Home
Creators
Search Recent Random
Posts
Search DMs Popular Hash Lookup Tags Random
Importer
Import FAQ
Register Favorites Keys Review DMs Logout
Community
Telegram ThePornDude
Home Creators Posts Import Register Favorites Logout

Radio War Nerd EP #178 — Sudan Revolution (Patreon)

Published:
2019-04-24 17:22:35
Imported:
2026-06

Downloads

Content

Guest: James Dahl, blogger 

Recorded: April 19, 2019

Sudan's forever ruler Omar al-Bashir was just overthrown after running the country for 30 years. We spoke to James Dahl from the war nerd community, a longtime horn of Africa enthusiast and blogger, to explain what's behind the mass uprisings, the complex history and politics of Sudan, and the Gulf states' colonial influence in Sudan. 

At 1:19:00 the War Nerd and Ames discuss the disappearance of the Japanese F-35 . . . and Ukraine's election (2 days before the election) . . . And don't forget to buy the audiobook version of "Pleasant Hell" by John Dolan!

Check out James Dahl's blog History In The Horn. 

Maps:

*Map of Sudan 

*Ethnic map of Sudan

Total time: 2:00:17

Direct link to this episode's mp3 here 

Get the new audiobook version of John Dolan's "Pleasant Hell" read by the author himself!

Files

Comments

Mark Sheffield

Was it just a rumor that the Serbs shot down that F117? I barely remember, but thought it had to do with the Serbs using some older radar system that was able to track it.

nick dee

you remenber right

Jimothy Realname

Basically the nighthawk was flying the same route every sortie because the USAF thought it was invincible, but the Serbs could track it using an older model low-frequency radar. Lower frequency radars aren't accurate enough for missile guidance, but they work fine to get an idea of where the plane is. So the Serbs track it to roughly the area where it had seemed to be releasing its bombs before, and got it in their sights just as it opened its bomb bay and was now visible to the higher frequency fire control radar. Missiles away. That's not to say it was all luck or that it was only due to USAF complacency. The Serb commander was really really good. He had all of his units operate their radar for no more than 15 seconds before immediately packing up and moving to a different prepared position, in order to avoid antiradiation missiles. They were tracking it and monitoring its habits for a number of days before they struck.

zaabittimov

Yep, pretty much the above....To their credit, the VJ (the FR Yugoslav army) wasn't the Army of Republika Srpska or some untrained militia, the officer corps there were all from the JNA (Yugoslav People's Army), which was no joke and had some pretty elaborate self-defence plans and tactics. They managed to pull off some interesting tricks like building mock ups to get bombed, or painting bridges and roads to mess with heat seeking missiles. There was recently a documentary that came out about the commander of the SAM battery that shot down the F117, Zoltan Dani ( an ethnic Hungarian from Vojvodina) meeting and becoming pals with the American pilot. It's a little sappy, but still kind of interesting.

zaabittimov

Just to add: all sides in all the wars in Yugoslavia were ex-JNA, but in the case of the NATO bombing you got to see some of the tactics that had been developed during SFRJ about fighting a far larger and superior enemy.

Matthew C

Has John seen the new Hellenic era grand strategy game Imperator : Rome? I would love to see (or atleast hear about) him playing it. You start in 304 BC and go until around the end of the roman republic, and play as a dynasty in states from europe and North Africa to the east of india <a href="https://i.redd.it/w9mf8gx4rwm11.jpg" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">https://i.redd.it/w9mf8gx4rwm11.jpg</a> If you're interested you can buy it here <a href="https://store.steampowered.com/app/859580/Imperator_Rome/" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">https://store.steampowered.com/app/859580/Imperator_Rome/</a> and once you install its not particularly complex to set up or play, I imagine a laptop could play it just fine. The game is played real-time (1 day in a few seconds) and is pure strategy. So no personally commanding troops like in the Total War series, other than deciding which type of tactics each of your armies use, and which general leads them. you can play a number of different styles of nation (settled tribe, oligarch republic, aristocratic monarchy, migratory tribe, etc), but the general gameplay is the same. You will be spending your time plotting against your enemies, building and maintaing armies, deciding what to do with conquered people, and fending off rival factions in your government. Its a game about violence, betrayal, and mass slaughter. I think you would love it

Tariq

Derek Davidson did a nice podcast episode on Sudan and Al Bashir in particular on his foreign exchanges project, if anyone wants to check that out. (Hope y’all don’t mind me posting this)

JoR

I'm personally amazed that the one article John mentioned suggested that a s200 might of shot down the f35. From their point of view that seems like a bad idea: how can such a modern plane get beat by this system made in the 60's? Then I thought about their actual motive for this, maybe their point was to say "oh, well clearly more work needs to be done on the plane", and another 500 billion will go into the f-36. And like you guys always say, barely anyone in America will bat an eye at it, especially if "Russia" is the reason the plane fell (the right would almost unanimously stay quiet about it, but now even the democrats won't budge if Russia is "the culprit"

AMP

radiowarnerd

I've promised to start gaming before but never actually got down to it. If this one really is simple enough for me--which is saying something--maybe we could play it live when I'm in New York this summer.

radiowarnerd

Woops, posted that prematurely, before I saw these great answers.

Lucas Seivane

Santiago Rocagliolo has a non-fiction one, La Cuarta Espada, and Abril Rojo as fiction.

Oren

What is James' source about the Mahadist soldiers being primarily armed with guns? This goes against everything I've read about it.