Posts by EvilDrSmith

US Navy backs right to repair after $13B carrier crew left half-fed by contractor-locked ovens

I've learnt something today

It's this sort of esoteric and detailed knowledge that makes hanging around these parts so interesting.

Thank you!

With the weapon elevator, it seems from the article that they were not functioning correctly for 4 years after delivery, so that seems like an issue where the crew most certainly should not be getting involved - that's for the contractor to come out and fix, and at their own expense.

However, once everything is actually working as it should - yes, it's just daft that the crew are not allowed to fix things. The sea can be fairly harsh and tends to break things, and warships actively go in harms way - sooner rather than later, something (probably everything at one time or another) will get broken. The crew will need to be able to fix it (what's the USN term for Bodge tape / Black nasty?)

£127M wasted on failed UK nuclear cleanup plan

Wait for an earthquake.

Re: “Too cheap to meter”

Well, apart from the energy too cheap to meter and the effortless travel under the sea, that was a pretty accurate prediction

Re: The TOC of nuclear energy

"I just cannot comprehend how these projects cost so much and take so long. "

Mostly, it seems to be the planning process.

We had a similar discussion a couple of months ago, and I noted that the planning process for Lower Thames Crossing had hit £1 Billion (with a B)

Costs for the Stonehenge tunnel have already hit £166 million, with no sign of construction actually starting:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c4ng8l2lnpdo#:~:text=A%20two-mile%20road%20tunnel%20past%20Stonehenge%20could%20cost,challenges%20from%20Save%20Stonehenge%20World%20Heritage%20Site%20%28SSWHS%29.

Every project (of this sort of size) requires a planning enquiry.

Multiple studies will be required, to provide data directly for design and construction, but also to check on the impact on archaeology, ecology and habitat, air quality, noise and nuisance to nearby inhabitants, etc. Nowadays, there will also need to be an assessment of the carbon footprint, and proof that the project doesn't fall foul of net zero legislation.

Every project will have its opponents, some NIMBY's who don't object to the project, but just don't want it 'here', others who object to the nature of the project ("it should be a tunnel not a bridge") or object to the very fact of the project ("we shouldn't build a bridge because we should be reducing our travel not encouraging it").

And because we are a democracy, everyone gets there say.

And everyone tries to exploit any and every law or regulation that helps their case, so that gets lawyers involved (and their fees can tend to get very high. very quickly).

And now every study that was done needs to be re-done, to answer the questions that the protestors raised - which, if the process is not tightly controlled, leads to new questions, and then further studies.

And suddenly, you've been bogged down in the planning process for 2, 3, 5 years, and spent millions/hundreds of million, a billion pounds.

And built nothing.

There needs to be some control on what is built and how, but in the UK, it does seem that we now value the planning process more than the finished structure.

Much of the costs for decommissioning at the moment seem to be associated with decommissioning structures from the 1950's to the 1970's which were not built with decommissioning in mind, and often seem to have followed practices with regard to waste management that were, shall we say, less than optimal.

The stuff we are building now will obviously still need to be decommissioned in the future, but there seems to be a general increase in awareness that we need to think about end of life when we actually design and build stuff (this is increasingly common in Civil Engineering in general - it's also increasingly common to see reference to buildings and structures being 'dismantled' rather than 'demolished').

While I admit I have no direct experience of design and construction of current nuclear reactors, I strongly suspect that 'the current form' is a lot better than the 'currently being decommissioned form'.

No doubt, though, there is still room for improvement.

Ukraine strikes Russian bomber-maker with hack attack

Re: Zelenskyy sure seems to hold a lot of cards

"But I'll offer 2 words.. "Civil Defence""

So your justification for attacking a civilian building, which is a war crime unless the building is used for strictly military purposes, is that it serves for Civil Defence?

That is, defense of Civilians.

So not at all a military purpose, but a clear, specific civilian one.

Civilians - which it is war crime to attack.

You specifically claim that the admin building is used for the defense of civilians, and therefore that is why the Russians specifically attacked it.

So they specifically attacked civilians.

Despite your repeated lies that they do not.

But you have now unambiguously admitted that in fact, they do.

Which is to say, you are proudly declaring that the Russian Aggressor State is deliberately breaking the protocol to the Geneva Conventions.

Re: Zelenskyy sure seems to hold a lot of cards

"Which was probably being used as an orphanage or something"

Nope, no one is claiming that, no one needs to claim that.

As you yourself just stated, it was the Regional State Administration building. Therefore it is a civilian object, as defined by the protocols to the Geneva Conventions:

"Article 52 - General protection of civilian objects

1. Civilian objects shall not be the object of attack or of reprisals. Civilian objects are all objects which are not military objectives as defined in paragraph 2.

2. Attacks shall be limited strictly to military objectives. In so far as objects are concerned, military objectives are limited to those objects which by their nature, location, purpose or use make an effective contribution to military action and whose total or partial destruction, capture or neutralization, in the circumstances ruling at the time, offers a definite military advantage.

3. In case of doubt whether an object which is normally dedicated to civilian purposes, such as a place of worship, a house or other dwelling or a school, is being used to make an effective contribution to military action, it shall be presumed not to be so used."

So unless you (well, the Russian Aggressor State) can prove positively that there was a definite military advantage in destroying a civilian administration building, your acknowledgement that it was destroyed by a Russian missile is an acknowledgement that the protocol was broken and that the RAS just committed (yet another) war crime.

Re: Zelenskyy sure seems to hold a lot of cards

Ho hum, and 'as usual' you accuse others of your own crimes.

