An innovative new anthology exploring how science fiction can motivate new approaches to economics.From the libertarian economics of Ayn Rand to Aldous Huxle...
An innovative new anthology exploring how science fiction can motivate new approaches to economics.From the libertarian economics of Ayn Rand to Aldous Huxle...
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Germany had made some splendid ships by the time WWII broke out. In a short space of time, they won great reputation, but most were lost early in the war or were confined to ports and fjords etc. Those that did try to make an impact did, but at cost. There just was not enough of these grand vessels to do too much damage. Not like the submarine Wolf packs did. However, the design of Germany's WWII ships remains compelling to history fans and many people marvel at the wonderful ability of such Battleships. The German pocket battleship, Admiral Graf Spee, which fought an epic sea battle with the British Cruisers Exeter, Ajax and Achilles, at the mouth of the River Plate Taken from the Belfast telegraph 12 APRIL 2014 A lasting memorial has been unveiled to the sailors on all sides who fought and died in the Battle of the River Plate during the Second World War 75 years ago.On the landmark anniversary of what was the war's first major naval engagement, a handful of the battle's surviving veterans gathered to see a plaque unveiled at the National Memorial Arboretum in Alrewas, Staffordshire, today. The event was made famous by the 1956 Hollywood movie The Battle of the River Plate. The engagement was triggered after three Royal Navy cruisers HMS Exeter, Achilles and Ajax, crewed by British and New Zealand sailors, began hunting the much larger pocket battleship the Admiral Graf Spee, after the German surface raider had successfully destroyed several Allied merchant ships. Among the surviving veterans attending today was 91-year-old John Garrard, who said: "Of course, if the Graf Spee had done its job, we wouldn't be here having this conversation. She'd have sunk us." The memorial, costing about £14,000, was paid for by donations and commissioned by the HMS Ajax and River Plate Veterans Association - it is the 300th memorial to be unveiled at the arboretum. Among those attending the unveiling today were the family of the man who commanded the Royal Navy's attack squadron, Commodore Henry Harwood, who was later knighted and promoted admiral for his part in the action. His youngest son, Stephen Harwood said: "The fact this event has been attended as it has been today, with more than 250 people here, is a very good thing." He added: "It is actually the first memorial in this country to the battle - there's one in Montevideo and one in Ajax in Ontario in Canada, so it's a very good thing we've got this one at the arboretum." In the opening months of the war the German pocket battleship, under the command of Captain Hans Langsdorff, had been a scourge of the southern Atlantic sea lanes sinking or capturing supply vessels vital to the Allies' war effort. It was just after dawn on the morning of December 13, 1939, that the Royal Navy attack squadron commanded by Commodore Harwood first got to grips with Graf Spee near the River Plate estuary between Uruguay and Argentina, in South America. Engaging the ship, Harwood had correctly predicted the German vessel's westward move across the south Atlantic to secure fresh provisions. Mr Garrard, who at just 17-years-old was part of the forward turret crew on HMS Ajax, said it was the Graf Spee that spotted the Allied ships first, only advertising its presence when it dropped a salvo of shells short of the navy cruisers sending up plumes of water from the ocean. He added German gunnery was "pretty accurate". "We started to fire, and we seemed to be firing forever more," said Mr Garrard. "The actual fighting and manoeuvring lasted about an hour - of course I knew nothing about that because I was manning one of the 6in guns. "She (the Graf Spee) managed to get into Montevideo harbour and never came out again. She blew herself up - for which we were duly thankful." While out-numbered, the Graf Spee heavily out-gunned each of the Royal Navy attackers and bearing towards them turned its main armament of six 11in (28cm) guns on HMS Exeter, badly damaging the British cruiser. HMS Ajax and Achilles then moved in closer in an attempt to draw fire off Exeter and in turn forcing Langsdorff to flee under cover of a smokescreen - but not before it landed gun salvos on all its pursuers, including Exeter which had by then returned to the fight. While not severely damaged, the Allied ships had mauled the German vessel and destroyed its ship's galley and food provisions, with Langsdorff also left concussed by shellfire. The Graf Spee steamed for the neutral port of Montevideo and, bottled-up by the Royal Navy and unable to make significant repairs, the ship was later scuttled by its crew on December 18. Captain Langsdorff, who along with more than 1,000 surviving crew had got off the ship before it was sunk, shot himself a few days later. During the battle, 36 German sailors and 72 Allied servicemen, the majority from HMS Exeter, were killed. The result of the battle was the loss of a heavily armed capital ship of which the German surface fleet had precious few, and a morale-boosting victory for Britain. In a speech to survivors of the Exeter and Ajax at the London Guildhall in February 1940, Winston Churchill, who would later that year