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Messages - Lord Shonus

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286
General Discussion / Re: AmeriPol thread
« on: April 02, 2023, 04:02:19 am »
That's a feared "WHAT ARE THEY REALLY GOING TO DO!!" extension, not actual bill text. The actual text of the bill covers

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(a) In general.—The Secretary, in consultation with the relevant executive department and agency heads, is authorized to and shall take action to identify, deter, disrupt, prevent, prohibit, investigate, or otherwise mitigate, including by negotiating, entering into, or imposing, and enforcing any mitigation measure to address any risk arising from any covered transaction by any person, or with respect to any property, subject to the jurisdiction of the United States that the Secretary determines—

(1) poses an undue or unacceptable risk of—

(A) sabotage or subversion of the design, integrity, manufacturing, production, distribution, installation, operation, or maintenance of information and communications technology products and services in the United States;

(B) catastrophic effects on the security or resilience of the critical infrastructure or digital economy of the United States;

(C) interfering in, or altering the result or reported result of a Federal election, as determined in coordination with the Attorney General, the Director of National Intelligence, the Secretary of Treasury, and the Federal Election Commission; or

(D) coercive or criminal activities by a foreign adversary that are designed to undermine democratic processes and institutions or steer policy and regulatory decisions in favor of the strategic objectives of a foreign adversary to the detriment of the national security of the United States, as determined in coordination with the Attorney General, the Director of National Intelligence, the Secretary of Treasury, and the Federal Election Commission; or

Which can be enforced against

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(6) ENTITY.—The term “entity” means any of the following, whether established in the United States or outside of the United States:

(A) A firm.

(B) A government, government agency, government department, or government commission.

(C) A labor union.

(D) A fraternal or social organization.

(E) A partnership.

(F) A trust.

(G) A joint venture.

(H) A corporation.

(I) A group, subgroup, or other association or organization whether or not organized for profit.

By the bill text, the proposed rules are not enforcable against an individual accessing a prohibited service, by VPN or otherwise, unless said individual is doing so as part of an organization carrying out specific types of activities. Individual penalties of the sort you mention are enumerated, but "any regulation, order, direction, mitigation measure, prohibition, or other authorization or directive issued under this Act, including any of the unlawful acts described in paragraph (2)." can only apply to activities undertaken by groups. If TikTok is (justifiably) banned, accessing it via VPN will not qualify unless you're doing so in order to help commit acts of insurrection. Even the vast majority of critics agree this is what the bill actually says, they're just insisting that some judge is going to decide to ignore that and allow the government to do whatever they want.

The primary target of the bill, explicit in the text (too long to quote here, can be read at the official link above) is manufacturers of network equipment/software, home automation products, drones, and similar technologies. These are areas that not only have had security experts warning us about risks for years, but where we have conclusive proof that they have, in fact, been used in the ways targeted by the bill.

287
General Discussion / Re: AmeriPol thread
« on: March 30, 2023, 09:28:29 pm »
There's no way to gurantee conviction, but the prosecuting attorneys and judges very much can insist on carrying the cases to trial. Even if everything ends in a mistrial, keeping him perpetually in court for the rest of his life is a very real possibility.

288
General Discussion / Re: News Update War in Ukraine - Junior Reporter Edition
« on: March 30, 2023, 02:16:30 am »
Quote from: Starver on March 29, 2023, 02:18:34 pm
(And the fact that the Challenger was to arrive bundled with DU ammunition was seized upon by Putin that we were delivering "nuclear materials" to Ukraine - despite DU being far from what he was implying as Ukraine can probably scrape together actual useful amounts of far more radiological substances just from the various actual nuclear power stations they are still operating/in control of, should they so desire. And it was no shock to me when the announcement of tactical nukes being installed in Belarus came. That likely was already happening, but they of course leapt upon this very flimsy excuse to justify the action and 'sell' the necessity.)

Note also that the Soviet Union was pretty big on Depleted Uranium penetrators, and it is near certain that both Ukraine and Russia have been using them extensively already.

