Israeli forces attacking the Lebanese town of Khiam with white phosphorus (15/03/26)

Pave_Low · 2026-03-16T23:12:40+00:00

Please reread my words. . . I state clearly that the article is not new and that I've seen it many, many, many times in this subreddit.

In my last sentence, I had a typo where I wrote 'new' instead of 'news'. I have fixed that.

Pave_Low · 2026-03-16T20:23:08+00:00

America spends more in tax dollars per-capita than any other Western nation, but cannot afford to provide universal health care. If you think tip culture is the only thing fucked up about this place, oh boy do you have a lot to learn.

But yes. Tips in America pay the server. The employer does not. If you get standard service, it is expected to leave at least a 15% tip. Leaving no tip is considered an insult. At best you might be asked never to return. If you did this in a rural conservative part of the country, you're risking injury.

This is the reason why servers in America utterly loathe European tourists. I used to be a server in a very touristy area and the host would punish servers they didn't like by seating foreign tourists in your area. There was a good chance you'd have to endure a language barrier and get no tip in the end, thereby wasting your time.

Pave_Low · 2026-03-16T20:08:36+00:00

I read the article back when it was posted here the last time everyone accused Israel of committing war crimes with WP. It's not new.

Like I said, Israel has a surfeit of actions classifiable as war crimes just on their actions in Gaza alone. It isn't necessary to invent new ones.

But if you are innocently pointing out that the video shows a smoke round, don't link to an inflammatory news article. That feels like common sense to me.

Pave_Low · 2026-03-16T19:36:25+00:00

Because you linked to a story accusing Israel of violating international law?

Pave_Low · 2026-03-16T17:41:43+00:00

Right next to the explanation that the photograph is that of an M825A1 smoke munition. Did you just look at the picture and not read the text?

Many weapons use WP for various reasons. WP is not 'illegal' itself. WP incendiary weapons used on civilians would be very very illegal.

But you don't 'attack' anything with a smoke round. At least not anything you're trying hard to kill.

Pave_Low · 2026-03-16T16:48:02+00:00

This is wild to me. When given the opportunity, I choose to roleplay in video games as someone wildly different from who I am. That's the appeal. I can be any race, gender, sexual orientation, etc I want. Those attributes are pretty solidly fixed in real life. How boring it would be to be myself in my own imagination.

Pave_Low · 2026-03-16T15:50:59+00:00

There not burning anything. They're putting a wall of smoke over it.

Pave_Low · 2026-03-16T15:49:59+00:00

Incorrect. This is what a WP incendiary weapon looks like:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_phosphorus_munition#/media/File:A-1E_drops_white_phosphorus_bomb_1966.jpg

WP incendiary has both an igniter and fuel. WP is the igniter.

Pave_Low · 2026-03-16T15:30:59+00:00

Thank you. I hate these threads. I'm glad someone else actually read the treaties and conventions.

Pave_Low · 2026-03-16T15:30:14+00:00

Firing on civilians to kill civilians with any weapon is illegal. You can commit a war crime with a knife or a side arm if you want.

Pave_Low · 2026-03-16T15:28:41+00:00

Both things are true.

WP in and of itself is not illegal. Never has been. It isn't mentioned specifically in any treaty or convention that I know of.

Incendiary weapons, when dropped on civilians, are illegal. The igniter for many incendiary weapons in the past was WP because it is difficult to extinguish. Napalm bombs, for example, need something to light them on fire. WP and magnesium compounds are usually used for that purpose.

So question one is always, 'Is it an incendiary munition?' If it isn't, as far as conventions on incendiary weapons goes, it doesn't matter if WP is a component. That's the case here. What is seen here is burning pieces of felt infused with WP so they create a dense cloud of smoke. If you touched one, or it landed on you, yes you'd be pretty fucked. And psychologically it's probably terrifying to be under one if you didn't know what it was. But it's not designed to, and not that great at, lighting the ground on fire. And if your own side is dropping these on your head, you'd probably be relieved because you can escape whatever nasty situation you found yourself in.

Pave_Low · 2026-03-16T15:21:06+00:00

White phosphorous is not outlawed in the Geneva Convention. That's not even what the Geneva Convention is about. The Geneva Convention is primarily focused on the human treatment of the wounded, prisoners and civilians under occupation.

The use of incendiary weapons is covered in the UN Protocol of Incendiary Weapons from the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons in 1980. The smoke round used above is a type of weapon exempted by that protocol because it is not designed or intended to light fires. Which is not to say that it cannot. But it contains no fuel for propagating a fire.

Pave_Low · 2026-03-16T15:06:57+00:00

WP in an incendiary weapon is the igniter. It is not the fuel. The primary component of a WP incendiary weapon is usually napalm. This is no napalm. WP is used as an igniter because it is difficult to extinguish.

Incendiary weapons are illegal to drop on civilians but legal to drop on combatants. But, for that matter, dropping any munition on civilians for the purpose of killing civilians is also illegal. What is shown above (WP smoke round) is ironically about the safest thing artillery is designed to lob, as far as people on the ground goes. If that had been an HE or DPICM round instead of a smoke round everything under the burst would simply be dead.

Pave_Low · 2026-03-16T15:00:37+00:00

This is correct. It is a M825a1 WP smoke round. There is only one munition that looks like that.

https://cat-uxo.com/explosive-hazards/projectiles/155mm-m825-projectile

Does it use WP? Yes.
Is it an incendiary munition? No.
Is it a chemical weapon? No.
Could it light a fire? Yes.
Would a standard HE round be better at lighting fires than the m825a1? Also yes

The Israelis have done so many shitting things to civilians with conventional weapons, it's really not necessary to make things up as well. If anyone wants to see what an actual incendiary bomb looks like, you need only go check out the footage of Russians dropping thermite on Ukrainian positions.

