Captain Jean-Luc Picard

Political opinions aside, and whatever the political discourse is on both sides, with budget cuts all over the place, some already hitting home like the NHS, some not having hit home yet ( the company i worked for in the UK is struggling to stay afloat and will probably close soon, other companies i knew have already closed or are also expecting to, i barely hear any talk of the already existing effects on the daily reality of companies), the pound going down even before brexit has even been activated... A bunch of skilled workforce ( myself included ) just noping the fuck out of UK to greener pastures to keep earning the same or more due to currency devaluation and uncertainties about the future.. I think it's safe to say that UK won't be able finance a royal space force deserving of such a name even if it wanted to in the nearest future. One day. but not in the near post-brexit future. Not to go into the whole brexit thing, but for UK to spend large amounts of money on this at such a time seems unlikely. Then again, Trident is something like 50 billions in an era of budget cuts, so who knows.

Sorry, one more thing: If you have ever traveled a fair bit you might have noticed that a lot of people have a profound dislike for the united states. While acknowledging and respecting the ideals of the states, a lot of countries have simply had terrible experiences with the states, or shall we say bloody experiences. In the name of its ideals, the states have a lot of blood on their hands. It is without a doubt a military nation, but also a nation actively using its military. I might be grateful for some things, critical of others, but that doesn't change the facts. If the united states do develop a military space force, i can totally see it being used to shed blood. Of course for good reasons, who doesn't have a good reason to do whatever it is they are doing. This is not a political opinion, just a thought and opinion on the likely eventual use of a space force if it comes to existence. Also the militarization of space will become fun when other countries will follow/imitate the states. You, know the states talk of threats it needs defending against, and creates a unique threat towards other countries which for obvious reasons of national security now need to defend against the threat presented by the united states. One can cite russia, china or whomever as threats, but how will they see such a move? Will they sit back and applaud?

As a side note i recommend the book Deep Black: Space Espionage and National Security, by burrows..

Couldn't cut out the mentions from the quote, anyway: The states don't need any space force in the near future. There is no relevant imminent military threat justifying such a thing, and emerging competition in space capabilities would be better dealt with by investing ever more and more in NASA rather than by investing disproportionate amounts of money into something unnecessary. For realistic threats that already do exist, it would be much more efficient and less costly to reinforce the services already dealing with those already existing threats than to create a new branch. Cash is not infinite, and there are many other priorities, be it NASA, the army/navy/air, intel and diplomacy to avoid those threats, or simply internal development. Private biz and competition has always been the motto of the oh ever so capitalist united states, hell even the army is going full mercenary ( sorry, it's a taboo word, military contractors ), with pretty much every part being privatized to various degrees, and NASA commercial ventures, which have never been its goal, are not gonna do better with cash that could go to it going into a space force instead. Hell, when the day does come where a space military is necessary, i won't be surprised to see the states have space contractors for everything. If a space force is created i am certain it will spend its money on those companies you mention, furthering the gap between nasa and those. But since we mention nasa, let me link here a report about science https://www.ucsusa.org/center-science-and-democracy/promoting-scientific-integrity/scientist-survey-2018#.W3LlNthKjUo

You guys might maybe be interested by Joseph Fouché very short biography by the great Stefan Zweig. Pretty much anything by him is worth a read anyway.

I concur, excellent stuff!

Sweet.

