Yes but usually they shot something inconspicuous which they were pretty sure they could hit. In Hogs in the Shadows they would typically shoot at radios. If they hit it, it's annoying to the enemy and they know where to aim. If they miss they fix the sights as that hole isn't where it needs to be anyway. Hogs in the Shadows further goes on to talk about this becoming a sport - in the initial stages of the war they weren't allowed to shoot people, so they just put holes in everything else to be annoying as possible.

While it's not in the book I sort of imagine a bunch of enemy combatants sitting down to dinner and finding none of the chairs had more than three legs, none of the canteens held soup, and it doesn't matter anyway since all the soup cans were shot to pieces.

In the middle of my book "Blindsided by the Taliban," there is a selection of my photos from Afghanistan.

https://www.amazon.com/Blindsided-Taliban-Journalists-Story-Trauma/dp/1510729682

So much shameless book whoring going on right now. It's almost embarrassing.

It was the actual ordnance, which is what makes it one of the more unusual injuries in modern warfare. It didn't go off when it hit me in the head, but ricocheted off my face and hit the platoon leader in the elbow.

It's all in my book (blatant book whoring) "Blindsided by the Taliban."

https://www.amazon.com/Blindsided-Taliban-Journalists-Story-Trauma/dp/1510729682

Here is an extract from Spitfire Manual 1940:

>"First, lift your seat to the full up position, slide back your hood, and lock it fully open. Undo your harness, take hold of the parachute rip cord, and then either stand up on the seat and put the stick forward, or roll on to your back. Our old friends gravity and centrifugal force will have done the rest before you know they have started. If the aircraft is spinning, go out on the inside of the spin. If you are on fire DON'T open the hood until the last moment, as it will draw flames into the cock-pit. If your clothes are soaked in petrol, switch off the engine switches, and leave the throttle open, otherwise as you get out the sparks from the exhaust may act like the flint in your cigarette lighter. Keep hold of the rip-cord as you leave the aircraft, but if you are very high there is no need to pull it for the time being. Pilots who have pulled the rip-cord immediately after getting out in a high speed dive have been badly injured. You will fall more slowly out of your aeroplane than in it, so do a delayed drop whenever you can. The "109" will also find you harder to hit with the umbrella shut than open. You only fall 1,000 feet in 5 seconds so there is really plenty of time. If you fail to keep hold of the rip-cord as you left the aircraft, it is quite easy to look down and find it. If for any reason you cannot see, pass your right hand down the centre of your chest till you come to the quick release knob, then move it left along the wide strap and you will find the rip-cord. Flying boots, leather gloves and goggles will protect you if your clothing or the cock-pit should catch fire. Your gloves are most important, as if your right hand is burnt you would not be able to feel the rip-cord."

If you're interested, check out this book about SOG It gives great insight into what these teams went through on those missions, I can't recommend it enough.

Another good one is Six Silent Men.

I highly recommend this book/memoir from a German machine gunner fighting on the eastern front. Absolutely brutal.

https://www.amazon.com/Blood-Red-Snow-Memoirs-Soldier/dp/0760321981

This video was shot in late March this year in Al-Bo Amer village near Deir Ezzor Military Airport, one of the two brothers (Ibrahim ابراهيم حمود الحسين) was killed in the explosion of the mortar that was fired from the airport base and the other one was severely wounded.

That battle is goddamned insane. There is absolutely zero reason Taffy 3 should have survived that, and through a combination of insane/heroic actions on the part of the escort destroyers and under-informed decision making on the Japanese side they survived.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_off_Samar

https://www.amazon.com/Last-Stand-Tin-Sailors-Extraordinary-ebook/dp/B001L83PM0

Woah, woah, woah! I used to live here. I recognized the intersection immediately, it did not change much. Here's the location on wikimapia:

http://wikimapia.org/#lang=en&lat=43.652014&lon=18.967735&z=17&m=b&search=gorazde

The plane is coming in from the north towards south

It was actually probably mined (tunnel dug underneath the building and filled with explosives).

This apparently happened in al Mahila, which is on the southeast side of Damascus. The opposition around Damascus in general have been digging tunnels for a long time, so it's reasonable to conclude they're quite skilled at it. It also goes without saying that opposition forces know how to set us up the bomb.

According to the facebook page for Al Rahman Corps, the group that posted the video (page is in Arabic, recommend using Chrome for the auto-translate feature), they've been attacking the "general administration for the air force" since January 23, so that's probably more than enough time for them to dig a short tunnel and get everything into place.

As far as written descriptions of receiving fire from one of these - I'm currently reading this: Panzer Commander: The Memoirs of Colonel Hans von Luck. Naturally pretty apocalyptic. In one chapter shortly after D-Day, he says something to the effect that during a naval bombardment "one soldier could no longer handle it and committed suicide."

