Baneman

Hate to break it to you but I live in probably the most Muslim area of London, about 1km from the biggest mosque in the country and my neighbours are pretty chilled people. The area has a lot of bars and Muslim shopkeepers will happily sell me pork and beer.
Violent islamic nutcases apparently exist but I am more worried about the far right "reaction" than Muslims just living a different lifestyle to me. 

I'm not quite dead yet... I feeeel happy!!

May 'the force' be with you! ✌️

“The maths” You barbarian!

The (original) Top Gear presenters ?

Surely if you can get close enough to ram, you could fire some sort of short range net over it.
But why not continue the WWI analogies that we've seen all over this conflict - get hordes of combat flight sim pilots to fly hunter drones. With some natty sensors to aid the Mk1 eyeball, that could be effective, since most of the target drones are looking at the ground, again, a la WWI observers who never saw who shot them down.

Surely if you can get close enough to ram, you could fire some sort of short range net over it.
But why not continue the WWI analogies that we've seen all over this conflict - get hordes of combat flight sim pilots to fly hunter drones. With some natty sensors to aid the Mk1 eyeball, that could be effective, since most of the target drones are looking at the ground, again, a la WWI observers who never saw who shot them down.

Man, people read Neuromancer once and miss the point. Screaming Fist wasn't a success, Hamas. It gave Wintermute its in with Armitage/Corto....

Thanks guys.  Guess who got tagged to do a Future of Joint Warfare piece at work?  Yep, the guy who won't shut up about it.  If Steve was particularly profit driven he would charge a membership fee for this thread.

Twitter gives a lot of useful posts but holy **** has it become an understudy for Truth Social. Pretty tired of fighting the algorithms to get to pro Ukrainian factual posts,  and not pro-russian fascist garbage. 
Im 99% done with that platform,  was never a fan but saw its utility. The anti-Ukraine slant is at 89 degrees right now. It's  bastardized, biased and in a death spiral. "X" marks the point of impact,  for sure. What a waste. 

I read the newsarticle Seedorf posted that somehow claimed new kind of evidence surfaced but everything in there was identical to the investigative report that was published in germany more in depth roughly a  month ago and was discussed here too. The german investigative report was very onesided and ignored a lot of evidence  that pointed in russian direction and it failed to plausibly establish how the Andromeda could do the northsteam sabotage.  The only  new "fact" in the dutch article was that traces of the explosive HMX was found at the site of sabotage. I am no forensic expert but there are different reasons I would be highly sceptical of this fact. But even if true. HMX would be one  of the most probable explosives that one would use for such a bombing by diver. And if the Andromeda was a false Flag, then it would be very easy for the perpetrator to plant the same kind of explosive that was used in the bombings.
You say the complexity of the operation was overestimated. Do you have any idea what kind of complexity is needed to do this kind of operation? I work in UXO,UXB, ERB disposal in the northsea, baltic sea and rivers. I work on specialised ships and with divers (most of them  with navy background) that do exactly this kind of work that would be needed for the northstream sabotage.
The complexity of this operation is a LOT more than just being able to do the dive. The equipment needed just to do the simple dive ignoring all of the  other specialised equipment: on the ships I work on this equipment is located in  containers that are half as big as the Andromeda. All those gastanks alone do take a lot of room. You need a lot more of those for a deep sea diving suit/ hard-hat than you would for a simple diving suit.
The first problem the divers  had to overcome is to find the pipelines and then the right locations for the bombing. This alone is a very big problem. To locate those you need a depth sonar or a submersible. Good luck instaling those on the Andromeda.  In those depths it is pitch black. Those divers have to work completely blind. They are trained to do so but they still need instruction  by those one the ship  with exactly this kind of equipment that the Andromeda lacks. And on top of that they did this on the same day at  three different locations. And they did the dive on a very instable plattform which means high chance of death.
Then there is the question of  the explosives. The theory that was presented in the investigative report was that only a small amount was used.  There exist seismic profiles of those explosions  and those hint  at  a  bigger amount of explosives used. It is not conclusive evidence but it points in another direction.
Not one of the divers I work with thinks its realistically possible to do the northstream sabotage from the  Andromeda in a short amount of time.
There is more  I could write but it is already late here I have to work very early tomorrow.
One thing I have to say. The reporting on northsteam really does remind me on the reporting in german media about MH17 after it happend. The media tried to be "neutral" but it was mostly pointing in ukrainian direction and sometimes it was just reciting russian propaganda. Even after Bellingcat could show exactly what BUK was used by which unit german media ignored this evidence. It was only after the dutch reports with conclusive evidence were published that the reporting did change.
 

"Show me on the map where the Russians touched you."

While there is obviously a benefit for a 3000kph projectile, one that goes around corners does not need to catch a fleeting target. It will just hunt it down. The target can go turret down or try to run but the guided projectile can always catch it. 
And a tank moves at 40kph. It is only the last part that goes really fast.

Classic “why is spotting in CM so broken?” situation:
 

Well I mean if Britain just let Germany simply occupy its share of Poland without any action - there would be no war, am I right?

that's literally not a joke but a russian logic. If you defend yourself - more bullets get to fly.

