|
Ran into this today. Hull was spray-painted M48A5, oddly enough.
|
#
?
Sep 11, 2016 06:38
|
|
|
|
| # ? Jun 3, 2024 17:06 |
|
|
that is an m48 hull, 5 return rollers. http://www.com-central.net/index.php?file=viewtopic&name=Forums&p=83779 vains fucked around with this message at 14:30 on Sep 11, 2016 |
|
|
#
?
Sep 11, 2016 14:27
|
|
|
Dark Helmut posted:In unrelated and less nuclear-focused talk, I saw the F-22 fly in person for the first time at Oceana NAS today. The Angels have been swooping around all week right above the roads there. It's amazing we didn't have more accidents.
|
|
#
?
Sep 11, 2016 14:51
|
|
|
MassivelyBuckNegro posted:that is an m48 hull, 5 return rollers. I just meant, I wasn't expecting to see a Starship turret on an M48 hull. Actually, I was surprised to see a Starship turret at all
|
|
#
?
Sep 11, 2016 16:56
|
|
|
I love all the weird poo poo they did to the M60
|
|
#
?
Sep 11, 2016 19:09
|
|
|
The Turkish M60's are NOT faring very well against ATGM's in Syria http://www.liveleak.com/browse?q=turkish+tank
|
|
#
?
Sep 11, 2016 21:59
|
|
|
I'm sure death comes quickly, but that jet of flame out of the turret always makes me cringe.
|
|
#
?
Sep 11, 2016 23:14
|
|
|
Someone has to remove the remains from the wreck.
|
|
#
?
Sep 12, 2016 00:22
|
|
|
fancy a kabab?
|
|
#
?
Sep 12, 2016 00:25
|
|
|
Their tactics seem... Bad.
|
|
#
?
Sep 12, 2016 00:31
|
|
|
LingcodKilla posted:Their tactics seem... Bad. Imprisoning/"removing" most of your military commanders right before going to war seems like a great idea.  
|
|
#
?
Sep 12, 2016 01:49
|
|
|
C.M. Kruger posted:Imprisoning/"removing" most of your military commanders right before going to war seems like a great idea. But you see the purged commanders were the ones that wouldn't fight.  Yeah, not at all surprised by the turn of events in Turkey/Syria.
|
|
#
?
Sep 12, 2016 03:51
|
|
|
When the Libyan War happened it was kinda funny to make Mad Max jokes, because a lot of those fighters had some levity and it was a bit more secular at first Syria is just straight up what a post-nuclear world would be
|
|
#
?
Sep 12, 2016 11:20
|
|
|
C.M. Kruger posted:Imprisoning/"removing" most of your military commanders right before going to war seems like a great idea. Yeah, I thought the Kurds' only chance of survival was that Erdogan has very obligingly made his army disorganized and incompetent out of paranoia.
|
|
#
?
Sep 12, 2016 12:09
|
|
|
Epiphyte posted:Is lithium deuteride really "precious" in terms of the difficulty producing the uranium/plutonium for the primary? When you are north korea, yeah, it's probably precious enough that if you know it works you don't want to waste any, especially if it helps meet production warhead quotas- but I think that the other benefits of keeping the test small and confined (such as denying sniffer planes a detailed analysis of your weapons) are probably more important. Or they just tested a fission primary. Or maybe it was a boosted primary. Without escaping radionuclides to analyse, no-one knows at the moment. For a "proper" secondary it's a little more involved than simply having the fusion fuel there- the design and a further is important to maximise the yield or the majority of it will be entirely wasted. But the design and principles aren't too complex, and the potential materials, as you note, can be quite cheap. Phanatic posted:Aside from NK, everyone who has developed an atomic bomb has gotten it right on their very first try. The tricky part *is* the fusion stage. Well, the Soviets and British stole/borrowed plans for a known good design and built what were essentially copies of fat man, France managed much of the work on their own and assisted the Israelis (who totally don't have them nuh uh not even when Mrs Meir is ordering them assembled and readied for use). India and Pakistan both had western help with reactors and a few decades of research to read openly/borrow/steal. If anything, disregarding other aspects, the north korean nuclear program, while laughable in comparison to others, is impressive given the conditions they are working under. Understandably most nations aren't very open with the reasons why a test fizzled, but from what data I can find, there have been more fizzled fission tests than failed fusion tests, and the two fusion fizzles I can find out about are both blamed on the fission stage failing with the fusion stage still producing force (the latter a considerable amount) despite partial fizzle of the fission stage. If you already have a fission reaction going well, boosting it to provide a small amount of fusion is relatively simple- you only get a few percent more yield from the fusion in the primary, but it happens to be one of the key steps to easily hardening your nuclear weapon from predetonation/neutering from nearby nuclear blasts (other than coating it in a shitload of lead) making it a very desirable feature even if you don't want a high yield device. Once you have that little bit of fusion going, you can add more fuel for a larger blast- the only "tricky" bit is making sure you get the most efficient use out of the most fuel, which if you can source a few nuclear physicists and the known data (like when greenpeace leaked a stolen partially censored warhead plan, I think for the W88) you can get most of the way there with little effort.
