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mobby_6kl posted:Wait, what. There aren't 31 functional M1s sitting anywhere right now? Early last year the US was pretty firm on the whole "We aren't supplying tanks" thing, and prepping a battalion of tanks to send across the world is a pretty big undertaking for something you dont want to do. Its really only in like the last month or so that the US, the UK, Germany have made sending tanks an option, and I'd argue a decent portion of that is political dick waving. Also yeah see below.
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# ? Jan 25, 2023 22:00 |
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# ? May 28, 2024 16:24 |
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There are more than 31 M1s, there might not be more than 31 export M1s that haven’t already been sold to someone else.
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# ? Jan 25, 2023 22:01 |
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It might also be coming up with a specific variant that up to the required spec but without any of the absolute top stuff they don't want falling in to the hands of Russia.
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# ? Jan 25, 2023 22:05 |
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It also might be a step towards just sending ones that are just sitting around even though they won’t commit to that yet.
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# ? Jan 25, 2023 22:06 |
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I guess the point is that all the surplus tanks have the restricted uranium armor and old tanks are converted to the export version as needed, with no significant number of uranium-free tanks in storage. Conversion of tanks for Taiwan is currently in progress, but they are probably not interested in letting Ukraine cut in line giving the current political situation in East Asia.
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# ? Jan 25, 2023 22:09 |
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What I would say is that PREPOs that aren’t clearly alongsides a pier have been showing “not updated” or “NUNYA” (business) on AIS since all this started so who knows.
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# ? Jan 25, 2023 22:11 |
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mobby_6kl posted:Wait, what. There aren't 31 functional M1s sitting anywhere right now? I'm guessing why they're not sending more readily available Abrams is for 1 of 2 reasons: 1) The good-to-go Abrams are earmarked for various defense scenarios that, given the hostile state of China but especially Russia, it would be a bad idea right now to be less prepared for. 2) some complicated and obscure internal political reason that just makes it easier to procure the Abrams this way They might not be showing up in Bakmut tomorrow, but this is a game changer, and aside from being late Ukraine is getting the best case scenario. The concern over how many more tanks Russia has, or how many tanks Russia can produce is gone. Ukraine just has to hold on a few more months for the floodgates to open, which they've done extremely well thus far even with the setbacks around Bakmut.
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# ? Jan 25, 2023 22:15 |
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mobby_6kl posted:Wait, what. There aren't 31 functional M1s sitting anywhere right now? US isn't giving away anything that is assessed to be critical to providing for a national military deterrent and in that regard all M1s are spoken for. This has applied to everything that has been given to Ukraine, generally: if it is considered indispensable then Ukraine isn't getting it. As an aside, Russia has been a striking and modern example of just how vital having deep reserves of vehicles is. E: Ynglaur posted:Now that's interesting. If Ukrainian tank battalions are organized along Soviet lines--and they mostly are, with 31 tanks per battalion--they should only have 1-2 recovery vehicles per battalion. A US mechanized battalion doesn't even have 8: it has 1 per company and 1 or 2 (I can't remember which) at the battalion level. That is curious Herstory Begins Now fucked around with this message at 22:23 on Jan 25, 2023 |
# ? Jan 25, 2023 22:20 |
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Orthanc6 posted:2) some complicated and obscure internal political reason that just makes it easier to procure the Abrams this way
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# ? Jan 25, 2023 22:21 |
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War in Ukraine: Putin for nothing and tanks for free
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# ? Jan 25, 2023 22:24 |
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Ynglaur posted:It's also not like inhaling a bunch of tungsten carbide dust is good for you, either. Yes, depleted uranium dust is probably worse for you, but if its between killing the T-80 with the first round through the front hull and not killing it, I'll take the former and try to warn recovery crews to stay away from the wreck for a few days if they can manage. To come back to this, I couldn't find the original Wiki-article anymore, but I found this handy table comparing different penetrators: Geschossenergie und Durchschlagsleistung "Wolframcarbid" is German for Tungsten Carbide. The table is a bit obsolete, as the page for the Leo-2 adds that some German KE-penetrators can now easily penetrate 800mm armor. Here you can see that at the high end, penetration power is pretty evenly distributed, with the "best" being a DU-type from Russia, about 10% stronger than the 2nd place (900mm to 800mm) The top three of KE-penetrator darts is, according to the table: 1. Russia (900mm, DU) 2. Russia/Germany* (800mm, TC) 3. US (800mm, DU) That's two TCs against two DUs, with Russia's super-ammunition slightly winning out. *The more modern German Leo-2 ammunition can be found here, with another detailed table towards the end. To avoid confusion, since I can't influence what freakish stuff like Google Translate will mangle out of this mess: "MZ" are types of multipurpose warheads that aren't made anymore. "KE" are kinetic energy penetrator darts and the only "HE" entry, DM11, is the new high-explosive ammunition that was developed after modern tank armor made the old MZ-shells more and more obsolete. In the new scheme, DM11 is supposed to be used against soft targets, and KE-sabots to gently caress up hard targets. The newer German KE-darts can also reach 800mm penetration, not 750 like the first table claims. Anyway, if you add the ridiculous health problems DU-ammunition can cause, it looks like TC-darts still win out, even if they sometimes have less penetration (like, in that table exactly one type of DU is "better" in that case, which I did not expect, ). Looking at the whole picture, it seems like TC-darts are easier to make, to store, and to use, while not losing out on much penetration power. In any big war between peers, I'd bet on tungsten carbide being the better option for your tank forces.
