Russo-Ukrainian War 2014-25

[Berkut]

I mean the word missile has a pretty vague English language meaning, but in the more common understanding a missile in a military sense is a self-propelled weapon propelled towards a target, with or without guidance. A kamikaze drone is a small aircraft piloted into a target and then detonated.

The main operational differences would be missiles travel orders of magnitude faster, and are usually not manually piloted mid-flight (they may have auto-correction and advanced guidance systems), missiles also at least right now are generally going to be larger and more expensive, so will deliver bigger payloads. The small drones are much slower and more apt to being destroyed in flight, and deliver smaller payloads.

On a meta level the lines can get blurred, like you could argue with some of the advanced guided missiles, "Is that a missile or an aircraft?" Or what have you, or you could argue that all flying devices are potential missiles if one were so inclined.

I think my annoyance is with the "kamikaze" part. To me, the key distinction of a "kamikaze" weapon is that a human being is the controlling element, and that human is intentionally sacrificed as part of the attack itself.

A piloted drone that is destroyed while delivering its payload is just a drone. I guess it makes sense to distinguish perhaps that these are drones that are not maybe not intended to be destroyed as part of an attack?

[celedhring]

The only time I can think bombing civilians has ever made a meaningful difference in war it involved nukes. And that's probably a WWIII moment if it ever happens in Ukraine.

2004 bombings in Spain?

I know you're just semi-trolling but it was more the government lying about it than the actual act of terror which influenced the election. And it's not like Spain's contribution was material to the war effort in Irak, anyway.

[OttoVonBismarck]

IIRC, someone actually went back and just looked at reported civilian fatalities for the areas that Sherman traversed from Tennessee and onwards.

Of course, it is wartime, so records are not great. But it's not like he was marching across Siberia. People report deaths, write death certificates, etc., etc.

There was no increase in reported deaths to any civilians during Sherman's march. None. Some sources have reported 100 civilian deaths, but nobody knows where that number comes from, and appears to include civilians deaths during the burning of Atlanta.

Sherman tore up a lot of railroad, and burned a lot of supplies and property (like cotton and such).

Drives me nuts how common it is that people have bought into the story of a raving Sherman preying on poor Scarlett.

Yep--and the burning of Atlanta is of course also often misrepresented by Lost Cause historians and their ilk. Sherman's army with his chief military engineer were doing controlled burns of key strategic facilities in Atlanta, specifically war targets. Some units under that command had order and discipline break down and they burned stuff they weren't supposed to and it spread out of control, the engineer officer over them was incensed--it was not intended to burn the city down.

Additionally, it is often conveniently never contextualized that Atlanta was not the mega city it is today. Before it became a major transit hub Atlanta was a small city. In fact in the 1860 census Atlanta is the fourth largest city in Georgia--after Savannah, Augusta and Columbus--and with a population of less than 10,000. Savannah by comparison was around 22,000. To put it a bit in scale--the largest American cities at the time were New York (800,000--pre consolidation of the five boroughs), Philadelphia (560,000), Brooklyn (260,000--again this is before the five boroughs were merged into one city), Baltimore (212,000) and Boston (175,000). Atlanta was literally 100th on the list of 100 largest cities.

[OttoVonBismarck]

I mean the word missile has a pretty vague English language meaning, but in the more common understanding a missile in a military sense is a self-propelled weapon propelled towards a target, with or without guidance. A kamikaze drone is a small aircraft piloted into a target and then detonated.

The main operational differences would be missiles travel orders of magnitude faster, and are usually not manually piloted mid-flight (they may have auto-correction and advanced guidance systems), missiles also at least right now are generally going to be larger and more expensive, so will deliver bigger payloads. The small drones are much slower and more apt to being destroyed in flight, and deliver smaller payloads.

On a meta level the lines can get blurred, like you could argue with some of the advanced guided missiles, "Is that a missile or an aircraft?" Or what have you, or you could argue that all flying devices are potential missiles if one were so inclined.

I think my annoyance is with the "kamikaze" part. To me, the key distinction of a "kamikaze" weapon is that a human being is the controlling element, and that human is intentionally sacrificed as part of the attack itself.

A piloted drone that is destroyed while delivering its payload is just a drone. I guess it makes sense to distinguish perhaps that these are drones that are not maybe not intended to be destroyed as part of an attack?

I think the main reason for use of the term is a lot of military drones are really like small remote controlled planes that can run many, many missions and drop tons of bombs over their lifetimes. Kamikaze drones are very cheap and small and basically intended to detonate along with their first and only payload. The traditional and larger military drones can do multiple large targets in a single mission and have higher range, higher altitude ceiling etc etc.

