Originally Posted By GTLandser:


I don't disagree that it is happening, I just think it is a terrible (slow) idea.

These are the problems with 3D printing in a warzone, IMO: let's bring in a bunch of complex parts that performs one task, very slowly, and is highly sensitive to the input materials (grain size, moisture content...every fucking thing).

If we clog a nozzle or burn out a control board, or Joe doesn't watch the quality of the printing process like a hawk...that's it, you're fucked, wait for something else to be flown in. Also, let's rely completely on highly trained labor, and ignore the local populace, who would probably happily work for us for meals, clean drinking water, and $10 a day. Brilliant.

HESCOs, plywood, and sandbags aren't all that great, but they are CHEAP and people generally know what to do with them.

Rather than 3D printing, I think earth blocks would be much more appropriate for warzones (or disaster relief efforts, in the medium-term). Basically, after tents but before HESCOs are made useless by weather or enemy fire, and when moderate speed of construction is acceptable:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fx7tI67-8d0

This company in TX has the leading machines for this technique.

Originally Posted By kncook:


That was great!

CIA Director William Burns has reaffirmed his assessment that China is "unsettled" by Russia's struggles in Ukraine, but he doesn't believe Moscow's troubles will change Beijing's own determination to capture Taiwan.

Beijing is weighing the events in Europe against its own cost-benefit calculus, Burns said at a Financial Times event on Saturday. "Clearly the Chinese leadership is trying to look carefully at what lessons they should draw from Ukraine about their own ambitions in Taiwan."

Just weeks before Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered his forces to invade neighboring Ukraine, he was in Beijing to ink a 5,000-word joint statement with his Chinese counterpart, President Xi Jinping, who together declared the Russia-China partnership had "no limits."

Officials in Beijing say they were unaware of Putin's plans, and that the conflict isn't in China's interests. U.S. officials, who were adamant about the Kremlin's intentions despite widespread skepticism in Europe, believe Beijing knew about the forthcoming military operation but likely failed to anticipate its scale.

Since February 24, however, European capitals have expressed repeated alarm at the significant political cover Russia continues to receive from China. Jrg Wuttke, president of the EU Chamber of Commerce in China, recently described Xi as having "maneuvered himself into two dead ends at once."

"He can't change his [zero-COVID] policy, and he can't change anything about his friendship with Vladimir Putin," Wuttke said.

In Washington, CIA chief Burns said Xi is "a little bit unsettled by the reputational damage that could come to China by association with the brutishness of Russia's aggression against Ukrainians."

China's president is "unsettled, certainly, by the economic uncertainty that's been produced by the war, particularly in a year, 2022, when I think Xi's main focus is on predictability and getting through a major party congress this coming November," he said. "And I think also unsettled by the fact that what Putin has done is drive Europeans and Americans closer together."

Chinese leaders would've been surprised by the performance of the Russian military and by Ukraine's "whole-of-society" resistance, said Burns. "I think they've been struck by the way in which particularly the transatlantic alliance has come together to impose economic costs on Russia as a result of that aggression."

Despite some notable lessons to learn, Burns believes Xi is yet to be deterred from his ultimate goal.

"I don't for a minute think that it's eroded Xi's determination over time to gain control over Taiwan, but I think it's something that's affecting their calculation about how and when they go about doing that as well."

He made a similar assessment when testifying in Congress in March.

At a budget hearing last week, General Mark Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said China intends to develop the military capabilities to seize Taiwan by 2027the centennial of the People's Liberation Army.

"President Xi has set an objective to have his military prepared capability-wise. That's not the same to say he's actually going to invade, but to have the capability to seize the island of Taiwan," he told senators on May 3.

The U.S.'s most senior military officer called it "a very tall order."

John Kirby, the Pentagon's press secretary, told a media briefing the same week that the U.S. doesn't want to "see the status quo change unilaterally in a military way."

Ukraine's government mocked Russia's celebration of "Victory Day" by holding what it said was a "parade" of tanks that Ukrainian forces captured from Russian troops amid Moscow's war with the eastern European country.

The Ukrainian Defense Ministry said in a tweet on Wednesday that the Ukrainian military's 93rd Mechanized Brigade "held a parade of trophy Russian tanks, ruining the holiday for the occupiers," in reference to Victory Day.

