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MagicSoccerSpray

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Posts posted by MagicSoccerSpray

  1. 7 hours ago, Parliament said:

    ^^^And I have a theory that China poured cheap, garbage assault ri...semi-auto rifles into the US because they thought if they flooded the streets with them, we'd tear ourselves apart.  Kinda like we did with opium back in the day.  Joke's on them; we have our own cheap semi-auto rifles.

     

    BTW, the British East India company was the entity that sold opium to the Chinese. AFAIK the US had nothing to do with that, which makes the Chinese Fetanyl crisis even more evil.

     

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  2. 7 hours ago, Parliament said:

    ^^^And I have a theory that China poured cheap, garbage assault ri...semi-auto rifles into the US because they thought if they flooded the streets with them, we'd tear ourselves apart.  Kinda like we did with opium back in the day.  Joke's on them; we have our own cheap semi-auto rifles.

     

    That's not a theory, it actually happened and busted by the FBI as Operation Dragon Fire. And now the Chinese are flooding the drug market with Fentanyl. They are truly Godless fucks.

     

    4 hours ago, BamaATL said:

    I wonder how many tanks the Russian's actually have left, not just in country, but in totality.  At the start of all this, they claimed to have 17,000.  However, even their own stats indicated that over 8k of these were in storage (to me that means they are in pieces and never really going to be operational, more like bone yard).  They've lost somewhere between 1500 and 2000 in Ukraine.  They have to keep at least a few thousand in border areas, and they have the capacity at best to produce about 25 a month.  They have to be running low, even if we took all this at face value (which I don't).  

     

     

    This Youtuber actually bought a bunch of satellite pics and counted all the visible storage tanks three months ago. Unsurprisingly, it wasn't as many as Russia claims.

     

    2 hours ago, locodos said:

    Then there are the Rednecks who have been buying .22 (or pick a caliber) ammo at crazy prices thinking the rounds are an investment.  Fucking Rubes.

    I think of all the shotgun ammo my Grandfather had from before the great depression.  Can't sell it, don't want to shoot it, only the pretty pictures on the boxes have any value.

     

    PS you can, however, cut them open and use the powder to blow up mailboxes, allegedly

     

    Even if they're paper shells, they have value. I would keep them or try to sell, don't dispose.

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  3. 1 hour ago, atomheartbevo said:

    So Russia wants to mobilize 500,000 additional soldiers.  They can barely equip/supply their existing soldiers, and fill out existing units, and that's with them bringing in convicts (the Duma recently voted to allow some criminals to join the Russian Army).

    About 15% or so of their 140 million (plus or minus millions) residents are men within the 18-44 range, so around 20 million men - possibly less, Russian men's lifespans are bad and as Zeihan has pointed out, Russia has lied about their demographics.  

    • They lost up to 1 million who fled the country last fall and this spring. 
    • It's known that there are hundreds of thousands who are hiding from mobilization within Russia
    • They mobilized 300,000 last fall
    • They had 150,000 or so who aged into their required year of conscription in spring of 2022
    • They had another 150,000 or so this past spring who aged into their required year of conscription.
    • Prior to February, 2022, they had around 350,000 in the Russian Army (and Airborne units)
    • They have/had 160,000 in the Navy.
    • They have/had 160,000 in the Russian Air Force
    • They have/had 50,000 in their strategic forces (Rocket whatever, their nuke forces)
    • Wagner had 50,000 - 75,000 members (including convicts)
    • National Guard (Rosgvardia) has around 340,000 (and many of these are already in Ukraine, but after Wagner's move, many may have been brought back)

    They've had to continually expand the pool of eligibility - in May of last year, they raised the eligibility to serve in the Army up to age 65, and as mentioned, they now allow convicts in the Russian Army, not just Wagner).

    I feel like it's safe to say that the 600,000 or so that they mobilized last year, or that were in their mandatory conscription in 2022 and 2023, have probably not been allowed to leave service (at least not intact).

    Now their economy has taken a huge hit, so there's a lot of unemployment, probably hitting the 18-44 range pretty hard, so they've possibly got men to spare.

    They've got hundreds of thousands who have either been killed or who are now incapable of front-line service due to injuries.

    I'm curious where they find these 500,000, and get them to the front lines any time soon, let alone equip them.  Feels like if they had a ready pool, they would have already tapped it long before now.

     

    Moscow, St Petersburg, and Novgorod

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  4. 34 minutes ago, RPM said:

    I stand corrected. They turned 'em down flat.

     

    They didn't turn them down "flat", they went with converted tank chassis that better fit their predicted future urban battle needs. The Bradleys are great, combat proven, and near/at top of their class compared to similar Western platforms ie Warrior, CV90, Marder, etc.

