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Post by cv10 on Jan 26, 2018 0:06:25 GMT -6
my driving instructor taught me a good metaphor for that type of issue; imagine a big button labeled "I Believe", press the button My in-car instructor was an old fellow who served on the USS Forrestal. He was nice enough, though I don't think he thought much of my driving. He'd chat about his service: He was aboard when John McCain was in her air group (He did not have nice things to say about McCain) and when she caught on fire ("I still have no idea how I survived that" He was on the flight deck crew). I felt bad for the guy. Our city went roundabout crazy, and when he would take students through them, he would say "go straight through the roundabout" when he wanted you to go out the side opposite your entrance. One of my friends who went through after me told me that one of his students literally drove straight through the roundabout (up and over the middle part that was cement and brick). And now back to your regularly scheduled AAR (Unless I think of something else OT)
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Post by bcoopactual on Jan 27, 2018 19:26:28 GMT -6
my driving instructor taught me a good metaphor for that type of issue; imagine a big button labeled "I Believe", press the button Ah yes, the ubiquitous 'I Believe' button. Many, many of those installed on navy submarines.
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Post by Enderminion on Jan 27, 2018 20:07:24 GMT -6
my driving instructor taught me a good metaphor for that type of issue; imagine a big button labeled "I Believe", press the button Ah yes, the ubiquitous 'I Believe' button. Many, many of those installed on navy submarines. I don't get it
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Post by bcoopactual on Jan 27, 2018 23:15:10 GMT -6
In context it's generally used when the command is telling you something that you're sure is wrong and/or B.S. and you don't want to debate it anymore so you say fine, I'll just push the 'I Believe' button. It means you're not buying it but you're going along because you don't have any choice.
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Post by cv10 on Jan 28, 2018 9:26:12 GMT -6
OT- In 1906, an obscure and entirely unremarkable U.S Coast Artillery colonel named Abner Merrill, of whom his classmates said that"few men in the army had less military ambition than [him]" was made a Brigadier General because he invoked a law that pretty much everyone had had forgot about. Right after the Civil War, Congress passed a law saying that any officer who served in the field would be eligible for promotion to one grade higher above their rank upon retirement. Merrill was one of only two cadets in the Class of 1866 to sign an oath saying that they had never "deviled" Plebes (the rest of the class lost their summer furlough as a result), and got to spend the Summer attached to the Army of the Potomac.
Not bad for someone who was considered entirely unremarkable by his classmates.
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Post by cv10 on Feb 4, 2018 10:17:03 GMT -6
An update is in the works: I've been playing a fair bit of Rim-world lately (and it's kinda like Civ in terms of losing track of time) and Focus Pacific, which have distracted me from AAR writing.
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Post by Enderminion on Feb 5, 2018 8:39:36 GMT -6
An update is in the works: I've been playing a fair bit of Rim-world lately (and it's kinda like Civ in terms of losing track of time) and Focus Pacific, which have distracted me from AAR writing. actually it's worse
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Post by rimbecano on Feb 5, 2018 22:28:33 GMT -6
Rimworld is more like Dwarf Fortress (which it is plainly based on) in terms of losing track of time.
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Post by boomboomf22 on Feb 6, 2018 4:29:55 GMT -6
Time?!? What is time? Where we are going we don't need time Marty!
Also known as being anyone with a job/school
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Post by Enderminion on Feb 6, 2018 8:35:44 GMT -6
Rimworld is more like Dwarf Fortress (which it is plainly based on) in terms of losing track of time. I disagree, DF is impossible to play while rimworld is easy
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Post by cv10 on Feb 17, 2018 17:52:30 GMT -6
I am working on an update, which I hope will be done sometime in the next few days.
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Post by cv10 on Feb 25, 2018 11:57:03 GMT -6
The Headquarters dining room could fit an Admiral’s staff and a modest number of other guests, yet it was relatively empty. Only Admiral Rowley, Commander Yamamoto, and Surgeon-Commodore McGregor, a new addition to the staff, sat around the table, waiting for Simon to bring out the goose that had been cooked for Christmas Dinner. Vice-Admiral Sands had gone home to Ireland on an emergency leave: his wife had been badly injured when her carriage had overturned while turning to go on to a bridge, and it had been a miracle that she survived. Commodore Osborne and Captain Jones had been called down to London for meetings, and Lieutenant Jacobs had gone with them. Rowley had sent him to meet with his Uncle and report back on the new government.
