Knox your Block Off (3)

Having examined the British force at Fort Knox, and the historical precedents that TFSmith uses to justify the loss of British ships there, we now conclude by considering the sinkings themselves.

Knox Your Block Off (2)

We have already seen how TFSmith's depiction of the ships engaged in the attack on Fort Knox does its best to play up their flaws. This fits his main objective of weakening the British, but in reality he needn't have bothered: in BROS the British are perfectly capable of making a complete pig's ear of any endeavour with even the most modern ships.

Knox Your Block Off (1)

Chapter 15, part 1 sees the lengthy recitation of many failed British assaults on the Union's position at Fort Knox in Maine. Fortunately, we only need to look at the first to understand that they are complete nonsense.

XX-Rated

In his rant against 'grognerdish merde,' TFSmith laid out a big, bold statement of purpose for his timeline:

Anyone who has actually read any thoughtful history understands human agency is a bigger factor than almost anything else... A huge element of those historical examples is, of course, the impact - as you say - on the individual, large or small, man or woman.

Sadly, he is no better at understanding these aspects of social history than he is at understanding the aspects of military history which he bungles so abominably. Through a combination of excessive laziness and inadequate foresight, he creates a completely nonsensical world without even realising that he has done so. How did he manage this?

Robbed of Victory

One of the underlying premises of Burnished Rows of Steel is that the Union can raise and arm millions of men, to fight both the Confederacy and the British at the same time. If the Union cannot arm these men, then the timeline falls apart. So how would TFSmith respond when his premise that the United States was 'pretty much an autarky from independence on', 'as close to a functioning autarky in the Nineteenth Century as I think any nation ever could have been', and had 'plenty of slack' in its economy, came under attack?

Battles by Appointment

It is regular in the few occasions where TFSmith portrays the British and the Union manoeuvring against one another, rather than staring at one another over trench lines, that the two sides end up in a head-on military clash (usually with the British ramming themselves obligingly against Union defensive fortifications, even when there should not be any). When the Union is on the attack, meanwhile, the British melt away to avoid conflict where they absolutely cannot find any trenches to attack.
But one of the odd features of these manoeuvres is that they appear to be scheduled beforehand, by both parties, to lead to this outcome.

Red, White, and Blue Hawaii

In considering the British attack on California, we commented that sending HMS Camelion and HMS Mutine off 'hunting American cruisers across the breadth of the North Pacific' seemed like a poor use of resources. In doing so, we talked about the overall pattern of trade and the relative unimportance of the North Pacific to the British. Recently, I found a source which perfectly encapsulates the trade levels- the Hawaiian customs house records, which show the number of ships of each nation which stopped at the islands in 1861 and 1862.