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This should come as no surprise. The UK's MOD did similar, albeit on a smaller scale, for training troops for deployment in Northern Ireland, and Germany/Europe.
I think we all know China is gearing up to attack Taiwan as they make no secret that, as far as they are concerned, it belongs to them. The fact that the Taiwanese don't agree is neither here nor there.
Same with Russia.
they make no secret that it belongs to them.
Can we say instead that they think it belongs to them?
Sorry typo. Fixed it.
The UK’s MOD did similar, albeit on a smaller scale, for training troops for deployment in Northern Ireland, and Germany/Europe.
Those are and were not their enemies and they were not specific targets. What is so eyebrow-raising here is that it is so specific.
The fact that the Taiwanese don’t agree is neither here nor there.
Uhmm yeah that really does make the difference between an invasion and an amicable unification. I would say what China things is neither here nor there because they don't own it so they have nothing to say about it.
You're reading that last bit out of context. As* far as the Chinese are concerned, *what the Taiwanese think is neither here nor there. The Chinese have decided its theirs. Nobody else gets a say.
Outrage! : China trains soldiers
Outrage! : China trains soldiers
China trains soldiers for an invasion. They appear to plan for an unprovoked aggression.
Oh noes!
Bad guy China trains soldiers like everyone else. How dare they. Meanwhile Good guys US sells fighter jets to poor Israeli troops.
Whataboutism and lies are all that defenders of autocratic hellholes like China have to offer. It's getting tiring.
I could say the same about double standards and hypocrisy.
Edit (more lies): https://edition.cnn.com/2024/04/01/politics/biden-administration-f15-fighter-jets-israel
Whataboutism doesn't become any more effective the more often you repeat it.
That's not what this is about.
Doesn't everyone do that? Or does the US already do full VR training?
That is one clumsy attempt at whataboutism.
Sorry, let me clarify:
Who cares? This isn't about the US, this is a deliberate provocation by China, so let's discuss how China is marching towards instigating an armed conflict with Taiwan.
I see it the other way:
Who cares? For many years already, China has been making official declarations of intentions, running fighter jet flybys, boosting mainland chip production to stop depending on TSMC, and so on. Building a target replica is not a "provocation", it's a threat... but we knew that already.
What I'm more interested in, is whether some country has managed to build replicas "invisible to satellites", and the US is one that I've heard has been at least trying to (just like I've heard both South Korea and the US have been planning on building robot soldiers).
That, would be a game changer. Building a replica, is "water is wet".
There's a rumor that North Korea has an underground replica of a South Korean city in order to train spies and sleeper agents. They are said to live there for a while, learn how to blend in, speak the different dialect, handle things like electronic payment methods, etc.
There is a bit of a difference between buikding a realistic looking generic town and, say, building an exact replica of the Kremlin.
There are no "generic towns"; hop onto Google Maps, or even better Google Earth, and check out the distinctly different city layouts throughout the world. Whatever they chose, reveals their plans for action in one or more scenarios.
(somewhat ironically, It's easier to build a "generic Kremlin": https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kremlin_(fortification) ...but with the cold war history, I'd be surprised if the US didn't build a replica of the Moscow one at some point)
However, I'm more interested in whether they have reached the point of making replicas "invisible to satellites".
Training yes I'm sure. Training of a specific target? I don't think so. It only makes sense if you're really planning to attack that target, which is what makes this shocking. Does America have a mockup Kremlin?
The US, and pretty much everyone, regularly runs "war games" with potential scenarios of real targets. That definitely includes the Kremlin, and other targets from all around the world, it would be naive to think otherwise.
But... simulators have been a thing for some time already, which is why I'm asking. I haven't been to the ones they've built, like:
Meanwhile:
https://militaryembedded.com/radar-ew/sensors/army-goes-deep-into-vrar-for-training-and-combat
The only instance I'm aware of where the US military built a specific model meant to be a replica of a real place was the Osama bin Laden compound. Which they did, in fact, raid.
The building of a fake town isn't the unusual part. The building of a replica of a specific place might not even be that unusual, but it is a strong signal that they definitely intend to attack the real world place that is being replicated.
That doesn't look like a satellite image
Why not?
Satellite photos are high resolution, capturing large areas at a time, which means stuff off-center is not captured perfectly orthogonal. Not sure you could tell between a satellite, high altitude balloon, or U-2 photo, just from a cropped piece of it.
You can see the shadow of the plane
The plane's shadow wouldn't be that big. Because the sun is so far away the plane's shadow would be the same size as the actual plane (at most a bit stretched when the sun is low). Whereas this is purported to be a life-size mockup.
The plane overlay is probably just added for dramatic effect. The kilometers-long flags are obviously not really there either. And after all, which foreign nation overflies China with military planes? It must have been a sat, not a plane.
And two flags, both added with image editing, and transitioning into transparency.
If you take the fighter jet shadow as true size, then the training compound is so small you would crush it below your feet.