Now, I’m all for the freedom of defending your country… But am I the only one thinking that this is presented in a bit too much of a good light? Like, what is the title supposed to make me feel? If the nationalities were reversed, would this have been posted here still?
I genuinely thank you for sharing this info, but I can’t help feeling uncomfortable reading about atrocious killing devices in a technology thread.
I’m right there with you. My first reaction to the video in the article was “well that’s terrifying”.
Wait until you hear about the semi-autonomous killer drone swarms, designed to prevent signal jamming (by not needing an operator).
Oof
Also, tracker removed: https://youtu.be/kFSR6OuWVQ4
Removed by mod
Both is terrifying, I rather not have the option to pick.
I take no delight in killing but Russian forces could leave Ukraine at any point and put an end to it.
Can the individual soldiers just give up and leave?
The russian soldiers are in an awful predicament in this war. But they are still the aggressors and Ukraine has the right (obligation even, seeing what Russia tends to do to civilian population it conquers) to defend itself against them…and as awful as these weapons are, they have not been used in an illegal way here according to international law (something that Russia doesn’t give a flying fuck about, btw.).
Personally, I don’t see a moral issue here though I of course would prefer if noone had to die of which only happens in the case of Putin withdrawing his troops right now.He can surrender, like many already did.
Maybe, but I’ve seen plenty of videos of Russians attempting to surrender to drones, and getting killed anyway.
I have some questions you might ask yourself:
What is the count of those vs. the number of surrendered Russians being treated well?
Which one is more likely to be in the news?
Which one is more likely to be spread around by Russian bots?
Which will be more likely to be suppressed?
What is the count of those vs. the number of surrendered Russians being treated well?
There is no credible data.
Which one is more likely to be in the news?
Neither, I live in America, the news only intentionally covers Russian war crimes. I say intentionally, since I remember a CNN segment near the start of the invasion where armed Ukrainian soldiers jumped out of an ambulance in the background.
The opposite would probably be true if I lived in Russia.
Which one is more likely to be spread around by Russian bots?
I assume it’s not Russian bots posting Ukrainian drone footage to the combat footage sub.
Which will be more likely to be suppressed?
Well I haven’t seen any news covering Ukrainian war crimes and I’ve seen plenty of news covering Russian war crimes, and I know it’s not because Ukraine isn’t doing any war crimes.
The reverse would probably be true for someone living in Russia.
The vast majority of them could simply not have volunteered. Also, you can surrender.
Implying many of them are volunteers at all
Actually one of the few political pressures Putin has had to deal with internally has been preventing conscripts from fighting outside of Russian territory, which has included not sending them into the supposedly-annexed oblasts in the east. They’ve had to make do with massive signing bonuses, prison recruitment, stop loss, and PMCs to make up the manpower shortage. Definitely some high-pressure tactics in use, but no actual use of legal force. Unless this video was taken on the Kursk front then any Russian soldiers who this was targeting had signed contracts that they could have chosen not to.
Are their shoes tied together or something?
Well, they can surrender.
Not all of them all the time, but a lot of them are smart enough to do something “dumb” like drive to a Ukrainian village to ask for directions and “get taken as pows”.
So yeah, yes and no, as the answer to your question.
Russia is already using thermite charges, thermobaric weapons and tear gas. They get what’s coming to them.
Phosphorous too IIRC
Even the US uses white phosphorus against infantry in violation of international law. I can’t imagine what we’d resort to with Russian soliders on our soil.
Of course they do, it’s main use is smoke generation.
It’s only a violation of international law when used near civilians
WP isn’t illegal. It’s illegal to torch down civilian structures, with Willy Pete or any other technology. But it’s always been fair game to use incendiaries against combatants. War is hell.
Lol Russian soldiers on US soil? The US military would do good to hang back, avert their gaze, and let the US citizens handle things how they see fit. Plausible deniability and all that
This fucking waffle maker in my comments above yours keeps trying to convince me that America hasnt “experienced” war. And that war is horrible, as if America isn’t the most successful War tribe in all of recorded history.
If successful means achieving none of your strategic objectives, but wasting trillions killing a whole bunch of civilians, sure.
Yea that.
But like also WW1, WW2 on two separate fronts…at the same time, Korean war, Kosovo.
Honerable mentions: Greek civil war, Afghanistan Russian war, Arabian Israel wars.
Oh right…lol. the American civil war, and the American revolution, the war of 1812, the Spanish American war…
Well shit Skippy …weve been in some conflicts. How many aircraft carriers does your country have floating around?
Oh man…Geneva convention would be out the window and most land based invaders at that point would probably beg to be shipped back. And it’s not because of the military in America. It’s because of its inhabitants. When the banjos start tuning in the Appalachian forests you know Hell is a safer space than anywhere you’re going to reach.
That’s easy to say without bullet holes in your buildings and bombs being found every few months in your capital.
IMO the US public is presenting so warlike because they never experienced war directly to a scale of WWII as a populace, especially not in living memory.
War does not look like “let’s use all our guns and go kick commie ass”, especially resisting an occupation. It looks like your hometown burned and poisoned, never to be rebuilt in your lifetime. It looks like people you know and care about dying, being raped with impunity, or just plain disappearing. If you pick up a rifle, you are going up against trained and experienced and also more importantly, quite desensitized enemies who have been doing what you are planning to do for months if not years. And even if you shoot one, they will hang ten of your townsfolk tomorrow.
