fireship4

It's hard to pin down what's what in the video, it's not for sure that the clips of the BTR are from the same engagement. There are a few explosions, a lot of tracer, and a lot of dust puffs around the trench. If it was the same engagement, then the impacts are perhaps from the coax, as they are too frequent for the rate of fire the cannon is shown using (the article's second video shows it capable of a higher rate). If they are 30mm then most of them are duds or haven't armed. The explosions could be 30mm, they looked a little big, but without more footage it's hard to say more than that guy better have ear protection, and has a set of balls requiring a gun-case when not at the front.

Surely Chechnya would become iffy if he kicked the bucket... and Dear The War Zone, thank you for a picture on which we can base our future tracer mods, compensating of course for the camera exposure, which we will glean from metadata, and that right soon: Video available in the article: https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/incredible-video-of-soldier-in-ukrainian-trench-totally-unfazed-by-withering-fire

'A Critique of Realism' (using John Mearsheimer as an exemplar of the school) posted by Kraut:

What about on the other side? There has been talk over the last week since Zelenskyy visited the UK about providing 100 Eurofighter Typhoons to Ukraine - they would seem to be Tranche 1, lacking compatibility with the MBDA Meteor. https://www.politico.eu/article/uk-may-send-fighter-jets-to-ukraine-over-long-term-after-zelenskyy-plea/ https://www.forces.net/ukraine/boris-johnson-calls-uk-send-its-jets-and-tanks-help-ukraine-finish-job https://www.forces.net/ukraine/typhoons-not-best-fighter-jet-send-ukraine-expert-says

City control map via Wikipedia:

New episode of In Moscow's Shadows is available (https://feeds.buzzsprout.com/1026985.rss), and I thought I'd share an interview with Michael Kofman from 10 days ago as the source wasn't known to me: https://feeds.acast.com/public/shows/lockdowntv-with-freddie-sayers.

The second by a Russian tank that I remember, in this case combined with engine generated smoke.

Can they stop it with the Wehrmacht markings? You can still fight the Russians.

I like the WiU channel, he seems to know the towns and cities in Russia and Ukraine pretty well from what I've seen, and will often deliver interesting asides. He has his idiosyncrasies, but I like him as another perspective. I forgot to mention Perun (it was just a list of what I use regularly, by no means exhaustive or the only places worth visiting). He is very good in general and popular enough that I'm sure no-one here is unaware of him. Not perfect of course - he makes the odd shaky argument or doesn't get at an underlying system or ideology well enough, perhaps releasing a video without enough of a useful conceptual model, but certainly worth watching, and he obviously does his research. Quite impressive that someone with apparently no background in the subject can produce such work via making contacts and reading papers. A blacklist (with reasons) is an idea, it would be more useful in cases where the outlet or individual is evidenced to be propagandising for the other side. A source thread might be nice, here posts are lost in time, like tears in rain.

In addition to my regular briefings, which include the podcasts In Moscow's Shadows, War on the Rocks, and Geopolitics Decanted, relevant articles from The War Zone, a look through the twitter feeds of Kamil Galeev, @wartranslated, @WarMonitor3 and @DefMon3, and the daily briefing/occasional deeper dive on the War in Ukraine channel (do not start with the Jan 31st edition, the man refuses to clear his throat), I thought I'd promote something I've been more into recently: Vlad Vexler's channel, for it's insight into various Russian topics and their relation to the war. It has a nice way of linking a previous video at the end of each piece that leads you through his work. The more casual Vlad Vexler Chat occasionally has a long form Q&A.

I had been waiting for this video. Brave men, but personally I would not want to be anywhere near a volunteer unit like this. I am willing to be corrected, but I assume any regular infantry, let alone an instructor, would have a heart attack looking at a house being cleared like this. Eventually a tank was brought up to demolish it after the fact - something that I assume would have been a preferable first option, and that either circumstance or lack of training led to them going in. I can see an argument that being close and throwing grenades in is better than being in an adjacent building if you don't have enough firepower, but surely even that would be dangerous if they have it set up right inside (I can imagine a second perimeter of sandbags inside, holes through the outer wall which are easier to see out than in, etc). As to the artillery strike - they had been in the area for a while I think, which may have been enough, but I wouldn't be surprised if the occupants of the building called it in when it seemed all was lost or as the only hope for a breakout. Hopefully more thorough training can be provided to these volunteer groups, so that their skills and co-ordination match their courage and selflessness.

This has been posted twice above, but I want to highlight it again - this seems like significant good news? Or is it one wing of the government representing one party's position which may then be overruled by Scholz?

A thread on GLSDB by @COUPSURE via @DEFMON3: https://nitter.net/i/status/1615819359670132741

It's only a problem if they auto-play. If they do, they should instead be posted as a link (there is an option for this).

https://cmmodsiii.greenasjade.net/ is the site I am referring to. I understand there is a cmmods IV (https://www.thefewgoodmen.com/cm-mod-warehouse/), and I think the idea was to move the content over there, but the former is still the only place you can get things like HQS 5.0, and now it seems to have been compromised or abandoned: there is cyrillic and casino ads all about. Is the admin aware?

