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Soviet/russian vehicles are more likely to throw their smokegrenades much further to give room for maneuvre. However it takes longer to build up, while western smoke dischargers are quicker in that regard. In any case I believe those are fixed charges in most of the cases that are set at a certain angle with a certain distance in mind. And while it probably was used to give infantry a helping hand, it is first and foremost a defensive capability of the tank/vehicle to escape unfavored situations. For the game I prefer those vehicles with internal smoke mortars over the external smoke dischargers. You have plenty of smokebombs and you actually can use them for offensive purposes as well. When you know that there is no serious AT threat in the area or you have a Tank that cannot be harmed by it, you can set up some short waypoints and set on each one a "Pop smoke" order. With this you could rush a tank infront of the infantry and lay a wall of smoke to conceal their movement. Here is an example of it from one of my games:

In better news, signs that standing up to ignorant bullies isn't that difficult. You just have to have a spine and the proper motivation to use it. Steve

Speaking of Nihilistic foreign policy concepts, this profile of Senator Vance's view that killing Ukraine aid just the beginning: Brilliant idea! It worked so well in the early part of the 20th Century. You know, those two war thingies that the US found it had to get involved in and help settle. If the US had just not interfered everything would be so much better. My head hurts. Which helped numb me to this: I hate going to bed angry, so I should know better than to read an article about the views of someone like Vance on anything. I'm sure he'd somehow make me angry about his views on what the best type of bagel is (it's cinnamon raisin with cream cheese, for those not in the know). Probably by starting off saying something about Jews I'd object to. Steve

Yup, and only a naive (but really sweet) person would argue that line has some absolute reason for going up. Women in the US thought they had won the fight to control their bodies. Complacency helped disprove that thinking. But, and here's the but... when a group of people are used to a particular freedom that gets taken away (ironically by a group that says they want less government interference in people's lives... but I digress) the naive might smarten up. I know the GOP is petrified that they sank their own boat when they went fishing with a shotgun. So far there's evidence to suggest they have. The big question is if our modern, fully integrated, massively codependent society can recover from an extreme backslide. What my previously mentioned friend doesn't understand is if the right wing tries to "tear down and rebuild" the left isn't going to go along with it. Best the right can hope for is rebuilding a nation without much in the way of technology, because high tech is not made by Truckers For Trump members. Look at Russia... first people to go after the war started were the tech people. And no tech people are moving to Russia to replace them. Anybody who works in any tech related field can attest their company won't survive long with execs that belong to Q-Anon and Flat Earth Society. Anyway, this is all getting a bit off track. Suffice to say that the world is not safer nor better with the US falling into dysfunction. Cripes, I think some might rather the abusive and corrupt Reagan style US foreign policy over the Nihilistic non-policy being pushed by the GOP now. Steve

The on topic part of an article about this.

Off topic, but CNN (and others) report Israel has struck back against Iran.

The silly picture that kept being posted in the thread.

What data are you referring to? Everything I am seeing shows Switzerland as a full democracy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Economist_Democracy_Index

In what universe is Switzerland not considered to be a “Full Democracy”? It’s literally a confederation with direct democracy, and has been for longer than most countries have even had the concept of elections. EDIT: I also do wonder about Japan being considered more democratic by some numeric ranking than the US, when Japan is basically a one party state.

@EZ man, very appreciated, superb uniforms, I like very much added details, like scarves, differents m41 variants, armband, Sturmgeschütz uniforms, (a cherry of the cake) ...thank you for sharing them ! >maybe if you look even deeper, you will find more superb things...just kidding !

Hello, I found an old template of some US Uniforms and clean it up some, it Mods all US Uniforms except the tanker Uniform. So, it's an alternative to some of the other mods. Link https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1T1KLBEBhpm--EMHpi700k4B0t7OpV0ak?usp=drive_link ez

Some good news, some less good, but mostly good in this installment. More patriot systems probably will be entering the pipeline. Maybe big US aid on the way? Hopefully. RU continues to lose a lot of radar, hopefully one day we'll find F16s & lots of missiles/drones running through those AD holes. https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2024/4/18/2235874/-Russian-stuff-blowing-up-More-Patriots-may-be-on-the-way-for-Ukraine?pm_campaign=front_page&pm_source=trending&pm_medium=web

And my point is that upward trend can only be sustained if we work for it and defend it. Democracy is not the natural state of large scale human affairs or political systems. History demonstrates quite the opposite. The hope was that literacy and enlightenment would allow for greater informed choice by the masses but as we have just discussed there are some serious issues in the modern age with this. Democracy using a much longer lens than even the last 100 years is a great experiment, not ordained by higher powers or a natural evolution that is enshrined in post-modern reality. It takes work and sacrifice, it is not an entitlement. Basically this could be the end of democracy if we sit back and let it happen. There is real danger in simply shrugging and declaring “slight dip” as if the upward trajectory is driven by greater forces. Democracy will only survive if we want it to and make it happen. We have seen it tried before in both Ancient Greece and Rome - albeit in different forms - and we abandoned it. We can do it again…unless we consciously do not let it happen.

