Ministers don't do "suggestions" or "it would be great if..." they give directives regardless of what the exact wording is. Ministers have the literal power to maoe or break senior public servants/officers careers you do what they want regardless if they only suggest it. It's a clear power imbalance, the people at the absolute top of a major organization/corporation are essentially gods as far as the people below them ate concerned.
We also do know it took resources away because CAF members had to literally leave the airport area and drive specifically to a rendezvous point set up just for them. By doing that they wete not screening people at the airport or going and collecting other individuals like embassy staff and families or interpreters who worked with the CAF etc.
WG handling of 3-D styles has always been absolutely bizzare. WG would make so much more money if they actually sold their 3-D skins in the shop, not locking them behind a grindfest most people never complete. I like the BPs and think they're pretty good, just WG would open up a pretty substantial income stream if they consistently sold skins in the shop and continued to add to them. The 3-D styles are almost always really cool looking and many people would definitely be willing to throw a couple dollars at skins for their favorite vehicles
Well, we do know the entire Command staff of the ship was on the bridge when it got vented and that Poe was not. And sincr authority flows in straight lines based on a rigid hierarchy based on ranks the next senior guy is in charge and the movie makes it pretty clear or at least implies heavily that Poe is the next senior guy left alive from the ships crew.
No, she makes it clear he's demoted and in shit. She never says he's no longer in a position of Authority. Leia being the hands on leader she was and in a small enough command structure decided she was going to exercise increased personal oversight on Poes actions. That again as I've tried to explain repeatedly to you is fundamentally different from being stripped entirely of Command and removed from a position of authority. He was in serious shit, sure but he hadn't been stripped of his role yet, not entirely. He probably would have been at the first calm moment- and he might have even deserved it but Leia wasn't an idiot. That exact second was not a good time to completely shake up the Command Structure and be seen to be punishing a highly respected member of the Resistance. A member who did just lead an assault that killed a super capital ship in front of everyone no less
How is it not true? What part is not true? He was a wing Commander. A senior rank. He clearly wielded significant authority over at minimum fleey pilots and air crew. He was key in the destruction of Star Killer, people saw him involved. People talk. Ships are small self contained societies where information travels extremely fast. A pilot says something to another pilot, a maintainer on the fligh deck hears them, he then tells his budy in stores who then tells his buddy in Engineering and so on. He clearly was important enough to the Resistance than Leia talks to him 1 on 1 in a casual tone and no one finds it weird. He clearly had the legitimacy of rank and personal influence the lead a fucking mutiny, not just anyone can do that. You need the right mix of legitimate authority to be believable and personal influence so people want to believe you and follow you.
Widespread? Maybe depending on the rumour mill and how effective their PR was sure. However absolutely everyone on board the Flagship, everyone who actually flew the mission and one would fucking hope senior commanders like Holdo would have been briefed. To say Poe was simply "one of many" is a complete miss characterization of what happened. It would be like saying Wedge Antilles was "just one X-Wing pilot among many", it absolutely completely dodges all sense of reality and context. It also ignores the fact he was a WING COMMANDER a senior officer rank would have been well known throughout the fleet.
No. That's a fundamental misunderstanding of what demotion means. Demotion just means reduced in rank i.e. Wing Commander to Captain or Sargent to Corporal. It does not mean stripped of Command - technical term is Relieved of Command. A CAG who is reduced in rank from Wing Commander to rank of Captain but is NOT stripped of his CAG Billet is still a CAG, he's still a senior officer as far as the chain of command is concerned. The only real impacts of the demotion would be reduction in pay, prestige/humiliation and stunted career advancement. His immidiade term responsibilities wouldn't change.
Him being acting Captain stems from him just being the last senior surviving officer of that ships crew. It's an automatic assumption of authority when you're next in line in order to maintain a smooth and orderly transfer of command. I don't actually think Poe was a good officer or would have been a good Captain or even Fleet Commander It's more that Holdo was creating such an incredibly toxic command atmosphere a total breakdown of discipline was inevitable
Demoted, not relieved of Command, huge difference there. One means you're still in the chain of command just at a lower grade, the other means you are completely removed from any position of authority.
They did have an air wing still, those transports and shuttles would have fallen under the preview of the CAG billet which Poe was filling. Meaning, the plan to evacuate using the transports would be using his assets and personnel meaning he 100% needed to be briefed.
But he wasn't? He was busted down to Captain from Wing Commander rank - which last time I checked is still a Commissioned Officer rank with Command responsibilities....
