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Relevant Tangent posted:KSA is full of nepotism idiots in uniforms, yeah? if i remember thats mostly the officer corps. its mostly various mercenaries, failson conscripts or poor non saudies getting press ganged during the Hajj when it comes to boots on the ground.
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Sep 14, 2019 22:47
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Relevant Tangent posted:KSA is full of nepotism idiots in uniforms, yeah? Yea it's basically designed to be coup-proof more than anything else. There's the army which is full of your usual poorly trained peasants and poo poo, and the National Guard which has a higher level of training and gear and exists basically to keep an eye on the army. The officer corps of both are stuffed full of useless princes, and there's a byzantine bureaucracy put in place to ensure there's no clear line of communications between units and simple things like conducting an exercise in another province have to go through multiple levels of approval. Turns out while it's basically impossible to get a clique of officers together for a coup, it also makes things like fighting a real war also impossible.
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Sep 14, 2019 23:23
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Vernii posted:Yea it's basically designed to be coup-proof more than anything else. There's the army which is full of your usual poorly trained peasants and poo poo, and the National Guard which has a higher level of training and gear and exists basically to keep an eye on the army. The officer corps of both are stuffed full of useless princes, and there's a byzantine bureaucracy put in place to ensure there's no clear line of communications between units and simple things like conducting an exercise in another province have to go through multiple levels of approval. the KSA as whole feels like some kinda of messed up shrine world dictator hellstate from some 40k lore dump.
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Sep 14, 2019 23:42
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Dapper_Swindler posted:the KSA as whole feels like some kinda of messed up shrine world dictator hellstate from some 40k lore dump.
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Sep 14, 2019 23:54
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Conspiratiorist posted:They were built off commercial parts. Meanwhile in Libya, the UAE has been supplying their local proxies advanced military UAVs and UAV weapons, while Turkey supplies the other side with their own drones. This has resulted in a bloody unmanned air war over Tripoli in which neither side has effective anti-air counters but the light ordinance and limited scale means neither side is able to gain a decisive edge. I feel like we are seeing a different kind of air war in both Yemen and Libya, and its really something that's new to irregular and low grade conflicts. Anybody can now put together their own air force on the cheap.
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Sep 15, 2019 00:41
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https://twitter.com/thehill/status/1172970549443792899
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Sep 15, 2019 00:42
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This is kinda like that whole: "US should impose a no-fly zone over Syria" proposition, innit?
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Sep 15, 2019 00:45
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KSA are the ones who escalated this war to where it’s at now, they get what they deserve My concern is that if the damage turns out to be very severe then the US military may take a more active role in this pointless war
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Sep 15, 2019 00:53
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CrazyLoon posted:This is kinda like that whole: "US should impose a no-fly zone over Syria" proposition, innit? Could you imagine a candidate running on this as a platform? WAR CRIME GIGOLO fucked around with this message at 02:44 on Sep 15, 2019 |
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Sep 15, 2019 01:57
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If the Saudis come running to us after a single strike on a flammable rear end refinery then why even prop them up in the region as an "ally"? I mean besides the fact they oppose Iran and their brutal regime. ...almost as bad as Saudi Arabia's.....
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Sep 15, 2019 03:47
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tfw you have to admit your puppet is worthless and incompetent and step in to handle things yourself.
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Sep 15, 2019 04:21
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Lightning Knight posted:tfw you have to admit your puppet is worthless and incompetent and step in to handle things yourself. 
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Sep 15, 2019 04:23
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That drone strike on the Saudi oil facility has got to be one of the most cost effective attacks in the history of warfare. Just under 60% of saudi capacity offlined. E: like if they were so inclined, the houthis probably could shut down a massive amount of saudi oil processing on a semi-permanent basis for an absolute pittance compared to what it would cost in lost production/counter measures/repairs. E2: Anything is possible with this administration, but pro saudi sentiment in the US is at a historic low and it's even mostly bipartisan at this point, which makes it one of the only things period that you can say that about. Even in general terms, there's nearly zero public interest in starting another middle east military venture. Herstory Begins Now fucked around with this message at 06:19 on Sep 15, 2019 |
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Sep 15, 2019 05:57
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Herstory Begins Now posted:That drone strike on the Saudi oil facility has got to be one of the most cost effective attacks in the history of warfare. It's up there with the WWII commando raid on the heavy water plant in norway, mainly because of how absolutely balls-out expensive it was to produce weapons grade plutonium even if you're counting the fact that the nazis were unlikely to get anywhere near an atomic bomb regardless. But yeah ruining operations at multiple refineries using mail order drones and ersatz explosive payloads is insanely high on the cost:damage ratio.
