paxromana

I believe he may have a running T-34 handy ...

Thanks for your sterling service in keeping is udated on the craziness!

Many years ago when I was in Sydney University Regiment (CMF aka Army Reserve) during my University days the training Warrant Officer said straight out that attempting surrender during an opposed assault is all but suicide (especially if you are alone) ... his advice was to defend in place until the attackers either ran out of steam or moved on (in the latter case, a carefully negotiated surrender was possible). He also implried very strongly that taking single prisoners during an opposed assault when you were the ones doing the assaulting was ... a bad idea, Laws of Land Warfare notwithstanding ... as there was, theoretically, too much chance of it being a ruse (and, of course, would bog down the assault ... the latter unstated)

Doesn't this moron realise that the Angles and Saxons were Germanic ... and genetically related to, oh, the Varangian Rus? But, of course, it seems as if rising to high rank in the RuAF and being elected to the State Duma requires one to be a moron.

Because, like Oryx, they cite only confirmed deaths rather than estimates. As I said.

They're doing for KIAs what Oryx does for dead vehicles. Counting only confirmed kills ... and they do point out the difficulties invlved AND give UKR, UK and RU figures for comparison. Pretty balanced all in all.

Some interesting comments on how to 'read' the available information on the counteroffensive (and combat operations in general) ... I think most posters on this thread already grasp this, but some might gain some benefit from reading and considering it. https://www.smh.com.au/world/europe/why-ukraine-s-counteroffensive-is-the-toughest-military-path-to-victory-20230613-p5dg4f.html It is behind a Paywall, but you get, IIRC, 10 free articles a month ... Mich Ryan is a respected Australian military commentator and (recently) retired General.

Two more for The Hague.

Well, that's what constitutes a Ruzzian 'offensive' ... easy mistake for vatniks and mobiks to make ...

According to the Sydney Morning Herald (article behind a Paywall, but you get access to 10 articles free, IIRC, per month) ... https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/hawkei-armoured-cars-bound-for-ukraine-war-in-australian-support-deal-20230605-p5de5a.html ... Australia is definitely sending an unspecified number of Hawkei Vehicles to Ukraine 'real soon now' ... there are evidently 450 sitting in Thales storage and unissued to the Army which would be available (not that all of them would be sent, of course)

Perhaps only hang them once? Or sentence them to 98 years at Hard Labour rather than 99?

But the Nazi elite didn't accept that. Dresden paid the price for their insane intransigence. It's like the time I had a serious discussion with a pacifist who couldn't grasp the idea that the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki saved tens of thousands of allied lives for every day they shortened the war for the simple reason that the Japanese High Command had sent out orders to slaughter, to exterminate, all POWs and Civilian Internees ... and they were in the process of doing just that when the bombs ultimately stopped them dead in their tracks. She whined about 'all those poor innocent Japanese' ... but simply couldn't explain why we owed them more than we owed our own citizens whom their government were murdering. Same sort of false moral equivalency here.

The Conventions said that you couldn't specifically target civilians and only civilians ... but they accepted that bombing industry and transport targets almost inevitably resulted in incidental civilian damage and deaths. As I noted, the various High Contracting Powers tried really really REALLY hard to come up with a system of 'Bomber Sanctuary Cities' in the Inter War years - but gave up since none of them could come up with a system that couldn't be gamed. AIUI the same general rule applies today - no specific targetting of civilians, but no war crime if they are collateral damage. Immoral? Sure. All War is ultimately immoral. But to prevent worse immorality it is necessary to fight.

Actually it played played a part - lots of optics (IIRC) factories in and around, and a major transport hub supplying the east front armies. The Bombing Campaign was cumulative in its effects. Dresden was a nail in the coffin of german war industry.

I respectfully point out that you have ignored the actual relevant sections of the Geneva and Hague Conventions and the aforementioned ICRC commentaries.

