My library just grew again 2014...

[rickshaw]

The Mongols in Japan would have become Japanified (is that a word?) just as the Mongols in China became sinofied.   Indeed, that is one of the reasons why the Mongols fell and were replaced by the Ming, which were essentially Mongolified Chinese - they had adopted many of the tactics and methods of the Mongols.   The cross flow of culture and outlooks was considerable.  China has always prided itself on it's ability to absorb and accommodate invaders, eventually turning them Chinese.   In Japan, while resistance would have been fierce initially, the Japanese would have buckled.   What the book makes clear is how poorly planned and executed the two invasion attempts were.  Instead of coming ashore in the least likely places, they attacked in the most likely and so the Japanese were prepared and even built considerable fortifications exactly where the Mongols landed (the first time) and managed to prevent them coming ashore in any great numbers (the second time).

The result was that the Mongols traded their major advantage - mobility for rigid lines of approach, which allowed them to be defeated in detail.   Instead of outflanking their enemy, something they had excelled at on land, they just attacked head on.  If they had used some of their world famous guile and mobility, they'd have been able to land where the Japanese were least expecting it, after having committed most of their forces to where they expected the Mongols to come ashore.  However, it didn't happen and so in both cases, a convenient storm destroyed their fleet.  Convenient?  Of course.  It was convenient to the Japanese authorities because it allowed them to build their myth that Japan was a heaven blessed land and that so reinforced the Emperor's claim to the Mandate of Heaven and the Shogunate's claim to rule on his behalf.  It was convenient to the Mongols because it allowed them to save some face and blame the weather for their defeat rather than their poor planning and execution.   Poor planning which it must be said was repeated in the two other seaborne invasions they attempted against Vietnam and Java, which were defeated after they came ashore.

What was interesting was the way in which the Mongol invasions were largely forgotten in Japan until the Meiji restoration when the myth was revived in order to foster the resurgence of Japan and to help bolster the national effort to revive Japanese resistance to European incursion after the forcing open of Japan by the Americans and other European powers.   It gained another revival with the militarists between the wars, culminating in the Kamikaze at the end of WWII sacrificing their lives to try and stave off the inevitable defeat.

The book also has some interesting parallels to draw with the UK and the defeat of the Armada and the French/Spanish at Trafalgar.

[zenrat]

Using small flat bottomed river boats (according to Man) didn't help either.

Jon - you may be right, you may be wrong.  We'll never know.

[rickshaw]

Using small flat bottomed river boats (according to Man) didn't help either.

Well, that was the majority of the Korean contribution.  The majority of the Chinese contribution was large, ocean going junks which put anything plying the European seas at that time in the pale, in size and complexity.  Over a hundred feet long, fitted with watertight compartments, rudders, utilising lateen sails which allowed them to sail into the wind, equipped with gunpowder and incendiary bomb throwing catapults and trebuchets the Mongol fleet was the most technically advanced for it's era.

[rickshaw]

Just received this:



I bought it second-hand from online and it arrived, with a sticker on the front showing it was an Austin Texas ex-Public Library book.  Imagine my surprise when I opened it and found the author's signature on the flyleaf!  Cost me the princely sum of about $Au25.00 all up, including P&P.

I've long found Holocaust Denial a fascinating subject.  I've never really understood how people can deny a recent historical event which has been so well documented.   I heard David Irving way back in 1986 (on his last and only speaking tour of downunder - not intentionally, I must add, the university I'd just finished studying at rather bravely or stupidly asked him to speak, he spent about 40 minutes out of the allocated 60 attacking the world "Jewish conspiracy" for causing the downfall of the British Empire...), I've never understand the psychology of denial.   I've encountered online some seriously loony deniers over the years as well.   

[jcf]

Using small flat bottomed river boats (according to Man) didn't help either.

Well, that was the majority of the Korean contribution.  The majority of the Chinese contribution was large, ocean going junks which put anything plying the European seas at that time in the pale, in size and complexity.  Over a hundred feet long, fitted with watertight compartments, rudders, utilising lateen sails which allowed them to sail into the wind, equipped with gunpowder and incendiary bomb throwing catapults and trebuchets the Mongol fleet was the most technically advanced for it's era.

Junks don't have lateen sails, the battened junk rig is a different animal, and sizes were variable,
not all ocean going junks were large.

