@300
oops, meant to say Lawn Chair Private, I can wind up in the brig for impersonating a General.

Posted by: LightYearsFromHome | Jan 4 2023 19:15 utc | 303

Bill Smith @ 301

It is pretty clear that some Russians do use cellphones in Ukraine. There are, for example, videos of Prigozhin at the front. Others too. But, yes, far fewer than from Ukraine’s side.

Every vid I’ve seen from Wagner and the Chechens is very studied if not contrived. Even the “candid” ones are released for a purpose. I’m sure those groups at least have military authorized phones on secure lines and their phones when off are really off. They have cell phones but know what they are doing.

Posted by: LightYearsFromHome | Jan 4 2023 19:22 utc | 305

oldhippie | Jan 4 2023 18:54 utc | 299
I think it was Gordog did some calculations and thought the Zircon and Kinzal wouldn’t generate enough heat to ionize the air but a few searches and I see they do run in plasma. One report I read called it a special plasma sheath and another plasma stealth. Possibly there is something to induce that plasma sheath.

Posted by: Peter AU1 | Jan 4 2023 19:32 utc | 307

There are guides on how to prepare and what to expect for Russian soldiers on the DNR front, presumably compiled by people with experience fighting there, volunteers or otherwise. Obviously, big segments of those guides are dedicated to discussing gear which isn’t part of standard army issue, including both things which you are allowed to take with you and things which are likely to be confiscated and whether and how to circumvent army regulation.
As part of that, cellphones are also discussed, more specifically where to get them once in DNR, where to get working SIM-cards for them and so on — I’d wager there’s decent money to be made reselling trash phones to troops who aren’t comfortable with being cut off from free communication. In addition to that, government structures were forced to liberalize their control of military supplies by public pressure when it initially rejected civilian volunteer assistance, of the kind that was normalized for DNR&LNR. In other words, Russian troops probably get their hands on more than cellphones when it comes to contraband, as part of volunteer donations.
There’s a narrative being shaped in Russian discussion around Avdeevka, that all responsibility for the incident ultimately rests with high command and that mobilized troops, no matter what they do, cannot be held responsible for their own fate. In terms of attributing some sort of formal responsibility, there’s an obvious military logic in this — whoever was meant to be in control of these troops obviously did a poor job, no matter the factors at play.
But outside of the formalism of hierarchical systems, personal responsibility for your own actions is objective reality. If a number of troops, disregarding directives issued for their own safety, got their hands on some cellphones and started texting congratulatory messages to the folks back home, thus making their positions known to the enemy and ultimately got themselves and their comrades liquidated, that’s on them. That their temporary quarters weren’t MLRS-proof, as some commentators on the Russian net are complaining, should have prompted additional caution in the troops’ behavior — doubtless they knew that they were on the front-lines and, had they lived, their future would not entail being transported from one impenetrable fortress resort to another.
Military high command cannot prevent suicidal stupidity on the part of individual soldiers. If someone wants to look into the barrel of their loaded rifle, pinning a subsequent accidental discharge on the officer in charge may be correct as a matter of principle, but it doesn’t explain the reality of the situation, which is that some people are unfit for positions, such as military service, where their lives and the lives of others depend on their discipline, intelligence and commitment to the task. And yet, they are ever present on these posts, and the best one can hope for is that they aren’t found out by committing some disastrous mistake.
Of course, I don’t know all the details of what happened in Avdeevka. What I’m saying is something I apply more generally. I just felt like I needed to vent, because the notion that individual soldiers are at liberty to act like 5-year olds, disobey orders, get themselves and others killed for no good reason, and it’s never their fault — that’s not a rational view in my book.

Posted by: Skiffer | Jan 4 2023 19:57 utc | 309

james @ 278

indian punchline from today… i don’t agree with his analysis and think the target of nato folks from a day or two before was successful.. this was the wests response to it.. i could be wrong too of course.. either way the escalation ladder is being climbed by both sides as i see it..

Agree, very possible, not much talk at the bar here but there was a huge strike on a Ukrainian ice arena in Druzhkivka and supposedly equally deadly involving many western mercenaries or even troops at about the same time. Was Makeyevka a reprisal? Maybe someone here knows the timeline, I’m unsure? Maybe there was a tacit agreement not to attack USA forces directly and RF violated that or maybe the other way around?
Possibly something similar with the Moskva? Tacit agreement not to mess with AWACs and Global Hawks over the Black Sea and USA won’t sink ships there? Maybe Moskva tried going after a Global Hawk with e-warfare or a missile, or zapped an AWAC, and got slapped down hard for it?
When the west is done escalating there will be no more tacit agreements just wall to wall death.

Posted by: LightYearsFromHome | Jan 4 2023 20:12 utc | 311

james | Jan 4 2023 19:57 utc | 309
Whoever gave the order for the the troops to be concentrated in an unprotected building now has a life not worth living. I think Putin will do a Stalin on him. Perhaps not a firing squad, but an example will be made of him.
In any war on any side, lives will be lost due to incompetent officers. Seems to be something that cannot be got around. They just have to be weeded out as fast as possible rather than moving them sideways or promoting them.

