The US allows householders to retain one battle rifle because they ARE of use against armed attackers, and the risk of getting shot is a valid deterrent to home invasion. Attack by armed people is not the same as a car bomb. Neighborhood groups can and do use firearms for the valid purposes of protecting their neighborhoods from criminals and Al Qaeda members.
That there is violence in Iraq does not logically imply that any/all measures against some varieties of violence are useless.
"Russia's industrial capacity was tremendous, and they produced tons of T34 tanks, which although being inferior to the types of panzers used on the eastern front in Europe just overwhelmed them in number."
They were not inferior, they were a far more BALANCED machine. The opposing Panzers were variously too heavy, too lightly gunned (too-heavy Tiger and complex Panther excepted), too complicated to make in quantity (interleaved road wheels, anyone?), had inferior track loading, etc.
Is General Guderians opinion sufficient T-34 support? They were no "Ronson" Sherman tank.
""Numerous Russian T-34s went into action and inflicted heavy losses on the German tanks at Mzensk in 1941. Up to this time we had enjoyed tank superiority, but from now on the situation was reversed. The prospect of rapid decisive victories was fading in consequence. I made a report on this situation, which was for us a new one, and sent it to the Army Group; in this report I described in plain terms the marked superiority of the T-34 to our PzKpfw IV and drew the relevant conclusion as that must affect our future tank production. I concluded by urging a commission be sent immediately to my sector of the front... If this commission was on the spot it could not only examine the destroyed tanks on the battlefield, but could also be advised by the men who had used them as to what should be included in the design for our new tanks."
The too-late Panther looks like a T34/85 for good reason.:)
T-34 variants served for decades after WWII because they are so well-designed, and enough survived that if you have the bucks you can buy one to drive around your yard.
USAF EPR points don't work quite like that (yet another reason I'm glad I didn't join the Army, besides my recruiters laughing about sending his low-ASVAB applicants down the hall to them!), praise be to the Enlisted Evaluation System.
They reflect a relative grade by the reporting official in various categories. They are not assigned for the specific completion of a task like "fixing bosses computar" or "showing up at Equal Opportunity training", but for OVERALL performance.
Specific acts can be used for supporting bullet statements. Whatever "points" are under discussion are not Performance Report points, but some other metric.
"Because it happenned in Russia, and not the US, that makes it ok??"
I'd be OK with it if it happened in the US. Not everyone the Mob whacked was a loss to humanity either. Human processed being imperfect, I'll settle for useful outcomes.
As for the Scientologist spammer, that is more than OK even without the spam.
If he can waste the time of millions of people with spam, thereby using up little bits of their lives, it is understandable that few will mourn his passing. Good riddance.
Hush! Those early adopters are funding cool stuff the rest of us can use after the price drops.
We should be encouraging them to buy as much of that stuff as possible. To reduce load on their gaming box, every Alienware owner needs a at least a 6TB SSD SAN.:)
Better build some new airframes using those designs if you dislike new ones. We can agree to disagree on the UAV issue, but what is your answer for the airframe wearout problem? SLEP? If so what kind?
The F-16 and F-15 ARE long in the tooth (have you spent any time maintaining them or are you otherwise familiar with how tired these machines are becoming?) and even the later F-16s have airframe problems stemming from high flight time and hanging large ordnance off a small airframe. What is your personal aviation maintenance and/or sortie generating experience?
The Super Hornet isn't a great aircraft, but the Navy needed something to tide them over.
"take the valuable systems you speak of, and put only enough systems to conduct the combat mission, and you'd still have something cheaper than a cruise missile."
In your opinion, what are those systems?
"if i am able to put more uavs on field due to the relative cheapness compared to the cost of training and keeping a pilot and building and maintaining an aircraft (and i bet i can), i will be having a larger advantage."
Then do it and get rich. Hire me while you're at it.:) I'll be happy to help support, maintain and field such systems, and don't object to them if they can be gotten to work, but that HAS NOT HAPPENED yet at the level to replace manned acft.
How would you breakout your vehicle types? What is your deployment model, dispersed or big fixed FOB? How do you want to integrate with existing sytems like Predator? Whatever you build will need to fit existing command and control structures. Have you considered a deployment model based on 20' ISO containers for command and maintenance?
