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[Armybrat 40747]

50 minutes ago, 956 Worldwide said:

The Taiwan problem for China is projecting those bodies and resources across water. It’s why any hypothetical competition that spills into the kinetic has to go beyond the analysis of the basics of power like economy and population, and take into account geography and technology. I encourage anyone who worries about a PRC invasion of Taiwan to do a deep dive into Operation Overlord, as the closest seaborne invasion we have in history to study. Then factor in:

- Allies had near complete air supremacy in Western Europe, which China would either not have, or have to win.

- Nazi Germany had no spy satellites and terrible sigint and was basically guessing on the where and when.  Also not happening for the PRC.

- Almost all of the German military was tied down thousands of kilometers away from Normandy; most of the people in the contested space wanted the Germans to get gone and actively helped the Allies.

- China has zero, zilch, zippo real world experience with amphibious landing.  For that matter, the PLA is basically an untested force entirely.  They’d be going to war with a force that has never fired a shot or taken a shot in anger. And they’d be doing one of the most difficult things an military can do— invade a hostile coast. 

- Also read up on how badly the U.S. did NOT want to try to invade the Japanese home islands despite a massive people/materiel advantage and the benefit of air superiority and four years of war to soften them up.  Taiwan’s a similar nut to crack. 
 

China just can’t march into the ocean and fill the seabed with corpses to walk on. It’s hard to see any hypothetical Taiwan conflict lasting into the conventional invasion phase, more likely a test of nuclear nerves. 

And my dad was part of the US MAAG group advising Chiang Kai Shek’s army how to repel any such amphibious landing on Taiwan’s shores in the 1950s. 
They have been preparing for 70 years and know everything the Chicoms are up to. 
And vice versa for that matter.

 

 

[956 Worldwide 34446]

Nearly any scenario of Taiwan going hot involves the U.S. sending an aircraft carrier or more. That isn’t just a deterrent, if things get kinetic— those F-35s are now standing between China and Taiwan.

 

A key unspoken assumption in international security circles is that sinking a U.S. aircraft carrier is just about the functional equivalent of an attack on a U.S. city. In other words, the deterrent extends to an aircraft carrier. It’s hard to see how any cross strait conflict doesn’t either go nuclear or get turned off VERY quickly. 

[Nivek 16862]

8 hours ago, 956 Worldwide said:

It’s worth remembering that even Communism was an attempt to use a Western idea to fix shit in Russia. 

I am a bit more cynical.  I think it was just an excuse to gather support and overthrow the monarchy and replace it with an oligarchy (totalitarianism).

[The Dog 43809]

 

[Pato del Muerto 52342]

16 minutes ago, The Dog said:

 

How much wear and tear do the engines feel from going from forward thrust to reverse faster, harder, and more often than designed? Or is reverse some other method?

Edited August 3, 2022 by Pato del Muerto

[Armybrat 40747]

About as much wear & tear on your dick when she is in the reverse cowgirl position.

[Brisketexan 104636]

1 minute ago, Armybrat said:

About as much wear & tear on your dick when she is in the reverse cowgirl position.

In which case, the right move is "all engine, no brakes."

[Armybrat 40747]

2 hours ago, Armybrat said:

And my dad was part of the US MAAG group advising Chiang Kai Shek’s army how to repel any such amphibious landing on Taiwan’s shores in the 1950s. 
They have been preparing for 70 years and know everything the Chicoms are up to. 
And vice versa for that matter.

 

 

 

As an example of that, in 1958 my dad did a two week tour to inspect the Nationalist fortifications on the islands of Quemoy and little Quemoy (which is only a few hundred yards offshore from the mainland). When my dad stepped off the little motorized junk boat onto Little Quemoy, the Chicom propaganda loudspeakers across the narrow channel welcomed him by name. Lol

Edited August 3, 2022 by Armybrat

[Bevo 13527]

1 hour ago, Pato del Muerto said:

How much wear and tear do the engines feel from going from forward thrust to reverse faster, harder, and more often than designed? Or is reverse some other method?

I read somewhere where it goes back and forth between brakes and reverse thrusters - thrusters waste fuel and brakes and tires wear.

