Zoraptor

Probing Uranus is top priority this decade. I'm guessing with that headline one journalist's life aims are now complete.

Berbers on the Barbary Coast --> Bearbears on the Bearbeary Coast. Practically writes itself.

I do wonder if the Japanese would have had similar headlines in 1942 as to Kherson had twitter/ youtube existed. Probably yes; we'd have had "Henderson Field on fire again, Guadalcanal to fall imminently, when will those stupid Gaijin learn?" for like 9 months. They have to be the right type of Explosive Reactive, and they have to be where the atgm hits. As Gorth mentioned NLAWs (and Javelins) do top down attack, and you can't put ER over the whole top (turret) of your tank as you've got hatches etc. T-14 is meant to have that fixed though, as the turret is unmanned. There have been some other ad hoc defences tried, like cages you sometimes see added, but they don't seem to be very effective. You also need updated ER for modern atgms with tandem warheads. The first warhead on a tandem atgm sets off the ER, then the second works pretty much as if the ER didn't exist. The blocks on the destroyed tank above are kontakt-1, which is old. The Russians have at least three more effective blocks (Kontakt-5, Relikt and Malachit) that can defeat tandem warheads. They look like big slabs rather than small blocks. There's also no point in stealing ER, it isn't worth anything. Far more likely any tanks missing blocks had them fall off in action or had them cannibalised to replace missing blocks on active tanks. Eh, Bayraktars have done pretty much nothing verifiable in Ukraine. A lot of stuff is attributed to them by their horde of fanboys, but in pretty much every single case it's turned out to be something else that was actually used.

There's certainly been smoke escaping (except maybe the aft most circled area in the thumbnail; there's a big hatch there which seems to be open and the 'smoke damage' is suspiciously rectangular). It's not indicative of all those areas themselves being on fire though, as that damage is usually different. That's HMS Sheffield after burning out uncontrollably in the Falklands War- the damage is pretty distinctive. There's definitely some similar damage forward under the superstructure, but none visible aft.

Funnily enough the Russians did retrodesign separate/ blow out ammo storage on at least one model of T-80. It didn't proceed to production though and the prototype was (supposedly) destroyed in Ukraine. As with all things it's a matter of balance. You can buy 4 T-72s for the price of an Abrams, they're smaller and lighter and the autoloader means one less crew. The balancing factor is definitely survivability, though blow out panels are not 100% either. I kind of presume that the unmanned turret in the T-14 would give better survivability, but I don't think we know enough about that tank to be sure.

I have to admit to liking the first season of Bridgerton despite manifestly not being its target audience. Probably helped that it was lockdown, and I had to find stuff that would entertain my mother as well as me for a change- and had already run out of scandi-esque crime dramas. So far the only problem I have with S2 is that it seems like an almost point for point rehash of S1 (two episodes in) just with the bachelor and bachelorette's positions on marriage reversed. But yeah, it's definitely a sumptuous visual feast and the cast seems to be having enormous fun in a pantomime sort of way.

Always love those sort of articles, though I suspect not for the same reasons. (Patriot zealots are always amusing. Yeah write a big article on the lessons of Ukraine where one entire point is ballistic missile defence while completely ignoring the lessons of Yemen. Saudi Arabia has to fire off an entire launcher to reliably hit an antique Scud, and the Houthis veritable 1.2 drones/ missiles per day had Saudi requesting hundreds of resupply missiles. What the literal asterisks is Taiwan going to do against China who can probably fire off that number per minute on a fairly sustained basis if they wanted? They're not even very effective against ~half the most impoverished nation in the ME, one that has been bombed and under blockade for 6 years and whose armaments are mostly machined in a Saada shed by people hopped up on Qat. Though of course to be fair a lot of the well published failures in Saudi's air defences have been against things Patriots aren't really designed for, but they haven't done brilliantly at the things they were designed for either. Oh yeah, and no mention of the oft cited 'airforce in being' that Ukraine has managed to maintain when implying more Patriots would be better than F-16s. Really though, every single lesson when it comes to hardware has to be filtered through Ukraine having a land border with multiple friendly countries where you can literally send supplies in by truck or train and they arrive the same day; something Taiwan lacks entirely. Once you've fired off your supply of missiles those Patriots might as well be paperweights, and if you're going to try and use them for missile defence they're going to be firing a Very Great Deal)

Don't think there's much doubt of that, plain not enough damage- and none aft- and all the lifeboats have been deployed. Most of the pro Ukrainians have switched to '100 survivors' now anyway. At this point the 50 survivor die hards can join the Snake Island Martyrs and Ghost of Kiev aficionados. They'll have lost a fair few though. (For similar incidents in the Falklands or the Stark losses dead and injured were up to ~30%, which would be ~170 for the Moskva if it was fully manned)

