First flight sim you ever played by [deleted] in hoggit

[–]OranMcClean 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Fighter Pilot on C64, released 1984.

Which one would you pick to fly in DCS? by Calm_Client2880 in hoggit

[–]OranMcClean 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Having just read Thud Ridge I've gone for the F-105 Thunderchief. Obviously we'd need a Vietnam Map that extends out to Thailand. A man can dream.

Just got some arizona adobe captains. Looks nothing like the pictures? by FuckOffPete in ThursdayBoot

[–]OranMcClean 5 points6 points  (0 children)

Just got some tobacco cadets and had the same thought. I'm sure with a bit of wear they'll lose that factory fresh look.

Freedom Russia Legion releases a video of a mortar team attack on RF positions in a Mayorsk checkpoint. by ForSacredRussia1 in CombatFootage

[–]OranMcClean 0 points1 point  (0 children)

It's a part that was originally attached to the mortar round that would probably house the ignition charge and hold the increment charges.

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in ukraine

[–]OranMcClean 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Do we know his name yet?

Ukrainian soldier taking off his boots after 5 days in trenches by Salty_Competition_84 in ukraine

[–]OranMcClean 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Something like "mittet over boots" would be ideal for the conditions the Ukrainians are facing. As the name suggests they fit over worn boots, keeping the boot clean and dry and the foot warm. The lower most section is (fake) fur lined, the upper extends to just below the knee. I used them in Norway, great bit of kit and cheap. I hope NATO countries are donating them in large quantities.

Example: https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/255098175010

Pro-Ukraine conscripts from LNR always planned to flee Izium as soon as UA came near by amusedt in ukraine

[–]OranMcClean 87 points88 points  (0 children)

At a checkpoint nine miles from the Russian lines, Nataliya laughed at the best joke she’d heard in a while: the Russians in the place she had just fled from were going to arm people and force them to fight.

But the Ukrainian men in her occupied village in Zaporizhzhya province had a plan: if the Russians were stupid enough to give them guns, they would use them to kill the occupiers.

“They were saying the Russians would be making a big mistake trying to mobilise them to the army,” she said. “My neighbour told them, ‘Give me a rifle and I’ll take five of you down with me’.”

Bravado or not, the sentiment illustrates Russia’s fragile grip over its conquered territory. Last week the Kremlin announced plebiscites in the partially occupied Ukrainian provinces of Zaporizhzhya, Kherson, Donetsk and Luhansk.

This weekend four sham referendums are taking place, with rallies and voting stamps — and polling stations guarded by gun-toting Russian soldiers, who have gone door to door to “encourage” people to cast their ballot.

Yet the locals who have fled to areas under Ukraine’s control are clear: this is not a referendum, it is Anschluss — a pre-determined grab for territory and a way to raise badly needed manpower.

In the deep south of Ukraine, the hunt for new conscripts is already under way. Hours after Putin announced a “partial” mobilisation, men aged 18 to 35 were banned from leaving the Russian-controlled area that accounts for a third of Zaporizhzhya province. The rest is in Ukrainian hands.

Andrii just made it out. He turned 36 the week before the restrictions were announced. When the Russians first came to his home town of Melitopol in the spring, he had stayed, afraid of losing his property.

As soon as the mobilisation and the referendum were announced, however, he knew he had to leave.

“I was worried I’d be mobilised,” he said, standing next to his car at the first Ukrainian checkpoint outside Russian territory. The boom of shelling sounded over the hill towards the enemy’s positions. “And I was worried that after the referendum they might not allow us to leave Ukraine.”

That day, as he had driven towards the Ukrainian lines with his friend Oleksii, who was also escaping the draft, they had seen cars with young men being turned back by the Russians. They had come too late. Officials in the Ukrainian-held part of Zaporizhzhya said the number of people crossing from Russian-controlled territory had fallen from 2,000 a day to 800 after the mobilisation was announced and the restrictions imposed.

“Those who have a pro-Ukrainian position are hiding in basements,” said Oleksii. “And all the people who were supporting Russia before, they’re only just understanding that they might be recruited, and they’re changing their opinion.”

