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HighTraverse
Trad climber
Bay Area
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Jul 22, 2014 - 10:40am PT
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It was a success, so why not again? Reasonable points except
How would this disaster help the Ukraine political opposition?
The obvious (to anybody with a brain) outcome is just what has happened. Greater support for the Ukraine government vs the separatists. Not likely to increase instability in western Ukraine.
I really don't think Putin wanted this but he'll certainly lie, obfuscate, create and destroy evidence as much as he can to implicate Ukraine.
shows irrefutable proof that Russia did it I wouldn't call it irrefutable proof that they did it or even that they deliberately enabled shooting down a civilian aircraft.
It's highly likely Russia delivered the Buks and possible they trained the separatists or even had advisors on site. It's likely they thought it was another military transport like the one they had shot down about a week earlier.
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Reilly
Mountain climber
The Other Monrovia- CA
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Jul 22, 2014 - 10:47am PT
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HT, don't overlook the point that continued instability is in Putin's favor
as it keeps the Ukraine weak especially as long as the limp-wristed Euros
prevaricate meaningful measures. Merkel really is a hypocrite because up to
300,000 German jobs depend on Russian trade. That said the sanctions already
in place have to be causing some discomfiture to Putin, albeit not directly,
inasmuch as some of his oligarch friends are prolly bitching that the sanctions
are hurting them.
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HighTraverse
Trad climber
Bay Area
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Jul 22, 2014 - 11:03am PT
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Reilly
agreed
but
Merkel really is a hypocrite because up to
300,000 German jobs depend on Russian trade. Germany, in fact all of Europe (except UK, Norway and Sweden), is in a bind since they get a very large amount of their gas in pipelines from Russia through Ukraine. They also get about 30% of their enriched uranium for domestic power production from Russia.
Neither of these critical energy sources can be quickly replaced. European winter starts in about 3 months.
What about Russia? They're highly dependent on the gas and uranium revenues. It's the majority of their foreign exchange.
Merkel and Putin are playing a game of chicken which neither can really afford to lose. Why Merkel? Because Germany is the largest western European economy.
Obama holds the trump cards because about the only thing we totally rely on Russia for is getting us to and from the Space Station.
You can bet Putin's Oligarch buddies are not happy about events since the annexation of Crimea. Doesn't mean they're not on his side. There's always the implicit thread of a microscopic Polonium pellet in your foot. Eastern Europe is still a tough neighborhood.
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HighTraverse
Trad climber
Bay Area
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Jul 22, 2014 - 11:20am PT
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OMG
so much for my vain hope that the passengers died quickly.
That is too gruesome to contemplate for more than a minute.
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vlani
Trad climber
mountain view, ca
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Jul 22, 2014 - 11:37am PT
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How would this disaster help the Ukraine political opposition? For the one, this lady is not in opposition:
But she is not in power either, and extremely ambitious. She by the way benefited the most from overthrowing the previous president - it got her out of jail.
There are a few more like her.
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klk
Trad climber
cali
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Jul 22, 2014 - 11:40am PT
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this thread just dropped from 334 to 319 posts.
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fear
Ice climber
hartford, ct
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Jul 22, 2014 - 11:43am PT
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Hope this helps
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vlani
Trad climber
mountain view, ca
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Jul 22, 2014 - 12:48pm PT
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"ukrainianfighterjetsshotitdown" I doubt the damage inflicted to Boeing can be done with R-60s. It bares 3 kg warhead - will it be enough to blow the plane body in peaces? And it has IR-guidence - it should hit the engine, not the fuselage. Boeing most likely will not even loose the wing with such hit and will keep flying, at least for some time.
My current thinking is SU-25 were on reconnaissance/backup mission. If Ukrainian officers were told that the target was the Punin's plane, they would try to verify that before launching SAM. According to Russian surveillance data SU-25 never been closer that 3km to Boeing. From that far the colors would match close enough. Putin does not fly 777, but how those guys would know. They may have been given fake pictures
It is easy to call Russians reports false. But you cannot call false the obvious - complete silence in the Western media about them in the last 24 hours. This by itself is a very telling and disturbing fact. I was naive to think that at least some media is at least somewhat independent.
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Reilly
Mountain climber
The Other Monrovia- CA
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Jul 22, 2014 - 12:54pm PT
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I doubt the damage inflicted to Boeing can be done with R-60s. It bares 3 kg warhead
You're not being serious, are you?
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vlani
Trad climber
mountain view, ca
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Jul 22, 2014 - 01:14pm PT
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You think it can be done with R-60? I've never been playing with explosives myself. 3kg of explosives and shrapnel- is it a lot for 777? That thing is huge and built crazy strong. Also R-60 warhead should have not the small chips for the shrapnel but some sort of sticks or rods, supposedly more efficient.
Buk missile carries 70kg warhead, the old mod that Ukrainians have has something like bearing balls for shrapnel, newer mod also has those stick things.
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Reilly
Mountain climber
The Other Monrovia- CA
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Jul 22, 2014 - 01:22pm PT
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It depends where it hits it but I can't think of too many places that would
not cause catastrophic failure. Anywhere in the hull is going to cause
explosive decompression. Almost any flight surface other than the very wing
tips would also be catastrophic. The only hope would be that it goes through
the meaty part of the wing and only blows a ginormous hole in it without
taking an engine off. Not very good odds.
