(Thread IKs:
fatherboxx)
|
Yeah I really don’t think the saudis are going to aid or abet the assassination of the west’s golden boy for the sake of Russia’s corpse
|
#
?
May 19, 2023 16:31
|
|
|
|
| # ? Jun 1, 2024 15:57 |
|
|
I'm not even sure why it's being discussed. Saudi Arabia isn't going kill the head of state of another country while there on a diplomatic meeting there. That's just full on crazy talk.
|
|
#
?
May 19, 2023 16:38
|
|
|
https://rusi.org/explore-our-research/publications/special-resources/meatgrinder-russian-tactics-second-year-its-invasion-ukraine RUSI published an excellent short-form analysis of the adaptations the Russian military has made in Ukraine. It's very readable even for laypersons. A few highlights:
|
|
#
?
May 19, 2023 16:42
|
|
|
US to back fighter jet training for Ukrainian pilots, official says
|
|
#
?
May 19, 2023 16:49
|
|
|
Shes Not Impressed posted:Seems like the crawl toward sending jets to Ukraine is still underway. If a Patriot can shoot down one of Russian's jets over Russian territory, then why not just let Ukrainians do it with American jet?! This has always been the plan. They wanted Russia to over extend themselves, bleed out while NATO slow walked giving more and more advanced systems to give Ukraine superiority. At the end Russia will be effectively a non-threat going forward, Ukraine gets supplied with modern NATO equipment which they can use with great effect mopping up what is left of the Russian military with little risk which is a great commercial for it all. Also gives some fear to China which they can see what happens with the not so fancy stuff. The US and UK get to celebrate a big victory in Ukraine and the defeat of the big bad Russians which I know in the mind of a lot of Americans still are the boogyman.
|
|
#
?
May 19, 2023 16:50
|
|
|
Would you say Russia boogeymanning it up in Europe has something to do with that?
|
|
#
?
May 19, 2023 16:54
|
|
|
Djarum posted:The US and UK get to celebrate a big victory in Ukraine and the defeat of the big bad Russians which I know in the mind of a lot of Americans still are the boogyman. Can't imagine why a country that invades and brutalizes its neighbors is considered a boogeyman.
|
|
#
?
May 19, 2023 17:06
|
|
|
Vahakyla posted:Would you say Russia boogeymanning it up in Europe has something to do with that? No, it is because boomers and to some extent Gen X were raised with insane amounts of propaganda telling them that Russia is going to kill us all at any time. Only Capitalism and God will save you! I am of the age for the very tail end of all that nonsense as the Wall came down soon after I started school, so I only got a small amount of the "nuclear drills" and other bullshit. But I can completely see how that would color your views on this stuff for life.
|
|
#
?
May 19, 2023 17:07
|
|
|
I think, in light of the recent unpleasantness, that Russia isn't just a boogeyman.
|
|
#
?
May 19, 2023 17:46
|
|
|
Russian propagandists are out there every day talking about how they'll nuke that European country or invade that one. Most Europeans would prefer not to be nuked or invaded, regardless of their political or religious views.
|
|
#
?
May 19, 2023 18:11
|
|
|
wet_goods posted:This seems reckless, the Russians have a lot of pull in that region and SA isn’t exactly a good faith actor. Send a delegate next time. In addition to what others have said I will add that, again, Zelenskiy is on his way to Japan right now and probably needed to stop somewhere in the Middle East so might as well get some diplomacy in. Outside of the US, heads of state don't have their own 747s that can fly nonstop to anywhere on Earth. And that's even before you get into the fact that normally a flight from Europe to Japan would go over Russia.
|
|
#
?
May 19, 2023 18:18
|
|
|
Djarum posted:No, it is because boomers and to some extent Gen X were raised with insane amounts of propaganda telling them that Russia is going to kill us all at any time. Only Capitalism and God will save you! I am of the age for the very tail end of all that nonsense as the Wall came down soon after I started school, so I only got a small amount of the "nuclear drills" and other bullshit. But I can completely see how that would color your views on this stuff for life. To be fair the threat of nuclear annihilation was very real and that piece of it definitely wasn't propaganda. Even if we didn't square off with each other intentionally there are multiple occasions of hair trigger systems nearly firing and people just generally loving up or misreading the data that they were getting that could have had the entire thing going south. cr0y fucked around with this message at 18:33 on May 19, 2023 |
|
#
?
