Morgane

(No Title) [[Because Phoenix can’t into computers]]

by Morgane 2017年10月1日

Hmph. Tautog gets her Sub corners… Prisse snuck in her SBD carrier corner… Marby’s right. We should get some more love for cruisers.

…

Oh, heeeeeeey. Tautog forgot to log off of the main computer terminal. >:3

*Click Clack of computer keys*

Now… how do I post this thing? Why is this website all in Chinese?

*Mouse clicking*

No… that’s an image upload –

Do they not have a non-cutesy image of me? Hmph. I should get more art. I do look cute though…

*Mouse clicking*

Huh. The page isn’t working. I wonder what’s going on.

*Mouse clicking*

Uh oh.

*More frantic mouse clicking*

I-is this supposed to happen?! Halp! I think I broke the site!

Ya see? This is exactly why people who don’t get technology shouldn’t be touching technology! And Phoenix’s got the gall to complain. She’s actually showed up in updates before.

Well, what about Lulu, huh? None of you remember Lulu is still around! The cruiser girls get like, next to no love as it is. But let’s count down the list. Ms. Goody-too-shoes is often used to illustrate Christian ethics and values. She shows up fairly regularly behind the scenes. Chester is resident screwball and everyone likes her because she’s fun. Houston’s got a Chinese following because Chinese food, and also, there’s an entire book on her by a great historian. She’s even showed up in the navy foods book because Texas BBQ. Even Chicago’s gotten more attention than me!

I don’t wanna be too negative or anything. I get it. The girls are all different. Different people like different people … types… like people. Something! We can’t get the spotlight all the time! But it’d be sure nice if one of you can remember that I still exist!

But can I be cute for once? I wanna show up in a side book too! I can be cute! I’m smart! I know plenty about American history and politics! I can even be sexy if that’s what it takes. Is that how we do things now? Bikinis? I’ll have you know that one of mine got banned in three states because –

LULU! ARE YOU DONE WITH MY UPDATE YET?

Tog, come on. I’m working on it! You’re asking me to squish in twenty years of heavy cruiser development UNDER five hundred words! I can LIST all the cruiser classes and you’d get close to that!

This is to say nothing of the accuracy! Tarnation, ya ever think that primary documents aren’t the best of ideas? I mean look at this. I’ve been neck-deep in papers and stuff coming from the 20s and 30s. Then we get to the actual wartime reports and things get downright hilarious.

Pretty sure we sank this one. Up to 6 hits from the Midway strike group’s dive bombers. Wasn’t listed as a combat loss. Nagumo didn’t even report it in his writing, preferring to “omit” surface losses. How am I supposed to talk about cruiser doctrine when some countries literally pretend ships that sank aren’t?

I thought I outsourced Japanese cruiser doctrine to Zao… Also, who told you 500? I said 50,000! Under 50,000! We’ll cut it after!

Your note said 500!

Waitaminute. Ew. Someone bit off the end of my note. Who the hell would do that?

Also, Zao writes in LITERAL haikus. Like, look at this. I asked her to provide some comments about the design of the Mogami class, for instance. This is what she wrote back.

electric welding
result in many leakages
water make boat sink

T-that’s … well. That’s true. But isn’t that more of a case-by-case thing, oftentimes involving Japanese politics? The Kumano and Suzuya had a lot less problems comparatively, right?

is fault of army
bad design on occasion
navy can do no wrong

Er…

torpedoes explode when shot at

Note from Sune:

Zao has an antiquated mode of speech when trolling. It’s like YE OLDE SHAKESPEARE but after consulting with the rest of the team we decided haiku is more fun.

前线来信·Mail call, 美舰本·Pacific

[Mail Call] 9/28/2017 Alternative History + Site Announcements

by Morgane 2017年9月29日

We’re aware that Phoenix has taken over the site. Not entirely sure how, but we’re looking into it at the moment.

Since I’m more or less back to normal function, it’s back to the mail-call functions. You see, other than answering posts and comments from passing by readers, it’s also a good way for me to consolidate content. That’s to say, there’s a lot to be worked on at any given moment, and I confess that it’s often overwhelming for me to think about what things to showcase next.

I realize that this section of the timeline was first introduced in AR2, which I currently cannot read. Apologies if some of these might already have been answered within that book.

Time Period: Late 1950s: From a diplomatic perspective, the US made contact with the major world’s powers. The UK was the most receptive to the Abyssal Threat, creating their own shipgirl program in response.

What prompted the US to choose this particular time period to disclose what they knew about the Abyssal threat and shipgirls? Why was there a wait of several years after first contact? Was there any previous, perhaps less formal, communications on the matter between the relevant nations?

Let me answer this in reverse. Yes. There were many less formal communications on the matter between leaders of the world powers. There was a wait of several years after first contact for several reasons. Read below.

