@CB

Also how the language shrinks - and how weird it is that any unintended reference taken as being to someone actually being gay is still considered a slur.

As I had said in previous post, Australia's government will follow their master's desires - unless they want to get regime-changed (again). Australia is an extremely important geo-strategic location for both the US military and intelligence in South East Asia.

Australia back flying in Syria
22 June 2017

Edit: Removed inadvertent gay slur. The original meaning (one who straddles his master's leg while grabbing a boot as the master pushes on the servant's ass with his other foot in order to remove the boot) is no longer recognized - shows my age.

@coloradoblue I know I'm gonna take some flack for this, but I'm so goddamned glad she's not in office.

"Russia has already sent a strong signal, which hopefully the tone-deaf neocons can hear, that Russia will lock radars on to any aircraft in Syrian airspace. That triggers US coalitions forces' (now minus Australia) airplane radars."

There have been some limited reports that Russia has walked back this threat, but imagine things can change daily if not hourly in America's Syrian clusterfuck. Thanks Obama and Hillary.

@Big Al I thought about that too. I guess one can get what we called "chaptered out" in the Army - claim PTSD type stress? That or injury and I'm not sure that you get an honorable from that either.

counter/counter electronic warfare system that literally makes Russian jets go "poof".
And how does a Navy seaman "resign". I wish they would have let us do that when I was in.

@Steven D @Steven D in pdf that provides further information about Russia's EW capabilities:

http://posse.gatech.edu/sites/default/files/pubfiles/Loukianova-Posse_Ru...

Today, Russian military officials view EW and ECM as an inexpensive, yet key determinants in the conduct and outcome of combat.35 They posit that “new developments allow to achieve information dominance over the adversary by the suppression of its [command and control] systems, achieve air superiority by neutralization of enemy radar, and deal with many other tasks.” As a Russian EW officer explained:

“There is nothing surprising that in the current circumstances, EW —as a relatively inexpensive and easily implemented means to disrupt the functioning of an enemy’s radar and other systems and to defend one’s own analogous systems from interference—is emerging as a priority and a focus for development. In certain circumstances, use of EW approaches can be viewed as asymmetric measures that negate the benefits of an adversary’s highly sophisticated systems and means of armed combat.”

that talks about Russia's overall Electronic Warfare capabilities and US lack of countermeasures in 2015: http://foreignpolicy.com/2015/10/21/russia-winning-the-electronic-war/

Lt. Gen. Ben Hodges, commander of U.S. Army units in Europe, has described Russian EW capabilities in Ukraine as “eye-watering.” Ronald Pontius, deputy to Army Cyber Command’s chief, Lt. Gen. Edward Cardon, told a conference this month that “you can’t but come to the conclusion that we’re not making progress at the pace the threat demands.”

The electronic war was on display from the start of the Russian incursion into Crimea in the spring of 2014. Not long after Russian EW equipment began rolling into the region, Ukrainian troops began to find that their radios and phones were unusable for hours at a time. Meanwhile, the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe, an international conflict-monitoring group, has consistently reported that its drones watching the conflict in eastern Ukraine have been “subject to military-grade GPS jamming,” forcing monitors to scrub missions taking stock of the war below.

At the forefront of the push to get the U.S. Army up to speed is Col. Jeffrey Church, the Army’s chief of electronic warfare. But it won’t be easy. Dealing with falling budgets, a lack of EW equipment, and a force that is shrinking by tens of thousands of troops, Church says that he has managed to train only a few hundred soldiers — a fraction of the EW forces that are fielded by potential adversaries like Russia and China. [...]

Last March, Deputy Defense Secretary Robert Work created an EW executive committee led by Frank Kendall, the undersecretary for acquisition, technology, and logistics. At the time, Work noted that the Defense Department had “lost focus on electronic warfare at the programmatic and strategic level.”

Although the Army is running a number of studies to quickly update and better integrate EW capability, none will be completed soon. In the meantime, Church said, soldiers must start training for new kinds of wars — namely, those that will increasingly depend on the kinds of sophisticated electromagnetic weapons that are becoming a mainstay for America’s most powerful conventional adversaries.

