Centennial Gaming In The Great War – The Campaigns Of 1918: Part Five
May 28, 2018 by oriskany
Here we are, at last, Beasts of War history fans, for the final part in our series on Centennial Gaming in the Great War. My friend Sven (@neves1789) and I have been looking at wargames set in the spring and summer campaigns of 1918, “earthquake moments” in history through which we’re now passing through 100-year anniversaries.
Read The Series Here
Up until now, these have largely been a series of German offensives aimed at winning the war on the Western Front before American numbers could be leveraged against them in a decisive way. If you’re just joining us, so far we’ve covered:
- Part One – Introduction & Background
- Part Two – St. Michael Offensive
- Part Three – Georgette Offensive
- Part Four – Blücher-Yorck Offensive
But for now, it’s time to see how these campaigns finally stagger to a bloody, smouldering end.
We’ll also see how they inevitably lead to the Allied push-backs that will lead to the November Armistice of 1918 when at last we have “All Quiet On The Western Front.”
Zeebrugge Raid
Sven Gets His Feet Wet
Throughout the series, we’ve seen the Germans on the offensive while the Allies were only conducting relatively small and local counterattacks. In April 1918 the strategic initiative was still in German hands but both sides knew it would shift to the Allies once the Americans had their fully mobilised army on the European continent.
Yet these Spring Offensives weren't the only place where the Germans were taking ground. Since late 1916 the German u-boats (submarines) had sunk an average of 300,000 tons of Allied shipping a month, at times spiking up to more than 600,000. This u-boat menace was obviously proving a major issue for the British Royal Navy who tried multiple approaches in dealing with it.
During the planning for the Battle of Passchendaele, British Field-Marshal Haig had come up with a plan, Operation Hush, to neutralise the Belgian ports of Oostende and Zeebrugge that were harbouring some of the German u-boats. The first phase would require a breakthrough at Ypres with the Allied troops advancing about twenty-five kilometres towards the rail hub of Roulers.
The second phase would see British troops land on the Belgian coast behind German front line and move inland to link up with the main Allied army. Together they could then clear the Belgian ports of German u-boats. Obviously, this plan never came to be executed as the Third Battle of Ypres got completely bogged down in the mud around a small speck of land called Passchendaele.
The u-boats remained a problem, however, and at the beginning of 1918, the Royal Navy began planning a naval operation to block the Belgian ports. The plan was fairly straightforward, sail obsolete cruisers into the ports of Zeebrugge and Oostende and sink them at the entries of the canals, thereby blocking the Germans u-boats from leaving their ports further inland.
On 23rd April the raids on both Zeebrugge and Oostende took place. The attempt at Oostende was a complete failure, German defenders were well-prepared and repelled the Royal Navy raid. At Zeebrugge the British met with more success, they managed to scuttle all three of their old cruisers in the port, including two in the canal.
Unfortunately, the Zeebrugge Raid did not yield the expected solution since the Germans were able to clear part of the canal after a couple of days. In the long run however it would provide the Royal Navy with experience that would serve them well during the Second World War, most famously with the Saint-Nazaire Raid.
Gneisenau Offensive
As we saw in Part Four, the Germans almost scored a massive breakthrough with Operation Blücher-Yorck, creating a second salient in the centre of the Western Front. With Operation Georgette and the Battle of the Lys coming to a standstill at the end of April, Ludendorff envisioned a new operation to maintain his offensive momentum.
Like Blücher-Yorck, Operation Gneisenau would serve as a diversion. This time Ludendorff’s aim was to draw British troops from Flanders. Believing that Haig and Foch (British and French commanders, respectively) would reinforce Paris if it were threatened, Ludendorff aimed his offensive right between both salients, in the direction of the French capital. By now the German army had been on the offensive for over three months non-stop.
The Allies had by this point gained valuable experience in defending against German stormtrooper tactics and had adopted a defence in depth. The assault came on 9th June, a couple days after Blücher-Yorck ended, and achieved an advance of about fourteen kilometres. After two days the attack was halted by a fierce French counterattack that used tanks and surprise to its advantage, compelling Ludendorff to call off the operation.
Endgame
The last German offensive of the war was launched on 15th July, a month after the failure of Gneisenau, aptly named “Friedensturm” or the Peace Offensive. It failed to make any real breakthrough as by that time most of the experienced German stormtroopers had been killed, wounded, or captured … and all reserves had been exhausted.
Collectively known as the Kaiserslacht (“Kaiser Battle,” also known as the Spring Offensive), these German offensives were now truly over and had cost Germany over one million soldiers. There would be no tactical, let alone strategic, victory. The Allies were regaining the initiative and preparing their own great counteroffensive. The lessons they’d learned the previous years would be put to use and finally break the stalemate.
Contrary to popular belief both in the past and present, the German army would be decisively defeated in the field in 1918, despite being on Allied territory. The Hundred Days Offensive would drive them halfway through Belgium and the east of France before finally signing the Armistice on 11th November 1918, putting an end to the Great War.
Legacy Of The Kaiserschlacht & The Great War
In the first article, we explored how trench warfare was not new but came to its full use in the First World War. Just so that many principles and techniques learned during the Great War were refined and perfected during the Second World War. The most visible being tank technology but also tactics like infiltration or defence in depth.
