fireship4

I disagree. People on the ground have their role, as eyes and ears and to communicate the facts and feeling on the ground. They also capture small bits and pieces of info that are useful to people like us who are interested in the nuts and bolts. And you might want them writing the copy, not being very familiar with the field I don't really know the pro's and con's of that. But journalism (not entertainment news) is about explaining what is going on. And for that you need a guy behind a desk, and a big map. And a bit of time. With digital TV it should be easier than ever to get in-depth context via a second channel for those that want it. What we have however, for the most part, is singed teddy-bear hunting, and the latest emotional event done to death. 'War reporter voice', and in general 'reporter on the scene voice' is something I can't stand for the last number of years (honourable mention goes to 'pre-offended police officer voice'). 24hr news may be good for something (over-worked people getting updated whenever they have the time to turn on the TV as opposed to 'The News at 10' for example), but I wouldn't be surprised if has contributed to emotional desensitisation to the subject from over-reporting, and of things that happened, instead of 'why'. I think we have it about right here. This is journalism of sort, we have sources, we have experts, we have discussion, interviews, talks etc. all filtered by the fact we are trying to understand what is going on. A distilled version of that is what I'd like to see mainstream news move back towards, but I wonder if the incentives in the other direction are too much. Leaving the war aside for a moment, and I understand there is some call for news to stand as a record of events, but why do I need to hear about shooting after shooting when I switch on the TV or radio. Just tell me how many there are in a year and tell me what people are doing or not doing to change that. Back on the war I have been following it since day one... every day, and I wonder if I am too hooked into it. It does affect us (we are in interesting times indeed), but it's like we are all a little bit at war with the stress that goes along with that. The old Bill Hicks line about crickets outside the window comes to mind. A bit of self-discipline is perhaps what is needed, but it's addictive, as the spectre of nuclear war tends to be. Of course the people directly involved need the support of the world around them, I just wonder where the line is in this age of being in touch with the whole world. Anyway I recommend the series 'Newswipe' for a look at modern news, this rambling post brought it to mind.

Bloody hell it backfired! Well what can you do... bottoms up.

Russia... Nul pointe. ...This just in, UK accused of militarily assisting Ukraine to boost scores in Eurovision Song Contest after a spate of zeros plagued the country over the last...

More footage of the river crossing, with artillery damaging or destroying a boat of some sort interacting with a pontoon: https://nitter.net/Blue_Sauron/status/1525519492373270528#m

Flexibility maybe, but faster? I think the opposite is true. The advantage of the West is that democracies (and not just the institutions and laws but the values instilled in peoples' heads) are error correcting - trial and error which can bring them over time toward being better. It is also somewhat of a safety valve against revolutions - when things go too far in one direction you blame the one in charge and kick them out. In fact a poster a little while ago bemoaned the state of US politics that had the opposition take the opposite side of each issue to the incumbent party. I have come to see the value in this (though I'm not convinced of it in practise, as it makes for politicians without values): the electorate in this case has a clear way of changing policy. In the case of there being no obvious party to vote on that supports 'x' policy, it does not get implemented. Over time the window of which policies are up for public debate moves around. On actual military OODA loops, it seems that the Russia military has believed it can be quicker in this respect also, through centralised command and automated/pre-set plans adjusted to context. From 'The Russian Way of War' by Grau & Bartles: [EDIT: Unfortunately for them, many of the centralised commanders have been spread around a bit to be blunt, ignoring for a moment the human horror of it for the sake of poetry.] This approach can be compared and contrasted with the (more) free market model in economics vs. central planning. One good thing about a free market is that it empasises computation by those closest to the ground - how is Gosplan supposed to know I need nylon stockings?! In a similar sense this is something this approach seems to lack - judgement and action by units lower down in a formation. I think a mix of top-down big picture stuff and lower level price finding and idea trying in both politics, economics and warfare is where it's at. [EDIT: More or less what the West has with a democratically elected executive enacting laws and independent actors starting businesses. In fact you could say the US constitution is problematic in this sense, as far as it holds back experimentation and correction.]

