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mapoeggplant · 4 months

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skip to loafer chapter 58 analyze // spoilers

takamatsu-sensei continues with her beautiful and delicate writing, respecting her characters so that they themselves come into their own at the right moments — extending even to the secondary characters.

when i first opened the chapter and saw kazakami, i confess i was a little surprise. on one hand, exploring more of his character was something i was waiting for so long. on the other, it surprises me how she chose such moment to explore him a little further, but now I understand why she did it.

while we see the ending of the summer trip and mitsumi opening up to her friends as a closure to a long storyline, we do have to keep in mind that it only opened another door, way more tricky to explore. to dive deep into that right away would give her little to no time to explore the other characters that englobes the narrative and makes it function. it’s such an intelligent way to keep the plot flowing and adding more details to it.

well anyways, i digress. let’s focus on kazakami for now:

i’ve seen a lot of people often calling him a little selfish or self centered before, since the little scenes we had with him, his posture were always nonchalant. for me, it always felt like something was off, something he was hiding. not that i was sure about it, it just felt like “hm…this comes from a place of defense”. giving up soccer and focusing on being the president, for exemple, gave me an impression of him trying to find a distraction and a way to keep boosting his curriculum. and now, with more information, i have my doubts.

for kazakami’s backstory, sensei uses a plot she’s been using for a while: the “show not tell”, where she explicit give us a little of said character as a way to keep us going — for shima, the scandal; yasaka, her bedroom; now for kazakami, it was dive. opening the chapter with him pretending to be the main character was a very smart idea. that instantly broke the image we had of him, as this serious, ironical guy, specially after how ch 57 ended. now, we clearly see he’s just a boy with his own story and interests.

that brings the reader closer to kazakami (specially since us, the readers, also love anime and such lol). and she keeps on “showing, not telling” when she choses to show how kazakami is on school first to later expose his life at home.

that wall he build, that nonchalant attitude, it’s all a result of strict parents. it’s not that kazakami doesn’t want to be a normal teenager with interests: he was raised with the mindset of productive rather than pleasure. he was repressed into this box and feels guilty to break from it — by doing that, he’s afraid to sound ungrateful and selfish; that’s why he just swallows his food and accept his fate. the next day, a little more gasoline is added to the fuel. kanechika is the exact opposite of him, the perfect description of “freedom”.

but he also is someone who’s fighting for his dreams, someone who have his parents approval, someone who never let go of his interests and still have a bright future ahead of him. it’s frustrating for kazakami. he had to let go of everything in order to have the same future of the the “authentic” guy who never let go of anything. it’s a slap on the face, specially when kanechika holds dear the same thing as him: dive. the contrast between both characters is amazing and

i’m glad sensei chose to explore both at the same time. yes, we do focus more on kazakami, but we know a little about kanechika’s future and we also know a little more of his personality (i mean, he ran after kazakami just to talk about anime. he is observant, he can see that there is something more there). it’s a balance between narratives to maintain the equilibrium and use kanechika’s kindness as a way to tell more of kazakami’s backstory. but this is a conversation we will only continue when the next chapter is out…

thank you for reading it!! i’m sooo excited with what sensei have in store for us and can’t wait to discuss more with you guys

#i waited for this for so long #I'm so happy we're breaking his wall #also kanechika I love you sm #kanechika #kazakami #skip to loafer #skip and loafer #duckmetas

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mastersoftheair · 2 months

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"Masters of the Air details. Part 6-Bombsight and bombing.

"[...] I was brought in to Masters of the Air to teach actors how to look like they knew what they were doing, and the bombardier work would certainly be important to the series.

"[...] The Norden bombsight was being developed in the 1920’s by Carl Lucas Norden, a Swiss engineer, who worked for the US Navy. He developed this sight (eventually the Mark 15 series for the Navy and the M series for the Army) and the autopilot system that goes along with it. The autopilot was needed as it could fly the aircraft more precisely on the bomb run than the pilot could. Just don’t tell the pilot this!

"The Mk 15 Norden sight was a beautiful hand-built and fit device with an analog computer that would calculate the point in space at which to drop the bombs. The Bombardier would input information to the sight in the form of altitude, air speed and the ballistics of the bomb. On the bomb run he would pick up the target with the crosshairs in the optics and engage a motor drive that would keep the crosshairs synchronized on the target during the approach. On the run he would also make fine adjustments to be sure the crosshair stayed on the target for range and drift. When the sighting angle reached the predetermined dropping angle the sight sent an electrical signal to the intervalometer that would drop the selected bombs at the specified interval.

