Splinty

The RU guys went to the US Dining Facility. As they entered they were required to clear their weapons. A few of them forgot to clear the round from their chambers, and accidently fired said round into the sand filled metal barrel provided for just that purpose. Doing so is frowned upon.

The IDF is trying its best to reduce IDF casualties.  If there is a sniper(s) in a building shooting at them, should they run in there and try to kill the sniper?  That could mean dozens of casualties for the IDF.  The Israelis are sick and tired of taking casualties.  Calling in an airstrike is the obvious thing to do.  Especially since it is a proven fact that Hamas is using tunnels.  Hamas doesn't care about civilian casualties.  The more the better as this will continue to sway world opinion against Israel.  And since when do you ever want to make combat in war a fair fight?  In WWII they didn't hesitate to flatten a building if it had German soldiers putting up a strong defense.  I doubt anyone even asked if there were civilians in the building. 
At least Israel is trying to persuade the Palestinians to evacuate N. Gaza until they can clear out Hamas.  I wouldn't be surprised if they then ask the Palestinians in S. Gaza to move back to the North (or maybe to the West Bank) so they can clear out Hamas in the South.  They will have to provide refugee camps at that point because there won't be much left standing in N. Gaza.  Hopefully this will provide construction jobs to the Palestinian refugees that will allow them to rebuild and bring back some prosperity to the region.  Something like Germany or Japan. But I'm prolly just dreaming here.
On a side note, some of these liberal colleges that have been having pro-Hamas rallies are starting to get a taste of what it is they are supporting:
https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2023/12/6/chabad-screening-oct-7-hamas-attacks/
or this one:
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-67629181
The world shouldn't forget what Hamas did to start all of this violence.  I think the IDF believe that using extreme force in the short term will save lives (Israeli and Palestinian) in the long run.
Anyways, Is there a way in SF2 to simulate civilians in a building with rebels, where you get points for not destroying the building?

The RU guys went to the US Dining Facility. As they entered they were required to clear their weapons. A few of them forgot to clear the round from their chambers, and accidently fired said round into the sand filled metal barrel provided for just that purpose. Doing so is frowned upon.

Appreciate all the assists on the translation.   Apologies for not being more clear.      

The RU guys went to the US Dining Facility. As they entered they were required to clear their weapons. A few of them forgot to clear the round from their chambers, and accidently fired said round into the sand filled metal barrel provided for just that purpose. Doing so is frowned upon.

The RU guys went to the US Dining Facility. As they entered they were required to clear their weapons. A few of them forgot to clear the round from their chambers, and accidently fired said round into the sand filled metal barrel provided for just that purpose. Doing so is frowned upon.

The RU guys went to the US Dining Facility. As they entered they were required to clear their weapons. A few of them forgot to clear the round from their chambers, and accidently fired said round into the sand filled metal barrel provided for just that purpose. Doing so is frowned upon.

The RU guys went to the US Dining Facility. As they entered they were required to clear their weapons. A few of them forgot to clear the round from their chambers, and accidently fired said round into the sand filled metal barrel provided for just that purpose. Doing so is frowned upon.

The RU guys went to the US Dining Facility. As they entered they were required to clear their weapons. A few of them forgot to clear the round from their chambers, and accidently fired said round into the sand filled metal barrel provided for just that purpose. Doing so is frowned upon.

The RU guys went to the US Dining Facility. As they entered they were required to clear their weapons. A few of them forgot to clear the round from their chambers, and accidently fired said round into the sand filled metal barrel provided for just that purpose. Doing so is frowned upon.

The RU guys went to the US Dining Facility. As they entered they were required to clear their weapons. A few of them forgot to clear the round from their chambers, and accidently fired said round into the sand filled metal barrel provided for just that purpose. Doing so is frowned upon.

The RU guys went to the US Dining Facility. As they entered they were required to clear their weapons. A few of them forgot to clear the round from their chambers, and accidently fired said round into the sand filled metal barrel provided for just that purpose. Doing so is frowned upon.

I did 20+ years in the US Army. I went to Desert Storm and did 2 tours in Iraq. You have no idea at all about our professionalism and our capabilities. You know even less about Americans and what we will or will not fight for. Drop this stupid argument, and let's get back on topic.

Used to subscribe, but won't even read it anymore after their Editorial Board article opining that step one to reducing the deficit is cutting back on veteran's benefits. Nope. 
The gist of their opinion being that veterans are getting partial disability but still able to work. Well, duh. It's not JUST about work. It's about life. What if the partial disability was that they lost a hand or lower arm and can no longer play piano, or they lost almost all of their hearing, or they were a marathon runner and lost a lower leg, or two....  I could go on, but it's about compensation for life altering injuries caused by being sent into combat. Sure, in *all* of those examples, the veteran can work, at some job, even good jobs, maybe even the job they were in before the service. But life overall has become different now, with great loss to the important things in life. It's not *just about work. As a former chief engineer who was our group leader told me once (and one of the smartest guys I ever knew), "You work to live, not live to work." 
Sorry for the off-topic but this is a huge sore spot with me. The WaPo got slaughtered in the comments for that editorial but they did not retract it or comment in any way. Someone pointed out that no one who wrote that garbage ever served. Not surprised.
We return you now to your regular warfare news.
To make an on-topic post, for myself, being essentially a Cold Warrior (although things in the 82d could occasionally get "interesting"), I would have *loved* to have the technology that is available for today's artillery. Watching all the videos of using drones to call and adjust artillery fire. These are real game changers in supporting fire. Imagine the savings in ammunition there has been because of the ability to see the enemy so much better, or to see him AT ALL, even when out of sight of any forward observer. And even at that, both sides burn through artillery ammo at a staggering rate. Coolest thing we had were the very first laser target designators and we thought that was Star Wars level stuff at the time. 
Dave
PS - I subscribe to the NYT and the Times of London, so if anyone wants an article gifted from those, let me know 🙂
 

