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1. My guess is the game abstracts that the tank crew is trained and part of a larger set of observers. Like a real tank platoon doing it's job to the fullest extent will have assigned sectors for each crewman to observe. So even with every tank gun tube forward, on line, the reaction time is still based around the assumption that "actually" tank 12 is watching the right half the objective, 11 the left half, 13 is on the low ground in front, and 14 has the right flank, and to the left is 2nd platoon. Or at least that'd be my guess. Broadly it's how the infantry works too I imagine, regardless of direction of travel it assumes someone is watching and checking in order directions. I do think if I had to be critical what's not quite right, is the return fire is a bit too accurate. The game doesn't handle suppression as well as I'd like (in as far as you have to tell the AI to shoot at someone that's not a good firm target), IRL if a missile came from a stand of trees, it's going to have a massive amount of MG fire and maybe a main gun round or two dumped into it to suppress/maybe kill the ATGM gunners vs a laser precision sure shot to the face like CMBS seems to err to sometime (on the other hand, it does match the reality that an ATGM is pretty dangerous to operate). 2. Middle Eastern tanks are a bad example because: a. Tank-infantry cooperation within the Iraqi and Syrian military has been very poor. A lot of the shots you see made are ones made against tanks sitting out in the open without any sort of effective screening or cover. More professional military forces use infantry extensively in urban type settings precisely because it can root out the enemy AT teams, or contain them while the tank moves into position to kill. The various middle eastern countries at play tend to lead with armor, and operate armor without close infantry support, both of which makes for much more vulnerable tanks in an urban setting. b. Given the lack of effective screening and poor armor tactics, ISIS has been able to exploit this to build very specialized, very intricate AT ambush teams and positions. Basically they've been able to operate using tactics, positioning and the like that would be profoundly stupid facing the Americans, Israelis or most of NATO (like setting positions with fairly close, very narrow fields of fire without supporting positions), but that very effectively exploit the way the Syrians/Iraqis handle armor. c. Most Syrian/Iraqi crews operate completely buttoned up at all times (or at least, completely within the turret). Given the generation of armor they operate, this is not effective for spotting enemy forces most of the time. It goes back to my first point, that in a "good" Abrams platoon, it's 16 or so sets of eyes looking out (more honestly 12 sets of eyes, the loader's optics are nothing especially awe inspiring, and him hanging out of the hatch isn't always practical), while in a Syrian/Iraqi tank unit it's closer to 3-4 sets of eyes looking out (while a "Good" Russian equipped unit could at least manage 9)

We've talked about this. If you were concerned with the lives of Syrians, far and away the Syrian government is the most lethal thing to Syrian civilians in the Syrian civil war. Most of the refugees fled the Syrian government. They're not likely to return to a government that was just trying very hard to murder all of them.

1. I don't usually call more than one platform at a time, but I believe you can select multiple assets via the shift key and roll them up into one larger strike. I'm like 99% sure will check out later. 2. A big part of what a forward air controller does is not strictly the targeting piece, but he also is the traffic cop for planes entering a certain section of airspace. He's keeping the strike aircraft away from incoming artillery, keeping other friendly aviation out of the way of the strike package, etc etc. Once you start throwing in lots of planes this starts to degrade pretty fast. If it was just a matter of giving coordinates to the plane, there wouldn't need to be a specialist FAC/JTAC type guy on the ground.

Remember too, Obama started off with a "reset" in Russian relations and see how far that one went. He's inheriting a lot of people, agencies, and programs from Obama too. It's too early to tell, and Trump isn't making it easier by putting cards on the table.

Re: Dismounting Commanders I'd like a button to split the vehicle commander from his squad for vehicles that commonly use their commander for both mounted or dismounted operations. It's been a while since I played with M3s but I believe their BC dismounts with the scout section. When I was Bradley-ing (or at least around Bradleyers), this was done sometimes, although equally often the scout section was kicked out while the commander stayed with the vehicle. Especially in the US Army the emphasis is the Commander/Leader goes where he is needed vs doctrinally correct. I'm not sure how valid this is for Russian operations given their higher emphasis on doctrinal adherence.. /;/.//////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// I'm keeping the above because it's my dachshund's contribution to the discussion. Anyway. At least looking at the option from the American recon perspective, choosing the dismounted leader, or mounted leader would be good.

