MarmiteLover123

My comment was more in regards with how the proposed ceasefire agreement plans to deal with Resolution 1701, than if the ceasefire would happen or not.

The IDF have 169,500 active members and 465,000 reserves, for a total of 634 500 members. Hezbollah, by their own claims, have 100 000 fighters, including active and reserve personnel. The numbers are not in Hezbollah's favour here in a manpower attrition scenario.

The updates by this twitter account are usually accurate, a comrade shared it on here a week or two ago, they correctly call attacks as they are happening with regards to Russia/Ukraine, and have some good mapping info on Lebanon/Israel. Don't worry it's not some delusional NAFO account, they seem to keep their personal basies out of the reporting and the majority of their following is actually pro Russia.

Unless Hezbollah is much worse off than what I would guess.

Territory gains by Israel have started to increase within the last few weeks, and while Hezbollah were able to restrict Israeli territory gains beforehand, it came at a huge cost for them. 1294 Hezbollah fighters have been killed since the Israeli pager terrorist operation and decapitation strike on September 17. If we assume an injury to death ratio of 4.2 to 1 (the same ratio as the total statistics in Lebanon among the civilian population, 3 670 deaths and 15 400 injured), that means 5 434 injuries, for a total amount of casualties of 6729 since September 17. Nearly 7000 casualties in 70 days of fighting... 98 casualties a day on average. And that is without considering the civilian cost with unrestricted Israeli bombings. That is not sustainable long term.

Situation has changed in the last week or two, Israel have started to take some territory.

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Elias Bou Saab, Deputy Speaker of Parliament, to Al-Mayadeen:

In the coming hours or days, we will witness the announcement of a ceasefire

• We will remain cautious because the experience with Netanyahu is not encouraging

• Information received from the American mediator indicates that the last sticking point has been overcome

• The committee that will supervise the implementation of Agreement 1701 may expand, but what is currently on the table are the United States and France

• The committee tasked with supervising the implementation of the agreement is not authorized to work outside the text of Resolution 1701

• The agreement will lead to the complete withdrawal of Israeli forces to the armistice line and the cessation of aggression and hostilities

• We have not heard or been offered by anyone that there will be guarantees for any party’s freedom of movement

I wouldn't say it's equivalent to Sputnik or a Sputnik-2 moment given what we know as of now. It's only a Sputnik-2 moment if the 6 MIRVs are capable of maneuvering at hypersonic speeds within the Earth's atmosphere before dropping their submunitions, in other words every MIRV is a hypersonic MaRV. But otherwise, the United States has conceptualised similar weapons before, Conventional Prompt Strike (CPS) weapons based on ICBM technology during the Bush Jr administration in the 2000s even. CPS weapons are not a new idea, even Russia was stating that they could build one over a decade ago.

U.S. Faces Choice on New Weapons for Fast Strikes, New York Times, 22 April 2010

The US/NATO don't have one that is operational as of now as they chose to focus on hypersonic glide/boost vehicle technology instead of ballistic missile technology for a CPS weapon. But they do have the capabilities to manufacture a CPS weapon based off of ballistic missile technology. Ultimately it's a MIRV capable missile designed to operate over shorter ranges/at a lofted trajectory, with conventional warheads and submunitions. Biggest issue would be the submunitions, getting them to cut through the air at low altitude, while travelling at 3 kilometers per second, without disintegrating.

Yeah in the videos taken of the strike from the ground, it appears that a construction worker is in his vehicle when the cluster warheads hit.

Don't worry about it, we all read and learn as we go along. Feel free to post, the more posting the better.

Ballistic missile technology in particular has advanced rapidly. In the past few years, we've seen air launched ballistic missiles go from a concept, to reality, to being used effectively in war by Russia and Israel, in the Kinzhal and ROCKS respectively (we should be very glad that the USAF abandoned development on an air launched variant of ATACMS under the JTACMS programme to focus on cruise missiles, that would have been a devastating weapon).

Maneuverable Re-entry Vehicles (MaRVs) have gone from something the US put on the Pershing II to scare the USSR, to actively being used in war by Iran and Yemen, in their medium range and anti ship ballistic missiles. We even got a MaRV with a thrust vectoring sustainer rocket in the Fattah-1 and it's variants, a first for any missile, that blurs the lines between a MaRV and a hypersonic boost/glide vehicle.

Short Range Ballistic Missiles (SRBMs) have gone from being inaccurate "lob and pray" weapons in Scud and Lance rockets, to demonstrating pinpoint accuracy even under Electronic Warfare (EW) conditions and jamming, in the Iranian attack of a US based in 2020, and the accuracy of ATACMS and Iskander-M demonstrated in Ukraine.

ATACMS may not be the newest system, but it's still extremely capable. It's Ring Laser Gyroscope based inertial guidance system ensures high accuracy even under EW conditions when GPS is banned, it comes in from an altitude in excess of 50km while travelling at over Mach 3/1 kilometrer per second, while executing quasi ballistic maneuvers to complicate interception. Such a weapon is hard to stop even under the best of conditions.

We've also seen the first use of a conventional prompt strike weapon in the Russian Oreshnik IRBM. Such weapons were previously only conceptual in nature, and the last time they were a big issue in the political sphere was during talks between Obama and Putin over a decade ago.

These more static in position, asset defending air defence systems seem increasingly vulnerable in modern warfare. We have seen so many Patriots, S-300s and now S-400s being damaged or destroyed in Ukraine, Russia, and Iran. Without a dedicated Anti Ballistic Missile Defence system acting above them, they are vulnerable. The Serbs were the first to understand how vulnerable more static systems were after going up against a full on NATO SEAD/DEAD campaign, and they were the first to adapt. Obviously not every air defence system can be mobile, especially when defending a specific location.

That's what I meant by "neither Russia or Ukraine". But yes, I also deeply hate war.

Even if one is full anti war/neither Russia or Ukraine, the US and UK/France directly attacking Russia within it's borders using weapons programmed, targeted and loaded by US/UK service members, should be seen as a large escalation that could easily spiral out of control.

Hezbollah got 12 of those missiles during 2020, so it's possible. But I think if it happens, there will be restrictions on the targets.