A reminder that as the US continues to threaten countries around the world, fedposting is to be very much avoided (even with qualifiers like "in Minecraft") and comments containing it will be removed.

Image depicts Kim Jong-un accompanied by China's Wang Huning, crossing the New Yalu River Bridge on a day's visit to China.


My weekly preamble is in spoiler tags below.

preambleThe situation in the Middle East remains very tense, with the two major points of speculation being 1) whether the war will resume at all, or if the US is bluffing to try and get Iran to concede on their demands, and 2) assuming the war will resume, whether the US will conduct strikes on Iran before or after the elections within the Zionist entity; the point being to try and further delay the elections by citing the war they started as an emergency and therefore keep Netanyahu in power. Quite frankly, if Netanyahu wants to risk destroying the whole Zionist project just to save his own skin, then I have no objections - aside from the part where he might do immense damage to the world economy in the process by prompting Iran's promise of regional retaliation, of course. Meanwhile, the Saudis keep getting pummelled, with Ansarallah landing missile after missile on pipeline pumping stations, airbases, military officials, and troop accumulations. Even the Western media is becoming dour about MBS's prospects. Attempts to isolate Iran economically are becoming rather spotty. Pakistan briefly halted their border exchange with Iran, but once Iran splashed cold water on their face by restricting their fossil fuel exports into Pakistan - which is already in a politically unstable situation - they wised up quickly and reopened them.

Next up, we have the surprising victory of Lula in the second round of the Brazilian elections. A loss in the first round into a victory in the second round hasn't happened in Brazilian history since 1989, and the president winning a fourth term via a democratic vote is unprecedented - and I fully confess that I went into this thinking Bolsonaro was gonna scrape by with a ~0.5% lead, so I will publicly and gladly admit to being wrong. The regular suite of electoral irregularities and not-quite-illegal tactics took place to try and prevent Lula from gaining the requisite votes, including a swathe of widespread interruptions to public transportation in cities that typically vote for Lula, as well as Meta putting a thumb on the scale by apparently reducing the visibility of Lula's online campaign. However, countering that was an upsurge of people who were otherwise unengaged who presumably went "oh shit" when they saw the first round results, as well as an emergency two hour extension to voting in order to counter the aforementioned public transportation interruptions. The next year or two will determine if Lula's victory is a curious aberration or instead a breakwater to the rising tide of conservatism in Latin America, fueled somewhat by explicit American intervention but mostly by the populace themselves finding little hope in lukewarm social democrats and instead finding community in, among other places, right-wing evangelical religious groups. I recommend RedSails 2023 piece, Reformists, Revolutionaries, and Social Liberals, which delves into the broad contours of the Latin American and particularly Brazilian political landscape, and how even reformism has been essentially abandoned in many countries in the region (and, therefore, why ground has been ceded to the right-wing lately).

It remains difficult to keep track of global events as the crisis worsens. The Hormuz oil glut prophesized by the US military and its quislings is still yet to show signs of being founded in reality, with Brent oil prices now reaching highs resembling those in the period of outright war in April, and emergency fuel supplies in the US being increasingly dipped into. While the biggest cause of this price increase is obviously the literal scarcity of oil, some of this trend is due to comically high tanker rates (which are that high due to a number of factors but which all still ultimately stem from Iranian strikes on tankers trying to slip through the strait), and some of it is due to China amping up their oil imports just in time for the US midterms, which puts further stress on world supplies. All of this pressure continues to feed protests and riots, of which those in Europe have received the most attention. The pressure on populations is coming at the exact same time that broader financial conditions reach points that usually prompt austerity measures, creating a pressure cooker of contradictions which governments will have to attempt to survive. Some have already failed to do so, such as Serbia's - however, as I said last week, the root cause of the dissatisfaction is typically another factor that the economic problems are merely fueling (i.e. in Serbia's case, a student movement).

As a more positive final note, Kim Jong-un visited the Chinese border city of Dandong to commemorate the 76th anniversary of Chinese troops marching to help northern Korea during the Korean War, with both countries reportedly seeking to deepen their industrial and trade cooperation. The New Yalu River Bridge between the two has finally formally opened after a 12 year delay, shortly after a bridge between the DPRK and Russia was completed last month.


Last week's thread is here.

Please check out the RedAtlas!

The bulletins site is here. Currently not used.
The RSS feed is here. Also currently not used.

The Zionist Entity's Genocide of Palestine

If you have evidence of Zionist crimes and atrocities that you wish to preserve, there is a thread here in which to do so.

Sources on the fighting in Palestine against the temporary Zionist entity. In general, CW for footage of battles, explosions, dead people, and so on:

UNRWA reports on the Zionists' destruction and siege of Gaza and the West Bank.