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  5. 8 hours ago, SydneyCarton said:

    So? What does that have to do with his terrible ties? Most gay guys I know are pretty fashion conscious, as well. Not looking like they raided the closet of someone who died in the 80s.

     

    And some dress like a bow-tied Captain Kangaroo on acid. Regardless, your allyship has been noted. Seriously though, I think Zeihan is extremely competent and I celebrate the man's entire catalogue in spite of his terrible hair and questionable sartorial styling.

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  6. 5 hours ago, Nivek said:

    After the war, we really need to show them the Pentagon Papers movie about the development of the Bradley.  

     

    4 hours ago, atomheartbevo said:

    Pentagon Wars.  It's on HBO Max.

     

    4 hours ago, BamaATL said:

    Favorite line:

    "We should put portholes in it so the guys can shoot out of the vehicle"

     

    4 hours ago, Parliament said:

    To be fair, I think the original iterations were deathtraps?  Or am I a victim of propaganda?

    ETA

    Free on Youtoobs:

     

     

    4 hours ago, BamaATL said:

    Crap, absolute crap.   The Israeli's refused them and then made their own modifications (if I remember correctly, it initially had unarmored fuel tanks on the outside of the vehicle).  It's a model story of how not to do something, and somehow, it turned ok, and as it turns out, just saved the lives of lots of Ukrainians.  A truly remarkable story, some really good reasons, lots of bad, and how that can collide.  


    The Bradley was a success and always was. As funny and entertaining as Pentagon Wars was, it was nothing more than an exercise in cynical post modern mental masturbation contrarianism. Lazer Pig, a youtuber who works in UK defense analysis, has a funny video about the Pentagon Wars book writer, James Burton. Start at 8:03:

     

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  7. 1 hour ago, SL Xpress said:

    But I don't think you're presenting them well. Talking about Putin kidnapping children and sponsoring initiatives to increase birthrates while sending hundreds of thousands of men in their prime to their death, and chasing off hundreds of thousands of the most educated part of his work force to avoid being called up, either sounds like a man who isn't prioritizing demographics, or is prioritizing them with a really stupid strategy. 

     

    I presented them fine. You don't think he assumed it would be a cakewalk and the Russians wouldn't suffer the amount of casualties they are? And now that they are suffering high casualties, a large proportion of them are "undesirables" such as ethnic non-Russians and criminals. Think like a Russian, they are crazy and don't always make sense.

     

     

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  8. 6 minutes ago, SL Xpress said:

    So right after Crimea and Donbas you think it was a brilliant insight to say Russia would go after the rest of Ukraine? Really?

     

    Except he was saying and writing that before 2014. That Russia would seek to expand and have a military presence in all the 9-11 geographic chokepoints it identified to protect the homeland. Crimea, bessarabian gap, the Baltic, Caspian sea coastal chokepoints, etc. He's not perfect but his track record is pretty good.

     

    1 minute ago, atomheartbevo said:

    Season 6 What GIF by The Office

    2019-Head-Shot-1-scaled.jpg

     

    Yeah, he's gay.

     

    4 minutes ago, atomheartbevo said:

    Of course, I'm not really that sure that Putin is thinking about demographics in the long run, rather than greed and keeping his cronies happy and on a leash.

     

    It's actually one of the things he cares most about, hence kidnapping children. Putin's sponsored multiple government initiatives to increase the birthrate as he's realized it's a state killer in the long run.

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  9. 8 hours ago, SydneyCarton said:

    My biggest problem with Zeihan is his motherfucking ties. 

     

    FYI he's gay

     

    11 minutes ago, TexasEd said:

    He was right about what Russia/Putin would do but not about their incompetence or the results. 

     

    Name an analyst who was? Hodges and Hertling were the only ones close IIRC.

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  10. 26 minutes ago, Parliament said:

    He dumbs things down for the 99% of people who aren't the geopolitical nerds like we have here.  Sure it's a bit oversimplfied, but still effective.  He went mainstream when Russia invaded in 2022 and we all discovered his presentations on Youtube.  Those much better than the "pop geopolitics" vids he makes today.  And FWIW, one of his talks was in front of a group of US military folks.  (Looked like mid-level officers?)  So he must have some good insight.

    One of his "what if's" talked about how the Mexican drug lord problem has commonalities with Afganistan's tribal war lords.  He wasn't advocating for a US miltary intervention, but suggesting we have good expertise that can be drawn on.  Good stuff.

     

    He's former state department and has consulted for some three letter agencies. Here is his presentation to the Army Maneuver Warfighter Conference the week before the Ukrainian invasion.

