Goddamn it, 1632 is bad

[Mr Bean]

Does this mean they retcon the direction of the series?

Well in that regard Spoiler

As of the end of the last book Sterns is out of the picture and playing general for Gustavus who gets his rear handed to him by the Poles and ends up losing the war and almost his life. At the end of it the book Gustavus took a heavy brain injury it's clear that Axel the Emperor's second wants the emperor to stay alive but not get better so he can rule via dicate. The French have been far too quiet, the Turks might be planning a new invasion of the lowlands and Wallenstein is planning something as well. In other words the shit has hit the fan because Thuringia is about to go into open revolt. Remember Thanas bitching about how the princes just bent over and took Gustavus taking their territory to make a new country? Well as of end of 1635 it's coming to an end with the nobility starting to reclaim their rights and the CoC gearing up to have a good old fashion October revolution. The ideals of the Ram Rebellion is spreading and because of American industrialization they have pretty much primed the population for a good of fashion rebellion. So yeah in every way shit is going to hit the fan. The RAR RAR America is awesome is pretty much non-existent as of the end of 1635. Of course he could Weber it up but right now it looks primed for the Empire built by Gustavus to tear itself apart over the next few years with the French and Austrians stealing large chunks. I'd say things just got serious except I have a sneaking suspicion that Flint will fail to live up to the fact that while 1632 and 1633 were RAR RAR America Uber soldat, 1634 books started the slide and the 1635 magnified the feeling that the uptimers and their allies are about to have their asses handed to them in a big way

[Edward Yee]

The afterword is interesting in that it pretty much tells you where a story with a potentially interesting concept (2000 West Virginia town ISOT'd) went horribly wrong, and all the tropes Thanas' been mocking are right there explicitly spelled out, and it's aged terribly.

Public schools, and high schools in particular, remain the principal forges of America's youth. Let others whine about their shortcomings and faults, I will not. You can have your damned playing fields of Eton, and all the other varieties of that exclusionary "vision." I'll stick with the democratic and plebeian methods which built the American republic, thank you.

That is one outdated-ass view of high school. It can't be said enough, but I think we think even worse about rural people now than he figured people like us did at the time he wrote this thing.

I will say though, re: the tercios -- that was pretty much only because of the M60, and I think one of the uptimers admitted as much at the time.

[Stark]

The afterword tells a story of someone who basically wrote a polemic about his political views beating up history. I mean, we all know alt-history is shit, but he basically said 'this is shit, I know it's shit, I don't care, FREEDOMERICA!!!!'. It has nothing to do with 'tropes', but backwards storytelling.

[LadyTevar]

I am so fuckin' glad Grantsville is not a real WV town.

A couple of points, though.
1. older mines still have train-pulled carts running on rails, so yes, in theory, there could be a few miners who know how to build/repair trains & tracks.

The rest was pure fantasy, which is why I never finished the novel either.

[Edward Yee]

I am so fuckin' glad Grantsville is not a real WV town.

Dare I ask why?

[Stark]

Well then anyone could go there and see how retarded the story is.

[Bakustra]

The afterword is interesting in that it pretty much tells you where a story with a potentially interesting concept (2000 West Virginia town ISOT'd) went horribly wrong, and all the tropes Thanas' been mocking are right there explicitly spelled out, and it's aged terribly.

Public schools, and high schools in particular, remain the principal forges of America's youth. Let others whine about their shortcomings and faults, I will not. You can have your damned playing fields of Eton, and all the other varieties of that exclusionary "vision." I'll stick with the democratic and plebeian methods which built the American republic, thank you.

That is one outdated-ass view of high school. It can't be said enough, but I think we think even worse about rural people now than he figured people like us did at the time he wrote this thing.

I will say though, re: the tercios -- that was pretty much only because of the M60, and I think one of the uptimers admitted as much at the time.

