Why aren't we seeing any artillery barrages in the ukrainian war? All of the artillery fire from both sides seems to be bracketing until a round falls just on top of the target, and I have yet to see any bracketing followed by a massed barrage. Maybe the reason behind is to save ammunition?

Just because it doesn’t get posted online doesn’t mean it’s not happening. It would be naive to assume you’re seeing everything, or even a representation of everything. You’re seeing a fraction of what is occurring, and that’s heavily tailored.

\- both armies can't keep their phones in their pockets \- artillery attacks have mostly zero need for confidence after they happen, and they're one of the most covered and common events in the war It takes a huge stretch of imagination to think that they're successfully censoring them vs simply that they do not really happen for whatever reason.

It’s not a “it’s censored” thing it’s that, simply, not everything is filmed, and not everything that is filmed is uploaded, and not everything that is uploaded makes it to whatever-your-preferred-source is. Other things: -depending on your ability to speak Ukrainian, deconstruct embedded data, or both, you have to take what you see on faith to some extent. I could film an artillery range from my phone, and say it was the annihilation of the embedded positions of the 69th guards motor rifle division, and you have no way of verifying what I said. We (the internet’s Ukraine war spectator crowd) tend to automatically trust the Ukrainians and distrust the Russians, which is a good rule of thumb, but the Ukrainians are capable of lying, and the Russians are capable of the truth. Even at classified levels, there’s not always “high confidence” in claims. -some individuals/units have better PR departments than others. Some are almost certainly posting content more than others (standard social media rules apply, but like. Becky is hot, has a lot of followers, and every time she posts, a lot of people like and share her content. Cindy, conversely isn’t as attractive, and posts less often, to fewer followers. It’s going to take something more unique for her posts to gain attention and spread. Same rules apply to the war. -Related to both points above: unless you see the original post from Sasha of the 420th Territorial Battalion on whatever platform, you are, once again, dependent on the faith of whoever is reposting the above to be truthful. -not everything in war that you want to see in war is sexy, and gets filmed. Not everything that’s sexy in war is sexy after the 100th time, so it doesn’t get filmed. -there’s a war on. People have priorities above posting on social media, and don’t always have the ability to do so. Even if Yevgenny, a rifleman, takes some absolutely incredible footage, he’s still fighting for his life, and might not get around to it, or know how/where to, or it might not get seen, or he might lose his phone or die before it’s posted. -OPSEC So yeah, it’s naive to thing you’re seeing everything, or even a realistic sample size. You’re seeing a lot, from different sources. But probably not as much as you think, nor as varied of stuff that’s going on.

A semi serious question. What are the chances of NATO actually accepting "Femboy" as the reporting name for the Su-75, if it ever reaches production?

Won’t happen. I did actually have a friend that worked in naval intelligence. I had the formal suggestion of FAKENEWS for the Su-57 pushed up to NATO via him as it technically meets criteria. I have a very amusing formal “no” letter from them somewhere in one of my office drawers. That said, the “fringe internet meme lord” and “military professional” overlap is not as extensive as many hope it is. Certainly not at “decision making” levels.

Considering the name's place in identity politics, I think it is unlikely that NATO would *officially* pick it up as a designation. Like, there are already some uncomfortable reasons why you wouldn't call the MiG-15 by its NATO name out loud anymore. Internet is going to internet, and pilots will be pilots, and so whatever designation NATO officially ends up giving Su-75, you can be sure that unofficially that "Femboy" is going to stick around the Su-75 lore for quite some time.

Could anyone provide me with details/books/articles describing the development both technically and doctrinally of the schutzenpanzer lang HS.30, as well as the Bundeswehr/Bundesgrenschutz generally from 1951 until approx 1975. Please and thank you in advance.

Panzergrenadiere - eine Truppengattung im Kalten Krieg would be my main suggestion there.

Thank you. I would also take any non main suggestions if you have them.

[удалено]

The biggest takeaway I've had from Russian failures with their IFV/APC forces is really the imperative of actually having the infantry available and employed aggressively. Like the manning levels of the Russian rifle units pre-war were appallingly low, often enough to make some platoons into "BMP platoons" in the sense it was just the BMPs without much infantry at all. That's kind of why I'm reluctant to overthink some of the "IFVs are dead?" stuff that's come out since the war, because it's hard to gauge how much is problems with the doctrine vs doing the doctrine wrong.

