Agiel

From the author of "The Better Angels of our Nature":

You sure about that? Note that an English reader can get by reasonably well with a machine translation of the Le Monde article, and that Al Jazeera seems to be treating Bellingcat's analysis as fairly credible.

Errr... Take it or leave it given that it's coming from a US official, but much the same conclusions have been reached by most serious independent international press from Al Jazeera and Le Monde, whom I can't say are in the business of functioning as proxies for US interests. And given the character of previous claims by the Kremlin that had previously fed us "MH-17 false flag" and "vacationing soldiers" narratives the idea that anyone can not be at least as leery towards their claims as towards that of the Trump administration really is laughable. As for the "who benefits?" line of reasoning (which, strangely enough, was what I kept hearing when "MH-17 false flag" theories were being thrown around), well, the expectation was that Donald "bomb-the-s***-out-of-them" Trump was willing to give Assad a carte blanche to do what he pleased to quell the rebellion so long as it meant the endgame was some weird "Holy Alliance" (as I'm sure Steve Bannon likes to think of it) with the Kremlin. After all no matter where you are, where you're going, or where you're coming from the attraction of expedient, cheap, but dirty solutions to your problems are always enticing. One can't help but read something from Lavrov's comments on the need for the Trump administration to clarify their position on Syria as something to the effect of "I thought we had an arrangement." Well, as David Frum put it when you get Trump (whether or not you think SVR interference in the election played a role in putting Trump in the White House doesn't change the fact that he was the Kremlin's preferred candidate), you "get Donald Trump, in all his Trumpery and Trumpiness." In other words, Trump in all his capricious and self-assured glory, which is sort of why I'm not surprised in the least by Trump's reversals on the Ex-Im Bank and labeling China as a currency manipulator. Further observation: Though by no means do I consider it a lock, but after Tillerson's meeting with Lavrov and Putin I rate the chances of the airspace deconfliction agreement being quietly re-instated after the outrage in Russia is played out quite high. The attitude in serious foreign policy circles is that the limited nature of the strikes and Trump's warning was meant to leave avenues open for de-escalation and to signal that the Third Reset was still on the cards. That said, many have posited that given problems at home Putin might need antagonism with the US more than he needs Trump as a friend. As Philip Roth wrote: "Terror of the unforeseen is what the science of history hides."

ceb are still in use, at least according to... the US Navy. Think I'll go with them, thanks. To whit: "Block III TLAM-D - conventional submunitions dispenser with combined effect bomblets." Updated, April 10 2017, so it's not an abandoned page- cunningly titled 'US Navy Tomahawk fact file', so easy to miss- either. This is a forum for reasoned discussion and analysis of the facts, please don't post any more fake news/ alternative facts designed to muddy the waters with flim flam razzle dazzle, they're tiresome to correct. Please note that the TLAM-D entry was likely left in for posterity's sake in informing the public of historical variants, as the page also includes an entry for the TLAM-N, which is _absolutely for sure_ no longer in service for diplomatic reasons (South Korea and Japan weren't exactly keen on a cruiser or destroyer that may or may not have nuclear weapons aboard making port in the post Cold War-environment). Missile Threat corroborates Jane's: Further: And take it or leave it, I have never played a Harpoon or C: MANO scenario that takes place post-1990 where the TLAM-D was available to me.

On the subject of Ice-Pick Lodge games, a Pathologic remake demo is available now, though be warned that it leaves something to be desired in terms of optimisation: The original Pathologic is about the only Ice-Pick Lodge game I haven't played, due to what I read about it having a disastrous translation job and being even more kick-in-the-balls hard than the Void. I do however see some similarities to Sunless Sea in themes and atmosphere.

Ninja'd by Gromnir. I would add that destruction of munitions storage and repair facilities might also have the effect of severely impacting aircraft turnaround. Strike craft taking off the next day? Probably already pre-flighted, and upon landing are doomed to languish on the tarmac for weeks due to need of deep maintenance.

Typically if runways are hit with high-explosive ordinance it is to prevent immediate use of it (i.e. aircraft scrambling to intercept or to evade destruction) as simply cratering it means it can be cemented over and operational again in a few hours (one point Trump actually got right, even if he probably asked a military aide why as he was tweeting it out). It's why whenever we see FLIR footage of OCA operations it's aircraft on the tarmac, shelters, repair facilities etc that are being hit. The closest historical precedent for an attack like this (punitive strike on a military airfield) was Operation Eldorado Canyon and while there were plenty of military aircraft and facilities destroyed I see no reference to any effort being made to long-term disabling Tripoli and Benina airfields. For permanent destruction of runways as was the case with ODS and OIF specifically designed air-dropped anti-runway bombs like the Matra Durandal (which not only crater the runway but also displace the earth underneath the concrete) are used.

Notes on airlines overbooking:

Using an example for munitions, the rule of thumb is that a very reliable, dependable system will have a reliability of at least 95%. Even so, that 5% it doesn't work is very much a statistically significant eventuality. For military planners such probabilities are wholly acceptable (which is in part the tragedy of submunition weapons: Even if the detonation rate is 99%, well, there are at around 200 bomblets dispensed). And given that the primary methods of NCTR include radar imaging (basically SAR mapping applied to aircraft scale) that would easily distinguish two types of aircraft that couldn't look more different and jet engine modulation that would easily discern a close air-support aircraft with high-bypass engines built for long loiter times and fuel economy from a fighter designed for sustained afterburner for high-speed intercepts and in furballs and the Russian MoD's initial claims suggests something that goes beyond a simple glitch in the system.

