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Oh nothing really just wanted to share

Discussion in 'Free Fire Zone' started by Biak, Jan 23, 2013.

  1. Biak

    Biak Boy from Illinois Staff Member

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    I see what you did there did there.
     
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  2. OpanaPointer

    OpanaPointer I Point at Opana Staff Member WW2|ORG Editor

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    Anybody going to Europe should look into a side trip to Santorini.
     
  3. Biak

    Biak Boy from Illinois Staff Member

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    If you start to doze off, try this

     
  4. Ricky

    Ricky Well-Known Member

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    If you go to the German island of Helgoland, you too can stand in the crater left by a Tallboy. Impressive.
     
  5. CAC

    CAC Ace of Spades

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    upload_2022-10-2_20-54-19.jpeg
     
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  6. Biak

    Biak Boy from Illinois Staff Member

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    They killed an Alien !!!
     
  7. CAC

    CAC Ace of Spades

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    Former CIA director and retired army general says Moscow’s leader is ‘desperate’ and ‘battlefield reality he faces is irreversible’

    He told ABC News: “Just to give you a hypothetical, we would respond by leading a Nato – a collective – effort that would take out every Russian conventional force that we can see and identify on the battlefield in Ukraine and also in Crimea and every ship in the Black Sea.”

    Petraeus: US would destroy Russia’s troops if Putin uses nuclear weapons in Ukraine | Ukraine | The Guardian

    Russia's Black Sea Fleet

    upload_2022-10-3_10-24-30.jpeg
     
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  8. OpanaPointer

    OpanaPointer I Point at Opana Staff Member WW2|ORG Editor

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    Meep meep!
     
  9. Biak

    Biak Boy from Illinois Staff Member

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    upload_2022-10-3_19-14-47.png
     
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  10. Biak

    Biak Boy from Illinois Staff Member

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    upload_2022-10-3_19-45-52.png


    upload_2022-10-3_19-48-37.png

    Peace
     
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  11. USMCPrice

    USMCPrice Idiot at Large

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    I don't think Putin can afford to throw a nuke. If he does, he'll alienate China and India, the only two big markets left for Russian exports and sources for technological materials/parts he'll need to rebuild his army after the Ukraine fiasco is over. He'll also piss off Erdogan and Turkey. Turkey has the 2d largest army in NATO (after the US) and controls access to the Black Sea. If Turkey closes off the Black Sea to Russian traffic they're doubly screwed. He really doesn't have any good options left.
     
  12. CAC

    CAC Ace of Spades

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    I thought he was going to use the referendum in the Ukraine states as a way out - The Ukraine states vote to stay and he plays the high ground and pulls out...

    With nukes "usually" kept for an attack on the mother-land, one can read that Russia will consider the new states as Russian mother-land and now has a legitimate excuse to use nukes...tactical at least. The NATO countries can say the fall-out will drift over to them thus counting as an attack...The plan then is to destroy all Russian platforms and personnel on the ground "outside" of Russian territory. But what if Russia considers the new states as Russian territory?
    Whilst i respect USMCPrice's opinion over most...i must remind the gentleman of past leaders - Think Hitler for example...He was never going to go to war with Britain...never attack Britain or Russia...And then one amazing mistake after another...His military leaders weren't telling him the whole truth either.
    Think of Mussolini...Stalin...Trump.
    Desperate people do desperate things...
    Reports say that the Russian military couldn't work under NBC conditions at the moment...But Putin doesn't care about his people so who bloody knows?
     
    Last edited: Oct 3, 2022
  13. Biak

    Biak Boy from Illinois Staff Member

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    Let's hope he understands that. Given the state of current events, here and abroad, I'm afraid anything's possible.
    Turkey is not helping Putin too much;

    "Had the honor of launching the “Hetman Ivan Mazepa” corvette. Its name was chosen in 2021 by the President Volodimir Zelensky. Built in Turkey, it will serve Ukraine and will be the first ship of its kind in our Navy. Wishing fair wind, success and victories only!”
    Olena Volodymyrivna Zelenska, The First Lady of Ukraine
    Turkish shipyard launches Ukraine's 1st MILGEM corvette - Naval News
    ::::::

    I saw the photo of the Ukrainian kid held by a Spanish taxi driver and for some strange reason remembered a poster my future wife had on her bedroom wall back 50 years ago. Times really don't change - just continue repeating.
     
    Last edited: Oct 3, 2022
  14. CAC

    CAC Ace of Spades

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    War is a part of human nature...As the Terminator once said "it is human nature to destroy yourselves" And, it is...once limited to tribes and spears, we now throw nukes at tribes of millions...Ive said a number of times "Man's insecurity has a lot to answer for" you can add greed to that. The only answer to the "them and us" mentality is to become as one as a people...One voice for all.
    I see a strong "them and us" developing in the US, stronger than ever...its worrying.
     
  15. Biak

    Biak Boy from Illinois Staff Member

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    Hence my signature tagline below
     
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  16. CAC

    CAC Ace of Spades

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    Humans respond to inculcation (usually)...Australians are big on fairness - so many Australian sayings have the word "fair" in it "Fair dunkum" "Fair suck of the sauce bottle", "Fair crack of the whip" "Fair suck on the sav" and on and on it goes...we are egalitarian (Def: believing in or based on the principle that all people are equal and deserve equal rights and opportunities.) - No one is above another...even the Prime Minister has no more rights than the average Australian.
    Australia has a slew of unofficial national anthems...One is a song called "I am Australian..." The Chorus:

    "We are one, but we are many. And from all the lands on earth we come. We'll share a dream and sing with one voice I am, you are, we are Australian.
    These songs and sayings are a way of teaching, training and inculcating our view of the world. I hope one day the world can become Australian...No one is more important than another...Every one gets a fair go.



