All Union is now out

On By coilerxiiIn Blog Stuff1 Comment

After months of work and preparation, I’m delighted to say that All Union is now out in both electronic and paperback versions. It’s an alternate history novel about a world where the Soviet-ahem, Sovereign (totally not Communist or anti-Western, we swear!) Union remains a superpower and the dawn of high-tech war was in Romania and not Kuwait. It’s, as the subtitle says, a novel of love (seriously and unironically), war, and mystery, as everyone from a “Generallismus” to a New Jersey clerk to a Kyrgyz nurse makes their way through this different but similar world.

It and particularly the style in the second half is the kind of book I’ve wanted to write ever since I’ve started Fuldapocalypse. And now I’ve done it. Writing this was incredibly joyful and satisfying, and I hope reading it is as well.

The Evolution Of The Word “Battleship”

On By coilerxiiIn EssayLeave a comment

Battleship has an interesting evolution. It originally meant “line of battle ship”, what we now know as “ships of the line” (big armed sailing ships larger than frigates). In fact, some old battleships in the German Navy were deliberately classified as “Linenschiff” (Line Ships).

In the steam age, battleship eventually meant “the biggest and most armored self-propelled ship.” So far so good. It then shifted to leftover World War II battleships that were very distinct from their later missile-age counterparts. However, the specific term has been slipping. Now “battleship” is often used as a synonym for “warship”. Many people mind this. I don’t.

A Thousand Words: Iron Eagle II

On By coilerxiiIn A Thousand Words, ReviewLeave a comment

Iron Eagle II

The budding Iron Eagle franchise was walloped by two things. The first was actor Jason Gedrick, who played Doug Masters, being occupied with the movie Rooftops, forcing his character to be killed off. Ask Alien fans how they feel about star characters being unceremoniously disposed of. So there was one misstep.

The second was glasnost. “Teaming up with the Soviets against a Middle Eastern petty dictatorship” doesn’t have the same appeal as fighting them. And if Mirages/Kfirs as “MiGs” are questionable, F-4 Phantoms as “MiGs” are downright laughable, being a far better known and far more distinctive shape. The plot is similar to the much later Top Gun: Maverick, in that a vague opponent has a nuclear facility that needs to be blown up, and then things blow up. However, that MacGuffin is common enough that I can believe it as just a legit coincidence.

For all the stumbling, this movie still has explosions, and is cheesy to a degree that makes the first look like a serious art film drama in comparison. Come for the terrible accents, stay for the “BMP” that’s an M113 vismod on the level of the costumes on dogs in The Killer Shrews. It’s not art, but you probably weren’t expecting a movie called Iron Eagle II to be art. It is extremely stupid fun.

Review: Handbook of Military Knowledge For Commanders

On By coilerxiiIn ReviewLeave a comment

Handbook of Military Knowledge For Commanders

One of the biggest treats I’ve read is the translated 1980s Chinese document called the “Handbook of Military Knowledge For Commanders”. Exactly as it implies, the document is a hundreds of pages long and highly deep look into the Cold War’s least advanced and most secretive major army. Because of this, it’s an excellent resource not just for the Cold War PLA, but also many of the client states/units equipped, trained, or even just inspired by it. As well for less-advanced (compared to major powers) armies in general.

A lot of this contains basic stuff that any field manual reader won’t find surprising. The layout, at least of the translated version, leaves something to be desired. And there are a few translation quirks like keeping the romanized Chinese word “Fendui”, instead of just saying “units” or “subunits” (as would be appropriate for the context.) In fact, the document has the worst of both worlds in that it shows “Fendui” but not the original characters, making it confusing for both English and Mandarin native speakers.

Still, this is an excellent study of not just that specific army at that point in time (mid-1980s), but also of many principles applicable to all forces at any time. If you have the time to dig through four hundred pages of field manualese, it’s well worth your while.

Weird Wargaming: The Condor Missile

On By coilerxiiIn Essay, Weird WargamingLeave a comment

Imagine a ballistic missile made by as close to as pure a League of Evil as it’s possible to get. Such a missile did not actually (to public knowledge) enter service, but it was worked on by several of the world’s most nefarious regimes. I speak of the Condor II/Badr-2000 (and undoubtedly many more names if it had spread) missile that was worked on by the Falklands-era Argentine junta, Saddam Hussein’s Iraq, and Egypt’s military regime (which has been credibly rumored to have continued development on other long-range missiles based on it in secret by itself.)

In Nuclear War Simulator, if I want a basic strategic missile for a rogue nation I’m giving plausible nuclear weapons, I give them Condors. As a final version of the Condor II was never explicitly built and tested, exact figures cannot be determined. However, range has been stated at 500-1200 kilometers and circular error probable from 500-50 meters, with even the larger number being acceptable for a nuclear warhead aimed at a city. The UNMOVIC report on Iraq’s missile program stated that the Badr-2000 had more modest goals: 1 phase with a range of 620 km and a CEP of 6.2 kilometers, followed by Phase 2 (620 km/620 meters) and Phase 3 (750 km/750 meters). The ballpark is narrow enough for me to use a “considerably longer than INF limits, and not too inaccurate” judgement in individual cases.

