TXSG8R

/no cr There’s a class of politician that lives in that emotional zone. It’s safe to say things they know are impossible to achieve, and then you get to blame the other guy for stopping it. With echo chambers, gerrymandering, and a two party system, it’s pretty foolproof.

From reddit I’ve got an Xbox buddy that says he fell for the 10/10 reviews but can’t believe how hard the game is. I think a lot of people are trying to play way too linear and getting crushed by it. I started hunting for stuff I could kill and the game has been great since then. I finally beat margit after leveling my guy into the mid 20s. The bad part about exploring is I’ve run across a few bosses that I can’t imagine beating even with a lot more gear and power. I also think right now that ranged classes are worthless when it comes to bosses, which sucks. I put quite a bit of time into an astrologer before finding out some bosses will dodge every single ranged attack you throw at them. I switched to a melee focused class and find it easier not worrying about juggling HP and FP. Max out HP flasks and just get in there and swing for the fences.

The helo drops in broad daylight is what made me think it was more parade and less S&A. “Sergei, dump flares while we do slow circles. That always gets a smirk from the general.” I can’t imagine the pilots briefs for this shit. They either knew they were going into death traps, or again, they fully drank the koolaid.

Red car looks like small arms. White car is definitely frag damage (elongated irregular holes).

The red dot is obscuring my face, remove it so they can see how determined I am laying in the snow.

His tweets have tracked a lot of career analysts, to the point that early on I thought he was just rehashing Vindman’s tweets. Not suggesting its tracking the psyops/removal stuff from OP, but the intel has been on point.

I think Putin fundamentally misunderstood shock & awe then. The goals are not to put on a parade display for the media and/or general public. It’s designed to be a coordinated and overwhelming crush on military capability that paralyzes military and gov’t leadership. You take so many pieces off the board all at once that you destroy every level of response that their defense can muster. In Iraq we put a missile in every AA system, comms unit, ammo dump, emplaced armor, and plane on the ground, almost simultaneously. You saturate their leadership in information and force paralysis through analysis so they are incapable of responding in any coordinated way. We didn’t roll armor into Baghdad in 2 days, but they arrived largely intact because there was no coordinated capability to stop them or reduce their fighting capability. To summarize in gif form:

Empire of lies is a great band name.

Agreed. This is the ace in Putin’s pocket. The best way to quell a citizen uprising is to show the citizenry how utterly powerless they are. My worry since the beginning has been Putin leveling a small city to make his point. Force on force Ukraine is punching above their weight. There’s a reason boxing has weight classes though, and Ukraine can’t handle many haymakers. I think the big miscalculation here is waiting too long and allowing local and international anger to galvanize. The right move would have been to cut comms, daisy cutter a medium sized town or two, then let that bleed through the population while you advance armor towards Kiev. The airborne deep strikes without armor and air cap was absurd. That’s something you do as a liberating army, not as an invader. Someone was drinking the kool aid.

I don’t think Ukraine lost many birds in the air. A lot of them were lost while on the ground, so yes, I think they do.

Obligatory big if true.

If they are sandbagging, it’s coming at a terrible cost. I know we have all read lots of Clancy novels so this feels like a trap, but it’s hard to compare their activities in Syria to Ukraine and draw any conclusions. Syria doesn’t have terrain constraints like Ukraine. Syria’s equipment and troops are dogshit compared to Ukraine. I do think there has been some hesitance to hammer the urban centers unlike stuff you would see Russia do in Syria, where everything was fair game. I think this is a boots on the ground hesitance, not something from the top. I think a lot of that is due to the Slavic ties of Russian troops to Ukrainians. I’m sure they find it way easier to shoot brown people. the other factor is just a way more chaotic battlefield because they are using similar equipment. I think there is also an understanding of how important Ukraine is as a food source for Russia so they can’t just go ham without impacting their own country. They wanted to come in and decapitate the gov’t, replace it with stooges, then let them deal with the disgruntled population while keeping the economy going. Those are constraints from the top that is also limiting how the Russian army is operating that weren’t factors in Syria. Russia still has a clear numerical and tech advantage, and if the goal was to take over the country without concern for what’s left, this would have been over in 48 hours. The biggest surprise in all of this has been the complete and utter lack of combined arms coordination and timing. Those are leadership issues full stop, and largely stem from no one being honest with Putin. They weren’t honest about their combined arms capability, their training and readiness, their adversary, the battlefield conditions, all of it. This is the danger of surrounding yourself with yes men.

People will absolutely watch a game trailer, see the awards, and buy it without knowing jack about it. It doesn’t help that they tried to say that players had a better chance of sticking through this game versus previous souls games (paraphrasing, don’t remember the exact quote). I think it is more forgiving in some ways because of the open world aspect, but you have to be willing to say not yet and move on. Some people are just following the carrot and I can see how that would sour them. That first tarnished boss is a giant step up in difficulty.

It’s not surprising, the game is hard as shit. I’m sure plenty of people thought they were getting another Skyrim and were incredulous that they were getting their ass handed to them by basic baddies right out of the gate. The game has a really steep learning curve, and one of the hardest lessons to learn is if something kicks your ass, go do something else and get some more levels and gear under your belt and try later.

I don’t see any way that doesn’t trigger an all out war with NATO. Its already dancing right up to the line.

great roll up

Now that I have some coffee in my veins I’d like to follow up with this and say I’m looking forward to the spicy MLRS memes to come.

Someone didn’t pay attention in gov 101. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Executive_Order_12333 If major powers started assassinating gov’t leadership it’s a game that would get out of hand really quickly. Even for countries without a formal policy about it, they follow a handshake agreement so they can have a functional government that isn’t riding around in armored cars and having people taste their food.

I think some news agencies are taking the flamethrower name to its hyper conclusion. It’s a devastating weapon, but so is a regular MLRS, and Russians have been throwing those at the Ukrainians since day one.

Been thinking about this today. Doesn’t Ukraine have a stockpile or manufacturing capability for RPGs? They are extremely effective in urban areas. Even if you can’t punch through tank armor you can kill or suppress the hell out of the infantry, which are needed to actually secure buildings and such. Get a brave guy in one building chucking Molotovs to draw the infantry in, then bring the boom from buildings with overlapping fire on the approach.

Heard a U2 taking off in Korea. That’s an insanely loud aircraft. B1s do touch and goes at Hood on occasion. It’ll knock paintings off the wall.

That is absolutely happening. We aren’t flying awacs, rivet joints, and RQ-4s over there so the WH can have a play by play.

For armor that’s pretty normal. Scientists could probably find new life forms from a tank that’s been buttoned up for a couple of weeks.

Airstrips aren’t that difficult to repair, and when air superiority is in question, you fix the bigger problem first. Losing heavies and morale is the bigger problem.

This is absolutely bottling. How the fuck have they not cratered every airstrip in the country? How are they not hitting every aircraft that lands with something from a cheap drone? Russia is either sand bagging like hell, or their military capability is dogshit. It’s very binary.