DJJIB-DJDCT posted:

They literally could not imagine giving veterans houses for free after this war of theirs too. That's not counting the promise of guaranteed employment, and building a new society. Has not occurred to them, will not occur to them, they would be disgusted if someone brought it up. Like, they really think they can get people to fight WW3, and then, if they win, give them a handshake and good luck on civvy street.

On the home front, between Grenfell and covid, why on earth would anyone trust their lives to the government? They would probably cook up means testing for destroyed homes should Blighty be bombed, at best.

DJJIB-DJDCT posted:

Goddamn I love Punch.



Whoever pointed out that their cartoons about China could be printed today was dead on.

Lostconfused posted:

The lesson from Ukraine war is to stuff someone in a minivan and drive them to a ditch a few hundred kilometers away.

Is US planning to fight a war with Mexico in the next couple of years?

Lostconfused posted:

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/4/17/russian-peacekeepers-start-withdrawal-from-azerbaijans-nagorno-karabakh

Doktor Avalanche posted:

they think people should be willing to fight for "democracy", or that dreadful jfk quote "ask not what your country can do for you"
of course, that's other people, the poor and uneducated, They will be fighting the war from the guardian/new york times/<insert paper of record> op ed page

DJJIB-DJDCT posted:

lol I just came across this gem:

The Alliance vs The Bear – Some Fundamentals of Why Russia Won’t Win. (Part 1)

On 11th July 2014 the Ukrainian 79th Airmobile Brigade was subjected to a 3 (and a bit) minute bombardment by (probably) Russian Army artillery rocket systems fired from inside Russia. Ukraine’s Defense Ministry admitted to 19 killed and 93 wounded in the attack, though other sources claimed up to 36 fatalities. No figures were released on the number of vehicles lost, but a survivor reported that a battalion of the 79th Airmobile Brigade had been almost entirely destroyed.

That’s a real demonstration of capability. The Russian Army’s Western Military District have two divisions of these things, that’s more than 20 launchers. I have no idea how many were used in this attack, but it probably wasn’t all of them. So should we be really concerned over Russia’s ability to destroy targets at reach? We’ve really underinvested in artillery through more than a decade of counter-insurgency operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, followed by some really significant cuts. Are we now short on capability? If there was a ‘conventional’ conflict between NATO and Russia would we lose?

In this first part of the “Rant Trilogy” I aim to address this conventional threat to the land forces by peer state actors like Russia…

The rhetoric is that in a land centric campaign Russian forces will win. They have more guns that fire more variants of rounds further than ours and can be cued for anti-battery fires faster than ours. Is that true? On paper the Tornado-G has a range of 40km, GMLRS (of which the Royal Artillery has 42 – again on paper) have a range of 70km. You might ask questions about reliability, the cost of the rounds and training etc, but is Russia not facing these challenges too, if not more so given the size of their economy and their 800 000 soldiers? You could even say that ours are pin-point accurate and therefore not an area weapon, but they used to be and it wouldn’t take much effort (albeit significant pennies) to convert them back? I’ll come back to that…

Let’s assume that rhetoric is true. Are we considering this from a too land centric focus? Do we need to beat massed artillery with massed artillery? One frequently posed position is that we are not thinking ‘jointly’ enough. We shouldn’t be concerned about a lack of long range artillery because we have F35 (or will do, one day) and UAVs and they can bomb stuff. But with the proliferation of GBAD, is that a good idea? Someone in light blue might tell you that it’s ok because the F35 is the most sophisticated air craft in the world and will probably beat all the GBAD. Probably?! Is that enough assurance?

So how do we reduce the cost? If we know that the result of them firing loads of rockets at us is pain we don’t want, we need to stop them firing the weapons. Let’s assume we are in conflict and therefore the Sun Tzu approach isn’t an option. We’re now into the realms of a pre-emptive strike. If ‘we’ represent a threat to Russia, and Russia looks at threat in the same way as us, then they’ll be looking at capability and intent. The ability to destroy a battery of Russian artillery exists. Cruise missiles, Reaper, SF, F35 – there are options that would work. The missing thing then is intent. Or in this case, permissions. Would ‘we’ (the military) get authority to destroy a load of Russian military kit before they fired at us? It would need to be based on pretty solid intelligence that they intended to fire it and that we knew exactly where it was.