They'd be utterly pointless to Ukraine- nuclear deterrent relies on MAD, and 2 warheads wouldn't even approach that. Guess you could kill a lot of civilians in Smolensk or Rostov even with a small warhead, but then the retaliation would be massively disproportionate. Might give some 'fight to the last Ukrainian'/ 'only good Russian is a dead Russian' types a chub though before all of west Ukraine becomes Chernobyl 2.0 and they switch to how much of a warcrime it is to use nukes, on people they like. They'd also be pointless on the Moskva. The nukes are designed mostly for hitting Carrier Strike Groups and the like and Montreux means those can't even get into the Black Sea in the first place. So, whose Black Sea fleet would they be for nuking? Ukraine's fleet consists almost entirely- and really, pretty close to entirely- of inflatables. Even for hitting land based targets they're almost pointless since you've got limitless better options in ground based missiles and Tupolevs.

They should have been bombing the railways from the start- the whining about war crimes would have drowned out a fleet of 747s, but they are and always have been legitimate targets. The criticism would also have been monumentally hypocritical given, well, incidents like Grdelica. They should also have blown and kept blowing every bridge they didn't plan on using themselves. Can't hit a lot of the crossing of the Dniepr though since they're dams, but you get some lovely supply line choke points if they're the only option. And they already have a bridgehead over it in the south. Yeah, it's very unlikely. (Ships do carry ammunition they don't plan on all the time- she probably had ASW ammo on board despite Ukraine having no subs for example. It isn't that she wouldn't have planned to use it so much as that nuclear missiles would potentially take up space for missiles they might intend to use) Ah yes, the dichotomy of propaganda. Your enemy is precisely as brilliantly ruthless and cunning or monumentally inept and stupid as you need him to be for the scenario in hand. I think my favourite way to get it to manifest itself inside two sentences is to suggest that since Russia is so inept and can't even handle Ukraine that defence spending can safely be cut instead of increased. After all, if they can't handle Ukraine how could they handle NATO?

Boris has been cribbing Scott Morrison/ John Howard's notes. One also suspects that Kagame is going to get some good PR in the UK, and less talk about him being a dictator and too chummy with China. Plus Rwanda's demographics are still kind of weird due to the genocide.

Well yes, but in this case actually no. The ones installed on most Russian ships still (and I'll admit, it's iirc) have a minimum altitude ceiling that prohibits being used against very low flying missiles like Neptune. Newer S-300+ based systems including half those on the Pyotr Veliky (and presumably later this year the Admiral Nakhimov) can target both very low flying and ballistic missiles, and have far better missile speed and range. For the low flying anti ship missiles protection is meant to be from the shorter range systems and point defence. (S-300 covers a very long time and very large number of models, their capabilities vary massively) Yeah, nah. If I thought going down a single road to attack Kiev was stupid an amphibious assault against a city of 1mn plus would be... you'd need to invent a new word for it. Taking Mykolaev and the land based route would be far easier and more practical. Now it's: arrested, sacked, planning a coup and arrested, massive heart attack, sacked, massive heart attack. That's the Azeris attacking Artsakh/ Armenia again, which happens all the time.

The Russians never really had much in the way of naval attack and defence potential in the Black Sea. Apart from subs their only really significant warships anywhere are the Kirovs, and only because they're so big that they have so much stuff on them- and they're both decades old, and down to two in number. Their dominance in the Black Sea is predicated almost entirely by Montreux limiting what can be sent through the Dardanelles/ Bosporus and them having a lot of land based weaponry and planes in the area. Militarily their navy is pretty much irrelevant in the present conflict, since Ukraine has basically no navy to be sunk. Only thing they're doing is firing cruise missiles and enforcing a blockade. In terms of air defence, naval S-300 are short range, at least relatively- about 80km, unlike the ~250km for land based TELs/ missiles. At a pinch the entire Ukrainian coastline can actually be covered by S-400 in Crimea, and more marginally by S-300. S-300 are also only really meant to be used against manned aircraft, drones would be targeted by shorter range systems which other ships do have.

