Category: General

Military history and board gaming has always been an odd obsession of mine, more particularly odd because I am a pacifist. I suppose it is because of what I know of military strategy that I am a pacifist, I know that a General moving markers on a map is deliberately deluding himself from the idea that he is sending men to their deaths. But I have no such illusions, I know what happens when you send even electronic representations of men into battle. They die in ways you never expected.

I spent many years playing board games like Panzer Blitz and Squad Leader, they have the historical realism I demand, which allows you to try real historical scenarios using the real forces as they existed in the battle. But the paper board game systems had major flaws. Both players could see all the markers, so you could never do a sneak attack. Some methods of concealment were invented, like putting dozens of markers on the board, upside down so neither side could see them, only a few were your real markers. Arguments about line-of-sight, of who could see who, were always a problem, especially with modern games. Modern weapons are one-shot one-kill, if you can be seen you can be killed. Simultaneous movement rules were unmanageable, I remember games where we argued for hours over movements taking only 15 seconds in realtime. The only real solution is “kriegspiel” games, where both players have identical boards, hidden from each other, and only the referee sees both boards and runs the game. This is obviously unworkable on paper, but kriegspiel methods are ideal for computerization.

My favorite computer game implementation was V for Victory by Atomic Games. I particularly remember Operation Market Garden, I archived it on a CDR long ago and I wondered if it still ran on my new PowerMac. This game is so old it comes with two different applications for 68k processors with and without a math coprocessor. I remember playing this on my Mac IIcx and it sometimes took several minutes for the AI to complete it’s turn. I couldn’t get this to run in Classic, but after booting into OS 9, the app still runs well enough to play and get a few screen captures. I set the computer AI to play a few turns against itself, and the whole campaign finished before I could even click the stop button. I started it over and watched what the AI was doing, turn by turn. I could not believe what I saw.





I’ve been thinking of Market Garden a lot, since seeing the US and UK forces in action, trying to take the bridges across the Euphrates River around Nasiriya. I thought it might be interesting to compare the V4V scenario of the British forces trying to capture the bridge at Arnheim. In this screen, we see the lightly armed British forces (in red) rapidly advancing southeast into Oosterbeck, just a few klicks from our objective. But since the Germans still control the main bridge, there was nothing to stop them from moving elite SS Panzer units to the edge of Oosterbeck to block our advance, and put artillery units to the north. Now the UK supply lines are subject to artillery interdictment and harassing attacks from scattered defenders. Our resources are stretched too thin to maintain our position in Oosterbeck, we must defend from a combined artillery and SS Panzer counterattack instead of achieving our objective, taking Arnheim bridge. The AI committed a tactical blunder, it should have sent squads to block the roads out of Arnheim to slow the counterattack until we consolidated our position and got some reinforcements. Sacrificing a few squads in delaying actions at the chokepoints could have saved this operation.

When this game first shipped, I played it over and over, and I just could not understand why I always got beaten so badly. I was pretty good at V4V, but no matter how hard I worked, the Germans always wiped me from the field of battle. I studied the scenario in detail, looking for where I had gone wrong. And then it suddenly struck me, the Allies lost Operation Market Garden, it was a humiliating defeat. The V4V footnotes explain that the historical result was a total loss, so if you only had a major or minor loss you were ahead of the historical results, therefore you were entitled to believe you really won. I was irritated at the publisher for releasing a game that could not be won. And then I realized I was irritated at the Allied generals for committing to such a battle that could not be won.

And this is why I’ve been thinking about Nasiriya. American battle doctrine is based on shoot-and-scoot, fire and maneuver systems. This system isn’t quite so useful against fixed emplacements like bridges. Internet reports indicate US forces have taken the bridges several times and given them back just as often. Marines take a position, but aren’t intended to defend that position from counterattack without support and resupply. We committed troops to a battle at the end of supply lines that are stretched thin, without adequate air support and reinforcements, exposing the US troops to artillery and infantry counterattack. I keep thinking of the movie version of A Bridge Too Far, with intense battles taking place across the bridge at Arnheim. Our Commander In Chief is right, this is like a rerun of a bad old movie.