English-language Palestinian Marxist-Leninist twitter account. Alt here.
English-language twitter account that collates news.
Arab-language twitter account with videos and images of fighting.
English-language (with some Arab retweets) Twitter account based in Lebanon. - Telegram is @IbnRiad.
English-language Palestinian Twitter account which reports on news from the Resistance Axis. - Telegram is @EyesOnSouth.
English-language Twitter account in the same group as the previous two. - Telegram here.

Mirrors of Telegram channels that have been erased by Zionist censorship.

Russia-Ukraine Conflict

Examples of Ukrainian Nazis and fascists
Examples of racism/euro-centrism during the Russia-Ukraine conflict

Sources:

Moon of Alabama, which tends to have interesting analysis. Avoid the comment section.
Understanding War and the Saker: reactionary sources that have occasional insights on the war.
Alexander Mercouris, who does daily videos on the conflict. While he is a reactionary and surrounds himself with likeminded people, his daily update videos are relatively brainworm-free and good if you don't want to follow Russian telegram channels to get news. He also co-hosts The Duran, which is more explicitly conservative, racist, sexist, transphobic, anti-communist, etc when guests are invited on, but is just about tolerable when it's just the two of them if you want a little more analysis.
Simplicius, who publishes on Substack. Like others, his political analysis should be soundly ignored, but his knowledge of weaponry and military strategy is generally quite good.
On the ground: Patrick Lancaster, an independent and very good journalist reporting in the warzone on the separatists' side.

Unedited videos of Russian/Ukrainian press conferences and speeches.

Pro-Russian Telegram Channels:

Again, CW for anti-LGBT and racist, sexist, etc speech, as well as combat footage.

https://t.me/aleksandr_skif ~ DPR's former Defense Minister and Colonel in the DPR's forces. Russian language.
https://t.me/Slavyangrad ~ A few different pro-Russian people gather frequent content for this channel (~100 posts per day), some socialist, but all socially reactionary. If you can only tolerate using one Russian telegram channel, I would recommend this one.
https://t.me/s/levigodman ~ Does daily update posts.
https://t.me/patricklancasternewstoday ~ Patrick Lancaster's telegram channel.
https://t.me/gonzowarr ~ A big Russian commentator.
https://t.me/rybar ~ One of, if not the, biggest Russian telegram channels focussing on the war out there. Actually quite balanced, maybe even pessimistic about Russia. Produces interesting and useful maps.
https://t.me/epoddubny ~ Russian language.
https://t.me/boris_rozhin ~ Russian language.
https://t.me/mod_russia_en ~ Russian Ministry of Defense. Does daily, if rather bland updates on the number of Ukrainians killed, etc. The figures appear to be approximately accurate; if you want, reduce all numbers by 25% as a 'propaganda tax', if you don't believe them. Does not cover everything, for obvious reasons, and virtually never details Russian losses.
https://t.me/UkraineHumanRightsAbuses ~ Pro-Russian, documents abuses that Ukraine commits.

Pro-Ukraine Telegram Channels:

Almost every Western media outlet.
https://discord.gg/projectowl ~ Pro-Ukrainian OSINT Discord.
https://t.me/ice_inii ~ Alleged Ukrainian account with a rather cynical take on the entire thing.


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[–] 58 points 14 hours ago (15 children)

China’s New Trimaran Submarine: 16 Missiles And An Unconventional Design

articleChina is building more submarines, of more classes, than any other country. It has several brand-new ambitious design readying for series production and is forging ahead in the uncrewed space. But this unique trimaran design appears the strangest of them all.

Somewhere in the Eastern Pacific, a snorkel mast skims the ocean’s surface, the only visible sign of a vessel lurking below. An encrypted signal arrives, carrying target data. The vessel rises, revealing a distinctive trimaran hull unlike that of any other navy’s submarine. This unique configuration provides greater stability on the surface. Moments later, two large hangars built into the central hull slide open, and 16 missile tubes rise into firing position. Nearly 1,500 km (930 miles) away, an enemy carrier battle group lies within range. This is no ordinary submarine; it is a vessel unlike any other in the world.

The above scene illustrates how new submersible warship is expected to operate. Previously described as a Semi-Submersible Arsenal Ship, it has yet to receive an official designation or Western reporting name. The vessel is currently being tested in Huludao on the Bohai Sea. Originally built in the southern city of Guangzhou, it was ferried to the north of China via the port of Dalian earlier this year.

[Satellite image of the submersible trimaran at Dalian in Northern China, 12th May 2026]

It is, for sure, a completely new category of warship. Fresh analysis suggests that it is best thought of as a submersible warship, which is uncrewed, and yet needs to come to the surface to launch its weapons.

