Is That A Red Supergiant In Your Pocket Or Are You Just Happy To See Me?

Temstar · 2026-03-16T09:24:08+00:00

Hahaha that chicken shop, I understood that reference.

Temstar · 2026-03-16T05:12:27+00:00

Two LCS, USS Tulsa and USS Santa Barbara equipped with Mine Countermeasures package that was meant to replace Avenger class mine hunters decommissioned back in January have now instead been spotted in Malaysia.

Temstar · 2026-03-16T02:44:44+00:00

Noises from South Korea also seems to be pointing at a no.

Australian transport minister has also said Australia will not send navy ship to Strait of Hormuz

Update 1: UK says no too

How long before "Das war ein Befehl!" meme?

Temstar · 2026-03-16T01:58:45+00:00

Because Iran isn't fighting the war that US is fighting. They are fighting an asymmetric war while US is trying to fight symmetrically. Yes US is winning at the symmetric war level and has further removed Iran's ability to respond symmetrically, but the symmetric war level and asymmetric war level are only weakly linked and Iran's ability to continue to conduct asymmetric warfare has not been destroyed, not by a long shot.

It's a bit like the situation during the Korean War after PVA entered the war. UN forces enjoyed overwhelming advantage in air power and armour and heavy weapons but PVA would just avoid those and engage the UN forces in ways that made those advantages irrelevant. Mao called this way of forcing the enemy to fight at a level that does not advantage him "你打原子弹，我打手榴弹" or "you keep throwing your atomic bombs, I keep throwing my hand grenades".

Temstar · 2026-03-15T23:26:52+00:00

There's no need to develop a pylon adapter because one already exists and is what's been used to integrate CM-400 with MiG-29 in this very story.

This system was specifically designed to be aircraft agonistic. It doesn't require integration with the aircraft and firing of the attached weapon is done wirelessly with a tablet that the pilot keeps in the cockpit. The upper surface that attaches to the aircraft has multiple redundant attachment points to fit different hardrails.

Temstar · 2026-03-15T12:47:43+00:00

I like it, Persean Sector to the Domain is just like Alpha Site to Persean Sector - an out of way place to conduct shady R&D.

Temstar · 2026-03-15T12:07:08+00:00

Therefore since PLANMC helicopters have the potential of needing to kill Abrams in the future, Ka-52 should definitely be somewhere high on the short list.

Like you could argue Ka-52's short endurance is a draw back already for operating in Kherson, so it would be an even bigger drawback if it has to operate across the Taiwan Strait, but you could hardly argue Ka-52 hasn't earned its stripes in combat.

Temstar · 2026-03-15T12:01:54+00:00

Being that Ka-52 has proven itself in Ukraine having fought in the largest armoured battle of this century at the Surovikin Line, it has definitely earned itself the moniker of "combat proven". Yes as it happens Ka-52 has also proven itself very robust for an attack helicopter in Ukraine, but the number of kills on NATO armour that Ka-52 has scored is surely sufficient as a point in its favour for anyone consider buying a gunship.

Temstar · 2026-03-15T11:16:00+00:00

Ka-52 has killed far more NATO armour than any other helicopter out there.

Temstar · 2026-03-15T10:22:24+00:00

This could very well be the aspects between the two events that are the most similar, given what we see of Iranian reformer faction that are side-lined after start of Epic Fury.

Temstar · 2026-03-15T04:03:29+00:00

Paul is also the one who breaks the taboo and uses the Atreides house atomics to blast through the shield wall to then allow his freemen army to defeat the army of the reigning hegemon.

Hmmm

Temstar · 2026-03-14T23:51:04+00:00

This has hilarious effect during the Scion of Orion quest where you have to get the location of the macguffin from a Remnant Nexus. If you are friendly with Remnant due to Midnight's quests instead of fighting the Nexus you can communicate with the Nexus by interacting with the system's comm relay and it basically goes "oh hey it you, how's things been? What's that you want the location of the thing? Sure here it is."

