fry30

Between Speaker Johnson wanting border provisions to the Ukraine Israel package and Israel aid becoming more and more toxic....I would like the discharge petition to be tossed overboard and do a clean Ukraine bill but certainly at this point, I doubt we will get anything passed till at least summer.
Aid shipments even of the token kind are vital for signalling. We have Bradleys and M1s that let's be honest, aren't likely to be used in Asia, and it's most likely not going to be used in the Middle East anymore, it astounds me that marking them to near zero value is impossible, and whatever logistic concerns or what not exist, the Ukrainian soldier needs protection and the Ukrainian people need reassurance that their sons being sent to war are not being abandoned by the West.

Leonardo Da Vinci made one of these I think.
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"Will" rather reminds me of those teenage girls in the UK who thought it would be a good idea to travel to Syria and present themselves as child brides to ISIS. Its impossible for a sane person to even guess what they were thinking at the time.

When the unified right wing National Corps slate only manages to get something like 2.5% of the total vote in Ukraine while rightest parties dominate Russia then this discussion gets very silly. 

"Denazification" is and always has been a total lie insofar as the idea that it is a legitimate justification for invasion.
On the other hand, it's no secret that there are right-wing extremists in Ukraine.

Free e-book: War in Ukraine: Conflict, Strategy, and the Return of a Fractured World (Project MUSE - War in Ukraine (jhu.edu))
Found this e-book which is a collection of essays on the invasion (it's from John Hopkins University, released under a Creative Commons licence). The contents and authors are:
The Ukraine War and Global Order => Hal Brands

1 Ukraine, Russia, China, and the World => Stephen Kotkin
2 Why Putin Invaded Ukraine => Michael McFaul and Robert Person
3 Strategic Fanaticism: Vladimir Putin and Ukraine => Lawrence Freedman
4 The Failure to Deter: US Policy toward Ukraine and Russia from the End of the Cold War until February 24, 2022 =>
Michael Kimmage
5 How the War Will End => Anne Applebaum
Part ii: The Conflict
6 The Russia-Ukraine War: Military Operations and Battlefield Dynamics => Michael Kofman
7 Russian Military Resilience and Adaptation: Implications for the War in Ukraine and Beyond => Dara Massicot
8 Planning for the Worst: The Russia-Ukraine “Tiger Team” => Alexander Bick
9 US Strategy in Ukraine => Kori Schake
10 Nuclear Lessons and Dilemmas from the War in Ukraine => Francis J. Gavin
11 Fallacies of Strategic Thinking in the Ukraine War  => Thomas G. Mahnken and Joshua Baker
Part iii: Global Dimensions and Implications
12 The Ukraine War and Global Cleavages => Ashley J. Tellis
13 Putin’s Point of No Return  => Andrea Kendall-Taylor
14 Accelerating Profound Changes Unseen in a Century: Chinese Assessments of and Responses to Russia’s Invasion 
of Ukraine  => Bonny Lin and Brian Hart
15 The European Union as a War Project: Five Pathways toward a Geopolitical Europe => Mark Leonard
16 Lose-Lose: The Economic Sanctions of the Russo-Ukrainian War => Daniel W. Drezner
17 America’s Global Role in the Shadow of the Ukraine Conflict => Peter D. Feaver and William Inbode
It's 300-odd pages long in total, but each chapter is it's own essay which should make it a little less daunting. Some distinguished names have contributed; Laurance Freedman, Anne Applebaum, Dara Massicot, Kofman.
I've only read the first few chapters but so far, so good.
 
 

While I'm sure it is tempting to see this guy's posting as some sort of April Fools prank or maybe some kid with to much time on his hands trying to "troll" us. Perhaps a paid Russian troll?
The reality is going by the fact that he registered on this forum before 9/11 even happened, he is likely a grown man who has accepted the Kremlin's propaganda as truth.
This is a scary thought but not surprising for me given how many seemingly normal people I've seen on social media who are now parroting the Kremlin's line.
While Russia's military machine leaves a lot to be desired for the Russians, I think their psychological operations like the infamous troll factories are maybe more effective than we care to think about.
A good reminder of how important it is to counter the Kremlin's lies with the truth no matter how we can.

