Zoraptor

Andriivka is even smaller than Robotyne- population: 71 (2001, so very likely even less than given Robotyne's population dropped by 80% since 2001). Combining the Ukrainian and Russian numbers you'd be looking at having ~7000 soldiers there. Or to put it another way, at the same soldier density Bakhmut would have had seven million soldiers present instead of maybe 100k tops across the entire front. It's also been recaptured multiple times before, starting back in July. Klishcheeva might be more significant and is a decent bit larger, but then that's also been recaptured multiple times too.

Russia doesn't have 100k troops around Robotyne/ Rabotino*, nor does Ukraine have 65k. Maybe 15k each in the whole Vremetsky Ridge area, and that's pushing it. Nobody forced Ukraine to make hopelessly overoptimistic estimates of progress, that they did to themselves. *Robotyne had a population of 74 in 2015. No typo, miles of article space and prognostications of imminent success really was dedicated to taking a village of seventy four people... Ukraine's managed to shut down the Kerch Bridge rail link even short term only once, when it blew up that Azeri truck driver. You remember, the one you insisted was a Russian false flag even after Ukraine admitted it was them. Every other time it hasn't been shut down at all, or only for a few hours. The Kilo is literally a 43 year old design. With 63 other members of its class. They've no shortage of platforms to launch Kalibrs from and- at least according to Ukraine- most (and usually all or almost all) of them are shot down anyway. According to Ukraine itself it's militarily insignificant.

US is sending cluster munitions specifically because they've run out of conventional 155mm shells (source eg but there are a ton of others and iirc it was officially stated multiple times as the reason). There's plenty more examples from other countries not being able to source enough ammunition too (eg Germany begging Brazil for 105mm shells for Leo1s). That will of course be 'run out' as in they don't want to dip below whatever critical reserve level they have set up for themselves, and there will be some level of self justification/ excuse making for sending cluster munitions with a 20% failure rate per their own congressional investigation that most of its partners (and actual US law) regard as illegal (for export); but there's been enough begging for conventional ammo from other sources like Brazil and South Korea plus complaints from Ukraine to strongly suggest that it's a real rather than, uh, manufactured shortage. Russia being able to outproduce the west in practice is at least plausible. They make vast amounts of fertiliser and have a lot of mineral resources, in the end it isn't that hard to manufacture either explosives or munitions if you've got those two. The west could of course ramp up production to completely flood whatever Russia can make alone, but that costs money and whenever the war ends the factories will end up sitting idle again which costs more money.

Well yeah, hard to take either claim seriously when they're saying the exact opposite things- since pretty obviously someone is lying. Or mistaken, but at this point there's been so much inconsistency I tend to think that Eop's Law has to apply. Not going to be holding my breath waiting for the media to bring up the inconsistency though. I bet both stories bring the clicks.

Watched the first episode of the other new Walking Dead spin off. Pretty decent, apart from the extraordinarily naff name. Plus, actual factual France. And if you're in France you might as well prove it by having your title character walk across a jolly big roman aqueduct the Pont du Gard.

Dry docks themselves are easy to repair since they are, basically, just a big terraced concrete basin that is fundamentally hard to damage and easy to repair with a door at one (or both) end(s)- and this wasn't HMS Cambeltown ramming the gates at St Nazaire while packed full of explosives. The issue would more likely be if any vessels in them were damaged enough to be irrecoverable then they'd have to be scrapped in situ or repaired enough to refloat either of which ties them up for a decent period of time to no actual benefit. Either way the only actual significance is the sub getting hit, and that's pretty minor if they aren't actually going to/ don't need to sink vessels going to Ukraine. At this point the landing ship is completely irrelevant. ... and I guess it shows how well the 'counter'offensive is going since at least in theory it's Ukraine blowing up a dock they were meant to be reclaiming imminently.

There's definitely a US league, though I know nothing about it nor about streaming or other options in the US. Think the US has a bit more emphasis on the 7s, since that's an Olympic sport and the US were champions and undefeated at the Olympics for 84 years. Otherwise there's a load of regional/ national club championships like Super Rugby for Aus/ NZ/ Pacific islands or Pro14/ URC for Europe. We did win our last WC in 2015, so it's been a bit less than 20 years. The serious answer is that back then we had a bunch of all time great players and we don't now; and they haven't changed coaching 'style*' in nearly 20 years so have been well and truly worked out. Indeed, we were well and truly worked out in 2019 and got absolutely smashed by England as a result. Realistically, 4th best team at the tournament behind South Africa, France and Ireland and that's that. *ie they've successively picked the previous coach's assistant as their successor. Last one was a beauty, since Foster had a mediocre coaching record as head coach and we'd lost badly in 2019 in part due to the coaching style being the same as in 2008. But the poor confused old chaps couldn't understand the guy who'd coached three winning domestic sides in a row (now 7; and maybe once had the best team on paper). Then six months ago they decided to appoint him, leaving Foster understandably peeved about being effectively sacked before the World Cup. Coincidentally, we got a report this week saying rugby here is run by a bunch of incompetents, no clue what they based that on. Maybe they didn't like pink gins and ladies, a plate please?