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00F8FA42Q/

In my book, I describe it like getting hit in the head with a steel girder. Other apt analogies include getting cracked in the face with a lead pipe and having a roided-out Barry Bonds whack you with an aluminum bat.

https://www.amazon.com/Blindsided-Taliban-Journalists-Story-Trauma/dp/1510729682

This is where the tank backed through the concrete wall.

The camera man was filming from one of the highrises around here.

I think it was a type of earplug. Looks like a square of cotton he twisted up and stuck in his ears.

Something like this: https://www.amazon.com/Macks-Shooters-Earplugs-Wallet-Roll-ups/dp/B0067PG5QA

To me it looks like an old Dress gold Seiko mens watch.
https://www.amazon.ca/Seiko-SGF206-Dress-Gold-Tone-Watch/dp/B00068TK7K/ref=asc\_df\_B00068TK7K/?tag=googleshopc0c-20&linkCode=df0&hvadid=335202827408&hvpos=&hvnetw=g&hvrand=5371915087301613905&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=...

Low-tech solution.

Soldiers had the option to buy their own periscopes in WWI; if I were to be deployed I think I'd spend the 15 bucks on an extendable mirror.

According to rebel comment the 5 fighters we see entering the building at 1:40 are rebels and they succeed to push back the 20-30 pro-regime fighter we see leaving the building after.

A map of the area if you are not following closely this conflit : https://twitter.com/ahlalsham3/status/769929965529919488 + http://wikimapia.org/#lang=en&lat=36.165047&lon=37.114745&z=18&m=b

This is the same area of the "Wall of death" and the countless ATGM and artillery rebels videos of the last few weeks.

One of the worst meatgrinder of this war already.

https://apps.apple.com/us/app/red-alert-israel/id873642097

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.kobisnir.redalert&hl=en_US

put the app on your phone and get ready for sirens every week. Ironically the sirens didn't go off for these.

'Kill anything that moves' is a good book about that.

It shows the underlying, institutionalized racism, that dehumanized the Vietnamese in the minds of the members of the US military from the top to the bottom.

It also describes the wonky rules of engagement that were fuzzy from the start, but were also not really followed and easily bypassed anyways.

All which in turn helped pushing the most important metric to the US military in this war: the body count.

The overwhelming majority of the victims of this were civilians and even though the most infamous massacres like My Lai were committed by infantry, the worst offenders in terms of 'body count' were artillery crews and pilots, who created countless, mostly unknown, My Lais.

There’s an interesting book written by British a Apache pilot who fought in Afghanistan . He said he found it traumatic how easy it was to kill people. Drone pilots say they suffer from similar problems.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Apache-Ed-Macy/dp/0007288174/ref=nodl_

A good book on the topic: <em>Tunnels of Cu Chi</em>.

Essentially the 25th ID headquarters at Cu Chi wasn't secured for the whole war. The tunnels were pretty much indestructible. US technology, brought to bare on all kinds of challenges was no help.

Also, going into a tunnel is the most terrifying experience in that war I can imagine.

it might have been this one (mirror) !?

https://sendvid.com/pars4rwc

wow... the guys at around 6 min mark... must be a bad feeling knowing you are surrounded and the sound of bullets whizzing around. bad bad feelings. on the other hand look at the guy around 7 min mark. he didn't get shot and it looks like he regrets it already. war is brutal.

Approximate Geolocation two child soldiers on the left at 1:09

SVBIED at 2:58

2nd attempt at 3:15

A M16 I think at 4:10

Also notice the child soldier at 6:28, 7:38

A rare M16(? I believe) at 6:48

Something I cant identify at 9:08

They were fighting a iraqi army outpost in the hills supported by most likely local militias. This battle is part of IS choke-offensive on Baiji refinery, as it takes control of its east and cuts supply lines (those north and west of Baiji already controlled)

I may have found the location of this. Note the positioning of the buildings and what look like trees.

http://wikimapia.org/#lang=en&amp;lat=35.941324&amp;lon=39.020026&amp;z=17&amp;m=b

Look at around the 0:25 mark, when the video is looking roughly south west.

Yes. That is: I recall there were two - fundamentally different - schools of thought within the RN/FAA's SHAR-units as of 1982.

• Skipper of HMS Invincible-based NAS.801, Nigel 'Sharkey' Ward, was convinced the SHAR is fully developed and an excellent platform, and taught his pilots to make use of its nav/attack system - including the Blue Fox radar. They acted correspondingly. They also flew CAPs at low altitude, where the Argentinean fighter-bombers operated. Correspondingly, they repeatedly caught and destroyed entire formations of incoming Argentinean fighter-bombers before these could cause any harm.

