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Bar Ran Dun posted:the thing I think one needs to understand is how little 77 tons a month is. that’s like 3-4 20’ containers a month. it’s on its face a lie or falsehood. Artillery rounds are packaged together on pallets, usually about 800 lbs for a small 2 x 4, but a bigger 4 x 6 you’d use a crane or fork for is 2300 lbs, that’s over an Imperial ton right there, and that’s less than a day’s load for one gun.
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# ? Nov 14, 2022 03:15 |
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# ? Jun 10, 2024 11:34 |
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gradenko_2000 posted:I'm reading this book, "War of Numbers", by former CIA analyst Sam Adams, and it's the story of how he had found that MACV under Westmoreland during Vietnam had basically ignored all evidence (some of which he uncovered) that their estimates of VC/NVA strength was being undercounted by something like half-a-million men, and that when he tried to run it up the flagpole he just got stonewalled even from within the CIA itself, with Director Richard Helms himself threatening Adams to quit bringing it up. I just looked up MACV-SOG wiki page just for laughs and there are no mentions of war crimes or crimes committed by those involved. LMAO I have noticed alot of main wiki pages being scrubbed/buried crimes or horrible poo poo US did while more inane info such as a bunch of useless operation names and military jargon. You would look up MACV-SOG wiki page and find its command structure and how it fit within the larger military org and a list of a bunch of operations i had never heard of, but there wouldn't be any mention of the Phoenix Program except if you went through the links for "Psychological Warfare" etc. ughhhh has issued a correction as of 03:37 on Nov 14, 2022 |
# ? Nov 14, 2022 03:19 |
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gradenko_2000 posted:I'm reading this book, "War of Numbers", by former CIA analyst Sam Adams, and it's the story of how he had found that MACV under Westmoreland during Vietnam had basically ignored all evidence (some of which he uncovered) that their estimates of VC/NVA strength was being undercounted by something like half-a-million men, and that when he tried to run it up the flagpole he just got stonewalled even from within the CIA itself, with Director Richard Helms himself threatening Adams to quit bringing it up. so the CIA was trying to keep the war out of Cambodia? that's incredible
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# ? Nov 14, 2022 04:50 |
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Bar Ran Dun posted:man it was after tet too. honestly I’d like to see how they came up with it in the analysis. I wanna know what lol bullshit assumptions were used. the first issue, the one about both the CIA and the Army severely underestimating the size of the Viet Cong, was born out of resisting the impulse to make the US look bad - Westmoreland had adopted a policy of waging a war of attrition in Vietnam, which meant that if they didn't keep making it look like the total number of VC was going down, it would expose the strategy as a failure as it happened, they couldn't even make the numbers look like they were going down, the totals just stayed the same in report after report, but when Adams would collate the reports of KIAs and deserters and defectors, all of them looked presented a monthly drain that was making the VC look like they were perpetually only six months away from hitting zero men as to how this was accomplished: the intelligence units would disregard the existence and the counts of political cadres, local militias, and support troops. The VC were made to look like they had a tooth-to-tail ratio of somewhere between 1:1 and 1:0, because as far as the US was concerned, logistical troops, medics, and staff did not exist, even though such similar troops were counted in American strength on the American side ___ now, when it came to Cambodia, as I said, the issue there was that the CIA wanted to hide the fact that lots of VC supplies were coming through Sihanoukville, because there was building pressure that such a supply line did exist, and that the US would have to get involved in Cambodia to put a stop to it [at this point, I want to throw in a disclaimer that this is of course an account coming from a CIA analyst themselves, and that they never actually opposed the war - their problem was that the US was not prosecuting it intelligently, but it is interesting]
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# ? Nov 14, 2022 06:28 |
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When did Cambodia begin growing heaps of poppies?
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# ? Nov 14, 2022 06:34 |
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gradenko_2000 posted:[at this point, I want to throw in a disclaimer that this is of course an account coming from a CIA analyst themselves, and that they never actually opposed the war - their problem was that the US was not prosecuting it intelligently, but it is interesting] Some of the best books are written by spooks. Edward Luttwaks Coup D'état, written about 1969, describes several key characteristics of how the CIA thinks about how a country can be overthrown and correctly identified Portugal as a country that would be easy to be overthrown. Although their president* at the time was in a worse off state than Biden.
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# ? Nov 14, 2022 06:38 |
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gradenko_2000 posted:
I wasn’t aware Friedman had even served in Vietnam.
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# ? Nov 14, 2022 07:21 |
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Frosted Flake posted:Artillery rounds are packaged together on pallets, usually about 800 lbs for a small 2 x 4, but a bigger 4 x 6 you’d use a crane or fork for is 2300 lbs, that’s over an Imperial ton right there, and that’s less than a day’s load for one gun. I'm disappointed they aren't packaged in ring pulls of 6 like beer cans. In fact if I was in charge I'd run a special 'a free 6 pack of lager with every 6 artillery shells if you order today, our phone operators are standing by". Don't worry, it would only be mid-strength.
