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Hoping and praying someone in the administration is able to convince Trump to align closer to Ukraine (even if only slightly) because of this. The Ukrainians p

Hoping and praying someone in the administration is able to convince Trump to align closer to Ukraine (even if only slightly) because of this. The Ukrainians pulled off an absolute coup on Sunday. A third of a nuclear-armed country's strategic bomber fleet inoperable for the foreseeable future. Someone at NORAD probably said "they should have sent a poet" while looking at the satellite imagery. If middle powers like Ukraine can do that to Russia, they can do that to countries like the US. We need to be on their good side.

koonsolo 1y ago
Other countries have hangars or bunkers to store their planes. That Russia doesn't, is really beyond comprehension.
- dboreham 1y ago
  Supposedly they had to be outside to comply with START provisions. But US keeps B-52s (and pretty much all fighters) outside. They might be under tin roofs in desert locations to keep cool. Not in bunkers.
  - aaronbaugher 1y ago
    Yeah, you can find plenty of examples of them sitting right out in the open. They're protected by two oceans, not by bunkers. A similar attack with trucks full of drones would make short work of them just as well.
  - koonsolo 1y ago
    Can you explain why they have tires on the wings?
  - TiredOfLife 1y ago
    START doesn't require that. Besides Russia quit START 2 years ago. Also wherever you got that information is 100% a russian disinfo distributor.
  - koonsolo 1y ago
    Well, Belgium stores their airplanes in hangars. It's great to protect them against the weather. You know what we don't do? Put tires on the wings. You know what else is great about hangars? It's a super cheap defense against drone attacks that you saw from Ukraine. Sure, you can give some examples of planes stored outside, and I can give examples of planes stored in bunkers (there are plenty of pictures from Russian airplane bunkers). I have the feeling your comment is made in bad faith (=Russian propaganda). If not, please explain why Russians put tires on the wings.
pookha 1y ago
[flagged]
- xg15 1y ago
  > Death by Kubernetes... Technically that's already the case with the F16 I think.
  - dboreham 1y ago
    Surely death by CP/M ?
    - xg15 1y ago
      https://www.cncf.io/blog/2020/05/07/with-kubernetes-the-u-s-department-of-defense-is-enabling-devsecops-on-f-16s-and-battleships/ https://www.cncf.io/blog/2020/05/07/with-kubernetes-the-u-s-... Always wondered why defense manufacturers refer to computer controlled fighter jets as "platforms". Now I know. It's meant exactly as it sounds.
- timeon 1y ago
  > The US intellectual class were deeply invested in this Is this based on something or just indoctrination from young age?
Mossy9 1y ago
Apparently the final tally was 12 planes, but still, an impressive display
- technofiend 1y ago
  Depends on whether you mean damaged or destroyed. Ukraine reports 41 damaged, 12 destroyed.
- lenerdenator 1y ago
  12 destroyed. Hard to tell if the others were only damaged, and of course, how badly. The first casualty of war is the truth. That being said, any sort of materiel loss on weaponry as important as strategic nuclear bombers is a massive problem for Russia. The logistics of repairing them, if possible, is going to be complex.
  - jajko 1y ago
    Do you know how many they still had operational? Not that many, somewhere between 50 (more realistic) and 100 (rather idealistic if the rest was fully gutted for equipment). This was a massive damage, not directly interfering with war against Ukraine that much, but overall power projection. Plus a pretty good insult to russian's FSB and GRU services who had no clue, just like today's Crimea bridge blow.
    - timeon 1y ago
      > russian's FSB and GRU services who had no clue I do not want to give any credit to russian secret service but as we have seen in 9/11 and 7th October - secret services in any country are sometimes clueless.
      - lenerdenator 1y ago
        You'd think that they'd be a little more in-tune to this sort of thing given the fact that Russia is a far more controlled society than the US or UK, and that they're at war with a country on their borders. Oh well. Nothing that vodka and a window can't solve.
tgv 1y ago
> If middle powers like Ukraine can do that to Russia, they can do that to countries like the US Ukraine borders on Russia, but the US is separated by ocean from serious threats. Attack by UAVs of this sort seems nearly impossible.
- acdha 1y ago
  Don’t we receive millions of containers of cargo annually, not to mention having fewer internal movement restrictions? It certainly doesn’t seem implausible that someone could ship some drones around - the hardest part is avoiding explosives detector, but that’s a hard problem and the defense has the unenviable task of having to get it right millions of times.
  - wood_spirit 1y ago
    Countries could be forward deploying these assets covertly in deniable ways in prep for future tensions?
    - acdha 1y ago
      I’d certainly plan for that if my job was physical security. It’s cheap by military standards and it’s not like we don’t have precedent with things like Russian deep-cover operatives. The commodification of the tech could make an adversary more confident in their ability to deny it if found, too, if everyone is using parts from China and open source software. I think the key deterrent is that the U.S. has production capacity for the important systems and overwhelming capacity to strike back, so a rational foreign state isn’t going to think there’s a way they win by trying it. Terrorist groups might be a different story, so I’m really glad this wasn’t an option during Bush’s big adventure in Iraq and Afghanistan because however bad drone strikes are for military defense, they’re even worse for civilians.
  - detritus 1y ago
    I've long-wondered about the use of global container logistics for moving something like a small nuclear or chemical/biological weapon and just having it wait in-situ, until it needs to be activated. I never considered drones, which is even more obvious, in hindsight.
pjc50 1y ago
The US seems to have given up on the concept of being on the "good side" of anyone and retreated to the safety of bullying and threatening to invade Canada (as a "joke"?)
- lenerdenator 1y ago
  Most people have given up the concept of being on the "good side". That's how Trumpism can gain any traction at all. The amount of international engagement Russia had as Putin made himself tsar was embarrassing, and to a person with no scruples if the money is right - like Trump - it just illustrates that the guardrails aren't really there.
  - eastbound 1y ago
    > Most people have given up the concept of being on the "good side". “The revolution eats its partisans” is the most accurate description of it. People on “the good side” turn against their peers for not being on the good side enough. To wit, people who turn away don’t generally first notice that the good side isn’t so good; they first notice being bullied by that side, then they reflect on what it means to support the good side’s points of view (spoiler: A crime against humanity).
  - timeon 1y ago
    > Most people have given up the concept of being on the "good side". In US.
    - lenerdenator 1y ago
      Oh, it's elsewhere, too. There are plenty of illiberal candidates winning elections across the West. There's also an argument to be made that Europe more or less sold themselves out for cheap natural gas. Nordstream 2 was constructed after the Russians (at that point, under Putin's puppet Medvedev) had invaded Georgia.
empath75 1y ago
I think Ukraine could only have gotten away with this in the current situation where the US is detaching itself from supporting them, because if Russia genuinely thought that the US was behind taking out a large percentage of it's strategic nuclear fleet, the consequences of that are nightmarish to think about. Those airplanes are one of the things that give Russia a second strike capability, and if they lose that capability, then they are going to be on a hair trigger in a nuclear crisis.

