Maxim Popenker, who runs an excellent military firearms reference site, has just added a page on civilian firearms.

His first choices are interesting to say the least.

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1 Seems like a fairly natural selection, largely driven by the U.S. market. Kel-Tec is not big in export market, but SU-16 is great, if the user understands the weapon. Basically, don't unfold the handguard ever (it moves your point of aim/hit). The finish on SU-16 is very rough. For example, the trigger guard often has injection molding gourd. However, the action is made well and fit well. It's kind of like StG.43 on 1944 manufacture :-) I keep thinking about getting one, especially since I saw the CA model.

Posted by: Pete Zaitcev at Sat May 19 14:20:57 2007 (GMPOs)

2 I've heard good things about theKel Tec weapons aside from rough finish. I wasn't suggesting that the guns he chose were lacking merit, just that they were interesting and not as commonly covered as some, which is a feature, not a bug. 

Posted by: Ken Talton at Sat May 19 20:43:51 2007 (pz4J1)

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Note: This is reposted from by old blog. Since this first posted in March of '07 there have been several developments, Despite it's age I will likely update this post at some point.


The Coast Guard's patrol boats are getting long in the tooth and are desperately in need of a replacement.








The immediate problems go back to the '80s.

The Coast Guard had large numbers of 82' and 95' patrol boats. All were slow but useful. The 95 foot boats had been designed in WW2 and produced over several years in different batches, their hulls were quite worn out, the 82'Point class had been built in the '60s they were cramped but useful vessels though a large number had been given to Viet Nam to assist that nation in its attempt to stave off the evil that ultimately consumed it.

As a stop-gap, the Island class patrol boats were ordered in small numbers in fits and starts in the early to mid 80's. Congress was unwilling to fund the CG and they were collateral items in drug war legislation with some actually being bought for the CG by the Navy! The design was (by congressional order) not an American one but an off the shelf Vosper export design. Now the Brits have nothing to learn in the field of shipbuilding, but this was an export design that put paper performance ahead of operational characteristics. The Coast Guard knew this but they needed something fast to catch drug smugglers, the ships could be built very quickly and anyway, they were just considered a stopgap until the Leopold Class was to be commissioned in the early '90s.

The Leopold class was an interesting design. A very strongly built 120 foot patrol boat the craft would have been capable of 30 knots or more despite far stronger construction than the lightly built 110's. They embodied every lesson learned in Patrol Boat ops for the last several decades. They would have had a secondary coastal ASW capability in wartime. These cutters were much needed replacements for a hundred small cutters that were at or past the end of their service lives and the USCG had high hopes for them.

Alas, the Congress canceled them around 1990. A few more 110's were ordered, but the Coast Guard has had a patrol boat deficit since the late '80s. Leopold was laid up incomplete and ordered scrapped.

In the mid 90's a different Congress financed the 87' Barracuda class.
These are quite small cutters. They are NOT replacements for the seagoing 95's and 110's. They are really revenue and law enforcement boats. In those tasks they excel, especially as they are small enough and have a shallow enough draft to get into nearly all small boat stations, and patrol and conduct rescues inshore (an important and little appreciated requirement).

In the late 90's and early 'naughts the first batches of 110's were coming up on the end of their design lives and generating harrowing sea stories for their crews. The Coast Guard began looking at replacements and began designing the ideal cutter of the future.

The ICOF involved a lot of design work as it was to have a composite hull for long life, high speed, high fuel efficiency, a high degree of automation, be operable in any sea state and generally be a mass of conflicting requirements....all under 150 feet in length.

The composite hull took time to develop and the materials science did not progress as planned. The CG wanted to integrate the new Deepwater C4I systems into the new vessels from the start and wanted a homogeneous class for ease and inexpensiveness of maintainability.

The solution to this delay was to completely refurbish the 110's into 123's adding the safer and manpower-saving stern launching arrangements of the 87's. The vessels were stretched 13 feet, their hulls were refurbished and prototypes of the new communications system were installed. This was a logical choice to compensate for the delays in the new design. The planned future vessels would come online as the 123's were wearing out and machinery and equipment in the maintenance pipelines could be switched at once.

Unfortunately the 110' hull did not stretch well.
Unlike a certain-other-debacle this does not seem to be the result of failure to do ones job, but rather a genuine marine engineering learning experience. The stretched hulls were extensively computer tested, but certain choppy seas cause stresses that were not foreseen in the lightly built hulls. The result was yet more harrowing sea stories and the laying up of the refitted ships.

Now there is a problem....the CG needs patrol boats....like yesterday.

But what should they buy, the ultimate cutter design is still decade or 2 off and we have got to get something in the water now.

I'm not an engineer nor a Boatswains mate. I'm certainly not an officer, but this is a BLOG! So keeping in mind my stock disclaimer, here are my thoughts on the matter as I commence tilting at windmills far above my paygrade!

