Russian invasion of Ukraine

Getting flashbacks of playing Rogue Squadron just looking at that.

Thanks, I'll be sure to let him know.

Lol

Thanks, I'll be sure to let him know.

I wasnt intending it to be a snarky remark about your friend. Was just trying to make the wider point that a huge amount of VC money has been pumped into systems to defend against commercial drones and a lot of the companies (many based in Israel) are struggling to deliver products that work so have resorted to marketing and media operations that at times are borderline dishonest. Some anti drone projects are almost as lacking in credibility as NFT projects at the moment.

I don't think it takes much of a leap of faith to believe that private military hardware companies might be exagerating their capabilities a little.

EDit: And just in case you guys missed it, I'm talking specifically about jamming or shooting down modified comsumer drones, such as the ones that IS have been using for the last 8 years or so. Its pretty easy to stop an out of the box commercial drone in its tracks.

Good article from 2016 on how IS have been using drones and why they have been tricky to stop for the Iraqi and Syrian army.

https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20161208-how-is-is-using-consumer-drones

Edit: And another discussing the arms race between IS and the US military, in terms of cat and mouse with drone defences.

https://warontherocks.com/2020/12/how-the-army-out-innovated-the-islamic-states-drones/

We're still very much in the early stages of the "drone war". Every time a commercial anti drone device comes up with a new countermeasure, the nerds find a workaround. The tech isn't quite there to defend against commercial drones....yet.

Gatwick drone incident clusterfuck

FFS. My plane was on the runway minutes away from taking off when the alarm went off and we had to return to gate and disembark. Ended up sleeping on the floor of Gatwick that night.

Soudns grim.

There was a scramble to invest in drone countermeasures in the early months of 2019 after the Gatwick incident petered out. We did some work for a US hedge fund to appraise the commercial anti drone systems at the time.

The big gap in my knowledge is what the military are up to and what has happened in the commercial space since 2019 but afaik the key issues with commercial drone jamming are still at least part unresolved.

Imagine an IED being dropped from a commercial drone by some cuckoo terrorist in any city in the world.

I think 40mm grenades were the ordinance of choice for small consumer drones in Syria and Iraq. Only weigh 200g or so. I expect its pretty hard to home brew something that is light enough but packs enough of a punch. Then again, you can get some pretty large drones now days so maybe weight is less of a concern.

Nah, Helsinki City boy here. Lappeenranta is pretty nice. Especially when you get out of time and out to lake Saimaa. I hope you visited the Salpalinna museum from the last time we had some unwanted visitors from the East.

The finnish perspective to Erdogan is why on earth is Turkey even part of the North Atlantic pact. They could have a mediterranean pact for the countries in the south of Europe and Middle East. To be honest I don't feel all that secure joining union with fascists like Orban, Ergogan and Macron.

Not sure that you can label Macron a fascist, especially in comparison with those other two.

Yeah, lets hold off the labelling of people as 'fascist' here, we aren't Russians.

why on earth is Turkey even part of the North Atlantic pact

Incirlik.

The Incirlik nukes should have been secretly switched to dummies decades ago.
I reckon there's even a (very small) chance that it has already happened.

Yeah, that was bit tongue in cheak. Just checking if somebody is reading :) Le Pen would have been lot of fun.

I understand why there should be a deal with Turkey. All I'm saying is that their current policy and politics do not represent the values I would like to align with.

All I'm saying is ....

Then you should put in a lot of work on improving your rhetoric. Because the counter reactions you have been getting is to all the other nonsense you've somehow managed to cram into your argument. Your posts in this thread are all over the shop, suggesting splitting up NATO to form a "mediterranean pact" and that Macron is a fascist.

Macron definitely isn't a fascist...

But with all those calls to Putin and narrative about saving Putin's face / not humiliating Russia / even offering Zelenskyy to give up the land to Russia... Macron can go fuck himself.

Pardon my french if it's too harsh, i'm not a native english speaker.

All I'm saying is that their current policy and politics do not represent the values I would like to align with.

NATO's a defensive alliance. Not a cult.

Aye, a Dmitry Grozoubinski Twitter thread chewed that over:
https://twitter.com/DmitryOpines/status/1533133128801431552

tl;dr - Putin totally controls the narrative that matters to him and his position (which is wholly internal to Russia). In that context, there is no reason to entertain 'saving face' and you really have to wonder what else that is about.

It’s about getting back to cheap Russian energy as soon as possible. We (Western Europe) will never learn.

Maybe it's time we admit Russia is winning this war.

Or we supply Ukraine with the heavy weapons that will enable them to win. Thank god the Americans didn't take the same view about the Axis and passed lend lease in 1941.

Anyway, for a more nuanced assessment read Michael Kofman

https://ridl.io/en/the-russia-ukraine-war-100-days-in/