koonsolo 1y ago

Other countries have hangars or bunkers to store their planes. That Russia doesn't, is really beyond comprehension.

dboreham 1y ago
Supposedly they had to be outside to comply with START provisions. But US keeps B-52s (and pretty much all fighters) outside. They might be under tin roofs in desert locations to keep cool. Not in bunkers.
- aaronbaugher 1y ago
  Yeah, you can find plenty of examples of them sitting right out in the open. They're protected by two oceans, not by bunkers. A similar attack with trucks full of drones would make short work of them just as well.
- koonsolo 1y ago
  Can you explain why they have tires on the wings?
- TiredOfLife 1y ago
  START doesn't require that. Besides Russia quit START 2 years ago. Also wherever you got that information is 100% a russian disinfo distributor.
- koonsolo 1y ago
  Well, Belgium stores their airplanes in hangars. It's great to protect them against the weather. You know what we don't do? Put tires on the wings. You know what else is great about hangars? It's a super cheap defense against drone attacks that you saw from Ukraine. Sure, you can give some examples of planes stored outside, and I can give examples of planes stored in bunkers (there are plenty of pictures from Russian airplane bunkers). I have the feeling your comment is made in bad faith (=Russian propaganda). If not, please explain why Russians put tires on the wings.

pookha 1y ago

[flagged]

xg15 1y ago
> Death by Kubernetes... Technically that's already the case with the F16 I think.
- dboreham 1y ago
  Surely death by CP/M ?
  - xg15 1y ago
    https://www.cncf.io/blog/2020/05/07/with-kubernetes-the-u-s-department-of-defense-is-enabling-devsecops-on-f-16s-and-battleships/ https://www.cncf.io/blog/2020/05/07/with-kubernetes-the-u-s-... Always wondered why defense manufacturers refer to computer controlled fighter jets as "platforms". Now I know. It's meant exactly as it sounds.
timeon 1y ago
> The US intellectual class were deeply invested in this Is this based on something or just indoctrination from young age?

