dan/california

Here is the thing, Hamas just started a REAL WAR. Hamas has never fought a real war. Even the master class they just gave in terrorist atrocities was not a real war. They have no artillery, no meaningful medium or high altitude air defense, and no strategic depth at all. Israel will take a lot of casualties from mines, drones, IEDs and the general ugliness of urban fighting, but Hamas can't just STOP them the way Ukraine has stalled in those truly massive minefields, backed up by huge quantities of artillery and MLRS, including MLRS that can refill breaches in minefields. Not with the Israeli Air Force being willing to drop buildings wholesale. Hamas has withstood some police actions, and some punitive strikes in the past. Unless i am seriously mistaken this is going to be a completely different thing.

I strongly suspect they are going to be told to take the casualties, and also to drop any building they take fire from. We are looking at something ten to one just by troop numbers. Israel wants the south wrapped up, before the Hezbollah really gets in the game.

Russia is going all in for a propaganda victory to shake at the world, along with the Hamas thing. Hopefully what they will get will be a lot of casualties, and a counter attack. They clearly cleared routes for their attack, maybe Ukraine can follow them right back through their own mine fields.

Tolkien was something close seer.

It is quite possible we didn't get the tape of this rocket being fired because it detonated in the tube and obliterated anyone with fifty meters.

This is purely my personal opinion. I think the Israelis are going to launch a truly all out ground assault on Gaza, and at least temporarily reoccupy it.

7min ago The northern border is heating up, slowly , but surely.

You have to watch the video.

So do the Israelis stop at the Gaza border to negotiate about hostages, or just reoccupy the the whole thing as fast as they can grind through it? I can see it going either way.

Well at the moment I think he is MUCH more likely to leave prison feet first than he is to be the next Czar. And yes, that is a good thing.

It seems The Pickle has time to write in prison.

This works!

Truly excellent that their is bipartisan agreement on this in the Senate. Now the House just needs to achieve some minimum level of functionality.

Steve has never felt more justified.

Yet, a very big yet on that one. Trains are almost as easy to ID as helicopters, and a lot easier to hit. The more I think about this the more I think Ukraine should do it soonest.

Brilliant fieldcraft from the guy in the first video, I had to watch the video three times.

Hit the big metal thing moving down the rail line does seem to be about the easiest bit autonomous AI a person could write. I am sure it would quickly lead to various sorts camouflage for the locomotives, although that might be harder if the drone had thermals.

Oh I am absolutely certain of that. That is why My congressman is about to get ANOTHER letter about ammo production, among other things.

This is what happened with the Russian invasion of Ukraine, and it what just happened in Gaza. Both of these adventures have to be punished so severely that some level of deterrence is reestablished, or things are just goig to keep coming off the rails.

Except that age of great power competition end rather unpleasantly. I think the reality of nearly absolute one man rule in so many countries also really increases the risk.

I think it also proof that drones and missiles, at least in the quantities possessed by the Ukrainians still can't compensate for not having a real functioning air force. Two hundred JDAM-ERs in to the Russian back field every day would truly shatter their logistics. Ukraine just doesn't have the throw weight. It doesn't help that few if any of their long range systems can engage moving targets. One of the things they have not been able to do is launch a concerted campaign against Russian locomotives. I ideal world no Russian train would ever get to make a two way trip into Ukraine.

Putin is losing the war in Ukraine, not nearly fast enough, but he is losing it. He knows that if he starts a war with NATO that he will either lose much worse, or that unpleasant MAD thing will come into play. Still hard to sell that as a plan. I think he has instead consciously at least encouraged if not helped the Iranians to kick off a new mess in the Middle East in the attempt to somehow salvage something. The very large question is just how much of the Iranians shopping list has he supplied to convince them to go along.