There are two Warthunder April fools events this year, they are not that great and were not really worth updating the game for.

Also, on the 8th of April Enlisted is coming out of Closed Beta and into Open Beta. Enlisted is a game by the same company but instead of vehicle warfare it features infantry though you can use vehicles but only in first person I think which I like the idea of. It's going to be section based, soldiers within he section have roles which can be upgraded as can their equipment and in some game modes the whole section is part of the game as AI.

I'm not sure about it, one of the things that worries me is the monetisation and progression system that it will have. It will apparently be tied to a battle pass system which is quite bad for that kind of thing, I guess I will just have to see how tied to that it is. It doesn't seem to have nations in the way that Warthunder does either, rather it has factions in campaigns, so to begin with there is a Moscow and Normandy campaign and they have listed a Tunis and Berlin campaign to come. So how will that work? Is it going to be a whole new tree for each faction in each campaign? That could be a huge pain particularly if that is on top of a battle pass based system of progression.

I tried Enlisted. It's okay but not great. I don't think I will play it much and I don't see it having much longevity, the progression system is fairly bad and linked to campaigns(they Have Moscow and Normandy right now). This means that you are locked into one region and even if you get max level as Germany in that campaign it does not carry over to any other campaign, I'm not grinding Germany 4 damn times(they have 4 campaigns set and all 4 feature Germany). This limits re-playability, if I finish the one campaign I am not going to want to start all over again whenever they release a new one.

Bleh.... This looks terrible.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=9_8WP9PuOtc [Embed]

More on Enlisted.

Whilst it is published by Gaijin and uses their engine it does not seem to have the same design philosophy as Warthunder which is a shame, it is not Warthunder with Infantry.

Warthunder focuses as much on realism as is possible for the kind of game it is whilst at the same time not pretending too. The maps are wide and open and the equipment is largely modelled as true to life as possible but it does not pretend to be simulating actual battles and campaigns. Enlisted kind of does the opposite, the game is far more CoD/Battlefield like with small compact maps and fast gameplay, the equipment is not modelled realistically but modelled for balance, weapons have firerates changed, recoil is arbitrary and makes no sense with guns that should have less recoil having more and wepaons are handed to forces willy nilly regardless of whether that army actually used them in that campaign or at all. The US storm the beaches of Normandy with Piats, Stens and Bolt actions. Why? For balance and to add content to unlock. Where Warthunder never pretends to have every tank look authentic as to it's paint scheme and markings Enlisted does whilst at the same time it removes emblems on German uniforms like the eagle over the left breast and the deaths head on panzer uniforms thus defeating the point of saying that they are portraying them as they were as they clearly are not. Whilst it claims to be presenting realistic campaigns and battles they are far from it.

The map rotations are quite annoying too. All campaigns are split of course so the pool of maps is limited and they are always of a similar theme rather than warthunder where you could play all maps in many parts of the world(though they are slow in making new ones) so combined with the small nature of them it can get very tiresome and it's only going to get worse.

Campaign progression is pretty bad, it's grindy for little reward and due to the campaign nature it's finite. There are 25 levels in each campaign and there is a limit to what they can add to them, pretty much everything they can add has been and where it has not it is due to balancing such as having no KVs in Moscow but even were they to add them there is still a limit to it so people are going to finish these campaigns and not come back. The only viable long term system for the developers is to release new campaigns over and over again and have people grind for the same equipment over and over again.

Southern Theater
When we read into this chapter we're gettin a description of this Theater first - which I missed in the case of the Western -, and it's possible military usage.
The definition is many layered: geographical, cultural, and historical (the latter two often inseparable).
It is the clashing zone of the cultures of Europe, Asia, and Africa. Here encountered Greek-Europe and Persian-Asia, Roman-Europe and Semite-Punnic-Africa, Gothic-Europe and Semite-Moorish-Africa, Frankish-Europe and Semite-Moorish-Africa, Christian-Europe and Islamic-Turanic-Asia. In the struggles between the last two this region was annexed into the lebensraum of Europe, and after the exploration of America has ended, it got back it's old importance.

Updated the Strategic Space of Europe.

Geographically the region where the three continents meet and connect to each other, from the line of Nantes - Lyon - Alps - Sava - Lower Danube, to the rock and sand desert of the Sahara. It can be divided into three parts:
1. The three peninsulas of Southern Europe (Iberia, Italia, Balkans)
Each means a separate front in itself, sharply separated from the body of Europe with mountains and rivers. There is no hinterland behind them for an attacker - just the seas and the resource thin Africa -, forces, war materials have to be transported from afar, nowhere to retreat, and if the separate fronts are established, they can't help out each other easily. While a defender will have Europe's resource rich areas behind them, short distances, and the central position means they can regroup and rebalance forces easily. Decisive action can be taken in the area of the Garonne or Ebro, the Po, and the Danube.
2. the Mediterranean sea itself with its islands and archipelagos
The shortest sea lane between the Atlantic and the Indian ocean for European powers. Three key areas are Gibraltar, Suez, and the narrow waters at Sicily and Tunis.
3. the shores of Northern Africa
A land bridge between the Atlantic and the Indian ocean. Its more developed pair runs in parallel south of the Sahara (I assume through the French colonies of Sahel to Djibouti), but that is outside of the European Strategic Space.

