Bulletpoint

Maybe the butler was the murderer? I know a small country with easy access to the pipelines that will do anything if Uncle Sam calls. No questions asked.

https://www.vice.com/en/article/xgdmdn/russian-law-fifteen-years-jail-tweeting-ukraine-war March 4: Russia’s lower parliament unanimously passed a law on Friday morning that will criminalize sharing what the Kremlin determines is “fake” information about the country’s armed forces, with punishments ranging from fines of $45,000 to prison terms of up to 15 years. While the new law is being seen primarily as yet another nail in the coffin of a free press in Russia, the wording of the legislation is so broad that it applies not only to journalists and media outlets, but to any citizen expressing their opinion.

It went from Moscow to Nuremberg of all places:

I thought the airspace was closed?

I think it's interesting how the footage is only in motion when viewing the vehicles from afar. For the close in shots, there's no movemement in the frame anywhere, as fas as I can see. No smoke, no explosions, no human movement, and no tree branches moving in the wind (though the heavy compression makes this difficult to see clearly). So, maybe somebody took some still frames of a video, removed the Russian vehicle markings in Photoshop, and then zoomed/panned a bit on the still images to make them seem like running footage... and then combined with the live action sequences? I guess another thing to ask for is, if these were Ukrainian vehicles, where are the Ukrainian markings?

I think there are basically two very different narratives told by Ukraine: 1: A strong and confident Ukrainian army is easily massacring hordes of completely incompetent and primitive Russians. This is the narrative of all the drone videos with their pumping music, Radio Free Europe reporting, etc. 2: A weak and desperate (but heroic) Ukrainian army is getting destroyed by Russia's superior resources, so please send more weapons. This Kyiv Independent article seems to be #2. Ukraine needs to keep up this somewhat contraditory messaging because on the one hand, if western donors don't think the situation is really urgent, then why send more weapons? But on the other hand, if we start to think that Ukraine is not professional and competent, then why send more weapons and simply keep the war going?

I don't think it's a thing of the past at all. Whether someone ends up a convicted war criminal or a decorated war hero depends entirely on which side wins.

The day before Soledar fell, there was a video with a Ukrainian soldier saying "We are here in Soledar, everything is just fine, a bit of artillery back and forth, nothing big... we are relaxing and drinking nice tomato juice". Next day, Russians were drinking that juice apparently. I think it's very likely that Ukraine is currently in the process of leaving Bakhmut. Which would also be the sensible thing to do. In fact I am surprised they didn't leave earlier.

I hope and expect they will get the pleasure of cleaning up all the mines and UXOs they left in Ukraine as part of the war reparations.

Must admit I didn't spot the moving object first time I watched it. Was too busy turning off the sound. Maybe it was just a regular RPG? In any case, it seems a waste of ammo.

I was thinking it might have been a tank fired shell?

Hit by HEAT shell coming in from the right?

Apart from the bravery of that soldier, this video also shows just how effective trenches are at protecting troops. And why all sides in WW2 invested heavily in larger direct fire guns and flamethrowers to root out such defenders. Because the small calibre HE used by this APC clearly isn't effective.

I'm not saying it's good propaganda - I'm saying it might be that crew's attempt at making lemonade after being dealt a highly kinetic lemon.

When people film themselves, there's always a reason and a purpose. Somebody is meant to see the video and it's intended to make them think something. I'm guessing the purpose here is to get noticed by higher ups and maybe getting a promotion or similar reward. It could even be their commanders told them that there's a bonus on the line for those who film the best morale boosting videos? They probably noticed by now that Ukraine completely dominates the online propaganda space.

I doubt there are many real deep shell holes like in WW1... Unless I'm mistaken, most modern artillery is fuzed to explode before burrowing into the ground, so won't leave big holes.

I think the real red herring is thinking that the actual battlefield losses, bad as they are, will cause Russian population collapse. As the article also mentions, Russia's population has been declining and getting older for a very long time now. As long as there's a surplus of young men in a country, removing some of them only changes who will get to have children, not how many offspring the population will get in total. That's influenced by a lot of other factors.

It does seem like they started out with a decent surplus of young men though, so maybe this just balances the demographics. I think I once read there's a theory that says if there are many more young men than young women, then that's a recipe for war.

Yes, I thought it was odd when I read about an alleged UKR counterattack but there was nothing on the Deepstate map. Looks like it's the Russians who are currently breaking through west of Yahidne.

I was surprised there was never a Hürtgen campaign released. A couple of isolated scenarios, but not a campaign. Would make it myself if I had the skills and the time, but unfortunately I dont.

While I completely understand Erwin's frustrations here, I must say that it's not really so much a bug as an unfortunate consequence of the reinforcement system. The FO's utility depends on that single soldier, so if he doesn't come back as a reinforcement due to the game's "dice roll", you're stuck without artillery support (without the biggest guns at least). For other units, the game understands that it doesn't make sense to replace for example a lost tank with a new tank crew without the actual tank. So you either get a new tank or you get nothing. In my opinion, it would be nice to have the same logic applied to FO's, but even if it were, if reinforcement chance was set to 50% you'd still either get a brand new FO unit or not. Instead of getting a new gunner, as in Erwin's case, you'd get nothing. So it's up to the campaign designer to make sure the player either gets that new FO or that the campaign can be completed without it.

Yes, it sounds like they forgot to program the .50 for this vehicle.

All those American .50 were meant for AA use, but they were extensively used for attacking ground targets. German halftracks and other vehicles often had MG42 for the same purpose, but for some reason they have all been removed in CM. Did you try clicking "open up" and targeting a spot behind the vehicle?

She was likely worried about the opportunity cost.

But if somebody offered to cover all the costs, wouldn't you be free to do other projects at the same time, while you outsourced the biggest expense, modelling of vehicles and forces, to some external studio? Or hired in some extra manpower on a temporary contract, using Kohlenklau's powerball money.