That line of thinking is utterly absurd sure there might not have been many people on the ship...or Ren and Huxley could have been on that ship. Tnat is dealing in such absurd hypotheticals that absolutely no rational person would ever even briefly contemplate them.
Also he was crucial in destroying Starkiller so.. Between the two events he's probably one of 3 or 4 people who should be utterly above suspicion
He wasn't the Fleet XO, that would probably have been D'Acy depending on how the different branches of the Resistance Command structures work out, but he was the senior surviving officer of the flagship crew which would make him De Facto ships captain unless Holdo assigned another officer to thag billet and just never bothered to tell Poe or the rest of the crew.
Why/when would Leia, the Commander of the Resistance fleet currently being chased to death have taken the time to go personal brief a matter of internal crew discipline with a not particularly senior Admiral stationed on a different ship prior to being jettisoned into space along side the entire Fleets senior comand staff?
Considering she displayed all the hallmarks of a toxic commander? Absolutely. 100% no questions asked. In an extremely...dire situation where Absolutely everyones morale is tanking and people are clearly questioning your ability to lead a commanders number 1 priority has to be to reasure their subordinates that they have a plan, any plan at all and you don't do that by just smiling and saying "trust me bro" you do it by actually sharing information to people. Secondly it is an overconfident and foolish officer who does not take in the concerns of their subordinates and addresses them. It is also foolhardy and downright self sabotaging for a senior commander to not at least listen to the advice of their senior subordinates and bounce ideas off each other. The Command Structure of an effective military unit is more like a team than a dictatorship, yes certainly the Commander is in charge, however everyone is working together to achieve the same goal and everyone has unique experiences and insights they can bring to the table. Therefore seeking advice/council of your senior experienced commanders is a sound part of exercising leadership in a crisis. Holdo did the exact opposite of all of that and in so doing literally drove her Command into open rebellion and would have quite possibly seen significant bloodshed if Organa hadn't miraculously woken up and decided to reassert sound leadership. Also the idea that people should only know the absolute bare minimum required to do their jobs is utter nonsense Modern Westerm military theory going back essentially to the Canadian Corps in WW1 @ Vimy Ridge is soldiers down to the lowest ranked Private should be able to and equipped with the information to adequately exercise the responsibilities of their superior two levels above them. Why? Well because officers and NCOs have a really really bad habit of dying so junior soldiers often find themselves thrust into positions of authority and responsibility so it's in everyones best interest if everyone has a decent understanding of what their bosses are doing and why.
Poe absolutely was NOT a "nobody pilot" the movies made that quite clear. He was as a senior officer in the fighter corps and a highly decorated pilot. He was senior and trusted enough to be on personal speaking terms with Organa as well as being senior and respected enough to countermand orders and launch a strike of First Order Fleet. In the wake of the destruction of the ships bridge he was the most senior surviving officer of the ships crew still functional and active meaning he was the de facto commander of that ship. (Remember Holdo came across from a different ship to take over as Admiral which is NOT the same as a ships Captain) He was in fact, thanks to him being the de facto Captain of the flagship he was the de facto fleet Flag Captain - which is a very senior position in any fleet due to its immidiade proximity to the Admiral. It is important to also note Holdo at no point even attempts to brief the OTHER captains/the rest of the Fleets Command structure aboard other ships therefore effectively leaving them in the dark and causing unnecessary confusion in the fleet - all the other ships might or might not have known is Organa is hurt- maybe dead, Holdo is now in charge and...that's it. No new directives nothing.
As far as the mutiny, for one Holdo essentially drove Poe to it but other than that. It is generally the responsibility of senior officers to keep other senior officers accountable/potentially remove dangerously incompetent Senior Commanders from positions they are clearly unfit to hold. Holdo, by just flat out refusing to Command or lead or do the even basic minor task of telling her Senior commanders in the fleet anything at all could possibly be viewed as failing in her duty of care to the Fleet and in her duty as unit Commander. Generally standing around and not doing anything or saying anything when you are in overall Command in an extremely dire situation is heavily frowned upon, could be viewed as freezing up etc. Do I think Poe, as Flag Captain, senior aviator and veteran officer was justified in trying to remove Holdo from Command? Ya honestly I do. Why? Well because he pleaded with her repeatedly to tell him anything about their plan - which effectively means he was demanding that she demonstrate her competency for Command and establish authority on the fleet. By just saying smiling at him and whatnot she was effectively signaling to Poe, whether correctly or not, that she was not up to the task and was not able to rise to the Challenge of Fleet Command. Which considering the extremely dangerous situation would require immediate reaction.
