>why would they boast about it and invite attacks upon that weapon and its deployment systems?
To complicate adversary targeting priorities. If you have to shift your pre-planned bombing sorties away from, say, local Basij HQ buildings, it takes pressure off of the Iranian government. Assigning aircraft to find/fix/target/track/engage "underwater drone launch points" is probably like searching for a needle in a haystack given the size of Iran's coastline.
It's so odd that in modern America weapons being cheap and practical is often seen as a negative. Have to make sure to fork over a couple million per shot to a defence contractor.
You're comparing apples, bananas, and pineapples while pretending they're all one thing. Switchblades are extremely effective (albeit expensive) anti-personnel (300 model) and anti-armor (600 model) drones. Shaheds are much larger, cheap, low on capabilities, but attritable used to attack fixed positions (e.g., buildings). These are all very different.
I don't understand your point. Switchblades are (roughly) more akin to FPV (300 model) and Vampire drones (600 model) with reapect to size and payloads. Shahed style drones are roughly like like low end cruise missles. Different form factors and different capabilities. All of them are needed, but they're all very different.
A cruise missile is 3,000,000$ and a shahed drone is 50,000$ so if it’s even remotely the same capability it is an immense technological improvement over an expensive and slow to manufacture cruise missile.
You need a high/low capability that mixes all levels. For example, the Ukrainians and the Russians are both manufacturing very expensove cruise missles (Neptune/Iskander) and long range attack drones (shahed/fp-2/lute/etc). At any rate the original post I was responding to was comparing Switchblades to Shaheds, which is non-sensical.
Could be a copy of those? They don't look that complicated - tube with explosives, battery, electric motors, some sort of computer/radio control. Not so different to a Shahed in complexity.
It's not impossible. Iran has connections with China, who is great at designing and manufacturing UUVs.
That said, a UUV fleet would have downsides for Iran. It's expensive, dependent on imports and an overmatch for swarm-style attacks. Attack boats are a closer fit for the "cheap/attritable" tactics we see used with Shaheds.
I think you're overestimating the complexity of small unmanned subs. Drug traffickers are building _manned_ subs now in South American jungles.
You just need a body (plastic tube), batteries, motors, and a computer. Maybe with a "range extender" gas engine. Everything can be COTS, and Iran certainly can manufacture occasional custom components.
After all, it can manufacture centrifuges for uranium enrichment.
Maybe! Most of those unmanned narcosubs are cut-down speedboats hulls, to my knowledge. The truly watertight/submerged ones are few and far between; it's a lot of investment for marginal decrease in observability.
My money is still on low-observable attack craft, or a high-low mix that deprioritizes submersibles. Iran has an impressive panopoly but also has casus belli to lie out their nose. If Iran does have fully submersable UUVs, I'd expect them to be saved for a direct confrontation with the US Navy, not tankers.
I could definitely be wrong though, I don't have any insider info to work with here.
I think it is indeed more likely that they used a low-profile boat, but I won't discount a full submersible. Or maybe a combination: a low-profile boat that uses a regular outboard gas engine to get close to the target, and then dives and attacks like a torpedo.
> If Iran does have fully submersable UUVs, I'd expect them to be saved for a direct confrontation with the US Navy, not tankers.
I don't think they can do serious damage to large US Navy vessels.
Iran has two clear win conditions in this war: cause enough pain that the US withdraws (unlikely given the current admin), or wait until US midterms and hope the Dems secure a victory and use the war powers resolution to end the war.
The more FUD they can generate around transport in the strait of Hermuz the better for them.
Maybe they have this capability and maybe they don’t, but they are clearly able to hit these tankers with something. Ukraine has been using these drones so it’s entirely possible Iran has this tech too.
This admin does TACO all the time. A likely scenario is Iran causes economic problems, Trump chickens out and withdraws while simultaneously declaring absolute victory. Any lingering problems he blames on Rubio and hegseth.
Not all his children, only his daughters. Also his nomination seriously pushes Iran from a theocracy to an elective monarchy imho. Wich, to be clear, is a common slide for theocracies. The Papal ban on children for priests is perhaps the only instance where a theocracy managed to prevent this slide.
> The Papal ban on children for priests is perhaps the only instance where a theocracy managed to prevent this slide.
Pretty impressive effect, given that there is no such ban. There are a number of other rules which can combine to make it look approximately like there is, but there isn't.
Sorry, ban on priest marriage. Or rather, a celibacy obligation for bishop and priests. Which makes it a ban on children for Christians. I think it's in the 12th century that the rule was instaured, and was, let say, made effective by the council on Trent during the reformation.
> Sorry, ban on priest marriage. [...] Which makes it a ban on children for Christians.
Well, no, it doesn't, and its important to note what the actual bans are to understand why it doesn't. There is:
* a fairly hard ban (essentially absolute, except for an exception noted at the end of this list) on men who are already priests marrying in the Catholic Church,
* a softer ban on married men becoming priests in the Latin Rite of the Catholic Church (this is the 12th Century rule you reference),
* no ban on married men becoming priests in the Eastern Rites of the Catholic Church,
* a fairly hard ban (essentially absolute, except for an exception noted at the end of this list) on currently-married men becoming bishops in the Catholic Church,
* no ban on men who are widowers (including men admitted to the priesthood while married) becoming bishops in the Catholic Church,
* no ban on a married Catholic man (possibly a layman, a Latin Rite deacon, one of the already exceptional Latin Rite priests, or an Eastern Rite priest) being ordained Bishop of Rome after being elected by the College of Cardinals (the rule for this specific allows any Catholic man to be elected) to the Papacy, though its never happened.
