Russo-Ukrainian War 2014-25

[crazy canuck]

No, to damage the enemy at range required costly investment in the manufacture and development of bombers.  The opposite of what is occurring now.

Sort of?

Germany had over 1500 bombers when the war started. By '42 Britain was producing about 5000 bombers a year.  US produced about 50,000 heavy and medium bombers during the war.

The airframes weren't that hard to build.  Finding good pilots and crew is another story; drones have an advantage there.

I think you may be downplaying the effort it took to transforming the US manufacturing base into something that could turn out that many bombers.  It was only after that was done that finding crews to man them became an issue.

[The Minsky Moment]

I think you may be downplaying the effort it took to transforming the US manufacturing base into something that could turn out that many bombers.

It was done pretty quickly.  The US obviously had a lot of underutilized industrial capacity.

I concede it isn't a real apples-to-apples situation; even the more heavily armed long range drones are a lot cheaper than medium bombers.  But the idea of facing a strategic situation where the adversary has the means of conducting lots of deep penetration strikes that could be tough to reliably against was definitely on people's minds in the 1930s and as it turned out with some good reason.

[grumbler]

I hadn't realised it was basically a bit like the argument against nukes.

I think that I have made that point here previously. Radar changed that calculus, but almost no one (outside of the UK) realized that until mid-war.

[Crazy_Ivan80]

Merkel did a Schrader it seems? Blaming the baltics and Poland for Russian aggression

[The Brain]

Merkel did a Schrader it seems? Blaming the baltics and Poland for Russian aggression

Link?

[Tonitrus]

Merkel did a Schrader it seems? Blaming the baltics and Poland for Russian aggression

Link?

https://www.dw.com/en/merkel-uproar-criticism-from-poland-praise-from-moscow/a-74269841

https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2025/10/07/kremlin-backs-merkels-claim-that-poland-and-baltics-blocked-talks-with-putin-a90741

[HVC]

Guess she has some bills to pay and needs the kremlin cash.

[Duque de Bragança]

Guess she has some bills to pay and needs the kremlin cash.

Stasi and/or KGB sleeping agent woke up.
Quite a long time ago actually.   

[Valmy]

How could this happen? Nobody who speaks German could be evil. 

[Duque de Bragança]

How could this happen? Nobody who speaks German could be evil AND pro-Kremlin. 

Fixed! 

[Crazy_Ivan80]

How could this happen? Nobody who speaks German could be evil AND pro-Kremlin. 

Fixed! 

There's probably conspiracy theories around claiming Hitler was a Russian agent, given that the soviets ended up near the elbe

[crazy canuck]

Did any of you actually read the article? She was asked a question about what happened.  Her answer was factually accurate - as the article goes on to describe. She and Macron wanted to hold a European summit with Putin and others, particularly the Baltic states and Poland objected.

If it is evil for a former leader to state what actually happened when they were in office, we are in a bad situation.

[Valmy]

Did any of you actually read the article? She was asked a question about what happened.  Her answer was factually accurate - as the article goes on to describe. She and Macron wanted to hold a European summit with Putin and others, particularly the Baltic states and Poland objected.

If it is evil for a former leader to state what actually happened when they were in office, we are in a bad situation.

I was just taking the opportunity to make a Simpsons joke.

[Jacob]

Which is legit, Simpsons jokes are perfectly worthwhile

But it's also worth pointing out that Merkel didn't blame the Baltics and Poland. We don't need to manufacture conflict and bad faith where it doesn't exist. Plenty of it occurs naturally to meet our needs.

[crazy canuck]

I was just taking the opportunity to make a Simpsons joke.

Yeah, fair enough - Simpsons jokes are always good for the soul.