I'd expect France to win. Apart from the home town advantage we're pretty rubbish and only looked liked we were doing better than last year because Australia really are complete rubbish and South Africa didn't care. I'd like France to win the whole tournament and not just because at least then I can "no speakay le frenchay" to anyone being smug- they've been the best team not to win it yet. Otherwise, South Africa or maybe Ireland. We will probably make the semis but that's the best I'd expect, and I wouldn't be surprised if we lost in the quarters. One thing's for sure, they have to rejig the tournament draws, doing the seedings 3 years out was moronic. Two pools are ridiculously easy, one is ridiculously hard. Funny thing about our record loss to South Africa, I didn't think South Africa even played that well, and on another day they could have added another 20 points to that already record score.

As always with this gen the issue is the price inflation and associated naming scheme stupidities. Comparing like to like the '7800'xt is a pretty decent improvement over its actual equivalent, in the 6700xt. Trying to sell them for the same price you could get a 6950xt for a few months ago though, as here? Taking the absolute mick.

Quite apart from some emotional bargaining ('apparently destroyed') he also manages to get at least two things factually wrong, which is impressive for a short article. The Challenger 2 does not have blow out panels. The previously destroyed one actually deturreted due to ammo cook off (see below), though not spectacularly. Then again, fricking massive/ heavy turret to be lifted at all and a pretty significant fraction of a T-72s entire weight; and blowout panels don't protect Leopards when the ready use rack is hit. They'd also lost 7 Leo2s per Oryx at the time of publication, not 5. He forgot the mineroller last article as well. David Axe writes for clicks, his target audience is people wanting reassurance that everything is OK. To be fair, he is at least far more rational about it than others.

BBC source claims the Challenger was destroyed (or 'heavily damaged' in the same article, just 'damaged' in the earlier article) by a Lancet after an engine fire from a mine. Either of which would be a bit embarrassing- the HEAT versions of the Lancet aren't exactly massive and smaller than almost all ATGM ones and the normal AT warhead is a bog standard shaped charge, plus you'd surely have your valuable tank on a cleared path or following another vehicle precisely to avoid mines. Most Russian sources claim Krasnopol (laser guided artillery) instead and that seems far more likely- and better for the Challenger 2 as well. None of those have anything near the official recognition Ukraine gives Bandera, not even close. That's the difference: the Bandera worship is sanctioned- to practical purposes often actively encouraged- by the Ukrainian government at multiple levels. While you'll find, for example, British nazis you'll never get Dishy Rishy or Sadiq Khan renaming Park Lane to Oswald Moseley Boulevarde* nor will you find British Union of Fascists flags adorning war cemeteries in roughly 50:50 proportion to English/ Union Flags. There may be a few nazi tattoos and patches in the armed forces but not many and you'd also expect anyone found with them to be drummed out pdq. That certainly happened to one idiot here. *just Oliver Cromwell, Winston Churchill, Robert Clive, Cecil Rhodes...

There's zero chance of Bethesda actually using one of those Intel libraries, though it would make for superb lolz.

It would be funny if the CPU performance delta was because they were using one of those Intel libraries that pretty much literally does exactly that. Otherwise, you don't really need to depart from a variation of Poe's Law* when it's a new title from Bethesda. Though as above, considering the engine's age that it just works™ at all is a bit of a miracle. *Howard's Law: any performance issues in a Bethesda game can be adequately explained by it being a Bethesda game in the first place.

The Nazism isn't really suspicion. Ukraine's fetishisation of the OUN/ UPA is pretty blatant, and they were, well, nazis. Despite a pretty concerted attempt to launder their image. No one forced Ukraine to name so many streets after Stepan Bandera, no one forced them to have so many UPA flags in their cemeteries (that's the red and black ones that just about outnumber the official Ukrainian ones in the top photo) and no one forced so many of their guys to do nazi salutes, wear nazi regalia or get nazi tattoos. No one forced them to integrate Azov into their army either. Those were all choices. Just imagine Germany with multiple- literally dozens of- Adolf Hitler Strasses, swastika flags outnumbering official tricolours, totemkopf/ SS/ sonnenrad etc patches and tattoos... wouldn't be much doubt then, eh? There's always a certain amount of nazism in any country's armies but Ukraine's has... considerably more than most. (UPA's favourite modus operandi was bailing up civilians in buildings and setting them on fire, eg Wola Ostrowiecka and Ostrowki Massacres. Which was, of course, the same method used in Odessa by Right Sector and pals. Also ironic, all those anti fascists on reddit and twitter with their Slava Ukraini/ Heroiam Slava's are- quite literally and verbatim- parroting the UPA's slogan) I don't think anyone with any sense thinks Russia invaded because of the nazism, but just because it's a Russian talking point doesn't mean it doesn't exist. They were also never usable by Ukraine, but in any case if you're going to count Ukraine specifically for that then you also have to count Belarus and Kazakhstan as well. Belarus especially tends to get forgotten about, because in that case it's been the west abrogating the Budapest Memorandum and the Rules Based Order (but of course only with the best of intentions). If the question is which country gave up its nuclear weapons voluntarily the answer is:

Odessa Trade Union Hall fire (of 2014), presumably. You'd need some pretty specific conditions to have 70 unarmed warheads hit. The arming distance isn't that far, nor is reliability that bad. Then again, the only way the 70 claim was remotely feasible would be if they lined up to fire only at the frontal armour, or weren't using AT rounds. Or were ww2 era Panzerfausts or... But really, the 70 claim was always a load of bollocks and about as credible as any other obvious propaganda puff piece. And yes, dreadfully designed tank with awful visibility andor incredibly poorly utilised if the enemy is hitting it 70 times.

Molotov- Ribbentrop Pact, presumably. To be fair, it wasn't precisely a myth. One hadn't been destroyed by enemy action until whenever that video was shot, just one destroyed accidentally by the Brits themselves. (OTOH, them surviving getting hit by eleventy billion 70 RPG rounds in Basra always seemed to be about as hyperbolic as, well, calling 70 eleventy billion)

First Challenger 2 knocked out- and pretty comprehensively so. Doubt even the most hopeful Ukrainian supporter thinks that one is getting towed back to Poland for a quick fix.

Reznikov (Ukrainian Defence Minister) has been fired. Not surprising though. First rumours he was going were back in January due to corruption (iirc not specifically his but in the ministry/ armed forces in general), so not 'counter'offensive related.

Volition is shutting down. Probably a combo of the SR reboot not doing well and the problems Embracer has from blowing up like a balloon on (now not so) cheap debt then failing to get a bail out from the Saudis. Shame, quite apart from the people losing jobs they made some great stupid but fun games.

The timing is wrong for that. Turkey lost their Leos against ISIS in 2016, they attacked the Kurds in January 2018 and Germany refused to upgrade them in January 2018 also. Once they'd been upgraded they wouldn't have been 2a4s any more; they'd have been 2a7s. A 2a4 supplied to Ukraine is not significantly different from those Turkey is/ was running, if they were they would have a different model number (2a4M, 2a4r for the Finnish supplied minerollers etc). Turkey admitted that tank was destroyed- not much way to deny it- along with 5 crew dead, in Sheikh Haruz.

There's also at least one picture of a deturreted Leopard from Ukraine, and if it's deturreted the ammo has 100% gone up. On the positive side, was definitely disabled first and exploded later. The classic from Syria: yep, more bijis than a playlist at a 70s disco. The tank explosion is fairly classic too I guess.

David Axe is awful, and probably less reliable than either MoD in the war. Which may seem impossible, but he tries so very very hard. His previous article on the Leopards used methodology that would have the mythic Polish Repair Yards giving Einstein conniptions by managing to create new Leopards from thin air*. I have a slight suspicion he may be doing the exact same thing again... (My personal favourite, a storm shadow strike "may have destroyed a hundred or more [russian armoured] vehicles". For reference, a 65kg S300 warhead managed, well, one tractor, in Poland and the warhead on the SS is not much larger at 100kg. There's being hopeful, and then there's David Axe. In case it has to be said: sites.Forbes is blogging, not journalism anyway) *same Leopard damaged twice and repaired twice --> 'both' re-added to active count. So if you had 80 you would end up with 81 and the Polish Repair Yard has broken conservation of energy laws.

WoT had Harriet McDougal and Brandon Sanderson as producers, for all the good it did. Witcher had Sapkowski... How on earth they gave Rafe Judkins another series (not Bladerunner, to avoid any implication) to run after WoT I don't know unless the whole thing actually is an elaborate tax fiddle. WoT was an expensive series and it looked like Hercules/ Xena half the time.

Comparing the uplift from 7600/ 6650 is misleading in this case though. 7700/ 7800xt have a proper node improvement (-->5nm) to take into account, 7600 is still 7nm. Or at least, what we would have called 7nm+ a few years ago before every node improvement needed a new number for marketing. While 7-->5 wasn't the greatest node improvement in the history of the world it was still decent. Launch pricing very much looks like a 7900XT/X situation with the weaker card being priced to make the stronger look better rather than on its own merits.

I doubt there's much dedication- 99% chance they've just written a script/ bot to do it for them. Which I guess takes some effort but not 6000 manual one star review class effort.