June 10, 2007
Massive Accident in Montreal
Robert Kubica of BMW was just involved in a massive accident during the Canadian Grand Prix. He went off the road at full speed and collided with a concrete barrier, shattering his car.
He was obviously unconcious when the car came to a halt on it's side... or what was left of it's side.
This was far and away the worst accident I've seen as a F1 watcher (though the Rubens Barrichello accident in 1994 may have been worse), and I fear desperately for the health of Kubica.
Stay tuned for updates as they become available.
UPDATE, JUST A MOMENT LATER: It's telling, I think, that the FIA has refused to show the work being done on Kubica. Since the accident occurred, we've not seen one shot of the car's resting place. That's scaring me more than anything, I think.
UPDATE 102pm: Smarmy Windsor reports that a FIA member told him that Kubica is "stable". Windsor would say that, though, being a shill for FIA. I trust him as far as I can spit a rat, so stay tuned.
UPDATE 111pm: Smarmy reports that Kubica's manager has told him that he's spoken to the Pole, that he is responsive, and still "stable". I'm starting to think that we might have dodged a bullet.
UPDATE 156pm: Robert Kubica reportedly (uncofirmed) has escaped his horrendous crash with nothing worse than a broken leg. This is incredibly good news, if true, considering what it looked like. More information will be posted as it comes, and watch for the F1 UPDATE!
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I'm still hoping Kubica's okay. That was a horrendous crash.
Supposedly he just has a broken leg, then Varsha came on and said even that was unconfirmed.
I also found the fact that they did not show Kubica or any further work at the crash scene quite ominous.
I'm going to say a prayer that he's okay.
Posted by: Mallory at June 10, 2007 07:06 AM (iLcnv)
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Yep, we've heard broken leg over here too, and I'm very relieved to hear it, that looked just awful.
Posted by: flotsky at June 10, 2007 07:12 AM (/n2FK)
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I wanted to go see what mainline news said about it, and went to the CNN site.
To find F1 news, you have to click the "NASCAR" tab on the CNN Sports main page. Ah, the shame of it...
Posted by: Steven Den Beste at June 10, 2007 07:57 AM (+rSRq)
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Actually, it turns out that wrecks which look this spectacular are safer for the driver than wrecks where the cars hold together. That's something that came out of intensive engineering analysis work sponsored by the Indy race. Cars in the 1950's and 1960's were built quite solid, and would survive wrecks largely intact -- but the drivers kept dying.
What they realized was that it was an issue of energy dissipation. Energy which goes to breaking the car apart is energy which doesn't go to killing the driver. Later cars were designed so that they would come apart in wrecks, and the fatality rate went down as a result.
All that wreckage flying every which way looks horrendous, and of course it does represent a hazard to other drivers and potentially to the crowd, but it's probably part of why Kubica came out of it alive.
On the other hand, there's probably nothing in that car that can be saved. They'll have to build a new one from scratch. Of course, if he's got a broken leg then he's out for the season, too. Seems like BMW is going to have to compete with one less entry for the rest of the year.
Posted by: Steven Den Beste at June 10, 2007 12:19 PM (+rSRq)
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June 09, 2007
F1 QUALS: MONTREAL!
Ladies and Gentlemen, we have a shakeup at the top of the grid in Montreal! McLaren's golden boy, Louis Hamilton, has his first pole, by almost a half-second over his teammate Fernando Alonso.
The big surprise, though, has to be Grizzly Nick Heidfeld putting his BMW in P3, ahead of the Ferraris of Kimi Raikkonen (who almost didn't make it out of Q2) and Felipe Massa, who was almost seven-tenths of a second behind Hamilton's time. It's hard to imagine that Ferrari has lost THAT much speed so quickly, so they must have more fuel on board... unless they've botched their aero package, in which case they're screwed.
Mark Webber took sixth in a fine effort for the RedBull boys. Seventh would be Nico ("Wonderboy") Rosberg in his Williams, and finishing up the 4th row is Robert Kubica's BMW.
