A New Hope?

Watching some of "Star Wars" with the boys, I am struck at how rotten the tactics are of the Rebellion. Like in the end, they send 30 small fighters in against the Death Star. Well and good. But they squander their few numbers by bad deployment, ensuring that the fatality rate is terribly high. They basically send a three-man squadron into the trench for a bombing run, without proper cover. Unsurprisingly, Vader and company waste them. What they should've done is much like you'd have in any team sports -- have your forwards taking the offense, and have some guys covering the back, and then maybe some in the middle to lend a hand when needed. So, instead of this...

T.I.E. Fighters === Rebel Squadron A (RS A)

...they could have had this...

RS D === RS C === RS B === T.I.E. Fighters === RS A

Do it like a conveyor belt, and whoever survives A's bombing run loops back to the back of the line, with a reserve squadron running interference to cover them. The above configuration (counting the reserve) would allow for 12 fighters allocated, which would leave 18 fighters to otherwise divert the attention of the Imperials. Just keep it up until somebody manages to fire their proton torpedoes into the exhaust duct and voila!

The point is that instead of the incredible man-wasting tactics of the Rebels and the guaranteed high casualty rates, they have better tactics and better survivability in the squadrons. Vader and his crew couldn't have picked off the squadrons if backups were right on their tails.

Instead, they send them down one squadron at a time, with the other Rebel fliers just apparently holding their dicks while their buds are getting wasted.

Of course, this lets Luke get to play the hero, but it's impossible to believe the Rebels could even have survived as long as they had in the face of such rotten battle tactics.

I mean, in "Empire Strikes Back," they use trench warfare against the superior armor of the AT-ATs on Hoth. WTF is that all about? Oh, I know -- high casualty rates again. The poor bastards in the trenches get absolutely slaughtered. Now, you could speciously argue that they are doing a delaying tactic to buy time (with their lives) for the transports. But the infantry's presence on the battlefield doesn't so much as slow the AT-ATs down. What's more, it's demonstrated by Luke (both in a speeder and on foot) that grapple guns and grenades apparently work marvelously to dispatch AT-ATs, so the Rebels were likely better off charging the AT-ATs on foot with grapple guns rather than futilely blasting them with weapons that are immediately shown not to work (which calls to mind whether the Rebels have faced AT-ATs before, which, in all likelihood, they have). Again, bad, bad tactics yielding extraordinarily high battlefield losses.

*shaking head*

I don't mind a role being established for the heroes of the story, but not at the expense of tactics with the groups in question. At least make the tactics good.

Don't even get me going about "Lord of the Rings," how the Uruks (an army built expressly to deal with cavalry, hence the pikes they carry) get wasted in battle.

Piece of Cake

Oh, I made an apple cake last night that came out tasty. I used apples on hand, so it was a mix of Braeburn, Gala, and Golden Delicious in it. The boys enjoyed it. It's the kind of cake that would be delicious with ginger or cinnamon ice cream, although it was fine by itself, too. Although the recipe didn't call for it, I put Calvados in it, too, just to tweak out the apple flavors a little more. A good cake for the fall, I think.

*KOFF*

B2 is fighting a chest cold, as I'd said earlier. I decided to take a sick day from work (since I have that cold, too), and watch the boys. I took B1 to school -- it amused me -- one of the 2d grade girls saw B2 in his shades (he's been wanting to wear his shades, "Just like Daddy.") and she asked B1 "WHY is your little brother wearing sunglasses on a cloudy day?" and B1 just shrugged. One of the other girls (a more fashionable one) said "Oh, EVERYBODY is doing it THESE days." Made me chuckle. I put the boys in their IRISH kelly green stocking caps, too. One of B1's less astute classmates asked "Why are you wearing that IRISH cap?"

*shaking head*

B1's too nice, but the proper "Irish" response to that kind of question is a headbutt.

Anyway, it's just B2 and me home today, me giving him TLC. His little voice is all hoarse from the coughing.

Today I'm going to do my laundry, half the boys' laundry, and will pay bills and do the taxes (finally). I'll vacuum, too, as the rugs need it. Tres domestique!

St. Ernest of Hemingway

Hemingway first reached me in high school, although I don't think I appreciated his writing properly until I was older, and really got past the larger-than-life image he presented to the world. While his style has been aped, parodied, and avoided over the years, he was, for all of the cult of machismo that arose around him both in his life and after his death, a writer of amazing sensitivity. So much so that I often wonder if the whole Papa mythos, his alcoholism, and his big-game hunting and fishing was a reaction to that same writerly sensitivity all writers of merit must possess to get at the heart of their craft. I always felt that, interpersonally, Hemingway was a bit of a charlatan -- like insecurity drove him to act like he was the biggest badass in the room, almost as if he had to apologize for being a writer of such great talent and artistic sensitivity. The persona he cultivated was, in my opinion, camouflage for the artist that he was -- his veneration of, say, bullfighters, was really him projecting on the self he wanted to be, but never could be -- he wanted to be the participant, but, as a writer, could only truly be the spectator. I think people who aren't writers see that persona as the man, whereas reading his work, his amazing writing, I came to the conclusion above. It's a good thing he did get as much written as he did, as it left a huge imprint on the last century, and certainly influenced me as a writer. His quote when he won the Nobel Prize is illustrative...

"Writing, at its best, is a lonely life. Organizations for writers palliate the writer's loneliness but I doubt if they improve his writing. He grows in public stature as he sheds his loneliness and often his work deteriorates. For he does his work alone and if he is a good enough writer he must face eternity, or the lack of it, each day."

PPD: Goose, Woman, Goat

A goose, a woman, and a goat, are bad things lean.

Up

B2's got a lingering cough from that cold. I just gave him some kiddie Mucinex, and am staying up a bit to keep an eye on him, until the medicine kicks in.