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The PKK doesn't represent all Kurds, I'd be interested in how Iraqi Kurdistan has dealt with the conflict. I don't think it's a surprise that Chechens and other Caucasians would fight against a Russian ally, after what the Russians did to them.
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Oct 16, 2012 20:14
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Our boy Brown Moses is making it. 
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Oct 16, 2012 20:33
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I got a lot of kudos for the cluster bomb work, and that's something I'm still working on with HRW, so there's more to come on that.
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Oct 16, 2012 20:34
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Here's the State Department's version of events in at the US consulate in Benghazi.
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Oct 16, 2012 21:24
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Well that was an intense read. So the Ambassador died from smoke inhalation? When/who found him? I havents seen any details of this story other then headlines.
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Oct 16, 2012 22:09
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I've done a new cluster bomb post, with some info on another bomb type that's been introduced http://brown-moses.blogspot.co.uk/2012/10/new-cluster-bomb-videos-october-16th.html
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Oct 16, 2012 22:12
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Seriously congrats on getting more out of what you've been doing. You're doing an incredible job. Kudos to you!
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Oct 16, 2012 22:27
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Brown Moses posted:I've done a new cluster bomb post, with some info on another bomb type that's been introduced I'm no expert, but I'm pretty sure this sentence doesn't make any sense: quote:You may have read about OFAB high explosive fragmentation bombs on my blog, which are very similar, the main difference being the thickness of the shell, with the OFABs thicker shell causing greater fragmentation compared to the FAB. I'm guessing that information came off Jane's? It's not the thickness of the casing but the design of it that causes increased fragmentation.
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Oct 16, 2012 22:41
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Yes, it was from Jane's, is there a better explanation? Just the design is different?
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Oct 16, 2012 22:49
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FAB is what you'd call a "general purpose" bomb. Wikipedia puts it pretty well: Wikipedia posted:A general-purpose bomb is an air-dropped bomb intended as a compromise between blast damage, penetration, and fragmentation in explosive effect. OFAB is weighted more towards fragmentation at the expense of other characteristics. When designing a frag bomb you want to make sure the casing fragments into as many suitable-sized metal shards as possible. OFAB solves this by making the inside of the bomb saw-toothed. When the explosive goes, the casing splits along the thin parts, creating the maximum number of fragments possible. It's not as effective against armored targets or buildings but presents a greater threat to people and unarmored vehicles. In practice both bombs are used in the same role. Rebels don't have that many armored vehicles anyway, so makes sense loyalists would go for maximum collateral damage and casualties. e: and the reason the sentence stood out is, you never want to make shell casings thicker than you absolutely need to. You don't want to contain the explosion, you want to release it as much as possible. It's been one of the major military problems since World War 1: how to get the most out of the least? Hob_Gadling fucked around with this message at 23:14 on Oct 16, 2012 |
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Oct 16, 2012 23:03
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Bombadilillo posted:Well that was an intense read. So the Ambassador died from smoke inhalation? When/who found him? I haven't seen any details of this story other then headlines. There was a video posted a while ago where a bunch of civilians had rushed into the embassy and managed to pull him out of the rubble on camera. They were all exclaiming "He's alive!", so the attack itself wasn't what really killed him.
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Oct 16, 2012 23:29
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Apparently Iraqi Shia militias are fighting for Assad. http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/10/16/us-syria-crisis-iraq-militias-idUSBRE89F0PX20121016 quote:Among them are defectors and former fighters from anti-U.S. Iraqi cleric Moqtada al-Sadr's Mehdi Army, the Iran-backed Badr group and Asaib al-Haq and Kata'ib Hezbollah, militias who once waged a bloody war on American troops, Shi'ite militants and Iraqi politicians say. This is probably Assad's best hope for victory - whilst his Army is proving somewhat capable at holding large urban areas, it clearly can't overcome an irregular guerilla campaign, and doesn't have the time to adapt and reform. But if he can import enough irregulars of his own...
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Oct 16, 2012 23:49
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Bombadilillo posted:Well that was an intense read. So the Ambassador died from smoke inhalation? When/who found him? I havents seen any details of this story other then headlines. It was actually Libyans that came to see what was going on that found him. They ran into the still burning consulate and dragged him out, taking him to a nearby hospital where he died of his injuries. There's actually a video of him being taken out of the building and it was initially believed by the crowd that he was alive.
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Oct 16, 2012 23:58
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mediadave posted:Apparently Iraqi Shia militias are fighting for Assad. The Russians did something vaguely similar to this in Chechnya during the second war there, though they used indigenous Pro-Russian militias and mercenaries.