>>43527
Stresemann and Hitler were thinking on economic terms, from that angle America's rise was easier to see.

His very optimistic interpretation of 1943 got me thinking. We have hindsight and interpret each of those battlefield defeats in light of Germany's final defeat, but from different angles it's not as bad. Szálasi is writing with limited information and only looking at the whole war up until that point. If an even smaller time frame is observed and with less context, the limitations of each Soviet victory become more visible. And if Soviet high command ambitions are considered, then it can be seen that with each offensive they only achieved part of what they sought. Thing is, they kept getting those partial victories all the way to Berlin, and the arms race was always against the Germans.

>>43632
>>43633
looks gud tbh

>>43634
Yea, it tastes good too.
The crust is tougher than factory made bread one can usually buy nowadays (there are good bakeries out there ofc with good bread), it more like the old ones.

>>43633
Nice breda, I should post mines next time

>>43632
>>43633
Oh shit, I forgot about slicing up the top of the dough. Previously the dough was so sticky it stuck to the knife and couldn't slice shit. So it was easy to ignore that step.

>>43638
Do that.

>>43638
Please do

>Black Sheep Plot
In 1973 the Chadian Army Chief of Staff was accused of the preparation of a coup against President Tombalbaye. One of the charges was that the conspirators ritualistically buried a black sheep in order to influence the outcome of an event, and this event would have been the overthrow of every Chadian's beloved President.
Why animal sacrifices aren't listed in Luttwak's book as parts of coups?

>it's unfair to call us terrorists
t. Al Qaeda in Syria chief
https://english.alaraby.co.uk/english/news/2021/4/4/hts-terror-designation-unfair-jolani-claims-in-first-interview

Funnily enough, wearing a suit alone was newsworthy, marking his effort to improve his image and have his force seen as having exclusively Syrian goals and no risk to the West. He's interviewed by international media despite being on the wanted list.
https://www.al-monitor.com/originals/2021/02/syria-hts-leader-picture-suit-western-media-opposition.html

And even gets called the "least bad option" by James Jeffrey.
https://www.jpost.com/middle-east/did-former-us-officials-support-extremists-in-syria-as-an-asset-664248

>>43213
It's a local group pledging loyalty to ISIS, it's not like they moved fighters all the way to Mozambique.

>>43236
Reminds me of the days before the 1964 coup in Brazil, when setting the date general Guedes was worried about the lunar phase, he thought they'd have bad luck if it happened on a waning moon.

>>43257
>Jolani and HTS
I guess for the coming peace, they want to look more "civil" for taking over civilian governing tasks in Idlib. That area will probably preserve it's "not really Syria anymore" designation and they are the local holders of power.
But I really don't know what's gonna happen, or where the peace talks stand.

Still reading that book about Chad on the side.
For me it seems the conflicts in Africa just partially tribal, or motivated by religion. It's liek the Urpian colonists created these artificial entities, the countries, states in Africa, as the avatars of power, and the strongmen of the African countries battling against each other to gain that power (and then to be cast down by another rival).
In Chad only in the beginning the civil war had some tribal coloring, showing the division between north and south, but after Tombolbaye, it's northern strongmen who competes against each other with their personal - partially ex-guerilla, partially mercenary, partially state - armies, with the help of external powers, like was Libya and the always present France.

Meanwhile in the third world.
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/5/17/israel-launches-heavier-raids-in-second-week-of-gaza-bombing
https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2021/5/16/israels-doctrine-humane-bombing-and-benevolent-occupation
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/5/17/israel-yet-to-show-proof-of-hamas-in-gaza-media-tower-us
>including Al Jazeera and The Associated Press

>>43189
>if no gatekeepers prevents forming pressure groups within, then one will form and claim the freedom to themselves and take

Sadly, it is not only some group who tries to take control. Most of coders in community are on "same side", i.e. with full support of all this LGBTBLMWTF thing. They may be smart and non-conflict people personally, but groupthink still exist.

Radicals are viewed by them as "our guys, just too radical, but supporting our good cause". With that logic, it is very hard to oppose these invasive CoCs, wording witchhunts, censorship etc, from inside the community. Who would oppose idea of diversity, if diversity is a piety of modern age? And who would oppose pro-diversity statements, even if they are clearly divisive? Society, especially western, are overly morally-conformist, and going against radical "diversity" and "inclusion" also includes being some kind of outcast.

This is one reason why FSF and RMS especially vulnerable - they also are leftists, and they can't just say "oh fuck off we don't care". Although some brave people exist, like Leah Rowe (that trans who hated FSF some time ago) - s(he) supported Stallman, even being completely "wrong" person for that: https://libreboot.org/news/rms.html

>>43199
>Speaking of which. What's the story behind that large Russian support?

Russian-speaking (not only Russian, but from all post-USSR) open source community mostly consisted from old-style GNU lovers (and, surprisingly, BSD too), and rarely intersect with local SJW community (it exists). RMS/FSF/GNU look positively for both "patriotic" and pro-Western people, from commies to liberals and libertarians. So, few news on popular OSS community sites (opennet.ru, linux.org.ru etc) amassed large amount of concerned viewers, who created and spread support letter.

>>43626
Do they share their imagery with the public? Or it goes to researchers only (and then they publish their stuff)?