The Asquith government had collapsed, and in doing so, had saved Rowley’s bacon. The only two things of note that had happened in November had not boded well: supplies had been short, and a pair of German battle squadrons had managed to raid the Norway Convoy: big Bayern-Class dreadnoughts with their 15 inch guns had sunk six merchantmen and their escort, and the Grand Fleet’s battle squadrons had been stuck in port with empty fuel tanks. Rowley had fully expected to take it on the neck, and why not? He was the top man and even if he’d done better in his year of command, he couldn’t expect the country to tolerate such failures.
Yet a sudden bit of political cloak-and-dagger had stepped in to save the day. Mr. Asquith had been ousted as Prime Minister by David Lloyd George at the start of December, and a new coalition government had been set up. According to the Whitehall grape vine, Lloyd George had been incensed by the Admiralty’s practice of trying to discredit commanders via intrigue and leaks to the press. It was still unclear just how frightful of a wigging Lloyd George had given Balfour, but it as certain that Balfour had been dismissed from office; not even allowed a face-saving retirement like Lord Kitchener was given. The Tories didn’t seem to give a jot: from what Rowley gathered, the young and hungry generation of upcoming Tory politicians had seen Balfour and his generation as impediments to their own futures, and stood by while the political knife was plunged into Balfour.
If all of this surprised Rowley, the choice of new First Lord was even more shocking: Mr. McKenna had been reappointed First Lord. Considering how much antipathy there was between Lloyd George and McKenna, it was no surprise that McKenna had lost the Exchequer. Yet no one had thought that Lloyd George would ask or McKenna would accept his old post as First Lord. For his own part, Rowley was pleased: he had always gotten on with McKenna during his tenure as First Lord. Indeed, McKenna had supported Rowley’s own push to get naval construction expanded, and a majority of the battleships of the Grand Fleet had been laid down under McKenna.
At last, the dining room door opened and Simon came in with the wardroom steward. The two of them were hefting a great goose on a silver platter. Behind them were a few cook’s mates, each bearing trays with several different kinds of side-dish: roast potatoes, white asparagus in hollandaise sauce, miniature Yorkshire puddings, brown gibbet gravy, a warm bread sauce, cranberry sauce, brussels sprouts and onions, and hot dinner rolls. A decanter of some sort of red wine was set aside; custom dictated that it not be touched until the Loyal Toast. Rowley, not much of a connoisseur, trusted Simon to pick something decent. Most stewards had some sort of vice: Simon’s was a tendency to dip into the Rowley family wine cellar. While Colonel Rowley might roll in his grave, Admiral Rowley could care less, and if it meant he could safely leave wine selections to Simon, than so be it. Rowley had his own pink gin, which being a cocktail was acceptable for consumption before they drank the King’s health.
Also on the table was a pitcher of ice water: Surgeon-Commodore McGregor did not hold much with vice, and it was well known that the only alcohol that he consumed was the bare amount for when toasts were called. Preachy-teetotaler officers tended to be unpopular in wardrooms, but fortunately for the social life of Rowley’s staff, McGregor was content to look after his own soul and leave others to do the same without reproof. More to the point, he had a certain wry wit to him, which made him one of the better conversationalists on the staff.
Commander Yamamoto was sitting quietly to Rowley’s left, the right being reserved for the next-most senior officer. Yamamoto was an interesting character: he was remarkably laconic, which Rowley chalked up to being a relatively young officer attached to the staff of a foreign Admiral. In hindsight, taking the young man away from Japanese battlecruiser force might have been a mistake: the actual amount of liaison work was negligible. However, there were consolations to being on the Admiral’s staff.
The RNAS had set up a new airfield nearby to defend the fleet against any sort of aerial threat. The small little aerodrome had only ten planes, and in truth, Rowley saw little purpose to it at present. However, Commander Yamamoto spent an inordinate amount of his free time at it, chatting with the pilots and even with the aircrews, trying to learn as much as he could. At the end of November, he had even prevailed upon Rowley to let him go up in the two-seater observation plane. Ever since then, Yamamoto had been bitten with the flying bug. Rowley smiled to himself as he thought about this: the young man had a lot of brains and courage, and God help us if we should ever have to face off against a fleet under his command.
