Russia recently banned export of petrol, diesel and ammonia nitrate to keep domestic prices low so it cannot benefit from high internationsl prices for them (petrol shortages are caused by Ukrainian attacks on refineries, not sure why there is a need to ban ammonia export). Curde oil export is also significantly down because of attacks on oil terminals. So benefits to Putin are limited.
A-10 or propellor powered planes are more cost efficiteve but it looks like the US doesn't have enough of them and had to use much more expensive but numerous F-16 and F-35 e.t.c.
The US was not prepeared to counter drones and even after 4 years of the war in Ukraine still doesn't take economic aspect of drone warfare seriously continuing to behave like cost doesn't matter.
If lab gloves specifically designed to not contaminate samples are shedding microplactis particules I would expect plastic not designed for this to shed much more micro-plactis particules when it's used.
That's why gloves are used in scientific research in the first place - to avoid contamination (unless one is working with dangerous substances in which case it's also to protect a person). If they are not fit for purpose that's a problem.
No actually, gloves are used for human comfort first and foremost. A substance does not have to be harmful to people for them not to want to be stained by it; merely keeping fluids off is a huge boon.
> Iran has 90,000,000 people. More than 2x Ukraine
Population size is relevant but not the most important factor. Russia has 146,000,000, more than 4x than Ukraine. It doesn't guarantee that Russia will win the war.
> On the naval front, Ukraine sunk the Moskva with a few truck-mounted missiles.
Ukraine also had Bayraktar TB2 overhead which distracted Moskva's crew and provided targeting information. Russia probably didn't sent a fighter to down it because skies around Ukraine are contested. Skies not only around but over Iran are not reallty contested. Having said that Iran could sink an american ship if the navy will become complaicent and will assume there are no threats.
> The size of Iran means that knocking out drone and missile production for long won't work. Russia has been trying to do that to Ukraine for years now.
Russia cannot fly planes over Ukranian territory. The US can fly not only F-35 but even B-52. That's a big difference. The only thing which could prevent the US from knowking out missile and drone production is insufficient intellegence.
There is, at this point in time, literally 0 evidence B-52s are flying over Iran with JDAMs. Every single photo we saw of B-52s literally shows them with AGM-158, which means they are launching outside Iran aerospace.
The biggest evidence for B-52s not flying over Iran is that there have still not been any losses. Go look at attrition rates in Linebacker 2 for comparison.
> USAF B-52H refueling from a KC-135 tanker on its way to strike Iran.
with emphasis on "on its way", so not "over" Iran. So not sure your link proves your original point (which, if I understood right, was that these Americans are flying these bombers over Iran itself).
It's also telling that the Americans haven't managed to gain their much desired air supremacy, lots of Dohuet fanboys in the US Military, hopefully this war will bring their Air Power ambitions a notch or two down (even though I have my doubts).
Gee, you guys really couldn’t infer what the picture means and had to rely on words? The B-52 is a high-altitude aircraft, a truck-mounted SAM couldn’t hit it, you’d need at least something like a Pantsir(Buk is more realistic, but Pantsir had hit airliner). It implies the US has combat air patrol in the area, ready to conduct SEAD/DEAD while B52 dumps its short range JDAM.
Where is the actual OSINT though? No geolocation where the refueling is taking place, no timestamp on photo, no suggestion where the bomb is dropped.
By your logic an OSINT account can show a picture of a SU-34 in the air with 4 UMPK bombs, write "On its way to Odessa" and people will think Russia has air supremacy over Odessa.
Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. We know that Russian air force is actively using gliding bombs to attack objects on the front line while flying over the territory controlled by Russia. One would need strong evidence to convince us that they have started to use gliding bombs differently.
The US on other hand is flying over the Iran for a month so the claim that they started to use B-52 in addition to smaller jets is not extraordinary. It would be strange to deploy B-52 with GBU only to strike something on/near the Iranian border (where there are not many targets which would justify GBU usage) so it's a logical conclusion from the posted photo that B-52 can fly over the Iran (at altitude beyond MANPADS reach).
...also, Germany has 84,000,000 people, so definitely not half of Iran.
> Having said that Iran could sink an american ship if the navy will become complaicent and will assume there are no threats.
Also, this is an election year in the US, and the war is already hugely unpopular, so despite all of Hegseth's posturing, they're probably playing it extra extra safe. That's also the reason why Trump is so angry that other countries aren't willing to take the risk in their place...