Maybe an unpopular opinion but I don't mind users with lets call them "alternative views" posting here once in a while.
The responses those posts get show just how hollow these kind of arguments really are.
Have a great day everyone. 🙃

This clip is from a civilian ship that was nearby.  They spot one of the drones trailing the patrol boat before the clip ends.
Another clip, this time it shows what I'm guessing is the first impact
Apologies if this has been posted up thread.
Seeing the tail chase etc makes me wonder whether the ye olde smoke dischargers would help.  If the crew has been alerted, at least to make more difficult for the drone pilot to see what/where he's hitting, or don't modern boats have smoke anymore?  Have wondered the same with AFV's, the T series can dump smoke can't it?  Dump smoke and hide inside, at least make it more difficult for an FPV to hit the rear turret.
 
 

That's the issue I wasn't going to raise by myself, but since it's been broached...
Samsonov's written some interesting bits based on translations of original documents but he sorely lacks a historian's background, and it shows in some ridiculous methodology. I'm not going to trawl through years' worth of his blog posts to provide an extensive list of examples, but some which come to mind:
"Disproving" the notion that the T-34 was a cramped tank by comparing a T-34 and a Panzer IV's manuals, and measuring the headroom available to the crewmen illustrated in said manuals. Since the illustrated T-34 crewman had a millimeter or so more space between the top of his head and the roof in the manual's pictures, he'd "proven" that the T-34 actually had a roomier crew compartment than the Panzer IV.
"Proving" that Soviet helmets provided superior ballistic protection to German helmets based on a 1942 report testing half a dozen completely random, captured German helmets from the battle of Moscow against new Soviet helmets. Ironically he'd also translated the part of the report which noted that the methodology was so flawed that no conclusions could be drawn from it.
Basically, anything he reads in original Soviet documents, he takes at face value with supreme confidence. It seems he doesn't realise the point of studies beyond those he is already capable of, i.e. translations.

AFU is getting a new branch focused on drones.
Ukrainian military to have dedicated drone branch (Yahoo.com)
In other news as has already been brought up, we now know what Mr.Carlson is doing in Moscow. Can't say I'm shocked. Tucker has been parroting the Kremlin's talking points for years, now he can just sit down relax and have Putin make the same talking points without Tucker even needing to open his mouth.  Thankfully Mira of Kyiv has posted a drinking game we can play while watching the interview.
 
 

In the end, what happened with Kadyrov’s hospital stay? We don’t see much from him anymore.

The Battle of Andriivka in 2023:
 

Earlier still, imo. We haven’t seen an Eindecker, yet!
As much as I have also long been thinking of today’s drone war as analogous to the first year or two of air warfare (certainly in terms of the likely rate at which development will occur), we should note that there are several key differences:
1. Today’s first generation (or maybe gen 1.5) drones are actually apparently very effective ground attackers. It took until the development of PGMs for aircraft to become anywhere near as efficient.  In this sense it makes much more sense to think of drones as munitions than aircraft.
2. The vast majority of development focus seems to be on increasing drones’ offensive potential (again, “munitions”).  I’ve yet to see evidence of anyone trying to field a single type of defensive drone ‘fighter’ (as I’ve mentioned several times I think there’s a good chance we will see a modern-day “Fokker Scourge” when one does appear).
3. The entry barrier to effective drone use is spectacularly low, to the point that it seems to have been privately-bought and operated drones that did all the early running in this war.  This is very much unlike air warfare and may mean that national armed forces will struggle to maintain a significant qualitative edge over commercially-available drones for the foreseeable future.

Using "their" in a sentence like that has been around for decades, possibly over a century.  Its not some new development. And not exactly on topic either.

It was a thing in CM at one point, too
(It was a bit ... odd though, so better off gone)

"Children nowadays are tyrants. They contradict their parents, gobble their food and tyrannise their teachers."
-Socrates
“They think they know everything, and are always quite sure about it.”
- Aristotle
I was a High School Teacher for 40 years and my colleagues would occasionally come up with comments about how standards of behaviour/study/anything at all had changed dramatically for the worse ... nope. Not in my experience. And, as you can see, this sort of complaint has, shall we say, a long grey beard and should be put down with extreme prejudice.
YMMV

druggier?  Umm I'm throwing the challenge flag on that one.  😛  I think the mid/late 70s have this generation beat on the druggie thing ESPECIALLY in regards to the military.
Funny thing, having integrated army units was once the "woke" thing.  Other than a few NAZI types running around I doubt anyone gives a second thought to integrated units anymore.
 
