Showing posts with label Link dump. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Link dump. Show all posts

2022/03/05

Link drop March 2022


reminder: Defence & Freedom now has a twitter feed that mostly announces new blog posts.

https://twitter.com/DefenceFreedom

Feel free to follow it, and share/retweet whatever you think is worthy!

I don't expect to become huge in follower count, but reaching more people who would enjoy the blog's content, maybe contribute facts in the comments or become inspired would be a good thing.

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tanknology.co.uk/post/russian-turret-cages

They're improvising like Daesh, this signals very little confidence in their tanks.

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This may be due to too little driver training (allocated diesel sold on black market by officers), due to defective or absence of night driving aids, technical failures during movement and also due to crews  not wanting to drive into battle.

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At least (AFAIK) the U.S. stopped delivering munitions to the sandy kleptocrat state after the globe-fondling lying moron was kicked out of office.

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It's amazing how quickly the Germany-bashing over the laughable donation of helmets and resistance to SWIFT sanctions turned into memefication of the "100 billion Euros!!!" announcement as if the Wehrmacht was coming back short term.
The additional spending will be spread over years and most of the money is going to be wasted. The bureaucracy was too rotten to spend the budgets of the past well, it sure won't be able to allocate the extra money well. I expect many useless investments in the navy, munitions bought before suitable storage facilities were built, near-irrelevant purchases of additional combat aircraft, occupation wars bullshit. Maybe 20...30 billions of the extra spending will be well-spent on deterrence & defence.

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https://9gag.com/gag/aggov3K

This could be an alternative to skis (many ski troops also carry snowshoes, especially in mountainous settings).

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I mentioned this before:

/2014/12/the-stummelwerfer-and-2b25.html

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https://www.swebor.se/what-is-armour-steel/ 

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"How the SEALs failed America"

theintercept.com/2022/02/22/navy-seals-code-over-country-matthew-cole/

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This could be hugely consequential:

1) Main Battle Tanks and other tracked vehicles are not good for long-range deployments by road

2) Rail traffic is unreliable if the alliance is under attack (especially railroad bridges)

3) Dedicated tank transporters are extra-strong (torque, hp) semi-trailer tractors with dedicated trailers 

4) We could purchase dedicated powered trailers at lesser cost (and thus many more!) than small production run tank transporter tractors 

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bbc.com/news/world-europe-60600487

This gives me flashbacks from stories of people who chose to deny the reality about a pandemic to the(ir) bitter end.

We need a renaissance of attention to reality and the scientific principle that you have to accept proven stuff, and a turn away from propaganda and fantasyland.

This includes a reckoning about mistakes made in the past. We have come to grips with

  • the lies that led to the Kosovo Air War 1999
  • the Iraq invasion 2003 with months-long barrage of "WMD" lies
  • the approx. 15-year long denial of how badly the Afghanistan war goes
  • American torture campaign
  • trigger happiness in occupation wars
  • two decades of hatemongering and discrimination against Arabs and Muslims (depending on country, more or les severe)
  • many Western "special forces" being infested with war criminals and Fascists
  • why certain countries / regions are not all that friendly to us Westerners and Americans in particular

And yes, there are also some things the left wing / greens would not like to talk about, but that should be talked about.

  • excesses of certain emancipation movements
  • new nuclear powerplants being too expensive, but existing nuclear powerplants are almost climate-neutral and don't kill many people (so far)
  • greens preaching peace and wanting to leave NATO when not in power, but turning pro military intervention / arms donations within months of being in power
  • evident inability to solve problems on part of establishment (moderate left to moderate right) parties
  • erosion of division of powers: The cabinet is ruling Germany. The legislative branch only nods off what the cabinet proposes for legislation and the politicians also have undue influence on the judicial branch
  • all parties letting the rich and banks very largely get away with theft, fraud, tax evasion - even the supposed left-wing social democrats
  • de facto corruption by politicians with highly suspicious side incomes (being a member of parliament is an exhausting 60 hours per week job if you do it right, how can members of parliament also be ministers, work for millions as lawyers, be in supervisory boards of government-controlled stock companies?)

OK, this got a bit long for a quick comment below a link.

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twitter.com/507stre/status/1494445791318097925 

twitter.com/TheDeadDistrict/status/1420965495713505282 

Please note it has a railroad! I have never seen anything like it in the West, not even this mentioned in Jane's Military Vehicles and Logistics (the issue on my shelf is 17 years old because only old used copies are affordable for private persons).