    In case you want the whole song.

     
    Last edited: Oct 3, 2022
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  17. CAC

    CAC Ace of Spades

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  18. Half Track

    Half Track Well-Known Member

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    I truly loved it.
     
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  19. CAC

    CAC Ace of Spades

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    As i have said we have a slew of unofficial anthems...One that touches my heart is "I still call Australia home" - Written by a great Australian Peter Allen ( Who married Liza Minelli)
    [​IMG]

    So many great Australian classics written by this genius... And this is my favourite.

    I Still call Australia home (As used by Qantas) - You might recognise Huge Jackman

     
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  20. USMCPrice

    USMCPrice Idiot at Large

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    You are correct in that world leaders making poor decisions has historically led to illogical actions. I do think Putin over-estimated the capabilities of his military when deciding to invade. Their capabilities were not unknown to western military forces. They're the same weaknesses that have been noted and trained for since at least the 1970's. The civilian public has been fed an exaggerated image of Russian capability because it was necessary in order to get the defense spending politicians felt was necessary in order to not find ourselves in the same "boat" we were all in prior to WWII and again in Korea. The Soviet Union (Russia) was the boogieman needed to insure we weren't ill prepared for the "next" conflict.
    At the end of WWII, the US had almost unimaginable military power. In 1950, just 5 years later, when North Korea invaded the south, we lacked sufficient naval assets to blockade North Korea when Truman ordered it. When MacArthur was ordered to send ground troops to help stabilize the situation, he had to cobble together ill-trained ill-equipped formations using personnel stripped from other units in the pipeline to go. The Marine Corps had 6 divisions in WWII, in 1950 when Truman answered MacArthur's request for a Marine Division there were only two understrength regiments, one on the east coast and one on the west coast. They formed a brigade where the GCE (ground combat element) was the west coast regiment at 75% strength, and then only by stripping recruiting, training, and guard detachments all across the US. They took the east coast regiment, that was mainly involved doing floats in the med and other trouble spots redesignated them and sailed them towards Korea, they stripped the rest of the personnel on other duty in the US and called up the entire Marine Corps Reserve to give MacArthur his one division. When MacArthur had his grand scheme to launch an amphibious invasion behind North Korean lines, the US Navy lacked the amphibious shipping to carry it out. This is the same US Navy that could launch invasions of France and the Mariana's, on opposite sides of the world in June 1944. The same US Navy that carried out the massive invasions of the Philippines and Okinawa. In 1950, we had to lease LST's that we'd sold to Japanese fishing entities and hire Japanese fishermen to operate them, the same Japanese we'd been at war with and had dropped two atomic bombs on 5 years earlier. We were so weak that when General Omar Bradley, the same Omar Bradley that in 1945 commanded the Twelfth United States Army Group, composed of forty-three divisions and 1.3 million men, after being appointed Chief-of-Staff of the US Army (1948) when asked the condition of his forces stated, "the Army of 1948 could not fight its way out of a paper bag."

    That is why the Soviet Union/Russian military prowess has been overstated to the public.

    I listened to an hour and twenty-minute podcast recently, with a British nuclear weapons expert explaining the different options open to Putin with regards to his capabilities and the type of strikes he could make. He didn't go into the geo-politics concerning what other nations, India, China, Turkey might do if he threw nukes. He did cover what he could reasonably do with his current arsenal. The answer is, on a tactical level it would require a very large number of strikes to sufficiently degrade the Ukrainian's ability to resist and change the situation as it now exists. He then went into NATO's retaliatory options. If he just throws one or two nukes, it will likely have little real effect on the situation on the ground and will have all the negative effects of a more substantial strike. Those effects are intensifying Ukrainian and western resolve, and possible conventional counterstrikes against Russian military assets worldwide, and further isolation of Russia by the international community. One thing mentioned is that with prevailing winds at this time of year, massive fallout would likely be blown over Russian territory. That would further exacerbate the domestic problems he is dealing with now. He thinks Russia is trying to bluff the west into backing off support of the Ukraine and then Putin can arrange a negotiated settlement giving him some of his goals. Western public opinion for continued support of the Ukraine has started to wane. Putin is a survivor and I think politically savvy, when he invaded the Ukraine in February, he had good reason to think he could achieve limited goals. The west had allowed him to pull off the seizure of portions of Georgia, namely Abkhazia and South Ossetia, in 2008. He suffered little repercussions with regards to international relations. In 2014 he annexed the Crimea and invaded the Donbas region of the Ukraine in support of two Russian puppet states. Temporary sanctions and condemnation by UN Resolutions were the negative consequences, but things quickly reverted back to the status quo on the international front, and he kept the Crimea and maintained a presence in the Donetsk and Luhansk areas of the Donbas. So, I can see why he thought he could pull it off again.
    I fully agree with your statement, "Desperate people do desperate things..." That is the unknown and unknowable factor.

    Turkey has not attempted to aid Russia; they have attempted to keep lines of communication open and prevent a widening of the war. They negotiated the treaty to allow the Ukraine to ship food out of the country through the Black Sea. Same with India, they have tried to remain neutral, they have maintained relations and trade with both Russia and the west. China is Rusia's biggest remaining trading partner. China is probably, surreptitiously, supplying war materials to Russia, but publicly they have condemned the invasion. If nukes are thrown China won't risk having western trade cut off because of continued support for Russia. Their economy would collapse, and their population starve, they are heavily reliant on food imports.
     
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