May 19, 2023 18:26
|
|
|
Moon Slayer posted:In addition to what others have said I will add that, again, Zelenskiy is on his way to Japan right now and probably needed to stop somewhere in the Middle East so might as well get some diplomacy in. Outside of the US, heads of state don't have their own 747s that can fly nonstop to anywhere on Earth. And that's even before you get into the fact that normally a flight from Europe to Japan would go over Russia. I mean there are defiantly other ways he can get from Europe to Japan not flying through Russian air space without going though the Middle East, but yeah where ever he stopped he'd probably try a bit of diplomacy so why not. Might not go anyway, but why not try?
|
|
#
?
May 19, 2023 18:34
|
|
|
cr0y posted:To be fair the threat of nuclear annihilation was very real and that piece of it definitely wasn't propaganda. Oh I am well aware. But I feel like it is a lot of the active shooter drills they have kids do today. That kind of stuff is going to stick in the minds of people their entire lives. Even if the US somehow got rid of every gun, the generation that grew up with that is going to have an unhealthy fear of guns and active shooters their entire lives. Not belittling Russia as a threat either. But the level and frankly insanity that was anti-Soviet propaganda that in some forms continues to this day was a little ridiculous. In Europe where there was a much more real threat I feel took a much more realistic and practical approach to it all. Alas it is a derail that doesn’t have much to do with the subject at hand.
|
|
#
?
May 19, 2023 18:49
|
|
|
beer_war posted:Russian propagandists are out there every day talking about how they'll nuke that European country or invade that one. Most Europeans would prefer not to be nuked or invaded, regardless of their political or religious views. They would be a "boogeyman" if it was just talk, but since they are actually trying to conquer one of their neighbors they have advanced to the stage of being an actual threat to the neighborhood.
|
|
#
?
May 19, 2023 18:53
|
|
|
The strategy of "boiling the frog" is not being used to "force Russia to overextend itself." It's being used to supply Ukraine with enough equipment to win while avoiding nuclear war. If nuclear weapons weren't a thing, I suspect Europe and the US would have supplied Ukraine with far more, far more quickly. This all also completely ignores the very real difficulties of moving, maintaining, and issuing all of this kit in a manner that is useful to Ukraine. In other news, I'm seeing some posts about an oopsy accounting error that has US aid to Ukraine over-valued by $3B. I am not an accountant or a US defense procurement specialist, but my intuition says this will be used to fund eventual F-16s for Ukraine. The other thing I consider is that the US tends to announce things as "upcoming" when they're actually ready and even in use. It would not surprise me at all if the US already had Ukrainian pilots in training. My understanding is that Ukraine has more pilots than planes, so this should be doable. While re-training current pilots (who have lots of recent combat flight time!) should only take weeks or a couple months, I'm curious how long it would take to train new pilots from scratch. Do any goons itt have any expertise in this area?
|
|
#
?
May 19, 2023 18:54
|
|
|
Ukraine's getting F-16s timeline for delivery unclear but not for this counteroffensive https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/white-house/us-allies-plan-provide-ukrainian-pilots-f-16-fighter-jets-official-say-rcna85270 quote:HIROSHIMA, Japan — America and its allies plan to provide F-16s to Ukraine — although the fighter jets may not necessarily come directly from the United States — as part of a long-term effort to strengthen the country's security, a senior Biden administration official said Friday.
|
|
#
?
May 19, 2023 18:56
|
|
|
Ynglaur posted:The strategy of "boiling the frog" is not being used to "force Russia to overextend itself." It's being used to supply Ukraine with enough equipment to win while avoiding nuclear war. If nuclear weapons weren't a thing, I suspect Europe and the US would have supplied Ukraine with far more, far more quickly. This all also completely ignores the very real difficulties of moving, maintaining, and issuing all of this kit in a manner that is useful to Ukraine. There was a report that said the norma training time is 18 months,.but they can do it with 4 with experienced pilots: https://twitter.com/michaeldweiss/status/1659271091234250752 The problem is of course is that Ukraine doesn't have that many experienced pilots and they do fly actively (and many are dead). Also I can't help but notice it's been over 14 months since the war started, and that 14+4 is 18
|
|
#
?
May 19, 2023 19:06
|
|
|
dr_rat posted:I'm not even sure why it's being discussed. Saudi Arabia isn't going kill the head of state of another country while there on a diplomatic meeting there. It may sound like crazy talk, but MBS previously held the prime minister of Lebanon, Saad Hariri, hostage at gunpoint until he resigned (he un-resigned the moment he left Saudi soil). https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/24/world/middleeast/saudi-arabia-saad-hariri-mohammed-bin-salman-lebanon.html MBS then joked about it, with Hariri present, a year later. https://thehill.com/policy/defense/412930-saudi-crown-prince-jokes-about-kidnapping-lebanese-leader/ MBS is not a stable person.
|
|
#
?
