(Thread IKs:
fatherboxx)
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Gully Foyle posted:Ukraine is about 1/3 the size of Russia in population. Significantly smaller yes, but it's really stupid to exaggerate that they are "orders of magnitude smaller in every way". I would consider 1/3 the size to be orders of magnitude when we are talking a peer conflict between neighbors.
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# ? Sep 4, 2023 19:31 |
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# ? Jun 7, 2024 08:57 |
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socialsecurity posted:I would consider 1/3 the size to be orders of magnitude when we are talking a peer conflict between neighbors. mind explaining that math?
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# ? Sep 4, 2023 19:33 |
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socialsecurity posted:I would consider 1/3 the size to be orders of magnitude when we are talking a peer conflict between neighbors. "I would consider the number three to be the number ten."
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# ? Sep 4, 2023 19:40 |
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i say swears online posted:mind explaining that math? Nah, cause it's an opinion based on feeling, not math. I don't feel any explanation would work for someone that is here to mine for SYQ and parrot the propaganda of a fascist regime. (USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST)
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# ? Sep 4, 2023 19:45 |
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spankmeister posted:"I would consider the number three to be the number ten." And I suppose every use of decimate means to cut out one of out of every 10?
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# ? Sep 4, 2023 19:46 |
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socialsecurity posted:And I suppose every use of decimate means to cut out one of out of every 10? "another word is often used incorrectly therefore I am right to use this phrase completely incorrectly" isn't exactly a great defense.
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# ? Sep 4, 2023 19:49 |
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socialsecurity posted:And I suppose every use of decimate means to cut out one of out of every 10? I wouldn't if I were you.
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# ? Sep 4, 2023 19:51 |
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Ukraine claims some Russian drones hit Romanian soil. https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/ukraine-says-russian-drones-detonated-romanian-territory-during-danube-strike-2023-09-04/ Romania, a NATO country, prefers not to acknowledge that. quote:At no time did Russia's means of attack generate direct military threats on Romanian national territory or waters. Coincidentally, there was a Polish military helicopter that Belarus claimed crossed its border a week or so ago, while Lukashenko was preparing for another round of joint military exercises at Poland's doorstep. Today Lukashenko's officials also decided that it wasn't a big deal, and an incompetent Polish pilot can be forgiven for a little whoopsie.
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# ? Sep 4, 2023 19:52 |
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Regardless of semantics, the aggressor having 3x the population you have does not appear to be a significant advantage in industrial war, in my opinion. Getting those people in the field, armed, and doing something useful is not guaranteed (especially not in Putin's Russia...) and neither country is fighting to the last man. It's much more relevant to look at numbers of soldiers mobilised, and potentially mobilised in short and medium term. Millions of Russian men of conscriptable age are moving abroad because they don't fancy dying in Putin's trenches.
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# ? Sep 4, 2023 19:54 |
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Deltasquid posted:Millions of Russian men of conscriptable age are moving abroad because they don't fancy dying in Putin's trenches. Do you have some sources of the numbers of people moving abroad? I know it's happening at scale, but I'm not aware of specific numbers involved.
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# ? Sep 4, 2023 19:57 |
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mllaneza posted:That's just ridiculously effective. This conflict seems like a change where serious structural changes to how fighting occurs are starting. Sort of analogous to how changes that really start showing up in the US civil war proceed the industrial war of WWI. It’s terrifying frankly.
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# ? Sep 4, 2023 20:02 |
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Tomn posted:Do you have some sources of the numbers of people moving abroad? I know it's happening at scale, but I'm not aware of specific numbers involved. quote:Re: Russia, an analysis and policy network, has examined various estimates and available data from countries that have accepted large numbers of Russian émigrés. They found that between 817,000 and 922,000 people have left Russia since February 2022.
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# ? Sep 4, 2023 20:05 |
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steinrokkan posted:Cardboard: $10 TBF, the cardboard drones are actually $750 per unit, so they are already priced at military MSRP.
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# ? Sep 4, 2023 20:07 |
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Mr. Apollo posted:I remember during the Gulf War, the Missouri used a RQ-2 Pioneer drone as a spotter to correct its fire. The South Africans used the Seeker drone during the Battle of Cuito Cuanavale ('87-'88), in Angola, to scout attack routes for their airforce and direct long-range artillery fire. Employment of the Seeker lead to the unforeseen (but welcomed by the SAAF) consequence of forcing Cuban AA to expend pricey and scarce missiles against them, distracting them from engaging South African aircraft and opening avenues for same to approach targets. Considering the long ranges that SADF artillery and aircraft had to operate at there, the drones provided a great amount of information about their enemies that otherwise may have resulted in many casualties to obtain by more conventional means.
