• 190 Posts
  • 159 Comments
Joined 1 month ago
Cake day: August 7th, 2026
  • supersquirrel@lemmy.caOPtoSolarpunk technology@slrpnk.net•Sceye's 30,000 km Stratospheric Flight Proves HAPS Mobile Connectivity
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    5 days ago

    You forget the two most important parts.

    1. A lighter than air vehicle you directly have control over is far more resilient to attack, difficult to pin down the location of, and maintainable than a satellite either orbitting the earth in predictable trajectories that place them periodically completely out of your view or sitting there like sitting ducks in geostationary orbit, either way shooting them down is a difficult but entirely soft problem for the major aerospace powers of the earth.

    2. The X-37b cannot fly up to your communications relay lighter than air vehicle while it is sitting in a lonely dark void with no one watching and reach into the insides and start fiddling… Through the use of aerobraking the X-37b can easily move in entirely unpredictable ways, so this is just an open question hanging out there in space for satellite based infrastructure.

  • supersquirrel@lemmy.caOPtoSolarpunk technology@slrpnk.net•CAT puts century-old train tech to work in new, heavier electric drive dozer
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    5 days ago

    That is a separate conversation from whether large industrial dozers are needed.

    If you think they aren’t needed you are mistaking your desire for degrowth broadly with the idea we don’t need large dozers as tools which is pretty silly to be honest.

    What if I use a dozer to help install a new septic system that vastly reduces and essentially eliminates runoff into wetlands? Or a grid scale solar array? What if I use it to rebuild a bridge that has become unsafe? Like anything else it is complicated.

    Electric drive heavy industrial equipment is absoulutely solarpunk though, not the least because it sets the conditions for further electrification because the drive train is powered by an electric motor.

  • supersquirrel@lemmy.caOPtoAustralian Politics@aussie.zone•Australia declares its new air defense missile system combat ready
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    7 days ago

    I wouldn’t say that if you aren’t willing to be the driver of a truck that is a lynchpin piece of regional air defense networks that is completely unarmored. Air Defense is difficult, you essentially need a college education’s worth of training and education to do it well and not just shoot down random friendly aircraft… so do you really think it is cost effective to toss away the lives of your air defense operators so carelessly?

    Spend the money on the damn armored trucks.

    This is the problem with people’s obsession with light armor, yes lightly armored vehicles are essential and highly useful, but every new generation of people looking at war inevitably say “ah, this next war we won’t need armor we need to make everything as lightly armored as possible!” and then that strategy fails spectacularly until people create more heavily armored version and the cycle repeats…

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RMMV_HX_range_of_tactical_trucks

    HX trucks are fitted with MAN/RMMV’s modular military-specific cab, this tracing back to the Category 1 trucks that entered service in 1976. The evolution of this cab used for HX models is 290 mm deeper than preceding designs, and has more than 600 litres of gross stowage space in the rear. The interior of the walk-through cab is primarily steel or washable plastic/vinyl. Two types of modular detachable hard-top roof are available, a standard flat roof or a version with extended height for the optional air-conditioning equipment, plus an NBC filtration system for the over-pressured IAC cab option if required.[4][9] The reinforced roof can take the weight of two soldiers and the recoil forces of a 12.7 mm heavy machine gun in a ring-mount. A riot protection kit is available for the cab.[7]

    To meet increasing demands for crew protection on deployed operations the HX range was designed from the outset with protection options in mind. Appliqué protection kits, for which vehicles are prepared to accept at the production stage, were developed for the cab. Known as the Modular Armour Cabin (MAC), these kits offer protection according to STANAG 4569. Weight of these kits is about 1,500 kg and the hard-top remains removable for air-transport if required.[9] A swap-cab armouring solution known as the Integrated Armour Cabin (IAC) is also available. The IAC was originally developed in conjunction with Krauss-Maffei Wegmann (KMW) for the SX range of trucks, this is suited to models with twin front axles only. A Rheinmetall-developed IAC option is available, this is suitable for all HX range trucks, depending on front axle rating and protection levels.[7]

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RMMV_HX_range_of_tactical_trucks

    If you want the most general, all around applicable picture of what air defense looks like with this kind of platform at the slightly smaller scale of Hiluxes, JLTVs are as good representation of this category as any, and JLTVs are essentially MRAP hiluxs, which is what you need when absolutely everything in the air and ground is hunting you… with mines as well as everything else that comes to mind when you consider that.

    …also… you can also put these on the back of Hiluxes too, I believe that is already being done in Ukraine it is just highly dangerous for the crew to operate that way.

    TL;DR you can use a Hilux instead of an armored truck to move money between banks too!