Even the little drones can do some damage

 aircraft, awesomeness, Hmm..., news, politics, russian empire, weapons, ಠ_ಠ  No Responses »
Apr 302022
 

This sort of thing is not new… I recall seeing drones like this being used like this in the middle east a few years ago. I imagine China is thrilled that they are unwittingly serving as arms dealers for the forces opposing Russia… and giving ideas to those who may soon have to face Chinese forces.

Also notice: that looked like it was, before the invasion, a pretty nice house. Russia will have one *hell* of a reconstruction bill when all this is done.

 

I suspect the bomb that was dropped was a fairly simple explosive, basically a hand grenade or small mortar round.For anti-infantry purposes, this works: the video shows one guy likely killed, another guy crawling away and then stopping, either injured or dead. What you *want* is a weapon that injures as many as possible, but not necessarily kills. The dead are dead… but the injured are costly liabilities, requiring resources and personnel to take care of.

But imagine if it was a shaped-charge warhead, perhaps taken from an RPG… and smuggled into a port city such as Sevastopol where cruise missiles are being loaded onto submarines. Poke a few holes in a surfaced and docked sub and boy, you might really make a mess. If you can penetrate the torpedo compartment (honestly, I suspect it would take a fairly massive warhead to do that, but who knows) or zap a cruise missile… scratch one sub, and block one dock.

 

An armor-penetrating bomb would be useful for taking out tanks like this one that spent a good long while destroying a building that apparently had a number of civilians sheltering in the basement:

 Posted by at 6:46 pm

China Wackiness

 AARRRGH, Crazy, Forward!, Gah., Hmm..., news, politics, youtube, ಠ_ಠ  No Responses »
Apr 302022
 

The news out of China, in particular Shanghai, is just bizarre. The governments extraordinarily draconian lockdown just doesn’t make sense on the face of it. It seems nuts. But the video below presents a few theories that *do* make it make a bit of sense. The first is that Xi is simply stubborn, and that saving face – either of the man himself or of The Party – trumps reason. But the last theory is the most disturbing… and it seems pretty believable: the havoc and despair produced by these policies is intentional because it’s a test. If China invades Taiwan like Russia invaded Ukraine, the worlds response would be similar: an economic lockdown of China. How would China’s cities respond to suddenly no longer having income? When all the factories shut down and nobody is working, how bad will it have to get before the citizens rise up or die en masse? China is also hoarding food supplies as if they are preparing for something major.

Some people wonder why the West should give a damn about Ukraine. *This* is part of the reason why: if large dictatorships see that they can invade and conquer without meaningful pushback, they’ll do it again and again until they *do* get pushback.

 Posted by at 3:11 am

Battle Buggies

 awesomeness, Hmm..., news, politics, russian empire, youtube  No Responses »
Apr 292022
 

The best of the Russian military seem to be getting smacked about by *farm* equipment. I saw these sort of vehicles all over rural Utah; they are great for tooling around farms, ranches, small towns. And now it seems like they’re great for mounting smallish anti-tank missile launchers and crew served machine guns and harassing million-dollar main battle tanks.

Ukrainian Battle Buggies Are Out To Kill Russian Tanks

They’re cheap, fast, maneuverable, cheap, maintainable/repairable and cheap. Being small, they’re probably a *little* hard to hit. And I’ve little doubt that rural Ukraine is as filled with them as rural Utah is.

 

 

 

 Posted by at 2:50 pm

WalMart scares Brit Journalist

 AARRRGH, Crazy, Forward!, Gah., humor, news, politics, weapons  No Responses »
Apr 292022
 

The uncomfortably-named “Padraig Belton” who works for the BBC came to the US and forgot that the US doesn’t have British power outlets, so he went to WalMart. He reported on twitter his findings.

The whole thread is just filled with comedy gold.

There are times when I really, REALLY miss Utah. Where the local grocery store sold ammo and magazines, but if I wanted pistols, shotguns and AR-15s I’d have to walk all the way next door to the Ace Hardware.

 Posted by at 10:10 am

Eject!

 AARRRGH, Crazy, dumbassery, Gah., news, youtube, ಠ_ಠ  No Responses »
Apr 292022
 

So this 16-year-old decides to steal a car. While being chased by the police, he decides the thing to do is to bail out of the passenger side… while the car is still going at a pretty good rate of speed, with the result that he’s spun like a ragdoll. At the time he was wearing a neck brace due to an injury he’d received from a prior car theft escapade. He has apparently *several* recent arrests related to car theft.

So, the question: what good could come from this fine young gentleman ever being released back into society? Can any valid argument be made for something other than permanent incarceration, deportation or execution? Is there any possibility that someone with this combination of criminality *and* mind-boggling stupidity ever contributing positively to society? Or would the community and the gene pool be best served by him being removed from it before he could do more damage?

In the process of bailing out he let his car continue down the road unmanned. Passing over the median and crashing head-on into another vehicle, potentially killing people, is a very real prospect. Consequently, IMO he should be charged with attempted murder. And since I see no reason to be lenient with *incompetent* murderers compared to successful ones, I see no reason why he should avoid the maximum punishment meted out to murderers.

 Posted by at 1:23 am

HOTOL

 aircraft, history, projects, rockets, spacecraft, youtube  No Responses »
Apr 282022
 

HOTOL was a 1980’s/90’s British Aerospace idea for an airbreathing SSTO spaceplane. As with all such designs to date, it came equipped with a heavy load of optimism; physics, however, does not care about your sunny worldview, and like all other airbreathing SSTOs to date, the design simply could not be made to work with existing materials, propulsion systems, politics and economics.

 

 

 

 

 Posted by at 5:14 am

Why not ride eagles to Mount Doom?

 AARRRGH, art, awesomeness, critters, history, Hmm..., humor, youtube  No Responses »
Apr 282022
 

The question has been asked a bajillion times since about five minutes after “The Lord of the Rings” was published: why didn’t Gandalf simply call in the eagles to fly the One Ring to Mount Doom? Would have saved a *lot* of time and trouble. Fans have dreamed up many theories about why the eagles weren’t called in, but the video below purports to be audio of J.R.R. Tolkien explaining exactly why he did not have that solution in his book. His explanation is *really* good, the best explanation possible:

Unfortunately, it’s fake.

 

 Posted by at 1:51 am
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