Giancarlo Fisichella and Jarno Trulli (he of the two broken suspensions yesterday, and Toyota telling their drivers to take it easy on the curbs for the rest of the weekend) finish off the top 10. The rest of the qualifiers:
11. Takuma Sato Super Aguri-Honda
12. Vitantonio Liuzzi Toro Rosso-Ferrari
13. Rubens Barrichello Honda
14. David Coulthard Red Bull-Renault
15. Jenson Button Honda
16. Scott Speed Toro Rosso-Ferrari
17. Anthony Davidson Super Aguri-Honda
18. Ralf Schumacher Toyota
19. Heikki Kovalainen Renault
20. Alexander Wurz Williams-Toyota
21. Adrian Sutil Spyker-Ferrari
22. Christijan Albers Spyker-Ferrari
On a final note, I've gotta give the Renault crew a huge amount of credit. In Q1, Heikki Kovaleinieinineinnieenninnie managed to completely blow a turn and crush the rear of his car. It was bad enough that his entire rear wing was missing. He got his crippled vehicle into the pits with about eight minutes left in the session... and the Renault pit team replaced the tail, the entire rear suspension, and the right rear wheel assembly in five minutes. It didn't help much, as he still qualified 19th (and had an engine change in Saturday practice, to boot), but that's still an amazing feat of engineering and mechanical wizardry. Well done, lads.
Now, if only Heikki can make it through the race in one piece... he's really having the race weekend from Hell.
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GO, LEWIS!
I, too, was impressed by how quickly Heikki's car was rebuilt. After seeing what it looked like on the track, I thought sure they'd have to head to the hauler to get the backup car.
Posted by: Mallory at June 09, 2007 11:49 PM (iLcnv)
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Go Lewis indeed! I've got a sneaking suspicion that McLaren want to prove they are not using team orders this weekend, so if Lewis is in a good position, they will "let" him win this time. I hope so, he deserves it. I predict a safety car in the first ten laps when Heikki puts the car into the wall and rips off all four tires this weekend.
Posted by: flotsky at June 10, 2007 12:03 AM (/n2FK)
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June 08, 2007
My Brain... melting away...
Will posted
something painful down in the comments
a few posts back that made my head hurt. It seems to have done the same to
Brickmuppet, who puts out a plea for someone...
anyone... who knows what the halibut is going on, to please explain it.
I second that... and please, do it quickly. I'm running out of ways to keep my brain from leaking out my ears...
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F1 Practice: MONTREAL! (UPDATED W/PHOTOS!)
Well, if practice sessions are anything to go by, Sunday's race should be a doozy! Consider these happenings today:
1) Fernando Alonso going through the chicanes looking like he's auditioning for "The Fast and the Furious: Montreal Drift".
2) Heikki Koveleineninnienineinninnie making a tire explode in a fireball by kissing the wall.
3) Mark Webber brakechecking Scott Speed after practice ended, causing Speed to ram into the back of the RedBull... and Webber then blaming the whole incident on Speed while saying "I was going slowly but he probably had his iPod going as well."
4) Toyota pulling their cars from the track after Jarno Trulli's car had a suspension failure... on a straightaway, without hitting anything!
5) We nearly had a Montreal Marmot Massacre. One of the fuzzy beasts ran across the width of the back straightway as Ralfy-boy came barrelling down on him at 190mph. Ralf obviously spotted him, as he drifted left. The marmot, on the other hand, never stopped running until it spotted the Toyota flashing by an inch in front of his face.
At which point, it became obvious that marmots, too, have carbon-disc brakes. As the Legendary Announce Team mentioned, it'd be hell cleaning that out of the radiators...
6) Finally, I'd be remiss if I neglected to mention the antics of Adrian Sutil. I thought the Blue Angels were good, but that was NOTHING!
See what happens when you blow the chicanes? Amazingly, nothing obviously broke upon landing...
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Sorry I missed that. Sounds like fun. Maybe Toyota ought to sign the marmot. ;-)
Posted by: Mallory at June 08, 2007 09:42 AM (KJzva)
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June 07, 2007
THE INCREDIBLY STRANGE CREATURES WHO STOPPED LIVING AND BECAME MIXED-UP DUCKS IN ANIME!
-Hayate The Combat Butler, ep2
I'm starting to believe that the rubber duckie is a little-known ninja throwing weapon...
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June 06, 2007
F1 On SPEED! Er... FOX! Er... BOTH!
Ladies and gentlemen, the first F1 race of the season LIVE on FOX is
this week! But there's STILL plenty of stuff on SPEED, too!
Friday from 1pm to 230pm, we get practice from Montreal, LIVE on Speed!
Saturday, at 12noon, to 130pm, Quals come to us live on Speed!