Re: Spotting missiles A lot will depend on weather conditions, environment, and the weapons system. Older Soviet era missiles will have a pretty big signature, and larger ATGMs like the TOW will often have more significant ones while smaller Javelin style missiles will have a fairly modest one. And again, a lot will depend on the environment. Heavy wet ground isn't going to betray as much (although in darker environments the flash from the missile will be more pronounced both visually and thermally), while dry powdery ground will have "setting up the missile's tripod" signature, let alone firing it (but the launch and missile hide a lot better in hot surfaces). In an ambush role, like a true ambush out of no where the launch signature likely would not be enough. However in an environment against a tactically deployed enemy who's oriented on your forces, it's not going to be an especially stealthy event. Re: Iraqi Abrams I would challenge you to find any tank in the world that would react especially well to an ATGM strike to the rear.

The British government needs to do some soul searching about its military forces. Basically it started cutting them at the end of the Cold War, and just kept going back to take more money every time they needed to make another program float. As a result, they've got about as many tanks as the US Army has at Fort Riley alone, and there hasn't been a serious non-counter insurgency upgrade package to the Challenger 2 in some years. That Russia is trying to restart a cold war, is invading its neighbors and increasing its technical capabilities, while the UK has gutted its military forces and neglected upgrading what remains is the story, not new super comrade tank Armata strikes fear into mighty British empire's tank legions.

I have to wonder if I can't get a job at the daily mail simply by sending in random selections of words. As far as the video: There is no tank on earth I'd want to take a hit from anti-tank weapons in the rear. Full stop. I can't name an AFV that would handle an AT-5 to the rear well. As far as point of impact, every reason to believe it was the turret however. There's nothing in the engine compartment that would brew up like that, so unless it was a very shallow hit that had effects going up through the engine deck and turret bottom, pretty sure it was a hit on the turret. As far as difference between Abrams In terms of rear protection, mechanically speaking the only difference would be on later model M1A2s, there's a bustle rack extension (after the various bits and bobs got stuck in the original bustle rack, the need for storage became acute) which might work as adhoc slat armor. Would in no way count on it though. In terms of non-mechanical protection, I'm highly doubtful of Iraqi security practices, and would suggest rear shots on anyone's tanks are highly dependent on low skill crews/poor infantry-armor integration. As far as APS It's going to happen someday. I think the question is if it'll be a "smart" type APS as the first fielding, or something off the shelf as an interim first. I'm leaning towards off the shelf if things get any more hairy considering that Quickkill has been just short of being fielded my entire time associated with the US military.

I have never been as cold, or as wet as I've been in Korea (different seasons!). South Korea made up for it because it's full of South Koreans, but I cannot imagine how much it'd suck across the border.

No, but we've got long memories. Let's just say we only consider the end of the War of 1812 to be an Armistice, and maybe we've spent the last 60 years convincing you guys to be peaceloving and largely pacifistic, but before you know it, Onterio will be renamed New Texas, while Alberta becomes Exceedingly North Dakota. Re: MH-17 Only touching on a few things: Given that most major airlines were still flying over the Ukraine, it stands to reason a shoot down was not even dreamed of. I think it's hard to argue negligence in a case where the outcome was so far removed from what most airplane operating companies expected, you'd really have to prove the lot of them, inclusive of a company operated by people who knew there were missiles active in the Ukraine had some inkling that a commercial jetliner could be shot down. Personally I think the Russians messed this one up. If I woke up on the wrong side of the neu-iron curtain: 1. Put Buks in Eastern Ukraine as happened. For sure I'm going to bag a few Ukrainian planes, best case simply put the Ukrainian airforce is out of the war. Worst case I've made them bleed using something I have an excess of. 2. Ensure Buks are displayed literally covered in Ukrainian markings. Anyone with a brain won't believe it, but the fiction is maintained enough for people who want to believe. 3. Operate. If something objectionable is shot down, as Russia announce our horror, blame the Ukrainians for forcing the separatists to defend themselves with an incomplete SAM system that couldn't tell one plane from the next. Strongly imply the real target was some Ukrainian SU-25 or something about to napalm babies. 4. "Meet" with the seperatists. Offer to exchange a Russian enforced no fly zone for turning over all the "captured" heavy ADA systems. Herald this as a triumph on the road to peace in the not at all puppet states I'm actively carving out of the Ukraine. 5. Ukrainian air force isn't really in a position to challenge me, attempts to shoot down my "peacekeeper" planes give me a chance to retaliate against pretty much anything I'm offended by in the Ukraine. I nominate myself for a Nobel Peace Prize.

