No_one
Underemployed Slav. Likes playing Factorio.
User ID: 1042
No_one
9hr ago
Carriers are huge and change directions very slowly.
Seems it can make a 90° turn under 30 seconds, but acceleration is likely sluggish so evading anything but torpedoes seems... questionable. Anyway, carriers can tilt up to what looks like 15° during tight turns... I guess the planes /decks / towing equipment aren't designed to not slide when at maximum tilt.
https://old.reddit.com/r/navy/comments/1ka8nsu/updated_information_about_todays_hornet_loss/mpkdmng/
No_one
10hr ago
It still seems like a mistake to me bc..can't phalanx intercept 3 mach objects? Don't carrier groups have SM6 to get rid of this ? Worst case it hits, it's maybe a 250 kg warhead, probably not even armor piercing, would just smudge the deck no?
And this here would depend on the seeker having as strictly very limited range of searches so you could get out of it by sailing those few minutes.
But we don't really know anything firm and they won't say so.
Why would you crash a perfectly flyable prototype when you could use it
Because it doesn't have the requisite electronic systems and it'd have cost a billion $ to get the defence contractors to build and install those for you?
So you spend ten million making it airworthy but not combat-worthy and crash it, to avoid having to explain that under certain conditions (extreme low range, high powered analog radars) your stealth plane isn't that stealthy.
Interesting article popped up while reading about it https://web.archive.org/web/20160306122801/http://www.nytimes.com/1991/09/14/us/key-senate-backer-of-stealth-bomber-sees-it-in-jeopardy.html?pagewanted=1
No_one
11hr ago
I mean, possibly..
https://old.reddit.com/r/navy/comments/1ka8nsu/updated_information_about_todays_hornet_loss/
In any case you'd expect the missile to be detected 300-500 km out. It turns out Houthis do have anti-ship ballistic missiles with ~500 km range, and there if you knew the missile flies straight after boost phase and you were aware the seeker has a limited detection area theoretically hard evading would have a point.
Other suggestions were this was a cruise missile and they turned hard to bring an extra CIWS unit into a position to intercept.
I don't buy the collision story alternate theory bc I saw it discussed by sailors. It was just a crash. US warships crash into merchant shipping with some regularity - whether it's more or less often than other navies I don't know.
The fighter that fell off board story stinks a little. There's no conceivable reason why a carrier would be taking evasive action short of torpedoes in the water, which the Houthis don't have. From the POV of a missile the carrier is essentially stationary, whatever direction it moves is irrelevant.
So saying "oh fighter fell off bc evasive maneuver" smells like BS.
Likewise, if I imagine a general being killed by Russian ballistic missiles, in most cases the body will not be in a state where you can put him in his quarters and pretend it was a natural death.
Not really. If there's fragmentation or overpressure damage and the guy is promptly stuck into a fridge..which is usually possible in UA cities, the body would look superficially fine. A keen eyed medic could spot it but you can always swear some guy to secrecy and just fix it, no? Isn't there a regulation allowing something like that. Bystanders would see a corpse being removed.
Doesn't really make sense why a general would be there tho. Pretty sure only tech specialists who really have to be there and rarely special forces go there.
Edit to add – the Spirit of Missouri is still active. Wikipedia has a picture of it overflying an airshow in 2018. If it was hit
According to the substack, that's probably repainted 'Spirit of Kansas'.
The guy who wrote the theory mentioned in the substack(some intel guy) suggests something like:
May 20, '99: Spirit of Missouri is damaged, loses engine power and crashes in Croatia. USAF is short one B-2.
After that: Spirit of Kansas is occassionally repainted as Spirit of Missouri and doubles as it at times (are there high def photos of both plantes at the same time, or all of them together?)
2008: USAF fakes the crash of Spirit of Kansas using a (probably remote control) flyable prototype mocked up to look like the real thing. B-2 inventory is officially -1.
After that: The ex-Spirit of Kansas that doubled as Missouri is now Spirit of Missouri permanently and inventory shortage is rectified.
No_one
14hr ago
Here's a newspaper account from 2015, translated by Deepseek.
EVERY March, public commemorations recall the 1999 NATO aggression. At the same time, there is triumphant remembrance of the greatest feat of the Yugoslav Army – the downing of the "invisible" F-117 over Srem on March 27. However, the truth about the actual greatest success of the Third Rocket Division of the 250th Rocket Brigade – the downing of the American strategic bomber B-2 at eleven minutes past midnight on May 20 – has never been fully told. For many reasons.