America herself wasn’t exactly sure how this information should be used, and in the early days, there are differing opinions on policy. Not that they didn’t believe her. But, rather, put yourself in the shoes of Harry Truman for a second. Here stands a person who by all definitions is capable of superhuman feats. What is your first instinct? Would it not to broadcast and parade her to the world?

Here are enemies capable of wrecking havoc on any country’s armies. Would it not be to America’s advantage to see if this enemy can be manipulated into doing its bidding? Or, at the minimum, would it not be a good thing that other countries suffered from it as a result?

Hold those thoughts. These are actually somewhat anachronistic. In other words, while they may seem perfectly sensible or reasonable for a politician or leader of our time, it is decidingly NOT how people back then thought. Strange as it may be, the 50s had some very different ways of looking at things. Not to mention this is Truman we’re talking about. He was a man who may have been vulgar or blunt, but he was always honest about his own opinions, what he could do, and what he is able to accomplish.

I learned about this while visiting the Truman Museum years back, and I’d never think that the impression that particular visit left on me would turn to the creation of well, Truman as a supporting character in Pacific. Truman likes to do things on his own. He likes to gather his own information, think about his own problems, and he’s really a real “roll up his sleeves and fix ’em” kind of person.

You can see how this attitude would have immediately influenced his decision-making. He took Iowa more seriously than most people would have imagined, and he immediately reached out to individuals he thought would be capable in the resolution of this issue. Truman wanted to blow this up and to get every agency involved as soon as possible. It’s why he got the CIA involved almost immediately – it’s his creation, after all. Truman had plans to involve the military next. He wanted to get this thing done, and to have the Abyssals beaten the next time they show up. He was very much willing to commit the entirety of America – industry, manpower, and politics – to the defense of the world. And so, that sort of brings us to the next aspect.

That statement in the timeline, “Under the direction of Eisenhower?” That’s not a typo. STEC was created under the Truman administration. However, Eisenhower was part of its initial creation. Eisenhower was also the next president, and in order to remain faithful to history, the fall-out between Truman and Eisenhower still exists in Pacific’s setting. This is a classical case of both having good intentions, but the ways in which it was to be implemented sharply differed. Eisenhower and several of the military commanders wanted to run STEC differently. As military professionals (former and otherwise), they immediately grasped the severity of the situation. Without an ability to wage war, no amount of mobilization on a country’s part can hope to stall the Abyssal invasion.

(Also, as an aside. Eisenhower was a very transparent individual by comparison. Historically, as an example, he refused “special channels” and briefings from the CIA on the grounds of wanting to receive information like “any other American would.” However, Eisenhower’s presidency was tempered by his personality, and he is … not what I would describe as a great risk taker. In other words, Eisenhower only gambled on things that had the potential for a massive payoff (like something like D-day when he was a general) or when it was almost guaranteed to succeed (like the highway project back at home). The prospects of fighting an opponent that showed up at its own will, was unfathomable, and would – if Iowa’s opinions are correct – cause the extinction of humanity represented a significant challenge to the way business is carried out, and Eisenhower essentially decided to go in the other direction.)

Instead of involving other branches of government or other agencies, Eisenhower sought to concentrate power in something that would dedicate itself to fighting this thing. Instead of immediately getting other countries involved, he decided to wait, build-up, and see what things happen. He was of the opinion that if the Abyssals are truly an interstellar (this was before people figured out that they literally operate from other “dimensions) force, then trying to build more of our current weaponry would be like cavemen trying to sharpen more rocks against a GI. Better the caveman learn to at least build a musket than to try to make spears.

As I’ve mentioned before, Eisenhower wasn’t too keen on the CIA, and he has his reservations on having total civilian control (for STEC, it doesn’t) on an agency that really had one job. In hindsight this was the correct decision, because immediately after the initial Abyssal incursion, the Abyssal fleet was relatively inactive for quite some time. The chaos that it would have caused if the information went out into the public would have destabilized a large number of countries, which isn’t what you would want.

For that matter, Eisenhower was unwilling to essentially give away what amounts to military secrets unless he was certain that there was a way to enforce the bargains made. It’s why STEC has such a large degree of freedom to operate. Ike’s seen how the league of nations floundered. He’s aware of the limitations of the UN (in fact, didn’t we Americans come up with the idea of “collective security”?) and he is willing, albeit reluctantly and cautiously at the time, to work with the other Great Power at the time (1950-1952) – which is the USSR.

Remember, Pacific’s timeline only begins to diverge starting from 1950. The five years after WW2 still saw a massive global resurgence in communism. The loss of China to the “reds” still was a giant shocker. The USSR still threatened Greece and Turkey. The Truman doctrine and NATO still came into existence in 1949. Britain’s still bankrupt. France is still falling apart. It’ll take a while before all the changes WE created start to butterfly back into the timeline.

