Excalibur Squadron OOC Thread

[Morrdh]

Did you know, in the British Army US Troops are known as Spams?

For a number of reasons, but one rumoured one is SPAM = Spastic Plastic American Motherfucker, referring probably to the M4/M16.

At least we still don't use a gun that's a complete defect. Hint hint L85 hint.

The M16/M4 platform may have problems, but not nearly as many, nor as frequent as the L85. But enough about that.

To be fair H&K revamped the L85 and made a fair more reliable weapon, though SAS still uses Canadian version of the M16 and alot of British Army veterans I've spoken to preferred the old L1A1 SLR by miles.

[Grenartia]

What I'm saying is that they're shitty for any kind of military uniform, and that for a guerrilla soldier, such a hat would've been a gigantic neon sign shouting "HEY LOOK AT ME! SHOOT THE GUY WEARING ME!".

And you've never heard of a Kentucky Long Rifle, have you?

1) You must not have heard of the 18th and early 19th centuries.
2) Why the heck would a Guerrilla Soldier choose to wear the Ceremonial Full Dress of the Foot Guard Regiments of the British Army?
3) Please don't insult my intelligence by asking me if I've heard of rifles. There's nothing 'special' about the American Longrifle, I'd wager the Baker Rifle was superior, and yet even that didn't invalidate the use of shakos, bearskins, blue coats, red coats, gold braid and line formations. It's pretty stupid to imply they would.

In 1778 at the siege of Boonesborough, Kentucky, one of the officers of the combined British/Shawnee assault force was hiding behind a tree. He stuck his head out from behind the tree and was instantly killed by a ball to the forehead fired by Daniel Boone, who was known for always firing the same fixed measure load of black powder in his rifle. This shot was later confirmed by witnesses on both sides and the distance measured at 250 yards. Hitting a target so precisely at that range would probably make the "Kentucky" rifle comparable in total effective (long) range with the British Baker rifle at 300 to 400 yards.

The accuracy of the rifle in capable hands is most famously demonstrated at the Battle of Cacabelos by the action of Rifleman Thomas Plunkett (or Plunket) of the 1st Battalion, 95th Rifles, who shot French General Colbert at an unknown but long range (as much as 600 yards (549 meters) according to some sources) during the retreat to La Coruña during the Peninsular War. He then shot one of the General's aides, suggesting that the success of the first shot was not due to luck.

1. Flashy and overly showy military uniforms have no place in any century.

2. You misunderstand. The guerrilla soldier isn't wearing the uniforms, they're shooting at the people who are.

3. Except having good range and accuracy, as well as being cheap and easy to make.

What I'm saying is that they're shitty for any kind of military uniform, and that for a guerrilla soldier, such a hat would've been a gigantic neon sign shouting "HEY LOOK AT ME! SHOOT THE GUY WEARING ME!".

Just to jump in, I assume you're referring to the American War of Independence there? Because it is telling the the very moment the nascent United States had the money to adopt then-conventional military uniforms, it did so:



Here is the 1810 United States Marine Corps uniform. Note how it looks exactly like other Napoleonic uniforms. Because at the time, these worked.

I honestly fail to see how they worked. Colorful uniforms are targets. That's why modern militaries use some sort of drab colors and/or camouflage.

What I'm saying is that they're shitty for any kind of military uniform, and that for a guerrilla soldier, such a hat would've been a gigantic neon sign shouting "HEY LOOK AT ME! SHOOT THE GUY WEARING ME!".

Actually a guerilla soldier would at worst be a minor inconvenience for a regiment of real soldiers and would likely spot him anyway. However what the bearskin is good for is that you look much taller wearing one which is good when you march straight up to an enemy line, unleashing a volley at them and then charge in screaming with your bayonet.

You will look much taller and fearsome which is the point of them in the first place making them a really good choice for a headgear. They also had the added benefit of giving some minor cover against sabres if you were attacked by cavalry.

I'll grant the taller aspect, however, there's this thing called hiding, and using the terrain to one's advantage. There's a reason why the American forces that used guerrilla tactics were so successful against the British forces.

[Monfrox]

At least we still don't use a gun that's a complete defect. Hint hint L85 hint.

The M16/M4 platform may have problems, but not nearly as many, nor as frequent as the L85. But enough about that.

To be fair H&K revamped the L85 and made a fair more reliable weapon, though SAS still uses Canadian version of the M16 and alot of British Army veterans I've spoken to preferred the old L1A1 SLR by miles.

Despite H&K's improvements, the L85A2 isn't much better than the A1.

[Morrdh]

To be fair H&K revamped the L85 and made a fair more reliable weapon, though SAS still uses Canadian version of the M16 and alot of British Army veterans I've spoken to preferred the old L1A1 SLR by miles.