Well, a quick glance through my wishlist then in addition to the ones i mentionned above, some of the following is read some not, slight mix of more strategic stuff and some history that might or might not be relevant, most titles are self explanatory: Warfare, State And Society In The Byzantine World 565-1204, because byzantium ( norwich 3 volume history is worth a read ). Samurai, Warfare and the State in Early Medieval Japan (Warfare and History) by Karl F. Friday, because japan. Red Attack, White Resistance: Civil War in South Russia 1918 by Peter Kenez + Red Advance, White Defeat: Civil War in South Russia 1919-1920 by Peter Kenez, because 2 volumes russian civil war. On the subject White Against Red: The Life of General Anton Denikin by Dimitry V. Lehovich, The White Russian Army in Exile 1920-1941 (Oxford Historical Monographs) by Paul Robinson are also worth a read, the titles are self-explanatory. Story of the Sino-Japanese War, 1937-45 by Dick Wilson, along with sand against the win by tuchman, are the two books i chose on the china-japan war, haven't read them yet, tuchman is obvious, not sure why i chose wilson but i must have had a good reason. Radetzky's Marches: The Campaigns of 1848 and 1849 in Upper Italy by Michael Embree, because of the subject, haven't read that one. The Wars of Louis XIV, 1667-1714 (Modern Wars In Perspective) by John A. Lynn, Giant of the Grand Siecle: The French Army, 1610-1715 by John A. Lynn, haven't bought those ones yet ( 60$ minimum on amazon, c'mon ) A History of the Crusades: Volume 2 - The Kingdom of Jerusalem and the Frankish East 1100-1187: The Kingdom of Jerusalem and the Frankish East 1100-11, if you find this one you'll find the others, it's a three volume history of the crusades, good stuff if maybe a bit dated. War In The East: A Military History of the Russo-Turkish War 1877-78 by Quintin Barry. Haven't read it. Mercenaries and Their Masters: Warfare in Renaissance Italy by Michael Edward Mallett. The italian cities fought between themselves using mercenaries, and those tended to fight in an alltogether different way, with an emphasis on maneuvering and avoiding bloodshed. The Furia Francesca that descended on italy was at the end of the day in difference where the french had no issue spilling blood. Medieval Mercenaries V 1: The Great Companies by Kenneth Fowler, i believe the second volume never came out because he died? i might be wrong. Haven't bought it yet. The Grand Strategy of the Roman Empire: From the First Century A.D. to the Third by Edward N. Luttwak, is disputed by worth a read. There is another book that should be read alongside that basically argues the complete opposite... forgot the title. I'll add it when i remember. Either way read whatever criticisms there are of it and the other one. 303 Squadron: The Legendary Battle of Britain Fighter Squadron by Arkady Fiedler, Jarek Garlinski or A Question of Honor: The Kosciuszko Squadron: Forgotten Heroes of World War II, either will do but one is plenty, a look at how pilots lots their country, escaped in various ways to fight in UK, got grounded as noobs only to prove themselves aces that could not be done without. Not a strategic reader, but a good situation to look at due to its importance in the grand scheme of things. Soviet Military Deception in the Second World War (Soviet Russian Military Theory and Practice) by David M. Glantz Lost Victories: War Memoirs of Hitler's Most Brilliant General (Zenith Military Classics) by Erich Von Manstein Attacks by Erwin Rommel Operation Paperclip: The Secret Intelligence Program That Brought Nazi Scientists to America, ok not a strategic study neither but again has it's importance in the grand scheme of things. There are various books on the subject i have only read this one, but Secret Agenda: The United States Government, Nazi Scientists, and Project Paperclip, 1945 to 1990 by Linda Hunt (Hardcover) is supposedly good as well. Makers of Modern Strategy: Military Thought from Machiavelli to Hitler by Edward Mead Earle Asia's Unknown Uprising Volume 1 and 2, not strategy but good stuff. Warfare in Roman Europe, AD 350-425 The Best and the Brightest, absolute must read, how the vietnam war came to be because the best and the brightest made it happen. Turned out they were morons. You can place that in pretty much any era and context. Someone actually needs to think and convince and decide that a war is a good idea before wars happen. The Boer War by Thomas Pakenham, probably the best book on the subject, better to read his scramble for africa beforehand. The Albigensian Crusade by Jonathan Sumption, quick read, interesting to see populations changing their religion, this including entire cities, the local lords with their influence. Obviously the dominant religion is not happy and bam, crusade in your face. Not a strategic study, just a short history, but the evolution is nice to see. Personal Memoirs of Ulysses S.Grant, good look at logistics, leaving a large part of the army to guard the communications and logistics, and cutting yourself off from them. The Limits of Empire: The Roman Army in the East (Clarendon Paperbacks) by Benjamin Isaac The Soviet-Afghan War: How a Superpower Fought and Lost (Modern War Studies) by The Russian General Staff, Lester W. Gra The Shadow World: Inside the Global Arms Trade, ok it's not a strategic study but an excellent read, in short the weapons industry is a business that needs to make money to survive or it dies, nations cannot let their arms industry die, and with it loose the tech and skilled manpower as they cannot afford to start from scratch or become dependent on external overexpensive supplies that can be interrupted, therefore nations both forbid and encourage illegal trade and both create and hamper services to control illegal arms trade. The White Death by Chew is about finland vs the soviets, there is another one by robert edwards under the same name, either will do, the chew version is published by a uni. The Politics of Truth: A Diplomat's Memoir: Inside the Lies that Led to War and Betrayed My Wife's CIA Identity, absolute must read, ok again not about strategic studies XD But you have to know what leads to war in the first place, i need context for my wars, and this is gold. Crucible of War: The Seven Years' War and the Fate of Empire in British North America, 1754-1766, that's a fatty that has everything on the subject. Rising '44: The Battle for Warsaw, urban warfare by civilians please, with all it means for the germans, the russians happily watching the whole show. Rising Sun And Tumbling Bear: Russia's War with Japan, there are two great books on the subject, you will prefer this one, written by an army guy, since the other one was written by a journalist. A History of the Art of War in the Middle Ages, two volumes, by the great charles oman. He has also written a history of the peninsula war in a trillion volumes that costs a trillion. The Pursuit of Power: Technology- Armed Force- and Society Since A.D. 1000, classic, probably a must read one volume. Fire in the Lake about the vietnam war is great mostly for explaining how the US could not understand where they were nor the population, the vietnamese viewed the american intervention is their own historical and cultural context, their communism was not the soviet communism etc, the government always had someone new at it's head etc etc, the military never stood a chance. Parthian shot is a good novel to read alongside. Read it after having read the best and brightest first. There is probably more stuff in my list but at a glance that's the stuff that might interest you. My lists http://amzn.eu/dfL3BCP & http://amzn.eu/aVwIZE3 might have more stuff that you like if you dare to go through the amount and my other interests. It's mostly military history with context rather than theoretical strategic studies i guess but i hope you like at least one of those suggestions XD

