Angrybk

Just being anti-woke!

First couple of episodes were a bit parody-worthy (the music is especially corny) but I'm warming up to it in the sense that I'll keep watching it. The major problem is that it's just not the right subject for an epic mini-series (they bomb stuff, omg the fighters are here, some of them die horrible deaths, lather rinse repeat). If I understand correctly it was meant to be the final leg in the Tom Hanks-proposed trilogy of WW2 stuff, after Band of Brothers and The Pacific, but I just don't think it was the right subject for that. The final series should have been a Navy thing, either focusing on a destroyer in the Atlantic a la Greyhound or the Enterprise.

It's bizarre to me that Navaly and Prighozhin went back to Russia voluntarily instead of running like hell. Kinda smacks of mental illness to be honest.

Responding to multiple posts! 1) The war was certainly an existential conflict for Ukraine, at least initially and throughout 2022. After events of 2022-2023 Ukraine is now unlikely to cease existing as a state and is now fighting to avoid a peace deal resulting in significant losses of territory (probably still most likely outcome TBH) so it's at least still quasi-existential for them. On Russia's side, it's a war of choice but they probably don't see any reason to stop -- most of the population is apathetic and the war doesn't personally affect them, the soldiers get paid very well, and the last real threat to the government was the bizarre Wagner coup-ish thing. Also events on the ground are likely to change dramatically in their favor if Trump gets elected. 2) I completely agree that it's wrong to portray either side as incompetent -- they're probably the two most experienced armies in the world right now -- but the same people saying that now are the same people going "hur hur look at those retards, a regiment from [insert name of my country] would wipe the floor with them!" in 2022. 3) Agree about game-changing impact of drones/artillery, but one thing to keep in mind is the absence of significantly effective (manned) airpower on either side. I can't think of a single successful offensive in WW2 that wasn't heavily dependent on airpower (maybe some early Japanese stuff?) and the war likely would have been WW1-level static instead.

Reading John MacManus's trilogy history of the US Army in the PTO, and he frequently makes reference to Japanese use of "smokeless powder" in small arms making it more difficult to locate enemy firing positions etc. It was my understanding from dim memory and casual googling (https://www.lonesentry.com/articles/ttt09/smokeless-power.html) that this was a myth (often conflated with "flashless"), due to Japanese small arms typically being smaller-caliber and having longer barrels than US equivalents, and possibly also simply due to the US Army often having to assault extremely well-camouflaged defensive positions, but is there any truth to this? Just a little surprised to see it mentioned in a recent US history series (which otherwise seems really accurate).

Also getting into US Army histories of the Pacific, which was always eclipsed by them damn Marine glory-hounds. Eichelberger was probably one of the best US Generals of the war, 11th Airborne kicked ass in the Philippines and nobody's ever heard of them, the story of Sutherland's affair is mind-boggling, Willoughby was a weird quasi-fascist freak show, there's always MacArthur as a psychological study. Really fascinating stuff.

At the risk of thread-jacking, one of my professors at grad school (German guy! very competent) had a big theory that the A-bomb project was largely driven by pissed-off Jewish immigrants, which I don't think the stuff I've read really plays out.

I thought you were a Spaniard!

Yeah it really holds up -- like you said, it's a great demonstration of various kinds of leadership. A lot of why I read WW2 books is to get some insights on that kind of stuff.

The series does feel really disjointed, like some experts and some idiots worked on it at the same time

Just getting into the Ralph Smith/Holland Smith at Saipan kerfuffle. McManus's Island Infernos (which I'm liking a lot, happy to be corrected ) is very much in favor of the first Smith, and takes the stance that the latter Smith liked to play the part of a grunt but never really visited the battlefield personally and didn't know what he was talking about when he relieved Ralph, the difficulties the 27th were facing, etc. This led to an incorrect stereotype about Marines being more hard-charging than the Army but for rational reasons, suffering more casualties short-term in order to reduce casualties long-term, etc. Thoughts before I dive into the several books about the Smiths Battle?

Going to watch it tonight. Gotta say the trailers seem cheesy as hell -- everybody's way too attractive, lots of swing music and "hey Joe whattya know"-type accents etc. but I'm happy to be proven wrong. Anybody else think The Pacific was way underrated? I watched it again last year and actually preferred it to Band of Brothers (which was also great).

I was pretty obsessed with both Skryim and Fallout 4, but I can't get into Starfield, and I've tried mightily (probably put 20 or so hours into it). To me it seems "wide but shallow"; it's a huge game but everything feels kinda same-y in a way. I can't understand a lot of the UI, I've never cared all that much about the crafting aspect of the games, all the armor looks the same, etc. It just feels to me like they tried doing too much at once (starship combat, base building, etc.) without fleshing it out. I thought Cyberpunk was great once they fixed it up, highly recommend. The DLC was superb.

Fondest memory was luring a couple of my opponents' SS squads into a forest and then setting it on fire with flamethrowers -- not too realistic (they all died instantly) but kinda fun. Reverse-slope was also way too effective -- set a squad behind a hill, enemies charge and get vaporized.

The "mental decline" card will never work against Trump, because if he says something obviously wrong everybody will assume he's lying instead of being forgetful.