That's really not a good thing to criticize though. I think that Flint's Trotskyist idolization of the proletariat is more healthy than typical American leftism, which is generally either smug-ass and contemptuous of the working class (non-Marxists), or outright totalitarian in its goals and beliefs(revolutionary Marxists). I mean, you shouldn't really call a work "bad" because it doesn't subscribe to an elitist view of society, but rather because it creates interchangeable characters, blatantly picks sides, is 'anti-elitist' by making all its characters hypercompetent, is plain and simply stupid... this is probably one of the least offensive or awful things about 1632 and its imaginatively-titled sequels, so why pick on it?

[Thanas]

I will say though, re: the tercios -- that was pretty much only because of the M60, and I think one of the uptimers admitted as much at the time.

Wrong. Flint outright says that the rifle fire by the miners was causing more casualties and later on they pretty much just charge their "APC" into the middle of them and fire with rifles out of the firing slots because they want to preserve money.

However, apparently the very forces that pioneered close quarter fighting in that time have no other option but to charge with spears. Hey Flint, I hear there is an invention during that time called a grenade. They carried it. And pistols, daggers etc. for close quarter fighting. But you have thousands of professional troops charging again and again with pikes even when it is clear to them that it does not work instead of doing what they were trained to do and just throw a grenade or two through the firing slits or let the swordmen get to work. Logical. Because things like armored and concealed firing positions were totally unknown, in an age that had seen Hussite war wagons already. Yup.

Even worse is that Flint acknowledges that these troops would at least have known about the war wagons, but that is about it. They know about them, but react no different. I guess they all must have been utter retards.

[Thanas]

Comedy quote:

"That's Quentin Underwood, all right. He's probably assuming a pipeline will materialize out of nowhere. Made out of what, I wonder, and by who? A cast-iron industry that's just got up to cranking out potbellied stoves a few months ago?"

Apparently Flint has forgotten that at the end of the last book the AMERICANS were already cranking out mass weapons production and continue to do so by this book. And I love how he fixed it so that the AMERICANS have every natural resource they need right under their feet. Well, except iron, but they got coal, gas, oil.

[Enigma]

I personally turn my brain off and enjoy reading it. It is fiction after all. It isn't like he's writing some historical book. But if he was actually trying to be historically accurate then he's a moron but nevertheless I found it readable.

Though a thought crossed my mind and probably to a few other readers as well is that what would the world been like fast forward into the 21st century? Would Grantville and it's denizens have made a lasting impression in the world or would they have been a small blip in history?

[Darth Fanboy]

Thanas you should consider making a "contribution" to 1632's wikipedia page.

I would find that enjoyable reading.

[PeZook]

How could Adolphus possibly run a XVIIth century army on campaign without pillaging? Logistics at the time were based on pillaging and requisitioning of local supplies when on campaign ; One cold literally predict the movements of armies based on the dislocation of towns and villages that were still not pillaged. For the same reason armies had a sharply limited time for camping in a given spot (they had to move after eating an area dry), and dispersed widely for the winter.

But I guess modern authors tend to think of logistics in the modern context, with well developed transportation, standardized equipment and ammunition (armies in the time of Wallenstein could do stuff like use 20 different calibers of cannon) with interchangeable parts, networks of army storehouses, huge corps of clerks and supply officers...and most of all, trucks, trains and airplanes to distribute it all, and of course factories to produce them and treasuries rich enough to pay for it all

Some soldiers at the time didn't even get paid (because money was scarce), being promised a share of the loot instead. So again, how would he even raise an army (even disregarding the historical fact that yes, Swedes did pillage and rape and do all that, like every army) if he instituted strict "NO PILLAGING" rules? No rape, maybe he could pulled this off. No pillaging? Come on

Though a thought crossed my mind and probably to a few other readers as well is that what would the world been like fast forward into the 21st century? Would Grantville and it's denizens have made a lasting impression in the world or would they have been a small blip in history?