First thing! No more surprises....off the shelf designs only for now.

One obvious choice would be the NAVY/Coast Guard Cyclone class patrol boat. It's very highly regarded in Coast Guard service, uses the same diesels the CG 110's use, is fast and is already in service .


From Australia we have this well proven design from Tenix. Their 56 meter Search and Rescue craft is based on their stock 57m fast attack craft, but it has actually been built! Two were delivered to the Philippines a few years ago. The Philippine Coast Guard is so pleased with the design that they are ordering 6 more of these instead of buying more of the similarly sized Cyclone class ships (they operate 1 of those too). The design is interesting for a number of reasons. It is reasonably fast (26 kts). It has a large (enclosed) rescue deck for survivors (or migrants). It is very seaworthy and despite its small size it has a landing deck for a small helicopter. There is no hangar but the cutter seems to have a similar capability to the larger Reliance class cutters with 1 third the crew in a package 7knots faster and no bigger than the Cyclone class...ie one that can fit in many Coast Guard stations. It's 20-30 feet longer than the CG seems to want but its manning is reasonable (though admittedly 10 more than a 110'). It is likely more seaworthy than a 110' and it is very well adapted to SAR duty. In all likelihood its maintenance and operations costs are fairly low (these being of PARAMOUNT importance to the Philippine Coast Guard).


Versatility is the watchword of the Coast Guard, and few vessels are as versatile as Denmark's Flyvefisken class. These 35 knot vessels are nominally fast attach craft, but are fitted with modules for pollution control, search and rescue, oceanography as well as 4 weapons modules for SSMs, SAMs minesweeping gear, and torpedoes. The heavy weapons are superfluous in CG service but a case might be made for one or more of the neat 12 packs of Evolved Seasparrows or perhaps a SeaRAM on overseas deployments. Sooner or later an asshat is going to take a potshot at a cutter with a missile and a good point defense missile would be useful...especially onewith secondary antiship capability...decadent I know.... the point is the vessel is quite adaptable to a war situation if necessary.

The HUGE workdeck (used for mines and torpedo tubes in RDN service) would lend itself admirably to ATON (aids to navigation) work and pollution control in the rare cases the CG has to do that. Base crew without the big weapons (which the CG would rarely if ever use) is 19....very economical indeed. There are 4 modules for weapons or other kit. Forward the Danish models are fitted with a 76mm gun so the CG's superb 57mm weapon would be no problem, let alone the smaller guns we could actually afford to put on it right now.The hull is constructed of a fibre-reinforced plastic! Despite this, these ships are minimally ice strengthened (but NOT ice breaking) and designed to operate safely in some of the worst seas on the planet...the Atlantic between Denmark and Greenland. This is a VAST improvement upon the CG's 110's (which, with their hull plating about the thickness of a nickel(!) do not deal well with ice).
With a waterline length of 164 feet it is closer to what the Coast Guard says it needs. The speed is remarkable but depends on a gas turbine, (fuel hawg!) note that on cruising diesels alone the speed of these vessels is still 20 kts A Coast Guard version would likely make 26-30 kts on uprated diesels not optimized for cruising, or perhaps 4 diesels (possibly at the expense of one of the mission modules). I like this one a LOT.

Going a bit smaller we come to this Lurrsen design for the German Sea Rescue Service. Only 144 feet long, and drawing 10 feet of water, these ice strengthened vessels are capable of 26 knots, have a stern launched rescue boat, and are designed with north sea winters in mind. The big fire monitor on the bow could easily be replaced with a machine gun or light auto-cannon. Incredibly, they have a small helipad for light helicopters, and though this tiny platform might give airdales harrowing seastories, it is a useful emergency capability to have, extending the range of small choppers or allowing wounded rescuees to be medi-vacd. The German Maritime Rescue Service is a civilian organization that exists only by private donations therefore economy of operation is high on their priority list. These vessels were built in the 70's and are very highly regarded. Lurrsen still advertises being ready to build them and the company seems quite proud of the design.

Their likely replacements are represented by the very similar (but slightly larger ) Herman Marwede. A bit slower with a much higher superstructure, this vessels helicopter arrangements seem less....scary. The high focs'le looks to improve seakeeping but the moderate freeboard and flush deck of the Essberger might be better for some SAR situations (yes I'm way beyond my expertise here). I'm not sure if this ship is ice strengthened, but given the operating area I'd be surprised if it wasn't. The ship is still brand new so I don't know if it is as well regarded as the Essbergers.
*******************************************************************

There are myriad other designs as well by many very highly regarded naval architects, but these are in service, seem to be working quite well and are reasonably economical to operate.

So let's buy something!

Anyhow this concludes my un-liscenced foray into marine procurement.


UPDATE: Welcome Murdoc Online readers!