[Bateshorn 9907]

18 hours ago, RDCanecutter said:

The Germans had (had?) a crazy mechanical approach to their theories and phobias. If your country fit into their "superior Northern European who's not a Slav" category, they'd play by the rules. Everybody knows what they'd do if it didn't. Then there was a middle ground, where you'd find the French and even worse, their fellow Germans because the Germans got sent to the slaughter.

Mrs. Canecutter's maternal grandfather was born German, probably served in the German Army in WW1, then in the 20's he moved to Denmark to work, married a Danish girl, got Danish citizenship. Probably saved his life several different ways. At one point they had a boarder who was either Jewish and/or in the Resistance (story's blurry) and who got ratted out. Grandfather got snatched up by the occupiers and, had he been a German in Germany, and not already sent to the front, his fate no doubt would have been swift. Instead, he's a Dane, and in the cracked noggins of Kraut race-ography, Danes are one notch up the scale of Aryanhood. Even if he was just an Official Dane. So they danced around all legal-like. Still sent him to a camp at Peenemunde.

But then the RAF bombed the fuck out of the V2 rocket plant there, forcing Von Braun to consider job-hopping. It also burned up Grandfather's records. Grandfather the Official Dane. Without records, including the charges, they let him go home.

If he'd still been a German they'd have had him crouching in a ditch with a Panzerfaust waiting for Allied tanks to come around the bend.

Anyway, that's a whole hell of a lot of words to say fuck Germany.

It’s so fucking weird. My ex wife’s family is from Latvia and her mom was born in a displaced persons camp.  Her grandfather was an aerospace engineer, and when he declined to build planes for the Nazi’s they just made him do manual labor part time and go about his life.  For whatever reason, the Nazi’s liked the Baltic states on their strange hierarchy. 
 

Once the War turned, everyone who could flee the Red Army, did. They had no illusions about what was coming. 

[Brisketexan 104636]

13 minutes ago, Bateshorn said:

Once the War turned, everyone who could flee the Red Army, did. They had no illusions about what was coming. 

Some people/nations/cultures have experience with the Russians.  We should listen to the folks who really know the Russians.  Those people know the Russians are exactly what we are seeing in Ukraine.

[statsman 5425]

1 hour ago, Pato del Muerto said:

How much wear and tear do the engines feel from going from forward thrust to reverse faster, harder, and more often than designed? Or is reverse some other method?

Another method. Thrust reversers are physical parts that redirect the normal thrust coming off the nozzle. 

[statsman 5425]

2 hours ago, Nivek said:

I am a bit more cynical.  I think it was just an excuse to gather support and overthrow the monarchy and replace it with an oligarchy (totalitarianism).

A little more interesting. When the czar stepped aside, the Duma parliamentary style government was formed. Russia stayed in the Alliance against Germany, with an eye to maintaining good relations with Western Europe. This was unpopular with the masses. 
Germany gave Lenin, who had been “housed” by them, a bunch of money, and put him on a sealed train to Russia, with encouragement to take over and instructions to get Russia out of the war. 
He used the money to get the Bolsheviks in charge of state security and the rest was history. 
Didn’t work out for Germany- once the czar had fallen, Progressive president Wilson felt it was ok for the US to join the Alliance. 
Anyway, tldr- nobody did more to screw up the 20th century than Germany. 

[Pato del Muerto 52342]

2 minutes ago, statsman said:

nobody did more to screw up the 20th century than Germany. 

[RDCanecutter 26287]

37 minutes ago, Bateshorn said:

It’s so fucking weird. My ex wife’s family is from Latvia and her mom was born in a displaced persons camp.  Her grandfather was an aerospace engineer, and when he declined to build planes for the Nazi’s they just made him do manual labor part time and go about his life.  For whatever reason, the Nazi’s liked the Baltic states on their strange hierarchy. 
 

Once the War turned, everyone who could flee the Red Army, did. They had no illusions about what was coming. 

 

10 hours ago, 956 Worldwide said:

This is sort of the cycle of Russian history going back to Peter the Great at least.  Some perceptive tsar or advisor looks around and says “this is fucked up.  Even the British have it better than us and they live on a rainy rock and drink warm beer. The West has it going on, let’s do it like they do.” 
 