Are you delusional? The US militarily weak? Based on what? What in your view is an example of a strong military? And the US is reliant on NATO allies? HN has really become massively under America Derangement Syndrome. This is like a fever dream.
In my observations ninja more consistently uses multiple CPUs than GNU make. e. g. make -j40 will run up to 40 parallel processes (of clang/gcc) but a significant fraction of the time it will less than 40. With ninja average CPU utilization AFAIR was higher reducing build time. Not sure if it's specific to the project I was building (and how cmake generates makefiles) or would work for other projects too.
I don't think IRGC cares, they recently attacked a ship with oil for China even China is their main strategic partner (admittedly most ships which they are letting to pass the strait are China bound too).
Trump net worth is $3 billion more than it was before he become a president. Likely more money was made via insider trading by his friends and family. So it's not like no one did benefit. Net loss for the country and the world is orders of magnitude higher though.
The more I see the stock market dropping due to idiotic mistakes that should've been very preventable, the more I think how beneficial it must be to be one of the insiders that accidentally let those idiotic things slip through.
Are we as small savers just idiots feeding this idiot machine?
I assume you mean low cost broad market index funds when you write 401k, but what other mechanism has offered financial security to so many other than having lots of productive and well networked kids that believe in helping you when you are old?
There is, of course, taxpayer funded retirement benefits, but that is just taking from others’ kids.
The pensions that are so underfunded (either due to corruption or bad math) they need repeated bailouts from federal taxpayers? Hope you’re in a sufficiently politically influential union.
If federal taxpayers are going to bail out old people, might as well be the whole stock market so it’s not just a few politically influential unions that get bailed out.
Union members not in an insufficiently influential union can have their benefits cut:
What do you think pension funds invest in if not the same things as my 401K?
Pensions are useful to individuals, because they support you until you die (while your 401K will either run out before you die, or will 'waste' money in the bank if you die before it runs out). But they aren't a magic money tree. They are the exact same formula. Money in, money out, it just gets distributed a little better.
I might be wrong, but it seems to me that Trump would prefer to be loved / respected / feared and remembered as the greatest US president in history over increasing his net worth.
Both can be true - carriers and traditional air force are not obsolete but also western armies are unprepared to deal with the threat posed by a large number of cheap drones which can quickly deplete traditional air defense (based on SAM systems).
From what I see in news both the US and the UK are using expensive missiles to shut down Shahed drones and laser weapons are not mentioned at all - either they are too rare or not yet working reliably enough to risk letting a drone to get withing the range or laser weapons (which I assume is smaller than for missiles).
The news is outright wrong about that. Yes, as a last ditch measure patriots etc are used to shoot down leaker drones, but the primary weapon systems to take down the slow moving drones are APKWS rockets on fighters, and helicopter gunships using cannon fire.
There is definitely an argument to be made that even APKWS is too expensive due to the cost of flying a F16 per hour, but it’s not at the level of a few million dollar missile.
Obviously the US was in no way prepared for the Iranian response, but it’s not like zero development has happened in the last few years. It’s far too slow, but it’s deployed and in active use in combat. Hopefully this will be a wake up call that military procurement and domestic manufacturing needs to be wholesale reconfigured with breakneck speed. Doubtful though without much more pain felt directly by American citizens.
The US relies primarily on a weapon system called APKWS to shoot down drones. These guided missiles are cheaper than a Shahed. A single fighter jet can carry ~40 of them.
These weapons have been around since the early 2010s, they aren't new, and have been deployed in the Middle East for many years. They were literally designed for killing swarms of Shahed-style drones.
I dunno about what Israel is doing, but a ship usually has enough power to fire 1 or 2 lasers at a time. It takes 10s of seconds to destroy a drone, and each drone stays in range for 1 or 2 minutes.
Or, that is their advertised capabilities. Countries that buy them usually complain that they don't work as well on practice.
Well, assume the advertised capabilities are realistic. Assume it takes 15 seconds to destroy a drone, the drone stays in range for 2 minutes, and you can fire on 2 drones at a time.
You can destroy 16 drones every 2 minutes. If you get attacked by 50 drones, you'll get 16-20 of them. Did that help you?
If carriers would be designed for drones and missiles and guns instead of for manned aircraft, it is likely that it would be preferable to have a great number of small carriers, instead of a few vulnerable huge carriers.
The launch of drones and missiles could be completely automated and there would be no need for the complex maintenance of reusable airplanes, so such carriers would need only a much smaller crew.
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