…FFFFF I didn’t answer the question, did I?

前线来信·Mail call, 美舰本·Pacific Historical Inspirations, Silent Service

Subcorner 19: More Submarine Cuisine

by Morgane 2017年9月27日

Am I orange this time?

Yeah. I think you are. I’m gonna be red… or maybe just normal color this time. I think it’s kind of weird that we always switch colors, though…

I honestly was not expecting you to be so … Please, don’t take this the wrong way, Tambusebär but I did not think that you would be so thoughtful.

Underestimate the Tambor at your own peril, ya no-good kraut, haha! This one’ll be fun.

Hi! Tambor here. I have Dracha and Hata with me today. Sorry if you were expecting Tautog’s commentary on the London Naval Conference. Since she’s busy trying to figure out ways to make it seem like we aren’t too biased against CERTAIN powers, the three of us sat down and thought we’d talk a little about food!

After all, everyone likes food! As Tautog said in an earlier post, food is what makes life on a submarine much more bearable. What we’re going to do today is to have the three of us describe to you what an average menu would taste like (little hint, St. Bernard! You should totally draw this out) based on historical documents we’ve scrounged up regarding submarine cuisine.

These are respectively:

A Type XXI Supply Document (summarized by the US military)

A Tambor-class supply log (actually, it’s the Tautog’s stores!)

A I-15 class assessment report (since not much information survived off of late-war Japanese submarines)

To maximize (yes, you read that right!) bias, we’re having Hata eat the American menu, Dracha eat the Japanese menu, and I get the U-boat one.

This’ll be fun! I REGRET NOTHING!

(Tambor’s account)

Gaaaaaaah I regret EVERYTHING.

I should have gotten Dracha to get me an early war menu, where the Germans might have actually had all-edible food as opposed to that fake meat thing. As it stands, dinner consisted of:

A really good pork sausage. Yum.
Some kind of pork sausage that doesn’t taste like sausage. A closer inspections reveals something called Bratlingspulver. It’s a soy-based mock-meat filler. Ugh.
A pound of (somewhat burnt) baked potatoes loaded with bacon and ham bits. Not sure if this is just Dracha can’t cook or if it’s supposed to be that way, but this one tasted fine.
A chopped up dish of gherkins. Dracha says that these are surprisingly enough well-received by the crew. Kind of vinegary but it tastes German enough…
For drinks, a sweetened red tea that tastes kind of like our southern-styled ice tea back home, to be honest…
Some kind of very hard hard-bread cracker with a marmalade I can’t quite figure out. Maybe apple? Strawberry? The cracker was very tough and nearly impossible to bite into.

Overall, I was glad to have avoided the legendary horror that’s the “one-pot stew.” Apparently it’s welcomed by U-boat crews but no one else in particular. Personally, I was expecting a whole lot more meat since it’s supposed to be German and all…

However, it seems that the largest amount of food carried were indeed tinned meats (Bratlingspulver-added or otherwise), potatoes, and “preserved breads” (which I can only assume was the cracker-thing that I ate). I’m not sure of the quality of the canned vegetables, but apparently it wasn’t very well liked.

(Here’s a picture I found from U-boat.net. Looks like they had plenty of creative ways to store their foods. Hmm… I wonder why Dracha didn’t give me an apple or an orange or something… That picture looks like there’s definitely plenty of fruit…

Unless fruits go bad fast too… I wonder how fast apples spoil inside a U-boat.)

Overall. Taste? 3 out 5. Portions? 5 out of 5. I think this was fine. Man, I kind of want Trout to make some brats for dinner tonight now…

THIS IT?

SHEISSE, WHERE IS POTATO????????

I UNDERSTAND TINY MENU IS FOR TINY JAPANESE PEOPLES BUT THE PORTIONS ARE TINY!

No, Dracha, you just eat a whole lot. The IJN’s wartime caloric allotment was in the region of anywhere from 3200 kcals to 3600 kcals, which was on par with the calorie standards of other navies…

T-taugogtau –

It’s also rude to talk with your mouth full of food like that. Also did you forget? This is my sub-corner after all. Just because I’m busy doing research doesn’t mean I can’t pipe in and provide useful commentary, where I’m sure all our readers appreciate.

S-sorry! I wasn’t trying to talk. It’s just this … RICE! THINGIE! It’s REALLY hard to eat. It’s hard and doesn’t taste like rice at all!

That’s because it’s barley rice. Typical ratio is 2 portions of barley to 1 portion of rice for the surface fleet. Hata says that most submariners still had to purchase their own food supplements, and nobody have the money to afford eating “silver rice” – what you and I call white rice every meal – with the exception of maybe some very wealthy officers.