I don't exactly trust business or government myself, but flying near high performance air defense systems that are locked and loaded is something all of us who've flown have likely done. I mean the entire Persian gulf would be a no-go, within a few hundred miles of the Koreas is right out, Japan is a nogo if North Korea is acting up, parts of the US are distinctly apparently far too dangerous, same with Russia if the criteria was just an active ADA site somewhere. Ideally the non-combatant and combatant have certain responsibilities to make sure they are known to each other. Dozens of civil aviation operator thought Ukrainian air space was safe enough for high altitude operations, inclusive of the people who put the missile system there. MH-17 was where it was supposed to be, at the altitude it was supposed to be, marked and transmitting like it was obligated to be. The Buk was not supposed to be there. Getting past that, it needed a lot more sensors and a lot more command and control to reasonably operate with a degree of safety in an unrestricted airspace. Failing that, if Russia was going to allow for basically unrestricted anti-air operations, and everything with wings would possibly be engaged, announcing that was the intention was on the Russians. They could have even done it as "separatists" by releasing a video showing the usual idiots in camo dancing around "captured" Buks, and Sky Commander Boris Badinov announcing the liberation of Donetsk's skies from the HATO sky plauge, and all who violate the blessed skies of the Free and Not Russian Puppet People's republic will be smote, by the way we only have the launcher so be mindful we couldn't tell a SU-25 from a very angry flock of seagulls. It wouldn't have been hard to put enough controls in to keep deploying a high end SAM system both deniable, and safe for non-combatants. Clearly inadequate controls were put in place and it got a lot of people killed. In a war that Russia denies is happening.

Nah. Most of your conflict zones don't have anything more than basic AAA, or MANPADS. Commercial aviation flies high for a variety of reasons (most efficient fuel-wise, noise pollution issues, away from most things that can prematurely end a flight) and it's outside the range of dedicated large anti-aircraft systems, which virtually always are beyond the ability of most insurgent groups to acquire. Unless a major state actor were to provide one without most of it's command and control network. Then it'd make some airspace really dangerous, doubly so if it was all being done under the table. That would be really stupid dangerous and likely kill a lot of innocent people.

1. Airliners fly over warzones, or through areas with active air defense systems all the time. 2. Because it was likely assumed wherever this mysterious SAM system appeared from would practice some sort of target identification instead of just gunning of anything with wings.

Sigh. Because my patience is low/fts. Re: WELL WHAT ABOUT MAGIC SPACE PIXIES SHOOTING DOWN MH-17? Read/watch/educate yourself. The most likely, most plausible, most supported by the evidence version of events is a BUK provided by the Russian Federation arrived in the Ukraine, operated for a short period of time, before shooting down a totally innocent airliner. Anything else is increasingly relying on an absence of evidence, or a need to disbelieve vs a need to see the evidence. From separatist conversations, electronic listening, photos of the system itself, forensic evidence from the plane, all of it paints a very cohesive picture. You can "jet fuel can't melt steel beams!" all you want, but there is no real case against it being a Russian missile, from a Russian launcher. The only real question is if it was a Russian service person firing it or not. I'm of the "or not" realm simply because there's enough people who know how to use the system that would be less embarrassing to lose in the Ukraine if something went sideways. Re: Strike True and Strike With Precision If Syria had targets worth taking out a block of apartments, I wouldn't object as much. It's the whole strategic bombing calculus, if this factory is offline for a week, that's 60 less tanks, which means less causalities, which means shorter war, which offset the smoking hole that used to be Franz Huttengutter High School or something. But there aren't those sorts of targets in Aleppo. There's nothing that needs, or merits just dumping cluster bombs into a housing complex. Aleppo, and indeed urban combat isn't just something you feed bombs into and it gets better, and by technology or intent, the Russian area bombing is frankly well and away out of proportion with what is reasonable in a post 1945 context. Interestingly enough, as much as expense is getting touted, Russia can afford to send it's Navy, and give out tanks that frankly offer no realistic advantage over the ones available in theater....but oh no, using any number of 1980's era guided weapons to destroy point targets is just too expensive, better stick all them ATGMs and guided bombs on a shelf because it isn't like the US has been using hellfires and similar missiles with great effect against insurgents, no no no, we better drop bombs on apartments, because that's how things get done! Again, let's place the shoe on the other foot and make it Ukrainians dropping bombs on separatists. Does Russia have any right at all to object?