become prime minister, described the battle as those "few glittering, deadly hours of action." He added: "The brilliant sea fight, which Admiral Harwood conceived and which those who are here executed, takes its place in our naval annals, and I might add that in a dark, cold winter it warmed the cockles of the British heart." Stephen Harwood said it was clear in hindsight that "that battle set a standard for the war" by the manner in which an out-gunned but "fighting" Royal Navy sought and won the engagement with what was on paper, a stronger foe. "The British ships couldn't believe it - that this powerful ship had run away," he added. "It wasn't that she was mortally damaged, but she was damaged in her galleys and elsewhere. "The captain Langsdorff got concussed - it didn't work out." Mr Garrard said the outcome might have been different had the roles of the battle been reversed. He said "Langsdorff made the excuse that he couldn't feed his men because we'd smashed up his galley. I thought that was a poor excuse, actually." "If the position had of been reversed, I am sure we'd have come out fighting - probably got sunk anyway. But he decided to save his men and blew the ship up." The Stealth and Daring of the Admiral Graf Spee (German battlecruiser WWII) Hans Langdorff was the Captain of the Admiral Graf Spee and within a few short months, at the beginning of World War two, he and his ship would blaze their way into the history books with daring commerce raids on allied shipping. Below is some information from YouTube by sammarlow77593. The Admiral Graf Spee was one of the most famous German naval warships of World War II, along with the Bismarck. Her size was limited to that of a cruiser by the Treaty of Versailles, but she was much more heavily armed than a cruiser due to innovative weight-saving techniques employed in her construction. She was sent to the Atlantic Ocean as a commerce raider in 1939, where she sank nine Allied merchant ships. Numerous British hunting groups were assigned to find her, with three British ships finally tracking her down in December 1939. The Battle of the River Plate ensued, during which the Graf Spee was damaged. She docked for repairs in the neutral port of Montevideo but was forced by international law to leave within 72 hours. Faced with what he believed to be overwhelming odds, the captain scuttled his ship rather than risk the lives of his crew. Admiral Graf Spee was a Deutschland-class cruiser. Launched in 1934, she was named after the World War I Admiral Graf Maximilian von Spee who died, along with two of his sons, in the first Battle of the Falkland Islands on 8 December 1914. She was the second vessel to be named after him, the first being the uncompleted World War I German battlecruiser SMS Graf Spee. The launching took place on 30 June 1934 with Admiral Erich Raeder delivering a pre-launch speech, and the christening performed by Gräfin Huberta von Spee, daughter of the late Vice Admiral von Spee. Before Admiral Graf Spee was given her official name, she was referred to as Panzerschiff C and Ersatz Braunschweig, as she would be replacing the old battleship Braunschweig in the fleet inventory. She cost 82 million Reichsmark to build. After World War I, replacement capital ships for the German Navy were limited by the Treaty of Versailles to 10,000 tonnes and 11 inches (280 mm) guns. Electric arc welding was used in her construction instead of conventional rivets, thereby saving considerable weight by not requiring overlapping steel plates.
H.M.S. General Wolfe of Dover Patrol WWI All sorts of new ships were designed during the 19th century - guaranteed for particular tasks and to deliver results. Battleships, Commerce Raiders, Coastal Defence and much more. The money was flowing in from the Empire and the health of the Royal Navy easy maintained this circumstance. New Victorian Coastal defence ships, like the Cyclops Class, were never proven because they were not put to the test against an advanced enemy. They became obsolete before the start of the First World War. However, new discovery and innovations were about. Among such; were the Lord Clive Class Ships. These ugly vessels looked like huge floating gun platforms that would sneak across a narrow strip of sea, like the English Channel, and unleash hell upon enemy positions - Britain's hit and run monitorships. This easy method of stealth attack gained results for Great Britain along a hostile coastline, where enemy forces had overrun much of the nation of Belgium. Model of HMS General Wolfe The image on the left is the World War One model of HMS General Wolfe - a coastal raider of Dover Patrol that attacked German-occupied Belgium. The model in the picture shows a view from the stern and there are other angles from the Models Gallery by Rob Kernaghan. It is a great example of what a Lord Clive Class monitor looked like. To look at, the Lord Clive Class monitor was an ugly looking thing – a gun platform that ferried its way towards an enemy coast to bombard positions and then leave after spending its shells. There were eight monitors of the Lord Clive class ship and they were used during the First World War for coastal raids. They were named after past British soldiers – one of them was called, Prince Rupert. He was a soldier of German origin – he had served with King Charles I as a caviller during the Civil war of the 1640s. Other monitors were named after General Wolfe of the Battle of Quebec, Lord Clive of India, Sir