分类： 前线来信·Mail call

前线来信·Mail call, 美舰本·Pacific ,

Silent Service VII: Trout

by Morgane 2017年5月14日

I did say last week that I’ll be showing up sooner or later, right?

I’m the Tambor-class subgirl Trout. I serve at the Commander’s pleasure here in Avalon base. From an out-of-the-universe perspective, I do the same. Simply swap Mike Yin out for K9catforce & Morgane and the rest of the team.

Good morning! How are you.

Good morning, commander! Actually, it’s technically still “good very-late night for me.” Before I clock out though I do have three new developments that requires your attention.

One. As you are aware sections of Avalon is currently undergoing significant build-up, and it is necessary for us to oversee the little one’s construction process. There’s been an unusual – but resolved – incident today that you need to acknowledge. Here is the form.

… I know the Dee-dees liked it a lot, and I’m sorry that we had to tear it down, but the plan specifically called for a new temporary airfield in that sector and not a set of trenches. I’m not even sure if we can get snow on Avalon so the prospective utility of a snowball fight is moot, but just do pay attention to this one too, alright? I do feel we should try to give the poor girls more stuff to do for fun here, especially since visits off-shore is extremely limited.

Two. I have revised your draft pertaining to the coordination of production and additional support to Project Trinity. The big boss certainly seems on board with it so I figure this would be a good time to push. If you can get the draft to me in … maybe six or so hours I can have it back to you before the end of the day today.

Three. There is a new intel report on Jer’s desk pertaining to the latest developments in Europe. Not saying anything else, just that it’s there. You’ll see it first thing Monday and we have the rest of your day blocked off for meetings.

To summarize, the Pan-European effort to create a shipgirl service has failed yet again, and multiple parties have reached out to us for comment and arbitration. We reported to our superiors and they threw the ball right back in our court. If you ask me –

Jer? Probably not up yet. Yeah, I know. It’s the weekend. I just enjoy my work. Besides, not to sound like the commies but I’m proud of the fact that I’m one of your finest agents on and off the field. THAT requires dedication and effort, and I’ve every intent to keep myself ready, able, and willing at all times –

*yawn*

Though, my record is hardly… sterling. Sometimes *yawn* the spirit is willing but the flesh is weak.

…

Is that breakfast I see?

Oh.

Well. With Tambor around usually nothing’s left – I see now, commander. Crafty, and much-appreciated. Why don’t you just leave the plate on my cabinet and I’ll grab a bite after this segment?

TRUIIIIIIII-TE~

Yes?

TRUITE!

I heard ya just fine, Surcouf dear. How are you?

WHY NO “SILENT SERVICE” FOR SURCOUF?

I don’t understand the question.

WHEN IS IT MY TURN?

I still don’t understand the question.

WHY AM I NOT IN BOOK!!

Ask Tautau.

SHE HAS BEEN AVOID SINCE YESTERDAY! 

Um, ask Morgane?

SHE SAYS TO ASK SUNE WHO TOLD ME TO ASK K9 WHO SAY ME TO ASK MORGANE AGAIN WHO SAY TO ME TO ASK K9 WHO TOLD ME TO WAIT SINCE SOMETHING ABOUT LAYOUT AND PAGES AND TIME.

So you’re not… not in the book.

WELL I AM NOT IN BOOK YET!

Well, most of us aren’t yet either.

JE PROTESTE! LE SURCOUF WAS LARGEST AND UNIQUEST FRENCH SUBMARINE IN ALL OF THE SECONDE GUERRE! IS GREAT EXAMPLE OF SUBMARINE PRINCIPLES! ALSO HEROISM.

PLUS I HAVE SENIORITY! AM LITERALLY FIRST SUBGIRL SIMA EVER DRAW! I EVEN HAVE PLOTS! THERE WERE CHIBIS OF ME! YET BATFISH AND PAM ARE ALL GETTING REDRAWN BEFORE ME WHEN I CAME BEFORE THEM!

Well, Narwhal and The twins aren’t getting redrawn either, nor are they spotlighted in the book –

I WANT TO SEE SIMA! BRING ME TO LE CHEF! I HAVE –

You know what, dear. I see you’re upset right now. Why don’t you come with me as I drop these books off for Mike? Talk to me on the way. We can then go do something um, fun, after.

…OKAY. 

