51 Comments

Please Putin! Do the EU parlament next!

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Why the puppet show? If you are going all out, hit the City of London, or the survival bunkers under Zurich. Go for the head, not for the twitching tail.

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International Bank of Settlements would be a good target too, while it is technically inside Switzerland, it's bit like Vatican, except even more shadowy - Swiss have no authority over it or their employees (IBS employees cannot be arrested for _any_ crime and Swiss police cannot enter the IBS premises)

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The ideal target would be the huge underground natgas storage silos in the west of Uke, around Lviv.

In an instant, 25% of EU strategic natgas reserves would go up in a monster fireball, and collapse the economy

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Meh, nobody will bat an eye at Russia bombing something in Ukraine.

By turning the EU complex into dust however, Russia would accomplish several goals.

1: Becoming more popular with a wide swath of the EU public.

2: The EU would be forced to throw reconstruction funds at Belgium and apparatchik relatives instead of Ukraine.

3: Most importantly: It would expose the EU as the paper tiger it is. What exactly would they do? Declare war and realize that nobody is signing up? Send the Belgian army (lol!) and a few hundred German tanks, their entire inventory?

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Don’t worry the melting is already going.

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Thank you for this very well explained article on the novel mechanisms and chemical reactions of various metals at extremes of high temperature, pressure and shock, Mike.

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Thank you.

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I'm including it in the post I'm composing. Thank You again.

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Excellent analysis of this underwrap super terrifying weapons capabilities

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As always, as great read Mike. H/T to Piquet too!

Is Russia stockpiling Oreshniks or are they delivering to their friends (re: Sanaa)?

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Thank you

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Fascinating science. People who care are the ones who think novel thoughts I’d say.

Haven’t seen any evidence for the novel in NATO.

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Trying to recall all the two component exothermic alloying reactions. As an example, alloying one mol of iron with on mol of chromium releases 18kj of energy, producing a kilogram quantity of such an alloy releases nearly 180kj.

Not a gigantic output but provides a bit more heat for some applications (like underwater thermitic cutting tools using mixed iron and chromium oxides + aluminum as a reducing agent & Teflon to decompose and "pressurize the effluent"). See:

https://patents.google.com/patent/US5372069A/en

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Since the West is convinced that Russia will not use this weapon on them, they do not care.

Deterrence is worthless if your enemy know you never will use it.

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https://www.moonofalabama.org/2025/01/to-avoid-fighting-large-conflicts-trump-is-creating-smaller-ones.html

Trump seems to be seeking to avoid conflict with Russia or even China and talking up small conflicts like Panama or Greenland.

For the exiting leaders of the west (pretty much all of them) denial is actually a sensible policy.

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Trump's task is a war with Iran. That's what he promised in order to be allowed to be elected, and that's what he will deliver. The Syria coup was the prelude to that, Turkey and the Syrian jihadists will provide the boots on the ground, and US and Israel the air supremacy and satellite surveillance. What is conspicuously missing, though, is functional AD---that expected air supremacy might prove a mirage.

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Disagree: I think he got on board with the idea of the North-American Union, which NAFTA was intended to pave a way toward. The military adventures of the Neocons have ultimately failed to bring the kinds of returns promised, so retrenchment is in the cards.

In any event, the NAU angle explains why the globalist response to his electoral victory has been so tepid, and why various figures have actively "bent the knee" to him of late.

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The Syria coup wasn't the prelude to anything. It was the end of Syria and US and partners spend decades over it. But happened because Syria collapsed not because Biden (and certainly not Trump) pushed that much harder for it in 2024.

If anything Turkey was the only country making an effort.

If Israel or USA determine to attack Iran it will be rapidly the end of Israel. and probably the US relationship with Saudi. Might happen, but not because Syria blew over after 5 years flapping in the wind.

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Trump is weak, stupid and easily manipulated.

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@Feral Finster

No disagreements there. What are YOU going to do about it?

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No no no, it’s the greater Israel in the making, US, Canada, Alaska, Greenland, Panama, Palestine, Jordan, Iran, Taiwan.

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Hilarious

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Expect slight radioactivity, about 10-20x background gamma and residues of short lived neutron activation products, also enriched Uranium. Temperature of the cold fusion reaction is in excess of 5000degrees. Material is deuterium in Uranium. Technology has been and is used by Israel in Lebanon and Gaza.The enriched Uranium was detected and reported by my organization for Lebanon, Gaza and Fallujah and also in a 2021 Nature paper. System is described approximately in Emilio del Guidice and Maurizio Torrealta: The secret of the three bullets.

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Useful, thanks!

So no antimatter used at all?

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No mention of plasma ... at all .... nothing to see here folks!

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Interesting take on the topic. One would expect some ceramic outer layer to reduce oxidation as it travels through the atmosphere,seeing as metals are generally quite reactive at such high temperatures.

Time will tell.

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1. The projectile's travel time is just seconds; for oxidation to diffuse through solid material, even at these temperatures, takes orders of magnitude longer. Ablation would be a problem, but there is little ceramics can do about that, and they have lower density than metals. a crucial consideration.

2. I do not think oxidation is even possible at such temperatures, 3000K or thereabout; dissociation of molecules is more likely than combination.

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@RalfB

You don't work in pyrotechnics and energetic materials, very clearly.

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Thank you, Mike, for this brilliant explanation of how Oreshnik works. It is a fascinating article and I learned so much from your report.

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Thank you.

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It is interesting that just six hits out of 36 showed the "volcano" effect. My take on that is that one of the six compound warheads was loaded with a different, experimental payload than the remaining five, which were presumably six solid tungsten penetrators each. After all, this was a field test of the Oreshnik, so it is reasonable that they tested the more experimental warhead at the same time.

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Depleted uranium (U238) does not have significant residual gama radiation, there is only weak alfa-radiation, half-life is about 4,5 billions years.

Density of D.U. is a bit smaller than wolfram.

It is self-igniting upon penetration, so I assume it can explode after impact when compressed.

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👍precision “meteorite strike”😉

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What would be the diameter of the crater left at the surface, if there is a penetration to 40-50 metres? Is is possible to estimate?

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Very hard to estimate because it will be ejecta and depression. It will also depend of the type of soil. In the initial impact, it will probably be the diameter of the warhead because the sheer velocity. Also if the warhead hits are programmed to hit in circular or elliptical pattern, the combine affect may create bigger crater.

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