More footage of the Donbas river crossing site:

Yes, something I have advocated before is a second look at laser warning systems on tanks in CMBS - it has such a large impact on tactics, and I was unsure whether they were as effective as they are in game. In light of this, perhaps the next patch should simply switch them off! It would be a new game... But back to the main topic. I haven't much to add, I'll probably post a bunch of links again at some point to useful resources on the war for those that would find it useful.

Speaking of which... https://nitter.net/kamilkazani/status/1502673952572854278

Just a note about the video you posted John (I think on page 220: https://gvwire.com/2022/03/11/captured-russian-pilot-says-he-was-ordered-to-bomb-civilians-report/), the in person translation seems bad, I recommend anyone who watches it use Youtube's auto translation, which seems pretty good.

http://www.igorsushko.com/?m=1 A better place to read the 'FSB Letters' in case anyone missed them.

Great thread. I thought I would post some of the sources I have been using to stay up to date with the war: First of all, the Reddit live thread is a good general starting point, and much of the following sources will pop up there every so often. I have also dipped my toes back into the water of an old community of mine, United Operations, and check into their teamspeak every so often - you always get some choice tidbits when talking directly to people with a good amount of military knowledge (if someone wants an invite I can perhaps make that happen). I advocate for an audio discussion room for this subject on the battlefront discord if there isn't one already. People are clearly interested and we have not a few people with insight. https://www.reddit.com/live/18hnzysb1elcs/ Live Maps: https://liveuamap.com/ https://www.scribblemaps.com/maps/view/The-War-in-Ukraine/091194 https://firms.modaps.eosdis.nasa.gov/map/#m:tsd;d:today;@32.0,48.8,7z https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2022_Russian_invasion_of_Ukraine#/media/File:2022_Russian_invasion_of_Ukraine.svg Websites: https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone https://www.understandingwar.org/ Twitter (via nitter.com): https://nitter.net/Osinttechnical https://nitter.net/christogrozev https://nitter.net/Militarylandnet https://nitter.net/Caucasuswar https://nitter.net/Justin_Br0nk https://nitter.net/DanLamothe https://nitter.net/Blue_Sauron https://nitter.net/billroggio https://nitter.net/Nrg8000 https://nitter.net/SotisValkan https://nitter.net/AaronMehta https://nitter.net/kamilkazani https://nitter.net/JimmySecUK https://nitter.net/RALee85 https://nitter.net/polijunkie_aus https://nitter.net/ELINTNews https://nitter.net/Eastern_Border

Does anyone know the answer to my earlier question? Is Russia planning to make use of BTGs in the event of war? Some time ago it was suggested that in that sort of scenario they would use a more standard structure, the BTGs being used for low intensity conflicts or something like that. The third part of the report that this thread referenced was released a few weeks ago now: https://www.understandingwar.org/sites/default/files/Putin’s Likely Course of Action in Ukraine Updated Course of Action Assessment ISW CTP.pdf

So Russia is sticking with BTGs as opposed to normal structure? Does that suggest something about their strategy?

I think Flightradar indicates when it is predicting a position as opposed to where it has ADS-B, MLAT, etc. For instance the flight I was looking at had a dashed black line pointing to its destination after it stopped updating. Did you see this track: https://www.flightradar24.com/data/aircraft/vp-bmo#2acda4dc If that is a mistake by flightradar (not Russia) then it is quite a dangerous one. EDIT: You can see better info if you use the normal map and select 'playback' at the bottom, using the times I mentioned in my previous posts. The above flight changes name above Voronesh when it starts to head for Ukraine.

Well, a sudden diversion over eastern Ukraine of a Russian civilian airliner during a time of extreme tension... it looked like they were trying to get shot down. The fact that the plane was in two places at once suggests the possibility it was not the plane it claimed to be. Or it was just some kind of mistake, by the airlines or with flightradar24, perhaps a mixing of data due to the duplicated registration number. A bad time for such a thing to happen. EDIT: to be clear, the registration of a plane is unique to that plane. The flight (or whatever) is like a bus route, and seems to be assigned to a plane when it is assigned to a route.