I think people discussed it at length in the "SDN in the Sea Of Time" thread. They'd probably leave quite an impression by the virtue of knowing certain things are possible, short-circuiting development in some areas (most importantly medicine), but implementing modern technology requires infrastructure and even more importantly organization (what do you mean every country has its own system of weights and measures?), and books have to be reproduced and distributed and of course translated to work their magic, and naturally there's politics involved in it all...

Our ancestors were not idiots, after all ; They were often quite clever, and science was on the march for a long time (though with some massive blunders, hiccups, yeah...), just ignorant of many things we take for granted which they had to discover, refine, develop and implement using the tools they had at hand, which were pretty damn poor, and of course knowledge disseminated slowly and with great pains (no public school system, poor literacy...)

[Akhlut]

Oh, and they apparently can make gas (or their magic rationing allows them to keep on going despite marching all over the place and still using school busses instead of you know, horses).

Out of all the things horribly wrong with the book by the sounds of it, this is actually one of the least objectionable: this is because one can make an acceptable diesel substitute using animal fats. They would just need access to pigs, cows, or geese (all of which are fairly readily available in that part of the world at that time, I assume).

[PeZook]

Yeah, but you see...there's what, 2000 of them? Firing up such a large industrial process is going to require significant manpower and resources if they want anything more than a trickle of fuel

[Akhlut]

Yeah, but you see...there's what, 2000 of them? Firing up such a large industrial process is going to require significant manpower and resources if they want anything more than a trickle of fuel

The buses and tractors are obviously state-of-the-art and get 35mpg, so they don't need enormous quantities of fuel.

Also: least objectionable =! not objectionable.

[Thanas]

How could Adolphus possibly run a XVIIth century army on campaign without pillaging? Logistics at the time were based on pillaging and requisitioning of local supplies when on campaign ; One cold literally predict the movements of armies based on the dislocation of towns and villages that were still not pillaged. For the same reason armies had a sharply limited time for camping in a given spot (they had to move after eating an area dry), and dispersed widely for the winter.

Apparently he realizes that in the following book, for he now mentions Adolph paid the people they pillages with debased currency. Hello, ret-con.


Comedy quote:

"That's Quentin Underwood, all right. He's probably assuming a pipeline will materialize out of nowhere. Made out of what, I wonder, and by who? A cast-iron industry that's just got up to cranking out potbellied stoves a few months ago?"

Apparently Flint has forgotten that at the end of the last book the AMERICANS were already cranking out mass weapons production and continue to do so by this book. And I love how he fixed it so that the AMERICANS have every natural resource they need right under their feet. Well, except iron, but they got coal, gas, oil.

I'll be doing chapter reviews now:

Chapter 12:
Mike Stearns is so awesome he gets a Duke of Germany, of the House of Saxe-Weimar, to abdicate and become a commoner. Hooray for doing no research whatsoever into the mentality of the people.

Chapter 14:
Rebecca Stearns is so awesome that she manages to figure out a secret alliance between France, Spain and Denmark within the course of one evening based on nothing but reports of Danish hostility and the French and Spanish impressing merchantmen. An alliance Richelieu and the rest kept secret, but all it takes is Rebecca in an inn and time to think to figure it out. Despite such an alliance not making any sense in the first place, seeing how France and Spain have been bitter enemies since....well, since over 100 years.


That is all for now, my headache is starting up again.

[Spoonist]

How could Adolphus possibly run a XVIIth century army on campaign without pillaging?

Minor nitpick. War tax and pillaging was two different concepts. War tax was the appropriation of food, coin and unprotected women. Pillaging was what happened if you refused the tax, hid taxable items or was from an area which didn't submit to swedish rule. Pillaging included slaughter, torture, taking everything and burning down stuff which couldn't be carted away.
There are documents of swedes being charged with unlawful pillaging. Probably if you did it to allies with "fribrev" ie get-out-of-tax letter or if you forgot giving the officers their share.