Again, NO, the Allied Bombing campaigns were NOT war crimes under the Hague and Geneva Conventions which were applicable. So many people who, presumably, have either not read them or understood what they read - try reading the Commentaries on the relevant treaties available on the ICRC Website - keep on repeating this shibboleth, which doesn't in the slightest make it true. The Germans were accused of a War Crime over the bombing of Rotterdam, and acquitted, they were never charged with any other crimes regarding bombing cities. Why? Because the targets were not the cities per se, but the industries, transport hubs and suchlike that just happened to be in the cities. Given the inaccuracy of the weaponj systems available at the time it was inevitable that bombs would miss, which was unfortunate for nearby non-military things/people which/who were hit, but not a crime. The various High Contracting Powers who had signed Hague and Geneva treaties had tried to come up with an agreement that would set up a system of 'bomber sanctuary cities' in the inter-war years (see the relevant ICRC Commentaries, noted above) but had never been able to come up with an agreement that couldn't be easily gamed, and they really tried. Remember, the entire purpose of International Humanitarian Law has always been to minimise the awfulness associated with war ... those who negotiated the treaties (and presumably those Nation States who signed them) have never been under the illusion that it would eliminate it entirely.

Nope. Not according to Hague IV and Geneva. Which is why the bombing of Rotterdam didn't make it as one either. Wrong, maybe, a war crime, no.

Does anyone in the world give a rat's **** for the 'poor' Saudis? I mean, Crimea a River ...

I guess that Ukrainian Intelligence has sources in Russia and may think that this will ratchet up unease at Putin's Folly?

I think its increasingly obvious that Russia never really stopped being 'rotten' ... they just papered over the cracks for a while. Arguably, Russia was rotten from late Czarist times and the Revolution really didn't change anything, except make it worse in the long term. I'm not at all sure that even overthrowing Putin would really change things ... except in the (extremely unlikely) event of a root and branch destruction and rebuilding of the entire State from the ground up.

Doesn't necessarily work that way ... here in Oz we have a Proportional Represetation voting system and yet since 1901 (Federation) we have basically had a two party system - Labor and Liberal/Nationals (by varying names). Yes, there are currently minor parties -- but they'd be lucky to get 10% of the overall vote and have only a limited real effect on politics. The real advantage we have is compulsory voting (and voting on a Saturday) which forces politics towards the centre. Elections are decided by who attracts the most voters from the 10% or so 'swinging voters' However, our founding fathers looked hard at world examples of government (mainly UK and US) and adopted elements of both ... our Senate is modelled more on the US Senate than the UK House of Lords for example ... but we did manage to come up with a way of preventing legislative and budgetary deadlock. The Senate cannot block Money Bills and it can only block any Bill twice before potentially triggering a Double Dissolution (i.e. the whole of the House of Reps and the whole of the Senate. This has usually resolved things by giving the Government the votes in the Senate it needed after such an election but, on the off chance it might not, the Constitution provides for a joint sitting of both Houses to vote on the triggering legislation, so it would be extremely likely the Senate would be swamped by numbers. This has never needed to happen so far.

Well, actually, it was building new watering and coaling stations between the existing ones (Russian Broad Guage Locos carried more water and coal than German Standard Guage ones, so their water/coaling stops were roughly twice as far apart as what the German Locos needed) plus building new maintenance facilities for the German locos ... again, Russian facilities were not 100% interoperable and were, again, roughly twice as far apart as was needed. The Barbarossa plan was to capture as many Russian locomotives as possible ... but the General Staff miscalculated, German Landsers loved shooting them up and seeing the steam shoot out!

Seems to be real news ... https://www.pravda.com.ua/eng/news/2023/05/24/7403616/ Russian cigarettes!

Smoke reported on Crimean Bridge - road traffic and water traffic stopped. Crimean 'authorities' claim it is 'training' ... Another smoking accident?

Not enough Washing Machines arriving home from the Front!