• Most of other RN/FAA officers haven't held the SHAR FRS.1 in high esteem. Indeed, it seems there was deep mistrust for its nav/attack systems within the HMS Hermes-based NAS.800 (to which Dave Morgan was assigned, too). Between others, SHARs from that squadron flew their CAPs at medium altitude - which is one of reasons why they missed the first formation of the Skyhawks that 'caused' the 'Catastrophe of Bluff Cove', and why Morgan then missed the second one too (arguably, he and his wingman then at least killed three from that second formation, 'but only after' these could've caused even more damage to British naval and ground units).

For related discussions, see Ward's Sea Harrier over the Falklands.

Curiously, Morgan didn't even try to discuss this issue in his Hostile Skies.

A simple explanation for RuAF increased attrition rates today:

• previously, nearly all bombing happened at night (based on livestreams, air evidence alarms, and aftermath reports) and it is is very cloudy in Ukraine https://www.accuweather.com/en/ua/kyiv/324505/satellite/324505

• that makes it hard to find the plane with MANPAD tracker if it goes fast & low, because you can't see it visually until too late to point the seeker at it

• today it was bombing during broad daylight (and generally more bombing) and way more clear skies = one can spot the plane in advance and lock on it.

This book https://www.amazon.com/Ready-Not-Into-Wild-Blue/dp/0970417519 is an autobiography of a B17 Pilot, in it describes his plane blowing up over Germany he's knocked unconscious briefly, when he wakes up he's falling out of the sky from 20,000 feet and can see the parts of his plane falling around him with perfect clarity, the engines, wings, bombs still in the bomb rack, he can see some of his crews parachutes.. what got me reading it was the detailed description of everything he saw and his distance to them and thoughts as he was plummeting from the sky, at some point he remembered he needed to pull his chute, he was only a short distance from the ground by then and got pretty fucked up but survived.

Full video Lots of enemies visible, couple deaths of rebels on cam.

mirror www.ok.ru/video/707595668124

Baskhkuy is one of the villages taken ~~(and then lost)~~ by the regime in it's recent (mostly) failed offensive in Aleppo.

http://wikimapia.org/#lang=en&amp;lat=36.320105&amp;lon=37.193871&amp;z=12&amp;m=b

At 1:55 you can see muzzle flashes coming from a row of trees next to a cluster of buildings, and the Fursan al-Islam fighter adjusts his aim accordingly. In most of the videos we see posted here, that's the sort of thing that's happening--fighters are shooting at enemy positions where they've seen muzzle flashes or smoke (or maybe dust being kicked up).

al-Khazanat military refueling base (Wikimapia) it contain a huge Fuel Storages and large amount of weapons&ammunition..according to al Arabiya.net(in Arabic)

How do these areas reflect on conflict zone intensity? I say this because if the marines are getting put right in the center of the shit while the army is holding the line around the perimeter of the where all the shit is happening...there is a difference. In other words if I corps as you say was directly in the center of the conflict while the other are along the perimeter...unless the enemy is fanning out or running the other direction, you're likely to get less exposure.

I don't know much about this topic but after reading this it seems like context is key and you are allowing nuance to drive your argument.

MIRRORS:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0Bxf6fEEoMaRrNWE0VkJ4VXZEZFE/view

https://photos.google.com/share/AF1QipPs7F-XSeadarAll9z325IVpbYuAtbK803dOuOQefNlnigMQXUybFSQ9NySi0IPgg/photo/AF1QipOwmQs-zqHf9wxOT5VwAUj8_NN6xhso0BaUPuuQ?key=VzRBNG5xWXZFNGdObnAxUU9FZ0tybGtFTXkyY3Vn

Not sure if this is allowed, but I found a link to the original video, combat starts at around 2 minutes in

https://sendvid.com/44by7ykd

Edit: EXECUTION AT 5:00, be warned :/. It's followed by corpses, ghanimah starts at 6:20

>Despite the strict limits imposed on the Observer Mission’s mandate and operating procedures, the Mission has nevertheless recorded clear indications of Russia’s destabilizing and destructive activity in Donbas, including reports of more than 28,000 crossings of individuals in military-style dress at the two checkpoints since the Observer Mission’s operations began.

https://osce.usmission.gov/observer-mission-russian-checkpoints-gukovo-donetsk-statement-pc/

>On the ground, though, the gap between the propaganda and the reality is almost comical. Since counting began on Sept. 1 last year until June 1 this year, the European monitoring mission on the Russian side of the border has recorded 20,021 men in military uniforms crossing to and from rebel-controlled eastern Ukraine.

https://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/20/world/europe/russian-town-near-ukraine-once-quiet-now-buzzes-with-military-activity.html

> even Russia relies on some parts [...] to maintain and produce various weapon systems

Including ICBMs.

