Yes, but also consider the basic wisdom of it, I believe the origins of the Super Tucano extend back to WW2 fighter craft like the P-51 mustang being evolved into trainer aircraft occasionally used for ground attack. Everyone gets excited about the bleeding edge of unmanned aviation development but from the perspective of the Super Tucano as an airframe… I mean… sure you can develop a fancy new heavy lift unmanned ground attack and sensors platform… or you can just take a Super Tucano and modify it.

The same thing is happening with the Lakota helicopter sort of being phased out as a manned aircraft in direct frontline military use in the US military while the same time?? the same exact model helicopter is being heavily considered for an unmanned heavy lift vehicle (well medium/light utility helicopter but from the perspective of unmanned systems “heavy”) by the US military. It is enough to make your head spin like a helicopter rotor.

I think the important thing to remember is that the media, general public, military and techpress will want to obsess over the legitimately terrifying new developments in unmanned aerial (also ground and littoral) vehicles because they are novel and intimidating. From a practical perspective however, the best platforms for unmanned navigation systems are manned aerial vehicles with a long and developed history of maintenance, documented behavior in emergency maneuvers, and extended third party market for modifying the same platform for a variety of purposes… while in the field.

To put it simply, once you get past a certain size of horse, it doesn’t really matter if a human is riding on the back of it or not, what matters is what stuff the horse is doing, whether that stuff is a stupid idea or not and whether it is being supported properly to do said horse stuff. So yeah, Super Tucanos, Aero Sharks, Lakota Helicopters… all of these types of platforms are immediately the best candidates for the future of manned or unmanned aerial surveillance, reconnaisance and defense at depth.

The main defense a rail network has is that it is fairly easy to repair track at an industrial scale so long as you can clear the area and rebuild, and as a result that even though a train is a very very vulnerable large loud target, it is difficult to know WHEN to ambush a train because you might just be standing in the middle of nowhere for hours and the train never comes before hostile patrols make contact with you.

Under this logistics system however rail networks become constant sources of intelligence on enemy movements, this seems like a disastrous idea to me given the sophistication and skill of Ukranian UAV and unmanned ground vehicle operators. Also, it wouldn’t take much to stop a whole kilometer long length train of these unmanned logistics carts, you just need to blow the one up in front with an FPV drone and the rest of them are stuck. This is the war equivalent to placing a traffic cone in front of a self driving car in order to immobilze it, and by virtue of not using a truck or a train with a human driving it Russia leaves itself open to massive amounts of logistical disruption this way… which is what loses wars ultimately.

As you point out Russian troops are screwed if they aren’t near train tracks but that also means Ukrainian intelligence can assume the Russian troops are having to tactically come within a certain distance of tracks to resupply which makes their movements massively more predictable and easier to disrupt. You just look at a satellite image and start drawing lines to the closest rail lines in enemy territory and extrapolate from there…

Trying to predict where an MRAP or APC will rush in much needed supplies to a heavily suppressed defensive unit on the otherhand is much harder to do both from the increased mobility standpoint but also from the standpoint of needing to muster a far greater degree of precise firepower needed to knock out the logistics vehicle even if you can predict where it will be.

I didn’t mean to make a rant not on topic about Ukraine, it is just I think you have to give a lot of context when linking to the words of US warhawks, I feel like I am handing out a powerful pyschedelic or something, I mean look at this shit, this person wrote this and then put THEIR NAME on it…

The US: Winning By Not Interrupting

Napoleon is credited with saying, “Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake,” and this aptly characterizes U.S. IW successes in 2024. The U.S. did not launch many bold, new IW initiatives in 2024. Instead, the U.S. refrained from interrupting Iran, its proxies, and Russia while they made terrible mistakes. This restraint deserves more credit than it receives. For example, the U.S. could have, perhaps, taken initiative and achieved early ceasefires in Gaza and Lebanon, but that would have rescued Assad, Hezbollah, Iran, and maybe even Hamas. By failing to interrupt, the U.S. benefitted from the destruction of Assad, the crippling of Hezbollah and Hamas, and the weakening of Iran. By the same token, a ceasefire in Ukraine would have stopped Russia’s astronomical losses and left it free to use those resources in places like Syria. The U.S. administration resisted the temptation to pursue a counterproductive ceasefire and instead allowed Russian mistakes to proceed uninterrupted.