Regarding the feat of the Third Rocket Division on March 27 (shooting down the F-117 near Buđanovci), there exists a version centered on one man: then-commander Colonel Zoltán Dani. According to his account, three films were made: one Serbian, one Serbian-American, and one American. Due to their content, these films divided the personnel of Serbia’s most famous rocket division. Those directly involved in downing the F-117 did not recognize themselves in the film versions, and for several years now, they have commemorated the downing of the F-117 separately.
The common link in downing both American stealth aircraft is retired Lieutenant Colonel Đorđe Aničić, who directed the targeting in both cases. First, from a position in Šimanovci alongside Zoltán Dani, he tracked and engaged the F-117. Later, from a position in Bečmen, he directed the strike that hit the B-2.
The American strategic bomber B-2, named "Spirit of Missouri," was struck by two missiles from the "Neva" system. Damaged, the plane set course 270 toward Tuzla but only reached the Spačva forests, where it crash-landed. General Bane Petrović, then-commander of the Yugoslav Army’s Air Defense, was the first to bring news to the division of what they had shot down that May 20. His report stated that the aircraft’s crash was recorded at 00:23 in Croatia.
The hit and downing of this aircraft was confirmed to the Rocket Brigade and "entered" into the unit’s official successes after the war, during the first analysis of combat effectiveness in 1999. This report remains valid today.
Steven Lee Basham, deputy commander of the U.S. 509th Wing (to which the B-2 "Spirit of Missouri" belonged), confirmed in an interview with American aviation media that the B-2 was withdrawn from combat operations on May 21, 1999. This was later echoed in Thomas Withington’s book B-2 Spirit Units in Combat (page 43), specifying the aircraft was "withdrawn" after a mission over Serbia. Was there a reason this B-2 was officially pulled from combat 20 days before the war ended on June 10?
When democratic authorities in Serbia established initial ties with official Washington in 2001, the newly appointed U.S. military attaché immediately requested via the General Staff that the Air Defense Command answer four questions – all related to the downing of the "invincible" and "invisible" strategic bomber.
Lieutenant Colonel Đorđe Aničić, protagonist and witness to these events, recently visited his division’s combat positions from 1999 with Novosti reporters. In Bečmen, Šimanovci, and Petrovčić, he recalled these events.
NEWS
The news that we downed the B-2 was brought by General Petrović – continues Lt. Col. Aničić. - Eyewitnesses along azimuth 270 toward Tuzla reported the event. As people in Županja later testified, local newspapers carried a text about the downing in their morning edition. These witnesses recounted how all newspapers in Županja were bought out from kiosks. Simultaneously, heavy machinery arrived in the Spačva forests. Excavators dug half a meter deep at the crash site, loading soil into trucks hauled to an unknown location.
On May 19, Russian mediator Viktor Chernomyrdin was in Belgrade. Many of us interpreted his arrival as the beginning of the end of the war – Aničić begins his recollection. - The division was camouflaged at a landfill in Bečmen village and was at a lower readiness level. We didn’t believe the war would last much longer. After Chernomyrdin took off from Surčin, the division was put on maximum readiness (Alert 1), meaning combat could commence. When we activated the surveillance radar, we saw an unprecedented "sea of aircraft" heading toward us.
SURVIVED ONLY BY MIRACLE IMMEDIATELY after downing the B-2 strategic bomber, NATO fighters began hunting our air defense division. The lieutenant colonel recalls that during the launch, the "Tanja" and "Ivana" missiles were fired at a steep angle. The detonation crater shifted the launcher ~20 cm, causing one missile to fall off. It didn’t explode but rendered the system inoperable. Until dawn, they defended and hid with only one operational launcher – surviving by sheer miracle. They masked their position with a false emitter and waited for daylight. They knew they’d hit a major target: all night, radio amateurs reported hearing a large aircraft with damaged engines struggling through the sky, trailed by planes with lights on.
Aničić notes the division was initially unprepared. The first wave of aircraft, followed by a second, passed without reaction from their air defense – likely an unintentional trap for the B-2. As he explains, NATO’s first wave always included anti-aircraft fighters, the second wave executed tactical strikes, and U.S. strategic bombers (in 47 missions over Serbia) flew in the third wave. This time, the division was ready for the third wave.
Amid the "sea of aircraft" on radar, I selected the target and ordered engagement. The targeting radar "locked on," and two missiles – previously christened "Tanja" and "Ivana" – were launched – Aničić continues. - We clearly saw both missiles reach the aircraft and detonate on radar. The target "splattered," meaning the plane was hit and its parts scattered. Those looking skyward saw a huge flash, after which NATO escort fighters "went mad" over Srem. They turned on all aircraft lights to locate their stricken comrades – standard NATO procedure for assisting damaged planes.