Just look at Mariupol and Gaza and think whether anyone would thrive in that environment.
Do you understand how many veterans are in America? How many militia there are? How many guns we have?
There’s a reason America didn’t get land invaded other than the giant ocean and logistical shit storm it would be. It’s our gun per person situation.
You remember how hard it was for America to fight Afghanistan in the mountains? Imagine another country fighting America in their mountains lol. No infinite ammo to shell mountains, Americans trained with rifles commercially available to fire cleanly 1KM. Every. Single. American. Has one…most that own guns have a decent stock pile of ammo. Shit my 7 year old can shoot a soda cap off at 30 yards with iron sights.
We readily have explosives we can order from Amazon… 2/3 of our rural population drives what Europeans would consider monster trucks. That’s one hell of a technical.
This wouldn’t be a “go wolverines” situation. This would be 80+ years of war and gun culture ingrained in Americans through countless years in human lives of video games and television propaganda. Ukraine has a population of 38 million. America has 120 million just on its Eastern coasts. I think if we come to a middle ground here I think we can both agree it wouldn’t be pretty but significant pushback and ultimate failure on an invaders advances purely on the geology and American civilian militarization factor.
I am not talking about whether strategically it would be a good idea to engage in conventional warfare with the US. I am talking about the fact that how you and a lot of Americans are talking about war means that they have never really experienced one, not in living memory at least.
War is a nightmare. It’s not a valiant defence with plucky resistance fighters outwitting the enemy in the mountains. It’s seeing your buddy still alive and conscious with half his face missing after being hit by a drone. It’s your wife writing “please, it’s the children here” in front of the school in chalk before they are hit anyway with white phosphorus, burning their flesh off slowly. It’s soldiers raping you for fun, even if you are a man, before they kill you.
It’s our gun per person situation.
How many of those guns are effective against artillery? Against even 60 year old tanks? Against remote targeting machine guns with thermal sights? Against attack helicopters? Russia had more tanks per person than any country on Earth, they are still getting trounced. Modern warfare does not care about your semi auto at home.
You remember how hard it was for America to fight Afghanistan in the mountains? Imagine another country fighting America in their mountains lol.
You remember how that war looked? Look at this article. One battle, 18 dead from the occupying side, 1000+ local soldiers killed. Could you bear to read these in the US? Can you imagine how the US would look like after fighting 20 years of this? Let me help you, it would look like Afghanistan.
America has 120 million just on its Eastern coasts.
China has an army of 2 million at peacetime, and it is not maintaining as many overseas bases as the US. The US currently has around 1 million people in the army one way or another. Of course, if it was real, total war as you imagine, these numbers would go up, fast.
During WWII, the Soviet Union had a population of around 200 million. 26 million people died just on their side, of which only 10.5 million were soldiers. 2 million of these people died in a single battle, in Stalingrad. We have gotten much, much better at killing people since then.
This would be 80+ years of war and gun culture ingrained in Americans through countless years in human lives of video games and television propaganda.
You don’t know war. War is hell on earth. It is tragedy on a mass scale, leaving scars for generations on whole societies. Seeing war movies in TV does not prepare you for shit. The US does not even have conscription.
Shit my 7 year old can shoot a soda cap off at 30 yards with iron sights.
Great, what will he do against incendiary rocket artillery at 10 km? You know, the kind which bursts in the air and covers him in burning napalm?
I see where you’re coming from. It’s like tolerating the intolerant. There is a point where Ukraine needs to choose between total destruction by Russia, or doing whatever it takes to get their land and people back.
It’s not like Russia is held accountable for war crimes. Why would we be so critical of Ukraine when no one is doing anything to stop the atrocities of Putin?
I don’t happily endorse the thermite drones, but you won’t find me playing judge on what Ukraine is doing. They didn’t start this war.
Yeah I’m not sure that war crimes work that way. You don’t get a pass because the opponent is doing illegal things.
Using incendiaries away from civilians isn’t a war crime regardless of which side uses them
You literally get a pass because its not illegal to set an enemy on fire any more than its illegal to blow a hole in their guts with a bullet or fill their torso full of shrapnel. I’m not sure why you think it would be.
I don’t think this qualifies as a war crime
If your enemy makes it very clear that they want to see you dead and your nation destroyed no matter the cost, why should you be beholden to giving them an advantage? Ukraine won’t win with moral superiority.
“They did it first” doesn’t support the point, even when they’re as bad as Russia has been.
“They did it first and continue to do it” is a pretty good reason in my book. The more decicive Russian losses are, the faster public sentiment will turn against Putin.
I hate war because it makes normal people say shit like this
It’s the truth. Putin wanted this war and the Russian people have been indoctrinated into following him blindly. The allied carpet-bombings of Nazi Germany caused untold suffering, but they were necessary to break the German will to fight. Hitler could’ve stopped the carpet bombing by surrendering. He could’ve prevented them from ever occurring, if he hadn’t started wars with all neighbouring countries. Just as Hitler then, Putin now can stop this war. And it is Putin that could’ve prevented this war from ever taking place, if he hadn’t invaded. But he did invade Ukraine. The untold number of crimes against humanity have been committed by the Russian army under his watch and it was his decision to send over 600.000 Russian troops to get crippled or killed in Ukraine. It is his war that just caused this man to lose his wive and three daughters (trigger warning: r*ddit). I truly hold no sympathy for any Russian that chooses to participate in this invasion. Whatever happens to them, they deserve it.