Ukrainian army troops have reportedly identified certain types of drones whose appearance inevitably foretells rocket artillery strikes from Russian and Russian-allied forces. Pretty good indication to me.

This also assumes that Russia want the fight more than we do. I’ve mentioned the cost of a war in terms of people and stuff. But that all costs money. Russia’s economy is not huge. All this from a country with an economy “smaller that Italy”? Well for starters that’s rubbish. Russia might have an economy 1/12 the size of the US, but it’s much cheaper to build the exact same thing in Russia than the states due to labour costs, taxes etc. Cheaper yes, but not 1/12 of the cost. Even if that is taken into consideration Russia has the 6thbiggest economy in the world. Back to the human cost, their Army of 800 000 is largely conscription soldiers who only serve a year and have very basic training. The US Army has half a million professional soldiers. Russia would run out of money (which equals stuff) and trained people faster than NATO.

So we’d probably win.

January 26, 2018

Flournival Dixon posted:

https://twitter.com/ParamPam1990/status/1780374915847184599

at least someone in ukraine is fighting the good fight

Facehammer posted:

It's an offer so insulting I'm sure it could only encourage people to sign up and fight for the other side.

DJJIB-DJDCT posted:

I don't know what it is about British Tories specifically that they all vividly remember these scene, and evidently love to imagine it, they only need to declare war and have people line up, when they more than anyone else, more than even the most fervent antiwar activists, have made this not just impossible but ridiculous.

"All volunteer military" and "completely atomized society that has done nothing for you" are not compatible. "Take the king's shilling and die for the government that will dismantle the NHS!", "Step up to defend the social order that offers you nothing, and has made your life worse!", "When your dog (can't afford to have kids) asks you what you did in the Great War, what will you say?"

crepeface posted:

crepeface posted:

crepeface posted:

Facehammer posted:

Some gammony old oval office was briefly in the news a few weeks ago for suggesting that the British public could be made more amenable to conscription if it included reducing our student loans.

Not cancelling them; only knocking a few percent off.

It's an offer so insulting I'm sure it could only encourage people to sign up and fight for the other side.

DJJIB-DJDCT posted:

Here's a problem. It's clear that "civil society" set up via USAID and NED in all of these other states is essentially a fifth column. We treat our own NGO sector as make-work jobs for annoying liberal PMC (like the financial advice columnist who gave a shoebox full of cash to a scammer), and they are - but - what if they also function the same way here? If we know that Lebanese NGOs, and Georgian NGOs, and Ukrainian NGOs, exist to subvert society and serve a very specific agenda, via their control over the media and huge financial resources, wouldn't that make our annoying land acknowledgement and green initiative liberals dangerous as well?

euphronius posted:

while it makes sense to be skeptical of American capacity to stomach a mass casualty war, we did just shrug off the entirety of covid which killed millions of people

WoodrowSkillson posted:

Americans will line up to die in a war. Thinking Americans are even capable of war weariness is farcical. We will hoot and holler in NFL stadiums for decades more if another big war kicks off.

DJJIB-DJDCT posted:

Someone better at political economy can reason this out but,

quote:

ee: how the gently caress does China only have 8 Nobel laureates?

Leandros posted:

I have no idea how much it's used, but wouldn't the APS also be blinded by the shed? Or are you just talking passive protection?

WoodrowSkillson posted:

Americans will line up to die in a war. Thinking Americans are even capable of war weariness is farcical. We will hoot and holler in NFL stadiums for decades more if another big war kicks off.

Lostconfused posted:

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/4/17/russian-peacekeepers-start-withdrawal-from-azerbaijans-nagorno-karabakh

VoicesCanBe posted:

I'm guessing Armenia's President has a cushy do-nothing gig lined up after his term, cause otherwise I have no idea why he thought pivoting from Russia to NATO would be remotely helpful. NATO was never going to do anything to stop Azerbaijan.