If you want to continue the discussion, email me at logisticsREMOVElist61 AT yah00DOtcom with UAV in the subject line.
"Oddly enough the old testament seems to be advocating genocide. Shortly after Moses got the 10 commandments, god told Joshua to kill off everyone (including women and children) in cities who would not submit to the chosen people's rule."
Not odd at all. Killing and genocide can be useful actions. If you don't want what a group does to continue, and you have to power to snuff them, only real or imagined (like "Hell") consequences contraindicate offing the lot.
There is no reason genocide would not have been an acceptable tool in the religious=political toolbox of the time. It is only "evil" when someone else is trying to do it to you or someone you value.
The shelters often had a better feature than integrated AC. The standard HVAC pack ("big standalone external heat pump") used throughout the military has two hoses for inlet and exhaust air. When they break, swapout is easy.
To add heat and air to anything else, the normal solution is a piece of plywood with two holes. Stick plywood in window or doorway, slide hoses through, and enjoy.
SeaBox makes lots of ISO shelters. I like 'em, and aspire one day to outfit my two 40' High Cube (9'6" high) shop ISOs to that standard. One of mine has power and light, which was as easy as bolting the weatherhead/conduit/breaker box to the wall skin. There is an increasing amount of ISO container shelter/building info on the web. Tandemloc makes various accessories for handling ISOs and has an inspiring online catalog.
"The problem is, I'm sure most consumers would fork over the Windows licensing fee meerly because it is familiar to them. Most consumers do not know what linux is, and thus will not install it."
Familiarity is worth the money. They don't NEED Linux. "Good enough" is the enemy of "the best".
"using up cruise missiles on key targets make great difference. and at this stage id like to remind you that the difference between a cruise missile and a uav is the fact that former is going to be used up."
Superficial resemblance/= "essential sameness". I'd like to remind you to learn more about missile and UAV systems.:)
UAVs are designed for surveillance and long loiter time, with the intent that they be recovered and turned for more sorties. They are too valuable to throw away, and this will be the case for advanced UAVs even after most "meat in the cockpit" is a memory. Cameras, sensor suites, weapons systems, ECM, etc are far more advanced on UAVs because their mission demands it. As they get better the leading edge will still be expensive.
Cruise missiles are (obviously) designed to penetrate and kill targets. Their simpler sensors and equipment reflect this. Using cruise missiles is important, but no one can afford to mount every "bomb" into a single-use expendable airframe.
"and what if, the cash thats spent on getting advanced fighters such as these, is spent on bettering uavs to the level of cruise missiles, and make them deliver payloads ?"
Besides that spending not being a binary choice, the UAV is already far more advanced than the cruise missile and does deliver payloads. UAVs fly slower for better observation/loiter time/fuel economy. Cruise missiles just need to haul ass down low and hit the target. Note the airframe and powerplant differences.
AF thinking is that avoiding a weapons monoculture requires the enemy to defend against a variety of systems. Currently, manned aircraft have a desired advantage in that they are not controlled by a (potentially hackable/jammable) datalink, they are easy to recall/divert, and can do multiple missions in one sortie. Their other KEY advantage is pilot situational awareness vs. the "stovepipe" of UAV sensors.
A piloted machine = human+sensors, while a UAV does not (yet) offer the same situational awareness/situation immersivity. There is even momentum to bring back airborne FACs in prop-driven slow-movers to fill the gaps, and such aircraft are flying for the US under contract since we sold off our Broncos for drug spraying. Note we don't do THAT job with UAVs either.
"additionally, if you are going to use stand off equipment, you really dont need to invest in that much high technology anyway - like stealthy fighters and such."
Stealth PLUS standoff gives greater margins of safety than "standoff". The enemy may object to your non-stealth bomber or ship off his coast.
You will also want to shoot enemy cruise missiles, which may have much of their flight path over ENEMY territory protected by enemy defensive systems. Stealth starts looking good.
Beware of the amateur error of thinking that the solutions to winning air wars are as simple as they look at first glance. Our ancient 1970s-design fighter airframes need replacement to fill the capability gap between manned and immature unmanned sytems.
