What is the point of the UK Carrier Strike Group?

We have recently been told that the United (for now) Kingdom's newest aircraft carrier, the HMS Queen Elizabeth, will be sailing to the South China Sea at the head of her carrier strike group. There she will engage in what the Americans call freedom of navigation operations, or to put it in terms that might have been used by former UK defence secretary and tarantula enthusiast Gavin Williamson, telling China to shut up and go away.

This will be the first big foreign outing of the new UK carrier, the largest ship ever built in the British Isles. The ship alone cost some £3 billion, not including the staggeringly expensive and troubled F-35 aircraft it operates. But what are they getting for their money? Does the carrier strike group represent a meaningful power projection capability for Britain, and if not, what is the point of the whole thing?

I used to get money for writing this kind of thing, but these days all I have is this blog and the occasional desire to indulge myself. So here goes.

Picture: Wikimedia Commons

**

If you think about carrier air operations, you'll probably think of the US Navy. The USN has commanded the oceans of the world pretty much since the battle of Midway, and a single United States carrier strike group has more surface combat power than most navies, and operates an air wing bigger than most national air forces. No other country can deploy fighting power like this, but then again, many nations with air forces smaller than a US carrier air wing can provide their citizens with education and basic health care, so obviously there are some tradeoffs.

When the Royal Navy started the Queen Elizabeth -class project in the 1990s, the goal was obviously not to replicate their former colony's task forces. But an independent carrier strike capacity would hardly have seemed like an impossible pipe dream, since the Falklands War was barely a decade old.

In 1982, Britain responded to the Argentinian invasion of the Falklands by sending a naval task force to retake the islands. Built around the STOVL carriers HMS Hermes and Invincible, the task force consisted of two LPDs, eight destroyers and fifteen frigates, as well as submarines, support ships and auxiliaries, totalling 127 ships, including 62 merchant ships taken into service. In terms of surface combatants, the entire Royal Navy of 2021 is smaller than the Falklands task force, with a total strength of six destroyers and thirteen frigates.

In the South Atlantic, the UK task force faced a navy that never attempted any serious operations against it, and a decrepit air force equipped almost entirely with 1950s aircraft and lacking any meaningful aerial refueling capacity to facilitate long-range attacks on the Royal Navy. With the enemy navy effectively absent, the task force could optimize its defenses against anti-ship missiles and air attacks with cannon and unguided bombs; the highly capable Sea Harrier force operating from the carriers was a huge asset.

Despite these severe drawbacks, the Argentinian air force fought their antiquated equipment with exceptional skill and élan, and inflicted considerable casualties on the UK force. Two destroyers, HMS Sheffield and Coventry, were sunk, and HMS Glasgow was disabled by a bomb that failed to explode. Two County-class destroyers, HMS Antrim and Glamorgan, were also heavily damaged by air attack. So against an obsolete air force and no surface or submarine threat, the task force lost three out of eight destroyers, and two frigates were also sunk. Transposed to today's Royal Navy, these would be crippling losses. Even at the time, they threatened the success of the whole operation.

**

Carrier Strike Group 21, as it is called, sailed for China led by, obviously, HMS Queen Elizabeth, accompanied by two Type 45 air-defence destroyers and two Type 23 anti-submarine frigates. They are joined by a destroyer and frigate from NATO allies, because sending three UK destroyers would have meant dispatching fully half of the Royal Navy's destroyers to Asia, so two destroyers and two, perhaps three, frigates are pretty much the maximum for an operation like this.

This is not a force that has any real staying power on independent operations. No doubt, the Sea Viper SAM system on the Type 45s is very capable, although there are always risks involved in relying on a single system; in the Falklands, the Sea Wolf point-defence missile system twice crashed under attack, leading to the loss of HMS Coventry. In the case of the Carrier Strike Group, one fluke incident like this would easily be enough to damage, even disable, one of the carrier escorts. 

And that's just the air threat. When we think about the rumored abilities of Swedish diesel-electric submarines to sink a US supercarrier, and the expectation that the technology will continue to spread around the world, how sanguine can anyone be about the anti-submarine capabilities of the carrier group? Again, the group is so tiny that a single torpedo hit can do huge damage. Or indeed one anti-ship missile getting through. Then consider this tiny force facing several simultaneous threats, or an asymmetric attack like the kamikaze speedboat that disabled the USS Cole. 

If even one escort is severely damaged, can the carrier group continue to operate? Let alone if one of them is sunk. Two destroyers and two frigates means no redundancy, and even in the case of a damaged ship, would it be sent off on its own to seek repairs, or would the entire force have to withdraw? And yet the Royal Navy can't realistically field a larger force. The Falklands experience should have driven home that naval operations against an enemy with severe deficiencies, able to present only a limited, one-dimensional threat, will result in casualties. And yet the Royal Navy is fielding a carrier strike group that can't sustain any.

**

Frankly, the idea that the new fleet carriers provide the UK with an independent global striking capacity is ludicrous. The Royal Navy doesn't have the ships to deploy a carrier group that can face any real opposition without neglecting not only its duties to NATO, but also the defence of the British isles. For that defence, the carriers are next to useless. Without a capable escort, the UK carrier group is as vulnerable in the Far East as the previous HMS Prince of Wales, sunk by Japanese air attack in 1941, was.

For operations other than war, like humanitarian assistance or evacuations and suchlike, an amphibious assault ship or a light carrier like the retired Invincible class would be far more capable than a fleet carrier. Such ships could also have operated the Sea Harrier, a very capable combat aircraft that proved itself beyond doubt in the Falklands and was since modernized to carry the AIM-120 AMRAAM missile for a full BVR air combat capability; much better value for money than the F-35. I have a vague memory that the Finnish air force at one time evaluated the Harrier, but apparently they didn't appreciate its qualities since it never made it onto their fighter short-list. I don't know why that was.