This is result of assault of pro-regime forces early this morning, against fortified hilltop position held by rebels in southern Aleppo.

location: http://wikimapia.org/#lang=en&amp;lat=35.989844&amp;lon=37.004325&amp;z=14&amp;m=b

I know I just disparaged Greek writers but this one is different. Anabasis by Xenophon is about 10,000 Greek mercenaries (heavy infantry/hoplites) that were hired to fight for a pretender to the throne of the Persian empire. They lose, and the rest of the book is about the horrible journey back home. The whole thing is written like a diary because it was a diary more or less. Xenophon was actually there throughout the whole thing which means it's another example of a first hand account (where they think every detail is of the utmost importance. You won't be able to stop reading this one either.

It's Syrian Army base, 93th Armoured Brigade, Raqqa province.

Wikimapia

artical

Actually this ISIS, but this operation is kind of old (mid Dec. 2013) targeted on an army storage base in the outskirts of Deir Ezzor (map). It was a failure because they couldn't seize the storage area and lost 40+ men in one air strike alone, and after that they withdrew from the area and started fighting other rebel groups.

Civilians obliterated by something high caliber, aftermath, NSFL. Possibly from outside of the main Turkish armed forces HQ, or in front of the Grand National Assembly of Turkey.

Thanks for these. I collect Huey photos and there were a whole bunch in here that I didn't have. I have the same problem with duplicates, there must be a bit of software that recognizes duplicate photos based on image content, irrespective of size, compression etc? I'll google for one.

Edit: Found visipics, looks hopeful

http://www.visipics.info/index.php?title=Main_Page

Check out this book, it can be a little dry but it covers the whole Alaskan campaign.

https://www.amazon.com/Thousand-Mile-War-World-Alaska-Aleutians/dp/0553203088/ref=pd_lpo_sbs_14_t_0?_encoding=UTF8&amp;psc=1&amp;refRID=98B31EKJQS6S1D5PGYMG

I feel like there are enough of us in the RPG-close-call club to put together a really fun and raucous annual event. Someone on reddit needs to organize this.

Tell your buddy with the clipped ear I said hi and that I want to send to him a complimentary copy of my book.

https://www.amazon.com/Blindsided-Taliban-Journalists-Story-Trauma/dp/1510729682

Thanks,

Carmen

KTJ is a mainly Uzbek jihadist group that was fairly unknown until late 2014. Since then it's participated in most of the major battles in Aleppo and Idlib provinces. From the beginning it was closely allied with Nusra, and in September it formally announced it's allegiance to al Nusra.

Wikimapia link to the village of Banis. Sometimes it's spelled Banes in reports due to translation difficulties between Arabic and English script (to confuse things further there's a Bene in Afrin canton).

Actual combat doesn't start until about 8:00. The first part is preview, then the standard pre-battle speech that every commander in the history of the world has given his (or her) men, then a really enthusiastic fighter in a BMP talking to the camera.

The thing that I find interesting about this video is that it pretty much shows the entirety of the operation. It's not a long one--looks like they cleared maybe a dozen buildings. It also shows the utter indefensibility of many of these towns and villages, which explains why there are so many reports released with conflicting information about which side has what village.

When 20 or so fighters can clear a village (where it appears the regime forces already withdrew from) in about 20-30 minutes, it's pretty easy for the other side to also launch a counter-attack and do the same. The walls of the buildings aren't any good for making any sort of fortification out of, as they're weak enough that bullets will just fly through them, so making a tough fight in them is simply suicidal.

Better to withdraw at the first sign of attack, wait for the enemy to attack, and hopefully catch them spread out, exhausted, and low on ammunition and food when you do a counter-attack. At least that's how I'd do it.

The podcast "Darknet Diaries" has a great episode about this. The have a guest speaker that led the takedown of the IS propaganda and editor network. It was called 'Operation Inherent Resolve' and was started in 2016

You can listen to it here

This is the location of the village shown in the video. This gain by ISIS is pretty minor in comparison and has two things to it.

Firstly, its north-east of Palmyra, a famous city full of historic artefacts. ISIS wants to enter Palmyra, take control of it pushing out the regime forces controlling the city right now and destroy religious or in their eyes apostatic sites. This has had a major international backlash as a lot of people value the immensely important artefacts there.

Secondly, the region we're looking at is literally in the middle of the desert. It holds little strategic value, but is a important cultural site. Technically, the regime has little priorities to keep this region, unlike Idlib, Latakia or the south. However this is a nice opportunity for assad to portrait himself as someone who protects internationally important history and distract from his other crimes against humanity. Thats the reason why there were increased regime forces and big reinforcements from SAA and even Hezbollah troops deployed to Palmyra.

al-Sukhnah is just a small village on the way with moderate strategic value (oil pipeline, dam, water) in the vicinity of the very important location of Palmyra.

I'd imagine it to be wikimapia. Hobby journalists like him (he turned to a real one by now) can spend their time tracking down scenes seen in videos and look for the exact location on wikimapia. If you gave me 30minutes I could find you the house bombarded in this video here, but yeah lazy af.

Also some rebels have small drones and that might be a picture done by one.