This emphasizes a broader point about how Ukraine must pursue peace, it must be recognized that this system is stable, the war does not want to be disturbed and those on the sidelines profiting off the war on both sides are in vigorous agreement about that… or rather were until recently.

I am sorry Ukraine, with allies like these it is a miracle you are beginning to win the war, but you are.

The meaning of “frontline” gets confused very quickly the closer you zoom in, yes you are right but also Ukrainian assets whether infantry or drones can absolutely reach the intact rail lines Russia would be utilizing to get last mile logistics to their troops, is it a difficult and lifethreatening task? Yes, but for this kind of a strike this is exactly when you would take that risk and try to penetrate into the enemies backline.

It also provides a stupid easy way for Ukraine to track Russian logistics movements with surveillance equipment, since presumably these little carts are being used to resupply Russia forces at a more granular level closer to the front line than a traditional train would be useful for, but doesn’t that also just actively map out at a granular level where Russia’s infantry is and where it is massed?

You don’t even need a camera, just some kind of extremely minimal simple sensor attached to the rail that could detect a small cart passing and artillery could then pretarget and precalculate based on that and just wait until the Russians indicated they needed some refreshments…

The reason these kinds of things haven’t largely been done in rail warfare until this point, is as far as I am aware that there haven’t been many recent wars where trains and rail networks have been used in such a desperate fashion to try to maintain an offensive. Ukraine can track a logistics freight train coming into a major forward staging area, and that will give Ukraine valuable information but there isn’t much Ukraine can actually do to interdict the train, or capitalize on the vulnerable period of unloading of said train… because presumably this is all happening behind the enemies frontlines in a heavily protected area and you need a decent sized weapon to seriously hurt a train. Why would Russia do what this article is suggesting if Russia could do the above plan with traditional trains?

The answer is they can’t protect any major staging areas for their offensive anymore that are close enough to the frontlines to be relevant, which means they are LOSING… BADLY and as a result they have to increasingly decentralize their logistics the closer they get to the front which is inherently inefficient and confusing to friendly forces.

Chariots were an extremely effective weapon, they lasted so long for a reason?

Agreed!

Harry Kim got addicted to clarinet

Rush Rally 3 is also on mobile and is really solid. I think it is a superb game # on either platforms.

Please try Motor Town: Behind The Wheel, it isn’t strictly a racing game but the physics, particularly the tire burnout/grip physics are sooo good. Try doing urgent taxi jobs.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1369670/Motor_Town_Behind_The_Wheel/

An even more oddball racing suggestion!

Endgame: Road To Salvation

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1264920/Endgame_Road_To_Salvation/

disc golf or board games!

68 artillery systems!

The rest of the world are such bullies.

It is like giving a dog a phonebook and trying to decipher the mastermind plan the dog had to tear the phonebook up with.

I just hope the US isn’t just protecting the sale of military equipment and supplies by drawing out the war.

I think the US military industrial complex absolutely was, 1000%, but two major things happened recently that don’t give these forces the aperture to sustain the conflict anymore.

1.) Ukraine has reached a steady domestic production of towed and armored self propelled 155mm artillery, they also have a steady supply of shells or at least steady compared to what they had before.

2.) The delivery of the first AH-64 Apaches happened to Poland from the US Military/Boeing, along with the entire process that entails. In a darkly hilarious way, I don’t think even Boeing wanted to deliver these to Poland, but rather delay them being delivered, profit off more fear mongering and sell more expensive military arms (yes, they get much more expensive than an Apache… somehow…).

Apaches and specifically the Longbow system are meant to integrate with combined arms networks of aerial, ground and littoral naval units, the impact of these weapon systems extends much farther out than just the range of the cannons and rockets on them… and Poland will in a few short years have a brutally dangerous fleet of Apache helicopters that Russia will have a much much much harder time pressuring militarily. Neither European militaries or the Russian military have any depth of similar capacity in their heavy attack helicopters if they even have any… as for Ukraine I don’t know… but I just want to emphasize… these aren’t glorified slow ground attack aircraft… that isn’t their point. They are networked sensor and target tracking heavy weapons platforms that also carry human pilots.

