An-225 now in Russian hands; fate uncertain

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midwestpa24 said:
Our culture values every single life, and mourns the loss of even one
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..I think it's at best insensitive or somewhat myopic to assume that there are cultures out there that don't value human life and mourn the loss of brethren.. there are about 360 million Slavs out there in the world, I can just about guarantee that every single one will tell you they value their life and that of their family, friends, etc.

midwestpa24 said:
Compared to some other countries, yes.
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What countries/culture do you believe doesn't value their lives as much as western cultures do?
 
Tantalum said:
What countries/culture do you believe doesn't value their lives as much as western cultures do?
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Without pointing fingers, there are nations who have no problems slaughtering civilians, even their own. Nations where protesters and dissenters will be rounded up and just disappear. Just turn on the news, there are atrocities happening right now that would never be tolerated in our society today.
 
midwestpa24 said:
Without pointing fingers, there are nations who have no problems slaughtering civilians, even their own. Nations where protesters and dissenters will be rounded up and just disappear. Just turn on the news, there are atrocities happening right now that would never be tolerated in our society today.
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but I would like to believe that's a function of crap politics and brainwashed people, either that or I'm niave...


with that said, here's some footage of the AN-225 creating its own VFR
 
Tantalum said:
but I would like to believe that's a function of crap politics and brainwashed people
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Probably right. My only point was that some nations place more emphasis on human life than others, not necessarily on an individual level, but in general. No nation is perfect, but values differ from one to another.

And to tie this back to the original discussion, our governments have taken different tacks on their aircraft design and acquisitions. Western nations focus on using technology to increase effectiveness try to reduce potential casualties, by building expensive yet more capable aircraft in smaller numbers. Russia and others focus more on sheer numbers and brute force. Each nation's aircraft designs reflect their military strategy.
 
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midwestpa24 said:
Much of Russian design is to build things cheap, and build a lot of them... Western philosophy has been to gain the technical advantage over our opponents.

So far these theories haven't been truly tested against each other...
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Barbarossa / The Great Patriotic War 1941-45... We know who won that one too.
 
midwestpa24 said:
So far these theories haven't been truly tested against each other...
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Not recently, at least, but when the US went into Iraq about 20 years ago the Iraqis were mostly using Russian equipment. It wasn’t very effective against US hardware.
 
midwestpa24 said:
Probably right. My only point was that some nations place more emphasis on human life than others, not necessarily on an individual level, but in general... Each nation's aircraft designs reflect their military strategy.
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And yet the ballistic design of projectiles from the 5.56x54 and 5.45x39 both seem "backwards." The Soviet designed round being less lethal against a force with more advanced medical treatment available, and the US designed round being less lethal against a force that does not.
 
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Half Fast said:
Not recently, at least, but when the US went into Iraq about 20 years ago the Iraqis were mostly using Russian equipment. It wasn’t very effective against US hardware.
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US hardware would also be largely ineffective in the hands of untrained forces, especially if fighting a well trained military.
 
Mtns2Skies said:
US hardware would also be largely ineffective in the hands of untrained forces, especially if fighting a well trained military.
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True. When we sell military hardware to other countries, training is part of the package. I don’t know whether the Russians do the same.
 
Half Fast said:
The ones that use suicide bombers.
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From a strictly utilitarian view (not that I'm a utilitarian) suicide bombers (or pilots) are quite effective in delivering an asymmetrical blow that actually results in lower overall casualties for the side using suicide fighters. But as Guevera demonstrated every tactic contains the way to fight it. IIRC a USAF Colonel or Baby General at Nakhon Phanom Air Base turned most every rescue mission into Cambodia and Laos into a "full scale to him" search and destroy mission where, had they adequate command and control to do so, the NVA / NVAF would have been better advised to redeploy AAA assets elsewhere.
 
midwestpa24 said:
Our culture values every single life, and mourns the loss of even one.
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In theory perhaps. In practice many people have never been to the worst parts of the inner cities of Saint Louis, Chicago, Detroit, Cleveland, Pittsburgh, Baltimore, Philadelphia, and New York. (And those are just the ones I have been to.)
 
If we really cared, we could all live forever. We're so stupid.
 
Looks like we’ve drifted beyond the original subject and into the political side of things, so I’m closing for MC review.
 
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