Tag: Naval

Review: War Dispatches Volume 1

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War Dispatches Volume 1: Stories from the Front Lines of World War III

War Dispatches Volume 1 (note: not the most smooth title) is what is known in the anime/manga industry as an “omake” to Alex Aaronson’s 1980 World War III alternate history. It’s a set of stories that didn’t quite fit into the main books, but were/are still interesting enough to be told. These take place in the Middle East, from the Caspian Sea Monsters to MiGs in the sky to BMDs on the ground.

Being omakes, they are limited in scope. But this is no knock on their quality. In fact, they’re influential and good enough that I’m already starting work on a similar set of vignettes set in the Soviet-Romanian War. How’s that for a positive opinion?

A Thousand Words: Titan

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Netflix’s Titan

Netflix’s new documentary Titan is about the submarine that sank near the Titanic in 2023. It’s a well-produced film with many heartfelt interviews. However, I felt it wasn’t as good as it could have been, with one small thing the filmmakers did have control over and a much larger thing that they didn’t. Let me explain.

I think the film could have gone into more detail on showing what a proper deep-sea submersible looks, sounds, and feels like. It would have highlighted Rush’s obsession with making the nautical equivalent of the Bonney Gull even more effectively. While I can understand why they might not have wanted to get too technical, I also think i could have been explained in ways a non-scientist could understand.

The larger issue is that the cause of the disaster really wasn’t very complex. Disasters typically have a ‘swiss cheese phenomenon’ where a bunch of ‘holes’ in the countermeasures all align. So even if the initial catalyst was simple, the situation where it could become catastrophic was not. This isn’t the case here. The carbon fiber hull was fatally and fundamentally flawed, and Rush was a megalomaniac who believed his own propaganda.

That said, this is a worthwhile movie and some of the non-technical parts are actually the most interesting and telling. The CBS crew falling for Oceangate’s potemkin village is a perfect example of how the media can get strung along by people who seem like they know something. I found the host being assured by their safety checks interesting-it’s the kind of thing that seems right and would be if the hull was fundamentally sound, but the equivalent of an early Comet isn’t going to care if the fuel gauges are moving correctly. The other thing is how we see Rush trying to put women who had no seafaring experience into being the pilots of the submarines because he wanted to stand out in the media-another strike against it.

For all my nitpicks, this is a worthy documentary about a real-life terrible person who did terrible things.

Review: Soviet Attack Submarines

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Soviet Attack Submarines: Cold War Operations and Accidents

Mark Glissmeyer’s Soviet Attack Submarines is a short book on a subject that should be pretty obvious. It covers all the bases on the Soviet submarine fleet. Though this doesn’t try to go much deeper, which is a problem for me because me being the CMO player I am has me already knowing almost all of what the book had to say.

That specific problem would not be an issue for many or even most other readers, but I still can’t really recommend this book. It’s just insubstantial for lack of a better word. Basically all it says can be found through trustworthy sources online with just a tiny bit of searching. So it’s kind of a glorified fact sheet and little more.

Review: Jaws

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Jaws

Behind every good 1970s movie is a bad 1970s book. Perhaps the ur-example of this saying of mine comes in Peter Benchley’s Jaws. I had heard very little good about the novel but decided I had to see for myself. Well, the shark bit.

I recognized the prose style immediately. And by immediately I mean “A few paragraphs and I recognized the wannabe 1970s pop epic style right away”. Much of the book really feels like someone who wanted to write “‘Arthur Hailey’s’ Tourist Town “, with huge long descriptions of how Long Island resort Amity works, runs, or doesn’t. These are interspersed with long, almost Proust-esque descriptions of things that straddle the line between padding and pretentiousness.

Oh yeah, there’s a shark. Spoiler alert. However, there’s surprisingly little shark. There is a lot of romantic drama and legal drama that Spielberg rightfully threw into the chum bucket. Which is what renders the book nothing but a curiosity. The movie superannuated it. Completely.

Weird Wargaming: The All Union US Military Part 2: Air Force(s)

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Part two of this alternate history series.

Background/USAF

Until September 9, 1998, the US Air Force and Navy was mostly in a holding pattern. About the only large procurement decision was going ahead with the A-6F and F-14E Super Tomcat programs due to the continued USSR, leaving the Super Hornet as a paper plane in this timeline.

Then the Sovereign Union destroyed 80% of Romania’s air force on the ground in minutes, and panic set in. V/STOL research and dispersed operations immediately began taking the highest priority, and as an interim measure, the first major foreign-built fighter in American service since the AV-8A was made in the form of the F-21 Griffin, aka the Gripen. A huge fight ensued over whether to phase out the F-16 or keep it. The results were mixed.

US Naval Aviation

The US Navy and Marine Corps have a mixture of Super Tomcats, F/A-18A-Cs, Sea Gripens, F-24 NATFs, and A-6Fs in a support role. The Intruders and Hornets are being phased out. No, this is not just an excuse to run scenarios in CMO.

5th Gen/Updates

A lot of helicopters, high-performance VTOLs, and the F-24 being “Phantomed” into the Air Force as well. The equivalent of the F-35 is just the F-35 B/C equivalent, since a pathological fear of normal air bases exists. (Ironically the Sovereign Union does NOT have quite a fear despite knowing what it can dish out, but that’s another story).