"your casualty estimates seem.. rather high"

Well, they are consistent with Ukrainian claims, and with the various Western nation claims, and also with number of casualties that are inferred when looking at the Russians' stated number of recruited personnel and current service personnel. So they may be rather high, but they are figures that everyone, even it seems the Russians, agree on.

You are right, I didn't mention Ukrainian casualty figures. They were not relevant to that fact that Russia is losing (though I did specifically say that Ukraine is losing too).

"Then you're assuming this is a 'war' of occupation, rather than as stated by Russia at the outset, a 'war' of attrition."

Except that that is not at all true. Russia, you may recall, constantly refers to this as a Special Military Operation, an SMO that was supposed to be 3 day, but, as we have previously discussed, was allowed for to extend to as much as 10 days. Quite clearly, Russia never intended that this turn into a war of attrition. you don't fight a war of attrition in a maximum of 10 days.

You yourself stated that the initial Ukrainian claim was 41 damaged or destroyed.

Faced with good (not 100% conclusive, but good) evidence that about 20 aircraft were destroyed, proving that the Ukrainian claim was approximately true, you then dishonestly pretend that the claim was 41 aircraft destroyed - which it wasn't, as you yourself clearly stated in an earlier post.

Lies that are inconsistent with each other are the hallmark of Putin's regime, so I can see where you get your inspiration from.

"did not target civilians"

And of course, you persist with the biggest and most offensive lie of all - that the Russians are not deliberately and systematically targeting civilians.

Well, fortunately, we don't have to take your word for whether or not that is true, we can see what the United Nations Organisation has to say on the matter:

https://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2025/05/un-commission-concludes-russian-armed-forces-drone-attacks-against-civilians

"Russian armed forces’ drone attacks against civilians in Kherson Province amount to crimes against humanity of murder"

"Then praying the bear doesn't get mad and swipe back"

So what are they going to do, invade Ukraine? Oops, already tried that, it's not going well.

Launch missiles at civilians and critical civilian infrastructure?

No that's not helped, plus there is a strange shortage of missile launching aircraft just now.

Maybe hire some North Korean soldiers - you know, the ones that you insisted were not actually in Russia, but which the North Korea leader has confirmed were? No, that's not helped much either.

Maybe an amphibious landing in Odessa? Oh, no, can't do that, the Moskva and most of the Black Sea Fleet amphibious landing ships were sunk, and the BSF ran away so far it's now the Caspian Sea fleet.

Day by day, Russian equipment losses degrade the Russian army, and force them to rely more and more on older, less effective equipment, while Ukraine, through their own industries and the industries of the worlds civilised democracies, is steadily upgrading its equipment to be amongst the most modern and capable of any army on the planet.

Unless Putin (and the entire senior leadership) goes truly mad (as in, clinically insane) and tries to resort to nuclear weapons, which really doesn't seem likely, the Russian bear's ability to swipe back may consist of throwing men on motorbikes and in stripped down Lada Nivas, supplied by donkeys, into prepared Ukrainian positions, where the Russian army will be luck to get a metre of ground for every casualty they take.

Re: Zelenskyy sure seems to hold a lot of cards

"with Ukraine being 20% smaller and shrinking by the day. "

At the start of the 3 day SMO (or the 10-day SMO as I think you prefer we call it) some 40 months ago, Russia occupied about 8% of Ukraine. It now occupies about 20% of Ukraine. So the Russians have gained about 12% of Ukraine's territory in a bit over 3 years - simplistically, about 4% a year.

Except that most of that territorial gain occurred in the first 9 months of the 3-day SMO.

Various estimates that I have seen suggest that Russia has taken between 0.6% and 1.0% of Ukrainian territory in the last year, which is instinctively about right. The current Russian advance is an advance, in that you are right, so Ukrainian is getting slightly smaller each day - at the current rate, it will take about 100 years for Russia to achieve it's maximalist objective and annex all of Ukraine. Meanwhile, the Russians are about to hit the 1 million casualty mark.

Russia is losing (but so is Ukraine).

"images released by Ukraine show the containers used to launch the drones were nothing like 'sheds', or prefabricated homes"

Images I have seen look like prefabricated office or site cabins to me.

https://nypost.com/2025/06/02/world-news/how-ukraine-pulled-off-its-stunning-pearl-harbor-attack-against-russia/

No particular reason I picked this site other than there is a nice clear image of one of the Ukrainian Aircraft Carriers, which shows an obvious personnel door at one end of the cabin.

The initial claims that I saw from the Ukrainians were 41 aircraft destroyed or damaged - as you yourself say. Later pronouncements from the Ukrainians that I saw clarified that to roughly 20 destroyed and roughly 20 damaged.

The more recent release of video evidence is quite comprehensive, though features some duplication. It looked to me that it was clear enough that it would be possible to work through it frame by frame, and identify specific aircraft by code numbers or other markings. And I was right - some one did just that:

https://xxtomcooperxx.substack.com/p/bean-counting?utm_source=publication-search

The analysis here looks to be sound - no obvious errors or dishonesty.

His summary:

8 Tu-95 Bear destroyed - all with the modifications to allow them to undertake missile strikes on Ukraine, and 6 of them actually armed for a missile strike at the time of their destruction.

7 to 10 Tu22M destroyed

2 A-50 derelicts destroyed - "wasted effort" being his conclusion.

1 An-12 destroyed.

So that's 16 aircraft destroyed, maybe 19. That's pretty close to the Ukrainian 20 destroyed / 20 damaged, noting also that this is a result purely of analysis of video so far released by the Ukrainians, and may not be comprehensive.