|
|
#
?
Sep 12, 2016 12:55
|
|
|
DesperateDan posted:Well, the Soviets and British stole/borrowed plans for a known good design and built what were essentially copies of fat man, France managed much of the work on their own and assisted the Israelis (who totally don't have them nuh uh not even when Mrs Meir is ordering them assembled and readied for use). India and Pakistan both had western help with reactors and a few decades of research to read openly/borrow/steal. If anything, disregarding other aspects, the north korean nuclear program, while laughable in comparison to others, is impressive given the conditions they are working under. I don’t disagree that DPRK’s work is impressive considering their constraints, but really, everyone except the U.S. had a pathetic showing. The Manhattan Project still holds the record for time to acquire a nuclear devices, and they did it in secrecy (a few spies excepted), with 1940s technology, within six years of the discovery of fission itself, while involved in the largest armed conflict in human history. If your country doesn’t borrow 13.3 thousand metric tonnes of silver from the treasury to use as conductors in your calutrons, you’re not trying hard enough. You’re probably cheating with gaseous diffusion.
|
|
#
?
Sep 12, 2016 13:27
|
|
|
Platystemon posted:I don’t disagree that DPRK’s work is impressive considering their constraints, but really, everyone except the U.S. had a pathetic showing. Don't forget using tens of percentage points of the total electrical production of the Third Reich.
|
|
#
?
Sep 12, 2016 13:32
|
|
|
xthetenth posted:Don't forget using tens of percentage points of the total electrical production of the Third Reich. Oak Ridge alone used one seventh of U.S. electrical production, U.S. electrical production being like 40% of the world’s. e: And even with all that, it was still cheaper than the V‐weapons programme. 
Platystemon fucked around with this message at 13:39 on Sep 12, 2016 |
|
#
?
Sep 12, 2016 13:34
|
|
|
The PRC had a very quick fission-to-fusion turnaround though, and I bet that particular road was paved with electricity out the wazoo as well. Not to mention human skulls.
|
|
#
?
Sep 12, 2016 13:58
|
|
|
Platystemon posted:everyone except the U.S. had a pathetic showing. I think a bunch of the european scientists working on it helped a little. Apart from that guy who fuched things up a bit.
|
|
#
?
Sep 12, 2016 13:58
|
|
|
DesperateDan posted:I think a bunch of the european scientists working on it helped a little. Apart from that guy who fuched things up a bit. Fuchs actually did important work. He wasn’t irreplaceable, but he also wasn’t just doodling when he wasn’t passing secrets to the Soviets. Plus, he lent Feynman his car, and that’s got to be worth something. Platystemon fucked around with this message at 14:31 on Sep 12, 2016 |
|
#
?
Sep 12, 2016 14:19
|
|
|
Also remember everyone after the US had the massive advantage of knowing for sure that it was possible
|
|
#
?
Sep 12, 2016 14:20
|
|
|
Platystemon posted:Oak Ridge alone used one seventh of U.S. electrical production, U.S. electrical production being like 40% of the world’s. I just like expressing it in terms of the Reich's partially because I get to laugh at how short a thousand years is in hitler years. Also because I knew it off the top of my head from a discussion of Nazi nuke program stuff, where somewhere around 30 percent of all the electricity produced in the Reich's entire existence is a huge deal.
|
|
#
?
Sep 12, 2016 14:28
|
|
|
shame on an IGA posted:Also remember everyone after the US had the massive advantage of knowing for sure that it was possible .... and that their operation wouldn't end the world, and that their use was sanctioned under vague circumstances making the investment worthwhile, and because poo poo, now they had them. The US doing it during WWII was almost hubris. It was basically the first endzone spike in history.
|
|
#
?
