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.

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.

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.

The 2000s Thriller Standout

So, I’ve long thought “If something like The Hunt For Red October is the archetypal 80s thriller, and Larry Bond’s Cauldron is the archetypal 90s thriller, what’s the archetypal 2000s thriller?”

Then it hit me. The Da Vinci Code. Gulp.

The Best Pitcher You’ve (Probably) Never Heard Of

Chicago White Sox pitcher Ed Walsh…

• Holds the all-time records for lowest career ERA and FIP (Fielding Independent Pitching, designed to determine how good pitchers are at preventing balls from getting in play)
• Holds the AL and post-1900 MLB records for most innings pitched in a season (464 in 1908). That’s a lot of innings.
• Won the 1906 World Series against the Cubs.
• Had a Sandy Koufax-style trajectory of burning out his arm when still fairly young (all those innings might have something to do with it)
• Was elected to the Baseball Hall Of Fame.
• Had one of the creepiest smiles of any baseball player.

Technothriller Games

The role of video games in the decline of the technothriller cannot be discounted. Beyond this, looking at just how closely they matched is fascinating to me.

The first (Splinter Cell) is very unsurprising. The plots of the first few Splinter Cell games match the themes and formats of contemporary technothrillers almost exactly. What else would you expect from a game bearing the “Tom Clancy’s” name?

The second (Metal Gear) is a little trickier, thanks to Kojima’s er, “eccentricity”. The technothriller influence is still definitely there, and at least the original, more grounded Metal Gear Solid is still not that much worse, if at all, than some of the more out-there entries in the genre (which definitely exist).

The Scale Of Poor Champions

Ted Williams and many other Hall of Famers never won a World Series. Herb Washington, a bizarre (and ultimately unsuccessful) experimental “designated runner”, did, although he was partially responsible for the A’s only loss in that series by getting picked off at first in the ninth inning.

The largest group of less-than-ideal champion players are simply bench/low-level players who just happened to be on a championship team. Little needs to be said about them except that they got lucky in that circumstance. (Robert Horry is perhaps the king of these players-he managed to win more championships than Michael Jordan while being only a decent journeyman stats-wise.)

Then there are the players in starring roles who, while not absolute flops, are still less than ideal. The king of these players is Trent Dilfer, the man who won a Super Bowl thanks to his team’s defense and then got cut. “Honorable” mentions include all the starting centers on the Bulls and Warriors dynasties and many of the pitchers on the 1920s Yankees.

 

Unintentionally Good FICINT

I was somewhat critical of the “FICINT” concept in my last post on it, so I feel it’s fair to provide an example that is both positive and humorous. The prediction of drones, especially drones dropping/carrying weapons, was unintentionally foreshadowed by two missions in the infamous Grand Theft Auto video games. The “Demolition Man” and “Supply Lines” missions are among the most (rightfully) reviled in the series. And yet they were the most accidentally prescient concerning drone proliferation and use. Imagine that.