[crazy canuck]

Interesting, I had no idea Atlanta was a small town at the time.

[Berkut]

Interesting, I had no idea Atlanta was a small town at the time.

It was a small town in 1860. By 1864 it was no longer a small town, because it became a major transit hub for military supplies in the South. The two primary railroads (one north-south, the other east-west) left to the south met in Atlanta.

Hence its strategic and military importance. 

[Jacob]

This part is not well thought out or developed.  I can see why a Chechen, Tatar, or Degestani leader has leverage because of the possibility of ethnic rebellion, but what gives a former body guard governor of Tula leverage?

The governor is the person who implements Moscow's policies in their region. If Moscow says "this is going to happen" and the governors don't co-operate, then "this" basically doesn't happen.

Of course, Moscow can replace governors and apply all sorts of leverage so the governors have to play their cards right, but ultimately "we couldn't make this happen" or "we are doing our best, but there are serious difficulties" can be real leverage.

[Sheilbh]

Of course, Moscow can replace governors and apply all sorts of leverage so the governors have to play their cards right, but ultimately "we couldn't make this happen" or "we are doing our best, but there are serious difficulties" can be real leverage.

Especially if, as now, the centre's big war is failing and they need stuff (like support on mobilisation or making sure arms factories stay productive etc) from the regions.

Now more than in the past, I suspect, if they do well they will expect a bigger pay off from the centre, while if they do badly they'll probably fear the consequences less.

[crazy canuck]

Interesting, I had no idea Atlanta was a small town at the time.

It was a small town in 1860. By 1864 it was no longer a small town, because it became a major transit hub for military supplies in the South. The two primary railroads (one north-south, the other east-west) left to the south met in Atlanta.

Hence its strategic and military importance.

Thanks for the clarification.

[alfred russel]

The only time I can think bombing civilians has ever made a meaningful difference in war it involved nukes. And that's probably a WWIII moment if it ever happens in Ukraine.

2004 bombings in Spain?

I know you're just semi-trolling but it was more the government lying about it than the actual act of terror which influenced the election. And it's not like Spain's contribution was material to the war effort in Irak, anyway.

Al Qaeda did the bombing in advance of the elections because of spanish involvement in iraq, thinking it would hurt the government of Aznar and knock Spain out of the war. Aznar calculated that a bombing by al qaeda would hurt him and blamed ETA, which would theoretically help him, but this was all transparent. In the end, Al Qaeda got exactly what they wanted out of the bombing.

[Iormlund]

Something like 85-90% of the population was against the invasion before it even started.
It doesn't make any sense to say the bombings made a significant impact on the way people viewed Spanish involvement in Iraq.

[Razgovory]

Has terror bombing ever worked? Seems cruel and futile.

Netherlands 1940.

[Valmy]

Has terror bombing ever worked? Seems cruel and futile.

Netherlands 1940.

Seems like there was a little more going on there than just terror bombing.

[Josephus]

I mean the word missile has a pretty vague English language meaning, but in the more common understanding a missile in a military sense is a self-propelled weapon propelled towards a target, with or without guidance. A kamikaze drone is a small aircraft piloted into a target and then detonated.

The main operational differences would be missiles travel orders of magnitude faster, and are usually not manually piloted mid-flight (they may have auto-correction and advanced guidance systems), missiles also at least right now are generally going to be larger and more expensive, so will deliver bigger payloads. The small drones are much slower and more apt to being destroyed in flight, and deliver smaller payloads.

On a meta level the lines can get blurred, like you could argue with some of the advanced guided missiles, "Is that a missile or an aircraft?" Or what have you, or you could argue that all flying devices are potential missiles if one were so inclined.

I think my annoyance is with the "kamikaze" part. To me, the key distinction of a "kamikaze" weapon is that a human being is the controlling element, and that human is intentionally sacrificed as part of the attack itself.

A piloted drone that is destroyed while delivering its payload is just a drone. I guess it makes sense to distinguish perhaps that these are drones that are not maybe not intended to be destroyed as part of an attack?

I've seen headlines this morning saying "suicide drones" (probably because the social media editor has no idea what 'kamikaze' means) which is incredibly silly.

[alfred russel]

Something like 85-90% of the population was against the invasion before it even started.
It doesn't make any sense to say the bombings made a significant impact on the way people viewed Spanish involvement in Iraq.

I'm not saying it did. I'm aware that the population was overwhelmingly against the invasion before it started.

The overwhelming opposition to the invasion of Iraq is what ultimately caused the terror bombings to be so successful. They raised the salience of the issue of Iraq in the minds of the voters, which was an existential threat to the government just days before an election. The government ultimately fell and the policy in Iraq was reversed.