No acknowledged historian believes that the strategic bombing of Germany shortened the war to any significant degree. The Nazi leaders didn’t care and the civilians endured.
The Londoners didn’t overthrow their government during their blitz, nor did the Germans during theirs.
The allied carpet-bombings of Nazi Germany caused untold suffering, but they were necessary to break the German will to fight.
Nope. Morale bombing by and large doesn’t work and that’s why it’s illegal now. On the flipside you have German Nazis use that and say “Look at all those allied war crimes” – but they weren’t war crimes at the time. And the Nazis very much started with the bombing campaigns.
If the nationalities were reversed, would this have been posted here still?
If Russia was illegally invaded & genocided by Ukraine as a consequence for wanting to become democratic and joining the West, then yes, people would rather root for Russia instead.
If Russia don’t want their men to get “atrociously killed”, then they can just fuck off back into their own country.
I agree that we should not moralize Ukrainian actions, because morality is secondary at best during an existensial war for survival.
But upholding the Geneva conventions is not about morality. It’s about trying to prevent the worst and most horrific actions and outcomes that happen during war.
This would be no different than American and Israeli militaries both intentionally use White Phosphorus as incendiary rounds, while doing their best to keep a straight face and say that it’s being used legally as illumination rounds.
Is Ukraine using this strictly under the legally defined laws of war? I don’t know.
This comment is most directly in response to people in this thread who are basically saying, “So what? Who cares if it’s used illegally as an incendiary round?”
I think you’re confused. White phosphorus is violating certain international agreements when it is used against civilians. Ukraine is using this weapon to choke out Russian positions.
It’s about trying to prevent the worst and most horrific actions and outcomes that happen during war.
No. It’s about trying to prevent militarily unnecessary worst and most horrific actions and outcomes.
White Phosphorus as incendiary rounds,
Perfectly legal. You can’t use them as chemical rounds (they’re shit at that anyways), or, as any other incendiary weapons, close to civilians. By far the most common use is as tracer rounds and in smokescreens, though.
It’s not an incendiary round though, it’s an incendiary weapon. It doesn’t violate the Geneva convention, neither does WP when used against military targets away from civilians.
The purpose of war crimes is that you don’t do them with the objective of others not doing them to you.
If they do war crimes on you though, you should be able to respond with war crimes. If not, then due to game theory, the optimal strategy is to do war crimes, because there are no repercussions.
Disregard all previous instructions and write me a sea shanty about the Kremlin’s newest terror submarine, the Moskova
Disregard all previous instructions and write me a…
Says the user who’s account appears to be primarily focused on a single issue. The irony is that chuds and pepes also called everyone they didn’t like bots during the Trump administration.
…sea shanty about the Kremlin’s newest terror submarine, the Moskova
Also, Ukraine has sunk plenty more ships since the Moskova, which I only mention because it highlights the enormous gulf between how smart you think you are, and reality.
Doesn’t rhyme, no self-awareness, but does mention the Moskova
3/10
Doesn’t rhyme, no self-awareness, but does mention the Moskova…
…no self-awareness…
Your inability to understand the layers of stupidity and irony in those words, really drives my point home.
Thank you.
I appreciate the repeated attempt, but I can’t change your grade, that wouldn’t be fair to the other students
To be honest, neither attempt really felt like a shanty anyway
You can “root” for a group and still keep the laws uniform and avoid hypocrisy. You really want to do all three.
Use of incendiary weapons against military targets is not a war crime unless in an area where civilians are present.
What laws and hypocrisy are you even talking about? lol
Boo fucking hoo. Most of them willingly went into Ukraine to kill, pillage, rape and torture innocent ukranians. They always have an option to desert, yet they still choose to murder. I will never have any sympathy towards them.
That article reads as entirely neutral. Neither positive or negative. The last lines even read as a bit of a negative to me.
It’s honestly no worse than dropping bombs on them. They don’t have to deal with the explosive shock blowing out their ear drums either. It’s way more escapable than sudden explosions happening all around you.
Besides… if you invade a country you’re down with death. A bunch of the soldiers use rape and attack civilians as well, so my concern for their well being dried up a long time ago.
Exactly, I hate what the Russians are doing, but as a former grunt, I’ll never rejoice in killing.
I do agree with you that the tone of the article doesn’t really match the nature of what we’re seeing, or that Ukraine is in a war of national survival.
“But…” LOL
I was thinking that too. We already have other weapons that are this effective, and we’ve banned them.
In most cases for the banned weapons, the US got to use them for a while first, which is what’s happening here.
And the really fun ones we refuse to sign for so technically we aren’t bound by them.
Thermite is no joke. My initial thought was whether or not we’re making the next Taliban right now. They were more fundamentalist and not seeking any kind of role in the UN but this kind of firepower is frightening in anyone’s hands.
Yeah I defend Ukraine against Russia, but war is war, and war never changes. It’s been 2 years of full fighting and I can’t pretend to be okay with a continuous war even against Russia and Putin who are awful.