These two changes fundamentally change the power balance of the region and make selfish agents far more likely to seek profit from accelerating the end of the war rather than extending it, at the very least it makes other powers far less likely to want to hitch their horses to Russia which only has a good outlook in the nearterm so long as they can sustain a massive offensive that is killing off their own population at a staggering rate… Once that fails… Ukraine has super artillery production, superior drone pilots and drones, superior armor and mechanization, superior training, superior morale…

The rest of the world is looking at the conflict in Ukraine and realizing the time to dally around and profit off the brutal stalemate is over, and if there is money to be made it is in jumping in now and decisively helping Ukraine.

Again, I am sure Trump and other people in the US military industrial complex realize this too, and that is one of the big levers that probably is exerting a fear onto Trump that he will look weak not bandwagoning with the rest of the world’s arms companies of any note in the masculine power rush that comes from being on the winning side…

Unless this is a triple fake and Trump won’t actually send arms to Ukraine (which is still very likely too) I don’t know how to interpret this as anything else. Trump and Putin’s plan (insofar as Trump “plans”) was for this to be much a scarier offensive for Ukraine, Putin has failed to deliver and Trump is mad that messes up his own plans…

ughh it is disgusting honestly, I hope I am wrong… well not about Russia being weaker than the western narrative portrays them as right now, I stand by that and am confident in that conclusion… I am talking about arms companies playing with people’s lives… which is another one of the most awful parts of war, it is a business for some like anything else…

I think the reason is much simpler and much more selfish, Trump is simply angry Putin is doing so terribly at the war in Ukraine. It is making Trump look weak, so he has to host a UFC tournament to try to restore that rightwing toxic masculinity vibe.

I am not kidding, I think Trump is actually genuinely afraid to be seen as close to Putin based on what Trump is hearing about the strategic position Putin is placing Russian forces into from Trump’s own military staff.

The winds have changed and Trump is a coward. Why the hell would people expect Trump to come to Putin’s aid when Putin looks weak? Trump doesn’t help weak people, he is far too weak himself to do that and retain power.

Motor Town, Operation Harsh Doorstop, Easy Red 2, Sailwind, Hydroneer, Liftoff!, Shredders, Old Market Simulator, Cold Waters Dot Mod, Nebulous Fleet Command, From The Depths, Helicopter Gunship DEX and Out Of Ore are all great “sims”.

I also consider extremely mechanically deep rpgs with realistic systems like Cataclysm Dark Days Ahead or Unreal World to be simulators and both are superb.

I am trying out Ships At Sea but don’t have enough experience yet to give a thumbs up or down yet on it (Check out Sailwind!).

Sailwind is a “sailing simulator” as in actual sailing!

Ukrainian losses amounted to approximately 1,280 personnel in the past 24 hours.

No, this is much closer to the rate of daily Russian losses, and yeah those are horrific prices for Russia to pay for paltry gains.

Russians are throwing away their future.

I like that it makes space travel seem fun, colorful and spontaneous… so much scifi art with spaceships is 1) war 2) dystopia 3) serious vista or 4) sky traffic… or some reductive combo of those basic flavors…

Not that this couldn’t be a panel from a story about those things, rather there is a great vim to the style that begs the context to expand. This feels like a light moment between neighbors of what nature we can imagine that somehow also feels like a handmade valentine.

It gives me “The Sea Claimed Space” vibes, which are indisputably good vibes.

https://jonaskyratzes.itch.io/the-sea-will-claim-everything

At this point, I think what is important is Ukraine keeps VERY good documentation of where it puts mines, whether from personnel, UAVs or artillery launched methods… SOMEWHERE.

Honestly, I might just do it on paper records with many duplicates in different locations, if not the digital air-gapped equivalent of that… but I would keep very good records no matter how I did it.

Do it in a way that can’t be turned against you, which is of course the problem… and why mines end up being placed willy nilly… since any kind of documentation is an existential threat to the mine placing process after a certain degree of accuracy… **but in this day and age I think if you are going to use mines, you should do everything you can to help friendly forces figure out where the mines you placed are after you win the war without losing the war in the process by creating a cybersecurity target with a database of all the mine locations.

