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[scrdest]

Oh come on, I was looking forward to this event! And now it's probably going to be cancelled... (making two countries which are technically at war compete in a tank biathlon is not a good ide).

Wow, holy shit, I thought it was a war joke, turns out it's an actual biathlon. With tanks.

[Comrade P.]

You know, I think this is good. I mean, sports above politics. Not like I love sports personally, except watching them, but point stands. You know, it makes me believe in human's sanity. Again.

And I think it's going to happen. As far as I know, the shooting part is performed not from the main armament, but from the mounted machine gun.
And it won't be in the center of Moscow, we have polygons far over the city limit.

[Sean Mirrsen]

No, they shoot both with the main gun, and with the coaxial/turret guns. They do three rounds, first round against three targets with the main gun, second with the coax against simulated RPG squads, third against simulated anti-tank guns with the remote-control AA turret. Kinda like they do standing/prone rounds in regular biathlon.

[olemars]

Rossiya Bank gets the Wikileaks treatment from Visa/Mastercard.

[Guardian G.I.]

Rossiya 1 television channel used to broadcast tank biathlon competitions. There are more of these episodes on YouTube. I can't find any English subtitles anywhere, though.

EDIT:

Rossiya Bank gets the Wikileaks treatment from Visa/Mastercard.

If this trend continues, Russia will be forced to create its own national payment system, similar to Belarusian Belkart system.

EDIT x2:

In relation to Beznogim, I'd like to say that the majority of russians are as distant from his viewpoint as normal americans are distant from the KKK's agenda. He's probably just a government-raised "internet warrior", whose specific job is to spew jingoistic gibberish on forums to garner support for Putin's regime. Or a troll.

I wouldn't label him as a paid provocateur, though. A lot of people around the Russian internet who have opposite political viewpoints love to accuse each other of being paid shills, either for US State Department or for bloody KGB. They can't accept that there can be a person who can genuinely support their political adversaries.
It occurs not only on the Russian internet. Judging by the commentary section on Reddit's /r/worldnews, McCarthysm has returned - people constantly accuse each other of being "Kremlin propagandists". Sooner or later, they'll probably reform the HUAC to reed out all political opponents from the website.

[SquatchHammer]

We'll know if bay12ers are fighting each other because, rather than directly fighting, we'll be flinging minecarts full of lava at each other via physics-breaking machinery.

We're Dwarfs! We do not have the word for this thing you call "lava". Anything that's about molten or semi-molten rock is MAGMA!!

And yes you'll find the B12's all over the place with their horrifically over engineered death machines population reduction devices and sharing plump helmet fermented juice.

----

After all fun and games, it is kinda worrying to see this blowing up into the next World War. I thought the end of the world's economy would happen first but hey you never know when a comic like Twilight X (before the stoopid shiny wanna be blood sucker books) got things exactly right. I hate sci-fi sometimes because it is scary how close some of those authors got.

[Ukrainian Ranger]

Eh... Ukrainian Navy is almost lost, many ships got captured yersteday\today. Captured without using weapons, so better word is surrendered with imitation of resistance. I hoped they'll try to imitate Russian naval tactics and sink the ships but...

There are many reasons why that happened. Some sailors don't mind to serve in Russian Navy either because they support the annexation or hope to get better salary. Some sailors  feared that their families may become that reasonable Russian sacrifice. Some sailors got fed up with lack of any serious support from the high command

Anyway it was good while it lasted. Should they switched in the first few days that would be a huge win for Russian propaganda

[smjjames]

Right now I'm wondering what this whole situation means for the first World Championship of Tank Biathlon that Russia was supposed to host this year. Considering US, Italy, Germany, Belarus, Kazakhstan, and even Ukraine all agreed to participate in it before. And it's supposed to happen in the vicinity of Moscow.

Tank biathlon? Seriously?

[Sean Mirrsen]

As far as Russian propaganda specifically is concerned, the Ukrainian Navy started surrendering much earlier, even if it wasn't true at that time - so the morale effect was at least partially achieved anyway.

And mentioning the "sports above politics" thing got me thinking. The Olympics is essentially a mini-world-war, with different countries challenging each other for superiority of their people, except by means other than having said people try to kill each other. (sometimes substituting it for the environment itself trying to kill them... how many short-track and skiing/snowboarding participants wiped out on these latest Olympics anyway?)

War's advanced beyond merely having people fight each other since then. Tanks, bombers, battleships. Why are there no "mini world wars" with military hardware?

edit:

Right now I'm wondering what this whole situation means for the first World Championship of Tank Biathlon that Russia was supposed to host this year. Considering US, Italy, Germany, Belarus, Kazakhstan, and even Ukraine all agreed to participate in it before. And it's supposed to happen in the vicinity of Moscow.

Tank biathlon? Seriously?

Yes. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tank_biathlon

[scrdest]

There's more to it than that. The disciplines in the original modern Olympics were specifically designed to reflect a skillset of an idealized soldier of that era.

[Ukrainian Ranger]

Sean Mirrsen, I  care little about successes of Russian Propaganda in Russia. Russian propaganda in Ukraine and Europe is way more important

[smjjames]

As far as Russian propaganda specifically is concerned, the Ukrainian Navy started surrendering much earlier, even if it wasn't true at that time - so the morale effect was at least partially achieved anyway.

And mentioning the "sports above politics" thing got me thinking. The Olympics is essentially a mini-world-war, with different countries challenging each other for superiority of their people, except by means other than having said people try to kill each other. (sometimes substituting it for the environment itself trying to kill them... how many short-track and skiing/snowboarding participants wiped out on these latest Olympics anyway?)

War's advanced beyond merely having people fight each other since then. Tanks, bombers, battleships. Why are there no "mini world wars" with military hardware?

edit:

Right now I'm wondering what this whole situation means for the first World Championship of Tank Biathlon that Russia was supposed to host this year. Considering US, Italy, Germany, Belarus, Kazakhstan, and even Ukraine all agreed to participate in it before. And it's supposed to happen in the vicinity of Moscow.

Tank biathlon? Seriously?

Yes. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tank_biathlon

I looked at the video after I posted, but I was like, 'huh? That's a thing?' Nothing like having Russia invite the US in some friendly competition huh. Shoulda invited the French too, before all this blew up anyway.

It most likely will be cancelled and Germany and the US would pull out of it anyway because of the crisis.

[Comrade P.]

Sean Mirrsen, I  care little about successes of Russian Propaganda in Russia. Russian propaganda in Ukraine and Europe is way more important

By the way, UR, what happened with director of First channel (I mean Ukrainian first channel).
Here it was like he was beaten until he was close to death in order to make him resign because he broadcasted Putin's speech.

[olemars]

Russia demands 11 billion USD from Ukraine since Ukraine can no longer uphold their end of the deal for the lease on Sevastopol. Predictable, but still a shitty thing to do.

[Helgoland]

Damn, Putin just keeps on going... Did Gazprom try to collect its credits yet?