Review: The Last Dive

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The Last Dive

Bernie Chowdhury’s The Last Dive is about one of those ever-evergreen true horror tragedies-a diving accident. With personal knowledge of the victims in the Rouse family, it should be good. But it’s a disappointing book. So much of it is basically an autobiography written in first person. Which is fine but isn’t really the point of the book.

So much theoretical potential amounts to just variants of “they died” (which is about as much of a surprise as The Death of Stalin ) . There’s also “other divers died in similar dives” and “Diving is dangerous.” These three sentences take up a three hundred page book. Which is a shame because the subject matter is so good that the book can’t be all bad. Just mostly bad.

Review: The British Carrier Strike Fleet After 1945

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The British Carrier Strike Fleet After 1945

In my 5+ years running Fuldapocalypse, I think I may have found the most dull book I’ve ever reviewed. That would be a reference book with the appropriate name of The British Carrier Strike Fleet After 1945. I feel a little bad calling it that because A: It’s a reference book, and B: It actually has quite a lot of good information about British carriers.

However, even by those standards I found it a slog. To put it very mildly. And I read reference books for fun! So I’d still recommend it if you like aircraft carriers. Just be warned.

Soviet Romanian War At Sea

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Naval forces in All Union’s Soviet Romanian War were bound to play a peripheral role. Romania had a small and weak navy, a relatively short coastline, and massive conventional amphibious landings were geographically dubious and militarily even more so. Constanta was overrun and surrendered almost immediately after the war began. Even Soviet historiography talks very little about what they and the Bulgarians did at sea, mostly just mentioning bombardment, surveillance, transport, and other routine supporting tasks. Most naval infantry units fought on land.

Yet it would be a mistake to assume that the navies did nothing or that there was no drama. Although overshadowed by the crossing of the Danube and the massive deep airborne operations, one of the largest postwar aerial/amphibious landings was conducted in Tulcea County.

  • Units near Bolhrad would cross/lift/fly over or infiltrate via smaller boat.
  • Heliborne units from the Black Sea would stage and make large landings in the depths. Black Sea Fleet aircraft and ships would naturally support them.
  • The Tulcea operation was considered lower priority and was assigned fewer resources and, uncharacteristically, had its commanders given instructions to not try and force it if the initial advance stalled. (In contrast, the Danube Front units tasked with taking the Constana area were told to rightfully treat it as a high-priority one).

Notable events:

  • September 8-9: Landings. Many inoperable Romanian ships destroyed in port.
  • September 8: Romanian corvette M290 sunk by SS-N-14 missile. Romanian submarine SC-02 sunk.
  • September 9: Sole successful Romanian air attack against Soviet Warships. Missile craft Kittivyek sunk by Romanian MiG-21s. Two other unsuccessful attacks. Five aircraft and four ASMs shot down.
  • September 10: Gunboat PSKR-710 destroyed by mine. Four Romanian craft sunk. Romanian submarines Pastrav, SC-01 sunk.
  • September 11: Final attempted Romanian air/missile attack on naval targets. Completely unsuccessful. Romanian submarine SC-05 sunk by Soviet submarine S-39 in the first post-WW2 mutually submerged sinking. Soviet landing ship SDK-303 sunk by mine.
  • September 13: Tulcea operation completed with mutual link-up.
  • September 14: Final surface engagements of the war, a duel between small boats in the north and Bulgarian ships sinking an attempt to flee southeast into the open ocean, presumably to Turkey.
  • September 16: Final naval engagement. Romanian submarine Ton sunk.

The main takeaway was that ASW was successful (no Soviet ships lost, no disruption) but it was under ideal circumstances (being able to just smother a small area).

A Thousand Words: Pearl Harbor

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Pearl Harbor

I couldn’t let a Pearl Harbor anniversary go by without reviewing the infamous (pun intended) movie by Michael Bay. Now this is frequently on the list of worst movies ever. However, I liken it to Jefferson Starship’s We Built This City, something that yes, isn’t really good, but is criticized and slammed so much that you kind of have to defend it, since you can enjoy it as a guilty pleasure juuuuuust a little bit. I mean, are you really expecting historical accuracy from Michael Bay?

I didn’t think so. But one fair bit of criticism is Bay attempting his hand at a love story, which is kind of like a romantic comedy director trying to make an action movie. Said love story takes over far more of the plot than it needs, and is probably the biggest criticism I can give other than “Michael Bay.”

So yes, World War II as told by Michael Bay. I can think of a lot better. But I can also think of a whole lot worse.

Review: Quantifying Counterfactual Military History

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Readers of Fuldapocalypse should not be surprised to learn that when I saw a book called “Quantifying Counterfactual Military History“, I instantly bought and read it. The premise is simple: The authors use the Approximate Bayesian Computation method to get a large sample size in their various simulations-much, much larger than conventional wargames.

Starting off with one of the easiest and most popular ones, Jutland, that chapter made me go “a-ha! They got it.” My favorite quote is “but unlike in a wargame, our goal is to simply understand what is plausible and what is not.” This “War of the Spreadsheets” has its roles provided one knows its limitations, which the authors do. Then comes the Battle of Britain (where the goal is temporary German air superiority, along with a controversial conclusion. There’s Vietnam where the authors actually remember the large northern conventional forces that were always there. It concludes with Cold War game theory.

There’s some technical topics that are beyond me, but this is overall an excellent book whose authors know their own limitations. As someone who loves these kinds of simulations, I was delighted to read this.