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Total Members Voted: 23

[Helgoland]

I wonder, who exactly you refer to when you write the "Big, relevant and not earmarked for eradication" players in the Middle East?

Iran. Saudi Arabia. Israel. Turkey. Egypt. The other stable states of the region. The Muslim Brotherhood, probably. Maybe the PLO, I dunno how independent they are. Prime examples of players 'earmarked for eradication' would be Hamas, the IS, and presumably Hisbollah in its current form - basically all those radical Islamists who don't stand to gain from lasting stability.

[Ukrainian Ranger]

Did I say that Turkey\Israel will shoot down anything over Syrian airspace?

It is indeed very unlikely. But I do hope that they will shoot down stuff over their own land. Like that Russian drone Turkey shot down today.

PS. Russians assuming that their air-defence can hurt Western warplanes amuse me sooooo much

[Sergarr]

PS. Russians assuming that their air-defence can hurt Western warplanes amuse me sooooo much

The wank is strong within you.

[ragnar119]

PS. Russians assuming that their air-defence can hurt Western warplanes amuse me sooooo much

The wank is strong within you.

That doesnt count. It was a old version of plane that was shot down with even older version of modified soviet rocket.

And normally UR is from Ukraine ( I am guessing) so he is very anti Russian and lack any logic when it comes to anything with Russia.

[mainiac]

Russian air defense is respected by defense experts outside Russia.

[Culise]

Indeed.  Export models manned by Syrians, maybe not so much, but we're also talking about actual Russians operating modern Russian military equipment at this point.  Heck, even against an Arab army, Western air forces aren't completely invulnerable; in the 1991 Gulf War, over 100k sorties, Coalition forces only lost 42 aircraft to Iraqi action (comparing unfavourably to 33 in routine accidents), but that's still 42 more than zero.  Cripple a mass invasion?  Well, maybe or maybe not.  Hurt, however?  Definitely not impossible, even if it's the equivalent of a paper cut. 

We'll leave aside technical matters for the moment, however.  If a Russian-operated fighter plane (not just a drone, but a manned...say, Su-30, for the sake of argument) gets shot down near the border of Turkey, close enough that either side can claim that it was in Turkish or Syrian airspace as suits their own respective stories, and a Turkish F4 gets shot down (again, by the bye; it wasn't all that long ago) by Syrian air defenses, well...it happens.  Both sides will complain diplomatically to the world, both sides will grouse over it through private channels, both sides might posture a little bit militarily as well by "accidentally" firing shells into a town on the other side of the border or something again, but in the end, neither side is really interested in a full escalation of the sort that either a mass invasion of Syrian airspace by the West or the establishment of forward air defenses firing on anything that might threaten to enter Syrian airspace by the Syrians/Russians might trigger.  Though I'd call it common sense and pragmatism rather than a mindlessly craven attitude (which just smacks of pointless hostility), Vilanet's assessment of Turkey's political willingness to court a direct and open military conflict with Russia is otherwise close to my own beliefs.  Unless Russia is foolish enough (and they aren't) to openly antagonize Turkey such that they're compelled to either shoot down Russian planes or lose big (such as by flying over Anatolia instead of the present Caspian-Iran-Iraq route), it won't escalate much more than one or two fighter planes getting shot down by "accident," in a situation where such accidents are part of the game.

[Erkki]

I wrote a long post about anti-aircraft systems that would have been moved to armchair general and then I closed the tab... Posting to watch, I guess.

Anyway, about Gulf War, out of all the coalition losses, apparently only 8 fixed wing aircraft were lost to ground-to-air radar missiles, all early in the campaign. Of those, one was an A6E on radar suppression mission, one a Kuwaiti A-4, a plane without any countermeasures against radar or even capability to detect radar waves hitting it and thus no early warning or even awareness of being under attack whatsoever, and 6 were fighters. Out of those fighters 3 were RAF Tornadoes tasked with attacking airfields(literally dropping bombs on them at nap of the Earth altitude). I think it NATO air forces are currently less likely to use any aircraft that way right now, especially if there is no enemy air force to catch on the ground or with fields to destroy.

Majority of losses were to IR missiles from vehicles and man portable tubes, AA artillery and point defense direct fire guns. Those are also the systems that still dont have efficient standoff counters to other than simply not flying too low and slow where they are(which is often unknown). They are cheap, numerous, often dont need radar at all or until they're about to shoot, dispersed and unlike most radar missile systems, dont require multiple parts(such as radar+launcher+command unit).Radar based air defenses on the other hand can be sometimes avoided, often evaded(as shown by the F-16 jock on Youtube who evades 6 Iraqi missiles while flying over Iraqi ground units with air defenses of their own so he couldnt dive to the deck either), suppressed and then destroyed by SEAD tools: EW equipment, anti-radiation and air-to-ground missiles, cruise missiles and bombs.