Despite H&K's improvements, the L85A2 isn't much better than the A1.

IIRC current serving soldiers would give an arm and a leg for the chance to have an old SLR, if anything to have a longer range than a 5.56mm weapon out in Afghanistan (Coalition troops repeatedly find themselves being engaged by longer ranged weapons).

[Monfrox]

Despite H&K's improvements, the L85A2 isn't much better than the A1.

IIRC current serving soldiers would give an arm and a leg for the chance to have an old SLR, if anything to have a longer range than a 5.56mm weapon out in Afghanistan (Coalition troops repeatedly find themselves being engaged by longer ranged weapons).

The Brit's truly are stubborn...

[Kouralia]

Did you know, in the British Army US Troops are known as Spams?

For a number of reasons, but one rumoured one is SPAM = Spastic Plastic American Motherfucker, referring probably to the M4/M16.

At least we still don't use a gun that's a complete defect. Hint hint L85 hint.

The M16/M4 platform may have problems, but not nearly as many, nor as frequent as the L85. But enough about that.

wat

plz, Mon, stop being retarded as soon as an American thing gets slightly knocked. The L85 has no current problems beyond :bullpup: and :cockinghandle:, you do no credit to America by randomly latching on to the nearest brit analogy and beating it down irrelevantly.

The L85's Problems were sorted in short order as they became identified in an Operational Environment. Any attempt to imply the M16 fared better before becoming the A1 is largely hot air.

To be fair H&K revamped the L85 and made a fair more reliable weapon, though SAS still uses Canadian version of the M16 and alot of British Army veterans I've spoken to preferred the old L1A1 SLR by miles.

Despite H&K's improvements, the L85A2 isn't much better than the A1.

plz, Mon, you've reached the point where you stopped knowing what you were talking about.

*snip*

1. Flashy and overly showy military uniforms have no place in any century.

2. You misunderstand. The guerrilla soldier isn't wearing the uniforms, they're shooting at the people who are.

3. Except having good range and accuracy, as well as being cheap and easy to make.

*snip*

I honestly fail to see how they worked. Colorful uniforms are targets. That's why modern militaries use some sort of drab colors and/or camouflage.

*snip*

I'll grant the taller aspect, however, there's this thing called hiding, and using the terrain to one's advantage. There's a reason why the American forces that used guerrilla tactics were so successful against the British forces.

As have you, Gren.
1) It's not 'overly' fancy. It's a red coat, black torusers, and a tall black hat.
2) Then good luck hitting them.
3) So? This means fuck all? Why do you think the finest military minds of the generation (who undoubtedly knew more than you) didn't mass equip armies with them?

4) Yeah. I'm not even going to bother trying to explain even a single (i.e. British) Army's uniform transition and the reasoning behind it.

5) Yes. Hiding. It's what the Rifle Regiment did, and probably practically perfected within the remit of 'Modern Army', and it still didn't invalidate any single aspect of the utterly contemporary French War Machine in Spain.
6) They weren't, really. The only reason the US won is France. With their Contemporary uniforms and shiny navy.

[Imeriata]

I'll grant the taller aspect, however, there's this thing called hiding, and using the terrain to one's advantage. There's a reason why the American forces that used guerrilla tactics were so successful against the British forces.

And yes there is a thing like using the terrain to ones advantage. The best way to do so in that day was to form a line to be able to concentrate your firepower at your foes, something that splendid bright uniforms were not only good at but in fact the best for.
Hiding in that day and age only forced you to spread out your line which not only lowered moral but also lowered your rate of fire and how well you could concentrate your vollies. All around something bad.

The only way that was actually effective would be if you are a piss poor American militiaman that cannot be expected to do so against a well organized line of red coats in the first place.

[Morrdh]

IIRC current serving soldiers would give an arm and a leg for the chance to have an old SLR, if anything to have a longer range than a 5.56mm weapon out in Afghanistan (Coalition troops repeatedly find themselves being engaged by longer ranged weapons).

The Brit's truly are stubborn...

Hey the old SLR was reliable, tough as old boots, could ruin any poor bugger's day if hit by it (shot and/or rifle melee) and was useful in other ways such as splintering a broken leg or forming a makeshift stretcher.

[Kouralia]

The Brit's truly are stubborn...

Hey the old SLR was reliable, tough as old boots, could ruin any poor bugger's day if hit by it (shot and/or rifle melee) and was useful in other ways such as splintering a broken leg or forming a makeshift stretcher.

Hadn't quite reached the 7th Stage of Squaddy-Proofing though.

[Imeriata]

3) So? This means fuck all? Why do you think the finest military minds of the generation (who undoubtedly knew more than you) didn't mass equip armies with them?

Because rifles have a much slower rate of fire than a smoothborn musket and in those days were rate of fire everything on the battlefield.