There have been a number of satellite imagery assessments through the week, too - these seem to be saying 7 TU-95 destroyed plus one damaged, possibly beyond repair, 4 TU-22 destroyed, and 1 A-50 destroyed. I have not yet seen any analysis that ties both drone video and satellite imagery together, so the satellite image A50 destroyed may or might not be one of those in the video.

Aircraft that were damaged but did not burn will be much harder to positively identify from either drone footage or satellite imagery, so the count of damaged is as likely an undercount as an overcount.

So Ukraine did not lie.

Interesting thing about that Russian missile and drone strike - at least one assessment that I have seen is that there were only 4 missile carrying aircraft involved in it, when the normal Russian strikes are apparently 12 to 15 aircraft, I have not independently verified that myself, admittedly, but do you think that perhaps something might have happened that reduced the number of aircraft available to the Russians for launching missiles at Ukrainian civilians?

It is also noteworthy that the Ukrainian Aircraft Carrier strike was not a single operation - for example, Ukrainian drones hit Engels and Dyagilevo airfields last night - FIRMS is showing a substantial blaze at the fuel depot at Engels, so that strike was undoubtedly effective, with the airbase at Bryansk hit the night before (social media posts from locals reporting massive detonation of ammunition, with visual imagery again confirming an effective strike against a purely military target).

As I have seen said elsewhere, the Ukrainians appear to have decided that they will address air defence by shooting the Archer, not the arrow.

Re: Thank goodness

The amusing thing about the way that Putin's useful idiots prattle on about how 'NATO expanded' to Russia's borders is that they clearly haven't realised that Norway was a founding member of NATO, and that Norway and Russia share a direct land border.

There has never been a day in NATO's existence when Russian (not just Soviet, but actual Russian) territory was not in direct contact with a NATO member country.

Ukrainians smuggle drones hidden in cabins on trucks to strike Russian airfields

Re: Ukraine did

"What is more certain is that Ukraine dropped a bridge on a train"

Which as we have already discussed is an allegation from the Russians who have provided not a single shred of evidence that the Ukrainians were responsible (so therefore probably a lie), whereas there is a credible mechanism of failure caused by repeated overloading and lack of maintenance, leading finally to collapse under heavy load, the last part of which is proven by the visual evidence of trucks on the bridge at the time of failure.

Re: And just to add - Kerch bridge

"See, this is why I doubt your claims of knowledge or experience. Keyword being if."

So you consider someone that qualifies their statement as lacking knowledge and experience? That's one option, I suppose.

As it happened, I did do some further research too (for my own interest):

https://www.newcivilengineer.com/archive/bridge-brilliance-connecting-crimea-10-08-2016/

I know you like to cast doubt on references other people use - NCE is effectively the 'trade journal' of the Institution of Civil Engineers, so probably a tad more reliable than wiki.

Yes, the bridge was designed to resist earthquakes. There is a difference between an earthquake and 1 tonne TNT -equivalent detonating in close proximity to a structural member.

Inclined piles provide earthquake resistance.

The main structural piles are vertical and very long, passing through a very weak stratum before they reach the bearing stratum. Some of them are 400mm square RC - 400mm is pretty skinny for a pile.

"It's easy to find examples from WW2 (and later) where we used a LOT more explosives trying to destroy thing"

- would that include the Upkeep bombs? Where a simple high explosive charge was detonated underwater, and the resulting shockwave cracked the reinforced concrete structure it was adjacent to?

"Maybe Russia did something extremely common and installed strain gauges and sensors on rebar inside concrete"

Maybe, but it really isn't all that common, even in the UK, and we are one of the leaders in deploying that sort of technology (there is a specialist group at Cambridge University - the centre for smart infrastructure - that's been driving its uptake ). One of my former colleagues was involved in sticking fibre optic wires on the reinforcement cages for the Crossrail shafts - that wasn't that long ago, and was still viewed as 'research' rather than 'routine construction'.

And as you know, because you did your research, there are 5,500 piles on that bridge - that's a lot of strain gauges to install on a bridge - in tricky to access conditions - that was built in a hurry.

"Maybe it obviously hasn't been shattered on account to the bridge being conspicously upright"

Indeed it is still conspicuously upright - but than I did say that if the piles have shattered, instantaneous failure is unlikely. So your use of the word 'obviously' in that statement is clearly incorrect. The piles are under the ground, and there is currently nothing obvious about their condition.

And I also said that the bridge may be fine, or may be stuffed.

You are the one making absolute claims that the attack was ineffective, I'm the one that is saying we don't have all the data, it might be worse than it looks, let's wait and see.

Re: And just to add - Kerch bridge

>sigh< I know I should just ignore you but...

Again the 'you didn't provide evidence' whine, when you continue to not provide evidence.

"I didn't realise I was 'debating' with a C.Eng and expert in underwater demolitions"

You're not.

I am an expert geotechnical engineer (I realise that that statement is terribly unBritish of me, and comes very close to boasting, but in this case it seems probably justifiable).

So I will just repeat the thing I said, not what you want to pretend I said:

"shattering the piles under a bridge pier - which is likely the result if the claim of 1,100kg detonated on the seabed is true - will most definitely leave that bridge in a distressed condition"

If the 1100kg of explosive detonated on the seabed, it would have sent a compressive shockwave onto the seabed. The shock wave would be partially reflected whenever it meets a boundary surface between two different materiel, creating high tensile forces in the process, unless they have identical material properties, so the near certain occurrence is that any concrete structure in the seabed will have been shattered by that shock wave (concrete really, really doesn't like tension - yes, Reinforced concrete - the steel bars carry the tension load - so if the pile is RC, the concrete will still be shattered)

Foundation piles are not necessarily concrete, and I do not, off-hand, know what type of piles were used, but concrete is a reasonable possibility (they might be hollow steel tubes, or concrete filled steel tubes - as I say, there are possibilities).

