panzermartin
-
Posts
2,299 -
Joined
-
Last visited
Posts posted by panzermartin
-
-
Ironically the most expansionist feature of China was kickstarted from western companies/goverments , mostly US, that transfered all their hardware there to cut the costs and make some more free cash. That started to turn them into the behemoth we are all depended upon and in case of a war this will kickback mercilessly against all of us. Their military expansionism is an infant in comparison. When was the last time China army went to war? Started a war even? I can't remember.
-
4 hours ago, Butschi said:
I agree with amoral but where do you see expansionistic? Not defending China here, just expansionistic, in the traditional military sense isn't really what I would describe them as.
Wait, didn't t you know that China has over 750 military bases all across the globe and is enforcing chinese language, chinese currency, chinese culture and chinese weapons everywhere?
But it's too difficult to write in chinese so we all continue in english here.
-
A new Ukrainian APC mosaic in Bakhmut?
Apart from that, Russians must have gone crazy regarding the diversity of the assets they are against, this must be the most diverse army the world has ever seen. Quite a difficult task to face.
-
13 hours ago, Haiduk said:
Russian T-90M in Bakhmut city center. It fires toward cottadge area, laying south from railway station. The tank stands in about 750 m from railroad
After all those horrendous armor losses, it is strange they are employing their most valuable tank in close street fighting right in the killing zone of UKR arty/drone/AT fire. I was expecting a T-62 there.
-
I was honestly impressed by the mass amount of AA missiles Ukraine fired every day for over a year against the waves after waves of Russian missile, drones and aviation attacks. The majority seemed to be Soviet made also.
I was wondering if they were finally reaching a bottleneck...
-
1 hour ago, Markus86 said:
Or if you focus too much in one direction. Apparantly a russian is sneaking into the trench, while ukrainian soldiers focus on what is in front of them.
Damn... This war is just wrong, seeing your son, brother, friend, husband, father shot in HD. I think after WW1 this the most horrible war for the infantry man. It's just unfair to be infantry nowadays. It always has been, but now it's another level.
-
1 hour ago, Endyamon said:
I would like to know which post war "privileges" we have been deprived of. Nothing changed in Italy even with Meloni (where everyone inside and outside Italy was saying she would have been Mussolini 2.0). What I'm seeing here in Italy and I think in all latin/mediterranean countries, is the lack of will to work. The post WWII privileges were the money given to Europe by USA and the will to work and build everything again for the best. So a part from the lost privilege of getting money from the USA (or big country), now I see no privileges lost.
I overcome your slightly racist remark of lazy southerners that is so 2010s (in fact South works more hours than the North nowadays , just have a look at the holidays and the few hours shops are opened each day. I was in Hague and I was shocked to see something like 12 to 3 and 3-5) here we are open 12 hours straight.
But to answer your question, middle class has been hit hard In all Europe. Prices have gone up in everything , electricity has gone up, France and Belgium are paralyzed because of the pension limit increase among others, public health is compromised. In my country they are moving forward with privatization of water that will lead to skyrocketed prices and probably less quality. We recently had a deadly train accident due to privatization of trains and profits but with not enough investment in the state owned infrastructure. Europe was not built on US money alone but from hard work of war torn europeans and post war immigrants that also set the base of the most generous social system of the globe, that is now in danger.
-
10 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:
Nobody in elite circles think nuclear war is going to improve their profit margins. Which is why we haven't had one so far. For nuclear war, you have to worry about non-elites and accidents.
Steve
I really hope you are right. You are probably are...
But we can go on a larger conventional war on multiple fronts for years before turning nuclear(if ever) . And that will ensure that all the gains we in the West have achieved through decades of social struggles, our freedoms, our standard of living, will go down the drain sacrificed for the "greater cause". That will make the elites very happy. Just look what is happening in Europe right now with major strikes, and people being slowly deprived of post war privileges...
This war is very strange, the way we are willingly sucked into it in an age we had forgotten how to hold a gun in Europe. Maybe it's all about Putin's megalomania maybe not.
-
7 minutes ago, The_Capt said:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2015_Russian_Sukhoi_Su-24_shootdown This? We are talking about this? No, this is a Russian violation of Turkish airspace that prompted a lethal response (that was a hard kill to btw).
Ah, well you squarely have the Great US Satan in your brainpan today and look like are planning on a pretty wide scope logic journey while standing on the righteous hill of “it isn’t fair!”
Can we expect a sequel of how the US and NATO forced Russia into invading a neighbour? Bioweapon black sights and sinister US oil interests? How all those people at Bucha were crisis actors? I mean if you are going to go all crazy in public, why do half measures.