"when any 2 major powers fight, it will come up that expensive, hard to produce manned vehicles will become a liability if the fight is not over very, very soon."
Exercises and wars do not indicate that this will be so. and of course we train for a BVR-capable enemy.
Cruise missiles and similar weapons are so expensive that they are built in small quantities which are rapidly used up. The US is a "major power" and even we don't have limitless missiles. That's why most of the Iraq war was fought with "dumb" or not especially intelligent bombs delivered by "smart" aircraft.
Enemy defenses must shoot to kill our systems, and they will use up valuable missiles on things like UAVs.
Modern manned aircraft are not difficult to keep in the air if one brings enough fuel and parts. We train constantly for deployed ops, and we have been doing many real-world deployments for decades. We can do it in NBC suits but it sucks...:(
We were able to offer more F-16 sorties than the aircrew could use during Gulf War Part One, and systems are even better now. (I just retired after 26 years maintaining fighters, from Phantoms through F-16 A/B/C/D. I was Comm/Nav, Engines, and later a Crew Chief.)
Airborne standoff weapons would OTOH be large players in a major conflict, because they are cheap enough to build in bulk and kits like JDAM are fitted to existing bombs. As systems improve, goodies like the Small Diameter Bomb can plink targets precisely while allowing aircraft to carry more individual munitions. Standoff weapons allow old airframes like the B-52 to attack from a safe distance, so their non-stealthy nature is not a problem.
Cruise missiles have important uses (especially killing command and control assets), but if you want to annhilate an enemy unit emptying a Buff full of 750lb bombs on top of them has worked beautifully since the 1960s.
The simple "very-non-standoff" A-10 can take SAM hits and make it back to be turned for another mission. Been there, saw that at KKMC. Those birds flew into dense fire and nearly all came home. Not my site but good pics: http://www.pats-world.com/gulfwar/home.htm
Modern air war is a war of SYSTEMS OF SYSTEMS. Manned and unmanned assets are used together,giving choices for killing the enemy so commanders may apply what works.
An initial surge of cruise missiles at high value targets with strikes by stealth airframes for "foreplay", then SEAD (Suppression of Enemy Air Defense) to smash SAM systems and kill their crews, followed by more conventional strikes as supremacy is achieved is the ideal, but systems allow different responses against a capable enemy.
A CF/IDE or CF/SATA adapter with the Linux distro of your choice is easy to setup, easy to upgrade, and easy to just swap out if you have a second CF card. Works in any recent mobo without spending much cash. You can do Poor Man's Installs of Knoppix or other live CD.
Damn Small Linux can be installed to CF in a USB cardholder using the install to USB option and then all ya do is toss the card into the the IDE header adapter.(Worked nicely on my PII266 Portege) SATA adapters are available.
BTW, use a Sandisk or other CF card that conforms to IDE spec if you want it detected properly. many CF cards won't be detected properly and fail to boot.
Grab ideinfo.exe from http://pigtail.net/LRP/hd/index.html (you can extract it from the linked floppy image and build it into a bootable DOS or FREEDOS CD since floppies are rare now) and use that to check out your CF card parameters if you have problems.
That's easy to do with a "poor man's install" of Knoppix or other live CD/DVD image. Only use "persistent home" if you want to, or choose not to set one up.
SATA/CF adapters as well as the more common IDE/CF adapters let you use a CF card instead of a hard disk. This has been around for a while and there is plenty of info for the Googling.
Slashdot Mirror
"Ok so when does the "But all life is valuable" argument begin to sound idiotic."
The moment it is made. There is zero logic to support it. It is an emotional argument, that is all.
"Oh wow never knew there could be that much hair down there !"
Thanks to the usenet "vintage" and "bodyhair" groups, the hair lives on!
The US allows householders to retain one battle rifle because they ARE of use against armed attackers, and the risk of getting shot is a valid deterrent to home invasion. Attack by armed people is not the same as a car bomb. Neighborhood groups can and do use firearms for the valid purposes of protecting their neighborhoods from criminals and Al Qaeda members.
That there is violence in Iraq does not logically imply that any/all measures against some varieties of violence are useless.
"Although I'm not certain how well the "body cavity" approach would work... ouch."
Thanks to the Internet, I'm aware that for some people such smuggling will be painless.
