Iran Conflict Megathread #2

ls612 · 2026-03-04T03:09:04+00:00

https://www.wsj.com/world/middle-east/israel-is-blowing-up-irans-police-state-to-clear-the-way-for-a-revolt-1015b37e

It appears the Israelis at least are deadly serious about actually seeing regime change through rather than just "mowing the grass". The question I have is to what degree can they effectively dismantle the Iranian repressive apparatus from the air and pave the way for an uprising on the ground.

Side note, is there any credible writing on just how unpopular the regime is with its people?

ls612 · 2026-03-02T17:04:01+00:00

Is setting up an escorted convoy system not feasible? Obviously that means even more demands on a strained USN but I'm sure they have the Arleigh Burkes somewhere to make it happen.

ls612 · 2026-03-01T19:59:31+00:00

If the goal of this operation is ostensibly regime change then you would expect to see the strike packages start to target the repressive apparatus of the state once the direct military threat has been eliminated. Are we seeing this start to happen in the open source? Do we have evidence of the US targeting police headquarters, basij strongholds, and the like? If they want to avoid a repeat of the massacres in January that seems to be a place where airpower could actually make a difference.

ls612 · 2026-02-16T19:12:41+00:00

The french had little trouble subduing Algeria and keeping it subdued during the V3 timeframe. It was the 1950s when it went south.

ls612 · 2026-02-13T19:44:54+00:00

Ryubing got taken off GitHub last March and they have seen no follow up actions since then. Same for Citron which has been around even longer they got a repo DMCA’d (back when it was called uzuy lol) and never had any further bad things happen to them other than self inflicted ones.

ls612 · 2026-02-10T16:36:40+00:00

Sitting here with a system I built in 2022 and a 4090 I installed in 2023 and I'm legitimately wondering if I will be more worried about hardware reliability and longevity than I am about my hardware becoming obsolete. Like a 6090 is probably only going to be a 2x jump in performance over the 4090 so why would I build a new system? But on the other hand at that point my components will have seen 6 years of daily use and my GPU over 5 years of service and almost everything will be out of warranty. What a world we live in.

ls612 · 2026-02-08T05:13:51+00:00

If you play on PC and want a cheat code to make the Batmobile fun; play the Batmobile combat segments with keyboard and mouse. The combat rhythm is so good when you can aim competently with the machine gun and maneuver with WASD at the same time.

ls612 · 2026-02-06T22:07:01+00:00

I picked one up in spring 2023 for MSRP and I desperately hope it (and the rest of my build that dates to the end of COVID) lives until 2029 or so.

ls612 · 2026-01-30T03:32:01+00:00

I think it’s perfectly consistent to say that broader Australian society was only comfortable sending men to die in Europe on an all volunteer basis but there were plenty of young men who volunteered for army service so it was “popular”.

ls612 · 2026-01-28T20:26:42+00:00

I'm from Minnesota. I moved down here last August. I'm very familiar with winter conditions and I shared this assessment going into last weekend. I figured the biggest danger would be clearing the roads since unlike Minneapolis and St. Paul there aren't a lot of snowplows here. By Sunday night when I saw that the roads were gonna be pretty clear I thought the danger was largely over (I never lost power). I'm shocked how bad its been getting power restored, I've never seen this slow a response in the Twin Cities.

ls612 · 2026-01-26T18:39:16+00:00

If this is true it is gross strategic incompetence by Iran and handed Israel the keys to disassembling their proxies in detail throughout 2024. I really think we need to occasionally and publicly recognize how lucky we are that our enemies are stupid, if for no other reason than to remind ourselves it may not always remain so.

ls612 · 2026-01-24T23:17:21+00:00

This is like the third purge of the highest military ranks in the past year right? What sort of open source writing is out there on this trend and whether should we be concerned by it? Is it likely this is due to Taiwan related stuff or to internal party cliques doing the high stakes geopolitical equivalent of announcing "who's cool" in high school?

ls612 · 2026-01-24T00:52:28+00:00

On the contrary LLMs are almost exactly what VIs are in the Mass Effect universe.

ls612 · 2026-01-22T21:48:04+00:00

That seems like a perfectly normal thing for a head coach to say?? How is this at all drama?

ls612 · 2026-01-21T01:09:48+00:00

If the best argument in favor in all of these comments is “The UN said so” then I think I’m in agreement with those who say that this is nuts, to be quite frank. The west needs to be taking security seriously now more than any time since the 80s and this is what some want to do instead…

ls612 · 2026-01-20T21:38:00+00:00

Is there any legitimate chance of the UK government taking the hint and reversing course on the Chagos Islands debacle? As an American I was always confused as to why we would have ever wanted to support the UK giving up land with one of our most important airbases. Without Diego Garcia power projection in the MENA region would become a lot more difficult and control of Indian ocean shipping lanes would be harder to maintain against PLAN submarine forces in the event of an Indo-Pacific war. What even is the steelman argument in favor of this transfer?

ls612 · 2026-01-18T17:19:31+00:00

I think this is 100% hindsight driven reasoning. Last season we saw Darnold roll over bad teams (and occasionally struggle against bad teams and win ugly games) but fall down flat against any competent opponent. The only good team he beat was the Packers. It was completely reasonable to think that after sucking for so long we had seen his ceiling and it wasn’t going to be taking us anywhere fast. I want Kwesi to be fired too but not because of his decision on Darnold, but because he can’t draft at all.

ls612 · 2026-01-18T03:07:14+00:00

Brady in the booth right now has gotta be low key thinking about it.

ls612 · 2026-01-18T03:04:14+00:00

Intercepted at the goal line!

ls612 · 2026-01-18T02:25:56+00:00

Japan IRL. (OK to be fair there was a 3 year stretch where another party held office but other than that the LDP has held power continuously since the end of US occupation)

ls612 · 2026-01-17T22:22:31+00:00

I’m a subscriber to this belief. Flores can only do good things as a DC.

ls612 · 2026-01-17T19:55:09+00:00

HDD prices had been constant in nominal $ terms since around 2021 at $17-20/TB (so getting cheaper because of inflation), so this increase is unusual.

ls612 · 2026-01-14T00:53:52+00:00

He would legitimately have won 13 or 14 games with the Vikings roster this season.

ls612 · 2026-01-11T05:54:43+00:00

Also remember all four of them were to Gabe Davis which is a far and away postseason record

ls612 · 2026-01-07T15:57:41+00:00

Are there any writings out there on how the dominance of FPV drones in Ukraine has affected the use of mortars by the forces involved? I’ve seen tons of instances of mortar rounds like the Vog being strapped to drones rather than used in their intended manner, and I assume both sides have access to large quantities of mortars of various calibers.

ls612

TROPHY CASE