UPDATE2: Note that in referring to the 123s STRUCTURAL problems as unforeseen, I was not suggesting that the other issues that have been widely reported were as well. However the contractor related issues regards wiring and shielding, were, as I understand it, not nearly as serious as some reports suggested and were fixed almost immediately.

Also, while the work-deck of the Danish craft would make them useful as supplemental buoy tenders, the lack of both a full sized buoy hold and a true icebreaking capability would mean that the versatile "black hull fleet" would still be needed.

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Over at  A Babe in the Universe is a link to this collection of photos and renderings of various bits of Project Constellation hardware.

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What's happening in the world of anime, comics and movies?

I dunno, I'm busy but here's a roundup....

Astro has thoughts on the new anime "season" I'm really looking forward to "Darker than Black".

Pete Zaitcev has 7 irons in the fire at the moment.

Pulp Junkie has reviews of All Quiet on the Western Front...the silent version of The Last of The Mohicans and is doing capsule reviews of TCM's programming.

Over at Gorilla Daze, Allan Harvey has been blogging up a storm of comic book related reviews and history...and he has a very special cover of the week...well...at least the slash writes itself.

There are always gems at Chizumatic, but the fact that there are no permalinks there mean one must check in frequently to catch the fleeting, ephemeral goodness.

UPDATE: Wonderduck has posted thoughts on the news shows as well, with minimal overlap.

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...turns out to not be as great as many people think.
I hope you've picked up on the little secret in this story: It's all about saving. The people who end up better off take their financial situations seriously and plan ahead. They think about how to manage their money effectively, and they save. How do you fare in this department? Do you have an emergency savings fund?

Hat Tip: Transterrestrial Musings

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Via E-Mail
Cassandra over at Villainous Company has posted a long and thoughtful missive on the challenges the Republic faces given the erosion of presidential power.

Yes, I said erosion...there are those who are convinced that this President is setting himself up as Emperor...While a worry for any Republic, regards this guy, I've always been skeptical of that....the non oppression of his most venomous critics being a case in point. Cassandra makes a very good (and worrying) case that the opposite is in fact happening

The office of the president has to be able to make deals, set strategy, and set some form of guidance in foreign policy with the general assurance that a course will be maintained at least until the next election. If the public does not like it....we have elections every 4 years.

This is one of the differences between a Republic and a Democracy. It is also getting very heavily eroded to the point that the office of the POTUS is having its hands tied in ALL things.

Read the whole thing...

Update:
And in a different but related vein...
(and I warn you, a rather more partisan one )
... read this too.

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So I check my mail this morning...I was looking (as always) for something other than bills.

 The failure of my tuition assistance to come through meant that I still owe the college some money, and therefore can't get my grades. Now I was reasonably confident that I did OK. The only possible shadow on my GPA was a history paper that I turned in late. Now given that the paper in question requires a book of primary sources that the bookstore did not get until AFTER the due date (and the Professor knew this) I was covered....and yet still I festered.

So, I open the mailbox hoping for...oh..the Tax Return..a card....coupon book...anything

But not a letter from academic continuance.                            

 The people who kick people out if their semester GPA falls below 2.0.

When I came back to college, I was coming off probation from my stupid years. I came off probation a year ago, but was put back on it because of a screw up regarding classes I had to drop due to Coast Guard obligations....

I theory this was all resolved, but.....

A letter

From them...

In MY mailbox.

I looked at the envelope...I put it on my dash and drove to my folks to help them with yardwork....and offer assistance with my grandmother (who just had shoulder reconstruction).

I looked at the envelope....

I emptied the parents catbox...

I looked at the envelope....

I weeded the front bushes and moved limbs out of the parents yard.

No good ever came from a Academic Continuance envelope.....

The college won't let me know my grade until I pay them the last bit of money...the only reason they would let this be known is if....

...expulsion....

7 years since I started back....working half hours when I was not on active duty.
7 years wasted.
No money in the bank....just my 401K

All for naught...

37
living in a trailer...
no prospects for a degree or any job outside the service sector...

I became ill...

I raked the yard....

I sat in my truck , and I held the letter.

I wondered what I'd blown....Had one (or more) my exams been an "F"....had the History paper not been accepted....

I opened the letter.....

I looked at the children playing down the street, their lives before them..I wondered how many would screw up their lives as I had....

All my past mistakes came down on me like a ton of bricks...I became queasy.

I read the letter....

" Your semester GPA is 3.7. You will therefore be permitted to attend Old Dominion University in the Fall. Bear in mind that should your cumulative GPA fall below 2.0 you will be placed on suspension......."

WTF!??

Woohoo!...."thud"


Update: Wow! Thanks for the kind words!
In the comments it was suggested that I'm an honors student. No.
My cumulative GPA is nowhere near as high as my semester GPA, a legacy of my stupid years. Honors students have enough discipline not to have stupid years and it is a disservice to them to assume I am one.


