xthetenth

Are there any patronage networks in the middle east keeping states stable that don't depend on oil wealth? I tend to agree with the article's speculation, I think any blowout won't be even close to contained in Saudi borders.

Remember children, that only Japan had destroyers and only the US had cruisers. Also reminder that the torpedoes that blew up the Mikuma and Chokai were reliable, and apparently Japan's major wonder weapon effort of the war, the bleeding edge of torpedo technology, were in fact cheap winners. Also the Stryker MGS is a Vietnam era self-propelled 175mm howitzer. Finally, apparently tanks' armor is literally useless because it can be penetrated by some guns at some ranges. He comes very close to new frontiers of ingenousness, but unfortunately the margin by which he missed is the syllable "dis" on the front.

Yeah, that's just patently insane. The point of a bullet is to undergo a high velocity debilitating impact with the enemy's warfighting ability. The number and quality of those impacts trumps is the end goal, killing guys with a bigger bullet isn't going to make them any deader. Now anybody with a mouse can be an architect or anyone with a calculator is a rocket scientist. So it should stand to reason (following the same line of flawed logic) that now anyone should be able to design a better cartridge? He's a soldier and a gun-guy who has a computer, not a ballistics expert or qualified cartridge designer.

Pics don't seem to be working for me here or there.

I have a sneaking suspicion the US is trying to take the MQ-8 and make it a successor to the DASH. Considering ships like the Sumners could carry a DASH while still being under 3,000 tons while carrying 6 5" guns and an assortment of torpedo tubes, you could probably fit a decent number of those on a small ship, but that depends on what you want to do and how much weight that takes. Something like that would probably be fantastic for a rationally sized replacement for the Chakri Naraubet for example.

That's a real good post, and I think you're pretty solidly right. I understand the draw of devolving the capability to operate alone to smaller ships, but actually getting that capability on much smaller ships is going to constrain the magnitude of that capability sharply, probably too sharply to actually be able to operate alone against a credible threat anyway. I'm pretty sure that the Sejong the Great class' three members are also worthy of mention in the same sentence as the Arleigh Burke, Kongo, and Atago classes with it being a slightly enlarged Burke. Also, by RIM SAMs do you mean SeaRAM? RIM is just the naval equivalent of AIM. It strikes me as amusing how even now, when buying more ship hull is actually really cheap and we haven't been really tonnage constrained since a bit after WWII, tonnage is still a reliable indicator of what degree of capability you can get just because enough ship to fit the sensors and the weapons for a given role has a pretty non-negotiable cost if you want to do it right.

Yep, it's a cool and good museum.

Those Russian rations (and Ukranian ones) look pre-puked for your convenience. And according to a goon who tried them, they're about that bad.

It's really weird the way a lot of Americans totally freak out over the idea of any other nation having agency in any way.

Wow the Ruble's fallen off hard since 2013. Also yes, Russia's economy was preposterously depressed after the looting that was Russia's welcome to glorious capitalism (blanket) party.

Best rationale other than raw resources I've heard is Norman Friedman mentioning they have two of the best ports in the region, and can serve as a sort of linchpin for power projection. And the United Arab Republic was an utter shitshow that was the death knell of pan-Arab nationalism as a possible unifying strain in regional identity politics. Honestly though I think the biggest problem was the utterly awful crack Egypt took at making the Franco-Prussian war happen again. Comedy option: Lebanese style confessionalism. No, I assure you, the demographics are similar to when the census was taken. Conservatives realizing Putin is a total dreamboat will never stop being funny to me, but I don't think you realize how much the US loves it some underfed women.

Pretty much any ideology capable of forming the core of a decently functioning state (and a bunch that aren't) around has gotten absolutely dismantled over the past century. When you start wistfully thinking about what could've been under Gamal Nasser of all people, it's time to drink heavily and find a new region with a less painful history to study, like maybe the Balkans or the Indian Subcontinent.

Is winning a nuclear engagement really the goal, or does it take winning and coming out unscathed the goal? Those are two radically different criteria. We could win a nuclear engagement with the DPRK at a whim, but it's not going to happen because the costs are too high. If a country can end another country utterly, but would in all likelihood end up with a blasted and lightly irradiated wasteland where the center of one of their more important cities had been, I'd contend that only a few nuclear powers would even consider it, and they're at the bottom of the list of candidates for being able to pull off a serious counterforce strike and then deal with any stragglers. Personally I'd like to see a stratification of nuclear powers such that baby's first nuclear device isn't a credible deterrent and as major a threat as it is, especially considering the many ways proliferation in the middle east could get severely nasty in the near future (including the US starting something unnecessary and ugly to try and stop it). My main worry is what becomes of the european deterrents in that case, but I don't think that's as likely a cause of problems.

If the existence of ABM in itself immediately meant MAD is a no-go, and therefore nuclear deterrence falls apart, the British nuclear deterrent hasn't existed in decades. Yep. Getting the vast majority of a small number of inbounds is quite doable, and is probably a good thing in that it increases the barrier for entry to the credible nuclear deterrent owners club, or at least stratifies things in a way that the states with little to lose are a lot less likely to hit those with a lot. Getting all of a great many inbounds no matter where they are targeted is ludicrously expensive.

The 17th Century is notable for having the granddady of all the demographic demolishing events, and it brought a whole bucketload of malnutrition. However I'm not 100% sure about those skellies in particular.

Hilariously enough, you know who immediately plow their money right the hell back into the economy? People who can't afford everything they need, let alone want. As far as progressive taxation goes, just because it doesn't cure the entire problem doesn't mean that it isn't a useful palliative or in fact that a sound system wouldn't include it or something functionally equivalent. The more money someone has, the easier it is for them to get it, and I don't see many other ways to redress that imbalance without getting into the realm of fundamental changes.

I don't know why but the shots that are messed up are strangely reassuring.

A climate where the onus of the taxes weren't actually placed on the middle and lower upper class would be pretty cool no matter how it got done, and a lot of the Left is saying that cutting taxes on the rich isn't the panacea the Right makes it out to be, and it really doesn't end up trickling down, because frankly why would it? Wealth at the top does very little to drive the sort of mass demand that you need to ramp up supply to meet. I do agree that outsourcing is a great evil, but enough about the morale of software engineers nationwide. There's a lot of variables there to deal with, and I'm not really sure perching the economy on a bubble is a thing we want to do here.

At least the US is, not sure about other places.

What a strange predicament they find themselves in. Wonder if their hand was forced by the whole hot as hades aspect of the F-35's exhaust. Overall it's probably well worth doing. Still maintain ski jumps are for second class carriers and paying money on the carrier deck is well worth not paying in capability in the air.

As far as such things go for a person a year into a career, 1, 3, 4, 5 (lol as far as that goes, I'm keeping my expenses crazy low), 6, 7, 8, 10, 11 and 12 kinda in a way is not bad at all. I'm trimming costs like mad to do it though, and I'm a single dude. On the other hand, I'm a fucking software engineer, if the middle class here doesn't have room for software engineers I'm leaving. I'm just really surprised that article wasn't by a leftist publication.

We have an F-35 pilot under 136 pounds. Quickly, find the Soviet tank that pilot belongs to.

Nifty. I assume they're working on a subscription plan just like we are? It'll be interesting seeing how the design matures.

Something didn't work perfectly, gut its funding and plow it into the F-35.

Apparently the case was made that maneuvering was sufficient for an SR-71 to evade intercept by a MiG-25.