This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
Now, I'm all for the freedom of defending your country... But am I the only one thinking that this is presented in a bit too much of a good light? Like, what is the title supposed to make me feel? If the nationalities were reversed, would this have been posted here still?
I genuinely thank you for sharing this info, but I can't help feeling uncomfortable reading about atrocious killing devices in a technology thread.
If the nationalities were reversed, would this have been posted here still?
If Russia was illegally invaded & genocided by Ukraine as a consequence for wanting to become democratic and joining the West, then yes, people would rather root for Russia instead.
If Russia don't want their men to get "atrociously killed", then they can just fuck off back into their own country.
I'm right there with you. My first reaction to the video in the article was "well that's terrifying".
Russia is already using thermite charges, thermobaric weapons and tear gas. They get what's coming to them.
Phosphorous too IIRC
Even the US uses white phosphorus against infantry in violation of international law. I can't imagine what we'd resort to with Russian soliders on our soil.
It’s only a violation of international law when used near civilians
Yeah I'm not sure that war crimes work that way. You don't get a pass because the opponent is doing illegal things.
I think that's exactly how it should work....
Using incendiaries away from civilians isn’t a war crime regardless of which side uses them
If your enemy makes it very clear that they want to see you dead and your nation destroyed no matter the cost, why should you be beholden to giving them an advantage? Ukraine won't win with moral superiority.
Thermite is no joke. My initial thought was whether or not we're making the next Taliban right now. They were more fundamentalist and not seeking any kind of role in the UN but this kind of firepower is frightening in anyone's hands.
I was thinking that too. We already have other weapons that are this effective, and we've banned them.
In most cases for the banned weapons, the US got to use them for a while first, which is what's happening here.
Yeah I defend Ukraine against Russia, but war is war, and war never changes. It’s been 2 years of full fighting and I can’t pretend to be okay with a continuous war even against Russia and Putin who are awful.
Exactly, I hate what the Russians are doing, but as a former grunt, I'll never rejoice in killing.
Muss ich mir merken Thermit-Reaktion. Wenn dann bald die humanoiden Roboter in Kriegen eingesetzt werden (und sie endlich wissen wie Türen zu öffnen sind), dann werde ich die Terminator therminieren.
https://www.chemie-schule.de/KnowHow/Thermitreaktion
Oh, I see it’s an English thread. So, actually that will be my way of fighting the Terminator in the coming wars with Humanoid Robots (once they figured out how to handle door handles). I will thermitinate the Terminator. As a note to my future self.
Knokator - Gladiator und Muskelkater
Knoketer - Verräter und Thermometer
Knokator - Therminate ein Terminator
Probably works well on fossil fuel infrastructure too. /s
well hot, damn.
For those also wondering (and I’m quoting a comment on Ars so may stand corrected…):
Isn’t this a violation of the Geneva Conventions?
Only if used to deliberately target infantry. The videoed operations so far seem to have been intended to burn away protective cover (trees/brush), which is a permitted use even if there's a risk of inflicting casualties as a side effect of the application of incendiaries.
There’s a lot of people who seem to have a knee-jerk reaction to this “that’s a war crime!!1!”, but it really is not. Incendiary weapons (like thermite, white phosphorus and napalm) are not illegal to use against legitimate military targets, including enemy combatants. It’s only a war crime when it’s used indiscriminately against civilians or in civilian areas.
Lot of misinformation out there on this it seems.
I looked it up and you're 100% right. Incendiary weapons are fine as long as it doesn't hit civilians or intentionally start a forest fire
https://www.weaponslaw.org/weapons/incendiary-weapons
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protocol_on_Incendiary_Weapons
This is straight up atrocious, but Russia has been using white phosphorus during this war. No side is pristine in this conflict. War is awful, period. One thing it has shown is that Ukraine has become expert in using commodity hardware to rain death on their enemy.
Did someone unironically say the smell of napalm in the morning line yet?
this is interesting and whatnot, but during WW2, US research indicated that jellied gasoline (napalm) was a far more effective incendiary than thermite when it comes to burning wood.
Fuckin hell
Better than the gas that Russia is using illegally that causes serious pain and often takes a long time to die painfully from.
What the actual fuck? Defend your country sure, but this isn't that.
If you're deploying weapons on your own territory to reduce the operational capacity of an invading force then it's by definition defending your country.
If you have a problem w/ this you're going to have to cycle to the next argument because this one is nonsense. NEXT.
Isn’t it though?
Any invaders in that tree line are likely having a very bad time continuing their invasionary goals.
Good. As long as it doesn't target civilian areas.
Soldiers can always defect or surrender. Don't want to face Ukraine's army? Don't be in Russia's army. It's that simple.
I consider every Russian soldier complicit in this invasion of Ukraine. Otherwise they wouldn't be there.
It's that simple
It is anything but simple. Lot of them don't really have a choice.
How do you join the military without any other choise?
Conscription?
You can always try to shoot the Commisar or surrendet to Ukies. Russia isn't a democracy
Well, fair point. There is mutiny and defection as options. I understand the consequences for such a decision is certain death, in contrast to probable death on the field, though.
I agree, that's why I advocate for everyone to do violence on any Vietnam vet they can find
Guess you've never been threatened with Job loss, homelessness, starvation, or anything of that sort before. Must be nice.
Actually I have. But I didn't use it as sn excuse to invade Canada, and start blowing up schools and hospitals in an attempt to take over Canadian land. I didn't run around killing others for my misfortune. But if I had, I would FULLY expect the Canadian military to do anything it could to kill me.
Oh boy! I'm hungry! Better go kill people for money!
Ok, Arrowhead, I now want a backpack drone with this
Not terribly difficult to cook up if you watch a couple YouTube videos.
They are using F in Ukraine?
This is what international law has to say about incendiary weapons:
- It is prohibited in all circumstances to make the civilian population as such, individual civilians or civilian objects the object of attack by incendiary weapons.
- It is prohibited in all circumstances to make any military objective located within a concentration of civilians the object of attack by air-delivered incendiary weapons.
- It is further prohibited to make any military objective located within a concentration of civilians the object of attack by means of incendiary weapons other than air-delivered incendiary weapons, except when such military objective is clearly separated from the concentration of civilians and all feasible precautions are taken with a view to limiting the incendiary effects to the military objective and to avoiding, and in any event to minimizing, incidental loss of civilian life, injury to civilians and damage to civilian objects.
- It is prohibited to make forests or other kinds of plant cover the object of attack by incendiary weapons except when such natural elements are used to cover, conceal or camouflage combatants or other military objectives, or are themselves military objectives.
This treeline is clearly not located within a concentration of civilians and it is concealing (or plausibly believed to be concealing) enemy combatants and therefore the use of incendiary weapons is unambiguously legal.
