#yamamoto isoroku

[velvetvexations]

This propaganda poster from WWII is a misquote. However, it's an interesting misquote.

Yamamoto never actually said, as he was depicted saying in a movie decades later, "I fear we have awakened a sleeping giant and filled him with a terrible resolve". He'd never say that because he knew damn well Pearl Harbor would be doing exactly that long before the decision to go to war was made. The poster's quote comes from something Yamamoto said, but badly distorted. The reality was:

Should hostilities once break out between Japan and the United States, it is not enough that we take Guam and the Philippines, nor even Hawaii and San Francisco. To make victory certain, we would have to march into Washington and dictate the terms of peace in the White House.

Much less cocky, of course, but outlining their goal at least, right? Well, the sentence right after is:

I wonder if our politicians, among whom armchair arguments about war are being glibly bandied about in the name of state politics, have confidence as to the final outcome and are prepared to make the necessary sacrifices.

That's hyper-polite Japanese speech mixing with hyper-polite please-don't-execute-me fascist military dictatorship speech for "what you're asking for is completely fucking impossible and you should be ashamed of your ignorance for even suggesting it". He might as well have added that the most realistic way of achieving that would be to go to occupied China and dig until they come out under Washington.

[ms-boogie-man]

Actually, you can no longer silence any of us

… and remember; behind every blade of grass yo

Angie/Maddie🦇❥🇺🇸

[captain-price-unofficially]

The remains of the G4M1 Betty in which Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto perished, as seen in southern Bougainville in late 1978

[literary-illuminati]

Yamamoto Isoroku seems to fit a very specific fictional war story archetype so perfectly (the personally valorous military genius on the Bad Guys' side, fighting a war he disagrees with for a government he dislikes out of solemn patriotic duty) that I'm genuinely unsure if either a) he got the Rommel post-war whitewash treatment or b) he is in fact one of the ultimate influences on the modern iterations of the trope.

[aceofmoxes]

In a modern military perspective, this hinges on if Shan-Yu’s army is an enemy at war, an enemy not at war, or a terrorist organization. As you move up those steps, it becomes dishonorable/unwise to kill the leader. I think we can take it for granted that Shan-Yu is a military target, but that becomes complicated if he is also the civilian leader of a nation.

There's a lot of complicated history regarding when it is honorable to kill civilian leadership or even military leadership. The killing of Isoroku Yamamoto is a hotly debated subject on these lines, but at the same time, assassinating Hitler was on everyone's mind. And of course the US Firebombing of Toyko may have killed more people than one of the atomic bombs, but the one target the bombers were told to avoid was the imperial place. Wait, Does Mulan kill Shan-Yu at the end? That raises an interesting meta-textual analysis that killing Shan-Yu would not be justified on a battlefield, but once he enters the place to kill the emperor of China, he has taken a dishonorable step of attacking civilian leadership, he himself becomes fair game.

was Mulan’s tactical masterstroke on the mountain actually a strategic miscalculation? she fires the cannon and deliberately misses Shan-Yu in order to trigger an avalanche that wipes out his army, but he actually survives the disaster along with enough soldiers to mount a covert attack on the imperial city that almost succeeded in decapitating the emperor and hence the empire.

and that’s just it: why defeat the army if you can just defeat the leader? if Mulan had taken out Shan-Yu with the rocket, the Hun/Mongol/Xiongnu army still presented a formidable threat, but leaderless they would likely not have proceeded to attack the capital, and might have even collapsed into infighting or retreated to their home territory to elect a new leader.

[carbone14]

Un soldat américain inspecte un fusil Springfield M1903 touché par des balles japonaises – Bataille d'Attu – Campagnes des îles Aléoutiennes – Guerre du Pacifique – Ile d'Attu – Alaska �� 11 mai 1943

La campagne des îles Aléoutiennes est parfois appelée « La bataille oubliée » car elle se déroulait en même temps que la bataille de Guadalcanal.

Cette campagne est la seule qui s'est déroulée avec des combats terrestres sur le sol américain lors de la seconde guerre mondiale.

Le 3 juin 1942, les japonais attaquent et envahissent les îles Aléoutiennes, archipel au sud-ouest de l'Alaska. Deux thèses expliquent cette invasion. La première thèse évoque une diversion lancée par l'amiral Isoroku Yamamoto pour éloigner la flotte américaine de Midway. La deuxième, plus récente, explique en réalité une nécessité pour les Japonais de protéger le flanc nord de leur Empire.