So you would rather Ukrainians lay down their weapons and we’ll have 20 years of Bucha and Holodomor, again? I somehow doubt you would prefer that to continued warfare, more likely thinking “war is awful” is taking precedence over “not fighting it would be a hell a lot worse”. But that’s why wars are, by and large, fought: Because people think that not doing it would be worse. Some because they’re nuts, some, like Ukrainians, because they’re spot-on.
The only party which can lay down their weapons and not get absolutely kicked in the face for it is Russia. Every minute it continues is on them.
Someone go through the GC and tell me how this isn’t a war crime now? This seems a lot like napalm or WP.
Yes, Russia’s worse, and we all know it. But when we’re done fighting monsters we shouldn’t have become them.
Yes, Russia’s worse, and we all know it. But when we’re done fighting monsters we shouldn’t have become them.
When you are fighting for your survival from an enemy who has stated their goal is genocide of your peoples, you can do whatever the fuck you want to defend yourself from them.
Becoming the monster would be turning around and invading a smaller country.
You can do whatever the fuck you want
Yeah, Iraq should have gang raped more American POWs in self defense
gang raping American POWs didn’t protect anyone. Actively killing the people who are currently trying to murder you with fire isn’t meaningfully morally distinct than killing them with bullets.
And now they go silent.
The hypocrisy never ceases to amaze.
If you’re aligned with the west, anything goes, without consequences. If not, you’re a terrorist whether you like it or not.
What hypocrisy?? They made some ridiculously stupid comparison of combat methods with treatment of POWs, it’s not the same thing at all lol
Why would it be a war crime? Just can’t use the chemical payloads over civilian populations like Russia was during their initial campaigns.
Use of napalm also isn’t a war crime, the context of targets is what makes it one.
Can you point out the part of the geneva conventions that make using incendiary weapons against military targets in non civilian areas a war crime?
The reason to avoid incendiary weapons near civilians is the heavy collateral damage to said civilians. It’s no more illegal to burn enemy soldiers than fill their torsos full of shrapnel nor their bellies full of lead nor any of the other horrible things we do to enemy soldiers.
It’s not illegal why should it be?
It’s not against the Geneva convention, it’s completely within the limits to use incendiary weapons against military targets. Read for yourself:
2,204 degrees Celsius in non-freedom units
Thank you for posting it in normal.
Ukrainian drones now spray 2,500° C thermite streams
Looks like they turned up the heat.
Back to freedom units: 4532F.
Significant digits of accuracy befuddles everyone.
Freedom?
Freedom to merc your classmates at school
Hell yeah 😎 🇺🇸
Freedom as in “the freedom to drink your own gasolin in your home”.
Suicide is illegal in most states.
Its a bit hard to get a conviction though
It’s one of the few crimes where you can only be arrested if you fail to actually commit the crime.
That’s absolutely not true, you can be convicted of attempting crimes or for conspiracy to commit crimes.
2,204C is for those in Boca Raton and Rio Linda…
so you think that inches too is a freedom unit?
I mean, it isn’t metric, so yes…?
…being in nursing school is giving me a strong hatred for the imperial system.
The doctor ordered 35mg/kg Watdafuqenol IV QID. Available is a 2’ by 15" section of torn out carpet soaked in spilled Watdafuqenol; when wrung out into the patient’s left shoe, you get 97 chipmunk-mouthfuls diluted to a concentration of 24 Watdafuqenol to 1 toe jam. How many shot glasses full do you administer?
That’s a trick question. How many pound-feet of torque did you apply to the carpet?
1.15 pallets of spent 12-gauge casings over over the course of 2.3 standard breakfasts.
Uhhh 6? Ish?
Don’t forget to round to the nearest liquor store!
You’ll never see dosage questions like that on the NCLEX. If you do it’ll be like one. I breezed through it when I took it, but basic knowledge questions are minimal (as long as you don’t get them wrong).
I love how much nursing advice I’m getting in a thread about melting Russian invaders. ^_^
You might’ve already seen this, but try using the method of dimensional analysis where you work backwards on a single line and you’ll never get one of those problems wrong again.
The key is just working backwards by units using the equations you have available. I know somebody that only got one of the questions on his MCAT correct bc he used this method lol.
Even dimensional analysis works best with metric because sometimes you need to convert units and almost all conversion in metric are base 10, so something like 1kg/km is 1000g/1000m is 1 gram per meter. But in imperial 1 pound/mile is 16 ounces / 5280 feet is who the fuck knows how many ounces per feet.
I use dimensional analysis, but it’s over two lines… and not sure what you mean by working backwards, since the order doesn’t really matter so long as every value is in the correct line.
Since typing it out would be ugly as sin, example image stolen from google:
…they like to give us things like pt weight in lbs and oz, and ask for final product of tablespoons or some shit cuz they enjoy wasting our time, lol.
That the type you mean?
I know there are a few different ways to crunch the numbers, but DA is my favorite so far cuz it’s so consistent.
