European Politics

Black Wizard said:
They have tanks Vlad. Where else could they have got them from?
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At least a few of them have been looted from Ukranian bases in the area, some of which have already been blown up by the Ukranian army. There was also a T-34 seen driving around the region, which is a tank from the early 40's and so has been removed from a museum or similar exhibit as it's clearly not something that's been recently in service. The rebels are using anything they can get their hands on, but I would be surprised if there wasn't some Russian equipment mixed in there too...
 
I'm willing to bet Idol could do it. And I'm not joking there. Computer simulations have always been astonishingly detailed, especially for older vehicles that are thought to be no longer in use. All you need is spend five hours a day playing tank simulators on the computer to operate a Cold War era tank - and I know plenty of people who do a lot more than that.
 
Black Wizard said:
How the hell can they drive and operate them though? That must require some training!
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You'd be amazed to know how many men over the age of 35 can operate tanks in the ex-Communist countries. It was part of their military service training. Т-34 were actively used by the Bulgarian army until the 90s.
 
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I could drive one of these

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Perun said:
I'm willing to bet Idol could do it. And I'm not joking there. Computer simulations have always been astonishingly detailed, especially for older vehicles that are thought to be no longer in use. All you need is spend five hours a day playing tank simulators on the computer to operate a Cold War era tank - and I know plenty of people who do a lot more than that.
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Sadly World of Tanks is not quite a simulator, more of an arcade game. Still though, for actual driving the majority of vehicles shouldn't be that difficult (firing is another matter). According to the Haynes guide to the Tiger, it's basically a steering wheel, gear lever, clutch and accelerator... so it's a big car. I'm pretty sure some vehicles are driven with 2 control levers - 1 for left track and 1 for right track - and that's about as far as it went. It would take some practise/training to get to a military standard but to actually get them moving I have no doubt's the rebels could just get in and go.

Loading it is probably not too difficult, open the breech and put a shell in.. press a button to fire, etc. They'd probably struggle to hit distant targets without training though.

@ Bearfan, one of the best games ever!
 
Tanks, especially Soviet-era tanks, have to be easy to drive, because the average conscript isn't that educated or smart.
 
Cannot argue with anything he said, it was well put. But, it needs to translate into some form of tangible action to be meaningful
 
Not sure if that will be the case. If Russia would use a veto it would be seen by the world as a support of terrorism. Not sure if Russia wants that kind of attention. Normally the Dutch are very money driven but today I heard at the news that the export companies are not against any actions that would hinder the export (Russia being an important costumer). Most likely this has to do that most/many here know somebody that was on that flight. I am lucky not to.
 
The Cold War was tanks, troops, and nukes. This is all economics and energy, unless an economic hurt can be put on Russia, they are not going to change what they are doing. The US should be building LNG stations here, in Poland, and in Greece/Turkey (take your pick) and exporting the hell out of the massive reserves of natural gas we have to allow Eastern and Central Europe to give Russia the middle finger.
 
Russia will veto anything at the UN level. If they didn't care about being seen as pro-asshole in the case of Syria they definitely won't care here.
 
I entirely disapprove of the tone of the text commentary in this video, but I still think this should be watched by everybody. It's just over two minutes long, but it again tells you that we should be wary of simply accepting an interpretation offered to us without questioning it.

 
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