dan/california

~54 times the ammo tonnage per day, pretty much explains why the Iraqi army just went away.

Could you re-release it as a mobile app? I realize you wouldn't want to spend ages on it, but if the rights were available? For triple extra points either include it as an extra with an Eastern Front game bundle. For 10x points you could put it out at a slightly inflated price, and donate all the profits to Ukraine.

Has Putin fallen into Trump's worst habit? By which I mean sitting around all day watching his own propaganda? So getting a viewpoint on this show is the only way to get it in front of him?

And then you lose, badly...

I have a VERY fragmentary impression that their is an attempt to exchange some or all of the Azovstal wounded for Rusian POWs. Again based on Very fragmentary information, and it is in process, and who the bleep knows if it will work, ect. They are all heroes, just hope they live to have lots of grandkids.

Given Russian performance so far blind panic is a given. I also think they didn't realize it was a mine, maybe thought is was an ATGM, and decided to sprint for what they perceived as cover. It went about as well as the whole Russian campaign, and I don't think we can ask them for an AAR...

Azovstal deserves to echo down the ages as long as the Spartans at Thermopile have. As strong a stand as any in human history.

You don't have to be all that deep to figure out that the people who stuck you in a badly built trench with no food or ammunition, to act as target practice for 155mm VT, are not your friends. There is also that spectacular SNAFU with making a DPLR unit hold on the Ukrainian side when the Russian units were running all the the way to Belgorod. Even really dim folks get a clue with lessons like that.

From wikipedias summary of the Peloponnesian War "Seizing its opportunity, the Spartan fleet sailed at once to the Dardanelles, the source of Athens's grain. Threatened with starvation, the Athenian fleet had no choice but to follow. Through cunning strategy, Lysander totally defeated the Athenian fleet, in 405 BC, at the Battle of Aegospotami, destroying 168 ships." People have been fighting over the control of the grain supply from the Black Sea for 2500 years.

Is there going to be ANYONE left in the DPR by the time this is over?

Two thoughts on the dam, worth what you paid... 1) This is a section of front where both side have been digging since 2014 if I am flipping back and forth between map windows correctly, so Ukraine probably doesn't want to attack here regardless. 2) It could be an attempt to compensate for drying weather, and maintain AFV unfriendly conditions on this section of front for longer.

Ru lost less tanks/AFVs, and more artillery yesterday than my mk1 eyeball of the recent trend. Reflects that they don't have enough left to keep attacking as hard, maybe? And tried to push more guns forward to maintain pressure?

Trying to hold the line to the north east of Kupiansk with DPR/LPR conscripts that were rounded up and shoved in the back of a truck a whole two days ago seems like a huge red flag that the Russians should just quit and go home. Because those poor bleeps are going to do one of two things, run like bleep, or surrender at the first airburst.

Firmly in the rumor category, but at least some indication Putin might not be done digging yet.

Best cartoon of the war so far!

The urgency of getting a DOD wide license for CM professional edition is hard to overstate....

If you don't have an answer for the next version of this thing, the one that is not someones senior class project, and happens to drop some sort of nifty guided round, don't show up for the next war.

It would have saved everyone time and hearing damage if the Ukrainians had put up the angelic 7 year old girl whose song video went viral from a Kyiv bomb shelter early in the war. The result was foreordained regardless.

They clearly don't think they can handle the backlash, there just isn't any other explanation. So they are hunkering down and hoping for some sort of demonic miracle. The other, small, possibility is that Putin either is terminally ill, or has convinced most of the regime that he is. And the entire system is frozen in a state of behind the scenes conflict to see who gets the job next. The FSB may think it improves its odds if the army is almost completely destroyed in Ukraine. If the various factions think the top job really is in play, the larger national interest isn't even a consideration.

Russia is experiencing geo-political bankruptcy, and all its bills are coming due at once. I think there is no way the Russian army last until August. Even in an information system as closed as Russia's it has to be getting around that the only thing you are leaving Ukraine with is a missing limb or two. once that sinks in it is a simple choice between mass desertion, and mass surrender.

Incendiary cluster bombs have been a thing since at least the later stages of WW2. They are what the B-29s used to burn down most of Japan.

I would argue that the U.S is at least some risk of this same Air force heavy, artillery light doctrine going forward, as SAMs and drones, and very soon lasers just make manned aircraft unviable. I don't think we can assume the Chinese are quite as clueless as the Russians, and they surely taking careful notes on what has and has not worked in Ukraine.

The Egyptian crossing of the Suez worked because the Israeli's had committed to an airpower heavy, artillery light doctrine. The Soviets gave the Egyptians SAMs that worked, and the Israeli's could not interdict effectively. Classic case of getting caught over learning the last war, where the Israeli air force had been utterly dominant.

I find much of this to be convincing.