Going off of what Wicky said, the reason we are all so doubtful about Russian sources is that the Russian government: 1. Controls all major media outlets in Russia 2. Has dedicated a significant amount of resources to generate media sources that appear at first glance, independent, but instead are in fact wholly controlled by the Russian government, and beholden to its objectives. The Western media, for better or worse takes no orders from anyone (although it isn't above various degrees of bias, or just stupid reporting, the fact it's many independent, even competing organizations makes it less likely all those outlets repeat the same mistakes), and when you're looking at official NATO/US Government/whatever information sources, they're obligated to tell you as much. So there's a build-in distrust of information from Russia, especially information that is only repeated in Russian sources.

Actually the more honest answer was they'd set up a air defense system and shoot down an airliner full of Dutch people.

A Ukrainian SU-24 swoops in low over Donetsk, before disgorging a load of cluster bombs on a suspected separatist arms depot the arms depot is located in a former school surrounded by civilian housing, and there's a clinic in the impact zone. How do you think Russia reacts? How do you think it responds if this becomes a daily activity?

I'm just keeping these short as I've got things to do. In response to this statement, because we should expect more of a nominally civilized country vs head chopping terrorists. Russia has the means to do better, should do better, and likely could leave Syria a better place, but instead it's content to leave it broken in a way that serves Russia's end. I'm not even talking about nation building, simply setting the table for the various Syrian factions to yell at each other, working with the west to punish any cease fire violations, and basically following a sort of Bosnia model for resolution. Not perfect, but certainly a more effective long term solution than letting Assad limp along. It's stupidly reckless. It's not even like dropping that weapon in an urban area was ever not going to do a lot of harm, which is crossing the line between collateral damage (somewhere in that explosion was a target worthy of destruction in spite of risk to civilians), into willfully killing civilians. So pretty much war crimes.

Re: Cluster bombs Look. ISIS/Syrian rebels aren't setting up barracks, motorpools, or large targets for the most part (well, except for ISIS, but they're less of a factor). Generally you're talking about fairly small numbers of people with infantry weapons. In a vacuum, like Afghanistan where it's just another rocky hole dropping a 500 lbs bomb on three guys makes sense, especially if you're dealing with something like a mortar team that'll be gone in sixty seconds. But the whole basic concept "just war" is contingent on proportionality, it's not enough to kill someone with a 2000 lbs cluster human seeker missile from space, you have to ask if the weapon used, and the effects achieved are proportional to the damage done. And I'd contend it's not. Aleppo in terms of enemy is pretty much down into the hundreds of insurgents at best. It's not something that merits the kind of massive bombardment that is ongoing, and it's debatable what there is left to reasonably destroy with the sort of force being applied. The only thing that really makes sense is if someone is using Aleppo as an example just like Hama was oh wait we've been down this road before. Re: 2003 The way the Iraqi Body Count does numbers is it attributes virtually everyone killed in the initial invasion to Coalition forces. It doesn't separate them into deaths caused by Iraqi armed forces under Saddam, (indeed, did you see a tick mark for them?) and it includes reporting as done by the old Iraqi government which was the same one claiming the US Army was cut off and about to surrender in downtown Baghdad/DU was giving all babies in Iraq cancer, and the British have dropped in murderous badgers to keep farmers away from watering holes for livestock (both the cancer and badger claims are real ones that Iraqi government made) Could be they changed reporting criteria, but that's one of the issues I seem to recall about the 2003 numbers. Re: Bombing accuracy Look, our resident fighter pilot didn't buy off on your claims of accuracy. There's really no reason for the US CCIP to be more, or less accurate than the Russian version (it's fairly basic what it's doing). Basically if the PVS-24 was as accurate as you claim, there'd be almost no reason for precision weapons, especially no to the degree the west fields them. A lot happens to bombs when they leave a plane, and there's a lot of variables inherent to the bomb itself that can lend to changes in impact point. Also frankly there's only really two options, the Russian Air Force is bombing hospitals and aid convoys on purpose, or it's hitting them because it cannot accurately hit targets. I'm giving you guys the benefit of the doubt here. And no. The biggest contributor of civilian deaths is the unrestricted use of heavy weapons in residential areas by the Syrian government and Russian military. It's as simple as that, by all accounting and all but certain people's news sources. Finally I heard about the counter offensive Friday on yankee imperialist news sources. It was not favorably discussed.

