War in Ukraine

[Scottty]

Actually, I learned that a country fucked by long and useless years of trench wars wrecking a generation is much less of a threat afterwards. See: France 1940

Well as Vikram pointed out, Germany fought in that too, and against more opponents than just France.

The "oh no not again" factor though is no doubt relevant to the lack of gas warfare in WW2 though.

It does matter, because it means that eventually, they'll be limited, like they are with missiles right now, to their production rate as the expenditure rate.

Actually very much enough, since the Ivans are now forced to send to the frontlines equipment from the 1930s to 1960s.

I have a question here - is it normal for a country to still have any substantial quantity of hardware from that far back, that they can pull out and use?

It's like France still having a depot somewhere full of Char B1 tanks, or the UK keeping a supply of Spitfires.

Compare Germany 1940, which rolled over France, Poland, Greece, Norway, Yugoslavia, Austria, and nearly rolled over the USSR without copious US aid.

Never, ever let the enemy limp away to lick its wounds and try another day. Either defeat them quickly (that opportunity was lost nearly a decade ago) or defeat them thoroughly. Which you can still do.

There must be no next time.


And who cares? It's still more than Ukraine will have. And last thing we need is for Putin to sacrifice yet another hundred thousand people on both sides for a single mile of land.


No, not enough. They shouldn't even have lorries to send over.

We have already seen this before with Pakistan. A mad dog will not stop before it's put down. Russia will not stop unless you break them....and your dithering isn't breaking them, it's just bleeding them.

I think Russia is saner than Pakistan, though that's a low bar to clear.
And for all his derision about red lines and escalation, Rufus probably prefers French cities to not be reduced to puddles of molten glass.

Yep. It very much was a big mistake.

As a specialised press article said, this war feels like the Spanish Civil War, with everyone providing equipment to each side and testing new tactics, doctrines, to prepare for the upcoming world war.

Killbot hellscape, with swarms of autonomous drones battling it out. At least, that theory is being tested.

Maybe an improvement on the old scenario in which it all goes directly to buttons being pushed, big missiles flying, and all of Middle-Earth being plunged into the worst darkness since Melkor destroyed the Lamps of the Valar.

I wonder now and then in what fantasy world Russian and vatniks are living.

One in which all of the genociding was done by Germany, with the Soviet Union being the good guys who liberated Europe from the Nazis all by themselves. And the Holodomor was entirely the Capitalist West's fault, or something.

 

[Scottty]

I am actually agreeing with him.
What sort of strange and unusual combination of mental illnesses must you have to not notice a colossal screw up in your munition storage procedures.

No seriously!!! A tarp and a camonet is not a synonym of an underground bunker.

So all those munitions were basically sitting in a big pile in the open?

Hell the Royal Navy, a world renown organization with sound judgement, figured out you should be locking fire-doors when things that go boom are involved in 1916.

Only after the battle of Jutland, when German battleships were somehow surviving hits of the sort that were one-shot-sinking British battleships.
And yes, it was because the German High Seas Fleet used double interlocking doors between the turrets and the magazine, while the Royal Navy... didn't.

 

[Rufus Shinra]

I have a question here - is it normal for a country to still have any substantial quantity of hardware from that far back, that they can pull out and use?

It's like France still having a depot somewhere full of Char B1 tanks, or the UK keeping a supply of Spitfires.

No, not really. The US does have huge depots, but unlike the Russian ones, they are well-maintained and for weapons that can actually be useful or be sold.

I think Russia is saner than Pakistan, though that's a low bar to clear.
And for all his derision about red lines and escalation, Rufus probably prefers French cities to not be reduced to puddles of molten glass.

Le Shrug. If we get glassed, I won't have the time to realise it since I'm among the lucky ones who'd get killed instantly.

One in which all of the genociding was done by Germany, with the Soviet Union being the good guys who liberated Europe from the Nazis all by themselves. And the Holodomor was entirely the Capitalist West's fault, or something.

If only it was that close to RL. Check the Russian-centric 'alternative theory of history', seen in some museums there:

А вы знали в Ярославле есть самый настоящий музей Новой Хронологии?

Если кратко, то академик РАН Фоменко создал альтернативную историю нашего мира - Новую Хронологию. По Фоменко история начинается с Х века, когда из славянской обезьяны вывелся первый русский, мать Христа была русской (а не тойсамойнациональности, про отца-юриста не упоминалось), японские самураи...

unews.pro

 

[Marek_Gutkowski]

So all those munitions were basically sitting in a big pile in the open?

Yes!
That is the level of criminal negligence on display here.
How?

