danfrodo

I wasn't saying we should never go to mars. I am saying we shouldn't be 'colonizing' it anytime soon or even sending humans. we need better technology before we do that. And it would cost an insane amount of money to send even a research team there & back. At a time when we use drones to do lots of dangerous dirty work why would be send humans to mars for research right now? I am all for sending 'drones' until we get better propulsion & survival tech. Mars is a radiation soaked hell hole w low gravity and very little air, why would we 'colonize' that in near term? It's a death sentence and would cost a trillion dollars. And why would we try to send people to mars on 7-9 month trip, each way, when we don't even have a base on the moon, 2-3 days away. (note, I do think we should put a station on moon and use that to learn).

Yes, may he suffer some natural consequences of his worldview. Being a medic he should be in the thick of things, but I bet he's well back.

I think he was banned as of today. He was the smartest person in the room so will be sorely missed . I suppose somewhere else will get the benefits of his giant ego now. Sad for us.

He's made some really good choices and saw where things were headed while others had head in sand. But genius? He drunk or mental illness binge bought twitter, tried to renege (even trying to wreck twitter stock value thinking it would help his case) and was forced to do the buy. He paid $44B for a company worth maybe $20B. And now it's worth what? he then decided cost structure to high and binge fired over half the company w no plan or thinking. That aint genius. He publicly wanted to fight his competitor, Zuckerburg of facebook. And wanted to compare dicks. That's not genius. He thinks QAnon stuff actually makes sense. That makes him an idiot, not a genius. He alienated the customer base for tesla cars (affluent libs) and had to dramatically cut prices. The good news for tesla is that they are great cars and get the big tax break in US, so a lot of libs (some I know) held their nose and bought anyway, but he did serious damage. So, not a genius. He thinks colonizing mars makes sense. Except that it's insane. Maybe he promotes this because he'll make fortune on the contracts for the stupidest endeavor in human history.

good point. This might be a big factor in their long term strategy. NATO wants breakthrough and exploit, potentially at high cost, but UKR realized this wouldn't work for them and chose a different path. The old fashioned 'we can outlast you' strategy, which does seem to be working, though sure is hard to endure (for UKR, that is).

Like Steve just said, anything w a cannon and some armor is a dangerous. But it does clearly show desperation. Why would one field such things unless didn't have something better? Like something not 70 yrs old? I suspect these will be used as pillboxes and/or artillery. Someone probably pulled out thousands of old 100mm shells out of warehouses. I wouldn't want to be firing these shells, that's for sure. (edit: ninja'd by DanCA on this) On the front, I still have my main concern for the current situation: RU still able to rob sections of front to shore up others. UKR going slow & steady but does allow enemy time to respond. And there will be a new pile of mobiks this fall to at least put bodies in holes to slow UKR down. It seems like RU is starting to crack but it's rather ductile crack. Steve banned our resident genius. Wherefore wilst I go for wisdom heretofore?

deleted, not worth the vacation

The weird part of this is that UKR is basically facing WW1 France, w trench lines in depth stretching for the entire front. Plus mines. There is no flanking, there is no maneuver until one breaks through. But is that what NATO militaries were built for? Where was NATO expected to face this kind of challenge? So I am not sure NATO got things 'wrong'. They were just planning on very different challenges than this. Combined arms and maneuver would probably work really well if RU was trying to advance and NATO was told to stop them. I actually was hoping UKR would flank the northern end of the line through RU territory (for just a short ways) and cut off Starobilsk. That would've been fun.

Having worked very heavily in additive manuf from 2015 to march 2023, I can't imagine why anyone laughed at you. What a great idea. We could just 3d print bullets. Or arty shells. Or drones. On site. totally makes sense. Or maybe we could 3d print replacement soldiers, on the battlefield.