[Morrdh]

Before Tiger goes nuts can I politely ask that the various rifle vs rifle and uniforms discussions be taken to TGs or a new thread please?

Thanks.

Getting back onto a Excalibur related topic, will probably do another one-shot soon.

Either Kaya's father during WW1 or Kaya herself.

[The Two Jerseys]

1. Flashy and overly showy military uniforms have no place in any century.

Go stand in a large room with two people wearing dull-colored clothing, turn on a smoke machine and blast deafening music while they move around, then try to figure out who's who when you see them.

Hence, red coats.

Hadn't quite reached the 7th Stage of Squaddy-Proofing though.

IIRC, the closest thing to SSSP was the rubber eyepiece from the Starlight scope. It only failed because a squaddie ate it.

[The Tiger Kingdom]

Before Tiger goes nuts can I politely ask that the various rifle vs rifle and uniforms discussions be taken to TGs or a new thread please?

Thanks.

This.
Also, all the people who aren't ES members but for some reason felt that they needed to involve themselves in our discussions: either submit an app or kindly quit spamming. This isn't a public chat thread.

[Grenartia]

Before Tiger goes nuts can I politely ask that the various rifle vs rifle and uniforms discussions be taken to TGs or a new thread please?

Thanks.

This.
Also, all the people who aren't ES members but for some reason felt that they needed to involve themselves in our discussions: either submit an app or kindly quit spamming. This isn't a public chat thread.

I was wondering why Imeriata was here...

Though I can't say I'd be opposed to seeing him/her/them in Excalibur.

[The Two Jerseys]

This.
Also, all the people who aren't ES members but for some reason felt that they needed to involve themselves in our discussions: either submit an app or kindly quit spamming. This isn't a public chat thread.

I was wondering why Imeriata was here...

Though I can't say I'd be opposed to seeing him/her/them in Excalibur.

I wouldn't mind either.

Also, here's how we prisoners are really getting out of Berlin alive.

[Goram]

1. Flashy and overly showy military uniforms have no place in any century.

Go stand in a large room with two people wearing dull-colored clothing, turn on a smoke machine and blast deafening music while they move around, then try to figure out who's who when you see them.

Hence, red coats.

This, this and nothing but this. For the sort of people in this thread, I'd have thought this to be common sense.

Actually a guerilla soldier would at worst be a minor inconvenience for a regiment of real soldiers and would likely spot him anyway. However what the bearskin is good for is that you look much taller wearing one which is good when you march straight up to an enemy line, unleashing a volley at them and then charge in screaming with your bayonet.

You will look much taller and fearsome which is the point of them in the first place making them a really good choice for a headgear. They also had the added benefit of giving some minor cover against sabres if you were attacked by cavalry.

I'll grant the taller aspect, however, there's this thing called hiding, and using the terrain to one's advantage. There's a reason why the American forces that used guerrilla tactics were so successful against the British forces.

Gren, consider the weapon of the day. It's 1776. Few, precious few, men have access to a rifled weapon. The vast majority of troops carry a smoothbore musket, which has no sights, is slow (not as slow as a rifle) firing and is widely inaccurate at any more than fifty yards.

This sort of weapon does not lend itself to using cover effectively, or using the terrain to your tactical advantage on a wide scale. The only tactical (and I hate to call this the tactical level, but that is were we currently reside as a single battle does not encroach onto the strategic level) advantage you can really gain is by controlling the dominant feature in the terrain, i.e. the high ground (Example: Waterloo) or getting behind a stone wall (Example: Fredericksburg). Even here, no one will be hiding and no one will be taking cover, unless they have a prepared defensive position, such as was the case at Fredericksburg.

The name of the 18th and 19th century game was stand and take/give fire. It was the only way the weapon of the day, issued in overwhelming majority, could be used anywhere near effectively. Using modern infantry tactics, for line infantry, would simply not have worked.

[The Tiger Kingdom]

Welcome to a new feature I hope to keep up semi-regularly, seeing as how I'm reading all these books right now and have nobody to talk to about them:

Tiger Reviews the Books in Page's Library!
Episode 1: The Happy Return by C.S. Forester - released 1937
The first in the Hornblower series - just finished this one a few hours ago.

Plot summary:
The year is 1808, and Captain Horatio Hornblower (yes, that is his real name) is in command of the 36-gun fifth-rate HMS Lydia, sent on a dangerous mission to the Pacific side of the Americas held by Napoleon's Spanish allies. Their objective is to deliver a massive shipment of weaponry and ammunition to a local plantation owner known as "El Supremo", who has agreed to lead a rebellion against the Spanish colonial government in Nicaragua and sign a whole bunch of commercial treaties with the Brits if they agree to support his campaigning.