La campagne de reconquête des Aléoutiennes par les Américains commence dès août 1942 pour se terminer un an plus tard, le 15 août 1943. L'éloignement des îles et les conditions météorologiques particulièrement difficiles compliquent les opérations de reconquête.

La bataille d'Attu fut la seule bataille terrestre sur le territoire des Etats-Unis. Les conditions climatiques sévères et les défenses japonaises plus efficaces que prévues rendirent difficile la progression des américains. Les japonais, acculés dans une poche près de la côte, lancèrent une attaque frontale qui perça la première ligne de défense pour s'achever au corps à corps dans les lignes arrières. Sur les 1 200 défenseurs japonais seuls 29 furent faits prisonniers.

Après la prise de l'île d'Attu qui fut le théâtre de combats sanglants, Américains et Canadiens débarquent sur l'île de Kiska le 15 août 1943 sans aucune opposition. En effet, les japonais avaient évacué secrètement l'île deux semaines plus tôt au bénéfice d'un épais brouillard sans que les alliés n'en sachent rien. Pris dans un épais brouillard, la confusion règne parmi les alliés qui avancent dans une nature hostile et piégée par les Japonais au point de se tirer les uns sur les autres... Les pertes s'élèvent à 313 hommes, dues aux tirs amis, aux pièges laissés par les Japonais et aux maladies ou gelures dues au froid.

L'opération Cottage, dernière opération consistant à libérer l'île de Kiska solda cette campagne.

[countriesgame]

Please reblog for a bigger sample size!

If you have any fun fact about Bougainville, please tell us and I'll reblog it!

Be respectful in your comments. You can criticize a government without offending its people.

[dertaglichedan]

Isoroku Yamamoto: 'I fear all we have done is to awaken a sleeping giant and fill him with a terrible resolve

[usafphantom-2]

Yamamoto Isoroku seeing off a Zero fighter taking off from Rabaul East Airfield (colorized)

@muginekosikikan via X

[brookstonalmanac]

Birthdays 8.4

Beer Birthdays

Julius Deglow (1823)

William J. Seib (1836)

Rod DeWitt (1957)

Aaron Mateychuk (1965)

Five Favorite Birthdays

Louis Armstrong; jazz trumpeter, bandleader, actor (1901)

Richard Belzer; comedian, actor (1944)

Greta Gerwig; actress (1983)

Barack Obama; 44th U.S. President (1961)

William Schuman; composer (1910)

Famous Birthdays

Aleksandr Danilovich Aleksandrov; Russian mathematician, physicist, and mountaineer (1912)

Warren Avis; businessman (1915)

Béla Balázs; Hungarian poet (1844)

David Bedford; English keyboard player (1937)

George Irving Bell; physicist, biologist, and mountaineer (1926)

Henri Berger; German composer (1844)

Roger Clemens; Boston Red Sox P (1962)

Allison Hedge Coke; American-Canadian poet (1958)

Robbin Crosby; guitarist and songwriter (1959)

Gerard Damiano; film director (1928)

Don S. Davis; actor (1942)

Mary Decker; track and field athlete (1958)

Lorenzo di Pierfrancesco de' Medici; Florentine patron of the arts (1463)

Michel Déon; French novelist, playwright (1919)

Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother of the UK (1900)

Herb Ellis; jazz guitarist (1921)

Frankie Ford; R&B/rock & roll singer (1939)

Witold Gombrowicz; Polish author and playwright (1904)

Jeff Gordon; race car driver (1971)

William Rowan Hamilton; Irish physicist, astronomer, and mathematician (1805)

Knut Hamsun; Norwegian writer (1859)

Robert Hayden; poet (1913)

Martin Jarvis; English actor (1941)

Cleon Jones; New York Mets LF (1942)

Johann Gottlob Lehmann; German mineralogist and geologist (1719)

Leopold I, Duke of Austria (1290)

Helen Kane; singer and actress (1904)

Lee Mack; English comedian, actor (1968)

Meghan Markle; actress (1981)

Ernesto Maserati; Italian race car driver and engineer (1898)

Paul McCarthy; painter and sculptor (1945)

John Newton; composer of “Amazing Grace” (1725)