Honestly, I think most of the criticisms of Russian doctrine/tactics are somewhat misplaced. Their tactics are certainly considered rigid by western standards, but the much bigger issue is that their soldiers didn't seem to get much time practicing them, so even the conceptually simple parts don't get embedded into muscle memory. For example, in their general tactics manuals, bounding overwatch has been prescribed for closed/restricted terrain since at least the 80s, though tbf, they don't devote much attention or detail to it, and they seem to prefer successive bounds over alternate bounds. > When conducting an offensive on an area that provides fire support between combat groups (pairs, triples), they move alternately under the cover of fire of neighboring groups. The combat group (pair) that has advanced to the line indicated by the squad commander prepares to fire and covers the advance of the group (pair, three) that remains behind. For the convenience of firing and the advantageous use of terrain folds (local objects), soldiers in the chain can move forward or to the side somewhat, without disturbing the general direction of the chain's offensive front and without interfering with the actions of neighbors. The infantry fighting vehicle operates behind the squad chain, on its flank or directly in the chain. The standard tactical maneuver/battle drill that every Soviet motor-rifleman knew by heart: dismount, form a squad line, and suppress the enemy with small arms fire during the final phase of an assault is pretty easy to get, but not if you have less than one month of training to work out the kinks with your teammates. In that case, it doesn't matter whose training regimen or program you use ('post-Soviet' or NATO) because you're basically being set up for failure anyways. In more recent training videos from the MOD, that I've seen, they seem to be drilling standard tactics now.

I say this subversively, but I'd argue you have to travel to the 11 ACR to really see the Russian tactics drilled, practiced and implemented in a way that they work correctly. It's one thing to write doctrine/tactics, it's another to do a decent job implementing them.

I’d say you are right. The Soviet/Russian tactics, as written in the doctrinal publications, work IMHO far better than many seem to think. IF THE TROOPS AND LEADERS ARE TRAINED TO IMPLEMENT THEM. With a conscript/reservist based army, there will have to be some rigidities a fully professional military may not need.

Which doctrinal publications are you thinking of specifically? I don't find the 2022 BTGr handbook all that special, for example

Is digging a hole for a tank a thing? like foxholes for infantry

Yes, but it takes hours and dedicated engineering equipment. Broadly you have: 1. Hull scrapes. This is actually fairly easy to do, but it's usually just a passover by a bulldozer or dozer blade equipped tank to cut into an existing rise. It's usually done to lower the front of the position enough to allow the tank to depress it's gun, and provide limited flank protection, but you're still usually not much deeper than the road wheels. 2. Hull down positions. This is a more elaborate position that conceals the hull of the tank completely from the front/flanks, with the back open or leading to a ramp to let the tank back out and leave. 3. Turret down positions. This is when the whole tank is able to get into the hole to the degree the only thing exposed is generally the gunner's optics, if anything. The position will usually allow the tank to move forward to clear the gun and allow the tank to engage while at the "hull down" level of protection before reversing back to complete protection. 4. Crazy bullshit trench systems. These are profoundly rare because of how long they take to dig, but they might be several hull/turret down positions linked by a turret down depth trench. I've only seen them done in Russian propaganda videos. The main issues you have with these positions, as previously mentioned: 1. Digging in a tank unit takes a dedicated engineer unit with heavy equipment, sometimes hours per tank. Generally you don't have the time to do many such holes if any at all (this is why I'm dismissive of the "trench" type positions, as they likely take possibly days to make) 2. As aerial surveillance becomes more pervasive, along with precision fires, being trapped in a hole somewhere near the front becomes dangerous in other ways. In practice, how they're usually used is the position is cut into the terrain and concealed as much as possible (camo nets, removing the excess dirt piles). Often the position is left empty, the tanks are withheld somewhere safer and they'll only commit to the defensive position once scouts forward identify enemy forces inbound (this is often done to allow tanks to be concentrated, so like all 14 tanks in a company move to defend vs the same 14 tanks spread over several possible avenues of attack). If the tank is going to remain in the position, as much as possible the track marks from the tank going into the position, or from the earthmoving equipment is erased, and extensive camo employed.