One way Ukrainian forces can and probably are doing this if they are smart is to map large swathes of the Ukraine countryside with high resolution UAV mounted magnetometers so that if they are subsequently mined a high resolution magnetometer survey at a later date can identify the changes/anomalies and help direct mine removal crews. Cybersecurity around this process would of course be existentially important to the strategic war effort…

This isn’t a solution, mines are an awful weapon, but I think this is where the realistic difference in lifesaving especially of civilians can happen.

edit I am not talking about the idea that the Ukrainian military has no idea where the mines it placed are, but rather that the idea of geolocating each mine you dig into the ground into a convenient point database could be a serious threat to the fundamental tactical effectiveness of said mines… if the enemy can hack your cybersecurity than they have the map too and it is much worse for them to have a precise map than it is good for you to have one. That is the basic calculus of this type of warfare, and is only one of the reasons war is awful and Russia should not keep pretending it can win this war.

I think for a long time the conversation from people upset about people dying to landmines has been “ok, STOP USING LANDMINES” but obviously at the scale of brutality of mechanized mass scale landwar that Russia has forced Ukraine into things begin to look very different understandably especially given the clear effectiveness of these weapons against Russian armor especially after it has been shaken by artillery fire or FPV attacks.

In general, mine use should be heavily discouraged internationally as a method of war, especially internal civil war or guerilla conflicts, but in the case of Ukraine, Russia is rolling tanks through its countryside… so I think the rest of the world can recognize arbitrarily mining the s^%$ out of your home is a bad idea while recognizing that Ukrainians are going to mine their home to stop Russian tanks from literally driving through the backdoor of their kitchen with a tank. This isn’t a question of law, you would do the same, so would your grandma.

I think what the international community should focus on is from a policy standpoint delineating the difference between those two types of mine use. To put this in precise terms, there is mine use 1.) Because it is a cheap way to create terror, deny a home to people, and indiscriminately murder people that is lazier and more evil than bullets. 2.) Using mines because you are actively trying to stop an armored fullscale landwar invasion of your home.

There is a long history of international opposition to landmine use because forces can very quickly create a large amount of mines and place them into the ground… and the situation created can be a problem for far longer than the lifespan of any of the beligerants involved. It is a perfect weapon for authoritarian regimes as it directly enables crude but large industrial capacity to oppress and terrorize groups of people.

This really… if you think about it… has NOTHING to do with how Ukraine is currently employing landmines and I think the international community really risks shooting itself in the foot here by getting hung up on this as if Ukraine was going back on any kind of desire to employ weapons the international community has agreed are weapons of nearly last resort…

I will become concerned with how Ukraine is employing landmines when they are actively supplying them to guerilla groups in countries with active civil wars on entirely seperate continents that they have no business being involved in… I say that facetiously but I am trying to make a point here about how you can recognize landmines are brutal and also see why the Ukrainian military might keep using them anyways.

Do you want to be the Ukranian general who watches as a Russian armored column rolls catastrophically through the backline of your defenses and there is nothing to slow them down… it wasn’t even your fault the intelligence given to you was wrong and you miscalculated… if you had mined the road somewhere though at least that would slow the Russian column down enough to keep the major civilian center from getting attacked immediately and give your armor, drones, artillery and airpower crucial time to react… but you decided against it because you didn’t want to use mines out of principle…

Those are the kinds of things you think about fighting in a war like this, I am not saying I have the answer but concluding “only use them as a means of last resort” means something very complicated and nuanced to the people actually fighting the war…

Modern warfare is all about not giving your enemy time in every meaning of the word, which means if the enemy is truly beating you, then you will never have the moment to go “ah! this is the last desperate moment!”. Fundamentally when constructing a defense you have to begin from this axiom, this is something that people fighting wars have been forced to come to terms with since the beginning of war.

Is Gavin Newsom the West’s answer to East Coast political titan Rudy Giuliani?

Who knows? For Newsom to succeed at following in Rudy’s footsteps Newsom desperately needs California as traumatized as New Yorkers were after 9/11 and so far Newsom just isn’t able to prey upon the minds of vacuous but afraid centrists effectively enough.

I think the issue is probably Newsom needs to go on Joe Roegan’s show more.

Egyptian farmer thinking this during a break in working on the pyramids in the agricultural off season as they chisel a your mom joke into an inconspicous corner of a stone.

The worker chuckles to theirself.

1000 years pass.

A tired archaeologist sits down against a stone block to take a break and notices hieroglyphs chiseled justttt out of view.

The archaeologist bursts out laughing in the process of translating the “your mother” glyph.

“Humans are hilarious, childish and cool af” is what they will think.