If the pile is shattered, but is only subject to pure compression loading (reasonably likely, but not certain - there may be wind uplift or seismic action for example) then the pile becomes affectively a column of unbound rock once it's shattered, so is not likely to instantaneously fail. It likely will, however, gradually compress, as the broken bits of concrete are squeezed out into the surrounding seabed by the weight of the bridge acting upon it. Obviously, if material is squeezed out sideways, the overall pile must get shorter (since there is no change in the volume of the material of the pile).

If that happens, the pile cap will, obviously, then move downwards, meaning the bridge pier which sits on the pile cap moves downwards, leading to progressive differential settlement that most certainly will tear the bridge apart. But it will not be instantaneous.

Of course, you may be right. Maybe the 1100kg wasn't real. Maybe it wasn't in contact with the bridge or the sea bed. Maybe the foundation hasn't been shattered.

But until there is some more, definite, data on the condition of the sub-surface (underwater and underground) structure of that bridge, I would not declare that the attack was unsuccessful.

The bridge may be absolutely fine. Equally, the bridge may be fatally wounded.

Re: And just to add - Kerch bridge

I really should have the good sense just to ignore you, but I'm on a tea-break.

"just the post where you made the claim that the Kerch Bridge had been attacked again"

My actual words were:

"the Ukrainians have just admitted to a strike on the Kerch Straits bridge".

Having taken a few minutes to check a variety of mainstream media sources that most people would consider to be trustworthy, I verified before posting that the Ukrainians had indeed made that claim. My statement was therefore factually correct - the Ukrainians had indeed claimed to have attacked the bridge.

I will apologise for my poor phrasing - on reflection 'admitted' should perhaps have been replaced by 'claimed'. Nevertheless, my statement was fundamentally correct.

Also, I am impressed by your engineering ability that you can assess the attack to have been unsuccessful.

Given that the claim is that 1,100kg of explosives were detonated sub-surface, possibly in direct contact with the bridge pier and or sea-bed, I cannot reliably assess how badly damaged the bridge pier or sub-surface piled foundations are, but I wouldn't want to trust my life to them still being in a serviceable condition. After all, we have just been discussing what can happen to a loaded bridge that is in a distressed condition (and shattering the piles under a bridge pier - which is likely the result if the claim of 1,100kg detonated on the seabed is true - will most definitely leave that bridge in a distressed condition).

Moreover, I repeat the observation that you are very quick to demand absolute proof of any view contrary to your own, but seem very reluctant to ever offer evidence to support you own claims. If the Russian bridge collapsed as you and the Russian Aggressor State claim, where are the pictures of the rubble, showing the concrete columns with burn marks from the explosive detonation? Or neat drill holes where the charges were inserted into the structure? Where is any physical evidence to support your claim?

I at least had the good sense to claim failure due to repeated overstress and lack of maintenance was a hypothesis, and that what little evidence we did have (the presence of trucks on the bridge at the time of collapse) supported that hypothesis. As and when additional information comes to light, I shall review that information, and revise my opinion as appropriate, just as I shall not trust claims of only 15 or of 40 aircraft destroyed until more evidence becomes available in the public realm.

Re: And just to add - Kerch bridge

"as usual"? I can't be bothered to look through my posting history to see how many posts I have made that include a link to supporting evidence, but 'as usual' is clearly factually incorrect.

In this case, I assumed that you would have the competence to undertake an internet search yourself. Evidently not.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-14775649/Ukraine-Putin-Kerch-bridge-Crimea-attack.html

https://news.sky.com/story/ukraine-war-latest-kyiv-claims-underwater-strike-on-kerch-bridge-which-will-annoy-bejesus-out-of-putin-12541713

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/cr58e9yr2ezt

https://www.reddit.com/r/CombatFootage/comments/1l29624/ukrainian_attack_on_crimean_bridges_pillars_with/?share_id=I7LtRzREkUtDCjthW-7nk&utm_content=1&utm_medium=android_app&utm_name=androidcss&utm_source=share&utm_term=1

There are lots and lots more.

I suspect the media has gone quiet about the other bridge collapse because they see no reason reporting Russian propaganda that even the Russian's have stopped talking about, when the most likely cause of a bridge collapse is inadequate maintenance. Which is why there are plenty of accounts of bridge collapses all around the world going back many decades. Most of which on subsequent investigation were the result of inadequate maintenance,

And just to add - Kerch bridge

And while the Russians are making claims that the Ukrainians attacked a bridge that probably fell down due to lack of maintenance, the Ukrainians have just admitted to a strike on the Kerch Straits bridge, which from initial imagery appears to have damaged one of the bridge piers. And which resulted in no civilian casualties.

Re: It's still terrorism when you do it to unpeople.

Well, let's start with the obviously wrong statement:

"But most of the airfields were too far away from Ukraine to have been used in attacks on it."

These were strategic bombers that were attacked - the TU-95 regularly pokes into US airspace of the Continental US. Quite obviously, these airfield were easily close enough to Ukraine for the Russians ti use them to carry out airstrikes.

