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SL Xpress

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Everything posted by SL Xpress

  1. More like if the US invaded Canada or Mexico, but I get your point. This isn’t some faraway country. This is a next door neighbor with antiquated weapon systems for the most part other than a few key Western systems. Honestly it’s been an embarrassment for the Russian military as a whole as well as their defense industry.
  2. We’re saying the same thing. Amphibious assaults are extremely challenging. These patrol boats aren’t the right tool for that. But they can support an attack against weak points across the river. Also, I still feel like a lot of the Russian troops are under equipped, poorly trained, unmotivated, and if they face an attack across multiple vectors - especially if their lines of communication are cut off - we could see the same kind of widespread panic we saw in Kharkiv. But the main thrust needs to be some kind of successful armored assault along the southern front somewhere. An assault across the river could be successful in conjunction with that, but it won’t be a main thrust. Even hit and run tactics that pin down troops, sow confusion, and call in reinforcements from other areas can be effective. As far as artillery and HIMARS, I think it’s fine to talk about their effectiveness theoretically, but it’s obvious the Ukrainians are in an extreme shell diet at this point. I do not believe the Russians would be making the incremental advances they’re managing along the eastern front if Ukraine had 250,000 shells per month to fire off. Quantity is indeed proving to have at least a limited quality for the Russians in the short term in terms of their willingness to throw away human lives to achieve an objective I am sure the preponderance of incoming shells are going to go to support the main offensive, and everyone else is going to get scraps for the most part.
  3. To be honest I was thinking about how helpful they would be opening up new fronts along the Dnipro River. I do not feel confident about any kind of amphibious assault on Crimea. Maybe after they get the section of Ukraine from the Dnipro to the Black Sea under their control again. But to me that’s the first priority.
  4. For obvious reasons, I'm curious how Miami is going to do against UH.
  5. I'd laugh at that but 6 of those are with us.
  6. When Texas played Marquette in the Sweet Sixteen in volleyball this last December, I had a Marquette fan come on and tell me how Texas was going to regret letting go the great Shaka Smart. We just don't appreciate good basketball. After giving him a lot of laughter, soon thereafter Beard gets arrested and he starts crowing some more. This loss, and especially the way it came about in such a classic Shaka fashion, has me so giddy. Fucking breathing exercises. Go fuck yourself Shaka.
  7. For 15 seconds during a timeout with about 3 minutes to play. I don't remember the score, but I think Marquette was down by one.
  8. Oh my fucking god! A fucking breathing exercise! Please let this fuckwad lose this fucking game and lead his team through a post game breathing exercise to help lessen their tears! Fuck me I can't stand that guy.
  9. Baylor versus Creighton has started. Really hoping for a Big 12 win here. Hahahahahahahaha! Fuck Baylor. Go Bluejays!
  10. If he'd won a lot of games I wouldn't have minded. It was the sucking part for 6 years that really gets under my skin. I absolutely do not want to see him in the Sweet 16. Not this year. Not ever.
  11. I am stunned how much unresolved rage I have towards Shaka Smart. I don't know him as a person, but as a coach I wish inhuman torture. It's going to make me miserable if they manage to pull out a win here. Looking for Hoggard to make a big impact in the second half for Michigan State.
  12. Here's a Financial Times article about the impossibility of increasing 155mm artillery shell production in the near term due to a lack of explosives. It's the same theme over and over again. Europe's military industrial base is horrid after 3 decades of atrophy from politicians who considered defense spending a dirty word. And frankly, the US military industrial base isn't in great shape. It's built for peacetime and asynchronous wars. But that's not what this article is about. https://www.ft.com/content/aee0e1a1-c464-4af9-a1c8-73fcbc46ed17
  13. So here's the newest video (46m long) from my favorite journalist, Nastya Stanko. I have such mixed feelings for how she covers the war. Sometimes she seems like a parody of herself. She seems like a bit of a girlie girl, heading to the front lines to cover the war. Some of her questions even border on Philomena Cunk style, if you know who that is (and if you don't, and you like history, you should check it out). But her authenticity gets real answers from the guys on the front lines she covers. She's willing to go into very dangerous places with relatively little regard for herself. The way she covers the war is so different from anyone else I watch. It's compelling. In this one there are a bunch of really interesting conversations. 108th separate mountain assault and the 10th mountain assault has been in Bakhmut for 8 months, with one 8 day break. They're constantly conducting counter assault attacks on Russian trench positions to prevent Russian troops from making consistent advances. I won't go into everything in the video. But one of the most fascinating parts was her covering a deputy commander running a 3d print shop in his spare time to manufacture the release devices for the grenades dropped by drones on Russian troops. Starts at the 38:02 mark. But the whole thing is worth watching.
