Agiel
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@Raithe An English friend who has emigrated here has relayed to me that he has grown the urge to stick a letter-opener into the temple of every person he sees that has a shirt with some variation of: "Keep Calm..." on it.
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You'll forgive me if it seems tasteless of me to illustrate the tragedy using a computer game. Modeling the scenario using Command: Modern Air/Naval Operations, which has an extremely exhaustive database. Start of the scenario. MH-17 (using a Boeing 767 as a stand-in for a 777, as for whatever odd reason the 777 isn't in the database). It is on a roughly south-west-west course overflying the SA-11 platoon. Note that the associated Snow Drift radar is completely absent. Proving that the TELAR is using just its own Fire Dome radar: SA-11 platoon detects MH-17. Without an advanced TV camera, the crew must use its Mark I Eyeballs to visually identify the target. Tough if it a track is 40 nautical miles away. MH-17 enters SA-11 missile range. The battery launches two missiles. In AAW operations, it is prudent to ripple fire two missiles to ensure maximum probability of a kill. As the missiles enter the end-game guidance phase, the SA-11 TELAR activates terminal illuminators: As it turns out, in this instance the second missile was unnecessary. The SA-11 had been designed for short-medium range engagements against maneuverable strike-craft like the F-16 and the F-15E Strike Eagle. Against a lumbering, cargo-plane sized jet, it may seem like overkill:
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http://www.ausairpower.net/APA-Engagement-Fire-Control.html#mozTocId926428 9S35 "Fire Dome" SA-11 TELAR radar detection range 100km. Track and illumination range 95km. And I've yet to see anything that disproves the notion that the rebels had a "Snow Drift" search radar, either from Ukrainian or Russian stocks.
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If the rebels for some reason decided not to use radar-guided SAMs so as not to somehow repeat the MH-17 incident or to discredit claims that they had an SA-11, and used infrared or SACLOS-guided MANPADS or other SHORAD instead, then it would be a bit difficult since anti-radiation missiles are dependent on the threat having a radiating emitter in order to guide to the target. It is possible to geolocate the launch if non-radar based systems are used using advanced IRST and targeting pods, though that does require *someone* with the balls to fly low and troll for fire (hence the old motto of the "Wild Weasels" of yore, "YGBSM." You gotta be s***ing me."
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http://littlegreenfootballs.com/article/43630_Misleading_AP_Headline_of_the_Day-_No_Link_to_Russian_Govt_in_Plane_Downing
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Try dropping a non-fire based enemy in lava.
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As far as "Man" films go that cause tears to well up, I found the ending of Heat far more moving and nuanced: http://youtu.be/wmpxIc1KB9I?t=57s
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A Nautical Mile is also slightly above 6000ft, as opposed to 5280ft for a terrestrial mile. So take that into account for your conversions.
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Shouldn't at all be that surprising: http://20committee.com/2014/04/07/putinism-and-the-anti-weird-coalition/ https://medium.com/war-is-boring/the-kremlin-builds-an-unholy-alliance-with-americas-christian-right-5de35250066b
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Real-time Apollo 11 on this 45th anniversary of the mission, if you're reading this just now: http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/nasatv/index.html#.U8yLkrFZCME Replica of the lunar plaque from the Apollo 11 mission. Humanity has yet to live up to its words, and we may not for a very long time, but it doesn't make it any less worthy to aspire to.
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John Schindler, aka 20committee on Twitter: https://twitter.com/20committee/status/490876305488224258
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I actually am quite partial to Al Jazeera America. It may have its slant against Israel (though in spite of it, I think they're at least more on target than most US media is), but that's why I also read tons of other sources: Reuters, Associated Press, The Atlantic, Le Monde, Stratfor, and so forth. As long as the writing staff isn't filled with total kooks, then at the very least they serve as good sources to triangulate a reasoned point of view. Oh, and before anyone says anything, Fox News and Free Republic are about as worthy of my contempt as RT is.
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Let's be real honest here, the Soviet Union and its successor state has also been given to bouts of gross negligence: http://youtu.be/_glEQuvurFQ?t=1m44s Then there was the West German pilot who penetrated the Soviet Union's layered air defense network to land in Red Square... in a Cessna: Postscript: The Alexandar Zuyev video also describes what is possibly the best defection plan in the history of mankind.
