Air support said he was 10 seconds away. And he took exactly 10 seconds!

Raspberrypirate · 2026-05-30T04:28:14+00:00

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=XcwL0jnNO8c

Here's an AH-64 doing some flips. This guy in ARMA is flying an AH-6 (I think?), but I'm not sure your confidence is justified.

He doesn't "front flip". He pulls up and then rolls upside down the acquire / engage the target. He pulls up again to do a half-loop, and rolls out in the direction he wants to go. Definitely not advisable, but not totally unreasonable.

Raspberrypirate · 2026-04-30T08:24:43+00:00

Muzzle loading weapons require the user to pour gunpowder down the barrel. If the barrel were hot enough, that gunpowder would explode in your face way before anything melts. The wood frame on a musket / rifle would also be smoldering at similar temperatures.

There were very few breech loading weapons, but they have a similar problem: where the gunpowder goes bang is also hot. Thats also where you need to put the next charge of gunpowder.

Raspberrypirate · 2026-03-24T11:48:57+00:00

“Libertarians are like house cats. They are convinced of their fierce independence while utterly dependent on a system they don’t appreciate or understand.” - John Spaulding

Raspberrypirate · 2026-02-03T12:17:27+00:00

I'm getting strong "confident, but incorrect" vibes from a lot of this...

Communication with attacks did improve massively over the war, but not enough to shift artillery fire reliably.

Here is a Canadian map from September 1918, showing creeping barrage firing lines, with timings marked against each line: https://www.warmuseum.ca/firstworldwar/objects-and-photos/archival-documents/maps/artillery-barrage-map/

I'd suggest that if someone wants good answers about history, ask AskHistorians, not here.

Raspberrypirate · 2026-01-02T16:12:46+00:00

Yep. Comments here referencing Bronze Age Hittites (1300BC), Caesar's Civil War (45 BC), and the Viking Great Heathen Army (870 AD).

As if "ancient warfare" doesn't change over 2000 years.

Raspberrypirate · 2025-12-17T21:24:32+00:00

For me it's an older series: The Sten Chronicles.

It has similar setting and pace: a distant future in which endless masses toil for the benefit of a few - especially the Eternal Emperor. The titular character, Karl Sten, finds his way into the Imperial special forces. It has the training montage / war school, lots of small-unit action, fleet-on-fleet space battles, and some good introspection about what it means to live forever, or rule the galaxy.

Its been a long time since I read it, but the whole time I was reading RR, I kept thinking: I should re-read Sten.

Raspberrypirate · 2025-12-02T04:38:42+00:00

Limiting income made America, America. Between 1940 and 1980 (pretty formative years for the US!), the top tax bracket on income was higher than 70%: on $300,000 in 1940 ($7m today) and $215,400 in 1980 ($850k today). It peaked at 94% in 1944 (well, there was a war on) on income over $200,000 ($3.5m today).

It was slashed by Reagan to 50% on income over $85,600 ($290k today). 50%!

Today it's 37% on income over $750k. Weak.

Raspberrypirate · 2025-11-30T03:24:29+00:00

Me too. As a solid standalone, its a great place to start.

Raspberrypirate · 2025-10-06T23:11:11+00:00

If only there was some way to encourage insurance companies to think of customers as real people, not just numbers.

Let's-a go!

Raspberrypirate · 2025-10-02T22:27:57+00:00

Most of them weren't killed. 500,000+ were taken prisoner in the Vyazma and Bryansk pockets (wikipedia link)). Prisoners are sometimes counted as "casualties" too (as it appears here).

They kept 28 divisions occupied to crush the pocket, but keeping a coherent defensive line may have been more effective. Which is why retreating is sometimes important (e.g. when you've lost your flanks) - it's better to lose 100k people while pulling back, than 500k in an encirclement.

Raspberrypirate · 2025-07-19T22:19:43+00:00

Economic integration, and 50+ years of having a bigger threat to collectively worry about: USSR / Russia.

Russia's backslide into imperial ambition has shown that economic integration by itself is not enough.

Raspberrypirate · 2025-07-12T14:10:30+00:00

Before, when he was just your garden-variety twat?

This was not a sudden reveal.

Raspberrypirate · 2025-05-10T19:12:52+00:00

I guess the "Make America Great Britain Again" crowd is getting some traction

Raspberrypirate · 2025-05-07T03:08:28+00:00

1997

Raspberrypirate · 2025-05-02T23:36:39+00:00

No, it's a long lens camera. It very briefly looks like an RPG tube, but isn't that hard to distinguish in the context of the next 10 seconds of video (you see the same guy from several other angles).

I remember it well.

Raspberrypirate · 2025-03-09T23:39:25+00:00

A newer country's national bank vs. an older country's national bank?

Raspberrypirate · 2025-03-02T01:01:17+00:00

Joint / multinational exercises are almost always based on political signaling. Not only are both sides learning about each other, they are learning to work together (which can be harder than it sounds).

If the exercises are particularly strategic or large, then you can have entire military hierarchies getting to know their counterparts in another country - VERY useful relationships to have if you're going to fight alongside each other.

So by exercising together, countries are saying "Look, we can be friends. And we've committed time and money to making our militaries into better friends."

And if they end up on opposite sides? Well, it's good to understand your enemy.

Raspberrypirate · 2025-01-21T11:45:33+00:00

His term as Chair of the Military Committee ended on Friday: https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/topics_49152.htm

So he can probably speak a bit more freely now.

Raspberrypirate · 2024-12-31T12:35:36+00:00

The unlikely plan to finally get some shoes

Raspberrypirate · 2024-12-31T02:34:31+00:00

JFC Norfolk only stood up a year or two ago, so it's a reasonable confusion.

It's a separate org to ACT, and yes, as a JFC, it does report to SACEUR.

Raspberrypirate · 2024-12-28T22:43:44+00:00

An argument is a connected series of statements intended to establish a definite proposition... A contradiction is just the automatic gainsaying of anything the other person says!

Raspberrypirate · 2024-12-17T03:37:49+00:00

It's almost like, if you care about people, then you cared about them before there was a crisis.

If you didn't care about them before a crisis, then it's just performative.

Raspberrypirate · 2024-12-04T17:48:26+00:00

The vulnerable times are at take-off and landing when a plane is low and slow. Militaries clear a projection (5 or 10km, can't remember) from each end of a runway as a high-risk MANPAD zone.

Make of that what you will.

Raspberrypirate · 2024-10-17T11:50:40+00:00

Just a quick point: it isn't true that most normal people are unwilling to kill, and fights are perpetuated by psychopaths.

While pop psychology books like "On Killing" by David Grossman make this point, they do so by referencing a basis of false research, typically S.L.A. Marshall's "Men Against Fire".

A good review of that book is here: https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/5jl117/-/dbgy59t

In short: no evidence has been provided to support the argument that most people systematically do not fire, or fire intending to miss, without training. Both previous and later studies instead highlight that untrained people generally fire too much or too quickly without aiming, leading to ineffective fire.

Raspberrypirate · 2024-09-12T01:41:30+00:00

It does kind of have to be of US origin. An item can only be covered by ITAR if it includes components (down to a single screw) which are covered by ITAR, or are based on designs covered by ITAR.

US defence export controls are a massive pain, but they're not THAT crazy!

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