 

 

前线来信·Mail call, 美舰本·Pacific ,

Silent Service VI: Early U.S. Sub Designs (3) – Cruiser Concepts

by Morgane 2017年5月13日

“Are these still called Tautog’s Sub Corners?”

Yes, of course? I’m not a Pokemon, you know! Besides, I don’t think I need to tell EVERYONE what my sub corner is at this point. We’ve had like five or six of these!

Anyways. Today’s sub corner I have a friend with me again. This is Argo!

…Feels a little strange being introduced like this. *laughs* Though I guess if you’ve been reading these you know which subgirl I’m supposed to be, right?

So. Should I talk or do you wanna?

Go ahead, Tog. I’ll pipe in if we need extra comments.

Okay! So. Last time we talked about the V-boats and how they weren’t quite what the Navy had wanted at the time. We ended with two important points, which are:

  1. The U.S. Navy decided it wanted long range cruiser type submarines to eventually meet the Japanese, which were now identified as the primary opponent. The reason why they wanted a long range submarine was taking into account War Plan Orange, where the submarine is envisioned to more or less strike out from bases far from the battle zone.
  2. Due to the difficulties in the economy, however, Congress was very reluctant in building more warships, and that includes submarines.

I talked a little bit about the sometimes contradictory design premises that General Board put the engineers through. What ended up happening, though, was that the the U.S. settled on a few priorities.  In no particular order, these criteria included range, speed, fuel economy, size, and reliability.

What’s more, the U.S. decided to stick to the submarines and seriously develop its tactics. We aren’t too sure why or what made that decision for them – but given that we’re still in the 1920s, my guess is that abandoning the idea of the battlecruiser probably had something to do with it.

See, at the time, we thought that cruisers could be used to fight off screens. A battlecruiser could have acted as a scout, fought the enemy small-fries, and directly checked out what exactly did the other side have in terms of their capital ships. Now that the US firmly decided that there would be no battlecruisers, guess which type of ship ended up getting the job?

Submarines, of course. Now, airplanes weren’t entirely in the pictures yet. Neither were aircraft carriers. We did think about putting planes on a sub, but that’s another story for another time!

*laughs* They still ended up making a pretty big submarine.

Yeah, V-4 would be the biggest submarine we would ever build before the age of nuclear submarines. But, she had to be big. After all, we were talking about minelaying operations, so all the mines have to go somewhere! That’s what she was built for. Though, of course, like I said up there, she was supposed to scout too.

Do you want to say something about our own nutty designs? I thought the V-4 piece was going to be a multi-parter because of so many new concepts introduced.

Which nutty design? And, sure!

I’ll give you one. The submersible battlecruiser!

…

What the heck IS that?

Designed by one Lt. Cmdr. Craven, this was a literal underwater battlecruiser. She was supposed to have 4 (though I like the one with 6 personally, teehee) 12” guns, 10 torpedo tubes in the bow and 4 in the stern, a surface speed of 25 knots, and resistant to 8” gunfire at 8000 yards. So yes, you’re looking at 6” of armor on the turrets and conning tower, and up to 6” of armor on the sides, too. 

The turrets would be enclosed in those hemispherical orb-looking turrets to better resist water pressure, and they’d be backed up by those 4” anti-aircraft guns. The idea was that we’re really going to get a real independent scout this time, so we might as well go all out and build the biggest thing we could think of.

And?

We didn’t build it.

Yeah. I know that. You’re standing here in your … ordinary gear and not 12” guns!

I mean, Congress was leery of funding 2,000 ton submarines. How kindly do you think they’d take to a 20,000 ton submarine? 

Wait. Hollup. Oversized main guns. Hemispherical turrets. Submerging to attack targets… Not to mention mostly impractical engineering…

…What, did we try to build Surc –

TAUTAU! Te voilà! 

…

WHY am I NOT in Silence Service book?? 

Okay, see you next time everyone! I’m gonna have to go on patrol now. Later. Bye!

前线来信·Mail call, 美舰本·Pacific

[Mail Call 05/11/2017] A Note on Shipgirl Selection

by k9catforce 2017年5月12日

So, how do we select which ship gets turned into a Shipgirl? Or alternatively, WHY ISN’T MY SHIPFU IN PACIFIC YET!?

Well, plenty of reasons that certain shipgirls get selected while others don’t. Admittedly, it’s not a very consistent process. There are girls that we knew right off the bat that we want to include, and then there are girls that end up being our favorites that sort of comes out of left field, and then ends up in the spotlight.