Germany's biggest problem is, perhaps unsurprisingly, von der Leyen. Offloading her onto the EU may yet prove to be their biggest mistake in years. Her being German and constantly shooting her mouth off pointlessly- particularly amusing her threatening to deinvite India from guesting at the G7 for not being hard enough on Russia and getting the "you spend more on Russian stuff in a day than we spend in a month" response- continually highlight Germany's continuing purchases. Cost is pretty irrelevant since it was built literally in the 70s. Indeed, it's ~10yrs older than a Ticonderoga, and that class is just about completely phased out. It's like updating the cost of a 70s Ford Escort if you crash it- it only costs something if you plan on replacing it, and you've well and truly got your value already. Russia hasn't built a warship (better clarify, surface warship) that size in decades. Now, in terms of prestige etc the cost is significant... The big Russian ships are all loaded up with S-300; they're an intrinsic part of its armament and included in the cost. Kirov's like Pyotr Veliky have a really ludicrous amount, like 96 or something (albeit they're ~twice as large).

Looks like there were two different attempted break outs from the Ilych industrial plant, which may be why that tweet is worded a bit oddly (joining Azov isn't getting out of the siege, it's going to a another pocket* in the siege; breaking out to the north would be escaping the siege if they got far enough). DPR filmed a breakout to the north via drone, which pretty conclusively failed and resulted in prisoners (~50 filmed; probably a few hundred involved in the breakout overall, some may have made it back to the start). There was also a breakout to the south towards Azovstal, which at least partially succeeded since at least one Marine commander got through and was photographed with an Azov guy who is definitely there. Very unlikely anyone significantly wounded got through though. One of the guys in the DPR video says there were at least 4 battalions there, which is a sizable force even if depleted. *guess it's also tacit admission that the Russian maps with the pocket split in three (as was) were accurate. From that and other information it seems very likely that it's down to just Azovstal now, with a few unsupported holdouts around the port and Ilych. Oh yeah, there have been some claims that Ukraine has hit Russia's Black Sea flagship with a cruise missile. Only video evidence so far is... not very credible though.

1000 surrendering certainly isn't supported by anything independently verifiable. It's clear that a lot more than 50 have surrendered though. While the Ukrainian MoD may claim that the video of 250 Marines surrendering a week ago is fake it had had confirmation from other Ukrainian sources. They also claimed the footage of the Snake Island survivors was fake, and at least one of them literally got returned in a prisoner swap.

Bit of a grey area whether he qualifies as a mercenary, assuming he's being paid. I actually looked up the definition under the (an additional protocol of) Geneva Convention to check*. The default position is POW, but he can be classified as a mercenary/ illegal combatant/ tried for something else** after an investigation. I have no idea if Russia is actually a signatory to that additional protocol though. *the sticking point being whether he's paid disproportionately. Consider the situation if any Syrians Russia used were in formal Russian units. They couldn't be mercenaries, as their pay would be significantly less than Russian soldiers... I'd be willing to bet they'd still be called mercenaries though. **he publicly called for soldiers in Mariupol to remove their uniforms, which is... a bit dodgy from a legal standpoint, even if it were only to help them escape as that puts civilians at risk. I'm really not sure people know how bad that makes them look either. It's like there might be a connection between not getting the support for sanctions etc that they want and countries that have had a taste of... unpleasantness delivered by the same countries now preaching at them about how very important it is to be nice. There's also a lot of democratic... self importance at play. On one hand, I can go out and protest about Yemen, isn't that great? So much better than those other places. I'm doing my part, why I posted a devastating meme- not quite as devastating as a JDAM to a school bus, but one tries- to #StopMBS2022 just the other day. OTOH, it certainly isn't my responsibility when the leaders I elect play zero attention to my protest, it achieves nothing and they continue blithely on as usual. I did my part, I objected, and can bask in the knowledge that nothing done by my country is my fault. I might even have voted for the other guys (who... do exactly the same thing when they get in office). Guess I'm also lucky that I come from an unimportant small country that can't really do much damage. Technically, how many wars have actually been declared since 1949? To quote the great philosopher Scribe "not many, if any". Prisoners are still POWs so long as they qualify otherwise. Of course, being POWs doesn't insulate from legitimate legal avenues against crimes committed either, you have to be members of a western military to get that protection.

One of the more famous British volunteers has surrendered in Mariupol He may be in for an... interesting time since it's pretty much certain he'll be treated as a mercenary/ unlawful combatant and not a POW. The good news is at least he's likely to be worth more alive than dead and publicly surrendered.