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# ? Nov 14, 2022 07:37 |
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Those loading lugs are kinda like pull tabs and you can collect em
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# ? Nov 14, 2022 07:41 |
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It's all about branding. Mod blah type blah mark blah serial number blah no no no. That goes on the small print. Front and centre you want a graffiti art flaming skull riding a skateboard above the stylised font words of "garage death eXtreme". Bespoke artillery shells lovingly made by craftsmen who are as much artists as armorers. The truly awesome underground manufacturers only people who move in the right circles know won't even have a visible label, just a beautiful piece of artwork screen printed onto each shell.
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# ? Nov 14, 2022 07:45 |
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Our small artisinal artillery construction coops allow local entrepreneurs to expand their brand while expanding frag
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# ? Nov 14, 2022 07:47 |
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A Bakers Cousin posted:Our small artisinal artillery construction coops allow local entrepreneurs to expand their brand while expanding frag The perfect headline for a local newspaper puff piece.
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# ? Nov 14, 2022 07:47 |
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DancingShade posted:I'm disappointed they aren't packaged in ring pulls of 6 like beer cans. In fact if I was in charge I'd run a special 'a free 6 pack of lager with every 6 artillery shells if you order today, our phone operators are standing by".
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# ? Nov 14, 2022 11:57 |
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gradenko_2000 posted:___ why didn’t they want to get involved in Cambodia? if you're fighting the war "intelligently" wouldn't you have to disrupt this supply route?
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# ? Nov 14, 2022 16:22 |
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indigi posted:why didn’t they want to get involved in Cambodia? if you're fighting the war "intelligently" wouldn't you have to disrupt this supply route? because the king of cambodia was being wooed by both the PRC and US and bombing them would have massively increased the popularity of the communists in the country and thrown him into the PRC camp.
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# ? Nov 14, 2022 16:28 |
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Raskolnikov38 posted:because the king of cambodia was being wooed by both the PRC and US and bombing them would have massively increased the popularity of the communists in the country and thrown him into the PRC camp. that makes a lot of sense thanks
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# ? Nov 14, 2022 16:50 |
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Taiwan will lose WW3: https://twitter.com/PaulHuangReport/status/1517473063926870016 Highlights of Taiwanese reserve training include: - Old, worn out equipment - Nonsensical battle plans that haven't changed in decades - No connection between reserve training and what reservists originally did in the military - No training in basic skills like tactics or first aid - Not everyone getting a chance to practice shooting a gun - People who get a chance to shoot a gun barely having any bullets On the bright side, Taiwan just bought an amphibious assault ship in case they ever need to invade Fujian or something.
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# ? Nov 14, 2022 19:50 |
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if china wants taiwan it would be a really bad idea for them to resist. the US isn't coming to help and they are for sure 100% going to lose. so really it doesn't matter if they do the drills properly
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# ? Nov 14, 2022 20:03 |
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Alpha 1 posted:Taiwan will lose WW3: Their job is just to make invasion less worthwhile than diplomacy or to hold on until the Seventh Fleet gets there and/or a nuclear exchange begins, so I don’t think it’s worthwhile for Taiwan to invest too much tbh. In what scenario does Taiwan win on the battlefield without the island and/or world being destroyed? Rutibex posted:if china wants taiwan it would be a really bad idea for them to resist. the US isn't coming to help and they are for sure 100% going to lose. so really it doesn't matter if they do the drills properly
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# ? Nov 14, 2022 20:45 |
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Frosted Flake posted:Their job is just to make invasion less worthwhile than diplomacy or to hold on until the Seventh Fleet gets there and/or a nuclear exchange begins, so I don’t think it’s worthwhile for Taiwan to invest too much tbh. In what scenario does Taiwan win on the battlefield without the island and/or world being destroyed? While true that's also a very diplomatic way to describe their role as canaries in the coal mine, or bullet catchers, or meat in the sandwich.
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# ? Nov 14, 2022 21:05 |
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overpaying for wunderwaffes from american boneyards will solve this
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# ? Nov 14, 2022 22:42 |
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Isentropy posted:Some of the best books are written by spooks. Edward Luttwaks Coup D'état, written about 1969, describes several key characteristics of how the CIA thinks about how a country can be overthrown and correctly identified Portugal as a country that would be easy to be overthrown. Yeah sometimes some wild stuff gets past the censors. I read one book by an ex-CIA spook where he casually tells an anecdote about how he tried to assassinate Laurent Kabila on behalf of Mobutu in like, 1970 or something.
