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naraburns  nihil supernum  2yr ago (text post)   Edited 2yr ago   34788 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of November 14, 2022

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Arent a few farmers dying extremely weird? What’s the possibility that the missile falls on a farm exactly where the handful of people are at that moment.

According to German news, it was two, so likely a married couple, which means their house got hit (edit: or tractor apparently), so not particularly strange from that aspect.

An extremely unlucky coincidence is more probable than intentional Russian strike, or Ukrainian provocation though. Putin is a trickster, and a manipulator, yes, but he won't get anything by striking Poland, the only far-fetched explanation (that it's an "off-ramp" that would allow him to justify withdrawal from Ukraine) I think we can dismiss. Also some pro-Russians push the version that it's an attempt of Ukraine to draw NATO into the war — I too find not credible. Mostly because American GEOINT and MASINT is quite advanced, and with American help Poles won't have trouble to piece together what exactly happened.

I think we should look at the event holding this thought — that in a day, or two, or maybe a week NATO will know precisely what happened — whether it was a Russian missile, or a Ukrainian AA missile, or maybe both (e.g. if Ukrainian missile intercepted a Russian missile, and they both fell on those poor farmers). And I think Russian, Polish, Ukrainian and American authorities understand this. Kuleba already said that it wasn't a Ukrainian missile

https://twitter.com/DmytroKuleba/status/1592633235754057728?cxt=HHwWgIDQqazflZosAAAA

if he lied, or even was misinformed, Ukrainian credibility will take a hit. At the same time, Russians are no strangers to lying (think of their behavior during MH17 events), so they'll say "it wasn't us" either way.

EDIT: Remember the Ukrainian airplane that Iran shot down (what an irony)?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ukraine_International_Airlines_Flight_752

Americans leaked that it was Iranian AA the next day, on Jan 9th. And they were monitoring Iranian airspace in the aftermath of Soleimani just as they monitor Ukrainian airspace now.

if he lied, or even was misinformed, Ukrainian credibility will take a hit.

The one thing I have found consistently weird about the entire Western perception of this conflict is the universal mass-amnesia of the fact that Ukranian and Russian are birds of a feather. I personally tune out everything that comes from the mouth of a slavic leader as an obvious fabrication, and wait for the independent corroboration of events.

I don't think it's fair. When an American politician lies, Americans blame him personally (or maybe his party, like "GOP always lie"). On the other hand, when someone not from the US lies, the blame is put on culture like in your case "post-Soviet leaders always lie, it's because the culture of mistrust yada-yada". I guess it's sort of outgroup homogeneity?

Are you sure on your probabilities? If they are actual farmers the farm even a small size would be like 10 acres. Maybe 5 humans on a family farm? Your talking about 1/1000+ probability that a missile hitting the farm would kill someone.

Now if a missile fell in a suburban housing project maybe you have a 20% chance it’s close enough to kill someone. But on a working farm?

I think it's probable that it might be more complicated than just "a missile fell on a tractor", but rather it was due to some false positive of a guidance system. Still it doesn't mean that it was intentional. Kinda similar to my theory of COVID-19 — it might be a lab leak, but not an intentional release in order to [decimate Chinese/Americans/old people/enter your reasoning here].

Well I also thought maybe Poland added some flair to the missile. But yes on a big farm it seems improbably a missile just happened to hit the tractor humans were in.

Not only that, if you look at the photos it looks like the missile directly hit a tractor.

No one knows what it was programmed to do exactly but here's a good example scenario:

The missile should fly 400km Westward, but a sensor malfunctioned and miscounted its distance. Once that sensor thought it had been 400km, it turned on the visual targeting system. Normally, this would look for a building of a certain shape - but in the middle of a field, it found no buildings. It went to secondary targets, tanks and so on. It found a tractor and went for it.

Is that how missiles work though? That sounds way smarter than I assume missiles are.

Here's the wiki on the s-300, which is likely what this was: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S-300_missile_system

It seems like there is a base station with a radar on it that it uses for target acquisition, not on the missile itself.

That’s true for acquisition, but if you look at Specifications for the table of weapons launched, the more recent ones have their own radar.

Radar or IR is far more likely, but your basic premise is sound. If you're out in the middle of acres of farmland that big steel frame and engine block is going to be the strongest radar return for miles around, ditto the tractor's hot exhaust for an IR guided missile.

Looks like these are radar-guided, so it probably homed on the radar reflection of the tractor.

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