MOS:96B2P

I placed a few units on part of dragonwynn's very cool Fallujah map and then took some screenshots.  This map has tons of potential. 
  

Screenshots taken on @dragonwynn Fallujah map. 
 




 

IS does not like to cooperate with Hamas (nor with other groups on that matter,although they did some limited contacts and definitelly copied themselves), regard them impure sunni, basically Tehran puppets -which isn't exactly untrue. Theory of Hamas being Iranian asset is gaining ground in wide islamic world, so IS has nothing to do with Gaza; especially Khorasan branch. In their views, such thing as Gaza or Palestinian nation does not exist.
Also these kind of radical groups are by default builded in contre to all normal geopolitics. Russia, USA, Israel, they don't care. It's their main virtue in the eyes of islamist edgy teenagers around the world. All other groups sonner or later become somebody's proxies.
It's worth to note, since topic was not touched here, that supposed attackers were intercepted on the road in Bryansk...leading to Belarus actually, not Ukraine. I can fully imagine them trying to shelter there for some time (or already having fixed contacts) and then possibly trying to cross into Europe disguised as poor refugees.

I went and looked up some of the place names of the location, they all resemble government offices of quite mundane nature.

Well, here is our answer to Sullivan or to "anonymous sources" in influent Western medias. 
Kuibyshev refinery, Samara city was struck by two drones this night. Fractionating column is burning. This refinery has 7 mln.tons of year output
PS. It was confusion between two refineries. Part of media write about Kuibyshevsk refinery (in Samara city), part about Novokuinyshevsk refinery (Novokuibyshev city, 15 km SW from Samara). I checked Samara VK publics - they tell about the refinery in Samara city - so this was Kuibyshev refinery (Kuibyshev is old Soviet name of Samara). Interesting, Russians rejected any thougts that UKR UAVs can reach them. They believed this is UKR refugees, enlisted by GUR launche frones from Russian territory %). "This villagers just can't do that" - chauvinistical hubris
PPS. Reportedly drones also attacked and hit metallurgical plant in Staryi Oskol city, Belgorod oblast. This plant specialized on producing of special sorts of steel. Local sources say oxigen workshop building was hit, no casualties, no information about damage.

The range is 900 km

 
 

What I don't understand is why the they think the refinery strikes are pushing up crude prices. I thought that Russia was putting more crude on the world market as it lost refinery capacity. This brings me back to my question about Russian infrastructure capacity for importing refined products?
I also think it is a classic example of the Biden administration trying to exert a level of control over the glide path of this war that just doesn't exist. If they want the Ukrainians to settle for the current lines as a long term armistice they need to say so. If they don't, they need to let them fight.

I sincerely hope the latter; the way to end the war is render Russia incapable of conducting a war.
EDIT: If the US was willing to give more weapons, especially those capable of taking out for example Russia’s bomber fleet, and more road-mobile patriots, maybe? But that’s not going to happen.

No way, never!
Oh wait I was just watching Shogun....
Not sure if you are old enough for this @The_Capt
 

Heh
 
 

Except that Russia's (rather, Siberia's) share of global metals needed to achieve the carbon transition is roughly comparable to its share of hydrocarbons.


...Unless you believe in stuff like deep sea mining, or take a giant hit off the Green Hydrogen bong.
But we're at risk for drifting OT. None of this is going to show up in time to change the outcome of the current war.
My other comment is that oil and LNG are both likely to be comparatively cheap for the next few years [I'm in the business, so I should know better than to say things like that, of course lol].
For example, Japan and Korea, traditional 'price takers' are both now looking to resell huge amounts of surplus LNG they contracted for, likely into Southeast Asia, if necessary subsidising the new power plants that will burn it.
None of this is great news for the planet, but not great for Putin either, plus the Chinese have got him by his undersized ntz at this point.
P.S. If you haven't read Daniel Yergin's 'The Prize', it is well worth it.

Two russians armed with stick and shovel try their luck at air defense but the claymore airburst FPV does not need to get close, better luck next time🙂

For sure they are topped, but that doesn't mean he wouldn't win anyway in fair (or semi-fair) elections. Genuine potentiall differences in these numbers- 50, 75 or 85%- are not significant from current Kremlin perspective in themselves until Putin wins; and he wins in every possible computation anyway. Most important thing is to show that society support his President in such difficult time- it's the only cause of such high ratings. He could publish more modest results, but it's safer to shore up public will a little bit.
I doubt he see things in that way- it would be rational for sure, but not many things in this regime are.
First- emperor of "awakened" all-Russia will not be manipulating his own election ritual in a way to flatten tastes of some bootlickers in the West. Russia is stronk and mighty, so they should better deal with it "as it is" (to use Putin's own words, repeated ad nauseam). Not to mention these people in the West who want to cut support for Ukraine does not need excuses; everybody knows Muscovia is not democratic. It may actually take off pretensional burden from their shoulders and bring back clear, old version of darwinistic international politics they all love and like to talk so much about.
Second- we should free ourselves from thinking that West is point of reference in everything Kremlin did or does. It wasn't like that in the past, it is even less true today. I would even go as far to say that Putin may be ambitionally testing here how his new, "multipolar" world order works in reality. After all, West didn't care that much when dealing with other bad boys like China, Saudis, Israel etc.