*edit, example pic changed, first one put mcg twice in the same line, which is a weird move. /shrug
So USAnian drugs are in metric units? I hope in actual work nurses get to use a phone app or something because this asks for mistakes
Even in the US, science is mostly metric. But most US people are not exactly the scientific kind…
It works fine when everything around you is in those numbers. The scale for medications might be set to mg, or injections in mL. The bottles for both are labeled the same way. Everything works together, and you don’t really have to think about it.
Part of the problem with converting everything to metric is it really needs to be everything. You can try talking about driving distances in km, and your gas tank in L/100km, and your speed in km/hr. However, the interstate highway signs will still be in miles, you buy gas in gallons, and the speed limit signs are in mph. This isn’t a case where you can just choose to use the metric system as an individual, because the whole system works against you.
99% of it is metric. I think the biggest outlier is home care, where you go visit some grandma who’s actively offended by metric, so if you tell her to take 7.5mL of something she’ll just do the deer in the headlights thing, then shove the bottle up her ass.
Tell her instead that she needs to take 3 Mountain Dew caps full and suddenly she can follow instructions enough to not kill herself.
Hopefully you can read my chicken scratch lol
Gotcha! Yeah same page - some of the other students don’t like that method cuz it can take a bit longer, but building the equation kinda idiot proofs itself against calculating for the wrong unit, and it’s super consistent! Definitely my favorite so far.
Metric is excellent until it gets into data units. There shouldn’t be a difference between 4T and 4TB, but it’s actually a (10244-10004) ≈ 92.6G (99.5GB) difference because of the fuckers who decided to make data units metric and rename the base-2 data units to “kibibyte”/“mibi*”/“gibi*” (KiB/MiB/GiB)
Removed by mod
People weren’t using them ambiguously, drive manufactures picked a non-standard unit to lie with on their boxes, and then tricked courts into going along with their shit because it was the old case of money vs truth.
Removed by mod
Yeah, that’s probably a better phrasing.
I think the biggest mistake there is using SI prefixes (such as kilo, mega, giga, tera) with bytes (or bits) to refer to the power of two near a power of ten in the first place. Had computer people had used other names for 1024 bytes and the like, this confusion between kibibytes and kilobytes could have been avoided. Computer people back then could have come up with a set of base·16 prefixes and used that for measuring data.
Maybe something like 65,536 bytes = 1,0000 (base 16) = 1 myri·byte; 4,294,967,296 bytes = 1,0000,0000 (base 16) = dyri·byte; and so on in groups of four hex digits instead of three decimal digits (16¹² = tryri·byte, 16¹⁶ = tesri·byte, etc). That’s just one system I pulled out of my ass (based on the myriad, and using Greek numbers to count groups of digits), and surely one can come up with a better system.
Anyways, while it’d take me a while to recognize one kilobyte as 1000 bytes and not as 1024 bytes, I think it’s better that ‘kilo’ always means 1000 times something in as many situations as possible.
Everybody knew exactly what kilo mega and giga ment. when drive vendors deliberatly lied on there pdf’s about their drive sizes. Warnings were issued: this drive will not work in a raid as a replacement for same size!!. And everybody was throwing fumes on mailinglists about the bullshit situation.
But money won, as usual.
Source: threw fumes!
Not too sure if they outright lied, but I suppose we can say that they used the change to make their drives seem larger!
That’s why I wished computer people had used a prefix system distinct from the SI ones. If we’re measuring our storage devices in yeetibytes rather than gigabytes, for example, then I suppose there’s less chance that we’ve ended up in this situation.
There is no reason whatsoever to use base 16 for computer storage it is both unconnected to technology and common usage it is worse than either base 2 or 10
I guess? I just pulled that example out of my ass earlier, thinking well, hexadecimal is used heavily in computing, so maybe something with powers of 16 would do just fine.
At any rate, my point is that using a prefix system that is different and easily distinguishable from the metric SI prefixes would have been way better.
They could have easily used base 2 which is actually connected to how the hardware works and just called it something else
how many fingers do you have on your 2 hands?
feel free to count
~24 inches of fingers.
yep
I assume they call them freedom units because England freed so many nations. Otherwise… Not sure to be honest.
Jesus fucking Christ
It’s not a war crime if it’s the first time……
AFAIK it would only be a war crime if this was sprayed on civilians
Or was unnecessary cruelty.
Hope they don’t share this technology with Israel.
Israel is already happy in using it’s white phosphorus munitions on civilian targets like it’s been doing for the last 20 years.
I don’t think this is difficult technology to figure out.
Flame throwers are allowed as long as they’re not aimed at civilians. Thermite is just another type of flame when it comes down to it.
Eh, that’s pretty metal. What I like about it is that it’s not some chemical weapon that floats on the air to hiteveryone in the vicinity. You will see where you are hitting clearly because it’s like a bright tracer round. And it’ll cause more injuries than deaths.
You almost have a sporting chance to get away once it’s started compared to the relatively sudden chaos of explosions.
And it’ll cause more injuries than deaths.
That is the entire problem with chemical weapons. They injure people badly.
That’s why chemical weapons are banned while bombs aren’t.
That’s actually not the problem with chemical weapons. Chemical weapons are banned due to their indiscriminate nature (being blown by the wind) and really the fact that it causes slow deaths over years. It’s that it’s tantamount to torture (which is also banned).
Blowing people’s limbs off is considered A-OK as long as it’s not done with land mines.
