The Holzer Centrifuge

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The Holzer Centrifuge is a uranium enrichment centrifuge I’ve used as a Macguffin in various settings of mine. It is one of the smallest viable centrifuges and a simpler yet less effective design compared to its contemporaries. It has a maximum capacity of around 0.9 separative work units per centrifuge[1]. In practice with inevitable inefficiences and losses this leads to a mere 0.5-.6 in practice, one of the weakest individual centrifuges to ever spin in its hideous mission.

In All Union, the Polish Holzer centrifuge (named after the ethnic German scientist who led the program), served as one of the primary enrichment sources for the nation’s uranium path. The goal was ease of assembly with just domestic resources, hence why Holzer centrifuges were around 40-50 years behind their contemporaries and low-powered even by the standards of other first-gen designs. Nonetheless, they accomplished their goal.

[1]A napkin calc is as follows, with L being length in meters and V velocity in meters per second. Don’t really ask me to explain what an SWU exactly is.

Poland produced at least 50,000 Holzer centrifuges and operated 25,000 of them. Using an enrichment calculator and going by 0.6, the fully functional cascades would produce 77 kilograms of weapons grade uranium a year if working with natural ore to start, or 270 kilograms if working with reactor-grade LEU.

Review: Sukhoi Su-15

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Sukhoi Su-15: The Boeing Killer

A Yefim Gordon book on the titular interceptor, Sukhoi Su-15 is exactly what it says it is and exactly what you’d expect. Which is to say, a book on an obscure Soviet plane that has a lot of details, but is questionably laid out and where you really, really want to double-check everything. In this case, some of the details are interesting.

These include things like the overlooked for-but-almost-always-not-with ground attack armament it had, and of course model kit reviews. (I do like the look of the Flagon). The issues besides the ones inherent to any Yefim Gordon book are that the Su-15 really didn’t have many variants or career highlights beyond the KAL shootdown. But you could do worse if you like obscure planes.

Review: Fenimore Coopers Literary Offenses

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Fenimore Cooper’s Literary Offenses

Fuldapocalypse now turns its attention to noted World War III author Mark Twain. I have to share Fenimore Cooper’s Literary Offenses because as a child, it was the kind of thing that made me guffaw massively. And still does. Since I have not read any of Cooper’s actual novels, if I was to do so now it would probably be something like watching a Jean-Luc Goddard movie after the Monty Python “French Subtitled Film” sketch that parodied it massively.

Twain was proceeding Mystery Science Theater 3000 by a century and it was amazing. Whether or not he was accurate in his critique of Cooper, it was certainly fun to read. (Also fun fact: The home of the Baseball Hall of Fame, Cooperstown, was named after the author. Twain would have had a field day critiquing the ballots of writers who do things like vote for steroid-tarred Gary Sheffield but not Bonds or Clemens).

A Strangely Good Simulator

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Now People Playground has no shortage of contraptions simulating various pieces of military equipment. Fixed wing aircraft are either the best or worst, as you get one pass before having to either try and land the thing (no fun) or let it crash (more fun!).

The strange thing is that if you pit one of these resistible forces against the moveable objects of elaborate destructible buildings also made in-game, you get a bizarrely realistic and illustrative example of the problem with urban warfare targeting. A bomb or explosive, even one that hits a building, won’t necessarily destroy more than a small part of it. A large bomb can do better but has the problem of more collater-I mean, no problems whatsoever since this is People Playground.

Quite fun that a silly ragdoll physics simulator can illustrate the issues of having one shot, having to dive, aim, and lead, and knowing the target is not guaranteed to be neutralized even after a successful hit.

The GEC Dome

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I’ve had a dream in my mind for how I wanted the GEC Dome, a fictional football stadium, to look. It was to have a sort of pseudo-castle exterior. While attempts with prompts alone to make it in Stable Diffusion failed, making a reference image and careful controlnetting succeeded in making several far closer concepts.

Review: Exclusion Zone

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Exclusion Zone

Written by RAF veteran and Gulf War POW John Nichol, Exclusion Zone is a novel about a second… Falklands War. A rather pretentious and melodramatic thriller, this is no Larry Bond for better or worse. Mostly worse.

You get a doomed workplace romance, war flashbacks, huge descriptions, and a contrived “you must fire your torpedo down the exhaust port” conclusion. It’s too over the top to be a serious war novel but too self-serious to be a cheap thriller.

I wouldn’t call it the worst book of its kind ever, but it’s still below average.

A Thousand Words: Air Crew

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Air Crew

1980’s Air Crew (sometimes translated as “Flight Crew” or “The Crew“) was the USSR’s attempt to copy the Airport-style disaster movie. The first half is an incredibly slow episode of Aeroflot: The Soap Opera and features such white-knuckle thrills as a child custody hearing (not kidding), but the second is pure 70s disaster cheesy fun.

The plane lands in the most treacherous fictional airport in the most treacherous fictional land, and its crew then confronts a simultaneous earthquake-flood-firestorm. Getting off the ground is just the start, leading to a ridiculous and ridiculously fun conclusion that involves members of the cockpit crew bundling up and going outside as if they were cosmonauts on a spacewalk and climaxes with geography ceasing to make sense.

As a time filler, you could do a lot worse than this movie.

Review: Tiger Tracks

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Tiger Tracks

The predecessor to infamous “memoir” The Last Panther by “Wolfgang Faust”, Tiger Tracks is another story of a kitty-tank in World War II. Reading its successor or the review thereof will give you what to expect. Which is to say ridiculous pulpy action, even more blatant Wehrabooism, mysteriously detailed descriptions of battles, and a total lack of historical accuracy.

On that last point, this is even worse than The Last Panther in that regard. At least that was describing a real battle (Berlin). This is just a vague “Eastern Front” location. With anachronistic IS-3 tanks on the Soviet side that didn’t enter service until after the war was over.

Because of this, it’s an even worse book than The Last Panther.