MarmiteLover123

If you want a serious answer, it's probably Kristi Noem, DHS Secretary.

They already exist and most major militaries have both ground and air based (on fighter jets) infrared search and track. Main limitation is that the atmosphere and weather can attenuate infrared, and that it's a camera system, so range is limited by those factors compared to radar. It's also why it's more common on aircraft (air is thinner and colder at altitude). This also means tracking lots of targets, especially at longer ranges, is complex if only infrared is used. A laser rangefinder is usually added to the system to obtain distance data, and engagement range is usually around two thirds of detection range.

https://www.thalesgroup.com/en/markets/defence-and-security/naval-forces/above-water-warfare/artemis-irst-360deg-naval-infrared

https://www.aeroflap.com.br/en/USAF-f-15c-fires-first-aim-120-missile-guided-by-irst/

As for infrared systems likely in use in Yemen, there's the Iranian Sepehr-14 fire control system, designed to link up with the Iranian Raad air defence system that can fire Sayyad 2C surface to air missiles. The Raad firing Sayyad 2C missiles is a capabilitiy that Ansarallah likely already have, given intercepted shipments of Sayyad 2C missiles to Yemen. You can see the camera array here.

Just got to post through it comrade, I'll be posting Samir Amin quotes and odd military knowledge until my account goes bust.

Also want to say that I don't see the potential rise of religion as a good thing or anything like that, if more people decide to become religious in the western world and buck the trend of declining Christianity, I think that's a bad omen and a sign that things aren't looking too good. There's also no way I'm going back to church lol.

I've been doing these write ups for 38 days now, yeah...

The Yemeni front is very insightful to watch because it's almost a precursor to other fronts, before the now dead ceasefire in Gaza, the Yemenis started winding down operations first. There are also a number of technological firsts in warfare. First anti ship ballistic missile ever used in war was by Ansarallah. Their anti air loitering munitions, and ground based infrared search and track systems, pose a serious challenge to UCAVs like the MQ-9 and are extremely difficult to suppress under current SEAD doctrine. The solution now is just to try shoot them out of the sky.

US airstrikes continue on Yemen for the 38th day and night in a row, with between 20-25 airstrikes reported in Hodeidah Governorate during the daytime. During the night, multiple rounds of airstrikes with multiple airstrikes each were reported in the Ma'rib and Sana'a Governorates, along with Kamaran Island

Al Masirah TV twitter

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The Yemeni Armed Forces released another statement yesterday, about launching drones at Israel and targeting the two sets of US Navy warships:

The use of a Sammad-1 drone is interesting, the Yaffa drone is a variant of the Sammad-3, an upgrade to the Sammad-1 with a vastly longer range. So I don't know why they'd use a Sammad-1, which only has a 500km range and is usually used for surveillance, and not one way attack.

Two of these cruise missiles launched at US warships likely crashed within Yemen itself, one in Al Mahwit Governorate, videos and phots of the debris suggest a failed Quds series cruise missile launch. Another missile crashed in the capital city Sana'a, and media was banned from the crash site in the hours after the initial media frenzy (so no photos or videos of missile parts for identification purposes), which is why the reporting of "a US airstrike targeting a market in Sana'a yesterday" has died down on resistance channels, there's a high possibility this was an Ansarallah missile that misfired. Two potential failed cruise missile launches (with one confirmed) on one night is a bit odd.

Footage of the failed Quds missile launch/crash

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The US Navy is continuing to suppress Yemeni radars and SAM sites, along with a potential new tactic to take out Yemeni anti air loitering munitions like Missile-358 (which have likely taken out many MQ-9 Reaper drones). An EA-18G Growler launching off of the USS Harry Truman is equipped with a heavy/"beast mode" (yes, that's what the Marines and Navy actually call a fully laden aircraft) SEAD/DEAD loadout, with 4 AGM-88E anti radiation missiles (two on each wing's outboard stations, visible in the first picture), 2 AIM-120 AMRAAM air to air missiles (visible in the second picture, near the centreline of the aircraft inboard of the drop tanks), and three 1817 litre/480 gallon fuel drop tanks (one on the centreline, and one on each wing). I'm guessing that that the AIM-120s will be used to shoot directly at the airborne loitering munitions themselves from a safe distance. So the plan to counter these air to air loitering munitions like Missile-358, is just to shoot them out of the sky with radar guided air to air missiles from EA-18Gs.

