Thank you to @carpoftruth@hexbear.net for covering my position as Supreme Dictator of the Goddamn News while I was moving and getting set up in my new home in a top secret Kremlin-funded bunker five hundred feet below the ground. Our regularly scheduled programming returns this week.
On October 9th, Daniel Chapo won the Mozambique general election with about 70% of the vote. Chapo is the head of FRELIMO, the Marxist-Leninist party of Mozambique's liberation, which fought an internal anti-communist resistance called RENAMO which was backed by Rhodesia and apartheid South Africa; Frelimo won in 1975. However, as the USSR fell, Frelimo began to allow elections inside Mozambique, and has ruled the country with significant majorities in each election ever since.
The main opposition party inside Mozambique is Podemos, which is led by Venancio Mondlane, a former member of Renamo and trained inside the USA. He alleges that his polling figures predicted a majority win for him, not Frelimo, and has accused Chapo of electoral fraud. There have been the usual slogans about how they yearn for freedom. The EU, of course, "witnessed irregularities." As @WilsonWilson@hexbear.net has pointed out, Mozambique has massive undeveloped gas fields and is outsourcing the development process to France, Norway, the UK, and the USA, while mysterious Islamist groups have popped up to cause chaos in the exact regions which have the gas, slowing the process of actually developing those gas fields. Overall, it appears to be a cookie-cutter colour revolution attempt by the imperial core designed to install a comprador for cheaper resources. Its proximity to BRICS+ member South Africa may also be significant, noting the colour revolution in Bangladesh earlier this year exerting influence near India and China.
Protestors have been battling against the police and government since late October, resulting in dozens of deaths and injuries as well as massive disruption, as the government has intermittently blocked access to the internet and social media. As of today, calm appears to be returning, with border crossings beginning to reopen.
Defense Politics Asia's youtube channel and their map. Their youtube channel has substantially diminished in quality but the map is still useful. Moon of Alabama, which tends to have interesting analysis. Avoid the comment section. Understanding War and the Saker: reactionary sources that have occasional insights on the war. Alexander Mercouris, who does daily videos on the conflict. While he is a reactionary and surrounds himself with likeminded people, his daily update videos are relatively brainworm-free and good if you don't want to follow Russian telegram channels to get news. He also co-hosts The Duran, which is more explicitly conservative, racist, sexist, transphobic, anti-communist, etc when guests are invited on, but is just about tolerable when it's just the two of them if you want a little more analysis. Simplicius, who publishes on Substack. Like others, his political analysis should be soundly ignored, but his knowledge of weaponry and military strategy is generally quite good.
On the ground: Patrick Lancaster, an independent and very good journalist reporting in the warzone on the separatists' side.
Unedited videos of Russian/Ukrainian press conferences and speeches.
Pro-Russian Telegram Channels:
Again, CW for anti-LGBT and racist, sexist, etc speech, as well as combat footage.
https://t.me/aleksandr_skif ~ DPR's former Defense Minister and Colonel in the DPR's forces. Russian language. https://t.me/Slavyangrad ~ A few different pro-Russian people gather frequent content for this channel (~100 posts per day), some socialist, but all socially reactionary. If you can only tolerate using one Russian telegram channel, I would recommend this one. https://t.me/s/levigodman ~ Does daily update posts. https://t.me/patricklancasternewstoday ~ Patrick Lancaster's telegram channel. https://t.me/gonzowarr ~ A big Russian commentator. https://t.me/rybar ~ One of, if not the, biggest Russian telegram channels focussing on the war out there. Actually quite balanced, maybe even pessimistic about Russia. Produces interesting and useful maps. https://t.me/epoddubny ~ Russian language. https://t.me/boris_rozhin ~ Russian language. https://t.me/mod_russia_en ~ Russian Ministry of Defense. Does daily, if rather bland updates on the number of Ukrainians killed, etc. The figures appear to be approximately accurate; if you want, reduce all numbers by 25% as a 'propaganda tax', if you don't believe them. Does not cover everything, for obvious reasons, and virtually never details Russian losses. https://t.me/UkraineHumanRightsAbuses ~ Pro-Russian, documents abuses that Ukraine commits.
Houthi rebels are brandishing increasingly sophisticated weapons, including missiles that "can do things that are just amazing," the Pentagon's chief weapons buyer said at an Axios event.
Lol. Lmao even.
At this point, if I was the Pentagon I would simply hire Yemeni engineers
Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition and Sustainment Bill LaPlante on Wednesday said the Houthis "are getting scary."
"I'm an engineer and a physicist, and I've been around missiles my whole career," he said at the Future of Defense summit in Washington, DC. "What I've seen of what the Houthis have done in the last six months is something that — I'm just shocked."
We often talk about drip here. Of course, drip is subjective (I love my boy Kim but his style is not for me). But my word do I love the Yemeni drip of a sport coat or blazer over a robe and a scarf. I want to go there, wear that getup, and drink coffee with some Ansar Allah folks while we all talk about death to America. Of all the clothing styles in all the world, this is my favorite rn.