Sep 12, 2016 14:32
|
|
|
shame on an IGA posted:Also remember everyone after the US had the massive advantage of knowing for sure that it was possible And that it *probably* wouldn't ignite the atmosphere.  Seriously, though - I think one of the most interesting counterfactuals one can imagine is what the world would've been with the US having an extra decade or so with a nuclear/thermonuclear monopoly. Once we proved it was possible, it was just a matter of time before other chemists, metallurgists, physicists, and assorted scientists of other nations worked it out for themselves, but if the US had had a 10-15 year head start instead of four years, I do wonder if we'd have been a lot more bellicose or liberal in the use of nukes.
|
|
#
?
Sep 12, 2016 14:33
|
|
|
BIG HEADLINE posted:And that it *probably* wouldn't ignite the atmosphere. MacArthur would've retired a proper war hero.
|
|
#
?
Sep 12, 2016 14:35
|
|
|
Some of the earliest, loudest critics of the use of the atomic bombs against Japan were the guys in charge of Operation Starvation. I’d link it, but it’s exactly what it sounds like. Their operation was going swimmingly, but then Harry S. Truman caught the golden snitch and ended their fun. 
|
|
#
?
Sep 12, 2016 14:37
|
|
|
Platystemon posted:Some of the earliest, loudest critics of the use of the atomic bombs against Japan were the guys in charge of Operation Starvation. I’d link it, but it’s exactly what it sounds like. This is my favorite thing to quote at people who scream about the bomb use today. Like, it ended our own savagery faster, if anything. For that, it worked. The estimates were in the millions, I mean, gently caress.
|
|
#
?
Sep 12, 2016 14:40
|
|
|
BIG HEADLINE posted:Seriously, though - I think one of the most interesting counterfactuals one can imagine is what the world would've been with the US having an extra decade or so with a nuclear/thermonuclear monopoly. Just as interesting is the opposite scenario: the war ends without the U.S pursuing the bomb at all. If the U.S. doesn’t develop the it during the war, how long does it take before someone does?
|
|
#
?
Sep 12, 2016 14:41
|
|
|
Platystemon posted:Just as interesting is the opposite scenario: the war ends without the U.S pursuing the bomb at all. There was actually a part of Operation Olympic that called for the systematic mass gassing of Japan using Mustard and Hydrogen Cyanide bombs as an option if the bomb failed, with George C. Marshall being a main proponent of it. Norman Polmar dug it up a few years back with a FOIA request, and my grandfather was in the Chemical Corps on Guadalcanal sitting on a giant stockpile of both agents once the islands were secured. Estimates for the expected casualties ranged from 3-5 million, with a high incidence of fatalities due to sulfur mustard liking to persist in wood, and the tendency for the Japanese to seek out low-lying areas for cover from airstrikes, which is lethal in a gas attack. As for who would've gotten it first if we'd passed on it, probably the Soviets, simply because Beria could be very, very persuasive, and they had lots of places to mine Uranium. http://www.usni.org/magazines/proceedings/1998-01/most-deadly-plan BIG HEADLINE fucked around with this message at 15:12 on Sep 12, 2016 |
|
#
?
Sep 12, 2016 14:51
|
|
|
BIG HEADLINE posted:As for who would've gotten it first if we'd passed on it, probably the Soviets, simply because Beria could be very, very persuasive, and they had lots of places to mine Uranium. It’s more of a gamble without the U.S. blazing the trail, but then again, the U.S.S.R. pursued rocketry while the U.S. was content with bombers. Perhaps in this timeline, nukes replace that. That’s a scary thing to imagine. At least the Space Race wasn’t entirely about weapons technology. Delaying ballistic missiles is just as bad. Perhaps LeMay calls the shots in this universe.
|
|
#
?
Sep 12, 2016 15:06
|
|
|
Comedy Option: Canada and/or Australia get the Bomb first because they've got the world's largest uranium reserves. "We were tryin'ta finda better 'lectric source and now we gotta bomb, eh?"
|
|
#
?