Well, I need a good laugh preferably involving grades....so lookee here....

Via Bits n' Pieces: we get a lesson in gambling.....
Dear Michael,

Every year I attempt to boost my students' final grades by giving them this relatively simple exam consisting of 100 True/False questions from only 3 chapters of material. For the past 20 years that I have taught Intro Communications 101 at this institution I have never once seen someone score below a 65 on this exam. Consequently, your score of a zero is the first in history and ultimately brought the entire class average down a whole 8 points.

There were two possible answer choices: A (True) and B (False). You chose C for all 100 questions in an obvious attempt to get lucky with a least a quarter of the answers. It's as if you didn't look at a single question. Unfortunately, this brings your final grade in this class to failing. See you next year!

May God have mercy on your soul.

Sincerely,
Professor William Turner

P.S. If all else fails, go with B from now on.
B is the new C

Posted by: The Brickmuppet at 01:31 AM | Comments (6) | Add Comment
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1 You rock, Ken.  Awesome.

Posted by: astro at Fri May 18 10:26:59 2007 (q4NkN)

2 I am so happy for you, Ken! That is terrific! You just stick with it! We are all SO PROUD of you!!!

Posted by: Colleen at Fri May 18 14:00:56 2007 (Cj1+K)

3 Hey I only had a 3.2 as of when I finished this semester. You are doing great.  Keep up the good work Mr. Honors student.   You'll make it!

Posted by: Marina at Fri May 18 14:06:18 2007 (YEq7+)

4 Bra-freakin-VO, Muppet!!!  Good job my friend!!!

Posted by: Wonderduck at Fri May 18 17:24:36 2007 (FgNgv)

5 So you are the guy screwing up the curve!

Congrats.

Posted by: Bill at Fri May 18 18:59:51 2007 (eXHh4)

6 Even if you aren't an honors student your tenacity is to be admired.  Just keep on keeping on and you'll get to do the walk.

Posted by: Marina at Fri May 18 21:10:21 2007 (YEq7+)

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...that this was bad....

(A terrible alternate universe  where Carl Macek and Lou Schiemer got the rights to Sailor Moon)



no...that was not bad...that was mildly clever....


As Don reports...something far worse almost came to be.

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 In this earthshakingly timely, relevant  and deeply vital post, Stephen DenBeste, makes an appearance in the comments....he does not contribute to the pressing and extremely important questions raised in any way, nor does he critique my carefully considered conclusions regards this most pressing of todays matters.
 What he does do is make a scurrilous and disrespectful assertion....Namely that Van Dread is NOT based on a video game.

Well, I was told when I first saw the show that it was based on a video game, and anyway, it should be easy to verify ...so after over an hour of Googling for "Van Dread  Video Game"...and wading through the horrifically foetid search results of "Van Dread H-Game"...I can only conclude that...I've been punk'd.

Savor your victory Stephen....

Posted by: The Brickmuppet at 06:38 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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Clarke Lindsay, links to this post which has video of one the contenders for the Regolith Excavator Challenge.


   Simplicity is a virtue that is often forgotten. Space settlements will require very simple, robust systems.

    ....and a minimum of plywood.

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Rand Simberg has found a contender for the most assinine headline of the year.

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One of the Brickmuppets crack team of science babes brings us this Jim Fraiser post on what may be a big step forward in  biofuels.

It seems that a company named Green Star Products has completed a low cost algal farm that is, in theory, suitable for quick setup nearly anywhere outside of  polar/subpolar regions.

Oil from algae produces about 50 times the yield of the best oilseed crops, and this sort of arrangement might not displace food crops to the same extent as, say ethanol from corn, which is always struck me as a dubious idea.

I'm more excited by thermal depolymerization as it doubles as waste disposal.

This however is really interesting. Note that there are considerable hurdles (read the whole post for Fraiser's thoughts on that) and I still think that without lots of cheap nuclear power to provide the heat that thermal depolymerization...and to a lesser extent algae refining...need then the future of biofuels is marginal at best.

WITH nuclear power, they could potentially produce high density, carbon neutral, liquid fuel with little disadvantages over natural petroleum....a win-win for everybody except anti-nuke hysterics and the most hardcore greens.

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Over at Eaglespeak is an interesting post on a little known maritime tradition, the Breakaway Song

It's cool, its comprehensive, it's naval...it must be Eaglespeak!

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Via Instapundit comes this interesting take by SciFi author Charlie Stross on the what the future has to offer....or not.

One important point he makes, that many predictors overlook, is the track record of past predictions...which, as the absence of a jet pack in my closet and a flying car in my driveway attest...is spotty at best.

The privacy implications are troubling as is the prospect of disastrous single-point failures if things like driverless cars really are mandated, but read the whole thing.