So what can the carriers actually do? Literally the only thing they are good for is participating in the US's Forever War. Both of the Queen Elizabeths can take the place of a US fleet carrier in their rotation of supercarriers; with US sea and air control, the minimal escort the Royal Navy can provide will be more than sufficient, and even though the UK carriers have considerably less striking power, they can take some of the strain off the already chronically overstretched US Navy. The point of the much-heralded Asian cruise is purely to demonstrate that Britain would be a loyal ally in any US-led confrontation with China.

The carriers even compare unfavorably with Trident. The UK has an independent submarine-based nuclear deterrent; although they rely on the US for servicing the missiles, the operation of the weapons is completely in British hands. Whether the nuclear deterrent provided by Trident is worth having, especially at considerable cost, is a question for the British tax-payer. But you can make a case for Trident providing the UK with an actual independent capability - especially if you remember what it's actually for. The carriers, on the other hand, produce nothing even as useful as Trident.

One argument that's been put forward for Trident is that being a nuclear power guarantees Britain "a seat at the top table" in international politics. Whether that's worth the massive expense is a whole other question, but in essence, this is also what the carriers are for: they provide a capacity for Britain to contribute to US power projection. Presumably this will come with the same advantages that accrued to the United Kingdom from their participation in the US forever wars in Iraq and Afghanistan - whatever those advantages are. This need to appease the USians is, of course, made all the more urgent by Brexit.

**

So what is the point of the UK Carrier Strike Group, then? There isn't one. It's a colossally expensive, pointless exercise in flag-waving and playing at being a world power. If the UK actually wanted a credible independent power projection capability, it would require heavy investment in a much larger navy and naval air force. Instead they play at being Americans.

The UK fleet carriers represent a shameless waste of money in pursuit of an appearance of world power. A naval Brexit, really.

Here I Stand by email: Turn 4 (1532-1535) - Perfidious Albion

Welcome to Turn 4 of our megalomaniac game of Here I Stand by email! After two dramatic opening turns, Turn 3 was a bit of a breather; reculer pour mieux sauter. The Habsburg leap to 18 VP in the New World phase got everyone's attention, especially with Schmalkalden just around the corner!

At the end of Turn 4, we begin checking for a Domination Victory (23.3): if any player has 5 VP more than anyone else, they win! The normal victory conditions all still apply: 25 VP, controlling enough keys or converting 50 spaces to Protestantism. As things stand, there's an outside chance of the Habsburgs winning outright at the end of this turn, if Schmalkalden and the New World go their way. I can't help thinking it would be a bit anticlimactic for the game to end in the New World phase.

Here's the situation at the end of Turn 3.

Diplomatic situation:

France is allied with Scotland

The Hapsburgs are allied with Hungary-Bohemia

Victory points:

Protestants 6

England 11

France 15

Papacy 17

Hapsburgs 18

Ottomans 18

Protestant spaces: 22

(victory points Papacy 9 - Protestants 6)

Protestant English home spaces: 1 (0 VP)

Cards removed from the game:

Luther's 95 Theses
Peasants' War
Barbary Pirates
Defender of the Faith
Clement VII

Paul III

Marburg Colloquy

Explorers removed: Narváez (-1)

**

This turn, a third reformer enters play: none other than Jean Calvin of Geneva, taking the number of Protestant spaces to 23. The Protestants also receive the services of all four French-language debaters: Calvin, Guillaume Farel, Nicolas Cop and Pierre Olivétan. There's also eleven new cards to add to the deck, but since the English Reformation isn't underway yet, that's all the new stuff for this turn.

In the New World Riches phase, we figure out what happens to New World conquests and colonies. The French result for their colony is Galleon, which means no card, but the colony survives. The Habsburgs get a result of Depleted 1 for the Incas, and NE for their Aztec conquests; so the Habsburgs get one bonus card, but the Inca conquest is moved to the VP box on their player card, and will provide no more extra cards.

So this is how many cards everyone starts the turn with:

Ottomans: dealt 5, kept 2, total 8

Hapsburgs: 6, 2, 9

English: 4, 1, 6

French: 4, 1, 6

Papacy: 4, 1, 7

Protestants: 4, 1, 6

**

With the cards dealt, we head into the Diplomacy Phase. Speaking of the English, the Henry's Marital Status marker is currently on the Ask for Divorce space. This means that Henry VIII can try to persuade the Pope to grant them a divorce in this Diplomacy phase (9.1, p. 11). If they're succesful, Henry's Marital Status advances to Ann Boleyn, allowing the English player their first roll on the Pregnancy Chart.

The Ottomans got the announcements started with an alliance to France; the Habsburgs announce no deals. England announces a divorce for Henry VIII, at the cost of a card draw to the Papacy, and an alliance with France. France confirms these alliances, and the Holy See confirms the divorce and card draw. This means the English Reformation starts next turn, the Habsburgs get a 2 CP discount on their next declaration of war against the English, and we get to roll on the Henry's Wives Pregnancy Chart. Alas for Henry, the result is a 1, meaning his marriage with Anne Boleyn is never consummated.

Since there are no wars, prisoners or excommunications, we can skip straight to the war declaration phase, where the Ottomans declare war on Venice. At this point, I noticed we had made a mistake in setup: there were only two naval squadrons in Venice, when there should be three. So I added the third squadron. The Papacy responds by playing Venetian Alliance, activating Venice and placing one Venetian regular and one Venetian squadron in Ancona: the Ottomans and the Papacy are now at war, and the Ottomans get a -1 VP penalty for Phony War against Venice. This puts me at 17 VP and the Papacy in the lead with 19!