The payload was about 300-500 kilograms, and the missile around 80 centimeters in width. This would require a small warhead to work properly, and a light one to push the missile to its intended range. The first-gen Iraqi warhead would have been too big, but it would not have been an insurmountable problem given enough time (or, in my backgrounds, an AQ Khan-style nuclear network providing the materials/documentation to build a ‘standardized’ warhead small enough to fit into a Condor II).

To have every regional nuke-seeker get Condors is still a bit of a stretch. Historically, the foreign components and shaky finances of the developments gave opponents leverage that they used to squash it. But to have some of them slip through is not entirely implausible.

Review: Children of the Night

On By coilerxiiIn Review1 Comment

Children of the Night: The Strange and Epic Story of Modern Romania

With All Union and my Soviet-Romanian War project, I figured getting a good one-volume history of the Southeast European country would be nice. And Paul Kenyon’s Children of the Night delivers. It starts in 1442 with Vlad “Dracula”, or “The Impaler” Tepes, and more or less concludes with the execution of Nicolae Ceausescu in 1989. The book is a magisterial epic of Romania’s frequently bizarre and violent history.

One consistent theme is Romania being perched on an unsteady point and being tugged on in multiple directions for centuries. Whether it be the Hungarians and Turks, the Russians and Turks, or the east and west in the Cold War, Romania always feels like an odd one out, a Latin enclave in a Slavic realm. The most blatant example of this was Romania spending the first part of World War I figuring out who it should support (it sided with the Entente eventually), but this was shown throughout history. The most ghoulish is Ion Antonescu’s regime conducting some of the worst massacres of the Holocaust, but suddenly changing its mind on the deportation of Jews-conveniently right after the encirclement at Stalingrad.

But it’s its postwar history where the book shines. Ceausescu’s reign of terror is well documented, and the scenes of his fall and execution read like they could have come straight from The Death of Stalin. It also shows that his tendencies towards what can be called “independent totalitarianism” started under his predecessor, Gheorge Gheorghiu-Dej.

If you could only read one book on the history of Romania, this would be a good contender for the choice. It’s definitely worth reading.

Review: Battle Whale

On By coilerxiiIn ReviewLeave a comment

Battle Whale

Alan Spencer’s Battle Whale is a parody of the “creature feature” monster thriller books that its publisher usually makes. Its premise and plot (to say nothing of its tone) can be described pretty accurately from just the title. It’s a spoof. But it’s not a very good spoof.

The first problem is that it’s very forced. A good spoof in my eyes needs to be deadpan. This just shoves the wackiness forward at every opportunity. The second is that the joke is repeated for a hundred and fifty pages, which is about a hundred and forty nine more than it would need to be fresh. Third-this isn’t exactly Douglas Adams or Mark Twain in terms of prose.

It does know the genre it’s mocking well. I’ll give it that. But only that.

Nuclear War Simulator is Out

On By coilerxiiIn Blog StuffLeave a comment

Nuclear War Simulator, a detailed simulation of nuclear war (obviously 😀 ) on any scale from “one missile” to “one destroyed world”, of any type from “meticulously placed real units and real locations” to “hypothetical custom clashes between two countries that never historically developed nukes at all” is now out.

It can be gotten here.

All Union February Update

On By coilerxiiIn Blog Stuff, EssayLeave a comment

All Union, my alternate history novel project, is coming along very, very nicely. The first volume (yes, it’s grown big and ambitious enough to require multiple volumes) should hopefully release sometime in the spring. I’m very excited.

I’ve long since wanted to write a book like the one I’m making now, and I’m finally doing so. And yes, I’m doing things that the snarker me would have slammed several years ago. Oh well.

Review: Star Wars vs. Warhammer 40k Season 1

On By coilerxiiIn ReviewLeave a comment

Star Wars Vs Warhammer 40k, Season 1

Star Wars and Warhammer 40,000 combine science fiction with mystical fantasy, albeit the latter to a much larger degree. So it came as little surprise that one self proclaimed “fan with too much time” made an elaborate crossover audio drama of Era Indomitus 40k and prequel-era Star Wars. A large fleet from the Imperium of Man gets blown into the Star Wars galaxy at the height of the Clone Wars. Stuff then ensues.

An open-ended fanfic is always hard to review exactly, so I’m sticking with the first season in this review. And it’s excellent. First, the audio drama has some great written and voiced scenes, like describing what it’s like to be on the receiving end of an Astartes/Space Marine attack (hint: not very pleasant). Second, it manages to balance the factions well. The clash of Astartes vs. Jedi is balanced in an apples vs. oranges way, as they’re not symmetric superhumans the way that say, Astartes and SPARTANs from Halo would be. Finally the culture clash (as in, what happens when a sane universe meets a crazed one) is handled great as well.

This reminded me of Worldwar, with the Imperium as the lizard-race. It’s been a very fun way to pass the time.