Upon arriving at El Supremo's hideaway with the guns after a massively long voyage, Hornblower is dismayed to discover that El Supremo is an utter madman who claims direct descent from both Montezuma and Cortez's lieutenant Alvarado (whom he claims was the real conqueror of the Aztecs, not Cortez), giving him a divine right to rule all of the Americas in an iron grip, and who forces his men and the population at large to deny all other religions and gods in favor of his divinity, upon pain of a torturous death by thirst. On top of that, he then learns that the Spanish also have a small ship-of-the-line in the area - the 50-gun fourth-rate Natividad. Hornblower leaves the weaponry and departs immediately to eliminate the ship before it realizes that the Royal Navy (well, one British ship, anyway) is in the Pacific.

In a quick action, the Natividad is surprised in a night ambush, boarded, and captured by Hornblower's crew with nary a loss on the British side. The fourth-rate is then handed over to El Supremo's admiral, who executes several of the Natividad's officers, and conscripts the rest of the crew as well as the ship itself to their side. The mission seemingly accomplished, Hornblower begins the voyage back to the Atlantic, only to be confronted by a Spanish ship off of Panama claiming that the Spanish government is now officially allied with Britain given Napoleon's coup, and that El Supremo is now the acknowledged enemy of both nations. After a fairly big facepalm at the bad timing of it all, Hornblower restocks the ship, takes on a lady passenger (who turns out to be the [fictional] sister of the Iron Duke himself and contributes very little to the plot overall, aside from being someone for Captain H.H. to crush on) against his will, and sails back to to Nicaragua to go gun-to-gun with the Natividad for real this time.

Long story short, the Lydia proceeds to locate the Natividad and get into a knock-down, drag-out gun battle with them for an entire day. By nightfall, both ships are extremely badly damaged, with the Lydia having lost dozens of men to grape shot and cannon fire, but the Lydia manages to destroy the Natividad before it can make an escape, its ammo holds detonating and totally annihilating the ship and all its crew. H.H. then tries to limp the ship back to Panama before the pumps give out entirely and the ship sinks, only to be informed that now that the Natividad is gone and the Spanish colonial army is about to rout El Supremo's forces, that the Lydia is not welcome in any Spanish port anymore. With no other option, the Captain beaches the Lydia on a sandy islet to commence repairs. After they finish and leave some time later, the Spanish sail out to meet the Lydia again one last time to present Captain Hornblower with a "present": a viewing of the captured El Supremo, now a raving madman in chains. Hornblower is thoroughly disgusted by their treatment of him, a bastard though he may have been.

They head back to St. Helena and from there, to England. On their way, H.H. and Lady Wellesley become uncomfortably good friends. He's married (to a woman who gets mentioned almost not at all), and she's super rich and politically powerful and he's neither, so of course they can never be together (seriously, who the hell would be this contrived and hacky in writing this shit-oh, wait, never mind), but neither of those realizations help much. As they're about to reach St. Helena, the latent passion of being cramped together on a reeking, sodden, uncomfortable ship still covered in blood and body parts for weeks on end with poor food and poorer weather overwhelms them and they embrace, only to be comedically interrupted by the Lady's maid before anything can get PG-13. This totally ruins the mood, and Lady Wellesley debarks at St. Helena. Fin.

What I liked:
- It's got a pretty asskicking sea battle taking up a full third of the book (it's not very long), and the overall descriptions of life at sea are pretty well-written.
- The crew is interestingly varied as well, but they're sketched so infuriatingly thin we barely get a sense of them beyond a few interesting details.
- El Supremo's a pretty good villain, despite the fact we barely ever see him and it's not explained why such an obvious psychopath with no real evidence of visible competence has managed to raise such a powerful rebel movement or inspire any sort of loyalty.
- Hornblower's actual strategy in destroying the Natividad is pretty well explained and thought out, and you can believe that Hornblower is a man of rare nautical skills as a result of this - much better than having it just be asserted how kickass of an officer he was. It shows that characteristic fairly well.
- Lady Barbara Wellesley, despite being totally plot-insignificant and her presence being very contrived, is actually a remarkably well-sketched character, especially given that she's a woman in this sort of book. She's smart, reasonably tough, independent, and unhesitatingly helps out as a volunteer nurse for the wounded during the battle, despite Hornblower's constant orders and repeated demands for her to go lock herself back in her cabin like a good girl and not dirty her upper-class, weak, soft lady hands with men's work, despite the fact that she's probably the most medically competent person on the entire ship (the surgeon's generally agreed to be a moron).
- Despite only being a few pages, the description of how Lady Barbara and H.H. become genuine friends is actually fairly well done.

Which leads me nicely to...