I don't think Trump occupies any reality, ours or alternate, he's like some sort of Lovecraftian void of nonsense that to stare too deeply into is to embrace madness. There is some irony though in that Syria is rather on the receiving end of the sort of practices it carried out throughout the cold war. Comfort to no one really, just hadn't thought about it until now.

Re: Warheads on foreheads Hypothetical, in your yard somewhere is an anthill. You hate ants. You value your yard. You're not quite sure where the anthill is, but you've hypothetically got a pile of explosives. Do you chuck explosives at the yard until you stop seeing ants? Because that's pretty much what Russia and Syria are doing, only it's not a yard, it's people's homes, hospitals, and the like. There's other tools, and as I keep saying, there isn't a shortage of them, and yet, here we are dropping bombs on markets with the "Good" guys accounting for 95% of dead medical workers in Syria. Re: Stalingrad It's Stalingrad because the Syrian government made it Stalingrad. It's like getting mauled by a wild animal, you only really risk it when you put it into a corner and keep prodding it. The Syrian government decided it was going to kill its way out of civil disorder, and it backfired dramatically. As far as "working" it works against an organized enemy that will surrender at some point. We didn't have the Germans go underground and come back later as an insurgency because the organized government they were following was effectively dismantled, and unable to continue the war, along with a total lack of external support. The various factions in Syria are not going to be defeated by battlefield success. There is a place to retaking Aleppo, and even if it was bloody tooth and nail (see how Fallujah emerged post US attack, although Aleppo is way worse on the collateral/civilian damage scale), but it has to be in a wider spectrum of counter-insurgent activities, delegitimizing the narrative of the insurgent, and winning the populace over. What's happening now is the Syrian government and the Russians are just killing enough Syrians until the overt fighting stops. To use the yard analogy, they've burned it down, there's nothing left alive, it's all dirt, but somewhere underneath it all is still a boatload of ants. Again, let's look on back to Hama in 1982, and ask ourselves, did the Syrians solve that problem, or just table it until 2011? In a multipolar world, do you think it'll stay tabled now, or with a resurgent Turkey, and continued Sunni meddling? It is doubtful to say the least. Until the actual problem is addressed, Syria is always going to be just a little ways away from another civil war. Re: Carpet bombing Nope. Historically carpet bombing has worked when the enemy is concentrated enough, and there's high enough value targets to merit the collateral damage that comes with it. The sort of carpet bombing the Syrian/Russian air force is doing is killing a handful of dudes with small arms at the expense of the future of the Syrian people, and dozens of innocents. Not a great tool Re: Iraq Again, go back to the website. Turn on the insurgent filter, and then the unknown options. and compare the numbers with the Coalition. Now compare the fact Russian air strikes alone over the last 12 months have killed more civilians (again not even including Syrian government actions) than the US/Iraqi Government did through all activities in any year except for 2003. Dig a little deeper before drawing conclusions. The Coalition was the lesser killer of a massive inter-tribal/religion/whatever blood bath. In Syria far and away the government and your air force is the most dangerous thing to civilians. Re: Weapons Again, your military has a massive stockpile of weapons much more suited to the fight at hand. And you're dumping unguided weapons into places where civilians live. Well, lived considering the outcome. Why is Russia deliberately choosing to use weapons that will ensure massive civilian causalities? Why is it making "safe passage" windows that are impossibly short? Why did it bomb, or fail to stop the Syrians from bombing aid convoys?