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# ? Sep 4, 2023 20:07 |
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Tomn posted:Do you have some sources of the numbers of people moving abroad? I know it's happening at scale, but I'm not aware of specific numbers involved. I may be exaggerating, the figure I had in mind was actually "more than a million" but that presumably includes their families. Deltasquid posted:Saw this on Reddit, can't vouch for its accuracy.
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# ? Sep 4, 2023 20:08 |
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Deltasquid posted:Regardless of semantics, the aggressor having 3x the population you have does not appear to be a significant advantage in industrial war, in my opinion. Getting those people in the field, armed, and doing something useful is not guaranteed (especially not in Putin's Russia...) and neither country is fighting to the last man. It's much more relevant to look at numbers of soldiers mobilised, and potentially mobilised in short and medium term. Millions of Russian men of conscriptable age are moving abroad because they don't fancy dying in Putin's trenches. Finding motivated able bodied men for a war of aggression is not easy, though having a larger reserve pool to draw from makes it possible to replace losses - but for every grunt replaced, you need both some very expensive personal equipment and months of training for them to be any use in combat. Though Russia's size allows for even some unorthodox recruiting tactics, like offering pardon to prisoners who volunteer. It takes a country of certain size and with enough population in prisons to quickly get 50000 new men, many of whom have killed before. Regardless, the size difference means that Ukraine is going to have far more disabled people per capita than Russia, not least because Ukraine's civilians are also under fire. The estimates I have seen of Russians who have fled the country is more in the hundreds of thousands region. It's partly hard to calculate because there was a wave of people fleeing when the war first started, many of whom then returned to Russia when they ran out of money and couldn't find work. More have left since then, though. Meanwhile over 6 million people have left Ukraine.
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# ? Sep 4, 2023 20:17 |
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And this fact also explains how North Vietnam (pop 23 million in 1974) was crushed by the US military (population 210 million in 1974).
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# ? Sep 4, 2023 20:27 |
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Nenonen posted:Finding motivated able bodied men for a war of aggression is not easy, though having a larger reserve pool to draw from makes it possible to replace losses - but for every grunt replaced, you need both some very expensive personal equipment and months of training for them to be any use in combat. Though Russia's size allows for even some unorthodox recruiting tactics, like offering pardon to prisoners who volunteer. It takes a country of certain size and with enough population in prisons to quickly get 50000 new men, many of whom have killed before. Regardless, the size difference means that Ukraine is going to have far more disabled people per capita than Russia, not least because Ukraine's civilians are also under fire. I recall many Ukrainians initially fled but returned since then. I can't find reliable sources with numbers but this website (https://visitukraine.today/blog/1825/why-ukrainian-refugees-are-returning-home-important-reasons) claims 18 million initially fled while 10 million have since returned. Another question is whether the Ukrainian refugees are all men of fighting age or not. The media perception certainly was that these were overwhelmingly women and children (OECD estimates that at least 70% of adult Ukrainian refugees are women: https://www.oecd.org/ukraine-hub/policy-responses/what-are-the-integration-challenges-of-ukrainian-refugee-women-bb17dc64/) I can't be certain, but I expect the Russian emigration numbers to skew towards men (dodging the draft) whereas Russian women have no particular reason to flee unless they're joining their male relatives, and Ukrainian numbers to skew towards women and children (fleeing the war coming to their doorstep) while a lot of men of fighting age chose or were forced to remain in Ukraine.
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# ? Sep 4, 2023 20:48 |
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Rust Martialis posted:And this fact also explains how North Vietnam (pop 23 million in 1974) was crushed by the US military (population 210 million in 1974). I don't think they are really comparable when Vietnam fared poorly when they tried to fight the war on more conventional terms (ie, the Tet offensive), and Ukraine has been probably the most conventional war since the Iran-Iraq war. On the other hand, its worth mentioning that North Vietnam wasn't just fighting America but also South Vietnam, Australia and South Korea, though a huge amount of nominally South Vietnamese fought for the North and there wasn't really many people doing the opposite.