1. Drone pics of VBIED in Anbar Iraq. : http://justpaste.it/pwtf
2. IS troops clashing with SAA in the industrial district of Deir Ezzor, Syria before imposing full control. http://justpaste.it/snaa

> They were not implaced in a manner to maximize the stockpile, such as deploying as boobytraps or in a manner more in keeping with "insurgent" tactics.

I can't figure out the reasoning either, because Zumar is a town in the middle of the desert. Looking at a satellite map of the area and there are lots of empty spaces where an attacking force could come at the town from, so maybe they figured "Hey, this will slow them down."

But then again, they didn't use nearly enough to defend a perimeter as large as that of Zuma (which isn't that big of a town).

Maybe the area they were emplaced in was in front of where ISIS was making it's last stand or where ISIS had it's main stockpiles/headquarters for the town, so it was a defensive measure for just that area?

In this clip you can see the Kurdish forces entering the town and ISIS fighters pulling back from the checkpoint at the entrance to the town. Towards the end of the clip it looks as if the Kurdish fighters are targeting some specific houses that are on the other side of an open field. Not enough detail from the video to geolocate it, but it's kind of similar to the area in which the mines were placed, so maybe that's the ISIS hq for Zumar?

http://www.photosugar.com/ts/chechclear

I believe after the surge of attention he deleted his profile(s) except for ask.fm

ask fm link here, go ahead ask him a question

I know for a fact he is chechclear, he's not involved with that original video though.

dipole area denial transmitter broadcasting white noise in a wide range of common frequencies. you could prevent drones/cellphones/radios from working in those bandwidths over a point defense range. it also prevents any remote detonators that are radio based in the same frequency. also directed em pulse weapons can knock out targeted systems

Check out Battleground Pacific by Sterling Mace. He died in 2020, was a rifleman/BAR gunner(?) that fought at Peleliu and Okinawa in K-3-5 1st Marine Division. He actually was a redditor and posted here in his late 80's about 10 years ago.

As he put it Eugene Sledge was back 75-100 yards with the mortars when the riflemen were at the sharp end. His book covers a lot of the fighting as in Sledges but in my opinion he doesn't hold back as much as a book written closer to the time and maybe has a more complete understanding of stuff such as PTSD. I recommend getting both books if you can. Lots of books written by officers etc, few by people like Sledge and Mace

He stopped posting some years back

His AMA

/u/Sterling_Mace

https://www.amazon.com/Battleground-Pacific-Sterling-Mace/dp/1250029635

It's somewhere in the 1070 project in southern Aleppo. It was under construction when the war started and since then has not seen any progress. It's an entire district of 'concrete shells' without windows, doors, basically just the bare concrete and has seen heavy clashes in the past months. As of now it is contested territory between the Syrian Army and militant groups.

Yeah, it took place last week. There's an IG account of a norwegian volunteer fighting in Peshmerga documenting his life over there. His recent posts are about reclaiming Sinjar.

https://www.instagram.com/peshmerganor/

Try these:

https://photos.google.com/share/AF1QipNK3YyblnfKP2X8ZK7EgMUIizFBI9TqAF32rDHcjUz0uzmyVMN8OwnWS3C6rf5OZg/photo/AF1QipNPrauGhy774lkP-VdluMbBGiuYVq4B5jwukx96?key=akZZOER6cUk2MUFGMkxidVV1N2VZeWduRmlhNDhn

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B0XAIisl2U2qRDB5dkRsSHJfLWc/view

Actually the temp was probably quite a bit lower than that. If you look up the average temperature for enewetak it is rarely below 78 or above 84. The record high temperature in Hawaii (kind of similarly situated on the equator) its 98 degrees. Wisconsin’s record high temp (where I’m from) is 114 degrees.

All that being said I think anything over 20 degrees is a little hot to be using a flamethrower.

Don't forget Pappy Gunn, the man who came up with the idea of adding machine guns

General Kenney even wrote a short (100 page) Biography on him, The Saga of Pappy Gunn $0.99 on kindle.

https://www.amazon.com/Saga-Pappy-Gunn-George-Kenney-ebook/dp/B071YY6XB5/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&amp;keywords=The+Saga+of+Pappy+Gunn&amp;qid=1619554776&amp;sr=8-1

Thanks.

I actually get into my initial thoughts about rocking an eyepatch in my book "Blindsided by the Taliban."

https://www.amazon.com/Blindsided-Taliban-Journalists-Story-Trauma/dp/1510729682

There's a chapter in there called "Eyepatch porno fantasy."

First strike hit Al-Taybah.
Second strike hit the T3 pumping station again.
The Tu-22M3 has 11 red stars, showing it likely was to Syria 11 times. Cover was provided by Su-35S from Latakia.