Hello guys, after days of work, is finally here, this is an high fidelity remake of Strike at Karand from BF2 to Shock Force 2, the map consists of an 1520 x 1520 City with Hills, Suburbs and an Factory, the outskirts were modified so it could fit well in Combat Mission Gameplay, there is 9 versions of this map, 1 Base version so you can do your scenario or your own quick battle objectives and setup zones, 3 Meeting Engagement, 3 Blue Assault, and 1 Meeting and Engagement and 1 Assault based on the original Battlefield 2 Flags that were on the conquest version on it, hope you enjoy !
 
Link: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1VscLVSszzFhz7K5ZIhjc31blZW-Bo3Dw/view?usp=sharing
 
Gallery: 
 








 


 
Enjoy.
 

$666 per kg to LEO (assuming $100M launch cost, 150T payload) is around a quarter of Falcon 9’s cost. So right now, even if you expend the rocket, it’s a massive advance.

That has of course been attempted as a mod by Phil @kohlenklau who has departed here for now.  I'm still trying to get him back...

https://nationalsecuritynews.com/2024/03/exclusive-satellite-images-reveal-the-expansion-of-russian-war-cemeteries-following-huge-troops-losses-in-ukraine/
Especially VDV division home cities.

The Boeing guy in charge of doors just got a job there.

I think he means that technically speaking, Russia will probably never exactly run out of war material, because before that happens it will reduce consumption/exposition to risk when faced with a shortage. Therefore one can not just draw a graph with one line representing average production, the other average consumption and at the point where they meet, the Russian army will stop firing guns or have no more tanks. He says this in all his podcasts in particular whenever ammo production is discussed, so I am fairly confident this is what is meant here as well.
And whereas the Russians can decide to reduce the firing rate/usage rate pretty much at will, they cannot increase the production rate by will alone, therefore the replacement rate is the more objectively observable variable.
 

I tried to send you a pm but it said you are unable to receive.  Of course maybe I did something wrong.  I'll get the requested mod to you somehow. We will get it figured out. 
I'll stay OT by saying the very first Chiraq scenario is set on this Fallujah map.    

It's that obvious is it? Well, our pm Kristofferson was just quoted saying "it is a new epoch for Sweden" so I am not gone deny any rumors of an aspiring empire of "klöka"-sofas and meatballs 
On topic, one of the CV90:s operating in Ukraine right now I was a crew member on when we tried them for desert conditions at fort Irwin back in 07. Happy to see that they perform well in Ukraine and save lives of their current crews. Wish we send more cv:s and hopefully our Jas 39 Gripen aswell. I think there is strong political will actually for sending fighters.

That brilliant mastermind Putin finally succeeded in forcing Sweden into NATO.  A very stable genius!
 

That's what I'm puzzled by. The notional maximum speed of that ship is 25-30 knots with the turbine boost, but it seems like it can only manage 12ish knots on its cruise engines. I wonder how long it takes to transition from cruise engines to combat engines? Maybe the maintenance and logistical tail can't support ships running on turbines the whole time they're at sea?
It also looks like the USVs approach first from the rear, so I wonder if the tactic is: 1. First drone hits the rear of the ship, impairing mobility. 2. Other drones circle (!) setting up for sinking strikes. 3. Drone hits amidships opening a hole at the waterline. 4. Drone enters (!) previous hole detonating and causing catastrophic sinking damage in the unarmored interior.
The USVs look to be pretty low observability and are operating in wolfpacks, so detection prior to the mobility kill is the whole fight. Once the first drone hits the rear of the ship, that's seems like the ballgame.

So I don't want to dogpile this, and to be honest what you said sounds good in theory. Having said that, US threats would have little credibility right now, large deliveries would have to be made. On top of that, those deliveries would likely not include large numbers of 155 shells since the whole world is running short of those at the moment. 
So that puts us in the position that the US government has finally mobilised to help Ukraine, so expectations are going to rise again - why not take another shot at victory? Maybe because they don't have the shells - well at that point the threat is not looking so bad for Russia after all so they continue, at least to get a better negotiating position. 
The sorts of coercive diplomacy that works on small, isolated countries does not work on a conflict of this scale and commitment. Both side are in too deep to back off now. 

A clash between mechanized forces: