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.
I also thought thermite was pretty weird, but it might have to do with how it’s delivered.
Thermite is considered less lethal than napalm and phosphorus. Its fairly direct too. It only lights up what it is dropped on. It can burn up cover and leave the troops under it fairly unharmed. Another example of Ukraine fighting with one hand tied behind their back, but still making due with what works.
On top of that, its super easy to make. Its just rust iron oxide and powdered aluminum. You can make it at home with a file and some old pipes.
Was gonna say, it’s almost definitely a cost-savings measure.
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.
A lot of them also believe getting captured by Ukraine is a death sentence, or worse.
Their news is constantly talking about how Ukraine is inhumane towards their prisoners of war. Yet it’s Russia that does that.
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
I agree, that’s why I advocate for everyone to do violence on any Vietnam vet they can find
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.
consider every Russian soldier complicit in this invasion of Ukraine.
Careful. Cults are a thing; and powerful for a reason.
Guess you’ve never been threatened with Job loss, homelessness, starvation, or anything of that sort before. Must be nice.
Oh boy! I’m hungry! Better go kill people for money!
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.
They are using F in Ukraine?
Eh, that’s pretty metal. What I like about it is that it’s not some chemical weapon that floats on the air to hiteveryone in the vicinity. You will see where you are hitting clearly because it’s like a bright tracer round. And it’ll cause more injuries than deaths.
You almost have a sporting chance to get away once it’s started compared to the relatively sudden chaos of explosions.
Yeah you can choose to just give up before getting suddenly delivered to the 360 degrees surrounding you in every direction.
Eh, that’s pretty metal.
It’s definitely pretty, and as thermite is a mixture of metal powder and metal oxide, your statement is entirely correct.
And it’ll cause more injuries than deaths.
That is the entire problem with chemical weapons. They injure people badly.
That’s why chemical weapons are banned while bombs aren’t.
That’s actually not the problem with chemical weapons. Chemical weapons are banned due to their indiscriminate nature (being blown by the wind) and really the fact that it causes slow deaths over years. It’s that it’s tantamount to torture (which is also banned).
Blowing people’s limbs off is considered A-OK as long as it’s not done with land mines.
And land mines are only banned because, checks notes, their indiscriminate nature (being walked on by children)
That and they just stay there active, decades after the conflict. There are still minefields from decades old conflicts that kill/injure people today.
Looks like something out of Reign of Fire
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.
bOtH sIdEs sAmE
One side started the war, one side can end it by withdrawing its soldiers tomorrow, one side constantly bombs civilians and infrastructure. It is Russia. Ukraine does none of this and is fighting for its fucking survival. They are incomparable.
Ok, Arrowhead, I now want a backpack drone with this
Not terribly difficult to cook up if you watch a couple YouTube videos.
Maybe, if putin doesn’t want his soldiers crispied. He should withdraw all of them, and stop bombing schools and hospitals and shopping malls.
You think he gives a shit about his soilders getting a little toasty?!
Most certainly not.
Hah! Exactly, what a twat!..come at me Putin!!!
Yes more war and more destruction to sate the gods of war! Paint the ground red with the blood of our enemies and the sky black with their burnt homes!
Is that bloodthirsty enough?
When is the defense against an invasion force bloodthirsty?
there’s a line between defense and offense. this is offensive. just cause someone hits you doesnt mean you kill them. you defend yourself and leave (preferably with the other person still alive)
thermite is pretty fucked.
How can you leave when they’re in your country?
Then you’re destroying your own country using thermite on it not theirs. Why not shoot yourself in the foot while you’re at it.
I’m not gonna let the intruder in my home (who keeps hitting me) stay there because I refuse to break my lamp over his head.
Russians in Ukraine is a much larger threat than less shrubbery.
Try to defend yourself and leave when your opponent is a fucking yandere that is armed with two rifles one of which you gave to them because in exchange they promised they would never hurt you or take anything from you by force.