Much of the panic over DU is based on fairly weak evidence. It is certain that inhaling large quantities is not good for you (chemical toxicity is the only real hazard other than the immediate "flaming spear of death" effect - radiation emissions from DU are extremely low), but this is true of all heavy metals including tungsten and lead.  Long-term deleterious health effects on soldiers from handling or getting shot at with such ammunition have no support at all (the link to Gulf War Syndrome was a red herring - that disease was almost certainly caused by the experimental nerve gas vaccine the troops were given before deployment), and claims that civilians are being harmed by long-term contamination from DU specifically are only supported by vague epidemiological studies that are unable to separate DU from all the other contaminants you find around a battlefield.

289
General Discussion / Re: News Update War in Ukraine - Junior Reporter Edition
« on: March 29, 2023, 10:59:56 am »
GLSDB was officially announced a fair bit of time ago, so this would merely be the first example in theater if Russia isn't lying.

GLSDB isn't much more capable than existing GMLRS munitions (the main utility is that they have greater terminal maneuverability, which could help against some targets), but does have a significant advantage nonetheless. GMLRS is fairly new, and part of a capability that the US has kept on the backburner for a long time. This translates to extremely limited quantities in the magazine. GLSDB mates surplus MLRS motors (which the US has in vast numbers from decommissioned cluster rockets) and mates them to the aircraft-launched Small Diameter Bomb (which the US been building in huge numbers as part of a "the skies will rain fire and steel" warfighting strategy). The only new component is the mating collar. Functionally, this means that there is no longer a worry of the US having to stop supply due to running out.

290
General Discussion / Re: AmeriPol thread
« on: March 29, 2023, 04:01:39 am »
Without looking, it is almost certainly the Tucker Carleson crowd. Not necessarily him (though I would not be surprised), but that wing of the wingnuts that keeps trying to double-down on the Culture War despite increasing evidence that they're losing said culture war.

291
General Discussion / Re: AmeriPol thread
« on: March 27, 2023, 09:46:30 pm »
That's the fun part.

Nobody has any idea how that would work, because it has never been done. There's a mention of it as part of the process in the Constitution, but no instructions how to do it. The several states would have to essentially manufacture a process to set up their delegation. Practically speaking, the option doesn't exist.

292
General Discussion / Re: AmeriPol thread
« on: March 27, 2023, 09:37:46 pm »
Quote from: Frumple on March 27, 2023, 09:09:40 pm
Quote from: Lord Shonus on March 27, 2023, 08:56:30 pm
There's no such thing as a "national referendum" in the US. There's no mechanism to create one, and if one were somehow to be carried out it would have no legal power and thus be meaningless. It is as sensible a suggestion as saying that the President of Britain should undo Brexit by Executive Order.
Eeehhh... constitutional amendments are pretty close to it? Or at least about the closest thing in sentiment we've got to one.

That's considerably more involved than a "referendum". It would either require the proposed amendment to pass both houses of Congress and then attempt to win the vote in two-thirds of states, or else arise from a "constitutional convention" held by the several states.

293
General Discussion / Re: AmeriPol thread
« on: March 27, 2023, 08:56:30 pm »
There's no such thing as a "national referendum" in the US. There's no mechanism to create one, and if one were somehow to be carried out it would have no legal power and thus be meaningless. It is as sensible a suggestion as saying that the President of Britain should undo Brexit by Executive Order.

294
General Discussion / Re: Emotional Responses to War in Ukraine - Trollbait 2.0
« on: March 27, 2023, 08:42:26 pm »
Quote from: Loud Whispers on March 26, 2023, 09:50:25 am

The UK is odd in that the MOD says it won't rule out allowing strikes in Russia whilst the PM says its official stance is to "discourage" using British cruise missiles to strike Russia. I wonder how much of that is a hard red line or just a "you can strike Russia but we can't be seen to encourage this" posturing. It is probably also only a matter of time before the USA gives Ukraine cruise missiles, but I never can really predict what the Americans do. There is also talk of Ukraine manufacturing its own domestic cruise missiles, which it would be free to use however it wished, but I think that's just talk for now, or else is being kept secret because I can't find any reliable source confirming this is underway.

Ukraine has a number of indigenous weapons systems. Before the invasion, their Сапсан ballistic missile was scheduled to go into production in early 2022. While there's been no official announcement that the system is operational, it has been floated as a possibility for some of the mysterious explosions in Russian territory. There's also rumors that they're converting their successful Neptune shipkiller (which claimed Moskva) into something more suitable for ground attack.