It's worth pointing out that the Dectop appears to be a recased derivative of the AMD PIC.
Read the reviews before buying to get an idea if it's a good fit, even though it IS cheap.
http://store.dataevolution.com/ReviewsList.asp?ProductCode=DT-7001&Reviews=Y
"Russia's industrial capacity was tremendous, and they produced tons of T34 tanks, which although being inferior to the types of panzers used on the eastern front in Europe just overwhelmed them in number."
:)
They were not inferior, they were a far more BALANCED machine.
The opposing Panzers were variously too heavy, too lightly gunned (too-heavy Tiger and complex Panther excepted), too complicated to make in quantity (interleaved road wheels, anyone?), had inferior track loading, etc.
Is General Guderians opinion sufficient T-34 support? They were no "Ronson" Sherman tank.
""Numerous Russian T-34s went into action and inflicted heavy losses on the German tanks at Mzensk in 1941. Up to this time we had enjoyed tank superiority, but from now on the situation was reversed. The prospect of rapid decisive victories was fading in consequence. I made a report on this situation, which was for us a new one, and sent it to the Army Group; in this report I described in plain terms the marked superiority of the T-34 to our PzKpfw IV and drew the relevant conclusion as that must affect our future tank production. I concluded by urging a commission be sent immediately to my sector of the front... If this commission was on the spot it could not only examine the destroyed tanks on the battlefield, but could also be advised by the men who had used them as to what should be included in the design for our new tanks."
http://www.wargamer.com/Hosted/Panzer/panther.htm
The too-late Panther looks like a T34/85 for good reason.
T-34 variants served for decades after WWII because they are so well-designed, and enough survived that if you have the bucks you can buy one to drive around your yard.
USAF EPR points don't work quite like that (yet another reason I'm glad I didn't join the Army, besides my recruiters laughing about sending his low-ASVAB applicants down the hall to them!), praise be to the Enlisted Evaluation System.
They reflect a relative grade by the reporting official in various categories. They are not assigned for the specific completion of a task like "fixing bosses computar" or "showing up at Equal Opportunity training", but for OVERALL performance.
Specific acts can be used for supporting bullet statements. Whatever "points" are under discussion are not Performance Report points, but some other metric.
USAF MSgt (Retired as of August 1!) Couchslug
"I need penile reduction surgery"
:)
Just freeze however much you don't want and knock it off like a wart.
In Soviet Russia, humour assaults you!
"Because it happenned in Russia, and not the US, that makes it ok??"
I'd be OK with it if it happened in the US. Not everyone the Mob whacked was a loss to humanity either. Human processed being imperfect, I'll settle for useful outcomes.
As for the Scientologist spammer, that is more than OK even without the spam.
If he can waste the time of millions of people with spam, thereby using up little bits of their lives, it is understandable that few will mourn his passing. Good riddance.
"rouge wi-fi access point"
Those red ones should be easy to spot.
I view this as I view Bigfoot. When someone brings back a dead one for public display then we have proof.
Hush! Those early adopters are funding cool stuff the rest of us can use after the price drops.
:)
We should be encouraging them to buy as much of that stuff as possible. To reduce load on their gaming box, every Alienware owner needs a at least a 6TB SSD SAN.
"K-" IS a Katchy Komputer Konvention.
Now if you'll excuse me, the Kleagle has kalled me to the Klavern.
"no they dont."
:)
Better build some new airframes using those designs if you dislike new ones. We can agree to disagree on the UAV issue, but what is your answer for the airframe wearout problem? SLEP? If so what kind?
The F-16 and F-15 ARE long in the tooth (have you spent any time maintaining them or are you otherwise familiar with how tired these machines are becoming?) and even the later F-16s have airframe problems stemming from high flight time and hanging large ordnance off a small airframe. What is your personal aviation maintenance and/or sortie generating experience?
The Super Hornet isn't a great aircraft, but the Navy needed something to tide them over.
"take the valuable systems you speak of, and put only enough systems to conduct the combat mission, and you'd still have something cheaper than a cruise missile."
In your opinion, what are those systems?
"if i am able to put more uavs on field due to the relative cheapness compared to the cost of training and keeping a pilot and building and maintaining an aircraft (and i bet i can), i will be having a larger advantage."