Hey I'm not in the nut camp, thanks. Not yet. But I know elites on both camps are ruthless. Capitalism and war go hand in hand. If all else fails its time for a big war to reshape the markets. Deconstruct to reconstruct. I don't exclude chinese, russian elites or anyone else.
-
Just now, The_Capt said:
Well, yes. US is free to provide bilateral direct support to Ukraine especially from outside the conflict zone. A Russian direct “soft-kill” on a US asset in international waters is technically an act of war. By the logic you seem to be proposing, Russia can conduct attacks on US personnel who are flying these things in Italy, or Nevada. So what would be an “international crisis” by your measuring stick then? Because is we do not have legally defined limits of what is inside and outside this conflict then we are very likely to have a lot of them.
For example, Russia is flying their version of AWACS within Russian airspace who are directly supporting the targeting of civilian housing. Russia industry with links to defence outside of Russia? Russian military outside Russia? Tell me where the redline is then.
(note: by military definitions this was not likely a “soft kill” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Active_protection_system. Looks more like a hard kill by ramming).
I think a NATO F16 shooting down that Su-24 and killing the pilot in the process over Syria was closest to an act of war. In comparison, no, this drone is not important.
US being the dominant as you say, will decide when its a good time to go WW3. Maybe when more banks will start collapsing? We'll see.
-
1 minute ago, Endyamon said:
Well, Russia started the war, not the USA, plus it was in international waters...
One day we must reconsider what we consider "international waters". Its like a term from 17th century and the era of sails. Russia was firing missiles from international Belorussia, Awacs and drones are directly involved in coordinating actions against Russia in the international Black Sea. Seems only like a hole for militaries to exploit given today's tech.
-
11 minutes ago, Tux said:
I assume this is a joke? One bit of turbulence and we have an ‘American drone purposefully rammed our peace-loving fighter jet’ international crisis on our hands…
So a US drone can patrol next to Russian borders, coordinate artillery/troops to kill russian soldiers , coordinate missiles to sink russian warships or bomb russian bases, coordinate US citizens fighting russians on the ground but hey piss some fuel on a unmanned flying object and it is an international crisis. Ok...
-
1 minute ago, Bearstronaut said:
It was completely reckless. The SU-27 could just have easily crashed alongside the Reaper.
I dont think the camera can give us an accurate sense of distance between the two. Plus the Sukhoi is regarded as an exceptionally agile plane. And the footage confirms this.
-
3 hours ago, DesertFox said:
The Black Sea Reaper incident. Looks to me they were exactly knowing what they were doing.
This isnt reckless, its a perfectly executed soft kill of a 32million USD unit with almost zero cost. On the other hand the US shot down chinese balloons wasting multiple 400.000 USD missiles.
Team BRICS win this air circus round
-
4 hours ago, BletchleyGeek said:
I am finding this gentleman's tactical analysis to be a must read
in the comments he foresee that these adaptations won't be very successful (?) in light of the top-down approach that dominates the Russian Army.
I think this links up nicely the ongoing conversation about the duality of mission and direct command with a case study that is quite fresh. In this case, DC is needed to allocate the resources (manpower, supporting arms) that make up these units. Obviously, MC kicks in when these formations are set in motion (much like a robot but made by people and "dumb" vehicles and weapons) and they need to handle whatever contingencies follow from engaging the enemy (e.g. interesting to see the allocation of a demining vehicle).
This is an example of adaptation rather than devolution. It's not clear though that they can implement it well due to materiel and personnel issues. But clearly there is someone, somewhere with both brains and time to come up with ideas...
Very interesting, and useful for future CMBS expansions. (Although who knows what will be the shape of tactical groups after a year or so) .
-
13 hours ago, billbindc said:
This sort of thing happened routinely during the Cold War without things ever escalating into WW3. What close brushes happened were related to mistakes made outside of the warmer conflicts. And that makes sense. Violent proxy wars get a lot of attention or include a lot of 'communication' as the Capt'n would put it. And while deplorable, China supplying Russia with arms actually gives China a lot more say in what Russia does than if it had not.
But Cold War never went that hot, Ukraine 2022 hot. 300.000 military casualties in Europe in a year of conflict , german tanks in the steppes again after 70yrs , US weapons killing russian soldiers en masse. This conflict doesn't feel to have a Cold War vibe, where things never went out of control. Partially thanks to more capable leadership in both camps.
-
So China is crossing the line with arms supply. Pretty fubar situation. Don't want to sound pessimistic but, the endgame seems to be WW3. It always starts "small" and then things escalate out of control. I haven't seen a single step back since Feb24 from any side. Only steps forward to total war.
Are wars just inevitable dark tunnels of human destiny, when there is a bottleneck, economic or social and old and new must clash to give a violent birth to a new world?
Or are the elites pulling the strings to a choreographed destruction and redistribution of power and wealth.