The Allied armies would mainly focus on defensive warfare and build some of the world’s most impressive fortifications. Having seen the effects that a prepared and fortified position offered, this was not folly. Although the Maginot Line is sometimes scolded (with the benefit of hindsight), should it have been completed, it could have formed a formidable and perhaps even war-winning obstacle.
The Germans, on the other hand, took different lessons and remembered how they had broken through the line during Operation Michael using speed and surprise. Theorising how exploiting a breakthrough with fast armoured vehicles might bring a quick end to a campaign and provide a way to avoid a two-front war, they would set themselves up for some of the most spectacular victories during the Second World War.
Oriskany Brings It Home
As @neves1789 has outlined, the slowing and eventual halting of offensives like St. Michael, Georgette, and Blücher-Yorck had cost Ludendorff’s German armies a staggering butcher’s bill in casualties. Even worse, these failings had sapped the last of the momentum generated from his momentary advantages in strategic initiative earlier in 1918.
By July 1918, the writing was truly on the wall. Not only had Gneisenau and “Peace” offensives failed, but French-American counterattacks across the Marne River had soon driven back the German Seventh and Ninth Armies, never again to threaten Paris.
Not all the news in July was so rosy. In Russia, Czar Nicholas II and his family were murdered by Russian Bolsheviks, and what remained of the Russian Empire plunged into years of brutal civil war. The first mass deaths from the Spanish Flu were also reported, a global epidemic that would quickly kill more far people than the Great War.
By August, their armies hit especially hard by the Spanish Flu, the Germans were truly reeling. On 8th August the British Fourth Army used 456 tanks at Amiens, smashing six German divisions. The first all-American attack hit at St. Mihel on 12th September, supported by almost 1500 aircraft in an unprecedented air-ground coordinated operation.
Yet still the German Army offered determined resistance and despite gaining so much ground, the Allies had a long way to go before the end of the Great War was in sight.
We actually hope to come back to the Great War later in the year, perhaps for another article series covering the battles later in September and October 1918. The Battle of the Argonne Forest is in this time period (just as one example), so there’s plenty of material to cover before the final Armistice of 11th November.
Thank You!
Of course, I want to thank Sven @neves1789 for his tireless work with these articles. Crushing out pages of text and over a hundred great photos, putting up with my incessant production schedule reminders, he truly deserves a Beasts of War “Croix de Guerre” for his part in this series.
I’d also like to thank @erik101, about half the armies and terrain in all these 15mm World War One Flames of War table photos, are his. Big thanks as well to @dignity and @johnlyons for another great interview recorded and broadcast on the Weekender earlier in the series.
As always, I’d also like to thank @dracs (Content Manager) and @brennon (Written Content Editor) for their help in scheduling and getting the articles plugged into Beasts of War, as well as @lancorz for the front-page graphics and Tom for the web support behind the scenes.
Most of all, of course, thanks to all of you, the readers, who support the continued publication of this content and make it so enjoyable to “put the ‘story’ back in history.” Many would say that narrative is the most important part of a wargame, and honestly, there’s no richer narrative than real history, real men, real smoke, real blood.
So adieu, for now, fellow grognards and “grognettes.” Please post your comments, questions, and feedback in the thread below. Also, keep an eye out for the support thread we usually start in the forums for these articles, where you can post your own table photos, war stories, battle reports, documents, video links, and so on.
Sven and I sincerely hope you’ve enjoyed this article series on the Centennial Gaming in the Great War: The Campaigns of 1918. Until we meet again in no-man’s land … keep your head down in those trenches!
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An amazing end to the series well done everyone.
Thanks very much, @elessar2590 ! Indeed, thanks to Sven for the excellent writing, photos, and expertise, Erik and Rob for the help with the photos, Warren for the support, Lance for the front page graphics, Tom for the backstage web support, Ben and Sam for the editorial and content manager support, Just and John for the first interview and Warren and Sam for the second interview! Phew, that’s a lot of people! Team wins are the best wins! 😀 😀 😀
I really hope you guys enjoyed this article series, it’s been an absolute pleasure writing it! Another big thanks to @oriskany and the BoW team for making this possible! 😀
I’ve collaborated with a lot of people over the years here at BoW, this was honestly one of the best ones. Often it felt less like you were supporting my articles, I think a better way to describe it would be that I was in fact supporting yours. 😀
A great end to the series guys it was a close run thing near the end if the German’s had a couple more regiments ?
Thanks, @zorg – I think if the Germans had in fact managed some kind of breakthrough at Amiens or even Ypres, the war might have dragged into 1919. But winning outright? It is very doubtful. Economic damage being wrought to the German state by the long war and the British blockade was beyond impossible to ignore by this point. As Cicero once wrote: Boundless money is the raw sinew of war. Without money or even a stable economy, the Germans just weren’t sustaining a realistic war effort for very long, especially with the Americans growing more and more involved as 1918 progressed through summer and into autumn.
I’m not sure if they took Paris the French may have surrendered on mass freeing up more unit’s to push the British into the channel? @oriskany
Definitely possible. But even so, the war probably would have just lasted until 1919. Just my opinion, though.
