How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?

[Haiduk]

Russians abandoned T-90M, looking not badly damaged. The tank was cooked off with grenade-in-hatch

 

Edited March 30 by Haiduk

[Kraft]

1 hour ago, sfhand said:

My plan is to have this be my only post in this thread... I've known about the thread from day one. I really only have one question about the whole thing.

How can anyone know the truth of the matter?

Yeah, when we invaded Iraq because of WMD's I was one of the ones questioning the decision. I watched in disbelief Colin Powell's address to the UN, the one with the crudely made computer generations of Iraq's supposed mobile WMD labs. Not satellite photos... crudely made computer representations - the lack of no photos was a big tell. I also read all of Hans Blix's report about there being no proof of WMD's and his willingness to keep investigating.

Why was I so skeptical of the US government? I missed the Vietnam draft by 2 years. The Pentagon papers clearly showed those "in command" were lying through their teeth about the state of things. For me, this type of government mendacity erodes trust. Fast forward to Iraq and my saying to a friend during a work break meal as we watched the opening salvo Shock and Awe bombing on TV "I can't believe anyone believes the reasons for this after having gone through Vietnam". My friend's response "Obviously you don't know anyone who lives in New York" (guess where he was from). It was a very enlightening moment about the human condition and yet not enlightening at all about the justifications for the war.

Then there's Russia-gate. You all know it has been thoroughly debunked right? In a court of law no less. See the Durham report. The whole "thing" was plotted by the Clinton campaign. There is also the Inspector General's report (Horowitz) about the FBI, and its head honchos, losing its/their way. When these truths were exposed one NYT reporter commented about the Clinton campaign liars thusly "...they lied and with sanctimony...".

We were told the Hunter Biden laptop was Russian disinformation... Trump (who I will never vote for) was called out in a debate with Biden for promoting Russian disinformation by the mainstream media moderator because he mentioned the laptop. The moderator's reasoning: 50 former high ranking intelligence operatives said the laptop bore all the classic hallmarks of a Russian disinformation campaign.

Have you ever wondered why Paul Manafort was tried and convicted for FARA violations while Hunter Biden is given a free pass? Or the fact that Peter Navarro was sentenced to prison for ignoring a congressional subpoena (yanked off an airplane and handcuffed) but Hunter faces no repercussions?

So, we've got the CIA and the FBI running covert ops against the American public in order for form public opinion in their favor. Apparently there is a healthy appetite for wolf attacks these days because no one ever seems to ignore or tire of the boy calling wolf in real life. At this point Regan definitely got it backwards: verify before trusting. 

The essence of a good con is telling the mark what they want to hear. No con can succeed without it.

With this, I am out. I don't expect anyone in this thread to agree with anything I've added to this conversation and I am very much okay with it. I did want to voice my thoughts on the fundamental nature of matter. I hope you all are having a great day/night and enjoying life one day at a time.

 

What has Hunter Biden to do with russian tanks in Ukraine?

[danfrodo]

deleted

Edited March 30 by danfrodo

[dan/california]

We have been trolled successfully...

 

[Kinophile]

 

Difficult to counter. 

[sburke]

35 minutes ago, Kraft said:

What has Hunter Biden to do with russian tanks in Ukraine?

Putin's invasion plans were formulated on Hunter Biden's laptop.  They were created while he and George Soros were vacationing at Jeffery Epstein's place at the same time that Hilary Clinton was discussing a marketing plan with Epstein to use a Pizza place as a front for child trafficking.  I seem to remember this was close to the same time Jewish Space lasers were lighting up California forests because we hadn't properly raked them like they do in Finland.  I remember all this because right about then I was sticking light bulbs up my anus to kill Covid.

See it all makes sense now right?

[The_Capt]

2 hours ago, sfhand said:

How can anyone know the truth of the matter?

Well we can’t and probably won’t in our lifetimes.  The “truth” is a floating point of agreement (are disagreement) among humans.  We are essentially a species with brains big enough to invent the big beautiful fictions.  We believe in them so hard that they may as well be true because they create conative impulse.  I don’t believe in God but Holy Wars are still going to happen.