Only after the battle of Jutland, when German battleships were somehow surviving hits of the sort that were one-shot-sinking British battleships.
And yes, it was because the German High Seas Fleet used double interlocking doors between the turrets and the magazine, while the Royal Navy... didn't.

Germans also almost lost a BC at Dogger Bank for the same reason. They learned fireproof doors to the magazines need to be locked.
The fire prevention measures on the RN ships were perfectly serviceable. But they under Betty's orders out right removed them.

His signal officer also deserves a mention. I am not a big fan of Betty.

 

[IndyFront]

No, not really. The US does have huge depots, but unlike the Russian ones, they are well-maintained and for weapons that can actually be useful or be sold.

Le Shrug. If we get glassed, I won't have the time to realise it since I'm among the lucky ones who'd get killed instantly.

If only it was that close to RL. Check the Russian-centric 'alternative theory of history', seen in some museums there:

View attachment 7641

А вы знали в Ярославле есть самый настоящий музей Новой Хронологии?

Если кратко, то академик РАН Фоменко создал альтернативную историю нашего мира - Новую Хронологию. По Фоменко история начинается с Х века, когда из славянской обезьяны вывелся первый русский, мать Христа была русской (а не тойсамойнациональности, про отца-юриста не упоминалось), японские самураи...

unews.pro

Wow, I already knew Russians were delusional but this really takes the cake

 

[Scottty]

Wow, I already knew Russians were delusional but this really takes the cake

As revisionist theories of history go, I've been sillier - but not often.
One should not assume that all of them believe such stuff.

"Russian-Ottoman"... because those two polities got along sooo well together historically.... /sarcasm

 

[Scottty]

Meanwhile, since the topic is now "things Russians believe" - let's move to "things Russians are disagreeing with each other about":

Evolution part of God's plan – Orthodox Church leader Patriarch Kirill's comments come after some Russian lawmakers proposed banning Darwin's theory from being taught in schools

 

[Rufus Shinra]

Yes!
That is the level of criminal negligence on display here.
How?

It seems, based on comments from Russian authorities when they built their new and 'improved' ammunition dump, that wooden storage areas and open-air storage were regular shitte in USSR and Russia. Also the issue of the lack of palletisation leading to inefficient logistics and personnel not willing to move the ammunition all the way to the secured stores. Then you see the pictures of the 'hardened' depot... without reinforced doors or walls.

 

[Scottty]

It seems, based on comments from Russian authorities when they built their new and 'improved' ammunition dump, that wooden storage areas and open-air storage were regular shitte in USSR and Russia. Also the issue of the lack of palletisation leading to inefficient logistics and personnel not willing to move the ammunition all the way to the secured stores. Then you see the pictures of the 'hardened' depot... without reinforced doors or walls.

"But we've done it this way for ages and it was never a problem before." ?

 

[Ravan]

Meanwhile, since the topic is now "things Russians believe" - let's move to "things Russians are disagreeing with each other about":

Evolution part of God's plan – Orthodox Church leader Patriarch Kirill's comments come after some Russian lawmakers proposed banning Darwin's theory from being taught in schools

Not too surprising. Theistic Evolution has been an accepted theory in the Catholic/Orthodox Sphere for decades.

 

[Scottty]

Not too surprising. Theistic Evolution has been an accepted theory in the Catholic/Orthodox Sphere for decades.

Yup. Kirill's opinion looks to me as simply the sort of thing that leaders of the "robes and special hats" denominations have been saying for quite a while.

 

[Ravan]

Yup. Kirill's opinion looks to me as simply the sort of thing that leaders of the "robes and special hats" denominations have been saying for quite a while.

Russia should remember last time they decided to go with an alternative to Darwin. Lysenko.

 

[Scottty]

Russia should remember last time they decided to go with an alternative to Darwin. Lysenko.

Well, it did count as a test of his theories...

EDIT: IIRC it was not so much an alternative to Darwin as to Mendelian genetics. Genes are a Capitalist invention, comrade! Hereditary works on totally different principles! Superior Socialist Biology!

 

[Ravan]

Well, it did count as a test of his theories...

EDIT: IIRC it was not so much an alternative to Darwin as to Mendelian genetics. Genes are a Capitalist invention, comrade! Hereditary works on totally different principles! Superior Socialist Biology!

It was essentially a form of Lamarkism. The basic idea was that things which happen to the parent affect the child, to an unrealistic degree. So "freeze the wheat seeds and the plant will be cold resistant" which is how you got famine.

 

[Scottty]

It was essentially a form of Lamarkism. The basic idea was that things which happen to the parent affect the child, to an unrealistic degree. So "freeze the wheat seeds and the plant will be cold resistant" which is how you got famine.