I too beg to differ, in that there's plenty of anti-war films, and indeed many highly critical of US policy. The contention I would make though is that many of these films are highly tied to the times they occupy, like most "political" movies so in that they rarely stand the test of time. The movies that endure culturally tend to be ones that have more longevity, or speak to deeper currents in the audience than current affairs, but you can't look at 60's-70's film making without "the man" being the villain half the time. You do indeed have a fair amount of filtering 1940-1950 simply because of actual wartime censorship+the whole red scare making it unmarketable, but we've freely wallowed in things that would be entirely unacceptable in Soviet/Russian film making.

Re: TOW If a weapon was made in the US, it's going to have a US serial number. There wasn't a magic production line for US vs all other TOW-2A missiles. You'll find that data plate on all sorts of made in USA equipment regardless of the end user (I imagine if you crawled into World War Two era stuff sent via lend-lease in your museums you would find a similar data plate). Same deal with the NSN, it's just a number used for ordering replacements, and would be printed on anything made in the US. There is a ton of TOW users in the region, some of whom were much more enthusiastic about arming the Syrian rebels of all stripes than the US. The article you sent to me is pretty straight forward that it's almost certainly an American made system, but one that could have come from 40+ different countries that have TOW missiles. Re: Precision weapons Didn't have them in a host of other urban fights, and didn't have to resort to carpet bombing blocks either. In the case of Syria it also doesn't excuse indiscriminate employment of weapons without legitimate targets either. re: Iraq You're reading the graphs wrong. Or at the least, need to read them beside the deaths caused by the insurgents. Then also take into account most of the "unknown" deaths are likely attributable to the insurgents. Right now with a high degree of certainty the most lethal thing in Syria to civilians is the Syrian government and allies. While the Iraq war left a massive toll in collateral type damage, only in 2003 did deaths from the US/allies exceed deaths from insurgents, and there's some pretty funky math that goes on to get to that point. Re: SVP-24 Here's the disturbing thing about your assertion on it's accuracy: Option 1: The bombsight works as advertised, is very accurate. This means unambiguously the Russians are hitting civilian targets on purpose because there's little room for missing with how good the sight is. Option 2: The bombsight is not very accurate. Russia is knowingly dropping bombs more or less at random into areas full of women and children. Russia uses a lot of precision, or semi-precision type weapons, ranging from ATGMs which work wonders against point targets like insurgent strongpoints, to your various guided bombs. Russia is using none of these, instead dropping bombs into populated centers using something no more complex than an electronic slide rule. This does not speak to a concern for the human toll. You country has the tools to do this right. Why has it not done so? It can't be cost, you're sending half your navy on what amounts to a dick waving exercise. So why not all these wonderful weapons you are supposed to have? Re: Syrian government They've shot Scud missiles into people's homes. There's a lot of people who've been "disappeared." The Syrian government is just as intentional in what it's doing, and at best it's knowingly ignoring the pain and suffering it's bringing, and worst, it's using it as a tactic to ensure people never challenge Assad again. Re: Barrel bombs It matters a lot actually, given the sort of weapons barrel bombs have been dropped on. They're almost exclusively used against areas that can't shoot back because of the relative danger in kicking such a thing out the back of a low flying helicopter, and how ineffective they are against entrenched enemies. They're a terror weapon, pure and simple.

In terms of profile, not especially. The hull is really your reasonable point of aim for an RPG, trying to get a turret hit on anything that's not a tank-sized turret is pretty sketch.

