A Collection of Unmitigated Pedantry
A look at history and popular culture
This week, we're doing another 'silly' topic, but this being me, it is a silly logistics topic, because - as the saying goes - amateurs talk tactics, professionals talk logistics. So we're going to be professionally silly this week and talk about the logistics of vehicle warfare in a post-apocalyptic sci-fi setting, in part because … Continue reading Collections: The Logistics of Road War in the Wasteland
This week we're covering the winning topic from the latest ACOUP Senate poll, which is a look at some of the odd designs and mechanics for futuristic science fiction body armor, particularly rigid 'hardsuits.' Naturally, this post isn't going to cover every variety of armor that appears in science fiction, so I want to be … Continue reading Collections: The Problem with Sci-Fi Body Armor
Fireside this week! Next week, with luck, I'll have my 'On the Reign of Alexander III of Macedon' up as an addendum to our discussion of Hellenistic armies. But in the meantime, it is a fireside, and I thought, since it was just recently May the Fourth, we might talk some Star Wars (and history). … Continue reading Fireside Friday, May 10, 2024
Fireside this week! We're in the last few weeks of the semester, but semesters tend to 'crescendo' rather than 'wind down' so there has been a lot going on. I'll probably be posting a gap week for next week (Friday, April 29) because I'll be at the annual meeting of the Society for Military History … Continue reading Fireside Friday, April 22, 2022
Since I finally got out to see Dune (2021), I wanted to take a chance to share some of my reflections on it and this week was a good time because I had nowhere near enough time otherwise to get the next Fortifications post ready. So first I want to give my own reaction to … Continue reading Miscellanea: Reflections on the Sands of Dune (2021)
Happy New Year! Good riddance 2020! Fireside this week. Next week, we'll be finishing up our look at the Dothraki of A Song of Ice and Fire and Game of Thrones by looking at how they are shown to fight and comparing that to the fighting patterns of actual historical horse-borne nomads. Of course, it's … Continue reading Fireside Friday: January 1, 2021
Hey folks! Fireside this week - sorry for those of you who were waiting patiently for the last post on cereal farming. I had hoped to have it ready to go, but the start of fall semester teaching has pushed that off until next week. Those who pay less attention to higher education news may … Continue reading Fireside Friday: August 14th, 2020
Hey folks! Fireside this week; musing on a rather silly topic: the practicality of planetary invasions in a science fiction setting. I am working currently on (among other things) getting the "How They Made It" post series started up; those will be a set of post-series detailing how pre-modern societies made all of the stuff … Continue reading Fireside Friday: July 17th, 2020
The following is a somewhat polished (but not very polished!), consolidated version of my response to watching The Last Jedi and the problems I had with it. The core of this was something I wrote on social media back in January, 2018; note that since this was originally intended for a small group of friends … Continue reading Miscellanea: The Latest Jedi
This week, we look at the positioning of main gun batteries and see what the Battlestar Galactica could use to learn from the USS South Carolina (BB-26).