news

twitter thread about lacking US missile capabilities (nitter alt)

The United States has approximately 3500 Tomahawk missiles on hand - so few that at-sea reloading capability is pointless because in the event of war the USN will actually run out of missiles before it runs out of launchers.

First of all, the Tomahawk is an old system and has been manufactured in several blocks since its introduction in the 1980s. Block II missiles have long since been taken out of service and Block III missiles appear to have left service recently - the only models currently in use are Block IV (produced since 2004) and Block V (remanufactured Block IV missiles "produced" since 2021).

Now let's apply this data to operations. This is almost entirely a naval missile, although there is some work to bring back a surface-fired capability that once existed in the 1980s. The USN has 73 Arleigh Burke-class missile destroyers and 13 Ticonderoga-class missile cruisers in service, as well as 4 converted Ohio-class cruise missile submarines and 48 nuclear attack submarines with VLS silos. Obviously the surface units will fill only a portion of their silos with land attack missiles - I understand the load is generally 32 missiles (graphic courtesy Sal Mercogliano). The attack subs have 12 tubes each and the SSGNs have 154 tubes each, all loaded with Tomahawks. As such to completely load the USN battle force with Tomahawks requires 3,944 missiles. There is thus a shortfall of some 500 missiles, which makes sense given that a portion of the USN battle fleet is in the yard at any given point in time and cannot be made ready to sail even in an emergency.

Now to the question of reloading VLS tubes at sea, a capability which the USN got rid of in the mid-1990s when it was rapidly drawing down after the Cold War and the writing was very much on the wall about how much ammunition Congress was willing to fund going forward. The takeaway here is that the United States Navy doesn't "need" an at-sea VLS reload capability because our current policy appears to be to only buy enough missiles to fill the Navy's magazines once. There will be nothing to reload the silos with, at least in the immediate term, so including extra equipment to do it at sea would be pointless.

As a final aside, given that Tomahawk production since 2021 seems to have been remanufactured rather than new missiles, I have questions about whether the US actually retains the capability to make new missiles of this type.

a comment points out:

Um so did the USN burn like 3% of their tomahawks bombing targets previously bombed for 8 years ....

critical support to the US military in its valiant anti-imperialist effort to disarm... itself?

It volcanoed again (in Iceland)!

• An eruption began north of Grindavík just before eight o'clock this morning.
• Lava is about 450 meters from the northernmost houses and flows towards the town.
• Part of the eruption occurred within the ramparts that are being built.
• An intense series of small earthquakes started just before three o'clock at Sundhnúk craters.
• Lava tunnel extends under town of Grindavík.
• Grindavík was evacuated last night.
• The mountain Þorbjörn has moved 20 centimeters to the west.
• Grindavík town is partially without electricity.

Here you can see it start

Here is a multicam feed

update: here is a news ticker in English

The government of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines joined the increasing group of countries that have supported South Africa's genocide case against the State of Israel. The Caribbean nation's support was expressed through a communique.

I think most Western leftists will be disappointed by Taiwan's election. DPP is most likely going to win.

The situation seems to be getting very bad in Ecuador. We'll see if the Ecuadorian armed forces can handle this crisis. Hopefully that there are no repercussions in Colombia or Peru and that the US doesn't try to intervene, which would make the situation worse.

NATO military excellence news: Two Danish patrol vessels of the Knud Rasmussen class has been patrolling the Arctic for 15 years without functional cannons. The two ships were built without fire control systems for their 76 millimetre cannons, which according to sources in the Danish navy makes the ships' main armaments useless for firing anything but warning shots. If the ships were to fire their guns in anger, sailors would have to point the gun in the general direction of the intended target, press fire and hope for the best.

In 2013 parliament approved the construction of a third vessel, this time with a fire control system installed. The parliamentary finance committee was told that part of the budget would go towards installing the systems on the first two ships. In 2015 parliament was told that the Liberal Party-controlled ministry of defense had decided to buy the systems from Swedish arms manufacturer Saab.

In 2016 a large report on Danish military presence in the Arctic made by the Liberal Party-controlled ministry of defense told parliament that the fire control systems were being implemented and stresses the importance of Danish warships actually being armed if they were to be a credible military threat.

However, it was only last spring, seven years later, that the implementation actually started. The last ship will finally get its fire control system this year, if the Liberal Party-controlled ministry of defense's plans can be believed.

The current minister of defense claims to have had no knowledge of the long implementation period prior to being made aware by reports in the media but has promised to make an investigation.

Danish parliament has decided to spend a whopping DKK 100 billion on armaments over the coming decade. A large part of the money is planned to go towards a modernisation of the navy.

The Danish navy has been criticised in the press several times lately. Lack of sailors has made warships unable to operate at night and has caused ships to go on patrol missions without enough crew to man their guns. The ships themselves has also been criticised for being run down and not meeting NATO standards. The Liberal Party-controlled ministry of defense has also received much criticism for trying to mislead parliament and paint an overly positive picture of the state of the navy.