There are no other declarations of war, so I pay for mine with The Wartburg. France then plays Venetian Informant to look at the Hapsburgs' hand, and I deploy Suleiman and five regulars to Coron. Charles V deploys to Salzburg with five regulars of his own, and England sends Brandon to Calais with five mercenaries. France, in turn, dispatches Montmorency and five regulars to Grenoble, and the Papacy declines to deploy.

**

I start the action phase by playing Auld Alliance for command points. First, a naval move takes Barbarossa and the Algiers corsairs to the Barbary Coast, the fleets in Coron to the Ionian Sea and the two corsairs in Scutari to the Adriatic. The Venetian fleets at Venice and Ancona attempt interceptions, but fail. A second naval move takes the corsairs in the Adriatic into the Ionian, and Barbarossa's fleet into the Tyrrhenian. The Papal fleet at Rome succesfully intercepts into the Tyrrhenian Sea, and is destroyed for the loss of one corsair. Finally, a cavalry unit is recruited in Scutari.

The Habsburgs play Michael Servetus, taking them to 19 VP and forcing the Protestants to discard Ransom.

England advances on the marital front, playing Six Wives of Henry VIII for a roll on the pregnancy chart. Sadly, the result is another 1, making Anne Boleyn's bonus irrelevant since the end result becomes 2 anyway: the King remarries, but no child is born. The French play Andrea Doria, activating Genoa as their ally and moving to 17 VP; the Papacy plays Calvin Expelled, removing the reformer of Geneva from play for the rest of the turn. The Protestants retaliate with Augsburg Confession.

The Ottomans play Julia Gonzaga as an event: any piracy hits in the Tyrrhenian Sea this turn will net us 1 bonus VP. On the Habsburg impulse, Cloth Prices Fluctuate, this time to their advantage, netting the Habsburgs and the English a card draw. The English play Macchiavelli: The Prince and declare war on the Habsburgs!

An English army of one regular and two mercenaries marches on Brussels from Calais, and the Habsburg garrison withdraws into the fortifications with a very strongly worded letter of protest. Brandon then leads four mercenaries and a regular from Calais to Antwerp, where the defenders similarly withdraw.

The French play their home card and roll on the château table, netting a victory point and a card. The Papacy plays Leipzig Debate, sending Eck to challenge the uncommitted Protestants in Germany. Eck draws Luther as his opponent and fails miserably, scoring only one hit to Luther's three. The Protestants flip Münster and Strasbourg, moving up to 7 VP and dropping the Papacy to 18. They then play Arquebusiers and commit Tyndale to translate more of the New Testament into English.

For my part, I play Diplomatic Overture for command points. We start by engaging in piracy against the Habsburgs in the Tyrrhenian Sea. The Habsburg fleet in Naples rolls against our corsairs but fails to score a hit. Barbarossa and his corsairs succeed spectacularly, scoring three hits and claiming the Julia Gonzaga VP for us as well, putting us in the shared lead with the Habsburgs with 19 VP, destroying the Naples fleet and getting us a card from the Habsburg hand! With the rest of the command points, we transport Suleiman and five regulars from Coron to Corfu, and Barbarossa and his corsairs sail to the Barbary Coast. The Venetian regular at Corfu retreats into the fortifications.

The Habsburgs play Holy Roman Emperor for command points, clearing the unrest in Innsbrück, sending an explorer to the New World and founding a colony in Cuba. The English play Printing Press, and use the first command point for an assault on Antwerp, which falls with no English casualties: the English are at 13 VP while the Habsburgs drop to 18. They then move all their fleets out to sea, recruit a mercenary in Calais and send out an explorer. France uses Professional Rowers to take control of Modena and recruit a mercenary in St. Dizier, and the Papacy invests the command points from Mercenaries Bribed into building St. Peter's, going back up to 19 VP.

The Protestants play A Mighty Fortress, but with Luther committed, they're forced to play it for command points, and they call a debate in German. Bucer and Contarini face off, but the Protestants play Here I Stand to substitute Luther and draw a card. Luther and Contarini both score two hits, sending the debate to a second round. Luther tags in Bullinger and Campeggio represents the Papacy; the Protestants win by one hit, but Campeggio's special ability nullifies the debate result. The remaining command point is used to translate more of the New Testament into English.

I play Shipbuilding for two command points, starting with an assault on Corfu: we take the fortress, but lose two regulars as casualties. That gets rid of my phony war penalty, putting the Ottomans in the lead with 20 VP. With the other command point, I move Barbarossa and his corsairs to the Ionian Sea.

In further naval affairs, the Habsburgs play Akinji Raiders as command points, building a fleet in Corunna and moving their ships from Seville into the Atlantic Ocean, Barcelona into the Gulf of Lion and the newly built ships into the Bay of Biscay. The English decline to intercept, and play Michelangelo to recruit a regular in Calais and two mercenaries in London. France launches a voyage of exploration with Gout, and the Pope uses Gabelle Revolt to build St. Peter's. The Protestants skip, and I play Potosi Silver Mines to build a fleet in Coron and a cavalry unit in Istanbul. The Habsburgs use Pirate Haven to build a regular in Taranto, and Charles marches his army to Linz. England plays Imperial Coronation, but as Charles isn't in Italy, the only result is the construction of an English fleet in Bristol. The French play Unpaid Mercenaries and remove the four Habsburg mercenaries in Navarre from play.