Then do it and get rich. Hire me while you're at it.
I'll be happy to help support, maintain and field such systems, and don't object to them if they can be gotten to work, but that HAS NOT HAPPENED yet at the level to replace manned acft.
How would you breakout your vehicle types? What is your deployment model, dispersed or big fixed FOB?
How do you want to integrate with existing sytems like Predator? Whatever you build will need to fit existing command and control structures.
Have you considered a deployment model based on 20' ISO containers for command and maintenance?
If you want to continue the discussion, email me at logisticsREMOVElist61 AT yah00DOtcom with UAV in the subject line.
"Oddly enough the old testament seems to be advocating genocide. Shortly after Moses got the 10 commandments, god told Joshua to kill off everyone (including women and children) in cities who would not submit to the chosen people's rule."
Not odd at all. Killing and genocide can be useful actions. If you don't want what a group does to continue, and you have to power to snuff them, only real or imagined (like "Hell") consequences contraindicate offing the lot.
There is no reason genocide would not have been an acceptable tool in the religious=political toolbox of the time. It is only "evil" when someone else is trying to do it to you or someone you value.
The shelters often had a better feature than integrated AC.
The standard HVAC pack ("big standalone external heat pump") used throughout the military has two hoses for inlet and exhaust air. When they break, swapout is easy.
To add heat and air to anything else, the normal solution is a piece of plywood with two holes. Stick plywood in window or doorway, slide hoses through, and enjoy.
SeaBox makes lots of ISO shelters. I like 'em, and aspire one day to outfit my two 40' High Cube (9'6" high) shop ISOs to that standard. One of mine has power and light, which was as easy as bolting the weatherhead/conduit/breaker box to the wall skin. There is an increasing amount of ISO container shelter/building info on the web. Tandemloc makes various accessories for handling ISOs and has an inspiring online catalog.
"The problem is, I'm sure most consumers would fork over the Windows licensing fee meerly because it is familiar to them. Most consumers do not know what linux is, and thus will not install it."
Familiarity is worth the money. They don't NEED Linux. "Good enough" is the enemy of "the best".
Break out the trepanning tool, aftermarket heatsinks, and Arctic Silver!
"using up cruise missiles on key targets make great difference. and at this stage id like to remind you that the difference between a cruise missile and a uav is the fact that former is going to be used up."
/= "essential sameness". I'd like to remind you to learn more about missile and UAV systems. :)
Superficial resemblance
UAVs are designed for surveillance and long loiter time, with the intent that they be recovered and turned for more sorties. They are too valuable to throw away, and this will be the case for advanced UAVs even after most "meat in the cockpit" is a memory. Cameras, sensor suites, weapons systems, ECM, etc are far more advanced on UAVs because their mission demands it. As they get better the leading edge will still be expensive.
Cruise missiles are (obviously) designed to penetrate and kill targets. Their simpler sensors and equipment reflect this. Using cruise missiles is important, but no one can afford to mount every "bomb" into a single-use expendable airframe.
"and what if, the cash thats spent on getting advanced fighters such as these, is spent on bettering uavs to the level of cruise missiles, and make them deliver payloads ?"
Besides that spending not being a binary choice, the UAV is already far more advanced than the cruise missile and does deliver payloads. UAVs fly slower for better observation/loiter time/fuel economy. Cruise missiles just need to haul ass down low and hit the target. Note the airframe and powerplant differences.
AF thinking is that avoiding a weapons monoculture requires the enemy to defend against a variety of systems.
Currently, manned aircraft have a desired advantage in that they are not controlled by a (potentially hackable/jammable) datalink, they are easy to recall/divert, and can do multiple missions in one sortie. Their other KEY advantage is pilot situational awareness vs. the "stovepipe" of UAV sensors.
A piloted machine = human+sensors, while a UAV does not (yet) offer the same situational awareness/situation immersivity. There is even momentum to bring back airborne FACs in prop-driven slow-movers to fill the gaps, and such aircraft are flying for the US under contract since we sold off our Broncos for drug spraying. Note we don't do THAT job with UAVs either.
"additionally, if you are going to use stand off equipment, you really dont need to invest in that much high technology anyway - like stealthy fighters and such."