BTW Viking ships could sail 'into the wind', as could any of the square-riggers, you just can't point
as high as a fore-and-aft rig. The notion that European ships could only sail with the wind is a
mistaken notion.

[rickshaw]

Using small flat bottomed river boats (according to Man) didn't help either.

Well, that was the majority of the Korean contribution.  The majority of the Chinese contribution was large, ocean going junks which put anything plying the European seas at that time in the pale, in size and complexity.  Over a hundred feet long, fitted with watertight compartments, rudders, utilising lateen sails which allowed them to sail into the wind, equipped with gunpowder and incendiary bomb throwing catapults and trebuchets the Mongol fleet was the most technically advanced for it's era.

Junks don't have lateen sails, the battened junk rig is a different animal, and sizes were variable,
not all ocean going junks were large.

I was looking for the nearest simile, Jon.  Thank you for correcting my mistaken use of nautical terminology.

BTW Viking ships could sail 'into the wind', as could any of the square-riggers, you just can't point
as high as a fore-and-aft rig. The notion that European ships could only sail with the wind is a
mistaken notion.

AIUI, square-rigged sailing ships cannot sail as close to the wind as can Lateen or battened sails can, which is their chief advantage.  The adoption of the Lateen rig allowed the Portuguese much more versatility when they went navigating down the coast of Africa and around the Cape.   Chinese junks were considered very manoeuvrable compared to even modern European sailing vessels.  They were also, at their height, considerably larger than the European vessels of the same period.   Zeng He's fleet (admittedly later than Kublai's fleet) contained Junks which were much bigger than most European vessels until the late 19th century.

[jcf]

Never said they didn't build some really large ships, however the claimed sizes for Zhang He's
fleet are just that, claims. There is no proof they were as large as modern historians claim, and there
are serious problems of materials, physics and proportions with the really humongous end of the claims.
There are real size limits on wood construction. The rig can point higher into the wind, however the
keel-less hull form of most junks didn't take as much advantage of the sails efficiency as they could
have. Some open water fishing/trading types used lee-boards others of the larger trading type
used a large balanced rudder that could be raised and lowered, raised for the estuaries and upriver work,
docking etc., and lowered at sea to provide some keel effect. It works, but not as efficiently as a deeper,
European style keeled hull. The best sailers of the South China sea were probably the hybrid lorchas
with a European-like hull and three-masted junk rig. Junk rig works really well on Euro-American type
sailboats.

I'm personally very familiar with junks, junk rig and wooden boat/ship structure, I spent five years in
Hawaii working on the restoration/refurbishment/systems updates of an all-wood Hong Kong built
junk-yacht, 84' OAL, 65 tons. Blondie Hassler's Practical Junk Rig and G.R.G. Worcester's
Junks and Sampans of the Yangtze are both excellent references/guides.

[Gondor]

Received in the post today

The Marne

this was on special offer from The Naval & Military Press Ltd and covers a subject I know little about.

Gondor

[NARSES2]

First few months of WWI are extremely interesting, up until just after First Ypres (as are the final 100 days or so), and it's good to see more books coming out covering this early period. Been reading about the battles on the Eastern Front between the Russians and Austro-Hungarian's in Galicia. Fascinating but heart rending at the same time

[Howard of Effingham]

borrowed from the library....

leo mckinstry's 'operation sea lion'

a brilliant new look and reassessment of the year 1940, and the proposed german invasion of england.

[NARSES2]

"The Worlds War" by David Olusoga.

This is the book of the recent BBC 2 two parter on the participation of non European's in WWI. Some fascinating stuff, some of which was completely new to me. I can recommend the programmes to those who haven't seen them.

The author was also very good as part of the Beeb's panel during the recent WWI commemoration at Westminster Abbey

[Mossie]

Classic World War II Aircraft Cutaways by Bill Gunston.

Picked it up cheaply from The Works, has cutaways from both Flight and Aeroplane. Comments from Gunston in his usual no nonsense style.

[PR19_Kit]

Bill Gunston = God to my mind.

I try and write my backstories in his style. 

[Mossie]

He's great isn't he? He comments on the original article about the Dagger where the author waxes lyrical.  "Load of sycophantic drivel" he says, despite being sponsored by the magazine that originally printed it!

[Thorvic]

Bill Gunston = God to my mind.

I try and write my backstories in his style. 

You should read his Nimrod book