Walter Pater; English author (1839)

Clara Peller; “Where’s the Beef” lady (1902)

David Raksin; composer (1912)

Paul Reynolds; English singer-songwriter and guitarist (1962)

Bernard Rose; English film director (1960)

Klaus Schulze; German keyboard player and songwriter (1947)

Percy Bysshe Shelley; English poet (1792)

Helen Thomas; journalist (1920)

Billy Bob Thornton; actor (1955)

John Henry Twachtman; painter (1853)

John Venn; English mathematician and philosopher (1834)

Louis Vuitton; French fashion designer (1821)

Raoul Wallenberg; Swedish humanitarian (1912)

Tim Winton; Australian author (1960)

Isoroku Yamamoto; Japanese admiral (1884)

[freetheshit-outofyou]

"You cannot invade mainland United States. There would be a rifle behind each blade of grass." Attributed to Japanese Marshal Admiral of the Imperial Japanese Navy and the commander-in-chief of the Combined Fleet Isoroku Yamamoto.

[centrally-unplanned]

Speaking of dreams and manga and weird niche markets, I recently had a fully-formed desire enter my mind to write a manga where its a crew of tween anime girls with this scraggly blond otaku lead girl, except its Isoroku Yamamoto and the girls are the members of the Imperial Navy General Staff debating and planning the attack on Pearl Harbor. They would live in this like magic sky castle and constantly toss out strategic concepts and ideas from across time, making cute references to OODA loops and Starcraft meta and stuff, and slowly their vision for what their war effort could be would be torn down brick by brick by the reality of what Japan's state and military actually was. "Here is how Bernie the IJN Combined Fleet can still win" being debated by a motely crew of rainbow-haired meganekkos while oil stockades and food supplies dry up.

Too bad I can't draw lol. Probably my brain telling me I need to do that nonfiction Big Essay on the topic.

[usafphantom2]

A P-38 Pilot Describes the Attack on Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto

P-38 pilot Roger Ames participated in the shooting down of Japan’s most important admiral.

This article appears in: Fall 2012

By Robert F. Dorr

When American air ace Major John Mitchell led 16 Lockheed P-38 Lightning fighters on the longest combat mission yet flown (420 miles) on April 18, 1943, Mitchell’s target was Isoroku Yamamoto, the Japanese admiral considered the architect of the Pearl Harbor attack.

Mitchell’s P-38 pilots, using secrets from broken Japanese codes, were going after Yamamoto, the poker-playing, Harvard-educated naval genius of Japan’s war effort. Mitchell’s P-38s intercepted and shot down the Mitsubishi G4M “Betty” bomber carrying Yamamoto. After the admiral’s death, Japan never again won a major battle in the Pacific War.

No band of brothers ever worked together better than the men who planned, supported, and flew the Yamamoto mission. Yet, after the war, veterans fell to bickering over which P-38 pilot actually pulled the trigger on Yamamoto.

There was one thing they never disagreed on. Like most young pilots of their era, they believed the P-38 Lightning was the greatest fighter of its time.

Roger J. Ames (1919-2000) flew the Yamamoto mission. This first-person account by Ames was recorded by the author in 1998 and appeared in his 2007 book, Air Combat: A History of Fighter Pilots; it has never before appeared in a magazine.

Intercepting a Crucial Japanese Radio Message

The downing of Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto is arguably the most studied fighter engagement of the Pacific War. Yamamoto, 56, was commander in chief of the Japanese Combined Fleet and the architect of the Pearl Harbor attack. He called himself the sword of Japan’s Emperor Hirohito. He claimed he was going to ride down Pennsylvania Avenue on a white horse and dictate the surrender of the United States in the White House.

Yamamoto studied at Harvard (1919-1921), traveled around America, was twice naval attaché in Washington, D.C., and understood as much about the United States, including U.S. industrial power, as any Japanese leader. In April 1943, Yamamoto was trying to prevent the Allies from taking the offensive in the South Pacific and was visiting Japanese troops in the Bougainville area.

On the afternoon of April 17, 1943, Major John Mitchell, commander of the 339th Fighter Squadron, was ordered to report to our operations dugout at Henderson Field on Guadalcanal. The 1st Marine Division had captured the nearly completed field the previous summer and named it for Major Lofton Henderson, the first Marine pilot killed in action in World War II when his squadron engaged the Japanese fleet that was attacking Midway.