Mossy9 1y ago

Apparently the final tally was 12 planes, but still, an impressive display

technofiend 1y ago
Depends on whether you mean damaged or destroyed. Ukraine reports 41 damaged, 12 destroyed.
lenerdenator 1y ago
12 destroyed. Hard to tell if the others were only damaged, and of course, how badly. The first casualty of war is the truth. That being said, any sort of materiel loss on weaponry as important as strategic nuclear bombers is a massive problem for Russia. The logistics of repairing them, if possible, is going to be complex.
- jajko 1y ago
  Do you know how many they still had operational? Not that many, somewhere between 50 (more realistic) and 100 (rather idealistic if the rest was fully gutted for equipment). This was a massive damage, not directly interfering with war against Ukraine that much, but overall power projection. Plus a pretty good insult to russian's FSB and GRU services who had no clue, just like today's Crimea bridge blow.
  - timeon 1y ago
    > russian's FSB and GRU services who had no clue I do not want to give any credit to russian secret service but as we have seen in 9/11 and 7th October - secret services in any country are sometimes clueless.
    - lenerdenator 1y ago
      You'd think that they'd be a little more in-tune to this sort of thing given the fact that Russia is a far more controlled society than the US or UK, and that they're at war with a country on their borders. Oh well. Nothing that vodka and a window can't solve.

tgv 1y ago

> If middle powers like Ukraine can do that to Russia, they can do that to countries like the US Ukraine borders on Russia, but the US is separated by ocean from serious threats. Attack by UAVs of this sort seems nearly impossible.

acdha 1y ago
Don’t we receive millions of containers of cargo annually, not to mention having fewer internal movement restrictions? It certainly doesn’t seem implausible that someone could ship some drones around - the hardest part is avoiding explosives detector, but that’s a hard problem and the defense has the unenviable task of having to get it right millions of times.
- wood_spirit 1y ago
  Countries could be forward deploying these assets covertly in deniable ways in prep for future tensions?
  - acdha 1y ago
    I’d certainly plan for that if my job was physical security. It’s cheap by military standards and it’s not like we don’t have precedent with things like Russian deep-cover operatives. The commodification of the tech could make an adversary more confident in their ability to deny it if found, too, if everyone is using parts from China and open source software. I think the key deterrent is that the U.S. has production capacity for the important systems and overwhelming capacity to strike back, so a rational foreign state isn’t going to think there’s a way they win by trying it. Terrorist groups might be a different story, so I’m really glad this wasn’t an option during Bush’s big adventure in Iraq and Afghanistan because however bad drone strikes are for military defense, they’re even worse for civilians.
- detritus 1y ago
  I've long-wondered about the use of global container logistics for moving something like a small nuclear or chemical/biological weapon and just having it wait in-situ, until it needs to be activated. I never considered drones, which is even more obvious, in hindsight.

pjc50 1y ago

The US seems to have given up on the concept of being on the "good side" of anyone and retreated to the safety of bullying and threatening to invade Canada (as a "joke"?)

lenerdenator 1y ago
Most people have given up the concept of being on the "good side". That's how Trumpism can gain any traction at all. The amount of international engagement Russia had as Putin made himself tsar was embarrassing, and to a person with no scruples if the money is right - like Trump - it just illustrates that the guardrails aren't really there.
- eastbound 1y ago
  > Most people have given up the concept of being on the "good side". “The revolution eats its partisans” is the most accurate description of it. People on “the good side” turn against their peers for not being on the good side enough. To wit, people who turn away don’t generally first notice that the good side isn’t so good; they first notice being bullied by that side, then they reflect on what it means to support the good side’s points of view (spoiler: A crime against humanity).
- timeon 1y ago
  > Most people have given up the concept of being on the "good side". In US.
  - lenerdenator 1y ago
    Oh, it's elsewhere, too. There are plenty of illiberal candidates winning elections across the West. There's also an argument to be made that Europe more or less sold themselves out for cheap natural gas. Nordstream 2 was constructed after the Russians (at that point, under Putin's puppet Medvedev) had invaded Georgia.

empath75 1y ago

I think Ukraine could only have gotten away with this in the current situation where the US is detaching itself from supporting them, because if Russia genuinely thought that the US was behind taking out a large percentage of it's strategic nuclear fleet, the consequences of that are nightmarish to think about. Those airplanes are one of the things that give Russia a second strike capability, and if they lose that capability, then they are going to be on a hair trigger in a nuclear crisis.