Yeah they were running on empty by this state with thousands starving back home.
Very true. 😀
At this point the German people started to openly criticise the war and the military. The enthusiasm of 1914 was gone. I think in winter 1918 the war would have been over anyway. Anybody expected so many casualties and the soldiers’ stories when they came home were by far too much for the German people.
I have to say, @setesch , I completely agree. 😀
I’m almost ashamed to admit I only ever thought of WWII when people brought up naval combat. It was great reading about all the naval activity in WWI.
Great wrap up to the series guys. Thanks for all the hard work!
Yeah, one of the largest naval battles in history was in World War I, Jutland/Skagerrak in May 1916. First big use of submarines as well (they tried one in the American Revolution, didn’t work … then again in the Civil War, damaged one ship at Charleston SC but was sunk itself).
Their was a program on the TV near the end of las year about a team searching for the lost ship of the Jutland battle’s they found many of the lost ships answering some of the contradictory reports the Navy has on the fighting.
I think I saw that show @zorg – if its the same one you’re talking about. Two-Hour episode of “Timeline?” They actually found some of the turret doors opened, proving that the ships were destroyed moire by very fast fires than outright explosions (men had time to at least try to escape), German shells probably hit hit the magazines directly, but started fires that then touched off magazines due to insufficient safety procedures (more emphasis placed on ease of ammo handling for faster rates of fire), etc.
Sounds about right they were way off position as well & ones ship blow in two like the Hood.
Indeed, three British battlecruisers were lost, most with nearly all hands in colossal explosions. Indefatigable, Queen Mary, Invincible. Other cruisers as well, plus smaller ships. (something like 120,000 tons in all)
Didn’t one of the lost ships actually join a German flotilla in the confusion during the fight for a time until they Got discovered.
I was going to say, I would defer on that to @torros or @commodorerob or perhaps @damon .
I’ll see if I can find a link for all the BOW viewers to watch the program.
@zorg That would be great! @orkess has been looking to see that
@zorg and @warzan – If we’re talking about the same show …
Part One:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6WwZW5Roc80
Part Two:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T6Cas7zsKBI
Brilliant that’s the very one I was thinking of on a survey ship getting fresh 3d picture’s of the recks to understand the battle better with the surveys an proper sat position’s over the battlemaps of the time.
I thought so. 😀 It sounded like it, based on your descriptions. But I didn’t want to speak for you and put up the wrong video. 😀
yup theirs a few good ones out their will have to steal a afternoon to vet the number down first, the one you posted is just out really to be honest.
Not sure about that sounds familiar story though 🙂
The thing that these recent documentaries don’t tell you is that everyone knew that the explosions on the battlecruisers occurred because they left the doors open for decades, it’s nothing new at all.
I agree 100% @commodorerob – I like Timeline series and this episode in general, but I remember the first I saw it sitting semi-fuming: “None of this is ‘new’ like you’re saying it is. You’re not ‘discovering’ anything or solving any age-old ‘mysteries.’ I mean, some additional scientific evidence is always good, but at the end of the day all they really did was re-validate what was already known at the time.
If your ever in Belfast you can visit the last ship afloat that fought at Jutland
https://www.nmrn.org.uk/exhibitions-projects/hms-caroline-belfast-tourist-attraction
Maybe next time I’m in Coleraine for a BoW event or a themed week or some such.
Great final wrap up to an interesting period of history 🙂
Thanks very much @commodorerob and thanks for the great pics of Zeebrugge! 😀
No worries, kind of fortunate we did the Zeebrugge game at Salute 🙂 it’s getting another run out at the Joy of Six in Sheffield in July 🙂
July, eh? Sounds great. Now I can’t promise 100% – but we maaaay be rolling out something here for July as well. 75th Anniversary of a small little skirmish somewhere in Russia, July 1943 … not a big deal or anything. 😛
Well if anyone is doing that then I will see if there are any pics I can take 😉
Awesome! If we do it, this would be one article series for which I really have the necessary tabletop armies, and at multiple scales.
Please make this happen 😀
Uh oh … looks like we may have an answer. @warzan – in all honesty, I’ve been thinking hard about this. As fate would have it, I’m also listening to your OTT “fireside chat” at the moment. One of the points you bring up is “we need to innovate, can’t keep doing the same thing over and over, or it will get stale.” So I’m just wondering if we’re starting to reach that point with these articles (27 series, 117 pieces in all, not including support threads and interviews, etc.) where it’s getting a little formulaic. Just wondering on your thoughts.
Meanwhile, have a great time and a successful trip at UKGE! 😀 😀 😀
@oriskany I’m very happy to sit with you and brainstorm on new formats Jim, in fact we’ll make a point of it when we get back from UKGE 🙂
No worries, @warzan – in the meantime I’ll get started on the base groundwork so we don’t miss the July 2 deadline. 😀
You are a star mate 🙂
So we’re just going to call Warren Frank instead?
I’m glad someone caught the FDR reference. 😀 Completely complimentary, or course, as I feel FDR was one of our better presidents.