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Wow, the Anchoress has had a raging linky fit....

Actually the Anchoress has a remarkably interesting blog that I'd neglected blogrolling. Agree or disagree, she's generally thought provoking without being mean or insulting.

A case in point is this piece on the implications of Bloomberg's mooted 3rd Party run. I agree with her that it is really too early to pay any mind to the '08 race, my God, I've got a life afterall* , but after the Perot fiasco, the implications of this are somewhat scary.

But....it is way to fricking early to be worrying about presidential campaigns.


* (full disclosure: I'm an undergraduate, unattached otaku...so I don't actually have a life)

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 Well, I don't know what to say.

No, I have no Idea who made the General Osaka .gif...it showed up on a message board where it was most out of place.

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1

Ready for an unbelievably geeky nitpick? Whoever made the GIF doesn't know anything about American rank insignia. We don't use 5 stars any longer.

But when we did (in the 1940's and 1950's), the five were arranged in a pentagon, not in a line.

Posted by: Steven Den Beste at Wed May 16 12:56:56 2007 (+rSRq)

2 Oh, and they're supposed to be gold, not silver.

Posted by: Steven Den Beste at Wed May 16 12:57:15 2007 (+rSRq)

3 She's just an abstract representation of a general. It's like complaining about the Tiger in the infamous Azugirls-the-tank-crew picture not being historically accurate.

Posted by: Pete Zaitcev at Wed May 16 20:32:26 2007 (9imyF)

4 Many catgirls died this day....

Posted by: Brickmuppet at Wed May 16 20:35:29 2007 (V5zw/)

5 I just assumed that Gen. Osaka was a takeoff of "Baghdad Bob" (or whatever his name was), the bombastic Iraqi info minister.  Seems like that job would fit her to a T.

Posted by: Wonderduck at Fri May 18 00:52:56 2007 (FgNgv)

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Due to writers block.... and the pressing need to let people over here know where I stand on the all important issues of the day....here is a rather reworked repost from my old blog.

10:Roberta (From Black Lagoon)
Not even a main character but a sort of guest star, Roberta nevertheless manages to make the list.

A former commie terrorist with the FARC, Roberta was inspired as so many youths are by revolutionary rhetoric. However, after some years of carrying the banner for Che's murderous descendants, she became increasingly sickened by the vast gulf between the revolutionary rhetoric she heard and the reality she saw.

Roberta had honed her skills to a razor edge, becoming a frighteningly effective guerrilla fighter and an infamous assassin.  Over time the results on her actions and the horrific nature of her organization began to blow upon the few smoldering embers deep within the charred remnants of her conscience. Her conscience was finally set fully aflame  when she saw communisms true nature reflected the glassy eyes of a dead child staring up from a mass grave.

...as it so often is .... 

Leaving the movement was very nearly an act of suicide in that part of Columbia but she succeeded through sheer skill in not getting killed.   Marked for death by both the Government  she now grudgingly supported and the murderous thugs she had renounced, she, rather astonishingly, offered her services as penance to one of the rich landowners she had previously been trying to kill. Even more astonishingly, the old man took her in and accepted her offer to work as a bodyguard for his surviving household.When introduced, is is his sole surviving household servant.

Nominally a maid, Roberta is also the body guard for the family child.She takes this job very seriously.

In addition to training as an assassin, terrorist and guerrilla, Roberta has superb organizational skills and is an effective maid.

She is is not however, a particularly competent cook.... her employer doesn't seem to mind this.
 Appearing in only a few episodes of the series,  one might be forgiven for wondering why she's on the list...

Let us review

She's a hot, smart, competent Latin girl...
who is almost always in a maid outfit....
...while wearing glasses...
...annd she really hates commies
PLUS SHE HA..HAS THE CONTENTS OF A WHOLE YEARS WORTH OF G..G..GUNS AND AMMO ON HER PERSON!!

And she's great with kids!

'nuff said.

9:Lum (From Urusei Yatsura) An alien princess with dainty little horns, elf ears,  green hair, the ability to fly and her preferred costume is a tigerskin bikini.   She is a weirdness magnet and is funny to boot...What's not to like?

OK, the lightning bolts, and the jealousy...and the temper...but given that she found herself in an arraigned marriage  to idiot lechmonger Ataru Moriboshi , and is trying heroically to make her marriage work, those "flaws" are quite forgivable.

Besides...she's frickin' LUM....of course she'd be on the list!


8: Lafiel (From Crest Of the Stars) The whole 'Space Princess' character type is a bit of a cliche', but Lafiel is quite interesting (as is this rather under-rated series). Though somewhat ambivilant about her role as royalty, sheever does not fall into the 'poor little princess' funk and carries herself with considerable grace. She is a genuinely likable and sympathetic character.

