Agiel

Thinking about breaking in my new iPhone 6 with this, even if my heart is in Icewind Dale II. Wonder how well it will play, given my new phone isn't a "phablet".

All the Dutch people I know seem to speak with American accents. Can't really hear "Schmoke and a pancake" in them.

RIP the way overpowered Nova.

Funny how Bioware figured to prevent Masterwork save-scumming by seeding the materials but didn't think to stop players from doing as you have done.

I'm willing to bet at least a fair bit of those people on the streets are exploiting the cause of the legitimate protesters to satisfy some primal desire to torch a car and smash storefront windows, and have close to zero (if any at all) emotional investment in the cause of police brutality and racial bias, to the point that they probably couldn't have been bothered to learn the names of the parents of Michael Brown.

And if your "Red Storm Rising" experience feels incomplete with only the GIUK Gap, take the fight to the Fulda Gap, the North German Plain, and the Danube Line in Flashpoint Campaigns: Red Storm for only $30 USD.

http://youtu.be/ZR_Kh8sdpHY

Larger ships with extremely sophisticated radars, battle-management systems, and heavy AAW firepower are needed to defend high-value targets, an example being the Ticonderoga-class cruiser and the Arleigh Burke-class destroyers (which despite the difference of hull designation, both have nearly the same displacement tonnage, just shy of 10,000 tonnes fully loaded) defending the US Navy's carriers. You are however correct that strictly speaking Russia's navy is better served by inexpensive and low-endurance. but very quiet diesel electric submarines like the Kilo-class and smaller, multi-purpose vessels like the Nanuchka and Gremyashchy-class corvettes that can be supported by ground-based naval aviation and ashore A2/AD measures defending its littoral, as the Russia simply doesn't have the funding to create and maintain a blue-water navy with an activist maritime policy that necessitates aircraft carriers and large surface combatants as Admiral Gorshkov had envisioned. Hell, they could barely afford a beach trip for a graduating class of cadets.

@Gorgon The photo depicts an Australian Anzac-frigate and the Russian Slava-cruiser Varyag, launched back in 1983, so it's a bit creaky in spots; the Top Pair search radar is still a mechanical-scan array where other navies use phased electronically scanned arrays with plenty of redundancy, and it only has a single Top Dome fire control radar, so it can only defend against a saturation attack from a single 60 degree axis. Its SA-N-6 "Grumble" missiles (roughly analgous to the RIM-162 SM-2MR) still use semi-active track-via-missile guidance where other navies are switching to datalink capable active radar homing missiles like the RIM-174 Standard and the Aster 30, giving them over-the-horizon engagement capability against sea-skimming targets. To your first post In terms of overall armament, it can be considered analogous to the Arleigh Burke-destroyers, which the US Navy has 62 versus the only 3 Slavas in service with the Russian navy. Second photo depicts the Indian carrier INS Vikramaditya, converted from an old Soviet Kiev-class VTOL carrier/cruiser... and a bit of an overpriced lemon in the Indian navy's eyes. Still, it's big, it can launch fixed wing aircraft off a ski-ramp (albeit with a lower weapons and fuel load than a craft launched by steam catapult) and gives them a degree of overseas projection capability, and India now has a carrier to answer to China's Liaoning (also converted from an incomplete Soviet carrier) and (probably more importantly) to Pakistan's none.

I'm a pilot... (I found the link semi-related, as real-life pilots are about as acerbic and capricious as cats are).

Rules for a Rift fight: 1. Bring a mage with Dispel. 2. Preferably bring two mages with Dispel. 3. Bring all your mage friends with Dispel.

You don't *just* attach said sight onto any old tank like you would a web-cam. Modern fire-control computers have to factor in everything from range, elevation, wind, humidity and even the warp of the barrel from repeated firings in order to hit a target up to 3500 meters away with standard unpowered tank rounds (with an extreme instance being an Iraqi T-72 killed by a Challenger 1 from 5100 meters away). To use an American example to explain the complexity, proposals for the M1A3 call for the wiring to be replaced with fiber-optics, resulting in weight savings of one ton! Not to mention the fact that panoramic sights are expensive pieces of equipment that add considerably to unit costs. The original M1 was slated to have it until congressional beancounters stepped in, and only the provisions for it to be installed at a later time were left (until the introduction of the M1A2), and the Germans settled for an analogue day-only "Peri" as an interim measure for their own Leopard 2s (they only received panoramic sights with thermal imaging capabilities with the Leopard 2A5). And as I have said at least two times before I find it unlikely to the extreme that the Ukrainians would upgrade tanks for their own armed forces of whom the prime contractor of parts would come from a foreign country unless they were meant for foreign sales as was the case with the T-72AG.