@oriskany, @warzan I’d say don’t fix what isn’t broken! Saying that a few thoughts to throw in for consideration of what to add or even subtract from the series.
I think what would be interesting to add to these kind of series is an overview of the wargame rulesets avaliable for playing them, not just the ones your using in examples of the game matching history. Keep the Batreps in mind they compliment the series well.
These aren’t an holy hand grenade of Antioch so depending on subject the number of counting doesn’t always have to be 5 which may sometimes be considered way out. It may sometimes be interesting to get a 1 or 2 post series as a quick shot across the bows as it where.
Pseudo-history there are some universes far far away, which have an extensive list of military battles and campaigns. It would be fantastic to see these covered from the canon material avaliable, the units and equipment involved and a breakdown of how it progressed within the conflict. I for one can’t imagine a subject like the Sith-Jedi wars being covered better than you could :), or the Clones wars or etc, etc. And Star Wars isn’t the only series, a break down of the alternate history for Konlflct 47, Wild West Exodus, 40K has the 3 wars of Armageddon, etc etc.
Lastly it was interesting reading up on the last year of the great war and a book such as 1918 – The Year of Victories by Martin Marix Evans economicly priced and still largely avaliable may supplement peeps interest. The only thing I would add as seemed rather missing was the use of air power during the final offensives and how that was used.
Looking forward to the next series and thanks for these, there in a word fantastic.
Thanks very much and great reply, @admiralandy –
I agree with just about everything in your post, and in fact we are already trying to aim a little more in some of these directions. Examples include …
… the recent interview on Top Five Tips for Gaming in the Great War. When we decided to do a second interview for the Great War series we thought it would be good to bring a much sharper GAMING focus, with the historical overview at the beginning kept very brief (whereas historical background took up almost the whole first interview without much emphasis on gaming). We also wanted to talk about several of the rule sets, like Great War by BF, Great War by PSC, Over the Top by GDW, Valor & Victory by Barry Doyle, etc.
We have had some article series run just 3 or 4 parts instead of 5 – recent examples are the previous World War I series on Heroes of Limanowa kickstarter (3 parts) and also the 50th anniversary of the Six-Day War (3 parts). I tried to squeeze the Americans in Tunisia to just four parts, but the parts just wound up being longer to compensate. 😀
I would agree 100% on history that isn’t strictly history. The most successful series we’ve done so far (as least measured by comment count) is still the BattleTech series two years ago. There was an incredible amount of “historical” detail available for that. 😀
Honestly, I feel this is where new writers could jump in and write their own articles, I certainly don’t have to be the only one. The amount of research I would have to do for a Konflict 47, Wild West Exodus, or 40K would be much more than others more familiar with those settings and those systems.
I still remember those interviews @warzan used to do with AJ – the “40K Charted” series. Those were great, even for players who aren’t the biggest fans of 40K, because they allowed me (for example) to get a little familiar with the setting, to better relate to other wargamers, without sinking time or money into books, reading, building massive armies, etc.
Thanks for the kind words inresponse, glad you filled in the blanks on my post, it was already getting ‘wordy’ but your are quite right that there have been shorter series and simply highlighting that sometimes works fine.
Its always a damned if you do, damned if you don’t covering a subject in this way, as too broad then those already emersed in the subject skip over it, too deep more casual readers may feel a bit lost. I feel the balance overall at least to me does feel right.
When talking about Pseudo history I did indeed have in mnid the Battletech series, of course a lot of problems with the other areas is the amount of retconning that happens between new editions. 40K for instance has had 2 13th Chaos Invasions Black Crusades, past too many fingers and didn’t take my socks off so can’t be sure but think I heard that somewhere.
Plus what maybe considered canon or Legends also flits around between who owns manages an IP, Star Trek has at least 2 distinct universes with a prime and an alternate.
Personally I’m too out of date with what is or isn’t current/canon and maybe the only area of this I could contribute on would be the wargamming history of Star Wars which would probably have gaps you could drive a truck through. Although (I don’t know if actually was from my posts), but when Warzan was first talking about Legion he referenced there have been SW wargames for 30 years. It started properly with Star Warriors in 1987, closely followed by hex games Assault on Hoth and Battle of Endor before they went full miniature from WEG.
I did a forum post about it a while back but probably lost in the archives, which kinda covered the game systems that have been around and covered them from large scale to the Skirmish games we have.
Not covering the pre-internet adaptions I’d be damn surprised if nobody tried some Laserburn or Rogue TRader modding.
Thanks again, @admiralandy – indeed we can never pt too much in these series it seems. This Great War series was a pretty large one (13700 words in all) and yet we still had feedback that we didn’t cover some people’s favorite spots / nationalities / etc. And this was even with a very narrow focus of covering only one war, one front, and three months of time (late March-late June).
Oh, which reminds me, I did not miss your comment on including more airpower. As it turns out, though, this seems to be a much bigger factor in the battles that immediately FOLLOW the ones covered in this series (e.g., the St. Mihel offensive includes over a thousand aircraft, but this is August, Sept, Oct 1918, not the March-June 1918 we’re covering here).
This is why we’re thinking (no promises) of coming back to the Great War later in 2018, perhaps in time for the 100th anniversary of the Meuse-Argonne Offensive or the November Armistice.
