Domus Acipenseris

This video is an interview with an author who has written a book about the influence of the fighter mafia on the F-15 and F-16. Tl/dr: The fighter mafia were romantics who thought that real manly men in austere planes could defeat clunky tech because, you know, The Right Stuff and all that. the author is more charitable than many of us are with respect to the fighter mafia. He points out that the fighter mafia thought that everyone would turn their radars OFF when entering air to air combat because of radar warning receivers. I read the 2 Boyd biographies that came out about 20 years ago and what made me change my mind about the mafia was reading that they used to have eating contests where they would try to eat more steaks than the other guy. Yeah, that was their leisure activity. Macho one upmanship. The sort of guy who can eat the most steaks can fly a Blitzfighter and take out a dozen Soviet tanks per sortie while the wimpy men have to use Mavericks from safe standoff distance. The guy who can eat the most in one sitting can withstand unlimited g and outfly a squadron of more sophisticated planes. Where the mafia really broke the rules was in going public to try and pressure the DOD. We saw something similar 10 years ago with Key aviation forum and other places posting all their garbage against the F-35, citing the F-117 loss over Serbia s proof that "stealth" doe not work etc. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PA0HZ__qO8I

Two videos about the sinking of the cruiser Moskva: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uHTG6NB8b3o https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uHTG6NB8b3o The first video says that the defensive systems could not engage the missiles due to minimum altitude constraints. The vid also says that the defensive systems were down. Very interesting info about the damage done by the missiles. The 2nd video says that the systems were just left off.

Francis Fukuyama on the conflict. (Apparently, history did not end, who could have foreseen that in 1992? Everyone except him actually) https://www.americanpurpose.com/articles/preparing-for-defeat/ 1. Russia will outright lose. (If they can slowly grind forward and keep any momentum they could win if they can last long enough). 2. Their collapse might be sudden and drastic, not attritional. 3. No diplomatic solution possible prior to Russian collapse (this is obviously correct). 4. UN Security Council is useless. (Who thought otherwise?) 5. No-fly zone and Polish MiGs to Ukraine would be bad decisions. 6. Massive cost to Ukraine but the only way to stop is is defeating Russia. (Or Ukraine surrenders and then Russia has to hold Ukraine against an insurgency). 7. Putin will not survive a defeat. (Correct. See Saddam's behavior in '90-'91). 8. The war has damaged populists all over the world. (Correct). 9. Lessons for China. A high-tech military with no combat experience is unreliable. 10. Taiwan needs to wake up. 11. Turkish drones will sell well. (I think all drones will sell well). 12. The spirit of 1989 will be resurgent. (Whatever dude.) Maybe the overall military lesson from this war is that urban combat in the 21st century is almost untenable. No one has the infantry to take a fortified city. Public opinion will not tolerate siege (starvation and disease) tactics nor will it tolerate flattening cities. Neither can be hidden with new media technologies. Any army that invades an area with cities will either have to be welcomed in or it will sit outside and become the target of strikes from manned air/drones/artillery. #9 from the list is interesting. Many thought Russia would perform much better. https://www.rand.org/pubs/reprints/RP479.html Ukraine has 40 million people. If half are pro-Russian that means Russia needs to occupy 20 million people. It takes 400,000-500,000 troops to do that. They do not have that many and they cannot hold Ukraine at least according to the formula in the paper above.

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

The missile used here is said to be a Polish Piorun, a missile designed to engage low flying targets. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-SSEjdmglFc Apparently a Su-34 was shot down by an Osa missile as well. I thought the Russians would begin an air campaign after their missile strikes attrited Ukraine's GBAD. However, we see Su-34's down in the engagement envelope of Osa. Why? I suppose they are trying to deliver unguided munitions from an altitude where there is some accuracy. Perhaps they have to dip below the clouds to deliver guided munitions. Either way it's farcical to see planes in that envelope in the year 2022. Especially a rare and expensive Su-34. Analyst Justin Bronk writes about the Russian Air Force here: https://www.rusi.org/explore-our-research/publications/rusi-defence-systems/russian-air-force-actually-incapable-complex-air-operations

Microfighter concepts. https://ke.kz/en/press-center/defence-industry/1393/

Antonov An-225 destroyed in Ukraine conflict? https://www.traveller.com.au/the-anton-an225-the-largest-plane-ever-built-may-have-been-destroyed-h220l2

Sorry if it was not clear. I proposed a way to store electrical energy generated by solar. My proposal does not put any moving parts in a marine environment and does not kill birds with turbine blades.

What if we built massive amounts of solar thermal and used the "waste" heat to desalinate seawater? Pump the water in the daytime and let the water flow through turbines on its way to its destination in the night. Excess heat can make hydrogen. Hydrogen can react with carbon dioxide to make synthesis gas. Synthesis gas can go into the Fischer-Tropsch process. Other hydrogen can make ammonia, eliminating the need for natural gas to make ammonia.

Animations of Royal Navy Equipment. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UChaymRC0lCdRGlQ000YhpMg

"The interesting contrast is, I wouldn't say the same about the fighter aircraft of 1940 even with all the hindsight in the world. I think they were about as good as you could hope for." I've wondered about this. How many good fighters are there vs how many good tanks? It seems as if to make a good fighter required mainly a good wing and a good engine. The good tank required so much more. Is it that standards for rating fighters are lower, is it easier to design a fighter than a tank or is it the relative quality of the designers?

This video shows what appears to be a 3D CAD of the French Model 1897 artillery piece. It shows how the mechanisms on the cannon work. The channel has torpedoes and other arms as well. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6tW4GRWhue4

Elements of Tank Design (Page 35) https://www.benning.army.mil/armor/eARMOR/content/issues/1983/NOV_DEC/ArmorNovemberDecember1983Web.pdf

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=utVx9X88Wmk Unicellular life forms eating each other.