Mobile Corps Emblems

On By coilerxiiIn Art, EssayLeave a comment

A while ago I did a post on the various Sovereign Union Mobile Corps in All Union, which included their “mascot” animals that appeared on each emblem. Now that Stable Diffusion XL has been released, I’m delighted to say that their logos became a reality. (Note: Some are rougher than others. Goal was general idea)

17th Corps

Starting things off is the 17th Corps that heroine Cholpon Murad-Kyzy served in during the Soviet Romanian War. Its mascot is the Huma Bird, and I chose the output/prompt that didn’t look so much like an eagle. Located in Central Asia, it serves as the de facto strategic reserve corps, being ready to go east, west, or south in equal measure.

5th Corps

The Belarusian 5th Corps is a bison. Historically, it was the only such corps actually made (and not have a bison as its symbol.)

7th Corps

The 7th Corps is an elk. Not much else to say about it.

26th Corps

The Northwestern TVD’s 26th Corps has the Karelian Bear Dog as its mascot animal. It did not participate in the Soviet-Romanian War, but in the event that the All Union and Northern Fury timelines were fused into one combined World War III, it would be the central Soviet force in Norway.

28th Corps

The Lviv-centered 28th Corps is one of the main units opposite new archrival Poland. Its symbol is a fairly plain lion.

64th Corps

The Donbass-garrisoned 64th Corps was in many ways the “pet” unit of legendary reformist president Anton Yatchenko, who happened to come from that area. Its symbol is a nightingale, and it was one of the key units in the Romanian War.

32nd Corps

The Crimea-based 32nd Corps was the only such one to serve in the southern Danube Front, and it only entered the battlefield after the initial Soviet-Bulgarian force had established firm bridgeheads on the northern side of the river. It’s the corps with the most focus on amphibious, airborne, and light infantry operations. Rumor has it that part of it is earmarked for a separate attack on Iceland. Its mascot is a hippocampus, a mythical literal sea horse.

43rd Corps

With its cartoon mosquito being the most whimsical logo of the entire army, the 43rd Corps is the primary mobile corps opposite the old and rising enemy: China. Because of this, it was never even considered being sent west to Romania in 1998.

57th Corps

The leaping lynx that is the 57th is the other Far Eastern mobile corps. Like its “brother” the 43rd, it did not fight in the Romanian War. However, it was on standby along with the 26th in case a second mobilization and major operation needed to be launched (it didn’t).

Review: Memories of Midnight

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Memories of Midnight

Sidney Sheldon’s The Other Side of Midnight was his breakout mega-successful novel. It is also by far the worst he’s written in hindsight. So you can guess why I was less than enthusiastic about reading its sequel, Memories of Midnight. The least interesting book and setting getting an expansion?

Thankfully, I could see from the first few dozen pages that this was better. The Sidney Sheldon formula he developed after Midnight was obvious, and that’s not a bad thing. Young Constanin Demiris is more interesting as he heads to Saudi Arabia, and Sheldon’s research into both the mechanics of oil drills and the “desert queen” phenomenon where scarce western women become fifty times more attractive in such an environment is a lot better than “here’s Aristotle Onassis”.

Sadly, we had to return to Catherine The Dull, the “heroine” of the last book before she got amnesia (long story). Which leads to a pattern in this book: When it goes back to its wretched predecessor, it doesn’t often work (although shipping tycoon Demiris is far better an antagonist than the two in Midnight, or even the past version of himself). When it stretches its legs into the world of the pop epic Sheldon excelled at so much, it works. There’s even an eerily prophetic courtroom scene where a super-defense lawyer in a high profile case uses a physical prop (I won’t spoil it) in a way that reminded me of the later OJ Simpson trial to get his client acquitted.

This weird trend makes it below average by Sheldon’s standards. But below average is still better than “bottom of the barrel”. It’s far better than its direct predecessor and in isolation is perfectly readable, but I still wouldn’t recommend it as anyone’s first Sidney Sheldon book. Even an excellent conclusion that involves a million double crosses and Chekov’s Heating Boiler (seriously, it was foreshadowed in a way that made me smile) can’t totally redeem it. But it can make for a massive improvement….

Not that that’s saying much.

How To Nuke

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How much nuke-metal can you get out of Reactor X? As it turned out, nuclear proliferation scholar David Albright came up with an oversimplified rough formula, which he wrote in a briefing.

You need:

  1. The thermal energy created by the reactor. Note that thermal megawatts are different and greater than electrical megawatts.
  2. The capacity factor. As I’m not any kind of scientist, I would say just go with Albright’s recommendations or make it even lower than 0.5 if you’re using a press-ganged power reactor to simulate the extra work needed.
  3. The conversion factor. This is obvious in the slide for purpose-built production reactors, but for adapted ones, you need to look a little deeper. Fortunately, the same presentation has a comparative slide.

(Again, do not quote me on this. The very presentation says “this is for production not adapted reactors”, but oh well.)

So:

200mw production reactor: 200×0.6x365x.85=37kg of weapons grade plutonium in a year.

Adapted LWR power reactor: 1,400 mwth, wastage: 1400×0.35x365x.51= 91.2 kg of weapons grade plutonium in a year.

A Fat Man-level warhead is estimated to need anything from 6.5 kg (very low technology, used in said bomb itself) to 3kg. See here and here.

Review: Hell to Pay

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Hell To Pay: Operation Downfall and the Invasion of Japan

With the atomic bombing in the news thanks to the Oppenheimer movie, I figured I’d had to take a look at D.M. Giangreco’s Hell to Pay, an analysis of what would likely happen if the dreaded invasion of Japan was likely launched. Spoiler alert: Hundreds of thousands of Americans and over ten million Japanese would have almost certainly been killed.

