Zoraptor

Heh, our news has just downgraded it to "Russian made" missile rather than "Russian". Yes, the longer range versions definitely can be used for ground attack in theory. End of the day you can use any missile for ground attack in theory though, due to gravity. They've just never been used for it before, they would be a really weird choice for a precision attack and there are far better alternatives (ie drones) if you don't want as big a bang as a cruise missile. The only scenarios that would make sense are failed AD from Russia or Ukraine, not ground attack.

The long range versions aren't being used for ground attack though- hence the 85km range Malc cited. The debris matches a 5v55R, which Russia uses for ground attack and Ukrainian uses for AD. Don't think it's anywhere near solid enough to say definitively it is debris from that model, but if it is it has to be Ukrainian as a Russian one physically could not fly that far. There's a workable scenario below where it is a Russian long range missile, that just isn't a very likely scenario. At this point near definite they (if there actually were two) were S-300 missiles. The debris is a near precise match, crater fits, everything. They would not have been fired in ground attack mode, but they could still have been Russian missile(s) fired at Ukrainian planes. Fundamentally not very likely- long way away, Ukrainian planes always fly low, missiles have a self destruct- which to be sure doesn't always work...) but possible. Far, far more likely to be Ukrainian AD missiles though.

Most amazing thing about that drone was that something that old still worked. Well, kind of, since whoever used it it wasn't meant to go to Croatia. The chances are certainly miniscule of hitting anything accidentally, but they wouldn't have to be hundreds of km off course. Lviv is ~50km away and it was definitely targeted, so it would only have to be 10s ok km off target. The crater in Przewodów definitely isn't from a cruise missile though, way, way too small. For comparison, a tomahawk crater (also with ~450kg warhead) looks like this which isn't even close size wise, conservatively a tenth the explosive force. Which puts it potentially into suicide drone territory, but the wreckage certainly doesn't match that. Still could be Russian as they have several air launched missiles in the appropriate warhead range, but they also have to be fired from pretty close (10s of km; main issue is that I haven't heard anything about Russian warplanes near Lviv ever. It's always been cruise missiles hitting that deep in Ukraine). OTOH a S-300 crater looks like this (note: using a Ukrainian source) which... matches just about perfectly. Theoretically a Russian S-3/400 (especially) firing from Belarus could fly that far, but it would far more likely be Ukrainian AD if so.

Yeah, that's not damage from the 400kg of explosives a Kh or Kalibr carries. That's tens of kg at most so if it was Russian and targeted it would have to be a 'suicide drone'. Otherwise debris from an interception, or the interceptor itself. Which happens pretty regularly, even with faultless wunderwaffe (obv not actually a patriot here).

Fair enough. Guess we won't get the BBC insisting it's a remote controlled Ukrainian boat this time. lol at the commentator authoritatively claiming Russia was trying to destroy the generators though, the power station is on the Russian side of the dam. You're still in whackadoodle land over the casualties though.

Sigh. You can't tell what damage was done previously since there's no comparison available. Which is what I was complaining about. As previous, your 'November 3' picture is at best from months before that claimed date. All the other publicly available and recent pics don't show the northern side at all. Yeah, Maxar says, but as below, saying is one thing, it being true is another. Particular lol at those saying there are no northern sluice gates so the dam itself is actually damaged, eg Ukrainian Pravda living up (down) to their soviet pedigree. 1) Fundamentally, you don't need the breakwater/ embankment if there aren't sluices, since no current --> no undercutting of the bank. So, logically there are sluices. 2) Practically, there are literally literally pictures of the dam spilling water on its northern side, eg. And yes, that's 100% the northern side, unless the Dniepr has started running uphill... For extra lols, one from, uh, RFE/ RL too, which is even more unequivocal. There are sluices on the northern side, qed. (For anyone wondering how much time I'm wasting on 'research' that was cunningly hidden away behind the arcane facade of "Nova karkhovka dam" DDG image search. Literally took 15 seconds to find a picture of the dam spilling water on its northern side... Now to see how many outlets run with the UP story without actually checking. I'm going to put $10 on the local TV news doing so at least) Please. No one is going to say that I uncritically spout whatever the US military says as gospel, because I patently don't. In no way shape or form are they 'my' numbers because they don't come from a source I'm inherently biased towards. That's not exactly true with you and UkMOD/ Zelensky though. This leads to some pretty... inconsistent opinions I'm afraid. You're saying that Russian losses have to be 5:1 if they're on attack, yet are also 8:1 (or 10:1) if they're on defence. This leads to two possibilities 1) they're attacking 'pointlessly' because it costs them less soldiers than defending, which makes it not pointless. Good guy Putin, sparing his soldiers by making them attack instead of defend <-- this one makes no sense, and is wrong 2) Or your figures are just ridiculous and aren't even internally consistent with each other. <-- It's this one.