     

     

  11. 20 minutes ago, locodos said:

    Ho lee shit, did you even watch the video you posted?    Laughably bad. I was pleased to learn that the US is the ONLY country that will meet it's Kyoto protocols obligations.   Dude's big talent is looking at a map and talking about it in a pedantic way.  These are mountains, you can't move an army easily over mountains, deserts don't support big populations, this is a choo choo track goods move efficiently here... oh shit this guy has it all figured out!

     

    oh here's a blurb from his wiki page...  Yup you guessed it, he wrote a book about maps and terrain features.

     

    If you want a good book about the real world effects of geography (and actual analysis) I recommend Guns, Germs, and Steel.

     

    This was just one video I could find in a couple of minutes of searching. He actually called out the Russian moves in his first book in 2011, and he is a proponent of Geography predicting Geopolitics because of history. I've read Gun, Germs, and Steel and it's great.

     

    18 minutes ago, Bevo said:

    Is geopolitical futures the same style as Stratfor? Can you get free content?

     

    Yes, and they have some videos as well. Friedman has lots of interviews and videos on YT too, though he seems to have slowed. Ian Bremmer, Michael Kofman, and Stephen Kotkin are good too imo.

     

    19 minutes ago, SL Xpress said:

    When you say he nailed it, what exactly did he nail there?

    Don’t get me wrong. I enjoyed the presentation, but anything important had already occurred (Crimea, Donbas) and the rest of his predictions didn’t pan out. Specifically Odesa never went Russian. And it wasn’t 4 years before they did anything more radical. As we know, it was 8 years. 

    I think it’s important to have speculative theorizors, but it’s also important to recognize them as such. He likes taking data and analyzing what if scenarios. But timing and how many of his what ifs come to pass aren’t nearly as important as just having some of them come true. 

    In any case, the Kerch bridge was a Ukrainian special forces operation using a truck bomb and forward intelligence of a fuel laden rail car to create a massive explosion that damaged the bridge and the underlying support structure. Not a clandestine IS strike or unannounced long range weaponry. 

    Which is not my effort to debunk Zeihan, but merely to ask people to not necessarily take everything he says completely at face value. He doesn’t even take everything he says at face value. 

     

    He can be a little too declaratory sometimes imo but he's been ahead of the curve predicting the weakening of globalization, Russia, Chinese/American relations, and EU power. He's not Nostradamus, but he's been better than most Geopolitical analysts the past decade.

     

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  12. 27 minutes ago, Bevo said:

    What happened to Stratfor? Michael Freidman (guessing  a bit since I haven’t seen anything since the Obama administration) was the main guy, right? Where is he now?

     

    They were bought and are called RANE now. They have videos on YT and George Friedman (Austinite) runs Geopolitical Futures now.

     

    14 minutes ago, locodos said:

    The part were Zeihan's videos are worthless. 

     

    Zeihan called out exactly what the Russians would do 10 years ago. He has been nails predicting geopolitics in general, and the Russians specifically. You might not like his style (the hair needs to go imo) but you're dead wrong if you think he doesn't know what he's talking about or think he's a hack.

    This presentation was in 2014 and he nailed it:

     

     

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  13. 20 minutes ago, InkaUtexas said:

    The groups that were kidnapping earlier were Lebanese, Hezbollah, Iranian Supported (if you want to get into it), but their support cells were Lebanese Hezbollah/Persian/Shia

     

    You didn't see any Christian or Sunni Lebanese kidnapping Americans. I understand it was/is a complicated and messed up scene, but it was almost exclusively the Shia/Iranians that were doing that shit.

  14. 5 hours ago, Gatorubet said:

    This a bit confusing to me.  The losing contractor had a design built around the 105 mm Rifled cannon Buford  system.  The winning system uses the M1A turret fire control system.   I’d assume that it would adopt the Abram’s 120 mm cannon instead of a 105 mm barrel cannon due to all of the great ammo in our MBT that could be used in this M-10 Booker, with ammo logistics uniformity .  The twitter thread revealed a vid from The Chieftain’s Hatch - a tank blog with a review of the prototype - and said that  a new 105 mm will be used.  Weird.

    They talk about weight reduction not going with the 120 cannon - and that it will be used for destroying things like bunkers and machine gun nests and other light armored vehicles. It is NOT designed as a tank killer (it will use standard NATO 105 ammo, so maybe the brains can invent new 105 shells to pierce other MBTs).   At 42 tons the damn thing is so heavy I can’t see how much extra weight going to a cannon barrel that will allow the Booker to defend itself against other nations’ main battle tanks is not a good idea. Why I do not get a vote I guess.  

    Then, again, maybe the new focus is on survivability and that accounts for the weight.  Ukraine has taught us that tanks will be hit a lot with drones and javelin type missiles, so maybe that is the direction we are going.

    Not a “ light tank”?  Fuck that, it’s a tank.  And not so light. 

     

    Recoil

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