Thomas Picton who was killed at the Battle of Waterloo and various other heroes of Britain’s past. Some of these ships went to the Dardanelles to attack Turkish positions in the Mediterranean, while the remainder were in Dover patrol. These Lord Clive Monitors attacked the Belgian coastline where the German forces had overrun the area and set up their own defences. HMS General Wolfe from another Angle The low draft monitors had a crew of one hundred and ninety-four and a speed of 6.5kts. This speed was underpowered in real terms, but for raids across the channel, the need for speed was not too palpable for the task in hand. There were two anti-aircraft guns for defence against the German biplanes of the era – one three-pounder and another two-pounder. There was also a quick-firing twelve-pounder gun and turrets consisting of two twelve-inch guns. These guns were taken from pre-dreadnought Majestic class ships. Later, in 1918, two of the Dover patrol ships had their twelve-inch guns replaced with a single eighteen-inch gun. I think this was an open barbette - a huge great thing as one can see in the photograph below. These vessels were HMS General Wolfe and HMS Lord Clive. The new 18 inch gun upon the General Wolfe fired a shell almost twenty miles in 1918. It was during a raid off of German-occupied Belgium at a railway bridge four miles south of Ostend in a place called Snaeskerke. The single 18-inch gun replacing the two 12 inch guns on HMS Lord Clive I have a particular interest in the Dover patrol monitors because my first wife had a grandfather who lived in Great Yarmouth, Norfolk. We visited him in 1982 and he was aged 82 at the time. He died in 1990 aged 90. We just referred to him as ‘Pop’ and he was very hard of hearing. I had to shout for him to hear me because he was almost deaf. I was looking at some very old photos of him that hung on his living room wall. He was young – just 18 years and in a navy uniform. He commented on my observation and began to mumble about the photos. Fortunately, my wife and Aunt Betty were able to translate. His Norfolk accent was very broad and quiet. He told me he was in the Navy during the First World War when the photo was taken. He was on board a gunboat firing at the Belgium coastline, though he did say it was close to Dunkirk which was in France on the Belgian border. His ship was hit by a shell fired from the coast and when he came to, all of his crewmates were killed and decapitated about him – among the dead was his brother. His hearing was shattered but he alone had survived the explosion during the coastal raid. I did not know what ship the eighteen-year-old ‘Pop’ was on, and I'm sure there were other British ships that attacked the Belgian coastline. However, it was 1918 that this happened to 'Pop' and I now wonder if he might have been aboard one of the Lord Clive Class monitors. His name was Fredric Franklin. HMS General Wolfe Lord Clive Class Monitor info Rob Kernaghan Models Gallery Other blogs on ships: HMS Victoria Naval Disaster First Successful Submarine Attack HMS Thunder Child (Fictitious ship) First Steam-Powered Battleship Cyclops Class Coastal Defense Ships
An innovative new anthology exploring how science fiction can motivate new approaches to economics. From the libertarian economics of Ayn Rand to Aldous Huxley's consumerist dystopias, economics and science fiction have often orbited each other. In Economic Science Fictions, editor William Davies has deliberately merged the two worlds, asking how we might harness the power of the utopian imagination to revitalize economic thinking. Rooted in the sense that our current economic reality is no longer credible or viable, this collection treats our economy as a series of fictions and science fiction as a means of anticipating different economic futures. It asks how science fiction can motivate new approaches to economics and provides surprising new syntheses, merging social science with fiction, design with politics, scholarship with experimental forms. With an opening chapter from Ha-Joon Chang as well as theory, short stories, and reflections on design, this book from Goldsmiths Press challenges and changes the notion that economics and science fiction are worlds apart. The result is a wealth of fresh and unusual perspectives for anyone who believes the economy is too important to be left solely to economists. Contributors AUDINT, Khairani Barokka, Carina Brand, Ha-Joon Chang, Miriam Cherry, William Davies, Mark Fisher, Dan Gavshon-Brady and James Pockson, Owen Hatherley, Laura Horn, Tim Jackson, Mark Johnson, Bastien Kerspern, Nora O Murchú, Tobias Revell et al., Judy Thorne, Sherryl Vint, Joseph Walton, Brian Willems
Masha Gessen recommends “Maybe Esther,” Alexandra Schwartz recommends “The Mars Room,” Doreen St. Félix recommends “The Feather Thief,” Hua Hsu recommends “Economic Science Fictions,” Katy Waldman recommends “Can You Tolerate This?,” Joshua Rothman recommends “The Gone World,” Emily Witt recommends “Severance,” and Amanda Petrusich recommends “All in the Downs.”
Slovakian company Klein Vision Ltd will be displaying its flying car, called the AirCar, in China this year. With wings on both sides, the flying car can change from vehicle mode to flying mode in a short time. The AirCar is a functional prototype which can be used both in the air and on the ground. The transformation is completed at the touch of a button. No more science fiction
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