Vanir Ausf B

More like a rat.
In a series of interviews published as a quasi-autobiography during his rise to power two decades ago, Putin recalled chasing big rodents with a stick around his dismal, communal apartment building in St. Petersburg, then known as Leningrad: 
“There, on that stair landing, I got a quick and lasting lesson in the meaning of the word ‘cornered.’ There were hordes of rats in the front entryway. My friends and I used to chase them around with sticks. Once I spotted a huge rat and pursued it down the hall until I drove it into a corner. It had nowhere to run. Suddenly it lashed around and threw itself at me. I was surprised and frightened. Now the rat was chasing me. It jumped across the landing and down the stairs. Luckily, I was a little faster and I managed to slam the door on its nose.”
https://www.vice.com/en/article/v7dxax/the-new-russia-anxiety-what-putin-might-do-if-he-feels-cornered
 

Fighters of UKR special police regiment "Safari" (this is combined unit, composed from different police units servicemen, mainly from KORD and riot police) were ambushed, when drove through the village. Several fighters being driven clinging bihind the armored car where wounded and fell on the road. One fighter probably disembarked to cover them. They engaged the enemy. Cameraman is wounded, other guy, who fell the first says he injured in the hand
 

Interesting video about a tank-supported infantry attack on RU position in Kharkiv region.  Battalion commander watch w drone and commanded using that info -- like he was playing CM 😆
 
 

TLDR: surprisingly small relative drop to the total amount of about 800 pieces total.

https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy50cmFuc2lzdG9yLmZtL2Zyb20tdGhlLWNyb3dzLW5lc3Q/episode/YmY2MjQ5YTctYWVkNi00MjVlLTgyMzMtOTQxOGMzODlkMzZj?ep=14
"From The Crows Nest" podcast,  an EW centric show. For the civvies among us,  it's very useful.
Now,  Some episodes can be insanely mil-nerdy, with serving officers regurgitating an unholy mix of densely packed acronyms and obsure doctrinal references. If this is how bad mil-speak can get,  well my oh my am I glad I never did more than that one evening in the FCA. 
But every guest knows their stuff and just as importantly so does the host. 
There's some notable bits in this episode,  esp re Gen. Ben Hodges trying to freely move M1s around Europe on land (spoiler, he couldn't) and those knock-on implications for Ukraine NATO-ising its tank fleet VS. the existing national physical infrastructure to actually get them from A-> B. 
Have a listen. 

I can't speak for Japan. For Germany I think especially some US forum members seem to misunderstand the role the Allies played in bringing about the change in German culture.
To start with, I'm not sure how much of a cultural change there actually was between, say, 1930 to 1960. The Nazis were not elected because Germans believed in all this aryan superiority nonsense or were convinced of the need for war for Lebensraum. They were elected because Germany was among the countries hit hardest by the worldwide economic crisis and had stopped trusting in the democratic system that was known for petty power squabbles and being unable to keep public order. Under the Nazis the economical situation improved, there was work for everyone, people could even go on vacations. Some lost territory was "reintregated" ... as some historian put it: had Hitler died in mid '39 he'd be counted among the greatest German leaders today. Still, there was no enthusiasm for war whatsoever at that time. Also the society was not nearly as "nazified" as Hollywood wants to make us believe. On the countryside it was still pretty much the church who ruled daily life. There was antisemitism, yes, but only up to a point. Public violence was still frowned upon (well, don't look, don't tell and all). In short, the hardcore nazis were more of a minority, most were chameleons, conformists, people who adapted to the system and were most interested in living their lives without being bothered. Don't get me wrong, many thought that Hitler had some good points. Antisemitism and some sense of superiority was common sense at the at the time and the Germans hadn't forgotten the Versailles contracts and the humiliation. Of course after the victory over France many held Hitler high regard. But they were not hardcore ideological Nazis.
Having survived the war and the chaos in the years directly after, the Germans wanted to just get on with their lives.
Denazification didn't really happen, at least not by the Allies. The Nuremberg trials did make sure that noone could say afterwards he didn't know. While they were a powerful sign that regimes could be held accountable for their deeds, it also gave the common German a bunch of scapegoats. Denazification among the common population was effectively rather symbolic. Most importantly the whole civil service was left largely untouched - our third chancellor, Kiesinger, had been a somewhat higher ranking Nazi. At least that quickly enabled a functioning state (compare to Iraq...). The civil servants functioned in the new system just as well as in the old system.
Generally, people knew of the war and what had happened at that time (although many claimed otherwise). But it was not spoken about. Former Nazis rarely ended in court because most of the judges had already been judges under the Nazis. And because the Germans didn't want to be reminded of the time and their deeds, people who tried were generally being frowned upon or even seen as traitors.
This really only changed with the next generation who suddenly demanded to know what their parents had done. That is what brought about a slow(!) change in culture.
What was vastly more important than denazification was what became known as the economic miracle. The Germans profited from the new system, their lives became objectively better. This is also where the US come into play: The Marshall plan, while strictly speaking did not do that much in reality (in the and it was all paid for by Germany), was brilliant because those signs everywhere "built with the help of the Marshall plan" connected the new good life with the Allies and the West in general. Then there was France (under de Gaulle) who extended their hands in friendship, the Queen came for a visit and all that. And then of course we discovered that we can just go on vacations if we want to see other countries 😉

