I don't mind old equipment at all; as long as it works :lol: . The problem at ATT is the odd ball combination of 15 year old trainers and PCB's, coupled with different brands of analog and digital o-scopes, (cheap) multimeters, new function generators ... we had a couple labs on inductors and capacitors that didn't work at all. Or I should say, they worked fine for some people (with analog o-scopes and good multimeters), some people got weird readings, and shit just didn't flat work at all for most people. But hey, it keeps things interesting. Found out today that an FC2 who runs my barracks is a 1144. Said he was biased, obviously, but he preferred the old tech. Like you said; bulky but simple, quicker load times, simpler to boot up, stuff like that.
Back when I went through the O-scopes were fairly new and all the multi-meters were expensive Flukes. The truth of the matter is that the W. Bush years were not good for the Navy, particularly training. ATT wasn't the only one to suffer and not keep up.
I really like ACB08 as far as the newer baselines go. Uses standard IBM blades and it seems to be a reliable system. It is only on the older Cruisers that were upgraded. Baseline 9 is similar but it is too new to make any recommendations on.
Basically stay away from 6.1, 6.3 and 7. 7.1R is fine.
Spain would be a fucking fantastic place to get sea duty. Really most of the places the Navy goes sound interesting to me. That's part of why I joined. Where all did you get to go?
My first ship was based out of Norfolk.
I joined the ship in Turkey and then spent 2 or 3 months in the Gulf doing MIO operations against Iraqi oil smugglers as part of the UN task force (pre-9/11 and pre-Iraq invasion). That was... interesting... The smuggler ships were disgusting, we had to dodge the Iranians several times (they like to pick up unescorted teams) and I got to watch my destroyer and the Thorn play chicken with an Iranian patrol boat that started tailing our RHIB. The last night before we were scheduled to leave for the Med the smuggler I was on sunk.
After we got out of the Gulf we did a port visit in Cyprus that was a lot of fun. We then pulled in to Sicily and were in port for 9/11. We spent the month after that escorting the command ship and the sub tender.
Non-deployment wise we went to Boston for St. Patricks Day, New York City for the Army/Navy Game, Cape Kennedy and Fort Lauderdale several times and a bunch of islands in the Caribbean.
Second deployment was basically a booze cruise. We were detached from the carrier group and placed under SNFM (Standing Naval Forces Mediterranean). We'd be underway a few days then the entire group would pull in somewhere. We did various ports in Turkey 5 times, Italy 4 times, Spain 3 times and a few other places that I can't remember at the moment. I did spend the night on a RN Frigate, which was a lot of fun. One of my co-workers spoke German and got to be friendly with the German ship and we went drinking with them a few times.
I liked that ship, it had a great chain of command all through my time there. I thought about extending but I couldn't since my brother was also on board as an EW type (he picked his orders and we both kept quiet about it until he was already on board, and since I was going to be gone before the next deployment no one made an issue out of it). Also the ship was selected as part of the sea-swap experiment... I wanted nothing to do with that.
I didn't get shore duty because I wanted to remain in rate and the only billets were idiotic gate guard positions, so I choose to go to another destroyer out of Mayport. I should of just went gate guard. :lol: They consistently had a bad chain of command and between that and going on 7 years at sea I had enough.
That said the only deployment I did on that ship we went to Morocco, Spain 3 times, Italy, Croatia, Tunisia, Israel (where I had an experience that lead me to full fledged Atheism rather than just agnostic, lol), the country of Georgia, the Ukraine and Romania.
Makes sense. If amphibs are that bad, carrier port visits must be a fucking nightmare.
We pulled into Turkey that also had an Amphib visiting. A destroyer has 300 or so people, an Amphib over 2000. It was a nightmare, after the first night I stayed on the ship.
I have a friend who was a Sea Chicken tech on one of the CVN's. She told me liberty call is by rank, that is the only way it is manageable but it means you are not getting off the boat for a LOOONNNNGGGG time if you are E-4 and below.
. I'd like to not spend every last day of my life paying off a mortgage, so I thought I'd better start sooner rather than later? At 50 it will be all paid for, giving me money to spend my midlife crisis and/or mistress 