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Reality and lynch mob opinion are rarely in agreement.  

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fredblog.stlouisfed.org/2022/02/a-short-history-of-public-borrowing-for-wars/

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navalnews.com/naval-news/2022/02/france-unveils-new-seabed-warfare-strategy/ 

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piie.com/blogs/realtime-economic-issues-watch/china-bought-none-extra-200-billion-us-exports-trumps-trade

Foreign policy by and for idiots.

The South Korea trade deal was a scam as well (it raised import quota that weren't fully used before).

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apnews.com/article/congress-cia-ron-wyden-martin-heinrich-europe-565878d7299748551a34af0d3543d769 

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voxeu.org/article/why-military-purchasing-power-parity-matters

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9gag.com/gag/avAA62M 

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defence-blog.com/new-french-armys-video-shows-jaguar-armored-vehicle-in-action/ 

ridiculous

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https://mwi.usma.edu/learning-the-wrong-lessons-biases-the-rejection-of-history-and-single-issue-zealotry-in-modern-military-thought/ 

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https://wavellroom.com/2022/02/04/why-europe-can-fend-for-itself/ 

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https://kamazexport.com/truck/kamaz-6560/

https://kamazexport.com/truck/kamaz-4326/

Their newest vehicle types are excellent. Performance still depends on the users and supply, though. 

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http://cast.ru/files/The_Tanks_of_August_sm_eng.pdf 

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defence-blog.com/rheinmetall-unveils-new-light-tank/ 

[German] esut.de/2022/02/meldungen/32519/lynx-familie-waechst-um-die-feuerunterstuetzungsvariante-lynx-120/ 

More about that later, probably. Much distraction is going on. 

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It handles containers AND pallets and presumably it can also pull a pallet out of a container, so it's the answer to many logistical challenges.

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(edited in on Sunday:)


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https://warontherocks.com/2021/11/feeding-the-bear-a-closer-look-at-russian-army-logistics/ 

I mentioned this before, worth a read. 

S O

defence_and_freedom@gmx.de

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2022/02/05

Link drop February 2022

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This still seems to be impractical, but an overflight attack by drones along the lines of this with downwards-firing shaped charge weapons might become a thing.

The submarine contract wasn't a one-off. Australia is now officially paying Saudi Arabia-level (100+% higher than normal) prices for military goods & services imports. This is as close as irrefutable evidence for severe corruption as it gets.



Selbstverständlich. So läuft das immer. Besser man schafft gar nicht erst das Missbrauchspotential. Solche Überwachungstechnik einzuführen in Anwesenheit von BKA, LKA, VS, BND ist wie Jungenschöre von katholischen Priestern leiten zu lassen.



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2022/01/01

Link drop January 2022

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edit 6th January: I updated a VERY old blog post with new and very much contradicting information. So I recommend to look at it briefly if you read among my2009 blog posts (I generally recommend to read old blog posts, for I think most aged well and many are timeless; they could have been written years if not decades earlier or later just as well).
 
Happy new year! 
 

 
 
 
I hardly wrote about it, but it looks as if the much-published fears of intensified war in the Ukraine won't be followed by action any time soon. The reported quantity of masses troops seemed inadequate for taking on the whole country anyway. The Ukrainians know how to fight in cold wintertime just as well as the Russians, so the avoidable troubles of wintertime made this season a rather implausible choice for aggression timing.
Some people have tried to understand the Russian perspective how oh-so threatening NATO is encroaching Russia. Well, Russia signed and ratified a guarantee of Ukrainian sovereignty, and violates it. NATO and its members never wrote, signed or ratified any promise to Russia about limiting what countries could join it. The countries that join NATO do so as sovereign countries who have the right to do decide this way. Russia's great power ambitions are fundamentally about disrespecting the sovereignty of neighbouring countries, it fails to be an attractive alternative to NATO/EU and it proved to be untrustworthy.
Far right wingers in Europe and the U.S. have begun to like Russia because of the pretence of "strong man" in power, chauvinism, gayhating and just in general oppression of people whom right wingers don't like anyway. That Russian political culture is a culture of stagnation and exploitation; Russia's economy is crap because oligarchs ruin or suppress every effort of actually creating a good new business. The quality of life is crap, and would be even crappier if Russia hadn't so many natural resources to exploit. They can hardly export anything but raw materials and barely refined raw materials because their economy is so shit at everything else, particularly at everything high tech.