Daily dos of daily kos confirmation bias: I do wish things were going faster. Go slow has some benefits, but it also gives RU time to counter -- laying more mines, moving troops, etc. Could UKR go faster at cost of high initial casualties but get breakthrough? I don't know. A big push that failed would be really bad -- high casualties & a morale killer. https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/9/6/2191834/-Ukraine-Update-How-Robotyne-became-the-center-of-the-counteroffensive

you should delete this if you have any sense whatsoever, and hope it wasn't seen by the east coast forum admins who are probably asleep

How stupid does one have to be to not see through an alleged nefarious international plot that requires something as ridiculous as (drum roll please)..... a jewish nazi.

Yes, I agree. The Nicaraguan Somoza family kleptocracy is a good example of this (somozas were the ones overthrown by the sandinistas back in the early 80s). I think this is not too off-topic since we're discussing RU govt.

Good lord, this is disgusting. Maybe Putin & Elon M can get together and rant about 'the jews'. That's the only 'diplomacy' I see possible right now. At least they'd have some common ground to start from. (Musk currently publicly saying jewish anti-defamation league is what actually killed twitter's ad revenue -- which is bat**** anti-semitic lunacy)

This is what I've been hoping: that UKR has enough resources to threaten toward Vasylivka and down from 'the Novos' while keeping the heavy assaults around Robotyne. If it's true that RU is short on reserves and supplies (from ammo dumps destruction) then hopefully one of these sectors blows open and causes a cascading crisis along this front.

Norway is a fossil fuel state where the wealth is distributed. Russia is a fossil fuel state where the wealth is not. Hence, backing up the point made by Steve et al above

Well said, LLF. Very good to remind us all that just because what RU side believes is false doesn't mean they don't believe it. And it motivates them to continue.

I don't want to derail the thread, but it's hard to find an American who's done as lasting damage to the world as MacArthur by allowing his egomania and zealotry blow a complete victory. Like a football match team being up 10 goals to zero and then having to forfeit into a draw for some reason.

sooner or later there will be negotiations. I think everyone knows that. Even knuckleheads like me know it. But for now there's nothing for UKR to negotiate. The barest minimum start for talking would be for RU to return to Feb 22 'borders'. And even that most obvious requirement is not on the table. Right now it would be like Hitler asking to negotiate the status of France in late July 1944, just before Cobra.

I went back to CMBN to a scenario I played when I first got the game. didn't remember too much. I did remember a panther on one side of town. Turns out there were multiple panthers. I've got brit force so a few fireflies in the mix w plenty of regular shermans. Fortunately I flanked two panthers and two in another position decided to maneuver across my face and got hit w 500m side shots. Two more panthers getting flanked. Lost sherman on the right to panzershrec. And the assault goes in: These two fellers decided to retreat a couple minutes too late with a horde of tommies pouring out of the woods. Usain Bolt himself couldn't have sprinted to the town fast enough.

So these are actually Ukrainian soldiers forced to surrender due to being surrounded? That's absolutely heart breaking news.

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For sure, Carolus. I've read military history my whole life from a detached perspective. Ukraine war I really feel, I am totally not detached. It makes me sick -- emotionally, spiritually, every way. Each UKR death is like helplessly watching some serial mass murderer continually killing people and being helpless to stop him -- and that's exactly what is happening. On the devil's advocate stuff in some earlier posts today: Some guy, friend of my daughter (ex friend more accurately), stayed w us for a few weeks recently while he was in town doing clinicals for his phy therapy degree program. I was watching Davydov video and he said "well, there's two sides to this conflict", some dumb view he probably got from listening to Joe Rogan or some other garbage podcast. I said "yes, the serial mass murder-er side and the serial mass murder-ee side". This is the most black & white major war since WW2. No war is black & white completely but this is as close as it comes. Would anyone say "oh, well, the serial mass murder probably had some good reasons for killing those 12 women, we should think about his needs?" F no!

spamming? How is posting something on-subject and interesting spamming? Was good post.

exactly what I was thinking, you beat me to it. Putler will just move the goalposts like he's done the entire war. If they lost landbridge west of tokmak-melitopol line, for example, they'd just say doesn't matter because the real prize is Mariupol or some other nonsense. I hope that Putler is getting overly optimistic view. Like Hitler, seeing on map regiments moved to block the enemy and believing these are actually regiments, meaning fully staffed & equipped and supplied.