Tony Lazlo wrote a nice article on blogging that cited my page, and promised videos of Japanese news for language students. Unfortunately, I haven’t put up a new Japanese-related video in the last 30 days, so there is nothing like this on the main page. Click on the Archives to go back to last month (or older) and you will find many videos for your viewing pleasure. I am always seeking new material, I just haven’t run across anything worth posting lately. I only get 45 minutes of Japanese news each weekday and linguistically interesting items are rare lately.

I just watched Riverworld on the SciFi Channel, and boy was I surprised at how good it was. I had no idea this movie was in the works until it popped up in my TiVo schedule. I read the Riverworld novels probably 30 years ago, and the movie wrenched loose some deep memories of one of my favorite reading experiences of my youth. Now I’ve got to go dig up my old paperbacks, I’ve got them stored away with all my classic SF collection.

According to the SciFi.com page, a huge amount of supplementary Riverworld material was published that I never knew about. Now this is a rare pleasure, one of the best movie adaptations of a SF novel I’ve ever seen, plus tons of new chapters to read, plus a tantalizing hint of censored material. Time to hit the bookstore.

I had a wonderful moment of schadenfreude when I read this story about record high gas prices:

“It’s ridiculous,” said Sandra Cerrigan, who paid $2.23 for gas for her Land Rover at a San Francisco Chevron Station. “We’re getting gouged.”

Hey lady, maybe if you’d bought a Toyota Prius instead of that Land Monster, you’d be able to afford gasoline. SF has one of the best mass transit systems in the US, and you have to drive a car, let alone a huge SUV?

The Land Rover is truly the symbol of SUV selfishness. I wish it weren’t so. I still remember the Land Rover ads that ran on page 3 of every issue of Scientific American, they proudly proclaimed the maximum altitude a Land Rover had climbed under its own power. It was astonishing to read of people driving up mountains. I always wanted to take the Rover offroad driving course, they claim that a Land Rover with a winch can basically go anywhere, even up a nearly-vertical cliff. But that was back in the day when people used these vehicles as tools, not status symbols.

Now whenever I see a Land Rover, I think about an infamous case in Los Angeles, just before SUV-mania took hold. Disney awarded deluxe Land Rovers to 10 of its top executives, and ran the vehicles through the Disney auto shop to have all the anti-pollution devices removed to increase gas milage. Disney got whacked with a multimillion dollar fine for that stunt. But in the process, they turned the Land Rover into the must-have LA accessory.