I'll admit to being confused sometimes by this generations challenges to orthodoxy but given what I've seen in my lifetime I take it for granted that my not understanding stuff has zero value on its importance to someone else so I mostly keep my trap shut and nod benignly as my neighbors kid goes on a rant and I understand only maybe half of it.  Just so long as their friends stay off my lawn.

This is a common claim from the "git yer gubmint hands offa mah medicare" demographic of deep thinkers.
It is, of course, pants.
Making an activity illegal never eliminates it (see: speeding, murder). It does, nevertheless, still provide three useful outcomes. It ...
1) reduces the frequency of the prohibited thing, because most people understand that rules exist, there are reasons even if they don't like the reasons, and complying with the rules is part of the social contract
2) makes it super easy to identify illegal behaviour, and thus cue counters. In this case, *any* drone over DC is ipso facto a target for countermeasures, with no further questions needed.
3) hands the good guys a legal mallet to go after miscreants with.
All three things affect law avoiding individuals, contrary to the popular claim.

The article sounds like POWs really were onboard, but indeed our militaries meant Russians shouldn'd geopardize their lives moving them in planes in zone of potential risk. 
Evening statement of Zelenskiy about international investigation need of this crash was absolutely superflous, giving a food for conspiracy and further hype from some our media and Proroshenko-followers, which today rised hysteria in social network on increadable level, when even Russian propagandists calmed down with POWs death version. 
More bad - Russian milbloggers with satisfaction pointed out "at last we won in this information operation - western media cought our agenda". The same, as western media rised hysteria about hundreds and thousands killed in Gaza hospital, which turned out a fake, but in the time, when many people read headlines only this is enough. 

When I see Photon & TheCapt discussing things I say to myself "hush, grownups are talking"
Meanwhile, a few tidbits here today:
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2024/1/18/2218018/-More-Russian-stuff-blowing-up-EU-s-Parliament-puts-the-screws-to-Hungary?pm_campaign=front_page&pm_source=trending&pm_medium=web
Explosion in Donetsk area, looks like ammo?  Woman from Bashkorastan puts out video asking fighters from from the region to return home from UKR war to fight against the RU oppressors in their homeland.  I'd love there to be lots more of this, though I suspect she will be in a jail cell, or worse, rather quickly.  As TheCapt said earlier, arab spring started w one angry guy -- killed himself over govt corruption ruining his business, that's what I recall but not sure if correct.

Tsargrad this is TV-channel from which you can know about Jewish-Masonic conspiracy against Russia, about that most of anglo-saxons are reptiloids and King Charles III is main reptiloid and anyway - "Russia is a motherland of elephants" )))

We will pick up the action later today unless postponed by TV sports...
Meanwhile, here are some more screenies.
A face I did from a Korean actor. He played the bad guy in "71 - Into the Fire".
You can also see my "stick grenade pouch"...


The Maxim MG team hunkers down in turn 1. These guys are now ex-parrots, singing with the choir invisible.

Some more guys in that team wearing their "Keds hightops"...

This guy is a warrant officer in command of the company group. He had served in the Red Army during dubya dubya two.
I had a cool idea for the "stick grenade pouch"...each texture for the grenades can be randomly plucked from the data.
Some are transparent so a guy can have 0, 1 or 2 grenades in the pouch.
GRAVEYARD: I googled a little to try and see what a circa 1950 Korean graveyard might look like. I had no luck really. So I just deleted the Italian names off of these CMFI gravestones. Mi dispiace!

 
 
 
 

Been looking for an excuse to finally try out CMFI... here goes! 
EDIT: Guess I'll snag the modules too... 🥳
 

For Russians often is better to blame friendly fire, than to recognize "pathetic khokhols" were able to destroy their "no-analog" system. In better case they will claim "NATO instructors controlled all process, NATO ELINT plane gave targeting, stupid khokhol just press the button, because khokhol-villagers so stupid, that they just unable fully operate with such complicated systems"