We laugh but this is not uncommon. I remember reading manpower contributions to the war in Afghanistan back in ‘17 and there were two Estonians and four Icelanders on the list. Hilarious when put next to the 10s of thousands of Americans.
I wonder how the military units get organized when stuff like this happens, do the people from the tiny countries militaries just get told to go be part of a different military for awhile and follow those guy’s orders? Do they get their own little tent and individual unique assignments from their home country?
I believe they are attached to the troops of larger nations. The bilateral military integration agreements some countries in Europe have work similarly, for example a Dutch Grenadier (IIRC) unit is attached to the german Bundeswehr. For all practical purposes they are considered part of the German forces for the duration of that exchange.
Well generally everyone on joint bases like that reports to the base commander. There’s always a clear chain of command that transcends nations when it comes to NATO operations.
Also, I expect that most small detachments like that are just technical experts, not just straight infantry or anything lol
I mean they could easily say max of 100 or some percentage. And if 100 soldiers make a significant chunk of your army, you probably shouldn’t send any soldiers as your country can even easily be invaded by rabbits.
At least a complete platoon, so something like 20-50 soldiers. That way it’s big enough to handle missions independently instead of just creating issues for whatever platoon they’re assigned to.
That would also ensure that your soldiers have some of their countrymen to fraternize with. I’m sure it’s probably pretty lonely being the only Estonian in a war.
Also not uncommon going the other way too. NATO countries will commonly station just a few soldiers in countries like Estonia. It’s trip wire kind of thing, it means if Russia attacks that country then there will immediately be soldiers from many different NATO countries (even just a few soldiers each) fighting to defend the country on day one.
There’s more than just a handful of soldiers from each NATO countries in the Baltic countries now to deter Russia from doing something stupid. And it doesn’t make sense for Estonia to deploy a lot of their military to the Red Sea given the situation with Russia. So they send one soldier as a statement that they support the operation, they simply don’t currently have the military resources to contribute significantly.
The tripwire concept applies here too, an attack on a ship that soldier is on is an attack on Estonia. Doubt that will deter the Houthis (they’re psychos) but it’s still a show of support.
Which actually is better than Excel. Currently I have to work with Excel. Gosh, how bad it got. Especially CSV import and cell formating. They really worked on being incompatible to even basic data formats just to keep you in their eco system. Try to import a UTF-8 CSV where the delimiter and the number format differs from the system settings. It completely fucks up your data and you have to import it as text and then you have to format each colum separately. Because changing the format from text to number does NOT change the view. You have to update each column manually. FU MS. There are comedy videos about number formatting in Excel: youtu.be/yb2zkxHDfUE?si=CtYMI-5FsU2bPZUF
Thanks for trying to help. But that’s the point. They make something which was easy deliberately overly complicated. The next step will be that they force you to discuss the csv import with ChatGPT for 5 minutes. And every time you’ll hear: well ok, this step now is more complicated, but we gave you a mighty tool which can do SO much more.
In that Australian case it definitely seems like it but I just hope it’s incompetence for the moat part, I like to believe that they just ran out of moderators because of little Elons revolutionary approach!
A feel good story and anon feels the need to announce his beloved’s D cups? It’s a nice fantasy he’s made about some girl that spilled water on him that one time.
I have that same grin whenever I’m around guys taller than me. It’s such a weird feeling. Like when you lay face down in the grass and imagine you’re an ant.
Yeah, most fast food places here have delivery options now, usually partnered through UberEats or GrubHub or one of those apps. At least in the cities, they do.
Otherwise, they also will typically let you order online so you can schedule it to be ready when you get there to pick it up, yourself.
even here in the boonies we have doordash now.. just as expensive as in the city, and just as cold whenif you get it.
and i think you can still pay a one-way taxi fare and have them pick up an order and deliver. it has to be ready, waiting and already paid for--they won't wait. this is the cheaper option, because you're paying menu prices. not third-party 'app' prices plus bullshit fees and surcharges. fare is about 5 bucks anywhere in town.
A gas station several miles away makes amazing tasting food. I’m sure the fried chicken is fried in the cheapest transfat oil, but I’ve largely moved away from meat. I still eat it but I feel better when I restrict it. They also have baked chicken, meatloaf, etc and the veggies are slamming. And it’s not always cheaper anymore, to do it yourself, unless you catch a free ride that day and exchange your time.
Bike, walk, pay too much in time, money, effort, etc, or make friends and catch your rides when you can, understanding it may come at a mutual inconvenience.
An irritating number of companies make it inconvenient to just view a menu, and want you to “Start your order!” to see prices and availability. I get that certain items are regional so entering a zip code makes sense, but if I just want to look at a menu and prices to see if I even want to do business with them I shouldn’t have to create an account.