Re: Refugees They didn't flee Syria prior to the conflict because by and large the Syrian government wasn't dropping barrel bombs. Just like ethnic Russians weren't fleeing the Ukraine until Russia started a war there, they might have had legitimate grievances or objections to the state of the world, but like, for most of us, those are secondary to getting groceries, getting to work on time, our jerk neighbors and the fact they having their arguments in the ally right by my living room window constitutes a good idea. They're leaving now because what started as civil disobedience and vocalization of those legitimate grievances with the Assad regime set the government down the logic path of "how can I kill myself out of this one?" Which resulted in where we are now. This didn't have to be a war, or even a conflict, but the Syrian government decided the lives of its people were less expensive than letting go of a little power, or even making really sincere noises about it and then just basically running things as always. There were literally hundreds of other options, but the Syrian government chose to lock and load on the people that nominally it protects and serves. This, and the ensuring terror bombings, starvation tactics, and the absolute nightmare even loyal dissent could get you in, and the Syrians have clearly voted with their feet. And when someone is choosing to risk drowning their entire family for long odds at a new life, just to leave your enlightened "terrorist" fighting dictatorship, I think you have to question if you're really fighting terrorists, or simply the best armed terrorists in the room. 1. The amount of weapons we provided has been fairly modest, and with absolutely stupid levels of restriction to the degree it's effectively meaningless. We've insisted on only arming groups that'll fight ISIS, while trying to avoid ones fighting Assad, which is a cute distinction when Assad is bombing all of them. Even looking at what the Arab states (stupidly in my opinion) sent in, we're talking a drop in the bucket compared to the arms distributed to the Syrian government by the Russian government, and those arms, and their users as well and effectively illustrated in the links I posted that you failed to read, are what's killing the overwhelming majority of people, not ISIS, not the other non-state actors. 2. The collateral damage in Iraq is absolutely zero percent comparable. At no point did the toll taken by the counter-insurgent forces (US/Western forces, plus Iraqi government) exceed the fatalities or injuries inflicted on civilians by the insurgents. While the death totals might be the same, the primary killer in Iraq was the insurgents driving carbombs into markets, not the government/third parties dropping unguided weapons "somewhere" near the insurgents. He's an interesting question though, if Russia is so concerned by the dead innocents in Syria, so interested in protecting them, where are the precision weapons? You guys have them. Not as many as we do, but surely they are not more expensive than the tanks, attack helicopters, and thousands of tons of munitions you've already sent. You guys could even drop them yourselves if they need some sort of Slavic touch to work right. But you aren't providing them. And you are not dropping them yourselves. Why is that? By your own admission it's your lack of precision that's killing thousands of Syrians. Why don't Russians care enough to use precision weapons? If you know whole districts are being held hostage, why don't you care enough about those hostages, if they exist, to not use these stupid GLOSSNARD/Phaser guided terrorist seeking missiles you're so proud of to actually protect human life for once? Could it be you're just marching lock step with someone who clearly doesn't care about his own subjects, because you only need him in charge, and the lives of innocent Syrians don't even register on your moral calculus? As far as insulting my intelligence, just no. It's clear you didn't read what I posted because you didn't even bother to look at it. If you did, you're realize the absurdity of trying to compare a few hundred deaths by bad actors with the literal thousands reaped by your government and the Syrian government enabled by your government's actions. Re: "A Solution" The solution isn't a binary "some nut job" or "Assad." We've never gotten anywhere near that sort of solution because the choices we've been given have not enabled a moderate or even less moderate choice of some legitimacy. At several points Assad could have stepped down, appointed a less reprehensible member of his government, and planned out real elections in so many months/years. Or again, working with moderates there could have been a coalition government that could have even been just dishonestly empowered (that basically the power remained with the existing elite). There was a whole host of choices, but right now the choice isn't "nut job" or "flawed but he's what we've got!" it's choose your nutjob, the one that drops bombs on hospitals (I believe one of the articles I listed shows 95% of recorded medical worker deaths were at the hands of the Syrian government vs the rebels) and markets or the one that saws heads off. If we look at the ideology of the Syrian government, it's pretty much being the crotch spawn of the correct Syrian Air Force officer gives you a free hand to kill as many people as you can to stay on the throne. It's not exactly much more rational, or even handed than ISIS when you get down to it.