First Of All -
No! We are not going to be enthusing about the titular comedy show, although Conrad is not what you'd call a fan I do approve of what I've seen, and the conceit of having 4 brainy nerds as the lead characters has some cheek to it, and Sheldon is a role model for the ages, and having couched the title in such terms allows me to include a click-baity picture. Art!
No, today we are going to be looking at the latest iteration of a theme we've covered a few times recently, namely the comical - only in a very macabre way - Ukrainian attack on Mordorvia's oil and gas infrastructure. This has to be updated every week because the 'tufties', to translate the Ruffian insult, keep going at it. Art!
As you can see, the Ukrainians began drone attacks on Ruffian oil refineries in January of 2024. Typically, these were single strikes weeks apart, allowing the orcses to get repairs made and have the plant running in a few weeks or months later. Conrad sees this as a 'proof of concept' action, with the SBU, who organised these strikes, finding out if they had drones with sufficient range and payload to seriously damage a refinery when they struck it, and if they could avoid Ruffian air defences and Electronic Warfare units. They could, but another retarding agency was the Biden administration, where Jake 'The Brake' Sullivan cravenly counselled caution, and they put a stop on drone strikes for fear it would affect the pistachio harvest in the Sanjak of Novi Pazar. Or something. Art!
The print is a little small so let me just confirm that the Ryazan refinery, which supplies - sorry, wrong tense - supplied the Moscow region with refined fuels, has been hit 8 times. The inhabitants of Barad-Dur are feeling the petrol pinch right now. Art!
It's not just motorists who need cars to get to work, it's also the logistics industry this affects. The Volgagrad (ex-Stalingrad and expect it to be renamed 'Putingrad' in the near future) refinery supplies the Ruffian invasion force on their southern and eastern front and has been hit nine times. Shortage of fuel has meant that Ruffia's summer offensive has been hamstrung by lack of petrol and diesel. Ooops.
In Crimea the orc-appointed Governor made a blithe statement last week that the shortage of AI92 petrol would be over in two days and that of AI96 in two weeks.
He was lying. I'm shocked! Shocked! Well, not that shocked.
The few stations that have petrol have seen the price rocket upwards and motorists are now limited to 30 litres at a time. Th
STOP PRESS Crimean fuel limit reduced to 20 litres. Art!
I want to focus on this specific attack on the Ruffian refinery at Yaroslavl, which was recorded by lots of passing motorists as it took place in broad daylight. The FSB's stern injunction about not filming or broadcasting drone strikes seems more honoured in the breach.
So, what's wrong with this picture? Well, once again there are no point defences to deal with incoming drones. No roving patrols of light trucks mounting heavy machine guns; no MANPADS; no anti-aircraft cannon; no EW kit; not even a squad of grubby simpletons with AK-74s. Bear in mind I am not a soldier and even I can come up with suggestions about defences; the orcses seem to have just given up in despair. Art!
That's the location of Yaroslavl on a map: 1,000 kilometres away to the north east of Barad-Dur, and I bet the drone avoided flying over Moscow, where there are lots of air defences and EW systems, so well over 1,000 kilometres. The crafty tufties will have figured out where there are gaps and holes in the defences thanks to previous drone incursions and now US intel, too.
In the past any attack on Modern-day Mordor needed to take into consideration two of the biggest Ruffian assets: General Mud and General Winter. Well, drone warfare completely negates both those traditional aids. What we are seeing on the side of Ukraine is General Space, because Ruffia is such an enormous country, with very widely scattered vulnerable targets, that it can defend only a fraction of them, especially considering a notable percentage of what they have is defending Bunker Midget's private palaces. Art!
The irony, it burns with the fury of a thousand suns. China, or as we at the blog have it, The Populous Dictatorship, buys Ruffian crude at a big discount. It then refines it and will be selling it back to Mordorvia at gouging prices that Moscow will have to just put up with.
The 'gas station with nukes' is running out of gas, 'twould seem.
Here's A Headline I Can Get Behind
If you are reading the blog on a regular basis you know how fond we are of the Boorish Orange Oaf Himself, because he creates content just by waddling around a golf course, cheating as he goes. Art!
Indeed. The only consistency DJ Tango has is in cladding the White House in pimp-chic gold applique. He is now threatening Venezuala, probably completely at random, which means he's not threatening Canada, Greenland or Mexico again. Remember, this is the man who is so spiteful and petty that when Indian PM Modi sharply refused to nominate Donold for the Noble Peace Prize, the tariff hammer was instantly applied.
BOVINGTON TANK MUSEUM!
I shall be merciful and not post a lot of illos here, because we're only a couple of hundred words off Count total. Art!
This is the M3 'Stuart', the first South Canadian tank purchased by the British, used widely in North Africa and the Far East. It's the earlier iteration of the M5 Stuart which we already covered. The British name for it was the 'Honey', according to legend because the first British crewman to drive it was asked how it was and replied 'It's a honey!' Frankly, it was under-gunned, the 37 mm gun being less effective than the British 2-pounder, and somewhat under-armoured, too. Since it used aircraft fuel (having an aircraft engine) you got out of it in a hurry if there was a fire risk, and author Geoffrey Wagner states that soldiers unused to it would look to the skies when it approached.
What it did have, in spades, was reliability, which was always a problem in the harsh desert environment, meaning the ancient A9s, A10s and A13s could now be scrapped. It could make high-speed turns without throwing a track and, according to some boastful crews, could do 50 mph on perfectly flat terrain. Art!
The M5 Stuart breaks down. Reliable, hmmm?
If You Thought Storm Amy Was Bad -
Spare a thought for the population of Bulgaria's Black Sea coastal region, whom have been hit with flash flooding that has killed three people and caused power outages. Art!
High street in Elenite
Turned cars into involuntary boats, too. "Ai ai ai ai!" laments the onlooker here, probably because his car is one of those sailing away. Makes my trek into Babylon Lite yesteryon seem a bit sick.
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