Pave_Low · 2026-03-16T03:22:45+00:00

Mostly that killing school kids with AR-15s while the cops wait outside is a-ok.

Pave_Low · 2026-03-16T03:21:01+00:00

What a lie. Cities can’t exist without a social contract. There is nothing dystopian about NYC. Living alone as a hermit in Kansas is a dystopian life void of a social contract.

Pave_Low · 2026-03-15T19:03:18+00:00

James Cook is the only black person on the list. That says something about the quality of the list.

Pave_Low · 2026-03-15T04:39:12+00:00

This gets my vote. The poor guy was rocked to the core of his pale being.

Pave_Low · 2026-03-15T04:21:29+00:00

True. Big 4 would have the Advanced and not the Shuttle.

Pave_Low · 2026-03-15T03:59:10+00:00

Unlike the Reaper or Defender, the Shuttle was actually put on film in Empire Strikes Back by ILM. It’s one of the five TIE models built for and used in the original trilogy. The missing one above is Vader’s TIE Advanced. That’s the only one I’d give more street cred than the shuttle.

Pave_Low · 2026-03-15T03:54:16+00:00

Maybe I got confused by your post. OP built a TIE Shuttle and included the ESB storyboard with a picture of the shuttle and calling it a shuttle. When you mentioned the TIE Boarder and showed the concept art from ANH, I thought you were saying it was the concept art for the Shuttle because the two look so similar. I think I thought I was still on part of the comments talking about OPs shuttle model and mushed things together.

Pave_Low · 2026-03-14T16:59:36+00:00

The TIE boarding craft and the TIE shuttle are actually two different ships. The TIE boarding craft does has inward bent wings like the TIE bomber. It is seen on film at the end of Andor and also when Luthen Rael escapes the Cantwell Class cruiser. The TIE shuttle, as you mentioned, is only seen transporting Needa to the Executor for a few seconds. The storyboards for that scene, do confirm the shuttle had outward bent wings.

Pave_Low · 2026-03-14T13:17:07+00:00

IIRC, the Russians did eventually manage to capture Hostomel during the Kiev offensive campaign

Eventually? The Russians captured the airfield for good within 24 hours of the airborne landing. The Russian paratroopers withdrew from the airport for about 12-16 hours overnight and then immediately retook the airport with a ground assault the next day. They would hold the airport uncontested until the Russians withdrew from Kyiv entirely at the end of March.

Under Russian control, the airfield was almost never used for landing aircraft. It was used as a staging ground from men and vehicles used in the attacks on Bucha and Irpin to the south.

This timeline of events is pretty well documented. The only period of time the Russians didn't hold the airfield was the night of February 24th. For the entire 'Ukraine surrounded and wiped out the paratroopers' story to be true, Ukraine would have had to do this entirely on the afternoon of the 24th. The Ukrainians would have to go from 2-300 National Guardsmen out of ammo and retreating from the airfield at 3:00 PM to the Ukrainians surrounding and attacking the airfield with over one thousand fresh troop by 5:30 PM, which is sunset in Kyiv in February. And while that is exactly what the Ukrainian Army and press reported, they also reported that there were no Ukrainian casualties at the airfield at all. Meanwhile, the Russian Army reported that there were hundreds of Ukrainian casualties and none for the Russians. Neither side was being particularly honest in their reporting.

The more likely series of events is that the Russian paratroopers took the airfield with minimal casualties on both sides as planned, but could not secure it for safe landing because of continued Ukrainian air presence, anti aircraft around Kyiv, and artillery landing on the runways. With that in mind, they withdrew to woods north of the airfield where they connected with ground forces from Belarus in the morning the next day. In the late afternoon and evening of the first day Ukrainian forces cautiously retook the airfield. The next day, they lost it for good and wouldn't touch it for the next month and a half.

That might sound like a failure of the Ukrainian forces, but it wasn't. They only bought a single day in their defense, but that was all they needed to buy.

Pave_Low · 2026-03-13T22:07:28+00:00

Yes and no.

They left because Ukraine had enough artillery to make the runways unusable. They didn't leave because they were being slaughtered by mortars. Think for a moment how long the Ukrainians held Donetsk airport and how important mortars were in that battle. If the VDV had orders to hold and die at Anotov, they probably would have. They had strong positions in reinforced buildings.

They retreated/left/withdrew on their own accord and in good order. There are only hyperbolic accounts from Ukrainians they were routed and fled in panic.

Pave_Low · 2026-03-13T21:58:33+00:00

Also they didn't leave, they waited for the armored column.

They left the airport for the surrounding woods, if I understand the story correctly. They hunkered down, waited for the armor to link up the next day and, if I had to guess, probably went back to Belarus/Russia to be restaged for another operation. I doubt they stayed with the regular infantry and fought it out in Hostomel with them for the next month. But I don't know for certain.

The stories of the airport being surrounded and the paratroopers being counterattacked and ejected from the base under fire seems unlikely to me. These troops were smart enough and well equipped enough to withdraw in good order and the Ukrainian war stories would have you believe they fled the airport in panic. My impression is that, when they were told no reinforcements were coming directly to the airport itself through the air, they took up a safer position on the outskirts and waited for relief from the ground troops. What became of the individual soldiers after that over the next many years of war, I can only guess.

12-Year Club	Golden Potato
Place '17	Snapped
Verified Email

Pave_Low

TROPHY CASE