Review: Steel Rain

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Steel Rain

TK Blackwood’s Steel Rain continues his series of early 1990s alternate World War IIIs. It’s a little hard to review something that hasn’t noticeably dropped in quality and which you’ve already reviewed several previous installments. Note: This means I liked it!

Anyway, what this has done is inspire me. With my latest book done, I’m in the mood for more writing, and am thinking something. Namely, what about I finally write what I’ve always blogged about and make a conventional World War III or something similar?

Hyperfans

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I just came up with an alternate aviation term. Hyperfan, referring to such gigantic bypass ratio-turbines as the NK-93 and Rolls Royce Contrafan. These so far never-were powerplants get amazing fuel efficiency-at the cost of basically everything else. Like complexity, size (that drag can’t be good), and other stuff I don’t know because I’m not an aeronautical engineer.

In real life these concepts get names like “shrouded propfans” which are very cumbersome and not very intuitive. Furthermore, there isn’t a consistent definition of them. Hyperfan is obvious and very smooth-flowing. It’s a hyper-powered fan engine to the layman, and that’s who names them.

Review: Red Bandit

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Red Bandit

Mike Guardia’s Red Bandit is a brief history of the MiG-29, covering its basic designs and all the conflicts it participated in. Do not expect a technical deep dive or a massive tactical overview. This is a short and small book.

It’s also a book that won’t surprise any serious scholar. The MiG-29 was really just a rich man’s Fishbed meant as a point interceptor first and foremost. It did not have the versatility or capability of western 4th gen fighters or the Su-27. In most of the conflicts it’s fought in, it’s suffered heavy losses, though not always by fault of its own. We see its service in the Gulf War to Ukraine in a short overview.

This isn’t the most illuminating book on the Fulcrum. But it is an excellent start for a plane I have a soft spot for.

A Thousand Words: The Simpsons Wrestling

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The Simpsons Wrestling

Simpsons games have a reputation for a few hits (Hit and Run, the original arcade game) and a lot of misses. One of those is The Simpsons Wrestling, one of the last Playstation 1 games released. By this point, a lot of wrestling games had been made. A lot of 3d and 2d fighting games for it had been made. A lot of Simpsons games were just low-quality knockoffs of the big popular genres, from skateboarding to platforming.

This is at least interestingly bad. It’s a 3d fighting game whose only actual “wrestling” is a pin incorporated in the final knockout. The characters are laughably imbalanced, and the action is unhinged (and not in a good way). Simpsons characters with crude early 3D models pinball around the wrestling ring. Yet the worst thing is the moveset. You have only three attacks, something that Street Fighter 1 had more than twice of.

But if “it’s interestingly bad” is the best one can say about this, then… it’s bad.

Review: Russian Gunship Helicopters

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Russian Gunship Helicopters

The content of a book called Russian Gunship Helicopters should be pretty self-explanatory. Especially as it’s a Yefim Gordon book. This means you get tons of technical details that are uncited and frequently questionable, mixed with bad formatting and huge diversions into the pros and cons of various scale model kits. And a ton of pseudo-witty quotes that are really jarring compared to technical analysis. They come out of nowhere.

This book naturally covers the Mi-24, Mi-28, and Ka-50. As it was published in early 2013, it’s dated and doesn’t cover things like the Ukrainian and Syrian wars where these saw their first extensive use. It’s one big infodump and model kit review on the Hind, then one on the Havoc, then one on the Hokum.

The biggest problem is that while we get long explanations of what various components are on the helicopters, there’s one glaring omission. That’s how they’re actually used. The Mi-24 with its extensive track record is treated as an afterthought with Wikipedia-level “it flew around and shot things and occasionally dropped off people” simplicity. Reading a single Heavy OPFOR free document gives a lot more info on the actual doctrine of these things.

This is like many aviation enthusiast books: Weird and clunky but detailed. Even if in the wrong ways.

A Thousand Words: Aqua Teen Hunger Force

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Aqua Teen Hunger Force

Now Aqua Teen Hunger Force is the most misunderstood show on television. See, most people perceived it as a crude, absurdist, and surreal Adult Swim animation that made South Park look highbrow and subtle. A place featuring the strange happenings of straight man (or straight hovering box of french fries with a beard) Frylock, delightfully immature meatball Meatwad, and idiotic troublemaking drinking cup Master Shake. And their human neighbor Carl.

No. They have it all wrong. Aqua Teen Hunger Force is actually a nature documentary showing viewers the hidden, wondrous and fearsome at the same time place known as New Jersey. People don’t get it, but they just don’t get that this is what Jersey is like.

Seriously, it’s great for what it sets out to do.

Paradrops

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The problem with large parachute drops, especially post-World War II, is that you need to be able to get a bunch of large transport planes to the DZ. However, if you are able to do that, chances are you won’t need to do something as risky as a parachute landing anyway.

Then you run into the issue of whether or not the resources spent on guarding the paradrop are worth it or not. There’s a reason why large operational/strategic paradrops are more in the theoretical than real. However, even theoretical offers an advantage. The force in being strategy means that a defender must prepare for the possibility that a paradrop could happen.

A Thousand Words: Nip For Speed

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Nip For Speed

One rarely encounters a work of fiction, much less a video game as deep and enlightening as Nip For Speed. It is a point and click adventure game where you, sitting in the front seat, have to help a cat drive a car. The game is very short but I had a hugely fun time laughing my head off at it.

Make of this what you will, be it a game on materialism, a lecture on the beauty and stress of travel, or just a silly surreal game where you help a cat drive a car.