May 19, 2023 19:18
|
|
|
Ynglaur posted:In other news, I'm seeing some posts about an oopsy accounting error that has US aid to Ukraine over-valued by $3B. I am not an accountant or a US defense procurement specialist, but my intuition says this will be used to fund eventual F-16s for Ukraine. The other thing I consider is that the US tends to announce things as "upcoming" when they're actually ready and even in use. It would not surprise me at all if the US already had Ukrainian pilots in training. My understanding is that Ukraine has more pilots than planes, so this should be doable. So Ukrainian pilots were training extensively in the US before the war. They have flight hours in both the F-16 and F-15. How many? Well I have never seen anyone say that openly but my guess is somewhere around a lot since there was never a report on Ukrainian airframes ever leaving Ukraine or being spotted in the US during the time frames Ukrainian pilots were known to be in the US training. My assumption is they were using F-16s and 15s as stand ins for the MiG-29 and Su-27 respectively. Which would make a lot of sense. The issue with supplying Ukraine with F-16s or anything else has never been an issue with pilots. As long as someone is a certified pilot it doesn’t take a long time to teach someone a new airframe. Most of the time spent there is teaching the tactics for an airframe to use it to a pilot’s advantage. The big issue has always been the ground crew and the logistics chain. Training maintenance crews, weapons loading, crew chief, refuel personal… these folks need to get trained and you need all of the equipment moved into Ukraine. That takes time. You could possibly do it in as little as 6 weeks if there was a rush but I have little doubt that all of this has been being done for awhile now quietly. Just like with every other weapon system that is given to Ukraine that they start using immediately the personal was training on it in secret for weeks if not months prior to it being official.
|
|
#
?
May 19, 2023 19:18
|
|
|
Djarum posted:No, it is because boomers and to some extent Gen X were raised with insane amounts of propaganda telling them that Russia is going to kill us all at any time. Only Capitalism and God will save you! I am of the age for the very tail end of all that nonsense as the Wall came down soon after I started school, so I only got a small amount of the "nuclear drills" and other bullshit. But I can completely see how that would color your views on this stuff for life. As one of said GenXers that went through those fallout drills, no, I'm not afraid of the big bad Russkies. I do however have a strong distaste for autocrats invading their neighbors, doubly so when they're right wing 'traditional values' fascists, triply so when their regime is also trying to destroy liberal democracy in the west.
|
|
#
?
May 19, 2023 19:23
|
|
|
whats the status on more soup though
|
|
#
?
May 19, 2023 19:36
|
|
|
HonorableTB posted:Ukraine's getting F-16s Thank God.
|
|
#
?
May 19, 2023 20:12
|
|
|
This isn't really related to F-16 news but just to illustrate the point that maintenance is always the bottleneck with fighter jets (and because it's funny in a sad way), the US lost a few F-22s to a hurricane because their maintenance cycles are so long they couldn't get them away in time.
|
|
#
?
May 19, 2023 20:34
|
|
|
Mother nature remains undefeated
|
|
#
?
May 19, 2023 20:45
|
|
|
Lum_ posted:It may sound like crazy talk, but MBS previously held the prime minister of Lebanon, Saad Hariri, hostage at gunpoint until he resigned (he un-resigned the moment he left Saudi soil). Everything you've said is true, but it is also worth adding the context (a) Hariri is also a Saudi citizen, (b) Lebanon is a tiny, failed state in thrall to a bunch of powers, of which KSA is one particularly for the Sunni branch of the government to which Hariri belongs. Anyway quite a derail here, since Zelensky was not arrested in Saudi Arabia and made it to Japan.
|
|
#
?
May 19, 2023 21:34
|
|
|
There’s not a lot of great options for a diplomatic visit on that route either. Where else do you stop? Turkey? Iraq? India? Pakistan?
|
|
#
?
May 19, 2023 22:09
|
|
|
A GIANT PARSNIP posted:There’s not a lot of great options for a diplomatic visit on that route either. Where else do you stop? Turkey? Iraq? India? Pakistan? Gina!
|
|
#
?
