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Seedorf81

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Everything posted by Seedorf81

  1. Thanks for your honesty. I understand that there may be some difference in the interpretation of what "woke" is. I for one do not have a clue where something is woke or not, but it seemed to me the guy in this video meant that (he says so in his conclusion) giving less qualified (in physical and mental, motivational and intellectuel and yes, also gender-related area's) people more chances than better qualified persons, is "woke". And does not seem to work in the long run. A friend of mine followed a one and a have year long computer/office-training programme. At the end of that course a job at a municipality department was available, and from the thirty graduates about ten or twelve of them wanted that job. They gave the job to the least capable person, because they wanted a woman with an "emigrational background". That didn't make the other applicants very happy. I found out that she had scored by far the lowest on all tests/exams from all students (I never told my friend about that), and for some years I had to have an occasional business-like contact with that women and really, she was incompetent. Not only because she didn't understand relevant parts of the Dutch language, but she was unneccessary rude, and didn't really knew how to use the computersoftware. I never understood why they gave her that job, and not to one of the (much) more qualified applicants. It was, like a said, municipal job, so except for annoying people and slowing down things, no harm was done. But I think that in an Army it is vital to choose people that are the most capable if available. I think that has more to do with common sense than with being woke or racist or mysogynistic or intolerant.
  2. Well, I think he is less biased than the title implies, he says himself (9 minutes in video) that the recruitmenttroubles cannot be explained by woke-issues alone. He mentions: - changing motives from the new generations, - the effects from social media and internet, - income, - the fact that young people want fun, succes and more pleasant things than being in the Army, - the fact that people aren't driven to join the army through poverty anymore, - the "lessening "of patriotism, of being proud of your country, - the difference between rural and urban numbers, - the difference in recruitment numbers between England, Wales, Ireland and Scotland. - that Poland ("Not so woke") and Japan have the same recruitment problems, and more. So he concludes himself that wokeism isn't the main problem. He says that he current recruitment is a problem, and a serious one. Like I said, I agree on that point and I see that it is happening in the Netherlands, too. Young people just don't wanna join the Army as young people did decades ago. (I can't blame 'm, btw.)
  3. I'm looking at the video from the moment I posted my post, to see whether I (after seeing it twice yesterday) it is as I said in my comment. I'm not even halfway, but you already react, while it is seems impossible that you saw the whole video in between the time of my post and your comment. Did you see the whole video?
  4. Attempt to change direction of thread.. Way back we discussed the striking difference between amounts of Russian soldiers coming from big cities (almost none) and those from rural area's (loads). And I stumbled on this surprising video from a guy who checked out British Army demographics and recruitment-issues. Do not be fooled by the title of his video, this is not a crazy rightwing nutcase or woke-hating dumbass. His research and investigation are quite factual as far as I can see, and the title of his video is based on the fact that the UK government and Army for years and years tried to make the Army as inclusive as possible by making it easier for women, LBTH, minorities etc, ("Woke influence") to join up, but he discovered that it did NOT work out as planned. And partially because of that, the British army has huge problems with getting enough recruits/volunteers. My understanding is that this problem is also playing up in the Netherlands, and I suspect in more West-European countries. (No idea if it is a problem in the USA). It has a possible profound effect on the near-future strenght of (some) Nato-countries. Which connects this issue directly to the Ukraine-Russo war, because of escalatory possibilities. If you do think his conclusions are unjust or too far fetched, please let me know.
  5. Short article on drone-war at Cherson front. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-67991772 Interesting quote: "On the outskirts of Kherson in an icy field, pilots practise drone flights with plastic bottles tied beneath them, in place of grenades. It takes just 14 hours of training to qualify as a drone pilot. Ukraine's government is encouraging people to take part in free training, as well as to manufacture drones at home to send to the front." Just fourteen hours! Training a recruit to be a decent shooter with a rifle might even take longer than that!
  6. Well, with Trump possibly/maybe/perhaps having more legal trouble and hence possibly/maybe/perhaps being excluded from the nomination, Desantis possible/maybe/perhaps only had to defeat Haley. And if you're doin' bad, but you're remaining opponent is also doin' bad, why not hang on a little longer? It's pretty obvious to me that neither of 'm cares a lot about the USA as a whole..
  7. Just now: Trump's chances getting bigger? DeSantis "suspends" his campaign, endorses Trump. Pretty unexpected, I think. Not very good news for Ukraine.