How do you get rid of track marks?

Depends on the terrain. If it's a dusty environment, brooms will do the job. If they're deep you might use a shovel to fill the depression then scrape over it a few times. Using the spoil from the hole you dug can help too, but this tends to only work if you're basically not leaving the position again until the fight is on. Driving over them can work too, it'll still draw attention but if your camo is good, they might miss that there's "old" tracks going into the fighting position under the marks indicating someone drove by this totally normal and nothing of note bit of terrain. You can also use brush or other debris to cover the tracks. It's worth keeping in mind the standard is less defeating a dedicated ISR platform and more getting missed by a SU-25/MI-24 supporting the enemy attack. It's not the kind of thing that's often done just because it takes so much time. What more usual is you find good terrain, build a hasty battle position (like site tanks on good terrain), then engineers come by for a few hours to improve the battle position. In practice/training, the engineers were usually better used to build out infantry positions (like digging a foxhole/position with a folding shovel sucks brah, engineers can make a much better position faster), lay wire and mines, cut a few hull scrapes then they're onto the next Company (at least in my day you only had a single platoon of heavy equipment for the Brigade, it wasn't a high density asset).

Maybe not a hole but throwing up "hull down" fighting positions like a ramp or berm where the tanks turret kan kind of peek over is absolutely a thing. This way the tank can shoot and have the hull in cover. In some wars (Yom Kippur for instance) a lot of these positions were prepared in advance and the Israeli tankers would use them to good effect against the invading Syrians.

A new release from everyone's favorite war metal band - A cover of Motorhead's 1916 ​ https://open.spotify.com/track/29y2j3s6i528lBTSMP0wbE?si=840a33bc18d14348

Tanks like the AE1 Independent and A9 Cruiser have little machine gun turrets on them that dont seem to line up with the hull, sticking out over the tracks. How were these crewed? Was the gunner squished in diagonally to fit?

I suspect it's a combination of multiple things: - The crewman wouldn't have been centered in the turret, but rather sat slightly "inboard" of the turret centerline. - The crewman would have leaned out a bit to properly operate the turret. Yes, this was probably as uncomfortable as it sounds. Notably, the A1E1 has slightly angled protrusions from the hull to properly support the smaller turrets; [look just above the return track path in this image](https://www.tanks-encyclopedia.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/A1E1-Independent_Bovington_Tank_Museum.jpg). I suspect this afforded the room for the crewman to "lean".

With the Marriage Thread, I wonder why there are so many ppl out of boot camp who buy those 20% APR Camaros and try to get married to random strippers lol?

Because humans are dumb. I've seen 25 year old college grads with decent education throw their lives away. Hell, on my university grad day, two drunk graduating senior got into a tossle over some menial excuse. One took out a gun and shot the other dead on spot. One dead, one serving fifteen or twenty years something, two futures ruined. I've seen 50 years old man with a rewarding career and a loving family thinks it's a good idea to fuck another man, not because he's a gay but because he wanna tries new thing. Got HIV, his wife and daughter found out and disowned him, his company kicked him out because a/he's gay, b/he got HIV, and c/he committed adultery. Last I checked, poor fuck burned himself alive with gasoline. Did not kill him, but he now lived with permanent third degree burn and is reduced to a mad sobbing wreck living with his mother waiting for the day to die. If these educated, old, experienced man can make dumb decision, what do you expect from dumb 18-21 years old who are not college trained, possibly have no GED either, who may come from broken and ignorant family, who may be poverty-stricken and never hold a massive stack of cash before. Of course he's gonna do dumb shit.

Damn thats a messed up story, for anyone keen to avoid some of these mistakes: 1. wear a condom 2. you can take PREP before cheating on your wife with a guy to avoid contracting HIV (or you can take PEP up to three days later) 3. dont try and self immolate

Man, those examples are….well they’re really dark. That’s a lot of negative shit to witness personally, where the hell do you live?