That said, for convenience purposes I’ll occasionally order food online or over the phone so it’s ready by the time I’m driving past on my way home and pick it up.
I often feel I’m stuck in the 90’s when it comes to ordering food. I like calling a restaurant, I like driving to pick it up myself, I like asking them shit about the menu over the phone.
I’m a human being, yo talk to me, don’t just tell me to go to the app or the website.
And before anyone beats me to it, yeah I’m angry at that cloud.
On one hand yes, Jerry is a jerk who’s always trying to get Tom in trouble. On the other hand Tom literally spends every episode trying to murder and eat him so maybe it’s not entirely uncalled for.
Also most of the time he’s just trying to get food for himself, a lot of the “good ending” episodes are literally just Tom taking the stick out from up his ass and sharing the miniscule bit Jerry needs to be full because he’s a flipping mouse.
Most brilliant moment in all of science fiction. Actual demonstration of an actual weapon mixed with meta commentary on science fiction weapons in general and how villains can’t ever seem to shoot straight.
I don’t know if I would say “in general”, but definitely in the Stargate universe.
It doesn’t make that much sense for Star Wars, but then the universe doesn’t really explain a lot why, just that things are the way they are.
Star Trek seems to deploy handheld energy weapons because they provide a greater range of responses, from less than lethal to able to take out armored opponents with a single weapon.
If you’ve mastered storing energy densely, energy weapons are just way better than ballistic ones. You get way more “ammo” out of the them and more flexibility as you say.
Stargate just had intentionally stupid energy weapon usage. The staffs were just bad overall, including in melee. A gun you aim by swnging it on top of your shoulder, that fires incredibly slowly and inaccurately that barely has as much punch as a 5.56 round? That you also use as an incredibly top heavy and slow bo staff? What are you idiots doing?
Meanwhile they have Zats, which are amazing, and barely use them. Rapid fire wide projective pistol grip guns that you can duel wield that instantly down your enemy in one hit, regardless of where you hit them? You have these shits on hand but all you motherfuckers are running around with cumbersome staffs?
Why Stargate command never made a zat rifle is beyond me. A P90 stock with unlimited ammo that was by default non lethal? Why the fuck are you not doing that?
I look at it like the Gou’auld has levels to their militaries, with the bulk of them being geared towards internal security. If these troops flipped, the Gou’auld could later deploy better military to take out the initial troops.
It also helped that any tactics that rebels used successfully against the first set of forces would likely fall apart against the reserve set.
See, I dont buy it. You dont see these troops ever. You do see the Gou’auld with the bog standard Jaffa always at their side, even as their personal entourage. If they had “shock troops” or star wars style “red guards” they would have shown them in the series.
The closest is the super assassins that are occasionally invisible, but they mainly just use a knife, and are never defensive.
I think after thousands of years of just Jaffa vs Jaffa, a race of being with healing powers, their warrior culture got very ritualized and stagnate. The staff weapon is considered thr “honorable” weapon, even though its immensely stupid.
The very minute an outsider comes in with a dumb ballistic gun that shoots 900 rounds/minute, suddenly entire Jaffa squadrons of 100yr+ old warriors are getting mowed down like saturdays grass by a 4 man team consistently of 2 warriors, a warrior scientist and am archiologist that carries a 9mm.
When 9mm linguist man is whooping warriors with a centuries experience emass, yall fucked up.
You dont see these troops ever. You do see the Gou’auld with the bog standard Jaffa always at their side, even as their personal entourage. If they had “shock troops” or star wars style “red guards” they would have shown them in the series.
Serpent guards are the elite of apophis. Other goa’uld have similar elite forces that guard the goa’uld. The First Prime is the foremost jaffa in the goa’uld’s personal guard.
Nevermind the US Military having magazines that fire red-laser stun rounds. We see them abundantly in one episode, and then I assume the writers agreed to pretend we didn’t.
The Federation also has deliberately unwieldy weapons, to discourage solving problems through violence. The redesigned phasers for the 1990s were so awkward that actors in combat-heavy episodes complained. That’s why late-90s Trek introduced rifles.
you know i like to compare this to how we view the bow and arrow compared to guns
yeah the bow is primitive but it also doesn’t shred your eardrums and arrows can usually be fired again, which makes it actually pretty good for hunting even to this day!
I've had Star Wars fans argue vigorously that a Jedi could deflect a cloud of buckshot with a lightsabre. I'm a Star Wars fan myself but that's a sure sign of someone who's gone completely off the deep end. It's a very basic question of simple geometry - you can't intercept every pellet in a three-dimensional cloud with a two-dimensional rod regardless of how fast your precognitive reflexes are.
Yeah it happens, but the bright light from the blade makes it clearly visible meaning that in a real battle your enemy would see where you are and kill you before your boomerang would come back to you
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