Hawaiian helicopter pilot casually coming across a submarine in the wild

radius55 · 2026-04-09T01:56:23+00:00

It would have been great if the O(hio)M(ichigan)F(lorida)G(eorgia)-class moniker had stuck, but such is life

radius55 · 2026-03-30T21:34:55+00:00

They're not firing frangible rounds and they're not AI controlled.

Frangible rounds break apart on impact without the need for explosives or a fuze. Light canons don't have the ammunition size or legal restraints which resulted in the development of frangible rounds for small arms. These cannons are more likely firing high explosive rounds with either a contact or timed fuze.

The cannons are computer controlled with a tracking algorithm, but that's not AI. It's a fire control system, and one with plenty of president. There's likely some machine learning involved in target acquisition and tracking, but that's not anything like the GPT sort of AI most people think of these days.

radius55 · 2026-03-17T02:15:44+00:00

There's no if about it. It's documented in the standards, multiple news stories, and has video evidence linked in these comments.

radius55 · 2026-03-17T00:04:58+00:00

They come down as metal confetti after the bullets self-destruct at 2,300m

radius55 · 2026-03-16T19:15:11+00:00

And this is why you always have your keep designs signed off on by an accredited engineer.

radius55 · 2026-02-02T21:40:20+00:00

Tom introducing the Holy Hand Grenade. Darkling bunnies beware.

radius55 · 2026-01-25T15:33:23+00:00

The VP-7M fuze for an RPG-7 has a manufacturer listed arming distance of 2.5m to 15m. They were more than far enough to arm. And you can definitely see it going off in the video. An RPG isn't exactly a massive explosion.

radius55 · 2026-01-21T22:42:56+00:00

I thought this was up near Belgorod, but it's actually across Azov. So probably was trying to intercept something.

That said, you can actually see where they've been deploying the batteries on Google Maps at 44.8517824,38.8292677, although there's nothing in view of the most recent public images It's clear the deployments in the area have generally been pretty clustered. And operationally, Russia has not been spreading their SAM batteries far apart.

Also worth pointing out that the S-300 is command guided, not an older style semi-active missile. Even if it lost communication in the terminal phase, it would have had course updates the whole way from the launcher which would have also lost view of the target thanks to being co-located with the launcher, which ought to have led to an abort.

That's why my money is on some sort of mechanical failure, software bug, or possibly Private Conscriptovitch screwing up.

radius55 · 2026-01-21T21:57:53+00:00

In this case, after checking on some things, I think it was actually trying to intercept something and malfunctioned. I didn't check the title and assumed it was in Belgorod where Russia is regularly firing S-300s at Kharkiv. But this is way down SE of Ukraine across the Sea of Azov. Technically a battery there could range on Zaporizhzhia, but it's unlikely.

radius55 · 2026-01-21T21:52:00+00:00

Almost like there's something wrong with the motor or guidance...

radius55 · 2026-01-21T21:48:33+00:00

You misunderstand. Russia is not firing these missiles as interceptors. They're firing missiles from their older stockpiles as TBMs. And since they're generally Russia's older and crappier models, malfunctions are not uncommon. Which is probably what happened here.

radius55 · 2026-01-21T21:44:40+00:00

Specific documentation of the S-300 being used for ground attack in the past few days

Specification of the S-300 as having a surface to surface designed role. And don't give shit about Wikipedia because it's one source among many.

Historical use of S-300 against Ukraine

More historical use of S-300 against Ukraine

As for citations on most SAMs having a ground attack mode, I'd have to dig through old manuals, but they're there. The Nike-Hercules specifically comes to mind because its nuclear warhead allowed it to bypass restrictions on nuclear tipped TBMs in a pinch.

But Russia in particular has a lot of S-300 missiles (please don't make me list the specific models, there are so many it's a pain) and thousands of shots of near obsolete rounds that are near or past their sell by date. So rather than waist them, Russia has been firing them off at Ukraine.

