Collimatrix

Everything seems to work now.  I am definitely not saying this because I am T___A logged in as Collimatrix, having staged a coup.  Don't worry.  Everything is fine.

... five minutes later, T___A banned me.  The alcohol did not guide me.  Guess I didn't have enough.

March 12, 2019

Tried at least somewhat to clean up the convoluted mess that is the moderator permissions and settings.  I am trying to empower the new moderators to make the necessary changes but without completely breaking the system.

May the alcohol guide my actions.

This Yahoo News article repeats tens of thousands of ISIS civilians, and fills in some more details.

Thanks @Scolopax for finding this.

On 3/3/2019 at 6:30 AM, heretic88 said:

Thats funny. Looks like the terrorists have no idea what ERA is...

There are pictures either in this thread or the Jihad Design Bureau thread of tanks and IFVs with additional ERA attached to them.  There are also pictures of T-64s in the Ukraine thread with a bunch of additional ERA attached.

@Militarysta; @Willy Brandt and I were looking at some diagrams of ERAWA reactive armor:



Specifically, we were looking at how the cassette mounting screws are tucked under the cassette.  This means that the edges of each ERAWA tile can be very close to each other, so the gaps in the protection are very small.  And you can see on the PT-91 that the cassettes are packed very close.

This is all well and good, but how on earth do you replace damaged modules?  Having to get around to the side of each module to get at those mounting bolts looks like a complete pain in the ass.

I have heard insanely high estimates of the number of wives and children that the ISIS fighters brought along with them that have now been captured; possibly tens of thousands.

I have no idea if these estimates are accurate, but you can see from the picture above that there are a lot of these non-combatants mixed in.

On 2/19/2019 at 8:04 PM, Lord_James said:

 

... 

... 

Do they... are they... is this really... 

... 

... 

This is just as retarded as having sex with a virgin curing STDs (looking at you, SE Asia). You know what, let these people who buy this obvious scam be idiots, and waste their money, and hopefully after several years of “therapy” realize that there’s nothing in their miserable lives that makes their life worth saving anyway. Inbred mongrels, probably the same people who are anti-vaxx or believe the earth is flat and our governments are just a bunch of Illuminati puppets. 

...

...

I’ve had a stressful day, so let’s start over: 

god these people are stupid; can’t wait for trump to actually make his death camps and put these people in first... 

It's not entirely pseudoscientific.  That is to say, it's not like someone said "hey, lol, what if we sell people on using the blood of virgins to maintain eternal youth, only this time do it intravenously :))))))"

It's called parabiosis, and it does work.  At least in rats.  In labs.  Sometimes.

Are there any indications of what the Chinese government is doing?  They surely don't want a major war on their borders.

Is there a good side by side of the Mi-28 and the Ka-52?  Mi-28 looks much bigger.

On 2/22/2019 at 10:43 PM, Belesarius said:

As I don't read Russian, what's the breakdown on what that says?

 

An internet leaker who provided a lot of the information on Russian air force projects got jailed.

The consensus elsewhere on the internet is that PAK-FA testing is ongoing, but that it is ongoing where nobody can see it.  This is not too surprising; according to Butowski there has been a ton of weapons testing for the PAK-FA of which there is no pictures.  On top of that, one of the program's biggest leaks was recently plugged.

7 hours ago, SH_MM said:

Defeating the ~80 mm thick side armor of the T-55 ≠ being able to defeat the frontal armor of the T-55.

The hull sides are 80mm, the turret sides are ~115mm thick.  But I agree; it's a far cry from being able to defeat the front of the turret, which is 200mm thick, or the glacis, which is even tougher.

115mm of armor penetration probably corresponded with the thickest concrete wall they thought they would be shooting this thing at.

On 2/13/2017 at 6:38 AM, Renegade334 said:

Well, "treatment" might not have been the correct term. More like "forging process".

