poesel

That is where math meets reality. P = W / t Double W and you double P - easy. Unfortunately not. The P on the left side represents a real machine (an engine, a laser, ...). It has a maximum power output which is limited by its construction (the CCs you have in a combustion engine or the heat dissipation in a laser to name some restraints). If you try to go beyond that power, you won't get it in the best case or destroy it in the worst. So P is fixed. What happens when you add to W is this: t = W / P t gets bigger. Meaning you can drive or shoot longer. Where caps help in the laser scenario is, that they can release a lot of energy in a short time. Much more than batteries or a diesel generator. If your laser can take that power - good! But just adding caps won't make the laser more powerful (in the sense of: more output power). This ends my basic physics' lesson to not further derail this thread. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power_(physics) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy

There is no relation between having a lot of energy to having a lot of power - at least the useful sort of power. If you put a nail through your Cap, the energy is released very fast, but not very useful (unless you need an explosion). Adding large capacitors to your laser does not make them more powerful. The power output stays the same. But you can fire for a longer time. The analogy to a car works quite well. Adding a gas tank to your car adds stored energy. But it does not affect the power output of your motor. You can, however, drive for a longer time.

You are mixing up power and energy. Caps store energy. It is like buying a bigger gas tank for your car and then expect it to run faster.

Temporarily blinding an optical sensor with a laser is probably instantaneous (unless the sensor has the right filter lens - then you need to melt the lens first). Permanently blinding: I don't know. Non-military sensor would be damaged quite fast, I guess. The overall answer is the engineer's preferred answer: it depends.

Some ballpark (or beer coaster) calculation wrt to shooting done the current generations of drones with lasers. A quad-copter propeller weighs roughly 3-5 g. Most plastics have a heat capacity of 2 J / kg K. Most plastics also melt or burn or get weak enough at 200 °C. So you need about 2000 J (or Ws) to heat up a propeller by 200 °C. Let's assume 10% of the laser's output actually reach the target (wild guess). Dividing the energy needed (2000Ws) by the power, and you get the time you need on target. Another good guess: a drone can accelerate with roughly 20 m / s^2. With that, I calculated the distance a drone could move (or deviate from its current flight path) until its propeller melted. Assuming it has a heat sensor and reacts automatically. Laser power - time to melt - dodge distance 20 kW - 1 s - 10 m 50 kW - 0,4 s - 1,6 m 300 kW - 0,067 s - 0,045 m First, it is easy to see why they aim for higher power. The target can hardly move away in time before it dies. Secondly, it is easy to see how to defeat this threat to drones: use steel blades. 250x times the heat capacity and 8x the melting point. You'd need lasers in the GW range to defeat that. I don't even know how long and how often you can fire these things. But it is probably less than you need against a swarm. You could also try to attack other things than propellers on a drone, but that is even easier to shield. You can probably punch a lot of holes into this calculation, but I guess the direction is clear. Lasers are not the solution for fast, maneuverable drones. I'd put my money on kinetic attacks, e.g. bullets. MG on a 2-axis motorized mount paired with some acoustic & optical sensors. Put that on a UGV that follows your squad, and you have a mobile 300m bubble that keeps the drones away from your neighborhood.

Since many of those who are dying now are from the 'undesirable' class which have a lower life expectancy. Over the long run, this may actually cause an increase in average lifespan. Also, mostly men are dying and these have a shorter lifespan anyway.

This seems to be another example of the fixed wing bomber drone in action. I'm really wondering how autonomous it is. Such a target seems to be comparably easy to detect by AI vision software (known location, unique shape, good contrast). OTOH, I have no idea how much EW is active in Belgorod. So autonomy may not be necessary.

This, but that is missing the other half: making the Russians an offer for a Russia without Putin and his apparatus where the average Ivan has a better life than now. Such an offer does not exist. And that is IMHO a severe mistake. The opposition in Russia, as small as it is, needs some hope. A Kindle which may spark a fire. Small chance of happening, but cheap to create. Why this does not exist is pretty obvious. It would be quite a hard sell with Ukraine and probably other EECs. But even they need to think of how their relation with Russia after the war will look like. You cannot count on that Russia will look like Germany in 1815 after this war.

