Ukrainian drones now spray 2,500° C thermite streams right into Russian trenches
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ColdWetDog
Ars Legatus Legionis
Valar Morghulis. Now all they need is some robo dragons to finish off.
EDIT: I'm glad they're on our side. We should keep it that way.
EDIT: I'm glad they're on our side. We should keep it that way.
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And here I am thinking about sitting by some trees and having a grenade dropped on me by a barely audible buzz was scary enough
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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.
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IncorrigibleTroll
Ars Tribunus Angusticlavius
On the one hand, humanity is the absolute worst. On the other hand, SLAVA UKRAINI! Burn you some orcs.
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From what I can find, not against military targets. Airborne incendiaries in areas of civilian concentration would be a violation I think.
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IncorrigibleTroll
Ars Tribunus Angusticlavius
The orcish love of thermobaric artillery rather moots any grounds they have to complain. To absolutely butcher some metaphors, you should be careful playing with fire because it cuts both ways.
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One of those things spraying about in a refinery is going to burn for a long time.
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Yah, I believe the convention only covers civilians or out-of-the-fight military units (surrendered, captured, injured, that sort of thing), and doesn't protect active combatants.
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It's Protocol III of the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons Which May Be Deemed To Be Excessively Injurious Or To Have Indiscriminate Effects (catchy title, no?). Civilians are not supposed to be targeted, military forces are not supposed to be targeted if there's a risk of harming civilians, and plants are not supposed to be targeted unless being used for a military purpose. Most countries include that infantry should not be targeted unless there's no feasible alternative based on the Convention's stated purpose to restrict unnecessary or unjustifiable suffering.
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Perhaps a less useless and condescending response would be to look for general terms like incendiary, or airborne since it's more useful to legislate against classes of problems instead of getting so specific that rules are made obsolete by rapid technological development. Especially since from what I can find the last significant ammendments were made in 1977 a whole lot has changed since then. Such as drone warfare even becoming a thing.
edit: inserted a missing word
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No. First, wrong convention document.
Second, thermite is not a chemical weapon under the Convention on Chemical Weapons (CCW), Article II.2, because it no more causes "chemical action on life processes" than a high explosive going off in a grenade does. The convention is targeted as things like mustard and nerve gasses that chemically react with the body, not with itself. Hot metal is not a chemical weapon.
Third, the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons (CCCW), Protocol III, prohibits the use of incendiary weapons against humans in civilian settings. A battlefield trench isn't that.
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IncorrigibleTroll
Ars Tribunus Angusticlavius
Spitsear would have been better, but I don't know if Mieville even gets distributed in Ukraine.
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I guess white phosphorous and Napalm have different rules. Death in war is terrible, but burning glue is the worst. I know Russia was building Willy Pete in civ ukranian's towns.
International treaties and agreements The use of white phosphorus may violate Protocol III (on the use of incendiary weapons) of the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons (CCCW) in one specific instance: if it is used, on purpose, as an incendiary weapon directly against humans in a civilian setting.
The United Nations did ban the use of napalm in 1980 as party of the Geneva Convention (Protocol 3) but only against civilian targets (or against military targets in civilian areas). Most countries complied with this, and the use of traditional napalm has now almost stopped.
International treaties and agreements The use of white phosphorus may violate Protocol III (on the use of incendiary weapons) of the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons (CCCW) in one specific instance: if it is used, on purpose, as an incendiary weapon directly against humans in a civilian setting.
The United Nations did ban the use of napalm in 1980 as party of the Geneva Convention (Protocol 3) but only against civilian targets (or against military targets in civilian areas). Most countries complied with this, and the use of traditional napalm has now almost stopped.
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No, but Russia has been actively targeting civilians since the beginning of their invasion, as well as allowing horrific abuse of civilians in captured territories.
They've committed an unending series of war crimes and their politicians and military deserve a new round of Nuremberg trials.
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Good. Every weapon that kills genocidal invaders is a good weapon. Let them burn. If they don't like it, they can leave.
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Steel Hornets allegedly produces a 5 pound thermite bomb that burns for that long. The composition's probably slightly different to get better flow characteristics, but you don't need much payload capacity.
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IncorrigibleTroll
Ars Tribunus Angusticlavius
From my understanding of thermite*, you get an enormous amount of fire from a very small quantity of material.
*Anarchist's Cookbook, so take with a great lake of salt
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Lemme know when Russia stops bombing civilians and leaves Ukraine territory and oh stops using chemical weapons. I'll start caring more. In the mean time can we pressure US politicos to let Ukraine have unrestricted weapons use into Russian territory to defend itself and maybe lets send over another 4 Patriot Batteries, 500 older in storage Bradley's, 30 more Hirmars and let's seriously ramp up our ammo commitments.
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Wowzers.
Re Geneva Convention — seems like something designed for colonial powers fighting wars of choice, like France fighting Britain over some territory in the Americas. Ukraine was invaded by an evil empire and is fighting for its existence. The only logical constraint for them to impose on themselves is their own enlightened self interest. They have to be in it to win it, not to conform to some imperialist honor code.
Re Geneva Convention — seems like something designed for colonial powers fighting wars of choice, like France fighting Britain over some territory in the Americas. Ukraine was invaded by an evil empire and is fighting for its existence. The only logical constraint for them to impose on themselves is their own enlightened self interest. They have to be in it to win it, not to conform to some imperialist honor code.
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