Seedorf81

Am I the only one who's a little worried about Haiduk being away for so unusually long?

https://qr.ae/pvsoE6 "Sweden didn't go for the Abrams because of it's poor performance in mud". Anyone knows if this is true? Is the Abrams bad in current Ukraine muddy terrain? That would be a bit of a bummer, wouldn't it?

Great footage of what a loader does in a Leopard(1)-tank. Made me wonder: Being a commander, gunner or driver in a tank? Yes, I can get that. But being a voluntary loader in a tank????? You have to be at least a little crazy, I suspect!

Agree totally. A lot of people seem to think that with even a limited number of Western tanks the Russians will be steamrolled. Members of this forum already warned that this ain't gonna happen, but lately it looks like there's a "Wunderwaffen-expectation" in the air..

Update: Minister is Dennis Monastyrsky, also other high-ranking officials and two kids among the dead. Helo hit school.

Just now: Kiev suburb, helicopter crashes in urban area, 16 dead, Minister of Home Affairs among dead. No report on what caused the crash.

Update: Other newssite says he fought until november, but.. "Prigozjin acknowledged that this guy fought for him, and immediately accuses him of mistreating prisoners"! This Wagner-guy Medvedev also took incriminating evidence/documents on Wagnergroup and Prigozjin with him. To be continued..

Just in: "Former high-ranking Wagner commander crossed the Russian-Norwegian border on foot and asked for asylum. Didn't want to renew his contract in July 2022 after witnessing executions of comrades. Says he wants to testify against Prigozjin." Don't know what they mean by high-ranking, but even his name is mentioned.

I'm confused.. Is this still part of the "beavers"-topic?

Yesterday there was an estimate of already 4000 casualties on Russian side at just the recent Soledar battle. Can't remember CNN or Dutch news or somefink, but seems very plausible.

And I thought the music on those Ukrainian and Russian dronekills-artykills-Wagnerkills - andwhathaveyou-twitterclips was horrible!

A lot of those prisoner-fighters are probably longing wholeheartedly to be back in their prison-cells. Which is, considering the state of Russian prisons, something a lot of people never would have thought possible.

What strikes me most, is how difficult and expensive it is to win back such a small piece of ground. Ofcourse, ammo and fuel are costly, but this clip shows eerily good how enormous the strain of combat is on physical, psychological and emotional levels. It's just a few hours of fighting at the most, but I can barely imagine how exhausted one must be after such an engagement. And then having to do that day after day, months on end. No wonder there's a limited time that soldiers can be functional at the frontline. War IS hell.

For non-Americans, like myself, who haven't a clue what all those abbreviations mean, "URBAN DICTIONARY" is your solution. Easy to find, no paywall or anything, easy to use.

I once heard a young woman say something like this: "It isn't that difficult to keep a boyfriend/husband happy. Men are stupid, give them sex once in a while and - maybe as important - tell 'm they're doing a good job. DO NOT START NAGGING, but give them compliments and they'll do everything for you and won't leave. It is THAT simple." I think that she said some wise words, and that her words (ehm, except for the sex-part) apply for "NATO/The West". So for those who feel that the NATO/The West does not enough for Ukraine, read her words again. Might be helpful..

About going quiet to execution. If you do a tiny bit of not very difficult research you'll find that nearly all people who know that they're gonna be executed, are usually strangely docile. That behaviour is way more "normal" than resisting. See: Jews being shot by Einsatzgruppen Chinese being buried alive ( or beheaded or shot etc) by the Japanese. French, Dutch, Belgian, Greek, Yugoslav, Russian (etc etc) partisans being hanged or shot by Germans. Russians executed by early RED army, White Army, Gpoe, KGB etc, German warcriminals behing hanged, strangled or shot by Poles, Dutch, Americans, Tsjechs etc, Iranians hanged by their government, and the list is very, very long. I don't know why, but it is very rare that people put up a fight.

I'm sixty years old and practically all my life I have been struggling with the phrase "WARCRIMES". As I see it, war is by definition a crime and we humans ALWAYS commit horrible crimes during war, civil wars, uprisings, revolutions, conquests and even in peacetime. Romans, Persians, Dutch, French, Spanish, Aztecs, Vikings, native -Americans, "Arabs", African tribesmen, Chinese, Russians, Japanese, German, and yes even Americans and Canadians and the British (and every other large group of humans), exploited, killed, maimed, tortured and executed their opponents. Be it real or suspected opponents, that is. Most people, certainly in the West, have the illusion that war can be fought in a "rather clean way". In my opinion the whole morality-stance on the "yes or no" execution of these Russian prisoners is a waste of time. It is a part of war and as long as we humans go to war, these combat-crimes will happen. I fact, it is a miracle that there are so much frontline-soldiers that DO NOT commit "warcrimes". I do think there is a big difference between combat-crimes and noncombat-crimes, but if you really want to stop warcrimes, stop war.

Merde!

Well, give them an AK and a uniform, and put them on a (fast) bus to the frontline. Let's see if they put their money where their mouth is..

Hmm, you would almost consider the following.. Although not as bad as 20 years ago, USA prisons are still pretty much overcrowded. Why not giving Putin payback with an offer for US-inmates to join the international legion in Ukraine?

Thnx for this info, I would never have guessed that it is such a big problem.

Looks a bit like footage from ww2 Okinawa. Horrible for both sides.

Well, it has been said that the British infantry during ww2 in general was better at defending than attacking. Wouldn't go so far as they were "fragile" on the attack, but a difference was noticeable, so that would be a nice addition in the game. (The French fragile when defending? The Italians fragile all over? And so forth..)

Also: Belorussia and Ukraine were for a significant time completely occupied by the Germans, while a huge part of Russia was not. The Germans would happily kill every fighting-age man in occupied territory, while Stalin realized that he needed every soldier he could muster. (He even released prisoners from the Gulag). So that would make a higher number of casualties for Ukraine and Belorussia plausible.

Yes, but to my amazement in ww2 barrage balloons were rather succesfull against V1's (Wiki). Those were bigger than drones, but still, balloons - perhaps with some form of netting - could be a rather cheap (temporary) solution. I have no doubt the Ukranians are already thinking about something similar.