As to the weird string of political conspiracies (John Kettler is that you?).  In my experience in government, conspiracies are the rare exception - and they usually get caught out…that is how we know about them.  Governments leak like sburke after a few beers on a good day.  Most TS stuff is over classified and sitting on 00’s era desktops.  The government can barely get above board things done let alone wage an effective mid/dis information campaign against its people.  The governments that can have to spend a ridiculous amount of time and energy, over a long period of time, to even get close.  Russia tries very hard but we know there are holes in the fence.  Hell even NK is not fully able to fully insulate its population from outside info.

So while people like you are digging bunkers and fitting for aluminum hats, the reality is that governments are big slow moving bureaucracies good at only one thing…protecting the bureaucracy.  

Beyond that I am not sure what Neo/Matrix thing you are really talking about.  The war?  The causes of the war?  The progress of the war?  We will never really know the truth about any of it in some universal truth because no such human truth exists outside of science.  How do I know gravity works like they tell me?  Well go jump off a building.  As to the rest it is best guesses and close enough.  We can see what we can see.

What is really weird is that the Information Age should make it impossible to lie.  One can quickly verify a lie in the ocean of information out there…that was the theory.  But what did we do with that ocean of info?  We saw more lies!  We linked patterns that are not there.  Are you being lied to…definitely.  And what should bake you noodle is that because you are a human being the front and center culprit in those lies are not XYZ…it is you, to yourself.  We lie to ourselves all the time.  We filter, bias, ignore, reject and spin every time you look in the mirror.  We lie to ourselves about everything all the time.  Welcome to humanity.  

[Battlefront.com]

2 hours ago, sfhand said:

My plan is to have this be my only post in this thread... I've known about the thread from day one. I really only have one question about the whole thing.

How can anyone know the truth of the matter?

Yeah, when we invaded Iraq because of WMD's I was one of the ones questioning the decision. I watched in disbelief Colin Powell's address to the UN, the one with the crudely made computer generations of Iraq's supposed mobile WMD labs. Not satellite photos... crudely made computer representations - the lack of no photos was a big tell. I also read all of Hans Blix's report about there being no proof of WMD's and his willingness to keep investigating.

Why was I so skeptical of the US government? I missed the Vietnam draft by 2 years. The Pentagon papers clearly showed those "in command" were lying through their teeth about the state of things. For me, this type of government mendacity erodes trust. Fast forward to Iraq and my saying to a friend during a work break meal as we watched the opening salvo Shock and Awe bombing on TV "I can't believe anyone believes the reasons for this after having gone through Vietnam". My friend's response "Obviously you don't know anyone who lives in New York" (guess where he was from). It was a very enlightening moment about the human condition and yet not enlightening at all about the justifications for the war.

Then there's Russia-gate. You all know it has been thoroughly debunked right? In a court of law no less. See the Durham report. The whole "thing" was plotted by the Clinton campaign. There is also the Inspector General's report (Horowitz) about the FBI, and its head honchos, losing its/their way. When these truths were exposed one NYT reporter commented about the Clinton campaign liars thusly "...they lied and with sanctimony...".

We were told the Hunter Biden laptop was Russian disinformation... Trump (who I will never vote for) was called out in a debate with Biden for promoting Russian disinformation by the mainstream media moderator because he mentioned the laptop. The moderator's reasoning: 50 former high ranking intelligence operatives said the laptop bore all the classic hallmarks of a Russian disinformation campaign.

Have you ever wondered why Paul Manafort was tried and convicted for FARA violations while Hunter Biden is given a free pass? Or the fact that Peter Navarro was sentenced to prison for ignoring a congressional subpoena (yanked off an airplane and handcuffed) but Hunter faces no repercussions?

So, we've got the CIA and the FBI running covert ops against the American public in order for form public opinion in their favor. Apparently there is a healthy appetite for wolf attacks these days because no one ever seems to ignore or tire of the boy calling wolf in real life. At this point Regan definitely got it backwards: verify before trusting. 

The essence of a good con is telling the mark what they want to hear. No con can succeed without it.

With this, I am out. I don't expect anyone in this thread to agree with anything I've added to this conversation and I am very much okay with it. I did want to voice my thoughts on the fundamental nature of matter. I hope you all are having a great day/night and enjoying life one day at a time.

