Bad news: Still unemployed. Good news: Applied/submitted for lots of jobs.
Good news: My dog’s operation was a success! Bad news: The lump was cancerous. Good news: The cancer was a Stage 1 soft tissue melanoma, which is the lowest level and has little chance of recurrence.
Also: Today is Friday the 13th. Also, a Hamas leader has declared a “Day of Jihad.
At the time, Maisy, now 22, was in her final year of high school. She and her two older sisters, along with Joe Biden and First Lady Jill, had tried to stage an intervention just weeks earlier at the President’s Delaware home to get Hunter to go back to rehab.
He promised to go, but instead ended up smoking crack in a hotel, he confessed in his 2021 memoir, Beautiful Things.
Emails and messages from his laptop show money he took from Maisy’s educational savings account went in part to paying various suspected prostitutes who visited him at hotels in the following days, his Porsche 911 car loan, sex webcam subscription fees, and other personal expenses.
Hunter’s assistant Katie Dodge plaintively emailed him on December 28 that year that he had University of Pennsylvania tuition bills of $27,945 due (likely for his eldest daughter, Naomi), a $1,700 payment for his Porsche, $4,244.70 for Maisy’s high school Sidwell Friends, her $3,000 paycheck and $1,000 for another employee.
Hunter tersely told Dodge to pay for the Porsche and his health insurance, but that she would only be getting half her paycheck – and that he would ‘deal with tuitions when time comes.’
Following reports of Syria launching missiles at northern Israel, Israel hit the country’s two main international airports, “in the capital of Damascus and Aleppo in the north. It happened while an Iranian plane was inbound.” Also, the number of Americans killed by Hamas is now up to 27.
A day late, a shekel short: “Israel Loosens Strict Gun Control Laws To Arm ‘As Many Citizens As Possible.'” Benjamin Netanyahu and the entire Israeli political establishment deserve a good measure of blame for not doing this much sooner.
Speaking of guns in Gaza evidently Hamas now have a lot of rifles chambered in 5.56 NATO thanks to the Biden Administration’s abrupt withdrawal from Afghanistan.
Steve Scalise drops out of the House Speaker race. Does this mean Jim Jordan is back in the picture? Jordan was briefly the frontrunner before Scalise emerged as the candidate preferred by a majority of Republican House members, and Jordan was also endorsed by Donald Trump. Update: Yep, it’s Jordan.
Even House Democrats are slamming The Squad for their anti-Israel/pro-Hamas bias.
A revolt against government policies that many say usurp parental authority is spreading across the nation—especially in blue states where lawmakers have promoted transgender ideology and “gender-affirming care”—according to parents, attorneys, and teachers.
For more than a year, California parents have shown up in droves at legislative hearings and phoned in by the hundreds to protest policies that encourage schools to keep social gender transitions of children secret. Teachers also have begun to refuse to hide information about a child’s gender identity from parents.
Meanwhile, Democratic members of the California Legislative LGBTQ Caucus have spearheaded legislation supporting so-called gender-affirming care, especially for children, touting it as a “first-in-the-nation” model.
Parental rights groups such as Our Duty have pushed back against the model, while groups such as Planned Parenthood, Equality California, and others support it.
California school districts claim that they’re required by law to keep gender transitions secret from parents unless a child wants to tell his or her parents. But recent court rulings tell a different story.
A federal judge on Sept. 14 blocked California’s Escondido Union School District from punishing two teachers who refused to comply with guidance issued by the California Department of Education that encourages educators to keep gender transitions of students secret from their parents.
The People’s Republic of California is getting ready to declare war on classic cars. “California is looking seriously at instituting, or allowing local governments to institute, zero emission zones in the near future. In preparation for such a move, the California Air Resources Board (or CARB) is reportedly gathering information about classic cars.”
Federal prosecutors announced that an El Paso woman received a prison sentence of more than seven years after admitting to impersonating immigration agents to swindle money from “undocumented noncitizen victims and their family members.”
The Department of Justice (DOJ) stated that 53-year-old Ana Maria Hernandez pleaded guilty in April to 10 counts of wire fraud and one count of impersonation. Prosecutors say she pretended to be an official with Citizenship and Immigration Services and promised victims she could help them acquire American citizenship and collected fees.
