lovecrafts-iranon

[lovecrafts-iranon]

Alright, six variants is enough. I had double the number in mind, but this sheet has finally crossed over from “fun” to “tedious”. Still could count it as 12 designs however, since two Pokemon stages per breed are included.

So there you have it, Gastly and Haunter breed variants! All variants are based on the matching egg group, “Amorphous”. The results are a tad esoteric, so the appeal isn’t the same as the other sheets floating around, but I hope you all enjoy anyways. Maybe I’ll do some more in the future sometime.

[lovecrafts-iranon]

How much do you know about Dien Bien Phu? I, as a typical American, know almost nothing except that it was a major French disaster, that eventually led to the American Vietnam war. However, i fell into a YoutTube rabbit hole, and it changed my perspective. I think it was one of the most impressive marvels of combat logistics, planning, and ingenuity in military history.

The French made some major blunders, but i think it's important to un derstand why they put a major airstrip in a valley surrounded by mountains: The French Foreign Legion considered it a complete impossibility that the Vietnamese could put artillery on the mountains. From that persepctive, the fortress at Dien Bien Phu was an amazing idea. A well-supplied forward air base that is basically impregnable allows you to completely dominant the war. The French could have operated with impunity. The battle-hardened French military and engineers were absolutely certain that no one could move artillery up to the rim of the bowl - at least without modern equipment. Its not like these were guys fresh out of the academy, these dudes built the Maginot line, they fought a full-scale modern war, they were phenomenal engineers. They climbed the Alps, the fought in Fortress Europa. They knew their business. They were safe in their elevated bowl.

Instead, those hard little fuckers in the pajamas pulled post-WW2 field artillery pieces and modern AA batteries up mountains with their bare hands and some effing ropes. They did the impossible. They proved, once again, that wars are won by planning, logistics, and hard fucking work. Bravery is great. Genius is great. Strategic and tactical mastery of excellent skills. But being a good logistician and being willing to dig forever will win more wars than anything.

That, and SPEED. The moment the French extended themselves too far, the Viet Minh were ready. They exploited the advantage lighting fast.

I am just so impressed by the Viet Minh achievement at Dien Bien Phu, and would love to find more information on their side of things. Just incredible what they did.

Sounds like you know more than me! You can just make this your own reblog you know, no need to bury your essay in the illusion of the ask ^_^ We like essays here!

For my own thoughts I know some, I guess I can share a few:

-Okay, bear with me; there is a Malcom Gladwell essay about the Full Court Press strategy in college basketball from 2009 (absolutely *chef kiss* start here) which digs into the "effort vs ability" paradigm. Now Gladwell is as always full of shit, don't listen to him on the object level question of how effective the FCP strat is, but the paradigm is a good theoretical tool - that in a lot of places you don't expect, effort can substitute for a lack of ability and close disparities. In the essay he discusses T. E. Lawrence's attack on the city of Aqaba (which he overly credits to Lawrence over Auda Abu Tayi or the other British advisor, Stewart Newcombe, but w/e), which was heavily defended on the coast but its artillery batteries didn't cover the desert in the rear - why would it, its hundreds of miles of barren wasteland. The insight of the Arab Revolt forces barely counts as an insight until you see it the right way - just cross it anyway! The enemy has a greater 'ability' in firepower, which can cover a dozen approaches, but not all of them - so if you ignore the gigantic human cost of crossing the desert, you obviously attack the weak point. They just didn't conceive of enemy willing to essentially suffer that much, the Arab Revolt's true strength was apply effort in quantities the Ottomans were unwilling to consider. Dien Bien Phu is the same - the French were essentially correct that hand-dragging artillery pieces into the mountain ridges was virtually impossible, the British or the Chinese wouldn't have done it. Insurgencies are built on the principle of effort overcoming ability, though - if they had the ability they wouldn't be the insurgency. These are the gaps that insurgencies hunt for, where the enemy treats you like a 'normal' army and assumes you wont simply grind away at the problem. Dien Bien Phu is the moment where that gap emerged, and the Vietminh were ready for it.

-The other point is to downplay this a bit, in that whenever you see a stellar victory you should always look at the other perspective; if it happened, maybe it wasn't that low odds. The French in Vietnam were a classic case of War Without Strategy - after WW2 France was a broken state being built from the ground up, America had ruthlessly pushed the Western European powers into paring back their imperial ambitions, and the domestic populace was sketchy in its support at best. France had set up the State of Vietnam as a quasi-free nation, something they did have hopes for in the 1940's but by 1954 its lack of viability was on the wall, yet France could not diplomatically admit to that fact. As such into the 1950's France had minimal strategy - French commanders were simply aiming to not-lose and save face for their eventual return to Europe.

Individual ideas would bubble up - like the idea behind Dien Bien Phu, baiting the Vietminh into taking huge casualties attacking it as part of the "hedgehog" strategy a la Na San in 1952. But notice how this...isn't a strategy? If *inflicting casualties* was gonna win France the war it would have been over 5 years ago. It has a hint of a strategy, sure, but in the main its an idea born of the fact that France was unwilling to commit the resources needed to actually have a chance of winning, but was unwilling to admit defeat, and was filling the gap with hail mary's.

The fact that the Vietminh had already fought a similar battle at Na San, lost, and was able to learn lessons for when France offered a repeat is telling; their victory is maybe not that surprising in this light. France could afford few defeats and had no capacity to end the war, the Vietnamese could afford endless defeats and were bent on fighting for the long haul. Of course such a grind would eventually, probabilistically, tip in Vietnam's favour and hand them the victory they needed; in a sense France was hoping for just that, an excuse to withdraw. Dien Bien Phu is the logical culmination of the politico-strategic balance of the two forces.

[lovecrafts-iranon]

thinking about creatures.

[lovecrafts-iranon]

Two weeks in, here's my attempt at tracking the initial onslaught of policy changes at the start of President Trump's second term

[lovecrafts-iranon]

Reminder that the trade regime that the insurrectionist government just blew up is the one that they negotiated in 2020.

[lovecrafts-iranon]

Alcoholic Lorry Driver To Villain?! I Got Reincarnated As A Dark Lord In A World Ruled By My Hit And Run Victims!

[lovecrafts-iranon]

baby capybara named Tupi via san antonio zoo

[lovecrafts-iranon]

Btw, this is how conservatives keep getting to claim that trans people are a new thing no one has ever heard, because our history and existences have continually been erased or obscured systematically through out history.

The most famous example was 92 years when the Nazis raided the library of the Institut für Sexualwissenschaft, the medical practice where the term transsexual was first coined and the first gender affirming surgery was performed in in 1931.

What did the Nazis do after raiding the library on May 6th, 1933? You may be familiar with these images

It is happening again.

[lovecrafts-iranon]

aaaaaa I had a dumb post up for a long time

[lovecrafts-iranon]

[lovecrafts-iranon]

i do enjoy playing chess. it's just that my feelings during the game are so eclipsed by my feelings upon winning or losing that it's hard to even remember what they are

[lovecrafts-iranon]

Your reaction to chatGPT instantly lets me know how easy it would be to trick you into thinking that you are haunted

[lovecrafts-iranon]

Behond one if the funniest things ive seen on reddit in a hot minute

[lovecrafts-iranon]

posts about ones actions having consequences are completely unrelatable. nothing i do ever matters because of how inherently stupid I am

[lovecrafts-iranon]

[lovecrafts-iranon]

Twilight of the Gods (2024-)