The Pope deploys a Papal Bull as command points, burning books in Germany with the lot and using Cajetan's debater bonus for an additional attempt. The Catholics strike out in the inevitable Leipzig, Regensburg and Strasbourg, losing the last two because of the Augsburg Confession penalty. However, they succeed in Salzburg and the electorate of Trier, dropping the Protestants to 6 VP and raising the Papacy to a joint lead of 20 with the Ottomans! The Protestants counterattack by playing Anabaptists to start a debate in German. Carlstadt faces off against Tetzel, and both score one hit for another tie. The last uncommitted papal debater is Aleander, who squares off against Oekolampedius and wins by two hits. With Aleander's special ability, that means the papacy gets to flip three spaces, and selects Regensburg, Hamburg and Bremen. I conclude my action phase by playing Janissaries and deploying four regulars to Istanbul.

The Habsburgs play Galleons as an event, placing the Galleon marker next to their (future) colonies on the board, and England and France skip. The Papacy presses their advantage, and plays Mercenaries Demand Pay to burn books in Germany, but they strike out in both Münster and Brunswick. The Protestants and Ottomans skip, and the Habsburgs play Plantations to further enhance their future colony. After this, everyone else skips, and the action phase is done!

**

Next up is the winter phase, where our troops return to their fortifications and our fleets into harbor. When playing by email, we've done this in impulse order, so I start by returning Suleiman and two regulars from Corfu to Istanbul, and recalling Ibrahim from Buda. Barbarossa and his fleets winter in Corfu. The Habsburg fleet in the Bay of Biscay returns to Corunna, while the Atlantic fleet sails to Gibraltar and the ships in the Gulf of Lion head for Palma; Charles marches back to Vienna, and the regulars in Taranto return to Naples. The English fleets in the Channel return to Calais, and the others to London and Bristol; the troops campaigning in the Habsburg Netherlands regroup in London, Antwerp and Calais. The French move one mercenary unit to Metz, making a stack of four, and everyone else in the field winters in Paris, as well as one mercenary from Rouen. Finally, the Venetian regular in Ancona returns to Rome.

The mandatory events for this turn are Schmalkaldic League and Paul III; Alessandro Farnese already ascended to the Papacy in Turn 3, but we've seen no sign of Schmalkalden whatsoever in the entire game. Well, now that it's the Winter Phase of Turn 4, it's time.

The Protestants now gain control of those home spaces they've managed to convert, get their military leaders, and are now a faction just like all the others, at permanent war with the Pope and the Habsburgs.

From now on, the Protestants get 2 VP for each electorate that's under their political and religious control, whereas the Habsburgs gain 1 VP for each that they control. So Trier stays Catholic and therefore under Habsburg rule, bumping them up to 19 VP, and the remaining five electorates add up to a Protestant total of 16 VP.

Finally, it's time for the New World phase. We place the Habsburg colony of Cuba in the appropriate spot, and start working out the voyages of exploration for each power. The Habsburg explorer is de Vaca (exploration rating 0), the English have sent Chancellor (1), and the French explorer is Cartier (3). Cartier's voyage is resolved first, and the modified roll is a 10: he can choose to attempt the circumnavigation, but opts to discover the Amazon river instead, taking the French to a shared lead of 20 VP. Both Chancellor and de Vaca return empty-handed.

Since no-one has enough victory points to end the game, it's on to Turn 5!

**

We got this turn started on December 27th 2020, and the diplomacy phase wrapped up on January 31st. The action phase started on Valentine's Day 2021, and lasted until May 11th, so it took just about three months. We resolved the New World phase on May 14th, so the whole turn clocked in at something like five and a half months.

**

Here, then, is where we stand at the end of Turn 4.

Diplomatic situation:

The Ottomans are at war with the Papacy

The Habsburgs are at war with England

The Habsburgs are at war with the Protestants

The Papacy is at war with the Protestants

The Hapsburgs are allied with Hungary-Bohemia

France is allied with Genoa

France is allied with Scotland

The Papacy is allied with Venice

Victory points:

England 13

Protestants 16

Hapsburgs 19

France 20

Ottomans 20

Papacy 20

Protestant spaces: 20

(victory points papacy 9 - protestants 6)

Electorates: 5 Protestant, 1 Catholic

Protestant English home spaces: 1 (0 VP)

Cards removed from the game:

Luther's 95 Theses

Peasants' War

Barbary Pirates

Defender of the Faith

Clement VII

Paul III

Marburg Colloquy

Michael Servetus

Calvin Expelled

Augsburg Confession

Julia Gonzaga

Schmalkaldic League

Explorers removed: Narváez (-1)

Rogue Trader: The Blasphemy of Kanesh

Sister Andromache was born in the depths of a hive city on Augereau, in the Acheron sector. As a child, she began laboring in the hive's massive factories, and had fate not intervened, that would have been where she spent the rest of her life. But when the call went out for volunteers to fight in one of the Imperium's endless wars, she lied about her age and was accepted into an Imperial Guard regiment, and hurriedly shipped to combat.

As a young soldier, she distinguished herself in combat, but it was what she did out of combat that proved more enduring. On the long warp voyage to the front, a preacher had taught her and several other soldiers to read, and she spent countless hours poring over the Imperial Infantryman's Uplifting Primer. Impressed by her honest piety, her fellow soldiers asked her to lead them in prayer, and by the time the regiment left the frontline, she had been inducted into the missionary order of St. Electra the Light-bringer as Sister Andromache.

When the war was over, Sister Andromache stayed with the Order of St. Electra as a missionary, spreading the word of the Emperor in the Aradec Confederation and beyond. After a long career, she retired to one of the Order's convents on the shrine world of Termina Anastasiae. She spent many tranquil years at the convent, teaching young missionaries and immersing herself in the monastic life. She developed a strong interest in early Imperial theology, and became a recognized authority on some of the more obscure writings of Malcador the Sigilite.