You haven't seen the very first movie, have you? It takes the conundrum of invisibility cloaks and the wearer's clothes to its logical conclusion. In other news, picked this up. Not only is it pretty heavy, but it animates ridiculously well: Companion piece: http://youtu.be/tPnppCelvk0?t=31m37s

The PNK-6 system can only verifiably have been placed on T-84 "Oplot" tanks, the absolute bleeding edge of Ukrainian tank-building, and not on any Cold War-vintage T-72Bs, of which it certainly is no trivial matter to simply attach the sight to any old tank or make it work in conjunction with the FCS. And in any case as I stated before there is very little reason to believe that the Ukrainians upgraded many of them to this extent, and even if they did, the Rebels would have had to have pinched the tank from the plant in Kharkiv dozens of miles behind pro-Kiev lines and driven to to the battlespace. Shows what you know. T-72M is the designation for export versions of the T-72A "Ural". Ukraine never purchased the SOSNA-U sight from Belarus, and the only relevant system is their own indigenously-built SAVAN-15 sight, again largely for export purposesonly. And the photo was dated during the intervention that was fully acknowledged by the CIS.

Video intro for the Sea Fire 500 AESA phased array radar by Thales, presumably for new FREMM frigates and future ships of the French and Italian Navies: Takes a not so subtle jab at the PAK-FA, and the concept seems to be taking after the Raytheon's AMDR for the Arleigh Burke DDGs:

I can't get enough of this video: A friend of mine who keeps pigeons has told me that what the bird doing is either a mating or a dominance dance.

It doesn't have to be totally debunked, ie proven that it wasn't a Russian tank. That is impossible since it is proving a negative; but as with the earlier 'proof' tanks they (T64s which were mislabelled as T72s which it was claimed Ukraine had none of at all) could have come from Russia (they've retired that model, but they'll inevitably have some sitting around) that T72B also could be Russian. But, that wasn't what the article stated, it stated it as proof positive- and it clearly isn't that at all. The export designation itself is not important, it merely illustrates that the IISS 'expert' was incorrect on everything substantive since we both agree that whatever the designation they were exported; and it is pretty clear that Ukraine would have had T72Bs amongst the ~6500 mbts inherited from the SU. If wikipedia is to be trusted (heh) they had 1000+ T72s in Ukraine. Most of those would have been older models certainly, but in the convoy shown in the original youtube video the still is taken from most of the tanks are indeed older models with that still being of the single T72B. So to sum up, the tank pictured quite clearly appears to be a T72B, which were manufactured before the SU's breakup, was exported, and which Ukraine would have had some of in their 6500 (1000+ T72) inherited arsenal. The 'expert' appears to have conflated the picture of the T72B and information from the T72B2/BM in claiming that Russia was sole operator, either way he is factually wrong and as such, the claim that it proves anything is debunked. It is plausible that the tank came from Russia certainly, but it is also plausible that it came from Ukraine. Closer inspection of the image shows equipment that is certainly not of Cold War vintage: Circled is the commander's panoramic sight for the T-72B giving it a hunter-killer capability. A fairly new development for tanks today (even the panoramic sight for the Leopard 2A4 from the late 80s was fairly primitive; it lacked its own thermal imaging system) and very new for today's tanks in service of the CIS: According to Military Today: Upgraded Ukrainian T-72, mostly for foreign customers. Export T-72B modernised by Ukraine. Note that it is equipped with Kontakt-1 bricks in this picture, not Kontakt-5.

There is a ton of misleading information in that link. For instance the name for the export version of the T-90 is not "T-90E" but "T-90S," as yet only sold to India, Algeria, Azerbaijan, and Turkmenistan. Export versions of the T-72B are given the designation of "T-72S," most prominently in service with India, Venezuela, and of course Syria. And the T-72BM is a wholly separate vehicle from the T-90 in spite of some mechanical similarities, primarily with the engine and chassis (the cast turret of the T-90 takes more after the T-80 rather than the welded turret of the T-72). Relikt is not widely used by the Russian army as yet, even for the newest T-90s (the primary difference between Relikt and Kontakt-5 is the explosive compound used, which according to Fofanov has not proven as stable and reliable as the proven Kontakt-5 formula yet). Most tanks in service with the Russian army are equipped with first-generation Kontakt-1 (which provides excellent protection against HEAT warheads with negligible protection against long-rod penetrators) and Kontakt-5 (which does have a great deal more protection against KE penetrators). And I fail to see how the claim that the tank came from Russian stocks is totally debunked. As I said before there is not much reason to believe that a great deal of the T-72s that were in Ukrainian stocks were upgraded to the extent that was seen in the BBC's photos. If the T-72s the separatists were using came from Ukrainian stocks, it would likely look more like this:

