Following Austria's lead, Germany signed a contract for 18 Skyranger turrets with an option for 30 more. The German turrets will be equipped with Stinger missiles and will be integrated into the Boxer APC. First delivery is expected by end of this year. https://augengeradeaus.net/2024/02/wiedereinst...
Jump to postGerman frigate Hessen downed two hostile UAVs yesterday. One was hit by shells from its 76 mm cannon, the other was intercepted by a RAM missile. Additionally, the Hessen engaged a MQ-9 with two SM-2 missiles, both of which missed (!). This case of (attempted) friendly fire was caused by switched-of...
Jump to postI believe that an unprovoked offensive (i. e. without prior attacks on NATO territory) by a NATO member is not convered by Article 5. There have been plenty of wars involving a NATO member but not once was Article 5 a realistic option to enforce support from other alliance members. A hypothetical Ro...
Jump to postOne thing I do find totally inexplicable is the refusal to send some Taurus to the UK, for fitment on to our Typhoons. Yes this will allow more of the warstock Storm Shadows to be sent to Ukraine, no need to say it out loud, (much of the rest of the UK stock is being upgraded to keep in service unt...
Jump to postOthers can aid them, but at the end of the day, it really is up to UA to defend itself, just like it was for VN and AF. Perspective! If we want parallels, then a more proper comparison would be the Afghan Army, ARVN, and the Russian proxy army in Ukraine are of the same cloth. Remove the foreign tr...
Jump to postNASA explained that this was a relativity low cost mission by design. NASA said they could fund 10 of these low cost missions for the price one major mission, like one of the ones to Mars for example. What led to the current lander having a bad landing was simple human error on this relatively low ...
Jump to postWithout those large deliveries of every possible thing (bullets, tanks, airplanes, jeeps, food, fuel, etc) the USSR would never have been able to push the Nazis out of their territory, yet we always read about the historic RU victory without the aid being mentioned. It gives the Poles justification...
Jump to postFrench frigates are kept busy too: https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20240220-french-navy-downs-two-drones-over-red-sea Further EU frigates are planned to join them in the next weeks as part of operation "EUNAVFOR Aspides", which was launched yesterday. Two FREMM frigates...for when y...
Jump to postAnother A-50 shot down! https://kyivindependent.com/russian-a50-plane-shot-down-over-azov-sea-military-says/ The aircraft model can't be discerned in the dark but some nice videos came from this, showing a ton of flares (and, I would assume, unseen chaff) being dispensed by an aircraft that's very ...
Jump to postAustria will acquire the Skyranger SHORAD system for 36 of their new Pandur Evo APCs. The turrets come with a 30 mm gun (3 km range) and two Mistral 3 SAMs (7 km range). https://defence-blog.com/austria-to-receive-newest-german-air-defense-systems/ https://www.rheinmetall.com/en/media/news-watch/new...
Jump to postNot the way I read it, however navigating Coalition politics in Germany can be hard for outsiders to get a proper understanding. Indeed, sometimes it's even difficult for Germans to understand what's going on. Just yesterday, Scholz' speaker said that "he's sticking to his position concerning ...
Jump to postA bit more context; LH is completely restructuring their top management. - Harry Hohmeister, responsible for “Global Markets and Commercial Steering Hubs”, will not extend his contract and will be replaced by current Swiss CEO Dieter Vranckx - Detlef Kayser, responsible for "Commercial and Tech...
Jump to postIt seems that though the German Chancellor is open to supply Taurus, not all in his coalition are. If it needs more time so be it, really if they do release some the F-16's would be the ideal platform, the small number of SU-24's are not short of Storm Shadow/SCALP, just airframes to carry them. Th...
Jump to post... I have have seen and read a few reports of soldiers on leave being surprised and somewhat shocked, dismayed, at what appears to be an absence of a sense of the war in cities like Kyiv, though aside from administrative capital city functions, other things are going on; https://www.youtube.com/wa...
Jump to postFrench frigates are kept busy too: https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/2 ... er-red-sea
Further EU frigates are planned to join them in the next weeks as part of operation "EUNAVFOR Aspides", which was launched yesterday.