Lamarkism is a biological "heresy" that won't go away, because its roots are not in reason but in intuition. Based on my own experience of debating with ardent advocates of "Evolution!", Neo-Darwinian mutation-and-selection is their "Motte" position - the one they will argue to defend. But their "Bailey", more often than not, is a dreamy-headed Lamarkism.

But the problem with Superior Soviet Science was a different one: they were "reality must conform to our ideology" people. And Marxists have long had problems with Darwin. The notion that individuals are born different from each other in ways that matter, that they win or lose due to internal characteristics that they inherited from their ancestors? How inegalitarian and un-socialist! Off to re-education camp with you, comrade!

 

[Ravan]

Lamarkism is a biological "heresy" that won't go away, because its roots are not in reason but in intuition. Based on my own experience of debating with ardent advocates of "Evolution!", Neo-Darwinian mutation-and-selection is their "Motte" position - the one they will argue to defend. But their "Bailey", more often than not, is a dreamy-headed Lamarkism.

But the problem with Superior Soviet Science was a different one: they were "reality must conform to our ideology" people. And Marxists have long had problems with Darwin. The notion that individuals are born different from each other in ways that matter, that they win or lose due to internal characteristics that they inherited from their ancestors? How inegalitarian and un-socialist! Off to re-education camp with you, comrade!

Lamarkism is a wonderful element for fantasy settings, but I certainly haven't seen it used by any modern advocates of Darwinian principles. Do you have examples? I'm wondering if they know what they're saying or if they just garbled the words and it came out sounding like Lamark.

 

[Marek_Gutkowski]

Donno what was the target but dropping 9t bombs feels like an overcompensation.

Why just level a building if you can set the whole neighborhood up in flames.

Correction.
This is most likely a ODAB-1500, unlike what the X/tweet claims.
So a ton and a half bomb.

 

[Scottty]

Lamarkism is a wonderful element for fantasy settings, but I certainly haven't seen it used by any modern advocates of Darwinian principles.

I don't expect that you would. Certainly not while they have their thinking-caps on and are mentally engaged in advocating for those Darwinian principles.

Do you have examples? I'm wondering if they know what they're saying or if they just garbled the words and it came out sounding like Lamark.

Better if I invent an example to illustrate the point clearly:

"Every living thing needs a survival strategy to successfully reproduce. For small mammals, predation by hunting birds is an obvious problem. So this particular species chose to use camouflage. They changed their fur to be a mottled brown in colour, so that it would blend in better with the dead leaves on the ground in the forest. The birds soon realized that hunting critters that were so hard to find wasn't worth the trouble, so they went for other prey instead. Meanwhile, this other species, faced with the same problem, decided to-"

Interrupted and asked if he really seriously means what he just said there, the speaker is probably going to quickly get into his Darwin suit and explain that of course what he really meant was that one of those creatures that were being hunted by birds just happened to have a mutation, a DNA copying error, that was not in any way caused by what was going on outside of the cells, that had the effect of making the fur blend in with the leaves, and so that individual lived longer and passed on its genes more than the others. No literal choosing or strategy of course. Random mutation was just as likely to make their fur bright red, but those ones would immediately get nommed by the birds, so.. etc etc

Put simply, while Evolution people are almost always Darwinist when they are awake and thinking seriously in real-time about what they are saying... at times when they are not, when they are, figuratively speaking, "talking in their sleep", what comes out is Lamarkian.

 

[Scottty]

Donno what was the target but dropping 9t bombs feels like an overcompensation.

Why just level a building if you can set the whole neighborhood up in flames.

That's Vovchansk. A quick google informs me that Volchansk is way way east near the Urals. The war's not going that well for the Ukrainians...

Perhaps more significant than the size of the bomb they dropped, is that they dropped it. The ODAB-9000 or FOAB is not a stand-off missile.
This tells us something about the state of air defense in that area.

If anyone needs their daily dose of 'Rossiya Stronk!"

 

[IndyFront]

So looks like they're not even trying to hide it anymore. They are now openly printing this map in Russian public school textbooks:

Pretty disgusting. All of this over a piece of shit like Yanukovych

 

[Scottty]

So looks like they're not even trying to hide it anymore. They are now openly printing this map in Russian public school textbooks:

Those poor kids..

 

[Rufus Shinra]

Those poor kids..

This applies to any kid born in Russia, shitty textbooks or not.

 

[Rufus Shinra]

Russian forces apparently friendly-fired one of their "stealth" drone. "stealth", because as usual, it's full of visible rivets everywhere.

https://defence-blog.com/russian-su-70-drone-reportedly-shot-down-by-friendly-fire/

Well, lol.

 

[Aetherius]

no comment....