Then they embark on a series of haphazard reforms that don’t get at the heart of the issue (let’s make the peasants shave their beards!), it doesn’t work out, the West keeps you at arm’s length, and the peasants are pissed because they just lost their beards but some venal and frenchified count gets a mansion and the peasant girls and the right to sell timber to the Dutch or some shit.  
 

So a new tsar or advisor comes around and says that Russia is super special and it went wrong when it stopped doing its Own Thing, and first thing is to start repressing the assholes who suggested getting Westernized in the first place.  Then you throw a temper tantrum and lash out at the closest Western-looking object you can find, like Poland; and maybe also put the hurt on some emir to prove that although you’re not “the West,” you’re also for sure not “Asiatic.” And you write pages upon pages about your angst, about how the Poles are assholes and so are the Jesuits, and how the British can never know pure spiritual ecstasy even if they do have the steam engine. 
 

It’s worth remembering that even Communism was an attempt to use a Western idea to fix shit in Russia. 

^^better than Chekhov.

[MillerEP 30339]

 

[RDCanecutter 26287]

1 hour ago, Armybrat said:

When my dad stepped off the little motorized junk boat onto Little Quemoy, the Chicom propaganda loudspeakers across the narrow channel welcomed him by name. Lol

It's nice to feel welcome.

[MillerEP 30339]

 

[Brisketexan 104636]

3 minutes ago, MillerEP said:

 

I think we can all rest assured that Russia is very, very unlikely to mismanage a nuclear plant on Ukrainian soil.  That sort of thing just doesn't happen.

 

Right?

 

 

Oh.

 

[MillerEP 30339]

 

[MillerEP 30339]

 

[MillerEP 30339]

 

[Rimbo 25786]

Huawei? Now THAT is interesting.

[MillerEP 30339]

 

[atomheartbevo 89452]

2 minutes ago, Rimbo said:

Huawei? Now THAT is interesting.

Very. Chinese government had a hand in that.

Meanwhile, sometimes HIMARS o’clock happens earlier in the day.  People are wondering if this was the big ammo train or the bridge that was hit.  Speculation is that it was the train, given that it was daytime and normally they don’t have them out in the daytime like this.

Beautiful thing is that those vehicles are quickly on the move as soon as they fire.

 

[SquishMitten 10401]

So, if they happen to completely fuckup that nuclear power plant and it melts down, what kind of effects are we looking at on a regional or global scale?

[Bevo 13527]

1 minute ago, SquishMitten said:

So, if they happen to completely fuckup that nuclear power plant and it melts down, what kind of effects are we looking at on a regional or global scale?

200 degrees in the sunlight, minus 200 in the shade, canyons of razor-sharp rock, unpredictable gravitational conditions, unexpected eruptions, things like that.

[MillerEP 30339]

^Russians in Pskov, don't seem to give a shit about their wounded veterans. Supposed translation:

(1)

- i fought at war, grandad!

- i'm happy for you (sarcasm), you shouldn't have!

- i lost my legs!

- you could've lost 3 legs, i don't care

- but there's nazis, they eat children! be a person (he wasn't let on the bus)

- i can't

(2)
- i already gave up my legs
- maybe you were trying because of your family but it didn't work out (?) let's go!
- what about denazification? we are protecting our motherland!
- i will get you out of here
- what? i will call my guys (basically saying they will jump him)

(3)
... where are you going? ... no, old man... *enters baseball bat* wait, let's not... i will get your address... dig your grave!

[Da Fino 2740]

8 minutes ago, Bevo said:

200 degrees in the sunlight, minus 200 in the shade, canyons of razor-sharp rock, unpredictable gravitational conditions, unexpected eruptions, things like that.

Okay, so the scariest environment imaginable. Thanks.

[956 Worldwide 34446]

1 hour ago, Bateshorn said:

It’s so fucking weird. My ex wife’s family is from Latvia and her mom was born in a displaced persons camp.  Her grandfather was an aerospace engineer, and when he declined to build planes for the Nazi’s they just made him do manual labor part time and go about his life.  For whatever reason, the Nazi’s liked the Baltic states on their strange hierarchy. 
 