Formed from volunteer units of the armed wing of the Right Sector, the 67th Mech. is being divided up. From one of the articles linked: Imo, if true, that the unit could not integrate and was doing such Russian Frontline mobik tactics, then absolutely replacing with Syrskyi was the right move. https://www.pravda.com.ua/eng/news/2024/04/14/7451183/ https://www.pravda.com.ua/eng/news/2024/04/16/7451501/ https://t.co/SGm9I4j1l0

My guess is the game isn't sending the "last turn" msg to the server.

To add some nuance to the numbers, note that the big change in democracy to autocracy from 2010-2021 is due almost completely to ONE country, India. Also note that the numbers for liberal democracies have not declined greatly (map and 2nd table showing total populations - https://www.visualcapitalist.com/cp/how-many-people-live-in-a-political-democracy-today/) despite Canada's best efforts.

I think his point is that yes, there is a trend, but it's not necessarily linear. As was pointed out in the Democracy Around the World article there have been dips before and they corrected. So the question is more about what the relative short decline trend means for the future. Are we going to snap back and go upwards again in another 5-10 years, or is this recent trend different than those before us and things will get much worse before (at some point) things get better? And as you say, the jury is still out on that. But at the same time, the historical trend is towards greater democracy and less autocracy, even if we're hitting a rough patch. Unlike Climate Change, which is a matter of (reasonably) predictable science, where our self governance goes is not. Though I will not insult the arts by saying it is more "art than science". If I said that I'd probably have to say that Jackson Pollock is an artist, and there's no way I am going to say that. Steve

You realize the article you cited from Our World in Data was: With a whole lot of data that counters your position. You picked the last hopeful line in that article when the entire thing was about the overall decline in democracy worldwide for nearly 20 years. Ok, I will play too. I think that history shows that autocracies have been the vastly more common political system. We have had democratic spasms in the past but they have always failed in the long term. I think this current spasm is about 200 years old and due to fold up completely much like democracy has done in the past. I don't think a 200 year increase constitutes am upward trend in democratization when viewed through a 6000+ year lens any more than a one year decline represents a trend in the stock market.

I recall ISW pointing out a couple months ago that while the US is the largest single doner (and Ukraine does desperately need the US to resume donating), Europe overall has donated more than the US. I think it was something like $160-$170 billion.

Yes, I did take a look at the other links. The part of my point that is in question here is "The overall trend so far appears to be towards greater democratization". And I stand by that. I don't think a 20 year decline constitutes a trend in democratization any more than a one year decline represents a trend in the stock market. When you zoom out the overall trend is still clearly upwards.

Ok if we are going to play "pick the data" then using the same chart democracy is a fad as of about 1850. We are just as likely to fall back into complete autocracies which have dominated human political affairs for millennia. Why can't autocracy recover in the long game if democracy can in the short? In reality this is kinda silly. It is clear democracy around the world is under strain. We have no guarantees it will work and my original point stands - we have abandoned democracy in the past (see Roman Empire) and we are at risk of doing it in the future if we do not protect it. I so not subscribe to the "it will be ok...because reasons" school of human affairs. Pulling it back to the subject of this thread, we are facing a test for modern democracy right now in this war and the USA is at the forefront. I honestly hope that democracy prevails but within the US right now some of those charged with protecting it are in fact attacking it. They are attacking it by "proving" (engineering really) that democracy is weaker in "getting things done." They are doing so to re-wire how power is distributed in the US and by extension globally.

I'm believe that this Trump Truth Social post, that Matt Gaetz appears to be misconstruing, is also very wrong on the facts:

Any chance you actually looked at the the other refs: This has been about a 20 year trend depending on how one measures "democracy". Your stated point was: "I actually think the jury is in. Loads of countries other than the US are democracies. It's obvious at this point that there are much better implementations of democracy than the US system (downsides of being first). But almost universally, people living in democracies (including the US) are better off than people living in autocracies. Democracies do collapse and revert to autocracies (and it feels like the US is currently skirting the danger zone on that). But autocracies also collapse and become democracies. And so far it appears that autocracies collapse at a higher rate than democracies. The overall trend so far appears to be towards greater democratization." 1. There is at best around 8 percent of the planet with true liberal democracies. And democracy is not in the majority by any stretch. 2. Democracies are not on the rise, they are in fact in decline and have been for some time. Liberal democracies have been on decline for nearly 20 years. Flawed democracies - like India and Pakistan - are also starting to decline. More bluntly put...the data does not match your initial opinion/position - which now seems to have shifted to "sure we are in a decline but can recover as we have in the past". Sure we might see a surge in democracies globally but likely not if the US continues a downward spiral. We definitely saw a Post-Cold War bump but the party appears to be over. This is why this war is an important test and has a lot at stake.

And a quick follow up with an article talking about the recent dip in democratization.: https://ourworldindata.org/less-democratic This bit seems to be the core of what the article is saying. I've added some bold.

Interview with Budanov. Nothing really new here, just a good piece reminding people that Ukraine isn't beaten and won't be: https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2024/04/17/kyrylo-budanov-ukraine-general-russia-war-attacks/?utm_campaign=wp_post_most&utm_medium=email&utm_source=newsletter&wpisrc=nl_most&carta-url=https%3A%2F%2Fs2.washingtonpost.com%2Fcar-ln-tr%2F3d6ca95%2F661ff4242d43a25434edb2be%2F5b6a1f5bade4e277958a3cb5%2F13%2F52%2F661ff4242d43a25434edb2be Steve