@detroitmechworks
attached to both Patton and Omar Bradley at various times. He loved Bradley and hated Patton.(Bradley loved field kitchens - Patton thought k rations built character)

I read his letters. (3rd ACR had a big exhibit to the guy as he was a a former CO) The man had no feeling for anyone, delighted in "discipline", even to the point of crushing morale, and was hated by almost everyone he worked with.
I have much more respect for Rommel, whose book, while a bit dry and German, emphasized minimizing the effect of war on civilians, and tried at least to talk about proper treatment of the enemy as respectable foes.
Macho Generals get good people killed. Good generals win without fighting.

@earthling1 @earthling1 @earthling1 but another Russian system known as Krasuha:

The mobile Krasuha series of systems is arguably the most widely discussed in Russian media. Designed in the mid-1990s, the system entered production in 2011.49 According to Jane’s, Krasuha-4 is “designed to neutralize Low-Earth Orbit (LEO) spy satellites such as the U.S. Lacrosse/Onyx series, satellites, ground-based radars, airborne surveillance radars, and radar-guided ordinance.”50 The system is reportedly able to protect an object from radar detection at the distance of 150-300 kilometers as well as inflict electronic disruption to adversary's radar electronic warfare and communications system.51 The system, generally employed in coordination with air defense elements in order to increase their survivability, is in service with the Russian military and will also reportedly be deployed in the Arctic in the near future.52

The Krasuha-4’s deployment in October 2015 at Latakia airfield in Syria perhaps caused the most concern to U.S./NATO and Israeli military forces. Presumably, its deployment was necessary in order to be able to jam ISIL and rebel communication systems. However, deployed in close proximity to other militaries engaged in counter-ISIL operations, the system also had an ability to disrupt radar, communications, and signals intelligence systems. Russia and Israel created a mechanism to deconflict their operations in Syria, including in “the electromagnetic arenas” in the fall of 2015.53

It could also be based on this active missile defense system the Russians employ in Syria:

On paper, the S-400 system is designed to destroy aircraft, drones, and cruise and ballistic missiles up to 400 kilometers away; it is also equipped with a radar able to detect targets at a range of 600km. Since its installation in Syrian territory, the action of Western and Turkish warplanes in support of rebel forces has been limited.

The presence of S-400 platforms in the Syrian theater possibly influenced the US strategy of attack against the Assad regime. The USS Porter and USS Ross, two Arleigh Burke-class destroyers stationed in the eastern Mediterranean, bombarded the Shayrat airbase in central Syria, which the Syrian Air Force used to launch suspected chemical attacks that left dozens of civilians dead in rebel-held Khan Shaykhun.

Though the Pentagon informed the Russian military beforehand of the impending operation, the US military command decided to attack from a safe distance. Tomahawk missiles have a range of 1,600km and their use in place of strike aircraft was probably intended to minimize potential losses caused by the very fast and precise S-400 surface-to-air missiles.

This could mean that the Pentagon acknowledges the effectiveness of the S-400 against warplanes and the electronic jamming capabilities of the US EA-18G Growler jets, which can weaken the operability of the Russian air shield in Syria but not neutralize it completely.

Thus the S-400’s deterrent function against aircraft sorties appears to be confirmed by the military option chosen by the United States to punish Assad. Chinese and Indian generals will be delighted with this outcome, which proves they have been right to bet on the S-400 system for their respective air defenses.

In particular, Delhi can reasonably be confident it will manage to undercut Beijing’s airborne capacities so as to gain aerial strategic parity in the Himalayan region, where the two countries have long-standing border disputes.

S-400’s vulnerability to swarm missile attacks

On the other hand, the barrage of Tomahawks demonstrated the Pentagon’s capacity to perforate the Russian defenses in Syria, possibly showing the vulnerability of the S-400 to low-flying missiles with small radar cross-sections.

The S-400 radar probably detected the Tomahawk swarm but the firing system apparently did not attempt to hit any missiles. It is now an open question whether Moscow’s military command in Syria deliberately opted not to engage the US missiles once informed of the imminent attack or, in contrast, was unable to react.