"Maybe aggressors think that by arming #UAarmy with Russian trophy equipment, it will affect the turn of NATO-style armament? New clever plan," the Ukrainian Defense Ministry taunted in the tweet.

Russia's annual Victory Day, held on May 9, commemorates the Soviet Union's defeat of Nazi Germany in World War II.

Every year, Russia marks the occasion with a grand military parade in Moscow's Red Square.

This year, Russian President Vladimir Putin's  Victory Day speech passed without a single direct mention of Ukraine or a declaration of all-out war, despite Western officials' warnings that Putin may escalate the conflict around the holiday.

In his speech, Putin ripped NATO expansion, accused the US of aggression, and called Ukraine and its leaders Nazis  claims he previously used to justify the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

When Putin announced his invasion of Ukraine, he said he was seeking the "denazification" of Ukraine, a country whose democratically elected leader, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, is Jewish.

"The West was preparing for the invasion of Russia. NATO was creating tensions at the borders. They did not want to listen to Russia. They had other plans," Putin said in his Victory Day speech. "You are fighting for the motherland, for its future, so that no one forgets the lessons of World War II, so that there is no place in the world for executioners, punishers, and Nazis."

Russia launched its unprovoked invasion of Ukraine on February 24 and the war has since left thousands dead on both sides, including many Ukrainian civilians.

In recent weeks, Russia has focused its attacks in Ukraine on the eastern Donbas region after Russian troops failed to take the Ukrainian capital of Kyiv.

Originally Posted By AeroEngineer:
Question about another thread related to this conflict:

There was a thread in GD that started pretty soon after the invasion with a title along the lines of "Ukrainians are barely fighting back".  

Quickly the OP of that thread disappeared and it became sarcastic posts and then one longish term member consistently posting nothing but the most obvious Russian propaganda.  

I can't find that thread.  Was it nuked?  Any ideas?

Originally Posted By AeroEngineer:
Question about another thread related to this conflict:

There was a thread in GD that started pretty soon after the invasion with a title along the lines of "Ukrainians are barely fighting back".  

Quickly the OP of that thread disappeared and it became sarcastic posts and then one longish term member consistently posting nothing but the most obvious Russian propaganda.  

I can't find that thread.  Was it nuked?  Any ideas?

"This is a deal which is valid until further notice, but it is an important signal ahead of the coming [Nato] ratification process," a source with knowledge of the deal told the Aftonbladet newspaper.

According to a press release issued by the Swedish government, Johnson will meet Sweden's prime minister Magdalena Andersson at her official country retreat at Harpsund, about 100km west of Stockholm.

The two will discuss the security situation in Europe and bilateral relations and cooperation between Sweden and the UK. The two are due to hold a press conference early on Wednesday afternoon.

According to the newspaper, recent classified meetings of the Swedish parliament's defence and foreign committees, MPs have been told of secret bilateral cooperation with the UK.

According to several of the newspaper's sources, Johnson is visiting to officially sign an agreement on this deeper bilateral cooperation, which will, among other things, see British naval vessels dispatched to the Baltic to protect Swedish and Finnish waters during the Nato ratification process.

On Tuesday morning, the Finnish newswire STT broke the news that Johnson was coming to Sweden on Wednesday, reporting that Johnson would then go on to visit Finland later on Wednesday afternoon.

UK Defence Minister Ben Wallace visited Finland last week, and gave reassurances that the UK would support Finland and Sweden in the event of an attack from Russia, whether or not the two countries decide to join Nato.

This slightly toughened up an earlier pledge of support he gave at a meeting with his Swedish and Danish counterparts at the start of March.

Originally Posted By belted_guns:

That is totally amazing. These should be everywhere.

Wrecked Russian fighter jets are being found with rudimentary GPS receivers "taped to the dashboards" in Ukraine because their inbuilt navigation systems are so bad, the UK defense minister said.

Speaking at the National Army Museum in London on Monday, Ben Wallace commemorated those who died in World War II and called Russia's invasion of Ukraine "senseless and self-defeating."

He also said there was evidence suggesting Russian military hardware was being pushed to breaking point by the invasion of Ukraine.

"'GPS' receivers have been found taped to the dashboards of downed Russian Su-34s so the pilots knew where they were, due to the poor quality of their own systems," he said.