Poor construction in illegal alien-populated Colony ridge is affecting Harris County water. “Harris County Commissioner Tom Ramsey (R-Pct. 3) warned his fellow commissioners on Tuesday that improper drainage construction in Colony Ridge was causing erosion and excessive silt to wash downstream into the county’s main source of drinking water.”
Follow-up: Josh Kruger, the recently-murdered gay left wing journalist who taunted conservatives, has been accused of grooming his accused killer from age 15. “The Philadelphia Inquirer reports that the family of Kruger’s alleged killer, 19-year-old Robert Davis, says Kruger began a years-long relationship involving drugs that began when Davis was just 15-years-old. Davis remains at large.”
Every single donation sent by Christianity Today staffers went to Democrats.
Below is the tip jar, if you’re so inclined. Thanks to everyone who donated to the Non-Homeless Blogger Fund. I’m bad at thanking people individually the way I should, but let me know if you want public recognition in this space or not.
Hamas decided to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Yom Kippur War by launching another war.
Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared “we are at war, and we will win it” early Saturday as the country’s air force began striking targets in Gaza in response to a surprise Hamas attack on the 50th anniversary of the 1973 Yom Kippur War, involving more than 3,000 rockets and groups of terrorists descending on Israeli territory by land, sea, and even paraglider.
At least 40 Israelis have been killed in the fighting and at least 740 injured, the Israeli military said, and videos posted on social media appear to show Hamas taking civilian hostages. A militant group in Gaza, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, also claims to be holding a group of Israeli soldiers hostage.
As rockets rained down on central and southern Israel, the televisions began broadcasting footage of armed groups of Hamas terrorists pouring into towns across the country in pickup trucks, the Times of Israel reported. In response, the IDF deployed forces to the south, where troops began engaging with the Hamas invaders.
The Israeli Air Force also scrambled dozens of jets to strike four command centers and 17 military compounds in the Gaza strip, the air force announced on X. At least 198 Palestinians have been killed and 1,610 have been wounded in the retaliatory attacks, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry.
The biggest difference between the real Yom Kippur War and Hamas’ farce is the size of of the opposition. In 1973, Israel was attacked by the armies of Egypt and Syria supported by forces from Saudi Arabia, Algeria, Jordan, Iraq, Libya, Kuwait, Tunisia, and Morocco, plus some random units from Cuba and North Korea, a coalition that theoretically could wipe Israel off the map. By contrast, Hamas is a terrorist organization that controls some 141 miles of square territory and survives on handouts from the UN, EU, Iran and Syria.
Israel has the most modern and technologically advanced army in the Middle East, and arguably the second most technologically advanced in the world. Their air force is entirely American-made, including F-35s.
The news that Hamas is using technicals is both interesting and obvious, as they’re a very cost-effective option. They’re not ideal for urban combat or stand-up fights, but if they can get out of the built-up area around Gaza and out into the flatter, more open terrain to the south they can do some damage as hit and run forces, at least until the Israeli Air Force can track them down. I assume Hamas has drones, because it’s 2023 and everyone has drones, plus their patron Iran makes some.
Enjoy some random combat footage, including what looks like a knocked-out Merkava tank.
We all know what the outcome of this conflict will be: Hamas will kill some Israeli civilians and a few IDF soldiers, and Israel will pound the snot out of Hamas and it’s command and control infrastructure, after which it will take Hamas a decade or so of payments from its sugar daddies to build up enough to do it all over again.
Hamas is a pustule that occasionally needs to be lanced, but little more.
Update: Yep, drones. IDF needs to go back to the makers of Trophy and ask why it didn’t stop a slow-moving, top-drop munition.
Remember all the fanfare over the U.S. sending Abrams tanks to Ukraine? Supposedly in time for the much vaunted Spring Offensive?
That didn’t happen. Evidently the usual Biden Administration competency was in play. But now the allotment of M1A1 Abrams tanks (not the M1A2s previously discussed) are finally ready to be shipped over.
The first batch of Abrams tanks that the U.S. is providing to Ukraine was approved for shipment over the weekend, and the tanks remain on track to arrive in Ukraine by early Fall, Army Acquisition Chief Doug Bush told reporters on Monday.
