MBS Podcast Episode 17

[Ruckdog]

Greg and Andy are back this month with an update to a topic they last discussed way back in Episode 2: Class B Naval Games! Next, they take a look back at the history of MBS, which turns 5 years old this month. Later, they talk about their favorite Hollywood movies that feature naval combat, and Andy rounds out the show with an event report on Adepticon 2017.

Class B Games Update: 34 min

MBS At 5 Years: 1 Hr 12 Min

Naval Combat At The Movies: 1 Hr 28 Min

Ruckdog’s Report: 2 Hr 15 Min


Checkout the Latest Episode of the MBS Podcast!

http://www.manbattlestations.com/blog/2017/04/04/episode-17/

[tomgr]

I have just finished listening to the edisode and enjoyed the discussion about movies. I'm glad that one of my all time favorite movies, Captain and Commander, was mentioned. I am going to look up Battleship, which at the time that it was in the theaters I dismissed outright thlnking that it sounded completly silly.

Another movie that I would recommend is Admiral, orginal title Michiel de Ruyter. This is a Dutch movie which is set when the Dutch were a major navel power in the 17th century. Michiel de Ruyter was the great Dutch admiral and the movie covers his battles with the British. There are some great battle scenes, including one where we get to see what happens when part of the fleet does not follow orders.

[Klingsor]

No love for The Hunt for Red October?
Battleship is on tonight so I might give it another chance. I do have a soft spot for Under Siege though.
The Cruel Sea is still very good despite it's age (1953). There are quite a few old, mostly black and white, British wartime dramas such as Sink the Bismarck and The Battle of the River Plate that I would rather like too see again to see if they are any good, when I was young they used to be shown regularly but now with a couple of orders of magnitude more channels they seem to have vanished from the airwaves.
My fair is a retired marine engineer (just) old enough that his first ship had triple expansion engines so any maritime film tends to get an entertaining criticism from him including Titanic.

[Ruckdog]

No love for The Hunt for Red October?

Plenty of love! We were trying to avoid having the segment dominated by submarine movies, though . We had to narrow it down to just a couple each to keep the segment to a reasonable length, and we wanted a good spread. Red October will probably make it in the next time we do this topic!

[Dakkar]

I finally got this episode started, and have two quick comments:

-- Greg, when are you going to finally watch Deep Space 9? Now that you've given up on Bab5, no excuses! 

-- Pakleds had a 2nd TNG episode, where they found Lore.
Also, they are frequently seen on Deep Space Nine, even if only as customers at Quark's Bar.

I also found this wonderful little tidbit at Memory Alpha

In the Strange New Worlds 10 short story "A Dish Served Cold", set in 2373, a Borg cube en route to Sector 001 encounters a Pakled freighter, but the Collective considers them unintelligent and an inefficient use of resources to assimilate. However, they are later assimilated when the Borg need extra reinforcements in their battle with Starfleet forces in Earth orbit. They are designated as Species 95012.

Yes - even the Borg didn't really want them!

[Landlubber]

@tomgr--glad you enjoyed the discussion! Andy and I both had identified 4-5 movies apiece that we wanted to discuss, but that would have made for a 6-7 hour podcast, which wouldn't be good for anyone.    The Hunt for Red October was at the top of my list, but as Ruckdog said, we didn't want to overload the discussion with submarine movies. As we discussed in the podcast, submarine warfare (or at least the Hollywood version of submarine warfare) is well-suited to tense, suspenseful movies.

Battleship is not completely silly...just don't think too hard about it. Sort of like Pacific Rim. It's just a good, fun movie. Worth a second consideration, though.

@Klingsor there certainly are some good, old naval movies out there. I was partial to Run Silent, Run Deep with Clark Gable. Haven't seen it in years, so I'm not sure how well it has held up. I'll have to add the ones you mentioned to my list of movies to see.

@Dakkar I know, I know. I'll get there. That's funny about the Borg not wanting to assimilate the Packleds. I have this image of them being assimilated, then all over the Borg ship random Borg drones start walking into the walls and drooling...

[Dakkar]

Up through the Midway movie discussion now. Some more comments:

-- Good update on SFB CTA. I had just assumed the game was dead. If ADB can revise and re-release it along with minis, I might resume. That's still my favorite system. (I think, could be just B5 CTA nostalgia... )

-- Simple reason why there's so many good Sub movies, and fewer good Ship/Topside movies: Filming a sub crew just needs a few rooms. Filming a ships crew needs a LARGE open air deck - bad enough in the age of sail, near crazy size for modern ships without the Navy's help.

MASTER AND COMMANDER is damn near the only sail and cannon film I can think of that's worth a damn, and with modern effects (discounting the PotC filsm which are essentially a fantasy setting).
I concur with Greg - this is the first film ever that conveyed just how awful splinters were. As a result, I can barely stand the scenes in PotC where splinters fly everywhere, but no one gets bloody.