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# ? Jan 25, 2023 22:28 |
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Historically real life performance of Russian sabot rounds has uh not matched the paper specs very well. Like most Russian military hardware lol
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# ? Jan 25, 2023 22:37 |
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sean10mm posted:Historically real life performance of Russian sabot rounds has uh not matched the paper specs very well. What's your source? I'm genuinely curious to read about any action reports where soviet tanks fought western ones and their sabot rounds were actively being used and hitting targets to poor effect.
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# ? Jan 25, 2023 23:00 |
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sean10mm posted:Historically real life performance of Russian sabot rounds has uh not matched the paper specs very well. It's what you get for noob saibot. But seriously, its probably not much of a surprise. (USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST)
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# ? Jan 25, 2023 23:12 |
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Telsa Cola posted:Early last year the US was pretty firm on the whole "We aren't supplying tanks" thing, and prepping a battalion of tanks to send across the world is a pretty big undertaking for something you dont want to do. I suppose it all depends on what the actual goal of the administration was. If it was to be a pain in Putin's rear end, then that makes sense and some 60-year-old BMPs would do. Otherwise though this step should've been seen as completely inevitable, in which case it would make sense to prepare in parallel. But that's why I'm not a big brained 4 star general. Herstory Begins Now posted:US isn't giving away anything that is assessed to be critical to providing for a national military deterrent and in that regard all M1s are spoken for. This has applied to everything that has been given to Ukraine, generally: if it is considered indispensable then Ukraine isn't getting it. The export restriction angle seems kind of plausible but I've no idea how many of different variants are among the ~4000 that are sitting in deserts.
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# ? Jan 25, 2023 23:18 |
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Kraftwerk posted:What's your source? The Gulf War 1991 and the Iraq Invasion in 2003, perhaps? I haven't seen formal reports, but I'd be amazed if no T-72s managed to hit a single Abrams.
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# ? Jan 25, 2023 23:18 |
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mobby_6kl posted:Well that was the official public line. Just like "ATACMS aren't needed". Sure. Pretty sure that's goal still, It's an incredibly easy way to completely humilate and neuter one of your competing global powers while at the same time limiting any splashback that may come back to you. Probably not a lot if they are spinning production up to fill export orders.
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# ? Jan 25, 2023 23:21 |
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Herstory Begins Now posted:US isn't giving away anything that is assessed to be critical to providing for a national military deterrent and in that regard all M1s are spoken for. This has applied to everything that has been given to Ukraine, generally: if it is considered indispensable then Ukraine isn't getting it. Additionally, the US has spent the last few years, continuing through 2023, converting 337 M1A1 hulls into the M1074, Joint Assault Bridge System. When the Marine Corps announced the plan to divest all of their tanks, they weren't bound for storage, they were pretty rapidly being transferred over to the US Army.
