Lest We Forget - 80 years of Peace

80 years ago this week WW2 came to an end, having delivered damage, death and destruction at a scale previously unimaginable.

To commemorate I visited the surrender deck of the USS MISSOURI, located at Pearl Harbor, where the Japanese surrender took place while the ship was in Tokyo Bay in the shadow of Mt Fuji.

Notably/Coincidentally, US President Truman was from the State of Missouri
and his daughter had christened the ship

2 September 1945

My parents are visiting us at the moment from Australia and were able to share the experience, which was special.

The Instrument of Surrender on exhibit aboard USS MISSOURI

General MacArthur's Speech. The entire ceremony took just 23 minutes

Earlier this year, I was also able to view the German Surrender documents, which were on special exhibit at the National Archives in Washington DC, which I had not seen before. That was a bit special too, especially to see both in this 80th Anniversary year.

Field-Marshal Wilhelm Keitel signing the unconditional surrender, 8 May 1945

 

Lest We Forget the immense sacrifices of our forbears for our freedoms

Hobby Wrap-up

After breaking the seal on some Hobby recently, I made a few purchases for my Eldar Kill Team as well as some Old World Army books I'd been meaning to get for my collection,.

And then the new Black Templars releases came out, timed to celebrate the 20th Anniversary of the original BT Codex which many will recall I'm sure:

Sucker that I am, I thought my army was complete enough.... 

Burn the Heretic, Kill the Mutant, Purge the Unclean!

I grabbed the two new characters and to lead a Crusader squad. Yes I have to buy that also.

A little frustrating (again) that half the paints and all my bits boxes and decals are back in Australia, but its fun getting back to putting some Righteous Fury on the tabletop!

EDIT: And just to stoke the flames of Hate in Simon Anonymous (from the comments section)- I appropriately supported my FLGS during a recent sale

The Mighty Jundheim Jugulars finish off their first Season Victorious!

 *BRRZZZTTT- News from 'the Warden of the North' as ' Coach Right Stuff ' reports the end of the regular season for our favourite hungry aristocrats... and it seems to be good news! - BRRZZZTTT*

Finally, after 18 long months and 29 recorded games, the Mackay Blood Bowl league is closing out its regular season and preparing for the Finals! Schedule issues tend to happen when half your league works in the mines! 

Onto the team themselves. I am proud to report that the Jundheim Jugulars finish at the top of the league with an impressive record of: 17 Wins, 7 Draws, and 5 Losses (though their head coach wont ever let me say that last stat without grumbling something about the league officials being "out to get him and his team". 

The team that was once home to some plucky fledgeling vampires from the frozen lands of Jundheim now houses some true Bloodbowl Legends! 

Most if not all of the Vampires became well known and feared throughout the league (apart from the long lost Vampire Blitzer Baron Silas Sokolov who was taken off and interrogated by league officials to make sure the team's success was legitimate)

Going through the roster, the absolute monster that was the Duke Viktor von Dragoslav was the one in the trenches in mid pitch, cutting down opposing big guys and stomping ball handlers alike because in his own words: "Who needs tackle when I can block with all 3 dice". Duke von Dragoslav finished the season with a considerable 19 casualties, almost all of which were STR 4+ pieces.

The Lady Striga Drachenfeld comfortably wins the "best improved" award for the team as she had a very rocky Round 1 that included a couple MNG and many games spent almost entirely on the bench due to how fragile she was without any skills. However a couple fortunate games against an unprepared Gnome team and a crippled Underworld Denizens gave her the chance she needed to learn the skills required to start mastering her role as a Runner, Catcher, and all around mobile nuisance that she became. Once acquiring the famed "Blodge" combo of skills she was comfortably dancing around the oafs of the league to score touchdown after touchdown. She then thoroughly enjoyed playing the part of annoyance to any and all as she sidestepped and shadowed players around the pitch to make it a monumental task to keep her clear of any spilled ball. Truly you have not lived until you've seen her run halfway down the pitch to catch you in her hypnotic gaze to open wide your teams cage and make way for the Duke and then in a split second she's blowing you a kiss from your own endzone! The Lady Drachenfeld finished the season with an Impressive 20 Touchdowns, making her the 3rd top scorer in the league and just under half of the teams total 51 touchdowns. The absolute embodiment of a pain in the ass on the pitch both offensively and defensively. 

Next is the wonder duo that is the Count Edgar Diedrich III and the Viscount Freidrich Freudenberg V. The two were the all rounders of the team. From the start they've been doing anything and everything the team required of them, whether that be ferrying the ball up the pitch safely, blitzer opposing threats off of eachother, and using their hypnotic gaze to pick apart the opposing offence and making way for the Duke to really open up their opponents. These two started out as simple throwers prepared to launch the ball downpitch for the Lady to swoop up and score, theyve become downright incredible at the running game, especially when paired together. 

1st and 4th on Completions!
Fun Fact: those two completed 51 passes, and the Team scored 51 TDs for the Season!

They themselves developed the teams go to offensive plan of the "Pick and Roll". The Counts would push down one widezone of the pitch with coverage from the Baron, the Duke, and plenty of mobile blood banks Thralls to gum up and defensive efforts, all while the Lady Striga pushed either down the opposite widezone or the center with a thrall or two to keep her company. The defense would be caught in a lose lose situation. Either they give the famed runner the respect she deserves, in which case they put themselves at a numbers disadvantage against the running side and with the impressive stats across the board the Vamps can push through and run in for a touchdown OR they only send one or two to mark Lady Striga and can watch the ball sail over their heads for an easy lobbed touchdown to her waiting hands. This plan became fearsome once both throwers had Dump-Off and Nerves of Steel, meaning that if the defense managed to put up a decent fight and get a punch onto the ball carrier, they just lob it to the other thrower and keep running, basically playing leapfrog as they pass, dodge out, keep moving forward while keeping an eye on the emergency pass across pitch. A genuinely outstanding all round offense. This plan put into practice all throughout the season led the team to many wins and lead Count Edgar Diedrich III to be the League's top passer with 35 completions!