This is where Sister Andromache's official biography ends. It was subsequently purged from all Imperial records, but can still be read in the Apocrypha of Krast. No-one knows what happened at the convent, but judging from what Andromache wrote, her studies in systematic theology drove her mad. She wrote a tome titled Metaphysica Divina, which was so blasphemously heretical that the first censor who read it went mad and committed suicide, hurling herself over a cliff next to the monastery. Sister Andromache was found in her cell, patiently awaiting her inevitable judgement. In recognition of her long service, she was granted the mercy of being executed before being burned with her book.

The book, however, would not die. Although no copies could possibly have been made before its destruction, on the day after Sister Andromache's pyre, eleven volumes of Metaphysica Divina were inexplicably discovered in the convent's library. Sisters at the convent testified to haunting dreams of Andromache and the dead censor; novices who could not have had access to the book mumbled passages from it in their sleep. Eventually the entire convent was purged, but the abbess in charge had delayed making a full report to her superiors, and some sisters had been able to leave the convent. Although they were subsequently tracked down and executed by the Ordo Hereticus, Sister Andromache's heresy had been allowed to spread. Persistent rumours on Termina Anastasia insist that some sisters of the convent escaped the Inquisition's attentions altogether.

Since then, the Metaphysica Divina has made inexplicable appearances in Imperial libraries. All knowledge of it was once thought to have been suppressed, until an Imperial expedition encountered a volume on the faraway world of Kanesh, leading to the work now being more commonly known as the Blasphemy of Kanesh. Possession of a copy is punishable by death.

**

Fragments from

Metaphysica Divina

or

The Blasphemy of Kanesh

by Sister Andromache the Doomed

**

By setting this quill to parchment, I commit suicide. I forsake my faith, my life and my soul. Yet the clamor in my head will not still, and I fear - I know - that even in death I will not find rest until I unburden my mind. I must write though it is my death.

**

It is not commonly known that the Emperor did not want humanity to worship him as a god. Even though this is an unthinkable blasphemy in our time, and many of the early documents have been redacted, a careful reading of the Theban Debates makes it clear this is what was discussed. Malcador opposed the Cult, but later changed his mind.

**

Why does he not strike me down? Where is the knock at the door? The Emperor must know I am writing this! Why does he permit it?

**

Though we must teach all humanity to abhor the Daemon, we know that we cannot think too deeply on the nature of the Enemy. To collect our thoughts is to invite damnation. Bitterly do I know this now.

Euphrosyne of Galatea teaches us that a Chaos God is a primal emotion, a being of the Immaterium brought to life by our mental energies. This is why we must teach the novices the Balance, but we cannot even hint at the Galatean Euphemisms for the reason why. Because the Enemy comes from us. It is our energies, and our souls, that power them.

**

In one of the tablets of the Euphratian Apocalypse, it is told that Malcador the Sigilite decided to support the Imperial Cult once he realized it would nourish the Emperor. Look at the exact words of the tablet, set it beside certain passages in the Liber Achelieus, and you will never again know a night of restful sleep.

No, I cannot write it.

I am tormented by a dream where the Emperor dances in a deep cave on Terra, building a tower of gold and brass that will make him a god.

My soul is forfeit.

**

In the Tome of St. Patricia, we learn of the death of St. Celestine, and her resurrection. She dies on Forrax - yet she does not die, and walks again. And she is only one of the Living Saints, revered immortal champions of the Emperor.

What does the Book of Proscriptions tell us the ultimate temptation, the greatest boon offered by the Ruinous Powers is? Immortality.

For most of those who turn to Chaos, this prize remains forever out of reach. They die in the service of the daemons, and their deaths are more power to their foul gods.

What of us, who are trained to diligently look for the least spark of the curse of the witch in our charges, and to deliver the cursed to the Black Ships? Do we not likewise feed our god with our faith, and with their deaths? Their sacrifice?

Do we not nourish him?

**

The Immaterium - the Warp - is a hell to us, full of daemons that would rip us to pieces and consume our very souls if they could.

What are we to them?

**

What is the Emperor?

WHAT IS THE EMPEROR?

What do we serve?

[fragments end]

Warhammer 40,000: Ooarai Girls Academy

"We're lucky the school's on a carrier ship."
- Girls und Panzer 1

Vincent van Gogh: Still life (Vase with twelve sunflowers), 1888

**

As my opponents seemed to quite like the idea of tanks, the obvious thing to add to our Imperial army was a Leman Russ battle tank. I wanted to do something a little bit different for the model, though, and this is what I ended up with:

The model is a Panzer IV ausf. D from Warlord Games, and it's excellent; admittedly there were a couple of unsightly lumps of resin, but they were fairly easy to remove, and maybe I don't entirely know what to do with almost any of the metal doohickeys, but I think overall the model is very good and definitely worth its price.

Accompanying the tank is in the image above is a Gestapo officer from Warlord's delightful Guarding the Chateau set, i.e. Herr Flick of the Ordo Hereticus.

I'll admit that the reason I chose a Pz.IV for our Leman Russ was Girls und Panzer. Seeing as how I've done my master's thesis on tanks, I was vaguely aware that it existed, and I encountered the full absurdity of the manga when buying a goon a tank-related present. So when browsing 1/56 scale tanks online, I ended up buying the Pz.IV ausf. D that the protagonists use in their tankery exercises in the first manga.

Of course, one thing leads to another. I originally intended to have just a single Leman Russ named Ooarai Girls Academy. However, because it would be advantageous from a rules standpoint to field an entire spearhead detachment of tanks, it seems like it might be a decent idea to collect three more Ooarai tanks, one of them an HQ tank. So I googled for a female tank commander miniature - only to find that something called Company B sells not only Ooarai decals but also anime tank commanders. So obviously I ordered some.