The food was set down, Simon and the cook’s mates thanked, and Rowley took the carving knife and began to cut off generous pieces of goose. Before long, the dishes of the three men at the table were piled with fine food that had been served. For the first few minutes, there was little in the way of conversation. Simon had outdone himself, and the food was simply too good for them to let any of it go to waste. The bread sauce was not quite what Rowley had hoped for, but the Goose was good enough to hardly need bread sauce. McGregor seemed to favor the giblet gravy, while Commander Yamamoto abstained from any sort of sauce. Yet the young officer did seem to have a copious appetite for the sautéed sprouts. All in all, it was an excellent repast, and Rowley’s only real regret was that most of his staff was gone: he was still a part of the old school that felt that a few staff dinners here and there did much to help make it more cohesive, and even the most implacable of rivals on his staff would have been rendered amiable by the feast.
As the food disappeared from the plates, conversation flowed as freely as could be expected when a full admiral was host. Rowley was no great conversationalist, yet he managed to keep a conversation going. Commander Yamamoto, like many a young officer in such circumstances, relied upon being respectfully laconic. However Rowley was able to get an interesting conversation going with McGregor about the concept of blood transfusions.
“Well,” McGregor said “for the longest time, a lot of doctors this side of the Atlantic did not recognize just how important Dr. Landsteiner’s discovery of the separate blood types was. Interest in experimentation waned in European medicinal circles, but fortunately, the Americans and a few doctors on this side of the Atlantic kept up the work,”
“Now Doctor,” Rowley said. “What’s this talk about anti-coglaulants or something or other? All I know is that the papers I get talk about how important it is,”
“Well now,” McGregor continued. “This is what makes it so useful to us military medical men. So these anticoagulants enable us to actually store the blood without it clotting. With anticoagulants and refrigeration, we can actually store blood for a period of time,”
“Will this be very useful for military medicine?” Rowley asked.
“It will be very important for medical science as a whole. It’s a bit like anesthetic was to surgery f you know what I mean sir. Before they were developed, operations had to be short because the patient could only stand so much pain. After they were introduced, along with Lord Lister’s sterilization methods, the biggest limiting factor has been how much blood a patient can lose while being operated on. Transfusions up to this point have been fairly primitive and limited in scope, but I think that we will make a tremendous amount of progress rapidly going forward,”
Rowley nodded. He wondered if blood transfusions could be done in the operating bay of a warship, but he did not ask. Such a question might bring up duty-related issues, and Christmas dinner was not the proper place for them. Simon bringing in the Christmas puddings and brandy sauce saved Rowley from having to come up with another topic of discussion.
“Ah Simon,” Rowley said. “If you would be so kind as to do the honors,”
Simon carefully lit the puddings, and a puff of blue flames briefly engulfed each pudding. The flames made for a wonderful show, and quickly went out. The officers dug into the Christmas puddings with gusto, and demolished them entirely in short order. Commander Yamamoto, not fully aware of the stranger British Christmas traditions, nearly swallowed the three-pence coin put in for good luck. McGregor had a good laugh at this while Rowley offered the poor fellow a glass of water and stifled McGregor with a stern glance.
Once everything returned to normal. The wineglasses were brought out and filled. Rowley adopted a more formal air and sat ramrod straight as his discharged his final duty.
“Gentlemen,” he said, taking glass in hand. “The King,”
Yamamoto and McGregor echoed his words and toasted His Majesty’s health. Then they toasted the Emperor of Japan, Wives and Sweethearts (with Yamamoto offering the traditional ‘may they never meet) and finally one last simple phrase.
“To Victory!”
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Post by garrisonchisholm on Feb 25, 2018 13:42:14 GMT -6
A very tangible slice-of-life chapter, and challenging to execute; well done!
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Post by cv10 on Feb 25, 2018 17:10:11 GMT -6
A very tangible slice-of-life chapter, and challenging to execute; well done! Thanks!
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Post by cv10 on Feb 25, 2018 19:43:06 GMT -6
Ship Losses For 1916
British: 0 BB, 0 B, 0 BC, 2 CL, 10 DD, 4 Subs, 1 MS, 20 TR, 6 AMC
German: 3 BB, 5 B, 5 BC, 6 CL, 23 DD, 3 Subs, 18 MS, 2TR
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