Physical punishments for this was common.

http://books.google.com/books?id=_bCTQrziFQ8C
(Swedish)

edit
PS
the swedes of course did a lot of pillaging just wanted to nitpick the difference
DS

[Simon_Jester]

Point the second: every single engagement in which American forces engage is won with little to no fuss; as far as I recall, the biggest loss ever was losing a timberclad to an underwater mine, but that's it.

Ah, they *do* lose an ironclad to a spar torpedo during the attack on Copenhagen; in mitigation there is that.

What I could never figure out what WHAT DID HE EVER DO TO DESERVE THE WANKING. At least Qin Shihuang had the whole "uniting China + one written language" thing going for him for when it came time to make Hero...

The Protestants. particularly the Protestants who lived in territories his armies didn't rape, loot, and pillage (like those in England, hence the effect on English-language sources), turned him into a hero after the fact. Flint bought it hook, line, and sinker, probably because he needed a Heroic Downtime Ruler to back up his Americans or not even he could believe they'd stand a chance.

Point the third: history is liberally bent around. Can't pronounce on Gustav or the 30 years' war, but "The Galileo Affair" goes out of its way to paint Galileo badly, papacy and Catholics good (and Protestants as nutty religious whackos. Granted, hey were nutty religious whackos, but so were the other guys). The Catholic Church apologism pissed me off; in 1600 that same church decided it's just fine to burn a certain Giordano Bruno, even after he recanted his scientifical statements. Flint doesn't even mention it; I wonder if he even knows.

Wait what? This is literally the opposite message I get from 1632.

Not surprising. "1634: The Galileo Affair" was written years after "1632," and Flint was only one of two authors. I don't know what Andrew Dennis's background is, but he may well have smacked some sense (or at least a different and less insultingly one-sided set of biases) into Flint.

I found the books so disgusting I actually wrote my own alternate history in a similar vein, with a couple of US UNREP ships getting sent back in time to the late Roman Republic/Hellenistic era. The crews end up pawns of various rulers and generals and government reforms are very limited or nonexistant. After seven years the most sophisticated weapons they've produced are bronze smoothbore cannon and arquebuses, and in machinery, a boiler/steam engine combination which weighs 15 tons and produces 80 horsepower. The best comment I got on it was "It's not publishable, but you did succeed in your goal of writing something better than 1632."

Having read this particular piece:

I'd say the big thing that went wrong was that you went too far the other way, to the point where the story would honestly have worked better without the Men From The Future. Too little characterization went into the time travelers, to the point where most of their character development wound up happening off-screen, and the process by which they became pawns of various rulers and generals was in large part elided.

Which is unfortunate, since it's that process which makes the really interesting subversion of the "time travellers appear in the past and change everything" genre. We see the beginning point (time travellers arrive and get to show off a little), and the endpoint (time travellers wind up incorporated firmly into local monarchy as advisers with minimal influence in their own right), but not enough in the middle about the political process that connects those points.

It would be interesting to see a treatment of that process of marginalization in depth, where the point really sinks in that the time travellers' superior technical skills does not make up for their very limited knowledge of conditions on the ground; nor does it make them a match in political sophistication for people who know the current system like the back of their hand.

Apparently, being a coal miner town and having four to five local machine shops = mass production of such things. They got no refinery, no nothing, but suddenly they are making armor-grade cast iron.

I don't think they tried to cast the iron; I seem to recall references in 1633 to them making the armor plates by rolling out existing railroad iron that was stacked up by the mine when they arrived.

Which I suspect is even worse, in that the resulting plate probably would not handle cannon fire as well as a 19th century ironclad of the same armor thickness.

Yes, you heard that right. Locomotives, ironclad, airplane and massive farmland and municipal construction. All just one year after having arrived there, the AMERICANS got all these very complex production lines running.

Two years; the events of 1632 span roughly a year in their own right and end in 1632. But still bloody stupid.

