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Sturgeon's House

Current Reads Thread


Sturgeon

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  • 2 weeks later...

Got through reading "Decision in Normandy" by Carlo D'Este. Of its 500 pages, 450 seem devoted to debunking Monte's efforts at Caen and the Field Marshall's claims that he always intended the British left flank to act as a shield while the Americans pivoted.

For fun, I then read William Forstchen's "Rally Cry", book one in the Lost Regiment series where a Union Civil War regimented is transported to SB alien world with 10-foot tall aliens that ride horses like mongol warriors and feed on humans.

At the moment I am flipping through a 1960 Paperback called "Invasion (Swastika in title) They're Coming" by Paul Carell and purports to tell the D-Day Invasion through the eyes of the enemy. For the first time!

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Oh that is a good choice, Jeeps!

 

I'm about half way through "From Hot Air to Hellfire”, and it's been a good read so far.  It started with very detailed info about the Apache raid that kicked off gulf war one, and then moves into the history as far back as the end of WWII.

 

I always wondered how much of the infighting between the Air Force and Army over them arming helicopters in the W.E.B Griffin’s “The Brotherhood of War” series was true. Not only was the overall story in the books true, it didn’t cover nearly enough how bad the air force was.

 

Apparently the Army had to depend on the Air force for aircraft procurement, so when they went to them with a plan for purchasing more helicopters and bigger fixed wing assets, the main General in charge of procurement said no. They had to bypass them, eventually taking control of their own aircraft procurement.  That’s just one example there are several more. 

 

The Air Force had issues with the Army arming the choppers that had as well, and tried to kill of programs like the Cheyenne. They didn’t want the Army doing close air support, but was unwilling to develop anything to do the job themselves. At least until the canceling of the Cheyenne forced the Air Force to keep the A-10, and they’ve been trying to kill it off almost from the time it deployed.

 

It’s also interesting how the Huey Cobra kinda snuck it’s way into production after being basically developed on Bells dime.

 

Anyway, so far so good heh.

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  • 1 month later...

I really enjoyed the movie "John Carter (of Mars)" and maintain that it is a far superior science fiction flick than the contemporary movie "Dances with Smurfs" (Avatar) in terms of acting, plot and not being a hypocritical anti-corporate, environmentalist, anti-American screed.

My wife, who is an even bigger sci-fi fan than I particularly like Woola, the dog monster who very closely resembles one of our Akitas.

With that said, I'm looking at the complete Edgar Rice Burroughs single-volume set on the bookshelf and I'm ready to take the plunge.

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The other day at the Thrift store I picked up a book called "Rising Sun Victorious" for a couple bucks.  Its a "what if" history of how the Japanese could have won the Pacific war.  I bought it because I pretty much will buy any WW2 related book at the thrift store.  I have not read it yet, it's on my pile of "maybe at some point" will I read it.  That said, I feel dirty just having it in my house.  It seems like something Dai would get rather excited about. 

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I own that book. It was in one of those give a book, take a book piles. It is rather fantastical with implausible theories covering a dozen or so scenarios. It's in my "two move" boxes of books that are lingering at my folks' place as we pare down stuff at my new place.

If I recall, the most plausible one was if the Japanese had foregone the sneak-attack on Pearl Harbor and engaged the American Fleet as it steamed east to relieve the Phillipines, sinking the American battle fleet in the open sea where they'd be irrecoverable.

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I really enjoyed the movie "John Carter (of Mars)" and maintain that it is a far superior science fiction flick than the contemporary movie "Dances with Smurfs" (Avatar) in terms of acting, plot and not being a hypocritical anti-corporate, environmentalist, anti-American screed.

My wife, who is an even bigger sci-fi fan than I particularly like Woola, the dog monster who very closely resembles one of our Akitas.

With that said, I'm looking at the complete Edgar Rice Burroughs single-volume set on the bookshelf and I'm ready to take the plunge.

  

The John Carter movie was also suppose to be a documentary according to Richard Hoagland, who is in the same boat as Mike Sparks. The more you know.

I own that book. It was in one of those give a book, take a book piles. It is rather fantastical with implausible theories covering a dozen or so scenarios. It's in my "two move" boxes of books that are lingering at my folks' place as we pare down stuff at my new place.

If I recall, the most plausible one was if the Japanese had foregone the sneak-attack on Pearl Harbor and engaged the American Fleet as it steamed east to relieve the Phillipines, sinking the American battle fleet in the open sea where they'd be irrecoverable.

"Two Move"? Gross

There would have to be a bunch of circumstances for the Japanese to win such a battle outright.

Got two books over the holidays. One on Napoleon(older book), the other is more of a pop history book on strange WWII factoids and stories. Decent so far.

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Ouch. That spelling...

 

I enjoyed listening to Richard Hoagland on the Art Bell Show back in the 1990s. I have chronic insomnia and I've always treated Coast-to-Coast as fun sci-fi entertainment, particularly when they talked about Bigfoot, scary ghost stories, Chupacabra and the one lady who described in rather lurid detail her romance with a lizard men. They're cold-blooded...

 

The bullshit starting get a bit thick when Hoagland - if I'm remembering correctly - made some rather dumb predictions about the Hale-Bopp comet. 

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  • 2 months later...

Just finished Mike Spick's Designed for the Kill.  It's a very good overview of the development of the fourth generation of fighter aircraft.

 

The book was written late enough that good information on the flanker and fulcrum was available in the West, but early enough that the world at large hadn't lost interest in the subject of fighter jets.  Thus, it is a large, lavishly illustrated book.  The usual problem that this is a very technical subject with lots of jargon that is rarely explained does crop up, but it's not too bad for someone who has already read about the subject.

 

An updated, or re-written volume would be interested, especially now since there's much more publicly available information about how stealth works.

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