16+ Missile Tubes

The new submersible warship built by China likely has 16 strike-length missile tubes occupying much of its central hull. Currently we can be confident that there are at least 8 tubes, but more probably 16-18 in total assuming both hangars are identical. The tubes are arranged in two circular clusters which are stored horizontally in hangars. To launch the missiles the vessel will logically have to surface, the hangar doors opened and the missile tubes elevated into a vertical position.

As is the case with secretive naval projects, vessel has not been reported or named in Chinese media. We do not have a clear official narrative on its role or status. The following observations come from what can be gleaned by open-source intelligence (OSINT), principally commercial satellite imagery.

It is likely that the missile tubes carry anti-ship or land-attack missiles. We can infer that the exact type of missile chosen, and China has many suitable types, is one which is intended for surface rather than submerged launch. This leads to the hypersonic YJ-20 missiles normally associated with the Type-055 cruiser, being a contender.

Unique Hull Form, and likely Uncrewed

The vessel is clearly submersible but, as indicated by its prominent snorkel, is intended to run on diesels even when submerged. Its trimaran hull form, with outrigger hulls towards the stern, appears optimised for surface transit and stability on the surface. This latter factor may be a driver since the missile tubes, when erected, must make the vessel somewhat top heavy.

The outriggers also sport ducted propellers (‘screws’), possibly of a pumpjet type. Logically the vessel will have a set of screws or water jets on the main body for the diesels, and electric screws on the outriggers.

Dr. Rachel Pawling, Principal Consultant at K39 Consulting and lecturer in ship design, has calculated the vessel’s likely internal make-up. She estimates that the ship displaces around 900 tonnes fully submerged.

Dr. Pawling notes that the weapons hangars take up so much volume, that the rest of the internal space must be extremely cramped. So much so, that it appears unlikely that there is space for a crew. Yet the vessel has an open navigation bridge on top of its fin (sail). The obvious explanation is that this is only for a human pilot during entering and exiting ports. Most large uncrewed vessels have some form of bridge like this to simplify port operations.

Concept of Operations

There has always been a blurred line between submersible warships and true submarines. There have been numerous designs designed to fight on the surface which can partly or fully submerge. Indeed until World War Two submarines were mostly surface vessels which could submerge.

Dr. Pawling suggests that the new type is similar to Cold War Soviet cruise missile submarines like the Juliett Class. That was a diesel submarine which had to surface to launch its powerful anti-ship missiles. It could pop-up to attack high-value warships from unexpected directions.

The main differences will be that modern missiles, such as the YJ-20 hypersonic missile, will have much longer ranges and be able to target both land and sea targets. This means that they will be dependent on external targeting. This makes this vessel a transporter and launcher, a small part in a larger distributed network. What is more, the Chinese vessel will carry far more weapons than the 4 SS-N-3 Shaddock carried by the Juliett Class.

This vessel will remain subject to analysis and speculation. China appears in no hurry to explain it to the outside world, and there is much which remains unclear. The ports it has been observed in do not match those associated with either China’s large uncrewed surface vessel (USV) or uncrewed submarine (XLUUV) programs, suggesting that it is distinct from either program.

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  • [–] 4 points 6 hours ago* (last edited 6 hours ago)

    That's a surprisingly small submarine considering that the YJ-20 is about 8 meters long, so 30 meters in length tops, pretty lethal against surface targets too since it's so small destroyer-sized shipyards could mass produce them allowing them to be used as a distributed fleet of decently stealthy launch platforms

    Edit: Reminds me of the Scinfaxi of ace combat. Please Señor Xi make a Big Brother trimaran super submarine to dunk on the yanks

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  • [–] 27 points 12 hours ago* (last edited 11 hours ago)

    Makes a lot more sense than the Trump "Battleship" for launching ballistic missiles, cruise missiles, or hypersonic weapons. I've been saying this for a while, submarines make perfect sense for this application, big disadvantage with surface vessels, they need to use up launch tubes for air defence. Some scramjet powered YJ-19s on this Chinese semi submersible would be quite dangerous. I wonder once all the hype over the Trump Battleship is over by 2028, if the US will look into putting Dark Eagle and PrSM on submarines.

    The one problem with this is US anti submarine capabilities once it exits the Chinese SAM and air cover bubble and enters contested territory, from the P-8A Poseidon hunting them down, to tactical fighter aircraft lobbing munitions at submarines surfaced or in port. The P-8A Poseidon is the big "counter" to this kind of vessel operating in contested territory, sophisticated sensors to detect submarines and capable of launching torpedoes and depth charges itself. China hunting down the P-8As would be very important in a Pacific conflict to disrupt US anti submarine capabilities and enable the capabilities of this semi submersible vessel.

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  • [–] 29 points 14 hours ago (8 children)

    Sooner or later someone is going to try to recreate those aircraft carrier submarines that Japan was experimenting with in WWII

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  • [–] 34 points 14 hours ago (6 children)

    I can see someone making a submersible drone launching platform

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