May 19, 2023 22:14
|
|
|
A GIANT PARSNIP posted:There’s not a lot of great options for a diplomatic visit on that route either. Where else do you stop? Turkey? Iraq? India? Pakistan? Israel. I'm really surprised Zelensky chose to visit SA over Israel. Like yeah, go visit the horrible dictator that also invades it's neighbors over a country that has a defense system (iron dome) that you would probably really like to have defending your cities.
|
|
#
?
May 19, 2023 22:43
|
|
|
Nm
|
|
#
?
May 19, 2023 22:56
|
|
|
Charliegrs posted:Israel. I'm really surprised Zelensky chose to visit SA over Israel. Like yeah, go visit the horrible dictator that also invades it's neighbors over a country that has a defense system (iron dome) that you would probably really like to have defending your cities. Israel is not problem free, you know. Israel is led by a corrupt fascist war criminal who is Putin's buddy. Particularly right now there's been both huge protests against the government, and rockets being fired from Gaza and a fear of escalation. Now I don't think Zelensky is worried about any of that, but do you invite guests to your house when it looks like you've been on a bender? Or do you demand to enter when you know it's a mess inside? I wouldn't expect Netanyahu to give any meaningful support to Ukraine anyway, Israeli politics are so tightly balanced that while Russian immigrants are far from homogenous, the number of people who fully support Putin is probably important enough for him to avoid annoying them. And because he's an utter piece of poo poo
|
|
#
?
May 19, 2023 23:08
|
|
|
Moon Slayer posted:This isn't really related to F-16 news but just to illustrate the point that maintenance is always the bottleneck with fighter jets (and because it's funny in a sad way), the US lost a few F-22s to a hurricane because their maintenance cycles are so long they couldn't get them away in time.
|
|
#
?
May 19, 2023 23:56
|
|
|
Tiny Timbs posted:Somehow I don't think MBS is going to flush a president backed by the US down a basement drain He might be able to get away with chopping up a journalist, but I doubt he would be able to get away with murdering another nation's leader. Good, but they should have started this a year ago.
|
|
#
?
May 20, 2023 02:49
|
|
|
Yureina posted:Good, but they should have started this a year ago. I believe someone else mentioned it, but given that the expected training time is about a year shorter than average... it's possible they did, in fact, start this a year ago. Sshhh, don't tell anyone!
|
|
#
?
May 20, 2023 03:19
|
|
|
PT6A posted:I believe someone else mentioned it, but given that the expected training time is about a year shorter than average... it's possible they did, in fact, start this a year ago. Sshhh, don't tell anyone! I would hope so. The "west" really should be doing more to help give Ukraine an edge over the Russians. The more damage that can be done to Russia now, the longer it will take for them to recover and try this sort of BS again... assuming they will be able to recover.
|
|
#
?
May 20, 2023 03:40
|
|
|
Yureina posted:I would hope so. The "west" really should be doing more to help give Ukraine an edge over the Russians. The more damage that can be done to Russia now, the longer it will take for them to recover and try this sort of BS again... assuming they will be able to recover. The last time Russia rebuilt, it was rebuilt from western companies, all of which appear to have left Russia for some reason!
|
|
#
?
May 20, 2023 04:51
|
|
|
Charliegrs posted:Israel. I'm really surprised Zelensky chose to visit SA over Israel. Like yeah, go visit the horrible dictator that also invades it's neighbors over a country that has a defense system (iron dome) that you would probably really like to have defending your cities. SA helped with POW exchange and promised 400 million $. And Israel has shown no interest in giving any military aid.
|
|
#
?
May 20, 2023 07:13
|
|
|
If you ever seen footage from Stugna launches and saw arabic on its screen (or, better yet, from trainer software where operator tries to hit not-Merkavas) then you shouldn't be surprised why Zelensky tries to make inroads with different countries.
|
|
#
?
May 20, 2023 09:32
|
|
|
Charliegrs posted:Israel. I'm really surprised Zelensky chose to visit SA over Israel. Like yeah, go visit the horrible dictator that also invades it's neighbors over a country that has a defense system (iron dome) that you would probably really like to have defending your cities. I assume visiting SA is a lot about the pull they have in the ME and African countries, who at best are indifferent about the outcome of this war and just want the grain export to go back to normal. Visiting Israel would look very different from their point of view.
|
|
#
?
May 20, 2023 09:50
|
|
|
|
| # ? Jun 1, 2024 15:57 |
|
|
https://twitter.com/nlwartracker/status/1659863843135275008 Seems like Bakhmut has finally been given up by the Ukrainians.
|
|
#
?
May 20, 2023 11:27
|
|