Sunday, however, from Noon to 2pm, we get the Canadian Grand Prix Live on FOX! Who'd'a thunk it?
All times Central. Add one hour for Eastern, subtract two hours for Oregon.
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Whoohoo! A race that doesn't require an alarm clock. :-) I am definitely going to skip NASCAR this week.
Who will be doing the announcing, I wonder?????
Posted by: Mallory at June 07, 2007 12:41 PM (iLcnv)
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Hold onto your helmet, Mallory: it's the Legendary Announce Team!
SPEED is part of the FOX umbrella, so...
It's a wonderful thing.
Posted by: Wonderduck at June 07, 2007 01:01 PM (2nDll)
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June 05, 2007
Midway Myths Debunked
Today, June 5th, is the 65th anniversary of one of the biggest victories in US Naval history, the Battle of Midway. LGF
links to a post on the battle that, while well-written, brings out the usual myths of
"The Miracle At Midway".
The story of Midway is well-known by now, thanks to numerous books and one feature film. Most of these books, and the movie, were mostly (if not entirely) based on American sources and a perishingly few translated Japanese "I was there" accounts that were never checked for accuracy.
Now that more researchers are able to read the raw Japanese data, such as the official War history of Japan (the Senshi Sosho), it's clear that much of what we "know" of the battle of Midway needs to be reevaluated.
Let's go over some of those myths, shall we?
1) "The near total destruction of the first wave of U.S. pilots and crew on board the "low and slow†torpedo bombers was not in vain; it alone made possible the exact conditions that allowed 50 U.S. dive bombers to send the Japanese armada to the bottom of the ocean minutes later."
2) "Four sitting duck Japanese carriers, without their protective shield of Zero fighter planes, with scores if not hundreds of Japanese planes sitting on the carrier decks, strewn with ordnance, fuel and crew..."
3) "The combined Japanese Alaskan and Midway forces, including those in support role, involved 200 ships, including 8 carriers, 11 battleships, 22 cruisers, 65 destroyers, 21 submarines and approximately 700 aircraft."
4)"A small Japanese carrier group first launched an attack on Alaska, intended to draw the U.S. Fleet out of Pearl..."
5)"The US Navy - outnumbered in carriers, ships, technology, planes and pilots - had achieved the greatest naval victory in modern history."
I'll discuss all of these below... read on, won't you?
more...
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When I saw the title of the post, I said to myself, "I'll bet he's read
Shattered Sword." One of the best nonfiction books I've ever read, BTW.
Posted by: Mike at June 05, 2007 10:36 PM (gJDlA)
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Meh, a lot of this is just contrarian hair-splitting. Almost every battle won by the inferior force is fought by nearly-even elements at the point of contact, and most feature local superiorities of force by the victory. It's rather the point, achieving superior concentration of force, isn't it? Look at Jackson's May 1862 Valley campaign - he was outnumbered decisively at every moment of the campaign if you total up the theatre resources, but he enjoyed significant numerical advantages in every single tactical battle.
I'm not much on naval history - if the four ships of the Carrier Force only carried ~250 planes, and the other three fleets in the theatre only had four light carriers between them, how do we get to a total force of 700 planes? Is that number just bullshit?
As for techological imbalances, was radar a tactical factor in Midway? I seem to remember from the few books I read on the battle that everybody was flailing around with line-of-sight flying boats. I'll grant you superior damage-control & carrier design, but the torpedo imbalance cancels that out, and the worthlessness of the torpedo planes & the period superiority of the Zero seem to be rather important elements which bear out the myth.
Your other myths seem to be more akin to misperceptions & mis-statements than actual errors - the torpedo plane runs *did* expose the carriers to the dive bombers when it mattered, the repeated American attacks *did* keep the Japanese carriers from mustering a decisive attack on the American fleet, the Aleutians force *was* an attempt at concentration-in-time.
There are much more controversial & mis-understood battles out there - you ever want to see fur fly, bring up Shiloh/Pittsburg Landing. Or Perrysville/Chaplin Hills. Or Stones River/Murfreesboro. Or even Antietam/Sharpsburg. Hell, they can't even agree on the names, let alone which side won, or how!
As decisive battles go, Midway was pretty danged decisive, although naval battles tend to be somewhat more decisive than land engagements in general.