That said ground based air defense systems are still cheap but powerful anti-access/area denial tools with potential to hurt anything that flies. IR seekers and such can only guard airspace relatively close to the ground, and very locally. Modern anti-aircraft weapons are definitely more dangerous than, say, in WW2, Korea or Vietnam. As demonstrated by the Georgians in 2008 when their BUK/SA-6s shot down a high flying, possibly in supersonic flight Tu-22M that was quite possibly worth more in currency than Georgia's entire air defenses and tiny fleet of planes, helicopters and drones. Sensor technology's advances are possibly making missiles more lethal faster than ECM, decoys and stealth are making planes better protected.

edit: fixed stuff

[scriver]

There's been an attack on a Swedish school in Trollhättan. A man wielding what witnesses describe as a sword and police call "several knife-like objects" killed one man and hurt one man and two children. He attacked the police when they arrived on the scene and was incapacitated by a gun shot and survived.

The perpetrator has been identified and has been confirmed to be a man in his 20's, but the police is not sharing his identity or background until they've had time to search through his residence and other locations of interest. He was described as being masked at the time, but it has not been confirmed what kind of mask it was.

There's bound to be lots of speculation of the nature of the attack on the internet but so far it has not been confirmed whether he had political motives, or if it was personal drama, or something like a postal/school shooting situation.

[Sinistar]

Yes, this: Sweden sword attack: Two killed by masked attacker

A word about his attire though: the mask is a protection mask used in airsoft, very akin to this one. Also, the helmet is a black PASGT. And I'm pretty sure he's also wearing a tactical vest. Stuff you can easily get in (m)any army/airsoft shops. So no "possibly nazi outfit" like the article says.

Kinda disturbing, seeing the same stuff I have at home being on a murdered. :S

Bar the sword, of course.

[Vilanat]

Wasn't he a Neo-Nazi though? i read somewhere that his social networks are full with admiration to the Nazis.

[scriver]

Yeah, that turned out to be the case.

[martinuzz]

In Germany today, a group of 13 neo-nazis have been arrested under suspicion of planning to blow up refugee centers in the region of Bayern.
During the raid, explosives, firearms, munitions, baseball bats, swords and knives were found amidst nazi props.
German intelligence service stated that the group had been observed by them for a few years now.
Apperently they had planned to throw explosives into refugee centers at oktober 31st

German minister of Interior Affairs, Joachim Herrmann, said all arrested persons were members of "Die Rechte", a right wing group in Germany

[Loud Whispers]

Honestly I think the Turkish - and possibly the Iranians, depending on modernization and political development - could fit in very well in the EU, given enough time. Before the usual people claw at my throat again: I'm talking 50 - 100 years. They're both countries with a strong and independent citizenry, both have embraced secular nationalism in the past, which is a defining characteristic of European-style development, etc etc. At the very least we should consider them as powers with interests fundamentally aligned with out own, and thus as potential partners in the necessary re-ordering of the middle east and, if it remains necessary in the future, the organized resistance - mostly political, cultural, economic - against Russia.
TL;DR: I think that politically we should at Turkey and Iran like we should look at Russia: As different, sure, but not essentially foreign - as potential partners we should talk eye-to-eye with and treat as equals*.
*And nothing less, but in the case of Russia as nothing more either.

Dammit Helgo stop trying to borg into everyone else's nations!

[Sheb]

Still better than when he try to borg into philosophers' asses in drunken English.

[smjjames]

Honestly I think the Turkish - and possibly the Iranians, depending on modernization and political development - could fit in very well in the EU, given enough time. Before the usual people claw at my throat again: I'm talking 50 - 100 years. They're both countries with a strong and independent citizenry, both have embraced secular nationalism in the past, which is a defining characteristic of European-style development, etc etc. At the very least we should consider them as powers with interests fundamentally aligned with out own, and thus as potential partners in the necessary re-ordering of the middle east and, if it remains necessary in the future, the organized resistance - mostly political, cultural, economic - against Russia.

TL;DR: I think that politically we should at Turkey and Iran like we should look at Russia: As different, sure, but not essentially foreign - as potential partners we should talk eye-to-eye with and treat as equals*.


*And nothing less, but in the case of Russia as nothing more either.

Turkey is marginally Europe, but plenty of it's history is tied with Europe, so I guess that would work, but if Iran joined, it wouldn't be called the 'European' Union anymore would it?