The key point about wartime economies is that they don’t actually increase quality of life for the people

That’s debatable dependent on the situation and the timeframe you’re looking at. You’ll usually see an increase in domestic production and consumption as a general by-product of lower unemployment.

However, they are still going to run into the guns vs butter problem. Unless they actually seize Ukraine and extract more wealth from it than they spent acquiring it, their investments into military infrastructure are going to be losses.

America will hang out in the hopes an opportunity will come of it, as well as a show of force to China.

What kind of opportunity? The only reason there’s any drama happening in the first place is because China is attempting to unilaterally reshape the very idea of the laws of the sea.

There wouldn’t be a perceived need to provide a show of force unless there was provocation to begin with.

You don’t have to be patriotic or even American to understand that willfully ignoring international laws in which you are a signatory, is problematic for international relations.

If it’s right and just to criticize America flaunting international law, then we should be non biased enough to be critical of other nations when they do the same.

They’ve migrated to a wartime economy, which gives you a lot of command over the economy. They’re currently doing a careful dance of increasing their money supply, while trying to stabilize inflation using what foreign currency reserves and income they have.

The biggest thing keeping their economy going is the price of oil, which is hovering around 80-90$ a barrel. The vast majority of this is being gobbled up by the government via their national wealth fund.

So long as heightened domestic productivity is maintained for the war, and the price of oil is higher than 60-65$ they could retain solvency for years.

A real economic collapse won’t be felt until the price of oil bottoms out, or if they attempt to transition out of a war time economy.

One might wonder why America feels the need to help escort an allied nation through their own exclusive economic zone in the first place? It’s almost like there is a member of unclos that isn’t adhering to international law or something?

“They’re not even denying it anymore, folks!”

Lol, k. Then please offer any evidence that the evidence and reporting are fake?

The Iron Dome is regularly penetrated by bottle rockets and radio shack drones.

It’s almost like air defense weapons all have a margin for error… Kinda like how we’ve regularly seen s300 and s400 systems get taken out by himars, a weapon platform from the 80’s.

But sure, Boeing is sitting on something that’s way better.

Lol, not sure who you’re arguing with. I haven’t mentioned the iron dome or Boeing… Do you exclusively argue via a strawman ?

I mean there’s material evidence out there that pretty well proves it, and Russia has ceased to claim that they’re fake reports.

If the kinzhal missiles were actually “hypersonic missiles” that could maneuver at speed, then yeah they’d be hard to intercept. However, the kinzhal are actually just missiles with a ramjet, meaning they hold a fairly normal flight trajectory and can be targeted by systems like the patriot.

Shooting a bullet with another bullet is basically what all anti air systems do, the only thing that changes is the scaling in the math.

Show me the American-made hypersonic air defense missile

Lol, what does that have to do with reconnaissance airplanes?

My whole argument is that planes can no longer out run/maneuver surface to air missiles. What does that have to do with hypersonic missiles?

Reconnaissance aircraft are notoriously difficult to hit, due to their high altitude and high speed.

I mean, maybe in the 80’s? The technological advancements of SAM have basically made speed and altitude mean next to nothing. Now most things depend on being hard to pick up on radar, or like the plane in the article, are just large planes filled with electronic warfare equipment.

Firing a bunch of ordinance into the sky would just mean raining it back down on your own population.

This would have been over the Pacific…

Dental eugenol, it’s a fairly powerful local analgesic made from clove oil. Some people have adverse reactions to it and so it isn’t used as frequently as it used to. So I would recommend applying it in a small test area before applying it more liberally.

You can buy it online fairly cheaply.

It’s not that large of an incursion force, I think something like 2k of some of their better troops who would normally be acting as a quick ground reaction force. So they aren’t really moving people off of the front line, though they may have lost the ability to quickly reinforce one front or another.

From what I’ve seen, the salient is being used to probe the strength of the Russian’s western flank. It doesn’t appear that Russia was expecting an offensive, and didn’t have their own version of a quick reaction force held in reserve.

Unless the Russians can move men and more importantly artillery to the area, there’s a risk the salient could be used to roll their western flank, cutting of their border guards from their supply lines.

Yep, that’s a tapered/angled roller bearing. They’re conceptually a pretty easy concept, but deceptively hard to manufacture

Pretty much anything with a turning wheel and axel relies on some sort of bearing system. That means traditional and high speed rail systems both require them.

There are some differences in types of bearing depending on what you use your rail system for. In the US we utilize antiquated plain bearings that are relatively easy to manufacture, but that’s because our rolling stock is ancient compared to most countries. Mainly because we rely heavily on trucks for transporting most goods and haven’t bothered investing in our aging rail network.

In Russia they have a much more modern rolling stock, as everything they ship goes through their rail network. Their rolling stock utilizes angled/slanted roller bearings, which can vastly increase their weight capacity, speed, and can double to triple their lifespan. The only problem is that they are complicated to manufacture.

Only problem is most of it’s bermuda, which is a fucking PAIN to get rid of by hand

Get yourself an Action Hoe, you basically run it back and forth and it digs/cuts the roots out. It’s very upsetting how easy it makes weeding the first time you use it, turns an hour long job to something you can do in 15 min.

The bearings in trains are actually pretty complicated to build. They use slanted roller bearings, not just regular old ball bearings. 10 companies in the world make like 70% of all rail bearings, and 5 of those are in Japan. Plus, only a few countries produce the two steel alloys that you make these bearings out of.

China does produce around 20% of the bearings used in trains, but pretty much all of it gets used for domestic purposes and they still have to import due to their massive rail expansion projects

I guess better late than never? I wonder when this went into effect? I’ve noticed a slump from frequent pro-russian posters on .ml and hexbear.

I was wondering if they were going dark because of Ukraine’s recent activity in Kursk, but maybe they just lost access to the fountainhead of propaganda that they’ve been utilizing.

That’s mainly because America mostly moves freight via trucks, and thus has very outdated rolling stock. It’s not unusual to see freight chassis that are 50 plus years old.

Russia on the other hand moves the majority of their freight via rail, and like most countries utilize tapered roller bearings for their trains. This allows them to carry a lot more weight, and the bearings last nearly 3x as long.

I’m not quite sure what would be harder, to import new bearings, build a production line from the ground up for bearings, or retrofit all their rolling stock with outdated technology.

Each choice is going to be expensive and extremely time consuming.

My hobby > The children

The reddit community will up vote them, and even down vote people who try correcting them.

Yeap… Especially with any topic where there’s a big hobbyist community.

I work in orthotics and prosthetics for a university hospital as both an educator and a healthcare provider. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been down voted by 3d printer enthusiasts for critiquing untrained and uneducated people fitting children with medical devices that can severely injure or debilitate them.

Bearings for rolling stock are actually relatively hard to come by, and there are only a few countries that even produce the two different steel alloys they are made from.

Ten companies in the world manufacture 75% of the bearings used in rail. With like 5 of them being located in Japan, and the rest in the US, Germany, and I believe Sweden. China only produces about 20% of bearings used in rail, but they are pretty much all for domestic use, as they are still expanding their network.

Hell hath no fury like a competitive nerd being put on a pedestal.

I think this happens a lot anytime someone who perceives themselves as being shunned by society gets too much positive feedback and an iota of power over people.

I think its the same reason why every nerdy twitch streamer ends up being outed as an abusive child predator.