 At the start of the series Lafiel is a freshly commissioned (space) ensign who happens to be in line for the throne of the Abh Empire..she is also quite inexperienced.

She is a good judge of character though. While she and her male co-star/significant other are not exactly pivotal players in the events of grand cosmic drama that unfold around them, they must face down and survive considerable dangers and ethical issues.  Both characters are pretty much punching above their weight throughout the entire series. Lafiel is loyal unpretentious and dutiful.

 Courageous both physically and morally, she is also extremely smart and grows into the role of command quite well ....Of course, she's also got that whole blue-haired-pointy-eared-never-gets-old-space-elf thing going too.


7:Yomiko Readman (from Read or Die and Read or Dream) One of the better superhero concepts of recent years, the scatterbrained but brilliant Yomiko brings new meaning to the word "Bond paper", for she has the unusual superpower of combat origami!

 Even when the second series jumps the shark towards the end, Yomikos' sense of ethics, loyalty and general competence are sufficiently engaging to give the increasingly outlandish show direction and meaning. Yomiko is a genuinely decent person.

And it's just plain hard to top a cute, super-powered, bibliophillic, nerd girl


6:Yuki Mori (Nova Forrester) From Space Cruiser Yamato (Starblazers) One of the few women in the crew of the Yamato (Argo) and likely the only female to survive the phyrric first voyage of that storied ship.

The unbelievably competent Nova is the ships radar operator and counts among her collateral duties, assistant science officer, pilot, and paramedic. Her quick thinking saves the ship (and thereby humanity) more than once and she ultimately is willing to sacrifice her life for the sake of humanity...though she...um...got better....

..and there was much rejoicing!

Nova also manages to pull off wearing what is one of the most unflattering spandex /color combinations of any uniform ever conceived...and still not look half bad...all while exuding an air of  professionalism that transcends that outfit.


5:Sayaka Yumi: (From Mazinger Z) Tenacity personified, giant robot test pilot Sayaka Yumi sallies forth every week in the experimental robot Aphrodite Ace to battle the
fearsome robotic automatons of Doctor Hell.

Unfortunately she is a chick in a '70's robot show and  her mighty steed  is actually an experimental agricultural robot, with limited strength and durability, hastily fitted with an armament of exactly 2 missiles, which provide the dubious contraption with an impressive bosom...until they are fired..
(I'm not making this up ...Go Nagai did).

Sayaka and her well endowed robot are almost always thrashed , badly, while running interference for the super combat robot Mazinger Z.

Yet despite the odds stacked so high against her, Sayaka never gives up. Indeed, more than once she actually saves the day. (At one point in fact, she manages to singlehandedly take out the largest villain robot in the whole Mazinger/ Grandizer continuity!)
Sayaka keeps going and facing impossible odds through sheer force of indomitable will. She is also fiercely loyal to her beau, and she's got a way cooler form fitting yellow outfit than some people. (art by Ryu)


4:Lady Eboshi (From Princess Mononoke)

An astounding character, Lady Eboshi has carved out a place for herself in a world that considers her very existence an affront.


Eboshi is a noblewoman who achieves independence for her little fiefdom in feudal Japan. Despised by all who have power, she offers sanctuary to the outcasts of society, prostitutes, lepers and debtors.

Between the corrupt and covetous baronies on one side and the ferocious forest beasts on the other, she makes her stand to protect her people. For a time she perseveres through tactical and diplomatic brilliance as well as technical innovation and scientific know-how personified in her expertise with firearms.

Not perfect by any means, she still an awesome and  admirable character
.
 Additionally, in the American version she is voiced by Minnie Driver....who has one of the sexiest voices in the whole world!




3:Meia Gisbourne (from VanDread) VanDread is a show that displays all of the natural warning signs of suckage...(It's advertized  as a harem AND mech show, it's based on a video game, it involves a war between
men & women, and is riddled with technobabble and magical McGuffins of "technology")...yet it is a surprisingly nice, heavilly character oriented bit of fantasy.

Likewise, Anime (and sci-fi in general) is full of hard-ass warrior 'beeotches' with attitude.

Most are boring (or loathsome) 2 dimensional parodies of viking  berserker's.
Meia Gisbourne is not one of those.
The senior flight leader for the fighter wing of a group of female pirates (ALL female...there is a battle of the...NO literally a BATTLE of the sexes  going on at the beginning of the series).
 Meia is a paragon of competence, and professionalism. She does everything in her power to save the members of her squadron that survived the pilot, putting aside her bigotries to lead by example.

When she is asked to integrate a male pilot into her outfit she does so under protest but is quick to recognize his potential and works to safeguard him as she would any other member of her crew. The fact that the male hero (her subordinate) and her never become romantically involved is a refreshing change of pace in and of itself. There is considerable professional respect between them though. She also helps develop a fine Esprit Des Corps for her perpetually outnumbered squadron.