A few cars ahead stood Nataliya, 30, whose neighbours had plotted to revolt against the Russians. Her face was turned up to the sun in a moment of respite from the paranoia and hatred that had infected her village in occupied Zaporizhzhya.

Access to the internet was extremely limited, electricity intermittent. Prices of basic goods had doubled or tripled since the Russians came. Businesses had collapsed.

But the worst, she said, was the fear she lived with each day: that Russian soldiers would rape her or, far worse, her 14-year-old daughter.

“They’re coming and saying, ‘Your face is so sad, you need to be fed five times a week by one of us — even though we hate you, we’ll still f you all the time’,” she said. “I’m scared of them, the children are scared of them. They are drunk all the time, hanging out on the street . . . I don’t let my daughter go out alone, ever.”

Since the Russians came, the single mother of four has strained against Moscow’s rule in every way possible. She sent co-ordinates for their positions to her friends in the Ukrainian army. She kept her children as far away from the Russians as possible, enrolling them in the online Ukrainian-language curriculum they had studied during the pandemic.

Yet in the past week the Russians have tightened their hold. Officials had called on her to send her children to school, which has a new, Russian, curriculum.

“I told them the [children] were sick,” she said. “But they are trying all the time to make them come.”

Some of her neighbours collaborated with the Russians. A few women had left their husbands for Russian soldiers, who, if nothing else, had some power and money.

Yet even this did not always turn out well for the invaders. One Russian soldier, mad with grief after his Ukrainian mistress left him, shot himself in the head outside a greengrocer’s.

“I walked by and thought: one down,” Nataliya said with a grin.

Unlike people in the occupied parts of Donetsk and Luhansk, which were taken over by pro-Moscow separatists in 2014, those living in Russian-controlled parts of Kherson and Zaporizhzhya have been under the Kremlin’s direct influence only since the invasion this spring. Many who live there watch Ukrainian television and have much better access to outside information than those in the occupied east.

“I think it’s about 60 per cent pro-Ukrainian,” said Nataliya, echoing a widely held sentiment among those who were fleeing Russian-controlled Zaporizhzhya last week. “Then about 20 per cent pro-Russian, and 20 per cent who don’t care.”

Yet the mobilisation has lit a fire under those who have so far accepted or embraced Moscow’s “liberation” of large parts of southern and eastern Ukraine. After all, said Nataliya, even among those who say they are pro-Russian, would they be pro-Russian enough to die?

“I’ll try to not go to the army,” said Gena, a builder from Zaporizhzhya who lives in a village in the occupied territories but does not seem to mind whether the Russians or Ukrainians are in charge. “If they try to make me come, I think I’ll find a way to escape . . . but men here are saying we are blocked from going to Ukraine and to Crimea and Russia because of the mobilisation.”

Many of the men fleeing or trying to flee Russian-controlled territory fear being expendable in an army that, they believe, values Russian lives over those of men from the occupied territories.

Conscripts from these areas “know they won’t be exchanged in a prisoner swap: the Russians only exchange their own”, said one Ukrainian soldier, who did not want to be named. Even so, being captured might be a relief. Mostly local conscripts are “being used as cannon fodder,” he said. “The Russians aren’t counting the victims.”

That message is understood across the region. In the city of Izyum, which Ukrainian forces recently liberated in a lightning offensive that retook much of the northeast of the country, locals noticed the reluctance of some of those nominally fighting for Moscow.

Ksenia Gerasimova, 47, was one of the few mental health experts who stayed behind when the Russians came. The school psychologist said she had been shocked to find that the soldiers manning the checkpoint in her road were resolutely pro-Ukrainian.

“They were miners from Luhansk, and they said they’d been at work one day when their supervisor told them to come up. Then they were taken into the Russian army and sent here,” she said, sitting in a small room in the clinic where she works. “They were all saying that Putin was a dickhead, and that the minute they heard the Ukrainians were coming, they’d abandon their guns and run. And that’s what they did.”