“The last of the set was officially accepted by the U.S. government or the production facility over the weekend. So they are done,” said Bush. The 31 Abrams tanks destined for Ukraine – older M1A1 variants – had been undergoing refurbishment and preparation for shipment for months.
Though the tanks are ready, they still have to be shipped overseas and sent to Ukraine, “along with all of the things that go with them – ammunition, spare parts, fuel equipment, repair facilities,” Bush said. “So it’s not just the tanks.”
The goal, said Bush, remains to get the Abrams tanks to the unit level by “early Fall.” He did not give a specific date or even month. Last month, Politico reported that the tanks would arrive on the battlefield in September.
Helping Ukraine repel Russia’s illegal war of territorial aggression has frequently been cited as a top priority by members of the Biden Administration,a cause in whose over $46 billion in military aid has been sent. Given that the UK’s Challenger 2 tanks arrived in Ukraine in March, it would seem like the Biden Administration hasn’t treated their pledge of Abrams tanks with any urgency.
To be sure, several U.S. weapon systems (HIMARS, Patriot, Excalibur and various drones) have proven absolutely vital in letting Ukraine resist the Russian invasion. But for something the U.S. defense establishment, and just about all our NATO allies, view as a top priority, the Pentagon as been quite sluggish at getting them tanks. A cynic might wonder if it’s because, being drawn from existing stocks, sending them M1A1s doesn’t grease enough Beltway Bandit palms.
Given how long it will take to train Ukrainians on them, maybe they’ll be available for the 2024 Spring Offensive…
No indication yet that this was a Ukrainian rocket attack, drone attack, or even partisan sabotage. But it sounds militarily significant.
Local officials in Russia say an explosion at an optical plant in the city of Sergiyev Posad, about 70 kilometers outside Moscow, killed one person and injured at least 43 people on August 9.
Five of the injured are in intensive care with serious burns or head injuries, according to the city administration’s Telegram account. Some of the 43 people admitted to a regional hospital have shrapnel injuries, it said.
Officials at the city’s central hospital said that a woman had succumbed to wounds sustained in the blast.
Independent Telegram channel Baza shared images of a tall cloud of smoke and identified the site as the Zagorsk Optical and Mechanical Plant, which produces night-vision and other optical devices for the military.
Russian officials later confirmed the location.
Russian news agency TASS has quoted the emergency services as rejecting assertions on social media that the cause of the blast was a drone attack.
That speculation has been fueled by months of remote attacks in Russia that Moscow blames on Kyiv along with Russian reports it “thwarted” two fresh drone attacks near Moscow overnight.
TASS said the blast happened where pyrotechnics were being kept and destroyed a 1,600-square-meter warehouse.
An unexplained fire damaged the same Zagorsk plant in June 2022.
Seemed to blow up real good:
You can’t trust TASS, and it’s entirely possible that it’s your standard negligent Russian military industrial accident. But why would you store pyrotechnics next to an optics factory?
Here’s something informational for Sunday, Nicholas Moran explaining exactly how a modern 120mm (AKA 120×570mm NATO, the type used by the M1A2 Abrams and the German Leopard 2) APFSDS round works.
He has a dummy blue round to demonstrate the features. “All the projectiles are color coded. Explosive, for example, would be green with yellow lettering.” APFSDS rounds are black.
“The aft cap is the one piece which is left behind after a modern round is fired, and this takes up a lot less room than a traditional shell casing rattling around inside the tank once you fire it.”
A long primer rod runs up the middle for more even propellent burning.
“A modern tank does have a firing pin. It’s electrically fired, but it has a firing pin. It looks just like a firing pin you’d expect from a rifle, except it’s about yay long…Electricity goes through the firing pin, sets off the primer, which sets off the propellant, which gives you
the big boom.”
There are even emergency hand crank firing systems with dynamos to use if the electrical system goes down.
“The rest of the shell casing is made of a form of cellulose, and it is burned up in the explosion. So the aft cap is sufficient to seal the breach instead of requiring the entire casing to expand as you you’d find on a traditional round.”
“The catch is that this is simply not as robust as a metal shell.” Which is why the loader has to inspect rounds for scratches or bulges to the water-resistant coating. That could cause the round to break apart or misfire. “This is a bad thing.”
Which is why tank crews practice misfire drills to ensure safe handling of rounds so they don’t spread loose propellant all over the tank’s interior.