Despite the confirmed downing of the B-2 (documented in the Army’s official records), Serbian authorities have never fully investigated the story.
There's a few more newspaper articles in Serbian, but they don't seem more detailed.
It's come to my attention that in addition to the F-117 everyone acknowledges that they had shot down, Serbian military records list a shoot-down of a B-2 , which crashed in Croatia, using a similar method - booting up the radar extremely briefly during a NATO bombing mission. Saw loads of targets - one of them was ~ 15km away, looked very peculiar. Fired two S-125 missiles at it. The plane immediately started evading but was damaged by either or both 60 kg blasts, and then crashed just outside of Serbia, in Spačva basin.
Here's the fairly pretty interesting in-depth account on how it supposedly went down. It opens up with claiming that after may 20, 1999, all B-2 bombing missions of Serbia ceased, that the Spirit of Missouri was withdrawn from combat operations on May 20 and also presents a possibly verifiable claim that a section of near border woods in Croatia had an unusually heavy military presence.
At the end is they also present a Serbian hypothesis that the 2008 crash of B-2 in Guam was staged by crashing a remote-controlled B-2 test article that was secretly assembled at Guam, crashed via stall at takeoff and then passed off as the plane lost in '99.
Found this interesting bit of information on Quora, from a Serbian.
The story regarding B2 is very strange also. Supposedly it was shot down, but went down just near the border in Croatia near Spačvanske šume (forest). I recently watched colonel Zoltan Dani (commanded the battery that shot down F-117), during his interview about the downing mention, and later on in the show explain how he came to be convinced that a B-2 was shot down.
Basically, to cut this short, there were reports, in the military, that a B-2 was shot down (by a brigade that he was assigned to, but not his battery) but he didn't believe them. He later heard the stories from some villagers that live near the border with Croatia that something big had passed over their village and was making strange sounds like it's engines weren't working properly. Later on, on a funeral that he attended (this was after the bombing), some people were present (Croats) who live in Croatia and were working for police department said that at that time they were assigned to a guard duty, so no one could get close, near this forest. They weren't told what they were guarding but they said that a lot of military (American) transport trucks went in an out. They said that even the ground was dug out, as they said, to a depth of 1,5m. This B-2 was, again supposedly, Spirit of Missouri.
EDIT: interesting info on in New York Times from 1991.. Full article.. I was previously unaware B-2 was ever found insufficiently stealthy in tests.
No_one
22hr ago
It may lead to a prosperous, stable future, but if it doesn't and the train is headed for a cliff, what control could you possibly have over it, short of killing your way to the front?
Tell me again where did the European citizen have a choice of opting out of green energy lunacy or immigration ? What choices do you have in the supposedly most free system out there?
No_one
22hr ago
I find the notion that America should permanently kneecap anyone who might contest their dominance very off-putting.
Americans, even pretty smart ones (e.g. eigenrobot ) earnestly believe their country's hegemony is good, proper and should be maintained indefinitely despite material reality. Is that not even more off-putting than wanting to preserve hegemony and actually doing something towards that aim?
No_one
22hr ago
I'm not arguing that it should do so, or that it'd have been the right thing to do, I'm saying that had they been serious about preserving 'freedom in the future lightcone' or however e/acc guys who are anti-China put it, they'd have had to do that.
If CPC preserves its current ways of picking elites which is go to Chinese MIT/Harvard etc, pick psychologically most promising students who have already been established are 99.8th percentile and put them on the party career track - it's probably going to end up as the least stupid form of governance ever devised.
No_one
1d ago
The moment attitude to China changed from "how do we keep them in eternal poverty and civil war" to anything else, Americans lost.
It's that simple. They're mostly one people, they were backward for historical reasons. They are 1/2 of the world's high average IQ population.
Had US presidents read more Lothrop Stoddard, this would never have happened.
Fuck propping up the USSR to keep Chinese down would have made sense.
No_one
2d ago
But it still ended up shaping a decade of US politics, because people care more about this kind of things than deaths from traffic.
It shaped politics that much because it was basically a godsend, a moment some of the PNAC crowd have been secretly praying for.
Further, the process of transformation, even if it brings revolutionary change, is likely to be a long one, absent some catastrophic and catalyzing event – like a new Pearl Harbor. Domestic politics and industrial policy will shape the pace and content of transformation as much as the requirements of current missions. A decision to suspend or terminate aircraft carrier production, as recommended by this report and as justified by the clear direction of military technology, will cause great upheaval.
Funny:
Absent a rigorous program of experimentation to investigate the nature of the revolution in military affairs as it applies to war at sea, the Navy might face a future Pearl Harbor – as unprepared for war in the post-carrier era as it was unprepared for war at the dawn of the carrier age.
