Tongue Stuck to Wall

Ah apologies, I wasn't referring specifically to you all and am sorry cause it did come across that way! I totally see how your point about Biden was a one-off, and it was DMC's correction of it (which you graciously accepted) just got me going in general about the whole issue.

This can also perforce be extrapolated into the need for some people to refrain from undergoing convulsions in attempting to tie every aspect of the war to the minutiae of American domestic politics. This year will undoubtedly tough for Ukraine but they will be more self-sufficient than ever by 2025. I guess some take a form of morbid solace in their pessimism to assume that if the latest aid package doesn't eventually pass or if Trump gets elected again then it will automatically result in a defeat for Ukraine. Ukraine's proved remarkably flexible and creative in making do with what they've received; any doomsaying amateur observer can eliminate Ukraine all they want from behind a keyboard, but all that accomplishes is to show up their lack of understanding.

What did Johnson expect? He can't even control his own face let alone MTG.

Yeah that went about as well as expected, lol. Apple Cheeks is hitting the campaign trail early!

Wert, I was wondering the same thing so I did a bit of research on the budgets for each of the series. Here are the results adjusted for inflation: Band of Brothers - $125 million in 2001 dollars = $225 million in 2024 The Pacific - $200 million 2010 = $350 million(!) 2024 Masters of the Air - reported $250 million So Masters does indeed have a healthy enough budget based on the other series, but it is for sure conceivable the focus on the POW camps in the last episodes could be due somewhat to financial constraints. That said, I think it's worthwhile to consider also: -By 1944 there weren't that many more "dramatic" missions episode-worthy of which the Schweinfurt/Regensburg and Munster missions weren't already representative; - It's a good opportunity to balance out the relative lack of characterization in the earlier episodes. Cleven and Egan are of course still two of the main characters so this gives us an opportunity to follow their stories further; - The series is also trying to be somewhat faithful to Miller's book, and he does devote a considerable amount of the last chapters to the source historical account to the Kriegies overall and their experiences. As DBunting alludes to above, the source material for each of the series has definitely been progressively more difficult to adapt successfully. BoB had the discrete focus on Easy Company, The Pacific on Basilone, Leckie and Sledge, but Masters is a massively sprawling comprehensive history of the air war in Europe. When I first read it, I was surprised the 100th Bomb Group features only sporadically (maybe 5%?) in the entire work; the rest of it deals with other Bomb Groups and squadrons and the strategic planners and decision makers such as Arnold, et al. I can appreciate for the challenges faced by the showrunners and script-writers of Masters: trying to introduce engaging and memorable characters while adhering to the source material in presenting a realistically-told story. Not an easy row to hoe by any means.

Good comments so far. I've watched the first two eps, too, and find the usual attention to detail from a Spielberg/Hanks/Orloff production to be excellent. Two observations: firstly, the debate of USAAF daylight precision vs. RAF night area bombing was handled interestingly. When the 8th Air Force became operational in 1942 and started their first missions, there was intense pressure from Harris and Bomber Command to integrate American forces into the night campaign. Needless to say, Arnold, Spaatz, Eakers, Anderson, et al waged a successful effort to keep the American forces operating on a diurnal schedule. Could this conflict have been played out in fist-fights outside of an East Anglian pub? Well, now we know and natch it keeps the focus on the air crews themselves. Secondly, anybody pick up on the egregious technical error involving the position of the waist gunners? Offset gunners' positions, where they weren't constantly bumping into each other's backs and bums were not available until the B-17G model (which is easy to identify because it has the chin twin .50 cal turret). The Forts used by the 100th in 1942 and '43 eg: Alice from Dallas did not yet have this feature. I am of course being pedantic for satirical purposes, but the point does stand.

I've been playing since the first Warcraft and I have no idea what's going on other than Anduin now looks like Casey Affleck.

I was going to comment on KC's lack of catching fundamentals but dropped my phone.

That postgame interview...no equivocating, no pandering, no smiling...I got a semi watching it.

Miami's media department desperately stalling for time while Mike McDaniel scans memes for this week's bon mots for the post-game press conference.

That was a masterful gambit: hawking his book on Amazon at the same time he was suing the company.

How about the staff rooms at school? My parents were both principals back then and sometimes we'd spend the day at their schools when we had PA/PD days. I'd be trying to fill in my Johnny Quest/Space Ghost colouring book with tears running down my cheeks.

Ukraine of course does have not the electromagnetic spectrum warfare capabilities of NATO militaries either, which has had massive consequences. ECM and ECCM would be fully integrated into a NATO "style" full-scale assault: jamming drones, degrading the efficiency of integrated air defense system assets and interfering with inter-unit communications. The latter in particular would have been ideally suited for the summer counteroffensive. If you can jam forward artillery observers (esp. including drones), and degrade/destroy their redundant landlines with artillery or air power, then your engineers can clear minefields relatively easier and create channels for the armor to advance. Naturally, no way Ukraine gets the best jamming equipment from the West as they don't want to tip their hand too much to allow the Russians to study and devise up-to-date countermeasures.