*STARES*

I DEFINITELY see more grains of white rice here than 2:1, Tautog.

Japanese submarines have a much high portion of white rice, per meal, compared to anything else on the fleet. Think of it as hazard pay or a morale booster. However, barley mixed rice is still common enough that it appears on the menu fairly regularly. During earlier periods white rice may be far more common (in fact several commanders can attest it being almost for every meal!), but the evidence we obtained is sourced in 1944 – well into the losing portions of the Pacific War.

There’s no potato… no meat… waah… Those pickles are tiny and the black sauce tastes really off…

You ate the meat already.

H-Huh??? You mean that tiny canned thing?

Yeah. Also, it wasn’t tiny. It was 500 g and you ate two of them in that stew-like dish. Normally Japanese submariners don’t just get canned, pre-made meat meals. Those were special. You just ate enough meat for four, and it’s generally stretched out into a stew or a curry.

… They didn’t taste like anything to be honest. Kinda bland and salty. The meat’s texture was also really weird. Say, Tautog, do Japanese canned fish taste better? I just realized that it’s not common at all over this side –

We have canned tuna but nobody really likes it much.

Yeah. Tambor’s right. Typically canned tuna is easy to get in the US side, but it’s really just meant as a sandwich filler more than anything else. The Japanese sort of canned sauced fish or deboned raw fish is interesting precisely because it’s different. Normally, preserved, fresh, or whole fish is common. Below is a picture from a Japanese military manual showing new recruits how to properly fillet and process fish.

However, submariners often had to deal with canned goods. Take a trip to the local Asian supermarket and look for their canned stuff. It won’t be too different from what the Japanese submariners ate historically.

… I have to say I really didn’t like it. At all. The whole meal, I mean. We eat rice too, but it’s nothing like the way the Japanese submariners make it. The meat was cold and it didn’t taste very good. The pickles are really flavorful, but they were really tiny. The black sauce tasted horrible! It was like burnt leather, only saltier and smellier. The only thing I liked was their soda-pop. It was zesty and lemony and tasted really good. Just like the sodas we get on Avalon these days.

Also, why didn’t they have dessert?

OH. ALSO. I HAD A BEER. IT WAS WEAK AS SHEISSE. WHOEVER DECIDED TO CALL THIS STUFF BEER SHOULD GO DO THE SAMURAI SUICIDE THING BECAUSE IT’S AN INSULT TO BEER. I AM ACTUALLY KIND OF OFFENDED NOW.

Er, first of all, the black sauce you had was supposed to be miso. Apparently based on the two sources we could find, many Japanese submariners disliked the miso supplied to them. They preferred other canned sauces or non-canned soy sauces instead.

Secondly, dessert items were considered to be “extra” menu items. It’s kind of like their midrats. Plenty of bean breads and baked goodies or other sweets, but only for specially qualified individuals. For the matter, it wasn’t very good either. Unlike the plethora of baked goodies you see on a US submarine, most Japanese baked items were basically … bread plus sugar.

Literally plus table sugar. You’ll see plenty of menu items like “bread with canned red bean paste” or “bread with sugar sprinkles” or “bread with sugar sprinkles plus extra sugar rations.” Other common dessert items such as Mitsumame (think of these as jelly) and Yokan (another jelly-paste like dessert made out of red bean paste) are generally served at the commander’s discretion.

Beer… I have no idea. Some sources mention the alcohol rations are often diluted on occasions, and other than that I haven’t heard anything about Japanese beers being “weak.” Hata?

Freshly baked bread every day. Not a single meal without good meat. Choices of beef, pork, chicken, wow. Desserts all the time. Huge mix of fruits, vegetables, and … waw…

Fresh! Milk! Ice cream!

Easy there hon. Fresh milk isn’t that common. It’s generally only available at the beginning of a patrol or in port. It’s definitely something you miss, though.

T-Tautog, I’m gonna make some gaijin home-guard who harbors a far too romanticized view of everything Japanese mad by saying this, but this food is really, really good!

Of course. Pic related. It’s a reenactor showing everyone what cooking on a US WW2 submarine looked like! If I have my way you’ll see an entire mini-series within the Navy foods mini-series too! All about cooking on a submarine, mwahaha!

(The source is from the USS Cod!)

Hope you had fun reading that, everyone. See ya next time!

…Shouldn’t Tautog be the one closing this off?

Actually I’m kinda hungry now. Besides, it doesn’t count as a hostile takeover if I approve wholeheartedly of its contents!

Wait, so were there sub corners that weren’t approved?

No, I mean, not that way. It WOULD be nice if Dolphin doesn’t randomly barge in and go MURICA on everyone though. I’d also like to keep it as related to submarines as possible, so no random Prisse-Zuizu-Marby or whatever/whoever else coming in talk about the things they like.

See ya next time!