Booby-trapped Alpine Quest Android app geolocates Russian soldiers
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24 Apr 2025 | 36
The Iron Curtain, part deux.
Internet backbone provider Lumen quits Russia
Lumen Technologies, the internet backbone provider formerly known as CenturyLink, has quit Russia. The biz's announcement is titled, "Lumen's readiness to meet global events," and does not take a position on the morality of the illegal invasion of Ukraine. Instead, it frames the decision as necessary "due to increased security …
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Wednesday 9th March 2022 06:42 GMT ShadowSystems
Hire a few hundred thousand biplanes.
The pilot concentrates on staying aloft & alive as they pass over Russia. Given most prop jobs fly far too slow for a modern jet fighter to acquire target lock before the jet has zoomed past & that even a strafing run might not do much to a plane that's mostly canvas & sticks, the biplane pilot may have more to worry about in the form of most water fowl.
Meanwhile, the copilot/rear passenger keeps carpet bombing the amused/confused citizens below in paper pamphlets that provide all sorts of current information, including pictures, about what's happening in the rest of the world, especially Ukraine.
Sure Russia has enough SAM sites to blot most any jet or helicopter from the sky, but old school, wood framed, canvas panels, physical wire controls, petrol engine barely powerful enough to keep it flying, radar invisible, missiles moving too fast to get a target lock on, World War 2 "Flying Ace versus the Red Baron" style biplanes may prove a better delivery method for news the government doesn't want distributed.
What will the government do to stop it, pull back their troops to stand sentry in the streets & fling rocks at the slow-moving annoyances?
Biplanes, pamphlets, & a desire to thumb the nose at the Kremlin is all we really need to sow chaos in their midsts. =-)p
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Wednesday 9th March 2022 13:44 GMT John Brown (no body)
Re: Hire a few hundred thousand biplanes.
<wander off singing> 99 Google-Loons</singing>
As for the biplane idea. That's just silly. There's not that many around and maybe not enough Magnificent Men to fly them up-diddly-up. There are, on the other hand, plenty of micro-lights and powered para-gliders.
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Wednesday 9th March 2022 10:26 GMT I ain't Spartacus
Re: Missile vs hot air
The air inside probably isn't, but the burners should be.
You could of course solve this problem by filling them with hydrogen. Then you only need to worry about the cannon shells - but who knows, they may pass straight through without exploding? Or if you prefer the boring life, there's helium.
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Wednesday 9th March 2022 21:50 GMT Norman Nescio
Re: Missile vs hot air
The flammability limits of hydrogen in air are very wide, from 4% to 75%, and the detonation limits narrower, from 18.3% to 59% at atmospheric pressure.
So if your lifting gas is more than 75% hydrogen, it won't explode, or even burn as the cannon shell goes through the envelope. It will leak out though, and if it ignites, you need to make sure the envelope isn't flammable, unlike the Hindenburg.
The problem with the leak is that if the local concentration of hydrogen in air around the leak outside the envelope exceeds 4%, that can burn, and if it exceeds 18.3%, it can explode.
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Wednesday 9th March 2022 09:23 GMT Ken Moorhouse
Re: Hire a few hundred thousand biplanes.
My father fought in the infantry at Monte Cassino. I still have a couple of samples of propaganda dropped on the soldiers as they painstakingly headed to the monastery. One is a glorious pictorial map showing Brescia, Cremona, Mantova, Verona, Padova, Rovigo, Modena, Ferrara, with drawings of a fisherman, musical instruments and landmarks, accompanied by an attractive smiling woman carrying an abundant tray of fruit. The title is "The Po is waiting for you". On the rear in stark contrast is a monochrome drawing of a clothed skeleton holding soldier's helmets, and explosions with soldiers flung in the air.
Edit: Found a link... http://stampomania.blogspot.com/2010/05/po-is-waiting-for-you-german-propaganda.html
The other contains the following text on one side:-
[Blue] "The advance of strong Allied Forces on Berlin has begun!" (The B.B.C. on the evening of Salerno)
[Red] No mention was made of the enormous casualties sustained by the Allied Troops already during the course of their landing at Salerno.
[Blue] After 8 months of murderous fighting the Allies have got as far as Cassino - altogether 123 kilometres from their starting point!
[Red] And the price? About 1000 casualties for each kilometre!
