A few interesting things regarding Syria lately.
First off, Russia says we're not allowed to use the F-16s and Patriot SAMs in Jordan to make an NFZ in Syria. International law or something. Which is of course a ridiculous argument. Lets say the UN decided it was NFZ time (for the sake of debate, ignoring whether the UN does anything productive). Jordan decides to play along. Well, then all those nice toys stockpiled over there become fair game. What Russia probably meant to say was that we can't do it unilaterally. Or, that they don't want us to do it unilaterally, that's more accurate. Then they have a point. I'm curious to know if the Vipers are CGs or CJs, because the latter would make covert NFZ plans more credible for reasons that should be obvious.
Second, Russia is at the G8 complaining about Syria. So are we, obviously. My favorite part is when they argue that "our" evidence of sarin use by Assad is not up to standards, or whatever they mean. Which is amusing, because where were the similar comments when France (and I think a UN arm?) made the same statements a short while ago? Oh, but this time it's the US, so it has to be wrong. A little consistency would be nice. At least it'd make them appear actually concerned and not just out to be on whatever side we're not.
At this rate, my "idiocy is bipartisan" mantra may have to be altered to "idiocy transcends borders."
And really, Russia, come on. If you're so gung-ho about Assad staying in charge (or at least keeping the US out of Syria (although that's already a fail)), plop an S-400 battery at your naval port. Or one of the extant S-300PM batteries that the S-400s are displacing in Russia. In fact an S-300PM could be a better idea, because then when everything cools off, you announce that by the way, the Syrians have been training for the past year and are keeping these.
Also, if I am off and on here in the next week or so, I'm having computer issues. I've got a Windows 7 laptop that I've been using for a while now, and it's been doing this random blue screen thing that was really starting to get annoying. So, system restore! An easy process when you save everything to an external drive. But if it starts up again, there may be further restoration/driving over it with my car. So don't worry, I'm "back" regardless, there just may be technical difficulties from time to time until I get this completely sorted out.
A bit off topic but can anyone say what is the best way to systematically search an area in Google Earth? For instance, an army brigade is known to be near a specific region and you want to find it.I find myself zooming in an out and wandering about, not very organized.
ReplyDeleteA Google tour at a specific altitude?
What does everyone else do?
Thanks
DV
Try this:
ReplyDeletehttp://geimint.blogspot.com/2008/01/effective-searching-in-google-earth.html
Apart from that, if you have an idea of what you're looking for looks like (i.e. the layout of an army barracks), find one somewhere and zoom out to the highest altitude you feel you can still ID it. Then use that altitude as a baseline for future searches. That's what I do with SAM sites, I figure out how high I can notice a given site layout, and then use that height to search new areas.
Thanks. This will reduce search time quite a bit. 15K is a good base altitude.
ReplyDeleteHey Sean, another off topic question. I want to see what the Russian air defense range rings will look like with all S-300s replaced with S-400s. How would I go about doing this in Google Earth?
ReplyDeleteMake 400 km range rings for all of the S-300PM sites.
ReplyDeleteHow do I do that?
ReplyDeleteYou need a circle generator. I use one I found on the web years ago, you set the center coordinates (I center on the engagement radar) and the radius.
ReplyDeleteAh, got it. Thanks :)
ReplyDelete