Well these further campaigns they can of course be written about whenever, one benefit of history there’s no more or less than there was. But really if there was a year to do it, this should be something nobody would not mind seeing covered. It could quite converge for the armstice week.
Interesting that air power wasn’t such a factor until the allies started attacking. I wonder if this was due to after the original push Germany spent a large amount of the war defensively sat on the high ground and didn’t develop there tactics for an offensive as well as they might. Even there stormtrooper develoment was quite late compared to the idea of break through platoon sections with a lewis gun support that the allies had developed as a tactic sometime before.
I thought when I read about it, that maybe influenced the 40K standard of 10 men with 1 special weapon.
Like many such ideas, @admiralandy – the breakthrough platoons, stosstruppen, and mass air support all developed over time, so it’s tough to really nail down a definitive date when they were first employed. Germans were using some form of storm trooper as early as 1916 with flamethrower units at Verdun, but its the 1918 stormtrooper (MG 08 15 LMGs, Mp 18 SMGs, camouflage-painted helmet, that are really infamous.
Maybe it’s an image thing as much as anything else.
People were dropping bombs and grenades from aircraft on people as early as 1912 (I think the first recorded “combat air mission” was an Italian pilot tossing sticks of dynamite from his “flying bicycle” over some Ethiopian rebels). But St. Mihel (just after this series) I think is the first time I’ve read about where over a thousand aircraft were planned, staged, equipped, and organized to conduct dedicated, sustained ground support operations over a designated attack axis.
40K has a “10 men with 1 special weapon” feature? That really just sounds like a general WW1 and WW2 squad structure. Two fire teams, usually of four men, backed up by a two-man machine gun team. Or, in the case of a weapons, engineer, or other specialized squad – that extra element would be a mortar, heavy machine gun team, flamethrower, demolition team, or some such.
Post-WW2 MGs became light enough and ammunition standardized enough to where most armies build their MGs into the fireteam, not the squad. (i.e., a USMC squad is 13 men, three fireteams of four and a squad leader, each fireteam has an M249 SAW “a-gunner” and an “a-gunner assistant.”
I will send you a link to the couple of hundred pics I took at last year’s joy of six for an article that never got off the ground 🙂
Robert Dunlop does some lovely Great War Spearhead games . If you jump to about 4.50 on the video you can see it. A bit before that is a lovely 6mm star Wars game but I digress
https://youtu.be/Cumx3whdYIk
Was the Star Wars Demos games played using the Ground Assault rules, or another home brewed version of using X-Wing in ground combat. Thanks for the vid 🙂
@admiralandy I don’t know. @commodorerob I think was there so he might know
I was where? If it’s a Star Wars I zone out…lol
😀
Can’t get away from Star Wars this week, I suppose. 😐
Gasp its Star Wars, why would you want to, although I recall your mentioning about being meh with the warrior teddy bears before now.
Personally I liked Solo, but where the Star Wars moves and stories are going is quite a different topic.
I do wonder though that if they want a really great Star Wars movie they should go talk to the games developers from BattleFront, the Battlefront II cut scene story lines was great and felt more Star Wars than Last Jedi. Intrigue, derring do, a nicely hissable villain with the right amount of menace, gravitas and chatty for a villain dialogue from the Empire. Don’t play the game but saw the story cut scenes from a playlist on someones youtube. For any Star Wars fan well worth checking out.
Here’s the thing with me and Star Wars, @admiralandy –
Now sadly this post is probably lost to BoW 1.0 somewhere, but when the trailer for Episode VII first came out in 2015, I put on Beasts of War somewhere, and I quote:
“Every time I see Star Wars, I am five years old again. If Star Wars could do for my body what it does for my soul, I swear I would be immortal.”
What a different 2 1/2 years makes. 🙁 🙁 🙁
I am juuust old enough to have seen the very first movie in the theater May 1977, as in when it was actually titled “The Star Wars” in the opening crawl … before it was even titled “Episode IV – A New Hope.” Granted, I was five years old, but suffice it to say that Star Wars was a huge influence on my life growing up.
Even by the release of Return of the Jedi, though (by now I am 11, going on 12) I can tell something is wrong. I love Admiral Ackbar (still one of my favorite characters), Lando, Han, and even a little of Luke. I am still resolutely convinced, and the original trilogy bears me out on this incontrovertibly, that Star Wars was not exclusively, or even centrally, about the Force or the definitely the Jedi … especially since there ARE NO JEDI in the trilogy until the last 5 minutes of Episode VI (“You’ve failed, your Highness. I am a Jedi, like my father before me”). I also loved the opened act on Tatooine. But Ewoks? Oh boy. Even at 11 going on 12, I could tell Star Wars was in trouble.
Thank God it ended when it did. Star Wars wrapped up in the summer of 1983 and damned well should have stayed there.