For logistics i can recommend Supplying War: Logistics From Wallenstein To Patton, Alexander the Great and the Logistics of the Macedonian Army and The Army of Flanders and the Spanish Road 1567–1659: The Logistics of Spanish Victory and Defeat in the Low Countries' Wars. There is probably a good book to be found on the logistics of d-day, with their operation pluto, mullbery harbdors and other crazy ideas.

Maybe the one that i like the most is the Campaigns of Napoleon by David Chandler, the definitive one volume on the subject. It just presents the napoleonic strategy so clearly, with the human elements, chance, mistakes, the whole why of every move is just crystal clear, rarely have a read a book on strategy that was so good at explaining the why. The 2 volumes biography of Marlborough by his relative winston churchill is hardly as good, but since there aren't that many books about him and churchill writes ok, it's an interesting read for this reason alone. You could skip the biographical parts if you wanted i guess. Nothing that special for the length, but interesting for the flanders area, it's forts importance, and work between allied countries. Piers Brandon flames across the border and the invasion of canada is worth a read due to the nature of the war. The Bloody Crucible of Courage is a great read regarding the evolution of tactics and weaponry during the american civil war. Kaigun: Strategy, Tactics, and Technology in the Imperial Japanese Navy, 1887-1941 is one of the many books on my wishlist unfortunately a bit expensive for me atm, but i heard a lof of good and expect a lot from it. I have sand against the wind by tuchman ( stilwell and the american experience in china ) that i will read at some point ( so many books, so little thym ), an interesting situation and you can't go wrong with tuchman. In the guns of august tuchman was magnificienty clear about the human element of strategy, how one person can make it happen or screw everything up and why. I have many books in various countries and a long amazon wishlist including strategic studies but frankly i don't have the time nor the will to go throught it for now XD ( it's like 2000 books long and i am deeply annoyed with some books having just simply vanished from it so yeah XD ).