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# ? Nov 14, 2022 23:45 |
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Alpha 1 posted:Highlights of Taiwanese reserve training include: - The guns they practice with aren't sighted in correctly - They aren't taught how to adjust the sights
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# ? Nov 15, 2022 01:06 |
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Frosted Flake posted:Their job is just to make invasion less worthwhile than diplomacy or to hold on until the Seventh Fleet gets there and/or a nuclear exchange begins, so I don’t think it’s worthwhile for Taiwan to invest too much tbh. In what scenario does Taiwan win on the battlefield without the island and/or world being destroyed? Even as a diplomatic deterrent or delaying force, you'd think Taiwan would still need a credible military. A hollow military isn't going to make the Chinese reconsider war during a hypothetical diplomatic crisis, and American help isn't going to do much good if their military collapses in a week. It's even weirder that the DPP in particular isn't taking the military seriously, since you'd think they need a deterrent to backstop their politics of annoying the mainland as much as possible.
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# ? Nov 15, 2022 01:54 |
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Facehammer posted:- The guns they practice with aren't sighted in correctly
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# ? Nov 15, 2022 01:58 |
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Alpha 1 posted:Even as a diplomatic deterrent or delaying force, you'd think Taiwan would still need a credible military. A hollow military isn't going to make the Chinese reconsider war during a hypothetical diplomatic crisis, and American help isn't going to do much good if their military collapses in a week. It's even weirder that the DPP in particular isn't taking the military seriously, since you'd think they need a deterrent to backstop their politics of annoying the mainland as much as possible. because 奴才brains are some of the best logicians around
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# ? Nov 15, 2022 02:28 |
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taiwan should buy some gundam
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# ? Nov 15, 2022 03:00 |
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Real hurthling! posted:taiwan should buy some gundam Please, no. When the air raid sirens go off and I know I'm about to die, I don't want my last thoughts to be an intrusive "bwee bee bwoo, bwee bwuh buh *serious older Japanese man voice* ガンダム、台中に立つ"
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# ? Nov 15, 2022 03:33 |
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Mandoric posted:Please, no. When the air raid sirens go off and I know I'm about to die, I don't want my last thoughts to be an intrusive "bwee bee bwoo, bwee bwuh buh *serious older Japanese man voice* ガンダム、台中に立つ" Absolutely. You want your last throughts to be the expensive automated japanese smart toilet voiceover your neighbor has hooked up to their hi-fi system.
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# ? Nov 15, 2022 07:43 |
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https://twitter.com/zhao_dashuai/status/1591686736425680896 china edging in on being a merchant of death too
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# ? Nov 15, 2022 07:46 |
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Spydell_finance posted:
back to the thread topic: usa real economy number is still going down and down
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# ? Nov 15, 2022 09:28 |
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Danann posted:back to the thread topic: usa real economy number is still going down and down What goes up must go down
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# ? Nov 15, 2022 10:42 |
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Danann posted:https://twitter.com/zhao_dashuai/status/1591686736425680896 what percent of others is israel?
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# ? Nov 15, 2022 12:13 |
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Rutibex posted:if china wants taiwan it would be a really bad idea for them to resist. the US isn't coming to help and they are for sure 100% going to lose. so really it doesn't matter if they do the drills properly It's like when Nancy Pelosi visited Taiwan just to piss everyone off, and China responded by doing "military exercises" just to demonstrate that it's so easy for them to blockade Taiwan they could do it and make it look like an accident.
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# ? Nov 15, 2022 14:34 |
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Gripweed posted:It's like when Nancy Pelosi visited Taiwan just to piss everyone off, and China responded by doing "military exercises" just to demonstrate that it's so easy for them to blockade Taiwan they could do it and make it look like an accident. At the same time, I wouldn't be surprised if the US used "Ukrainian tactics" in Taiwan to try to radicalize the population and keep pressure on the Taipei not to negotiation no matter the cost. It is also a good question if push comes to shove, would the PLAN be willing to hold a blockade of the course of weeks/months and take the counter-response in the form of sanctions. I think the PLAN has the military advantage, but the question is if Beijing would actually waffle on the issue if it gets messy.
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# ? Nov 15, 2022 14:39 |
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Is it even possible to sanction China?
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# ? Nov 15, 2022 15:54 |
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Fell Mood posted:Is it even possible to sanction China? They could do targeted sanctions at Chinese government officials, essentially just stealing any assets they have in America or Europe. It would accomplish literally nothing. But yeah broadbased economic sanctions against China would essentially just be turning the global economy off.
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# ? Nov 15, 2022 16:03 |
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it's possible to commit economic suicide, yes
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# ? Nov 15, 2022 16:03 |
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Rutibex posted:it's possible to commit economic suicide, yes and the west being the west, we might even do it sometime
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# ? Nov 15, 2022 16:04 |
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# ? Jun 10, 2024 11:34 |
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you mean again
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# ? Nov 15, 2022 16:09 |