Here's the Ooarai Girls Academy Panzer IV, then, with proper markings and everything:

The running gear was painted Vallejo Gunmetal Grey, and given a wash of Smoke and Black Glaze. The hull color is German Grey.

**

One of the most delightful and senseless absurdities of Girls und Panzer is that for some reason that completely escapes me, all of the tankery high schools are based on aircraft carriers. With Japanese entertainment, I find one just has to accept some things. This does, however, make a Warhammer 40,000 conversion remarkably easy from a fluff standpoint. Clearly the 40k Ooarai Girls Academy is an arm of the Schola Progenium that trains orphan girls into Imperial Guard tank crews on a giant starship. It makes as much sense as anything else.

Because the Ooarai tanks will eventually form their own detachment, they'll benefit from a regimental doctrine. Clearly the best doctrine for a detachment of Leman Russes is Tallarn. So if anyone finds 28mm models of Japanese schoolgirls dressed like they're in the Afrika Korps, let me know!

Char B1 bis

This Warlord Char B1 bis represents the Public Morals Committee tank. As it's the obvious candidate to be a Commissar Tank if someone wants to field one at some point, it needed a commander from Company B; I assembled this as a French tank in all other respects, but accommodating the commander in the turret required the German hatch as opposed to the original French cupola.

Here's the finished article with a Commissar tank stripe.

Pz.38(t) ausf. B

Next up: the student council tank, a Pz.38(t) from Warlord. For 40k purposes, I want this to be the HQ tank. Because a Tank Commander has a BS of 3+, it seems compulsory to take sponson weapons here, but they really interfere with the Girls und Panzer aesthetic. The solution? Magnets.

Those are plasma cannons from the Sentinel kit; they look a little big on an actual 28mm vehicle, but then everything smaller would just look like a plasma gun.

Here's the unpainted tank without plasma cannons:

And here with.

I think it painted up all right.

And the plasma guns are delightfully easy to attach and detach.

This is such a cute little tank!

M3 Lee

Finally, the volleyball team. Compared to the other tanks, the M3 is the size of a house.

**

I had also ordered a Renault FT 17 from Warlord ages ago, and as part of this project, I painted it up in Ooarai colors as well.

Finally, since we were buying World War II vehicles, how could we resist a Salamander Recon Tank from the Imperial Armor index, represented by a Warlord Games Sd.kfz 222, i.e. Lieutenant Grüber's little tank from 'Allo 'Allo.

**

I've said this before, but I'll say it again: I really like Warlord vehicles! These little tanks were a lot of fun to paint.

Let's Read Tolkien 81: The Grey Havens

The clearing up certainly needed a lot of work, but it took less time than Sam had feared.

The victorious hobbits liberate Sharkey's prisoners, including Lobelia and Fredegar Bolger, and get to work fixing the Shire. All of the horrible modern buildings are destroyed, and Sam puts Galadriel's gift to use replanting trees. Everything is great, there's a bumper crop at the next harvest, Sam gets married and everything. Frodo, though, still suffers from his wounds, and eventually the time comes: Frodo and Sam ride out to meet Elrond, Galadriel and Bilbo, on their way to the Grey Havens. There, Frodo and Bilbo get on a boat with the elves and Gandalf. Merry and Pippin show up just in time to say goodbye, and the ship sets sail over the Sea to Valinor. The three hobbits left behind head back home, and the novel ends with Sam arriving home to his family.

**

So, Sharkey is gone, and the Shire can be restored to how it was always meant to be. You might think this would be a moment for some reflection on how things work there, given that an enterprising tobacco merchant managed to accidentally transform it from a minarchist utopia to Mordor on the Brandywine in what, two years, but no, everything will go back to exactly how it was. Remember, making things better is Sarumanism.

The restoration of the Shire is maybe where the analogy to the world wars is clearest. Tolkien finished the Lord of the Rings after the war, and after Labour won the 1945 elections with a landslide, getting a clear mandate to build a new society. It wasn't just Britain; we now know that the time after the Second World War would become the Great Acceleration, ushering in the most profound period of change in the history of mankind. So there's a sense, at least looking back, in which the rebuilding of the Shire is a fantasy alternative to what actually happened after the Second World War: in reality, the factories, airbases and hospitals weren't knocked down and replaced with an agrarian utopia, but it's easy to believe that Tolkien wished they had been.

The Shire, of course, was never a utopia for everyone. This time, it's Frodo who doesn't fit in, underlined by one of Tolkien's most direct biblical references: "Frodo dropped quietly out of all the doings of the Shire, and Sam was pained to notice how little honour he had in his own country."

But Jesus said unto them, A prophet is not without honour, but in his own country, and among his own kin, and in his own house.
- Mark 6:4

Apart from prophethood, Frodo is troubled by his wounds, especially the Morgul-knife at Weathertop, but also by the after-effects of the Ring. You'll need to read the appendices to find this out, but in fact, even Sam doesn't live happily ever after in the Shire: eventually he, too, takes to the Havens as the last Ringbearer. The last event in the history of the Fellowship is when Legolas and Gimli eventually cross the Sundering Seas to arrive in Valinor, presumably to be greeted by "Legolas what the fuck" when the dwarf disembarks. Somehow it makes me happy that the end of the story is three hobbits and a dwarf hanging out in elf Valhalla.

**

So, here we are: I started this whole thing in November 2013, made it as far as the Lord of the Rings in May 2016, and now it's finished. It's been quite a project. I'd like to thank my three regular readers and especially my regular commentator! The first offline consequence of all this will hopefully be a lecture on Tolkien and the heresies of the early church, to be delivered at the Helsinki Adult Education Center when circumstances permit. I might also try to publish a little something; we'll see. But it's been a real pleasure doing this.