Now the uncontested Star Player of the team, Baron Gregor van Kraus. To put him into the "all-rounder" category would be unfair as he simply excelled in everything. From downing ball carriers (often permanently) with his Block, Tackle, Mighty Blow, to being constantly mobile and being where he needs to be to score touchdowns when players start leaving the pitch with his Dodge and Jump-Up, and re-rolling anything he needs to with Pro. The man if you can still call him that is a total menace and the one getting everything done. Through his ability to do truly anything, he has racked up 14 Touchdowns (Tied #5 for the League) and 24 Casualties (also tied #5 for the League - and the league is 90% bash teams!).There is a reason he won MVP for the team in 18 of the 29 games. He does everything expertly and its no stretch to say the team would struggle without him. A true Bloodbowl legend to rival the mighty Griff Oberwald!

3rd, 5th and 8th in Touchdowns!
I love that the Viscount is on both lists: sometimes he passes and sometimes he wants the glory!

Its been an incredible season with these lads and the Vampires are comfortably one of, if not my favourite teams ive ever played due to this season with them.The ability to flex between bashing gnomes and snotlings to paste to playing keep-away from Trolls and blood crazed Khorne Warriors has made every game and every turn a puzzle that is a true delight to figure out...all with the added fun and mayhem of eating my own team while I do it! This is likely the closest I'll ever get to elves without staining my reputation as a coach but you can best believe i'll be revisiting these boys in the future.

Thats the news Blood Bowl fans! Your fan favourite Jundheim Jugulars with return home victors. Until next time... when news of a brand new team that attempts to copy their success starts to surface...

Coach "Right-Stuff" out!

A visit to Rocket City USA

An AMAZING day yesterday at the NASA Marshall Space Centre in Huntsville, Alabama - also known as "Rocket City" for being the engineering powerhouse of the US Space Race and the Saturn project in particular.

How's that for a poetic shot!

To make the trip even more special, I went with a posse of colleagues which included two current rocket scientists, and met two living legends who worked on the Saturn V project back in the day. They told us "Houston only worried about the human part of the system - we did the real work" :-)

And so, this post is unapologetic pic spam! (and is about 2% of what I took)

This is the US Army Redstone Rocket - the first derivative from the German V2 rocket by the German team (BTW we met another NASA guy who was in the Shuttle program, who told me that as a lad he lived next to Dr von Braun in Huntsville, where all the German team were located. With such inspiration no wonder we became a rocket engineer!)

This is the PGM-19 JUPITER Medium Range Ballistic Missile which was used my NASA for suborbital biological test flights with monkeys.  And from these two was derived the Mercury-Redstone Launch Vehicle

The first successful launch was in late 1960, and Alan Shepard was taken aloft as the the first American astronaught in May 61. "The Mercury 7 were great guys but really just rode it as ballast' the Saturn V vets told us! :-)

The heavy lift capability program commenced in 1958. Initially called the JUNO V, the team at Huntsville just started referring to it as SATURN because "its the one after JUPITER" and it eventually became official!

"You use what you've got to solve problems" our 87yr old NASA veteran told us. "So to save retooling costs and time, we strapped a bunch of Redstone rockets around a Juno fuel tank to make a first stage and it seemed to go ok". The first Saturn 1 was launched in late 1961.  

The "rocket park" was inspiring and the exhibits are in showcase condition 

The Marshall Centre has other exhibits including US Army missiles designed and built at the Defence facility next door, including the "Nike Hercules", "Corporal", "Honest John" and "Spartan". 

Not in quite the same condition and while interesting, something else had caught my eye and was drawing me in....

OK, this one is a 1:1 scale replica standing proud outside but inside the building next to it...

This was originally built for the Apollo 19 Mission and is one of only three Saturn V Launch Vehicles remaining in existence - the others are a Kennedy Space Centre (Cape Canaveral) and Johnson Space Centre (Houston). Now I've seen two - one to go!

Pic of this Rocket from Wikipedia to give a different perspective

The business end! The outer R1 engines could gimble up to 5 degrees each while the centre one is fixed. Together they burned 6,000 pounds of fuel per second!

These were our hosts for the day and we were amazed for 3 solid hours as they rattled of data, design principles and many personal anecdotes. I feel very lucky to have had the chance to shake their hands and hear their stories.

One such story went along the lines of "It was getting very busy to control the spacecraft and manage all the inputs, so we decided to invent the first digital computer" (!) Partnered with IBM, it was designed with electromagnets, where North orientation was 1 and South was 0. So the first digital computer was made by employing local seamstresses to sew magnets with copper wire to build a whopping 144kb capacity weighing 88lbs.

As if that wasn't enough, there is also this treasure - Command Module Casper from the Apollo 16 mission and which orbited the moon 72 times in 1972

This capsule and its crew, John Young, Ken Mattingly and Charlie Duke, were recovered by USS Ticonderoga in the Pacific Ocean near Kiribati

The collection of astronaught training equipment here was also outstanding

Closeup of the driver's console and instrumentation

The LEM trainer was also very cool - I hadn't seen this before. This first pic is a close up of the instrumentation, while the second puts it into context.

Now imagine you're trying to move around, with your crew buddy, in a full space suit!

And finally, as you exist; where it all began - the V2 rocket

Cool mockup in the carpark next to the adjacent "Space Camp". I like that its called Pathfinder, which was used in the Apple TV Series For All Mankind 

An unforgettable and inspiring day

https://www.nasa.gov/marshall/