Posted by: Mitch H. at June 06, 2007 12:49 AM (iTVQj)
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Mitch, if you take the maximum number of planes the eight Japanese carriers could theoretically carry, and add in the seaplanes carried by the Midway Assault force, you come within sighting distance of 700. Closer than that, I can't get, so I don't
know where the number 700 came from. But that's the same rationale that says that the US faced "8 carriers, 11 battleships, 22 cruisers, 65 destroyers" at Midway.
You say
"Almost every battle won by the inferior force is fought by nearly-even elements at the point of contact, and most feature local superiorities of force by the victory."
Here's the thing: IT DIDN'T HAVE TO BE THAT WAY. The Japanese fleet specifically and knowingly threw away their advantage in ships and planes, and
didn't care. They WANTED to have it that way.
Was radar a tactical factor at Midway? Not a huge one, I'll grant you, but it WAS there, and the US used it to vector their CAP around much better than the Japanese could ever hope for.
Gotta go to work, more later.
Posted by: Wonderduck at June 06, 2007 01:14 AM (2nDll)
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The Pacific Theater geek in me is thoroughly pleased. Well done, fellow waterfowl!
Posted by: GreyDuck at June 06, 2007 01:47 AM (2Yvi7)
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"...the repeated American attacks *did* keep the Japanese carriers from mustering a decisive attack on the American fleet."
Yes, quite true. However, that's not what the original article said, and the many many books on the subject don't say that either. They simply say that the death of the various Torpedo squadrons 'drew down the Zeros', and that's NOT what happened.
"...the Aleutians force *was* an attempt at concentration-in-time."
I'm afraid that's entirely incorrect.
Concentration would be putting everything in the same place. The Aleutians force was the exact OPPOSITE of concentration. Those two carrier decks, if put in with
Kaga, Akagi, et al, could... perhaps WOULD... have made Midway a completely different event.
Posted by: Wonderduck at June 06, 2007 02:31 PM (A5s0y)
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"Concentration in time" is a goofy strategic concept you run into a lot in discussion of the American Civil War. The idea is to put as many of your elements in motion at the same time, so as to overwhelm a numerically inferior enemy with threats & hopefully provoke an ill-timed reaction such that the force in motion is unavailable at the crisis, being in transit. The classic example is Halleck's attempt at concentration-in-time by coordinating operations between Grant, Burnside, and Rosecrans in December 1862, which supposedly worked because a large division was en transit from Bragg's army in Tennessee to Mississippi instead of pitching in with the rest of Bragg's troops at Stone's River.
The fact that none of the December 1862 operations were what you'd want to call particularly successful (they included Fredericksburg, Grant's first failure against Vicksburg and the bloody tactical see-saw in front of Murfreesboro) didn't divert Union commanders from repeatedly trying for the same thing - concentration in time. The ugly mess in Virginia in May 1864 was yet another swing at the concept.
Concentration-in-time is usually employed by a numerically superior force in a logistically problematic theatre. If it's theoretically easier & cheaper to move three forces of 40k along three separate axes than one lumbering, starving mass of 120k along a single axis, then you'll have somebody pushing for concentration-in-time. That obviously wouldn't apply in the Midway example... hmm.
So if the Aleutians diversion wasn't a concentration-in-time effort or a true feint, what was it? Clearly, the Japanese would want to engage the American naval force away from the ground bases at Midway or Honolulu - engage his fractions with your mass, not vice-versa. I know the Japanese didn't realize that the
Yorktown was in theatre, they'd already had a recent demonstration in the Coral Sea that American carrier groups weren't pushovers even *without* the support of a nearby airbase or string of airbases.
Posted by: Mitch H. at June 07, 2007 04:43 AM (iTVQj)
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I always took Midway to be a "Turning Point in World History" in that it is probably the clearest of the second world war battles in which victory is won through information supremacy rather than industrial supremacy, something which holds true even though the sides were much closer to being equal than is often acknowledged. The Battle of Britain is probably the first example, although one that is not as well defined as a battle. As modern warfare is much more warfare of informational supremacy rather than warfare of industrial supremacy, Midway does represent the start of an important trend. World War 2 may be seen as the last of the wars of industrial supremacy and the first of the wars of informational supremacy.
The tendency to romanticize great moments in history is something that will always be with us, for good and for ill.
Posted by: Civilis at June 07, 2007 09:57 AM (rgi1K)
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The last account I read on Midway was in Keenan's book on intelligence - he used it as an argument that even thorough and precise intelligence was often unhelpful in the actual combat encounter.
