astralis

hey m21,

quick historical quibbles,

the mexican general was santa anna, and he styled himself "the napoleon of the west". the force that captured him wasn't the US, it was the texans.

as for the spanish american war, no, spain was nowhere close to being a world power. UK, france, germany, and even italy were ahead. spain had been a decreipt second-rate power since, at latest, the napoleonic wars. it was a mere second-rate power after the 1700s.

hound

It is not Putin who shunned/scared western investments it was the mafia cronies under Yeltsin who engineered the 1998 crash of the Russian markets which led to the western investments losing several billions in a matter of a week. Putin on the other hand tightened such controls that reduced the mafia power in Russia and let the free market reforms get healthy environment of growth and stablity. US is obsessed and paranoid of Russia and any nationalistic leader like Putin will defenately offend US interests.

Infact under Putin, just few days ago, Russia paid back the last penny that it owed to the world lenders inlcuding Paris Club, World Bank and IMF etc. West should appreciate that honesty as lots of money lent out to several other countries is sooner or later written off as bad debt. South American nations are notorious for such packages.

West should understand that Communism was a black curse on the Russian and other people. Russia without that evilness is a good clean gentle country afterall.

gunnut

Glad you understand communism (not true communism but the one practiced in Soviet Union) was evil. However, I wouldn't say Russia is a "good clean gentle country" (nor would I say that about any country). Any country has imperial ambitions. It's just a matter of pulling it off. Russia has imperial ambitions. Always have and alway will. Give it time and we will see a new Russian empire.

__________________
"Only Nixon can go to China." -- Old Vulcan proverb.

Anon

The Texans were Americans(it just wasn't formalized quite yet).

But yes, lol....i typed a LOT of history from memory, so it's no surprise i screwed up some names and had a couple typos.

Thanx for the corrections fella.

Disagreed. Spain was still a powerful colonial entity with a powerful blue water navy(which the US destroyed quite handily).

To prove that one only needs look at just how much territory the US siezed as a result of the S-A war.

The S-A war was also a global endeavour fought on a massive geographic scale- with the fighting raging from Cuba all the way to the Phillipines.

IMO to call the spanish a "second rate power" is a GROSS mischaracterization of the facts. Second rate powers do not deploy large fleets 1/2 way around the world in protection of their interests...and what's more, second rate powers do not have extensive global wide holdings either....do they?

http://www.zpub.com/cpp/saw.html

Anon

'West' understands that just fine. Who needs to realize that are nationalistic Russian teen-agers who will soon be of voting age who may seek to 'restore the St Unions lost glory'.

An impossible task of course, cause there was NOTHING glorious about the St Union to begin with.

It was- in fact- a permanent scar in the history of humanity, every bit as evil as the Nazis themselves. The SU was one of the most brutal and repressive regimes of all time. THANK GOD it's been cast into the ashbin of history...Just as Reagan promised it would be.

dalem

Corrections:

1) Holland does quite well, and has for centuries, living below sea level. Decades ago after their last major flood we helped them with some engineering problems. In the wake of Katrina they offered to help us with the basics of successful dike design. Hopefully we listened.

2) The final death toll for Katrina in New Orleans ended up being around 100 people. Dunno about the totals for the rest of the Gulf Coast.

-dale

hound

'It was- in fact- a permanent scar in the history of humanity, every bit as evil as the Nazis themselves. The SU was one of the most brutal and repressive regimes of all time. THANK GOD it's been cast into the ashbin of history...Just as Reagan promised it would be.'

That's true Communism has also been called the Black Death of the 20th Century, killing roughly 100 million people in communist related 'events', wars, famines, concentration camps, genocides etc. etc.

Thank God that is ALL behind now.

Anon

About 1000 people died(this probably includes murders and other medical conditions or injuries and what have you that are in any way related to Katrina at all)

Anon

Communism isn't dead my good friend.

It is merely in remission.

"The price of freedom is eternal vigilance."
~Thomas Jefferson

<---- Stands on the shoreline gazing out to sea...

Canmoore

..ummm not to be a party pooper, but what does all these history lessons have to do with the Tunguska?

Anon

About as much as the Tunguska has to do with all these history lessons.

lemontree

Coming back to the topic......
Someone here compared the Tungushka/ Linebacker and SAMs all in the same breath, which is incorrect.
The tungushkas/ ZSU-23x4/ Linebacker are AD systems designed to protect tectical assests like armour/ arty that need AD on the move, as aircraft need to make low level attacks against these moving targets. To use these systems for protection of static assets is foolhardy and does not serve the purpose (as the enemy bombs you from 15000 ft and above where these AD guns/ missiles cannot reach).

SAMs on the other hand are made for protection of strategic assets like HQs, importants bridges/ airfields/ nuke sites etc.

__________________

Cheers!...on the rocks!!

Anon

True, true.

Both are tactical mobile low altitude systems.

So is the German Gepard i posted a pic of, and these are what we used for the same job when i was in:

M163A2 Vulcan PIVADS.

No idea how well they worked against A/C(i suspect they'd have worked great on helos and been fairly worthless vs fast movers), great weapon for APERS and MOUT type stuff though.

hound

I did some more reading on Iraqi ADs and found that they had mainly SA-2, SA-3, SA-6, SA-8s. Of these SA-8 are high altitude only but during the opreation Enduring Freedom against Iraq, i.e. after Operation Desert Fox, not a single US/Coilation Aircraft was shot down except for a couple of drones here and there.

DOES THIS MEAN THAT SA-8 ARE USELESS SYSTEMS. This from wikipedia: The 9M33M3 missile greatly enhances the altitude engagement envelope to 10-13000 m (33-42,500 ft), and as such are also able to fly further (about 15 km/9 miles) but the system is not able to engage targets at longer ranges, due to other factors such as the radar tracking of the missiles. The system is designed for use primarily against jet aircraft and helicopters in any kind of weather.

Or does it mean Iraq never had 9M33M3 missiles and/or the Coilation Aircraft were able to shoot from longer distances also.

The question remains is why would these IDIOT DICTATORS throw their men and machines into war with USAF when their rounds if fired would not even reach the USAF. Total Illogical Insanity.

Anon

Regardless of what SAMs you have the USAF is always going to have longer range precision guided weapons, so from that perspective, the attacker has the edge...as long as he knows where you are.

Which is of course, the hard part.

The truth is the US could launch a weapon off the coast of Sicily that could kill any SAM launcher you've got anywhere in Iraq. So that gets into what Shipwreck was talking about in the A-10 thread, and using your AAA/SAM assests as a guerilla force, launching ambushes from unexpected locations, etc.

Like the Iraqis did over Karballa during OIF. Also, during the first gulf war, the Iraqis actually called a mortar strike on a Battalion of hovering Apaches, scoring some minor schrapnel hits.(no A/C lost, but it certainly disprupted the attack plan, lol)

It's all how ya use the stuff.