  14. Those were a lot of my exact thoughts. And yes, I agree it would be surreal, but to be honest, everything about this war would be surreal to me if I had lived in that house at one time. Towns and villages you used to visit turned to rubble. Children abducted to Russia. Civilians shot in the back of the head by occupying forces. Some of your friends and neighbors preferring Russian occupation. It's all so crazy. But yes, seeing my house on a Russian helmet cam video as he looks through my photo album while artillery shells from my army destroy my house. Yes, that would be the cherry on top for sure.
  15. When is the last time you saw him in a video near a window? I don't have even remotely a clue what this guy's end game is. He obviously likes attention. That much is clear. He obviously views himself as a truthsayer, a person my Dad liked to say was "willing to put the turd on the table." But how do you make a living doing what this guy is doing? What does the rest of your life look like, however short that may be? Nobody in the west is going to align with the guy because of his past. He has to have made himself persona non grata in Russian ranks. As much control as Russia has over their people and their communications, I'm flabbergasted this guy still has a means to express his view.
  16. Usually I watch the whole video before I post it up. This one is 19m long. No music in the background. Very little editing. The reason I'm posting it, other than what I've watched gives an unfiltered view of what it's like on the front lines, "Tell them I completed two stairs today. That's what we accomplished. Two stairs," is at 4:51 mark a guy in the trench receives a phone call. It's from the office of military mobilization. HIs buddy jokes that he's hiding from mobilization in a trench at Bakhmut!
  17. Here's a 5m feature on the helicopter pilots who flew 11 missions to supply the Azovstal steel plant after Mariupol had been surrounded. The end of the video hit me pretty hard. Brave men. Of course, the helicopter pilots weren't the only brave ones. Volunteers went in there as reinforcements. I've seen them mentioned in another interview with one of the Azov battalion commanders. They were part of the Azov regiment that refused to allow their brothers to die alone. They wanted to be there with them in this completely encircled fortress with no hope of anyone breaking the siege.
  18. I want to marry her.
  19. At the risk of being a propagandist, this is some compelling helmet cam footage from the Russian side, from an assault group on Vulhedar. I wanted it to be found footage Blair Witch Project style, but alas, it is not. This is the 155th Separate Marine Brigade. They look well equipped and well trained, unlike a lot of the footage we see of Russians from the Ukraine side. Not invincible by any means. UAF is giving them whatfor with their artillery attacks, that's for sure. Some sadness in how nice the house seems like it might have been before the war, and when he looks through the photo album it hits me in the feels. I hope all the Russians in that video died or are wounded with no possibility of rejoining the fight. Nonetheless, a good, unedited, unfiltered video.
  20. That video was so well done. Thanks to WarTranslated for the translation, and to you BamaATL for posting it. Chasiv Yar has been a critical point of defense for Ukraine. I thought at one point it might get overrun, which would have been a disaster. I don't know what happened, obviously, but from reading it appears they rotated out some of their veteran troops, and the new units weren't able to hold the Russians very well, so UAF had to send in reinforcements. The 71st Jaeger Brigade is a new unit, formed after the invasion and initially part of the reserves, but they've already been decorated for work in the Kharkiv offensive, and it looks like they're doing great work at a critical juncture for the defense of Bakhmut. In all honesty, in many ways Chasiv Yar is a more critical defense point than Bakhmut itself because it's located on a hilltop overlooking Highway T0504, "The Road of Life." There are some natural fallback positions from Bakhmut where UAF would still maintain the higher ground, but if Chasiv Yar falls Ukrainian military would have had to fall back much farther to set an effective defensive line. Based on other analysts. Good stuff.
  21. "Historically Ukraine was...ummm...unfairly underappreciated. And I regret it took bloodshed and a devastating war for the world to realize how cool we are. And we...we were always cool. But it just took you too much time to realize that." - Dmytro Kuleba, Ukraine Minister of Foreign Affairs
  22. I thought Gollum fell into the lava at Mt. Doom, but apparently FDU figured out a way to hire him as their head basketball coach.
  23. Schulz2.0 literally posted the same 4 day old content seconds before I did, lol.
  24. I didn't see this one posted. Report from UK reporter from the frontlines in the outskirts of Bakhmut. There are a couple of times when the guy is just standing up straight, going over his talking points and I'm like, "Doesn't your voice work if you're stooped over a little more?"
  25. Well, regardless, I liked your comments and felt they were very germane. I don't have the expertise to identify 1500 meters or to even guess with any degree of certainty from a video shot, and besides my spatial awareness is incredibly low. I especially appreciated you making the observations regarding the Russian positions and the importance of being able to neutralize those positions to have a successful counter offensive.
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