Generally, Morgane has a decent idea of what girls she wants to include for each volume. They’re usually the big players in the battles that the books are themed around. So Lexington and Hornet made sense (the book is “themed” around Coral Sea and the Doolittle Raid, of course!), but we also include girls like Chicago or O’bannon because we really want to. For instance, once we put Edsall’s personality down on paper, we really wanted to bring in someone more lively. That person ended up being O’bannon.

So, for this Midway book (vol 3.) it’s the same thing. Yorktown and Nautilus are already on the list, for instance, and any gaps left are filled either by Sune or I. In general I’d say that the criteria we use is (in no particular order): 1. Participated in the battle featured/was active around the same time frame. 2. Is of the particular ship type that we need. (Vol.3 is in serious need of Heavy Cruisers…) 3.Had a life that we could easily put a personality on.

Morgane will then add 4. Possess something uniquely suitable for Pacific for “thematic” reasons. Then you have the rest of our list.

For Silent service, I call the shots for who to include in the book. So Morgane’s role and mine are switched, but the process is generally similar. Sometimes Sima reads up on some history and finds something really cool he’d like to illustrate (Cusk), Sometimes I’ll come across a cool submarine story and feel compelled to write about it (Batfish), Sometimes it’s a girl I’ve written for the main Pacific books that didn’t end up making it there (Tautog). Other times Sune would like to communicate something about Japan (I-202). Heck, U-552 was literally me going “We can’t have a book on submarines without at least mentioning U-boats!”

So why don’t we have some set criteria?

Well…

Here’s the list of the 25 highest scoring submarines. You’ll note that really, only Tautog is appearing in Silent Service. Not that you’ll never see any of the other girls, of course. I’d love to turn each and every one into a shipgirl eventually. (I see one big name that’s going in Vol. 3 )

The thing with locking ourselves into selection based purely on scores is that a lot of the submarine stories we can tell are a lot more than that. Pampanito is listed with 5 enemy ships sunk. She’d have been completely glossed over if we’d have went purely via kills. Miss out on Pampanito, and you miss out on a medical miracle that deserves to be told.

On the flip side, I’ll admit that at times Tautog was a little hard to write. She’s got an impressive kill record, but that’s really all she’s known for. We like to keep each girl unique, so you can see how it can be hard to write a girl who’s claim to fame can also be said of 24 other submarines! (This is where reading ship logs and crewmember narratives can be a BIG help. Morgane can talk more about that.)

I guess, the best way of putting it is that everyone here is doing what they do because we enjoy it. Pacific gives us the chance to tell some amazing stories. We’re going to pick the ones that we’re interested in.

前线来信·Mail call, 美舰本·Pacific

С Днём Победы!

by k9catforce 2017年5月11日

Hiya folks! Tautog again. Today-

TAUTOG! Why don’t you take a break today? It is a holiday after all!

Holiday? Tasha, what do you mean?

VICTORY DAY! 😀

Victory day?

VICTORY DAY! WHERE THE GLORIOUS SOVIET UNION TRIUMPHED OVER THE FASCIST MENACE!

…Tasha, they don’t celebrate Victory day in America.

THEY DON’T!? :O WHY DON’T THEY?

First of all, Americans have Veteran’s Day and Memorial Day. 

To them our V-Day is Victory in Europe Day, which isn’t the same as their Victory Day since it is typically associated with Victory over Japan Day. It is all very confusing. Victory Day stopped being a federal holiday in 1975 in light of changing relationships with Japan.

This does not mean that organizations or states could not choose to celebrate it, though. Rhode Island still keep the holiday as an official one, and countries like the US and the UK still maintain an official Victory Day on the calendars. 

TAUTOG SON GET SNAPPIER NEXT TIME! YOU’RE LETTING A COMMIE TEACH OUR READERS ABOUT ‘MURICAN CUSTOMS AND HISTORY!

…I want to nap.

Anyways. Katya. Now that you’re here. Do we want to introduce you to our readers? RY!

Isn’t it supposed to be Argonaut’s turn next?

Well, if it’s a Soviet holiday, what better time than to introduce yourself?

Hello. I am submarine K-21 of the Soviet Navy. Pleased to meet you.

AND HAPPY VICTORY DAY!

…Yes. Happy victory day.