If I may, an excerpt from https://www.economist.com/democracy-in-america/2016/01/31/from-the-archives-the-open-society-and-its-enemies-revisited

Delayed onset diabetes grenade, CHO-45. Victims get irritable if they eat dinner late.

That is not a Browning, but a DShK 38/46 I believe, though the sight seems a bit far from the end of the barrel, so perhaps I am wrong or it has some sort of attachment. The same position was shown in a longer video elsewhere, focusing on artillery fire.

Yes we discussed it when the footage of that failed river crossing emerged, there was plenty of smoke about but it seemed to be from engine injection and grenades or fires. Shtora-1 (assuming that's what this was, shame the video wasn't closer in, we might have seen the turret slew before launch) might not have been useful in that case anyway, since the cloud persistence is claimed to be 20 seconds. Still haven't seen anything conclusive on why it's been such a rare sight. Cigarette lighter is coming on Armata.

First time I've seen a tank deploy smoke grenades in the war I think: https://www.reddit.com/r/CombatFootage/comments/10835jp/allegedly_a_t90m_tank_fires_at_enemy_positions/

43. Split squad option: lone volunteer. We see videos from Ukraine of single soldiers breaking cover to launch AT etc.

Failed successfully. I grow tired, however... the meat of your first link: contains in its second paragraph a claim regarding information collection bandwidth in monkeys, which is not present in the link it provides, and means nothing on the face of it, since my 802.11 is only 40Hz or so and I can fit the entirety of the internet down it. Indeed the reference itself says: Which is a little more interesting and nuanced. In any case, the claim, together with the second paragraph (are we biologically incapable of denying $50 now instead of $100 in a month? How is it determined that $100 in a month is better for the subjects, since biology seems to deny such a possibility, indeed how can the researchers even write the paragraph without the pen falling from their hand in a rush to the cash machine), mean precisely nothing when it comes to the conjecture 'humans are biologically tailored towards short term thinking' - even if they are right they are wrong. Human biology is good for running for a long time, throwing things at stuff, manipulating small objects, and being programmable with culture. ~Edited: Co-ordination problems are not biological problems, they are born in part from our models of the world and the technology at hand, including those of communication and economic systems. Edited~ It is a forte that we possess alone in the known universe. To get to my general point on the subject - whether or not we are anecdotally prone to a behaviour in one situation or another is beside the point. Human beings create explanatory knowledge which they can then use to change their behaviour. We extend our mental machinery with things like pencils and keyboards, hard drives and paper. We can conjecture things, and hold them to logic, by which they proceed, not by biological rules, but by their own attributes, to imagined consequences. Whatever biological cages and predispositions we have, it seems to me we are ultimately free to escape them, to the extent that we are able to tie our behaviour to ideas about reality, and those aren't made out of neurons. I shall not appraise your other links, "What can be asserted without evidence can also be dismissed without evidence": I apply a similar axiom when Google searches are used in place of arguments, placing the burden of disproof on the receiver of wisdom. -Totalitarian and Authoritarian Government- Government that brooks no alternative and no opposition is not necessarily bad at planning for the future, I disagree with you on that. They can be more consistent, and with the knowledge that they are secure, plan far into the future. In the case of Russia, 'ruining the economy' is somewhat subjective if you believe all your mates deserve a bunch of money and everyone else can eat a rock, or that might makes right, or that you are the real inheritors of Greek tradition because Catherine the Great captured Crimea... The strength of the modern democracies is in good part to do with error-correction, and placing the levers for that in the hands of those they affect. They are open to ideas which can change them fundamentally, ideas like human rights, property rights, etc. etc. Their specific incarnations can be better or worse of course, the best of them can be updated without too much trouble... Unlike CM

Hasn't that boat already sailed? I get the impression the West is decoupling from China as a manufacturing centre, and that the current order of globalisation is changing. Perhaps war can be averted, but I wonder if the West will continue with Farostpolitik in either case - some have come to see it as selling rope to their hangman.

I will give you my grimdark take: the regime may be at risk by loosing a small war, which cannot justify full mobilisation of the economy and great sacrifice of the people (enough to get them to turn on their masters as the least worst option). So perhaps they will turn it into a big war, which justifies full mobilisation and full totalitarianism, and which they can safely loose, or hold to a stalemate, or until China divides their opponent's attention further. To some extent, but without the legitimacy of 'elections', or a perceived betrayal by the leader (something easily imaginable as his obituary, but not easily wielded as a pretext for deposal at this point) or their unlucky assassin, to be righted by a suitable hero, for which office there would be many candidates, to whom a breakup might be a viable alternative, the country is liable to fall apart.

According to The Warzone, in an article about rumours around planned Western tank provision, the Stryker is not suited to winter conditions, being replaced in Alaska by the BvS10 Beowulf/CATV.