Comedy quote:

"That's Quentin Underwood, all right. He's probably assuming a pipeline will materialize out of nowhere. Made out of what, I wonder, and by who? A cast-iron industry that's just got up to cranking out potbellied stoves a few months ago?"

Apparently Flint has forgotten that at the end of the last book the AMERICANS were already cranking out mass weapons production and continue to do so by this book. And I love how he fixed it so that the AMERICANS have every natural resource they need right under their feet. Well, except iron, but they got coal, gas, oil.

Honestly, I think you're misreading this.

I don't know whether Eric Flint himself caught a sudden dose of sanity, or whether he was mobbed by fans who wanted to turn the series into something sane. But there is a very clear trend in the series, especially the '1634' and '1635' books, in which the advanced stuff the Americans brought with them or managed to improvise into useable weapons runs out or break down

The technological edge starts to narrow, from both sides, even, as the "downtime" enemies of the USA USA USA team start adapting and improving at the same time that Gustavus Adolphus and his American supporters are hard pressed to maintain 19th century technology. One bit I remember rather notably from 1634: The Baltic War is the French managing to start production of a rifle superior to what the Americans are turning out for the Swedes... granted they're still having trouble with turning the things out in acceptable quantity at the end of the novel, but even without having read the latest book in the series I can see where the trend is going.

[Mr Bean]

Eric Flint did catch a dose of sanity. As I've said twice before, he does read his forums and they are to this day awash in hobbyists and members of the SoCA who Flint now goes to regularly when writing books. (Friend of mine who was a long time fan and introduced me to the books says that these forums are the reason why we have not seen APC's turned into tanks, American Zeppelins, and a number of other things because after 1633 Flint became much more concerned with grounding his books in semi-reality on what can be done in 1632 with one modern small town's resources)

This is in fact again where the side stories come in being more interesting than the main books, most of the Grantvillie Gazettes contain non-fiction essays about the essence of the What if as in what could someone thrown back into 1632 be use and make in 1632 from 1990's materials available in a small coal town. It is also these side stories that Eric Flint borrows from shamelessly to make the 1634 era stronger because these side characters get their own short story, get character development and Flint plops them down intact into the main storyline and consults these small and big time authors on how their characters should be written. He even gets the occasional historical character right himself (I do like how Flint wrote Oliver Cromwell and Thomas Wentworth in even if I have no idea if it's at all historically accurate)

[TC Pilot]

The Protestants. particularly the Protestants who lived in territories his armies didn't rape, loot, and pillage (like those in England, hence the effect on English-language sources), turned him into a hero after the fact.

Gustavus made concerted efforts during his invasion to hire German writers and such to disseminate propaganda throughout the empire that portrayed him as a Protestant liberator. There are tons of old engravings that have survived from the period that show him as some heroic biblical figure, with nicknames like the Lion of the North. The fact he generally reversed the almost-unbroken string of Imperial/Liga victories and marched from one end of Germany to the other and, perhaps most importantly, was killed after just a few years, all but guaranteed his stature and reputation.

[PeZook]

Minor nitpick. War tax and pillaging was two different concepts. War tax was the appropriation of food, coin and unprotected women. Pillaging was what happened if you refused the tax, hid taxable items or was from an area which didn't submit to swedish rule. Pillaging included slaughter, torture, taking everything and burning down stuff which couldn't be carted away.

When the army was on campaign in a foreign land, the difference was non-existent. Either way, even the "wat tax" was often crippling to the local economy, depending on how long the army stayed in an area.

[Thanas]

So anyway, around chapter 18, the naval battle starts. It is rather unconvincingly described. But what takes the cake is the completely illogical way the battle goes and the fact how Richelieu got spain, france and england to cooperate. Really? Does that sound logical to you? Especially when taking into account that Richelieu got every single north americcan colony in return. If you were England, would you make that deal? If you were Spain, would you put your archenemy into a position from where he can easily intercept your flotas or attack your colonies? Just for the sake of getting a chance to defeat the Dutch fleet and for a chance to attack the Netherlands?