From what I hear it's some sort of multi-stage heating process that helps reinforce the long rod's tungsten and diminish deformation during the self-sharpening phase. The same trick was apparently applied to the K-279. And that's about all I know on the matter. :-/

I had vaguely heard of this sort of thing being researched.  The idea was to alloy/treat tungsten in such a way that it behaves more like uranium on impact.

I wonder how well the Shtora works through that gauze.

4 hours ago, Belesarius said:

That sounds like an interesting story.  Could you or Toxn elaborate?

 

As you know, the Russians have this weird cultural tic where they see themselves as the official defenders of Orthodox Christianity.  Through most of history since the Great Schism, Russia has been the only Orthodox state that is powerful.  Most other Orthodox populations were subjects of either the Ottoman Empire (Sunni) or the Austro-Hungarian Empire (Catholic), so at various times and places, the Russians have felt like they need to be the "big brother" and look out for Orthodox populations (and especially Slavic Orthodox populations).  This is a very sweet and touching belief and it also fucking caused the First World War.  Also, with the NATO intervention in Yugoslavia in 1999 it came alarmingly close to causing the Third World War.

In at least a few cases, the Russian state has tried to help Ethiopia for similar reasons.  Ethiopia is Orthodox...ish, and it is the only generally Christian in a predominantly Muslim part of the world.  The Russians don't like it when Muslims pick on their Orthodox bros, and they like it way even less when the uppity Catholics pick on their bros with their Western imperialism and their Filioque Clause.

The actual level of support Russia has been able to offer Ethiopia has historically been limited because they're really far away from each other, but the Russians did supply the Ethiopians with several rifles and some artillery for the Battle of Adwa in 1896, and according to some sources small numbers of Russian troops fought there as well.  As the Battle of Adwa was a crushing defeat for the Italians, there's a lot of art commemorating this event, and I could swear I've seen one that shows Russian troops standing shoulder to shoulder with their Ethiopian bros as they stick it to the Italians.

2 hours ago, Toxn said:

Sadly no.

 

I assume that image searching on Google isn't giving you love?

Yeah, no luck so far.

@Toxn Do you happen to have a picture of the tapestry showing the Russian volunteer contingent at the Battle of Adwa being strong, Orthodox bros with the Ethiopians and sticking it to the filthy papists?

Best guess three view of the new Sukhoi UCAV I found on the Key Publishing Forums.  It's Yuge!

I note that the light tank also has double pin tracks.  The Merkava is unusual, possibly singular among modern MBTs in that it uses single pin, non-rubber-bushed tracks.  Double pin tracks last longer, but the experience in the Golan Heights was that the volcanic rock there chews up the end connectors too quickly.

On 1/22/2019 at 8:30 AM, LoooSeR said:

 

 

The allegation in the second video that EA's CEO is unhappy with having to make Star Wars games is baffling.  Disney shelled out $4x10^9 for that!

What does anyone make of this?

https://www.the-scientist.com/news-opinion/fathers-can-pass-mitochondrial-dna-to-children-65165

@Toxn?

With the air intake on top, there must be a lot of room inside the fuselage for a large weapons bay.

That's pretty lame.

19 hours ago, TokyoMorose said:

 

Steel is basically steel. RHm can claim newer steels, but to be honest the improvements in most regards are in the order of 1-5% over the last 20 years - it's mostly marketing wank. Steel metallurgy is simply mature and has been some time, so with the exception of niche alloys/properties major improvements just aren't going to happen.

My books on armor metallurgy disagree.  As an example, if you could eliminate all of the bonding dislocations in a piece of mild steel, its tensile strength would be 20 times higher.  Modern steels aren't anywhere near their theoretical maxima.

Entirely novel steel metallurgy has been developed in the last 10 years, including armor steels with bainitic microstructure, TRIP and TWIP steels.  Additionally, ultra high hardness steels are being developed that may be viable alternatives to ceramics.

1 hour ago, LoooSeR said:

Drummond is an idiot and hack, we probably should have a rule about unironically posting links to his tweets. 

Yes.