Not my claim, Mark Milley's. You know, the top general of the US. Who, yes since bugarup's criticism is fine, might be wrong; but is an expert and certainly doesn't have a reason to exaggerate Ukrainian losses or minimise Russian ones. UkMOD and Zelensky otoh have a very good reason for claiming ludicrous figures as true, not least that people actually convince themselves they're accurate whatever they are. Ukraine has been bumping their heads against Kherson for 7 months and you've been claiming 8:1 losses in their favour there. You're not even consistent in your (bad) application of military theory.

Pfft, we've had carpet that will generate electricity as you walk over it for decades.

1) Milley gave a separate figure for civilian casualties, and that was clearly not included in the 100k figure. You'd know that, if you'd read the article. 2) There isn't any wiggle room for interpretation, it's 100k soldiers on each side. The handy quote I provided- in case anyone, well, didn't read the article- makes that clear. 3) Now, to be fair, a lot of media managed to somehow leave out the "same thing probably on the Ukrainian side" part of the quote, like our TV news here, leaving Milley just saying that Russia has had 100k casualties. I provided a source with the full quote though, not the truncated one. The Ukrainian claims of 8 or 10:1 casualties are fantasy, as anyone with even a soupçon of critical thinking could very easily have guessed.

Meanwhile, back in reality... “You are looking at well over 100,000 Russian soldiers killed and wounded,” Milley said in remarks at the Economic Club of New York. “Same thing probably on the Ukrainian side.” [source]

To see what Trump's response to being ignored by Putin would be just look at Syria 2018 where archdove Jim Mattis had to talk Trump out of attacking Russian forces there because they said they'd shoot his missiles down (on, uh, Twitter). Tends to get Occam's Broomed by anyone who wants Trump to be a Russian asset though. To paraphrase the great philosopher Viscerys I "Trump's pride has pride" and that informs all his decisions.

Not everything is done for PR reasons, indeed doing stuff for pure PR is always a bad idea if it clashes with strategy. if they've decided Kherson's a waste of resources or whatever then they won't and shouldn't change their minds due to bad 'optics'. Those will change, if they win elsewhere. It's entirely possible it's been announced in the belief that that means the Ukrainians won't attack but will just let them go. An announcement certainly puts pressure on Ukraine to do so since one of their demands is a full withdrawal, presumably unopposed. It's pretty clear that the claims that the Russians were- for wont of a better term than the wargaming one- 'out of supply' were at minimum exaggerated but they'll still have a lot of equipment and soldiers to withdraw over limited crossing points. Those make lovely choke points for artillery as queues form and on the crossings themselves, have to be defended rigorously by a rearguard you may well end up losing and will definitely have to cross under fire at minimum, can be destroyed or cut off etc. Far better if the enemy just lets you cross unhindered.

Kind of funny that the one part of the initial Russian invasion that went incontrovertibly well for them was Kherson when strategically they'd have been far better off if it hadn't and those resources had gone into going northwards on the east bank. Having said that, Kherson has been imminently going to fall with all the Russian troops cut off since early April, and it hasn't 7 months later. It was then imminently going to fall in August as the Russian forces starved, and hasn't three months later. The capacity for Ukraine to actually deliver on forcing the Russians out is pretty much entirely on paper. The fatality rate of DPR officials has been high right from the outset. And it definitely isn't the Ukrainians doing a lot of the killing. IIRC just about every person in a senior leadership or militia leadership position in 2014 is dead at this point except Girkin/ Strelkov- which is the main reason I'm convinced he's controlled rather than genuine opposition.

