Ukrainian drones now spray 2,500° C thermite streams right into Russian trenches
arstechnica.com
Mechanical dragons now deliver fire on command.
  • ArbitraryValue@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
    140·
    3 months ago

    This is what international law has to say about incendiary weapons:

    1. It is prohibited in all circumstances to make the civilian population as such, individual civilians or civilian objects the object of attack by incendiary weapons.
    1. It is prohibited in all circumstances to make any military objective located within a concentration of civilians the object of attack by air-delivered incendiary weapons.
    1. It is further prohibited to make any military objective located within a concentration of civilians the object of attack by means of incendiary weapons other than air-delivered incendiary weapons, except when such military objective is clearly separated from the concentration of civilians and all feasible precautions are taken with a view to limiting the incendiary effects to the military objective and to avoiding, and in any event to minimizing, incidental loss of civilian life, injury to civilians and damage to civilian objects.
    1. It is prohibited to make forests or other kinds of plant cover the object of attack by incendiary weapons except when such natural elements are used to cover, conceal or camouflage combatants or other military objectives, or are themselves military objectives.

    This treeline is clearly not located within a concentration of civilians and it is concealing (or plausibly believed to be concealing) enemy combatants and therefore the use of incendiary weapons is unambiguously legal.

      • Cypher@lemmy.worldEnglish
        121·
        3 months ago

        I expect Russians to cry foul over this but early on Russia was using thermobaric weapons on civilian targets and they said nothing, so we know they’re just hypocrits and monsters.

      • ArbitraryValue@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
        37·
        3 months ago

        What occasions are you referring to? I know people claim that Israeli use of white phosphorous munitions is illegal, but the law is actually quite specific about what an incendiary weapon is. Incendiary effects caused by weapons that were not designed with the specific purpose of causing incendiary effects are not prohibited. (As far as I can tell, even the deliberate use of such weapons in order to cause incendiary effects is allowed.) This is extremely permissive, because no reasonable country would actually agree not to use a weapon that it considered effective. Something like the firebombing of Dresden is banned, but little else.

        Incendiary weapons do not include:

        (i) Munitions which may have incidental incendiary effects, such as illuminants, tracers, smoke or signalling systems;

        (ii) Munitions designed to combine penetration, blast or fragmentation effects with an additional incendiary effect, such as armour-piercing projectiles, fragmentation shells, explosive bombs and similar combined-effects munitions in which the incendiary effect is not specifically designed to cause burn injury to persons, but to be used against military objectives, such as armoured vehicles, aircraft and installations or facilities.

    • booly@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
      3010·
      3 months ago

      The United States and the UK successfully blocked attempts to outlaw all use of incendiary weapons, and all use of incendiary weapons against personnel, and all use of incendiary weapons against forests and plant cover.

      This is an area where it’s perfectly reasonable to disagree with how the US watered down this convention, to push for stricter rules on this, and to condemn the use of thermite as an anti-personnel weapon and the use of incendiary weapons on plants that are being used for cover and concealment of military objectives.

      So pointing out that this might technically be legal isn’t enough for me to personally be OK with this. I think it’s morally reprehensible, and I’d prefer for Ukraine to keep the moral high ground in this war.

      • Telodzrum@lemmy.worldEnglish
        117·
        3 months ago

        Fire is a weapon of war. There is nothing immoral about employing it as such.

      • sunbeam60@lemmy.oneEnglish
        31·
        3 months ago

        The moral high ground is often the losing low ground, unfortunately. I’d say Ukraine should stick to the rules of war (as should Russia) and we should remove all restrictions we place on our donations to Ukraine - and enforce a no-fly zone over western Ukraine, at Ukraine’s invitation. There is only one way to make Russia stop and that’s force.

      • masquenox@lemmy.worldEnglish
        33·
        3 months ago

        The United States and the UK successfully blocked attempts to outlaw all use of incendiary weapons

        That’s because incendiary weapons are great for exterminating villages full of poor people in the colonized world - ie, the kind of wars the US and UK prefer to wage.

      • michaelmrose@lemmy.worldEnglish
        34·
        3 months ago

        Why is it even morally reprehensible? If you you blow the guts out and faces off Russian soldiers by more traditional means they are just as dead and if dozens of Ukrainians die in the course of digging the Russians out of cover do you account that a superior outcome? If so how?

        If a burglar strode into your home with a gun and you believed that conflict was inevitable how much risk and or suffering would you tolerate from your wife and children in order to decrease the chance of harm or suffering by the burglar? Would you accept a 3% chance of a dead kid in order to harm instead of kill the burglar? Would you take a 1% in order to decrease his suffering substantially?

        My accounting is that there is no amount of risk or harm I would accept for me and mine to preserve the burglar’s life because he made his choice when he chose to harm me and mine. I wouldn’t risk a broken finger to preserve his entire life nor should I. That said should he surrender I would turn him over to the police. I should never take opportunity to hurt him let alone execute him. Should I do this I would be the villain no matter what had transpired before because I would be doing so out of emotional reaction I wouldn’t be acting any longer to preserve me or mine.

        We should expect Ukrainians to take any possible advantage for in doing so they preserve innocent life. Preserving the lifes or preventing the suffering of active enemies presently actively trying to do harm is nonsensical.

        • booly@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
          4·
          3 months ago

          If you you blow the guts out and faces off Russian soldiers by more traditional means they are just as dead

          I (and all the people and organizations that have worked throughout the last century to get incendiary weapons banned as anti-personnel weapons) generally feel that the method of killing matters, and that some methods are excessively cruel or represent excessive risk of long term suffering.