Now Mitchell found himself surrounded by high-ranking officers. They told him the United States had broken the Japanese code and had intercepted a radio message advising Japanese units in the area that Yamamoto was going on an inspection trip of the Bougainville area.

The message gave Yamamoto’s exact itinerary and pointed out that the admiral was most punctual. They told Mitchell that Frank Knox, secretary of the Navy, had held a midnight meeting with President Franklin D. Roosevelt regarding the intercepted message. It was decided that we would try to get Yamamoto if we could. The report of the meeting was probably inaccurate because Roosevelt was on a rail trip away from Washington, but the plan to get Yamamoto unquestionably began at the top.

Eighteen P-38s Selected For the Mission

The Navy would never have admitted it, but the Army’s P-38 was the only fighter with the range to make the approximately 1,100-mile round trip. We were under the command of the Navy at Guadalcanal, so you can bet they’d have taken the job if they were able.

First Lieutenant Rex T. Barber, one of two Americans originally credited with shooting down Yamamoto. He later was given sole credit for the kill.

According to the intercepted message, Yamamoto and his senior officers were arriving at the tiny island of Ballale just off the coast of Bougainville at 9:45 the next morning. The message said that Yamamoto and his staff would be flying in Mitsubishi G4M “Betty” bombers, escorted by six Zeros. The Yamamoto trip was to include a visit to Shortland Island and Bougainville.

Mitchell was to be mission commander of 18 P-38s that would intercept, attack, and destroy the bombers. That’s all the P-38s we had in commission.

The Plan of Attack

Led by Mitchell, we planned the flight in excruciating detail. Nothing was left to chance. Yamamoto was to be at the Ballale airstrip just off Bougainville at 9:45 the next morning and we planned to intercept him 10 minutes earlier about 30 miles out. To ensure complete surprise, we planned a low level, circuitous route staying below the horizon from the islands we had to bypass, because the Japanese had radar and coastwatchers just as we did.

We plotted the course and timed it so that the interception would take place upon the approach of the P-38s to the southwestern coast of Bougainville at the designated time of 9:35 am. Each minute detail was discussed, and nothing was taken for granted. Takeoff procedure, flight course and altitude, radio silence, when to drop belly tanks, the tremendous importance of precise timing and the position of the covering element: all were discussed and explained until Mitchell was sure that each of his pilots knew his part and the parts of the other pilots from takeoff to return.

Mitchell chose pilots from the 12th, 70th, and 339th Fighter Squadrons. These were the only P-38 squadrons on Guadalcanal. The only belly tanks we had on Guadalcanal were 165-gallon tanks, so we had to send to Port Moresby for a supply of the larger 310-gallon tanks. We put one tank of each size on each plane. This gave us enough fuel to fly to the target area, stay in the area where we expected the admiral for about 15 minutes, fight, and come home. The larger fuel tanks were flown in that night, and ground crews worked all night getting them installed along with a Navy compass in Mitchell’s plane.

Captain Tom Lanphier’s P-38 #122 Phoebe on Guadalcanal with the 339th Fighter Squadron. Lanphier was originally given credit for half a kill before investigations revealed that Barber was the sole marksman.

Four of our pilots were designated to act as the “killer section” with the remainder as their protection. Mitchell said that if he had known there were going to be two bombers in the flight he would have assigned more men to the killer section. The word for bomber and bombers is the same in Japanese. (Author’s note: Ames is incorrect on this point about the Japanese language).

Captain Thomas G. Lanphier, Jr., led the killer section. His wingman was 1st Lt. Rex T. Barber. 1st Lt. Besby F. “Frank” Holmes led the second element. His wingman was 1st Lt. Raymond K. Hine.

The cover section was led by Mitchell and included myself and 11 other pilots. Eight of the 16 pilots on the mission were from the 12th Fighter Squadron, which was my squadron.

Although 18 P-38s were scheduled to go on the mission, only 16 were able to participate because one plane blew a tire on the runway on takeoff and another’s belly tanks failed to feed properly.

“Bogeys! Eleven O’Clock, High!”