White House released a statement:

https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2024/01/11/statement-from-president-joe-biden-on-coalition-strikes-in-houthi-controlled-areas-in-yemen/

Hearing a rumor from a primary source that the DNC agreed last night to make a gaza ceasefire resolution part of the national platform. I can't verify this, but also don't believe it. They claim it won't be public until closer to the convention, Michigan primary at the earliest.

Anyone have a good read for how the liberals aided the rise of nazis in 1930s germany? By choosing not to stand with the commumists?

so what chapter of Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire is the United States on now? It's got to be at least book 5 or maybe 6 by now

Putin - about Soviet cartoons: You watch these modern Western-made cartoons - everything there shoots, jumps, runs, in half an hour your head will fall off from this film. How can children stand this? But our Soviet cartoons, of course, are of a completely different quality. Both the emotional impact and the aesthetic impact on the developing person are completely different.

True or not?

(This is from an interview with Putin yesterday, his first time visit to the Chukotka Autonomous Okrug, the northernmost tip of the Russian Far East, and the only region he hasn’t visited before. How can you be the leader for more than 20 years and still have a state you have never been to?)

[DJ announcer voice]: And rocketing in at a surprise number one this week it's We Don't Care (Make It A Grand World War) by Bascially All Of Sana'a

"We don't care

We don't care

We don't care

Make it a grand world war

Our hearts long for rifles and battles

By God, living like this is forbidden to me"

Pentagon failed to track Ukraine arms worth more than $1bn, says watchdog | Financial Times

The Pentagon failed to properly track more than $1bn worth of weapons the US provided to Ukraine, according to a watchdog’s report that could fuel concerns about whether the arms had been diverted from Kyiv at a time when Congress is weighing whether to send more military aid.

The report from the defence department’s inspector-general did not offer an assessment on whether the weapons had been diverted but found that the US did not appropriately monitor at least $1bn of $1.7bn in weapons sent to Ukraine since Russia launched its full-scale invasion of its neighbour nearly two years ago.

The exports covered by the report include shoulder-fired missiles such as Javelins and Stingers, switchblade or “kamikaze” drones and night vision goggles.

The equipment that was designated for so-called enhanced end-use monitoring covers only a small part of the more than $44bn in lethal aid the US has provided since Russia’s invasion.

“It was beyond the scope of our evaluation to determine whether there has been diversion of such assistance,” said the report, which was published on Thursday. It added that the high rates of missing or unaccounted for weapons “may increase the risk of theft of diversion”.

A defence department official said: “There is no credible evidence of illicit diversion of US-provided advanced conventional weapons from Ukraine.”

The inspector-general’s report shows that the practices employed by US diplomats and military officials to track weapons fell short of the stringent monitoring processes the Biden administration has cited as part of its argument for additional assistance. That is likely to intensify concerns in Congress and the American public about how taxpayer funds are being spent.

The report found that US diplomats and military officials experienced logistical and personnel issues that contributed to their shortfalls in tracking aid inside Ukraine as well as neighbouring Poland, where the US maintains a logistics hub.

It also assessed that even if the Pentagon improves its monitoring methods, tracking changes to the inventory will continue to be challenging. 

The debate on approving more assistance for Ukraine has grown increasingly fractious in Congress, especially among Republicans. House and Senate Republicans have demanded that President Joe Biden and congressional Democrats agree to a border security and immigration package in order to pass tens of billions in additional assistance for Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan. 

Republicans have demanded that the White House provide more accountability for the aid as well as lay out a strategy for US support for Ukraine and a pathway to resolving the conflict.

Wait this is the Israeli lawyer? Fucking lmao

https://t.me/UkraineHumanRightsAbuses/44941

New houthicore mix tape just dropped

Here's two pieces that describe and explain the current state of the Chinese economy. I strongly encourage you to read it. It's very good.

Orikron:

What is the motivation to Jakarta method Ecuador rn?

Considering what's coming on Thursday, I'm surprised that South Africa wasn't the pick for COTW, what with the relations (and genuinely hostile demeanor) between a former and a current apartheid state all but having collapsed harder than

In the spirit of Taiwanese elections, in the English speaking media sphere we usually hear about the more spectacular instances where China applies pressure to Taiwan, for example military activities or trade blockades, or less exciting things like subsidizing Taiwanese citizens in China to go home and vote for more friendly-to-China parties. If those are examples of glamourous and boring sticks, what are some examples of China influencing Taiwan with a carrot? Boring or otherwise. I imagine the carrots are less common to read about in the English media, hence asking the more internationally minded here.

@Kaplya@hexbear.net maybe?

Cursory reading of English press yielded the following:

• development of Fujian province with economic integration in mind https://archive.is/JEo40

• changes to visas for Taiwanese citizens in China to remove limited duration, also some government social service perks (housing, health care) given to holders of these visas in Shanghai

• direct foreign investment both ways has waned over the past few years. https://archive.is/g1e9y

https://asia.nikkei.com/Economy/Taiwan-investment-in-China-plummets-as-it-soars-in-U.S.-and-Germany