Tank Pioneer

Ludwig von Eimannsberger was an Austrian military officer and armored theorist whose 1934 book “Der Kampfwagenkrieg” proved prescient (though as with everything else, there’s argument about just how influential he truly was).

Regular infantry divisions for the grinding, independent tank brigades designed to be attached to the infantry units for support, and a pair of specialized exploitation forces-divisions with hundreds of tanks to spearhead the exploitation and motorized infantry divisions with massive amounts of antitank artillery to guard the flanks of the tanks. The heavier artillery (Eimannsberger was an artillery officer) was intended to be multipurpose, able to be used for anti-tank, anti-air, and both direct and indirect support fire.

His armored division is a little (forgivably) tank-heavy and infantry light. The formations overall are, with hindsight a little too pure and over-specialized. More interestingly, Eimannsberger was a World War I artillery commander who still thought like a World War I artillery commander in terms of command and control. It’s an open question as to whether a more modest and stiff but doable system like his or a shoot-for-the-moon deep attack that the Soviets proposed at the same time, but were unable to meaningfully do in practice until after years of war and hard lessons was “better”.

Still, it’s an interesting historical footnote.

RIP René Auberjonois

René Auberjonois has just passed away.

The actor had a very long and diverse career, from Father Mulcahy in the original MASH movie to Odo on Deep Space Nine to independent films. I know Auberjonois best from his role as the reclusive Howard Hughes-esque businessman and scientist Mr. House in Fallout New Vegas. Auberjonois played that part very well.

RIP.

The Circle Trigon Light Division

I’ve been reexamining the Circle Trigon Aggressors lately, and their 1947 rendition, before they quickly turned into a telephone-game version of the Soviets, is a little strange(r).

They range from “normal” formations like conventional triangular infantry divisions (three regiments, three battalions per regiment) to “I see what you’re doing” small, tank-heavy armored divisions that resemble Soviet tank corps/divisions from the time period to slightly offbeat ones like their motorized/mechanized divisions with somewhat odd mixes of organic infantry and tanks , to their specialized airborne and cavalry divisions to, finally, the light division.

Light divisions are divided into two brigades of four battalions each. The division and even brigade headquarters have very little in the way of support or weapons, being mostly there as administrative/command formations. The eight battalions are very large (consisting of five companies of infantry with the usual company-level support weapons) and contain an organic battery of four 75mm field guns.

The light division was not meant for high-intensity warfare and, in the “storyline” was disbanded after the first failed Circle Trigon campaigns. Given my liking of “strange” unit formations, I found the light division somewhat interesting.

Alternate History Types

There are five main types of  alternate history, I’ve found. Three are only technical: Alternate Presents, Alternate And Historical But Not AH and Secret History. Two are more firm: Alternate History As Setting, and Alternate History As Genre.

Alternate Presents

This is the kind of “Alternate History” that’s only so in the most nominal fashion. Almost none are ever sold as alternate history, and if it’s mentioned at all, it’s as a “ok, I guess this happened” when talking about the background. So if there’s a fictional city it takes place in, it’s an “alternate present”.

Really, almost all fiction falls into this category. The only fiction that doesn’t is historical fiction that contains no made-up characters and is explictly trying to reenact a historical event as quickly as possible.

Alternate And Historical But Not AH

This is a strange classification, and it mainly has to do with events in a piece of historical fiction that A: diverge from actual history, but, B: Doesn’t change the grand-scheme events, and C: Isn’t really sold or promoted as “alternate history.”

The prime example I have of this is, of all things, Kelly’s Heroes. Yes, there’s an ahistorical gold raid there in World War II, occurring long before the movie was made. But it’s not sold or considered alternate history, and doesn’t explore the ramification.

Secret History

This is when there was a big divergence in the past but which didn’t cause an actual change in history as we know it until the moment of the story. The Casca series is “Secret History”-yes, an immortal Roman mentored Genghis Khan and killed Adolph Hitler, but the Mongols still achieved what they did and Hitler still died in a bunker in Berlin in 1945.