Russian exports 2017:
for comparison: German exports 2017:
Russia is a failing nation, and its politicians are corrupt, and not better than ours at all.
Russian ambitions of dominance over other countries is no more worthy of agreement than American and Israeli habitual occupation and bombing of other countries.

S O
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2021/12/04

Link drop December 2021

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Now to the final link drop of the year. It's been a weird year, but at least there was no new war in Europe (Armenia and Azerbaijan being south of Caucasus and thus Asian) and the war in the Ukraine didn't flare up (and I'd be surprised if it does during this winter).

I had a string of disappointments this summer and autumn, seemingly saving up good luck, for I finally had a major luck in private life (fully separated from blogging).

The plan is to return to the Saturdays-only schedule from now on. Reactions to comments can be much-delayed around Christmas time, as every year, this includes belated removal of spam.


nextbigfuture.com/2021/02/unipolar-carbon-nanotube-muscles-ten-to-thirty-times-human-muscle-and-two-to-six-times-diesel-v8.html

oryxspioenkop.com/2021/11/taking-africa-by-storm-niger-acquires.html

defence-blog.com/russian-cadets-creates-one-of-a-kind-spy-drone/

 

 

 

 

defence-blog.com/l3harris-to-upgrade-u-s-space-forces-first-offensive-weapon-system/

The interesting thing about this is that it's mobile and doesn't require any expensive platform. Such satellite jammers should be feasible at fairly low cost as they only require trailers, antenna mechanism and a powerful emitter with little requirements regarding frequency agility or frequency stability. The big question mark is whether such emitters could survive for long close to hostile (air) forces.

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warontherocks.com/2021/11/feeding-the-bear-a-closer-look-at-russian-army-logistics/

I don't fully agree on some things, but the Russian Army did have (probably still has) a logistics problem in that many of its logistics vehicles are old and defective. Aggressors can boost technical readiness for invasion because they do know the time of invasion, though.

I suppose that both Russia and NATO powers need to make use of civilian logistics to supply munitions from depot to a Corps logistics point, and to bring fuel to such points as well. Military logistics vehicles may suffice in capacity to move the supplies from there to the manoeuvre forces. We'd need to establish a second Corps logistics hub farther forward (or anticipating a withdrawal: farther back) to cope with the demands of mobile warfare. The distance that the military logistics vehicles need to travel needs to be kept in a margin of tolerance.

The problem is that we have probably not enough preparation for getting the civilian logistics main supply route going. Many drivers are above military age or conscious objectors or so young that they have never been mustered and can become conscious objectors any time, for example. One should not assume that civilians are fine with such military transport jobs, especially with explosive and flammable supplies in wartime.

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rhinoblinds.com/products/rhino-180-see-through-blind

It would rather not work in the mid and far IR spectrum, I think. The operating principle is AFAIK the same as to how you can see through a bush when you are close to it, but not when you are far from it. So outside thermal sensors can partially see the mid/far IR emissions of the user inside behind the concealment and would show that on a screen.

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factly.in/camouflage-design-photo-of-a-us-company-is-falsely-portrayed-as-the-photo-of-indian-army-soldiers/

I saw this first shown as an example of a really good camo, but most camo patterns look convincing if you use the right background, distance, light conditions, camera setting and possibly even photo editing. It would be interesting to have some kind of neutral institution that creates photos of the worn camouflage pattern under controlled and always identical conditions in a studio and then inserts it into a range of up to a hundred backgrounds. The photos could then be shown to the public. The visibility and the sympathy for the pattern could be rated on a 0...10 scale (sympathy included in an effort to separate it at least a bit from the judgment of effectiveness). The camo items would then be returned to sender or given away as lottery prizes. Instead, everyone who wants to sell some proprietary camo pattern or hype his favourite camo pattern can create photos or videos that make it look very effective. There may even be a place where UCP looks effective.

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thetimes.co.uk/article/british-army-returns-to-germany-in-face-of-russian-threat-bhs7lmnsv

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bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-59186655

 

[German] spektrum.de/kolumne/grams-sprechstunde-wer-globuli-saet-wird-impfgegnerschaft-ernten/1953463

"Einstieg zum Ausstieg aus dem wissenschaftlichen Denken"

 [German] rnd.de/promis/dirk-steffens-zu-umgang-mit-corona-und-klimaleugnern-falsch-verblendeten-das-wort-zu-erteilen-J6YHUZ6RX5CH7KFA54AU4UEI54.html

 

S O

defence_and_freedom@gmx.de

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2021/11/06

Link drop November 2021

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economist.com/middle-east-and-africa/ethiopias-capital-is-under-threat/21806092

First rule of starting a civil war as government: 

Make sure you win. Quick. 