Governments should be aware how much problems this will cause them if this continues. In March 2021 when the Suez canal was blocked for just six days enormous supply chains struggled with ships and containers in the wrong place. Here the extra 10 days added outbound, and 10 days back, by going arou...
Jump to postI didn't bother to check where Airbus is eventually registered as a company. You sparked my curiosity so I looked it up. It's actually registered in the Netherlands. Interesting 20 year old discussion on why they did that right here: https://www.airliners.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=274479 A little O...
Jump to postA look at Ukraine's tank force two years in; https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidaxe/2024/02/17/after-two-years-of-war-ukraine-still-has-a-thousand-tanks/ Only 116 of those 1000+ tanks are relatively modern western tanks, though. (Technically, only the 21 Leopard 2A6, 10 Strv 122 and 14 Challenger 2 ...
Jump to postkalvado wrote:You know standard risk assessment procedures used by FAA, right?
Been following mediterranean diet as much as I can for last 4-5 years. But I live in an Indian household so we do our best to make healthy Indian recipes. Antioxidants rule all. I believe that traditional indian cuisine is pretty healthy, at least as long as you avoid adding too much fat (some reci...
Jump to postSo when the one remaining pilot in an operating seat needs to deal with a physiological requirement while the other is resting in their bunk, who takes control then? A system that needs to deal with a potentially incapacitated single pilot, with several minutes passing until the situation is notice...
Jump to postLH ground staff has announced a strike on Wednesday (07 Feb). https://www.lufthansa.com/de/en/flight-information#accordion-item-section-1610565147 The trade union Verdi has called on ground staff at Deutsche Lufthansa AG, Lufthansa Technik, Lufthansa Cargo and other companies to go on a warning stri...
Jump to postI believe it's partially due to the proximity of many different states with only limited central coordination by the EU (or other international bodies) that leads to inefficiencies in spectrum usage, thus requiring more channels than would be expected for the amount of traffic. Not all European stat...
Jump to postI would have guessed (hoped) that the sheer amount of NB engines produced and operated would reduce investment and operating cost, compared to the relatively ‘rare’ WB engines found only on a 345, 346 and 777-series, which are sold a factor 10 less than their NB siblings High engine maintenance cos...
Jump to postI'm also left wondering why Airbus didn't design the A340 around the same power plants available on the A330. Seems plausible as they were built off the same line so more common parts during production. This also could've given the A340 more sales with the A330 due to wider engines options and shar...
Jump to postHungary has signalled it is ready to compromise on EU funding for Ukraine - after Brussels reportedly prepared to sabotage its economy if it did not comply. https://news.sky.com/story/ukraine-russia-war-latest-putin-sky-news-live-news-12541713 Good news for Ukraine. Next stop for Hungary is approvi...
Jump to postI'd normally agree with all of that but seeing the U.S. military budget tied up with so many other things, I'm not sure it can afford another big procurement program even in that extended timeframe. If there's a need, there's a budget. Cargo isn't sexy, of course, but worldwide power projection jus...
Jump to postConsidering the need to (eventually) replace both C-5 and C-17, and also the use of both for a lot of long-range TATL/TPAC missions (which the A400M isn't that good at), I'd expect the US to launch a dedicated new large airlifter program in 10 or 20 years. For the lower end, they can always buy more...
Jump to postEurope, however, has implemented 8.33 kHz spacing (which effectively triples the number of channels available) because 720 channels wasn't enough for them. While there was some grumbling here and there, the switch from 25 kHz to 8.33 kHz went relatively smoothly and wasn't that costly (at least for...
Jump to postThis. I mean, they don't shy away abusing POW's to no end. Now they have an easy out to go with downright Gestapo treatment, knowing they can always write off dying folks to "shot down on prisoner exchange flight". They wouldn't need an excuse like that, though. You could always fake medi...
Jump to postAt this point the number of Russian Il-76s that've been since the start of the war must be a staggering amount, and not something the Russians can easily replace. There was a huge number of Il-76 built back in the day and production of the newer variant is still ongoing. I don't think they love los...
Jump to posttwincommander wrote:They probably already have a new plug on hand.