And speaking of that mustached man, my favorite “secret history” divergence comes from Jerry Ahern’s Survivalist series. That has many styles. It’s post-apocalyptic action, then it becomes science fiction, and then the “secret history” part kicks in with the plot point of Hitler’s dead body being kept in a New York facility. Did that change anything up until Book 1? Not really.

Those three are only really considered alternate history in the most broad view.

Alternate History As Setting

A lot of alternate history, and, more importantly, a lot of stories that aren’t sold as or even considered alternate history fall into this category. There is a big divergence, and it did have an effect.

And yet, it’s there as a setting, a backdrop, to a main story taking place in a clear genre. Lots of “Alternate History As Setting” pieces are sold as alternate history. Others basically aren’t-a stereotypical steampunk story, The Yiddish Policeman’s Union, and Hotline Miami (three very different pieces of fiction) are all “Alternate History As Setting”.

Alternate History As Genre

This is the top of the pyramid and is reserved for works where the alternate events themselves are front and center, driving the plot. It encompasses a lot of Harry Turtledove’s fiction and essentially every work written in the “pseudo-history book” style.

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

As with every category, not everything fits exceptions and there’s bound to be countless exceptions/works of fiction that don’t clearly belong to any one or could reasonably be considered both. But I’ve found a lot of stuff can fit pretty neatly into them.

The Baseball Hall Of Fame Ballot

Now the latest BBWAA Hall Of Fame Ballot has been announced.

There’s one obvious Hall of Famer (Jeter) and a bunch of question marks. The past few years have seen an unprecedentedly large group of players cross the 75% threshold, something that may very well change.

The Super-Pickup Truck

So one of my automobile what-ifs, occasionally acted out in Automation, is “what if you put a supercar engine in a pickup truck?” (In-game, not really that much, all things considered, though I’m not the best at optimizing)

And it turns out that that indeed happened in 2004, when Chrysler put the V10 engine from the Viper in a Dodge Ram to create the Ram SRT-10.

Black Cats, The Symbol of -Tanks?

It’s apparently National Black Cat Day. Black cats are associated with many things, and one of them is tanks, as this World War I poster shows.

 

The World Series Champion Records

The World Series starts tonight. So I’ve been looking up the list of players with the most World Series championships .The leader is Yogi Berra with ten. You really have to dig a little to find players with a ton of rings who never played for the 1920s-1960s Yankees.

Two interesting standouts are the ever-slow aging Jamie Moyer (who was good enough to start a game for a World Series winner in 2008 at 45) and John Lackey (whose appearance on three different World Series winners years apart brings Robert Horry to mind).

Happy 19th Birthday, Pokemon Gen II

So today is the 19th anniversary of Pokemon Gold and Silver being released in North America. Having played the Silver version ridiculously extensively when younger, I feel like Gen II remains my favorite to this very day. The grumpy you’re-no-fun part of me says it was because I was old enough to truly appreciate it but still young enough to have a child’s awe. Oh well. I still think it’s my favorite generation.

It just felt BIG. All the activities you could do made it feel big. That you had two regions made it feel big. The different day/night cycles and weekdays made it feel big. It felt big and lively.

When I got the Ruby version, yes, the graphics were much better. But the day/night was now a technicality and it just didn’t feel as big. Oh, it was probably as big or bigger in terms of actual tiles, but it didn’t feel big to me. Silver felt big. Silver felt really big.

I’d say Silver and Fallout New Vegas are my two favorite RPGs of all time.

 

The Inter-Korean Military Balance

I’ve been, partially for one of my million plot ideas and partially just for fun, taking a look at the Cold War inter-Korean military balance from various old documents. So the picture forming is…

• From 1953 to the 1970s, the two armies are basically just infantry blobs with superpower hand-me-downs. The south has the bigger blob, so it has a decisive advantage.
• The late 70s-through 80s are when the north has its biggest advantage, but the south’s military is still strong enough that it would never be a 1950-level pushover.
• Weirdly enough, in the mid-70s, the biggest single on-paper advantage the north has over the south is its air force. Not often you see that in a Soviet client vs. a western one.