Do I have some kind of final verdict on the Lord of the Rings? I don't know. It's still almost certainly one of the best-selling novels of all time, and the horrible movies supposedly based on it have cemented its status in popular culture to such an extent that it feels like it doesn't matter what I think of it. I hope I've been succesful in demonstrating that the Lord of the Rings is more complicated and more interesting than the strawman it's so often made into, and how understanding at least a little bit about Tolkien's theology sheds some light on quite a few things about it that I feel are otherwise misunderstood.

Other than that, I don't really have any grand conclusions to offer. Personally, I think the theology is complete nonsense, and some parts of the Lord of the Rings quite objectionable on many grounds. I also first read it at a sensitive age, and while I could certainly do without some of it, the world Tolkien created, and the compelling story he set in it, have been a major inspiration in my life and continue to be. I use that inspiration to try to do my part to make the world a better place for everyone. Sarumanism, Tolkien would say, which is frankly reactionary garbage. Tolkien's stories inspire me to do work which is directly contrary to the ideals he held. Make of that what you will, I guess.

Next time: well, let's see. I'm taking a break for a bit, but I think I might then do something completely different.

Thank you for reading!

CKII: Therefore I am against thee

Behold, therefore I am against thee, and against thy rivers, and I will make the land of Egypt utterly waste and desolate, from the tower of Syene even unto the border of Ethiopia.

- Ezekiel 29:10

Now that Crusader Kings III is here, I guess I'd better finish what I'm doing in the previous one! When we left off last time, the Abbasid empire fairly dominated the Crusader Kings II map. Soon enough, that would change. The Muslim expansion into Francia had riled up the Catholics so much that they invented crusades, and soon enough, they launched their most ambitious one yet: a crusade for Egypt.

They tried this several times in real life and it never worked out at all. To be honest, I didn't really expect this to turn out a smashing success either, but at least it would distract the Abbasids and maybe let us profit. As we did.

I was pleasantly surprised when we managed to grab some land off the Muhallabids; and frankly shocked when the Crusade succeeded.

The Muhallabids never recovered from the loss of Egypt, and their empire went the way of the Abbadids.

While a Christian Egypt is a tremendously good thing for us, there is one downside: forming the empire of Abyssinia is only possible if you hold the kingdom of Egypt, and the last thing I want to do is go to war against our new Frankish friends. This is why we have the Charlemagne DLC: it lets us form a custom empire when we hold three kingdom titles. I was already King of Abyssinia and Nubia; with the Muslims in complete disarray, the third kingdom title I grabbed was Yemen.

With Crusader Egypt to the north and a scatter of independent chiefdoms to the east, the Abyssinian Empire was secure, and started expanding. Soon enough, we made inroads into Central Africa and reached the Persian Gulf.

**

And that was where I left things for quite a while, maybe for good. Like I said, Crusader Kings III is now out, so this feels like as good a time as any for some possibly closing thoughts on number II.

I talked about some of the shortcomings of the game earlier, mainly about the combat system and the lack of any meaningful diplomacy, and I stand by that. In my Ethiopian game, it's just been disappointing that I can't really have any proper interactions with the Byzantines or Crusader Egypt. It was an interesting challenge to get my realm established and fight off the Muslim holy wars, but I guess the problem becomes that once you've built up your blob, the game is no longer all that interesting. Especially since it's rare to get real opportunities to expand your realm outside of warfare, and war really boils down to the side that has more soldiers winning.

To sort of paraphrase Bilbo Baggins, though, I like this game a lot more than I think it deserves, and it's mostly because of the stories it generates. I'm never going to forget mad aunt Siobhan destroying her dynasty, or blowing up the heroic Duke of Semien in a manure explosion. So yeah, when Crusader Kings II is good, it's really good; when it's not, it's kinda boring. I've definitely enjoyed myself.

Let's Read Tolkien 80: The Scouring of the Shire

It was after nightfall when, wet and tired, the travellers came at last to the Brandywine, and they found the way barred.

The four hobbit heroes arrive at the Brandywine bridge, where they find hobbit shiriffs guarding the gate, with instructions to not let anyone in. When Merry and Pippin break in anyway, they meet none other than Bill Ferny of Bree, now stationed at the gate as a sort of duty thug. They drive him off, but it turns out that the whole Shire is now under new management: there are ugly new brick buildings, rules and regulations and Men bullying hobbits under the direction of the mysterious "Sharkey". Sure enough, a larger party of shiriffs shows up the next morning to arrest Frodo and company and take them to Hobbiton. Since it's where they were going anyway, the four hobbits set off.

Frodo and company proceed to defy the Men, mobilize hundreds of armed hobbits into an insurrection by basically just showing up, and then Merry leads an ambush and pitched battle against Sharkey's men. It's a little bit like one of those computer role-playing games where everyone was apparently just standing around doing nothing until the player character shows up and says a couple of fairly anodyne things, and all of a sudden everything changes.

After the battle, the hobbits advance on Sharkey's lair in Bag End, and find him to be none other than Saruman, with Gríma still at his heels. Saruman more or less admits to having fucked up the Shire out of spite, and Frodo tells him to piss off. As Saruman is leaving, he tries to stab Frodo, and then humiliates Gríma Wormtongue badly enough that Wormtongue murders him, and is shot by the hobbits.

