrete barriers before and after the gate. If a vehicle tries to do a high speed run it's splat into a hard obstacle. It's used at a number of border check points in the world. Probably spent the base budget on something like booze for the officers club?
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Re: Jeep Vs. F/A-18 (Or How A Base Commander Got Forcibly Retired)

Post by Langenator »

Some bases I've been to have serpentines at the gates, some don't. It largely depends on how much room was available after 9/11 (many posts didn't have access control of any sort before that.).

But pretty much every base I've been to for the last 10 years has some sort of quick-deploy barriers a short distance past the ID card checkpoint that should prevent this kind of thing. The outbound lanes have the exact same type of barriers.
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Jericho941
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Re: Jeep Vs. F/A-18 (Or How A Base Commander Got Forcibly Retired)

Post by Jericho941 »

mekender wrote:The story makes me believe that they were being actively pursued by both land and air assets... Which means the gates should have been closed.
Fair point, but that still requires local law enforcement to tell the base "oh hey this idiot's heading toward you and we think he might attempt to enter the base," as opposed to "just another reckless driver on the highway in the general vicinity of a base."
Langenator wrote:Some bases I've been to have serpentines at the gates, some don't. It largely depends on how much room was available after 9/11 (many posts didn't have access control of any sort before that.).

But pretty much every base I've been to for the last 10 years has some sort of quick-deploy barriers a short distance past the ID card checkpoint that should prevent this kind of thing. The outbound lanes have the exact same type of barriers.
Yeah, I thought the difference between leaving it at deployable bollards and installing chicanes at the gates was how Important™ the stuff on the other side of it was. Trident bases have 'em, airbases... so far, not so much, from what I've seen. Deployable barriers yes, but nothing to slow people down before they're up besides a squishy contractor or A1C.
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mekender
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Re: Jeep Vs. F/A-18 (Or How A Base Commander Got Forcibly Retired)

Post by mekender »

Jericho941 wrote:
mekender wrote:The story makes me believe that they were being actively pursued by both land and air assets... Which means the gates should have been closed.
Fair point, but that still requires local law enforcement to tell the base "oh hey this idiot's heading toward you and we think he might attempt to enter the base," as opposed to "just another reckless driver on the highway in the general vicinity of a base."
I looked up the map of the base and it seems that there are two places where one could conceivably drive a vehicle through a fence gate and then there is a checkpoint entrance that has a barrier... The barrier looks to be one of the hydraulically operated ones that raises up so that oncoming traffic faces a nice sharp blade full of many inch thick steel in a dazzling paint scheme of yellow and black stripes.

I could be completely crazy in my line of thinking here but wouldn't a CHP helicopter entering a MOA have to make contact with the NAS tower/ATC? And shouldn't such contact include something along the lines of "we are in active pursuit of a suspect vehicle on XXXX road" and then the conversation should also include updates throughout that pursuit I would think...

In my head I can see it playing out... The ATC guy snapping his fingers towards the supervisor on duty that was working really hard on making his coffee swirl just the right way... And said supervisor leaping to his feet like Christopher Lloyd about to say "Great Scott"... And them him grabbing a phone on the wall and barking a few orders and then all kinds of things start happening.

See, I have to imagine that somewhere along that process someone skipped over step 63J(2)(c)(i)* in some policy manual somewhere in the military and thus screwed up. Because I am guessing that somewhere in some policy manual or another there is a section that says that if local law enforcement are in active pursuit of a suspect near the base, it is a good idea to notify the gate and have the lock down access for a little while.

As I said, I might be crazy... But I would think that one of the primary responsibilities of being the CO of an NAS is to ensure that people are not able to drive a jeep into $60 million dollars worth of USN fighter jet, let alone do it with enough speed to cause fatal injuries to the occupants of said jeep...

*completely made up step number
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NVGdude
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Re: Jeep Vs. F/A-18 (Or How A Base Commander Got Forcibly Retired)

Post by NVGdude »

At least 10 years ago the USAF installed these hydraulic steel popup barriers at every USAF installation. (even our podunk 5 acre site).

They are heavy enough to stop a big rig, and deploy in seconds. No excuse for this. But you know, the Navy.
Last edited by NVGdude on Tue Apr 05, 2016 6:33 am, edited 1 time in total.
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mekender
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Re: Jeep Vs. F/A-18 (Or How A Base Commander Got Forcibly Retired)

Post by mekender »

I should add that I said all of the above before I watched the video attached to that article. The video states that the chase only lasted 4 minutes which seems short given that they said a CHP chopper was involved... And that the guy went on the wrong side of the road around the checkpoint which after looking at the aerial map, it seems like that is not all that hard to do... Making me wonder why that was possible.

Regardless, I still think my last couple of paragraphs are applicable...
“I no longer need to run as a Presidential Candidate for the Socialist Party. The Democrat Party has adopted our platform.” - Norman Thomas, a six time candidate for president for the Socialist Party, 1944
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Mike OTDP
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Re: Jeep Vs. F/A-18 (Or How A Base Commander Got Forcibly Retired)

Post by Mike OTDP »

Somehow, I don't think the base CO will have a band at his change of command ceremony.
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