"The mission order would define what bombs were to be used and what the nose and tail fuses were to be used and their delay settings, if any. The order would also specify the aiming point and the interval to be set in to the intervalometer. This would space the bombs across the ground as desired. Maybe you wanted the bombs dropped quickly, right next to each other, to try and put a hole in the roof of the hardened sub pens. Or maybe you wanted to walk them down a long runway. The intervalometer would be set for your ground speed and how many feet apart you wanted the bombs to hit on the ground.

"If you wanted to drop a string of bombs all down a line, like a runway or a front line, then you would want the center bomb of the stick to hit in the middle so you would adjust the trail plate on the bombsight the right amount to drop the first bomb early and have the center bomb right in the middle. This center bomb spot would be the mean point of impact or MPI.

"When I arrived on set at MoTA they had several nose sections with varying amounts of the bombardier’s equipment and controls. They had one real Norden sight head called the hero sight in the hero fuselage. The hero label was attached to the best props where special or close up filming with lead actors might take place.

"The stabilizer is the lower half of the bombsight and contains the yaw gyro for the autopilot. The bombsight head sits on the stabilizer and pivots to keep pointed at the target.

"The hero sight was sitting on a prop stabilizer, and it needed more accessories and work to look as good as the real sight head. I asked if they had a better stabilizer around and they thought so, but where it was seemed to be uncertain. It was eventually located and cleaned up for mounting in the hero nose. It was still missing some items namely the directional panel and an Automatic Bombing Computer or ABC. The ABC was used on the bomb run so they could perform evasive maneuvers and not have to do the run and drift calculations again. I was told that a Norden Bombsight expert in the UK said that they didn’t use the ABC early in the war, if at all. I had to differ with that opinion as it was most certainly used throughout the early war and almost all the way through. Its use dropped off later in the war if anything.

"The ABC is quite visible on top of the stabilizer so I thought the hero sight should have the ABC not only for authenticity but for eye candy too. I asked my daughter, Sydney, to send out the directional panel and ABC set from our museum’s bombsight back home in California.

"[...] Like with the pilots and their own preference for hand positions on the throttles, the bombardiers were given the options of the two different hand configurations bombardiers often used to adjust the sight on the run. The more uncomfortable two-handed method or the single hand. Which eye to use while looking through the eyepiece was also their own decision as this would have been a preference item as well.

"We also taught them how to look over the sight to pick up the target then transition down to the eye piece and to uncage and adjust the gyro for leveling the optics in case this might be of interest to the directors. We went over the control sequence for the bomb bay doors, bomb select and intervalometer adjustments and the bomb run itself.

"[...] The standard procedure for the bomb run was developed early on by the 8th AF which was to navigate to a point where the bomb run would begin. This was called the Initial Point or IP. From the IP it was either a straight line into the target, or evasive maneuvers along this line to the target.

"At the IP, the bombardier would open the bomb bay doors. This would change the drag and the airspeed accordingly. It was up to the pilot to adjust power to maintaining a specific airspeed and altitude which was critical to accurate bombing. The pilot would also re-trim the aircraft so it would fly hands off at which point he would engage the servos of the autopilot and turn control of the aircraft over to the bombardier. The Bombardier would fly the aircraft through the bombsight and its connection to the autopilot.

"The main bombardier actor, Elliot Warren, portrayed James R. Douglass. Elliot was a quick learn and did a great job. He was a pleasure to work with and I really enjoyed his scenes.

"[...]Props made several Norden sights. Rubber ones and some with more detail. One was set up with squibs to detonate when the sight was shot by the actor with his 45 cal M1911 pistol. They were wired and the squibs went off with the sound of the pistol. It looked pretty good on camera.

"It was AAF policy to try and destroy the bombsight so it would not fall in to enemy hands. Some of the manuals actually discuss what should be done to destroy it. I would hope that the large gyro in the sight head was not spinning at its normal 25,000 RPM when the bullet hit the 2-pound rotor, as I would imagine that it would come apart and potentially send shrapnel back at the guy holding the gun!

"The lighting folks would control the instruments and lights throughout the fuselages, like the bomb bay door open light on the bombardier’s panel. We put in a lag between the bomb door handle operation and the door open light coming on. Not an accurate lag as we obviously will not be filming for the actual 20 seconds or so needed to open the electric bomb bay doors. It was a delight to work with the lighting crew and they did magical work especially with the custom made instrumentation.