Once the War turned, everyone who could flee the Red Army, did. They had no illusions about what was coming. 

The Baltic war experience is complicated and not without plenty of tragedy and complicity to go around. These were small nations recently annexed by the USSR and caught up in great power machinations in the bloodiest zone in the world. 
 

Nazis generally ranked Latvians and Estonians as members of salvageable races that could be mostly germanified. Lithuanians were more suspect because of the long historical mixing with the Poles. 

[Bateshorn 9907]

6 minutes ago, 956 Worldwide said:

The Baltic war experience is complicated and not without plenty of tragedy and complicity to go around. These were small nations recently annexed by the USSR and caught up in great power machinations in the bloodiest zone in the world. 
 

Nazis generally ranked Latvians and Estonians as members of salvageable races that could be mostly germanified. Lithuanians were more suspect because of the long historical mixing with the Poles. 

Yeah, when the story was originally told to me, I took/take it with some salt because there was significant collaboration between the Baltic’s and the Nazis.  I know the Grandfather was too old to fight initially, and was never drafted.  Beyond that, I’m assuming whatever was told to the younger generations about the wartime experience before the flight West after Leningrad was filtered through a lens following their immigration to America. 

[Fico 1743]

9 minutes ago, Bateshorn said:

Yeah, when the story was originally told to me, I took/take it with some salt because there was significant collaboration between the Baltic’s and the Nazis.  I know the Grandfather was too old to fight initially, and was never drafted.  Beyond that, I’m assuming whatever was told to the younger generations about the wartime experience before the flight West after Leningrad was filtered through a lens following their immigration to America. 

Broad generalization or oversimplification by me but I've understood some (small majority?) of Balts, Ukrainians, etc. welcomed anyone who was anti-Bolshevik. At least in 1941, then it became a lot more complicated with more exposure to the Nazi's ways. 

 

Edit:

More family stories: My grandfather spent 5+ years freezing his ass off in Northern Netherlands after his house got fucked up in Rotterdam. Great Grandfather was deemed too dangerous by the Germans and wasn't released with the other Dutch POWs after the Dutch surrender. He was sent to western Poland labor camp to work on combines.

Edited August 3, 2022 by Fico

[Royalfan5 2348]

18 minutes ago, 956 Worldwide said:

The Baltic war experience is complicated and not without plenty of tragedy and complicity to go around. These were small nations recently annexed by the USSR and caught up in great power machinations in the bloodiest zone in the world. 
 

Nazis generally ranked Latvians and Estonians as members of salvageable races that could be mostly germanified. Lithuanians were more suspect because of the long historical mixing with the Poles. 

Correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't Estonia already leaning pretty Fascist pre-war? There used to be a plaque about their President pre-war outside my office at UNL since he was also an Cornhusker alum, and they were pretty vague about things. 

[Bateshorn 9907]

I seem to recall in Rise and Fall that Shirer indicated the initial Latvian and Estonian SS Units were all volunteers. 

[Fico 1743]

4 minutes ago, Bateshorn said:

I seem to recall in Rise and Fall that Shirer indicated the initial Latvian and Estonian SS Units were all volunteers. 

I think all (maybe a few tiny exceptions) SS units were volunteers? Including the Croatian Muslims with their death head fezs. 

[InkaUtexas 25527]

Foreign fighters agree. But there were Germans who were assigned into SS units. This was more to the end of the war as units were consolidated. 

 

 

[956 Worldwide 34446]

12 minutes ago, Royalfan5 said:

Correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't Estonia already leaning pretty Fascist pre-war? There used to be a plaque about their President pre-war outside my office at UNL since he was also an Cornhusker alum, and they were pretty vague about things. 

Kind of? As with most things in the region, it’s complicated.  In the mid-1930s the Estonian government suspended most civil rights and elections and implemented authoritarian rule. Ironically, this was in response to a coup threat from an even more fashy “League of (Tsarist Army) Veterans”, who wanted the real deal. But it’s also important to know that you could be fascist-curious in that region in the 1930s and subscribe to authoritarian ideals but be far from the race-based, blood soaked vision of the Nazis.