It was Palm Sunday, April 18, 1943. But since there were no religious holidays on Guadalcanal, we took off at 7:15 am, joined in formation, and left the island at 7:30 am, just two hours and five minutes before the planned interception. It was an uneventful flight but a hot one, at from 10 to 50 feet above the water all the way. Some of the pilots counted sharks. One counted pieces of driftwood. I don’t remember doing anything but sweating. Mitchell said he may have dozed off on a couple of occasions but received a light tap from “The Man Upstairs” to keep him awake.

Mitchell kept us on course flying the five legs by compass, time, and airspeed only. As we turned into the coast of Bougainville and started to gain altitude, after more than two hours of complete radio silence, 1st Lt. Douglas S. Canning––Old Eagle Eyes–– uttered a subdued “Bogeys! Eleven o’clock, high!” It was 9:35 am. The admiral was precisely on schedule, and so were we. It was almost as if the affair had been prearranged with the mutual consent of friend and foe. Two Betty bombers were at 4,000 feet with six Zeros at about 1,500 feet higher, above and just behind the bombers in a “V” formation of three planes on each side of the bombers.

Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto in dress whites, photographed on the morning he was killed, addresses a group of pilots at Rabaul, April 18, 1943. His death came as a tremendous blow to the Japanese.

We dropped our belly tanks. We put our throttles to the firewall and went for altitude. The killer section closed in for the attack while the cover section stationed themselves at about 18,000 feet to take care of the expected fighters from Kahili. As Mitchell said, “The night before we knew the Japanese had 75 Zeros on Bougainville and I wanted to be where the action was.

I thought, “Well, I’m going on up higher and we’re going to be up there and have a turkey shoot.’” We expected from 50 to 75 Zeros should be there to protect Yamamoto just as we had protected Secretary of the Navy Frank Knox when he came to visit a couple of weeks before. We’d had as many fighters in the air to protect Knox as we could get off the ground. I guess the Japanese had all their fighters lined up on the runway for inspection. Anyway, none of the Zeros came up to meet us. Our intercept force encountered only the Zeros that were escorting Yamamoto.

Lanphier and Barber: The First to Make Contact With the Enemy

Lanphier and Barber headed for the enemy. When they were about a mile in front and two miles to the right of the bombers, the Zeros spotted them. Lanphier and Barber headed down to intercept the Zeros. The Bettys nosed down in a diving turn to get away from the P-38s. Holmes, the leader of the second element, could not release his belly tanks so, in an effort to jar them loose, he turned off down the coast, kicking his plane around to knock the tanks loose. Ray Hine, his wingman, had no choice but to follow him to protect him. So Lanphier and Barber were the only two going after the Japs for the first few minutes.

Ground crewmen look over Lieutenant Robert Petit’s P-38, Miss Virginia, which Barber borrowed for the mission; he returned it to Henderson Field with over 100 bullet holes.

From this point onward, accounts of the fight get mixed up about who shot down whom. Briefly, here is probably what happened based on the accounts of all involved. I did not see what was happening 18,000 feet below me.

As Lanphier and Barber were intercepted by the Zeros, Lanphier turned head-on into them and shot down one Zero and scattered the others. This gave Barber the opportunity to go for the bombers. As Barber turned to get into position to attack the bombers, he lost sight of them under his wing, and when he straightened around he saw only one bomber, going hell bent for leather downhill toward the jungle treetops.

Barber went after the Betty and started firing over the fuselage at the right engine. And as he slid over to get directly behind the Betty, his fire passed through the bomber’s vertical fin and some pieces of the rudder separated from the plane. He continued firing and was probably no more than 100 feet behind the Betty when it suddenly snapped left and slowed down rapidly, and as Barber roared by he saw black smoke pouring from the right engine.

Shooting Down the Betty

Barber believed the Betty crashed into the jungle, although he did not see it crash. And then three Zeros got on his tail and were making firing passes at him as he headed toward the coast at treetop level taking violent evasive action. Luckily, two P-38s from Mitchell’s flight saw his difficulty and cleared the Zeros off his tail. Holmes said it was he and Hine that chased the Zeros off Barber’s tail. Barber said he then looked inland and to his rear and saw a large column of black smoke rising from the jungle, which he believed to be the Betty he’d shot.

As Barber headed toward the coast he saw Holmes and Hine over the water with a Betty bomber flying below them just offshore. He then saw Holmes and Hine shoot at the bomber with Holmes’ bullets hitting the water behind the Betty and then walking up and through the right engine of the Betty. Hines started to fire, but all of his rounds hit well ahead of the Betty. Then Holmes and Hine passed over the Betty and headed south.

