Agiel

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.

Personally I think the holy grail of short-range air-defense are pre-deployed two-stage AMRAAM/MBDA Meteors with a turbofan powered first-stage (perhaps leveraging the Block IV TacTom that has a loiter time of 6 hours). Perhaps by then AESA radars are cheap enough so that they use narrow-band interleaving search-track NCTR (thus it needs no human input and is only targetted against a very specific target set).

A shame Daniel Erickson had left Bioware. He wrote the City Elf and Dwarven origins that were in my opinion by far and away the best of DA: O.

25. I first started gaming at about '95 when my mother had to take me to her office after picking me up from school. As you might imagine, I was bored out of my mind at that place and had too much pent up energy. So she went to one of her younger co-workers, who happened to have Marathon and Wolfenstein 3D clandestinely installed on his work computers that helped keep me occupied. Another big formative gaming influence was my uncle who was (and remains) as big a gaming enthusiast as me. After he had played through some games he'd give them to me as gifts for Christmas or my birthday. Quite a few of them were combat simulators like Jane's F-15, Longbow, and TIE Fighter, but there were also some cRPGs among them like Betrayal at Krondor and the original Fallout.

I believe there were similar pre-release reviews for Mass Effect 3, and from what I remember even from them the impending controversy over the ending was palpable (that said, the part of me that thinks of myself as a fairly level-headed person didn't find it offensive).

In honour of Veteran's Day, a photo of Richard Overton, the oldest surviving American veteran at 108, with his M1928A1 Thompson submachine gun and reminding kids to stay off his lawn. "Close and spray, the SMG way!"

I see no reason why not all (well... *most*) of us can agree that the peaceful re-unification of a country after nearly a half-century is unequivocally a good thing? I watch footage of the celebrations that fateful night and images of the "Lichtgrenze" commemorating it and it just speaks to me. Yes there is "Ostalgie" and some economic hardship in the aftermath but I would bet my life every single German who was there at the Wall that night would say at the end of their lives they would do it all over again and that they'd never miss that opportunity. It makes me hope that in spite of all the pain that would follow that I live to see the same thing happen to the Korean DMZ: http://english.kookmin.ac.kr/site/about_kmu/newNhot/press.htm?mode=view&num=8

Today I was at the store and I was in line behind a gentlemen idly chatting to the manager and I couldn't help but feel that he looked and, more importantly, sounded familiar. Finally when he finished checking out the cashier said to him: "Thank you for shopping with us, Mr. Scully." It was then that I almost shouted "HOLY S***! You're Vin Scully!" Fortunately I restrained myself when pointing that out, but I did get a big handshake from the encounter.

Camp Pendleton you're a stone's throw away from Seaworld and TJ when you're on liberty. Hawaii... well... freaking *Hawaii*. 29 Palms? Just out in the middle of the Mojave... *ahem* makes you wish for a nuclear winter.

Re: "What the United States thinks of Europe" Made me think about this commercial from Cadillac: http://youtu.be/qGJSI48gkFc

So had a hankering to replay NWN2: Mask of the Betrayer. Installed it, BSODed when Steam was doing its Microsoft NET Framework and DX9 malarkey. Finally got to character creation and couldn't hear myself think because the game still makes computers run stupidly hot. Just let out a big sigh from that.

Not a sim in a stealth aircraft in the slightest, but in Digital Combat Simulator: Flaming Cliffs 3 there's a mission in the F-15C where you do river valley flying through the Caucasus barely 50 feet above the deck to sneak up on an A-50 "Mainstay" AWACS to shoot it down. The premise of the mission is simple enough, but it was probably one of the most fun times I had flying a combat flight simularor.

...or if you want to bypass the pathfinding issues endemic of Infinity Engine games, you could play the Icewind Dale module for Neverwinter Nights 2.