 

I have no idea what this is about, other than rather tired one sided "truth is only what I want it to be" filtering of facts into neat, convenient, self defined buckets of right and wrong.

Anyway, I figured I'd just state that for me, personally, government sources of information and mainstream media make up a fraction of the information I've absorbed about this war over the last two years.  If someone says a house is on fire I check to see if it is before making a conclusion one way or another.

Steve

[dan/california]

 

Quote

 

https://www.politico.eu/article/russian-journalist-who-covered-navalnys-trial-arrested-for-extremism/

Russian journalist who covered Navalny’s trial is arrested for extremism

Moscow court charged Antonina Favorskaya with participating in the activities of late Kremlin critic Aleksei Navalny’s Anti-Corruption Foundation.

 

Putin is now cracking down so hard it is illegal, and dangerous, to report that there is a crackdown underway.

[Kinophile]

1 hour ago, sburke said:

Putin's invasion plans were formulated on Hunter Biden's laptop.  They were created while he and George Soros were vacationing at Jeffery Epstein's place at the same time that Hilary Clinton was discussing a marketing plan with Epstein to use a Pizza place as a front for child trafficking.  I seem to remember this was close to the same time Jewish Space lasers were lighting up California forests because we hadn't properly raked them like they do in Finland.  I remember all this because right about then I was sticking light bulbs up my anus to kill Covid.

See it all makes sense now right?

And behind it all - BORIS JOHNSON 

[Kinophile]

3 hours ago, sfhand said:

My plan is to have this be my only post in this thread... 

That's a great idea!

The rest of it is infantile, whiney drivel, so you're really doing everyone a favour by limiting your stable genius to one glorious post.

Of course, you could have not posted at all - that's an even better idea! 

The latter is mine but you can have it, gratis. Sorry, too many syllables - Free. 

Edited March 30 by Kinophile

[dan/california]

Read Dmitri every day!

[LongLeftFlank]

Dmitri is getting kind of whiny at this point though, not a great sign....

[LongLeftFlank]

7 hours ago, Kinophile said:

 

Difficult to counter. 

So we must then solve for that finely trained, well equipped soldier....

Do you think he was important?
Well, if he was, then we won't have to wait long to find out.

Edited March 31 by LongLeftFlank

[dan/california]

39 minutes ago, LongLeftFlank said:

Dmitri is getting kind of whiny at this point though, not a great sign....

Two years in everybody is tired, and showing it one way or another.

 

[LongLeftFlank]

21 minutes ago, dan/california said:

Two years in everybody is tired, and showing it one way or another.

One ray of light, and this is *strictly* barroom RUMINT, FWIW: I won't talk specifics here (and I don't know that much anyway), but it seems all air transport throughout European Russia at below mach speed will shortly become extremely unsafe. And even supersonic jets need to take off and land....

As rumoured, the necessary system is already in Uke hands, but they're trying hard to find a way not to have it splash RU civilian airliners by mistake. That wouldn't be a great look, given MH17. And you can absolutely expect the Russians to dangle airliners full of foreigners, especially Turks or Middle Easterners, in harms way.

...At a guess, when foreign carriers (looking at you, Turkish Airlines and Emirates) begin canceling routes to Russia with scant explanation, that will be proof that this is not just BS.

Edited March 31 by LongLeftFlank

[dan/california]

4 minutes ago, LongLeftFlank said:

One ray of light, and this is *strictly* barroom RUMINT, FWIW: I won't talk specifics here (and I don't know that much anyway), but it seems all air transport throughout European Russia at below mach speed will shortly become extremely unsafe. And even supersonic jets need to take off and land....

As rumoured, the necessary system is already in Uke hands, but they're trying hard to find a way not to have it splash RU civilian airliners by mistake. That wouldn't be a great look, given MH17. And you can absolutely expect the Russians to dangle airliners full of foreigners, especially Turks or Middle Easterners, in harms way.

...At a guess, when foreign carriers (looking at you, Turkish Airlines and Emirates) begin canceling routes to Russia with scant explanation, that will be proof that this is not just BS.

Now THAT is a rumor! And hopefully a true one.

[LongLeftFlank]

1 minute ago, dan/california said:

Now THAT is a rumor! And hopefully a true one.