Second rule of starting a civil war as government:

You cannot meet the first rule if you start a war against the majority of your own army officer corps.

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Back in May 2018 I wrote about hypothetical ultralightweight infantry equipment and still arrived at a heavy load. One of the measures to cut weight was to ditch the full-blown CBRN mask in favour of a "hypothetical escape hood-style lightweight NBC mask with one filter" with an estimated weight of 500 grams.

Well, I wasn't too far off; the Avon CH15 is available at 508 grams since earlier this year and its bulk seems tolerable for all-the-time carry, unlike ordinary CBRN masks.

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news.northwestern.edu/stories/2021/10/protective-fabric-chemical-biological/

I remember that the "more performance, more performance, more performance" crowd that doesn't pay attention to weight dreamt of regular soldier clothes becoming NBC protection clothes since at least the 1990's. Regular long-time use NBC protection suits (I don't mean the simplistic overgarments or rubberised suits) are rather meant for no more than 24 hrs of continuous use IIRC.

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 Little remark about the summit to moderate climate change:

It's fashionable in certain  countries to talk about climate change as a national security threat. That's bollocks, of course. People are talking like this in some countries because those countries are rather militaristic. To frame a challenge as somehow military-ish or equivalent to military defence/defense is in such countries a path to gain attention and to motivate. In some (militaristic) countries it's a lot easier to mobilise 0.1% GDP additional spending for some additional military expenditures than to invest in health, infrastructure or education or to help disabled or poor people. Only stupid people copy such rhetoric in non-militaristic countries, and then get hardly any attention for it. It's quite a litmus test IMO.

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gcaptain.com/fire-fire-fire-how-navy-failures-destroyed-the-uss-bonhomme-richard/

usnews.com/news/politics/articles/2021-11-04/navy-fires-2-top-officers-of-submarine-damaged-in-collision

 Compare #4 here.

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oryxspioenkop.com/2021/10/the-cargo-cleared-for-print-uae-wartime.html

WTF could be the UAE's interest except earning money??? I don't know of ANY link between the Ethiopian government and the UAE that would matter.

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politico.com/news/magazine/2021/10/23/colin-powell-foreign-policy-expansionist-advice-516795

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thesovietarmourblog.blogspot.com/2021/07/soviet-atgms.html

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dw.com/en/rwandas-military-intervention-in-mozambique-raises-eyebrows/a-58957275

bbc.com/news/world-africa-58079510

africanews.com/2021/08/09/rwanda-military-says-it-has-helped-mozambique-retake-mocimboa-da-praia//

bbc.com/news/world-africa-58783030 

ft.com/content/6ab0712b-2bc2-45dc-a681-452c62dff76e

I've heard good things about the Rwandan army's proficiency before, and Rwanda's government has been making visible progress on some other areas as well.

They might have the highest quality military in the whole of Sub-Saharan Africa.

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oryxspioenkop.com/2021/10/german-drones-in-ethiopia.html

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svi.co.za/max-3/

sa4x4.co.za/svi-max-3-the-bulletproof-land-cruiser-79/

techeblog.com/svi-max-3-troopy-toyota-land-cruiser-79-armored-vehicle/

tuningblog.eu/en/kategorien/autos-von-a-z/svi-max-3-309662/

A bulletproofed armoured car or APC for about 100,000 Euros.

One of the many existing third axle conversion kits for the base vehicle could easily extend the APC version to 2+8 seats plus have some other military-suitable modifications and the price would still be no worse than about 150,000 Euros bulk price per copy.

Compare this to the common procurement of 4x4 4-seat armoured vehicles of not much better protection for 400,000+ Euros that even some of the poor European countries had in the past two decades.

The current JLTV has comparable utility (and no doubt more protection, but does that difference really matter? How often would it encounter threats that B7 protection doesn't ward off as well?) It costs around 250,000 Euros in bulk purchase, but can cost twice that in small numbers.

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leonardocompany.com/documents/20142/14265297/Surveillance+Radar+Capabilities+Brochure+new.pdf?t=1620745595683

This PDF is remarkable because it shows radar imagery of ships. The actual capabilities are likely not much greater than advertised. Imaging radar (synthetic aperture radar mode) can create imagery of ships that allows to discern between a freighter and a frigate, but you could not reliably tell one frigate class from another.