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Sep 15, 2019 06:16
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Helsing posted:Not that far from Abqaiq is one of the country's largest desalination plants. I wonder if it's possible to cripple operations at one of those facilities using the weapons available to the Houthi's because that could render large parts of Saudi Arabia uninhabitable very quickly, assuming they were able to score a direct hit and the damage couldn't be fixed quickly. Attacking the water supply of another nation is an incredibly disgusting war crime that would be one of the few things they could actually draw more foreign powers back in to pound the Houthis. Even ISIS didn’t attack water supplies. Saladman fucked around with this message at 08:35 on Sep 15, 2019 |
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Sep 15, 2019 08:32
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ISIS did gently caress with the Tigris dam, it certainly wasn't beneath them to target water supplies it just wasn't in their interest at the time because they would have hurt their own positions in other locations. The Houthis hitting SAs civilian logistics centres is likely to have the effect of ending a war which has killed vast swathes of the Yemeni population and sent millions into a miserable day to day existence.
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Sep 15, 2019 09:10
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And ISIS qanted to govern the lands they take so breaking all the utilities is self defeating.
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Sep 15, 2019 10:12
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https://twitter.com/brickdustotis/status/1173161988798607360?s=21
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Sep 15, 2019 12:42
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Flayer posted:The Houthis hitting SAs civilian logistics centres is likely to have the effect of ending a war which has killed vast swathes of the Yemeni population and sent millions into a miserable day to day existence. Inflicting pain on Saudi Arabia can do one of two things: it can either make the Saudis back down, or make them intensify their efforts since the Houthis will have proven themselves to be an even bigger threat that must be destroyed than the Saudis realized. It's a lot harder to establish deterrence once you're years into a war than it is beforehand. Withdrawing from Lebanon obviously didn't put a decisive end to Israel's problems with Hezbollah, and there's no guarantee the Houthis and Saudis would maintain a stable peace if the Saudis withdrew either. Dr Kool-AIDS fucked around with this message at 13:19 on Sep 15, 2019 |
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Sep 15, 2019 13:17
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Sinteres posted:Inflicting pain on Saudi Arabia can do one of two things: it can either make the Saudis back down, or make them intensify their efforts since the Houthis will have proven themselves to be an even bigger threat that must be destroyed than the Saudis realized. It's a lot harder to establish deterrence once you're years into a war than it is beforehand. Withdrawing from Lebanon obviously didn't put a decisive end to Israel's problems with Hezbollah, and there's no guarantee the Houthis and Saudis would maintain a stable peace if the Saudis withdrew either. There is literally no way the saudi's can further escalate and expect any change in results unless they shove hundreds of thousands of troops across the border, they're literally broken on every front and even their allies are broken.
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Sep 15, 2019 14:44
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Al-Saqr posted:There is literally no way the saudi's can further escalate and expect any change in results unless they shove hundreds of thousands of troops across the border, they're literally broken on every front and even their allies are broken. Depends on whether or not they can con the US into taking a more active role.
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Sep 15, 2019 15:48
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Saladman posted:Attacking the water supply of another nation is an incredibly disgusting war crime that would be one of the few things they could actually draw more foreign powers back in to pound the Houthis. Even ISIS didn’t attack water supplies. The saudis do! It'd be a bad move for the houthis for other reasons though - if, as they claim, they have a lot of support in the saudi population, espescially in the shia regions.
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Sep 15, 2019 17:38
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Looking forward to the 2021 unopposed and uncontested post-rout yemeni liberation of Riyadh
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Sep 15, 2019 17:51
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With regards to attacking a desalination plant, my experience is that it is really difficult to get water to burn on its own so the methods would have to be different from those used against an oil refinery. And I would think twice before poisoning the water supply of someone who could do the same to me.
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Sep 15, 2019 17:59
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pro starcraft loser posted:Huh. Good to know our staunch 'ally' in the Middle East, whom we provide some of the best equipment on the planet, can't deal with an unorganized militia in a country right next door. They don't seem that unorganized tbh Mans fucked around with this message at 18:09 on Sep 15, 2019 |
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Sep 15, 2019 18:07
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Time to use our leased nuke! - MBS, probably
Kawasaki Nun fucked around with this message at 18:22 on Sep 15, 2019 |
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Sep 15, 2019 18:18
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Nenonen posted:With regards to attacking a desalination plant, my experience is that it is really difficult to get water to burn on its own so the methods would have to be different from those used against an oil refinery. And I would think twice before poisoning the water supply of someone who could do the same to me. Uh what yemeni water supply? Their per capita supply is 7 or 8% of what is considered 'water stress' internationally. Half shitposting, but all the most succesful efforts to set water on fire involved oil production dumping straight into local waterways, eg the cuyahoga river fire in cleveland. Granted back then gasoline was considered a useless refining byproduct and they were just dumping it all into rivers. Herstory Begins Now fucked around with this message at 18:23 on Sep 15, 2019 |
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Sep 15, 2019 18:21
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Saudis have all the tools to de-escalate, they choose not to. They could probably bribe the houthis and end the war. Most of their diplomacy is bribery and its fairly effective. Then again, there is hubris.
