Bearstronaut

Major Henry is a trans woman and made headlines 7-8 years ago as being the first openly transgender active duty officer. According to the reports on her arrest, she told the undercover FBI agent that she wanted to join the Russian army after the invasion. Russian society is not known for being very tolerant to the LGBT community so I have no idea what the hell she was thinking.

That video reminds of something that has always stuck out in my mind from reading Louis Barthas’ memoir of WW1. His regiment had spent all day marching in the freezing rain and he said something like “when we got to our bivouac area the officers claimed all the farmhouses and barns and graciously allowed us to sleep in a muddy field.”

I’m 33. I’d played the Close Combat series games since I was 11 or 12. I had never heard of Combat Mission but I had always thought “man, Close Combat would be so much better if it was 3D and had larger units.” Discovered Combat Mission around 2016 and never looked back.

That’s really the only possibility. The TAC AI doesn’t attack without orders.

That’s pretty cool. AFIK cops in America just auction off those kinds of cars seized from criminals. Our cops just buy tons of unneeded military equipment. Hell, when I went to Ohio State the university police department had a MRAP.

The western pro-Russians will come up with some other bull to explain away Ukrainian victories just like they did with the Battle of Kyiv. I’ve heard “oh it was just a feint to draw the Ukrainians away from Luhansk and Donetsk” so many times. It never gets any less ridiculous.

Gee, thanks

LMAO does that guy truly think that the UK wanted Tsarist Russia to undergo revolution in 1917? That is some truly moronic thinking.

So… they’re saying that Russia is a vassal state of China and fighting a proxy war on their behalf? Interesting flex by the Russian ultranationalists.

Lol how’s that?

I’m wondering if eventually we reach a point where the Russians decide that going after NATO supply points in Poland is worth it to them.

Maybe I'm an optimist but I would say never count a society out. Look at the Koreans. They had a highly stratified feudal society up until the Japanese colonization. After the defeat of Imperial Japan and the partition both the north and the south were autocracies. The Republic of Korea was a republic in name only until about 1988 when General Chun Doo-Hwan was deposed and they finally had free elections. The election of 1997 was the first peaceful transfer of power to an opposing political party in Korean history. Since then the South Koreans have been vigorous in the defense of their democracy (IMHO more so than in my own country). Two of the former Presidents of South Korea are currently in jail on political corruption charges. Now who's to say that will continue as I personally met several older Koreans during my time living there who said that their country was better off under a military dictatorship. I believe in them though.

Brother, no offense but it’s been over 40 years since you were in the military. I spent most of the last decade on active duty with the army and am currently a reservist. Trust me, it’s an 8 year service obligation. https://www.arpc.afrc.af.mil/IRR/

When you enlist in the US military you sign up for 8 years. If you enlist for an active duty contract of 5 years then you still owe three years to Uncle Sam in either the regular Reserves or the Inactive Ready Reserve. The regular Reserves you do the whole “one weekend a month, two weeks a year” thing. IRR you don’t have to do a thing but the military can call you back if the crap hits the fan. After you complete the 8 year obligation I’m not sure they can legally force you back in the military. However, retirees can be called back to active duty.

So the Estonians are saying there have been incursions into their airspace by Russian helicopters and that Russia is simulating missile attacks on their country. As if the Russians don’t already have enough on their plate.

This dude, Ken Rhee, is a former ROK Navy SEAL officer and is a minor celebrity in Korea. He’s starred in a TV show taking other celebrities and putting them through tough military training (this is a popular genre in Korea). He returned to Korea recently after injuring his knee in Ukraine and is facing criminal charges. After the war kicked off in February the South Korean government put a travel ban on going to Ukraine for ROK citizens.

Iran-Iraq War?

This tweet is top notch.

Man, I don’t think there is any amount of money that would get me to sign up for this meat grinder. I say this as someone who volunteered for the US Army in 2009 when we were still in pretty serious combat in Iraq and Afghanistan. Fortunately for me Uncle Sam decided he needed me more on the Korean Peninsula than in the deserts of Iraq or the mountains of Afghanistan.

Oh yeah I forgot about the windows lol.

They have a very high center of gravity and tip over relatively easily. I nearly died several times at NTC going over terrain that was no problem for a HMMWV or a Stryker. They are large and you can’t hide them well and despite that the space for the crew is very small. They also broke all the damn time. I would have much preferred rolling around in a HMMWV.

FWIW at my last active duty unit my intel platoon operated out of MATVs (basically upgraded MRAPs) and every single one of us hated the damn things.

Sounds like it to me.

Almost everybody in the US Army buys their own boots after basic training anyways. Issue boots are not very comfortable at all. I once had a commander who wore issue boots and I thought he was a weirdo for doing so.

I gotta say, fully autonomous machines designed to kill people scares the crap outta me. It just seems like such an obviously bad idea.