• Up to 17 civilians lost their lives, 26 civilians were wounded so far in the recent wave of attacks (including yesterday)
• They target <strong>this Location</strong>. It is a populated predominantly Kurdish neighbourhood in Aleppo City. It is held by the Syrian Democratic Forces (YPG & Allies).
• Groups involved: Sultan Murad, 16th Division, al-Sham Battalion

I found Wikimapia is a pretty good source of info, though a lot of the place notes are in Arabic. Here it is for that area:

http://wikimapia.org/#lang=en&amp;lat=33.436719&amp;lon=43.271670&amp;z=17&amp;m=b

I have no idea what's there, but looking at where the smoke plume is coming from I am guessing the plane was targeting armored vehicles.

This here is the region where the attacks occurred. Samarra city is not really under attack, but outskirts and nearby villages have been attacked in attempts by ISIS to disrupt the areas north of Baghdad and south of Baiji.

We see some close fighting and the classic SVBIED. At some points you can see fighters wearing a GoPro, but I couldn't get my hands on that footage yet. Also we see no executions, since they only overrun a small village most likely turned into a militia/army checkpoint, no civilians involved I think.

That's a fair statement, but looking at Saudi Arabia in Yemen 'Arab Fighting Forces' seem incompetent, even at full strength. And this is something that has been seen in the recent past.

Edit. Same author, newer publication about problems with training Arab armies.

The group in the video is the Liwa Dawood brigade. They were once part of Suqour al-Sham, but when Suqour al-Sham began fighting ISIS, they signed a separate peace deal with ISIS to avoid having to fight.

Later on they defected from Suqour al-Sham to help form Jaysh al-Sham with Suyouf al-Haq. Liwa Dawood had several tanks (at least two of which they acquired from corrupt or sympathetic SAA officers), and kept them when they defected to Jaysh al-Sham.

Later on Liwa Dawood defected to ISIS. When they did they took with them 10 tanks, which at the time was one of (if not the largest) concentration of tanks in rebel hands.

Jaysh al-Sham (and Suyouf al-Haq) actually used tanks in combined arms operations before any other rebel group, instead of as just mobile artillery.

This particular attack took place in western Aleppo at an amusement park called "Magic World" which sits close to the important M5 highway. There have been numerous clashes in this area during the course of the war, many of them focused in the nearby poultry farms.

http://wikimapia.org/#lang=en&amp;lat=36.103677&amp;lon=36.992598&amp;z=16&amp;m=b&amp;show=/20236307/Magic-world

Most have a radar and/or some kind of lidar in addition to the camera system the crew uses. They're all coupled together to make it as easy as possible on the human that has to do the target selection. These days machine learning is not out of the realm of possibility for a completely graphical solution, but I bet this thing has a pretty sweet radar array that does the actual aiming of the turret. The human just has to point and click and maybe adjust a little for crosswind.

While I'm recommending books, I have to throw in "Chasing Ghosts: Failures and Facades in Iraq: A Soldier's Perspective," it's a great read on the Iraq war and only $11 on Amazon right now.

https://www.amazon.com/Chasing-Ghosts-Failures-Soldiers-Perspective/dp/0451221214

If you have any recommendations yourself I'd love to hear them.

I can recommend reading North Korea: State of Paranoia. It gives a really good insight into how the propaganda state is necessary to prevent the near-total collapse of the country.

You can get a HackRFOne online from Hakshop that does the same thing (in a less mobile package). You can probably build your own, too.

Not legal, sure, but kids have been doing it at DEF CON for years.

My god I had so much fun playing BF42 and that mod. Actually just looked it up and there are still 40+ player BF1942 servers... Damn! I might even download the game and play for a bit of nostalgia.

https://www.gametracker.com/search/bf1942/

Here's the area of operation, starting in the courtyard.

Funny enough, ANNA had covered the SAA taking these exact same buildings more than a year ago (see &quot;Fight for a School in Jobar&quot; section), but apparently the rebels have retaken them in the interim.

Poorly Google-translated description:

>Battalion 559 were broken into in the area of ​​Safa on the international road linking Iraq to the Seine near the military airport, which is considered a springboard to the militias and Gota Yabrood toward the Iraqi border. Seized two tanks and a large number of anti-aircraft.

It seems that they were attacking an Army Storage Base, or a military warehouse of some sort. Could this be the place they attacked?

This is honestly some of the better footage I've seen recently. High-powered sniper rifle(s), Dushkas, technicals, Mig airstrike, etc. Does anyone have any more information about this particular incident?

Also, does anyone know what kind of sniper rifle the guy is using at 00:20 in the video? It doesn't look/sound like anything I've seen in Syria before, but my mind could be playing tricks with me..

Project Reality. Mod for Battlefield 2 (which is free). Makes it a very "realistic" FPS.

Main devs of PR formed Offworld Industries, and made Squad.

