A strike deep into Russia

 aircraft, Hmm..., news, politics, russian empire, weapons, youtube  No Responses »
Dec 052022
 

Looks like the Ukrainians are taking the war home to Russian military forces, this time hitting Engels Air Force Base and potentially destroying two TU 95 “Bear” bombers. Unknown as yet *how* the Ukrainians pulled this off.

 

I remain unconvinced that hitting Mother Russia is necessarily the wisest course for Ukraine; it could will be used to feed the Russian propaganda machine, to say that Ukraine actually is a threat. On the other hand, taking out Russian military assets like strategic bombers costs Russia *real* money. So long as the Ukrainians strictly stick to military targets, this is potentially a good thing for them. Now the Russians will have to redeploy their air defense systems.

 Posted by at 8:42 am

Modern weapon vs old

 aircraft, awesomeness, Hmm..., russian empire, weapons, youtube  No Responses »
Dec 022022
 

I remember reading many years ago someone describing what would happen if a modern anti-ship missile was launched against a World War 2 battleship: after the explosion, a sailor would have to go out on deck and sweep up all the bits of the missile and dump them overboard and probably slap on another coat of paint. The point was that ships used to be massive floating armored installations, and thus required massively powerful incoming weapons to take them out, but more recent ships are lightly built and rely on active defenses (missiles and CIWS along with ECM) to avoid getting hit in the first place.

 

The war in Ukraine from time to time demonstrates this. For example, the Russians recently launched a “Lancet” loitering munition against a piece of Ukrainian artillery, an old Soviet-era D-20 howitzer. The advanced modern weapon made a direct impact… and blew out a tire. There is value in being built like an old cannon, it seems. The Lancet seems to use a warhead wrapped with bits of cut-up rebar; this doubtless does wonders against soft targets such as trucks and troops concentrations and playgrounds and hospitals and the like, but seems to do diddly-squat against actual armor. Other variants apparently include shaped charge warheads for use against armor; perhaps this was a failure of proper weapons selection.

 

 Posted by at 9:40 pm

Ukraine’s ancient artillery

 history, Hmm..., politics, russian empire, weapons  No Responses »
Dec 012022
 

Ukraine’s World War II-Vintage Howitzers Still Work Just Fine

Ukraine was given M101 towed 105 mm artillery pieces by Lithuania. The 105 mm hell is still a standard round used by NATO, so the ammo is new. The cannon are apparently still in good shape and work just fine. Like the M1911, the M101 is no longer top of the line… but it still works adequately well, and you’d be a fool to not be afraid of getting shot by one. While more modern artillery might shoot farther or more accurately or faster… if the Ukrainians coordinate their fire with live drone surveillance, those antique cannon are going to make a mess of whoever’s on the receiving end.

 

 

 Posted by at 7:02 am

Some uplifting documentaries about getting nuked by commies

 history, Hmm..., nukes, politics, russian empire, Worldwreckers, youtube, ಠ_ಠ  No Responses »
Nov 262022
 

Oddly, the PBS special “In The Event of Catastrophe” from 1978 is age restricted. Click on it, it’ll take you to YouTube directly. Shrug.

 

“First Strike” from the RAND Corporation. A docu-drama depicting a Soviet first strike that effectively wipes out America’s nuclear retaliatory capability and leads to the capitulation of the USA. Bits of this were used in “The Day After” a few years later.

 

This one from the National Film Board of Canada runs kinda light on pointing out that the Commies are setting off the nukes. Instead, the nuclear explosions just sorta happen, some vague result of American actions.

 

And just for fun, here’s a German 1998 alternate history show (“Der Dritte Weltkrieg”) where 1990 goes a little differently:

 

 Posted by at 11:31 pm

Didn’t quite stick the landing

 AARRRGH, aircraft, news, politics, russian empire, weapons, youtube  No Responses »
Nov 012022
 

A Mil-8 got thwacked by a MANPAD and set alight. It flew in a controlled and sensible manner for a lot longer than I would have expected given that it seemed to be a raging inferno, but the end was kind of a bummer for the crew. I suspect the passengers were already out of the picture by that point. Gotta wonder why the pilot kept it in the air that long. I would have thought “Ground. Now.” would have been the overriding priority.

