Miscellaneous And Off Topic Subjects

[Dr. Strangelove]

[THE_WIZARD_]

We wish you would call off being an asshat...

[AlabamAlum]

.

[THE_WIZARD_]

horrible

[Dr. Strangelove]

[klondike]

Did you actually SEE Roy's body at the funeral... or him dieing. Just a hazy murky scene that could or could not be Roy..

[AlabamAlum]

I don’t think they’d pull an ‘Elvis faked his death’ move, but they absolutely ended it with an eye toward bringing it back or starting spin-offs. HBO hasn’t done a ton of that with their series, though.

[Jeff Buchanan]

Hope you're all enjoying family and friends on Memorial day thinking about the sacrifices our men and women in uniform make to insure our security. Kiev isn't as lucky as America/Washington DC. We have a strong national defense posture to keep the kind of shit happening in Ukraine from happening in America. Kiev has sustained 16 waves of missile and drone attacks since May 1st. Today, residents of Kiev, on a beautiful string day, instead of at a barbecue with loved ones, were huddled in underground subways to avoid the Russian bombing. There were 11 missiles (no kamikaze Iranian drones) shot into the capital of Ukraine, Kiev, today around 11:30 - first daylight strike. Ukrainian officials continue to claim everyone of them got shot down. I had my doubts about those claims but there was all kinds of video today becasue it was full daylight showing that, indeed, they seem to get intercepted. There is one video where a hunk of a flaming missile falls out of the sky onto a busy Kiev street and smashes the hood of a passing car. It looked like the passenger compartment was unharmed - it didn't explode.

Kiev is protected by interlocking NSAM and Patriot systems. It looks like the IADS (Integrated Air Defense System) is doing as intended. Fuck Putin. His war and the shit he's pulling in Ukraine is an affront to mankind and the civilized world we believe we should be living in. Western Democracies cannot allow Putin to be unaccountable for his war crimes.

Meanwhile, all is quite on the Eastern front. This happens when operations culminate and the Russian offensive in Bakhmut, only a tiny portion of the 600 mile eastern front stretching from Advinika-Savatove in the NE Dnbas to Zaphorezia in the SE has done that claiming a complete victory which the Ukrainian government and military deny. I tend to believe the Ukrainians because I'm biased and the facts of the matter are that the Russians are fucking liars. Regardless, tens of thousands died in this battle and for what? Russian bragging rights?

ISW is reporting that Prigozhen, Wagner PMC's head, is taking direct aim with comments he's making about an unnamed person that is obviously Putin. He claims whoever is running this war lacks the "steel balls," among other things, to prosecute a war. Russian ultranationalist milbloggers are arguing on line that he should be imprisoned for the crime of denigrating the Russian Government/Military. ISW thinks Putin arranged outcomes in Bakhmut by keeping Wagner PMC from taking complete control there when Prighozin claimed he would (May 5th) making him look bad. His claims of victory with video staging of both Wagner PMC and Russian flag waving didn't happen until last week at least three weeks after he said he'd capture Bakhmut. There's more to this - ISW also has learned from unnamed sources that Prigozhen is pissed off that he's not getting some kind of reward that Putin seesm to have promised him and that Putin worked to dodge having to give it to him.

All of this is only interesting at a political level and as an emerging threat to Putin's power base. It could also be wishful thinking on the part of political analysts that are biased in favor of Ukraine. The controversy involving Prigozhen, though, seems to be real if posts from Russian milbloggers can be taken seriously. ISW claims that the Russians posting this stuff have been reliable posters since ISW has been following them. Putin appearing as an alleged absent CINC isn't helping himself. He tries to portray little concern for his war in Ukraine seeing at an unfortunate circumstance and an inconvenience. Analysts think the mood of the Russian elites and people is shifting in an unfavorable direction for Putin. It's not good for him that Prigozhen seems to leveraging himself into power and political influence because of this.

[Jeff Buchanan]

Side note: I have a Marine Buddy of mine a graduate of Michigan's Aeronautical Engineering program and has a PhD from ND in Astrophysics - an actual rocket scientist who I flew with in Vietnam and a whole bunch after that. He's an Electronic Countermeasures officer also knowns as an ECMO. There were three - one in the front and two in the back - of the 4 place EA6B I flew from '74 until I retired in '90. I flew the EA6A in Vietnam from '72-'73 - a two seater A6 Intruder modified to be a jamming platform instead of a bomber.