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boingboing.net/2021/10/19/englishman-nathaniel-courthope-spent-four-years-defending-a-tiny-islands-nutmeg-from-the-dutch.html

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reuters.com/business/environment/clean-environment-could-become-un-human-right-not-so-fast-say-us-britain-2021-10-05/

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boingboing.net/2021/10/05/unbreakable-glass-developed-say-researchers.html

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sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2214914717300600

Could be used to defeat hard kill active defence suites

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ukdefencejournal.org.uk/classified-tank-specs-leaked-on-war-thunder-game-forums-again/

AGAIN

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Imagine this appearing over some battlefield in some African backwater region, accompanied by a fitting sound show!
 

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therecord.media/windows-10-ios-15-ubuntu-chrome-fall-at-chinas-tianfu-hacking-contest/

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Huh? I guess I have to correct my dictionary with a pen till I get a revised edition.

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[German] heise.de/news/Plaene-fuer-deutschen-Weltraumbahnhof-nehmen-langsam-Gestalt-an-6183302.html

Das ist Unsinn für alle Orbitalsatelliten. Je näher an den Äquator, desto besser. Wenn man eine nationale Lösung haben will, dann baut ein Spezialschiff (Start) und mindestens ein Unterstützungsschiff (ggf. zwei wenn man mit wiederverwendbaren Raketen auf einem Schiff landen will) bzw baut welche um. Dann schließt man einen Kooperationsvertrag mit einem Land am Äquator (zum Beispiel Sao Tomé und Principe; schön harmlos, stabil und geographisch isoliert gegen Probleme in der Nachbarschaft) am Atlantik, sodass man die Raketen günstig per Schiff dorthin schaffen und am Äquator starten kann. Das geht dann mit Nutzung von Unterkünften, Büros und Flughafen an Land. Wenn die Kooperation mit dem Partnerland schlechter wird, kann man den Partner einfach wechseln, die aufwändige Infrastruktur ist ja auf den Schiffen beweglich. Allerschlimmstenfalls startet man von europäischen Gewässern aus.

"National" bedeutet nicht unbedingt "daheim".

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[German] heise.de/news/Bundeswehr-Generalinspekteur-will-weg-von-anfaelliger-Militaertechnik-4919585.html

Im Kontext des Funkgeräte-Megaskandals erscheint dieser alte Artikel in einem neuen, bitter-sarkastischem Licht.

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Now looking at the size of this thing it seems I tried to fool myself with that whole "only one blog post per week" approach anyway. I'd have created four or more blog posts out of all this stuff before I started the "first Saturday of month link dump" series.

 

S O

defence_and_freedom@gmx.de

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2021/10/02

Link drop October 2021

I lost another complete (and long) blog post text (it only missed illustrations) because of the idiotic CTRL-Z bug in Blogger that leads to the whole draft turning blank. -.-

Now the topic (field artillery calibre choice/reasoning from Interwar Years to mid Cold War) might never be rewritten. 

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Read more »
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2021/09/04

Link dump September 2021

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www.geomatec.com/products-and-solutions/optical-control/anti-reflection-and-anti-glare/gmoth/

It's a couple years old, but I suppose it could be relevant for windows of subsonic aviation and land vehicles in regard to avoiding the glare that's in daylight more of an issue than whether your camo paintjob is plain grey or some fancy digital six-colour pattern. This glare issue is why AFVs and many battlefield helicopters have only flat glass areas that reflect direct sunlight only in one direction instead of in many like a beacon.

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Don't be a covidiot.

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 FYI gidmk.medium.com/is-ivermectin-for-covid-19-based-on-fraudulent-research-5cc079278602

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This is a humorous collage showing Russian troops on Kabul airport. It made me wonder whether there's a point to having a tail gunner position AND a bow gunner position on military transport aircraft after all.

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I blame Austria for the existence of this joke.