The first three months in Afghanistan are covered in the excellent book (AMAZN LINK) by Toby Harnden called First Casualty

This is David Tyson, and this photo was probably taken by the German TV Crew, less than an hour after the uprising began. He had to run for his life after he’d just killed 12-15 AlQaeda with his own pistol and Mike Spanns AKMS. The book is fantastic and goes into detail about the six day battle to recapture Qala-i-Jangi.

David Tyson was probably the only CIA Officer in Afghan who had local language skills to deal with Dostum and others in the Northern Alliance

Do you have Amazon Prime? I watched this video recently and thought it was pretty good: https://www.amazon.com/Afgan-Experience-Jeff-B-Harmon/dp/B078TNQBT3/

I watched this recently as well https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OQhHMihnauM

Yeah man here it is on Amazon.

City of Death: Humanitarian Warriors in the Battle of Mosul

&#x200B;

https://www.amazon.com/City-Death-Humanitarian-Warriors-Battle/dp/1546081828

It's just worth it these days with the amount of tracking involved just even with basic things on the internet. I use NordVPN and it's been pretty good so far, it's only like 3 quid a month, the benefits of not dealing with location locked website's pays for itself tbh.

This is one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gbOPA2yYFyI

This channel has a lot of compilations, and they do put their watermark on it, but they also tend to describe the situation and who took the footage in the description box. They also credit the original channel. Any channel that does this on youtube will censor a lot of the footage out, therefore the best combat footage can be found on sites such as liveleak.

Example: https://archive.org/details/kirkuk_201412 (Skip to 1:30, also very NSFW)

>Not sure about Abrams, but we're definitely still afraid of fire in MRAPS

The language I used was a bit strong. I didn't really intend to say fire isn't a concern at all. Tank crews still wear nomex suits and train fire drills all the time, so fire is obviously still a big concern.

However, "a big concern" is different from the Sherman which its crews thought was a death trap - the crews nicknamed it the "ronson" after the cigarette lighter slogan "it lights up the first time, every time."

The statistics in that article tell an equally grim story.

>The 3rd Armored Division entered combat in Normandy with 232 M-4 Sherman tanks,...During the European Campaign, the Division had some 648 Sherman tanks completely destroyed in combat and had another 700 knocked out, repaired and put back into operation. This was a loss rate of 580 percent.

So from June 1944 to may 1945, one armored division, which admittedly, was in the thick of combat for most of that year, lost virtually all of its tanks four or five times over. Over that same year it suffered f 2,540 killed, 7,331 wounded, 95 missing, and 139 captured.

According to Flight, via War is Boring, the Ukrainians have lost half their air frames in the last year. Some of that is from them being shot down, some of that is from them finally declaring old air frames unusable. I imagine that level of attrition would effect their ability to put up sorties over the Donbass.

I believe part of the negotiations around the Minsk agreement had to due with the Ukrainians not using air power anymore. I don't really remember though, so I may be wrong.

looks to me even smaller than the 123

https://www.shutterstock.com/editorial/image-editorial/recovered-iran-weapons-on-display-in-washington-dc-usa-29-nov-2018-10003914d

If you're interested in the Eastern Front, just for the historical context, you should check out John Keegan's First World War.

Video is when Jabhat al Nusra raided Musaybeen Village which is East of Ariha. Months old. - http://wikimapia.org/#lang=en&amp;lat=35.839577&amp;lon=36.641915&amp;z=16&amp;m=b&amp;show=/27873703/Musaybeen

This is part of the ongoing offensives to reclaim the Kobane canton's area after the IS retreat from the city. This was supposedly in the village of Alishar in the east.

http://wikimapia.org/#lang=en&amp;lat=36.860772&amp;lon=38.445883&amp;z=14&amp;m=b&amp;search='Ali%20Shar

Either where they tweeted from or emitted EM waves to mess with enemy's communications (or both?).

Edit: location was in 17th Division army base

Approximate route of tanks.

Not only is the shell itself bigger than a tank, but the cartridge plus propellant is 3 times as big! https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Dora_Kartusche_und_Geschoss.jpg

That was absolutely epic. At the risk of sounding like a teenager, this is like the best moments of Battlefield and Cod Combined.

Btw, Microsoft just release their Video Stabilization software called Hyperlapse. I am going to rip the video and give it a try.

http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/um/redmond/projects/hyperlapseapps/

> The efficiency of the trebuchet increases by the addition of the sling (of this particular length) from 59% (for the previous example) up to 81%. This is a substantial improvement, and indicates that trebuchets can be surprisingly efficient machines

An article on trebuchet mechanics.

Given an efficiency of about 80%, and the fact that you can suspend quite a big of weight in the counterbalance, I'm incline to think that you could really do some damage to masonry.

Even a comparatively small (for siege weapons) 1 ton counterweight dropping just 5m will have a potential energy of 400.000 Joules.

https://www.omnicalculator.com/physics/potential-energy

Assuming the whole launching takes 2s, which I think is too much, that's 200.000 J/s or 268 hp of power being imparted to the projectile.