It is not impossible for a man to be both married and have children licitly while being a Catholic priest, and it is not impossible for a man to licitly have children through marriage as a widower while being a Catholic bishop (including the Pope), and its even technically possible for a married man with children to be Pope, though it is improbable that someone not already a bishop---and therefore not currently married, but possibly widowed and with children—and cardinal would be elected.)
As I said originally, there is no rule against a Catholic priest having children, though “there are a number of other rules which can combine to make it look approximately like there is.”
TACO is fine. Iran have shown the world what will happen if Israel/US try that stunt again. So the sensible approach for them would be to declare themselves the peacemakers and pull back, then invest heavily in better drones, seaborne drones, and semi-autonomous minelaying systems. They know what'll happen next time, and how to respond appropriately.
My youngest has played Roblox half her life, but is very angry about recent decisions like requiring ID to chat in-game.
Still, if she's anything like other players, she's spent countless hours playing some of the most mindless Roblox games, and we've spent a few $100 on Robux gift cards over the years.
> she's spent countless hours playing some of the most mindless Roblox games
It sounds like you disapprove, or at the very least recognise it’s not harmless, so I’m struggling to understand why you allow and incentivise it (by pouring hundreds of dollars into it).
Would you expand on that? I have no intention of judging you as a parent—if you say you approve of her time on Roblox, that’s that. I’m only asking because it seems you might not.
You know, just as a thought, if you have engaged with her like taking her outdoors or other activities, she wouldn't spend so much time or money on a stupid online video game.
Telling parents how to raise their children, while also making baseless assumptions of their life as well, is an approach with which you'll only antagonize people.
The parent comment does not appear to be supportive of what's happening regarding Roblox ("mindless").
If they are not interested in making the situation any different, but just want to vent, I think it's a waste of everybody's time.
> antagonize people
You can potentially antagonize anyone in any situation on an online forum even with the nicest words. I don't see how it matters. If the person is not receptive, I couldn't care less.
> You can potentially antagonize anyone in any situation on an online forum even with the nicest words.
True. But the nicest words are less likely to be taken as antagonist than the nastiest words. That’s why we should still strive to use the nicest words when we can, assuming the goal is to have a chance to change the other person’s mind.
> I don't see how it matters. If the person is not receptive, I couldn't care less.
It matters because we don’t yet know if the person in question is receptive. Maybe they are.
Or, meet halfway. Talk to her ABOUT the games. At least attempt that.
Reminds me of a family member who complained about his oldest playing Minecraft. He said “I don’t understand it” - guy is 49, grew up in Montana, shot guns as a teen. Very different upbringing.
But I never saw him attempt to understand. My daughter is not stuck on games at the moment but when she does play I do my best to talk through with her.
So in the context of this topic about current events, let's ignore the extremists who aren't in power right now, avoiding the temptation to feel better from bashing an easy straw man. Then we can better focus on the extremists who are in power right now, driving and advancing censorship as we speak. Right?
Yes. During COVID so many opinions were censored, including the medical opinion of actual Medical doctors and experts, if it did not fit the "accepted narrative".
There was no "accepted narrative," as the public health sector was forced to deal with the rapid spread of a novel virus. Ultimately, a million Americans died prematurely from that virus.
Your side advocated the use of horse dewormer and bleach. So, when the rest of us told you to pipe down, that could be considered an immune response in itself. Nothing personal, you understand.
They say, "actual medical doctors and experts," well, call me too skeptical, but claiming that demons inseminate people in the night really calls their other medical opinions into question.
Dr. Demon Semen (who agrees with them) is a medical expert we are dismissing unfairly. 99.9% of climate scientists (who disagree with them) are quacks. Just more regular doublethink in action.
It is so funny how they hypocritically whine about "the narrative." They somehow don't remember the whiplash switching from all-in on hydroxychloroquine to all-in on ivermectin. Happened nearly instantly when their far-right grifters figured out which of those two drug would turn a profit.
When someone like the OP refers to the "established narrative" or "accepted narrative", it should be recognized as a shibboleth of stupidity, indicating exactly where they're coming from.
On the Apple TV interface on my Roku, I can't tell which movie thumbnail I'm on because their UI just slightly enlarges the image which I can't really make out from my couch.
I always wonder who makes these decisions and whether they fancy themselves a designer.
I think they implied the following argument, or something along the lines
1. Assume that Amazon knows the future
2. Then spending $250M on Rings of Power is a bad decision
3. Therefore paying $28M to Trump is also just a bad decision, and not a bribery
I personally don't think that 1 holds, or that 2 implies 3.
Some please write a web plugin to use AI to analyze comments so we can filter partisan comments and only read the truly engaging and intelligent comments by more objective people.
I keep a forum going that's been up since 2007 for hobbyists. I keep it going because of the priceless historical information on it, not the present quality of discussion.
My sense is that people have become less literate, less polite, and less patient.
Again, this is for a simple hobby so there aren't necessarily many intellectuals in this hobby, but 10+ years ago we had many lively, intelligent, long discussions.
What happens is you start getting more and more users who barge in, hijack threads, and do not contribute anything useful.
They can also be abrasive, which spooks the old timers from prior generations who were used to intelligent, polite discussion where they agree to disagree.
Eventually the quality content thins out, and there's a sort of Reddit effect where you get one solid reply for every ten useless ones.
These days I find most of the new users are just looking to find out what their collection is worth.
As those new users fill up screen space with vacuous content, the old timers are fading away either through attrition or illness or death.
On the technical side, you're constantly battling bots because your domain age and reputation is targeted by spammers.
If Iran does have underwater explosive drones, why would they boast about it and invite attacks upon that weapon and its deployment systems?
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