That's a fundamentalist interpretation of those two passages and not how Christianity is actually practiced today, or was practiced in the past. Does any Christian today obey all of the old testament laws because Jesus said to do so once, or use the render onto Ceasar passage to justify slavery? I think Samir Amin's Eurocentrism (which offers a Marxist analysis of the Abrahamic religions) offers a well rounded explanation about how Christianity has evolved from its beginnings in this regard and how it has been practiced, with a focus on those two passages. I seriously encourage you (and everyone else) to read it. To criticize religions, we need to understand how they prevailed outside of fundamentalist dogma. As an atheist, I found this writing from Amin really helpful, as I could never wrap my head around why people would be Christian or how it became the most popular religion in many parts of the world. Amin's writing here really helped me understand that.

Or even how many believers even know about those texts or would agree with them. If even churches no longer hold themselves to that, were essentially fighting a strawman. For instance:

You cannot separate the bigotry from the Bible. The Bible is very clear that you cannot pick and chose, that you have to accept the full book or none of it, you can't just take the verses you like and still be Christian. To be a good Christian who follows the entire Bible you must be bigoted

How many Christians actually practice this? I don't know of any, even the extreme reactionaries who talk about "Adam and Eve and not Adam and Steve" don't hold themselves to such a standard, even if they tell themselves that they do. Christians absolutely pick and choose, everyone does, no matter how much they protest that they do not. What's the goal here, to point out hypocrisy? To say that religious people must become bigoted to be true believers? To get people to abandon religion because it's bigoted? Around half of the LGBT community in the United States is religious with around 40% of them Christian, so that doesn't work.

You could do this with literally any of the major monotheist religions of "the book" (Christianity, Islam, Judaism). It's extremely unhelpful as an argument to get people to leave religion because it does not address why religion exists, or why the vast majority of people globally are religious. To to that, you need to analyse the social function religion plays in our reality, of which organised religion is a key part.

Nevertheless, another reading can be made of Marx. The often cited phrase--"religion is the opium of the people"--is truncated. What follows this remark lets it be understood that human beings need opium, because they are metaphysical animals who cannot avoid asking themselves questions about the meaning of life. They give what answers they can, either adopting those offered by religion or inventing new ones, or else they avoid worrying about them.

In any case, religions are part of the picture of reality and even constitute an important dimension of it. It is, therefore, important to analyze their social function, and in our modern world their articulation with what currently constitutes modernity: capitalism, democracy,
and secularism.

We also need to move past the false dichotomy of religion and secularism being incompatible as concepts, in particular with regards to Christianity in the western centric parts of the world. The reason non belief, in agnosticism or atheism, grew so much over the past few decades in the West was because the church held onto some archaic positions about the world being 6000 years old, evolution being false, and homosexuality being morally wrong. Religion had detached itself from factual reality, it was easy to bludgeon in this regard. But that is no longer the church or society we are in now, by and large (there still are of course many extreme reactionaries). Modern secuarlism has essentially freed Christianity from its shackles here, there's no need for modern Christians to believe in such archaic nonsense. For example, the Catholic church accepts evolution as a scientific theory, and no longer considers homosexuality inherently sinful. This form of "secularism combined with religion" may in fact lead to reinforcing belief in the long run, and even leading to an increase in Christianity over the coming years in the West. Trying to foster an increase in non belief in this environment is very different to that of 10, 20, or 30 years ago. When I became an atheist, it was in that old environment.