Well you are indeed lucky enough the yandere only threatens to shoot you or your friends and for the moment only fights with a long sword whilst all you have is a kitchen knife and a dagger your friends gave you.
But the so called yandere is sitting in the Kremlin sending his unwilling minions to you.
Also if you wanna be bloodthirsty use a neutron bomb or something instead of thermite. It’s nice and quick and clean and gets things done.
Dude is from lemmy.ml, he’s just a shill.
This shill is doing your mom.
This is the reason this war started and is still going. World factions are testing and upgrading their arsenals
So what is russia waiting to use nuclear weapons? What is holding Putin to just push a button and end the whole thing. I mean US did it, twice, on civilians, no sanctions . And I’m not adding the bombings on Tokio which where even worse.
See, he knows that if he uses nukes, the US gets dragged in. He also knows we don’t have to Nuke Moscow and St. Petersburg, to effectively nuke Moscow and St. Petersburg. We developed the MOAB so that we could get away with big bada booms, with no radioactive or political fallout. He also knows that Russia never developed these weapons.
He’s stuck between and immovable object and an unstoppable force.
Nobody’s dropping a MOAB on Moscow, because it’s dropped out the back of a C-130.
And even if they did it’s got less than 4% the yield of a B61, on it’s lowest setting, that fits inside an F-35. On it’s highest setting the B61 is 30,000 times more yield.
Conventional explosives are toys compared to nukes.
They are toys compared to nukes, but I guarantee if we wanted to use the toys because radiation = more political backlash, we could easily escort two wings of C-130 transports to both cities. When the US wants to bomb something, well there’s not a whole hell of a lot that anyone can do to stop it, unfortunately.
I am reading THIS BOOK and it is not fun
You should try this one, it’s not fun either.
Putin is very aware that a nuclear strike would mean immediate intervention by NATO
Yes, a real threat from NATO this time.
Putin will never nuke anything.
Except when he is at the end of the line, and hopefully there is some humanity left in one of the people who hold the keys. Unless all the keys are held by Putler, then nuclear was is inevitable unless someone gets him before the “end of the line” moment comes.
If he’s made himself the only validator in Perimeter then he may well get the last laugh in death.
A nuclear strike is the end of the World.
And a tactical nuke, even if it didn’t trigger a wider-scale nuclear conflict, wouldn’t help their situation.
If brigades of enemy tanks were closing in on Moscow? Sure, that would be a nasty but effective option. NATO had something similar planned during the Cold War in case the Soviet tanks started pouring down the Fulka Gap.
I mean US did it, twice, on civilians, no sanctions
There are of course a lot of reasons why these two situations can’t really compare, but an obvious and major difference is that only the US had nukes at the time, so no MAD.
Winds would blow fallout all over Russia. China/India would break off economic ties. Also nukes wouldn’t end the war anyway.
Additionally Ukraine is an asset they want to exploit. Turning it into a nuclear landscape makes it unusable.
Removed by mod
No u
Why the hate?
Low effort troll doing troll things
Warfare has always been hell, but now when someone hunts you down with a drone while you’re running away it makes it a particularly terrifying personal hell.
If they collect enough real time statistical data from the battlefield i assume that that will be gamified into A.I. “soldier recognition” to deduce which people are the real threats and where and at whom fire should be concentrated.
HEROES will be pointed out by A.I. and massacred.
AI (e.g. face recognition) is riddled with false positives. Such a tech already does wrong on civilians without being a weapon (e.g. cameras on subways). What you said is somewhat naïve.
Jesus fucking Christ
It’s not a war crime if it’s the first time……
Flame throwers are allowed as long as they’re not aimed at civilians. Thermite is just another type of flame when it comes down to it.
AFAIK it would only be a war crime if this was sprayed on civilians
Hope they don’t share this technology with Israel.
I don’t think this is difficult technology to figure out.
Israel is already happy in using it’s white phosphorus munitions on civilian targets like it’s been doing for the last 20 years.
Or was unnecessary cruelty.
well hot, damn.