It's pretty simple: While the Army doesn't pay a lot, it also feeds you and gives you a place to live and covers all healthcare. This means as a 18-22 year old you're basically only paying for shit that amuses you on some level (I mean yeah kind of groceries for anything not in the DFAC but that's still "if you want to"). This means you're fresh out of the high school with zero life experience and minimal obligations off of work. Your average 19 year old has the same idiot impulses but less of their needs fulfilled so it's less pronounced on the outside. It was even worse during GWOT as you'd deal with PFCs and new Specialists who did the deployment tax free with minimal expenses, who would then go on shopping speeds/buy cars like the tap hadn't been turned off. So yeah the barracks would be filled with every gaudy shit tier performance package from Dodge, huge trucks, whatever, then like half of them would we repossessed a few months later, or not driven because the "owner" could only afford car payments, not insurance or gas.

You forgot to answer his question about the strippers. Cause dudes are fucking stupid and the military rewards it with BAH.

What are the Russian victory conditions in this War? Do they have to occupied entire Ukraine like 1939 Polish campaign?

The victory condition never changed: a puppet government in Kyiv. If you look at every invasion and coup Russia pulled, be it the 1920 Polish-Soviet war, the 1939 Winter war, the 1948 coup in Czechoslovakia, the 1956 Hungarian uprising, the 1968 Prague spring, 1979 Afghanistan it would be the same: Soviet/Russia did not want the land for they had too many lands and too many people to rule over. What they feared the most was the spreading of ideas, the same kind of fear that had infested the Russian elite since the day of Ivan the Terrible. So their modus operandi is to collaborate with some local rulers they like (in Ukraine case, Medvedchuk), collaborate with local fifth columnists and traitor (in Ukraine and many case, Russian speakers and people of Russian descent as well as remnant of former government), then launch a lightning strike aim at decapacitating the head in one go. Sometimes it worked wonderfully like Hungary in 1956 or Czech in 1968. Sometimes it worked but trying to maintain the government is hard like Afghanistan in 1979. Sometimes it failed miserably, like 1920 Poland, 1939 Finland, and Ukraine right now. So right now, Putin had no way out. Like I said, he had no need for the land. Perhaps he had some needs for the people, particularly young Ukrainian children whom he had kidnapped, sent to Russia to be raised to become a new generation of Russian (a barbaric Russian practice since the day of the Tsar and the Jewish Cantonment.) What he wanted is for the Ukrainian government to collapse, to prevent anti-Russia, anti-Putin sentiment to spread and to show everyone in the region that he is the lord, the ruler, and they better acknowledge him. Also, if he cannot topple the Ukrainian government, it means that he has failed, and his enemy will pound on it. And right now there are a lot of descent for Putin: the Russian left has always disliked him, but now even the Russian ultranationalists are hating him. The moment he fails, he's gonna be in a shit storm as bad as 1905

So even if the Russian army pull a operation Bagration and annihilate large part of the Ukranian military,The Russian still couldn't win?

They had already lost the moment their "Special military operation" turned from a 3 days affair to a one-week affair. They are only fighting now because they want to make a disastrous loss into something of a less-disastrous loss, a face-saving act if you will, one Putin's propagandist can use to spin the tale of how uber-super-duber Russia under the enlightened guidance of Czar Putin has managed to triumphed over the West. And, potentially, they want to recoup some cost by enslaving Ukrainians people, kidnapping Ukrainian children, and ravage Ukrainian land. Other than that, they had already lost. Their army was decimated; their global reputation is in the gutter. Their allies are turning against them: CSTO are as good as dead; Kazakhstan, whose leader just a few months before the invasion happened had been elevated by Putin, has turned against him; Armenia and Azeribajian no longer respect him. Finland and Sweden, both neutral power, have now become integral partners of NATO while even Asian countries like Japan are longing for cooperation with NATO. Even pro-Russia Serbia is showing wariness of Russia. The pro-Russian camp in Ukraine has been thoroughly decimated; Zelensky has become a national hero and even the Russian speakers are now turning away from Moscow after seeing just how Russian view Ukrainians. Putin went to war to expand Russian might: he had done the exact opposite. And even a massive victory Bagration style would not guarantee Putin's victory. Remember, it took the German a whole one year after Bagration to collapse, and that took not only the Soviet but also the whole Western allies pushing from the West and Italy and local partisans rising up from Poland to Yugoslavia. And Germany was suffering a whole string of defeat before Bagration from Stalingrad to Kursk, yet still managed to deal heavy casualties to the Soviet who suffered some 25% casualties. The Soviets were also receiving massive materiel support from the West. Ukraine, on the other hand, has not suffered massive defeats + has a lot of manpower to throw + has foreign backing. Russia, meanwhile, has endured a lot of defeats, lost vast quantities of supplies and equipment, etc. Even if they managed a Bagration victory, the cost incur on them will be too great for them to recover

