Sign in

Zach

@thrustwr.bsky.social
9.2K followers 269 following 3.4K posts

Former NavalNews & USNINews writer, Track Fuser, R-1/P-1 Budget Reader. For defense-related stuff Site: defensearchives.com/news

PostsRepliesMedia
Reposted by Zach
Sam Lair @slair.bsky.social · 8h
172
Zach @thrustwr.bsky.social · 9h
Current one is place holder. I have opted to recreate it myself for the final version. Once I couldn't crack the font problem I opted not to finish the rest because I didn't know if I would specifically opt to use this specific ad.
030
Zach @thrustwr.bsky.social · 9h
I completely forgot these existed. Thanks for linking this. I found another one as well, i will sit through them tomorrow and see if I can get closer! I managed to narrow some of the fonts used in the post-1972 ads (mostly Helvetica)
020
Zach @thrustwr.bsky.social · 9h
I'll give it a try and report back. So far most of fhe fonts i have tried haven't matched up with thr Ys and Gs.
010
Zach @thrustwr.bsky.social · 9h
In the future, I hope to avoid this trouble by buying these brochures/prints and scanning them in really high resolutions.
1110
Zach @thrustwr.bsky.social · 9h
Tried recreating this Ad for a video segment. Still struggling to find the font of the lower text. An entire afternoon with Adobe Fonts didn't turn up anything close.
4280
Zach @thrustwr.bsky.social · 9h
>built to blow Ticonderoga-class cruisers and carriers >blowing up Ukrainian farm garages
160
Zach @thrustwr.bsky.social · 9h
KH-31's rear control surfaces give me vestigial X-wing vibes.
0141
Zach @thrustwr.bsky.social · 9h
Cooking and tracing targets that were last publicly discussed when Reagan was in office and some uglies.
2284
Zach @thrustwr.bsky.social · 10h
Zelensky was unprofessional sure. But this reads like the Lee government is looking for anything to shit on Ukraine and further pushing this line of reasoning as a justification to maybe torpedo future engagements with Ukraine.
1171
Zach @thrustwr.bsky.social · 10h
Even If Zelensky jumped the gun at the announcement (a SKorean Rep confirmed jt actually took place days prior to the announcement) the idea that announcing POWs that were going to be repatriated "were sent to SKorea" is enough to cause a serious escalation is unrealistic and dishonest.
1234
Zach @thrustwr.bsky.social · 10h
To add to this, South Korean media (SK Times) were already talking about the transfer of NKorean POWs as briefed by Cho Hyun in like June of 2026. The idea that Ukraine breached some ULTRA Secret Confidentiality Thing To Cause A War is so dishonest.
0230
Zach @thrustwr.bsky.social · 11h
Now ousted former president Yoon ordered the military to fly drones over Pyongyang + other things to cause instability to provoke a reaction to justify his martial law shit: apnews.com/article/sout...
070
Zach @thrustwr.bsky.social · 11h
Uh? There were receipts apnews.com/article/sout...
apnews.com
South Korea's ousted leader Yoon indicted for flying drones over North Korea
South Korea’s ousted conservative President Yoon Suk Yeol faces additional criminal charges as prosecutors allege that he flew drones over North Korea to deliberately create tensions and justify his p...
190
Zach @thrustwr.bsky.social · 11h
Maybe it is out of the guilt of blocking all kinds of arms transfers to Ukraine even under third parties under the pretext that they don't export equipment to active war zones while SKoreans crews man KM-SAM batteries and put their lives at risk for Petro states.
0585
Zach @thrustwr.bsky.social · 11h
"For helping Russia in its conquest of Ukraine, North Korea will receive a decent number of high-end equipment and experiences that will further erode the significant advantages South Korea has over North Korea in certain fields" is a factual statement that seems to piss off SKorean politicians.
1848
Zach @thrustwr.bsky.social · 11h
Last i checked, it was South Korea that attempted to start a war on the Koream peninsula a little less than 3 years ago. It is a massive leap in logic to claim Ukraine has done something unspeakable here.
7706
Zach @thrustwr.bsky.social · 11h
A bit confused right now. In what way is Budanov saying "NK is learning and gaining a lot of experience from fighting in Ukraine that will then translate into difficult times on the Korean peninsula" a wish by Ukraine for war to happen on the Korean peninsula?
513014
Zach @thrustwr.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
Europa and Alaska aren't so different.
0320
Zach @thrustwr.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
The true space warfare specialists in the US military are the Arctic Airborne guys (11th). They are primed for contesting the icy moons of the Saturn and Jovian systems.
3696
Zach @thrustwr.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
Saving like $3M a year so they can blow $43B on a war of choice. In order to deter China ofc....
060
Zach @thrustwr.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
Tired of living through history-making years.
0411
Zach @thrustwr.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
Report: www.cia.gov/readingroom/...
071
Zach @thrustwr.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
It was probably more capable than a lot of Eastern/Western air forces short of the main big countries like FRG, FR, UK, IT, POL, EG.
1150
Zach @thrustwr.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
They also kept procuring a decent number of modern equipment (Mirage F1s, MiG-23s, Su-22s, MiG-29s). But western IC was also picking up issues with higher up leadership as shown in the above segment. If leadership wasn't using the Air Force so badly, it had the capacity to inflict some pain.
1210
Zach @thrustwr.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
One of the things that really worried Allies on the lead-up to the Gulf War was that by all accounts Iraqi ground-crews and pilots sometimes were putting up insane metrics (aircraft readiness which was at 70-75%, aircraft turn-around times, sorties per day).