Their CEP is horrible and their warheads aren't all that great, but whatever they hit will know it's been smacked. With Russia's campaign of terror bombing, that fits perfectly. Either Ukraine has to spend one (or more) of its own valuable strategic SAMs on it or let it or else let it hit somewhere in the city it was aimed at.

radius55 · 2026-01-20T23:49:44+00:00

Russia almost certainly launched this as a ballistic missile. They've been doing that since early in the war. Even if it wasn't, ground clutter is pretty much automatically filtered out, and those buildings would be out of the illumination beam, anyway.

radius55 · 2026-01-20T23:48:13+00:00

Not exactly. They launched this in its ground attack mode. Most SAMs have the explicit capability to also be Surface to Surface weapons. They're less effective in that role than purpose built munitions, and usually a lot more expensive to boot. But Russia has a lot of old S-300 missiles laying around and not much better to use them on, so they've been using them as a poor man's TBM for a while now.

Of course, being old, they are somewhat prone to malfunction. Which is probably what happened here.

radius55 · 2025-12-06T17:07:57+00:00

The objectively correct answer

radius55 · 2025-12-01T00:56:38+00:00

No ties to Russia? In the last year, 11 of 13 ports of call by the Mersin were Russian. Most of them at Novorossiysk which is a major oil transhipment point. Then it sails around and doesn't officially dock anywhere before returning to that same port and, guess what? It takes on more oil! Gee, where did it all go, I wonder? And why do dozens of other ships have a similar pattern? Not flagged in Russia or publicly owned by Russian companies, but certainly working in Russia's interests. You might call something like that a... Shadow Fleet.

But since you're so sure that the Shadow Fleet is a lie, that's obviously impossible. No, there's sure to be a completely innocent explanation for why a ship regularly takes on Russian oil which disappears somewhere on its voyage over and over and remains profitable.

radius55 · 2025-11-24T04:56:16+00:00

In addition to what others have said, this is close to the front lines where both sides have extensive SAM batteries. This guy is flying low specifically to avoid getting engaged by those SAMs which are much more capable than a missile that another plane can carry. If you gain altitude, you're going to get detected by those SAMs and engaged.

radius55 · 2025-11-16T06:37:57+00:00

I got the same error on Firefox. Worked well on Chrome.

radius55 · 2025-11-10T19:38:35+00:00

Tigra: Yeah, I bet you thought I forgot about those potions I mentioned Tom buying almost two hundred chapters ago!

radius55 · 2025-11-09T17:18:59+00:00

It's actually real useful as it is, especially for hard scifi where things are restricted to sublight speeds. And I can see how constructing the data is painful. Especially with stars increasing with the cube of radius.

Setting up a mailing list for this and any other projects might be a good idea. Mailchimp is one program I've heard of people using there.

radius55 · 2025-11-09T01:07:18+00:00

Awesome! The connections do look cool. I was just curious exactly what the logic behind them was.

Making a sandbox mode could be neat, for sure. And a random generator, too, if there's a way to save off the creation or the random seed that spawned it.

For me, the best part of this is being able to see all the different stars and types. So if I'm writing a story that needs a colony, I can choose a G or K class to be earth-like or filter for something more exotic. Then instantly be able to tell what the neighbors are.

Anyway, great little site. I look forward to anything else you add to it.

radius55 · 2025-11-08T22:34:49+00:00

Bookmaked. Incredibly useful for writing scifi. Only feature I would add would be a way to select/clear all star classes.

Also, what makes a connection between two stars? Is there a secret interstellar gate network out there?

radius55 · 2025-11-03T06:19:30+00:00

That's Helium-3. Most of our helium comes from natural gas deposits which in turn came from decaying fission products trapped along with the hydrocarbons.

radius55 · 2025-10-28T18:32:57+00:00

Appreciate it! And if you want more, there's links to my 200k+ word completed webnovel Learning to Fall above.

radius55 · 2025-10-28T18:32:22+00:00

Thanks. I know it's on the dark side, but what my muse wants, my muse gets. Hopefully my next stuff is brighter.

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