Almost, but not *quite * one feels...

So we could potentially see a 70th anniversary tribute to Suez involving the clearance of a vital maritime trade route blocked as the result of an unwise and ill-considered war? Anthony Eden would be touched. (Not.)

Octopus Adds an Additional Layer to Ukraine’s Air Defences The value of the UK-Ukrainian drone interceptor is not in the characteristics of the munition, but in the process that brought it into being.

The Octopus interceptor drone is a UK-Ukraine collaboration...

www.rusi.org/explore-our-...

See also...

www.gov.uk/government/n....

Not actually the best Star Trek crew but President Trump, the First Lady and the Easter Bunny (at right of photograph) at the White House Easter egg ceremony.

The further joke being that they didn't use concrete, so there was a deception plan behind the fake rainbow name.

Blue Bunny - 10kt nuclear landmine (no, really) renamed Blue Peacock when someone noted bunnies burrow and as it was meant to be buried the name might be a giveaway to the KGB.

The way posts appear in my feed seems an issue - I get to see a lot from the some people, but not from others (whereas I did on Twitter). I'm fiddling around with the notifications to see how that works in getting to see people whose posts I'd like to see but don't at present.

Wouldn't the Papacy have Schisms? [7th Armoured Schism, etc].

Or is that more at the Corp[u]s level of command?

<fetches coat>

And, as one of his cabinet is supposed to have noted thanks to his botched operation, Eden 'was on mind altering drugs' at the time (colleague added 'but the rest of us weren't, so why on earth didn't we stop him?' or words to that effect).

I suspect that’d be the late John Pimlott, Head of War Studies at Sandhurst. He had what he apparently believed (& he was no fool) to be an inert grenade amongst his militaria collection. As you note, it sadly wasn’t, and it went off when he was examining it one evening, with tragic results.

...the question is whether the degree of interference is 'just enough' in political terms, even if ops aren't being particularly limited by the Iranian threat. Suspect the sea control one might turn out to be the big issue for SECDEF/SECNAV/CNO et al...

The definitions of air superiority and air supremacy as stated in the latest UK air power doctrine, which defines the two thus: Air superiority. Air superiority is that degree of dominance in the air battle of one force over another, which permits the conduct of operations by the former, and its related maritime, land and air forces, at a given time and place, without prohibitive interference by the opposing force. while: Air supremacy. Air supremacy is the degree of air superiority where the opposing air force is incapable of effective interference. It is important to note that even air supremacy cannot guarantee that an adversary will not inflict some damage or losses, particularly given the extensive proliferation of small arms weapons and man-portable air defence systems. This is normally the highest level of control of the air that a joint force can achieve.

It's one of those doctrinally tricky ones - have they denied air supremacy, but not superiority? The doctrine injects a caveat about losses for the latter, though....

...this isn't me doubting the figures, simply saying that even if they're some way out, the Russian troops already fear the drones, will not disbelieve the stats if they come via rumour (as they will) and be more afraid of moving when drones are about. Win-win for the AFU.

...also, of course, worth recalling that the aerial drones (not sure about the UGS) largely provide their own BDA. There's enough footage online of individual Russian troops moments before they're hit by a drone to suggest that the AFU will have a decent corpus of evidence to base figures upon...

Indeed - they very well may be pretty much correct. My point is that even if they're not, the psychological effect of such figures is considerable as long as they seem credible to the enemy (e.g. lamentations of the German high command in Spring 1918 about air attack) & it appears they do...

50%+ of their casualties. Obviously air power didn't cause half of their offensive operations ("I say, Manfred, shall we launch an offensive on the Meuse with our Triplanes?"/ "Let me finish my schnapps, Lothar, and I'll be right with you")

...similar to the belief in much of the German army that air power caused 50%+ of their 1918 offensives (it hadn't) and subsequent reluctance to be visible to air observation; also in 2nd World War in various places - as you don't need me to tell you as you've covered that elsewhere of course.

And, of course, even if exaggerated, unless the Russians know it to be untrue, it increases morale issues when uncrewed systems are encountered (land, air or maritime) as in the minds of many troops the mere sight of such a system and belief in lethality causes morale issues...

Submitting to a powerful supranational authority covering multiple nation states and with a very clear, very firm set of rules?

I was under the impression he thought that a very bad thing….

It's an interesting take, I'll give him that.

(I am using 'interesting' in the way that Sir Humphrey Appleby might've employed it, of course...)

Nor 'do not like any of the soup flavours on offer'.

“But… but…They haven’t had a Prime Minister since Baldwin!”

Is Rolling Thunder II like Linebacker II but with a bit less Henry Kissinger?

[To be fair, suspect he had one of those 'what the hell's the Op name?' moments mid-sentence (see several of my lectures...) & then plucked the wrong one out of his memory]

Without wishing to be rude, that sounds as though she's about to follow up with 'Wound my heart with a monotonous langour' as she directs the French Resistance to blow up railway bridges; it seems to make no sense otherwise...
clip.cafe/the-longest-...

For years the Spanish have politely accepted the surprisingly frequent, but obvious, mispronunciation of Morón AFB. Now, they can simply claim that it's been named in honour of POTUS for his approach to inter-Allied diplomacy...

He doesn't really have any cognition of what 'lethality' actually is, does he? It's all big bangs, loud noises (the bigger & louder the better) and people/things blown to bits as far as he's concerned and nothing to do with effective weapons/target matching that achieves effects...

It's as though all that early-2000s discussion about measures of effectiveness and stats ≠ effect has passed Mr Hegseth by complet.... ah.

"Recalcitrant Churchill Refuses to Listen to Herr Hitler's Last Appeal to Reason: Prime Minister accused of 'warmongering'"

NYT 20 July 1940

The Secret Service may need to check the toxicity levels of the wallpaper in the new White House ballroom?

…the 2nd one was given a kicking (while on fire) and it’s alleged the locals then prevented him from being extinguished for some time. His mobile (cell) phone melted and had to be dug out him by the pathologist @ the post mortem, if I recall.

It was two terrorists. Most serious injuries to the locals were a badly broken leg for a chap who fell over while punching one and serious ligament damage for another local who hyperextended his leg while kicking same terrorist in the groin…