Did the Japanese suffer from a lack of concentration of forces? Absolutely - like you said, a few of those light carriers might have turned the tide, or at least prevented the kind of fatal damage to the Japanese fleet carriers that made the engagement decisive.
A lot of the reason -why- the Japanese had done so, however, was a fundamental miscalculation of which elements constituted the strength of the fleet. It's easy for us to say "duh, the carriers are more important than everything else put together" - we're looking back at the issue through the lens of history, especially the history of the Pacific Theater, where carriers came into their leading role.
The Japanese admirals, though, -simply did not appreciate that fact-. What Midway was designed to do was provoke a "decisive battle" with the American fleet, and to the Japanese, that meant the American battleships. If you look at their fleet deployment as putting the big battleships in front, and deploying the carriers to cover the battleships like some kind of long-range artillery... of course it didn't work, especially as we knew that they were doing things that way, but it was definitely a conventional way of looking at a fleet engagement.
The Japanese knew that carriers were important, but still believed in their battleships, right up until the end; the US went from the same opinion to using battleships for "harbor defense" in port. ;p There were also big differences in aviator training and replacement programs, so that the US naval aviation experience survived some pretty heavy losses during the war, while the Japanese reserve of (very) skilled pilots was utterly exhausted even before the carriers and planes ran dry.
Posted by: Avatar at June 07, 2007 11:02 AM (s42Qj)
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"So if the Aleutians diversion wasn't a concentration-in-time effort or a true feint, what was it?"
A seperate operation altogether. Particularly after the Doolittle raid, the Japanese were very paranoid about attacks on the Home Islands. They feared that air attacks could be launched from the Aleutians against Japan, so moved to prevent that from ever happening.
The "funny" thing is that they had little concept of the weather up there, and how miserable it was to fly in; the US had pretty much given up on staging bombers out of there.
The Aleutians were also a compromise. Pre-Doolittle, the Army were opposed to the Midway operation (remember, the Japanese military was very stratified; the Army and Navy often refused to work together). Post-Doolittle, the Army said that they'd support the Midway landings if the Navy would agree to the Aleutians operation. It was a scheduling quirk that had both kicking off at the same time.
Posted by: Wonderduck at June 07, 2007 02:11 PM (2nDll)
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"In such things as radar, anti-aircraft weaponry and fire control, and particularly damage control aboard carriers, the US had an overwhelming advantage. For example, according to Senshi Shoho, the Akagi suffered only one bomb hit and two near misses during the climactic attack, yet this was enough to set her ablaze fatally."
In part. There were several factors involved, however:
- It wasn't until after Coral Sea and Midway that the Navy deployed improved firefighting equipment on its ships. Before this the US and Japanese were essentially equal in the firefighting departments.
- The Franklin survived because (a) it was a tougher, more modern Essex class carrier and (b) the foam-emitting firefighting equipment used was a generation more advanced than that of the older carriers.
- One of the principle reasons Japan went to war was to gain control of the vast oil reserves in the Dutch East Indies. W/O those reserves they would not have been able to attack Midway. The most attractive features of these fields were their purity and quality - they required almost no refining to be used as bunker oil. Unfortunately, the Japanese didn't glom onto the "almost required almost no refining" part and took it straight out of the ground and into their fuel bunkers. "Almost" means that there were free radicals and volatiles still in the oil, making it highly volatile and likely to explode. Commercial-grade refined oil, in comparison, is much harder to ignite accidentally. The oil in Japanese fuel bunkers tended to explode when hit, making their ships powder kegs just waiting to be lit off.
- The principle advantage of the US fleet at Midway was that they had cracked the Japanese naval code and knew what the enemy was up to. They knew the enemy plan of attack and how best to counter it. The Japanese on their part had very poor intel on the US Fleet. They thought Yorktown was crippled and would be out of action for at least 6 months. They thought Nimitz would sortee the Pacific fleet to defend the Aleutians, when he had no intention of doing so even if he hand't known the Japanese's prime target was Midway.
Posted by: Orion at June 12, 2007 05:02 AM (xGZ+b)
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"It wasn't until after Coral Sea and Midway that the Navy deployed improved firefighting equipment on its ships. Before this the US and Japanese were essentially equal in the firefighting departments."
Almost correct. The US had instituted one firefighting technique that almost certainly saved the Yorktown during it's first Midway bombing, that of draining the aircraft fuel lines and filling them with carbon dioxide.