The operation - still lots of speculation and lost of unknowns. The best data I have seen to date is that the launch containers were loaded onto an articulated trailer, then a tractor unit was booked to collect the trailer from point A and to take it point B. Basically, an apparently routine 'pick up - drop off' job for the truckers concerned.

The exact detail of how the Ukrainians tracked where the containers were, 'popped' the roof, and then guided the drones is still uncertain, but there have been consistent reports that the Ukrainians just used the Russian mobile 'phone network.

As for escalating the war - well, Putin ordered (or at least was aware of and thus approved) the use of Nuclear capable bombers to attack Ukraine. In doing so, he invited the Ukrainians to destroy those assets. If you use an asset to attack someone, they will, predictably, seek to destroy that asset.

"Especially the terrorist attacks on the Russian passenger train"

I was wondering how long we would have to wait before you made an allegation like this.

You are normally so keen to insist that anyone with a contrary viewpoint to yours provides evidence, so where is your evidence?

A bridge collapsed, and the Russians immediately claimed that it was Ukrainian terrorists, so predictable, you repeat that smear.

For those that missed the story:

https://www.lbc.co.uk/world-news/seven-dead-two-bridges-collapse-russia/

"Multiple trucks travelling over the bridge at the time fell onto the passenger train"

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/videos/c861y3gx977o

"Footage from Reuters shows the aftermath after a road bridge came down in Bryansk, bringing several heavy trucks on to a moving passenger train"

So we have a bridge collapse when it was being crossed by "Several" or "multiple" heavy trucks.

This is a bridge quite close to Ukraine - a bridge that has likely been subjected to extensive heavy military traffic over the ~40 months of Putin's 3-day (sorry, I forget, you prefer us to call it the 10-day) SMO.

Given all the reports we had before the SMO started of poor maintenance and inspection of Infrastructure in Russia, and all the pictures we have seen of eg plumes of sewerage bursting forth in Russian cities due to poor maintenance, Occam's razor suggests that the reason that this happened is because the bridge was repeatedly over-stressed by military traffic, becoming progressively more distressed until it finally collapsed.

Given that we have pictures confirming that there were trucks on the bridge, my hypothesis has more evidence in its favour than your repeat of the Russian propaganda.

Re: Who built/supplied the drones?

I think the HAS's that the Iraqi air force had in 1991 were destroyed by 2000lb weapons, so not quite as tough as you suggest, though obviously would be proof against a small drone.

However, HASs cost money, and a HAS big enough to protect a TU-95 would be very large (and very expensive). Building one for every airframe means ~100 HASs (assuming that the decision to build the HASs would have been made when the fleet was at its maximum size), but then its obvious where all your TU-95s are, so you might want to build more HASs then planes, so a potential enemy doesn't know which HAS contains a plane and which doesn't - and now you are spending truly huge sums of money. Also, it would only be effective if they were kept fully closed up all the time - even a small personnel access door left open is a big enough gap for a drone to get in.

Also, an aircraft in a HAS is not actually much use - it needs to come out at some point if it is to be used. The Russians have shown a preference for using their strategic bombers to launch nocturnal missile strikes against Ukrainian cities and other civilian targets, making their operations at least partially-predictable, so even with HASs, this strike could still have been undertaken, with the attack launched as the bombers lined up for take off.

Re: Who built/supplied the drones?

"As I see it militaries should be buying gatling guns on trucks"

Actually, I think the (partial) solution was discussed in these hallowed pixels about 6 weeks ago (17 April):

Brit soldiers tune radio waves to fry drone swarms for pennies.

In this case at least, the drones appear to have been less a swarm, than a cab-rank - the reason we have good pictures to confirm some of the destroyed aircraft is that each drone tended to fly along the flight line and recorded images of each aircraft that had previously been struck, and were apparently coming from a single point at each airfield attacked (there seems to have been only one Ukrainian Aircraft carrier per target airbase). That would seem to be well suited for the British RF-DEW to deal with, though obviously, multiple attack points against a single airbase would be possible, and significantly complicate the issue.

Re: It's still terrorism when you do it to unpeople.

It's not a suicide bomb truck, since there was no design that the truck driver suffers any injury, nor any reasonable expectation that the truck driver might be injured.

There is supposedly video in circulation that shows one of the truck drivers being killed, but only after he had left his truck and was climbing onto the trailer when it burst into flames. As far as I am aware, there is no basis to assess whether the trailer igniting was due to a deliberate mechanism within it, or whether it was caused by a technical failure / premature detonation of a drone. Either way, had the driver been in his cab, he would have been unhurt, and been able to safely escape.

There is also a report that a second driver may have been killed, after a mob saw the drone launch and murdered him. Again, clearly not a reasonably predictable outcome of the attack.

The use of unwitting truck drivers to move the drone carrying trailers (Ukrainian Aircraft Carriers, as I have seen them now being described as) could reasonably be considered to have endangered civilian drivers, but only to a degree that was justifiable by the military need (and therefore not in breach of the Laws of Armed Combat). It was however, entirely reasonable for the Ukrainians to expect that all the drivers would survive uninjured.

No intent to kill the drivers, and no reasonable expectation that the drivers would die - therefore, quite clearly, not a (unwitting) suicide attack.

Re: To quote a fictional

If you look at the images so far released from the drones, all the airframes that were hit were fully intact - no missing control surfaces, no missing panels, all had all engines (and propellers) present. Engines would generally be the first thing to be removed from an airframe being written off due to being unserviceable.

Also, the drone images show various items of ground support equipment in close proximity to each aircraft hit - no reason for that to be there if the airframe was unserviceable.