https://old.reddit.com/r/CombatFootage/comments/xrl5cf/ukrainian_combat_footage_sept_29th/
interesting video of a raid on RUS positions in Kherson with commentary.
Russian artillery has pre-sighted pretty much everything Response time of the artillery is only couple of minutes

Not a friend and I do appreciate your contempt for a certain kind of think tanker apparatcik. But I think he's really on to something about the choices and mistakes of the Russian elite. We can read his book when it comes out and see if "pants" is the right term. 
Fiona Hill is, here, quite on point: 
https://www.newyorker.com/news/letter-from-bidens-washington/what-if-were-already-fighting-the-third-world-war-with-russia?mbid=social_twitter&utm_brand=tny&utm_source=twitter&utm_social-type=owned&utm_medium=social
 

A thread from Dara Massicot. Hard to summarize, definitely worth reading:
 

A suggestion: think less about dubious ethnic essentialism and/or pretty fantasizing about a post-Russia world. Instead, try to imagine how this war ends. It's a far more salient question and harder likely than you think. 
https://www.newyorker.com/culture/annals-of-inquiry/how-the-war-in-ukraine-might-end

Close-range tank fight:
 

Infamous old USSR school RU Nat Alksnis commits thought crime (from his VK, sorry did not save the link. Adjusted for readability)
Alsknis laid out how they are going to throw Putin under the bus - he is traitor/western puppet who sabotaged RU defense capabilities and caused it to lose war with Ukraine.

That's honestly a rather strange analysis Steve.
All the - I'd say - "solid success" stories are to no small part a result of their integration into the Common Market and etc. provided by the European Union. I think that this thread has gone in quite a few orbits around how wrong/right was the Ostpolitik that the EU implemented to integrate, in some sense, the Russian Federation. Something that if anything, after recent events, seems to me way, way far removed from what will be possible in the near future.
Vietnam as you say is an interesting case study where making amends on past misguided, ideologically-driven political-military interventions and the existence of a common enemy/rival (China, which let's remember, invaded Vietnam too, in an example of "big fish eats eat small fish" international relations) has certainly resulted in a non-alignment and economical partnership that has greatly benefited Vietnam. Still, I would say that nobody would say that Vietnam is a democratic country, and questioning the Party line in any way - even if you happen to be a double citizen from a Western country - gets you thrown into a dank dungeon in Hanoi.
South Korea wasn't occupied, but I think it is fair to say that it is sovereignty was kind of "closely monitored" for decades, until the corrupt military dictatorship there collapsed in the late 1980s. So not really a beacon of freedom and liberty because of good relations with the West, but rather in spite of. Hence the rather - at times - dubitative approach of South Korea to jump ship with the USA and Japan (with whom South Korea still has some beef to cut).
Can't say much about Mongolia, to be honest.
And regarding Serbia... not only was bombed by NATO (and the aerial campaign of 1999 is matter of great debate how effective was at actually destroying the Serbian army capabilities) but the West changed de facto the recognised international borders and still has, what I can't help describing as a garrison on Kosovo. The process of integration with European Union requires nation states to trade off sovereignty for prosperity (and I would argue future liberty and freedom too, thinking that also Spain and Greece had military dictatorships in place which were great friends of the USA, at least after 1956 in the Spanish case).
Another interesting case study is Iraq (or Afghanisthan)... probably as providing a counterexample to the kind of political-diplomatic engineering that I was referring to in my post.

Thanks for saying out loud the bit part, Allen.
The last few days in this thread have made me quite uncomfortable as folks were fantasizing about breaking up the Russian Federation as if if they were playing Paradox Interactive's Europa Universalis, where you invade a country like France and partition it into bits like the Duchy of Brittany and the Principality of Burgundy to ensure that it doesn't come back to eat you... or giving a nation the treatment of vampires in the traditions of the Southern Balkans, where vampires are gone only when you pretty much cut them up into teeny tiny bits and set them of fire. All this talk of obliterating this and that without even pausing 1 second to consider the enormity of what is being proposed and the means necessary to carry it out may be okay for a couple posts, but after days of writing in circles, honestly it is a bit tiring.
Hobbesian man-eats-man anarchy isn't a good state of affairs in international relationships (I think).