What I didn't like:
- It's pretty racist. Even aside from the use of racial slurs (of which there are plenty, mostly of the d-word pertaining to people of Hispanic descent, and one nonsensically used n-word to add variety), the characterizations are fairly sloppy for all the non-British characters. All the Spanish characters are portrayed as incompetent, conniving, backstabbing assholes, on both El Supremo's side and the actual colonial side, and all the Natives are portrayed as hopelessly backwards and dirty peasants in the thrall of their Spanish overlords. There's one black character in the book, who is (but of course) Lady Wellesley's maid, who is described as "simple", poor at her job, and also as a nymphomaniac for some reason. Not exactly progressive here, people.
- If my description of the ending is really abrupt, that's because the ending is really abrupt. Seriously, it doesn't end as much as it stops.
- There's no way around it: for being the character we're supposed to be rooting for, Hornblower's kind of a prick. He's determined to keep his crew at a very long arm's length as he fears becoming too free with his words around them, so he's a jerk to all of his crew, almost all of the time, for no real reason beyond that he feels he has to be. He constantly internally moans about how incompetent he is and how much he's fucked everything up when any non-blind person could see he's a savant of naval warfare, in a way that doesn't come of as heroically self-denying and humble, it just comes off as passive-aggressive and whiny to the point of an actual martyr complex. I understand that's a trait present in a lot of Victorian-era works like this, where any sort of pride is treated as an unforgivable sin, but it's also totally possible to go too far the other direction. Also, it's remarked repeatedly how much Lady Barbara's competence and reasonability "infuriates" him, because apparently all women should be immediately rendered as helpless as a baby as soon as they step onto a ship's deck.

What a guy!

Overall assessment:
It's definitely a mixed bag. The action's pretty good, and the basic story's pretty funcitional, but the characterization shoots itself in the foot by veering between way too thin for the interesting characters and infuriatingly unlikable for the main character. If I had to rate it, I'd give it a 6/10, ten being the best and one being Mein Kampf or something like that. I'll probably get at least one more follow-up story to see if Hornblower ever becomes less of a whiny jerk.

[Grenartia]

Welcome to a new feature I hope to keep up semi-regularly, seeing as how I'm reading all these books right now and have nobody to talk to about them:

Tiger Reviews the Books in Page's Library!
Episode 1: The Happy Return by C.S. Forester - released 1937
The first in the Hornblower series - just finished this one a few hours ago.

Plot summary:
The year is 1808, and Captain Horatio Hornblower (yes, that is his real name) is in command of the 36-gun fifth-rate HMS Lydia, sent on a dangerous mission to the Pacific side of the Americas held by Napoleon's Spanish allies. Their objective is to deliver a massive shipment of weaponry and ammunition to a local plantation owner known as "El Supremo", who has agreed to lead a rebellion against the Spanish colonial government in Nicaragua and sign a whole bunch of commercial treaties with the Brits if they agree to support his campaigning.

Upon arriving at El Supremo's hideaway with the guns after a massively long voyage, Hornblower is dismayed to discover that El Supremo is an utter madman who claims direct descent from both Montezuma and Cortez's lieutenant Alvarado (whom he claims was the real conqueror of the Aztecs, not Cortez), giving him a divine right to rule all of the Americas in an iron grip, and who forces his men and the population at large to deny all other religions and gods in favor of his divinity, upon pain of a torturous death by thirst. On top of that, he then learns that the Spanish also have a small ship-of-the-line in the area - the 50-gun fourth-rate Natividad. Hornblower leaves the weaponry and departs immediately to eliminate the ship before it realizes that the Royal Navy (well, one British ship, anyway) is in the Pacific.

In a quick action, the Natividad is surprised in a night ambush, boarded, and captured by Hornblower's crew with nary a loss on the British side. The fourth-rate is then handed over to El Supremo's admiral, who executes several of the Natividad's officers, and conscripts the rest of the crew as well as the ship itself to their side. The mission seemingly accomplished, Hornblower begins the voyage back to the Atlantic, only to be confronted by a Spanish ship off of Panama claiming that the Spanish government is now officially allied with Britain given Napoleon's coup, and that El Supremo is now the acknowledged enemy of both nations. After a fairly big facepalm at the bad timing of it all, Hornblower restocks the ship, takes on a lady passenger (who turns out to be the [fictional] sister of the Iron Duke himself and contributes very little to the plot overall, aside from being someone for Captain H.H. to crush on) against his will, and sails back to to Nicaragua to go gun-to-gun with the Natividad for real this time.

