This may be true, but the DOD has a list as long as your arm where they are behind. Everything from hypersonic missiles to cyber-warfare.
This is my base case except I think the fear mongering comes from the pigs at the trough. If I was in China’s position, I would avoid any direct military confrontation and let the ignorant, arrogant, corrupt, rust bucket collapse on itself.
On the other hand, if you compare by displacement tonnage:
Beware the man of one study.
edit: added warning
Totally agree! Arguably that is also the plan behind what Russia is doing to US/EU/NATO in the Ukraine – let the indebted de-industrialized West drive itself into economic ruin over the bodies of foolish Ukrainians.
The big fear for China must be – What if those useful idiots in the West suddenly realize the foolishness of what they are doing, and cut the size of government, reform their “educational” systems, and re-industrialize? Presumably well-placed “campaign contributions” will make sure that does not happen.
USCENTCOM Seizes Iranian Advanced Conventional Weapons Bound for Houthis
On 11 January 2024, while conducting a flag verification, U.S. CENTCOM Navy forces conducted a night-time seizure of a dhow conducting illegal transport of advanced lethal aid from Iran to resupply Houthi forces in Yemen as part of the Houthis’ ongoing campaign of attacks against international merchant shipping.
U.S. Navy SEALs operating from USS LEWIS B PULLER (ESB 3), supported by helicopters and unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), executed a complex boarding of the dhow near the coast of Somalia in international waters of the Arabian Sea, seizing Iranian-made ballistic missile and cruise missiles components. Seized items include propulsion, guidance, and warheads for Houthi medium range ballistic missiles (MRBMs) and anti-ship cruise missiles (ASCMs), as well as air defense associated components. Initial analysis indicates these same weapons have been employed by the Houthis to threaten and attack innocent mariners on international merchant ships transiting in the Red Sea.
This is the first seizure of lethal, Iranian-supplied advanced conventional weapons (ACW) to the Houthis since the beginning of Houthi attacks against merchant ships in November 2023. The interdiction also constitutes the first seizure of advanced Iranian-manufactured ballistic missile and cruise missile components by the U.S. Navy since November 2019. The direct or indirect supply, sale, or transfer of weapons to the Houthis in Yemen violates U.N. Security Resolution 2216 and international law.
Two U.S. Navy SEALs previously reported as lost at sea were directly involved in this operation. “We are conducting an exhaustive search for our missing teammates,” said General Michael Erik Kurilla, USCENTCOM Commander.
The dhow was deemed unsafe and sunk by U.S. Navy forces. Disposition of the 14 dhow crewmembers is being determined in accordance with international law.
“It is clear that Iran continues shipment of advanced lethal aid to the Houthis. This is yet another example of how Iran actively sows instability throughout the region in direct violation of U.N Security Resolution 2216 and International law,” said General Michael Erik Kurilla, "We will continue to work with regional and international partners to expose and interdict these efforts, and ultimately to reestablish freedom of navigation.”
You, as an individual, should put yourself in the position of Xi or Putin, not China or Russia, generically. They are in it for personal glory while they can enjoy it and, thus, must force the issue.
That is a cynical view of human nature – but probably accurate. The interesting question is – what constitutes “personal glory”?
For a “Joe Biden”, it is sitting in the Oval Office while he has his ice-cream. For Deng Xiaoping, it was probably lifting hundreds of millions of his fellow citizens out of poverty. Who can reliably tell us what “personal glory” means to a Putin or a Xi?
Brings back memories of LEAKED VIDEO: Google Leadership's Dismayed Reaction to Trump Election
Edit: there is an old saying in Tennessee…
Northrop Grumman 57 mm Guided Ammunition
Northrop Grumman’s Guided 57mm Ammunition is a next-generation technology designed for use on the U.S. Navy’s Mk110 weapon system. Our Guided 57mm ammunition is capable of continuous, multi-directional, in-flight maneuver to effectively guide the round to impact. The 57mm Guided projectile enables the warfighter to cost effectively address and defeat complex, fast, swarming threats at greater ranges by leveraging existing systems and capabilities.
Here is more about the guided cannon round from Popular Mechanics.
The round is fired from the Bofors 57 mm Naval Automatic Gun L/70 Mark 3, which is designated Mark 110 Mod 0 57mm gun by the U.S. Navy. The Mark 3 gun is currently deployed by the navies of eleven countries.
An unexpected event: a pair of UA Bradley IFVs (with a least one other in the vicinity) mission killed a RU T-90M in a fairly spectacular manner. Later a drone finished it off.
It looks like they surprised each other and the T-90 was caught without infantry support…possibly the other Bradley was working on them. The T-90 shoots and misses with the 125mm, and the Bradleys accurately fire on the tank with their 25mm Bushmaster autocannons. There are claims that the first Bradley shot out the tank optics, and then they both shot at the tank. Eventually they detonate the smoke grenade launcher on the turret side. The tank then is uncontrolled (crew is either stunned or controls are broken) until it runs into a tree and the drone finds it. Then the crew bails.
This is, in modern combat terms, at knife fighting range. Possibly too close for the Brads to use TOW antitank missiles (65m or 200m minimum, depending on the model). As far as we can tell the armour was not penetrated in a significant manner, but it shows that you don’t have to penetrate to have an effect.
Sadly, the video doesn’t embed, but here a link to a reddit post
Closer clip showing the tank taking rounds
Edit: a word. Expanded last para.
I wonder how this information in compiled. I don’t think it can be from the satellites where signals originate, since receivers are passive; they don’t respond to the satellite(s), if I understand how this works. Crowd source of many end users?
The map uses data provided by ADS-B Exchange to generate maps of likely GPS interference, based on aircraft reports of their navigation system accuracy.
What do the other colors on the map represent? Is tan (most of Ukraine) or whatever color that is between low and medium, medium and high or no data or what?
I would assume it means no data. The maps are based on data from ADS-B Exchange, and they likely have no people feeding them data from those areas. Also, most data come from commercial airline flights, of which there are few into, out of, or over war zones.
OK. You guys who follow this kind of stuff carefully, a T-90 may be the current Ruissian main battle tank, but it suffers from the same design flaws the earlier T72’s did - a circular magazine right below the turret. Hit that and the tank goes BOOM - spectacularly. This case may have been a leetle different but I suspect subsystems are similar. So knowing where to hit the tank may have been its crucial weakness.
That would make sense if the hit would not have been fatal absent the magazine location.
But it may be an issue of just making a kill look grander or the tank less repairable.
Is it from turret penetration? If I penetrate the turret on a tank without such storage wouldn’t it kill everyone in the turret and put the tank out of commission absent a depot or factory level repair?
Hmmm! Engineering is always a matter of trade-offs. There are better designs and worse designs, but every design has weaknesses as well as strengths.
Warfare: everyone gets his licks in. Everyone suffers losses as well as inflicting losses on the opponent. Remember the Royal Navy’s loss of battleships versus Japan, and the US loss of aircraft carriers versus Japan – but that did not change the outcome of the conflict. A critical factor is industrial capacity – something the US used to have in spades. The US WWII Sherman tank was not a particularly great tank – but there were an awful lot of them, with more pouring off the assembly lines every day. But that was then, and this is now.