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[German] tagesspiegel.de/politik/heiko-maas-und-der-abzug-aus-afghanistan-wer-wissen-wollte-konnte-wissen/27535630.html

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[German] zeit.de/stoerungsmelder/2021/08/24/goldgraeber-am-rechten-rand_30939

Ich meine ja schon seit Jahren, dass es wichtig ist, über den Schwachsinn der in Amerika abgeht informiert zu sein. Deren Schwachsinn schwappt häufiger mal nach Europa über. Diese Verquickung von rechter Propaganda/Hetze/Angstmacherei mit Verkauf von Büchern, Nahrungsergänzungsmitteln, Gold, Waffen und Post-Apokalypse Ausrüstung (zum Beispiel schwachsinnig unzureichend kleine Mengen von Saatgut) ist dort schon seit langem ein offensichtlicher Bestandteil des rechtsradikalen Subkultur. Beispiele:

nymag.com/intelligencer/2017/05/how-does-alex-jones-make-money.html

esquire.com/news-politics/videos/a56714/john-oliver-alex-jones/

Auch beliebt ist die Abzocke als Geschäftsmodell bei weißen Evangelikalen "Predigern" (insbesondere beim 'prosperity gospel' mit dem "seed" Schwachsinn), die sich auch mit Rechtsradikalen vermischen, weil sie nicht blöd sind und wissen, dass der Rechtsradikalismus ein Sammelbecken für Schwachköpfe und andere Leichtgläubige ist. Das ist genau die Zielgruppe, die Evangelikale für ihren eigene Maschen brauchen.

Diese Abzocke mit eigentlich offensichtlichem Schwachsinn erzeugt also ein Profitmotiv und auch finanzielle Fähigkeiten für antidemokratische Gruppen, die einen Großteil ihrer Landsleute einfach nur noch hassen.

S O
defence_and_freedom@gmx.de

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2021/08/07

Link dump August 2021

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- - - - -dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9845773/How-brass-blew-3-5billion-dud-menace-troops.html- - - - -
 
globalfishingwatch.org/data/analysis-reveals-false-vessel-tracks/
 
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boingboing.net/2021/08/05/psychopaths-make-up-4-5-of-the-adult-population-according-to-a-new-meta-analysis.html
 
My estimate stands at 5...20% dangerous idiots, and this includes more than just psychopaths/sociopaths. There are also narcissists, plain stupid people who don't know about their condition, fearful pussies/hateful people and people who have a totally broken bullshit detector or never had one. 
Societies need to keep dangerous idiots away from extraordinary power. Let them vote, but don't vote for them!
 
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thelancet.com/journals/eclinm/article/PIIS2589-5370(21)00324-2/fulltext
Yeah, right, that's EXACTLY what we needed. More stupid people
 
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defensenews.com/industry/techwatch/2021/07/27/see-russias-new-checkmate-fighter-jet-unveiled-at-defense-expo/

This makes sense for the export market the way the Gripen made/makes sense, but I suspect that a lack of tail radar and DIRCM will limit its effectiveness greatly compared to Su-57. It's unlikely to match the older F-35 in versatility (no ground attack IIR visible, likely much smaller internal weapons capacity, likely much less investment in development). It might also turn out to be an unmanned wingman drone for Su-57s in Russian service.

Export markets could include CIS countries, Turkey, Brazil, South Africa, Malaysia, Indonesia and the smaller Persian Gulf kleptocracies.

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thinkdefence.co.uk/2021/07/the-increasing-quality-of-commercial-satellite-imagery/
 
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It's not worthy of a separate blog post, but I'd like to point out that the Würzburg knife attack incident was a bit strange. I failed at my quest to find a list of names of people who faced the attacker instead of running, but I found photos and videos. Those photos and videos appear to be sexist, for every single person who faced the "knife"-armed attacker seemed to be superficially identifiable as a man. I read of women running to businesses for safety, and of men arming themselves with everyday items, keeping the (apparently crazy, not religious) attacker in check till the police arrived. The police shot once at his leg. (They did not shoot 17 rounds centre mass - and guess what? Shooting the leg once did work just fine! There's no death penalty in Germany, so killing cannot be the objective or considered appropriate if it's avoidable without further harm to others. Dead people are furthermore poor for interrogations.) I haven't found anything about who shot, but count me sexist-biased for thinking it was a man, too.

The ancient and possibly hard-wired predispositions and behaviour patterns may be a lot more relevant (and at times useful) than the talk about genders of the past 10+ years made believe.

And to the anon reader who keeps insisting that we're all mentally too soft for true soldiering nowadays: This should kick off a re-evaluation.