I wasn't saying we should never go to mars.  I am saying we shouldn't be 'colonizing' it anytime soon or even sending humans.  we need better technology before we do that.  And it would cost an insane amount of money to send even a research team there & back.  At a time when we use drones to do lots of dangerous dirty work why would be send humans to mars for research right now?  I am all for sending 'drones' until we get better propulsion & survival tech.  Mars is a radiation soaked hell hole w low gravity and very little air, why would we 'colonize' that in near term?  It's a death sentence and would cost a trillion dollars.   And why would we try to send people to mars on 7-9 month trip, each way, when we don't even have a base on the moon, 2-3 days away.  (note, I do think we should put a station on moon and use that to learn). 

Colonizing Mars isn't insane. The insane part is that he thinks it can be done in a decade or two (he has absolutely no sense for what sort of timescales these things take place on). But, as an Isaac Arthur fan, I do think we'll colonize every planet, moon, asteroid, comet, and grain of dust in this (and every other) solar system eventually (assuming we don't blow ourselves up first, but I'm feeling optimistic).

The_Capt, if you want to talk we want to listen. As I have said before we REALLY appreciate getting to audit staff college without  the push-ups, or the paper work.

Please don't write another love interest fan fic like your Putin Prig love story. I don't know if we can handle it.

Ok, well I don't want to act unfairly in responding to a person who is deciding not to post any more on the thread so I will offer to continue this discussion with kevinkin in DMs, if he's interested.  However I did want to address some recent posts here because I think it speaks to a wider misunderstanding that is distressingly common when discussing complicated issues and has led to similar conflicts on this thread in the past.
Kevin, if you're still reading this (and as I say, you may respond to me in DM if you like - I don't want to provoke you into a further argument in this thread), it's not the positions you hold but your unwillingness to properly explore them which frustrates.  This leads to you gish-galloping your way through three or four 'positions' in each post.  Then, when someone tries to pin down and engage with a single one (like I and others did with 'stare down Putin' and The_Capt did with 'win the war in 4 weeks') we don't get much in response.  I tried to encourage you to expand on the 'staring' position, to see if there was anything to actually discuss there (I do believe that you believe you are raising fair points) but your response to a list of things the US did with the intelligence they had was to ask what the US did with the intelligence they had.  I mean, at my most charitable I could assume that it was a rhetorical question but without any elaboration from you about why the previous answers to such a "rhetorical" question might not count...  Mate, do you not see how that might quickly become frustrating?
The below quote is demonstrative of another problem:
People should be aware that "single points" don't exist in the real world.  If one is trying to drill down to the truth of a matter then dragging multiple different topics together is unavoidable and necessary because ultimately everything is interacting, everywhere, all the time.  The_Capt, in a very particular sense, did write "paragraphs to make a single point" but that was precisely because addressing a single point requires exploration of many others.  That was his point!  In another, slightly less confusing sense, The_Capt's point intent was to just hint at the actual time, effort and patience which would be required to actually start answering one of kevinkin's one-liner questions by pointing out all the other questions which would have to be asked and answered at the same time.
My friendly advice to kevinkin or anyone else who is considering "just asking questions" or raising "points" which go against the "group-think" on this board:
Ask yourself the question Decide what you think the answer might be Think of and ask yourself at least 3 different questions directly related to the answer to your initial question Decide what you think the answers might be to each of those 3 Consider the implications of the combined 4 answers you are now holding in your mind Ask yourself whether they make sense together, as the beginnings of a coherent potential "truth" If they do make sense together and they contrast with what you perceive as the dominant viewpoint on this thread or elsewhere then you may have an interesting point.  Go ahead and make it, simultaneously making your case by including your thinking about the 3 other 'satellite' questions.  This demonstrates the way you are thinking.  It is helpful, interesting and it will be appreciated by those who are minded to respond. If they don't make sense together, try again*.  If you are still unable to find a sensible "truth" which explains them all, that's great because you may have an interesting question.  Go ahead and ask it, simultaneously including your thinking about the 3 other 'satellite' questions and what you are finding difficult to understand.  This demonstrates the way you are thinking.  It is helpful, interesting and it will be appreciated by those who are minded to respond. Listen to/read the response(s) you get, think about them and engage with the precise thoughts that people raise, doing your best to help people relate the discussion back to your original question. Sound too much like hard work?  Welcome to a discussion about a very complicated issue.  People spend lifetimes studying, thinking about and writing about this stuff and it's not because they are overly verbose or for want of anything better to do.
 
*In particular it may be helpful to think about answers which do not involve the USA.  Only a very small minority of real-world global decisions are made with the USA in mind, so you'd be surprised how often this might help.

Stream of semi-consciousness...

Good God he's incessant. 

But remember, it wasn't Iraqi's using them.
I suspect the Ukrainians will be a bit more careful on this, having somewhat greater motivation.

I don't want to derail the thread, but it's hard to find an American who's done as lasting damage to the world as MacArthur by allowing his egomania and zealotry blow a complete victory.  Like a football match team being up 10 goals to zero and then having to forfeit into a draw for some reason.