With clear and concise arguments that cite primary sources from both sides, Giangreco makes the case very convincingly. With their backs to the wall and years of experience and preparation, the Japanese would face a strung-out American fleet. This book certainly gives credibility to the statement that the atomic bomb was actually the most humane choice.

Those interested in WWII or alternate history should definitely read this book.

The Wargirl

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Made in Stable Diffusion

Anyone who’s seen my retweets knows how much I like tacticute. And Stable Diffusion gives me the chance to make tacticute in a variety of styles, clothes, and poses. The styles of these military women trend away from the fluffy model and more towards the semi-practical. I tend to give them shorter hair, and in the more photorealistic models, a rougher, harsh edge to their appearance. They may be tigresses worn down by the horrors of what they serve in, but they still have a kitten on the inside. But I digress..

Anyway, for the sake of fiction (obviously real life policy is complex and depends on so many factors), I must admit towards having my military females tending to be something other than armored infantry grunts. (All Union’s Cholpon is a medic, something women have done in battlefield support for thousands of years). Besides that, there’s vehicle crews, agents, even things like the descendants of the WWII Soviet scout-snipers. It’s not keeping them in the back and it’s definitely still putting them in harms way.

Even if there’s a mitigating factor in-setting (ie power armor,magic,even just the tone of things), I still have this bias. And I don’t mind if it’s done right, nor do I think it’s impossible to do right. I guess it’s just a partially subconcious reaction to the trend of “strong female girlboss who’s 5 foot 2 and scrawny and can do the most stereotypically masculine things better than the men can”.

Review: Vortex (Catherine Coulter)

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Vortex (Catherine Coulter)

This is the third book with the title of Vortex I’ve reviewed at Fuldapocalypse, after Jon Land’s and Larry Bond’s. It doesn’t exactly measure up to either of them. I got it in a grocery store, which was probably a bad omen because this is a perfect “grocery store thriller” mushy book. It’s not 51%, it’s 49%, which makes more of a difference than you might think.

About the only thing that makes this tale of a female agent stand out is an extremely bizarre narrative device at the beginning. She’s recovering in a hospital after a hairy field mission in Iran. Instead of actually describing the mission in a third-person narrative, the author instead has the character watching film footage of it and narrating what goes on in first person for the entire chapter. It’s strange.

But it’s the only strange part of a dull book.

Claude Larson and Library Music

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There lived a German musician named Klaus Netzle who more often went by the stage name Claude Larson. Although Netzle had many more aliases, as befit a stock music composer.

I find his work rather interesting. Meant as disposable background music, he wrote in many genres, and composed and performed many, many songs. Him and others like him made albums that filled vast business libraries but, with few exceptions, were not known to the general public until the internet.

I give you one of my favorite Claude Larson tracks:

A Thousand Words: Action PC Football

On By coilerxiiIn A Thousand Words, ReviewLeave a comment

Action PC Football

From the same company as Action PC Baseball comes [American] Football. It’s a season simulator that can offer both historical and (my favorite) draft seasons. It has a similar minimal visual interface (that can be enhanced by the player if they add more stuff into the folders) and a similar statistical crunchiness. This later part makes it more interesting than Baseball.

See, in baseball, each plate appearance is basically its own thing. It’s a high variance sport where even having a great shortstop and centerfielder on the other team just makes getting hits a little less likely. But in football, if you have two excellent safeties, a good pass is a lot less likely. Both Action PC games simulate this well.

So Action PC Baseball is more a relaxing “see what happens” game. Action PC Football is a more cerebral and demanding game. They’re apples and oranges, but both are tasty.

The Hard Lesson

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The Ukrainian counteroffensive has not gained as much ground as hoped for. It’s important to see, as these respected experts did, that it’s not just a matter of insufficient equipment. Anyway, for a bit of Fuldapocalyptic contemporary commentary.

  • There’s the Russians getting better after their initial swing and a miss. Especially as…
  • There’s the problem that everyone, including the US, would struggle with an offensive against an opponent that has had months to fortify an inevitable and obvious avenue of approach over flat terrain
  • There’s the inherent material issues. After all, the last such offense I can think of that was a huge offensive against an opponent materially better in most ways was… the Battle of the Bulge. Which didn’t go so well for the attacker and devolved into a grindfest pretty quickly.
  • But there’s also the issues with Ukraine’s own military. Again, this isn’t something really to blame. Everyone (just look at Kasserine Pass) would struggle with complex operations after quickly raising an army in a rapid desperate period of total war. Yet mentioning these very real issues and mentioning their struggles as being due to something other than just the poor stingy west not giving them 200000000 tanks and a legion of Imperial Knights attracts a lot of angry criticism.
  • Ukrainians have every reason not to think like this, but from a western perspective, having a Ukraine with NATO/similar committment but without a bombed out strip of land in its east is vastly preferable to a Ukraine with said strip of land but still locked in a conflict.

Review: Aircraft Projects of the Commonwealth Aircraft Corporation

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Aircraft Projects of the Commonwealth Aircraft Corporation

I’m a sucker for big historical reference books, so I got Aircraft Projects of the Commonwealth Aircraft Corporation, a detailed look at Australia’s aviation company from WWII to its buyout postwar. Everything from the semi-improvised military aircraft of the war to their license-built airplanes designed by other firms (ie Sabres and Mirages) to their ambitious designs is covered.

The last segment includes some pretty crazy things like a trainer/low-end ground attacker that’s swing-winged and an interceptor powered by four very small engines. The latter is a good example of how much the designs had to fit the parts rather than the other way around. This book is a well written, well-laid out treat and I highly recommend it.