But then we had the prequels. Which were ass. There is no debate there. They were ass. I mourned. We all did. The mystical Force, a borderline New Age religion, became a germ you carried in your bloodstream. All Jedis were instantly little more than glamorous zombies (not kidding about that comparison), as in “infected” people reduced to a nearly automaton-levels of emotionless blah, given near immortality by the germs in the bloodstream. Mind you, Jedi were already rendered meaningless because there were thousands of them running around. Lightsabers it seems, you can pick up at the local drug store, to the point hwere in Episode II some NPCs are literally carrying around spares so they can hand off the stupid little glowie-sticks to ObiWan and Anakin and they can join in the flashy-hummy-glowie-stickie royal rumble in the insect arena.
This coming from someone who never really liked the Jedi or the Force even in the beginning trilogy. Isn’t the whole point of a heroic tale to be the underdog? Not a godlike being – the ONLY PERSON with godlike powers (i.e., “When gone am I, the LAST of the Jedi will you be?”) I mean, we’re only talking about storycraft here. You know, character arcs, consistent tone, theme and subtext? None of which matters in the sad Dagobah swamp that has become the Star Wars universe.
So we went through the five stages, and were finally at “acceptance” and moving on with our lives when … 2015 … Disney buys the property! Hope is reborn! JJ Abrams signs up to write the new trilogy! Hope is reborn again! Except …
Wait, Abrams is only writing the first movie?
Oh wait, we’re still okay … Abrams left scripts for future directors, where the plans for the new trilogy (Snoke, Rey’s family, the Knights of Ren) are all laid out and …
Wait, they tossed all that, along with all the expanded universe? Except the EU isn’t quite trashed, it’s been repackaged into some “Star Wars Legends” limbo because basically, Disney hasn’t figured out quite how to milk the franchise to maximum bloodthirsty efficiency.
The Force Awakens comes out. Our hopes, brought up yet again from the Dark Ages that were the prequels … are crushed again. It is a complete rip off of Episode IV. The fans cry in collective outrage. So Disney overcorrects and comes out with Rogue One. “You wanted different, everyone? How’s THIS for different? A Star Wars space adventure serial … where everyone dies? Oh, I though you liked ‘Saving Private Ryan …’
I’m not even going to get into the Last Jedi. Our characters are being lined up and systematically bumped off because writers are directed to do so at the end of corporate spreadsheets. They now exist only to be killed off for no reason in pointless scenes that make no sense. One by one, they are fed into the creative concentration camp where they die literally because Disney doesn’t know what else to do with them. I defy any Star Wars fan to explain Han’s death to me from a creative storytelling standpoint. Or Luke’s. Or Ackbar’s. Or even their new ones, like Snoke or what the hell the Knights of Ren were supposed to be about or Rey’s family or anything else even they started in their own sequel trilogy. The one character who really should have died (so regrettably, for very sadly obvious reasons) is Leia, who not only lived, but lived after that ridiculous Mary Poppins flight through space.
And … yes … there is also Kathleen Kennedy’s blatant ham-fisted feminist social commentary. All men are cowards, idiots, and trouble makers, and traitors. All women are serene, infallible, trustworthy, and self-sacrificing. Seriously, watch that movie again. Not one man makes one decision in that movie that actually does anything. Don’t get me wrong, I love female protagonists. Ellen Ripley, old-school Leia, Mon Mothma, I even liked Jyn Erso a little.
So now we’re in mourning again. So now we have to start the five stages all over again. So now Star Wars is being mismanaged by a collection of corporate idiots chasing stock prices who have proven not so much their “evil” intention, just creative incompetence.
They can’t settle on a tone. It’s a space adventure movie, it’s a gritty war drama. It’s a callback to the past, it’s something wildly new to the point where it’s unrecognizable. It’s escapism into a world of pure good vs. evil, except it’s also leaden down with garbage truck loads of social justice political commentary. It’s rejected the EU background, but the EU is back and being selectively mined so (a) Disney can make money on this property that it disowned the previous fiscal year and (b) they can sue the last drop of blood out of anyone else who tries to use it. All the while, they don’t respect it.
Star Wars has become a battered housewife, Disney the drunken abusive husband. She’s still putting the steak on the plate every night. And she’s still tearfully doing her best … despite all the fresh bruises.
It’s just too depressing anymore.
I am not one of those angry childhood former Star Wars fans.
Anger has gone. Now there is only sadness.
@oriskany well as I should have expected, that’s quite the reply. I also was old enough to see it in the cinema first time around being 7 at the time, but like a fine wine were maturing well 🙂 It’s a positive self image thing very important.
I think we have a bit of a different view here, I never thought twice about the ewoks, perhaps I was a bit more naive and we didn’t have the media saturation at that time as about 5 years before cable and satelites took off, maybe that was a difference for me in the UK.
ROTS I liked but I see that as Palpatines story, and therefore accept the first two as what leads into that.
With prequels, and side films and series, the question is do they compliment or detract. For me they compliment, the Clone Wars series does a good job of leading to ROTS, and its a series about War in SW. Rebels was equally good, although a criticsm of that and just about every hero character from the EU novels and games turns into a fracking Jedi, even the other surviving Y-Wing pilot from a New Hope turned into a Jedi in some versions *Sigh* It’s like Wedge, Lando and Han where the only ones could do anything notable outside the Jedi crowd. But the point of the Clone Wars is showing the Jedi at the height of there powers, so not a surprise there’s plenty of glowy sticks around, and I kinda assumed Yoda tasked those two with getting spares to Anakin and Obi-Wan or Mace did anyway.