Long story short, the Lydia proceeds to locate the Natividad and get into a knock-down, drag-out gun battle with them for an entire day. By nightfall, both ships are extremely badly damaged, with the Lydia having lost dozens of men to grape shot and cannon fire, but the Lydia manages to destroy the Natividad before it can make an escape, its ammo holds detonating and totally annihilating the ship and all its crew. H.H. then tries to limp the ship back to Panama before the pumps give out entirely and the ship sinks, only to be informed that now that the Natividad is gone and the Spanish colonial army is about to rout El Supremo's forces, that the Lydia is not welcome in any Spanish port anymore. With no other option, the Captain beaches the Lydia on a sandy islet to commence repairs. After they finish and leave some time later, the Spanish sail out to meet the Lydia again one last time to present Captain Hornblower with a "present": a viewing of the captured El Supremo, now a raving madman in chains. Hornblower is thoroughly disgusted by their treatment of him, a bastard though he may have been.

They head back to St. Helena and from there, to England. On their way, H.H. and Lady Wellesley become uncomfortably good friends. He's married (to a woman who gets mentioned almost not at all), and she's super rich and politically powerful and he's neither, so of course they can never be together (seriously, who the hell would be this contrived and hacky in writing this shit-oh, wait, never mind), but neither of those realizations help much. As they're about to reach St. Helena, the latent passion of being cramped together on a reeking, sodden, uncomfortable ship still covered in blood and body parts for weeks on end with poor food and poorer weather overwhelms them and they embrace, only to be comedically interrupted by the Lady's maid before anything can get PG-13. This totally ruins the mood, and Lady Wellesley debarks at St. Helena. Fin.

What I liked:
- It's got a pretty asskicking sea battle taking up a full third of the book (it's not very long), and the overall descriptions of life at sea are pretty well-written.
- The crew is interestingly varied as well, but they're sketched so infuriatingly thin we barely get a sense of them beyond a few interesting details.
- El Supremo's a pretty good villain, despite the fact we barely ever see him and it's not explained why such an obvious psychopath with no real evidence of visible competence has managed to raise such a powerful rebel movement or inspire any sort of loyalty.
- Hornblower's actual strategy in destroying the Natividad is pretty well explained and thought out, and you can believe that Hornblower is a man of rare nautical skills as a result of this - much better than having it just be asserted how kickass of an officer he was. It shows that characteristic fairly well.
- Lady Barbara Wellesley, despite being totally plot-insignificant and her presence being very contrived, is actually a remarkably well-sketched character, especially given that she's a woman in this sort of book. She's smart, reasonably tough, independent, and unhesitatingly helps out as a volunteer nurse for the wounded during the battle, despite Hornblower's constant orders and repeated demands for her to go lock herself back in her cabin like a good girl and not dirty her upper-class, weak, soft lady hands with men's work, despite the fact that she's probably the most medically competent person on the entire ship (the surgeon's generally agreed to be a moron).
- Despite only being a few pages, the description of how Lady Barbara and H.H. become genuine friends is actually fairly well done.

Which leads me nicely to...

What I didn't like:
- It's pretty racist. Even aside from the use of racial slurs (of which there are plenty, mostly of the d-word pertaining to people of Hispanic descent, and one nonsensically used n-word to add variety), the characterizations are fairly sloppy for all the non-British characters. All the Spanish characters are portrayed as incompetent, conniving, backstabbing assholes, on both El Supremo's side and the actual colonial side, and all the Natives are portrayed as hopelessly backwards and dirty peasants in the thrall of their Spanish overlords. There's one black character in the book, who is (but of course) Lady Wellesley's maid, who is described as "simple", poor at her job, and also as a nymphomaniac for some reason. Not exactly progressive here, people.
- If my description of the ending is really abrupt, that's because the ending is really abrupt. Seriously, it doesn't end as much as it stops.
- There's no way around it: for being the character we're supposed to be rooting for, Hornblower's kind of a prick. He's determined to keep his crew at a very long arm's length as he fears becoming too free with his words around them, so he's a jerk to all of his crew, almost all of the time, for no real reason beyond that he feels he has to be. He constantly internally moans about how incompetent he is and how much he's fucked everything up when any non-blind person could see he's a savant of naval warfare, in a way that doesn't come of as heroically self-denying and humble, it just comes off as passive-aggressive and whiny to the point of an actual martyr complex. I understand that's a trait present in a lot of Victorian-era works like this, where any sort of pride is treated as an unforgivable sin, but it's also totally possible to go too far the other direction. Also, it's remarked repeatedly how much Lady Barbara's competence and reasonability "infuriates" him, because apparently all women should be immediately rendered as helpless as a baby as soon as they step onto a ship's deck.

What a guy!

Overall assessment:
It's definitely a mixed bag. The action's pretty good, and the basic story's pretty funcitional, but the characterization shoots itself in the foot by veering between way too thin for the interesting characters and infuriatingly unlikable for the main character. If I had to rate it, I'd give it a 6/10, ten being the best and one being Mein Kampf or something like that. I'll probably get at least one more follow-up story to see if Hornblower ever becomes less of a whiny jerk.