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Sep 15, 2019 18:47
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Nenonen posted:With regards to attacking a desalination plant, my experience is that it is really difficult to get water to burn on its own so the methods would have to be different from those used against an oil refinery. And I would think twice before poisoning the water supply of someone who could do the same to me. Well, yeah, but any big industrial plant like that is gonna have some expensive fiddly bits that would take loving forever to replace Electrical transformers, pump components, idk.
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Sep 15, 2019 18:49
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Fly Molo posted:Well, yeah, but any big industrial plant like that is gonna have some expensive fiddly bits that would take loving forever to replace I work with comparatively simple machines, and even then getting something from Korea has a good 8 week lead time. Saudis could pay for air freight, but that doesn’t help for things not in production. A facility like that will have purpose built equipment that just isn’t made anymore. Really interesting point I hadn’t considered.
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Sep 15, 2019 19:10
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Yeah if they hit storage tanks that's a comparatively easy patch job. If they damage some massive multi ton purpose milled precision parts/machinery, then good luck getting it back online any time soon. They likely have a lot of equipment there that only a couple factories or machine shops in the world are equipped to produce. If they keep flinging drone bombs, sooner or later they're going to blow up some extremely vital stuff. Also good lord imagine the morale of anyone working at a mega-refinery that is being regularly attacked by drone bombs. There's also other long term effects of just having tons of petroleum products spilled and burned around where a bunch of people are working, which if this becomes a regular thing will absolutely be a big deal.
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Sep 15, 2019 20:11
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I wonder what will happen if a solution to bomb drones isn't forthcoming
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Sep 15, 2019 21:43
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A lot of the current stuff could probably be stopped by a bunch of sufficiently aggro neighborhood crows, but that probably will change Out of curiosity, because lasers is 1000% not my thing, is there any way to shine a 150mwt laser on something without causing vision damage to anyone who happens to be outside within miles of it? The potential for eye damage with even like 5w lasers is ridiculous even from indirect exposure. Herstory Begins Now fucked around with this message at 21:54 on Sep 15, 2019 |
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Sep 15, 2019 21:51
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Herstory Begins Now posted:A lot of the current stuff could probably be stopped by a bunch of sufficiently aggro neighborhood crows, but that probably will change The Israelis are working on that.
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Sep 15, 2019 23:21
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Sinteres posted:Depends on whether or not they can con the US into taking a more active role. Based on the initial bluster, things aren't looking good. https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1173368423381962752 Trump's notoriously an over-promiser and under-deliverer, so hopefully he'll calm down here too. If the reports that it was missiles from Iraq rather than drones from Yemen are true though, that's not great.
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Sep 16, 2019 00:47
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Sinteres posted:Based on the initial bluster, things aren't looking good. It's going to be whoever the Saudis want it to be.
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Sep 16, 2019 00:50
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Sinteres posted:Based on the initial bluster, things aren't looking good. so if the missles are from iraq? who is it than? shia miltias? nu-isis?
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Sep 16, 2019 01:05
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Dapper_Swindler posted:so if the missles are from iraq? who is it than? shia miltias? nu-isis? If the drones or missiles or whatever they were actually came from Iraq then it would most likely be some Iranian allied Shia milita. Iraq is full of them and they are outside of the control of the Iraqi government since they did a lot of the heavy lifting in beating back ISIS in Iraq.
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Sep 16, 2019 01:10
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Dapper_Swindler posted:so if the missles are from iraq? who is it than? shia miltias? nu-isis? If it's from Iraq, the Saudi's will probably say that it was done by Iranian proxies.
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Sep 16, 2019 01:13
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Charliegrs posted:If the drones or missiles or whatever they were actually came from Iraq then it would most likely be some Iranian allied Shia milita. Iraq is full of them and they are outside of the control of the Iraqi government since they did a lot of the heavy lifting in beating back ISIS in Iraq. yeah. i mean i personally think the missle/drone attack was done or sponsored by Iran. i am more surprised how bold it was.
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Sep 16, 2019 01:17
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