Chapter 28 - Gustavus is planning the Kieler Kanal - 300 years early.

Chapter 30 - Rebecca Stearns is so awesome that she is able to get the prince of orange to admire her shrewdness and intelligence.

Chapter 33 - Mike Stearns is adored by progressive thinking nobles for his great qualities as a leader. In the same chapter, said GREAT LEADER MIKE STEARNS decides the best way to keep the opposition in line is to buzz them with aircraft. Also, in the same chapter Flint decides to character assassinate Amelia of Weimar for...no good reason. He tries to depict her in a positive way, but he utterly fails at it. She has none of the mannerisms of a great person and comes across as a shrew.

Chapter 34 - apparently flint has gotten wise to the fact that trying to create/keep an industrial base without rubber is a bad idea. And the railroads have been downgraded to tracks with horse-pulled railcarts. I still got no idea how those rails could be converted to ship armor, nor how they even manage to get a furnace up in the first place to make some.

Flint also realizes that building ship to ship missiles when your rocket scientist is a science teacher is not going to work out great. However, they manage to build limpet mines from stocks of dynamite that a good person had hidden in case of emergency suddenly appear.

Also: Gustav babbles about predestination and comes across like an imbecile.

Chapter 36 - Mike Stearns, "best politician of Europe." Righto. Also: Flint shows once more how he does not understand nobility in Germany, of which he just decided to label most of them as parasites. Yes, let us just forget all the complicated stuff. No, it needs an AMERICAN and the always working formula of "lower taxes = more commerce = more profit" to convince them.

Chapter 38: Mike Stearn's political enemies compare him favorably to Lincoln.


***************
I have finally managed to figure out what of his mary-sue tendencies I find so offensive: they do not happen in a fictional universe. But here Weber tries to measure up his own creations against some of the greatest minds of our history - and they always come out on top. Often without any education, just instinct and sheer potential.

[Simon_Jester]

So anyway, around chapter 18, the naval battle starts. It is rather unconvincingly described. But what takes the cake is the completely illogical way the battle goes and the fact how Richelieu got spain, france and england to cooperate. Really? Does that sound logical to you? Especially when taking into account that Richelieu got every single north americcan colony in return. If you were England, would you make that deal? If you were Spain, would you put your archenemy into a position from where he can easily intercept your flotas or attack your colonies? Just for the sake of getting a chance to defeat the Dutch fleet and for a chance to attack the Netherlands?

Spain would be a fool to accept, you're right; England... well, I truly don't know. Much would depend on the intelligence and competence of Charles I, and his perception of the relative importance of the American colonies versus continental affairs- which I'm not qualified to speak on.

Chapter 28 - Gustavus is planning the Kieler Kanal - 300 years early.

Hmm, looking at the text, I believe that Gustavus is actually planning an enlargement of the medieval-vintage Stecknitz canal, upgrading it to something more along the lines of the the modern Elbe-Lübeck canal. I see no compelling reason to assume that's more practical than digging the Kiel canal would be without nitroglycerin and steam shovels. But then, I'm no more of an expert on the canals of Germany than I am on the English Civil War.

Chapter 34 - apparently flint has gotten wise to the fact that trying to create/keep an industrial base without rubber is a bad idea. And the railroads have been downgraded to tracks with horse-pulled railcarts. I still got no idea how those rails could be converted to ship armor, nor how they even manage to get a furnace up in the first place to make some.

Me neither.

I have finally managed to figure out what of his mary-sue tendencies I find so offensive: they do not happen in a fictional universe. But here Weber tries to measure up his own creations against some of the greatest minds of our history - and they always come out on top. Often without any education, just instinct and sheer potential.

Heh. Yes, though I imagine you mean "Flint;" I think he was still the prime mover.

It does get better, a bit, in the subsequent books that are less American-centered and that offer more room for character development on the part of the downtimers. But it's a real problem with the series. I can easily see why it aggravates you.