 

By 1938, the last democracy standing in Central or Eastern Europe was Czechoslovakia.  All the others had succumbed to some form of authoritarian experimentation, partly driven by the neighborhood realities and partly by the fact that most of the world was far from settled on “fascism is bad.” 

[956 Worldwide 34446]

35 minutes ago, Bateshorn said:

Yeah, when the story was originally told to me, I took/take it with some salt because there was significant collaboration between the Baltic’s and the Nazis.  I know the Grandfather was too old to fight initially, and was never drafted.  Beyond that, I’m assuming whatever was told to the younger generations about the wartime experience before the flight West after Leningrad was filtered through a lens following their immigration to America. 

I’d believe the story. It wasn’t the General Government where giving a Nazi some side-eye got you shot.  They didn’t want to infuriate a population that hated the Soviets far more than the Germans.  Manual labor would have dissuaded others from following the path without provoking rage from family and friends. 

[Parliament 14138]

1 hour ago, MillerEP said:

 

That sounds kinda bad.

[MillerEP 30339]

 

[RDCanecutter 26287]

54 minutes ago, 956 Worldwide said:

The Baltic war experience is complicated and not without plenty of tragedy and complicity to go around. These were small nations recently annexed by the USSR and caught up in great power machinations in the bloodiest zone in the world. 
 

Nazis generally ranked Latvians and Estonians as members of salvageable races that could be mostly germanified. Lithuanians were more suspect because of the long historical mixing with the Poles. 

Mostly Teutonic Knights territory too. Had an old housemate with a long "von" name whose family was centered on Riga.

[atomheartbevo 89452]

“Supposedly this is a video of the train loaded with ammunition attacked a few days ago by the Ukrainians at Brylivka station, Kherson. Ukraine reported quite a few Russian casualties and many secondary explosions can be seen in the video”

 

[MillerEP 30339]

 

[RDCanecutter 26287]

2 minutes ago, atomheartbevo said:

“Supposedly this is a video of the train loaded with ammunition attacked a few days ago by the Ukrainians at Brylivka station, Kherson. Ukraine reported quite a few Russian casualties and many secondary explosions can be seen in the video”

 

I'd be more afraid of flying chunks of train than I would be of the explosives.

[Bateshorn 9907]

17 minutes ago, 956 Worldwide said:

I’d believe the story. It wasn’t the General Government where giving a Nazi some side-eye got you shot.  They didn’t want to infuriate a population that hated the Soviets far more than the Germans.  Manual labor would have dissuaded others from following the path without provoking rage from family and friends. 

The upside is both of my kids, as 1/4 Latvian descendants of displaced persons are eligible for right of return citizenship and are working through the process of getting it. 

[Pato del Muerto 52342]

That picture and tweet of the fly eye drones and drone army for some reason has me thinking this is how we cede control to the machines. 

[davidg 4029]

2 hours ago, atomheartbevo said:

Very. Chinese government had a hand in that.

Meanwhile, sometimes HIMARS o’clock happens earlier in the day.  People are wondering if this was the big ammo train or the bridge that was hit.  Speculation is that it was the train, given that it was daytime and normally they don’t have them out in the daytime like this.

Beautiful thing is that those vehicles are quickly on the move as soon as they fire.

 

That's a whole lot of fuck around and find out at one time.

[Kel Varnsen 8430]

45 minutes ago, Pato del Muerto said:

That picture and tweet of the fly eye drones and drone army for some reason has me thinking this is how we cede control to the machines. 

[F250 28694]

7 hours ago, Armybrat said:

And my dad was part of the US MAAG group advising Chiang Kai Shek’s army how to repel any such amphibious landing on Taiwan’s shores in the 1950s. 
They have been preparing for 70 years and know everything the Chicoms are up to. 
And vice versa for that matter.

 

 

So you probably have a brother over there?

[DDD Dad 14252]

3 hours ago, Brisketexan said:

I think we can all rest assured that Russia is very, very unlikely to mismanage a nuclear plant on Ukrainian soil.  That sort of thing just doesn't happen.

 

Right?

 

 

Oh.