In reality if anything Holdos XO who seems to have come across with her from her previous ship failed Holdo and the fleet even more spectacularly. Its the job of the XO to act the go between with the CO and Command expressing and supporting the concerns of the crew to the Commander and helping to relay the response back down the line. Crew morale and discipline is the preview of the XO, she should have recognized what was happening and acted accordingly. She, the XO should have been the one to relieve Holdo of Command seeing how she was making zero effort to display that she was remotely competent for the job in the moment. If you want to handwave it away and assume Holdo told the XO her plan or something of it than the XO should have either pressed Holdo to share or the XO herself should have shared something ot Poe and rest of fleet. However, ultimately responsibility lies with the CO and we know Poe took his concerns directly to Holdo repeatedly so she can't hide behind the "its my XO fault".
As far as a spie...it was pretty damn clear the spy wasn't Poe and you could be reasonably sure of some other officers. Yes OPSEC is important but that absolutely does not mean a CO should just share absolutely zero information or pass on any orders ever.
Poe made mistakes, the reason he was disciplined just prior to this is well known and does suggest he himself is probably not a great officer. However that doesn't necessarily mean he was wrong or at least mean it wasn't reasonable for him to come to the conclusion he did in terms of Holdo
Uh no, see the incredibly important detail you are missing is equipment stockpiles and ability to replenish/fill orders. EU sure is as a whole larger by population and economy than Russia and certainly have a serious vested interest in the War. However, the EU doesn't have anything like the amount of excess stock of just about anything as the US. Hell the US has so much stock they preposition whole bridge sets all over the world "just in case" whereas most EU countries absolutely struggle to just meet the TO&E requirements for their manned units, let alone field some sort of war surplus. EU has already been steadily snd rapidly draining what little stocks they have and have begun spinning up high rate production on things like Artillery Ammunition and missiles. They're essentially at their max for what they can give, production lines take A LONG time to set up and get producing usable quantities of goods. EU already had to pick up the slack the US left when their political games halted arms transfers for months. You can't just handwave millions of Artillery shells into existence, you can't just snap your fingers and have 5 new fully kitted out SAM batteries. So no, EU couldn't take on the entire responsibility (players like Canada and South Korea notwithstanding) of keeping Ukraine equipped and in fighting shape, that's patently absurd and completely ignores reality.
The concept of France sending combat troops is nothing but political theater, it's Macron rattling his saber and absolutely nothing else. French foreign policy has long been essentially "your enemy will constantly be off balance if they have absolutely no idea what your actual intentions are". So every time Macron brings it up he's playing to both the domestic audience by drumming up support for Ukraine and also keepinf Russia in the dark as to what exactly is France's redline for Ukrainian support. Could the French delploy combat forces to Ukraine? Sure, maybe, would require at least tacit support from other EU Nations to allow the through. Could the French deploy any meaningful combined arms brigade groups capable of waging modern, high intensity combined arms combat? No, certainly not. French military is not set up for that kind of fighting, sure they would be happy to throw the Foreign Legion into the meat grinder, that's what it exists for after all but they are only a few thousand light infantry with a single light arnoured regiment- armoured cars no tanks. Not exactly very useful in a prolonged engagement of any kind against Russian Armoured formations.
The British? Ha, ya right. Sure. The British if you haven't been following have been one minute talking about how crucial tanks are to modern warfare then the next slashing their tank force nearly in half because...reasons. The UK barely has the capacity to actually field a single combined arms Brigade- even then it would likely be heavily understrebgth in several key area, would have a couple hundred old Warrior IFVs that are in desperate need of a refit that got canceled for...reasons...oh wait yes it was because Ajax program imploded and is costing then Billions extra so they decided to get Boxers...sometime in the next quarter century. Couple battalions of Challenger 2s which are fiiiiiiine but not sure how deploying them would impact the Chally 3 upgrade program so might not be feasible. Some infantry Battalions rolling around giant fucking MRAPs just screaming please mister T-72 please put a round right through my giant, slow moving body. They obviously have 2 Parachute Battalions and the Royal Marines, good light infantry sure but of limited use on their own. They're short on artillery...not sure how they would even get all that stuff to Ukraine
Sending UK or French or any other countries forces to Ukraine is absolutely out of the question. Ignoring the logistical difficulties and the fact most EU militaries are in a rough spot, doing so would be a straight up act of war by that Nation. The goal is to contain the Ukrainian war and beat Russia there, not expand it into WW3
I don't see what bearing that has on the situation?
