LongLeftFlank

Nope, the Android device I use only offers a very few formatting icons. And nothing additional appears when I highlight text.

Nice on the ground reporting, though dated 18 August, from the battered Black Sea city of Mikolaiev and the nearby Kherson front. https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v44/n16/james-meek/blast-effects (I have no idea how to insert a quote box unless it's a quote from another post)

Yeah, Twitter has turned the screws again: first they disabled the icon to shut the 'Sign Up Now' popups but you could still get around them by clicking through and then hitting Back. Not any more. https://nitter.net/ seems to be the next best option, although it can be slow.

Agreed. Here's the meme I would have mobilised personally, although I don't Tweet.... https://thumbs.worthpoint.com/zoom/images1/1/0715/15/little-orphan-annie-poster-tribune_1_3e99246f2adc43390d0038fb1227187f.jpg

1. Collapse comes in many forms. Hmm, has Uber pulled out of Russia? Should it be boycotted? 2. More quality after-action forensics by Danspiun.... 3. Wow, pretty heavy stuff to be calling down on a tactical formation.

If you stare long enough, eventually Godzilla appears. Just like magic!

Hey, let me post something actually OT. Just read an interesting piece by an author I respect (though often differ with) on the idea of Russia-Germany as a historical counterweight to the (perfidious!) Anglo-Saxons. Which purports to explain some of Germany's diffidence toward Putin. https://policytensor.substack.com/p/the-moscow-berlin-line ... I mean, other than some slight unpleasantness in 1914-18 and 1941-45. As a longtime Diplomacy player, I find this thesis interesting, but it doesn't in fact flange that well with history, and kind of ignores other major players like France and the non-Russian Slavs.

Serves me right for trying to be humourous and snarky when a skull shooting freeking laser beams from its eyes is patrolling the thread.... I once had a high concept gourmet dinner (on a client's dime) in Barcelona. One of the 8 courses was rabbit paired with stingray (chased down IIRC with a mellow Tokaj). So I mused aloud whether the rabbit was fed on stingray, or the reverse, or whether they both got starved, tossed into a shallow pool and left to fight it out.... Sorry, where was I again? Shall I tiktok a few bars of 'Farewell to Nova Scotia' over to you? ... And btw Sir, you really do need to get an avatar. That generic "T" just doesn't cut it any more. Unless you're a Toronto grad, or like yodeling (not that there's anything wrong with either....) Suggestions follow: And here ends my OT catechism. The Ignore button is over there.

"If Putin invaded the Dalek Empire, I would belt out at least one Ex-TERRRRR- mi-NATE!!!! in the Citadel of Gallifrey." -- The Eighth Doctor

No doubt some corpses will be conveniently found. Perhaps garbed as sinister British commandos! ....And in the pocket of one will be found a droll note from Lord Mountbatten: "He might bring some sardines with him - they are 'on points' here!" Jolly good!

EDIT/ Removed as off topic and nobody wants to go here. Figure it out.

But I think that's the thesis of 'fog eating snow' that's being discussed here (aside: that's either 'snow that eats fog' or 'fog that eats snow', or maybe both, I dunno). Punctuated equilibria or sumfink. .... Trying for that Big Buildup (Mass!) followed by that 1944 or 1991 'Big Push to the Green Fields Beyond' at this time in miltech only seems to bog down in a bloodbath of more-or-less accurate heavy artillery. Neither side has really made it work since Feb, or not at an acceptable price. So it seems better now on the attack to eat the elephant one bite at a time: avoid presenting dense targets by sending only enough forces into close contact to force the defender to reinforce (it's also possible some of them may crack and rout). Then whack those noobs while they're still on the move and not dug in. Eat the snow (or the fog)! ....If you're HIMARs-rich, you also whack their entire LOC as far back as you can, railheads, airfields, HQs, etc. There are several variants on that theme, but that's my current dumbed down grasp of it.

Amazed nobody's posted any Bairnsfather yet in this thread.... My personal favourite....

Even the most generic looking terrain can be geolocated by a savvy analyst. (Hopefully this video is stale dated)

Have a blast, kid.... **** Things happening on the 'quiet front' between Dniepr bend and Donetsk? Hulyaipole.

MOD Defence Intelligence 'probably' showing some attitude.... Interesting backstory: Since his father was one of Tyva’s major party bosses, Sergey Shoygu knew many important people. From 1987 to 1989 Boris Yeltsin held a similar position in the construction committee. In 1991, Mr. Shoygu became the head of the Russian Rescue Corps, which, after a series of reorganizations and name changes, became today’s Ministry for Civil Defense, Emergencies and Elimination of Consequences of Natural Disasters, internationally abbreviated as EMERCOM.... In the aftermath of the worst disasters, Mr. Shoygu was always sure to be seen managing the recovery efforts. However, EMERCOM’s structure is peculiar in that it is heavily militarized, which prompts many questions. Why does it count over a hundred generals among its staff? ...President Yeltsin was proactive enough to create a trusted, alternate army – a personal guard that would be able to intervene in case of a political “emergency.”

https://firms.modaps.eosdis.nasa.gov/map/#m:advanced;d:24hrs;l:noaa20-viirs,viirs,modis_a,modis_t,countries,landsat_human;@33.6,47.4,11z Intense fires raging southeast of there, I know it isn't a perfect map of artillery bombardments. **** Also, a few less infantry. Either a very precise first hit or someone planted a remotely detonated mine in that trench.

Quoted this before but.... “If this nice friendliness would spread out in Mordor, half our trouble would be over.” - Samwise

Thanks. My profanity ahem sources tell me that 'чурки' (literally 'wood chips' or sumfink) is technically the crudity for Asiatics (of Siberian origin, go figure). But they also admit the nastiness is interchangeable....

Isn't that traditional Red Army era SOP for MR platoon 'advance to contact' though (yes, I get these are UA troops, but I'd guess this is a training/prop shot)? ...In a combined arms platoon attack, tanks go ahead, while the dismounts follow up 'next to or slightly ahead of' their IFVs (c11:50 of this well done video) ... But where there aren't tanks available, the IFV goes ahead in the tank role, while the dismounts move to flank and envelop. Proliferation of modern ranged ATW since the 1980s makes such tactics rather hazardous of course -- recon by death -- for the IFV crews. The Afgantsy abandoned the idea pretty quickly, in favour of keeping the vulnerable IFVs back as suppressive fire platforms. ...But it may still be on the books as SOP.

Galeev (Kazan Tatar) is more cynical about those 'liberals'. He views the Moscow elites as a hydra (chop one head off, another 2 grow) and should be given the boot entirely (by the provincials) and not shored up by their Western (elite) counterparts. ...unlike the decadent Uzbeks, who will never amount to much. *** Btw, isn't 'Chops' short for черножопый, which is basically the Russian 'n-word'? Not here to be woke police, just curious.

Could be. Kind of like 10,000 games of Arma being played in RL. With infinite rockets, like this one (aren't Javs supposed to be top attack though?): But no respawns....

Hmm, worth requoting a Girkin quote from one of your terrific maps: 6 months of the large-scale phase of the Russian-Ukrainian war have passed... and it has degenerated into a small-scale one... The enemy continues to attack, but already on the scale of a bridge over an irrigation canal, the intersection of secondary roads.... At this rate, a certain time will pass and they will begin to attack individual landmarks with "all available forces" -- a ditch, a standing tree alone or some broken barn in Bogorodichny. ...That cuts both ways of course [/genuflects and spits] Is Strelkov hopping on the 'Frozen Conflict' bandwagon? (apologies to all dads with daughters)