“The kinetic energy penetrator is itself a dart… it’s got fins at the back to keep the pointy end forwards, and it is kept centered as it goes down the tube by these sabot petals.”
“Modern sabots seem to have settled on three of these petals per projectile. Once the projectile has left the muzzle, the air is caught by the petals and they are peeled away.”
The discarded petals are a danger. “This is why sabot rounds such as APFSDS or M-PT should not be fired over the heads of friendly infantry.”
“The dart goes that way, hits metal, and basically punches through, taking little bits of metal inside with them. This is called a spall. These little fragments metal are extremely unhealthy to anyone or anything inside the vehicle which it hits.”
“However, if the armor is too thin to produce spalling, you get what is known as over-penetration. So you make a dart-sized hole on one side of the vehicle, a dart-sized hole on the far side of the vehicle, and dart sized holes on anything in-between, and outside of brown pants for the crewmen, quite possibly nothing else.”
“If so you’re firing such a target, you’re probably better off using a shaped charge round such as HEAT.”
He then show off a dummy HEAT projector, which has a funky blunt circular head that “in effect clears the air as a wind shield for the decidedly non-aerodynamic flat bit. The main body of the round also performs something of a stabilizing function and thirdly provides adequate standoff or room for the penetrating jet to form.”
“Here is a metal cone surrounded by explosives. The explosives detonate, the cone collapses the liner.”
Text popped up on screen at 9 minutes in notes that the penetrating jet is not high temperature plasma.
Here’s another video that provides a visualized simulation of how APFSDS rounds work.
We’ve already covered why Russia’s T-14 Armata tank isn’t all that. Here’s a somewhat more balanced look from David Willey of The Tank Museum:
The first ten minutes covers the basics of Soviet tank design (the philosophy of favoring firepower over just about everything else, and how political rivalries led to various Soviet tank designs). Then he goes into the details of the Armata.
Much of the Armata comes from the abandoned T-95 project. “Although the T14 is looked at as new, it actually relies on systems and ideas from some much earlier projects.”
“The smoothbore 2A821M 125mm cannon is an upgrade from the weapon on the T-90. Russian sources claim its muzzle energy is far greater compared to the Rheinmetall 120mm gun.”
The unmanned turret means no need for a fume extractor.
Theoretical fire rate of 10-12 rounds a minute. I suspect this is highly optimistic and the fire rate is probably the slower one round every ten seconds we already covered.
“The new Vacuum One armor-piercing, fin-stabilized, discarding-sabot round is fitted with a 90cm [900mm] long rod penetrator. That’s unusually long. It is said to be capable of penetrating one meter of rolled homogeneous armor at about 2000 meters.” That is quite long. The rod penetrator on the U.S. M829 APFSDS round is 684mm long. Western consensus seems to be that the Vacuum One and Vacuum Two penetrator cores are made of depleted uranium or tungsten.
“The A853 engine was a copy of a German x-shaped engine from the war years…the A853 was not however a reliable product, and from all reports it seems to have had major issues.”
When working, it theoretically has twice the horsepower of a T-72 engine and capable of reaching 56 miles and hour with a range of 500 kilometers.
“The T14 has new 70 centimeter diameter road wheels, and an electronically adjustable suspension system on at least the first two road wheels, and possibly the last ones, and [that’s] called an active suspension system but is fitted over a main torsion bar suspension. It also has rubber-blocked tracks.”
The Armata’s sealed crew compartment will have air conditioning, which was introduced in Russian tanks with the T-90M in 2016. (Starting with M1A2 SEPv2, the Abrams has cooling, but it’s mainly geared toward cooling the electronics.)
Digital screens with remote cameras.
“The gunner can see his target, but he can also choose through those screens a relevant ammunition type.”
“The chassis and turret are equipped with a ‘Malachit’ dual explosive reactive armor system, and on the front sides and the top there’s stealth coatings.” Assuming the ERA is actually there and not fake, as on so many captured and destroyed Russian tanks in Ukraine.
“The active protection system has a radar to detect and tract incoming anti-tank munitions it states a maximum speed of incoming interceptable target is 1700 meters a second, or Mach 5.” Let’s just say I have grave doubts that it actually works. The Pentagon went with Israel’s Trophy active protection system over Raytheon’s homegrown Quick Kill system for M1A2 SEPv3, and Raytheon is good at developing reliable, high tech weapons. Unlike Russia.
