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BlackMoria

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Posts posted by BlackMoria

  1. 1 hour ago, dan/california said:

    Why would you emplace three guns that close together? Only thing I can come up with is that they only had one minimally competent artillerymen for all three guns?

    Speaking as a retired artillery officer....three other reasons to explain this:

    1. They have insufficient radios and field phones to communicate with the battery command post.  

    2.  The clearing in the trees is too small for proper dispersion of the guns.  Knowing that drones are sweeping treelines for targets, the russians may have chanced putting these guns into a small clearing in the middle of a forest with a trail going into the clearing for the tow vehicles.

    3. They lack fire control calculators/computers to calculate fire patterns like converge, linear, etc.   The spacing looks about right for just doing a common bearing and range shoot to all guns and the spacing of the guns is about right for overlapping lethal burst patterns.

  2. Lots of possibilities to consider.

    A.  the plane crash was an accident.  Least likely possibility in my opinion.

    B.  It is Prig doing a ninja vanish as he got word that being near a window as in his future, so it was time to bail and live a quiet life in Africa.  Not likely but possible.  Wouldn't put it past the slippery bastard.

    C.  Payback by the Generals affected by the purge.  Possible.  Proof will be seeing what machinations occur in the internal politics of Russian

    D.  It was the Ukrainians.   Highly possible, IMO.

    E.  Putin ordered the hit. A bomb or Russian AD bought the plane down.  It will be reported as an accident.

    I am leaning between D & E, with E topping the list. Putin is hearing people mutter about him being weak and the failed moon landing, which could of buoyed up his standing, sunk that chance.  He senses the knives bring drawn and was forced to act.

  3. The KA-52 compilation video could be just as it describes.... but we know RU loves exaggerating and misinformation.   I give equal weight to those being recycled training range videos.  And possible attacks on Ukr decoys.  We know those are a thing and it would not be surprising to me that Ukraine is using decoys or mockups in some way against the helicopters.

  4. 36 minutes ago, RandomCommenter said:

    I would be concerned at that 35% of Americans who have an unfavorable view of NATO. In fact that tracks quite closely to a hardcore 35% who support "you know who" no matter what (for example I believe him when he says he could shoot someone on 5th Ave and not lose support).

    So what I am saying is 35% opposition to NATO in the US, with the potential for people representing that view getting control of Congress or the White House is a worry to me.

    I hope I don't start the thread going off topic (again) into US politics here but I just assumed that support for NATO in the US was higher than this.

    Don't read too much into the poll.    Studies show that many participants in polls don't understand the questions at times or the subject matter of the poll for that matter. They answer anyway and usually to the negative, even if they have no idea what is being asked, rather than admitting they don't know.  That is why so much effort goes into making poll questions understandable and why unscrupulous pollsters can stack the deck with how questions are worded.   

    If you asked someone for a opinion on NATO and they never heard of it, people are going to say NATO bad rather than say they have no idea what NATO is.  Really good pollsters try to vette their respondents, such as asking early in the poll interview if the respondent has some familiarity with the poll subject.  No point including that person in the poll pool if they are clueless to the poll subject. 

    You don't know the fidelity and methodology of the poll.  Maybe the results are accurate.  Maybe the fidelity is outright rubbish.

  5. 1 hour ago, Butschi said:

    True, of course. We've seen one strike and we can't be sure about the intended target. So, currently, there is no air campaign at all, terror or otherwise. But if you use that to argue that my comparison is invalid - and that is certainly a legitimate point - then really so is your comparison with Kosovo... and really our little argument here is kind of moot.

    True, again. My intention for quoting that was not to stress the "precision" part but the "avoiding civilian casualties to the greatest extent possible"-part. While precision is an enabler for avoiding civilian casualties it is (obviously...) not identical. Nazi Germany would have targeted civilians with V-1s even had it been precision weapons.

    This is really the part where I can't honestly agree with. Again, we don't know what the intended target was and I don't claim it was civilians.

    You are right, so far there is no terror bombing campaign and if we are only discussing the current situation than there is really no reason for me to make such a fuss about it.

    But we are regularly discussing "what if"-scenarios and possible futures. And in such a discussion I am concerned about which direction this conflict might be heading - sorry for being such a foolish idealist. Of course Ukraine has the right to strike back! Ukraine would not, however, have the right to strike back at civilians, neither morally nor legally. The fact that Russia does it, too, wouldn't make it any more right and if we argue otherwise our precious rules based order is worth nothing. So the "if" in your "if it is not deliberately targeting civilians." is the crucial part. Of course Ukraine has to be presumed innocent until proven otherwise and from the current track record they deserve to be given the benefit of the doubt, anyway. So, I will leave it at that.