Why send mostly soldiers instead of mostly police for most peacekeeping missions? I realise that there are police officers deployed on peacekeeping missions, but it seems that most blue helmets wear military fatigues instead of being police. But peacekeeping requires a lot of capability in working with the community and a lot less capability in blowing stuff up, so it seems like police would be more useful as the bulk of the peacekeepers. Even the more intense operations (dealing with rogue militias or whatever) rarely require more than small arms, so why go past SWAT?

Even in situations where the potential enemy is an insurgent group, a peacekeeping force still has to have the capacity to engage and defeat a group armed with automatic small arms and likely some level of explosive ordinance at a minimum. That's above the experience of even most SWAT officers. Most cities, states, or central governments would not be eager to ship their police officers off to a foreign country for an indeterminate period. I would expect most police officers would not be eager to do so either. Police agencies aren't budgeted and staffed to accommodate the departure of a large part of its officers and to fund their activities overseas. I'm positive there would be significant legal questions about whether such a thing is above board, and resolving the questions would be a headache for all involved. Not to delve too deep into politics but if you are thinking about American police, most departments seem to have problems maintaining good relations with people who have qualms with the state or otherwise are an outclass. There are other countries where it seems police agencies are more proficient at community relations with poor and/or disadvantaged communities, but these same agencies generally have less training with firearms. To my knowledge there are relatively few countries where police are regularly capable in the use of violence and proficient at community work. Obviously they exist to a greater or lesser extent in many countries, but likely not enough to make up some sort of peacekeeping force. Theoretically you could resolve most of these problems with training. But if you're going to take a cop and teach him combat skills, community work, language skills, etc, why not just use soldiers? Overall they'd need less supplemental training and you'd avoid the political and legal problems.

1. Most peacekeeping missions are about putting a credible force between two warring factions to prevent a resumption of hostilities. Most police forces are not equipped to do the credible force component. 2. Most police departments derive their authority, mission and funding from local vs national authorities. They're also usually tied to given geography. Or if you made a deployable detachment of LAPD officers, LA is going to have strong words about the local police they're paying for to police Sarajevo, or at the very least the loss of trained personnel to a different mission (this comes up anyway as often Firefighters/Cops are somewhat overrepresented in National Guard units, so mobilizations are often stripping out first responders from elsewhere) As a result there's just not the police department waiting to get scooped up and sent overseas, and even if there was they're ill suited to one of the main parts of peacekeeping. Exceptions: 1. Countries with Gendarmeries or other paramilitary national police forces will often deploy (but this gets into the weird realm of "is this a police that's military or a military that's police? realm) 2. Very often small teams or individuals will be sent to augment the mission, either advising the peacekeeping force on law enforcement matters, or frequently training the locals on how to do police work in a way that isn't a war crime (this is actually best all around, as GI, PD, whatever, is ill suited to local law enforcement outcomes)

Reading about how the Russian VDV got maul in Ukraine really remind me of WWI Isonzo front.With each battle/assault elite units from both sides(Alpine troop, Granatieri, Bersaglieri) got wiped out or suffered more than 50% casualties.