The Russian camp obviously leans toward the first scenario. In Moscow’s view, the interception of US Tomahawks by the S-400 system would have provoked a dangerous escalation. The fact that, after the US strike, Moscow announced its intention to strengthen the Syrian air defenses, however, is a sign that the Russian defense shield in war-torn Syria needs some improvements.

That said, all types of air defense systems, including the S-400, are still in large part untested as to whether they can resist multiple missile attacks. India and China should take that into account while focusing on the reinforcement of their own air and missile defenses. In this sense, the S-400’s mixed performance in Syria against the US Tomahawks should at least raise some doubt in Delhi and Beijing over the capabilities of this Russian arms system.

why only 23 missiles out of 59 launched reached their target at Syrian air base?

@earthling1
Within 1, what is the maximum number of "SCUD" missiles that any serious analyst believes might have been destroyed by PATRIOT missiles during the first Gulf War?

Answer: 1

why only 23 missiles out of 59 launched reached their target at Syrian air base?

@earthling1
with maps, or at least one map, showing how the flight paths of the projectiles were altered -- and here is the link: http://thesaker.is/a-multi-level-analysis-of-the-us-cruise-missile-attac...
See the diagram toward the front of the article.

Then, somewhere in the text, in a box quote, this bit of actuality appeared:

The Russians expressed their total disgust and outrage at this attack and openly began saying that the Americans were “недоговороспособны”. What that word means is literally “not-agreement-capable” or unable to make and then abide by an agreement.

why only 23 missiles out of 59 launched reached their target at Syrian air base?

@native I hate to give him credit for anything--but it is true that he opposed their policy toward Russia before they opposed him. He'd rather make an oil deal with Russia and poison the planet some more than blow us all to smithereens in a nuclear war.

has put the USA in a very weak geostrategic position. Bush's epic blunder of invading Iraq set the stage for a long downhill roll. Obama's Administration failed to recognize the magnitude of that disaster, or to foresee its almost inevitable consequences. Instead, they continued following the neocon program by underwriting a Ukrainian coup, forcing the disintegration of Libya, and supporting the Syrian jihadis' attempt to destroy Assad's government... all the while continuing to pour billions of dollars into the hopeless quagmire of Afghanistan... Then to top it all off, Obama decides to make a full-frontal assault on Russia herself -- a decision which can only be regarded as be the height of folly.

None of this mindless belligerence has done anything to strengthen America's global standing -- neither militarily, nor economically, and nor politically. All of it has been stupidly counter-productive, and none of it has served America's self-interest. Over the past 17 years, these policies have created almost nothing of value, but they have undeniably destroyed much.

They have also bequeathed to us, in the person of Donald Trump, a functionally illiterate President with a personality disorder, whose only virtue seems to be that the US Deep State, as well as neoliberals of every description, are all adamantly opposed whatever he might want to do. It's a recipe for chaos and dysfunction, no matter how you look at it.

@native

has put the USA in a very weak geostrategic position. Bush's epic blunder of invading Iraq set the stage for a long downhill roll. Obama's Administration failed to recognize the magnitude of that disaster, or to foresee its almost inevitable consequences. Instead, they continued following the neocon program by underwriting a Ukrainian coup, forcing the disintegration of Libya, and supporting the Syrian jihadis' attempt to destroy Assad's government... all the while continuing to pour billions of dollars into the hopeless quagmire of Afghanistan... Then to top it all off, Obama decides to make a full-frontal assault on Russia herself -- a decision which can only be regarded as be the height of folly.

None of this mindless belligerence has done anything to strengthen America's global standing -- neither militarily, nor economically, and nor politically. All of it has been stupidly counter-productive, and none of it has served America's self-interest. Over the past 17 years, these policies have created almost nothing of value, but they have undeniably destroyed much.

They have also bequeathed to us, in the person of Donald Trump, a functionally illiterate President with a personality disorder, whose only virtue seems to be that the US Deep State, as well as neoliberals of every description, are all adamantly opposed whatever he might want to do. It's a recipe for chaos and dysfunction, no matter how you look at it.