[Mr Bean]

.

Flint also realizes that building ship to ship missiles when your rocket scientist is a science teacher is not going to work out great. However, they manage to build limpet mines from stocks of dynamite that a good person had hidden in case of emergency suddenly appear.

Thanas it's a mining town, they tend to have dynamite on hand.

[Thanas]

Hmm, looking at the text, I believe that Gustavus is actually planning an enlargement of the medieval-vintage Stecknitz canal, upgrading it to something more along the lines of the the modern Elbe-Lübeck canal. I see no compelling reason to assume that's more practical than digging the Kiel canal would be without nitroglycerin and steam shovels. But then, I'm no more of an expert on the canals of Germany than I am on the English Civil War.

The problem are locks. There is a reason the canal was only enlarged in the 1900s.

.

Flint also realizes that building ship to ship missiles when your rocket scientist is a science teacher is not going to work out great. However, they manage to build limpet mines from stocks of dynamite that a good person had hidden in case of emergency suddenly appear.

Thanas it's a mining town, they tend to have dynamite on hand.

That is not the point, the point is that during the discussion, one guy mentions he held stuff back just for the sake of..holding stuff back even though they used up dynamite earlier and could use it later on as well. I do not object that dynamite exists, I do object that it just happens that one guy held things back. It is a bit like everything just happens to fit so neatly together to give the americans an advantage - like on hillbilly just happens to have a race-grade speadboat etc.

******************************
Chapter 39 - this is a good one. Flint actually dispels one of the myths about Washington (that he did not commit atrocities).

Chapter 42 - a spanish galleon is torpedoed and sunk. It makes no sense - how do you even get torpedoes to detonate against a wooden hull? Again, the best parts of the story are when Flint does not try to go all RAR Modern on us, but describes 17th century battles or sieges.

Chapter 43 - Flint thinks invasion fleets would not care about fishing boats nearby. He apparently has never heard of the invention called a smoke signal which German people - especially the frisians though they of course are not near wismar - used to warn others from invasion attempts. Thus, any invasion fleet would also try to sack coastal villages, destroy or capture fishing boats etc.

chapter 44 - american divers place limpet mines under danish/french ships (how did they get them to stick? And furthermore, how the heck did they get combat frogmen? Placing mines takes specialized equipment, especially if you do it at night). Even further the americans somehow manage to get both flagships. In the dark. It is even more hilarious if you have ever been near wismar. The water is very shallow and very sandy. Even under ideal conditions, you would need lights to see something in the dark. And you would have to lie still and let the fleet pass over you to get at the big ships...with little room to maneuver. The whole episode makes no sense.

Chapter 46 - americans who got less than a few days of speedboat training manage to execute a rocket attack on a danish fleet, sinking no less than three ships with six rockets. Congrats, they just mastered what took others months and weeks to train for. They also get killed by a chance cannonball, but in death manage to kamikaze another warship. Then the pilot of an airplane manages to hit another warship. With rockets. WTF? It took the entire german war machine several years to even have rockets hit stationary targets, but the AMERICANS manage it within a few weeks. And the rockets work perfectly. The pilot gets hit by random musket fire, so he too kamikazes perfectly, taking another warship with him.
And of course, the family members are all "they died gloriously in combat". WTF?

Chapter 49 - the german populace of Magdeburg decides to idolize the dead and try to revolt against their nobles? Just because some commoners killed other commoners? And then they call an AMERICAN black women their idol? But it gets better. Mike Stearns uses the mob to give the entire territories of Gustav Adolph free elections. Except...that Magdeburg already was a free, Imperial city with at least a sort of democracy in place. Does Flint know nothing about the history of that city? But yeah, sure, Gustav will give free elections because apparently the citizens of Magdeburg, who looked down on and fought war against any others, suddenly scream for democracy? And because MIKE STEARNS is that great?

Really, is there any limit to this wank and idiocy?