They were actually not that stupid and wanted to axe new carrier construction, but did not manage to do so.
No_one
2d ago
It's mostly a film plot thing and also a way to get nuked. What would be the point ?
but the Temple Mount actually needs to be the place of construction for the Third Temple.
I've got a gut feeling that blasting Temple Mount into a shallow crater would make most Jews horrified but secretly relieved.
They've been Jews this long and had God wanted them to rebuild the temple, there'd have been a sign.
No_one
2d ago
So why did they build it? Is it just a stepping stone to the hydrogen bomb?
Yeah, pretty much.
No_one
2d ago
None of these animals are enemies of their predators, they're merely snacks. Those features you listed exist to induce the predator to choose another snack.
If Israel destroys Iran, having eaten one small nuke in the process would still leave it weaker vis-a-vis its other
Nothing in my original post implies Israelis do not know this. Obviously they, the HOG are certain to know Iranians have nukes, or are right at the threshold. They're probably hard at work trying to get high-res photos of said nukes because accusations without proof aren't that interesting today.
No_one
2d ago
No, you can't 'provide a bomb'.
It'd be obvious from the fallout where the bomb was from and you would end up being treated the same as if you had fired it yourself.
No_one
2d ago
Good, didn't know about this.
Great way to promote ambiguity, though only very naive people will fall for it.
No_one
2d ago
That's what I am saying.
But the only way to do it is thermonuclear weapons.
20*20 kilotons on Israel would be catastrophic but it'd be survivable for Israel.
It'd not be survivable for Iranian government.
100*400 kilotons would destroy Israel, possibly even partially prevent retaliation.
That's the moment when Iran would have true deterrence and MAD with Israel.
Being able to wound the enemy and then assuredly die is not deterrence.
No_one
3d ago
Iran has everything to lose and nothing to gain by declaring nuclear capability.
Reaction to this top-level post on Iranian nukes.
Iran's assumption seems to have been that by permanently remaining n steps away from having nukes (n varying according to the current political and diplomatic climate), you get all the benefits of being a nuclear-armed state without the blowback of going straight for them. But no, you need to have the actual weapons in your arsenal, ready to use at a moment's notice.
It's very possible Iran ALREADY has the weapons in their arsenal.
But the weapons are militarily and strategically useless for Iran in this particular situation.
Because every current adversary already has nuclear weapons, and more of them, and could retaliate forcefully.
Why they probably have them:
Between how much time they've had to develop them, and that the half-ton of 60% HEU could have be easily boosted to weapons grade by removing the third of lighter uranium atoms from it (it'd only take days), it's nonsensical to believe Iranians do not already have nuclear weapons or couldn't have them. Making an detonating an implosion uranium bomb is something the Chinese managed in 1963 or so. Today, with supercomputers and more mature nuclear physics knowledge out there, it's not hard at all.
The 15 bombs Iran could have if we take IAEA at their word, which if used, would result in destruction of Tehran and other major cities, could kill perhaps 300-500k Israelis. It'd not destroy the country, cause it to be overrun etc.
Iranians know that if they nuked an Israeli air-base, Israelis who have more bombs would H-bomb all of their major military sites and production facilities. They're probably working on hydrogen bombs, but have not conducted a test yet. So, there are no useful targets for these bombs at all. There's no reason to say you have something you cannot even use.
Israelis do not have the resources for a sustained campaign, so why strike them? They were going to give up their campaign sooner or later.
So, in conclusion:
Obviously, even if they had the bombs, they'd keep them secret, locked up in a bunker and work on producing hydrogen bombs and ICBMs and enough of a tunnel network to guarantee survival of a second strike capability.
Announcing that they have the bombs would
- feed Israeli narrative
- not actually provide them with the required capability to deter anyone
- cause normies in Israel/West to demand an actual end to Iranian nuclear program
the only upside would be boosting national pride.
Iran's assumption seems to have been that by permanently remaining n steps away from having nukes (n varying according to the current political and diplomatic climate), you get all the benefits of being a nuclear-armed state without the blowback of going straight for them. But no, you need to have the actual weapons in your arsenal, ready to use at a moment's notice.
It's entirely possible Iran ALREADY has the weapons in their arsenal.
But the weapons are militarily and strategically useless for Iran in this particular situation.
Why they probably have them:
Between how much time they've had to develop them, and that the half-ton of 60% HEU could have be easily boosted to weapons grade by removing the third of lighter uranium atoms from it (it'd only take days), it's nonsensical to believe Iranians do not already have nuclear weapons. Making an detonating an implosion uranium bomb is something the Chinese managed in 1963 or so. Today, with supercomputers it's not hard at all.
