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Post by Cornflake on Dec 14, 2022 19:17:11 GMT -5
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Post by jdd2 on Dec 14, 2022 19:46:53 GMT -5
I read that earlier, wondered then about what a patriot missile cost, vs what one might be shooting down (eg, iranian drone).
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Post by RickW on Dec 14, 2022 19:55:11 GMT -5
I read that earlier, wondered then about what a patriot missile cost, vs what one might be shooting down (eg, iranian drone). It’s a very, very expensive missile. We’re talking some millions per, and it takes up to a year to train people on using them. They’re actually intended to shoot down ballistic missiles, though I’d think they’d take out a drone just fine, but’s like swatting flies with a sledge hammer.. Where I think they my be used/be useful is against the Russian bombers that are dropping cruise missiles from out over the black sea. |
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Post by Rob Hanesworth on Dec 14, 2022 21:48:12 GMT -5
I love Patriot Missiles! They got me my 25 year career with General Motors/Rolls-Royce. GM got a contract for the turbine engine that provided the power to the generator that powered the Patriot Missile set. A tech writer was assigned to work on the engine maintenance manuals and I was hired to take over his work on TF-41 engine manuals.
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Post by TKennedy on Dec 14, 2022 21:52:53 GMT -5
Would an endorsement from IKEA on LinkedIn help land a job in your division Rob?
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Post by Marshall on Dec 15, 2022 1:12:42 GMT -5
Very interesting. I have no way to evaluate the accuracy of the report. It certainly paints a stark picture. I hesitate to count Putin out of any poker hand. |
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Post by Cornflake on Dec 15, 2022 8:28:37 GMT -5
"I hesitate to count Putin out of any poker hand."
Oh, I agree. But he can't encounter enough problems to suit me.
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Post by majorminor on Dec 15, 2022 8:53:19 GMT -5
In addition to providing longer range missiles anybody else raise an eyebrow when US authorization was given to allow using these missiles to strike targets in Russia?
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Post by Marshall on Dec 15, 2022 8:57:06 GMT -5
Supposedly no US manufactured arms have crossed the boarder with Russia. I don't know what the Ukes are using to strike depots in Russia, but it's NOT US weaponry. - Or so the story goes.
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Post by Cornflake on Dec 15, 2022 9:21:21 GMT -5
I hadn't heard that, Steve. My understanding was the same as Marshall's.
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Post by majorminor on Dec 15, 2022 9:45:50 GMT -5
Hmmm. It was a pretty credible article from a Google newsfeed I read two days ago - twice in fact because I thought it bad policy - but not finding it now. I may have been been confusing drones with missiles. Hmmm.
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Post by james on Dec 15, 2022 10:31:47 GMT -5
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Post by majorminor on Dec 15, 2022 10:43:40 GMT -5
I must have been focusing on the "long range weapons" mantra repeated in that article as relates to the Patriot System and gotten confabulated. Dammit. |
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Post by epaul on Dec 15, 2022 10:51:05 GMT -5
If Russia sends missile after missile into Ukrainian cities, Ukraine has every right in the world to return the favor, I don't care where the missiles come from. I would send one to Moscow with a ribbon on it.
And in private, I would make it very clear that any use of Tac Nukes will be returned in kind. This needs to be done. In concert with this message, I would inform Putin that if he were willing to accept the Crimea and a sliver, just a sliver, of the "contested" territories, leaving Ukraine with generous sea access, the deal would be done with Ukraine a willing signature to the deal (or bereft of any future Western aid if not).
Fair or not (not), it is worth allowing a desparate Putin to save a little bit of his egg splattered face for an end to this otherwise unending tragic debacle. It isn't necessary to admit Ukraine into NATO if that is what it takes to do the deal as long as it is clearly understood that if the same deal ever occurs again, the same result will also. A treaty could be drawn up and have co-signatures, a NATO without the name.
But until then, Tit for Tat, damnit!
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Post by Marshall on Dec 15, 2022 11:34:01 GMT -5
I'm not sure we have tactical nukes. As I understand it (do I really understand anything?) US military policy was that nukes were doomsday weapons.
The threat of widening the conflict by US weapons attacking Russian soil is worth avoiding. Critical even.
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Post by majorminor on Dec 15, 2022 11:41:51 GMT -5
The Google says we do have a small supply of tactical nukes.
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Post by epaul on Dec 15, 2022 13:01:53 GMT -5
If Tac Nukes were easy to use, Russia possibly may have already chosen to use them. But, they aren't. Easy to use. No one knows how to use them as no one has had any practice with them. If the charge/deployment is too small, the damage done isn't worth the payback. If the charge/deployment is too large, you end up pissing in your own bathtub (technical term for suffering significant radioactive blow back, in Russia's case, if the Westerlies are blowing out of the west as they are wont to do). It may be possible to fine-tune nukes, but getting it right the first couple of times you try it isn't likely.
I expect Russia's leadership is desperately looking for an off ramp with this deal. They screwed up and Putin and fellow bigwigs know they did, but they have convinced themselves that a total humiliation will be a blow to the security of the Motherland (i.e., themselves and their future prospects), so they need some kind of cover for their behind as they turn tail and head for home.
On the other hand, Ukraine's leadership is filled with a heady adrenaline and is set on total victory no matter how improbable (i.e., the knight in the Holy Grail that fights on in a heady lust for battle regardless of number of limbs lost). Good sense is not something they have available at the moment.
The U.S. and European allies need to settle this thing. Roll back Russia's grabs to a sliver of malcontent territory While preserving the heart of a Ukraine and it's full rights of nationhood (a Ukraine which needs any future funding the West can spare to use not for more missiles but for the rebuilding of what they still have.)
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Post by epaul on Dec 15, 2022 13:56:54 GMT -5
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Post by majorminor on Dec 15, 2022 14:17:49 GMT -5
On the other hand, Ukraine's leadership is filled with a heady adrenaline and is set on total victory no matter how improbable (i.e., the knight in the Holy Grail that fights on in a heady lust for battle regardless of number of limbs lost). Good sense is not something they have available at the moment. The U.S. and European allies need to settle this thing. Roll back Russia's grabs to a sliver of malcontent territory While preserving the heart of a Ukraine and it's full rights of nationhood (a Ukraine which needs any future funding the West can spare to use not for more missiles but for the rebuilding what they still have.) I'm trying to imagine eastern Montana as West Dakota. Oof Dah! Let's just say I understand the Ukrainian's motivation and think I have your advocation of a settlement that involves ceding territory to Russia figured out. |
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Post by RickW on Dec 15, 2022 15:48:09 GMT -5
I thought tactical nukes were high radiation, low explosive power weapons. They were designed to kill soldiers, and also to interfere with battlefield communications — detonating a nuclear device interferes with radio frequencies. But I’d always thought it more likely that the Russians would send a weapon against one of Ukraine’s cities.
But that’s hard line to cross over.
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