Radio War Nerd EP #423 — World of Wars: Anti-Ship Missiles & Genocidal Geriatrics

It's worth mentioning that HMS Sheffield was sunk by an Exocet because the Anti-Air Warfare Officer who was supposed to be looking out for air attack was in another room drinking coffee, and his assistant was taking a shit. Even when their sister ship told them about 2 Argentine jets approaching, the AAWO decided they were too far away to attack and went back to his coffee

The US navy is also protected by the mystique of US power. As of yet, nobody has dared to kill so many Americans in one go.

Budanov is a joke. Remember this classic piece (of crap)? https://www.businessinsider.com/putin-coup-underway-impossible-to-stop-ukraine-military-intel-2022-5 Mind you, I’m no fan of Putin. I’m just calling a spade a spade…or rather, a “blatant full of shit propagandist”…a full of shit propagandist.

lots of folks want to remain trapped in a 2016-2017 time loop, but the real big shitheads are still reliving the insane high following Gulf War 1.

Oh my god you’re right Mark the littoral ships do look exactly like Musk’s cyber-trucks

What I remember about the Falklands exocet was the the Argentine plane took off, fired the missile when above the horizon with a view of the target then immediately went went below the horizon. Thatcher was livid with the French (Mitterand) and forced them to surrender the codes that would enable the destruction of future missiles.

Strategic Intel: I get bad sinus infections a few times a year. Using a neti pot twice a day has helped greatly.

"Why can't we reveal the cost?" "We have to leave the best feature a secret!"

And for those who really wonder about Joe Biden, I recommend the book, "Yesterday's Man: The Case Against Joe Biden" by Branko Marcetic. Biden's long service in the senate and the amany awful things he did there are all too quickly forgotten.

It seems like whenever a dominant power with highly expensive, hard to equip/train forces starts to face off against effective, cheap-to-equip counterforces, the game changes. Like crossbows vs knights. Put another way, if a scrappy peasant with a new weapon can kill a warrior who has trained for decades, you’re fucked

I was surprised that when you spoke of "widening the war to keep it from getting wider," you did not refer to that classic line from the Vietnam era, "We had to destroy the village to save it." Same idea of course but it does make the absurdity even more visceral. With respect to missile attacks on carriers, if one damages the catapult system which is topside and very vulnerable, the carrier is useless. And catapult repair is not going to be easy. There's no aisle at Home Depot with the parts. Ballistic missile attacks on ships, if those missiles do not have some form of terminal guidance is a bit more problematic than you suggest. Okay, if you are using nukes, almost does count. But if the warhead is conventional, you have to hit or get very, very close to do significant damage. Also, I'm sure US has satellites that can detect ballistic missile launches hanging over the gulf. With launch warning, even a slow surface ship can change course enough to dodge. Finally, and in complete agreement with general tenor of your argument, surface ships are doomed in any serious mix-up with even second or third world forces. In a previous podcast you said it well, "There are submarines and there are targets." Thanks as always. What a wretched year this is going to be. Jon Penn

Fine episode, gentlemen. Some minor points and additions.

If Russians are Orcs then Europeans are Elves who are just so happy to watch Men get slaughtered so long as more Orcs die, that's my cheesy take

George Bush walked so that Biden could run or whatever I'm splitting hairs like a PC lib or whatever but 'artificial famine' doesn't feel like the right term after reading Late Victorian Holocausts - if anything a 'natural famine' is either a freak occurence of multiple converging problems or a symptom of your failure to understand hydrologic cycles (and India, famously, had famine-proofed their country for a long time until the British came, and then everyone shrugged and went 'idk man, india's the Land of Famines or something, who knows why it happens') 'imposed famine' is less work for my jaw and captures the deliberate nature of the crime more than 'artificial' does, imo (but as we all know the only people who can impose famines are lenin and stalin, hyuk hyuk) dont mind me i'm just being a language nerd over here

You would think after Epstein et all and his sons open corruption you guys might just contemplate the idea the Biden is compromised.

Libs love the “great man” view of history so it will be easy for them to scapegoat zelensky and turn him into a marvel villain who was originally good but corrupted by power, thus explaining why Ukraine couldn’t defeat Russia

Modern warfare seems to consist of the poor throwing rocks at the rich and the rich throwing gold bars back at the poor.

At least W had Saddam Hussein, a "worthy fucking adversary" (to quote Walter Sobchak) in the Western imagination. It doesn't seem like anyone has any illusions that cutting off aid to UNRWA will hurt anyone except Palestinian civilians.

Agree with the sentiments regarding UNRWA. Just a whole different level of depravity for Biden-Israel and our allies. Of course domestically, the GOP is entirely on board with this, as are most elected Democrats. Have to hit bottom eventually.

Dr. Nerd, sir, you had a great appearance on Trueanon recently

I don’t understand the UNRWA thing. The Saudis spend more than that on golf tournaments. The whole Arab world is just going to sit there and let people starve when they can stop it by writing a check? It’s not that much money. They already only pay because it gives them leverage. Do they really think the whole world actually agrees with them? No one else will step up?

its cool that no one in biden's family decided to take the keys away but instead of like getting in a wreck hes doing the G word. Also Nuland was in the bush admin working for cheney right? Seems fitting.

iirc the Iraqi plane that fired the Exocet was actually a modified Dassault Falcon business jet which makes the whole incident even funnier

Sea mine! https://youtu.be/Cun-LZvOTdw?si=VysnKPfz8UfLRfq9

I have a question: what are the chances Bibi gets an assassination attempt? At this point, he’s going to continue the state of emergency/siege until the US elects Trump to save his ass or he gets some assurance he won’t go to jail. It’s not just Hamas; we’re talking about a government sick enough to include outright fascists like Ben-Gvir and Smotrich.

I imagine that the Zaluzhny/Zelensky thing is what it was like watching South Vietnamese politics during the Vietnam War.