 

 Posted by at 2:00 am

Russia makes new threat: space warfare

 Hmm..., news, politics, rockets, russian empire, spacecraft, ಠ_ಠ  No Responses »
Oct 272022
 

Russia warns West: We can target your commercial satellites

Konstantin Vorontsov, deputy director of the Russian foreign ministry’s department for non-proliferation and arms control, told the United Nations that the United States and its allies were trying to use space to enforce Western dominance.

“Quasi-civilian infrastructure may be a legitimate target for a retaliatory strike,” Vorontsov told the United Nations First Committee…

It is impossible to know how much of that is bluster and how much is legitimate threat. It is the sort of risk that the DoD has known about for decades, every few years running some program or other to develop low-cost fast-reaction satellite launch capabilities in the event that a surge in replacement satellites (communications, recon, navigation) is needed. These studies blow a bunch of money, chew up a great many man-years, then get cancelled, resulting in paper and incomplete hardware. It may soon prove that the repeated lack of followthrough over a span of decades just might have been a mistake. SpaceX could doubtless throw up a number of replacements satellites, given time… but there would still be a span of likely months with a gap in capabilities. And who knows if there are warehouses of replacement satellites ready to go in the first place.

Bonus round: an attack on space infrastructure could be legitimately seen as an act of war. Loss of space superiority would be disastrous in case a full blown war breaks out, so a strike on satellites could easily result in a full retaliation.

Neato!

Remember just a few years ago, when the worst thing we had to worry about was mean tweets? Ah, good times.

 Posted by at 10:24 am

Putin and the supernatural

 AARRRGH, Crazy, Gah., Hmm..., politics, religion, russian empire, ಠ_ಠ  No Responses »
Oct 262022
 

It is hard these days to separate Hitler from the occult. Regardless of how much Adolf *actually* believed in Atlantis or Vril or Hyperborea or Ancient Aryan Supermen or all that rubbish, it is now just accepted that he did, and that those beliefs informed his nutty plans and actions. Did he really think that the Spear of Destiny would lead him to victory? Shrug.

Guess what: we’re here again, this time with Putin and whackadoodle Slavic magical superstitions:

The Crazy Mystical Impulses Sending Putin Wild in Ukraine

Valery Solovey, who’s trained many members of Putin’s ambassadorial corps at the Moscow State Institute of International Relations and served as the prestigious school’s director of public relations, either knows a thing or two about the black arts of Russian diplomacy, or is dafter than a borscht sandwich. As the professor tells it, Putin once commanded Kremlin sorcerers to ritualistically kill a black dog so he could drink the blood to ensure a crushing victory in Ukraine. When that dog didn’t hunt, Solovey claimed that Putin ordered all the magicians’ heads cut off and displayed in front of their homes.

Uh-huh.

The article is filled with nutso. How much of it is accurate? How much of it was dreamed up by Putins enemies? How much of it by delusional supporters who buy into the nuttiness and see Putin as divinely anointed? Dunno. At first glance, you’d think that a guy brought up in the atheistic, materialistic Soviet system wouldn’t be superstitious. But the Commies didn’t actually get rid of the human need for magical thinking; they just redirected the need for God to the State, magic for Socialism. It would surprise me none at all to find the the KGB was filled to overflowing with wannabe-wizards making appeals to the spirit realm.

Appeals to the supernatural are hardly rare in politics. The Middle East is built (and destroyed) on that; American politics is full to overflowing with politicians on both sides claiming special status with God or Jesus. But in American politics, the supernatural is usually pretty performative; you don’t often get the feeling that this politician or that actually really buys that deeply into it. But Putin is *clearly* psychologically unsound, and is clearly aggressive in a way not seen in Europe since Bad Mustache Man. Couple that with especially crazy magical beliefs, easily influenced not by a massive, slow-moving and hidebound Church but by random Rasputin-like weirdos… well, it seems like bad times might get worse.

 Posted by at 8:22 am

Helmet cam footage of an SU-25 ejection

 AARRRGH, aircraft, Hmm..., news, russian empire, youtube  No Responses »
Oct 242022
 

Posting delayed due to “issues.”

Bad day for someone… but not as bad as it could  have been. And probably not as bad as he had set out to make it for someone else. Interesting how cleanly the vertical stabilizer came off.

UPDATE: This incident seems to have occurred in June, well inside Russia, after hitting a power line (note that the vertical stabilizer seems to have been cleanly sliced off).

 

 Posted by at 7:52 am
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