My one quibble with the film was peripherally mentioned - the Midshipman Hollum subplot. When the crew gets desperate while stuck in heat with no wind or rain, they call him a Jonah, which leads to the discipline incident but ALSO Hollum's suicide. And only after that suicide does the ship get moving.
Hollum's outcast status reminded me very much of being a gamer in high school. Thus I found the crew's actions to be a horrible example of ship life. And Aubrey's failure to truly protect his officer was disillusioning. And how the wind resumes after the Jonah's death felt like the movie saying, "Great, now the nerd is gone, all the *real* men can get on with things!"
So it made for a big fat sour grape in an otherwise sumptuous meal of a movie.

Pirate films like CAPTAIN BLOOD and THE SEA HAWK are pretty awesome, even some Sinbad movies, but despite the Naval setting the ship combat is truly secondary.

Its very sad that there's no definitive film version of CAPTAINS COURAGEOUS, maybe the best intro to the realities of ship life, especially for a young person. I remember the 1977 version well, as it ingrained a deep dislike of sailing in me (I *really* don't like blisters) - perhaps having an opposite effect than intended.
This subconscious impact is probably why I always balked at the idea of joining the Navy, even when the Navy ROTC was offering a $30K bonus for Physics majors to switch from (ch)Air Force to Navy (with a required 3 year submarine nuclear specialist tour). Yes, I regret this shortsightedness :-)

Probably the most critically well-regarded film about navies and sailors is BATTLESHIP POTEMKIN, a 1925 silent Soviet film directed by Sergei Eisenstein. It's been in my queue for over a decade, so I really need to prioritize it.

I still haven't see Gregory Peck's take on Hornblower either.

I still feel like Hollywood has all the tools it needs for making a landmark Naval film with modern tools, they just haven't made it happen yet.

Just random thoughts while listening...

[Landlubber]

@Dakkar, even random thoughts about the podcast are appreciated.

Interesting point about the Hollum subplot. I interpreted it differently, although it was certainly a plot device (and not having read the original source material, I don't know how the film version squares with O'Brien's intent.)

My interpretation was that 1) the Hollum subplot served to exemplify superstitions that many sailors held during this time period; and 2) it showed the way the captain treated subordinates. I don't think it was Aubrey's job to "protect" his officers from the crew--but it was his job to maintain discipline on the ship. If he saw someone disrespect an officer, he dealt with it--we saw that. But it wasn't Aubrey's job to make the men like, trust, and respect the ship's officer cadre. It was up to the officers themselves to establish a relationships with the crew, as part of their growth and development. Some of the junior officers were able to do this (like Midshipman Blakeney, the kid who lost his arm). Aubrey would have been doing them a disservice if he didn't allow them to figure that out on their own.

Now, maybe he should have taken Hollum aside and given him a pep talk or some counseling, and that might have helped--but he didn't, for whatever reason, and Hollum (as far as we know) didn't seek out help or guidance from his chain of command.

Great point of discussion, though--I had never looked at it from that angle!

[Dakkar]

I tend to think that if Aubrey had perceived the whole Jonah angle, one short pep talk with Hollum might've made all the difference. And salvaged a potential officer, plus saving all the other time and disruption.

And maybe one could read it was Aubrey's repent-laden prayer for Hollum that lifted the becalming.

But vaguely allowing the perception that superstitions are right and just, and that the Navy doesn't have time for "precious snowflakes", that kinda ran against the intellectual grain they were establishing with Maturin's plotline.

[Steamlord78]

I just finished episode 17 and found the talk about the movies interested and I had heard of battle ship but not seen it now I want to. And the only problem I have is listening to you guys talk about new games (or new to me) and knowing that in my area of gamers there is only a few miniature players and most of them are 40k or x-wing. But I'm trying to increase the naval gaming in my area. Looking forward to next month's podcast, by which time I will be completely caught up on the podcast.

[Landlubber]

@Steamlord, glad you're enjoying the podcast! Best advice I can give you to try to drum up interest is to insert yourself and the game as much as possible into your local wargaming scene. Show up at your store with a couple fleets (helps if they're painted) and a little terrain, and see if anyone takes an interest. Or strong-arm one of your friends into going to the local game store to play a game with you so other people can see it on the tabletop. Dystopian Wars in particular has a lot going for it when it comes to model count and entry cost, especially compared to 40k, plus you generally don't have to assemble the models. If there are local gaming conventions in your area, see if you can get on the schedule for demo games or even a simple scenario (one where you can stand back and run the scenario and answer questions). Good luck!

@ Dakkar all good points. However, Maturin wasn't the captain...Aubrey was. My interpretation was that Maturin had time to be an intellectual, and Aubrey didn't. It's also entirely plausible (to me) that some of the crew maintained these superstitions, while others did not.

But you are quite right about Aubrey and Hollum. Now I want to go read the series to see what the real story was!