Priory_of_Sion

I'm happy to call the guy "alt-right" or "reactionary". A lot of his ideas were straight out of the reactionary blogosphere's playbook.

The Dayton guy was clearly a leftist socialist.

Kek, "skilled Yemeni labor". 
 
 

Egyptian SPG from (probably) 60s based on M4 chassis.

I would have figured it was a destroyer or cruiser that was involved with this, not an amphibious assault ship.  Drone must have gotten decidedly close.
 
Also of interest is that supposedly the drown was downed using a jammer as opposed to a missile.
 
 

Jagdpanzer IV/70(A).  Not a lot of wartime pictures of this where it's not blown to smithereens or captured. 
 

 

 

Hello guys,
I think that possibly some of you might be interested in our interwar Czechoslovak stuff. For starter I've decided to share with you a wonderful online document about our fortification system. At the very beginning I'd like to say that I have nothing common with its creators. It's just an incredible gem that deserves to be shared with you. If you know it, sorry for that, nevertheless I think most of you don't. Since I am new here I will not waste your time debating what if scenarios. Don't worry.  
 
Well, enough of talking. What I want to share with you is a massive interactive map of our fortification system containing nearly 11 thousand objects with information about every single one of them. You can switch on even such crazy details like cable networks or construction facilities used for building of the fortifications. The map is directly linked with an online database of the fortification buildings where more than 2000 objects are listed with detailed description (plans, 3D models, photos, weapons, crew, important dates, recent state etc.). Unfortunately this database is only in Czech language but it can be a great source of information for you anyway (especially when linked with the map). The good thing is that the map alone supports other languages and you can easily switch them.  
 
This is the base view where I have already switched on all objects. You can change background map type, information etc. on the left side and visualise everything what You want to see on the right side. 
 
Let's zoom in a little bit. Here You can see one of the strongest fortified places - a valey at Králíky in north-east Czechia. As you can see the object marks have different shapes, colours etc. The shape is matching the menu on the right side. Triangles are concrete pillboxes vz. (mark) 36. Small circles are pillboxes vz. 37. The letter inside means type of the object (with one firing post, two on each side, angled one etc.). The color can be decoded from the information table in the bottom right corner. Basically it shows whether the object was actually built, if it was later destroyed or the works were only started or even not so. The heavy objects are the large circles. The numbers have also a meaning. It's a resistance class (1 -> 2 -> I -> IV from the lowest to the most resistant). 

 
You can switch on also the ground plans of the artilery groups (fortresses with underground network between the casemates). You can see it here (fortress Hůrka). 

 
You can also switch on the firing lines. Here You can see heavy artilery coverage of the most fortified section of the line (the sad thing is that no heavy artilery pieces were installed by the time of Münich crisis - but lets leave such details aside for now). 

 
You can switch on the firing lines even for the pillboxes as you can see here on the example from the souther border. Nearly all Czechoslovak objects were built for side fire having superheavy resistance frontal walls with stone and earth covers. 

 
If You zoom even more and switch for satelite map you get something like this. In this case the red color shows anti tank 47 mm guns and the blue color is 7,92 mm (sometimes double) heavy machine guns of a heavy separated casemate (possible use of light machine guns in observation cupolas is not marked). The grey color shows vz.26 light machine guns of the neighbouring pillbox. 

 
You can click on every single object and you get available details. The first icon shows detailed lines of fire including realistic range. Bellow the L: L1 M ZN 3-4 means: Left side: L1 = 47 mm anti tank gun with 7,92 mm coaxial heavy MG; M = twin 7,92 heavy MG; ZN is I think type of the cupola but I'm not actually sure about it. The codes for the weapons are shown at the table in the lower right corner (you need to keep the cursor on the question mark). 

 
The Second icon leads to a database of objects which is unfortunately only in our weird language. Anyway you can dig a lot of information from it as well (drawings, recent state, photos, exact location etc.).

 
 
The best thing is that most of the objects still exist till today (all of those heavy ones). The Germans managed to destroy roughly 2000 light objects (and gain some 11000 tons of steels from them). They managed to damage also many heavy ones when they were testing weapons and tactics for the future use duirng the WW2. They even moved some cupolas (and of course the famous hedgehogs) to other fortifications along the Atlantic wall or elsewhere. Many of them are made into better or worse museums today (large quantity is private now). Huge number of them is just left alone and freely accessible for anyone. If you are more interested I can give you tips which ones to visit. On the Czech map portal You can use a mode panorama which is basically the same thing as Google street view but it's much more up to date and it's nearly everywhere where they got at least with a motorbike. Since the fortifications are also visible there, you check where they are for easier access. 
 