Posted by: Peter AU1 | Jan 4 2023 20:42 utc | 313

I don’t know, however, which of the new missiles have which types of engines.
Posted by: grunzt | Jan 4 2023 20:22 utc | 313
RE scramjet engine, Good argument, thanks. I’ve been thinking rockets. Gets better the more I think about it. So you have to stay low, but not too low, I would guess. The gee-whiz part includes making a SCRAM work.
I have a hunch plasma effects fit in somewhere too.

Posted by: Bemildred | Jan 4 2023 20:54 utc | 315

The US dropped off a massive amount of heavy weapons in Poland on December 4th forcing Russia to redirect a bunch of resources that direction. It is going to be hard for the Russians to keep up with Nato.

Posted by: OohCanada | Jan 4 2023 22:05 utc | 317

China, India both in the distance vis-à-vis a war-time alliance with Russia. Cake and eat it, too positions? Not half enough. All sides know it.

Posted by: Elmagnostic | Jan 5 2023 2:43 utc | 319

ThusspakeZarathustra | Jan 3 2023 17:57 utc | 2
It lies only in the eyes of the beholder.
After the H Bombs were developed, people realised that nuclear bombs are world-eradicating strategy, and therefore all nuclear bombs were unpopular. Then some crazy genocide-monger who still wanted to use atom bombs pushed for the development of “tactical” nuclear bombs, arguing that small bombs are tolerable, they will not cause much damage, and if the enemy also retaliates in kind, those hits can be borne.
Neither that idiot, nor the ones who followed him understood that it is for the enemy to decide how to retaliate for a “tactical” nuclear attack. He may go for firebombing, or he may decide to finish it all by lobbing a few Tsar Bombas on your cities, one never knows. What will you do if the enemy massively retaliates with a nuclear carpet bombing for your “tactical” nukes – pass a strongly worded resolution against him in the UN, condemning him for using 10 MT bombs in retaliation for a small, “tactical”, “sub-kiloton” bomb?
Idiots of the ultimate order.

Posted by: Old Brown Fool | Jan 5 2023 4:19 utc | 321

I’m sorry I have barely read anything the last days but I caught the reply by oldhippie and saw some other stuff in passing.
OT followup.
I’m absolutely sure there are a lot of people out there who are far better at and would be more correct in explaining this kind of stuff than I will ever be. I’m a random nobody on this and pretty much anything else.
· · ·
Blue Fire:
I don’t know anything compared to the author of the site I’m referring to (and he probably doesn’t want to know any more than he does or did).
Two “Blue Fire” links (updated and hosted on original authors new website) that are the most relevant to plasma (using particle beams to create “remote” balls of plasma):
“Particle Beams and Saucer Dreams”
“So ya don’t believe it was a proton beam, eh?”, note that this one is from february 2019, seems some people out there were finally paying attention 🙂
No real need to understand the physics or the equations given to understand what’s being said.
It uses the “Bethe formula” (has a Wikipedia page, it was discovered in 1930) and the “Bragg curve” (only mentioned in other wkipedia pages such as the one on the “Bragg peak”, discovered 1903).
Please be aware that the original “Blue Fire” pages are nearly thirty years old now (I first read it in 1999 when it was already not being updated). Some of the limiting assumptions are likely no longer the case or might have been circumvented. I would assume that anyone working on particle beams like these would love to gain a much better range for them since 40 kilometers range isn’t much and something like 4000 kilometers would be far more useful. That might just be “wishes and fishes” but the medical uses have improved a lot in the same time span 🙂
· · ·
Shaped charges for plasma:
I don’t think I called anything a plasma wall however I think I might be using words in an outdated and thus now wrong sense.
I should probably be saying “explosive lens” since that seems to be a more relevant Wikipedia page than the “shaped charge” one (which says everything I said was wrong and a myth or common misconception, and maybe it is).
Maybe this will end up causing confusion as well but the point is that one can use the same techniques to generate plasma: dump enough energy in a volume fast enough and you get plasma, shaped charges would be a way of doing it.
· · ·
Hypersonics, plasma, and speed:
I think the effects are extremely well known, they’ve been crucial since the earliest ICBMs in the 1950ies and 60ies.
At very high speeds it takes a lot of work to lose speed quickly, compare the situation with returning spacecraft which all have this problem. Returning Soyuz capsules uses not only a heat shield and parachutes but also finally rockets to slow down for a landing; a combination of all kinds of neat tricks to avoid smacking hard into the ground.
· · ·
A different example:
Perhaps a better description than the previous one of the plasma build up would be to run a finger through sand like if one drew a line. One would plow sand to each side but some sand would always stay in front of your finger because you’re displacing it and that would be the plasma building up in front of a fast moving object.
To illustrate extreme velocities instead of using a finger in the sand cup your hand in the direction of movement through the sand; suddenly there’s a lot more sand stuck in front of your movement ie. a lot more plasma.

Posted by: Sunny Runny Burger | Jan 6 2023 1:27 utc | 323

Just to let you know, the MI5 Comic, also known as The Guardian has posted an article about how the AMX-10 is the bee’s knees.
Can’t be bothered to link to it.
How can these “defence correspondents” think that a 1960’s vintage tin can with an obsolete, *unstabilised* 105mm will survive on a 2023 battlefield? How many are they going to send out of the 200 approx they have? What idiots will they get to crew them?

Posted by: JulianJ | Jan 6 2023 17:42 utc | 325