Lunatic fringes ascendant and Mid-East horror shows getting you down? This will turn that frown upside down: I however am curious about the man or woman underneath the costume and whether he or she is having as much joy performing as everyone around since I could imagine if it was one degree hotter than 70 it'd be hell to wear that.

For fighter aircraft perhaps it doesn't have the speed and acuity that is preferable, but as I've elaborated before with ground-based platforms processing power is not an issue and could easily have distinguished between aircraft types. Translation: There likely never was an aircraft anywhere close to MH-17 as the Bill Sweetman article points out (who by the way is one of _the_ military aerospace authorities out there). The point we've been driving home both here and in the "alternative facts" thread the playbook of the Kremlin and their imitators has been to lie early, lie often, lie fast. Muddy the waters and you can get away with anything, convince your base of anything, as This Modern World so aptly put it (props to Raithe): Speaking of which, the first professional independent BDA came in from Imagesat International came in (for some reason over the weekend visiting the site got you to a 403 Forbidden, but it's back up now): http://www.imagesatintl.com/us-strike-syria/ In short, it perforates the Russian MoD's claims that only 23 missiles hit the target, and that in fact 58 hit the facility on at least 44 separate DMPIs (also mentioning that there were overkill allowances on certain targets, likely on high-priority targets like the CW storage facilities, just as I have said before). As for the total damage it caveats that the warheads might not have been sufficient for certain targets, but just as I posted before seemingly cosmetic damage to something like a hardened shelter is not necessarily indicative of whether or not whatever was inside would have survived intact. And as has been brought up total efficacy may have been mitigated by the fact that they were warned of the strike in advance, probably in order to leave avenues of de-escalation open. Now why would the Russian MoD try to downplay the Tomahawk strike? Well Putin has to appear as an outwardly strong leader to maintain his power base and has built an image of not backing down. That Russian forces could not, or as some are suspecting, did not do anything to try and intercept the missiles if it were in their ability for political reasons, somewhat damages that image of Putin (and in light of the possible four Kalibr missiles of 26 the Caspian fleet launched back in October of '15 that malfunctioned, it probably pays to depict Western systems as clunkers).

Acuity and speed is also dependent on processing power. Since ground-based EW platforms like Tin Shield don't have to worry as much about weight considerations compared to a Su-27, and thanks to Moore's Law you can fit a Cray in a command post, Russian early warning could easily have distinguish between a twin-engine air superiority fighter and a close-air support aircraft. Why the Su-25 is important is because once the reality dawned on the Kremlin their playbook dictated that they lie, quickly. Come up with lies faster than journalists could ask questions (as Gromnir is apt to point out with his Chicago reference, "Flim-flam, razzle dazzle them" and the truth gets muddied). They pulled the Frogfoot (about the only Ukrainian aircraft that had any business in that theater) detail out of their asses to keep the heat off their Donbass proxies, if only for the next half hour in the news cycle. And guess what? The Kremlin's useful idiots kept spouting their lies well after details arose that completely shot up the Su-25 story.

Staying at my parents' place for the weekend to help them move. Walked in on my mom watching Fifty Shades of Grey, which shouldn't really surprise me (in my childhood days, one positive point in their criteria over whether a movie was one they should rent was if it had Arnold Schwarzenegger, which led to them renting Jingle All the Way and Junior). I did my best to persuade her that it wasn't worth her time for the sake of preserving some measure of taste, unfortunately to no avail.

Uh... with the processing power that availed itself in the late '80s, yes you could: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radar_MASINT#Non-Cooperative_Target_Recognition http://www.theiet.org/resources/books/rsna/artr.cfm?origin=/books-radarauto There were even reports of particularly adept operators of older systems like the SA-5 Gammon who were able to identify aircraft by staring at the raw oscilloscopic radar returns.

You realise that even if one accepts the claim that only 23 targets were hit, common targeting procedure is to double (or even triple or quadruple, depending on target priority) up on munitions against one target for redundancy's sake (in the event defenders are attempting to intercept the missiles, or in case of weapon failure)? Or that many cruise missiles, particularly when used against hardened targets, detonate post-penetration so showing the exterior of a hangar after the strike may be misleading? GBU-39 in this case, but same idea. https://youtu.be/VplddV722wo?t=1m And, you know, Russian MoD? They also said at first a Su-25 shot down an 777 flying at 33,000 ft with an AA-8 Aphid with a 3kg warhead.

Given that the Russians were given some warning of the attack, I wouldn't be surprised if Putin thought the solution was something straight out of that movie Fail Safe: "Welp, you done 'effed up Assad, so you'll have to take this one on the chin."

Sweet lord of mercy, Bannon is _finally_ off the NSC and McMaster now sets the agenda: https://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2017-04-05/bannon-removed-from-national-security-council-role-in-shakeup?utm_source=yahoo&utm_medium=bd&utm_campaign=hosted&cmpId=yhoo.hosted

An observation I made: I can't help but feel that based on the ads they put out half of Matrix/Slitherine's lineup are turn-based games based on Operation Barbarossa and the Eastern Front in general.

Re: ISPs selling our internet browsing histories -

Ever Heard Of The British Museum's Long-Lost 'Porn Room'?

We should note that Flynn is being represented by Robert Kelner, who backed Evan McMullin and Mindy Finn when they ran in the 2016 election, later founded Stand Up Republic, and are among the strongest voices calling for an independent inquiry into Kremlin-support for Trump.

Given the trajectory of Bethesda RPGs, they would likely strip down the character creation mechanics, which was one of the things Arcanum was actually lauded for. As for myself, my idea for a RTwP RPG featuring Eldar Harlequins still stands.