The
Lexington, sunk at Coral Sea, eventually died due to a massive explosion, caused by fuel vapors 'cooking off'. The
Yorktown's damage control specialist knew this and suggested to the Captain that clearing the lines and filling them with an inert gas would prevent this, and indeed, it did. It wasn't until the torpedo attacks from both Kates and submarine that the carrier was given up for dead.
"They thought Yorktown was crippled and would be out of action for at least 6 months."
Actually, the Japanese thought the
Yorktown was dead, sunk at Coral Sea. Minor point, but there nonetheless.
"They thought Nimitz would sortee the Pacific fleet to defend the Aleutians..."
Not so. The Aleutians attack was scheduled to occur on the same day as the Midway attack. It was only due to the Midway fleet's inability to sail on time (refueling problems) that the Aleutians attack occurred 24 hours before Midway. (please see debunking #4 in the main post for more details)
Posted by: Wonderduck at June 12, 2007 09:51 AM (h/YdH)
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Midway's influence extended far beyond the Pacific as it radiated into North Africa, into Normandy and into the Russian front. Even for the Pacific your reasonment assumes the Japense do nothing and just let the USN buildup.
Midway allowed Roosevelt to set a policy of Germany first (even with the Midway victory the Democrats paid a heavy price for it at the midterm electioons): D-Day came very close to be a failure and the German defences would have been far stronger in 1945, without Midway it would have been probably impossible for Roosevelt to lend to the British the Sherman tanks who won the Battle of El Alamein, without Midway operation Torch would have been impossible since the carriers who covered it would have had to be assigned to the Pacific. Operation Torch pinned in the Mediterranean crucial assets who, at least for the air ones, could have been used to strengthen Von Manstein's attempt to relieve the Sixth Army trapped at Stalingrad, also when the Germans tried to supply the Sixth Army only half of their transport planes were available, the other half was supplying the forces who had been sent to oppose Torch. Finally, Hitler had assumed that the Japanese would keep the Americans busy for a couple years, Midway altered his plans and in a little known but first magnitude unforced error he transferred several elite units to the West at a time the Sixth Army could have taken Stalingrad on the run had it had just one or two additional divisions. Of course, we know that there was no way the Allies could do more than a large scale raid in 1942 but nevertheless Midway was one of the main factors in why Hitler sent those divisions to France instead of to the Sixth Army. In 1943 when faced with the option of staying in the defensive Hitkler embarked in the ill-fated offensive at Kursk because he believed Germany needed to knock out the USSR in order to be able to turn West and face the Allied landings.
The other point is that you assume that had the Americans lost at Midway it would have been just a matter of the IGN having four more cariers in 1944 and the Americans two less. But a victorious IJN could have conquered Hawai or least make it it thus depriving the USN of a crucial base and severely curtailing its ability to operate against them. The Japanse would have been able to put an air base at Guadalcanal and cut the communications between Americans and Australia. They could have conquered New Caledonia thus depriving the Allies of half the world production of Nickel, a metal used in stainless steel and many alloys. But most importantly there is a definite possibility that the USN would have not had the leisure to build and train the impressive force who mopped the floor with the IJN in 1944, instead it is very possible as soon as out of the shipyards new US carriers would have been to be sent piecemeal to put out the fires set by the IJN and be destroyed in battles were they would have been outnumbered.
Despite my critics about your conclusions over the importance of Midway I have to say that I thoroughly enjoyed your article. In fact I have spent several days trying to find it after coming on it a couple years ago but failing to bookmark it. That is why I datred to post a reply four years after the initial post.
Posted by: JFM at July 11, 2011 07:23 AM (avBnI)
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June 04, 2007
*moaning quietly*
This is just... wrong.
Update: In comments, Pete points towards this, which might be even MORE wrong.
Which, in it's turn, reminded me of my favorite clip from AMV HELL 3: The Motion Picture... said clip can be seen HERE.
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*wibble, wibble*
Great. You just broke my brain. Thanks, man.
Posted by: GreyDuck at June 04, 2007 11:18 AM (GRUEw)
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When *I* am going to do a reverse AMV, it's going to be something better. Or so I tell myself. Hah.
BTW, there's a pretty good sync in this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=felQfAL6HtM
I approve of the overall planning and the change with the music.