Interesting.

So, basically, Hornblower's a highly competent emo dickwad?

[Goram]

Welcome to a new feature I hope to keep up semi-regularly, seeing as how I'm reading all these books right now and have nobody to talk to about them:

Tiger Reviews the Books in Page's Library!
Episode 1: The Happy Return by C.S. Forester - released 1937
The first in the Hornblower series - just finished this one a few hours ago.

Plot summary:
The year is 1808, and Captain Horatio Hornblower (yes, that is his real name) is in command of the 36-gun fifth-rate HMS Lydia, sent on a dangerous mission to the Pacific side of the Americas held by Napoleon's Spanish allies. Their objective is to deliver a massive shipment of weaponry and ammunition to a local plantation owner known as "El Supremo", who has agreed to lead a rebellion against the Spanish colonial government in Nicaragua and sign a whole bunch of commercial treaties with the Brits if they agree to support his campaigning.

Upon arriving at El Supremo's hideaway with the guns after a massively long voyage, Hornblower is dismayed to discover that El Supremo is an utter madman who claims direct descent from both Montezuma and Cortez's lieutenant Alvarado (whom he claims was the real conqueror of the Aztecs, not Cortez), giving him a divine right to rule all of the Americas in an iron grip, and who forces his men and the population at large to deny all other religions and gods in favor of his divinity, upon pain of a torturous death by thirst. On top of that, he then learns that the Spanish also have a small ship-of-the-line in the area - the 50-gun fourth-rate Natividad. Hornblower leaves the weaponry and departs immediately to eliminate the ship before it realizes that the Royal Navy (well, one British ship, anyway) is in the Pacific.

In a quick action, the Natividad is surprised in a night ambush, boarded, and captured by Hornblower's crew with nary a loss on the British side. The fourth-rate is then handed over to El Supremo's admiral, who executes several of the Natividad's officers, and conscripts the rest of the crew as well as the ship itself to their side. The mission seemingly accomplished, Hornblower begins the voyage back to the Atlantic, only to be confronted by a Spanish ship off of Panama claiming that the Spanish government is now officially allied with Britain given Napoleon's coup, and that El Supremo is now the acknowledged enemy of both nations. After a fairly big facepalm at the bad timing of it all, Hornblower restocks the ship, takes on a lady passenger (who turns out to be the [fictional] sister of the Iron Duke himself and contributes very little to the plot overall, aside from being someone for Captain H.H. to crush on) against his will, and sails back to to Nicaragua to go gun-to-gun with the Natividad for real this time.

Long story short, the Lydia proceeds to locate the Natividad and get into a knock-down, drag-out gun battle with them for an entire day. By nightfall, both ships are extremely badly damaged, with the Lydia having lost dozens of men to grape shot and cannon fire, but the Lydia manages to destroy the Natividad before it can make an escape, its ammo holds detonating and totally annihilating the ship and all its crew. H.H. then tries to limp the ship back to Panama before the pumps give out entirely and the ship sinks, only to be informed that now that the Natividad is gone and the Spanish colonial army is about to rout El Supremo's forces, that the Lydia is not welcome in any Spanish port anymore. With no other option, the Captain beaches the Lydia on a sandy islet to commence repairs. After they finish and leave some time later, the Spanish sail out to meet the Lydia again one last time to present Captain Hornblower with a "present": a viewing of the captured El Supremo, now a raving madman in chains. Hornblower is thoroughly disgusted by their treatment of him, a bastard though he may have been.

They head back to St. Helena and from there, to England. On their way, H.H. and Lady Wellesley become uncomfortably good friends. He's married (to a woman who gets mentioned almost not at all), and she's super rich and politically powerful and he's neither, so of course they can never be together (seriously, who the hell would be this contrived and hacky in writing this shit-oh, wait, never mind), but neither of those realizations help much. As they're about to reach St. Helena, the latent passion of being cramped together on a reeking, sodden, uncomfortable ship still covered in blood and body parts for weeks on end with poor food and poorer weather overwhelms them and they embrace, only to be comedically interrupted by the Lady's maid before anything can get PG-13. This totally ruins the mood, and Lady Wellesley debarks at St. Helena. Fin.

