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| The Great White Fleet John Charles Roach Source |
As I sat down to write on Saturday, it struck me, I'm not ready!
Went to breakfast with my old mates from work, got up to date on things in the lab and was well-pleased. Though any team is never perfect, my old group has managed to add some new folks who have a lot of talent. Now that the boss is getting paid more (and with a promotion in hand) things should go well. If the project fails, it ain't because of them. I love my old boss, she's talented and very smart, she's one of the few things I miss about the old salt mine.
Breakfast was good, the food and the company. But I had to get up entirely too early for my tastes. Though we usually meet at 0800, today was 0900, still too early for me but tolerable. (Tom is the early bird of the group, I swear, the man is the Energizer bunny. He's like that at work too. He wants to, no, he NEEDS to be busy. Good man.)
Liz and I like the later time as we're both night owls. Stay up late, get up late. Let the early bird have the worm, I'll take the buffalo chicken eggs benedict!
Anyhoo.
I have in mind to write a story set in Japan of the samurai era. I am fairly familiar with that era, I actually have a copy of Miyamoto Musashi's The Book of Five Rings floating around somewhere. Yes, I did read it. I was rather amused at all the business types buying the book back in the day and then wondering why. Every time some westerner tries to introduce some Japanese concept here in the States, it doesn't go well. Our cultures are very different. Ask Toirdhealbheach Beucail over at The Forty-Five, he gets it.
At any rate, I thought a story set in that period might be interesting. I just have to shed my gaijin ways and remember what it was like living over there. (Two and a half years on Okinawa, four years in Korea.)
So really, what I need to do is raise steam before I can weigh the anchor and get underway. As I haven't written for a few weeks, that might take some time.
Be patient, we'll get there ...
As to raising steam, watch this -
"The early bird..." Just shows that the worm should have stayed in bed. Some people are, by nature early birds, others are night owls. Takes all kinds to make a team.
ReplyDeleteThe logistics of provisioning any large body of people, be it an army on the march or a ship at sea, is a daunting marvel. Here is a depiction of provisioning for a 900 man Dreadnaught for a month: https://www.naval-review.com/app/uploads/2023/11/provisions-671x1024.jpeg How and wear to store such a quantity of so many dissimilar things, and in such a way as to not have to get the bottom crate of the last stack every time takes more planning than I'm capable of. Here from the 1916 Army Cooks Manual, page 30, for 100 men for, I think, a month; https://archive.org/details/manualforarmycoo1917unit/page/30/mode/2up?q=rations
From Customs of Service, 1865, rations for 1,000 men for one day: https://49thohio.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/Kautz_NCOs_guide.pdf that's page 71 in case it doesn't open to that page.
Try reading Book of Five Rings and Art of War one after the other and comparing. I think the concepts are similar, just on different scales: Adapt and overcome, know your enemy, know yourself, know how to deceive your enemy, win without fighting/sap your enemy's will to fight.
Professionals study logistics.
DeleteStores Load day on an LA Class fast attack back in the 80s was an all-hands exercise mostly because we had to hand transfer all the food down the forward escape trunk one case at a time. No pallet jacks, no bulk handling, just sailor's muscles.
DeleteIf we were loading for 90 days (max endurance) the galley chill box got turned into another freezer, so no fresh veg from day one but lots of boxes of beef (and lobster for Halfway Night!). #10 cans were stored everywhere: two layers on deck in the mess hall, two layers in berthing, and the forward ladder from mid to upper level was completely filled with cans of food. Then here are the cans of things like peanuts that go off to the Engine Room, Sonar, and other spaces to be hidden away before the Cooks see them. One the food is loaded the real fun begins: Loading boxes of Iron TDU weights.... We discharge garbage at sea in Trash Disposal Unit cans that are weighed and weighted so they sink so we need lots and lots of weights that go in their own stowage racks in the bilges throughout the ship.
It is a long day and a lot of work.
The Silent Service is no place for the weak!
DeleteThanks, Rick. I've seen videos of stores being taken aboard submarines. About the cans on the deck - are there boards or such to go on top to keep them from being dented? Or do you just learn to walk softly?
Delete"Iron TDU weights" - a whole new meaning to "Iron Rations."
👍
DeleteWe put cardboard from the cases cut up cases as a walking layer on the cans to give a (very) little bit of padding of the edges and to spread the load a bit. I don't recall can lids being dented, but our bare feet and knees sure were.
DeleteOuch!
DeleteThanks for the film; thoroughly enjoyed it. When The War started my father volunteered for the Royal Navy but was rejected: "We have hundreds of volunteers with your qualifications and many of them don't wear glasses - go home to your wife." Cheek!
ReplyDeleteLater, when the Army called him up the interviewer said "What do you want to do?" "What have you got that's most like being the skipper of a Motor Torpedo Boat?" "Tanks?" "Thank you: tanks it is."
