Ukrainian drones now spray 4,000° F thermite streams right into Russian trenches
Ukrainian drones now spray 2,500° C thermite streams right into Russian trenches
2,204 degrees Celsius in non-freedom units
Thank you for posting it in normal.
Ukrainian drones now spray 2,500° C thermite streams
Looks like they turned up the heat.
Back to freedom units: 4532F.
Significant digits of accuracy befuddles everyone.
2,204C is for those in Boca Raton and Rio Linda..........
For those also wondering (and I’m quoting a comment on Ars so may stand corrected…):
Isn’t this a violation of the Geneva Conventions?
Only if used to deliberately target infantry. The videoed operations so far seem to have been intended to burn away protective cover (trees/brush), which is a permitted use even if there's a risk of inflicting casualties as a side effect of the application of incendiaries.
There’s a lot of people who seem to have a knee-jerk reaction to this “that’s a war crime!!1!”, but it really is not. Incendiary weapons (like thermite, white phosphorus and napalm) are not illegal to use against legitimate military targets, including enemy combatants. It’s only a war crime when it’s used indiscriminately against civilians or in civilian areas.
Lot of misinformation out there on this it seems.
I looked it up and you're 100% right. Incendiary weapons are allowed as long as it doesn't hit civilians or start a forest fire
https://www.weaponslaw.org/weapons/incendiary-weapons
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protocol_on_Incendiary_Weapons
Lot of misinformation out there on this it seems.
I wonder why? 🤔
Oh God no. Nobody cares what you do to the Infantry. It's the civilians. Don't use this around civilians.
Sincerely, an old infantryman.
The Geneva suggestions
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.
HEROISM 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.
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.
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.
Yeah, good reason to not invade a country...
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.
Yeah you can choose to just give up before getting suddenly delivered to the 360 degrees surrounding you in every direction.
Muss ich mir merken Thermit-Reaktion. Wenn dann bald die humanoiden Roboter in Kriegen eingesetzt werden (und sie endlich wissen wie Türen zu öffnen sind), dann werde ich die Terminator therminieren.
https://www.chemie-schule.de/KnowHow/Thermitreaktion
Oh, I see it’s an English thread. So, actually that will be my way of fighting the Terminator in the coming wars with Humanoid Robots (once they figured out how to handle door handles). I will thermitinate the Terminator. As a note to my future self.
Probably works well on fossil fuel infrastructure too. /s
Knokator - Gladiator und Muskelkater
Knoketer - Verräter und Thermometer
Knokator - Therminate ein Terminator
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.
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.
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.
Better than the gas that Russia is using illegally that causes serious pain and often takes a long time to die painfully from.
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?
Did someone unironically say the smell of napalm in the morning line yet?
The good thing is that each usage thus far has only been in the narrow strips of hiding trees, so there's no risk of a large fire breaking out. A lot of the people whining on social media about killing trees are purposefully ignoring that fact.
Fuckin hell
well hot, damn.
This is the reason this war started and is still going. World factions are testing and upgrading their arsenals
Ok, Arrowhead, I now want a backpack drone with this
Not terribly difficult to cook up if you watch a couple YouTube videos.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
They are using F in Ukraine?
Looks like something out of Reign of Fire
No u
Why the hate?
Low effort troll doing troll things
Now, I'm all for the freedom of defending your country... But am I the only one thinking that this is presented in a bit too much of a good light? Like, what is the title supposed to make me feel? If the nationalities were reversed, would this have been posted here still?
I genuinely thank you for sharing this info, but I can't help feeling uncomfortable reading about atrocious killing devices in a technology thread.
I'm right there with you. My first reaction to the video in the article was "well that's terrifying".
Wait until you hear about the semi-autonomous killer drone swarms, designed to prevent signal jamming (by not needing an operator).
Russia is already using thermite charges, thermobaric weapons and tear gas. They get what's coming to them.
Phosphorous too IIRC
Yeah I'm not sure that war crimes work that way. You don't get a pass because the opponent is doing illegal things.
I see where you're coming from. It's like tolerating the intolerant. There is a point where Ukraine needs to choose between total destruction by Russia, or doing whatever it takes to get their land and people back.
It's not like Russia is held accountable for war crimes. Why would we be so critical of Ukraine when no one is doing anything to stop the atrocities of Putin?
I don't happily endorse the thermite drones, but you won't find me playing judge on what Ukraine is doing. They didn't start this war.
I take no delight in killing but Russian forces could leave Ukraine at any point and put an end to it.
Can the individual soldiers just give up and leave?
If Russia was illegally invaded & genocided by Ukraine as a consequence for wanting to become democratic and joining the West, then yes, people would rather root for Russia instead.
If Russia don't want their men to get "atrociously killed", then they can just fuck off back into their own country.
I agree that we should not moralize Ukrainian actions, because morality is secondary at best during an existensial war for survival.
But upholding the Geneva conventions is not about morality. It's about trying to prevent the worst and most horrific actions and outcomes that happen during war.
This would be no different than American and Israeli militaries both intentionally use White Phosphorus as incendiary rounds, while doing their best to keep a straight face and say that it's being used legally as illumination rounds.
Is Ukraine using this strictly under the legally defined laws of war? I don't know.
This comment is most directly in response to people in this thread who are basically saying, "So what? Who cares if it's used illegally as an incendiary round?"
Exactly, I hate what the Russians are doing, but as a former grunt, I'll never rejoice in killing.
Boo fucking hoo. Most of them willingly went into Ukraine to kill, pillage, rape and torture innocent ukranians. They always have an option to desert, yet they still choose to murder. I will never have any sympathy towards them.
I do agree with you that the tone of the article doesn't really match the nature of what we're seeing, or that Ukraine is in a war of national survival.
I was thinking that too. We already have other weapons that are this effective, and we've banned them.
In most cases for the banned weapons, the US got to use them for a while first, which is what's happening here.
And the really fun ones we refuse to sign for so technically we aren't bound by them.
That article reads as entirely neutral. Neither positive or negative. The last lines even read as a bit of a negative to me.
It's honestly no worse than dropping bombs on them. They don't have to deal with the explosive shock blowing out their ear drums either. It's way more escapable than sudden explosions happening all around you.
Besides.... if you invade a country you're down with death. A bunch of the soldiers use rape and attack civilians as well, so my concern for their well being dried up a long time ago.
Yeah I defend Ukraine against Russia, but war is war, and war never changes. It’s been 2 years of full fighting and I can’t pretend to be okay with a continuous war even against Russia and Putin who are awful.
So you would rather Ukrainians lay down their weapons and we'll have 20 years of Bucha and Holodomor, again? I somehow doubt you would prefer that to continued warfare, more likely thinking "war is awful" is taking precedence over "not fighting it would be a hell a lot worse". But that's why wars are, by and large, fought: Because people think that not doing it would be worse. Some because they're nuts, some, like Ukrainians, because they're spot-on.
The only party which can lay down their weapons and not get absolutely kicked in the face for it is Russia. Every minute it continues is on them.
Thermite is no joke. My initial thought was whether or not we're making the next Taliban right now. They were more fundamentalist and not seeking any kind of role in the UN but this kind of firepower is frightening in anyone's hands.
“But…” LOL