When I was a little kid about 7 years old, I read an article in a science fiction magazine that showed how to build your own UFO detector. The device is a crude but fairly sensitive magnetometer, it looked interesting so I built one. The theory is that an alien UFO would travel with some sort of advanced electromagnetic propulsion, it would disturb the magnetic field and the sensor would detect it. It’s a simple trembler switch, you can make it yourself with some wire, a magnet, and an doorbell. I was surprised to discover it really works!
The entire switch is about 6 inches tall, made from 3 pieces of uninsulated solid copper wire. The illustration shows the general layout of the switch, with the two sides of the circuit indicated in blue and red. It’s a simple pendulum hanging from a hook, and down through an open loop. When the pendulum swings, it will hit the loop and complete the circuit. The pendulum’s counterweight is a small magnet, I used a cylindrical refrigerator magnet and wrapped the end of the copper wire around it. The magnet isn’t part of the electrical circuit, but when a large magnetic field moves by, it will attract the counterweight and cause the pendulum to swing. You can verify this by waving a magnet near the sensor, the pendulum will swing wildly, and will be influenced by a moving magnet even at a fair distance.
I made the hook about 6 inches high and the lower loop about 1/2 inch in diameter, and put it under a glass jar so it wouldn’t be triggered by drafts. Connect the bottom end of the loop to one wire of the doorbell, connect bottom of the hook to the other wire, hang the pendulum on the hook, and your UFO detector is ready for action.
You can increase the sensitivity of the switch in two ways; you can increase the length of the pendulum, or decrease the size of the loop. You could actually make this several feet tall, and it would be so sensitive it could detect nearby electric motors and TVs, and it would be very sensitive to vibration. But we’re trying to detect huge metal spaceships so we should start fairly small. And it turns out that even a small detector is very sensitive.
I left my detector running in my bedroom at night, of course aliens would come under cover of darkness. I waited for the alarm signal night after night. I decided to decrease the size of the loop a bit. I also improved the pendulum by substituting a little bar magnet, and aligning it with magnetic north. Then one night as I was sleeping, the UFO detector rang!
I rushed to my window but I could see nothing. I ran barefoot out into the yard and searched the sky. I could hear the motors approaching, it was a small aircraft flying at low altitude, a propeller aircraft from the local airport, darn it! I was disappointed, but I’d successfully detected a flying object, even if if it wasn’t unidentified.
I decided to make the device a little more sensitive so I could detect more distant UFOs. As I tuned the sensor, it became so sensitive I could detect high altitude jet airliners, and even large trucks driving down the street! It appears that any large mass of metal moving through earth’s magnetic field can trigger the alarm. I got a quite a few aircraft detections, but I never saw any alien spaceships. Eventually my Dad got mad at me for constantly waking up in the middle of the night and running through the house, so he made me turn off my UFO detector forever.
Update: I poked around the web and found other descriptions of the UFO detector. Apparently it was a popular device during the 1960s, and quite a few people made these sensors in various designs. I wonder who invented it?

Today seven brave men and women surfed atop the atmosphere on a tiny shield and spilled to earth. They had the Right Stuff, even if just for a moment, they went higher, faster, farther, harder, closer to heaven than anyone before. They didn’t just push the envelope, they broke through it. Everyone with the Right Stuff knows that at any moment it could go out of control. It could not be otherwise, if there was no risk there could be no triumph.

Daedalus built the labyrinth for King Minos, but afterwards lost the favor of the king, and was shut up in a tower. He contrived to make his escape from his prison, but could not leave the island by sea, as the king kept strict watch on all the vessels, and permitted none to sail without being carefully searched. �Minos may control the land and sea,� said Daedalus, �but not the regions of the air. I will try that way.� So he set to work to fabricate wings for himself and his young son Icarus. He wrought feathers together, beginning with the smallest and adding larger, so as to form an increasing surface. The larger ones he secured with thread and the smaller with wax, and gave the whole a gentle curvature like the wings of a bird. Icarus, the boy, stood and looked on, sometimes running to gather up the feathers which the wind had blown away, and then handling the wax and working it over with his fingers, by his play impeding his father in his labors. When at last the work was done, the artist, waving his wings, found himself buoyed upward, and hung suspended, poising himself on the beaten air. He next equipped his son in the same manner, and taught him how to fly, as a bird tempts her young ones from the lofty nest into the air. When all was prepared for flight he said, �Icarus, my son, I charge you to keep at a moderate height, for if you fly too low the damp will clog your wings, and if too high the heat will melt them. Keep near me and you will be safe.� While he gave him these instructions and fitted the wings to his shoulders, the face of the father was wet with tears, and his hands trembled. He kissed the boy, not knowing that it was for the last time. Then rising on his wings, he flew off, encouraging him to follow, and looked back from his own flight to see how his son managed his wings. As they flew the ploughman stopped his work to gaze, and the shepherd leaned on his staff and watched them, astonished at the sight, and thinking they were gods who could thus cleave the air.

