Here’s the latest.
Putin droning on.
By the numbers.
Quote from article, “The Kremlin called the claim that Ukraine may be armed with nuclear weapons “absolutely irresponsible””. LOL, everyone knows where irresponsible nuclear ■■■■■■ reside.
Frontline update - 55 minutes ago.
Yeah, and sine_nomine says ‘Walking Dead’ Putin Risking Nuclear War With The West.
They’re not the only country awaiting Trump’s presidency with trepidation.
When mad men rule countries.
Katz makes a useful observation that a cease fire to a major conflict can occur when the fighting is at its most intense, as it did during the Korean war. We can only hope.
I’ve just finished 3 weeks in Sth Korea. Not much of a sample size to understand anything.
Whilst politically Sth Korea are not close to China, and militarily they are aligned with the US - and they seem to want to progress this relationship for their own security - it struck me how culturally they are still strongly connected to China, and apart from global consumerism, don’t have much in common with the West.
They seem to be a confucian rules-based society, with not much English language penetration. Chinese language and history are visible throughout. They also have the common Korean ethnic minority who live in China (ie they are chinese citizens) but get priority living & work status in Korea.
Frequent sightings of very young men in military uniforms travelling on the trains. I’d certainly want them on my side in any military conflict. But I wouldn’t expect them to get involved in any future China-Taiwan conflict.
They sure love golf. 5+ TV stations dedicated to all things golf. Also very good inexpensive hot springs. and coffee. cafes everywhere.
Good to see them helping Ukraine, but it took North Korean involvement to get them moving, rather than the moral and ‘life for Ukrainians’ imperatives.
More light reading.
South Korea, still on the fence.
I’m actually surprised. I thought the numbers would be much higher.
Talk is cheap.
Grim news. Puck Futin.
Would Russia have attacked if Ukraine was nuclear?
I don’t think Ukraine was ready for war either, but they’re fighting one. Outgunned, outmanned and still doing reasonably well.
Now we’re talking.
Saboteurs required.
Ya try and help someone…
Send money instead, apparently.
Hopefully Ukraine know what Russian division did this.
The PTSD from this type warfare will be a whole new challenge.
Not just the Russians.
From an F-35 expert:
“ People not read into the program can’t know the full requirements story. We can know some of the functional requirements and the constraints governing those requirements, but we can’t know the operational requirements.
I’m in a unique position because not only have I read the actual F-35 Operational Requirements Document, it was once my job to determine exactly how well the F-35’s systems performed. Not whether or not they met the requirement – how well they actually performed.
I don’t think there’s anyone on the planet who has examined more F-35 flight test data than I have.
Unfortunately, I can’t tell you much about any of that. What I can say is that the jet’s mission systems far out-perform the functional requirements levied upon them.
The biggest objections about the jet come on what you might call the mission engineering side of things. As a text I rather adore would say, mission engineering is concerned with whether the needs of the end user are satisfied. Sure, the jet does so many things rather well, but it’s not meeting availability goals and has suffered over 12 years of schedule delays. So it’s not enough to do the things really well, you have to be available to do it and you have to be cheap enough to operate.
Clearly there’s grounds for discussion here, but I flat out reject ‘jack of all trades, master of none’ when it comes to this jet. It’s actually the master of quite a lot! I know quite a few pilots of the F-35 and of other platforms – and all the guys flying other fighter types would want to go to war in an F-35. I personally would only feel like I had a reasonable chance of survival in an F-35.”
I’m the director of an engineering team that develops systems to detect objects, including flying objects, using AI and low light (well every available spectrum, really) cameras, and I can’t tell you how laughably stupid Musk comments are.
Does he think stealth technology = visual cloaking? It’s bizarre…
I will say it is possible to detect something like a F35 with a camera. But - it flies very fast, it can fly very low, the chance of you capturing it in the field of view from the ground is almost zero until it’s on you, and if you’re doing it airborne, he’s got you well before you’ve got him.
He does have a point about unmanned systems; if you take the pilot out of design specs, the need for ejection seat, life systems, displays, etc. would not be there. Therefore, the plane would be lighter, enabling longer range or more payload. However, not fully trusting AI, the telemetry latency to a command and control would be an issue, increasing reaction time; as well as vulnerability to jamming.
As if past warfare wasn’t scary enough…
Right. and even in the relatively slow and constrained environment of a highway, tesla’s self drive still want to drive under some lorries/trailers
Full autonomy is on its way. GPS jamming is ineffective, AI pilot systems are incredible, but there generally still needs to be a human in the loop somewhere.
Collaborative systems where you have something like an F35 working with several larger stealth UAV aircraft like the ghost bat is where it’s going to go.
Cause for a celebration l say…PARTEEEEE!