Ukraine war spurred infosec vet Mikko Hyppönen to pivot to drones

Re: Churchill was a Nazi himself - he couldn't be bothered learning German

"Churchill was a Nazi,"

Bwah-ha- ha- ha...

Oh, my,.... oh deary me...

>snigger<

There was us thinking that you were actually serious with your posts.

Now we understand that you're the comedy act.

Re: Picking a side

Well, from September 1939 until 22 June 1941, the Soviet Union was working with the Nazis.

They shared in the war of aggression against Poland.

The Soviet Union also supplied 100,000s of tonnes of critical war materials to Nazi Germany every month, breaking the British blockade of Germany (it's amazing how much attention is given to the Germany U-boat campaign against the UK, but how little to the effective British blockade of Germany in WWI and less -effective but not immaterial blockade in WWII).

The Soviet Union quite literally enabled the Germans to build, arm and fuel the armies, navies and airforces that were used to invade Western Europe, sink British merchant ships, bomb British towns and cities, and - ironically - invade the Soviet Union. That last clearly proof that no 'good' deed goes unpunished.

But if we are to talk about working with the Nazis, the most conspicuous state to do that in WWII was the Soviet Union (or Russia, if you prefer - some people like to conflate the two).

Russian IT pro sentenced to 14 years forced labor for sharing medical data with Ukraine

Re: Potted Russian history

"And when was the last time, or reliable time when a Storm Shadow or SCALP was used?"

3rd May 2025, so three and half weeks ago, was the last confirmed one that I am aware of, but since I don't sit in a basement counting missile strikes from each side, I would not expect to be aware of every use. There has probably been one more recent.

*re the 3 days - yes, it does appear to be true that the Russians never claimed 3 days. The information that leaked out confirmed that the Russians allowed up to 10 days to conquer and annex Ukraine. However, 3 days has entered public consciousness. Plus, if you really think that the correct 'when the 10 day SMO started some 39 months ago' makes the Russian Aggressor State or their public supporters look mighty and Stronk, and any less subject to mockery, well, I fear you just make yourself a subject for mockery.

Re: Potted Russian history

"Which might be a safe political statement given Ukraine doesn't seem to have any aircraft that could launch them".

And Ukraine didn't have any aircraft that could launch Storm Shadow when the 3 day SMO started some 39 months ago, yet 24 months ago, it was confirmed that Ukraine had already successfully used that system, and they have continued to use it ever since.

Given that the Ukrainians were able to modify their soviet-vintage SU-24 MR reconnaissance aircraft to launch a NATO-standard fitting Storm Shadow missile, I doubt that they will have any problem creating a launch platform for Taurus.

"And only 13 dead doesn't seem to suggest that Russia is targetting civilians, or there'd be a lot more."

No, 13 dead shows that Ukraine's Air Raid warning system works well but not perfectly, and that they have close to adequate air raid shelters for their urban population.

Re: Potted Russian history

If this guy gets 14 years, I wonder what the Russian authorities will do to whoever got careless with the data that Danwatch / Der Spiegel has just published providing somewhat comprehensive details of at least one of Russia's most modern nuclear weapons sites...

Oops...

Europe is Russian to sanction Putin's pals over 'hybrid' threats

"Icelandic news reports it knackered a cable between the island and Svalbard, and the EU said the ship seriously damaged an undersea cable off Norway after it was spotted sailing backwards and forwards over the site"

I suspect that was the incident (the cable cut off Svalbard) that got a mention on Simon Reeve's 'Scandinavia' episode 1, last Sunday.

Trump announces $175B for Golden Dome defense shield over America

Re: May not repeat but it rhymes

A system that could reliably block a large scale nuclear missile strike on the US would effectively undermine the principle of Mutually Assured Destruction.

Apart from being more-or-less the basis for the board game 'Fortress America', undermining MAD might not be a sensible thing to do, since it means all the US's potential enemies might get a tad nervous. It's the sort of thing that can encourage nations to go to war now, before their opponent gets the advantage.

The value of the scheme might be in defending against a 'Rogue state' attack - which currently would mean North Korea, but which might include (if you squint a bit) Iran in the near future.

In which case, working after a fashion might be good enough.

That does lead to the philosophical question as to how much is a city worth / how much money do you spend to have a 90% or 50% or 1% chance of knocking down a single nuclear armed missile.

Alternatively, this might just be a giant bluff, designed to bankrupt Russia and China by getting them to try to match the US - Peskov has already talked about "restoring strategic stability".

Supposedly, Reagan's 'Star Wars' was (possibly) designed to impoverish the Soviet Union, rather than to actually work.

Or of course, it might just be Trump being Trump.

UK 'extremely dependent' on US for space security

Re: I can believe it

"Our aircraft carriers operate in cooperation with France so we have planes to put on them,"

Huh?

We have VSTOL carriers that can operate F35B (and helicopters, and in due course, drones of some variety).

QE and PoW cannot operate Rafale, and France doesn't have F35B.

Did you mean to write that our carriers operate in cooperation with the US?

Procurement of F35B was specifically to provide a Harrier replacement (for RAF/RN but also for USMC), and it was largely because F35B is a Harrier replacement that the UK got to be the only Tier 1 partner on the F35 programme. It has also been claimed that the only reason the USMC got their F35Bs was because of the British input into F35 programme, requiring the VSTOL capable '-B' variant.

Re: It’s special alright!

Never say never.

Arguably, there was a Special relationship in 1942-1943.

Your comment that the US acts in its own best interested should probably still apply even here - except that it would be more correct to say that the US always acts in what it's leaders think are the US best interests (even if the leaders are wrong).