Agreed.

The bug report did note that "all" M2 .50 machine guns in the game were affected. So the issue was accurately reported even if not every affected unit was listed by name.
Then you'll be happy to know that aside from getting a free copy of the game to test we are not paid anything for finding/reporting bugs.

Agreed.

Agreed.

NS pipelines were sabotaged by Russia. They took a card out of the deck. Maintenance issues are the cover.
In reality it was a miscommunication at the latest coke party. Someone said "blow?", another said "a line?", then another said "two?".
The local naval commander then took action.
There were reports of US Naval anti-sub activity (sonar drops) in the area, like they were tracking or looking for  something. But, that's just RUMIT. I am sure by now if there was hard evidence, it would be out.
 
 

I find MacKay's constant use of non-English native speaker propaganda words like 'rashist invaders' to be an annoying affectation.
Is would be more amusing if fake Scotsman guy spoke mock pidgin Russiaglish, like 'Boris Alotovkrap' who used to troll (the other trolls) on ZH.
Death to moose and squirrel....

Well, BFC has not done a bug fixing patch (aside from PBEM++ issues) in a long time, so we can write reports until our fingers bleed and it doesn't matter until they do. As someone who also plays the game for fun I share your frustration, but I have faith it will happen. Eventually 😉

The bug report did note that "all" M2 .50 machine guns in the game were affected. So the issue was accurately reported even if not every affected unit was listed by name.
Then you'll be happy to know that aside from getting a free copy of the game to test we are not paid anything for finding/reporting bugs.

You mean Currywurst? Don't insult the Currywurst or we two have a problem!
Btw, goes extremely well together with a Pilsbier - which you might know of.
And navy - yes. Underfunded for nearly 30 years, it has been shrunk to uselessness.
There is a very long list of problems, but the root cause is that no one wanted to have an army because it was seen as a useless waste of money after the Cold War was over. We are surrounded by friends, why do we need weapons? And projecting military power into others lands was (and is) seen as militaristic, imperialistic, historically inappropriate and generally a bad idea.
And this: you, dear reader, may live in a country where you are proud of your army. We are not.

Well, BFC has not done a bug fixing patch (aside from PBEM++ issues) in a long time, so we can write reports until our fingers bleed and it doesn't matter until they do. As someone who also plays the game for fun I share your frustration, but I have faith it will happen. Eventually 😉

https://warontherocks.com/2022/09/russias-plan-to-stay-in-the-war/
Ukraine positioning in Harkiv. Maybe for winter maybe for a new attack Risk of nuclear use the highest since 1983. Still low likelihood but with such huge event small percentage becomes unacceptable Russian nuclear doctrine is not relevant here as a predictor Russians are watering down any deterrence the Crimea might have had in the past by equating this years conquests to it. Mobilization practically puts Russia in a "war time state". "I don't believe the Russian number at all" (the 300 000 number). Looks to be as total mobilization as they can manage. Both industry and manpower. It is a phased general mobilization. Mobilization is going to rollout for the next year in many phases. Now strategy to get manpower fast to the front. Up to 100 000 right away. Stop-loss policies are significant part of mobilization. All present and past professionals are included. Hastily send reinforcements to worn out units. "on the job training". Hastily formed "LNR and DPR type" light infantry formations coming to "plug the holes". New formations coming in 3-4 months to "hopefully" do rotations on the line. They are afraid of significant Ukrainians successes and are in a hurry with the mobilization. Mobilization solves the issue of quantity, not quality. Overall quality of the force is going to significantly lower. The outcome of the mobilization is "worrying" to Kofman. We have not seen anything like this in the resent past and the manpower being mobilized seems to be very significant. Long term reaction of the homefront remains unknown.  Big question is what Russian force looks like after winter. Mobilization might very significantly extent the war. If nothing drastic doesn't happens soon. Russian protest are insignificant and localized. What about when successive waves of mobilization happen? Stalin had a mobilization regime, Putin has a non-mobilization regime. (talking about general participation of the population) There always was two point of no return, mobilization and annexation. Now the first happened and the second one is imminently expended. Russia is now coupling itself to the outcome of this conflict. Possible any future regimes as well. International support horizon will now move to next year and the year after that. Sustainment is important.  Russians are now making a full bet on winning with time and will. Russians would be way more willing to lose to NATO than Ukraine. Russian leadership might indeed see itself losing to NATO inform of assistance Ukraine is getting.