dan/california

Thank you very much for such a detailed summary. This took a lot of work.

The news blackout makes good military sense, but bleep me it is crazy making. Game bone maybe? pretty please? sugar on top and an open ended pre order? We just pay you now and all you have to do is throw a bone a week?

Missile guidance used to be a hard problem. It just isn't anymore if you have access to undegraded GPS data, and TSMC's services. I am not really joking when I say that the hardest thing about using a newish iphone for a guidance system is just getting the control signals out of it, and that isn't that hard. I am sure your real world performance goes way up if you can get a little help from the U.S. Air Force unit that specializes in routing them to avoid radar and such. Or maybe just some quiet consultations with retired people from said unit you mysteriously found in nice apartments in Warsaw. The next big defense industry winner is going to be the best laser system to shoot down all the low to mid grade flying things that want to kill you. Because it is going to #^#&& ###(&^^ to show to the next war without said pieces of equipment. It appears you will need a system for literally every platoon of mechanized anything, all the way back down the logistics train as well. Being a superpower is expensive, but losing is even more so. You can ask the Russians how it feels. Edit: I mean the "suicide drones" that Iran sold the Russians are just small cruise missiles with a data link. I am not saying the Iranians are stupid, but they don't exactly have a world class industry in much of anything, just some oil money and a fair bit of determination. Unfortunately that also suffices to put them on the verge of making nukes as well.

It was bad enough when one side had more or les declared an information blackout, it really bites now that both of them have. Steve, could you possibly give us a small game bone to argue about until there is some credible information about the war?

It is very clear that Starlink is a brilliant piece of work technically. The only problem is that Musk owns it, and he is losing his bleeping mind, twitter at $44.20 a share being exhibit A. The Pentagon should either buy it outright, or "encourage" Musk to sell it to one of the major defense contractors who has experience with overcharging the government while creating the minimum possible drama. There is enough drama just now.

That is the video you want the starving conscripts on the other side to see.

One of the Russian's fundamental mistakes is mistaking toughness for effectiveness.

She is really hoping for a new Lada...

I realize there is a large bias towards things that produce videos easily, but these seem like the most dangerous thing in the Russian army? Will those drone jammers in the last Ramstein care package help?

99% this is Russians falling for a plywood dummy. No secondaries at all. Interesting that they released the vid.

Translation us below, Mobiks not having a good time. Or much of a life expectancy.

I suspect we now know why there was massacre of Russian helicopters the other day. it might also explain the lack of video, Ukraine might not want to give the Russians a free look at what they did wrong. This will move the fall of Kherson right along. I was really hoping Ukraine would have the resolve to deploy these to the front lines instead of trying to defend too many civilian targets with not nearly enough systems. The best defense is winning the bleeping war. My opinion of Zelensky, and the AFU general staff is even higher now, if that was possible.

Which is at odds with the level of mobilization implied by grabbing people off the Moscow subway. Is the failure of mobilization actually being encouraged to undercut Ru Nat support, and allow for some sort of climb down? I suppose it is entirely possible in a regime as shambolic as this one that different factions are working on completely different plans?

Is there any satellite imagery of that Siegfried line type defensive belt yet? I am really curious if it is a real effort or another potemkin/propaganda attempt to convince the Russian public the Russian army is still functioning?

It seems the Putin regime is all in on this mobilization insanity. They seem to be aiming for absolutely maximum chaos with minimum military effect. So is the regime going to fail under the weight of its own stupidity? Or are Ukraine and General winter going to have to kill and maim a couple of hundred thousand of these mobiks first? I am not seeing a third choice. U.S./NATO needs to absolutely maximize support immediately. Ukraine winning fast is now the only way to avoid a generation of Russian men from being fed into the meat grinder, more or less literally.

The complete destruction of the economic system that underpinned Oligarchs subject to Russian influence is an underestimated factor in how this has all worked out.

As you said, the system works brilliantly, just pay the man. Then tell him he will be charged with a Logan act violation if tries this private diplomacy thing again. This is EXACTLY the situation the law was written for.

You are channeling a decade or two of Steve here. One of the few good things to come out of this whole war is is that we can never again complain about the AI and say a real person would never do that. Because there is tape of Russians doing that, over, and over again. And yes I realize you were not really talking about game design, but the forum has been arguing about pathing Since its founding. I fully agree with your actual argument. All we can do is create a "possibility space" and try to guess at probabilities. Edit: And path dependency is extremely high.

He might be the front line, but if he the front line is backing up at steady jog, with occasional sprints for incoming. He will keep going until he hits a unit under competent command that is trying to hold, or until he is too tired to put one foot in front of the other. If he is smart his next move would be to throw his rifle in the bushes, put up a white flag, and hope the AFU doesn't take all day. As an aside that is a BETTER than average Russian unit, they are really trying to get their wounded out.

Allow me to repeat my little broken record speech. A revolution in Belarus that rips it out of Russian orbit, is the biggest possible victory in this war. If they attack Ukraine and the AFU can simply take Minsk and install the opposition that is currently in jail, or the Baltic States it is lights out, game over, drop the mike and walk away. Hopefully an entire alphabet of three letter agencies are trying to make it happen. As much as I would like to see him on a lamp post it would be worth giving Lukashenko some ironclad guarantees, and a flight to the UAE or wherever. From the Belarusan border Moscow would be in ATACMS range.

Far to good looking. You need someone who brings that sense of wrong that wafts off of putin.

https://www.google.com/maps/place/Krokhmal'ne,+Kharkiv+Oblast,+Ukraine,+63742/@49.6154695,37.4837432,9.64z/data=!4m5!3m4!1s0x4120e6bca1824865:0x170085de7e4a0480!8m2!3d49.5750146!4d37.9171165 AFU have definitely cut the P 07 north of Svatove if this checks out, and there are geolocated videos. Looks like the AFU wants at least one more chunk before winter.

What makes that tire worth dragging around? Also, do we need to take up a collection for a couple of truckloads of two inch webbing? These guys are carrying everything the hard way.

The rats are in full abandon ship mode. I hope these two have a long cold swim, followed by involuntary induction into the Moskvas crew. Edit: Outposted by Fancy Cat