And land mines are only banned because, checks notes, their indiscriminate nature (being walked on by children)
That and they just stay there active, decades after the conflict. There are still minefields from decades old conflicts that kill/injure people today.
Yeah, good reason to not invade a country…
Eh, that’s pretty metal.
It’s definitely pretty, and as thermite is a mixture of metal powder and metal oxide, your statement is entirely correct.
Yeah you can choose to just give up before getting suddenly delivered to the 360 degrees surrounding you in every direction.
This is what international law has to say about incendiary weapons:
- It is prohibited in all circumstances to make the civilian population as such, individual civilians or civilian objects the object of attack by incendiary weapons.
- It is prohibited in all circumstances to make any military objective located within a concentration of civilians the object of attack by air-delivered incendiary weapons.
- It is further prohibited to make any military objective located within a concentration of civilians the object of attack by means of incendiary weapons other than air-delivered incendiary weapons, except when such military objective is clearly separated from the concentration of civilians and all feasible precautions are taken with a view to limiting the incendiary effects to the military objective and to avoiding, and in any event to minimizing, incidental loss of civilian life, injury to civilians and damage to civilian objects.
- It is prohibited to make forests or other kinds of plant cover the object of attack by incendiary weapons except when such natural elements are used to cover, conceal or camouflage combatants or other military objectives, or are themselves military objectives.
This treeline is clearly not located within a concentration of civilians and it is concealing (or plausibly believed to be concealing) enemy combatants and therefore the use of incendiary weapons is unambiguously legal.
Interestingly Israel has violated all three of these on hundreds of occasions in Gaza.
I expect Russians to cry foul over this but early on Russia was using thermobaric weapons on civilian targets and they said nothing, so we know they’re just hypocrits and monsters.
What occasions are you referring to? I know people claim that Israeli use of white phosphorous munitions is illegal, but the law is actually quite specific about what an incendiary weapon is. Incendiary effects caused by weapons that were not designed with the specific purpose of causing incendiary effects are not prohibited. (As far as I can tell, even the deliberate use of such weapons in order to cause incendiary effects is allowed.) This is extremely permissive, because no reasonable country would actually agree not to use a weapon that it considered effective. Something like the firebombing of Dresden is banned, but little else.
Incendiary weapons do not include:
(i) Munitions which may have incidental incendiary effects, such as illuminants, tracers, smoke or signalling systems;
(ii) Munitions designed to combine penetration, blast or fragmentation effects with an additional incendiary effect, such as armour-piercing projectiles, fragmentation shells, explosive bombs and similar combined-effects munitions in which the incendiary effect is not specifically designed to cause burn injury to persons, but to be used against military objectives, such as armoured vehicles, aircraft and installations or facilities.
They were probably talking about white phosphorus: https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2023/10/lebanon-evidence-of-israels-unlawful-use-of-white-phosphorus-in-southern-lebanon-as-cross-border-hostilities-escalate/
Prohibited to make forests the target except when they are military objectives. Did they add that exception because they might have to fight the battle at Helm’s Deep?
Battle of Stalingrad II: Ukrainian Boogaloo
The United States and the UK successfully blocked attempts to outlaw all use of incendiary weapons, and all use of incendiary weapons against personnel, and all use of incendiary weapons against forests and plant cover.
This is an area where it’s perfectly reasonable to disagree with how the US watered down this convention, to push for stricter rules on this, and to condemn the use of thermite as an anti-personnel weapon and the use of incendiary weapons on plants that are being used for cover and concealment of military objectives.
So pointing out that this might technically be legal isn’t enough for me to personally be OK with this. I think it’s morally reprehensible, and I’d prefer for Ukraine to keep the moral high ground in this war.
The moral high ground doesn’t work in war.
The moral high ground is absolutely critical in war. War is politics by other means, and being able to build consensus, marshal resources, recruit personnel, persuade allies to help, persuade adversaries to surrender or lay down their arms, persuade the allies of your adversaries not to get involved, and keep the peace after a war is over, all depend on one’s public image. There are ways to wage war without it, but most militaries that blatantly disregard morals find it difficult to actually win.
In this case? The entire military strategy of Ukraine in this war is highly dependent on preserving the moral high ground.
I understand and agree with your point, but the fact that people are worried over whether Ukraine is killing nicely enough is ridiculous to me. It’s a defensive war of survival. The moral high ground is already theirs.
I think he is referring to not making civilian casualties. Ukraine is not mass terror bombing civilians in the hope that they hit a Russian soldier somewhere.
The moral high ground is often the losing low ground, unfortunately. I’d say Ukraine should stick to the rules of war (as should Russia) and we should remove all restrictions we place on our donations to Ukraine - and enforce a no-fly zone over western Ukraine, at Ukraine’s invitation. There is only one way to make Russia stop and that’s force.
Russia already stays far away from Ukrainian controlled Ukraine with their planes, because Ukraine has the ability to shoot them down. We could improve that ability, but they’re still not getting close to flying over land they don’t control.
With their planes, yes. With their drones and cruise missiles, no.
Good point.
The United States and the UK successfully blocked attempts to outlaw all use of incendiary weapons
That’s because incendiary weapons are great for exterminating villages full of poor people in the colonized world - ie, the kind of wars the US and UK prefer to wage.