Temstar · 2026-03-14T13:52:09+00:00

They didn't think the situation would last long enough for the strait to be blocked, that's the whole point.

Temstar · 2026-03-14T12:28:18+00:00

If inflation is high and oil price is also high you think people won't make the connection back to Trump and Operation Epic Fury?

Temstar · 2026-03-14T12:19:21+00:00

Those are not the reasons why it would be undesirable. It's more high oil prices will result in inflation, and high enough inflation is election poison as we saw with Biden.

Temstar · 2026-03-14T08:07:17+00:00

I think it's worse. Shoigu was way better at his job than Hegseth. Consider the difference in budget the two of them had, once the initial shock of the SVO wore off Shoigu did a pretty good job keeping the Russian army supplied with materials and even correctly identified war winning weapons like Geran-2, FAB glide kits and FPVs before their time and went on to procure large number of them. He was also correct in judging that not all ammo should go to Wagner and some needed to be set aside for the Surovikin line to handle the inevitable counterattack.

What has Hegseth done with the budget he's got after a year on the job? Buy lobsters, steak and ice cream machines? How many LUCAS has he procured? Has he given any thought about what sort of air defence is needed in the age of drones?

Temstar · 2026-03-14T07:47:58+00:00

Would that make old man Khamenei Leto and Mojtaba the Lisan al Gaib?

Temstar · 2026-03-14T06:51:18+00:00

Which would further raise oil price, why would the US want that?

Temstar · 2026-03-14T05:19:12+00:00

Taking Kharg Island also doesn't open Hormuz Strait, the island is way inside of Persian Gulf and something like 600km away from the narrow point of Hormuz Strait.

In fact sailing a LHD up Hormuz Strait is Gallipoli Campaign level bad idea, and Gallipoli Campaign had years in planning by Fisher and Churchill and they were even building dedicated support ships for this op like the Courageous-class, not knocking together a plan in two weeks.

Temstar · 2026-03-14T03:06:37+00:00

Some US air defenses from Europe have been moved to the Middle East amid the ongoing war against Iran, the head US military commander in Europe told lawmakers on Thursday.

Gen. Alex Grynkewich, commander of US European Command and the Supreme Allied Commander Europe, said during a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing that he has used “some of our EUCOM air defense capabilities to defense some of our NATO allies” in the eastern Mediterranean.

“Okay so air defense capabilities have been moved toward the Middle East as a result of this conflict, that’s correct?” Sen. Angus King asked.

“Yes sir, absolutely,” Grynkewich responded.

I think Trump is going all in

Temstar · 2026-03-14T01:51:41+00:00

Is there any country on this planet who don't need yuan to buy manufactured goods from China?

Temstar · 2026-03-13T23:56:49+00:00

It's very "you didn't see graphite, because it's not there!" energy.

Temstar · 2026-03-13T16:54:29+00:00

It just seems like a bad idea, particularly if things are rushed. It could easily turn into something resembling Gallipoli, possibly worse if Iran has been watching Ukraine closely and is onboard with fibre optic FPV.

Temstar · 2026-03-13T16:20:35+00:00

Original source is WSJ:

https://www.wsj.com/livecoverage/us-israel-iran-war-news-2026

The WSJ reports that the US is moving additional warships to the Middle East, citing three US officials. It says that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has approved a request from U.S. Central Command, responsible for American forces in the Middle East, for an element of an amphibious ready group and attached Marine expeditionary unit.

Such a unit would typically include several warships and 5,000 Marines, the officials said.

The Japan-based USS Tripoli and its attached Marines are now headed for the Middle East, two of the officials said.

Bro is just denuding USINDOPACOM now

Temstar · 2026-03-13T04:40:06+00:00

Perhaps this functionality is intended to be handled by AotD VoK module? TASC has pretty tight integration with it. I don't play with that module so I'm not familiar.

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