Fair enough. If they hadn't been attacking civilians as well then I wouldn't have had to qualify my statement with "when they were targeting US or coalition forces". But I still think my assertion that "terrorist attacks are conducted without any realistic hope of achieving any tangible political objective" holds up. I think our eventual decision to leave Afghanistan came despite, rather than because of, Taliban attacks against Afghan civilians. If they never attacked US or Coalition forces, there would have been no pressure for us to leave (and apparently we are still maintaining some personnel in Iraq, so militant attacks on civilians in Iraq have been especially ineffective at getting us to leave). As far as I know, no person or non-governmental organization has ever achieved a tangible political objective by killing civilians*.
*I had to specify non-governmental organizations because obviously governments have sometimes achieved political objectives by killing civilians. The objective of crushing unrest has been achieved on several occasions by massacring protestors. And the objective of justifying a war has been achieved on several occasions by conducting false flag attacks that resulted in civilian deaths. This caveat probably doesn't ruin my point though, since when governments kill civilians it normally isn't considered a terrorist attack.

Actually the same people who were attacking us in Iraq, were also blowing up gas stations full of civilians lined up waiting for gas, shooting up crowds of students waiting to sign up for school, and/or blowing up busloads of people heading out on a pilgrimage or the Hajj. So although they might be guerillas when they attacked Coalition forces. They were terrorists in every other sense of the word.

I personally think that would be way too complicated and there are several reasons it would be a non-starter.
First is national security. You'd have to outsource the production to China or Iran as no western manufacturing company would touch it with a ten foot pole. The instant the public found out about it the crazy mobs would descend and cancel the company because their drone had the audacity to assume a soldier's gender.
Second is the programming needed. The amount of variables that would need to be processed would probably make it the size of a Blackhawk in order to carry the computing power to actually filter through the possible genders to know whether or not the target existed. I thought that maybe to simplify things it could just read the soldier's nametag, but then I remembered how many times I've been somewhere that I was obviously looking at a human that was born with female bits and yet the nametag read Todd, Darryl, or Steve. So that won't work. So then maybe human feature mapping or something, but then there are the memories of interacting with people sporting the thin silky mustache and no adam's apple. By the time the computer was able to make a fair and reliable distinction the drone could be batted out of the air with a tennis racket.
Third and the most worrysome in our day and age of expecting PGM strikes with our newly developed SSW (Scrotum Seeking Warhead), is the actual location of the target. The young may not realize the vast variations in altitude of the target that are somewhat dependent upon the age of the host. Any host over 40 that gets attacked by one programmed for the normal altitude would probably walk away with just some singed hair, grumbling about kids and their toys these days. This doesn't even factor in the environmental aspects. Is it 110F in the shade producing much lower hanging fruit? Or is -20F where the drone will have to gently massage them out of the abdominal cavity before detonation?
Overall, I think it is much too complicated. It would be best to make them go for the kneecaps, as everyone has those, and then on very warm days or against older soldiers you could still get your desired effect without all the extra processing power.  

Apparently over the last week:
- War is over
- War is not over but Ukraine is doomed
- War is over for Ukraine but not Russia
- It is all the West’s fault.
Whelp that was interesting….

What makes you think the Russians are going to advance "deep into Ukraine"? Their performance so far shows no evidence that Russia will advance more than a few hundred meters before the UA pushes them back.

I did 20+ years in the US Army. I went to Desert Storm and did 2 tours in Iraq. You have no idea at all about our professionalism and our capabilities. You know even less about Americans and what we will or will not fight for. Drop this stupid argument, and let's get back on topic.

You forgot the part where no one in the neighborhood ever invites you to the monthly BBQ.  You get awkward dinners with the Chinese couple next door, but it is just so...not normal.  And that weird sweaty NK guy who lives all alone in the house where the lights are never on wants to be your best friend.  

I did 20+ years in the US Army. I went to Desert Storm and did 2 tours in Iraq. You have no idea at all about our professionalism and our capabilities. You know even less about Americans and what we will or will not fight for. Drop this stupid argument, and let's get back on topic.

I did 20+ years in the US Army. I went to Desert Storm and did 2 tours in Iraq. You have no idea at all about our professionalism and our capabilities. You know even less about Americans and what we will or will not fight for. Drop this stupid argument, and let's get back on topic.

I did 20+ years in the US Army. I went to Desert Storm and did 2 tours in Iraq. You have no idea at all about our professionalism and our capabilities. You know even less about Americans and what we will or will not fight for. Drop this stupid argument, and let's get back on topic.

I did 20+ years in the US Army. I went to Desert Storm and did 2 tours in Iraq. You have no idea at all about our professionalism and our capabilities. You know even less about Americans and what we will or will not fight for. Drop this stupid argument, and let's get back on topic.