Final Countdown

[aerojock]

Here is a a link to an article from the CAF Dispatch about the filming of the movie. It seems the "Zeroes" really did hit the jet blast from the F-14. I like the line about the director almost becoming a late victim of WWII.
http://pilotsforchrist.proboards.com/th ... -countdown

[Scott Rose]

Thats funny, because when I was rewatching the scene I was wondering about kill markings for the Tomcats.

there's a discussion about that on that YouTube link. Some suggest, and I agree, that there'd be no kill markings allowed as the DoD would say, "Nope, never happened," and wouldn't allow the kills in any official way. That said, how the heck would they explain this to the crew of the chopper that the Senator blew up by accident (never mind that the Navy would have found the remains of that afterward and started wondering what the heck it was from)? Or the people the Zero pilot shot in the carrier?
I've always loved to think, "What happened next?" after the credits rolled and this movie always made me wonder (especially once I served in the military and realized all the nuts and bolts issues behind what happened in the film).
I mean really, the entire crew knew what had happened, so it's not like the navy was going silence thousand of sailors for life. They couldn't tell them it was just a DoD exercise, because, well, the sailors knew what was going on (remember the recon pilots who flew over Ford Island, oddly taking photos of the attack as it was happening?)
Then there's the issue over what had happened in the first place. they missed all kinds of opportunities to link similar 'storms' with disappearances of other ships in the past. But anyway, how would the DoD react to the knowledge that storms like that existed at all? Imagine today's risk-averse military, they'd never let ships leave their ports! There'd be no way to know it couldn't happen again...
...which leads to the possibility of a sequel:
Imagine a different version of this where, say, the USS Gerald Ford attacks the Japanese task force and succeeds, with F-35s, and then comes back through the storm again to find a totally different world where WW2 didn't happen at all like we now know it. With the entire task force at the bottom of the Pacific, the US battleships and carriers launch into the Pacific full-throttle and the entire pacific war is over by the summer of 1942? They then turn toward Europe without a Pacific war to fight, with the full Allied effort, and the entire war is over by 1943?
Makes me wish I worked in Hollywood so I could pitch this idea!

There is a horrible book series starting with "The Last Carrier" about a 7th Japanese carrier that gets "stuck" in an iceberg for 40 years, breaks free in the early 80s and commences an attack on Pearl Harbor. With that said, how much damage could the Japanese attack fleet do to a modern Pearl Harbor if they came through the other way. Shear numbers would allow at least some damage to be done.

[shrike]

There is a horrible book series starting with "The Last Carrier" about a 7th Japanese carrier that gets "stuck" in an iceberg for 40 years, breaks free in the early 80s and commences an attack on Pearl Harbor. With that said, how much damage could the Japanese attack fleet do to a modern Pearl Harbor if they came through the other way. Shear numbers would allow at least some damage to be done.

Assuming the carrier in question was Shokaku class, and allowing for the element of surprise, the attack would be devastating. None of the surface ships homeported at Pearl have any armor protection to speak of. The only ship there capable of surviving a torpedo hit is the USS Iowa. Docked members of the Sub fleet would be sitting ducks, and a reactor breached by a 250kg anti shipping bomb would create untold havoc.
The fratricidal damage of lighting up the CWIS on those ships so equipped in port would probably cause as almost much damage as the bombing. The 5" guns would be reasonably effective in AA role, but the DDG and CG's there only carry one each.

All that said, the carrier itself would have about 3hrs to celebrate before the shock wore off and a reprisal was mounted.

[Jack Cook]

Reportedly taken on the deck of that carrier during the filming, of one of the F-14s used in that famous sequence:

Does anyone know if either of those Tomcats exist anywhere today?

Nope taken at NAS Key West

[p51]

I watched the movie again the night before last, which I hadn't done in a while.
One thing I never understood was the A7 pilot who makes it through the first storm into 1941. He lands in a barrier and is out when they come up to the cockpit.
CDR Owen comes up to him on the gurney, and looks off almost in horror, with them never showing the pilot's face.
I'd always assumed it was something awful that was cut from TV but you just never see the guy's face at all, never hear why he was knocked out (the other pilots going the other way through the storm at the end were fine) and generally the scene makes no sense.
Does anyone have a clue what was going in there that maybe they'd cut out?

[maxum96]

I own the movie on DVD. It never shows the A-7 pilot's face.

[Combatmech]

Reportedly taken on the deck of that carrier during the filming, of one of the F-14s used in that famous sequence:

Does anyone know if either of those Tomcats exist anywhere today?

Nope taken at NAS Key West

Concur......some of the senior 1st and 2nd classes I served with at Oceana, had been at 41 and 84 during filming of the movie and talked about it frequently.

Oddly enough, The Final Countdown sold me on the Navy. Month into my first cruise.....wow, THIS is awesome!! Three years and two cruises later, beginning of work-ups for the third deployment, I'd had enough. REALLY?!?! Again!?!?! Nope....I'm out after this. Nope....extended for a year and went to the RAG ( VF-101 ) Spent 12 great years working on Tomcats......

[p51]

I own the movie on DVD. It never shows the A-7 pilot's face.

Yeah, but they also never explain why the pilot is out cold after the barrier arrest or why CDR Owen looks at him so oddly and nobody ever mentions him again...

[Scott Rose]

I own the movie on DVD. It never shows the A-7 pilot's face.

Yeah, but they also never explain why the pilot is out cold after the barrier arrest or why CDR Owen looks at him so oddly and nobody ever mentions him again...

Hmmm... never gave it much thought, now it's bugging me, thanks.

[Sasquatch]

Maybe the pilot got a head slammer on the canopy or instrument panel whence taking the barrier, so knocked out?

-Tom

[shrike]

I own the movie on DVD. It never shows the A-7 pilot's face.

Yeah, but they also never explain why the pilot is out cold after the barrier arrest or why CDR Owen looks at him so oddly and nobody ever mentions him again...

Hmmm... never gave it much thought, now it's bugging me, thanks.

It's kind of like the puppy in Apocalypse Now. Major point in a scene. then never brought up again.

[Scott Rose]

I almost forgot about this series. what happens when a task force goes back in time... and stays there...


Weapons of Choice
(The Axis of Time Trilogy, Book 1)
by John Birmingham
https://amzn.to/36XzVIH

Spoiler: CIWS v Dive bomber.... not pretty