An article that explains why Russia has so many volunteers and why their death is not a (perceived) problem for the Russian society. TL;DR: the volunteers are often poor, drunkards & violent and their death is a net social plus for their mothers/wives due to the relative high pay and the bonus the relatives get on their death. The money and the new state of 'veteran' mother/wive allows them to climb the social ladder. Article in German. https://www.nzz.ch/feuilleton/russlands-krieg-laeuft-auf-eine-soziale-saeuberung-der-gesellschaft-hinaus-ld.1758471

From the drop time of about 6 seconds, I guess the release height was about 200 m. Combine that with the relative slow speed of the aircraft and you will get excellent results. Since this is a non-kamikaze craft, you could put a bit more electronics in it than in a one-use drone. That means possibly more autonomy for that thing. I'm a bit surprised we don't see more of those. They are cheaper to make than quadcopters, can fly longer and carry more load.

My point. The German Empire wanted to be like the other empires - before WW1. Not much of a difference (broadly speaking). After WW1 - different beast. To bring this back on topic: I guess Russia was never not an Empire or better: never was non-imperialistic. Let's see, if they get rid of it or not this time.

I guess (hope) you mean: ... after WW1. And in the second paragraph: ...1918-1945. Before WW1 Germany was not so much different to the other nations in Europe wrt world order.

I guess he means that thing in Thuringia. That is a German state in former East-Germany. The state is ruled by a minority of left wing parties (3). The majority right wing consists of the conservative CDU and fascist AfD. Those parties do not work together, and the CDU has declared a 'firewall' towards the AfD and vowed to never work together with them. Now, there has been a vote about a small tax reduction on buying real estate. This vote went through parliament with the votes of both right parties. So CDU has worked together with AfD to pass this law - a thing they explicitly said wasn't going to happen, and now the CDU is getting quite some flak for it. The influence on German foreign policy is zero. Since we have so many parties, a small minority of nut jobs cannot take the rest as hostage (at least not that easily). Also, the AfD has failed to participate in any state or federal government so far, and I don't see it happening.

That is not a new god - it is one of old with a lot of power... But the ministry of defense is currently a bit exempt from this due to special circumstances. It is now in the hands of bureaucracy. A force even greater than that of gods. (man, I wish Neil Gaiman would write 'German Gods'. That would be so much not fun)

This looks like a failure of the muzzle brake and the barrel is ok. But I'm no expert. Obviously, you cannot tow the gun as easily anymore, but could it still be fired?

If that is not 'Wool' (which has been made into the excellent TV series 'Silo') then I would like to know which.

Wrt to Taurus & ATACMS:

(my bold) The short answer is: probably yes. There are indeed some real reasons to not send Taurus, but in the end it is just stalling. Bavaria votes in ~2 weeks. Support for Ukraine is NOT a topic in this campaign. All main parties are for it. Still, sending Taurus is a sensitive issue for the voters of the chancellors party. So I guess, he tries to not do anything, at least until this vote is through. If there was a vote in the parliament to send Taurus, yay would win. But it doesn't work like that. So the decision is not set in stone, it is just delayed. In this regard, the same as in the US.

Japan is, as usually, ahead of the game:

Yes, if you fight abroad for someone else or an idea. No, if the Russians march into <your country>. Or anyone else, but in this context it's the Russians. A misconception which was the downfall of many a dictator.

It seems it was necessary to make this video which states the obvious. That frightens me a bit. But still a good thing.

Kitty helping Kitty: Bergepanzer 3 rescues Leo 2 from a ditch:

Caveat: I don't _know_. But I guess this round has a fuze which triggers the separation process. Either time of flight or proximity. If that is adjustable, you could change the spread.

Yes, all of this happened and made some waves in the media here. It is quite a bit of an embarrassment but it looks like they forgot to train technicians and supply spare parts. The 10 ‚new‘ tanks they wanted to deliver were used in the training of Ukrainian soldiers and are thus in need for maintenance. Same as the 10 already delivered which were obviously tested, too. Now everyone is in a rush to fix this issue.

Did I miss something? What do you mean and how many decades? 5-axis milling is easily in hobbyist range. Machining tolerances are mostly a function of how good your linear bearings are and China has some decent ones. If you have the money you can mill turbine parts in your basement. I know some people who would strongly argue that point. Unfortunately, once this kind of machine is set up it doesn‘t need much specialised maintenance. You get the consumables from everywhere including the tools and the control software runs well enough without need for an update. TL;DR: the manufacturers of those machines cannot do much after it has been delivered.