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source.wustl.edu/2021/07/microbially-produced-fibers-stronger-than-steel-tougher-than-kevlar/

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army.mil/article/248545

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defensenews.com/land/2021/01/15/us-army-taps-industry-for-autonomous-drones-to-resupply-troops/

military.com/daily-news/2021/03/15/autonomous-drones-proved-themselves-army-ammo-resupply-tests-now-xviii-airborne-wants.html

 I think they missed the right weight class. Payload should be enough for casualty evacuation (if not moving mountain infantry from ridge line to ridge line at 2,000+ m altitude).

compare /2017/09/combat-resupply.html

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That's even worse, for this way there'd be little hope of return to less idiot-rich times.

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boingboing.net/2021/07/06/ten-years-ago-the-onion-predicted-wests-irish-goodbye-from-afghanistan.html

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openaccess.wgtn.ac.nz/articles/chapter/The_mechanisms_of_cult_production/12971675

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https://mysite.science.uottawa.ca/rsmith43/Zombies.pdf

So this is clarified, then. You see zombies, u kill 'em.

The true zombies (also these) are very different and do very real damage, of course.

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[German] vice.com/de/article/4avx83/agentur-fazze-youtuber-lugen-uber-impfung-sputnik-v

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[German] twitter.com/useronline1/status/1414207597608116224

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[German] t-online.de/nachrichten/id_90430104/die-skandale-von-armin-laschet-das-ende-des-teflon-kandidaten.html

Kurz gesagt; die etablierten Medien haben ihn lange davor geschützt, dass mehr CDU-Wähler merken, wie katastrophal er ist. Sie sind aber vor kurzem noch lebhaft auf den Zug der völlig offensichtlichen Springer-Schmierenkampagne gegen Baerbock aufgesprungen.

[German] t-online.de/nachrichten/deutschland/bundestagswahl/id_90576062/die-gruenen-saar-landesverband-bleibt-von-bundestagswahl-ausgeschlossen.html

Unterdessen offenbahren die Grünen sich mal wieder als undemokratische weil sexistisch-diskriminierende Partei. Artikel 21 Grundgesetz verlangt von Parteien, dass sie innerlich demokratisch sind. CDU, CSU, SPD und FDP sind das auch nur teilweise (Abnickvereine, bei denen z.B. die Führungsebene beschließt, wer Spitzenkandidat wird), aber sie sind nicht so plump-blöd-offensichtlich undemokratisch wie die Grünen.

Von den Interna der Linken habe ich keine Ahnung. Die Rechtsradikalen sind immer noch keine wirklich funktionierende Partei, da kann man mit einer Beurteilung wohl nochmal fünf Jahre warten.

Nebenbei, ich hoffe auf eine Ampelkoalition (nicht weil ich die Wirtschaftslobbyistenpartei oder die Verräterpartei oder die andere Verräterpartei mögen würde, sondern weil unbedingt der schwarze Totalstopp-Bremsklotz weg muss). https://www.wahlrecht.de/umfragen/


S O
defence_and_freedom@gmx.de

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2021/07/03

Link dump July 2021

.
First some good news; I have blog posts done and scheduled till end of August, so there should be no Defence and Freedom blackout Saturdays for a while.

And now to the assorted links and bits of the month:

 ----------------------------

www.asianews.it/news-en/20-Indian-and-43-Chinese-soldiers-die-in-clashes-along-Himalayan-border-50365.html

This is the explainer for it:

indianexpress.com/article/explained/explained-if-soldiers-on-lac-were-carrying-arms-why-did-they-not-open-fire-6467324/

So basically, this is highly ritualized warfare, on exactly the same level as ritualized Hoplite warfare. Except that the ancient Greeks fought over arable land, not useless rocks and ice-cold water.

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www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/china-nuclear-missile-silos/2021/06/30/0fa8debc-d9c2-11eb-bb9e-70fda8c37057_story.html

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The French amphibious vehicle / pontoon bridging solution (there are few suppliers in NATO, I think only three):

cnim.com/en/businesses/defense-security-and-digital-intelligence/motorized-floating-bridge-pfm

(see video at bottom there)

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www.oryxspioenkop.com/2020/08/belly-of-beast-ypg-monsters.html

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twitter.com/DrEricDing/status/1406692241956118533

Shit

boingboing.net/2021/06/02/the-true-history-of-a-small-mistake-that-made-scientists-screw-up-covid-aerosols.html

WTF!?

boingboing.net/2021/06/19/a-blow-by-blow-explainer-on-how-boris-johnson-set-the-uk-up-for-a-third-wave.html 

Out of the EU and still causing trouble in Europe.