The portrayal of her command and leadership skills is surprisingly realistic and said skills are genuinely impressive. Meia is astoundingly well realized for a fictional officer ( for example, she makes mistakes and learns from them) and is one of fairly few "ace pilots" in science fiction to be both believable and likable. This is all the more remarkable given the alternatively terrifying and screwball situations she finds her suddenly mismatched flight team up against.

Noble, professional, and displaying a rare combination of physical and moral courage, Meia is presented as a fine example of what an junior officer should be .

This is a surprising find in any anime. It is an absolutely astounding one when it's a female in a mecha/harem comedy.


2:Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind: Warrior, aviatrix, scientist and diplomat, Nausicaa is the princess of a tiny principality in a distant post-apocalyptic  future.

Nausicaa is brave as they come and sharp as a tack. She is a beacon of reason and decency in a truly horrific age.


Although in she has scientific equipment not far advanced beyond "stone knives and bearskins" she uses rationalism, logic and science to determine the true purpose of the toxic forest and realizes that mankind's greatest threat is also potentially its salvation.

A cross between Annie Oakley, Ben Franklin and Joan of Arc, Nausicaa , through her optimism, determination and courage makes a tale that should by all rights be an utterly dystopic, post-apocalyptic nightmare, into a story of great and inspiring hope.

Oh, and she's cute, she can fly a weird ultra-lite-seagull thing
...and she doesn't get all freaked out by bugs!

1:Kyoko Otanashi (from Maison Ikkoku) Looking tantalizingly like InuYasha's Kagome might if she weren't...you know...umm...jailbait,

Er,

The lovely widow Kyoko Otanashi is the owner and manager of a small boarding house filled with the weirdest of tenants. She is deeply loyal...to a fault...remaining chaste for a very long time out of respect for her late husband.

Kyoko is optimistic, competent and deals with the peculiar types of weirdness life throws at her with considerable grace and aplomb. Happily, she does eventually manage to find someone new.

She's a cute sane, competent woman who falls for a man, who, despite being well beyond typical college age, is trying to pursue a college education despite considerable obstacles and setbacks!!!!!

WHICH MAKES HER THE HOTTEST ANIME BABE EVAH!!!!

Update:Fixed formatting, spelling and factual errors.

Posted by: The Brickmuppet at 07:13 PM | Comments (8) | Add Comment
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1 A good list, but... Neither of the Dirty Pair?

Posted by: Pixy Misa at Sun May 13 19:34:31 2007 (PiXy!)

2 I like the new digs, Brickmuppet!  Are you going to import all of your old stuff, or keep the old blogspot place as an archive?

Here's a few more babes I'd add to your list:

Major Makoto Kusanagi from the <i>GITS</i> franchise - beautiful, packing massive heat, and always in control, through all of her various incarnations.  Her, um, <i>indeterminate</i> sexuality is a bonus as well.

Lucy (note - not Nyuu) from Elfen Lied.  I love 'em beautiful and vicious.

It's early yet, but Nadie from <i>El Cazador</i> could break the top tier.  She's Noir's Mireille with better looks and a lot more personality.  She's got a lamentable tendency to disarm rather than kill, though, so she's got some hurdles to overcome.

I could come up with more, but it's your list, not mine.  I just couldn't resist throwing a few more into the mix.

Posted by: astro at Sun May 13 20:41:41 2007 (q4NkN)

3 Gah, no html for me.  I guess that's why the toolbar at the top of the comment box is there...

Posted by: astro at Sun May 13 20:43:16 2007 (q4NkN)

4

Where did you get the idea that Vandread was based on a computer game? I can't find any mention of that in the usual sources (Anime News Network, AnimeNFO, Wikipedia).

The basic idea (3 men captured by a ship full of beautiful young women) sounds like an H-game, but I don't think Vandread actually was one.

Posted by: Steven Den Beste at Wed May 16 00:55:06 2007 (+rSRq)

5 I notice that you appear to be picking women based on criteria other than breasts and personality. Oh well, you've obviously got looks in there somewhere....

As for your choices, #5 makes me feel very, very deprived, to have missed that..Actually, I have seen exactly two of those series, and I'm sad to say Urusei Yatsura isn't one of them -- except for the first episode, raw, years ago.

Posted by: ubu roi at Wed May 16 19:08:36 2007 (II3cW)

6 Well, Ubu,  you are right...those are not irrelevant qualities to be sure but alone they are just hollow....OTOH, I don't think any of these angels of acetate are homely.

Regards the lack of the Dirty Pair, the fact that everyone around them tends to die horribly is a bit of a turn off.....as for competent gunbunnies, Roberta fills that niche well....and she likes kids.

