Block Headed

As well as featuring the inexplicable death of Captain John Bythesea, chapter 11 part 1 includes some of the bizarre non-Euclidian geography which represents one of the hallmarks of TFSmith's writing. The relevant passage is as follows:

In memoriam

Unfortunately, it falls to me to be the bearer of some very sad news. I've just learned that one of the pillars of our site is no longer with us.

Cornell University's Making of America series, which we've generally used for access to the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies and Navies, has been shuttered and transferred to Hathitrust.This is a pretty big blow- not just because almost every existing link in this blog goes to that site, but because it was probably the most user-friendly version of the OR available.

Thanks to my crippling autism, I'll now need to spend some time going through past entries and trying to fix all the broken links as best I can. As such, actual new content may be a little light (at least on my part) for the next few weeks. I haven't worked out which of the alternate versions of the OR would be best to use, so if anybody has a recommendation then let us know in the comments below.

I may also make some other tweaks, such as tagging the articles more systematically. When we set up the site I don't think we were ever expecting to reach nearly 200 articles, and the existing tags may not be as helpful as they could be in finding things. Again, if you've got suggestions for tags that would make your lives easier, then drop them in the comments.

Thanks to everybody who's read and commented over the past few months- and here's to many more!

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?