RO I feel you could watch back to back with New Hope and for character death, look at all the pilots we see mown down, 1 at a time.
Episode 7 – 9, coming out rather hit and miss, and were a bit less evil centric about corporations in the UK and the media manipulations and conspiracy theories. But yeah, needs to be some balance and an executive guiding producer (JJ) without some social agenda.
Were never going to be 7 or 5 again, with that first thrill, but for me I like to see what does take it back to that from the new material, and for me its still Star Wars 🙂
Great reply, @admiralandy .
Okay, now that I got all the angst out of my system with my first post, I feel I should address some of your points in a second post and talk about some of the things I still like about Star Wars, why I like them, and I think where we agree.
Quick disclaimer, I have not seen the new Solo movie yet, but damn it … despite it all , I have hope. Some movie people I watch on the web whom I trust and usually enjoy the same kinds of movies I do for the same reasons, etc., have come out with their review and they actually semi-liked it, one of them being a bonfide Star Wars hater and yet he liked Solo all the same.
That stubborn persistence of hope is half my problem, in an ironic way. That 5% of Star Wars that I still find enchanting is why I hate the other 95% so vehemently. Otherwise I could just leave it alone, like Star Trek “Kelvin universe” or Discovery. But anyway …
Ten Things Oriskany Still Likes About Star Wars
10) For some reason, Rey. I don’t know why. I should hate her living guts. She’s a badly-written Mary Sue who has usurped the legacy of both Han Solo (owns the Millenium Falcon and is friends with Chewie) AND Luke Skywalker (as the obvious Jedi heir apparent). Yet for some reason I still love her. I honestly don’t know why. But I’ve given up fighting it. 😀
9) The last 20 minutes of Rogue One. I hope I wasn’t misleading in my previous post, I was actually thrilled by all the character death. Finally, someone remembered that there is a “war” going on in Star Wars. The point I was making was the inconsistency in the tone, which is clearly showing a lack of unified creative direction required for a serial-formatted franchise like Star Wars. And of course the fact that the Battle of Skarif takes place in terrain that looks exactly like where I live helps. “Yay! They finally brought in a Fort Lauderdale planet!” The species of palm trees, the consistency of the sand, I’m literally curious to see where they filmed that.
8) Believe it or not, Rebels. I hated the Clone Wars cartoon with a passion, Lucas’ daughter being involved and meddling with nepotistic incompetence and celebrity status never earned, but for some reason I’m liking certain aspects of Rebels (binge watching through Season 3 at the moment). In particular, the “Phoenix Squadron” of small corvettes and a squadron of A-Wings that is always tangled up with light Imperial Cruisers somewhere. I like the smaller Imperial ships, not everything has to be a super-star destroyer or Death Star, and some of the space battles are actually pretty good.
7) The Wargames – Especially since practically all of them take place in the original Galactic Civil War era anyway, when Jedi are very “thin upon the ground.”
6) The Thrawn triology by Timothy Zahn. Thrawn could have had a better death, and Talon Karde is just friggin’ annoying, but the intelligent enemy makes the series a winner.
5) Some of the Dark Empire material, especially the Sovereign and Eclipse class super star destroyers.
4) What little I have seen so far of the Battle of Jakku, the crashing of the super star destroyer Ravager, etc.
3) The ships. Even though The Last Jedi has ruined the idea of hyperspace and invalidated the results, tactics, and strategy for every space battle that has ever happened in the 4000+ year history of the EU, I still love the ships. Favorites include the B-Wing heavy assault star fighter and Imperial Indictor-class cruiser.
2) The music. Even “Anakin’s Theme” from The Phantom Menace has a ghostly thread from the Imperial March hidden in its trailing bars. I still feel The Phantom Menace should have been called “John Williams Strikes Back” as even then he was clearly the only person who still understood what the franchise was about.
1) The original trilogy. Like a comfort blanket, they will always be there.
Thanks @oriskany, I would say I pretty much agree with your top ten list not necessaryily in that order, and the thing about the Clone Wars it gave more airtime to Palps to really cement him imo as the big bad of the Original series and why he still has an influence even after his fall down the power shaft. Ooops spoilers sry for anyone hasn’t seen that yet 😉
For CW, don’t know about the production side but as you mentioned about the spaceships, there’s a ton of that, cruisers and tanks and force users oh my!
One thing that did jar was Maul, when first heard he was back, dammit spoilers again oopsy, I thought that’s so cool, Palpatine got him cloned to use for a Sith killing machine. Then found out he was the chopped in half fell down an even deeper power shaft and somehow still crawled out Maul, humhum, really. So against that, the Mary Poppins thing is kinda, yeah well, they need some reality to ground the use of the force. And oh yeah another is too much self referencing, RO didn’t need the Watch yourself, he doesn’t like you either guy. I mean really doesn’t it just give you a bad feeling, like Arnie will be back…
Which I think is rather as you indicated, that to stop being so hit and miss it needs someone who ‘gets’ the SW universe and the power of veto and nudging things back in the right direction.