1190
Zach @thrustwr.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
Iraqi pilots were getting medals from Saddam himself for not wastefully dropping bombs during the Iran-Iraq war (due to Iraqi bomb shortage).
1424
Zach @thrustwr.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
pooling*
020
Zach @thrustwr.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
The nice thing about the Northern Navy HQ is that we can threaten to annihilate it conventionally. A combined raid of JSM-carrying F-35As of Norway, Finland, and Denmark, would do a significant amount of damage to Russia nuclear deterrence infrastructure if they don't stop this shit.
030
Zach @thrustwr.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
So $750M would be less than 1.5% of our total defense spending.
0140
Zach @thrustwr.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
The combined economic might of the Nordics stands at about $2.25T while Russia is at $2.5T - $2.7T. Producing these defensive systems would be a drop in the bucket (our combined defense spending is close $58B in 2025 (Norway $17.0B, Sweden $16.5B, Denmark $14.9B and Finland $8.1B).
1121
Zach @thrustwr.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
Bottom line being all of this would be cheaper than a Nordics Nuke Program. Ofc our investments into F-35As also means that with systems like the Norwegian JSM, we can also strike inside Russia and blow up launch sites and other important bits.
2110
Zach @thrustwr.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
This is only the first layer, this would then be followed by additional APKWS-like systems launched from the ground or missiles in the case of important infrastructure. Then gun based systems with good fire control (Skyranger but on CAVS). Various EW & Laser based systems can be used as well.
1110
Zach @thrustwr.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
€630M, spread 4 ways, about €157M per country. The current Finnish government has wasted more than on subsidies to their poltical buddies. Additionally, we can stand-up production of the kits in the north and pull money across these countries. So you can frame this investment as coming back.
1140
Zach @thrustwr.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
Each of these jets can carry any where from 4 pods carrying 7 of these APKWS systems. So about 28 of these per plane, about 4-6k across the total aircraft inventory. Each of these costs about €21k, which is a lot, but buying 30k of these across Norway, Sweden, Denmark, and Finland would be about
1110
Zach @thrustwr.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
Working together by pulling all Nordic fighter aircraft (about 230-250 aircraft) equipped with cheap systems like AKPWS. Would be the best method to reduce the size of the first raid.
2293
Zach @thrustwr.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
The overall strategy is that you don't need to shot down every one of these attacks. Gladly, Finland & Sweden have some hardening and millions of civilian shelters. So this already reduces the amount of damage these systems can inflict. Coupling this with our existing networks +
1120
Zach @thrustwr.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
A having a crude weapon also does not immediately result in deterrence. It must also have a somewhat survivable delivery method. There are other ways to kind of blunt a force this big.
1140
Zach @thrustwr.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
I don't know if any of us in the Nordics can afford nuclear bombs of any kind given we lack the technical know-how, the brains, the money, the infrastructure and everything else. Also assumes that the Russians would sit and wait for us to finish a crude weapon.
5300
Zach @thrustwr.bsky.social · 20/09/2026
Me and the boys hunting a wild boar (we have combined pK of 10% against it. Meanwhile, the boar has a pK of 80% against one of us, he has already killed two of our guys and if we don't get it we are all going to starve).
2373
Reposted by Zach
DutchSpace @dutchspace.eurosky.social · 19/09/2026
So, a bit of a deep dive/thread on the X-37B processing after landing at Vandenberg. This is probably very boring and nerdy, so you have been warned :) Note: this is evidence based, using public sources, I'll indicate when I make educated guesses.
16314
Zach @thrustwr.bsky.social · 19/09/2026
do* also works
030
Zach @thrustwr.bsky.social · 19/09/2026
Finns are known to be a bit reserved and not talkative but when they are on the hiking trail they just open up. You get more Hi/Hellos in a 10 min period of your hike than you did in like an entire year of social encounters.
2330
Zach @thrustwr.bsky.social · 19/09/2026
Gorgeous indeed! This in Finland.
030
Zach @thrustwr.bsky.social · 19/09/2026
1130
Zach @thrustwr.bsky.social · 19/09/2026
Well this hit 100k yesterday and a nice way to celebrate this number was touching 1 km of rock, mud and grass for every 10k views. A nice day hike that was 12 km. Nice views, nice air, nice people, nice animals.
1230
Zach @thrustwr.bsky.social · 19/09/2026
I'm sorry for your loss.
010
Zach @thrustwr.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
"Jump air gap by running a CPU hot and reading the temperature" Do people just not know anything about computers anymore?
4410
Zach @thrustwr.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
There was also the Mujahideen support in Afghanistan (shouldn't this be positive?). The US also supported the regimes in Syria, Jordan, and Egypt.
110
Zach @thrustwr.bsky.social · 18/09/2026
But this is not a mystery tho? We know what the guys that did it thought about America. It was weak shit. I think some of Hasan's followers also forget that the GOWT came after 9/11 not before. The excesses of America's conduct prior to that was the Gulf War, wonder what Osama thought about that.
130