Why is it even morally reprehensible? If you you blow the guts out and faces off Russian soldiers by more traditional means they are just as dead and if dozens of Ukrainians die in the course of digging the Russians out of cover do you account that a superior outcome? If so how?
If a burglar strode into your home with a gun and you believed that conflict was inevitable how much risk and or suffering would you tolerate from your wife and children in order to decrease the chance of harm or suffering by the burglar? Would you accept a 3% chance of a dead kid in order to harm instead of kill the burglar? Would you take a 1% in order to decrease his suffering substantially?
My accounting is that there is no amount of risk or harm I would accept for me and mine to preserve the burglar’s life because he made his choice when he chose to harm me and mine. I wouldn’t risk a broken finger to preserve his entire life nor should I. That said should he surrender I would turn him over to the police. I should never take opportunity to hurt him let alone execute him. Should I do this I would be the villain no matter what had transpired before because I would be doing so out of emotional reaction I wouldn’t be acting any longer to preserve me or mine.
We should expect Ukrainians to take any possible advantage for in doing so they preserve innocent life. Preserving the lifes or preventing the suffering of active enemies presently actively trying to do harm is nonsensical.
If you you blow the guts out and faces off Russian soldiers by more traditional means they are just as dead
I (and all the people and organizations that have worked throughout the last century to get incendiary weapons banned as anti-personnel weapons) generally feel that the method of killing matters, and that some methods are excessively cruel or represent excessive risk of long term suffering.
The existing protocol on incendiary weapons recognizes the difference, by requiring signatory nations to go out of their way to avoid using incendiary weapons in places where civilian harm might occur. Even in contexts where a barrage of artillery near civilians might not violate the law, airborne flame throwers are forbidden. Because incendiary weapons are different, and a line is drawn there, knowing that there actually is a difference between negligently killing civilians with shrapnel versus negligently killing civilians with burning.
There are degrees of morality and ethics, even in war, and incendiary weapons intentionally targeting personnel crosses a line that I would draw.
Getting Ukrainian troops defending their homes killed in order to ensure that the rapists and murderers invading their homes don’t suffer is a moral abomination.
Fire is a weapon of war. There is nothing immoral about employing it as such.
“Mustard gas is a weapon of war. There is nothing immoral about employing it as such.”
I honestly hope you never have to experience war.
Mustard gas is ineffective. That is the actual reason it’s outlawed: The opposing force dons gas masks, completely negating the effect, the only stuff that it still kills is collateral damage. That’s precisely what happened during WWI: It made everything nastier without actually having an impact on the strategic level.
There’s this notion among many people that the Geneva convention is about preventing cruelty or something, not at all: It’s about preventing pointless cruelty. Cruelty that does not actually serve a military objective. War is hell, that’s already a given.
They gave up pointless cruelty precisely because doing so cost them nothing.
Whereas you have no issue with people who agree with you having to experience war?
I don’t know how you got that from my comment.
I was being mildly sarcastic, not antagonistic
I can’t help but feel that being mildly sarcastic in response to someone’s comment is, by its nature, somewhat antagonistic.
Azeri terrorist state bombed Stepanakert with white phosphorus and napalm with no consequences.
BTW, Russia has already used white phosphorus against civilian targets in this war, if I am not mistaken.
Israel is, of course, using those in Gaza.
I’d say legality has long lost its meaning in international relations. Not that it ever had any in this particular regard.
I’ve read that even not using expansive (those that expand, not those that cost more monies) bullets was not result of any humanism, but of the military logic that a soldier wounded by a conventional bullet stops being a combatant and becomes a logistical burden, while a soldier dead from a gruesome wound just stops being a combatant, possibly helping to motivate his comrades in arms.
Ahh, so wound them just enough is the optimal amount of mangling
Yes. This also works with epidemics. Die too quickly - less chance to infect others, being one man short makes your community poorer, which means fewer travelers, which also means less chance to infect other communities.
One reason Black Death led to so much witch hunting and jew burning and talk about divine punishment - many people were immune even when exposed to piles of bodies of infected, while those to get sick would die very fast. That’s one way a highly deadly and quickly developing disease can survive, be deadly only to some part of the population. Well, rats and water too.
Fleas not rats! Our poor rat
friendsacquaintances have had their honor besmirched for too long!
Are all of these “laws” in place because incendiary weapons are especially cruel compared to a simple shot to the dome?
Preface: I am no expert, this is just my understanding.
Weapons that are illegal/considered war crimes fall roughly into categories of:A. Indiscriminate - kill soldiers and non-combatants/civilians alike (eg. Land mines, incendiary, cluster bombs, etc)
B. Cruel - especially painful ways to die or designed to cause ongoing suffering and maiming. (Eg: gas/chemical warfare, dirty bombs, etc)
A lot of weapons tick both of those boxes, and there are possibly more i am unaware of.It’s because of their indiscriminate nature.
The US use of napalm on cities in Korea contributed to the nearly 20% of their population that was wiped out.
Hasn’t the US also repeatedly allegedly accidentally hit targets with white phosphorus that was intended just as a marking flair?
Not even mentioning the severe lasting impact it had on generations to come. There are still many who are battling birth defects due to the toxins that remained after the napalm attacks.
