An interesting list which some will find controversial but well argued. Just wish the AI voice had been programmed to pronounce certain nautical terms like "bow" properly.

In all the hundreds of years of history of the British Royal Navy, there are few more extraordinary victories than the second battle of Sirte. On 22 March 1942, a British convoy escorted by Royal Navy destroyers, four light cruisers and an anti-aircraft cruiser under Rear-Admiral Philip Vian, with no air cover, came up against met an Italian battle squadron in a rising gale in the Gulf of Sirte. The Italian force consisted of the modern battleships Littorio , two heavy and one light cruisers and ten destroyers. Littorio alone, which carried nine 15-inc guns throwing shells which weighted a ton and a half each,  threw six times the weight of shells of Vian's entire cruiser force, in which the heaviest guns were HMS Penelope's six 6-inch guns. In fact Penelope's guns were the only ones in Vian's force which even matched the calibre of Littorio's secondary armament. If a convoy escort was attacked by a force so overwhelmingly superior in a David Weber novel, unless th...

Just back from watching the film "Pressure" about the decision whether and when to launch the Normandy landings in 1944 and the meteorologists who advised General Eisenhower. The central characters of the film, which launched in cinemas today, are Group Captain James Stagg, CB, FRSE, who was the Scottish Chief Meteorologist advising the Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force (SHAEF,) portrayed by Andrew Scott, and the Commander in Chief, General Dwight D Eisenhower, portrayed by Brendan Fraser.   "Pressure" is a drama, not a documentary, and it would probably be more accurate to describe it a a brilliant piece of fiction inspired by real events rather than a true story. But it does capture in a gripping way, some of the challenges which the D-Day commanders and planners faced. Everyone who watches this film already knows that the largest amphibious invasion in history was going to succeed, and on what date. Those who planned and gave the orders it had no su...

This is a fan fiction video by the same people who produced some excellent "Thrawn explains" videos we have previously posted. Grand Admiral Thrawn brings both Imperial and Chiss charcaters together to explore the unknown regions. This is "Legends" content and not part of the Disney Star Wars canon, though it is evident that it has drawn heavily on some material, such as Timothy Zahn's canon novels, which are consistent with the Disney canon.    

The latest, and best so far, of the "Chris Talks" fan fiction videos features Grand Admiral Thrawn holding a review with Captain Pellaeon and General Covell of the effectiveness of the Imperial military and particularly the Imperial army. Thrawn begins by pointing out that the galaxy has a settled idea about the Empire's soldiers: that it took the finest infantry in history, the Clone army of the Republic, and replaced them with worse men, conscripts in the same uniforms who couldn't shoot straight. These briefings are set in the "Heir to the Empire" timeline which is currently not part of the Disney canon, and there are some non-canon references, but most of Thrawn's arguments would work equally well in the canon timeline. Indeed the process of how the clone army was replaced by human conscripts and how the Imperial Security Bureau kept tabs on army and navy alike aligns very closely with what we see in canon projects like "The Bad Batch" and ...

Apologies for the lack of posts over the last few days. We've had a lot going on dealing with Jedi spies and Mandalorian bounty hunters while establishing Imperial control over Dathomir. There will be reviews coming out within the next two weeks of two books which have just been published - " Soul Synergy ," the first in a completely new fantasy series by David North and Michael Dalton and " The Worst Carrier in the Resistance " which is the latest installment in the "Dumb luck and dead heroes" epic by Skyler Ramirez, which manages to be both exciting and exceptionally funny. We also hope to publish at least two or three more classic SF reviews in the next fortnight. In the meantime, as a reminder and confirmation that this blog is very far from going inactive, here is the piano cover version of Grand Admiral Thrawn's theme from Rebels.