Cheek indeed!
DeleteAh....this early bird is looking forward to a new historical era Sarge, my thanks to juvat for the heavy lifting the past few days.......:)
ReplyDeleteWe'll see how that goes, the desire is there but is the story?
DeleteOh, I’m positive it’s in that brain of yours somewhere. You'll find it!
DeleteStart looking.
juvat
It is in there, just gotta sort it out.
Delete(Sqeee! I will not become overly excited about an AF Sarge Japanese Tale, I will not become overly excited about an AF Japanese Tale...)
ReplyDeleteWow. That would be um...um...pretty okay.
Who am I kidding? That would be awesome!
(To Joe's point above, The Art of War and A Book of Five Rings are very complimentary texts. A Book of Five Rings can easily be broken up into 7 readings (e.g. over a week), and The Art of War similar for a month. One year I read A Book of Five Rings weekly on this cycle and done the same annually for The Art of War.)
Thank you for the confirmation. I read them in my early 30s, had one in the living room and the other in the bedroom, so I was reading them at the same time. It struck me that they were basically saying the same thing, just one a personal level, the other on a national, or at least large group scale, of course with differences imposed by the different scales.
DeleteTB - I was hoping you'd like the idea. Now I need to not disappoint!
DeleteJoe - The scale makes a difference in some ways, but it all boils down to human nature. At least to my way of thinking it does.
DeleteThere's a very interesting and, being Japan, tragic era when Christianity first hit the islands. There was even a samurai who went to the Vatican. Then the Emperor and the Shogun decided Christianity wasn't for Japan and, being Japan, the proscriptions were very very Japanese, meaning full of death and tragedy.
ReplyDeleteClavell's "Shogun" touches a tad on this, and is shown in the Richard Chamberlain version when two Catholic samurai protect Anjin-san from the Portuguese commander.
The other really sad, tragic and very Japanese era was the modernization era when samurai lost basically everything. Done very well in Tom Cruise's "The Last Samurai." And some really good anime.
The turning point of Sekigahara was also an interesting time.
So was the defense of Tsushima in 1274 when 80 samurai and 300 armed peasants held off the Mongol invasion.
I am very familiar with those.
DeleteI really enjoyed the recent Shogun series. Unfortunately it won't be back until 2027, with filming starting next January.
DeleteI did as well. 2027? Oof.
DeleteThe Raising steam video is "CHENG approved!" Had to think a bit to translate the steps from British to English.
ReplyDeleteThis video included a lot on the need to preheat the fuel oil with the "U-shaped tube heater." That was the case with the old Navy Standard Fuel Oil (NSFO) or black oil, which the USN used into the early 1970s. It was horrible thick gooey stuff which left heavy carbon deposits on the boiler tubes (on the fire side) which required laborious manual cleaning with wire brushes from inside the boiler (allowed to cool for a day or so prior to entry) every 600 hours of steaming time.
It was also necessary to have steam lines in the fuel storage tanks to warm it enough to be pumped from the fuel tank to the boilers when operating in cold areas, but not needed in temperate or tropic waters.
In the 1970s the USN switched to Distillate Fuel Marine (DFM or Navy Distillate Fuel or NATO F76) which was basically a grade of diesel fuel which required no preheating to burn or pump and was vastly cleaner burning so firesides only needed to be cleaned every 1800 hours of steaming time, and it was much easier. Aircraft JP-5 could be burned in ships' boilers, but not vice versa.
Eventually (circa 1990s) as the "jet boats" with their LM-2500 gas turbines began to replace steam powered ships, the Navy dropped the NDF fuel and carried a single grade of fuel for aviation use, gas turbine and steam boilers- JP-5 or NATO F-77. I think they may have more recently changed to a different grade of fuel (JP-8?) for improved safety, but as someone who escaped from the snipe world a very long time ago, I don't know for sure.
Tip of the old cap to the Engineers out there today who "keep the screws turning and lights burning."
John Blackshoe
Progress!
DeleteCrusty Old TV Tech here. Love that RN Raising Steam video. "Hello, what's this? A WRN Despatch Rider...". Almost sounds like a line from The Prisoner. Imagine it spoken in McGoohan voice.
ReplyDeleteBefore you raise steam to start the next book, I recommend a traditional Keesler AFB chow hall breakfast...SOS, strong coffee, and all the scrambled eggs and grits you can handle!
Good grits are hard to find in these parts.
DeleteMy Dad served on USS ALDEBERAN AF-10, an ALDEBERAN class refrigerated stores ship. He kept some of the hold charts that told where how much of stores were kept. I am still amazed at the idea of 5 tons of ketchup in one place.
ReplyDeleteIt boggles the mind!
Delete