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The video is almost a year old and shows little but that they integrated their 130 mm design into a tank turret and test fired it. This flew totally under my radar for nearly 11 months. I suppose this means I'm officially no tank nerd.

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[German] augengeradeaus.net/2021/06/bundeswehr-hat-afghanistan-verlassen-deutscher-einsatz-am-hindukusch-endet-nach-fast-20-jahren/

Finally. Now get the fuck out of Mali and all the other non-NATO and non-EU areas as well and focus on actual deterrence and defence!

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[German] www.kontextwochenzeitung.de/wirtschaft/533/trumpscher-wahlkampf-7556.html

[German] www.merkur-zeitschrift.de/2021/06/14/gegen-die-luegen/

Conservatives and right wingers all over the world have little to nothing to offer in terms of policies that actually improve the most voters' lives. They hardly talk about policies; they talk how evil and dangerous their enemies are; hatemongering and fearmongering. The actual conservatives also talk about how there is supposedly no alternative to their inaction.

They have to run smear campaigns based on fear and hate because that's all they got besides making the rich richer and enriching themselves. The difference is merely the intensity.

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[German] www.dwdl.de/magazin/83296/wie_kritische_medien_in_oesterreich_unter_druck_geraten/

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[German] www.deutschlandfunk.de/problem-false-balance-journalisten-sollen-einordnen.2907.de.html?dram:article_id=498526

 

S O

defence_and_freedom@gmx.de

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2021/06/05

Link drop June 2021

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Commander of Space Force unit fired after accusing the military of pushing an agenda ‘rooted in Marxism’ 

This is by far not the only full blown nutjob among the American flag ranks senior officers. The USAF was reported to be particularly infested, especially by bible humpers. This is a consequence of Strategic Air Command culture from deep in the Cold War times.

I suppose the new administration should identify and remove the nutjobs with priority on command positions in nuclear arms units and on the military bases in the capital. Else, the next January 6th-style attack on the Republic might be mounted with Washington D.C.-based troops and succeed.

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I'm sceptical about this. It will be possible to fool the algorithm into highlighting the contours of irrelevant things and to not highlight the contours of some relevant things. The NVG user will become reliant on the highlighting and thus be more easily fooled than without the highlighting. Moreover, this tech sure is very expensive for likely incremental net gain (and only so at night). 

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cnn.com/travel/article/aerion-supersonic-planemaker-folds/index.html

And again no supersonic business jet as basis for electronic warfare aircraft!

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comandosupremo.com/rome-to-tokyo/

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just a bit tank p0rn:


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www.hrw.org/sites/default/files/media_2021/04/israel_palestine0421_web_0.pdf

theintercept.com/2021/05/29/israel-palestine-mobs-crackdown/

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www.politico.com/news/magazine/2021/05/26/emily-wilder-fired-ap-490892

This opinion piece misleading, showing the narrative bias of the author. Israel saying that the building with AP reporters was targeted because Hamas operated from it as well is not an excuse, it's a confession. The Geneva Convention clearly states that you must not target such a building with civilians. The attack was very likely a war crime.

/2009/06/human-shields.html

The possibly legitimate way would have been to inform the AP reporters and other civilians (including Hamas civilians!) that the building may get targeted for paramilitary Hamas presence (if the Hamas presence thing was real and not just an ex post lie and if the war in itself was legitimate, which is another question). The civilians would then have been able to vacate the building in time.[I checked again because of a comment hint and found an AP article confirming that a one-hour warning was indeed given to the owner or the building. I have not found any evidence that legitimate Hamas targets were actually present, though.]

Now Israel did not sign & ratify the Protocol I to the Geneva Conventions, but that doesn't matter much for the judgment of its actions. North Korea didn't sign the NPT and nobody posits that all would be fine about Iran and nuclear tech once it left the NPT, right?

Any concerns about military effectiveness are irrelevant for the question of war crime or not. Committing war crimes in pursuit of more firepower effect is still committing war crimes.

The indiscriminate firing of high explosive rockets into villages and cities is just as bad, though this war has no doubt again led to many more civilians killed by the Israeli government than by Palestinians, by an order of magnitude. (I'm not sure how much Hamas could be called a Palestinian government, they only control the Gaza Strip and are more akin to separatists IMO).

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[German] twitter.com/clausvonwagner/status/1390615813825179653


S O
defence_and_freedom@gmx.de

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