Sep 12, 2016 15:15
|
|
|
I've heard an alternate theory about the dprk bomb program, this from Jeffrey Lewis at the arms control wonk. He thinks that dprk went straight for a miniaturized warhead, as producing a Fat Man style bomb would be redundant and unnecessary. (the bomb design works and at the same time isn't applicable for easy military use) Following this theory, DPRK would be more concerned about a tactical weapon for it's SCUD missiles than a strategic weapon for missiles which have yet to be fully developed. The 10kt devices would be sufficient for tactical purposes and terrorizing Seoul. There may also be a strategic consideration, DPRK may think that Russia and China will accept a small device (<20kt) but will object to a truly strategic device (>100kt). That, too, would constrain DPRK development. This being said, there is no reason to seriously doubt that DPRK has a reliable design. I also believe that DPRK gas a miniaturized design for SCUD delivery.
|
|
#
?
Sep 12, 2016 15:18
|
|
|
VikingSkull posted:This is my favorite thing to quote at people who scream about the bomb use today. If you read the invasion plans on the Japanese side it's just mind-boggling how much they had our number for when we'd be landing, where we'd be landing, and what we'd be landing with. If it weren't for the nukes, we'd have wound up flushing them out of the caves with gas.
|
|
#
?
Sep 12, 2016 15:41
|
|
|
I believe I have already posted about it, but France was working on a nuclear bomb program before WW2. When the Nazis invaded they sent most of their work and scientists to Britain to prevent Germany from grabbing it, and then the British obligingly transferred all the documents to the Americans.
|
|
#
?
Sep 12, 2016 15:46
|
|
|
Platystemon posted:Fuchs actually did important work. He wasn’t irreplaceable, but he also wasn’t just doodling when he wasn’t passing secrets to the Soviets. I'm fairly sympathetic to the guy, he had a lovely and hectic life and still put out good science (including math that teller decided he was too good for). I just couldn't work a lovely pun out of any of the other "a-bomb spies" names 
|
|
#
?
Sep 12, 2016 15:48
|
|
|
I'm not sympathetic. He gave nuclear secrets to the loving Soviets. You know, the folks who deliberately starved millions of people and subjugated most of Eastern Europe. We've had discussions about LeMay being crazy for wanting to go to war with the Soviets, which is true. But stop and think for a minute: if you could free Poland, Hungary, Lithuania, etc. from their grip, isn't it your moral duty to do so? I don't know that we could have done that even if they didn't have the bomb, but it would have at least given us a strong bargaining chip for a while.
|
|
#
?
Sep 12, 2016 15:53
|
|
|
Mortabis posted:If you read the invasion plans on the Japanese side it's just mind-boggling how much they had our number for when we'd be landing, where we'd be landing, and what we'd be landing with. If it weren't for the nukes, we'd have wound up flushing them out of the caves with gas. This, of course, assumes no surrender without the bomb, which is not an open and shut case.
|
|
#
?
Sep 12, 2016 15:57
|
|
|
Mortabis posted:I'm not sympathetic. He gave nuclear secrets to the loving Soviets. You know, the folks who deliberately starved millions of people and subjugated most of Eastern Europe. We've had discussions about LeMay being crazy for wanting to go to war with the Soviets, which is true. But stop and think for a minute: if you could free Poland, Hungary, Lithuania, etc. from their grip, isn't it your moral duty to do so? I don't know that we could have done that even if they didn't have the bomb, but it would have at least given us a strong bargaining chip for a while. It isn't your moral duty, it's your moral duty to consider at least for a second the costs, not least to the people you talk of "freeing". How long has it been since the sandbox started? You should know this by now.
|
|
#
?
Sep 12, 2016 15:59
|
|
|
|
| # ? Jun 3, 2024 17:06 |
|
|
Mortabis posted:I'm not sympathetic. He gave nuclear secrets to the loving Soviets. You know, the folks who deliberately starved millions of people and subjugated most of Eastern Europe. We've had discussions about LeMay being crazy for wanting to go to war with the Soviets, which is true. But stop and think for a minute: if you could free Poland, Hungary, Lithuania, etc. from their grip, isn't it your moral duty to do so? I don't know that we could have done that even if they didn't have the bomb, but it would have at least given us a strong bargaining chip for a while. Judging Lemay and other Hawks of the time with the benefit of hindsight is a little unfair, since we have significant evidence now that deterrence actually works, and nearly seventy years of MAD-induced Cold War. At the time, it wasn't NEARLY as clear that the Soviets would hesitate to initiate a nuclear war, if given a possibility of victory. The first half of the century taught some hard lessons in that respect.
|
|
#
?
Sep 12, 2016 15:59
|
|