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Oct 17, 2012 00:21
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http://www.thenational.ae/news/world/africa/in-the-new-egypt-a-conflict-as-old-as-islam The Shia are often a forgotten minority in Egypt.
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Oct 17, 2012 09:39
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The Salafists are taking advantage of the instability. I hope that the majority of Egypt sticks to their freedom, rights and democracy rhetoric of the revolution. In other news; an interesting piece on the FSAs push to take the last two Syrian regime military bases in the north: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IkvgTNr7kY0
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Oct 17, 2012 12:16
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Former Mossad chief Meir Dagan had a liver transplant in Belarus recently. Lukashenko waited until yesterday to mention that. http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/160993#.UH6WJ6HGah0 Meir Dagan made himself less than popular in some circles after saying Israel attacking Iran would be one of the stupidest things to do ever. HUGE PUBES A PLUS fucked around with this message at 12:37 on Oct 17, 2012 |
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Oct 17, 2012 12:33
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Another helicopter downed in Idlib today. By downed I mean blown to poo poo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bTmRZn98XxI
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Oct 17, 2012 13:18
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Brown Moses posted:Another helicopter downed in Idlib today. By downed I mean blown to poo poo Jesus .. I have to assume that whatever was already on fire on that thing triggered an explosion in the fuel tank, or some ordinance. Still, that's pretty conclusively a shoot-down.
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Oct 17, 2012 13:22
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HCO Plumer GCB GCM posted:Jesus .. I have to assume that whatever was already on fire on that thing triggered an explosion in the fuel tank, or some ordinance. It sounds like they were continuing to shoot at it as it fell to earth, which may or may not have made it an easier target.
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Oct 17, 2012 13:37
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Highspeeddub posted:Former Mossad chief Meir Dagan had a liver transplant in Belarus recently. Lukashenko waited until yesterday to mention that. I thought Israel was supposed to have a great health care system, and Belarus...well, doesn't. Why would Dagan get a liver transplant in BELARUS?!
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Oct 17, 2012 13:38
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Young Freud posted:It sounds like they were continuing to shoot at it as it fell to earth, which may or may not have made it an easier target. Well, you can hear continued small-arms stuff, but drat .. if someone caused that explosion with small-arms .. that's a hell of a flukey shot. When the camera pans out from zoom, you can see it's still fairly high at the point where it explodes.
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Oct 17, 2012 13:40
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suboptimal posted:I thought Israel was supposed to have a great health care system, and Belarus...well, doesn't. Why would Dagan get a liver transplant in BELARUS?! According to Lukashenko the US, Sweden and Germany all refused to admit him. Meir Dagan's spokesperson said that's not true, They went to Belarus because the wait times in those other countries were too long. Apparently complications have developed and Meir Dagan's condition is getting worse.
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Oct 17, 2012 13:53
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Brown Moses posted:Another helicopter downed in Idlib today. By downed I mean blown to poo poo Somewhere Michael Bay is nodding 'now people will respect the realism in all my films'.
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Oct 17, 2012 14:10
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HCO Plumer GCB GCM posted:Well, you can hear continued small-arms stuff, but drat .. if someone caused that explosion with small-arms .. that's a hell of a flukey shot. When the camera pans out from zoom, you can see it's still fairly high at the point where it explodes. Off in the distance you can hear some heavier caliber guns going off (specifically immediately before the sound of the explosion happens), so my guess is either ordnance exploded, fuel exploded, or it was hit by a HE shell from a 20mm+ AA gun. Or a combination of those. That thing blew the gently caress up, though. Seizure Meat fucked around with this message at 14:15 on Oct 17, 2012 |
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Oct 17, 2012 14:13
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Egypt's Constituent Assembly, the body selected to write the country's first post-revolution constitution, has been releasing draft articles from the prospective charter over the past few days. Apparently some of the new articles really pissed off the judiciary, and there were rumors yesterday that the courts had declared the Constituent Assembly to be unconstitutional. Those rumors were quickly walked back, but a ruling is expected regarding its constitutionality is expected on Oct. 23. While I'm pretty good with Egyptian politics, I'm a bit stumped here- if the courts rule that this Constituent Assembly is unconstitutional, does that mean they'll have to select a new constituent assembly and write a new constitution from scratch?
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Oct 17, 2012 14:50
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CeeJee posted:Somewhere Michael Bay is nodding 'now people will respect the realism in all my films'. It only exploded once though, not 5 or 6 times
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Oct 17, 2012 16:07
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Young Freud posted:It sounds like they were continuing to shoot at it as it fell to earth, which may or may not have made it an easier target. It seems that the aircraft was already on the way down, with the pilot trying to correct the spin and slow down enough to survive the crash. Evasive maneuvering is impossible at that point, so the helicopter either got hit by an explosive or something volatile on board exploded.