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I couldn't help but think that every other line in Max Payne 3, whether in monologue or no, was "Class struggle! Class struggle! Class struggle! Substance abuse!" It's not necessarily and\ inaccurate assessment on the state of affairs in Brazil (far from it), but the whole game stunk of the writers imposing their own, Flanderised narrative onto another franchise (like people on this forum or No Mutants Allowed don't know what that's like).
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I found it entertaining up to GTA IV. However it was when Rockstar's brand of satire began to infect Max Payne that it got tiresome, fast, for me.
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Of course the end goal is to improve automation of unmanned vehicles so as to remove the possibility of the enemy gaining control of hacking into them, as embodied by the US Navy's efforts with the X-47B UCAV, which would be able to autonomously detect, track, and engage hostiles with the only input from human operators being the "Master Arm" switch. Also, as the greatest strength of un-piloted combat craft is the lack of putting a human operator at risk, a great deal of effort has been put into reducing their costs as well as producing them with off-the-shelf technologies so no truly sensitive materials are compromised as a result of a shootdown. A fellow armchair military enthusiast even relayed to me an idea based somewhat on the ALARM anti-radiation missile of autonomous airborne anti-aircraft missiles with a turbofan first stage so that it can loiter a given airspace for a time, then once it detects a hostile aircraft, uses a second-stage rocket booster to guide to the target. We're closer to this concept than you might think with two-way data-link weapons like the TACTOM Tomahawk, JSOW-C1, Naval Strike Missile, and the LRASM: http://youtu.be/LvHlW1h_0XQ Ultimately, whether for better or for worse, I think Total Annihilation and Supreme Commander were on the money with their idea on what the warfighter of the far-flung future is: A single man in the field with a legion of networked robotic warfighters at his fingertips.
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Up to the Immaculate initiation now... Jesus Christ, can we have a moratorium on Myst-like puzzles in games? I thought PC gaming finally got Roberta Williams and and Jane Jensen out of its system.
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Happy 45th anniversary of the launch of Apollo 11. Why not celebrate with the best feature-length film made about it... that was made, and set, in Australia:
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Funny you should say that. On the recommendation of a fellow Harpoon enthusiast and C:MANO developer, I picked up War Games by Thomas B. Allen. One of the most interesting things I picked up from it was in spite of the myth that the notional World War III would very quickly escalate into tactical and strategic nuclear exchanges, in simulated war games players showed a great deal of hesitation in using the nuclear option, such that they made sub-optimal decisions to avoid that scenario and continued to refuse to use nukes even when the situation screamed for it. In fact, the situation got so bad that eventually the moderators replaced human players with computers who were more than willing to press the big red button. This suddenly puts Ogarkov's theories on the automation of the C2 and reconnaissance-strike complexes in his "Revolution in Military Affairs" in harsher light.
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At the moment I'm seriously miffed that you can't swing a dead cat without hitting an enemy that will either a.) Poison, burn, or electrocute you if you hit it with melee or b.) kills you because it explodes when it dies. Current combat seems massively favoured towards mages and ranged since they can have expendable summons that can tank the enemies while the damage output of melee characters are simply not worth the resurrect scrolls.
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Level eight and completed most of the Cyseal area yet I've yet to find a two-handed crushing weapon that I would have imagined would have been extremely useful against this encounter with undead skeletons past the most obnoxiously trapped house I have ever seen in an RPG.
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Apparently, the South will rise again... in Eastern Ukraine:
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Guy has to pay off student loans somehow In all seriousness, though the F-35 objectively speaking is perhaps the most expensive procurement program for a single platform in the history of arms production and has had its share of cost overruns, overruns have been so endemic of the field such that it would be easier to count the programs that did not experience them. If this was indicative of the success of eventual success of the F-35, then we could almost as easily say the Buluva ballistic missile was as big of a boondoggle for the Russian Navy. I 'm just sick of uninformed pundits (or even informed ones whose ideas have long since been rendered irrelevant) claiming it to be a $100 million jalopy against the claims of actual pilots, engineers, and planners. I cannot speak for the RCAF's needs. Canada has little in the way of foreign commitments and is unlikely to face air forces with even half of their current capabilities, short of a large-scale conventional war breaking out between NATO and coalition partners and the likes of China and Russia in the near future, eventualities that remain unlikely to the extreme (however that does not exclude proxy states purchasing more modern systems, though if they could buy them in operationally significant numbers is a different matter altogether). However, if Boeing doesn't catch a break with the Superhornet and the Growler it's probable that the RCAF would be compelled to buy a greater proportion of F-35s as a result of the potential loss of F/A-18 parts production capabilities.