They are the first group in history to use Anti Ship Ballistic Missiles (ASBMs) in warfare, and Ansar Allah have been experimenting with Iranian Kheibar Shekan series and Fattah-1 technology in their Palestine-2 missile. All of these missiles have Manoeuvrable Re-entry Vehicles (MaRVs) that seperate from the booster stage in the mid course phase allowing for skip and glide trajectories, and in the case of the Iranian Fattah-1 and potentially the Palestine-2, have their own sustainer rocket attached to the MaRV itself. The only missile ever made with a sustainer motor in the MaRV itself. It's a big deal, as it means that the MaRV is not only relying on ballistic energy to fly, it has it's own source of propulsion. It's as close as you can get to a hypersonic weapon using traditional ballistic missile technology, it blurs the lines. You can read this PDF report by the Missile Defence Advocacy Alliance for more details.
As for a full on hypersonic glide vehicle (HGV), Iran is working on that with regards to Fattah-2.
I love that the entire technology tree of ASBMs is to counter American naval hegemony. If I were a politician I'd start railing against "Anti-American Missiles spreading around the globe" to get campaign donations.
theyve likely been getting assistance on the dl from russia/china/iran for years now, missile manufacturing doesnt just happen in sixth months or ukraine wouldnt be in as deep shit as it is
to quote netizens, "the last unlock on yemens agricultural tech tree lets you grow guns in the desert“
Most of the missiles they use are of Iranian design, or modifications of Iranian designs, so yeah. The Tankeel Anti Ship Ballistic Missile (ASBM) that Russian media reported as "Ansar Allah's hypersonic weapon" is an anti ship version of Iran's Raad 500/Zoheir ballistic missile, with some sort of seeker added to the MaRV to track ships. Palestine-2 is is an amalgamation of the Iranian Kheibar Shekan 1 and 2 series, along with potentially the Fattah-1.
Found an article it, but apparently an Anti Ship Ballistic Missile came in on a depressed trajectory without warning and landed a few hundred metres from the aircraft carrier. The flexibility of a warhead that is a Maneuverable Re-entry Vehicle (MaRV) allows for flying skip and glide trajectories/pull up manoeuvres to avoid detection by early warning radars, and stay out of the engagement zones of ballistic missile defence systems.
By achieving closer shadowing of target vessels (see “Tactical Evolution” below), the Houthis appear to be reducing the time-in-flight limitation of their long-range strike systems (which can exceed 100 minutes for a drone flying 300 kilometers, during which time a ship can move by as much as 75 kilometers).Houthi missiles and drones may carry terminal guidance systems—certainly semi-active radar homing for anti-ship cruise missiles (ASCMs), also electro-optical cameras in UAVs,100 and possibly (though this is unconfirmed) some form of guidance system in some ASBMs as well. The combination of wide-area surveillance, close-in target shadowing, and terminal guidance has allowed the Houthis to achieve some impressive feats of marksmanship, such as an apparent near-miss on a U.S. aircraft carrier [ak] and a number of hits or very close misses by ASBMs on ships approximately 150-200 kilometers from launch points. [al]
[ak] By some accounts, an ASBM or other missile arrived at a very shallow trajectory, with minimal warning, without a chance for interception, and splashing down around 200 meters from the Eisenhower. Details gathered from interviews with Yemen-focused U.S. and U.K. intelligence officers for this study. Names of interviewees, and dates and places of interviews withheld at interviewees’ request. The Houthis propagandized the carrier’s departure. See “America’s withdrawal from the Red Sea confirms the fall of the myth of Washington’s great power,” Sabant – Saba Agency, May 1, 2024.
For instance: Tavvishi (June 8, hit by single ASBM); Captain Paris (June 16, two within 100m); MSC Sarah V (June 24, first and only shot within 50m); Delonix (June 28, three within 200m); Bentley 1 (July 1, four under 100m ending with a hit); Groton (August 3, four within 50m, including one hit); and Groton again (August 30, two within 100m). Maritime Spotlight data.
Getting that close while being undetected is an impressive feat but isn't the 200m error still too much to be practical if you actually want to kill a ship? Even if we assume that 200m is the maximum margin of error, that still leaves a potential area of impact made up of a lot of "not ship" in relation to the amount of ship. Wouldn't the chance of getting an actual hit be very low?
Yeah it's not accurate enough, but hitting a moving target with a ballistic missile, even a MaRV capable missile, is quite difficult. The kill chain is quite complicated. For instance China plan to use the radars from their AWACS aircraft to provide guidance for their ASBMs. That's a capability Ansar Allah don't have. They've achieved direct hits on transport ships, but no hits on military ships so far. The exchange of fire between Ansar Allah and the US Navy and Marines between the 9-10 November was probably the most sophisticated attack of the conflict so far, the US had to deploy the F-35C in its combat debut to ensure safe passage of two ships. The radar of the F-35 can link up with their ships AEGIS defence system's radar to improve it's rate of interception. So the US is having to use it's most advanced capabilities to ensure safe passage of it's ships.