Quotulatiousness

November 9, 2021

Napoleonic Wars: Siege of Zaragoza (1808) – Peninsular War

Filed under: Europe, France, History, Military — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 04:00

Kings and Generals
Published 30 Sep 2018
Our animated historical documentary series on the Napoleonic Wars are back with another episode covering the Peninsular War. The armies of Napoleon face more rebellions this time in Spain. And if the battle of Vimiero was crucial for the resistance in Portugal, the Siege of Zaragoza of 1808 played the similar role for the northern part of Spain. The battle of Bailen is just around the corner, and the Peninsular campaign will only get more interesting from here.

This script was researched and written by Everett Rummage. Check out his brilliant Age of Napoleon podcast – http://bit.ly/2vC3cIE In our opinion, it is the best podcast on the Napoleonic era.

Support us on Patreon: http://www.patreon.com/KingsandGenerals or Paypal: http://paypal.me/kingsandgenerals

We are grateful to our patrons and sponsors, who made this video possible: https://drive.google.com/open?id=1KEV…

This video was narrated by Officially Devin (https://www.youtube.com/user/OfficiallyDevin)

Machinimas were made on NTW3 mod for Napoleon Total War by Malay Archer (https://www.youtube.com/user/Mathemed…)

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Production Music courtesy of Epidemic Sound: http://www.epidemicsound.com

Napoleon Total War OST – “HMS Victory”
Napoleon Total War OST – “The Battle At Arcole”
Jon Björk – “Downfall 1”
Johannes Bornlöf – “Imperious 2”
Johannes Bornlöf – “Rise of the Phoenix 2”
Johannes Bornlöf – “Solemn”
Andreas Jamsheree – “Sunstorm 1”

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Led Zeppelin IV, fifty years on

Filed under: History, Media — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 03:00

In Monday’s NP Platformed newsletter, Colby Cosh helps a lot of “late Boomers” and Gen X’ers to feel even older:

This very day, friends, marks the 50th anniversary of the release of Led Zeppelin’s fourth studio album, whose title is technically a series of glyphs representing the band’s four members. Frustrated writers and editors usually just call it Led Zeppelin IV, and will have to go on doing so until the Unicode Consortium comes to its senses.

Zep IV is generally considered the band’s strongest LP, and it contains the song “Stairway to Heaven”, which has been played so often over 50 years of life that it is now somewhat divisive. It’s possible the species can be split into people who are sick of “Stairway” and those of us who still have to let it play all the way through, every time, even though it has nothing left to disclose and no remaining power to surprise. (How could it? We all know every note, every overtone of every chord, every syllable of incomprehensible Robert Plant doggerel.) NP Platformed is cheered by the thought that there are babies being born every day who will, at some time or other, get to hear “Stairway” for the first time. It’s not like they’ll get very far without hearing it.

“Stairway” makes for a hell of a cleanup hitter, but on Zep IV the lineup is immense from top to bottom. There are those who would argue that other Zeppelin studio LPs are stronger on the whole. If you like the heavy-blues side of the group, you might be tempted to vote for Zeppelin II (1969); folkies appreciate Zeppelin III (1970).

The fifth record, Houses of the Holy (1973), was once called “Zeppelin’s best record” by Chuck Klosterman, an undoubted authority in such matters … but please note that Klosterman wrote this in a listicle about the greatest metal albums that had Zeppelin IV No. 2 overall, with Houses of the Holy altogether omitted. Later, when trendsetting music-review site Pitchfork.com did a listicle of the top 100 albums of the 1970s, they ranked Zep IV seventh and spent a couple hundred words apologizing for not putting it first. (“We must be lying to ourselves …”) Zep IV: too big to ignore.

Bayonet Development for the Lee Enfield No4 Rifle

Filed under: Britain, History, Military, Weapons, WW1, WW2 — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 02:00

Forgotten Weapons
Published 22 Jul 2021

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Having wrapped up our series on the major development of the Lee Enfield rifle in British service, I figured it would be a nice addendum to talk about the bayonets developed for the No4 rifle. These went through a substantial evolution, and are an interesting field for collectors all by themselves.

During World War One, the British used the Pattern 1907 bayonet, a long blade type essentially copied from the Japanese Type 30. By the 1920s, this was being reconsidered – the long blades were expensive, fragile, and perhaps not really necessary. When the No1 Mk VI rifle was put into trials, it was given a new bayonet style. This was inspired by the Swiss cyclists’ bayonet, with a cruciform spike instead of a true blade. It was only 8 inches long; this was determined to be long enough for virtually all use cases and being short minimized weight and bulk.

As World War Two progressed, the spike bayonet was simplified several times. Before the initial production of the first standard model (No4 MkI) was completed, the cruciform pattens had already been abandoned for a much simpler (and faster and cheaper) round body spike with a screwdriver-like point at the end. This was in turn simplified by separating the socket and spike into two parts for easier production, and then further simplified by casting the socket instead of forging it. After the war, the spike was replaced by a short blade-type socket bayonet (the No9), although this was rather short-lived because of the adoption of the SLR (FN FAL).

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QotD: Hollywood in the late Golden Age

Filed under: Business, History, Media, Quotations — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 01:00

In certain ways, Hollywood today is just like it was a half-century ago. It’s a company town, a plantation devoted to the manufacture of cultural commodities designed to please the largest possible number of people. Then as now, nearly all of the films produced there fit neatly into the pigeonholes of a limited number of highly stylized genres: gangster movies, costume dramas, romantic comedies, Westerns.

The main difference between then and now is that in the old days, such films were mass-produced on the assembly lines of the major studios. Americans of all ages went to the movies at least once a week, and they expected to see something different every time they went. Hence the studio system, which ground out product fast enough to meet the omnivorous demand. Except for the occasional Gone With the Wind, the modern Spielberg-style “event” movies that now dominate Hollywood filmmaking didn’t exist. You went to the movies not to see Spider-Man or Lord of the Rings, but simply to see a show. If the show in question was a Western or a mystery, that was good; if it starred John Wayne or Robert Mitchum, that was better. But nobody went out of his way to see a Wayne Western directed by Howard Hawks, much less a Mitchum mystery directed by Jacques Tourneur. You took what you got, and if what you got happened to be a Red River or Out of the Past, then you got lucky.

That’s why so many of the best films made in Hollywood in the Forties and Fifties were Westerns and mysteries. Precisely because they were commodities, their makers tended to be ignored by the front office. So long as your last picture turned a profit, however small, you got to make another one. If the movies in which you specialized were low-budget genre pictures for which demand was more or less constant, all that mattered was that you stay more or less within the accepted conventions of the genre, and the conventions of the Western and the mystery happened to be wonderfully well-suited to the artful telling of serious stories that were both entertaining and cheap to produce. The art, of course, was optional, and most such movies were as forgettable as a Law and Order rerun, but some of them were as good — and as serious — as a movie can be.

Terry Teachout, “What Randolph Scott Knew”, American Cowboy, 2005-12-23.

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