At one point in the 2003 Iraq War, the British had more casualties to US forces than Iraqi forces.

In popular British culture we joke about US friendly fire as it is so prevalent. The term 'gung-ho' springs to mind (as does the term 'incompetent fuckwits').

Source

According to ISIS on justpaste.it/Alanbar_news:

"- حصيلة الغزوة في منطقة ألبو شهاب/جزيرة الخالدية:

1- تدمير 22 عجلة بينها دبابتين وعدد من العجلات المدرعة وعجلات الهمر.

2- غنم عجلتين مدرعتين وعجلتي سلفادور وعجلات الهمر و12 أحادية وكمية من الأسلحة والذخيرة.

3- تم تطهير المنطقة بالكامل."

"- The outcome of the invasion in the area of ​​Albu Shehab / Khalidiya Island

1 - Destroying 22 vehicles, including 2 tanks and a number of armored vehicles and Humvees.

2 - Capturing two armored vehicles and two Selfador/Salvador vehicles (No idea what those are) and many Humvees and 12 (Heavy machine gun) and amount of weapons and ammo.

3 - The entire area were cleared."

His name is Andrey Filatov, he's a journalist working at ANNA.

Here's his VK account https://vk.com/war_documentary_films which has 200+ videos that he's filmed in Syria. He's been embedded with the SAA for years..

He has a Youtube account under his real name as well.

u/SirNedKingOfGila

Michael Herr's "Dispatches" would be a great place to start. Another one I read quite some time ago but a fantastic piece of war journalism/memoir is "My War Gone By I Miss It So" by Anthony Loyd.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Dispatches-Picador-Michael-Herr/dp/0330255738

https://www.amazon.co.uk/My-War-Gone-Miss-So/dp/1912836041

Here's an interesting book on the subject (sorry Amazon link - no affiliation!)

https://www.amazon.com/Killing-Psychological-Cost-Learning-Society/dp/0316040932

>The good news is that most soldiers are loath to kill. But armies have developed sophisticated ways of overcoming this instinctive aversion. And contemporary civilian society, particularly the media, replicates the army's conditioning techniques, and, according to Lt. Col. Dave Grossman's thesis, is responsible for our rising rate of murder among the young.

There's a good section on the tactical situation in Bamut in "Fangs of the Lone Wolf" amazon link.

From what I remember, a call went out to Ichkerian forces in the area to reinforce the town before an impending attack, and the first clashes were pretty much rifle squads on both sides accidentally running into each other.

Later on there was something like a triple-deep trench line defending the town, with the first line rigged to detonate after a planned retreat to trenches behind. I think there're a bunch of stories like that from WWI.

Local geography (river + ridge on one side, forested mountains on the other) worked to make it a great defensive position, despite being an otherwise non-descript town/village.

Though I think the USSR processed or mined uranium near there but I'm not sure.

Both sides literally built railroads to feed their men into the grinder.

The differences in background logistics technology is often overlooked.

If youre interested: https://www.amazon.com/Rise-Rail-Power-War-Conquest-1833-1914/dp/1499286457

I agree he is a most likely a soldier. The only thing is that the road used to resupply regime controlled Aleppo doesn't completely follow the route you indicated. It deviates here. The soldiers walking were shot here

Related documentary: Afghan Massacre the Convoy of Death (partly about the uprising and assault inside the fort and the subsequent executions of the talib survivors. Features the same Afghan journalist and sometimes the same footage)

"AFGHAN MASSACRE tells of the horrific forced journey undertaken by thousands of Taliban prisoners who surrendered to America's Afghan Northern Alliance allies after the siege of Kunduz November 21, 2001

It was produced over ten months in extremely dangerous circumstances: eyewitnesses were threatened and subsequently killed, the film crew were forced into hiding and our researcher was savagely beaten to within an inch of his life. He was awarded the 2002 Rory Peck Award for Hard News, The SONY Award and the film was nominated for a Royal Television Society Award for Current Affairs." Directed & produced by: Jamie Doran

Everyone says this, but the numbers of estimated deaths for invasion have increased since 1945. America had the war one, Russia had just joined the fight on that front. Dropping those bombs was a threat to Russia more than an attempt to save lives. At one point an American army general said of the air war on Japan "I don't want Germany to have the most atrocities at the end of the war."

I believe it is all in this documentary. https://www.netflix.com/title/80127995

Something to think about I suppose.

Like the others have said, theres specific subreddits that focus around these conflicts that always have information being posted. Maps, videos, images, interviews.

Check out: http://pando.com/author/garybrecher/

https://medium.com/war-is-boring

Every source I see says it had ERA

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1551418/MoD-kept-failure-of-best-tank-quiet.html

https://www.moddb.com/groups/tanks/images/rpg-29-meets-challenger-2-must-see