It's become increasingly acceptable to portray bullet- and shrapnel- wounds in modern war films somewhat more realistically, particularly in that they don't necessarily immediately kill. *Saving Private Ryan* is the obvious trailblazer here, but since then more media has been willing to show more overt wounds leading to death, rather than just a puff of smoke or little red dot on their clothes followed by instant death. (Not that "woundless killing" has disappeared from film either, of course. Even *Ryan* wasn't immune to that portrayal.) What I do notice, though, is that *arrow* wounds don't get nearly as fair a treatment. Main characters aside, people in medieval and pre-modern shows still get hit in the shoulder or gut and immediately collapse stone-dead as if they'd been bashed over the head. **Which brings me around to my actual point:** I'm no expert on archery or pre-modern medicine, but I can't think that being killed by an archer was a particularly quick way to go. Judging by modern archery hunting, even a vital organ being struck would lead to an extended death by blood loss or - worse - infection. But the popular perception of arrows dropping people like they're video game NPCs who just hit 0 HP persists far more strongly than the same for bullet wounds. If I had to speculate, the associations of "pure and noble" causes is more strongly attached to pre-modern warfare. We've reached the point where we can portray modern war as hell, but seeing your bow-wielding protagonists hitting people who proceed to fall, writhe, and die some minutes to hours to days later would be unacceptably jarring.

Entertainment/pop culture the world over treating archery as guns but powered by string and muscle is pretty common trope. From the tactics employed at the macro and micro level, to what you mentioned about their ability to incapacitate. I think another thing to keep in mind regarding realistic(er) gun fights and injuries is that they’re (tragically) still happening with regularity. So you have an untold number of subject matter experts, witness testimony, etc. to rely on to portray it. And it’s something still happening, so people know how to relate. But with archery, we don’t have a lot of anything regarding what that looks like (outside of hunting like you mentioned). We don’t have mass volleys of arrows falling on armored opponents any more. So when you have a scene of someone shooting arrows like bullets that silently and instantaneously kill, you don’t have nearly as many people drawing on personal experience of how that’s wrong.

I fully expect insta-kill arrows to disappear as a trope right after the trope where some idiotic commander needs to stand and yell at his poor archers drawing 80+ lbs warbows: *"Nock arrows.. Draw..... ... ... ... ... ... ... LOOSE!"* Which is to say: probably never. Maybe before it goes, Hollywood finally decides flashy effects are irrelevant after all and the audience really just wants some *historical accuracy*, removing FIYAH ARROWS from every archery scene. They'll still dress the 10th century peasant rabble in gothic full plate or 18th century cuirasses though because that's all the costume department had in bulk. It offers the exact same protection as the ever mysterious leather armor, which is itself on par with used toilet paper, because we need the protagonist to effortlessly bring 10 of them down by eh... *grazing them lightly with a sword while shouting one-liners*. Makes sense. How else would you bring down a villain in full plate anyway? Grappling him to death? Hah!

> right after the trope where some idiotic commander needs to stand and yell at his poor archers drawing 80+ lbs warbows: Shout-out to Theoden having his men stand out in a pouring, frigid rain, hold bows nocked and drawn while the Uruks are still marching up and doing their spear-chant-shout thing, knowing he commands a force of old men and young boys, and then looking *shocked* when some white-bearded guy can't keep a grip on his arrow. Either let those poor men relax, or just start shooting!

Yea, that was terrible. They are in range! JUST. SHOOT. THEM. Worst is that Tolkien actually did know his subject generally and had the defenders of Helmsdeep do a layered defense from the outermost walls/ditches, falling back steadily across the fields while harassing the assaulting force the entire time; quite a contrast to the inexplicable courtesy and patience Men extend to the Uruks to perform their impromptu ritual. Every time Jackson changed some military related stuff from the books, it ends up being worse than the source material.

One interesting data point is that the Livonian Chronicle, a contemporary source about the Baltic Crusades from early 13th century, uses the term "to wound" to describe the effects of bows and crossbows. Archers wounded enemies, not killed, for the most part. PS I think the clean kill trope is a Hollywood thing, while war movies from other countries didn't necessarily follow it. I cannot think of a post war Finnish war film that follows it for example. Unknown Soldier sees characters shot in the stomach and commit suicide afterwards, have shrapnel gouge their eyes out and other such happy endings, in a movie released in the 50s. Talvisota from the 80s sees people blown to pieces and others gutted or burned by flamethrowers.