“The top of the vehicle is still vulnerable to top attack munitions.” So much for defense against Javelin. Which first entered service in 1996.
“However, on closer inspection a number of these technologies and features are not fitted to some of the vehicles. Some you can see there’s covers where the technology or that piece of equipment should be on others is fitted for, but not with.” And that was on parade demonstration vehicles before sanctions. Odds that Russia would have enough parts to fully equip high tech parts to all Armatas supposedly in Ukraine would appear to be slim.
Though reusing a lot of features from the abandoned T-95 project, “the new T14 tank is a radical departure in sense of its scale, its layout, its design features and technology from that era of evolutionary Soviet-designed vehicles.”
“Originally intended to replace all Russian army tanks, the Russian military had planned to acquire about 2,300 T-14s between 2015 and 2020…but by 2018, delays were announced until at least 2025. Subsequently announcements indicated the apparent cancellation of the main production run.” In between it announced it was going to build 100 of them, though that number may have included other armored vehicles using the same platform.
“The [Russian] Deputy Minister of Defense said, quote, there is currently no need to mass produce the Armata when it’s older predecessors, namely the latest variants of the T-72, remain effective against American, German, and French counterparts.” Here the Deputy Minister of Defense is engaged in a time-honored Russian rhetorical device known as “lying his ass off.”
“The gradual tightening of sanctions, and then with the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the problem of sourcing the essential microelectronics has come to the fore. Russian industry has been critically dependent on foreign microelectronics and associated technologies. These are no longer available due to sanctions.”
“The sights from France and other components are no longer available.”
“Other issues come into play that affect the wider Russian defense industries. One is the perennial Russian problem of corruption. Since 2011, a staggering 72,000 officials have appeared before the course on corruption charges.”
“The mythic way many Russian military systems and products have been promoted and sold has met a crushing reality in Ukraine.”
Even though there may only be 20 test vehicles available, there is an expectation they will make appearance in the battle. A British ministry defense statement said, and I quote, any T-14 deployment is likely to be a high-risk decision for Russia. 11 years in development, the program has been dogged with delays reduction in planned Fleet size and reports of manufacturing problems. If Russia deploys a T-14 it will likely primarily be for propaganda purposes. Production is probably only in the low tens, while commanders are unlikely to
trust the vehicle in combat.
So even a balanced, objective analysis of the T-14 Armata isn’t particularly optimistic about its chances in combat.
Russia has begun using its new T-14 Armata battle tanks to fire on Ukrainian positions “but they have not yet participated in direct assault operations,” the RIA state news agency reported on Tuesday, quoting a source close the matter.
RIA said that the tanks have been fitted with extra protection on their flanks and crews have undergone “combat coordination” at training grounds in Ukraine.
The T-14 tank has an unmanned turret, with crew remotely controlling the armaments from “an isolated armoured capsule located in the front of the hull.”
The tanks have a maximum speed on the highway of 80 kilometres (50 miles) per hour, RIA reported.
In January, British military intelligence reported that Russian forces in Ukraine were reluctant to accept the first tranche of the tanks due to their “poor condition.”
It also said that any deployment of the T-14 would likely be “a high-risk decision” for Russia, and one taken primarily for propaganda purposes.
“Production is probably only in the low tens, while commanders are unlikely to trust the vehicle in combat,” the British military said.
“Eleven years in development, the programme has been dogged with delays, reduction in planned fleet size, and reports of manufacturing problems.”
Here’s a brief overview video:
The T-14 has had more than its share of developmental problems, and there are plenty of articles and videos detailing its shortcomings. Lazer Pig’s “The T-14 Armata tank sucks” is a long example of the genre.
If your interest level doesn’t support viewing a full hour of Armata-bashing, here are some takeaways:
“The T14 combines all the ultimate Russian technology previously introduced onto NATO tanks 25 years ago in a way that only a country trying to inflate the share prices of Raytheon would understand.” (Raytheon makes Javelin.)
“It does away with all the unnecessary ERA systems of the T90, which cannot protect the tank against missiles that were invented in the 80s, and instead replaces them with an active protection system that can almost defend the tank against missiles that were invented in the 90s.”