This is obvious but it's obviously not talked about because then the normies would get hysterical, even though a nuclear bomb is not particularly destructive, and even the maximum of 15 20kt bombs isn't particularly destructive either. (Israeli cities are not made out of wood nor would burn as readily as Japanese WW2 ones). Nor are so dense. If Iranians wanted to have their country H-bombed, they could gravely hurt Israel by killing ~20,000 people with each bomb, tops.
Something tells me they're not the wholly irrational frothing at the mouth fanatics we're being told the are.
But they, probably correctly, calculate that if they nuked an Israeli air-base, Israelis would H-bomb all of their major military sites and production facilities. They're probably working on hydrogen bombs, but have not conducted a test yet.
No, really, what do you think they could do with these bombs if they declared they have them?
Militarily, the only possible 'clean' target are US carrier groups. US doesn't want to invade, nor could it invade. Unless it were attempting a full scale conquest of the country, this wouldn't happen.
Israeli airbases are mostly in populated areas areas, each strike would cause collateral damage. Israelis do not have the resources for a sustained campaign, so why strike them? They're going to give up. If Iran used them on Israeli military infrastructure, their own military installations would get glassed much more thoroughly.
Obviously, even if they had the bombs, they'd keep them secret, locked up in a bunker and work on producing hydrogen bombs and ICBMs and enough of a tunnel network to guarantee survival of a second strike capability.
Announcing that they have the bombs would
- feed Israeli narrative
- not actually provide them with the required capability to deter anyone
- cause normies in Israel/West to demand an actual end to Iranian nuclear program
the only upside would be boosting national pride.
No_one
5d ago
I'm skeptical of the accuracy and/or probative value of the psychoanalyses of the people involved, more generally, and it's unclear if it's Psmith's own interpretation or him relaying that of the original author
A foreign policy guy I sometimes reply to recommended to me that I read this book. So I picked it up. Couldn't finish it.
The whole thing seems like an exercise in exculpatory back-scratching, ..all these fine people, operating on the best intentions, reasonably well informed fucked up.. a story they really need now because the then neoconservative view - that Americans have the right to intervene whenever they need to preserve US primacy and interests - came to dominate the entire foreign policy establishment and it'd simply not do to allow the monumental failure of the conquest of Iraq to keep spreading bad smell.
What I remember about the time seems different. More along the lines of 'the war was a pet project of very specific people (PNAC alumni), they were saying they'd invade Iraq in october of '01 before they even got the dodgy evidence they needed to sell that war.
No_one
6d ago
Only ever saw one guy using it. Young guy, 20-something. A place where I worked part time, one of the temp workers loading the containers. He stank, literally stank so bad I could smell him - I have somewhat impaired sense of smell. Apparently he washed very rarely.. and this was summer.
Later I learned he was homeless, living in a tiny garden colony hut he broke into and even though he could have washed, he didn't. Everyone hated him because he acted aggressive, sometimes talked to himself, kept pacing all the time, was unreasonable... and stank. About every hour he'd mix a kratom drink using a lot of various powders he had there and then drink it. I guess because the labor force situation being what it is, he kept working there for several months.
Once caused a fire alarm because he lighted up a joint or cigarette in the toilets, but the place was so shoddily run they didn't know who was the culprit and he got away with it. Not sure what caused the company to blacklist him eventually.. probably got in a fight with someone.
I really don't think his was 'initial high'. As far as I know, he was persistently agitated this way, which, even more than the smell, caused others to hate him. Maybe he was mixing something else into those drinks though.
Anyone knows the best way of buying Windows 10 LTSC versions ?
I have a relatively powerful PC but for some reason,it's not Windows 11 ready.
Windows Enterprise Long Term Customer Support is windows without all the stupid crap like 'Store' . Unless I want to learn Linux, seems like the only option. Supported until 2032, at least.
Windows 10 LTSC is not on offer to consumers in common shops, EVEN though it's superior because it lacks pointless annoying features such as 'Store' and so on. I've seen it described as quite superior by users. It seems it can be bought for €150-300 and there are people with relatively good ratings selling license keys for €20 around here. Or in some shops, as €30 supposedly a second-hand license. Huh. Seems dubious but those shops don't look totally sketchy.
There's also sites that claim they offer ways of activating it permanently. I'm a bit worried about malware, but I'm not sure that's a problem - all my serious crap is on my phone anyway, and if someone were to use my PC to mine anything I'd probably notice. Also, the entire site smells of honest cracker type people doing it not for profit.
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