> the Livonian Chronicle ... uses the term "to wound" to describe the effects of bows and crossbows Now *that's* interesting. Do you know if this is common to contemporary (either language and/or era) sources? Or a quirk of that particular chronicler? > PS I think the clean kill trope is a Hollywood thing, while war movies from other countries didn't necessarily follow it. Quite possibly; I'll admit my experience with foreign films isn't as deep as it could be. I think it also has to do with a sort of "national sentiment" on how the war was viewed: You see similar things in UK and USSR film productions; overt suffering from wounds is shown in the context of civilian victims, while soldiers mostly die bloodlessly.

Sadly my area of expertice is elsewhere, so I have read only little medieval primary sources, so I can't tell.

I love realism in movies but I don't want my 120 minutes of Friday night entertainment being watching Orcs bleed out from arrow wounds. Like I just need to know that Legolas shot him while riding on a skateboard so we can move on to the next scene.

So, how is the Syrian Army doing these days? It's been at war for over ten years. Has that lead to any sort of institutional improvement?

Oh right that's still happening.

Brazil inaugurated its Gripen E/F production line today. It will be manufactured by Embraer in the state of São Paulo.

Gripen fans rejoice!

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So. The Russian Victory Day Parade. I'd expected it to be smaller for sure, but imagined it'd still have a lot more than what was presented. I'm surprised the Russian IW complex didn't do...something. Like for people focused a lot on propaganda, that wasn't much to speak of.

What happened to the other T-34s? They still there but they literally only had one crew ready?

Personal theory is that the chasis are still kept in a nearby warehouse, but all of the tank technicians and mechanics who would get the 70 y/o tanks rolling and running are all too busy working on actual tanks for the war.

My biggest sad is that Ukraine did not launch a missile into the Red Square. Fucking American ruin it all. Imagine a missile hitting Putin on his bald head

they couldn’t even bring out their T-14s. For all the good it’s currently doing over there, it can’t even be present to do the one job we for sure at least know it can do, being a propaganda piece.

That's kind of one of the things I'm trying to read into farther: 1. Russia does a lot of propaganda as a baseline. 2. Russia is known to have propaganda capable assets like the T-14, and a willingness to use deception to make themselves look powerful. This bias to do things, and assets/practices to enable it imply there ought to have been "more" to the parade, and yet, it's just kind of this sad little affair. This leads to two tinfoil outcomes: 1. No, really, Russia is in a world of shit, this was as good as could be managed (this is "doubtful" in the sense that while Russian losses are grievous, there's still dozens of reasonably new AFVs out there that could be diverted if only on their way to the front) 2. There's some message in this and it's a deliberate choice to keep it small.

Armchair analysis here, but the pared-down parade could be deliberate to emphasize that the Russian government is heavily committed to winning in Ukraine. Russia can't hide the death rate to gossiping babushkas talking with each other and finding out half of the knitting circle lost their grandsons in war. A parade dripped out with the latest Wunderwaffe and thousands of pristine goose-stepping soldiers wielding tacticool race guns is going to raise questions about why they're in Moscow and not fighting in the war. Small and simple lessens administrative strain and shows government commitment. Moreover, it's not like Russia can entice much more of the global community to open their wallets to buy clearly overhyped death toys this year, so advertising potential is blunted. You can then extrapolate that Putin is most concerned with domestic unrest, and doesn't actually think NATO is getting prepared to launch a surprise invasion at a moment of weakness.

On your second tinfoil, my theory on their messaging is two-pronged: show that even without the masses Ground Forces, they still have the strength to defend themselves (why only one tank and few servicemembers, but still trooping out the ballistic missiles), and maintaining the narrative of the "fight against a Nazi government" (Putin's speech and the usage of the T-34).

In popular history the Japanese Type 89 "Knee Mortar" has quite fearsome reputation. Is this grounded in reality? Did British 2 inch mortar have similar performance in CIB/SEA theatre?

Only anecdotal, but in *Cartwheel: The Reduction of Rabaul*, there are many, many instances of allied forces progressing frustratingly slow due to constant indirect fire from grenade dischargers. I didn't get the sense that it caused a huge number of casualties, but it certainly halted numerous advances.

Well, it's their only light support weapon that isn't absolutely terrible, so that helps. British 2 inch was, IIRC, more for dropping smoke than HE.