It is very important to keep in mind that Ukraine's dependence on Western arms is not because they can't make their own weapons, or because their weapons suck. Most of their domestic weapons systems are as good as any non-American system in the same class. They just can't keep up with the needs of combat because combat is a black hole that consumes arms, lives, and treasure with a gluttony unsurpassed by any other human activity. No one is set up to replace weapons on the scale this war is using them, in large part because everybody assumed that a war like this can't happen in the modern world. Many western stockpiles are already being heavily depleted by the existing aid, and arms makers are undergoing their most rapid expansions in well over half a century as a result. The people who make NLAW, for example, are hoping (unless there's a dodgy translation in there somewhere) to make more NLAW missiles this year than were made in the previous fifteen years since it was first adopted.

Quote from: jipehog on March 26, 2023, 10:33:01 am
Quote from: Eric Blank on March 25, 2023, 08:08:45 pm
Ukraine will need more tanks and aircraft and troops.

According to Zelensky: "No Ukraine offensive without more weapons"

I don't know if it is true. But otherwise I heard that:
(1) Ukraine remained in Bakhmut is to keep Russia engaged, fearing that pulling out would lead to Russian operational stop like we seen northward.
(2) Ukraine will only have a chance for one counter attack in the near future.

The Zelensky statement is contradicted by a lot of dialogue in open sources that strongly suggest an attack is building. Zelensky could have multiple reasons for taking a "certain point of view" approach here.

1. Operational security - Any offensive will be much more successful if the Russians don't have a confident idea where it will happen, when it will happen, and what forces will be used.
2. "No offensive" statements give a strong cushion for operational delays. If everybody's expecting an all-out assault as soon as the ground hardens, failure of that to materialize can cause morale to suffer at home and confidence to weaken abroad. There are a *ton* of reasons why  an assault can be delayed - bad weather that would hamper your attack, waiting for bad weather that will hamper your opponent, supply delays, a late desire to put even more of a rock into your fist, etc.
3. Ukraine needs more shit, and anything that can reasonably be used as a prybar is worth using.

If the assault goes off, he can always point to the last-delivered aid and say "those tanks/rocket launchers/artillery rounds were the aid I was talking about" to avoid loss of face.

295
General Discussion / Re: Emotional Responses to War in Ukraine - Trollbait 2.0
« on: March 25, 2023, 05:07:59 am »
Quote from: Loud Whispers on March 25, 2023, 05:00:08 am
How much more manpower can Ukraine mobilise? I know the UK is training 20,000 for this year, USA 6,000 for this year and 30,000 for the Europeans this year. Those 56,000 will also fill key gaps of skills. Germans teaching Ukrainian mechanics how to repair the smorgasborg of vehicles they have, UK and Poland training Ukrainian fighter pilots and tank crew, US operators training how to use advanced NATO missile systems like patirot e.t.c. so that 56,000 will have a greater impact than the numbers may first suggest. But like you say, 56,000 is not enough to provide full troop rotation if the Russian high command continues to throw hundreds of thousands of poorly-equipped men into suicidal assaults

That's generally not how this kind of foreign aid works - you train the instructors who then train the people who are going to be going into combat. You wind up with a far greater number of trained personnel that way, because you're not throwing away the core training cadre.


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It's also better for Ukraine to rely on European tanks, at least until the next American election result is confirmed. The USA Republican party is starting to show some divides between the interventionists, the isolationists and the Russian friendly factions

Don't put too much stock in this - the isolationists and the pro-Russia idiots (who are essentially the same people) are a mostly ignored minority. If somehow only Republicans were allowed to vote, you'd still be getting veto-proof majorities in favor of aiding Ukraine. This is the most united Americans have been on a foreign relations issue since 2001.

296
General Discussion / Re: Things that made you go "WTF?" today o_O
« on: March 23, 2023, 06:08:59 pm »
You're underestimating how things can add up (even discounting the possibility of exaggeration on Ford's part). If you have two thousand wires in the harness (not impossible given the number of sensors needed and the complexity of a battery pack), an extra two inches on each one would get you into the ballpark.

