OSINT is basically a bunch of randos grabbing at sand and calling it gold dust, it seems.
As opposed to copenick sources, which, judging from this thread, seem to consist of:
- "Guy on twitter says something, offers no sources"
- Telegram link that won't play in the browser because it's too long and demands I put Telegram on my phone first
- Man in camo fatigues saying things in a language I don't speak, desc. summarizes it as "he is person X saying thing Y!"
- Russian in camo fatigues points camera at Warsaw Pact [guns on a table/ammo in a box] and says "we totally just captured this OMG"
- A squad posing with four NLAWs
I mean, you do you, buddy. Go ahead and post whatever news you want in this here news thread. But don't be surprised if other people prefer more...
dynamic content, you know?
Speaking of: Russia released full drone footage of the strike on that mall. It shows how they followed Ukrainian MLRS vehicles back to their ready ammo storage hidden in the mall:
A good example of how persistent drone surveillance has changed this war into an even more artillery-centric one than normal. But it also shows clearly that an Iskander was used to hit the target, which is odd. Those are very expensive, sophisticated weapons. If those Grads were in range, then they were
easily within Russian Smerch/Tornado range (Grad does 40, Smerch/Tornado 70) and there's even a GLONASS guided rocket for Tornado!
(They're being used in-country, here's pictures!) Or an airstrike with an SU-34 dropping a laser-guided bomb. Or an SU-25. Or 203mm artillery.
Then there's this. This is typically a weapon one wouldn't fire at land targets, especially when more suited for purpose and specialized land-attack weapons like Kalibr are available:
*cough*cough* Armored combat trains were a thing. *cough*cough*
Humor aside, we have these
things:
Allegedly they were of some use during WWII as well,and in both the Russian civil war and in the 2nd world war they were quite useful, with some even claiming that they won the commies the Civil War.
Guess the Ukrainians might try and LARP that aspect of the USSR's wars as well, since they are already using shtrafbats, takchankas, and they have apparently dragged a few old Tommy guns out of storage.
LARPing the Soviet Union, huh?
Here's an article from 2016 about them:
"Russia Has Revived Its Armored Trains." The subhead is perfect: "The pressing question is...
why?"
But reading is hard and boring so here's some more blown up stuff fresh off the Twitter presses,
this time a T-90. I'll be back with more as soon as it drops. Cheerio~