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Elmar Bijlsma

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Elmar Bijlsma last won the day on April 29 2023

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About Elmar Bijlsma

  • Birthday 10/09/1976

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  • Location
    The Netherlands
  • Interests
    Being Dutch
  • Occupation
    1940-45, by the Germans

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  1. Oh, I agree it doesn't make sense. But none of it does. False flag is too messy for too little pay-off. Real ISIS attack seems to be most likely, as indeed seems consensus here, but I'd be amazed if the currently nabbed guys are it. Which doesn't make sense either.
  2. Been a minute since i dipped my toes into this thread, but I have questions about the Moscow attack I cannot figure out. So, according to one of the Tajiks confessing after a thorough beating, he was a rando contracted for the attack via Telegram two weeks ahead of time and subsequently armed for it by persons unknown to him. But recalling the video of the attackers entering the hallway calmly and at a steady interval, I am somewhat dubious these are randos with a mere two weeks notice. The behaviour just doesn't line up with what I would expect from a bunch of untrained strangers roped into the attack. To me, it looks like trained fighters who know what to do and are familiar with each other. And then, in a rare act of competence, Russian security services manage to identify and find the guys involved (who I remind you seem to have had no previous terrorism ties!) and who aren't lying low or heading to the Stans but headed to a place they'll stand out more than in Moscow. Now, Russia grabbing the first ethnically appropriate patsies to beat a confession out of is hardly unheard of, but that might become inconvenient if ISIS-K starts parading the actual perpetrators around. So that doesn't make sense. My other line of thinking is that ISIS are not known for working directly but via middlemen. What if the middlemen were Russian? But then, what exactly is their play? Sowing chaos? They hardly needed terror attacks to get their security services more power to do whatever they want. To blame Ukraine? Maybe, but then ISIS-K claims it and taints that scenario, even though clearly they are trying to play the Ukraine card anyway. But it seems a lot of trouble to go through for dubious payoff. Not that confusion isn't bread and butter of Russian PsyOps. I don't know what to make of it all except that assuming the Russians are lying scumbags capable of any depravity has so far served me too well to start believing their official line.
  3. Frogfoot having a brown pants moment: https://www.dumpert.nl/item/100079415_aa2ca275 Apologies if this was already posted. I haven't seen it before in my usual feeds but Dumpert is rarely among the first to post this sort of stuff. So I may very well have missed it in the usual places, including this thread.
  4. I question if the drone operator wasn't doing more harm than good. His directions are vague and untimely. The Ukrainians are holed up near the dead Russian? I think there's probably more than one dead Russian in that field and the one near the Ukrainian trench is probably not the corpse the Russian attackers would seen as they went forward. This presents the attackers with (incorrect) information that they cannot ignore or even question: They just walked past a Ukr position. Same with the direction of "to your left". Left of our line of advance? Left of where my body is proned towards? Left of where I am looking? Left of where I was looking 5 seconds ago? Because that's the time it takes to pass along information. For that matter, left of where any of my fireteam was looking at any point? None of it is usable information and is only likely to wrongfoot the recipient. Note that they eventually face away from the threat! Meanwhile the dipstick drone guy has compass right in his view! There's a reason you are trained to read a compass! And again with his "He's reloading". He's late on making the call, understandable as he needs to interpret the actions he sees from afar before he passes the info along. But that is the problem, he passes it on to his buddy who repeats it into a radio. By the time anyone on the business end even gets the word the Ukr is reloading, the Ukr has reloaded and is ready to work. As a result any Russian acting on this word of warning does his heroics at the absolute very worst moment to do it. If that drone operator used his tablet to download and view porn instead of giving guidance to the attack, the attackers would have had a better chance.
  5. I am very sorry to hear about Girkin's suicide and/or tax fraud conviction. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-67467830
  6. Just because you decline to fight the enemy in a unfavourable place, does not mean you get to fight him in a favourable place. The whole draw to Bakhmut was that Putin needed that headline beyond all reason. It was the place that crippled the Russian army's offensive operations elsewhere. Let Putin have Bakhmut, and the headlines he craved, and his commanders might just have been able to pick their next spot to attack. And it wouldn't have been the easily defended hills west of Bakhmut, I can all but guarantee you that. And there's the political angle. The long fight over Bakhmut was wildly damaging to Putin's regime internationally and within Russia. There was a pseudo-coup attempt! That's a pretty good result for Ukraine fighting for Bakhmut. To me, fighting in Bakhmut is a no brainer.
  7. Strikes me as a bit odd to reproach the Poles for getting rid of their old stuff, seeing as that old stuff was the same Soviet era stuff Ukraine was already using. A day after the invasion, if the Polish MoD offered Ukraine 200x Leo 2A6 OR 200x T-72, Ukraine would've been mad to take the Leos. Poland gave what was needed then and there. They also gave the Ukrainians Krabs, so it's not just old junk. Heck, their giving pattern isn't wholly dissimilar to the Dutch. I mean, old *** YPRs, second hand Leo 1A5s and PzH 2000. So how about everyone calms their tits?
  8. One of my favourite lines in Firefly is after Jayne gets attacked from behind by a victim of the Reivers. Once the assailant is caught and turns out to be smaller than reported, Jayne defensively retorts: "He looked bigger when I couldn't see him"
  9. If I recall correctly, his identity was revealed a few weeks back and he deleted his account soon after the backlash hit. A fella went "thank you very much" and took over the free real estate and is running it as a pro Ukraine account.
  10. Last couple of days it kinda looks like Ukrainians have an easier time advancing. Which given they just bumped into the Surovikin Line is kinda counter intuitive. That leaves me with the impression that the Russians degraded their manpower and defensive capacity in front of their main line to a degree that their main line of defence is now largely ineffective. Are we once again very lucky they are so f-ing stupid? Or am I seeing things that aren't there?
  11. Yeah, that shot looks like it went to the left of the leading tank. Somewhat inconsiderate if the lead driver had the time to dismount his stricken tank. The real question is: Where did the previous shot (0:42) from the same offender go? I see no impact in the back of the lead tank, but I struggle to think where else it could have gone. Perhaps over? Regardless, the gunner in that rear tank is a liability.
  12. As others have pointed out, there will be holes in EVERYTHING. Not just engine parts. Holes in your wheels, brake discs, suspension, chassis, fuel system, axel, electronics. Pretty much everything is buggered. There was footage, not long after GMLRS was introduced, of a Russian maintenance and repair dude going over a Ural that was exposed to tungsten rain. And boy, did he have an opinion on his superiors asking him to fix it.
  13. Who in their right mind manufactures ammunition at the same plant that is making precision optics? What the actual fudge?! The Russian strategic reserves of stupidity are not at any risk of running out, it seems.
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