bluGill

I’ve hake seen many comments here that favor war crimes. Sad but all too common and I don’t think they are bots*

Careful how that is done. Hitting random things tends to make people more in favor of war - get back at those who destroyed the neighbor’s house. Hit things that are more impersonal like ammunition factories instead.

The purpose of the UN is to bring all countries no matter how evil together. The UN is useful - to the extent is useful at all - because of the larger number of nations that get together in peace to talk. I’m sure China loves this as it helps their efforts to keep Taiwan out. This is just another attempt to destroy the UN.

South Korea has a lot of useful equipment and the supply chains (factories) to build a lot of it. That equipment is what Ukraine needs more than anything, ideally at a low price (or under generous loan terms)

Nuclear programs are expensive and only useful in cases where things are so bad you are willing to end the entire world - including yourself. I’m not completely against France expanding their nuclear program, but I do think most of their effort should be focused on not letting things get that bad in the first place and that means enough conventional defense that they can defend themselves.

That itself would be a victory. One of Trump’s stated reason for wanting out of NATO is Europe wasn’t doing their part - the treaty requires specific amounts of military spending and most members were below that. Now that Ukraine happened most of Europe is at least close to the treaty required levels (many are still below, but at least they are close)

Which is to say you can’t lay down arms you don’t have. If you want to leave America behind (which is both good and bad in different ways) you need to have something in place to handle potential attacks without America.

The Korean war is still on - the last serious battle was 1953, but the two sides just decided it wasn’t worth fighting but never agreed to end it. It probably isn’t hard to find treaties and laws dating to back then that give the US military permission to attack without asking congress. (the us never declared war though, so it would need a very detailed lawyer and months to go through all the laws to figure out the exact status)

The smaller munber is yesterday.

Putin has surrounded himself with those who agree with him, and killed those who disagree who are at all in danger of getting a position of power. Unless you kill nearly everybody in politics nothing will change. (if you do I don’t know what the result will be other than really bad - and no guarantee of change for the better even with just the Ukraine issue)

Right, but about the turn from 2023 to 2024 tank numbers dropped a lot. Generally it was thought that russia ran out of tanks in storage that can quickly be reactivated. Of course they still have a lot, but the running out of tanks in storage forced hard decisions about how to use tanks. In turn that made the tanks lost number go way down this year, but since they have a lot of tanks they can use them more and sometimes they will lose more than they can make.

Russia still has a lot of tanks in storage - many dating back to just after WWII. However all the good ones have been used up and so what is left needs major rework, or brand new off the assembly line tanks. Generally it is thought between the two Russia can produce about 3 tanks per day (the real number is classified so we/I don’t know). What this means is Russia was forced to make hard decisions about using tanks

I don’t think you can custom design shot in a useful way. At least I can’t think of any way to impart a spin on shot which is what you want to get range and accuracy. I’m also not sure if that would be a good idea - short range is often an advantage - if you miss you don’t kill someone on your side you cannot see.

You are mistaking accuracy for lethal range. A lucky shot with buckshot could hit a human at 150m, but the shot will bounce right off their tshirt. A lucky shot with an infantry rifle could hit that human at 3km and kill them. Both of the above shots are luck - nobody can do that intentionally no matter how much training they have. Both of those are about as far as it is possible to reach with the respective gun (pointing up at a 45 degree angle)

If you want to talk about accuracy in the hands of someone well trained, your article is correct. This is well training - you won’t get that much training during basic training. That same training on an infantry rifle would get 800m with confidence (but if you are going to train someone that well you give them a more powerful gun so they can get 2000m).

I agree video games get this wrong all the time.

But depending on direction your fired ammo can fall on someone else on your side and now not only are you dead but you killed someone else via friendly fire.

Depends on what you are shooting with. A standard military rifle would be a difficult shot. A standard hunting shotgun has a good chance - though a shotgun doesn’t have much range.

That seems to be the government using the form of christianity, but it doesn’t seem to be something people really care about.

Compared to me Ukraine as a lot of them. Though your point is probably correct overall.

I don’t want battery toxic waste all over my shooting range (lead is bad enough - I try to use lead free shot).

Birds are not exactly predictable (depends on the bird, geese fly in a V and are very predictable, but other birds are erratic), but I’m not sure how different they are. Either way, you only need a more or less straight path for about 1 second, and you get multiple shots. Though if the drone is coming at you it still have momentum bringing it to you and shotguns don’t have much range.

I could see this working as a reasonable shot with a shotgun - but I could also see how it couldn’t and so I want someone in the military to tell me what works. (I’m willing to try on a range if you supply the drones - but at the price of drones I’m not willing to try this myself - and it goes without saying I’m not interested in going to a real battle field with all the other concerns that brings)

Maybe. Getting a shotgun out, and pointed in the right direction is not instant. I can do it fairly fast when I’m hunting, but I keep plenty of extra paddles in my canoe so that after shooting I can go find the dropped paddles. I’m not sure if soldiers are in position to safely throw whatever they have in their hands. I’m also not sure if having a shotgun is worth the extra weight when they don’t need it.

For sure this needs a military expert to weigh in on. Though I doubt they are talking yet.