Ardennes posted:

Passive protection, T-90 is just a difficult tank to take down unless you drop a grenade in the hatch. Honestly, APS systems in general are a bit ify, especially against drones, and close range ATGM attacks, while the barn acts as a uniform layer of spaced armor around the T-90s ERA and composite armor.

Leandros posted:

In that case yeah definitely. I feel like a couple meters of distance is gonna undo most HEAT jets. Seems to me they could just use some drones with 360 cameras (possibly even with a cable, no need to swap out batteries and gives the option for actually integrating it with systems) to improve any lost visibility. Battle barns are the future.

Russia Today posted:

Kiev’s forces “deliberately” targeted a blood donation center in the town of Gorlovka, regional head Denis Pushilin has said

Ukrainian forces have struck a hospital and blood donation center in the Donbass town of Gorlovka, the head of Russia’s Donetsk People’s Republic, Denis Pushilin, has said. Eight civilians including a child were injured in the attack.

The victims sustained non-life-threatening injuries in the strike, Pushilin wrote on Telegram on Thursday. The the town center where healthcare facilities are located was “deliberately” targeted, he claimed. Both the hospital and the donation center were damaged in the strike.

Gorlovka Mayor Ivan Prikhodko published photos and videos from the scene showing damaged buildings, smashed windows and debris. One clip also showed destroyed furniture in a room at the healthcare facility.

Kiev’s troops used the US-supplied High Mobility Artillery Rocket System (HIMARS) in the attack, according to preliminary data gathered by the Russian authorities.

Washington has sent dozens of the multiple rocket launchers to Ukraine since mid-2022. The systems provided to Kiev have a range of up to 160km (100 miles) when equipped with longer-range ATACMS missiles. Other projectiles launched by HIMARS and available to the Ukrainian military have a range of around 70km.


According to Pushilin, Kiev’s forces carried out a total of 12 attacks on Thursday – both missile and drone strikes – targeting Gorlovka as well as Donetsk and other Donbass settlements. Cluster munitions were used in some of these attacks, the official said.

Last week, Ukrainian forces conducted a missile strike targeting a machinery plant in the city of Lugansk. Nine people were injured, including seven workers and two local residents, local leader Leonid Pasechnik said at that time. UK-supplied long-range Storm Shadow missiles were used in that assault, according to Russian law enforcement.

Leandros posted:

Battle barns are the future

DJJIB-DJDCT posted:

ee: how the gently caress does China only have 8 Nobel laureates?

DJJIB-DJDCT posted:

Just like the Ivy League started deemphasizing mastery of the violin in admissions, which they had seen as a symbol of refinement, sensitivity, intelligence, because too many Asians were learning the violin

VoicesCanBe posted:

I'm guessing Armenia's President has a cushy do-nothing gig lined up after his term, cause otherwise I have no idea why he thought pivoting from Russia to NATO would be remotely helpful. NATO was never going to do anything to stop Azerbaijan.

The Alchemist posted:

Ukraine strikes hospital in Donbass, injuring eight – authorities

Tankbuster posted:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TYEBVGj51nk

Video showing how mariopolis is being rebuilt.

DJJIB-DJDCT posted:

Goddamn I love Punch.




Whoever pointed out that their cartoons about China could be printed today was dead on.

Officer Sandvich posted:

https://www.foreignaffairs.com/ukraine/talks-could-have-ended-war-ukraine

The Talks That Could Have Ended the War in Ukraine

A Hidden History of Diplomacy That Came Up Short—but Holds Lessons for Future Negotiations

Tankbuster posted:

hey yall think the proto-furries were jerking off to Punch Drawings?

Some Guy TT posted:

i find it hilarious how this article keeps having to remind us every few paragraphs that putins a big gay liar when he says we sabotaged the deal after giving us factoids like "ukraine had to give up on this version of the draft because it called for the united states to declare war on russia in the event of another invasion and we said no"