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# ? Sep 4, 2023 20:52 |
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My partner in posting crime has noted over the past week that russian yuan based borrowing is "remarkably accelerated" in a way that suggests loopy future financial outcomes so I'm going to call it the belt and owned initiative
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# ? Sep 4, 2023 20:59 |
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Deltasquid posted:Regardless of semantics, the aggressor having 3x the population you have does not appear to be a significant advantage in industrial war, in my opinion. Getting those people in the field, armed, and doing something useful is not guaranteed (especially not in Putin's Russia...) and neither country is fighting to the last man. It's much more relevant to look at numbers of soldiers mobilised, and potentially mobilised in short and medium term. Millions of Russian men of conscriptable age are moving abroad because they don't fancy dying in Putin's trenches. Well, true, it is not a simple bring two stacks and hit autoresolve thing from Total War games but having a large initial force and being able to mobilize enough greedy and desperate idiots has let Russia to hold for huge parts of the country so far. And it was able to mobilize precisely because of large population, i.e. also having a big pool of people that it relies on without having a support of moral motivation, just cash.
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# ? Sep 4, 2023 21:09 |
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A Rusi article on the tactical aspects of the Ukrainian Counter Offensive was released today. It is quite a good read if you are interested in that kind of stuff. https://rusi.org/explore-our-research/publications/special-resources/stormbreak-fighting-through-russian-defences-ukraines-2023-offensive Some choice quotes on adaptations by the RuAF... quote:The Russian military has also determined to tactically exploit opportunities ...and on training challenges for the AFU quote:Planning remains a significant challenge for Ukrainian units because of the
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# ? Sep 4, 2023 21:12 |
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Rust Martialis posted:And this fact also explains how North Vietnam (pop 23 million in 1974) was crushed by the US military (population 210 million in 1974). Incredible that they defeated a nation with an exponentially larger population
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# ? Sep 4, 2023 21:12 |
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khwarezm posted:I don't think they are really comparable when Vietnam fared poorly when they tried to fight the war on more conventional terms (ie, the Tet offensive), and Ukraine has been probably the most conventional war since the Iran-Iraq war. I think Rust is somewhat referencing claims that the weaker country in order to limit suffering should surrender as the war is ultimately hopeless, while the Vietnam war is a good counter example. Separately to this point; North Vietnam did win a conventional war too though, vs the South when the US withdrew. And also against Cambodia. Different countries try to adapt to the circumstance of the war they're fighting; Ukraine needs to fight a conventional war because a guerilla war is the war of last resort in this instance, and they have the means of fighting a conventional war. Mao/Ho, etc fighting a "People's War" is a result of circumstance, which eventually calls for the shift to conventional fighting once initiative, and warfighting material conditions shifts to their favour. The balance of forces and material conditions of the war are sufficiently in Ukraines favour that they don't need to retreat to the sunflower fields to avoid Russian conventional forces to strike where they are weak, they are capable of holding the line with conventional forces so these steps can be skipped. While Vietnam had both the issue of the American enforced demiliterized zone and the need to rely on engaging the South via asymmetrical warfare until the US left; then they shifted to armoured spearheads and conventional warfare.
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# ? Sep 4, 2023 21:12 |
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Hey speaking of how drones are causing a huge shift in tactics, the New York Times as an apropos article on the US Navy: Faced With Evolving Threats, U.S. Navy Struggles to Change quote:But the focus from Washington on producing a stream of new warships is also creating a fleet that some inside the Pentagon think is too wedded to outdated military strategies and that the Navy might not be able to afford to keep running in decades to come. Granted almost every time someone has said "the age of x is over" in military history they've been wrong to some degree, I can't help but wonder if we're on the cusp of something similar to when naval aviation replaced ships of the line.
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# ? Sep 4, 2023 21:27 |
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Jamsque posted:Incredible that they defeated a nation with an exponentially larger population
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# ? Sep 4, 2023 21:40 |
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socialsecurity posted:Nah, cause it's an opinion based on feeling, not math. I don't feel any explanation would work for someone that is here to mine for SYQ and parrot the propaganda of a fascist regime. Opinions <> facts. "Order of magnitude" means "multiple of ten". This is not subject to opinion. It is just a fact based on math. FFS
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# ? Sep 4, 2023 21:45 |
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Ynglaur posted:Opinions <> facts. "Order of magnitude" means "multiple of ten". This is not subject to opinion. It is just a fact based on math. FFS What I got from their post is that if you don't consider 3.3333 repeating to be the same as 10, you support the fascists. Very confusing.