297
General Discussion / Re: News Update War in Ukraine - Junior Reporter Edition
« on: March 23, 2023, 04:15:31 am »
Quote from: jipehog on March 23, 2023, 03:04:45 am
Good point. I do wonder how accurate it is, quick google suggest that its effective range is 2,700 meters which I am skeptical about that, but you could probably improve its performance with some modern modifications.

For a machine gun, "effective range" is the distance to which a bullet can kill. You won't be pulling pinpoint accuracy at such ranges, but the only time you'll be firing at such extensive distances is to break up/harass clusters of men, a task for which precision is not required. This is the same reason that late 19th/early 20th century rifles had sights that went out to ludicrous distances - that was for an entire unit to lay down area fire.

At more reasonable ranges, the Maxim is quite accurate, probably more so than most machine guns because it is such a stable platform (due to being incredibly heavy)


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How about T-54/55, given some modifications can a quantity of these cheap and reliable tanks be useful on this battlefield?

In theory, of course they can. Ukraine was given just under thirty Slovenian M-55S tanks. These are T-55s refitted with a NATO 105mm gun, reactive armor, significantly improved fire control (an electronic computer, gun stabilizer, and laser rangefinder), and massive upgrades to the optics. Thus configured, it becomes almost equal to a mid-range T-72 in capability, the weak gun and armor being offset by more advanced fire control and optics. Practically, the only reason Slovenia was able to do this is that they were already operating these tanks domestically, and were in the process of phasing them out in favor of similarly upgraded T-72s. Developing such an upgrade program from nothing is practically impossible, and even if Russia has plans for such, it is very unlikely they have the sophisticated electronics you need to make useful improvements to combat capability.

A mostly stock T-54/55 is very unlikely to be useful. The 100mm gun isn't terrible, at least for flanking shots or against non-tank vehicles, but there's effectively zero stabilization (meaning the tank has to stop to shoot, and stop for several seconds to get the gun sway under control - most later Soviet tanks can fire from short stops or low speed movement, and modern NATO tanks retain full accuracy while moving at full speed), rangefinding is effectively nonexistant, and the optics are just glass. No night vision, no thermals. The armor is also marginal - 200mm turret/120mm hull of plain steel isn't that great, and that's the frontal armor. Any tank gun Ukraine has access to (be it the 125mm guns on their Soviet era tanks, the NATO 105mm, French 105s, or NATO 120mm) won't even notice. Neither will any dedicated anti-tank infantry weapon - even a humble RPG-7 or AT4 (hell, if they dug up a M20 Super Bazooka somewhere) will blast right through. Even some of the bigger autocannon on some of the IFVs being donated will go through, though the M2 Bradley's gun won't do the job (they have TOW missiles for that). From the sides, most autocannon would be able to penetrate. A T-54 is no match for a T-72, and a Leopard 2 or Abrams (note that Abrams deliveries have been hastened, probably enough to get them in country this year) would have no concerns except ammunition supply.

Using them as infantry support is effectively suicide, because literally any anti-armor rocket or recoilless rifle round will take one out, and those have been very generously seeded at low levels in Ukrainian forces. Dug in as fortifications is also not all that great an option, because Ukraine has precision-guided munitions that have been used to extremely great effect - the roof armor on a T-54 is thin enough that even the non-explosive area-attack munitions from a GMLRS rocket might punch through. Training is also dubious - these tanks are so obsolete that you'd basically have to retrain from scratch in a newer model. They might be useful for flank patrols against aggressive raids with light armor, or to bulk out an attack spearheaded by real tanks (where their role would be to divide defensive fire and provide additional suppression), but that's the likely extent. The old adage that "any tank > no tank" is a good rule of thumb, but there's a point where a vehicle doesn't even count as a tank on the modern battlefield, and the T-54 is pretty close to that line.