What I liked:
- It's got a pretty asskicking sea battle taking up a full third of the book (it's not very long), and the overall descriptions of life at sea are pretty well-written.
- The crew is interestingly varied as well, but they're sketched so infuriatingly thin we barely get a sense of them beyond a few interesting details.
- El Supremo's a pretty good villain, despite the fact we barely ever see him and it's not explained why such an obvious psychopath with no real evidence of visible competence has managed to raise such a powerful rebel movement or inspire any sort of loyalty.
- Hornblower's actual strategy in destroying the Natividad is pretty well explained and thought out, and you can believe that Hornblower is a man of rare nautical skills as a result of this - much better than having it just be asserted how kickass of an officer he was. It shows that characteristic fairly well.
- Lady Barbara Wellesley, despite being totally plot-insignificant and her presence being very contrived, is actually a remarkably well-sketched character, especially given that she's a woman in this sort of book. She's smart, reasonably tough, independent, and unhesitatingly helps out as a volunteer nurse for the wounded during the battle, despite Hornblower's constant orders and repeated demands for her to go lock herself back in her cabin like a good girl and not dirty her upper-class, weak, soft lady hands with men's work, despite the fact that she's probably the most medically competent person on the entire ship (the surgeon's generally agreed to be a moron).
- Despite only being a few pages, the description of how Lady Barbara and H.H. become genuine friends is actually fairly well done.

Which leads me nicely to...

What I didn't like:
- It's pretty racist. Even aside from the use of racial slurs (of which there are plenty, mostly of the d-word pertaining to people of Hispanic descent, and one nonsensically used n-word to add variety), the characterizations are fairly sloppy for all the non-British characters. All the Spanish characters are portrayed as incompetent, conniving, backstabbing assholes, on both El Supremo's side and the actual colonial side, and all the Natives are portrayed as hopelessly backwards and dirty peasants in the thrall of their Spanish overlords. There's one black character in the book, who is (but of course) Lady Wellesley's maid, who is described as "simple", poor at her job, and also as a nymphomaniac for some reason. Not exactly progressive here, people.
- If my description of the ending is really abrupt, that's because the ending is really abrupt. Seriously, it doesn't end as much as it stops.
- There's no way around it: for being the character we're supposed to be rooting for, Hornblower's kind of a prick. He's determined to keep his crew at a very long arm's length as he fears becoming too free with his words around them, so he's a jerk to all of his crew, almost all of the time, for no real reason beyond that he feels he has to be. He constantly internally moans about how incompetent he is and how much he's fucked everything up when any non-blind person could see he's a savant of naval warfare, in a way that doesn't come of as heroically self-denying and humble, it just comes off as passive-aggressive and whiny to the point of an actual martyr complex. I understand that's a trait present in a lot of Victorian-era works like this, where any sort of pride is treated as an unforgivable sin, but it's also totally possible to go too far the other direction. Also, it's remarked repeatedly how much Lady Barbara's competence and reasonability "infuriates" him, because apparently all women should be immediately rendered as helpless as a baby as soon as they step onto a ship's deck.

What a guy!

Overall assessment:
It's definitely a mixed bag. The action's pretty good, and the basic story's pretty funcitional, but the characterization shoots itself in the foot by veering between way too thin for the interesting characters and infuriatingly unlikable for the main character. If I had to rate it, I'd give it a 6/10, ten being the best and one being Mein Kampf or something like that. I'll probably get at least one more follow-up story to see if Hornblower ever becomes less of a whiny jerk.

I've not read the books, though I intend to, but if the films are anything go to by...Hornblower is the shit.

Also, if this op is going where I think it's going, I'd like to volunteer Stanford as pilot or crew for one of the Wellingtons.

[The Tiger Kingdom]

Interesting.

So, basically, Hornblower's a highly competent emo dickwad?

He is sort of a dickwad. I don't know about emo, but he's really, really self-obsessed.

[Kouralia]

Goddamnit Royal Marines!

The first guilty verdict for murder brought against a British soldier on operations since WWII. You're a cunt if you do it, but Jesus Christ, if you do murder someone, you'd expect a Senior NCO to realise he should turn off his helmet cam.

[Monfrox]

Goddamnit Royal Marines!

The first guilty verdict for murder brought against a British soldier on operations since WWII. You're a cunt if you do it, but Jesus Christ, if you do murder someone, you'd expect a Senior NCO to realise he should turn off his helmet cam.

I was wondering if you'd have an opinion on that.

[Morrdh]

Goddamnit Royal Marines!

The first guilty verdict for murder brought against a British soldier on operations since WWII. You're a cunt if you do it, but Jesus Christ, if you do murder someone, you'd expect a Senior NCO to realise he should turn off his helmet cam.

Kour, there is a thread for this.

[Kouralia]

Goddamnit Royal Marines!

The first guilty verdict for murder brought against a British soldier on operations since WWII. You're a cunt if you do it, but Jesus Christ, if you do murder someone, you'd expect a Senior NCO to realise he should turn off his helmet cam.

Kour, there is a thread for this.

Eh, fine. We regularly comment on matters here, and I didn't know about the thread until you mentioned it.

[Morrdh]

Kour, there is a thread for this.

Eh, fine. We regularly comment on matters here, and I didn't know about the thread until you mentioned it.

Yeah though the subject in this case is something better suited for another thread.