0) No I'm not, because it isn't. 1) The dam/ bridge blocks/ crosses the Dniepr River, which is maybe 300m wide at that point, not 15m. The lock is 15m wide. Handy wikimapia link as illustration. Make sure to turn on the satellite imagery too as... 2) ..the tweet is from Nov 3, but.. 3) ..the satellite imagery most definitely is not from Nov 3, it's bog standard Google imagery which could be anything up to literal years old. This is what it looks like on a more up to date image. Note the two extra bridges, and the infill.

That's the funny thing which made me wonder if I'd actually hit a bug: if I had gone Legend (small matter of accepting Nocticula's profane gift notwithstanding; who'd have thunk accepting a demon's gift would have consequences?) I'd still have hit that level cap after maybe an hours extra gameplay.

I now have something to significantly complain about- the level cap. Surely it cannot be that hard to work out roughly how much xp there is in the game and design the cap around that? Especially if you're going to sell dlc that just adds extra xp to the pile. I am, it seems, now the small matter of 1 million xp over the cap, and I haven't even been to Ib (?) yet. Unless it isn't displaying my xp properly? I got lvl 20 after the final fight in Enigma... (spoilers for that and the Azata mythic finale) XP wise, I've done literally zero grinding, and while I've done most of the optional fights I certainly haven't done all of them. To my mind it's just plain bad design, and there's no excuse for it. Either have a higher cap, or have lower xp rewards. That's also the one thing I actively loathed about both PoEs, for that matter.

https://www.ukrinform.net/rubric-ato/3549443-ukrainian-forces-struck-bridge-over-dam-in-nova-kakhovka.html ? Their source is Ukrainian Operation Command South. Your source is using old satellite imagery, you can tell because of the lack of secondary crossings per below. Indeed, there's a notable lack of up to date imagery showing the dam bridge itself. The small water outlet is the lock (well, presumably. Used for getting ships past the dam; shut the gates and pump water in/ out to change the level to that up/ down stream). There are two issues with hitting that. Firstly it's very narrow, certainly in comparison to the Dniepr proper. Indeed, more up to date imagery shows the Russians had bridged it at least twice. Secondly there's no river current and no up/ down stream traffic. As a permanent solution the Russians simply filled it in to make a crossing (apparently sometime in September?), so it isn't a bridge any more. Only way to get rid of that is something far more explosive than HiMARS rockets, or to hit the lock gates to generate a, uh, current (which would be functionally identical to hitting the dam proper).

It isn't, as someone (Mamoulian War I think) pointed out previously the low ground is actually on the east bank, not the west. It might temporarily make the river harder to cross but it will make it far harder to defend when the water clears because any prepared positions will have been washed away.

Sigh. Ukraine has been hitting the dam for literally months, absolutely confirmed and mentioned here multiple times whenever there has been a "Russian forces in Kherson cut off!" type post. It's just that when they hit it it's always described as the Nova Kharkovka Bridge. For some reason. To quote wikipedia, since it can hardly be accused of being pro Russian "The P47 road and a railway cross the Dnieper River on the dam." (emphasis added). This is very easily confirmed by an image search. A suitably jaded and cynical mind might suggest that all the talk of Russians blowing the dam is cover for the fact it has been constantly attacked by Ukraine and the expectation is that that has caused significant structural damage.

True, but that's why it's an analogy; it simplifies the thought process by using a figurative comparison. I'd say it is a fair simplification though, as Russia also has only figuratively stolen Europe's gas. (I've said before what my opinion is of the energy suppliers making windfall profits breaking contracts- it's... not great. And in that case I was pretty sympathetic to Europe because the context there was the US was demanding more aid to Ukraine from Europe, while making 600% mark ups on gas supply. Not really any solidarity being shown in that case, and if the US wants more aid from Europe more money would definitely be available if they weren't being gouged by the US on energy pricing. But ultimately, still not those 3rd world countries fault, and their gas is still going because of something Europe could avoid doing if they really wanted to)

Fine. Every problem I've personally had with their drivers has been external, ie Microsoft update installing old drivers over the top of new ones despite being told not to. And updates deleting the workgroup policy that hard enforces that. They've even fixed DX9/ OpenGl performance recently, late, but done. 5700XT was the last problem release, and that was a new arch.

