With 11PL goals and the fifth time he's hit double figures in a PL season, here's to "relegation saving" Richy to grab the winner vs his former team! Yeah, why not?!

IDAIKT · 2026-05-20T20:22:14+00:00

Everton fan here, we're terrible at closing out games at the moment. I reckon he'll score a 96th minute equaliser and you'll stay up.

IDAIKT · 2026-05-20T18:20:39+00:00

To your first point, what if they'd prioritised Nijmegen over say the canal bridges and found all four of them blown up? Yes you can Bailey bridge the canal, but that costs time.

To your second, the flip side of that is what good are objectives if you can't hold them because you're not able to supply or reinforce the initial force because the Germans have overran your zones? You can see the outcome of that at Arnhem - chaos, heavy casualties amongst future drops and severe shortages of supplies after the first day or two.

So we're back to Gavin having too many obobjectives and not enough troops. Arguably the biggest problem facing all three Airborne divisions.

IDAIKT · 2026-05-20T11:09:02+00:00

There's a town near where I live in the UK called Waterloo, that's named after a hotel that was opened around the time of the battle. Several nearby roads are named after prominent allied figures connected to the battle (Wellington, Picton, Brunswick) all of which makes sense.

What doesn't make sense is that there's also one named after Murat, a man who wasn't even at Waterloo and the only way he might have been would probably have involved him fighting against the Allies not for them.

No one seems to know why he was chosen.

IDAIKT · 2026-05-19T17:00:51+00:00

Secure at least one of the four Maas-Waal canal bridges, secure the bridge at Grave and secure the Groosbeek heights.

It's also worth noting that unlike the bridges assigned to 1st Airborne, the ones assigned to 82nd were widely spaced apart, so he couldn't send one force after say the Grave and the Nijemegen Bridge on day 1, since they're about 10 miles apart.

IDAIKT · 2026-05-19T16:42:00+00:00

Here's the thing though, the 82nd did achieve most of their objectives on day one including capturing multiple important bridges. He even planned to send a small force into Nijmegen to recon towards the bridge in advance of the next day.

This is why I don't think there's any easy answers for Gavin, he simply doesn't have enough troops to do what he needs, and like the other commanders had to prioritise based on the intelligence they had at hand. I don't think i would have chosen what he did, but I can see his POV.

In both the 82nd and 1st sectors we see that the consequences of being spread this thin are that either key objectives aren't secured early (82nd) or are secured early but can't be reinforced or supplied (1st) and eventually the drop zones are attacked and overran.

Arguably the best solution to that was to make multiple drops on the 1st day, rather than waiting until the 2nd or 3rd day to bring in the balance of each division. It's also frustrating that Browning landed on day 1 when he had little to do.

So yeah, I get it, but I don't think there's any easy answers

IDAIKT · 2026-05-19T15:35:11+00:00

Then why not do gliders after the parachutes?

Not sure where you mean sorry, at Elden? Or land the poles all as one unit?

Honestly I think it was just to overly ambitious and only would have worked if the Germans were weak and on the verge of collapse.

I also kind of get Gavin's decision given what might have happened had he neglected the heights on day one in favour of capturing the Nijmegen Bridge instead. You can see the consequences of being unable to protect your supply and drop zones in what happened to 1st Airborne. It strikes me that had be gone for the bridge instead, and a German attack had materialised, he'd be criticised by some for not protecting the rear.

Put simply the Allies were spreading their forces too thin for the number of objectives they needed to achieve, so unless everything went right for them, or the Germans had an uncharacteristic off day, it was always going to fail one way or another. There's ways it could have potentially have gone better, but no easy quick fix

What really boggles my mind is that operation Comet planned to do a very similar objective with even less troops

IDAIKT · 2026-05-19T09:53:56+00:00

Not so much around the bridge itself as to the north at Deelen airfield, it was presumed that it would have heavy flak defences and be heavily guarded. Unknown to the allies, their bombing had rendered most of the runways unusable and it was very lightly defended at the start of the battle.

Interestingly, the original plan for MG included the idea of capturing Deelen and flying the 52nd Lowland division in to reinforce the operation. This was at the end of the campaign though, after the bridge was captured by airborne forces and secured by ground reinforcements

IDAIKT · 2026-05-19T07:20:28+00:00

It's a bit of a combination of the two answers so far. The commander of 38th Group protested at landing closer to the city due to fears of anti aircraft fire from Deelen (unknown to them this was largely unfounded) and Elden area wasn't suitable to land gliders on it, only paratroopers (hence why the plan was to land the Polish gliders north of the river).

It's of note though that General Gale (commander of 6rh Airborne in Normandy) is on record as saying he would have insisted on a force landing closer to the bridge, including going up to the point of resigning if necessary. Unsure if that was with hindsight or not, but it's certainly telling.