 
If you are interested I can continue the fortification topic with some other information (I'm no historian but I have visited quite many of the objects myself and read some books about them). 
 
OK, so this was my first post on the forum. I hope you find it interesting and maybe for some of you it can be a reason for a trip, who knows :-) 
 
 
 
 

Trump's gonna anger a lot of people if he does it.
It became widespread "knowledge" that the ME allies were against all deals with Iran, when in fact most if not all would have wanted the deal to be expanded to include ballistic missiles, not outright cancelled.

I mean, this is what you should expect from a guy who has never read a book. 
 
It looks like this stuff has hurt Rex Tillerson's old company more than anyone else so far: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-iran-iraq-oil-exclusive/exclusive-exxons-53-billion-iraq-deal-hit-by-contract-snags-iran-tensions-sources-idUSKCN1TM0IZ
 

Over Baltic sea

Banshees over USS New Jersey and USS Lake Champlain.
 

"rofl-stomping" doesn't fit in the usual list of goals in conflict. Iran's likely goal is to be the biggest pain in the arse possible, and they have the deck stacked in their favour:
 
21% of the worlds oil flows through that strait, and it'll take anywhere from a week to a month to clear the mines (a week for a narrow, sort-of-safe channel, but what insurer would accept a 10% chance they lose the ship?). That's without iranian forces interrupting the MCM, or targeting tankers in other regions near the iranian coast (ASM launchers won't last longer than their first salvo, but that's a lot of missiles in the air. You can't reliably get them before they fire either, as iraqi scuds proved - and scuds are larger than ASMs). For reference  the 1979 oil crisis only involved a 4% drop in oil production, and lead to a doubling of the price of oil.
 
The US options to respond are pretty short of a rofl-stomp - they can muster a small air & naval campaign at best with the forces available. The first gulf war involved thousands of aircraft (compare to the few squadrons moved to the region recently), and even with a ground campaign saddam wasn't replaced. They could sink most of the iranian naval assets, probably enforce air superiority over the important bits, pop most of the ASM launchers, and might as well strike the nuclear facilities, but what's the end-state? How do they get the iranians to stop fighting, short of a total occupation (something that would be several times larger than gulf war 2)? ASMs have shown up in the hands of non-state actors, so a bloodied state actor like iran could dangle the credible threat of ASM strikes on nearby shipping for the foreseeable future even with a constant US fast jet presence.
 
Autonomous mine countermeasures has the potential to greatly improve MCM speed, but it's not ready today in the numbers needed and doesn't solve the ASM issue.

Here’s an interesting(frightening?) paper looking at the American nuclear taboo versus Iran: https://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/full/10.1162/ISEC_a_00284
 

Iranian grenade launcher (copy of Milkor MGL) in hands of Houthis.

 
https://imp-navigator.livejournal.com/831741.html

Do we want to start the "US-Iran won't stop flirting thread yet" in the meantime? 

Do we want to start the "US-Iran won't stop flirting thread yet" in the meantime? 

Here's a fairly comprehensive overview of the Iranian mine incident

It looks a lot like an iranian boat
http://parstoday.com/en/news/iran-i5290-iran's_speed_boats_delivered_to_irgc
 
I'm convinced that the iranians did it, based on the footage, unless someone manages to find footage of a really good vis-modded boat that looks like that in a saudi port

India has claimed it killed ~350 militants in their strike while Pakistan claims that the strikes resulted in 0 casualties. 
 
It is hard to decide if the Indian military is just as incompetent as they've always been or if the Pakistanis are just lying as usual. 

India has claimed it killed ~350 militants in their strike while Pakistan claims that the strikes resulted in 0 casualties. 
 
It is hard to decide if the Indian military is just as incompetent as they've always been or if the Pakistanis are just lying as usual. 

India has claimed it killed ~350 militants in their strike while Pakistan claims that the strikes resulted in 0 casualties. 
 
It is hard to decide if the Indian military is just as incompetent as they've always been or if the Pakistanis are just lying as usual.