Posts by Simon Grigg
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Hard News: Game Lorde, in reply to Danielle,
ignoring how great the girl groups were
I've played this about a million times since I bought it a few months back.
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Hard News: This time it's Syria, in reply to Simon Grigg,
Surely the Syrian dispersal plans are more for attack by an external power in a classic style attack
Yes, there is that. So that really comes down to terrain control.
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Hard News: This time it's Syria, in reply to BenWilson,
I’m curious what you mean by the Swedish model, with no infrastructure. You mean no radar installations at all? How do they see any kind of incoming aircraft then?
The Swedes and the Swiss developed a model, which the North Vietnamese also used successfully, of mobile radar units. Networks of on and off mobile units are really really hard to to track and take out. Satellites and drones don't work against them (and as above, it would not be a drone friendly environment anyway).
Pushing a hot jet into a building in an urban setting - land on the road and into a house or commercial building - is pretty good camouflage. What are you going to do if you do spot it too? Take out an apartment building?
The Swedes and Swiss also use caves. Hard to track a hot jet under a mountain.
Fact is (as others stated above), the last time the US came up against a fighter hostile environment and won was 1953 and that was primarily because the F-86 was a vastly superior aircraft to the MiG-15.
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Hard News: This time it's Syria, in reply to BenWilson,
If they were spotted they could pretty much be followed back to where-ever they need to land and blown up there, even if they have the capacity to evade a sudden storm of homing missiles.
I really do think you are overstating the ability of US technology to take these out. Firstly, unmanned vs. piloted aircraft simulations are still seeing the manned aircraft when flown by an experienced pilot take out the drones every time. At the moment and in the foreseeable future drones only work in a benign environment (see link below). The current drones are also not fighter aircraft, they are ground attack and reconnaissance aircraft and have no air to air capacity (see link below).
And there is no ground infrastructure to destroy, that's the point of the Swedish model. Yes you can take out the airfields but that's all you've done. Once the jets have dispersed then you can use all the pre-programmed coordinates, satellites and spotters you like and they'll do little.
And I disagree that the day of the jet fighter is gone. Keir is right, these things are designed to counter all counter-measures. Which is why they are still made in such numbers.
Here's an interesting thread on UAV air-to-air from folks who might know. Conclusion - don't hold your breath.
Wasn't the F-104 Starfight supposed to be the last manned fighter jet? That was 1964.
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Hard News: Friday Music: Specks of Money…, in reply to Martin Brown,
Understand Simon – but if they’re doing it in a blanket style (using bots?) that’s not really cool and it’s a disturbing model.
Yep, agreed, but from what I understand those were mostly teething problems. The licensor interface now gets you to specify what should be covered so hopefully that's resolved. Blanket claiming - which is what the majors have been doing for ages - is simply unacceptable. I still have stuff claimed by Sony that they have no rights to.
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Hard News: Friday Music: Specks of Money…, in reply to Mike O'Connell,
BTW is Graeme Jeffries still active with the Cakekitchen?
Yes indeed. I had a letter from him recently with a bunch of new stuff. His last album was http://www.discogs.com/Cakekitchen-Calm-Before-The-Storm/release/4659129 which is quite wonderful.
Re DRM and YouTube. They are aware there have been a few glitches. When it happened to a track owned by a third party on a comp of mine they reversed it immediately and apologetically. Other acts on various compilations are just happy to be getting finally paid on video play after having had nothing from YouTube in the past. I think the reasonably wide and quite passive licensing of the site’s content is a win-win mostly for all parties.
As an aside, APRA too license YouTube although up until now that’s just been the official channels but I understand that’s changing to embrace all content.
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Hard News: This time it's Syria, in reply to Ian Dalziel,
that might ‘creep the mission’ a tad too far!
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Oh good: World War III
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Hard News: This time it's Syria, in reply to Russell Brown,
I’m struggling to believe that the French have entirely fabricated their dossier on the attacks.
Me too, but Kerry may have been caught out fabricating parts of his dossier, not least the photo of bodies he used, with questions over the intercepts he quoted.
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Hard News: This time it's Syria, in reply to BenWilson,
I don’t know that they see it like that
There’s clearly some dissention in the ranks.
I think the biggest loser here in all likelihood stands to be Obama and the next Democratic candidate unless he/she is well distanced from the current POTUS. The likes of Fox will turn on Obama instantly there isn’t an immediate response.
And 90 days? Assad can likely survive that without blinking as long as he bunkers down. Once again – as is the norm – American military cockiness stands ready to trip them up. It’s a pattern that’s repeated itself in every war since 1945.