Repacking masks takes 4 guys 2 hours. If they are replacing the full PSU, not much longer.
That's EXACTLY what inflation measures, how much prices have gone up. I cannot believe I have to make that argument. The price of the average thing has gone up EXACTLY at the rate of inflation, since that's what the rate of inflation IS. Now if you want to claim that aircraft have gone up at a rate...
Jump to postReally only Patriot could have done it, however supply did not stop despite them bringing down Russian aircraft in their own airspace last May. Could citing the German system be an attempt at pressure, with the as seems likely, POW story? Ukraine has mentioned just how effective IRIS-T has been, th...
Jump to posttomcat wrote:This smells like a well orchestrated downing by the Russians, even if the SAM came from Ukraine.
Video showing impact and explosion of the plane as well as a smoke cloud in the sky, supposedly from a missile impact.
https://old.reddit.com/r/CombatFootage/ ... rod_smoke/
I'm pretty sure, but if it cannot take a 15A load at all times, the wiring is not to code. There will be a lot of circuits in a house that take a 15A load for hours at a time. Think HVAC. The recommendation seems to be that continuous loads should not exceed 80% of the maximum rating, or 12 A for a...
Jump to postShort range air defence would work a lot better if it was installed on the targets. Like old merchant vessels would regularly carry light armaments against pirates.
Jump to postThat's actually a flaw in the North American electrical system - amperages are not fully dictated by outlet prongs, allowing a 5 A cord to be plugged into a 15A circuit. With the right extension cord, I wouldn't worry about heat. But with that said, the cord for my EVSE is 15' long. That's long eno...
Jump to postGermany will deliver 6 retired Sea King Mk41 transport/recon/search-and-rescue helicopters to Ukraine.
https://augengeradeaus.net/2024/01/ukra ... estaenden/ [German]
The A350 took 18 months (June 2013 to January 2015) from first flight to first delivery. I think it's easier to plan the certification of a new aircraft compared to an upgrade of an existing one. You don't need to worry or argue about 'grandfathered' features that would not be certifiable today, you...
Jump to postAutonomous landers are a lot harder, in some aspects, than crewed vehicles. Between the SU and the US back then, 20 soft lunar landers, 3 autonomous rovers and 11 robotic sample return missions were launched with only 12 successes in total. And even for the crewed missions, 1 of 7 failed.
Jump to posthttps://edition.cnn.com/travel/snake-on ... index.html
Snake handling gear is required in some places.
Frankly, the Bradley crews were very lucky (and skilled) here. Or well trained as they probably knows exactly where the tank's optics were and at that range the Bradley would have blind it with the first salvo. bt Possibly but that's still a significant risk and assumes a certain level of (lack of)...
Jump to postAll's well that ends well, though. Disabled in a known location in no-man's land means it could be finished off with more drones at Ukraine's leisure. Frankly, the Bradley crews were very lucky (and skilled) here. If they hadn't managed to incapacitate the tank this quickly or if they had been slow...
Jump to postLong range supersonic bombers are a decades-old concept. The last time the US looked into it, 50 years ago, they built the B-1. Russia has the Tu-22M of similar vintage. Government funding towards civilian supersonic transport has always had potential applications for military use in mind. But I agr...
Jump to postIt's not just copyright. There are many who own their models and IP but it's still discouraged (usually) to talk about their "past life". Some are more open, of course, just like there are some who have no issue sharing personal information or even showing their face on camera. I guess the...
Jump to postYeah it's a double-edged sword. Being (mostly) anonymous and the fleixibility of an avatar can give greater creative freedom but at the same time, it makes it challenging to track someone's work after a "graduation". Some also don't want to talk about their past roles or personas, like an ...
Jump to postIt's technically possible but at least with cars, the glass would quickly get scratched and become opaque.
Jump to postFor now only in German media: https://augengeradeaus.net/2024/01/baerbock-bundesregierung-will-lieferung-britischer-eurofighter-an-die-saudis-freigeben/ The German government announced that they'll support the sale of 48 Eurofighters to Saudi-Arabia. This decision was made in the context of the ongo...
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