Posted by: Pete Zaitcev at June 04, 2007 11:24 AM (9imyF)
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There appears to be an entire subculture devoted to morphing anime characters into other characters (or other strangeness). Here's one of someone having a bit of fun with
Konata.
Posted by: Will at June 08, 2007 10:16 AM (SOx9v)
Posted by: Wonderduck at June 08, 2007 10:43 AM (2nDll)
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I don't honestly know. It's amazing what you can find when you start
clicking on
related videos at youtube that have mostly
Japanese text.
The second has a bit of eichi and panchira, so beware. The third has a lot of real world pictures from the OP.
Posted by: Will at June 08, 2007 02:14 PM (olS40)
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So, are you ready to sign up for Nico Nico Douga yet?
I thought the slideshow one was pretty good, or at least assembled the material I saw scattered.
Posted by: Pete Zaitcev at June 08, 2007 03:55 PM (9imyF)
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June 03, 2007
AirFest Sunday
The day began with lousy weather, and flip-flopped between lousy and great. It rained, there was blue sky, there was thunder... very weird.
All of which made me decide to stay inside for most of the day. But not for the Blue Angels, oh no. 320pm, I was out in the middle of the field.
There was almost no wind, and the sky was blue... over the airport. Where I was standing, though, it was dark, and further towards the east it was almost black. I figured that the Angels would fly their "low" show (yesterday was the "flat" show)... and I was right. Almost everything they did was higher today than yesterday. I heard them take off (from almost five miles away), and got ready...
...all all hell broke loose.
How a fighter jet can sneak up on you is entirely beyond me, but this one did... and he was on a speed run towards the airport. I'm actually happy to have gotten this picture, because he wasn't in sight very long.
Clicky for more!
more...
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I've had the chance to see them during Fleet Week here in San Francisco. My boss lives in a tall apartment building (there are two towers in his complex) and the Angels use the buildings as a marker for their show. In fact the commentary going out over the radio to the public comes from a pier right below his building. They kept telling us on the radio that they never get closer than "X" number of feet to any spectators (can't remember exactly).. but we were on the roof of the building and one of the jets came over inverted, fast, and so close I hit the deck (along with the 60 odd other people on the roof) and little kids started crying! To this day, I swear I could see the pilot's face he was so close. The only thing that went through my head... I'm glad they're ours! I can't imagine what it's like when that flies over your city in anger. It was breathtakingly awesome.
Posted by: madmike at June 05, 2007 03:15 PM (lIt6a)
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June 02, 2007
AirFest Saturday
Just like last year, I'm woken up by the hammering yowl of an 12-cylinder Merlin engine screaming by The Pond. There's nothing on earth that sounds like a P-51, in this case named
Moonbeam McSwine... Al Capp would be proud.
After breakfast, I realize I'm out of duck chow and rye bread (it's like crack cocaine to us ducks), so I have to go to the grocery store... and, gee, there just happens to be one even CLOSER to the airport than The Pond. Of course, I never go there, but what the heck? I suppose just this once it'll be okay. Oh, and I'll take the camera, too... just, y'know, because...
Glad I did... as I get out of my car, these just happened by:
Given the number of photos still to come, click below to continue... I promise, they get better!
more...
Posted by: Wonderduck at
05:59 PM
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They don't do them often (if at all) anymore, but the loudest airshow demonstration I've ever heard was a takeoff and high-speed pass by a B1B. It was on the ragged edge of painful.
I don't remember the numbers off the top of my head, but I think the F-15 and F-16 use engines with a higher bypass ratio than the F-18. That would give them a lower quiter rumble. Older planes with zero-bypass turbojets, like the F-4, have a very high=pitched shreak to the exhaust note.
Posted by: Will at June 03, 2007 04:49 AM (olS40)
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Makes sense, Will. There was a B-1 here last year, but it didn't do a high-speed pass. It was still plenty loud.
This year, a B-52 is sitting at the Airport. They had to modify one of the runways so it could land here... the radio said something about 'removing the runway lights' because the wings droop so much they'd've destroyed them all.
As you can guess, Jumbos don't fly out of Duckford.
Posted by: Wonderduck at June 03, 2007 04:59 AM (2nDll)
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When I lived in Nebraska, my house was only a few miles away from
Offutt AFB, which just so happened to be where
these suckers were based. I got used to being "buzzed" by them on a daily basis... and I put that in quotes, because, in reality, they'd be lumbering along so slowly that you'd think they were a second away from falling out of the sky and crushing you right then and there.