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klk
Trad climber
cali
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Jul 22, 2014 - 01:30pm PT
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It is easy to call Russians reports false. But you cannot call false the obvious - complete silence in the Western media about them in the last 24 hours. This by itself is a very telling and disturbing fact.
it is especially easy when you have russian state media offering up the possibility that the airplane had been filled with corpses before takeoff as part of an anti-russian conspiracy.
the russian presser on ukrainian fighter jets was widely reported in us, british and german outlets-- i can't vouch for the dutch or french because i haven't been following them closely.
there isn't any "silence." it's just that a ukrainian jetstrike doesn't align with any of the other widely available evidence, most especially russian and russian separatist stonewalling of the crash scene as compared with the eagerness of the ukrainians to have international observers on site.
moreover, anyone actually following this story understands that there were pretty frantic backroom negotiations going on with the kremlin up to the vote on the un resolution yesterday.
russia was clearly given some kind of assurance about the extent of eu sanctions in return for promising to make the separatists hand over the bodies and recorders and to not veto the un resolution.
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vlani
Trad climber
mountain view, ca
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Jul 22, 2014 - 01:30pm PT
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Not 100% sure but R-60 should be strictly IR, no RF guidance. Those things fly directly into the engine.
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Reilly
Mountain climber
The Other Monrovia- CA
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Jul 22, 2014 - 01:51pm PT
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I was only addressing the likely damage and as I noted it wouldn't matter
much what the guidance was. Besides, even if it initially did less damage
the aerodynamic forces at Mach .83 will tear a plane apart in seconds. A
famous case occurred over Canada where the flight director went goofy and
the freighter's pilots didn't catch it as it happened quite slowly but it
eventually put them into a high speed spiral which caused supersonic speeds
over the outer portions of the wings. That was enough to peel wing panels
right off! The pilots did a commendable job of regaining control but I don't
think that 747 was ever declared airworthy again.
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vlani
Trad climber
mountain view, ca
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Jul 22, 2014 - 01:55pm PT
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there isn't any "silence Any links?
Finding controversy in what Russians did not say is actually called disinformation.
Russians did not say SU-25 shot down 777, they saying it was in the close proximity and Ukrainian lied about it. Two of SU-25, actually. And also they said Ukrainian Buk launcher was installed right in the incident area, in about the same proximity as assumed rebel's launcher position, just before the incident, and removed immediately after, and Ukrainians lied about it. On top. they call most of Ukrainian social media kind of evidence fabricated - that you can see by yourself, form your own opinion. No court would even consider any of it.
I kinda think that Russians probably inspected the detected location of the Ukrainian launcher, and have the evidence in the bug. Rocket launch should burn the ground aroundt, you have to bulldoze it over to hide it, and still traces can be detected. The missile weights about 1000 pounds, you cannot just wipe the fingerprints.
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vlani
Trad climber
mountain view, ca
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Jul 22, 2014 - 02:03pm PT
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Reilly - so you think if you blow a hole in the fuselage at that speed, even at 10000 m - the whole plane disintegrates into pieces? That is what happened?
I remember pictures of 777 cart-weeling on SFO tarmac. That thing seems invincible.
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klk
Trad climber
cali
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Jul 22, 2014 - 02:04pm PT
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hey call most of Ukrainian social media kind of evidence fabricated
here, for instance, we now have guardian reporters lining up eyetwinesses (in addition to the AP reporter) who say they and other saw the missle launcher in town just as depicted in the video and photos.
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jul/22/ukraine-sightings-missile-launcher-mh17
loook, if you want to do the kremlinbot thing, you need to keep up. i understand that many north americans don't know how to identify, find, and then read the major european editorial reportage sites. so much earlier in this thread, i posted links to the brit and german papers with the best coverage-- and from across the political spectrum --each one of those papers included something on the russian presser.
if you were actually following the story, you'd have seen that coverage. i thought you were russian? do you really not understand which are the major, most reliable euro news investigators?
my guess is, that you've bunkerized yourself and are reading only conspiracy sites and maybe russian state media.
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vlani
Trad climber
mountain view, ca
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Jul 22, 2014 - 02:25pm PT
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I cannot read German, and I'm looking at English-speaking coverage and some Russian coverage. I do not have to believe much to what Russian media said, but evidence is evidence. When I see images of flight recorders been handed over to Malaysians and at the same time - reports that rebels refusing to give them away - well, they said from the beginning that they will not handle the evidence over to Ukrainians because they do not trust them, but, at the time of publication they were already handed over, period. There are journalist on the ground, the were invited I'd believe. Some NPR dude sits in Donetsk right now.
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vlani
Trad climber
mountain view, ca
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Jul 22, 2014 - 02:36pm PT
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The guardian article - well, only slightly accurate, and mostly quoting rumors. You could write one like that yourself if you just got the assignment and spend half an hour on the internet researching the subject. Pretty worthless at that day and time as an information source.
And you still missing the point. It was one of the launchers present in the area at that moment. It was about 20 more, and actually demonstrating high level of RF activity - why? According to Ukrainians there is no flying hostile targets in the area.
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