          The existing protocol on incendiary weapons recognizes the difference, by requiring signatory nations to go out of their way to avoid using incendiary weapons in places where civilian harm might occur. Even in contexts where a barrage of artillery near civilians might not violate the law, airborne flame throwers are forbidden. Because incendiary weapons are different, and a line is drawn there, knowing that there actually is a difference between negligently killing civilians with shrapnel versus negligently killing civilians with burning.

          There are degrees of morality and ethics, even in war, and incendiary weapons intentionally targeting personnel crosses a line that I would draw.

          • michaelmrose@lemmy.worldEnglish
            12·
            3 months ago

            Getting Ukrainian troops defending their homes killed in order to ensure that the rapists and murderers invading their homes don’t suffer is a moral abomination.

    • rottingleaf@lemmy.worldEnglish
      14·
      3 months ago

      Azeri terrorist state bombed Stepanakert with white phosphorus and napalm with no consequences.

      BTW, Russia has already used white phosphorus against civilian targets in this war, if I am not mistaken.

      Israel is, of course, using those in Gaza.

      I’d say legality has long lost its meaning in international relations. Not that it ever had any in this particular regard.

      I’ve read that even not using expansive (those that expand, not those that cost more monies) bullets was not result of any humanism, but of the military logic that a soldier wounded by a conventional bullet stops being a combatant and becomes a logistical burden, while a soldier dead from a gruesome wound just stops being a combatant, possibly helping to motivate his comrades in arms.

        • rottingleaf@lemmy.worldEnglish
          4·
          3 months ago

          Yes. This also works with epidemics. Die too quickly - less chance to infect others, being one man short makes your community poorer, which means fewer travelers, which also means less chance to infect other communities.

          One reason Black Death led to so much witch hunting and jew burning and talk about divine punishment - many people were immune even when exposed to piles of bodies of infected, while those to get sick would die very fast. That’s one way a highly deadly and quickly developing disease can survive, be deadly only to some part of the population. Well, rats and water too.

    • A7thStone@lemmy.worldEnglish
      8·
      3 months ago

      Prohibited to make forests the target except when they are military objectives. Did they add that exception because they might have to fight the battle at Helm’s Deep?

    • Treczoks@lemmy.worldEnglish
      25·
      3 months ago

      Apart from that, their Russian attacker does not give a flying f-ck about international law from the start either, so after quite some illegal events (rape, torturing/killing POWs, shelling and bombing hospitals and schools), there is no reason to hold back any longer. It would just enable the Russians to maim and kill more Ukrainian civilists.

      • alcoholicorn@lemmy.mlEnglish
        21·
        3 months ago

        The point of these laws is to protect civilians from weapons that can’t be used to target just military targets. Do you give a shit about the people in Ukraine beyond their use as cannon fodder?

  • RememberTheApollo_@lemmy.worldEnglish
    38·
    3 months ago

    Warfare has always been hell, but now when someone hunts you down with a drone while you’re running away it makes it a particularly terrifying personal hell.

  • Rade0nfighter@lemmy.worldEnglish
    393·
    3 months ago

    For those also wondering (and I’m quoting a comment on Ars so may stand corrected…):

    Isn’t this a violation of the Geneva Conventions?

    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.

    • Maggoty@lemmy.worldEnglish
      101·
      3 months ago

      Oh God no. Nobody cares what you do to the Infantry. It’s the civilians. Don’t use this around civilians.

      Sincerely, an old infantryman.

  • Sarmyth@lemmy.worldEnglish
    292·
    3 months ago

    Eh, that’s pretty metal. What I like about it is that it’s not some chemical weapon that floats on the air to hiteveryone in the vicinity. You will see where you are hitting clearly because it’s like a bright tracer round. And it’ll cause more injuries than deaths.

    You almost have a sporting chance to get away once it’s started compared to the relatively sudden chaos of explosions.

    • lightstream@lemmy.mlEnglish
      18·
      3 months ago

      Eh, that’s pretty metal.

      It’s definitely pretty, and as thermite is a mixture of metal powder and metal oxide, your statement is entirely correct.

    • werefreeatlast@lemmy.worldEnglish
      4·
      3 months ago

      Yeah you can choose to just give up before getting suddenly delivered to the 360 degrees surrounding you in every direction.

  • T00l_shed@lemmy.worldEnglish
    217·
    3 months ago

    Maybe, if putin doesn’t want his soldiers crispied. He should withdraw all of them, and stop bombing schools and hospitals and shopping malls.

  • irotsoma@lemmy.worldEnglish
    92·
    3 months ago

    Better than the gas that Russia is using illegally that causes serious pain and often takes a long time to die painfully from.

  • Lost_My_Mind@lemmy.worldEnglish
    138·
    3 months ago

    Good. As long as it doesn’t target civilian areas.

    Soldiers can always defect or surrender. Don’t want to face Ukraine’s army? Don’t be in Russia’s army. It’s that simple.

    I consider every Russian soldier complicit in this invasion of Ukraine. Otherwise they wouldn’t be there.

    • NocturnalMorning@lemmy.worldEnglish
      25·
      3 months ago

      Guess you’ve never been threatened with Job loss, homelessness, starvation, or anything of that sort before. Must be nice.

      • Lost_My_Mind@lemmy.worldEnglish
        10·
        3 months ago

        Actually I have. But I didn’t use it as sn excuse to invade Canada, and start blowing up schools and hospitals in an attempt to take over Canadian land. I didn’t run around killing others for my misfortune. But if I had, I would FULLY expect the Canadian military to do anything it could to kill me.

  • index@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
    51·
    3 months ago

    This is the reason this war started and is still going. World factions are testing and upgrading their arsenals