There were loud voices in the US to fight World War II against the Japanese, and not get involved in the European war, or at least to prioritise the war against Japan, not Germany.

However, US war strategy was largely set to conform to the UK's strategy. The UK was actually able to significantly influence US government decision making, in a way that probably has never happened since.

From 1944 onwards, UK strategy (just like everyone else's that are US allies) largely had to conform to the US's, and nothing much has changed since then.

The Israeli missile defense system is 'Iron Dome' - this is something that will be 'better' (for a variable definition of 'better'), so it probably had to be called >something< Dome.

Re: Good article

UK cooperation with European allies, in relation to aircraft programmes, has had mixed success.

The Anglo-French Jaguar project that was supposed to produce an advanced trainer instead produced a successful ground attack aircraft. The UK and French companies involved then divided the world up for marketing purposes. Unfortunately, the French company then got taken over by Dassault, who viewed the Jaguar as a competitor to their own Mirage F1, so made no attempt to market the Jaguar in 'their' bit of the world, and put the F1 up against the Jaguar in the 'UK bit'.

The Anglo-Italian-German Tornado project seems to have involved effective cooperation between all parties (There may have been an issue with the Germans at one point - I've never dug into the development history enough to pin that down)

The Anglo-Italian-German-French Eurofighter project ran into difficulties due to the fundamental different requirements that the French had relative to everyone else, leading to the French dropping out and the Spanish joining. The resulting Anglo-Italian-German-Spanish Eurofighter/Typhoon project then delivered an exceptionally good aeroplane, though was significantly disrupted by the Germans trying to change their minds.

So will France and Germany be reliable partners? Good question, possibly not, on past performance.

Will Italy be a reliable partner? - on past performance, yes, they are an excellent partner.

"Bowen explained that in the early part of the Cold War, the UK decided not to pursue its efforts at being a satellite-launching state and also decided against pursuing a complete nuclear weapons capability, unlike the French and other Western European states."

While Dr Bowen's overall message seems quite prescient should the US become more isolationist, this claim seems to be a bit off, in regards to the details of the comparisons he makes.

I'm not sure what sovereign space capacity existed in Western Europe - most space launch capability seems to be the ESA as far as I am aware, and that only formed in the mid-1970's I think.

In terms of nuclear weapons capability, it is only the UK and France that have that capability. Moreover suggesting that the UK decided "in the early part of the cold war" not to pursue a complete nuclear weapon capability doesn't seem quite right.

It was Ernest Bevan that said while part of Atlee's 1945 government:

"We’ve got to have this thing {the atomic bomb} over here, whatever it costs. We’ve got to have the bloody Union Jack on top of it."

Thereafter we had the V-bombers, Blue Steel, WE177, etc. As comprehensive a range of capability as anyone else was trying to develop.

It wasn't until the late 1960's that we switched the strategic nuclear deterrent to SLBM and to US made missiles, which is hardly the early part of the cold war.

That said, I suspect the most important of his reported statements may be:

"he had not heard of any scaling back of the day-to-day military to military cooperation."

The US doesn't share with the UK out of the goodness of their heart, they do so because they get something of value back from that cooperation.

Hopefully, enough people (on both sides of the pond) will realise that, and restrict the damage that others may do to that cooperation.

No-boom supersonic flights could slide through US skies soon

Re: Market research needed

Notice that the Chinese 'rival' is described as having a capacity of 24 to 48 passengers.

That's less an airliner than a (very) large business jet.

It may also be more sensible than Boom's 80 - seat design, if it can fly near full multiple times a day - if speed to the destination matters, having to wait until the evening supersonic flight may mean you take the cheaper lunchtime Airbus, but if there is a supersonic flight at mid-day as well as the evening and time matters that much, you pay the extra and get the faster flight.

Re: With This and America Today...

And Concorde, while needing reheat (afterburner) to get to supersonic speed, could then supercruise - maintaining that speed without using reheat (which requires prodigious volumes of fuel).

Supercruise ability is something that is still a 'boast' for military combat aircraft - not all can do it.

But it should have been the Mile M52

"America was the first nation to break the sound barrier back in 1947 with the purpose built Bell X-1"

Strictly, that should read "the first nation to break the sound barrier in level flight", since there is sufficient anecdotal evidence that some WWII fighters achieved supersonic speed in dives (and some even survived the experience).

However, the first supersonic level flight should have been the British Miles M52, the first flight of which was to have been in summer 1946, until the project was canceled in February 1946.

The pilot was to have been Eric 'Winkle' Brown - if he was a USAian, rather than a Brit, there would be statues of him and airports named after him and at least three Hollywood films about him.

I strongly suspect that he would be prime contender for the title greatest ever airman - I once had the privilege and pleasure of hear him give a talk - and, having by the time the M52 was being developed, flown just about every UK, US, Soviet and German (yes - captured) aeroplane from the wartime period, 'Winkle' was quite certain that the M52 would fly just right.

Unlike the Bell X-1, which had to be carried aloft, flew on rocket power, then landed as an unpowered glider, the M52 was a jet, that would have taken of, flown, then landed, just like a 'normal' aeroplane.

A lost opportunity for Britain's aviation industry - which just so happened to enable the newly independent USAF (no longer USAAF) to achieve a nice high-profile achievement.

AWS says Britain needs more nuclear power to feed AI datacenter surge

"We've caught a witch, may we burn her/him?"

Only if you plant a dozen trees to offset the carbon.