Barber said that he then dropped in behind the Betty flying over the water and opened fire. As he flew over the bomber it exploded, and a large chunk of the plane hit his right wing, cutting out his turbo supercharger intercooler. Another large piece hit the underside of his gondola, making a very large dent in it.

Wreckage of Yamamoto’s “Betty” lies on the jungle floor on the island of Bougainville.

After this, he, Holmes, and Hine fired at more Zeros. Barber said that both he and Holmes shot down a Zero, but Hine was seen heading out to sea smoking from his right engine. As Barber headed home, he saw three oil slicks in the water and hoped that Hine was heading for Guadalcanal, but that was not the case.

Lanphier, having scattered the Zeros, found himself at about 6,000 feet. Looking down, he saw a Betty flying across the treetops, so he came down and began firing a long, steady burst across the bomber’s course of flight, from approximately right angles. In another account, Lanphier said he was clearing his guns. By both accounts, he said he felt he was too far away, yet, to his surprise, the bomber’s right engine and right wing began to burn and then the right wing came off and the Betty plunged into the jungle and exploded.

Return to Guadalcanal

Lanphier said that three Zeros came after him, and he called Mitchell to send someone down to help him. Then, hugging the earth and the treetops while the Zeros made passes at him, he unwittingly led them over a corner of the Japanese fighter strip at Kahili.

He then headed east and, with the Zeros on his tail, he got into a high-speed climb and lost them at 20,000 feet; he got home with only two bullet holes in his rudder. Contrast this to the 104 bullet holes in Barber’s plane, plus the knocked-out intercooler and the huge dent in his gondola.

Flying back to Guadalcanal, I heard Lanphier get on the radio and say, “That SOB won’t dictate peace terms in the White House.” This really upset me because we were to keep complete silence about the fact that we had gone after Yamamoto. The details of this mission were not to leave the island of Guadalcanal.

[cursedalthoughts]

Priority Research 6 Predictions - Sakura Empire

I would love a Sakura Empire PR for PR6 but they don't have that many options :/ However, I am going to present the most likely to y'all. This is the last PR6 prediction post, to check the others you can see the #priority research tag because I posted them all with that tag.

As always: Do not treat any of the following choices as guaranteed. I would not bet money on any of these specific ones getting added as part of PR6 this year, it's just the ships I see as Very LikelyTM.

Hizen

Honestly, the most unlikely. She's a bigger Izumo, and in terms of gameplay she is just a bigger Izumo and nothing else.

Her reload time is atrocious at 38 seconds for kind of good 410mm guns, but Izumo is free and Hizen costed money.

And you can't even get Hizen anymore.

Iwami

A strange battlecruiser, Iwami may look a lot like Hizen and that's because they're based on the same pre-Yamato designs. However, Iwami has a total of 4 cannons less in exchange of slightly better accuracy and a reload that's 10 seconds faster than Hizen's.

She also has Shimakazo torpedoes - 2 launchers at the rear with 4 torps each, and they have 20km range with ludicrous damage. The problem is that it's the 20km Shima torpedoes, which can be outrun by some ships and can also be spotted from the Moon.

Iwami also has another gimmick: half-decent secondaries. Kii at Tier 8 has better secondaries, imho, but Iwami's can be fun.

She would be PR.

Daisen

I haven't read much on Daisen yet, but from her stats, she's a fast little battlecruiser with incredibly bad armor, mediocre secondaries, very good main guns and 8 torpedoes per side. Those torpedoes do 20k damage each and have a 10km range, meaning she's no joke.

I don't know if she is PR or DR material, but I think she fits as a PR. Besides, unlike Iwami, she's very different from Izumo; meaning she wouldn't step on Izumo that much - which is my main concern.

Shikishima

The USS Georgia of the Yamato-class, Shikishima is the same hull as Yamato with somewhat better secondaries and six 510mm guns instead of 9 460mm guns. She's more accurate and reloads faster than Yamato, meaning that sticking Isoroku Yamamoto on this baby is very fun due to his buffs.

However, unlike Georgia, she would be a DR. A very powerful DR that would 'powercreep' (if you believe that thing exists in AL) most other UR BBs until Yamato comes out.