Not really. They're innocent (in this matter) and uninvolved parties to an economic war half a world away who are, fundamentally, the ones actually losing their energy supply- they have an absolute right to be pissed about it. The only disputation is the degree of blame they should assign to one or another party further up the chain. That's not really an issue of hypocrisy because there's no inconsistency in stated motivation vs actions, only a disagreement as to who is ultimately to blame. Might help with an analogy: if Russia takes Europe's lunch money that would be bad, sure. But if Europe takes someone else's lunch money to replace that chances are that the excuse "well Russia took ours first" isn't going to wash with the person who ends up not having lunch. Because it isn't Russia taking it from them, it's Europe, and it isn't Russia ordering it; Europe could just go hungry for a bit. Especially when Russia, inevitably, offers to do their best to replace the victim's stolen lunch. They don't see Russia taking their lunch, they see it trying to help, the person they see taking it is Europe. Of course, it can easily be argued that that is an unfair attribution of blame, but it is how blame usually works. Realpolitik certainly doesn't have room for concepts like solidarity, it's a transactional/ objective theory where concepts like 'solidarity' is just shared, often transitional, interests and a good way to dress things up for the populace-- "..no permanent friends or enemies, only interests" is perhaps the epitome of the theory. The problem is that while Europe does do things for realpolitik reasons that isn't the explanation they give for it, because that explanation in this case fundamentally clashes with the ideals they publicly espouse. It's the clash between those espoused ideals (even if not really believed) and practical reality that leads to the hypocrisy, because they're at odds with one another.

That's some pretty aggressive pricing. Won't be faster than a 4090 (hence the lack of benchmarks, one strongly suspects) as realistically you'd have needed the previously rumoured (but debunked a while ago) extra chip on the MCM for that, but should be a fair bit faster than a 4080 and at a significant discount.

As previous, Europe could just do with less energy, it isn't impossible. That is, after all, 100% what Europe is forcing Bangladesh and Pakistan etc to do- and whatever argument you make that it isn't really Europe's fault and they're being forced to take others' supplies applies far, far more strongly to those others. After all, even if it isn't really Europe fault it absolutely 100% isn't Pakistan or Bangladesh's, but they're the ones made to suffer. Shouldn't have an expectation that someone on €1000 p/a should be happy to sacrifice what energy they have so that someone on €120000 p/a can keep their underfloor heating on instead of switching it off. Realpolitik actually dictates what happens of course, so the supplies are taken because Europe can, and if they didn't politicians would lose their jobs (and yeah, some people would probably die too but realpolitik wise that's only a problem, for you, when it's blamed on you so it loops back); and it's dressed up the way it is because that looks good to the population. The big thing of course is the hypocrisy. Europe expects solidarity from others and will cheerfully label less than fulsome support for them as support for Russia, war crimes etc etc. Unsurprisingly, they see Europe as having zero solidarity with them while being immensely sanctimonious about it too- and not for the first time, either.

Gangs of London S2 S1 was a guilty pleasure where the shonky plot was papered over by the biggest helping of hilariously ott schlocky action since Anthony Starr got too injured to do stunts on Banshee*. No fights come anywhere close to the opening fight from S1 or the farmhouse and S2 had an even more shonky plot but maybe, just maybe, approached OK despite that. The series really needs to make up its mind if it's trying to be 'realistic' or cartoon silly and go with one or the other though. What they've ended up with is a messy hybrid that doesn't have enough action/ cartoonishness but also doesn't work as a drama. The big negative is the plotting. They actually had the basics of a decent one- or at least a decent one to hang action around- and at times it was actually pretty good. But then they needed the plot to go from A --> B or wanted to keep someone alive for a S3 and didn't have a way to do it that made sense and just... went with it not making sense. Nobody's going to win BAFTAs for the acting or writing, but it was better than you might expect from schlock since it managed to make me care somewhat about some of the characters. *Having mentioned Banshee its spiritual successor 'Warrior' does a similar thing to GoL, and does it far better.