[Blue] The bee line to Northern Italy is still more than 6 times 123 kilometres. That means a further advance of more than 6 times 8 months!
Probable arrival in Northern Italy about April 1948
[Red] And the price? Further 700 000 men lost as dead or wounded!
[Blue] And thence to Berlin there are still more than 5 times 123 kilometres to be covered. That means a further advance of 5 times 8 months!
Probable arrival in Berlin in or about 1952
[Red] And the price? Another 600 000 men dead, wounded or taken prisoners!
[Blue] That means another 7 long years of bloodshed!
[Red] And that means that you will never live to see it!
[Blue] Note by the Allied Headquarters:
This timetable is given without any guarantee. As the Germans have under-mined practically all lines of communication, much longer periods might possible have to be taken into account. Whether an advance from Northern Italy to Berlin will be possible at all, depends entirely upon the fact whether or not the Germans are going to give up their excellently fortified positions in the Alps without fighting. No agreement could be reached as yet on the subject.
On the rear in black is a drawing of a skeleton holding a pair of compasses opened out on a map of Italy, one leg on Salerno (Sept 1943), The other is on Cassino (May 1944) with the 123km distance marked. From there is a line towards Berlin with lines radiating out showing dates Dec 1944, Aug 1945, etc. The destination is shown as To Berlin another 650km arrival about 1952. The title on this side says "Speaking of time-tables".
https://twitter.com/ipngovpl_eng/status/1259812154695442432
ISTR having another depicting the troops British fighting their way up Italy. The other side shows drawings of Americans enjoying themselves, drinking at parties with women. Caption was something like "so much for the American support you are getting".
The power of dropped progaganda was undeniable in trying to demoralise the participants, but strict discipline kept the focus - I believe that even picking up such leaflets was considered grounds for disciplinary action.
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Wednesday 9th March 2022 13:21 GMT I ain't Spartacus
Re: Hire a few hundred thousand biplanes.
And the poor troops suffered from propaganda in another way. They became a bit of a forgotten army. Progress was slow because Italy has so much good defensive terrain, and the Germans were well led (by Kesselring). Plus allies had to get their own shit sorted out, blood fresh troops (and commanders) and then move some of those experienced units back to England to be used in D Day. So there were a lot of periods of basically WWI style trench fighting - meaning casualties were high and progress was limited. But it was necessary, because we didn't have the landing craft in 1943 to put enough troops into France to guarantee success (or enough blooded troops and officers) - I think the 1943 D-Day plan could only do 3 invasion beaches, not 5. Meanwhile the Italian front tied down another 20-30 good quality German divisions that would have made D-Day a much closer-run thing, and attrited the German forces to help both the Russians and make D-Day less of a hideous gamble.
Allied news was much more accurate than the Germans, but still didn't dwell on all the downsides above. And so not only did the guys who fought in Italy not get the glory, but some imbeciles even came up with the phrase "D-Day Dodgers" - despite the fact that fighting conditions in Italy were generally worse than in North Western Europe. Except for in the bocages, in the first 6 weeks after D-Day - which was bloody awful terrain to have to attack into.
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Wednesday 9th March 2022 21:18 GMT jake
Re: Hire a few hundred thousand biplanes.
In our ever-so-politically-correct hell of a modern world the phrase "Crop Duster" is considered derogatory. Instead we are supposed to use the term "Aerial Applicator".
Note that most of the guys and gals I know who do it for a living say "Fuck that. We're crop dusters.", so I don't have a clue who is making this decision.
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Wednesday 9th March 2022 19:58 GMT Old Used Programmer
Re: Hire a few hundred thousand biplanes.
I think you mean WW1. The only biplanes in use in WW2 (that I know of) were the Fairey Swordfish (famed for its part in sinking the Bismark) and some Italian biplane fighters, with a top speed about 250MPH. Apparently Hurricane and Spitfire pilots were a bit embarrassed to admit when they shot one down. (Though at that, they were faster than Ju-87 Stukas, which flew about about 190MPH.)
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Wednesday 9th March 2022 22:24 GMT Norman Nescio
Re: Don't Mention the War
I'm mildly surprised that the Russians did not call it a Police Action. There's a long history of using that term, not just the Vietnam war, and it wasn't the USA that coined it.
I guess 'special military action' will be added to the vocabulary of obfuscation.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