Well for starters, resources used to get one group is resources not used to get others. That's obvious.
The real issue is that a) the MND has zero business getting involved with operational level planning. It's at minimum improper for him to have been texting un-vetted intelligence source from a non Government actor to the military on the ground. The problem becomes more...bad? When you remember that yes the MND is not in anyone's direct CoC, which means he has even less reason to be communicating in this fashion. If he or the PM wants something done he talks to the CDS, not officers on the ground. Then we get to the "it was only a suggestion" ....with all due respect, bullshit. No one and I mean no one is going to take a suggestion from a Minister as anything other than an order and EVERYONE knows that. Ministers don't do "I would like this to happen but if it doesn't, oh well" they do "I want this done. Go do it." Senior officers would see that and go "well I don't want my post military career or senior appointments derailed by pissing off the MND" and junior officers will see that and go "well if I ignore this my superior and probably his superior will be so far up my ass I could taste them (or something to that effect) so I guess I better do it". It's a CLEAR abuse of authority. It then gets even worse when you realize he effectively ordered CAF to ignore high priority individuals- translators, embassy workers etc. to go rescue his special interest group for his own personal political agenda. That's a pretty damn clear example of Political corruption.
The proper way of doing things would have been for the MND to ask (direct) the relevant authorities to add Sikhs to the list of priority classes of people to extract than provide the point of contact to the CAF personnel in charge of planning and let them do their jobs.
"Shoot until it catches fire or changes shape" is the general rule of thumb. As you point out it's more about denying equipment to the enemy than just knocking out a tank. A mobility kill will just as easily remove the immediate threat posed by the tank, but making it beyond repair removes the threat posed permanently and also applies a logistical strain on your enemy through attrition. Tanks, even Shermans and T34 in WW2 were expensive peices of equipment in limited supply and relatively hard to replace which is also why all combatants put a lot of effort into recovering and repairing Tanks as much as humanly possible
True, maybe I was being over dramatic, their forward depth is much much better than that of their D-Corps. Though to caution about over valuing the Janmark line, they weren't going up against Barkovs line constantly and Ekblad-Montour
Who else do you put out there? Oilers have absolutely zero depth at any position. McDavid is pretty easy to defend when your team has 4 top shelf D men and forwards who can actually play in their own zone
Yes I'm being slightly dramatic as others have pointed out the Janmark line was pretty consistently producing. Though, no one can say their D-Corps isn't shit and that Nurse is making 7.5m too much a year
A fourth line? Must have been right beside where they stashed their other 4 d men...they only had two worth a damn and neither of them were named Nurse or Ceci
"Don't they tell you guys anything??? Why do you guys never know what's going on?"
-"because they don't tell us anything and it's not my problem if they didn't tell you they were cleaning the carpets today"
Toss up between LAAT and the Acc. LAAT because well...infantry mobility plus stupid firepower is always an game changer whether fighting a conventional opponent like on Mimban or some insurgents on Ryloth. Plus that's 2/3 of the disgn goals of the AT AT but just done significantly better.
ACC because it's such a useful platform. The empire could have gotten insane amounts of utility out of those ships, ships they already had by the thousands. Troop transportation, prisoner transport, supply transport, equipment transport, system patrol, fleet tender, star fighter carrier, planetary support operations, crew training you name it and anything basically short of taking one major fleet assets one on one it could do it pretty effectively and at very low cost to the Empire. It would fill a valuable role in the fleet below ISD/VSD but above Arquintens. Really what's not to like about them? Give them a bit better shielding and bam you even have a decent auxiliary cruiser
Is 1.5 billion dollars an...interesting number? Yes. Certainly to a Canadian where we simply do not see numbers that large. Is it an unreasonable number? Legally? I don't know, would I suppose depend on what applicable jurisdictions have for caps on these sort of things (think of the Depp trial where the number awarded by the Jury was revised down as matter of statute). Is it understandable why a Jury said "fuck you" and put down a giant number? Yes absolutely. Jones was given every opportunity both before and during the trial to help himself yet repeatedly refused to. In so doing he absolutely wasted the time of the Jury and necessarily compounded the suffering of the parents and victims. Instead he kept doubling down, kept playing games. He brought this on himself - plain and simple.
Fuck Alex Jones. Fuck Infowars. Play stupid games, win stupid prizes.
Just to clarify- if someone sidesteping to get something triggers you to start assaulting that person with your cart, you are in fact a peice of shit
Trashy?
PublicFreakout