While Major Kusanagi is super competent, and her questionable humanity, makes her a fascinating, indeed a poignant character, she is a bit offputting.  Her clinical coldness is like the curvy fanservice in Eiken....far beyond diminishing returns.

 I must say though, that I really like the Ghost in the Shell TV show. Its like CSI meets Phillip K Dick! The tranhumanist aspects are handled pretty darn well.

I'm not turned on by viciousness and or bloodthirstiness, which for some inexplicable reason, doesn't actually register with me as "hot"...You see, as s might be inferred from the disturbing tendency to equate drawings of fictional characters with hotness,   I'm a weird, deluded and lonely man....go figure.



The one I really kick myself for not including is June the Swallow from Gatchaman...

Perhaps another update is in order below the fold.....

Posted by: Brickmuppet at Wed May 16 20:10:27 2007 (V5zw/)

7 All of these are lovely, no doubt. But I offer a few more for your consideration, if you have not already thought about them and possible places on your list.

In no particular order:

Pirotess, from Record of Lodoss War. She's a villainess with style and grace, and all too human, even if she is actually an elf. She's intelligent, honorable, strong-willed, competent, fearless, ruthless, and flawlessly beautiful.

Faye Valentine, from Cowboy Bebop. Possibly she is too obviously the Fanservice Character for the show. But she is, in addition to being gorgeous, also an intelligently written "bad girl," with superb voice acting in both the original Japanese and the English dub.

Ritsuko Akagi, from Neon Genesis Evangelion. I know, everybody loves TEH REI, but consider this brooding mad scientist babe. Like most other characters in this series, she's an emotional cripple and barely functional, struggling with self-loathing and her fixation on a man who doesn't love her. But she's also brilliant, strong-willed, outspoken, and proud. She's fascinating and I find her endlessly deep. Also, she's breathtakingly, heartbreakingly beautiful. I love Misato Katsuragi too, but, if I may borrow a phrase from 4chan's anime discussion boards, it's Ritsu that I want to be mai waifu. ;_;

Rally Vincent, from Gunsmith Cats. She's a little crazy, but she's smart, tough, and hypercompetent. And who doesn't like cute little brown-skinned women with a pageboy hairdo?

Posted by: me at Sun Jul 27 23:38:18 2008 (iH2xr)

8 The girls from the older anime I think shouldn't be rated as very "hot" since they always have flat thick hair and kind of always look they same.

Posted by: Halish at Wed Feb 24 07:02:53 2010 (axHrn)

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"Parsons was Winston's fellow employee at the Ministry of Truth. He was a fattish but active man of paralyzing stupidity, a mass of imbecile enthusiasms—one of those completely unquestioning, devoted drudges on whom, more even than on the thought police, the stability of the Party depended."

 1984 George Orwell

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Well, "adventure" is too strong a word but here is how my life is going.
Much insipid banality below the fold...




more...

Posted by: The Brickmuppet at 11:47 PM | Comments (5) | Add Comment
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1 One suggestion:  Rather than resizing your images using the editor, use the image manager. Old Grouch has a great post about that.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at Sun May 13 00:28:37 2007 (PiXy!)

2 Its good to see you with a blog that does what you want it to.   Keep up the good work, Ken.

Posted by: Marina at Sun May 13 01:43:02 2007 (YEq7+)

3 Thanks for the heads up. They looked fine in draft form...but wow!...They did not shrink well at awl!

Posted by: Ken at Sun May 13 03:21:24 2007 (73lWn)

4 Taking on 35kg was quite a bit, I'm sorry to say. I had a knee surgery for a torn ACL reconstruction and had to drop martial arts, but I only got maybe a couple of kilos (to ten pounds maybe). But I wasn't bedridden after a couple of days, so maybe that's the difference.

I'm surprised that CG measures weight and fat content, that's really odd. One would imagine them measuring how many pull-ups and push-ups you can do, your time to 2 mile run and things of that nature. Sounds like bureaucracy metastasing. But I suppose there's no point in complaining, it's just what it is.

Posted by: Pete Zaitcev at Sun May 13 13:38:05 2007 (9imyF)

5 Hurricane Isabel hit 2 days after surgery, there was no therapy...no power....no running water for over a month. Aside from 1 foray to the physical therapy facility....which turned out to be non functional...a slight detour on the way back to check on a friends house and 1 trip to another friends house to get his emergency generator started (it was an emergency...his mom was on oxygen) I was pretty much a vegetable while on my 30 days of medical leave. I was not permitted to excersize beyond physical therapy for several months after that.

Most of my many problems are self inflicted but the complications and unusually long recovery time from what should have been a simple ACL transplant was due to circumstances.

I'm also a natural fattass to begin with, I was well over 320 pounds at one point in the early/mid 90s.

Posted by: Brickmuppet at Sun May 13 14:33:08 2007 (V5zw/)

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It's the random anime plot generator!

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