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# ? Jan 25, 2023 23:22 |
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Libluini posted:Looking at the whole picture, it seems like TC-darts are easier to make, to store, and to use, while not losing out on much penetration power. In any big war between peers, I'd bet on tungsten carbide being the better option for your tank forces. You use DU because of what it does after penetration. It's penetration is 'good enough', and then... quote:Armour penetration is increased by concentrating the force of a shell into as small an area as possible, so the projectiles tend to look like giant darts. The denser the projectile, the harder the impact for a given size. DU is almost twice as dense as lead, making it highly suitable. The other metal used for anti-tank rounds is tungsten, which is also very hard and dense. When a tungsten rod strikes armour, it deforms and mushrooms, making it progressively blunter. Uranium is "pyrophoric": at the point of impact it burns away into vapour, so the projectile stays sharp. When it breaks through, the burning DU turns the inside of a vehicle into an inferno of white-hot gas and sparks. source: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2000/may/18/armstrade.kosovo
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# ? Jan 25, 2023 23:44 |
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ecureuilmatrix posted:War in Ukraine: Putin for nothing and tanks for free War in Ukraine: Putin some tanks or Scholz the gently caress up
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# ? Jan 25, 2023 23:48 |
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War in Ukraine: Tanks, I guess
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# ? Jan 26, 2023 00:11 |
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Vietnom nom nom posted:You use DU because of what it does after penetration. It's penetration is 'good enough', and then... you should have looked at details of what a TC-penetrator does when breaking through armor, because not knowing that a TC-penetrator sends a shower of molten metal droplets into the interior of a tank to horrifically bake everything inside makes your post look a bit silly even a tiny rupture caused by a TC-dart can kill everyone inside the tank* *At least when using German KE-sabots! I just blindly assume other nation's TC-ammunition works the same way, because physics are cruel.
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# ? Jan 26, 2023 00:23 |
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And now, an announcement from the White House. (On background) I cut out a significant amount of words that amount to "Western allies and partners are talking and working together well. Unity and long-term commitment!" White House transcript: https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing...ort-to-ukraine/ DOD announcement: https://www.defense.gov/News/Releases/Release/Article/3277443/biden-administration-announces-additional-security-assistance-for-ukraine/ Highlights: -31 Abrams tanks with 120mm rounds and other ammunition [Admin is not sharing exact type of Abrams at this time. Or ammo.]; -Eight Tactical Vehicles to recover equipment (M88) -Support vehicles and equipment -Funding for training, maintenance, and sustainment. -This is projected to be enough for 1x Ukrainian Tank Battalion. AFAIK, they still use 10x Tank companies (3x 3-Tank Platoons, 1x Commander's tank), which is the Russian/Soviet style vs the 14 tanks you'll find in a US company of tanks( 3x 4-Tank platoons, Company Commander and XO each have a tank). This is also how it can get weird when comparing an equal number of companies, but one company is 140% the size of another company. -Since this is a USAI sourcing, it will not draw down tanks from US formations. -Since this is a USAI sourcing, it will go out for bidding and sourcing. This will take months. Past examples of USAI donations included manufacturing new NASAMs batteries, the last of which are scheduled for delivery in Ukraine around 2025. -Describes Abrams commitment as longer term whereas other nations' tank commitments are more immediate. quote:...
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# ? Jan 26, 2023 00:39 |
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Vietnom nom nom posted:You use DU because of what it does after penetration. It's penetration is 'good enough', and then... Effect of Tungsten Particle Shape on Dynamic Deformation and Fracture Behavior of Tungsten Heavy Alloys posted:The effect of the tungsten particle shape on the dynamic deformation and fracture behavior of tungsten heavy alloys was investigated. Dynamic torsional tests were conducted using a torsional Kolsky bar for five alloys, one of which was fabricated by the double-cycled sintering process, and then the test data were compared via microstructures, mechanical properties, adiabatic shear banding, and fracture mode. The dynamic torsional test results indicated that in the double-sintered tungsten alloy whose tungsten particles were very coarse and irregularly shaped, cleavage fracture occurred in the central area of the gage section with little shear deformation, whereas shear deformation was concentrated in the central area of the gage section in the other alloys. The deformation and fracture behavior of the double-sintered alloy correlated well with the observation of the impacted penetrator specimen and the in situ fracture test results, i.e., microcrack initiation at coarse tungsten particles and cleavage crack propagation through tungsten particles. These findings suggested that the cleavage fracture mode would be beneficial for the self-sharpening effect, and, thus, the improvement of the penetration performance of the double-sintered tungsten heavy alloy would be expected. Development of Tungsten Heavy Alloy with Hybrid Structure for Kinetic Energy Penetrator posted:A new tungsten heavy alloy with hybrid structure was manufactured for the kinetic energy penetrator. The tungsten heavy alloy is composed of two parts: core region is molybdenum added heavy alloy to promote the self-sharpening; outer part encompassing the core is conventional heavy alloy to sustain severe load in a muzzle during firing. The fracture surfaces of the specimen is observed after ballistic tests. The core region revealed brittle behavior with W/W inter-granular fracture which activates self-sharpening. On the other hand, outer part exhibited conventional ductile fracture mode. From ballistic test, it was found that the penetration performance of the hybrid structure tungsten heavy alloy is higher than that of conventional heavy alloy. This heavy alloy is thought to be very useful for the penetrator in the near future.