Generally it's the moral grandstanding about aggressive wars and the like that people don't like, especially those who have had a taste of it from those pontificating. It's one thing for, say, Bhutan to get irate about people invading other countries since they really are nice and peaceful, it's quite another when it's Boris and Joe acting holier than thou when the list of invasions by the US and Britain is fairly long. Then of course there's also immediate and ongoing hypocrisy rather than just historical, like the continuing- western supported- Saudi intervention in Yemen and the silence on the number of deaths caused by that (at least 135k children in just 2017-8 via blockade induced famine, according to the UN). But they're brown and the wrong religion, not in Europe, and the perpetrator buys lots of western weapons, givers lots of political donations and lots of western investment and that trumps humanitarian concerns; and such coverage in media as there is is very much of the "oh the humanity, but this is just what happens when you're uncivilised". Dropping CW from a drone is probably the least convincing detail. Russia has few enough armed drones, they can't carry much in terms of weight (up to 200kg, but that's 4x50kg) and they'd literally literally do more damage with conventional munitions than 3 injuries. If they were going to use them it would be as described- similar to one of the warren destructions in Watership Down. Block up most exits, pump in (probably) tear gas*, and have a bunch of 'ferrets' waiting by the exits which are left open. For that you wouldn't actually use munitions at all, just pump it from a big pressure vessel(s) via hose(s). Or you could just do it the 'legal' way, and suck out/ burn all the oxygen with thermobarics or flamethrowers. *still technically a war crime, since while tear gas isn't banned for use against civilians it is banned as cw when used against the military.

Come on now, Julian Lennon sang 'Imagine' and Ursula and friends pledged 11.2bn Euro; and it "sounds like even more if you convert it to dollars!" What's that you say? They're pledges, not actual money? My goodness, how very cynical. You just have to look back to other such disasters to find that the international community always, always supplies the money that is pledged and it certainly isn't actually a load of competitive virtue signalling where the expectation is anything from half to a tenth of the pledges actually come through. (In practical terms it probably depends a lot on how well/ long the sympathy for refugees lasts and, well, how lucrative the porkbarrelling is. It's a lot easier to spin pledges to reality when the money is actually spent on your companies etc)

Which is also almost always bad for the country the credits are generated in. We've had loads of areas just put into pine forest which is fine if it's plantation and for timber but a lot of it is for cheap zero maintenance carbon credits where the pines will literally not even be managed. Pine plantations here are basically green desert since they're exotic/ introduced, and unmanaged an invasive pest to boot where everyone else has to pay to stop them invading nearby areas- and they grow far faster than in areas they're native to (for Pinus radiata plantation forestry plant --> cut can be as short as a 20 year cycle here). They've recently and belatedly changed it so if you want it to be permanent forest it has to be native because large areas of good food growing land was getting converted with a big net loss to the country. Now they just need to make it retroactive as well, and enjoy the squeals. (Kind of funny though, politicians here utterly baffled by rising food prices when they've spent the past 20 years putting houses crappy low density McMansions on all the good horticultural land and pines on all the good pastoral lands. Oh yeah, and let there be a cosy non competitive supermarket duopoly. Who would have thunk two companies that control the market would only compete by building more supermarkets and operate mostly on making it impossible for anyone else to enter said market?)

That's the updated one from today. There are definitely some PR videos/ interviews from Russian media in the southern yellow part too, though I'm not sure exactly what ISW are using for their criteria for geolocation/ verification/ definition of control.

To quote the great philosopher Blackadder "You'd shoot a man in the back?" "I'd shoot a man if he was on the job. It was just a shame he was awake" Yeah, if being hit by a mortar is a measure of control then Ukraine has literally no control in Mariupol since the range is ~3.5km for even a small one. The spotter is a drone too, so can't draw any conclusions from that either. The port itself is at this point pretty obviously in Russian hands and relatively secure since they're staging a lot of media stuff there.

Poland is due to get replacement Abrams this year anyway via an already existing order. That would just be accelerated. The US can also provide older models from reserve, if needed. The issue is more that Ukraine doesn't actually use T-72s themselves, they use T-64s and T-80s since that's what the Kharkov Tank Factory can make; so getting them isn't quite as much of an advantage as you'd think. Don't think anyone has T-64s and T-80s to give though, unfortunately, all the ex WP countries have T-72s.

We'll likely never know. Given what is known, most likely a combination of typical poor Paradox management of external projects and Hardsuit not being a good fit for the project; which in terms of what practically went wrong could mean just about anything from Paradox changing their minds on stuff day to day (not likely, historically if anything they've been too hands off) or developers and writers not talking to each other to it just being... boring. The engine was UE4, so plenty well supported. There's a quarterly report due from Paradox next month, there may be some news then, if they're asked about it. That would be... 15 months, since it was taken off Hardsuit? so it's getting to the point where there ought to be more news. Though anything they do say will likely be in corporate speak like last time.