We're both following the war in Ukraine with an eye on Russian and Ukrainian Electronic Warfare (EW). It is the silent war that goes on behind the scenes of the shooting one. It is vital for combatants to control access to the electromagnetic spectrum for obvious reasons and has become more so in modern warfare. We trade links to web sites of important EW developments. What's going on in Ukraine with C2, drones and GPS guided artillery (HIMARS), some Howitzer rounds and most cruise missiles being fired by both sides (French Storm Shadow missiles, Isklander Russian missiles) is fascinating (besides being ugly and sad on a humanitarian basis). Both sides are trying to jam the signals of these communications, data link and weapons systems and both sides are trying to harden them against jamming. It's live and system changing interactions. The west is very good at this; the Russians were supposed to also be very good but it's turning out they aren't. The high shootdown rate (actually a high rate of immobilizing the Iranian Shihad drones that are susceptible to jamming data link signals that control them) is evidence of that EW one-ups-manship of Ukrainian air defenses.

The US and the EU have robust EW industries full of very smart people, like my ECMO buddy who worked in that sector after he retired about the same time I did. The west, in general, also has the production capacity to produce the electronic components needed to build complicated EW systems that industry can deliver to the armed forces - and this isn't stuff you hear anything about. A lot of it is "black" meaning only a few people are read in and have access to these programs. My buddy was one of those types and left industry only a couple of years ago so, he's pretty current.

The Russians have neither the manpower composed of scientists and engineers to develop EW systems or a robust industry to build it.. They suffered a huge brain drain when Putin started drafting civilians into his war to get killed in the hundreds of thousands. Russian Scientists and Engineers fled the country in droves. Both the human resources and industrial capacity to produce effective EW systems are absolutely vital if you are going to win in combat. Although the Russians have been adept at avoiding sanctions on components that are required for complex weapons systems they aren't getting the high end stuff and haven't been for a while - that's why they are behind in this important element of warfare.

The importance of EW has been known since radars and radio communications starting sowing up on the battlefield in the late 30s. That stuff was under development in the late 20s and so were ways to counter radio coms and radar. The Russians are being found out in live combat in Ukraine to be technologically lagging in this vital component of warfare and aren't going to catch up given sanctions and human resource shortages. It's why Putin's illusion of outlasting the west is fatally flawed unless, of course, politics requires western governments to stop providing aid to Ukraine ..... and then there is the Russian strategy and tactics in place since at least WWII and probably before: "we have more people than you have bullets." Putin clearly has no concern for human life and will feed his war machine with his citizens until the west or Ukraine gives up. Just can't do that.

[THE_WIZARD_]

I haven't watched the last episode of Succession yet so all you can kindly STFU...

[AlabamAlum]

Sorry, Wiz. We all forgot Nebraska time is one hour and 5 decades earlier than the rest of the US.

[THE_WIZARD_]

LAIR!! We are the same time zone as Bammer...and 2 decades ahead of you. Now kindly STFU.

[AlabamAlum]

I don’t think they’d pull an ‘Elvis faked his death’ move, but they absolutely ended it with an eye toward bringing it back or starting spin-offs. HBO hasn’t done a ton of that with their series, though.

Although, “Deadwood” did get a movie after the series ended, and before that “The Sopranos” were rumored to be considering one until Gandolfini’s untimely death, so they made a horrible prequel with his son starring. Wouldn’t surprise me to see a “Succession: The Movie” in a year or two.

[iam416]

The most recent CNN presidential poll has The Chairman at 35/57 and DJT at 37/57 and 41 saying The Chairman winning would be disaster (26 said "setback") and 44 saying DJT winning would be a disaster (12 said "setback").

A plurality of Americans think that if either The Chairman or DJT win, it'll be a disaster. Both are at god-awful approval/disapproval numbers. And, yet, here we are -- steaming toward the biggest fucking turd sandwich in the history of elections.

[THE_WIZARD_]

It's like watching a posting battle between crash and CGVT...