Contrary to a widespread Eurocentric preconception, however, secularism is not peculiar to Christian society, which demanded its liberation from the heavy yoke of the church. Nor is it the result of the conflict between the "national" state and a church with a universal vocation. For during the Reformation, the church is in fact "national" in its various forms--Anglican, Lutheran, and so forth. Nevertheless, the new fusion of church and state does not produce a new theocracy, but rather, one might say, a religious secularism. Secularism, even though the reactionary ecclesiastical forces fought it, did not root out belief. It even, perhaps, reinforced it in the long run, by freeing it of its formalist and mythological straightjackets. Christians of our time, whether or not they are intellectuals, have no problem accepting that humankind descended from apes and not from Adam and Eve.

Because there are billions of Christians on planet earth and that's not changing anytime soon. We also have Islam and Judaism communities too. I'm also going to make a bold prediction that the youth are going to turn towards religion in the coming years and break the trend of rising non belief. Just look at the USA, Christianity was on a decline until 2019, but then numbers stabilised. I expect that the numbers will now rise.

And before anyone says anything about how I'm some religious person, I'm an atheist, but I'm calling it how I see it.

This is also a message to Vietnam. It's rumoured (not confirmed, but rumoured) that Vietnam has agreed to buy F-16V block 70/72 4.5 generation fighter aircraft from the United States. A total of 24 aircraft are rumoured to be part of the deal, and the Trump administration has said one way to "relieve" tarrifs is to enter military or security agreements with the United States.

Vietnam Has Reached An Agreement To Buy U.S. F-16 Fighter Jets

Why does Vietnam want US jets? It's rumoured that their Russian Su-27 and Su-30 export variant aircraft are out of warranty, and Sukhoi will not service the aircraft without being paid a lump sum in advance with the warranty being over, the Russia - Ukraine war is likely effecting their operations, both in production capacity and their ability to receive payments due to sanctions. So multiple Vietnamese Su-30s are already grounded until they can get serviced.

F-16Vs will also offer a significant sensor upgrade over the Soviet era radars and sensors, including an AESA radar on the F-16V. The price point is also competitive compared to other 4.5 generation offers from the NATO bloc, with an F-16V being cheaper than a Gripen E, Eurofighter or Rafale on unit cost. The only offer that can compete on unit cost would be a Gripen C equipped with the Gripen Es sensor suite (including the AESA radar) as a custom offer. On the Chinese side, the latest J-10C with an AESA radar would be a competitive offer and potentially cheaper than an F-16V. But it's unknown if Vietnam want Chinese aircraft.

Yes you're 100% correct, it mainly uses infrared/thermal cameras basically, like a ground based version of the Infrared Search and Track (IRST) on fighter aircraft. Made a brain fart on the electromagnetic spectrum there, thanks for correcting that. Since the cameras dont emit electromagnetic radiation from the sensors themselves, they are hard to detect, that's what I meant. Obviously the vehicles still have and emit or reflect their own infrared thermal signature in the electromagnetic spectrum.

As for systems that Ansarallah can have and link up with their air defence systems against fighter aircraft, one of these would be variants of the Iranian Sepehr-14 fire control system, designed to link up with the Iranian Raad air defence system that can fire Sayyad 2C surface to air missiles. The Raad and Sayyad 2C are all systems that Ansarallah already have.

Disadvantages are range and the amount of targets that can be tracked at once, as the atmosphere and weather attenuate infrared, and advanced video and image processing is needed to track many targets. The Sepehr-14 IRST can track 15 targets up to a range of 40km. When radar guided, Sayyad 2C missiles have a range up to 75km. So range is almost halved without radar. Stealth aircraft also use various materials and design techniques to lower their infrared signature, particularly once they're at higher altitudes. Fighter aircraft also have their own IRST and electro optical targeting systems with infrared cameras, for tracking ground targets, which could include the Sepehr-14.