Re: Be it AI, industries or households

Fully agree.

Nick Clegg (Deputy prime minister in the Tory / Liberal coalition, for those that had managed to wipe that from their memory), (in)famously blocked new nuclear in 2010 because it wouldn't be ready for over 10 years.

Is it just UK politicians that seem to have no concept of there still being existence after the next General Election?

Royal Navy freshens up ships' electromagnetic warfare defenses

Re: Electronic warfare

Wouldn't that constitute a Weapon of Mass (transit) Destruction?

I think Roland White's 'Harrier 809' includes a fairly full description of the loss of Atlantic Conveyor (If I am remembering correctly - even if I'm not, it's a good book)

Re: Archimedes and Wallis

Yup.

Re: Archimedes and Wallis

Operation Gomorrah in July 1943 - a major air raid on Hamburg - was the first use of window (aka chaff). The use of the decoy is credited with one (of several) factors that led to that raid being particularly successful for the RAF / particularly devastating.

But you can only carry so much wire on your drone.

So if the target ship is close in to a coastline, a wire-guided drone may be an issue - further out to sea, probably not so much.

UK Ministry of Defence is spending less with US biz, and more with Europeans

Soft launch systems are common enough with MANPAD and man-portable rocket launchers, whereby the projectile is 'expelled' from the launch tube before the rocket motor ignites a self distance from the operator.

The acceleration a shell experiences when fired is a lot greater than those sort of projectiles would experience, but if laser guidance systems and smart fuzing systems can be fitted to a shell and can survive the launch acceleration, I would have thought that a rocket assisted projectile could be created relatively simply, that only ignited the rocket after exiting the barrel, using some form of time based fusing (whether chemical or electronic). If no one has done so, it probably means that the barrel wear issue of RAPs is not such an issue after all - perhaps that it can be addressed by using the right materials in the barrel lining

The plan seemed to have been AS-90 to be replaced by Boxer variant.

Then the 3 day SMO operation started some, what, 39 months ago.

As you note, Ukraine can usefully use the AS-90's now, and since the British Army had them in part to deal with a Russian invasion of our European allies, giving them to Ukraine doesn't create an intolerable loss of capacity until the Boxer-based vehicles turn up - we are gambling that for a few years, we will not need self-propelled artillery capability.

In the meantime, the British Army have got a few Archers, which appears to be just to maintain skill levels / experience in operating tube artillery (and particularly the modern, heavily automated tube artillery produced by western nations).

The announcement that AS-90 was fully withdrawn appeared in some of the defence industry press only about 1 week ago.

Re: Logistics is the real killswitch

I doubt anybody ever assumed F35 would replace Rafale, given France's procurement policy of 'Buy French'.

Possibly some Rafale export customers might at a future date chose F35, true, but the 'generational' gap between Rafale and F35 doesn't actually reflect a significant capability difference (and isn't really a true generational gap, despite the use of 4th and 5th generation terminology). By the time Rafale's overseas (from the French perspective) customers are looking to replace the aircraft, F35 will be old, and is unlikely to represent a sensible replacement option.

Also, as far as I recall, the F35 replaces the Harrier and (partly) the Tornado, but not the Typhoon, in RAF service. Again, I can't see any Typhoon operator getting to the point where they are retiring Typhoon and picking F35 as the replacement.

None of the above necessarily invalidates your suggesting that Lockheed-Martin may have possibly exaggerated things, just a little, mind.

Mars may have vast underground oceans and enough H₂O to make it a water world

Re: Just cheese

Are you sure it's note Green Soup?

If only we could reactivate the planet's volcanic soup wells...

European biz calls for Euro tech for local people

"The vote was non binding (an advisory vote)."

As I posted quite recently, the UK government sent a leaflet to every household in the country at the start of the referendum campaign period; the leaflet was also widely available from e.g. libraries, and online.

Everyone received it, or, at least, if they were aware of the referendum, would have been aware of the leaflet.

It made the government case specifically for voting remain.

It also stated:

"This is your decision. The Government will implement what you decide."

No ifs, buts or maybes. No exceptions or qualifiers. A clear, absolute promise. The winning result gets implemented.

It may have been advisory by strict application of the law. However, democracy is something more than just strict application of the law.

It was binding, because the government were explicitly clear beforehand that they would implement the result - would be bound by it.

To break that promise would have undermined whatever trust may exist between government and governed.

Downward DOGE: Elon Musk keeps revising cost-trimming goals in a familiar pattern

Re: "Not too bright, huh?"

I am repeatedly bemused by those that seem upset about what was printed on the side of a very small number of buses (a challenge for your mates - ask them if they actually saw one of these buses in real life - when inevitably they say yes, ask them where.. we all know about them, very few of us actually saw them in real life. It was a very effective bit of advertising, that 9 years later, people that never saw it still talk about it).

Yet those same people seem entirely happy that HM government deliberately* sought to mislead them, with claims of a probable drop in GDP of 3.6% within 2 years of leaving the EU and ~500,000 increase in unemployment (the 'cautious' assumptions), and a possible 6% drop in GDP after 2 years, and a ~800,000 rise in unemployment. Source: HM Treasury analysis: the immediate economic impact of leaving the EU. Cm 9292. May 2016.

It does seem to me that if we are to be upset about lies being told during elections, referendums, etc, then we should be upset, regardless of whether the lies were told by those we agree with, just as much as lies told by those we disagree with.

*I assume that HM government was deliberately lying to the citizens of the UK; it is of course possible, that HM Treasury was simply so incompetent that they actually believed their predictions were remotely credible.