    I don't get the pearl clutching here.   Nobody is expecting a 'clean' war because it is nearly impossible to do.  Civilian casualties happen in war, no way to avoid it.  Coalition forces in Iraq and Afghanistan killed thousands of civilians over the long course of those conflicts and that was with Coalition forces trying to avoid civilian casualties.  But mistakes are made, coordinates are wrong, incorrect identification of the target, intel is bad, etc. etc.  In short, s**t happens.  Nobody likes it but happens.    

    The main difference between Russia and Ukraine is that Russia isn't even trying to avoid civilian casualties.  Ukraine is at least trying to avoid that.    But the moment you start lobbing missile or drones into someone else's country, there is always the chance that a civilian target get hit by accident.   I think most people, even the minimally informed public, understand this.  We have seen this rodeo in every conflict of the late 20th century.   People know that wars are not clean affairs in which only the enemy combatants get kill or wounded. 

  6. At this point in time, I give it a 90% chance the US defaults and the train called the economy goes over the cliff.   It should not have come to this but here we are...standing at the cliff's edge and that train is coming awfully fast and it doesn't look like going to even attempt to put on the brakes.  And if it goes over the cliff....what does this all mean for Western support for Ukraine?   That is the question haunting me right now.

     

  7. 3 minutes ago, sburke said:

    seems like Putin's other allies aren't thrilled with what is going on with Belarus.

    Even nuclear weapons are now one for two − Kazakhstan's President Tokayev says Putin and Lukashenko have created a problem (yahoo.com)

    Source: Russian propaganda publication RIA Novosti, referring to Tokayev's statement at the plenary session of the second Eurasian Economic Forum on 24 May; Vy slushali maiak (You have been listening to Radio Mayak) Telegram channel

    Quote from Tokayev: "We have a union state in the EAEU. In other words, a unique precedent or phenomenon has been created in world political history... the creation of a state based on the formula ‘two countries − one state’ with a single political, legal, military, economic, currency, cultural and humanitarian space, with a single union government, with a single union parliament... And even nuclear weapons are now one for two.

    Then there is another level of integration represented by Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Armenia. And we need to take this reality into account. How we are going to work in these circumstances is a conceptual question. I think we need to discuss this problem at this economic forum as well."

     

    Details: At the words about nuclear weapons, Alexander Lukashenko, the self-proclaimed President of Belarus, and Russian President Vladimir Putin began to smile and exchange glances.

    Then Putin said something to Lukashenko, who smiled, and the two politicians shook hands.

    Background: 

    In his address to the nation on 31 March, Alexander Lukashenko spoke about the possibility of deploying Russian strategic nuclear weapons on Belarusian territory.

    In early April, Russian Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu claimed that Belarus already has assault aircraft and Iskander-M missile systems capable of delivering nuclear strikes at its disposal.

    In mid-April, Belarusian Defence Minister Viktor Khrenin said that Belarus is already preparing sites for Russian strategic nuclear weapons.

     

    I wonder how the citizens of Belarus feel about Western strategic nuclear weapons will target Belarus territory due to the presence of Russian strategic weapons.  Do they even know the 'Devil's Deal' their leader signed them up for?

  8. 1 hour ago, MSBoxer said:

    In my opinion, if you go to the far end of either side of the political spectrum you get nut bags who need to be watched.  Whether it is the white supremacists on the right or Antifa on the left we have groups that are ready and, in some cases, far too willing to resort to violence and intimidation to push their twisted beliefs on everyone else.

    Yeah.  Frickin' vegans.   I can't eat a hamburger in public anymore without some snide or snarky comment about me eating an animal.     Ok... a bit of a joke by me.   Maybe a bit of hyperbole on my part as well,  But that is one uptight group that takes themselves far too seriously and they are as obnoxious as hell.   😆

  9. 14 minutes ago, billbindc said:

    So...what she is actually saying is "No, the West isn't going to blink and what then?". It's a loud and clear message to the layer of the power structure just outside of those directly reporting to Putin and cleverly done.

    Blood is in the water.  The great beast is weakening.   The west has the sense of this and the predators are closing in.  France is saying it will provide their own version of Storm Shadow to Ukraine.  The UK and the Dutch and Belgium are talking F-16 training.   And that is a foreshadow that F-16 or a similar airframe are on the table.   More and more armaments of all kinds are being promised now or short term.

    The russian bear is looking out into the night and see nothing but the hungry eyes of predators awaiting their moment.  Those eyes are Ukrainian eyes and Western eyes.  I wonder if anyone in the Kremlin is aware they are staring into the abyss already and russian dreams are dead, dead, dead...

  10. 43 minutes ago, Taranis said:

    Interesting video and for deep defence strategy
    Pros
    • High mobility

    • small profile (hard to detect) and small target

    • high firepower (20mm variant & ATGM variant)

    • ideal for flanking surprise

    • easy to maintain and refit (and export)

    • Easy to camouflage (sunflower, crops field etc)

    Cons :

    • weak armor → but tank vs tank are not common and Wiesel is superior in mobility in wooded area.

    Free the Weasel!!   A battalion of these mad honey badgers tearing stuff up would be awesome.

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