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# ? Sep 4, 2023 22:01 |
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Ynglaur posted:Opinions <> facts. "Order of magnitude" means "multiple of ten". This is not subject to opinion. It is just a fact based on math. FFS While I think he was way off base in his usage of the word and his subsequent reasoning for using said word this framing is almost as bad given the technically incorrect yet still commonly used and accepted usage of decimate and, related, the use of the word literally. This is way off topic though.
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# ? Sep 4, 2023 22:05 |
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Ynglaur posted:Opinions <> facts. "Order of magnitude" means "multiple of ten". This is not subject to opinion. It is just a fact based on math. FFS Eh, technically it means "multiple of [some number]", which is typically but not always ten; two is the next most common multiplier, then probably e if you're using logarithms in some way. The real reason their statement was wrong was because they used the plural, so it's more like if you don't believe 3 = 100 or 1000. (USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST)
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# ? Sep 4, 2023 22:06 |
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spankmeister posted:What I got from their post is that if you don't consider 3.3333 repeating to be the same as 10, you support the fascists. Very confusing. You're near the root of the issue Ed: in a base-10 system, one order of magnitude means a factor of 10. Rust Martialis fucked around with this message at 22:11 on Sep 4, 2023 |
# ? Sep 4, 2023 22:09 |
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Telsa Cola posted:While I think he was way off base in his usage of the word and his subsequent reasoning for using said word this framing is almost as bad given the technically incorrect yet still commonly used and accepted usage of decimate and, related, the use of the word literally. There’s a world of difference between normal semantic drift and the misuse of technical vocabulary.
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# ? Sep 4, 2023 22:22 |
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Xiahou Dun posted:There’s a world of difference between normal semantic drift and the misuse of technical vocabulary. In a professional or academic setting where the technical vocabulary is necessary for the level of precision needed to facilitate good work, yeah totally. When people are just shooting the poo poo or whatever, not really. I'm not going to defend someone using it incorrectly in an academic paper or when discussing engineering tolerances or whatever, but this ain't that. Telsa Cola fucked around with this message at 00:00 on Sep 5, 2023 |
# ? Sep 4, 2023 23:54 |
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I can't believe we've come full circle from discussing a tweet using "order of magnitude" where I said it was likely meant to mean a multiple rather than x10 back to discussing its usage in thread again. It shouldn't be shocking to see it used in this way.
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# ? Sep 5, 2023 00:03 |
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Bashez posted:I can't believe we've come full circle from discussing a tweet using "order of magnitude" where I said it was likely meant to mean a multiple rather than x10 back to discussing its usage in thread again. It shouldn't be shocking to see it used in this way. It wasn't even a tweet, it was my hyperbolic but otherwise forgettable shitpost.
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# ? Sep 5, 2023 00:07 |
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Cinci would have sniped that derail so fast (USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST)
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# ? Sep 5, 2023 00:26 |
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evil_bunnY posted:The dirt they're buried into offers ridiculously good protection against HE. You need dedicated mine-clearing equipment (typically rocket-propelled line charges) to assault through, and even that only buys you a single lane's worth of cleared ground. Even then you still have to have a plow on the lead vehicle. If the line charge misses even one, you have an armored column stuck in a mine field, which we have seen end badly several times. Here's the training video on US Army breaching tactics. Note that that's how it's supposed to go according to the manual, the heavy reliance on aircraft of all types (except drones), the vastly smaller size of the minefield than what Russia put out, and the massive disparity in force between attacker and defender. Ukraine simply put up drones with thermal imaging and had dudes crawl out at night to clear mines. And there a loving lot of mines. Theory: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZZ-sCT_maAQ Practice: CW: the first part of the video (before the timestamp) calls some rando Russian warship a "battleship". https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MO8CWts2-P8&t=148s
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# ? Sep 5, 2023 00:26 |
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wet_goods posted:Cinci would have sniped that derail so fast Orders of magnitude faster
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# ? Sep 5, 2023 00:39 |
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wet_goods posted:Cinci would have sniped that derail so fast Ironically, it probably wouldn't have taken Cinci long to make a rule about posts saying that we miss him. Which of course is why we miss him in the first place.
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# ? Sep 5, 2023 00:44 |
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# ? Jun 7, 2024 08:57 |
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#freecinci
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# ? Sep 5, 2023 01:14 |