"[...] Here is a full-on rant about the Norden so you might want to skip out!

"Keep in mind that this is my own opinion. An American who is discussing the Norden sight. Your mileage may vary.

"Recently there has been, what I call a ‘revisionist historians’ view of the Norden Bombsight. In short, this modern interpretation, pretty much lead by Malcolm Gladwell’s TED Talk on YouTube and his book Bomber Mafia, calls in to question the usefulness of the Norden. Basically, saying it was not effective and some of his followers have even been using the term ‘useless’ recently.

"Just keep a few thoughts of this rant in mind.

"The bomb sighting systems we had going into WWII were based on technology left over from WWI. They were simple sights with wires to sight down. They were meant for aircraft speeds and altitudes from WWI. Now skip ahead to the new bombers flying two to three times as fast and at altitudes up to 30,000 feet instead of 3000 feet.

"An all-new system was needed to solve this new complex bombing problem. Sperry was working on it and Norden, who had left employment at Sperry, started his own effort.

"The Sperry and Norden sights were the leaders of synchronous sights going in to WWII. They both were good sights which were constantly being improved. They had each also developed a highly advanced autopilot that the bombardier used to fly the aircraft on the bomb run.

"These were visual sights, so it was necessary to see the target in order to be effective. Not so easy in Europe all year long. Radar and other methods were coming online to help with all weather bombing but there were many limitations in play.

"Results would certainly vary from target to target, and it was a brand new technology made up of gyros to keep the optics level, a mechanical computer to make the calculations, motors to drive the optics. Lots of parts needed to be able to work at 200 degrees F to 50 below, not to mention the complex autopilot system.

"So, my main question is: If this new technology was so bad then what exactly was it that brought the German war effort to its knees?

"The RAF was going after cities and targets at night and the AAF was trying to hit specific strategic targets like submarine production, aircraft and weapons plants, fuel and machine parts to make the weapons work. The very things the Germans needed to wage war.

"What brought this production essentially to a halt?

"I submit that it was the bombing campaign.

"If it was the bombing campaign, then it was likely the Norden and Sperry sights that made it possible. Mostly the Norden as it was chosen as the primary system and the Sperry S-1 sight was discontinued.

"The invasion of fortress Europe was certainly needed to push the Germans all the way back to Berlin, but I would also submit that these efforts were made easier by the results of the bombing campaign.

"There were certainly mistakes and errors all throughout this campaign as there was a massive learning curve in doing something that had never been accomplished on such a scale before. How to amass hundreds to a thousand plus bombers to rally together to attack a target effectively and then get home. The attrition was unbelievably steep in the early years as so beautifully depicted in Master’s.

"Just how do you get back in that bomber the next day and face near certain death once again like they did. Again, as seen in Master’s. Just a few of the wonderful aspects of this series and the history behind it.

"Having a PR campaign about the weapon that would help win the war, like Harold T. Barth created for Norden, was not such a bad thing. If it rallied the troops and home front to keep up morale, then I think it was a good thing. Just open any wartime magazine and look at the full page ads all throughout. Each ad promoting the companies contribution to winning the war effort. BF Goodrich with their new Rivnut or Seeger Refrigerator building bomb racks and feed chutes for the 50's. It was a nationwide industrial and personal team effort to wage this war against the Axis. Norden was one of them.

"Barth said that the sight could hit a pickle barrel from 20,000 feet. When the press asked if this was true Norden replied ‘sure if you tell me which pickle you want me to hit’. Some folks nowadays are taking this literally and complaining that it really couldn’t hit a specific pickle. No kidding. Say it isn’t so. Those bastards!

"To Mr. Gladwell and his followers, I'll ask again: What was it, in your mind, that allowed all of those bombs to take out the German AND the Japanese war efforts? If it wasn’t Sperry’s S-1 and Norden’s M series bombsights, then just exactly what was it?

"Rant over. Flak vest, with crotch protector, and helmet, on."

#this is easily the longest (due to words) post i've seen from taigh. i'm getting schooled!#masters of the air #hbo war #behind the scenes #history #history isn't enough tho. i feel like i should have an 'engineering' tag bc damn!#long post #elliot warren #james douglass #i added ellipses to skip over more of the 'fluffy' bits related to the acting stuff. and it still remains sooooo long!#i even added a 'keep reading' line break bc of the norden rant...and it's still SOOOOOO LOOOOONG!!#the link is included so anyone can read that if they're so inclined #but i just know some nerds on here wanna read this lol

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