Grateful to have experienced the peaceful and prosperous and years of post WW2. Very insecure about the future:(
-
25 minutes ago, Sekai said:
Prigozhin appears furious, and Wagner's heyday appears to be coming to an end. He should stay away from high-rise buildings
Prigozhin and Wagner almost reminds me of Ernst Rohm and SA. If the regime feels threatend by them and they no longer serve a purpose they will be liquidated. But as long they are doing a better work than the army I'm not sure when this will happen.
-
13 hours ago, Fenris said:13 hours ago, Fenris said:
Short CM level 4/5 of UKR mech-infantry attack(?) looks like M113s
This is how CM BS 2 clip will/should look like I guess. Soviet tanks mixed with Western APCs, white wash terrain with blackened blast marks and shellholes and later modules with Leopards and Abraams (and Armata). Apologies for thinking about wargaming these moments but it is just too obvious thought seeing all the action from drones, the RPG ambushes etc, that all this time CM was the closest (digital) thing to the reality of warfare.
-
1 minute ago, chuckdyke said:
Churchill speaking in the direction of a bugging device.
"Russians are not human at all, on the scale in nature they rank lower than the Orang Hutan."
This only proves the racist inside Churchill. Maybe he was drunk again though.
-
32 minutes ago, Astrophel said:
Without capitalism we would not have personal computers, iPhones
The truth is it took a little Chinese "communism" too to make these affordable (?) to the masses. Capitalism and consumerism has also polluted environment, food, cultures, health systems, politics, polluted arts and sports and its by no means a panacea for the future of humans. We can do better and I would trade a more human center system than fancy ten camera iPhones.
And ultimately I think capitalism is causing the downfall of West and it's ideals rooted in the Athenian democracy and classical era.
Remember West and US particularly created its big and possibly deadly rival in the form of China with the uncontrolled outsourcing and tech export because "capital has no country".
-
So Russians affecting US elections via social media did nothing new after all
-
32 minutes ago, Butschi said:
Of course capitalism "works" but it doesn't work in a way that is useful for society. A good economical system converts greed into productivity. This never actually worked reliably but since WW2 capitalism managed to sell the narrative that it does. Work hard and you will get rich or at least have enough money for a good life. We were fed the stories of people with good ideas who worked hard and became millionaires. We weren't told about survivor bias and that those people ultimate were just those who got lucky. At least up to a decade or two ago it was good enough that a large middle class was created, mostly in the western democracies.
But in the end capitalism is not about hard work, it is, as the name implies, about capital. Which ultimately means making money by having money. And that only works with interests. You lend someone money and expect to get back more than you gave him. Since that is what our whole economy is about we need perpetual growth (because otherwise you can't pay interests). And it is not about hard work. You very rarely get rich by working hard. But if you have money, you very reliably get more money. That is the opposite of converting greed to productivity.
Now, about the middle class: We currently ser a decline of the middle class in many western countries. That's because it was kind of an accident that got corrected by globalization. The middle class are well educated people whom companies needed to produce their ever more complicated products and who thus made the money to actually buy them. Nowadays we have cheap but well educated people in far off countries and still some middle class here to buy stuff but which often largely exists because countries subsidize companies to stay in the country, often making debts in the process. But since one person's debts are another person's capital that model, for now, works even better.
But once AI and automation make the vast majority of jobs vanish (and that will happen!) plus climate change showing us that perpetual growth on a finite planet can't work this whole system is in serious trouble.
Yes AI will have to bring changes to the system. I hope the elite understands they can't put everyone out of work while they hold the keys to automation and the big share of goods. This will either lead to most people going extinct or to another revolution like in 1789. Hopefully the second.
-
23 minutes ago, The_Capt said:
And to completely derail things further, ladies and gentlemen we are officially in the First World Balloon War.
https://www.ctvnews.ca/world/china-says-more-than-10-u-s-balloons-flew-in-its-airspace-1.6271186
https://www.ctvnews.ca/world/u-s-jets-down-4-objects-in-8-days-unprecedented-in-peacetime-1.6271134
The only answer can be a Bond Villain launching them in both directions at the same time. We all knew it was only a matter of time.
Apart from balloons they are also strange exagonical things flying around. https://edition.cnn.com/2023/02/12/politics/unidentified-object-canada-alaska-military-latest/index.html
What is going on, aliens?
How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?
in Combat Mission Black Sea
Posted
It's not that simple
There are many great things about living in the USA era. But we have to admit its the Empire of our times, good or bad.
And yes sometimes, I feel living in american World. Not a german, french, or chinese...Health systems are being privatized, most series, movies are streamed from there, and we suddenly all sing trap. Thank god we we are still watching football (not soccer) here in Europe!