**

I always thought Frodo's sudden sense of revelation at meeting Saruman ("A sudden light broke on Frodo. "Sharkey!" he cried.") was odd; earlier, it's Frodo who explains to the others that Lotho isn't behind the evil in the Shire, but a victim of Saruman - and just a few pages later, he's shocked to meet the same Saruman. Christopher Tolkien's History of the Lord of the Rings sheds some light on this: in the original conception of the chapter, Sharkey wasn't Saruman at all, but rather a more anodyne chief ruffian (Christopher Tolkien, The History of the Lord of the Rings, part 4: Sauron Defeated, HarperCollins 2002, p. 94). In this context, Frodo's surprise is understandable: he was expecting another footpad from Isengard.

The trouble is, though, that once the narrative was changed so that Sharkey is Saruman, the hobbits' encounter with him in Many Partings becomes strongly foreshadowing, and it's no longer at all clear why Frodo, having divined that Lotho was in trouble rather than making it, should ever have expected Sharkey to be anyone else. I mean Gandalf pretty much tells them outright in the previous chapter that it's Saruman.

As a whole, the Scouring of the Shire is one of the parts of the book most open to interpretation through what Tolkien's presumed political views are. In my opinion, we should start with his theology: machines and technology are bad. Letters, 75:

There is the tragedy and despair of all machinery laid bare. Unlike art which is content to create a new secondary world in the mind, it attempts to actualize desire, and so to create power in this World; and this cannot really be done with any real satisfaction. Labour-saving machinery only creates endless and worse labour. And in addition to this fundamental disability of a creature, is added the Fall, which makes our devices not only fail of their desire but turn to new and horrible evil. So we come inevitably from Daedalus and Icarus to the Giant Bomber. It is not an advance in wisdom!

This is what I described a long time ago as Tolkien's conservative anarchism: 

Letters, 66:

Life in camp seems not to have changed at all, and what makes it so exasperating is the fact that all its worse features are unnecessary, and due to human stupidity which (as "planners" refuse to see) is always magnified indefinitely by "organization". [...] However it is, humans being what they are, quite inevitable, and the only cure (short of universal Conversion) is not to have wars - nor planning, nor organization, nor regimentation.

If only Tolkien had dedicated at least a little bit of effort into imagining what a fantasy society without planning and organization would be like, we'd remember him as one of the great anarchist authors of all time. Alas, his anarchism is like the faux libertarianism of 21st-century conservatives: I must be "free" to keep my privilege and property. Somehow, Aragorn's monarchy doesn't represent regimentation, but gatherers and sharers do; Sharkey's rules and notices get cheerfully torn down, but not King Elessar's. What's supposedly a rebellion against authority is really a royalist rising; the hobbits invoke the king several times.

Apart from rules and regulations, the other great offense of Sharkey is industrialization, mostly described in bleak terms as shoddily constructed buildings, littering and just random, pointless vandalism.

The great chimney rose up before them; and as they drew near the old village across the Water, through rows of new mean houses along each side of the road, they saw the new mill in all its frowning and dirty ugliness: a great brick building straddling the stream, which it fouled with a steaming and stinking outflow.

First of all, I'm not even sure what the "new mill" is; based on Tom Cotton's description, it's a mill in the sense of grinding grain, but somehow it apparently produces water pollution. I don't know how you make it do that. But if you think about how central the Industrial Revolution is to British and English nationalism, this is Tolkien being a political radical: industry and what's ordinarily thought of as progress is, in fact, bad. The trouble is that he can't actually bring himself to make an argument about this, or even demonstrate any kind of logic for why this would be. The trouble with Sharkey's dudes isn't so much that they build things, it's that they seem to do everything maliciously and badly.

The only real way Saruman's despoiling of the Shire makes any sense is if it was originally part of his imitation of Mordor; he, too, wanted a subject realm to make into a miserable hell like Mordor, which then only accelerates when it turns into vengeance against Frodo and company. But then that undermines the industrialization/socialism analogy.

So if you take Tolkien at his word, the Scouring represents modernity and "progress" in general, and how it inevitably turns into destructive Sarumanism because a lady ate a fruit once. If you look at what he's actually written, the only kind of social change that's bad is one that threatens middle-class comforts. In Tolkien's world, descent from a strange lady born in Doriath is a valid basis for a system of government. "He was great once, of a noble kind that we should not dare raise our hands against," says Frodo of Saruman, after the latter stabbed him. This, and the royalism, is the closest Tolkien comes to the kind of authoritarianism many of his critics associate him with.

To sum up, then, the Scouring isn't an analogy of socialism or Britain's post-war Labour government -- directly; it's ludicrous to pretend that the Gatherers and Sharers aren't a swipe at the left -- or for that matter an analogy of how terrible industrialization was. It's a theological exposition of how fallen humanity can't improve its lot. Whether that makes any sense or is at all succesful is left to the reader.

Another interesting divide is made between Bilbo and Frodo, who are fabulously wealthy by Shire standards, and Lotho Baggins. Bilbo made his money adventuring, and apparently that's just fine by everyone. Lotho, however, makes it by selling pipeweed to Saruman for a profit. He then invests those profits into buying properties and businesses, which is apparently bad, and eventually leads to Men coming around and taking over the Shire, not to mention Lotho's murder. So I guess the question is whether the problem was Lotho acquiring his wealth by despicable commercial means, or investing it. Maybe it was both.

Overall, I feel like the Scouring is a sort of microcosm of Tolkien's work. Yes, the Shire is a minarchist rural utopia, now threatened by a caricature of modernizing socialists - and it isn't. The four hobbits are heroes returning from great deeds abroad who will now set things right in their own country - and they're not, because one of them is now a devoted pacifist who left his wargear behind on the slopes of Mount Doom. It's a very Boy's Own Adventure lark, where even the mean old lady gets a round of applause for having been mean to the bad guys, and at the same time it's a tragedy. I still feel that this creative tension is key to Tolkien's success, and it's definitely present here.

**

Next time: a boat trip.