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# ? Jan 26, 2023 00:51 |
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According to CNBC the variant being shipped is the M1A1. That's not the M1A2 modern variant but that's still going to crush just about anything Russia could field. The problem is it's only 30 tanks, which isn't enough for the entire war. But still that's some big hardware.
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# ? Jan 26, 2023 04:42 |
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Nelson Mandingo posted:According to CNBC the variant being shipped is the M1A1. That's not the M1A2 modern variant but that's still going to crush just about anything Russia could field. The problem is it's only 30 tanks, which isn't enough for the entire war. But still that's some big hardware.
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# ? Jan 26, 2023 04:57 |
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Apologies if this wanders into Clancy Theory Chat, are there any combat observers in place (I understand if this information is classified) from other nations in the Ukraine right now? I figure that this war is probably the closest we'll get to a near peer war in the modern time where all the newfangled tech of today are actually tested and used (some to great effect) and being on hand to see just how devastating it can be must be an analysts wet dream. Will this also be (if/when) the first time that Leopards and Challengers are used against russian armour?
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# ? Jan 26, 2023 05:12 |
We’re (nato) watching everything going on as best we can. One of the most important gifts we’re giving to AFU is intel. I’d be shocked if we weren’t doing a lot of debriefing too.
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# ? Jan 26, 2023 05:23 |
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Libluini posted:you should have looked at details of what a TC-penetrator does when breaking through armor, because not knowing that a TC-penetrator sends a shower of molten metal droplets into the interior of a tank to horrifically bake everything inside makes your post look a bit silly I don't have a dog in this fight, I know it isn't something with a lot of peer reviewed literature on it, just saying that the traditional argument for DU has been its overall lethality, not just penetrative potential. Mirificus posted:https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/BF03187818 Both of these for instance just say that you can build a good penetrator out of tungsten by using specialized/multiple alloys. The lack of large scale tank battles using a variety of modern tanks and ammo is probably the leading reason this sort of thing is still debated so much (and why the World of Tanks/War Thunder forums create so many intelligence leaks over arguments). I have a feeling there will be damaged/destroyed tanks recovered from the coming battles that will be pulled into labs and studied.
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# ? Jan 26, 2023 05:46 |
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TK-42-1 posted:We’re (nato) watching everything going on as best we can. One of the most important gifts we’re giving to AFU is intel. I’d be shocked if we weren’t doing a lot of debriefing too. These are the NATO/NATO aligned flight tracks for intelligence gathering from the past month alone: https://twitter.com/Orion__int/status/1617215293109198849
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# ? Jan 26, 2023 05:54 |
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Greggster posted:Apologies if this wanders into Clancy Theory Chat, are there any combat observers in place (I understand if this information is classified) from other nations in the Ukraine right now? Remember when Trump leaked the capabilities of America's best spy satellites? It's guaranteed a lot of these are staring intently at Ukrainian battlefields 24/7 However, while it's entirely possible the CIA have some Jack Ryans running around on the ground too, they would never admit as much and would call you crazy to even suggest such a thing were possible
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# ? Jan 26, 2023 06:21 |
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Oscar aint no Slouch posted:It's guaranteed a lot of these are staring intently at Ukrainian battlefields 24/7 Obviously no one is going to provide detailed info, but this much can be pointed out plainly: -Ukraine is a cloudy place. -Fixed test launch sites being prepped for a well known test are small. Ukraine and Russia are big. -24/7 isn’t really how orbital mechanics work.