If you do watch Solo in the next week or so, I’ve started a Solo spoiler thread, be interesting to see your views after the fact. I can pretty much predict one thing you’ll find annoying, but no spoilers, don’t be put off by that. If you like RO as an 8/9 then I think you’ll find Solo a 7/8.
Try and catch the Battlefront II cut scenes on youtube, its imo a great Star Wars story.
Good call, @admiralandy – I guess I should add Palpatine to my list. He really is about the only worthwhile character in the prequels.
I’m pretty sure I have seen some of the Battlefront II scenes you’re talking about, the female pilot running around Jakku? You start off as some kind of Imperial TIE commander?
Well, Palpatine, Kenobi, Yoda, Dooku (because he was played by Christopher Lee),the rest were more background characters dancing around what Palpatine was doing (imo).
But apologies as rather dragged this of topic, I’m a bit too much of a fanboy sometimes. But yes I binge watched the cutscences the other night and that is the one you referenced.
Anyway, until more recent times, most of my Great War knowledge is some documentaries I saw about 20 years ago. A mix of things like Battlefield, Line of Fire and Great Commanders and some Hollywood *cough* history *cough* I did once see the Battlion film you referenced probably about 10 – 12 years ago, mostly remember some German Commanders discussing how to wipe out the american gangsters and upstart wannabes who were becomming a thorn in there side, and an American commander trying to organise a push to reach them. You may not believe it from my wordy waffle, but I’m a bit dyslexic, reading fun fiction is fine, anything factual I tend to learn better aurally. Documentaries are great for an overview and getting some facts across, but not quite the detail that’s come across from your detailing of subects.
Missed an answer earlier, 40K classic squad in Rogue Trader was pretty much the 10 guys staple with 1 or 2 heavy or special weapons. ‘Classic’ Space Marine squad in 2nd edition was 10 guys, could be split into a team of Sargeant with sword and pistol, flamethrower and 3 other guys as an ‘assault’ unit. The other 5 guys had a missle launcher or hvy bolter for an entrenched fireteam.
Seeing the documentaries it struck me how modeled on that squad composition the 40K ‘units’ were.
Battlefield and Line of Fire are actually pretty good documentary series, especially Battlefield. Timeline is another good one. They’re the exception to the rule, usually documentaries aren’t the best kind of history. What they do offer, however, is making people AWARE of certain topics, and then they do more detailed research on their own.
Don’t worry about changing topics. All is well, and it increases the comment count on the article! 😀
Yeah, like @warzan says – damned near everything in sci-fi is taken from history in one way or another.
Thanks very much, @commodorerob – I have your links and will definitely take a look at this when I get home! 😀
Everything comes to an end, so let it be a splendid one.
This really is a very special end of a Special article series. I learnt much and grabbed a hold of many an idea for the gaming experience with WW I and other periods/games too, like Dracs put it in the interview with Oriskany and Warzan a few days ago. That interview was fantastic.
As soon as the thread is online (again) I will give you two pieces, one of which will be twisted rules and army lists for Bolt Action in WW I (from an American who has put a little thought into it) and the other a picture, from a bird´s perspective, of opposing trench lines. Then we can all see what it means “trenches are not straight, and there are always several on each side and more.
Thank you Oriskany, Sven and Eric.
Thanks very much @jemmy – very glad you liked the series. Again, I apologize for my audio in that interview, I’m not sure exactly what happened with my mike … but hopefully there were some useful ideas in there.
Give me a day or two to put together a new thread in the historical forums. Let this last article be on the “front page” for a while, but I do want to get the support thread going again and I have some more of the last photos from Sven and Erik I want to put up.
As ever another excellent article. Looking forward to the next.
Thanks very much, @gremlin ! Glad you liked the series. 😀
More great stuff, finally had the time to catch up with the serie.
Luck of a long weekend
The long weekend was great @rasmus , even if the first 2/3 were a little soggy with our first named tropical storm of the season. Glad you liked the series! 😀
That storm is heading our way next
That is just nuts, @rasmus – a tropical storm that is MAINTAINING its full “landfall power” after four days over land. I just did some reading and learned it was actually only a SUB-tropical storm when it passed by us, then it became a tropical depression over Tennessee.
????
Remember, “global warming” is only a myth (*yeah, right).
35 mph winds, though. That isn’t much to worry about, if you’ve ever been in one of these before. It will make a mess of some leaves and trees, some parts of your city may lose power briefly. That will be about the extent of it.
The only other possible risk is flooding. I’ve noticed that when northern states are hit by tropical storms, they flood easily because they don’t have the drainage infrastructure, But it looks like you’ll be on the right flank, with the southerly winds pushing water INTO the lake rather than storm surging it OUT of the lake.
Another enjoyable and informative article series, congrats to the authors.
Had an interesting and relevent article come up on my Google news feed today; a series of powerful and moving images of the old WW1 battlefields
https://www.theatlantic.com/photo/2018/05/the-fading-battlefields-of-world-war-i/561353/
Thanks very much, @damon – I clicked through these images and especially appreciated the one at Belleau Wood.
Well done to all the people involved in this . All 5 articles have been great
Thanks very much! 😀 😀 😀