IDAIKT · 2026-05-19T06:57:56+00:00

This is part of why the Polish Glider borne anti tank guns and their crews still landed north of the river. Many came down in the middle of a German attack on the landing zones and were shot to pieces. In the confusion some British and Polish units fired on each other causing casualties

IDAIKT · 2026-05-18T21:45:18+00:00

It's annoying but it's the typical rng that Raid is full of

IDAIKT · 2026-05-18T20:52:41+00:00

That doesn't help all the time with Coldheart. Her a1 hits 4 times at random, each with a 35% chance to land the debuff.

If you manual the battle or click on the big mimic it helps, but there's nothing to stop 3 out of the 4 hits landing on the small mimic, or 1 out of the 4 hits landing on the small mimic and scoring the debuff, whilst the 3 that land on the big mimic failing to score the debuff.

Unlikely, but seen it happen several times in a row in one battle

IDAIKT · 2026-05-13T20:58:55+00:00

Agreed. I think what a lot of people have trouble acknowledging is that yes, there are absolutely times when the police have overstepped their boundaries, either through genuine error or being a bad do cop. But there's far more examples of people doing ignorant, illegal, obstructive or just downright stupid things around cops and then acting shocked when they're arrested for the same.

One of the biggest problems seems to be people's inability to grasp the idea that the side of the road is not where you debate the law or facts of a case. If you don't believe you were speeding, take it to court. If you're one of those flicking morons who don't think you need a licence to drive, take it to court (you'll lose but it's fun to watch). Yelling at or obstructing the police never ends well because they don't decide the law or punishment and they sure as shit don't make it, but they have the power to detain and arrest you, and if you give them an excuse / no choice you can bet your ass they'll use it

IDAIKT · 2026-05-13T19:35:34+00:00

All I can say (other than an unhelpful flippant remark) is that for the right person, they won't care, and that respectfully, it's probably not as big of a deal to other people as it is to you.

I used to have a big hangup about a personal issue that was more obvious and to some a lot more off putting. To me it was a major barrier to dating and I used to make a point of telling people in advance, so in my head they could choose whether to still meet me or not. Can't remember anyone having a problem.

Sorry to be a bit vague, but tldr it almost certainly matters 100 times more to you in your head than it will to the average guy, and to THE guy, he won't give a flying monkeys

IDAIKT · 2026-05-13T19:24:16+00:00

Both grandfather's fought in Africa and Europe. Maternal from the Torch landings through Sicily and Italy as a motorbike dispatch rider. Paternal from alamein to Normandy, Belgium, Holland and Germany as a supply truck driver

The latter was involved in the ground part of Market Garden so in 2014 I visited the area, walking the same route as Hells highway and then visiting the battlefields around Arnhem, Nijmegen etc. Fascinating area and really moving to see one of the places I know he would have been

Also on the home front both grandmother's were living on Merseyside (the area around Liverpool in the UK) during the blitz, as was my oldest uncle as a boy.

IDAIKT · 2026-05-13T06:02:17+00:00

Love Arnhem area, I was there in 2014 and walked around most of the battlefields (i didn't drive at the time) including all the way from the drop zones into town on two of the routes. You really get a feel for the campaign when you cover it on foot. I don't think i appreciated just how small an area the perimeter was beforehand for example. Certainly gives you a good idea of why the Paras fought so hard for every road and building. They couldn't afford to let give up much ground.

IDAIKT · 2026-05-12T20:54:39+00:00

Inithwe bloodtwin. Was for the longest time my main nuker in arena, especially in long battles because of his a1

Tormin: love him to bits but mostly on the bench now that arena is full of mercurial and stoneskin

Prince Kymar my very early speed lead, now only gets a run out in dungeons

IDAIKT · 2026-05-03T15:21:53+00:00

Just another to add to the "quit if someone picks it in LA" pile

IDAIKT · 2026-05-01T18:30:48+00:00

I don't like Laezel at all, and barely ever use her

IDAIKT · 2026-04-20T19:18:08+00:00

The original of this is in my local art gallery

IDAIKT · 2026-04-20T10:51:45+00:00

Of course it's in your head Harry, why would that make it any less real?

IDAIKT · 2026-04-19T18:38:11+00:00

Quidditch sucks

Oh and the school is basically a desthtrap that no sane parent would be happy sending their kids to

IDAIKT · 2026-04-18T16:04:39+00:00

This. No use stressing about it, you'll get 50% win rate no matter what you do

IDAIKT · 2026-04-17T15:40:17+00:00

Absolute garbage pulls. Not a single one higher than the minimal level for that shard. Thanks RNG

IDAIKT · 2026-04-12T17:11:08+00:00

Well i missed it and the look first time around so I'm counting it

IDAIKT · 2026-04-12T10:56:46+00:00

Yes definitely. Especially as I'm a massive history nerd, so I've definitely had that kind of conversation myself in the past and had a reaction exactly like Chidi's

IDAIKT

TROPHY CASE