Oh yeah, like that one you linked to a few months ago about a picture of a tank that was never used by anyone except Russia and was never exported. Except it was exported- under a T80 designation- and was more importantly manufactured prior to the break up of the SU- its manufacture date is carefully hidden by those sneaky Russians from those pesky IISS people as, er, part of its NATO designation- so Ukraine had plenty of them. Confirmatory stories: roflcopters. From 'experts' who don't even know the tank designations of the tank they're talking about and circle jerk repetition of each others' stories. And people will still insist it's only the Russians doing propaganda. The T-72 is a *VERY* different beast from the T-80. Broad strokes: -The T-80 was an evolution of the T-64 series of tanks which were designed and produced by the Morozov design bureau (the same that had designed the war-winning T-34) in Kharkiv, Ukraine. Whereas the T-72 was designed at the Ural plant in Russia (where the Kharkiv bureau briefly moved its production to during WWII, and a new design bureau eventually taking root there). People can argue as the day is long as to who built the better tanks, but it's generally agreed that the Kharkiv plant built more radical designs that had their share of teething problems where the Ural plant designed tanks that were fairly grounded and arguably more balanced. -The T-80 was initially developed with a gas turbine engine much like its American contemporary the M1 Abrams where the T-72 used more traditional diesel engine (which could trace its lineage back to the same V-2 engine that powered the T-34). The advantage of the gas turbine engine was that it was much, much more powerful and that the high-frequency whine of the engine didn't carry as far as the low rumble of a diesel at the cost of the engine being much less fuel-efficient (a gas-turbine engine uses almost as much fuel simply running idle as it would at full pelt). Some versions of the T-80 in the Ukrainian inventory have been converted to use a diesel engine as a result and given the designation of T-80UD, and the Russian army is in the process of retiring the ones in its service due to the logistical headache. -The T-64 and the T-80 have a wider turret facilitating a faster but larger and more complex hydraulic autoloader versus the mechanical autoloader of the T-72 and its modern development, the T-90. The T-80 and the T-64 were in Soviet times also outfitted with more sophisticated fire control systems, however it stands to reason that following the breakup of the Soviet Union these electronics were eventually implemented in newer T-72s and on the T-90. -The T-80 commonly deployed by the Ukrainians is the T-80U that are often deployed with rubber flaps over the Kontakt-5 ERA bricks on the turret, giving the turret a tortoise shell-like appearance. These were (for reasons that vex me, perhaps the extra-standoff was actually counter-productive) done away with for the T-72BM and the T-90, whose turrets have a more clam-shell like appearance. In addition it is probable that the large majority of T-72s that were in Ukraine were older T-72As that are largely incapable of accommodating ERA and due to the parts being produced in a foreign country were never modernised in great numbers, where the newer T-72Bs in service with the Russian army do have those provisions. -Both the T-64 and the T-80 were never exported during Soviet times, kept only for the cream of the crop of the Soviet Guards Tank units, where the T-72 was happily exported to its Warsaw Pact allies and "brotherly Libya," "brotherly Iran," "brotherly Iraq," and so forth. However, after the fall of the Soviet Union Russia did sell some to South Korea to pay off debts, and it's widely believed, though never publicly confirmed, that the UK had acquired some examples that were lent to its allies and military partners. Sources: Vasily Fofanov's Russian Armor webpage: http://fofanov.armor.kiev.ua/ Steven Zaloga T-72 Main Battle Tank 1974-1993 and T-80 Standard: The Soviet Army's Last Armored Champion

Which is why I proposed basing it on something like the EC-130H Compass Call which has ECM jammers out the ass, making it extremely difficult to target with standard radar-guided air-to-air weaponry. Though the job of Offensive ECM support the Compass Call normally undertakes is very much conspicuous (it is very "loud" in terms of emissions) and the airframe itself has an RCS not much better than that of a B-52, the advesary certainly wouldn't have an exact fix in order to effectively target them. The craft could be stationed well behind the FEBA so that any enemy fighters will have to fight their way through a wall of F-15s, F-16s, and Patriot batteries (or the air-to-air ALARMs I mentioned earlier) before they had a chance to take a swing at it. Naval carriers were developed after all in part to get around the problem of "a ship's a fool to fight a fort."

The overall deployment concept seems to be quite similar to the MCALS system currently undergoing trials: That said, that doesn't solve the most challenging aspect of the program: Recovery. Naval aviation pilots already describe landing on a carrier as a controlled crash (or my favourite, "trying to have sex during a car accident") and the Navy is still trying to work out the kinks of a completely autonomous combat craft landing on a carrier: As for survivability issues for the aircraft, they could built it upon a C-5 Galaxy with the EC-130 Compass Call's EW system with the ALE-50 Towed Decoy and an F-15 HAVCAP.

I found that a lucid, level-headed, and well thought-out post.

Wow. Where to begin? What possible motive could Russia have for shooting down a civilian airline? To manically laugh as they strangle kittens and invite The West to finally get WWIII started? First of all you have quite readily shown your colours by making no distinction between the Separatists and Russia. Secondly, you obviously haven't heard of a little something called "Hanlon's Razor" to suggest that *anyone* would have knowingly shot down a civilian airliner out of pure malevolence.