  8. Looks like another big "succes" for mr Putin. He's finally succeeding in waking up the dormant bear, it seems. If people doubted the West's resilience , this exercise is gonna give a little indication what can and/or will happen when Nato-The West is getting ready for a fight. I hope that the Russians will realise that they don't stand a chance if push comes to shove, but making wise decisions hasn't been their greatest achievement so far.
  9. Biggest Nato exercise since Cold War not 40.000 (originally planned) but 90.000 participants. "Steadfast Defender 24" from feb - may. 31 Nato-members and Sweden. https://www.stripes.com/theaters/europe/2024-01-18/eucom-nato-russia-war-12716615.html (Looks paywall, but first 4 articles free, so it's available).
  10. I spent some time on the Final Blitzkrieg pre-order page and ran out of likes, so here a:
  11. Gunner, perhaps. With such a pounding the inside of the tank must be a terrible place. And the turret would be turning this weird continious way if that gunner was wounded or killed, and slumped over on the turretcontroller.
  12. Yeah, trouble is that nobody knows what will really happen. I do think however that 2024 will be a year with more surprises than 2023. Climate, China, Biden/Trump/other, Venezuela, Iran, North-Korea, Russia, Africa, Israel, new global virus, just some things that are in motion or may be big troublemakers. And probably some things we never expected. We live in exciting times, that's for sure..
  13. As far as I know most revolutions and uprisings have one or more underground/resistance/rebel - groups that do have a decent "organisational structure" with active planning and communication. Sometimes they're small in size (Nazi-Germany), sometimes huge (Afghanistan). Some are only strong in a country's rebellious area's (Yemen), while others can be found almost throughout the entire country. (Vietnam, Algeria 1950's). Those organisations usually make plans for what to do, and how to act, when the opportunity for "the revolution" arises. They're all a bit like embers in a dying fire. Waiting.. but as soon as a new piece of wood is thrown upon those embers the flames suddenly come back to life. The Prigozhin-revolt was not one log into the fire, but an effin busload of logs! Even in Russia most people, and certainly any "revolutionaries" must have realized that something big was going on. I think the storming of the Bastille in France may have been less huge in every aspect (except for the final result, that is). But I haven't heard of ANY streetfighting ANYWHERE in Russia, because revolutionary groups took their chance. Nowhere, as far as i know, were huge demonstrations reported. No attacks on governemental institutions, no riots, no protests, not even minor disturbances, no cheering crowds. Not the least bit of chaos! Such a huge country, but nowhere any noticable support for, what after a few hours was stunningly obvious for even the stupidest of onlookers, an uprising on the way without any opposition! But nothing but silence.. And that for me indicates that we will not see a people's uprising in Russia. Maybe someone close to Putin succeeds in killing him, or maybe he falls terminally ill, but I cannot see a second "storming of the winterpalace".
  14. Well, his great example is some dude called Josef Stalin and that guy set the bar for what you can do to ordinary Russians pretty high. During the first, most deadly, winter of the Leningrad siege (end 1941- begin 1944) there was no infrastructure, no heating, no running water, and worst of all NO FOOD. In the worst period workers got 250 grams of bread PER DAY, but people without jobs got 150 grams. And the Germans bombed and shelled the city mercilessly. So how did the leader of the Russian people react? (Again, Stalin's behaviour is greatly admired by Putin.) He made the starving people of Leningrad "voluntarily" and publicly ask for LESSENING OF THEIR DAILY RATIONS! So if anyone thinks that a horrible winter with infrastructural breakdown will soften Putin's "confidence", I wouldn't get my hopes up. (One average loaf of bread is about 800 grams,btw.)
  15. Best "Shoot and scoot"-example I ever saw, and boy, that Bradley commander has HUGE balls!
  16. Funny, unless a Russia-supporter somewhere in the world tracks you and sends his own micro-drone with enough explosives to mame or kill you. He, or she, happily logs off, writes and sends the report, and gets dressed for the day. If this "manhunt" became a reality, it would solve the world's overpopulation-problem quite quickly, I fear.
  17. I always wondered why armies didn't use old(er) people. (Except for the German Volkssturm in ww2, of course.) Not frontline troops, that's a no brainer, but driving ambulances or trucks, for instance. Doing repair stuff and doing maintenance, cooking and cleaning. Communications and what not. All the jobs that older persons (yes, also women) can do, and that will free younger people up to do the frontline fighting. Since Ukraine is struggling with manpower, why not using fifty or sixty-year old (or older, even) men and women to fly drones? I know, a lot of older people are not good with modern technology, but a: there are loads and loads of old people (I'm 61, by the way), b: at least a part of them could learn how to use drones and c: they're more expendable than young people, future-wise. (I know, dubious argument for some, but still valid.) And d: because they already live on a pension, you don't even have to pay 'm much! I'm serious. For flying a drone you do not have to be physically superfit, you need to be smart. And some old people are smart. Shouldn't be too difficult to find 5000 clever pensioners, would it?