Unfortunately, the one time Air Force One visited with POTUS on board, it landed from a different direction. I had been looking forward to giving it the one finger salute from the comfort of my back porch.
And a funny story with regard to the B-52... I grew up in Fort Worth, about 8 miles away from Carswell AFB, which was (at the time) home to the 7th Bomb Wing. Quite often, in the dead of night, I'd hear a low rumble off in the distance. Since we lived near a major rail line, I always figured I was hearing passing diesel locomotives. One day, however, I decided to ask my Dad, who happened to be working on the F-16 program at General Dynamics at the time. He informed me that I was hearing the B-52s with their engines running on the flight line at Carswell... from 8 miles away!
Posted by: Jeff Lawson at June 03, 2007 07:17 AM (VgF1Y)
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Duck Dreams...
Posted by: Wonderduck at
10:02 AM
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What a duck daydreams about. Beautiful photo.
Posted by: Momser at June 02, 2007 10:05 AM (2nDll)
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Well done, well done indeed.
Posted by: GreyDuck at June 03, 2007 04:43 AM (v8i3E)
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Thanks, Grey! I almost hate to admit that it's a photoshop... but not much of one.
It's two pictures, both taken from the same spot. Everything but the F-15 is one picture, the F-15 is from one that used 4x zoom on the camera.
They're also from different days (duck Friday just before a big honkin' storm hit, the F-15 on Saturday).
FWIW, the F-15 really was in that position. The photoshopped picture COULD have been taken easily enough.
There was also some color, brightness and contrast adjustment, of course.
Posted by: Wonderduck at June 03, 2007 05:05 AM (2nDll)
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June 01, 2007
It's AirFest Weekend!
One of the reasons I love where The Pond is located started today... The Duckford AirFest! It's based out of the Duckford Airport, which is about 3 miles from The Pond.
Usually, it's a small annoyance, since one of UPS' major hubs is located there, and their planes start taking off around 3am. I've gotten used to it, I'll admit, and it takes a particularly low takeoff for me to notice.
But then you have AirFest weekend... and The Pond is within the Performance Cylinder for the jets. Which leads to this:
The Blue Angels are the main attraction this year. If their performance plan is anything like the one the Thunderbirds had last year, I should get some pretty darn good photos: the T-Birds were going very low, very slow, in formation, right over The Pond.
And if I'm feeling particularly brave, The Blue Angels will be joined by... The Blue Duck!
Posted by: Wonderduck at
01:25 PM
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What..praytell is the Blue Duck?
I fear the answer...
Posted by: Brickmuppet at June 01, 2007 01:33 PM (V5zw/)
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It's a little known fact of nature that some ducks can mount jet engines under their wings...
Posted by: Wonderduck at June 01, 2007 01:37 PM (A5s0y)
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My parents' house is nearly under the flight path of what used to be Williams AFB. The Marine Corps and Army have some maintenance facilities there now, so we get Hornets, Harriers, and the occasional Apache flying overhead. Harriers are some of the most god-awful loud airplanes in the air. You can't miss one of those coming over.
Do those same ducks have hard points for ordnance?
(I had to look that up just now. It didn't look right to me. Ordinance, ordnance, and ordonnance are three very different things.)
Posted by: Will at June 01, 2007 05:27 PM (olS40)
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We're kinda like A-10s. Engines mounted far back, loads of room on the wings.
I just noticed that the picture looks like (and the 'hover text' implies) that the F-15 was directly overhead. It wasn't; it was a mile to the west, in a hard turn to line up for landing.
Posted by: Wonderduck at June 01, 2007 05:52 PM (A5s0y)
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We're kinda like A-10s. Engines mounted far back, loads of room on the wings, and praying that fighter cover will show up before we get slaughtered...
Posted by: astro at June 01, 2007 06:16 PM (q4NkN)
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Astro's jealous of the guys who get to play in the mud...
Posted by: Wonderduck at June 02, 2007 04:45 AM (A5s0y)
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Check it out my man:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=cGmM2PN7V90
P.S. Love the fighter jet screen caps
.....Makes me remember those dreams I had as a kid of becoming a pilot and training at Top Gun.....still one of my favourite movies btw!
Posted by: Kanon_fan82 at June 02, 2007 04:03 PM (X4Eu+)
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