"The result is that whilst Russia have large amounts of artillery and armor that they like parading, they are unable to leverage them for combined arms maneuver and just resort to mass indiscriminate barrages."

The Su-34 was first manufactured during the Soviet Union in the early 1990s, but is still one of Russia's leading fighter jets.

Ukraine has shared abundant evidence of what it says are Russia's attempts to patch over issues with old military equipment and bypass equipment shortages.

Last month, Ukrainian troops paraded a Russian drone that had been covered in duct tape and fitted with a generic plastic bottle top for a fuel cap. In late March, Ukrainian troops found Russian army bandages dating back to 1978 discarded on a battlefield.

In his Monday speech, Wallace also said Russian vehicles "are frequently found with 1980s paper maps of Ukraine in them" and that soldiers are using "pine logs as makeshift protection on logistical trucks" and attaching "overhead 'cope cages' to their tanks."

Russia held its annual May 9 "Victory Day" military parade in Moscow on Monday, but canceled the air force fly-by due to what it said was bad weather.

During his speech, President Vladimir Putin didn't declare all-out war on Ukraine as Western officials including Wallace had expected, instead praising the valor of Russian troops fighting in the eastern Donbas region and slamming NATO and the US.

Originally Posted By M-1975:
"The whole civilized world must see the conditions in which the wounded, crippled defenders of Mariupol are and act! In complete unsanitary conditions, with open wounds bandaged with non-sterile remnants of bandages, without the necessary medication and even food."

????? ????????????? ???? ??? ?????? ?????, ? ???? ??????????? ????????, ????????? ????????? ????????? ? ?????!
? ?????? ?????????????, ? ?????????? ??????, ?????'??????? ?? ??????????? ????????? ??????, ??? ?????????? ???????????? ? ?????? ??????????.
?? pic.twitter.com/dUfjhhU9Nm

— ????? (@antiputler_news) May 10, 2022

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FSZy3bKXEAQCURv?format=jpg&name=large
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FSZy7u3WQAAVwu6?format=jpg&name=large
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FSZy8RIWYAAEzCr?format=jpg&name=large
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FSZy89BXsAEY42u?format=jpg&name=large

Originally Posted By m35ben:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-CwumYoBGwU

Originally Posted By m35ben:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jOePz2hfsJQ

The actions of the occupiers led to the suspension of gas transit through the Sokhranivka DHW

The GTS of Ukraine (OGTSU) operator announces the occurrence of force majeure, which makes it impossible to continue transporting gas through the Sokhranivka DHW and the Novopskov Border Compressor Station (CS) located in the occupied territories. Novopskov is the first compressor station of the Ukrainian GTS in Luhansk region, through which almost a third of gas (up to 32.6 million cubic meters per day) is transited from Russia to Europe.

As a result of the Russian Federation's military aggression against Ukraine, a number of GTS facilities are located in the territory controlled by Russian troops and the occupation administration. Currently, OGTSU cannot carry out operational and technological control over the Novopskov COP and other assets located in these territories. Moreover, the intervention of the occupying forces in technological processes, changes in the modes of operation of GTS facilities, including unauthorized withdrawal of gas from the transit stream, endangered the stability and safety of the entire Ukrainian gas transportation system.

These actions under the current transit contract are force majeure (force majeure) circumstances that make it impossible to fulfill obligations at the connection point of GVS "Sokhranivka", as well as the border compressor station "Novopskov", which are not currently controlled by OGTSU.

Taking into account the above, the OGTSU informs that from 07:00 on May 11, 2022, gas will not be accepted into the GTS of Ukraine at the physical point of the Sokhranivka connection. In order to fulfill the transit obligations to European partners in full and in accordance with the terms of the agreement, it is possible to temporarily transfer unavailable capacity from the physical point of Sokhranivka connection to the physical point of Sudzha connection located in the territory controlled by Ukraine.

The company repeatedly informed Gazprom about threats of transit due to the actions of the Russian-controlled occupation forces and demanded an end to interference in the operation of the facilities, but these appeals were ignored.

Originally Posted By CS223:
We really need to get those folks out of there. I pray everyday for something akin to a WWII style, against all odds, Great Escape type of rescue.