  18. I am really sorry that I offended you with what from my viewpoint is a real misunderstanding. I was trying to remember one of the places from a famous commando-raid, couldn't rembember it, and only then I realised that maybe Wikipedia could provide the answer. I typed "canoes", "commandoraid" and "WW2"in the search-window and immediately the page I mentioned popped up. Which I never expected, so I was genuinly utterly surprised about that Wikipedia-page. Reading my post back, I can see now that you may have thought that I was condescending at your expense. I WAS NOT. But still my apologies for leaving room for misinterpretation of my posting.
  19. Yes, the Russians can "easily absorb, replace and respond to" whatever Ukrainian does in Africa. But in pre D-Day WW2 The Germans "could easily absorb, replace and respond to" whatever the British commando's did on occupied European soil. Lofoten, Dieppe, recon-raids, St. Nazaire, Lorient. (Oh, look at that! Wikipedia even has this, wow): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Commando_raids_on_the_Atlantic_Wall Do you think those raids were useless, too? If not, where is the difference between those and the Ukranian Africa-actions?
  20. A bit confused. Are you hinting at "Battlefront Steve" and us, the forummembers? (I'm sorry, couldn't resist.)
  21. New wave of Russian missiles and drones. 51 Missiles. only 18 shot down. 8 Shahed -drones, all downed. Civilian deaths at least 4, dozens of injured. Some worries about why Ukrainian anti-air defence seemed to falter here and there.
  22. Well, we cannot be sure. If global warming, which looks to me like an exponentially growing problem, or these wars turns out to make huge parts of Africa uninhabitable, we can expect the amount of asylumseekers and refugees to grow by millions and millions. And that will most certainly fundamentally change Europe. And maybe, perhaps, even global order. Maybe not. But there is also no certainty the war in Ukraine is going to change the global order. Even if Russia would conquer all of Ukraine, which I personally think is impossible and way, way waaaaay more unlikely than the Africa uninhabitable-doomscenario, that wouldn't necessarely be challenging global order. It would change life for the Ukrainians, very nastily so, but the West and the Russians and the Chinese and the rest of the world could continue hopping along in the same stupidity as the world does for the last decades. (Centuries? Millenia?) And societies are as ignorant as individual humans, they (most of 'm) only realize that we should have done something to keep our luck/fortune/well-being, when it has been taken away from us. I don't know if it can be a bit of a reassurance, but in the foreseeable future millions, or maybe even billions, of people are gonna discover that what people in Gaza and Ukraine are discovering now: the "good times" are gone, and it will take decades for them to come back again. But eventually they probably will. And I do appreciate your postings. Typically human behaviour from me, perhaps? Hardly noticing or appreciating good or even brilliant postings, but immediately reacting to a post that SEEMS to call for criticism, so I can vent my opinion that, of course, is "much better" and "wiser" and what not. I could make excuses for that behaviour, but I think we all suffer from it, from time to time.
  23. How did you come to the conclusion that Wagner is out of the fight? Perhaps the name doesn't mean as much as it did, but there are still loads of "Wagnerian" Russian troops/specops in Africa, and they most likely haven't turned into "people-loving-softies". Ukraine army high command is smart enough to not let snipers "dick around" anywhere, I think. Russia is still a serious presence in Africa, and they're trying to get even more influence. And in some cases with - for us, probably - surprising succes. This is Wagner in CAR, for instance: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-67625139 And recent Russian influence in Burkina Faso: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-67833215 Seems to me there's still some work to do for Ukrainian snipers.
  24. If the current status in China stays as it is, you're probably right. But there are some things brewing that may or may not cause huge problems for the current leadership. The real estate bubble, and the manual labour job-problems could change things a bit, perhaps. Real estate trouble: https://www.bbc.com/news/business-67890633 Manual labour trouble: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-67779222
  25. Eh, I think the original post was about deaths in another - autocratic - country, so democratic politicians didn't lose any voters in their country. And I expect, perhaps very wrongly so, that intelligent people, which the original poster most certainly is, can have the ability to look beyond "basic human tribal things".
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