Da Other Prof at Il Corso (Nov 16, 2012)

originally posted by Jeff Grossman:
originally posted by Ian Fitzsimmons:
...the superior destructive power at range of aircraft carriers became obvious, especially in Pacific theater battles like Midway.
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The Tirpitz, for all its mighty guns and armor, spent a large portion of WWII in dry dock being repaired from damage taken from air strikes. Ultimately, an air strike destroyed her.
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Yes, good call. I had it in my head that mini-submarines had sunk her in her fjord hiding place in Operation Source, but in fact they only damaged her. It was the planes what done it, finally.

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en.wikipedia.org
 
2/3 of the bottles I brought were corked so I was too depressed to post to this thread until now.

My favorite was the 1st 15 minutes of the Giscours, but the beautiful, vibrant Donnoff, the delightful Dom. de la Pinte, and the lovely Texier were all fine matches with the extraordinary company. Now if the PATH train could just get its act together so I don't have to duck out early to make the last train at 10pm it would be appreciated.

Was the sweet wine in the ice bucket not opened?

BTW - from a Bordeaux glass the Mondavi was obviously corked from the beginning. From a smaller glass it was not as obvious.
 
originally posted by Jay Miller:
Was the sweet wine in the ice bucket not opened?
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It was not.

BTW - from a Bordeaux glass the Mondavi was obviously corked from the beginning. From a smaller glass it was not as obvious.
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In my glass, it smelled strangely, something like seawater.
 
originally posted by Jeff Grossman:
originally posted by Jay Miller:
Was the sweet wine in the ice bucket not opened?
Click to expand...
It was not.

BTW - from a Bordeaux glass the Mondavi was obviously corked from the beginning. From a smaller glass it was not as obvious.
Click to expand...
In my glass, it smelled strangely, something like seawater.
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Yes, you gave me a sniff from your glass and I agree. Totally different from my Bordeaux glass.
 
I don't know which one I smelled it from for the first time, but it seemed clearly corked to me right away. I thought I was sniffing from the same glass that Jeff had handed around, but I might be wrong about that.
 
originally posted by Jeff Grossman:
originally posted by Ian Fitzsimmons:
...the superior destructive power at range of aircraft carriers became obvious, especially in Pacific theater battles like Midway.
Click to expand...
The Tirpitz, for all its mighty guns and armor, spent a large portion of WWII in dry dock being repaired from damage taken from air strikes. Ultimately, an air strike destroyed her.
Click to expand...

Sister ship to the Bismarck.
 
originally posted by Chris Coad:
originally posted by Ian Fitzsimmons:
originally posted by Cliff:
As I recall, they beefed up the armor on the next generation of battle cruisers -- esp. the American and Japanese versions.
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'Dreadnought' is simply what the biggest ships of the line were called before 'battleship' come into common usage, no? The one in the photo just happens to be named 'HMS Dreadnought."

Between the WWs, development was, dinosaur-style, towards ever-heavier armor and armaments, culminating in three-gun main turrets (16" on US ships and 18" on Japanese). Germans (e.g., the Bismark), Brits, Americans, Japanese all built these things up into WWII, when the superior destructive power at range of aircraft carriers became obvious, especially in Pacific theater battles like Midway.
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To certain visionaries, it was obvious well before that.

220px-Billy_Mitchell.jpg
Mitchell served in France during World War I and, by the conflict's end, commanded all American air combat units in that country. After the war, he was appointed deputy director of the Air Service and began advocating increased investment in air power, believing that this would prove vital in future wars. He argued particularly for the ability of bombers to sink battleships and organized a series of bombing runs against stationary ships designed to test the idea.

He antagonized many people in the Army with his arguments and criticism and, in 1925, was returned to his permanent rank of Colonel. Later that year, he was court-martialed for insubordination after accusing Army and Navy leaders of an "almost treasonable administration of the national defense" for investing in battleships instead of aircraft carriers. He resigned from the service shortly afterward.
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I was wrong on 'dreadnought.'

The military's a pretty political organization; apparently, there's a fair amount of schadenfreude about Patreaus's situation, bc, at least partly, of all the boats he rocked, so to speak.
 
originally posted by SFJoe:
originally posted by Ian Fitzsimmons:
there's a fair amount of shadenfreude
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[sic]

And also some more substantive objections to the guy.
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Some of these objections are, taken at face, somewhat laughable. I have very little opinion about Petraeus, but to compare him to Patton and find him wanting? That's buying into George C. Scott mythologizing and, given his recent scandal, smacks of Monday morning quarterbacking. This article might have had less of the whiff of sour grapes had it been written several months ago.

No matter how good he looked in his biographer-mistress’s book, it doesn’t make up for the fact that we failed to conquer the countries we invaded, and ended up occupying undefeated nations.

Because there was no national will or executive directive to expend tens or hundreds of thousands of American lives to "conquer" Iraq or Afghanistan the way we and our allies conquered Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy. Ask the British Empire or the Soviets about the price of trying to "conquer" Afghanistan. This is facile.
 
Fiasco was very good, I'd expect this book to be good, too. Ricks seems to work hard and know his material well; he's also a good writer.

Truscott IV's piece reads like a peevish rant, apart from Chris's point; you wonder how it found space in the Times.
 
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