Unconfirmed reports indicate he has recruited a battalion of compatriots who are currently in Poland being trained by NATO advisors on how to effectively assault units of trench rats.

Ah, the dulcet tones of the Origins Systems symphony...sounded so great with the Sound Blaster 1 CT1320B back in the day.

Morris is where the USAF has been training international student pilots (mostly from NATO countries) on the F-16 since the 80's, I believe.

John Leyton, who played Willie the "Tunnel King" (based on Canadian Wally Floody who was the real tunnel master in the escape), is still alive and in his late 80s. All of the majors stars are gone, sadly.

Ya, HOI had a good read on it. This stuff is 99% meant for domestic consumption; get the statement into the Russian media, have some pro-nationalist bloggers repeat it on Telegram and remind the populace for what they're ostensibly supporting the war.

Even with air superiority, or even air supremacy, combat engineering operations are not an easy task. You might be able to suppress or destroy some artillery and frontline defenses which are engaging sappers as they clear minefields and obstacles, but the defenders are dug in deep and the minefields are so dense the only way to breakthrough is grind it out meter by meter on the ground.

This might be the first time I've ever seen thief, rogue and dual all spelled correctly in a single post about CRPGs.

Even more so, China really does not like this war at all. Any short-term financial gain they are accruing through this overall tepid "support" of Russia is massively offset of by a number of serious concerns from their perspective: 1) The warzone is uncomfortably close to their supply lines to Africa. They want stability for the western terminus of their Belt and Road Initiative but the Black Sea's link to the Eastern Med and from there down into the northwest Indian Ocean could become tenuous if the conflict were to spread. 2) The interruption of food supplies to Africa has generated some concerns re: economic and societal disruption within China's debt-diplomacy partners there. 3) Most importantly, the CCP and PLA are extremely perturbed about the rejuvenation of NATO, in particular the strengthening of transatlantic relations. One of the obvious pillars of Chinese foreign policy is keeping their rivals divided, hence the constant refrain of the necessity for geostrategic multipolarity which appears in endless CCP policy statements. NATO is viewed as an outdated relic of the Cold War which the US uses to prop up its attempts at global hegemony. The EU is furthermore guilty for not making more extensive efforts to reach out to Russia and fostering greater trans-European harmony (ie: separating themselves from American influence), which could have prevented the whole war in the first place. Couple this, then, with the 2022 NATO Strategic Concept denoting the shift in focus to the Indo-Pacific, (see Germany's new policies towards China from June this year). Things were looking up for China in 2020; NATO's military preparation was at an all time low and they reacted with absolute glee at the American administration's neo-isolationism, but two-and-a-half short years later an entirely new set of variables have been introduced into the equation. Sure, this could change in the future but it is the reality of today. * * * Finally, one last point needs to be addressed which has come up repeatedly in these threads: China has practically no realistic or viable expansionary ambitions regarding Russian territory. As Darzin alludes to, Chinese-Russian relations are light years past the bad old days of the Amur River border battles in the 60's, and in fact the economies of eastern Siberia and northeast China are now very closely integrated with a great deal of international trade and labour arrangements. Renaming Vladivostok on a map is 99% rhetorically motivated -- never a bad idea to boost harmlessly national pride when your economy is running relatively sluggishly -- and in no way is a realistic indicator China is planning on launching an invasion of a nuclear-armed neighbour, even if they are weakened, to capture their substantial natural resources.

Anybody remember Lavrov trolling Liz Truss to her face by saying Rostov and Voronezh oblasts are and always would be protected by the sovereign Russian government (he was trying to make her more confused re: the LPR and DPR)? Interesting call there, Sergei....

No, "mainstream" media has not been saying the a) the Ukrainians are not capable of culpability; and b) you can degrade a dam selectively to control the level of flooding that occurs: Following the destruction of the Kakhovka Dam on early Tuesday morning, Kyiv and Moscow launched a series of accusations about who's responsible, but according to a report from The Washington Post in late December, a Ukrainian military officer suggested blowing up the dam could be a means for a last resort. Ukraine's Major General Andrey Kovalchuk, the former commander of November's Kherson Counteroffensive, tells The Post how he intended to blow up the dam. "Kovalchuk considered flooding the river," The Post writes. "The Ukrainians, he said, even conducted a test strike with a HIMARS launcher on one of the floodgates at the Nova Kakhovka dam, making three holes in the metal to see if the Dnieper's water could be raised enough to stymie Russian crossings but not flood nearby villages. The test was a success, Kovalchuk said, but the step remained a last resort. He held off." And before you go off on the Post (although why would you as that portion of the article actually supports your assertion re: culpability), the italicized selection above was from Newsmax yesterday.

I saw Iron Maiden in 1991; Anthrax opened for them and my ears are still ringing from that show.

Finally, 2km of those trenches were sold on the black market by a local brigade commander so he could finish paying for his new dacha.