… in Ukraine’s bag of tricks? pl
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One of Tamerlane’s many tricks. Famously set giraffes on fire in order to panic the war elephants which were used in a nearly successful attack on his armies in northern India. It worked, he routed his opponents. Was included as a detail in one of Salvador Dali’s surrealist paintings.
F&L
Several of Dali’s paintings featured flaming giraffes. Two were painted in 1937 during the Spanish Civil War. Apparently he used it as a motif indicating a premonition of war – accurately as it turns out. I’ve always wondered if the brief burning ‘horse’ scene in the movie Avatar was a homage to Dali.
In further breaking news:
Alleged attacker of Paul Pelosi to press: “Oh dear, I forgot to leave behind the vial labeled “Novichek,” will you be able to report its presence at the crime scene anyway? Thanks so much.”
Kind of sticking it out here, but Ukrainian takeover of the Kakhovka dam and subsequent opening of the flood gates to flood the east bank of the Dnieper -? Assuming it can be emptied enough – or possibly blowing it. That would allow them to demoralize the Russian forces in Kherson and pin them against the river.
I thought the Russians had fancy EMP warheads they could use to fry electronics – if this was true I would expect them to hit some Ukrainian datacenters. The IP protocol (that the internet runs on top of) is famously robust but I would expect that servers in Ukraine are probably concentrated in maybe 12 datacenters or so. I would have thought that the Russians would have gone after those.
JamesT
Why use fancy EMPs when you can just cut the electricity off ?
borko
My understanding is that the damage created by EMPs is permanent – the damaged equipment needs to get replaced.
Which means that it probably makes more sense to just blow up the building. Datacenters are supposed to be temperature controlled and dust is not at all good for the servers.
1] A Manoeuvre sur les derrières around Svatove deep into northern Luhansk Oblast?
2] Hit the Iranian Shahed-136 launch sites in Crimea? Use the commercial off the shelf Ali Baba drones that the Ukrainians modified to be kamikaze UAVs. Put a little fear of God into the IRGC launch crews.
3] Target a Kilo Class sub? They may have tried already. The Russians are claiming that during the 29 October USV/UAV raid a floating boom was damaged in Yuzhnaya Bay. That bay is where the submarine berths are located.
Hand out cigarettes to workers in the Russian munitions plants?
The best proposal.
When nothing works, there is smoke (fags with narcotics…) and neglect.
But on second thought: no, bad trick. Lung cancer is too often fatal and always painful.
https://twitter.com/nytimesworld/status/1587451933584916482?s=21
All said and done the “super power” class Russian military has not been able to suppress the Ukrainian army nor erode their morale. What does it say about the state of the Russian armed forces and why did so many in the West believe that the Russian military could effect regime change in Kyiv?
https://twitter.com/eluttwak/status/1587450238037823488?s=21
It appears the military annexation of Crimea and the non-response by the West and even admiration from Trump, enabled Putin’s misjudgment of the invasion of Ukraine.
Now he’s too committed militarily to just withdraw and cut his losses without losing face. His legacy is shot. I don’t see how he recovers from this debacle.
well… Ukraine is asking for more ‘buco bucks’ from the USA – they must be spending it on something?
Putin likes to take traditional Epiphany dip in an icy lake. I don’t know if it is the same lake every time but a timely and well placed submersible drone would make Ukrainians very happy and Russians very angry. Maybe too angry.
Maybe Keeev could actually be honest about their enormous casualty numbers. That would be a miracle.
In your opinion how many?
Forbes reporting that 500 miles from Ukraine border saboteurs hit a Russian airfield damaging/destroying 4 Ka-52 attack helicopters. A video is shown of a saboteur attaching bomb with MD-5M detonator and a delayed fuse.
Russia has lost 1/4th of their 100 KA-52 copters. Replacing/repairing these will be difficult due to tech sanctions.