dan/california

It wasn't accidental, Churchill, had to get the pressure off Fighter Commands airfields, whatever the bill. Perhaps the last time A Western leader made a decision that hard.

Depends on how much of the switchgear they fried. So send a complete set of everything for a U.S. heavy brigade, and watch them smash the Russian army into kindling. The latest round of atrocity videos makes it clear that is less than the ruzzians deserve, a LOT less.

Worth pointing out that the amount of GPS jamming around the Kerch bridge right now is probably enough to fry any egg within a kilometer or two. They might have aimed for the center span just to see what one missile did. I really expect Ukraine to hit it again as soon as they try to run any military freight trains over the bridge. Edit: Given how slowly the train will probably need to go they might even try to HIT the first military train. If Five Eyes can read STAVKA's email, they can certainly read the train schedules.

Read the whole thread, there are opinions in it about domestic politics, you were warned..

I thought about this too, the luckiest driver, and the unluckiest. At least it was quick. Which is more than we can say for the random batch of sad sacks the FSB is going. to torture to into confessing to this thing. Bleep me I hope they are guilty of something.

If the above map, and google's distance measurement are correct AFU only needs about ten more kilometers from that notch with Bizemenne at the bottom of it for the 52 caliber SPGs to range the dam. I expect the Russians to hold hard though, because they obviously understand that regular 155 on the dam is the end of the party.

I am really hoping they can ID his unit. They need special GMLRS attention.

Definitely a case for hitting it again.

My opinion of Russian competence is a low as anyone's, but even they seem to understand that 155 range to Nova Khahovka is the only thing that really matters. Their current defensive line appears to have been selected with this exact factor in mind. As soon as they get pushed from any major portion of it, and standard 155 shells start raining on Nova Khahovka the Russian position in the northern part of the pocket is untenable. They will be South of the Inhulets in days. Any defenses around Nova Khahovka proper are pure copium. Musk was not born in the U.S. and therefore cannot be President. I doubt there is any other political job he wants.

It isn't terribly relevant to the war but I think we have excellent evidence the bridge would not do well in even a medium sized earthquake. Unless we happened to get one right there, which would pretty much be god picking a side.

The Russians know what knocked it down. They probably knew in fours hours. The Ukrainians know exactly what they did it with. If was a missile(s) there will be another strike soon. If it was a special ops operation, probably not. Putin will probaly only shoot a few people for the first truck bomb, indeed it sounds like they are going to scapegoat some people whether or not there was actually a truck bomb. But if there is a second, for that first, REAL truck bomb the entire guard force would be headed to front line with Mosin Nagants with orders to charge thru a minefield, at a minimum.

Except that Crimea is completely unviable in even the medium term without the bridge, and the Crimean canal to supply water, On current form Russia will be evicted from in Nova Khahovka, where the canal originates, by Christmas. They might not be there next week. And by not viable I mean an economic millstone chained to Russias neck that it couldn't carry before this war, much less after it. And while I realize I am about to make a legalistic argument about an issue that is going to be settled by force of arms, the annexation of the four Oblasts completely obliterated the idea that Crimea is special, at least on paper. Edit: And if Putin's back up plan was treaty that gives him Crimea, and a guaranteed water supply he should have avoided committing an endless list or warcrimes and atrocities that makes any deal with him whatsoever political suicide in Ukraine. Not convincing the whole world that every word he speaks is a lie would have been helpful with that, too.

Ukraine has spent the last two weeks crossing every red line it could find in order to keep them from becoming accepted assumptions. The attack on the Kherson pocket, the Kerch bridge, and the air base in Russia were all designed to break red lines before the they could become set assumptions in the diplomatic discourse. I am as sure as I can reasonably be with only open source information that they did this very intentionally to retain the freedom of action they need to win this war. i suspect they hit the Kerch bridge before they had as many munitions as they would like for just this reason. Although it is also possible they just wanted to see how the bridge reacted to one or two missiles before used they used five or ten more of something they may not have very many of. A new attack in a week or less would indicate the latter, if it is a month or moreI really think it is the former.

I am guessing it is a very fancy 3D microscope. There are some amazing toys out there when your budget is in the low six figures per piece. That is just the mid grade stuff. Random example https://www.olympus-lifescience.com/en/laser-scanning/fvmpe-rs/ If you have to ask, you can't afford it...

Well said! Liver capacity is important to ration as well.

Same one they had before. Run, die, or surrender, but the schedule has now been moved up A LOT!

Exception that prove the rule...They over paid And watch the air burst version of the ATACAMS or whatever this was hit the repair job at the worst possible moment.

HOLY BLEEP, you have to check the picture! Might not be enough to drop it, but holy bleep!

Can you recommend a book on this little episode, because I think I am a history nerd, and I am clueless on this one. Comments that folks think I am clueless on everything are unnecessary, I know how you feel, you are only right half the time, and I am a stunning genius about socks.

Too good to check.

RU has been phoning in their propaganda the whole war, just not even pretending to try. It was sort of working internally, until mobilization. Now literally nobody on the planet believes them.

Apparently they are geofencing so the Russians can't use it, and the Ukrainians have had issues getting the "fence" adjusted as they advance. It would have been a purely technical problem with an entirely doable solution, but because Musk has been running his mouth and sounding like a tankie there is a massive case of mistrust.

He means the French army has sent so many Caesars that they have units that are short, and basically sitting around until more get built. Since France has sent less than fifty of them it is a case study in the way a lot of NATO militaries just running MUCH too lean on equipment and spares. Building production lines that can build five of something in a year isn't terribly wise.

We don't know, it is a case study in why people like Musk should keep their mouths shut. Because now a couple of billion people are questioning his motives and trust worthiness over what should be a routine technical issue.

If true, this is a big deal. Either Ukrainian SOF teams are stepping it up, or they have nice new domestically produced cruise missile. 150 miles from the nearest Ukrainian territory if I am looking at the right Shaykivka. Edit: I am surprised they weren't keeping those further back, actually.