I imagine Shikishima being the weird one of the Yamato family. She would be a stealthy assassin, who kills her enemies from within the shadows. Mainly because that's how she is in the Tegarrian Lore (@tegarrianlore) lol.

Yoshino

Honestly, Yoshino feels unlikely. She is, effectively, a bigger Azuma with 8 Shimakaze torpedoes per side. Her gimmick is that she has excellent 310mm HE shells but also has access to anti-camping 20km torpedoes.

However, if Yoshino gets added, she would be DR. Which makes me feel she's even more unlikely.

Shimanto

Takahashi

I group these 2 together as equally likely because they are the new additions to the Japanese tech tree - the Tier 8 and Tier 9 light cruisers - and both suck.

I enjoy the freemium Tokachi at Tier 7, as she's a Furutaka with 127mm guns and that HE spamming is fun, but these other cruisers with bigger 155mm guns simply aren't worth it.

However, we know their performance in WoWs doesn't mean shit for Azur Lane. The best example imho is FdG, who is just plain old bad in WoWs but is a murderhouse in AL. I believe they could be fun, little HE spammers in AL that have massive torpedo-buffing abilities, to both themselves and the whole fleet.

Hayate

A unique (for Japan's standards) destroyer that has both good guns and good torpedoes. They normally excell only at guns (Kitakaze) or only at torpedoes (Shimakaze) - Hayate is good with both.

However, in AL she could be the DR gunboat equivalent to Shimakaze's excellent torpedo perfomance. The Death by Thousand Cuts of AL.

BONUS - MOST UNLIKELY

Tokachi

As stated above, she is a Furutaka with destroyer guns. They reload incredibly slowly at 7 seconds between shots, but most of her turrets can spin 360º and do so incredibly quickly.

The problem is Tokachi is Tier 7. We have not gotten any Tier 7 or lower PR and I doubt Tokachi will be the first one.

Ashitaka

There is a saying within the WoWs community, "you can't say Ashitaka without saying shit".

She's bad. Attrociously bad. Absolute girlfailure.

A Tier 7 version of Amagi, she has worse guns, worse accuracy, worse shells, no armor, and worse health. With Kii being an option, and Amagi being researchable, there is genuinely no reason for Ashitaka to be in the game.

[compassionatekiller]

Still thinking about that flashback.  Imma just quickly compile a thing here.

1. I saw a lot of headcanons about how the first Isoroku Yamamoto v. Johann Sebastian Bach fight went down back in the day, but I don’t think I ever saw anyone claim that Sasakibe made the clutch play.

2. Yachiru jumping into the fray first, because of-fucking-course she would.

3. The depressed looking dude that we only got a side profile of in the reveal picture seems to have a Kira-esque fascination with cutting off heads.

4. The oldest man just going around finishing off people who are already out of the fight.

5. Brown Man fought with kicks, which is only going to add fuel to the rumor fire of him being a Shihouin.

6. Glasses Guy goes out of his way to slit his enemies’ throats.  Dunno what to make of that.

7. Glasses Gal had one of the most brutal on-screen kills of them all, which lends credence to the idea that she is either the craziest or the most vicious.  Which everyone already guessed from how normal she looks compared to everyone else.

8. I didn’t realize how fuckin’ tall Fur Coat was holy shit he’s got that Zaraki height.

9. In the reveal picture, I couldn’t tell if the teeth dude was missing his lips or if he’d painted those on.  Glad the anime cleared that up.

10. China really does give off those “psycho version of Komamura” vibes, considering what he did to those two guys combined with him being The Big One.

11. Pigtails needs to put that tongue away, there’s Quincy blood flying everywhere and she doesn’t know where it’s been.

12. I am now more confused than ever over why Gauntlets needed to hide his face in the reveal picture, considering that he looks pretty much exactly like you’d expect.

13. Hat Dude still looks like the second-most Kuchiki-looking person ever shown on screen, even without the hat.  Also, where in the shit did Hat Dude’s hat go?!

[bllsbailey]

The Biden-Harris Regime’s Latest Betrayal of Israel Will Make Your Blood Run Cold

The Biden-Harris regime is supposed to be an ally of Israel and occasionally sends signals to that effect, but its real loyalties are not hard to figure out.