An update to my last post: record of flight with registration VP-BMO has updated to show it taking off at 9.19 from Rostov-on-Don for Baku as Nordwind N41991 (now also AFL2615): https://www.flightradar24.com/data/aircraft/vp-bmo predicted for arrival at 10.52. To restate, this same registration is recorded as taking off twice from Moscow around 5am, one heading SW to Milan, one heading South to Rostov, both of which disappear, the latter after apparently turning toward Ukraine over Voronesh (recorded here: https://www.flightradar24.com/data/aircraft/vp-bmo#2acda4dc), the former reappearing in Poland and landing in Italy at 8.27. EDIT: Now planning to also depart from Milan to Moscow. I don't know how common this kind of registration duplication is, but it's not a good day for it.

This is (hopefully) nothing, but an Aeroflot flight (at 5.00am N4187/NWS187 becoming N4187/AFL2614 at 6.05am over Voronesh) from Moscow SVO to Rostov-on-Don made an apparent turn toward Ukraine (according to flightradar24 data) and then disappeared. In the arrivals for the airport it shows as diverted to Milan Malpensa Airport in Italy (which makes no sense). EDIT 7.21: According to FR24 it seems this flight normally flies to Milan, but was en route to Rostov-on-Don when it made the turn and disappeared (again all of this is according to FR24, nothing else). EDIT 7.25: Planned route at take-off showed as Milan MXP over Belarus & Poland. EDIT 8.00: Very strange: 5.06am SU2614/AFL2614 reg. VP-BMO takes off, heads SW (265) toward Belarus 5.20/5.25am disappears. 5.28am N4187/NWS187 (reg. VP-BMO: same plane as above) appears to take off from SVO, though it was not shown on the ground like the other plane. Destination Rostov-on-Don, heading 158 with other planes. Had been scheduled to take off at 5.10 (this flight has had similar delays in recent days). 6.10 Same plane becomes N4187/AFL2614 over Voronesh, heads 236 toward Ukraine and disappears. Hopefully some kind of malfunction, some kind of scheduling mistake, or something. Not what it looks like. EDIT 8.08: Plane is present in both of these records, one as diverted, one as unknown: https://www.flightradar24.com/data/flights/n4187 https://www.flightradar24.com/data/flights/su2614 EDIT 8.20: SU2614 / AFL2614 now shows as landed at 5.22am in Milan, 16 mins after takeoff (!) EDIT: 8.42: SU2614 record linked above has updated, shows plane appearing over Krakow, Poland at 06.56, transiting Czechia & Austria, and landing at Milan MXP at 8.27 (N4187/NWS187 Nordwind flight still shows as unknown, should have landed around 6.45). Hopefully just some kind of mistake.

I think whether or not he is a rational actor acting on good intel is relevant, but I have nothing more to say on the matter anyway so everybody wins

Source was: https://foreignpolicy.com/2013/11/06/the-seduction-of-george-w-bush/

My backup has moved here: https://www.dropbox.com/sh/fdgcyjxwy99csp5/AAB2HVemThOm9vyqdj2lj_I8a?dl=0 I created a thread announcing such on this forum, it's currently half way down the front page: https://community.battlefront.com/topic/139975-mods-by-bil-hardenberger-btr-kieme-vein-zveroboy1-new-backup-location/.

My backup has moved here: https://www.dropbox.com/sh/fdgcyjxwy99csp5/AAB2HVemThOm9vyqdj2lj_I8a?dl=0

It's 'D'oh!' if you are quoting The Simpsons and using it as an exclamation. You tried your best, and you failed miserably. The lesson is: never try.

It is best not to bog down this thread with our disagreement. You made two statements that are incorrect (to be clear, the first is too narrow a definition, the second is simply wrong), and later justified the former (perhaps assuming I was saying that military did not include your examples, when I was instead refuting them as a definition of such) with a link to an online dictionary, which is a tool and not the source of meaning of the words in the English language. You finally posted a picture of a uniform I assume you found when searching for the word military, again perhaps presuming I think the word military does not cover uniformed personnel. The fruit example was illustrative of the latter statement. If you wish to continue this discussion perhaps we can do so over PM, with the understanding that I would rather die of gangrene.

If you look under fruit in the dictionary you may find a picture of a banana.