One of the clearest signs of a Russian here is someone being like “Why would Russia even care about non-moderated and freely federated pseudonymous platforms? You’re just paranoid!”.

Especially when it comes from accounts which post like 18 times a day but comment once every two months.

And I’m not exaggerating. Whatever you’re browsing the Fediverse from, if you go to your front page and look at the usernames of the posters, once you a username several times, check the profile. Check if they’re actually political themselves and actually care about the things they post and comment and have discussions, then it’s harder, but usually you’ll find accounts which literally post once every hour and the last comments (anything a human has actually written) will be from like 3 weeks - 2 months ago. And then you start looking at what they’re posting and then you can start to imagine why. And then realise you’ll never be able to really tell why, because the things aren’t there to showcase facts or make good points, they’re just there to tug at your heartstrings.

After Russia attacked Ukraine and it went on long enough for me to form a coherent opinion (a few years honestly), I didn’t worry too much, since Russia is militarily pretty shit.

But then Trump got re-elected.

That was pretty much the only out for Putin. And he fucking got it.

They told the world they were gonna do this ages ago, but since plausible deniability exists, we have to suffer some pedophile moron being the Commander-in-Chief of the world’s most powerful military, who’s also Putler’s lapdog.

And idk. Apathy is the greatest tool of the oppressor and I have always been mostly an optimist, but man I’m finding it fucking hard to have any sort of hope for the future.

Even then it was clear that the disinformation model built at Milton Bryan would be expanded upon and used again

Yup. Russia is using platforms like Lemmy to disseminate disinfo, for example. And it’s much easier now to pretend to be something you’re not, at least on the radio these actors needed actual German background for perfect accents.

I once saw disinfo on a Irish Discord channel, called him out on it, bro vehemently claimed to be native Irish. I asked him to come to a voice channel and man the thickest Russian accent. And not an Irish fella putting on an accent. Dude didn’t even know what a limerick is or what Limerick is.

So yeah. Remember strategies like these are actively used in the modern world as well.

I’m just gonna believe this even without reading it, because ofc they did.

Isn’t a “nan doctor” a grandgynocologist?

Or a gerontologist.

I’m worried about how few people understand this.

King Leopold the 2nd of Belgium.

described at the time

Hmm… I wonder when these…

Leopold II was the second king of the Belgians from 1865 to 1909, and the founder and sole owner of the Congo Free State from 1885 to 1908.

Oh that’s not too long ago. “Sole owner of the Congo Free State” sounds like a contradiction tbh

The headsets I’ve seen which take AA batteries were heavy af.

Drove home today from the countryside in Finland. A station every 30km at least.

Gas costs ~2€/litre.

Yeah 100 years ago the argument may have actually made sense.

Noni.

Eihä se nii vaikiaa ollu löytää jotai lähdettä. Thänks

Is there any info on how the hooks are used, what kind of charges?

Yeah… so you’d agree it would be these hooks you’d use?

So did you do it by hanging shit off the walls or actually putting explosives into structures?

Everything I find about the defensive strategy talks about “charge pits” and “cavities”, can’t find a single reference to hanging or hooks.

As a dapper you’d use whatever means at your disposal, but as a defensive strategy you’re doing with time, why wouldn’t you actually make pits to put rhe explosives in? I’m sure as a sapper you understand how much more effective it is to have an explosive surrounded by the structure instead of just vaguely close to it, so that a majority of the explosive force actually goes into whatever you’re blowing up instead of harakoille. Right?

Sure. But also, no-one is blowing bridges by hanging explosives inside instead of drilling them into the structure.

For 28 years, the bridge carried traffic and goods, including timber from the Soviet Union, until replaced by the present concrete structure. Pits for demolition charges are visible in the piles. These cavities could be filled with explosives in order to blow the bridge to smithereens should this ever have become necessary.

https://sotatie.fi/en/battlegrouds-trail/site-descriptions/mohko-village

Sure you did.

I know, it’s annoying when someone asks for something to make sense when you’ve already decided it’s true no matter if it does or doesn’t make sense.

“Charge PITS”, not “nails” or “hooks”.

I’m a supply core undersergeant, so I literally went through lists of military equipment when I was serving. Never saw anything related to using antitank mines for improvisational demolition charges.

Just admit you don’t have any reason. You can’t rationalise it, but despite the overwhelming lack of evidence and logic, you still believe it. This is why Finland (or rather Finns) suck.

Blowing bridges isn’t something you do when you’re doing a tactical retreat. Blowing up bridges is something you do strategically. Guess you can’t tell the difference, both synonyms to you?

The point is that you could do that, with a roll of gorilla tape.

The point isn’t it’s more awkward to do and takes longer, the point is that the explosive force delivered to the bridge would be the same. (Actually slightly more with a gorilla tape covered explosive as it would marginally increase the forces on the bridge compared to just hanging ones.)

If you put an explosive inside the bridge, the force delivered to the structure is several times more. Thus it would make sense to have “pits” to out explosives into, not just hooks to hang them off of.

I’m not opposed in any way. I just don’t personally believe it. I think OP is full of bullshit, as a lot of people are.

I couldn’t even recall the amount of “facts” people throw around and then get super mad when someone points out their “facts” don’t make sense at all.

These hooks were on every single bridge pillar I saw

Yep. All around Finland.

All the talk of the defensive strategies (that we’ve had since the Winter War) only speak of these being applied to the eastern part of Finland. And you can even look at a map to see the roads round there mainly going in the same way and there not being lots of roads joining them. It’s all part of their defensive strategy. Shutting off infra from where an attack would come from.

But what is the fucking point in supposedly being ready to blow up a bridge in Forssa? Tell me the strategic advantage any enemy would have with it?

I’m really tempted to just email Destia and ask for a confirmation but I feel like asking stuff like that might sound a bit suspicious so I hesitate.

Go ahead if it bothers you so but yeah unless they confirm it or you make even a remotely rational explanation to them, I’m not buying it. Why does me not personally believing in something bug you so? If you need No proof to assert it, I need No proof to assert the negative of the same assertion.

Yeah, it does. And it’s also designed so that it takes 10 kilograms of pressure to detonate. Are you gonna rig up sideways launchers for each? Perhaps there already are remote detonators that you just replace the normal weight switch with.

But still. I don’t buy it. First off why hang them so frequently, and do all the texts speak of charge PITS instead of “charge hooks”?

It just doesn’t make sense to me and I just think OP has heard it from someone in real life and decided to believe it and is now spreading it here.

Unless someone can actually show these are for explosives, I just don’t buy it.

I should’ve thought so as well but unless you can come up with better reasoning or source for these being for bombs, I still find it more probable. I’m not saying it’s a good explanation, but it’s more probable to me.

Anything I found was discussing “charge pits” and I can’t imagine any explosive you’d want to hang on the outside of what you’re demolishing with that sort of frequency.

I’m not saying it’s not true, but I’m not convinced.

I should’ve thought so as well but unless you can come up with better reasoning or source for these being for bombs, I still find it more probable. I’m not saying it’s a good explanation, but it’s more probable to me.

Anything I found was discussing “charge pits” and I can’t imagine any explosive you’d want to hang on the outside of what you’re demolishing with that sort of frequency.

I’m not saying it’s not true, but I’m not convinced.