The Biden-Harris regime is all about holding and increasing its power, and Israel is in the way of that aspiration right now. In pursuit of votes in Michigan and Minnesota, Kamala Harris just chose Tim Walz as her running mate over a stronger candidate, Josh Shapiro, because Shapiro is Jewish. It has sent billions to the bankroller of Hamas and Hezbollah, the Islamic Republic of Iran, and hundreds of millions to Gaza, which means to Hamas. It has withheld arms shipments to Israel. And now it is being accused of a betrayal so immense that it makes those others look like friendship.

Amir Fakhravar, a former political prisoner of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) inside Iran and the Senate chairman of the National Iranian Congress, states that shortly after the assassination of Hamas top dog Ismail Haniyeh and a key Hizballah operative, Fuad Shukr, the Biden-Harris regime swung into action. To warn the Iranians that if they attacked Israel, they would suffer serious consequences? That’s what many have assumed. In an opinion piece at Fox News on Monday, Fakhravar revealed that “Kuwait’s Al-Jarida newspaper, citing an unnamed source in Iran's Supreme National Security Council, reported that a high-level American security delegation, brokered by Oman, secretly traveled to Tehran.” That doesn’t sound so bad in itself. But it gets much, much worse. 

The mission of this high-level delegation, according to Fakhravar, was not to deter the Iranians from striking against Israel by informing them that America was fully prepared to defend its ally. Instead, the delegation’s job was to “deliver a ‘calming and cautionary’ message to deescalate the situation and ensure the supreme leader of Iran understood that the Biden-Harris administration was ‘kept in the dark’ by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu regarding the killing of two major terrorist leaders last week.”

That’s right: the American delegation, if the Kuwaiti report is correct, did not go to Tehran to demonstrate America’s strength; rather, it went there in order to show America’s weakness. The delegation was intent not on warning Iran not to attack Israel, but to insist that America hadn’t had anything to do with the killings of Haniyeh and Shukr, for those nasty Israelis had not taken them into their confidence.

Even worse, these cowardly appeasers reportedly went to the Iranians bearing gifts. Fakhravar states: “The detailed report stated that the American delegation, arriving on a private plane from Turkey, landed at Payam-e-Khorram Airport in Karaj on Thursday and held a two-hour meeting with Iranian officials before returning to Ankara.” At this meeting, the greatest betrayal of all was consummated: "the delegation presented a list containing the names of ten Mossad agents inside Iran, whom the Americans believe were involved in the assassination, directly or indirectly.” 

To put this into perspective, recall that on April 18, 1943, in the middle of World War II, American forces shot down the aircraft carrying Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto, the commander-in-chief of the Imperial Japanese Navy. Imagine if a week or two later, a high-level British delegation had made its way to Tokyo in order to assure the Japanese that they didn’t know about the operation to take out Yamamoto and didn’t have anything to do with it. Imagine further that the British then gave the Japanese the names and whereabouts of ten Americans who were involved in the action against Yamamoto. 

If that had actually happened, it might have been enough to sever the U.S./British alliance. But today, the Biden-Harris regime does not hesitate to extend this sort of gesture of good will to a regime that regularly chants “Death to America.” The Kuwaiti report explains that “this was intended as a good faith initiative in response to the Israeli state's stunning strike, which was carried out without coordination with Washington." A “good faith initiative”? To a regime that has never shown good faith and has repeatedly vowed the destruction of America as well as Israel?

Related: Are You Sitting Down? It Turns Out Kamala Has Ties to a Far-Left, Hamas-Linked Islamic Group

The State Department was quick to deny the accuracy of the Kuwaiti report, and as damning as it is, that’s no surprise. Fakhravar notes, however, that “Secretary of State Antony Blinken admitted that to deescalate the conflict, the Biden administration had ‘engaged in intense diplomacy with allies and partners, communicating that message directly to Iran,’ which largely confirms the Kuwaiti newspaper's report.”

The effects were seen immediately. “[A]fter the reported visit by the U.S. delegation, ‘more than two dozen people, including senior intelligence officers, military officials, and staff workers at a military-run guesthouse in Tehran,’ were arrested in response to the assassination of the Hamas leader," according to the report.

Are those two dozen people suffering unimaginable horrors in Iranian prisons today because of the Biden-Harris regime’s anxiousness to betray Israel? It sure looks like it.