They passed Samos and Delos on the left and Lebynthos on the right, when the boy, exulting in his career, began to leave the guidance of his companion and soar upward as if to reach heaven. The nearness of the blazing sun softened the wax which held the feathers together, and they came off. He fluttered with his arms, but no feathers remained to hold the air. While his mouth uttered cries to his father it was submerged in the blue waters of the sea, which thenceforth was called by his name. His father cried, �Icarus, Icarus, where are you?� At last he saw the feathers floating on the water, and bitterly lamenting his own arts, he buried the body and called the land Icaria in memory of his child.

The death of Icarus is told in the following lines by Darwin:

"…with melting wax and loosened strings
Sunk hapless Icarus on unfaithful wings;
Headlong he rushed through the affrighted air,
With limbs distorted and dishevelled hair;
His scattered plumage danced upon the wave,
And sorrowing Nereids decked his watery grave;
O’er his pale corse their pearly sea-flowers shed,
And strewed with crimson moss his marble bed;
Struck in their coral towers the passing bell,
And wide in ocean tolled his echoing knell."

I am considering retiring my site logo, so I thought people might enjoy seeing it at a larger size.






I found this image in a web archive of old radio and TV advertisements. This is an ad for Raytheon, promoting their involvement in live broadcasts of nuclear tests in Nevada.

Redneck cops from Tennessee that killed a dog have become a national news story. Much outrage has been expressed about the death of the dog, along with much support for the cops who were just “doing their job.”

What nobody has pointed out is that these cops, by their actions, have put the lives of other cops in peril. This gross abuse of power is not likely to help cops gain cooperation during a traffic stop. If a real criminal thinks he’s up against trigger-happy cops that will shoot without provocation, they’re more likely to shoot it out in a traffic stop. Now the Mayberry P.D. has given the entire state’s police force a bad name.

Here’s the stupidest airline security story I’ve seen lately:

An airline worker inspecting a passenger’s bag Jacksonville International Airport on Friday was accidentally injected with an antidote to chemical weapons. The Delta Air Lines employee, who was not identified, was injected with atropine, an antibiotic that helps people survive chemical attacks…

…and bee stings. My sister has an intense allergy to bee stings, she has to carry an atropine injector kit in her purse everywhere she goes. If she gets stung, she has to inject atropine immediately, or she will die. Now the airline will deny her the right to carry atropine injectors on a flight. Sure, she won’t get stung during a flight, but she could get stung after arrival. This is sickening. I suppose they won’t let diabetics carry insulin and syringes either.

For several weeks the Iowa sports press has tried to turn lemons into lemonade. It started when local favorite Brad Banks lost the Heisman Trophy. The local newspapers blared on page 1, “Banks Voted Heisman Runner-up.” Excuse me, there is no such thing as a second place for the Heisman Trophy, you either were awarded the trophy or you weren’t. But the local papers trumpeted his 2nd place in the voting like it was some sort of real award.

And now the U of Iowa team has humiliated themselves in the Orange Bowl. The full complement of violent criminals was represented on this bowl trip, including Jermelle Lewis (criminal mischief, disorderly conduct), Sam Aiello (assault causing injury, no arrest), Warren McDuffie (DUI), Derreck Robinson (drug posession), Scott Boleyn (public intox x3, interference w/official acts x2, obstructing an officer), Jacob Bowers (public intox x3), even suspended players like Siaka Massaquoi (DUI) reportedly made the trip although they did not play. It was reported that OJ Simpson attended the Orange Bowl practice sessions, I am sure that our young criminals had much to learn from OJ.

For many weeks, the local press has been proclaiming that this game would be the true Heisman test, since the Trophy winner, USC quarterback Carson Palmer would play against “runner-up” Iowa QB Brad Banks. I did not watch the game, but news reports indicate that Banks was held to little or no yardage while Carson Palmer wiped the field with the Iowa team. I guess Banks really did prove who should have won the Heisman, just like he said he would! Congratulations to the Iowa team for showing what a bunch of pathetic losers you are! I expect the morning newspaper headlines will read “Iowa takes 2nd Place in Orange Bowl!”