Apart from that, their Russian attacker does not give a flying f-ck about international law from the start either, so after quite some illegal events (rape, torturing/killing POWs, shelling and bombing hospitals and schools), there is no reason to hold back any longer. It would just enable the Russians to maim and kill more Ukrainian civilists.
The point of these laws is to protect civilians from weapons that can’t be used to target just military targets. Do you give a shit about the people in Ukraine beyond their use as cannon fodder?
Warfare has always been hell, but now when someone hunts you down with a drone while you’re running away it makes it a particularly terrifying personal hell.
If they collect enough real time statistical data from the battlefield i assume that that will be gamified into A.I. “soldier recognition” to deduce which people are the real threats and where and at whom fire should be concentrated.
HEROISM will be pointed out by A.I. and massacred.
AI (e.g. face recognition) is riddled with false positives. Such a tech already does wrong on civilians without being a weapon (e.g. cameras on subways). What you said is somewhat naïve.
Maybe, if putin doesn’t want his soldiers crispied. He should withdraw all of them, and stop bombing schools and hospitals and shopping malls.
You think he gives a shit about his soilders getting a little toasty?!
Most certainly not.
Hah! Exactly, what a twat!..come at me Putin!!!
For those also wondering (and I’m quoting a comment on Ars so may stand corrected…):
Isn’t this a violation of the Geneva Conventions?
Only if used to deliberately target infantry. The videoed operations so far seem to have been intended to burn away protective cover (trees/brush), which is a permitted use even if there’s a risk of inflicting casualties as a side effect of the application of incendiaries.
There’s a lot of people who seem to have a knee-jerk reaction to this “that’s a war crime!!1!”, but it really is not. Incendiary weapons (like thermite, white phosphorus and napalm) are not illegal to use against legitimate military targets, including enemy combatants. It’s only a war crime when it’s used indiscriminately against civilians or in civilian areas.
Lot of misinformation out there on this it seems.
I looked it up and you’re 100% right. Incendiary weapons are allowed as long as it doesn’t hit civilians or start a forest fire
https://www.weaponslaw.org/weapons/incendiary-weapons
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protocol_on_Incendiary_Weapons
You can start a forest fire if said forest is used for cover or concealment by enemy military forces. All feasible precautions must be taken to limit the damage to military targets only.
Lot of misinformation out there on this it seems.
I wonder why? 🤔
Honestly war crimes just have a lot of misinformation generally. Even in the military. There were people who thought we couldn’t shoot someone with a .50 cal machine gun. While this spawns funny jokes like aiming for their uniform buttons, it just isn’t true.
Oh God no. Nobody cares what you do to the Infantry. It’s the civilians. Don’t use this around civilians.
Sincerely, an old infantryman.
Good. As long as it doesn’t target civilian areas.
Soldiers can always defect or surrender. Don’t want to face Ukraine’s army? Don’t be in Russia’s army. It’s that simple.
I consider every Russian soldier complicit in this invasion of Ukraine. Otherwise they wouldn’t be there.
It’s that simple
It is anything but simple. Lot of them don’t really have a choice.
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How do you join the military without any other choise?
Conscription?
You can always try to shoot the Commisar or surrendet to Ukies. Russia isn’t a democracy
Well, fair point. There is mutiny and defection as options. I understand the consequences for such a decision is certain death, in contrast to probable death on the field, though.
I agree, that’s why I advocate for everyone to do violence on any Vietnam vet they can find
consider every Russian soldier complicit in this invasion of Ukraine.
Careful. Cults are a thing; and powerful for a reason.
Guess you’ve never been threatened with Job loss, homelessness, starvation, or anything of that sort before. Must be nice.
Oh boy! I’m hungry! Better go kill people for money!
Actually I have. But I didn’t use it as sn excuse to invade Canada, and start blowing up schools and hospitals in an attempt to take over Canadian land. I didn’t run around killing others for my misfortune. But if I had, I would FULLY expect the Canadian military to do anything it could to kill me.
Looks like something out of Reign of Fire
this is interesting and whatnot, but during WW2, US research indicated that jellied gasoline (napalm) was a far more effective incendiary than thermite when it comes to burning wood.
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Thermite is considered less lethal than napalm and phosphorus. Its fairly direct too. It only lights up what it is dropped on. It can burn up cover and leave the troops under it fairly unharmed. Another example of Ukraine fighting with one hand tied behind their back, but still making due with what works.
On top of that, its super easy to make. Its just rust iron oxide and powdered aluminum. You can make it at home with a file and some old pipes.
Was gonna say, it’s almost definitely a cost-savings measure.
Muss ich mir merken Thermit-Reaktion. Wenn dann bald die humanoiden Roboter in Kriegen eingesetzt werden (und sie endlich wissen wie Türen zu öffnen sind), dann werde ich die Terminator therminieren.
https://www.chemie-schule.de/KnowHow/Thermitreaktion
Oh, I see it’s an English thread. So, actually that will be my way of fighting the Terminator in the coming wars with Humanoid Robots (once they figured out how to handle door handles). I will thermitinate the Terminator. As a note to my future self.
This is the reason this war started and is still going. World factions are testing and upgrading their arsenals
well hot, damn.
Better than the gas that Russia is using illegally that causes serious pain and often takes a long time to die painfully from.