Well, the 'Limited Contingent of Soviet Forces in Afghanistan' was ultimately forced out when their air supplied FOBs became untenable.

The biggest kick in the ntz will come though when Ivan's rail network goes down. Shoulda been done long ago, IMHO, by any means necessary, but as the pros remind us, easier said than done.

[Joe982]

Civilian airliners in the air can be scanned globally by anyone with a phone. Ukrain cannot hit one by mistake.

[LongLeftFlank]

5 minutes ago, Joe982 said:

Civilian airliners in the air can be scanned globally by anyone with a phone. Ukrain cannot hit one by mistake.

Igor Strelkov, is that you? (jk)

But yes, you are in theory correct. However, this is said to be a fully autonomous system, with no human in the loop after it goes behind the lines.

To err is inhuman?

[Battlefront.com]

25 minutes ago, LongLeftFlank said:

Igor Strelkov, is that you? (jk)

But yes, you are in theory correct. However, this is said to be a fully autonomous system, with no human in the loop after it goes behind the lines.

To err is inhuman?

So, basically, a fast moving drone with an autonomous targeting system.  Obviously this is theoretically possible to do, and Ukraine has done so much with drones already, but it would be quite risky.

What I could see happening is recognizing flight patterns for military aircraft and then putting the killer drones into the general area with prohibitions on striking anything outside of compatible parameters (altitude, airspeed, etc.).  It wouldn't be that hard to do something like that and have it work pretty reliably.

For example, send the drones to Russia's restricted air spaces and target anything within it.  To be extra safe, restrict the altitude to below something like 10,000 feet or, if attacking aircraft landing/taking off crank it down to 1000 ft.  That sort of stuff.

Now, whether the rumors you are talking about are true or not... this is coming. 

Steve

[chrisl]

43 minutes ago, Joe982 said:

Civilian airliners in the air can be scanned globally by anyone with a phone. Ukrain cannot hit one by mistake.

Via ADS-B?

It's not perfect. In an area where there aren't a lot of ground receivers feeding your map you're dependent on them being picked up by Iridium.  And depending on what system you're using to watch aircraft, the lag between transmission and display can be anywhere from a few seconds to a few minutes.

And the easy defense for russia is to squawk civilian airliner codes so that whoever wants to shoot at them would need visual confirmation to have confidence that it's not.

[chrisl]

57 minutes ago, LongLeftFlank said:

Well, the 'Limited Contingent of Soviet Forces in Afghanistan' was ultimately forced out when their air supplied FOBs became untenable.

The biggest kick in the ntz will come though when Ivan's rail network goes down. Shoulda been done long ago, IMHO, by any means necessary, but as the pros remind us, easier said than done.

The Ukrainian drone hordes will be the most effective thing for finally restricting the rail network, but I suspect they still have to deal with range limitations.  Taking out track is very temporary - it's not hard lay new segments of track quickly.  But taking out locomotives and leaving a pile of rolling stock on the track adds some complication.  Locomotives are also something you could attack very effectively with a not-very-clever autonomous drone if you need to hit them beyond effective RF control range.

[kimbosbread]

17 minutes ago, chrisl said:

But taking out locomotives and leaving a pile of rolling stock on the track adds some complication.  Locomotives are also something you could attack very effectively with a not-very-clever autonomous drone if you need to hit them beyond effective RF control range.

I was thinking more about locomotive hunting the other day with drones. Maybe it’s easier to just drop anti-tank mines with an accelerometer on them on the track? But you need to get the damn mine over there anyway.

[chrisl]

35 minutes ago, kimbosbread said:

I was thinking more about locomotive hunting the other day with drones. Maybe it’s easier to just drop anti-tank mines with an accelerometer on them on the track? But you need to get the damn mine over there anyway.

You might get away with advance laying AT mines a few times, but eventually they'd start running smaller vehicles (service locomotives, or even trucks with train wheels) pushing a sacrificial train car or two (maybe with a very low plow, too) ahead of the trains.  It would certainly slow things down, but not necessarily bring it to a halt.

But drones that drop AT mines just a short way in front of the moving train?  You'd take advantage of the extemely long stopping distance and make it a lot harder to sweep the tracks.  And maybe easier than hitting the moving locomotive.