“An auto loader famous for jamming that now cannot be accessed and cleared when it does jam, is somehow heavier and slower than the tank it has replaced, and comes combined together in a package so expensive the company that made it immediately went bankrupt. The country that bought it cannot afford it and it has about as much export potential as English whiskey.”
“For a while, every idiot with even the vaguest sense of military interest was banging on about this tank as if Stalin had come back to life and had personally forged the hull from his own ball sack. And that all tanks across every nation in the world had just been rendered obsolete.”
Sections on repeated post-Soviet tank design failures, like the T-95 and Black Knight, and coverage of Russian brain drain, omitted.
The weird, Tiger-2 derived engine is unreliable.
The driver’s vision sucks.
No crew access to the turret internally.
The autoloader is slower than the manual fire rates on T-80s, T-72s and Abrams.
“The qualifying time for [an Abrams] loader to pass training is seven seconds, and the best crews claim they can reload in about four to five seconds. Meaning a good Abrams can fire twice before the T-14 has reloaded.”
“Ukrainian hackers found that most of the electronic systems on board, including the digital sights, the night vision, the infrared, were all in fact western imports. Most notably, these were last generation French optics from Leclerc MBTs left over from when they were all upgraded to ICONE in 2009.”
Current Russian tank optics are actually available to the general public. “They’re not even the best that are currently available. If you’ve got a spare five grand, you can go into any high-end spy gadget store and buy a drone that will give you better night vision and IR tracking capabilities than the latest generation of modern Russian tanks.”
China reportedly found out that none of the tank’s systems actually worked. “The soft kill defense systems were simply smoke screens, and the hard kill systems designed specifically to stop the Javelin and the TOW missile could not detect if either of these systems had been fired at the tank, and relied entirely on the crew being able to notice a missile traveling at the speed of sound flying towards them.”
“To top it off, there was no evidence of the supposed electronic warfare systems that could render guided missiles and mines inert.”
“Nothing in the Armata is new.”
The idea that western tanks need to catch up to the Armata is laughable. “By the time the Armata enters service, it will already be outdated.”
“Everything the Armata is has been done before, and in many cases has been done better.”
“Russia is not an equal to the United States and NATO, it’s an equal to North Korea, both technologically backwards nations.”
Will all those problems still be present when the Armata engages enemy armor in Ukraine? Some certainly will. I doubt Armata electronics or optics can compare to those on western vehicles, and I bet that its active protection package is miles behind Trophy (which I don’t think will be on any Ukrainian tanks anyway). But I do suspect they’ve had enough time to improve the reliability of the engine, and I’m guessing the armor and autoloader improvements will improve survivability for the tank crew.
Can the Armata take out Ukraine’s legacy Soviet tanks? Almost certainly. Can it take out Challenger 2s, Leopard 2s, and M1A2 Abrams? If it’s able to close in and get off the first shot, probably. But I’m guessing it will find the opportunities to do so few and far between.
The big advantage that Carl-Gustav offers is that it’s much cheaper per round than smart munitions like Javelin.
“In the case of Ukraine [they’re] using these things for against everything from guys behind cover to light armored vehicles, soft skin vehicles and, of course, main battle tanks.”
Used by more than 40 countries.
Carl-Gustav can’t fill the top attack role NLAW and Javelin use against tanks. “But it can cripple a main battle tank and. And with some of these advanced warheads, it can affect a not just a mobility kill, but an outright Kill, at least from the rear.”
“And if you blow off a track, the thing isn’t moving and it can then be killed perhaps another way, or the crew will simply abandon it.”
There are 15 different types of shells, including smoke and illumination.
They’re also working on guided munitions.
They’re also working on a confined-space munition with reduced back-blast, which sounds really useful for urban warfare.
Models produced are M1 (starting 1946) through M4 (2014).
A wide variety of rounds, including antipersonnel and two-phase charge designed to defeat reactive armor.
Most of NATO uses it, including the U.S., UK, Germany, Poland and all three of the Baltic states.
Ukraine managed to take out a T-90 with it.
Whether it’s better than an RPG-7 probably comes down to training and use case. The RPG-7 looks to be a lot more portable, but I’m betting the average Carl-Gustav build quality is better.