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UN-Interested Observer

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  1. I must admit to being uncertain, but isn't what you describe actually thickness efficiency, sensei?
  2. (slap forehead smiley) Quite right, and it even rolls off the tongue so that it's difficult to forget. Aiui bridge would be a very difficult target to destroy, especially with home-made recipe. In a related news I understand that the official explanation for the Bali night-club bomb recipe is one that would obviously explode if attempted to replicate. Tricky officials, or incompetent? As well, there seems to be something morally questionable about the government of a population broadcasting information that is designed to maim or kill those very citizens if they follow it. Yes, the situation is not crystal clear, but general right and wrong ought still apply. If we could ever condone or turn a blind eye to such actions I fear those gov'ts would view their citizens as spineless and helpless, and then run roughshod over them (most likely in the name of helping or protecting them). If you want to disrupt an economy in a major way you could do it for much less risk, harm and cost than a bomb. Your bomb might shut down one or several lanes for hours or days, or even the entire bridge for examination. But the same effect could be had by placing traffic pylons across the entrance to the bridge. Two dozen orange cones ought stop all traffic. Institutionalized populaces and impotent bureaucracies should require at least 6 hours before a man would make the call to pick the *%^& cones up.
  3. When that 747 was hit taking off from Baghdad and lost all hydraulics and a chunk of wing, but the pilots managed to not crash, to turn the plane around, AND to land it, there was a French journalist and her photographer filming the event. She wasn't just filming, she was a hair's bredth away from being a participent, as she met with the group that fired the missile. Disclaimer: (She claimed that she didn't take them seriously, that she thought they were bluffing about their previous kills against aircraft, and that she didn't believe they would really shoot something until they spotted the plane and fired.... Not sure why she would meet with a group of armed men in the middle of the desert when she believes they're lieing to get her out ther, though...) Anyway this journalist witnessed the shooters talking about their supplies, and they decided to use one type of missile, their good one, even though it was their last one of the type so they could make a good show. The tone seemed to hint they weren't expecting to get more of the missiles, so at that time they were working with stockpiles. Seems unlikely stockpiles would have lasted this long, for any group.
  4. I was under the impression that they had a record of fighting better, on average.
  5. Good point, but is it right to save people that don't want to be saved? There was never any threat of conquest from the Confederates, their war aims were explicit and universally understood. As such they were not really a threat to the union. The union would continue to exist. As mentioned earlier, aevans made a point that the union was meant to be pertetual. This cannot be, because it so easily adapted to expansion. The founding fathers did not plan for a nation of slow conquest, but that didn't mean it could not grow. If it could change size, then it stands to reason that you could not sanction growth without simultaneously sanctioning secession. Furthermore, concepts like the 2nd amendment have hundreds of pages of discussion, and in the longer forms make clear that the meaning was to use force against the federal government, if ever it overstepped. While this is not exactly what the south did, it is similar in concept.
  6. He did quite a lot of unethical, generally illegal and some would say 'evil' things in the duration. Explain to the reporter jailed for political dissidence that Lincoln is a 'good man' . Based on the evidence, he was a politician, and didn't give two hoots about right and wrong. Combining his fundamentally immoral behviour traits with his taking little action on slavery in the north, one has to assume he did in fact lie about the strength of his convictions, and slavery was simply a propaganda tool.
  7. The godendag was crude yet effective, and spread fear out of proportion to it's simplicity.
  8. If a slave escaping via the underground railroad was caught in the 'free northern' states, were they not arrested as a criminal, an escaping slave, and shipped back? My understanding was that Lincoln did not abolish slavery in the North, it continued in a form. He simply made a propaganda coup, one so great that it confuses people to this day, by announcing that slaves in a states that wished to seceed from the union were free. In essence, he was hoping for guerrilla insurgence or some such at best, and a propaganda move sewing divisions between them and France at the least. Though I am not certain, it is simply compiled information from various incidental sources, cannot verify the validity.
  9. I think perhaps it is the mystique of the 'explosion' which is stymying the search for the truth? AIUI the explosion in discussion is not mystical at all, but simply a mass moving in a direction with a velocity. The mass is, for all intents and purposes, a gas (though the composition of such would be quite interesting). The velocity is several thousand m/s. The direction is open to debate, aiui I don't understand it very well.
  10. The Monroe effect upon which shaped-charge weapons are based was discovered when an American scientist, Monroe, was experimenting with explosives detonated on steel plate. He noticed that the lettering engaved in the explosive would be etched into the steel. Based on that alone, one must assume that explosives flat against the steel did no visible harm. On the other hand, an high explosive shell would most likely have some metal between the explosive and the armour, and this would be propelled at several thousand m/s. Steel being a better penetrator than expanding gasses, it's more likely the fragments would do damage.
  11. The .45 has 128% the surface area of the 9mm, in that measurement. If you measure perimiter, the .45 has larger petals, in every aspect, significantly increasing perimiter length. The nose of the expanded bullet apears flatter, thus causing greater tissue damage. Furthermore the petals are particularly angular, suggesting perhaps less ability of the tissue to stretch around and recover. Comparing to the expanded 9mm/.356" bullet, it is a lop-sided victory for the .45. the 9mm apprears as a streamlined globular shape, which is well-known to cause less tissue disruption than more angular forms. However, as just previously mentioned, that is only 1 bullet brand, and you see only 1 sample of each, rendering the test rather valueless. And it is intriguing how alternative bullet types such as the Aguila IQ are dismissed out of hand. Those bullets penetrate steel, and fragment into 3 or 4 large chunks which veer into different tracks. It is difficult to imagine how this wounding mechanism could be glanced-over so. Given the difficulty of finding any evidence of over-penetrations of a target causing problems, outside of the realm of conjecture, the argument is already flawed. Add to this the confusing fact that Aguila is designed to penetrate hard materials better than other bullets.
  12. Why would they use copper wire instead of aluminum?
  13. Once again, Europe's best falls to America's tinkerers:) http://www.reedsammo.com/Page.html
  14. If one just wants to make noise, they sell firecrackers in China Town. If you accept that normal pistol calibers will not have the velocity to penetrate soft armour, and that longer distance shots are unlikely, then all that is needed is a weapon suitable for conversational distances, without excessive velocity. Velocity may be fine, but at short range momentum has much to speak for it as well. edit: assuming expanding bullets are precluded from the discussion
  15. Which cartridge do most consider to have more potential for upgrading? Could some form of sabot be used in a .45? How about bullets made of other materials, such as aluminum? The sales lit around Aguila is interesting. It would seem, at first sight, that the .45 has a greater portential to upgrade to a new generation of bullets, than the 9mm.
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