298
General Discussion / Re: Things that made you go "WTF?" today o_O
« on: March 23, 2023, 01:02:09 am »
Quote from: femmelf on March 22, 2023, 06:16:36 pm
https://www.yahoo.com/news/democrats-republicans-companies-seem-agree-155308291.html

Just gonna leave this here as I fume. If college degrees are no longer the future, then maybe we can get refunds on all the costs of them (currently owed and previously paid). I get not everyone needs to go to college and there's nothing wrong with trade schools, etc. The military can be a good option. However, that's a hell of a rug to pull out from under people who were told the exact opposite. Also it just feels like they're just giving up the idea of it being affordable/attainable for people, while also not wanting to show people how to think for themselves and reach their own conclusions. "Democracy requires a free and educated population" and all that stuff I'm sure I'll be called an "elitist" for thinking, including giving people an education. O, irony.... "Provide education for everyone," is now "elitist...."

The article doesn't really get into it, but the big issue with the college push in the last few decades is that it was supposed to give access to better and better jobs, but that didn't happen. Instead, what tended to happen was that job requirements just started including basic degrees (Associate's and Bachelor's) as standard. Usually in cases where the job didn't actually require them (and had previously required nothing more than a High School Diploma), and the pay wasn't good enough to offset the costs of education (costs here including time - if you get a four year degree instead of going to work just out of high school, your entire life is four years or more behind). This is a case of "it didn't work like we intended, so we're changing course", not "we lied for profit" or even worse "oh no! the peons are smart now!".

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I kinda feel like it's all been a lie. It's the future and we have neat phones, but no flying cars, no colonized moon/mars, no equality, no fusion power, no cure for cancer, and just tons of issues. I get that I'm somehow probably "mom age" for a lot of the people here, and I'm sorry about that. It just, wow.

We have "flying cars" - they're called helicopters. Most people don't have one because we realized that giving light aircraft out the same way we hand out cars would be a disaster of Biblical proportion. Colonizing Luna and Mars is within our technological grasp, or at least would have been if we'd kept working toward that goal. Problem is that there's limited value in doing so besides just saying we did it, and it is really hard to justify the extreme cost without a more solid basis than that.  The problems of equality in today's society remain, but the contrast between now and even twenty years ago is staggering, and things are genuinely improving even if it often seems that they aren't (in no small part because it is staggeringly easy to forget, or not have been aware enough to realize, just how bad it was in the 90s and 00s). Fusion power is also still progressing, even though a lack of funding (caused in no small part by the lack of funding slowing progress) has slowed progress significantly. There is no Cure For Cancer and never will be, because "cancer" is an umbrella term for an entire family of diseases that simply can't be defeated with a single unified cure - it is like lamenting that there is no Cure For Viruses. A great many types of cancer are now effectively curable, with lots of people walking around today that would have been dead in six months if they'd been diagnosed a mere generation ago. It is incredibly easy to get sucked into a self-reinforcing doom spiral if you aren't careful.

299
General Discussion / Re: News Update War in Ukraine - Junior Reporter Edition
« on: March 23, 2023, 12:41:47 am »
Quote from: Loud Whispers on March 22, 2023, 08:17:30 am
Quote from: Starver on March 22, 2023, 07:50:40 am
I'm not sure what I'd like to see arrive most, T-35s, Object 279s or the Tsar(/Lebedenko/Pipistrelle) 'Tank'.
I'm hoping we get to see great war era equipment and vehicles again. Donbas militia are already using 19th century Mosin-Nagants so why not 19th and 20th century tanks?


The 1910 Maxim Gun has shown up in service repeatedly, but doesn't get much mockery because it is proving shockingly effective. Everyone assumed such an immobile weapon would be useless in modern war, but if it can survive (and Ukrainian ones have), it can still pour out an amount of death unmatched by any modern weapon* (and Ukranian ones have).

*All modern machine guns are air-cooled to save weight, under the assumption that the most important aspect of a machine gun is being able to move it rapidly - either to avoid counterfire on the defense, or to move up in support of an assault. Maxims are water-cooled, which adds significant weight to an already heavy weapon (it was, after all, the first true machine gun ever). The upside to that is that modern guns can only fire so long before overheating, forcing you to stop firing or change barrels. A Maxim can fire as long as you can keep it supplied with ammunition and "fresh" "water".

300
General Discussion / Re: News Update War in Ukraine - Junior Reporter Edition
« on: March 22, 2023, 05:50:13 am »
Footage is emerging of tanks being hauled out of Russian storage and heading West.

T-54s - which entered production in 1946. The ones I've seen pictures of on trains look like fairly early models as well.

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