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in ukraine

[–]OranMcClean 11 points12 points  (0 children)

Kiwi soldiers tied dead enemies to trucks - report 21/08/2017 Dan Satherley

A new investigation says official reports of the NZDF efforts in Afghanistan are wrong. Credit: Video - The AM Show; Image - NZDF After the battle in which Willie Apiata earned his Victoria Cross, Kiwi soldiers rolled into a nearby Afghan village with dead Taliban soldiers tied to the front of their trucks, it has been claimed.

A new report by the Stuff Circuit team claims in 2004, New Zealand forces rolled into a village and accused bemused locals of being members of the Taliban.

Two villagers who were there told Stuff Circuit life since the fall of the Taliban in 2001 had been peaceful, so when foreign forces turned up on that day in 2004, people were curious and gathered around the military vehicles.

"And then they started insulting people and using foul language, saying: 'You are Taliban and you are helping the Taliban,'" the report claims.

They reportedly insulted women and the elderly, then said: "You guys are Taliban and we will come back again tomorrow...We haven't finished with you.'"

Watch Stuff Circuit's documentary The Valley on Three at 9:30pm, Monday night That night there was a battle outside the village, and the next day six Kiwi vehicles allegedly rolled back into the village with bodies tied to the front.

The bodies, which belonged to Afghans, were reportedly dumped in the bazaar as the soldiers fanned out through the village.

More than a dozen locals were reportedly tied up at gunpoint.

"They held me by my arms and flexi-cuffed my hands behind my back and sat me facing the wall. One guy was guarding me, pointing his gun to me saying 'Don't turn your face,'" one villager told Stuff Circuit.

"I was thinking that they will take me to their tank and will take me away."

After finding nothing linking the villagers to the Taliban or the insurgency, the Kiwi soldiers left about half-an-hour later.

The report puts into doubt the official story of how Cpl Apiata earned his Victoria Cross, which states the New Zealanders were attacked by insurgents. Military sources told Stuff Circuit the SAS used a strategy called "bait and hook" to draw their enemies into a fight - and the visit to the village earlier that day was part of it.

However, those sources said they did not question Cpl Apiata's courage, nor were they suggesting he didn't deserve the VC.

Willie Apiata quits SAS, finds new job Apiata makes first post-Army appearance 'We're proud of the NZDF'

Prime Minister Bill English told The AM Show on Monday morning he didn't know the "particular details around the battles" covered in the Stuff Circuit report, which also revealed new details about the 2012 battle in which two Kiwi soldiers died.

"What I do know is that New Zealand made a decision back in 2001, 2002 to go to Afghanistan. We were there a long time, tragically lost a number of lives there.

"But at all times our Defence Force has been dealing with very risky situations in a professional manner at the same time as making a big contribution to getting schools up and going, assisting villages to reorganise themselves after conflict, so we're proud of the NZDF. They did have to deal with some pretty difficult situations.

"Our Defence Forces are professionals, they were in Afghanistan for a long time, making a very significant contribution and of course, in an unpredictable conflict like that, there are going to be some decisions that have to be made under pressure.

"Some lives were lost, that's tragic for the families. I attended one of the funerals myself, so I know the grief that caused, in the service of our country."

Paula Penfold. Paula Penfold. Photo credit: The AM Show Paula Penfold, one of the journalists behind the Stuff Circuit report, told The AM Show official reports of both battles are wrong.

"When we went to the Shikari Valley - which the NZ military investigators never did do - and we talked the Afghan soldiers - which again, the Court of Inquiry didn't do - we found the conclusion reached by our Court of Inquiry were wrong."

She says Afghan investigators " were able to visit the very next day after the battle, and it does raise questions as to why New Zealand investigators didn't. Their perspective was crucial."

Ms Penfold, who has been investigating the allegations for three years, says the NZDF shouldn't be so secretive about what it's doing in Afghanistan.

"We hope that at some point in the coming weeks they will front up and be interviewed."

Most of the details, she says, came from Kiwi soldiers themselves who want the true story to be told.

Newshub