Of clausewitz i will point two articles from two great websites: https://thediplomat.com/2014/11/everything-you-know-about-clausewitz-is-wrong/ http://smallwarsjournal.com/jrnl/art/the-continuing-irrelevance-of-clausewitz

http://grogheads.com/forums/index.php?topic=22675.0

Thanks for the recommendation. Do you have any other books to recommend on spying during the age of sail? ( i already have Most Secret and Confidential: Intelligence in the Age of Nelson ) if you do not read it already you might be interested in checking out https://twitter.com/thegrugq ( he's mostly about modern world intel but it's good stuff and his feed has stuff i rarely see on specialized sites and blogs )

Millions or whatever crazy quantity of games that simply have a base price but no dlc have done very well, thank you. Extremely large quantities of dlc have been sold by bringing content that is not p2w. New content has been added to games over the years, sometimes years after the game came out, thanks to, well sales of the base game and/or content dlc. Your argument is invalid. Also, choices can very much be right or wrong.

Since you make those videos and i have you at hand, i would love to watch historical accuracy videos on matrix's war in the pacific admiral edition, nobunaga's ambition, command ops, histwar, and the like. As to your question i think that the most detrimental thing to the game historical accuracy is simply the overall scale, the relation between units speed, scale and the maps, and the battles lenght just makes those battles more of a skirmish to me than say some of the hps games where, admitably with mechanics that tend to appear only in turn-based games, you feel the scale, the losses, the weight of your decisions much more, much more than you do in this one. The battles here don't seem as massive, as crucial, as costly as they usually were, do to the game mechanics. It's just the nature of the game to allow for anyone to pick it up and enjoy in real-time in a short time with some nice graphics that doesn't allow the level of historical accuracy that some other games have, but because of that it's also easy to close on eye on those imperfections.

It's a model that was used at the time to teach officer students, not the model of an existing ship, so it is likely that you will not find much more information besides maybe some specialized model books. It's located in the Rochefort branch of the national maritime museum, where it was built and used, not in paris. I would just drop the rochefort branch an email if you want more info on the model itself if i were you. Interestingly thought from a quick search it seem that instruction models distinguish themselves by their scale. Other french models of instructions in the french national museums of marine include Le Royal 1/12 Le Louis le grand 1/12, La Sultane 1/10 La coque de PIC 1/24, le Dauphin Royal 1/24, Le Royal-Louis 1/18, Le Duquesne 1/1O, l'Océan 1/16ém, Le Dauphin Royal

One of several privateer ensigns during the american revolutionary war, more varied and valuable examples can be found here: http://www.loeser.us/flags/revolution.html I would like to see more rare privateer ensigns, trade companies and the like in addition to the main flags of the various countries.

Didn't like it. it's hard to make a good spy tv serie thought ( https://www.imdb.com/title/tt4063800/ might be the best in the genre ).

http://americanhistory.si.edu/about/departments/work-and-industry/ship-plans "The majority of the Smithsonian watercraft plans are NOT original builder's plans. Most are the result of field documentation [...] the Smithsonian cannot warrant the seaworthiness or safety of vessels built from its collection of study plans. " XD XD XD XD

Nice find, it has good reviews.

Crew medals, xp, skills and permadeath please. Like in silent hunter. Also nation-dependent medals when possible ( i'm not familiar with the minor nations medals timeline ).