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Oct 17, 2012 16:09
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Brown Moses posted:Another helicopter downed in Idlib today. By downed I mean blown to poo poo Holy crap! mitztronic posted:It only exploded once though, not 5 or 6 times suboptimal posted:I thought Israel was supposed to have a great health care system, and Belarus...well, doesn't. Why would Dagan get a liver transplant in BELARUS?! Darkman Fanpage fucked around with this message at 16:16 on Oct 17, 2012 |
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Oct 17, 2012 16:11
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Brown Moses posted:Another helicopter downed in Idlib today. By downed I mean blown to poo poo  Seems like we get one of those videos every other day now. A combination of rebels capturing more AA weaponry and practice/developing doctrines to deal with the constant air bombardments? The Mi-8 is probably the least suitable aircraft the regime got for flying over those cities with that in mind.
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Oct 17, 2012 16:34
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Well they must have captured a lot of AA ammo from those air defence bases they raided, and certainly at least some ZU-23-2s, and when they start getting massed up with plenty of ammo they can pose a real threat to helicopters.
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Oct 17, 2012 16:53
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VikingSkull posted:Off in the distance you can hear some heavier caliber guns going off (specifically immediately before the sound of the explosion happens), so my guess is either ordnance exploded, fuel exploded, or it was hit by a HE shell from a 20mm+ AA gun. Or a combination of those. Looks like the ordinance it was carrying went off.
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Oct 17, 2012 17:56
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Warbadger posted:Looks like the ordinance it was carrying went off. The blast pattern is consistent with a high explosive going off in the helicopter, either due to onboard ordnance or the FSA hitting it with something powerful. I don't see any trace of something hitting the chopper, so most likely it was carrying a missile that exploded because of the fire. Either way, the question's not going to make a difference in the outcome of the war.
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Oct 17, 2012 18:00
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Chamale posted:The blast pattern is consistent with a high explosive going off in the helicopter, either due to onboard ordnance or the FSA hitting it with something powerful. I don't see any trace of something hitting the chopper, so most likely it was carrying a missile that exploded because of the fire. Might be one of those DIY barrel bombs they've been using, I'm sure they'd be pretty volatile in a situation like that.
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Oct 17, 2012 18:05
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Brown Moses posted:Might be one of those DIY barrel bombs they've been using, I'm sure they'd be pretty volatile in a situation like that. Do they put those on helicopters? Dropping them out of one would be incredibly dangerous and inaccurate.
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Oct 17, 2012 18:08
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Brown Moses posted:Well they must have captured a lot of AA ammo from those air defence bases they raided, and certainly at least some ZU-23-2s, and when they start getting massed up with plenty of ammo they can pose a real threat to helicopters. It's likely no coincidence that we've seen more shoot downs recently. Increasing experience on the rebel side and better AA equipment are a dangerous combination for Regime pilots. It was most likely something on board going up. That is a pretty big explosion for what is likely 23mm AAA.
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Oct 17, 2012 18:12
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Zeroisanumber posted:Do they put those on helicopters? Dropping them out of one would be incredibly dangerous and inaccurate. Yeah, I've seen a few videos of what looks like a barrel bomb drop, for example https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AO84IVcHliI
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Oct 17, 2012 18:13
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Zeroisanumber posted:Do they put those on helicopters? Dropping them out of one would be incredibly dangerous and inaccurate. Right, they toss them out of helicopters.
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Oct 17, 2012 18:14
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Chamale posted:The blast pattern is consistent with a high explosive going off in the helicopter, either due to onboard ordnance or the FSA hitting it with something powerful. I don't see any trace of something hitting the chopper, so most likely it was carrying a missile that exploded because of the fire. It'd take a pretty big shell to make an explosion like that. 23mm and 30mm HE AAA (hell, even 57mm) would have looked like tiny flashes at that distance. Even MANPADs don't make big pretty bangs like that one. Edit: A barrel bomb going off in it is definitely a possibility. Warbadger fucked around with this message at 18:19 on Oct 17, 2012 |
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Oct 17, 2012 18:15
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suboptimal posted:I thought Israel was supposed to have a great health care system, and Belarus...well, doesn't. Why would Dagan get a liver transplant in BELARUS?! There is literally no place in the world you don't have a great health care system if you are rich. Might as well go somewhere where it's...less bureaucratically difficult...to get your hands on some organs.
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Oct 17, 2012 18:15
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