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# ? Jan 26, 2023 06:26 |
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mlmp08 posted:Obviously no one is going to provide detailed info, but this much can be pointed out plainly: i believe nro has launched payloads to geosynchronous orbit before, but my assumption is that anything with an orbit that far out is involved in signals intelligence, not photo reconnaissance (though maybe that's just what the three letter agencies would want me to think) i'm sure that the military and civilian embassy staff working in ukraine to coordinate the delivery of military supply must be getting reams of useful big picture information just from things like spare part and additional ammo requests, and the general interactions with their ukrainian counterparts. i'm a bit leary that today's vastly expanded battlefield and the tense political situation allow for crimean or russo-japanese war style direct military observation by third parties
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# ? Jan 26, 2023 07:08 |
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mlmp08 posted:-Ukraine is a cloudy place. Is this really such a stretch of the imagination? 24/7 is exactly how satellite constellations work. Really once you get them up there the opportunity cost for a live feed of something below is zero. I'm sure the largest conventional war since WW2 involving a near peer has something worth watching. I don't know if you can put FLIR into space but I wouldn't put it past the American defense budget to make something like that possible too. The line of contact is well over 1000km long so I'm sure if your preferred target is obscured you can go down the list. And the Russians are known to use unencrypted baofeng radios and civilian cell calls to coordinate, so I'm sure there are enough hints dropped for where to look. Even civilians can track where the artillery is dropping https://www.bellingcat.com/resources/2022/10/04/scorched-earth-using-nasa-fire-data-to-monitor-war-zones/
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# ? Jan 26, 2023 07:36 |
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It's going to be pretty wild what the Ukrainian military looks like in a year or 2. Like you'll have a military with Abrams Tanks, patriot missiles, and submarine drones, alongside BMP1s, GRAD rocket launchers, and MI8 helicopters etc. Like a mix of some of the most high tech equipment the west can provide with all the really old Soviet era legacy stuff they still have.
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# ? Jan 26, 2023 08:09 |
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mlmp08 posted:Obviously no one is going to provide detailed info, but this much can be pointed out plainly: There are thermal and other specialist satellites that don't just collect visible spectrum light 24/7 can be done with geostationary satellites, it's getting them there that's the problem Paracausal fucked around with this message at 08:36 on Jan 26, 2023 |
# ? Jan 26, 2023 08:34 |
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mlmp08 posted:Obviously no one is going to provide detailed info, but this much can be pointed out plainly: It is very convenient that Germany launched a SAR spy sat recently. The existence of the SAR-Lupe family and SARah-1 isn't well known, but I read news that Ukraine is receiving intelligence. There's a delay, of course, but SAR doesn't care about clouds and can be very high resolution.
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# ? Jan 26, 2023 09:18 |
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Cicero posted:I tried to find an underlying source for that and I think they maybe are just confused and think "M1A1" is the general designation for Abrams tanks. The official word is that they aren't saying exactly what model it is. Since they're procuring them with a process that's supposed to take months, I'd be pretty surprised if it was the old M1A1. I believe the designations is M1 Abrams is the original 80's version and the A1 designation was the late 80's / 90's upgrade, with the A2 as the modern super battle tank. Nelson Mandingo fucked around with this message at 10:56 on Jan 26, 2023 |
# ? Jan 26, 2023 10:21 |
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Nelson Mandingo posted:I believe the designations is M1 Abrams is the original 80's and the A1 designation was the 90's upgrade, with the A2 as the modern super battle tank. But I think whoever wrote that CNBC article didn't know any of this and just said M1A1.
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# ? Jan 26, 2023 10:29 |
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# ? May 28, 2024 16:24 |
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Nelson Mandingo posted:I believe the designations is M1 Abrams is the original 80's and the A1 designation was the 90's upgrade, with the A2 as the modern super battle tank. The M1 was the initial production run with the old 105mm gun, the A1 was from 1985 onwards with the 120mm gun, the A2 was from 1992 with other improvements, and all the seppo tanks since then have been 1999 onwards NTRabbit fucked around with this message at 10:36 on Jan 26, 2023 |
# ? Jan 26, 2023 10:33 |