Stealth PLUS standoff gives greater margins of safety than "standoff". The enemy may object to your non-stealth bomber or ship off his coast.
You will also want to shoot enemy cruise missiles, which may have much of their flight path over ENEMY territory protected by enemy defensive systems. Stealth starts looking good.
Beware of the amateur error of thinking that the solutions to winning air wars are as simple as they look at first glance. Our ancient 1970s-design fighter airframes need replacement to fill the capability gap between manned and immature unmanned sytems.
"when any 2 major powers fight, it will come up that expensive, hard to produce manned vehicles will become a liability if the fight is not over very, very soon."
:(
Exercises and wars do not indicate that this will be so. and of course we train for a BVR-capable enemy.
Cruise missiles and similar weapons are so expensive that they are built in small quantities which are rapidly used up. The US is a "major power" and even we don't have limitless missiles. That's why most of the Iraq war was fought with "dumb" or not especially intelligent bombs delivered by "smart" aircraft.
Enemy defenses must shoot to kill our systems, and they will use up valuable missiles on things like UAVs.
Modern manned aircraft are not difficult to keep in the air if one brings enough fuel and parts. We train constantly for deployed ops, and we have been doing many real-world deployments for decades. We can do it in NBC suits but it sucks...
We were able to offer more F-16 sorties than the aircrew could use during Gulf War Part One, and systems are even better now. (I just retired after 26 years maintaining fighters, from Phantoms through F-16 A/B/C/D. I was Comm/Nav, Engines, and later a Crew Chief.)
Airborne standoff weapons would OTOH be large players in a major conflict, because they are cheap enough to build in bulk and kits like JDAM are fitted to existing bombs. As systems improve, goodies like the Small Diameter Bomb can plink targets precisely while allowing aircraft to carry more individual munitions. Standoff weapons allow old airframes like the B-52 to attack from a safe distance, so their non-stealthy nature is not a problem.
Cruise missiles have important uses (especially killing command and control assets), but if you want to annhilate an enemy unit emptying a Buff full of 750lb bombs on top of them has worked beautifully since the 1960s.
The simple "very-non-standoff" A-10 can take SAM hits and make it back to be turned for another mission. Been there, saw that at KKMC. Those birds flew into dense fire and nearly all came home. Not my site but good pics:
http://www.pats-world.com/gulfwar/home.htm
Modern air war is a war of SYSTEMS OF SYSTEMS. Manned and unmanned assets are used together,giving choices for killing the enemy so commanders may apply what works.
An initial surge of cruise missiles at high value targets with strikes by stealth airframes for "foreplay", then SEAD (Suppression of Enemy Air Defense) to smash SAM systems and kill their crews, followed by more conventional strikes as supremacy is achieved is the ideal, but systems allow different responses against a capable enemy.
A CF/IDE or CF/SATA adapter with the Linux distro of your choice is easy to setup, easy to upgrade, and easy to just swap out if you have a second CF card. Works in any recent mobo without spending much cash. You can do Poor Man's Installs of Knoppix or other live CD.
Damn Small Linux can be installed to CF in a USB cardholder using the install to USB option and then all ya do is toss the card into the the IDE header adapter.(Worked nicely on my PII266 Portege) SATA adapters are available.
Example: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822998002
BTW, use a Sandisk or other CF card that conforms to IDE spec if you want it detected properly. many CF cards won't be detected properly and fail to boot.
Grab ideinfo.exe from
http://pigtail.net/LRP/hd/index.html
(you can extract it from the linked floppy image and build it into a bootable DOS or FREEDOS CD since floppies are rare now) and use that to check out your CF card parameters if you have problems.
"Surf the internet from a read-only OS."
That's easy to do with a "poor man's install" of Knoppix or other live CD/DVD image.
Only use "persistent home" if you want to, or choose not to set one up.
http://www.knoppix.net/wiki/Poor_Mans_Install
SATA/CF adapters as well as the more common IDE/CF adapters let you use a CF card instead of a hard disk. This has been around for a while and there is plenty of info for the Googling.
SCO was expendable. Corporations are not people, and may be thrown away where expedient.
The people who expended SCO will remain wealthy.