Reddit mentions: The best military history books

Yes! I'm a student studying RPG design, so I like to think I have at least a vague idea of what I'm talking about.

Some various sources, some paid and some free:

• Roleplaying Theory, Hardcore, a series of old blog posts by Vincent Baker. A lot of this stuff is boiled-down versions of what the Forge--which others have mentioned--was all about.
  
  
• Second Person by Herrigan and Wardrip-Fruin; it's a bunch of essays about roleplaying and roleplaying games. It covers both digital and tabletop, so it's a little all over the place, but it is quite good.
  
  
• Playing at the World by Jon Peterson. It's a huge history of roleplaying games and related games, which covers less hard theory than it does the evolution of the game itself. Super helpful if you're into the history, less so if you're not.
  
  
• #rpgtheory on Twitter. There's definitely some flak in there, but it's also definitely worth checking on every week or two, to see if there's been any good threads popping up.
  
  
• The Arts of LARP, by David Simkins. This is LARP-focused, but it has a lot of good stuff on roleplaying in general, especially the more philosophical angles.
  
  
• ars ludi, Ben Robbins' blog. He writes about all sorts of stuff, but if you go through the archives and find the green-triangle'd and starred posts, those are the sort of 'greatest hits.'
  
  
• Role-Playing Game Studies, by Zagal and Deterding. This is another collection of essays (which includes some stuff by Simkins and Peterson, too, IIRC) and is kind of the go-to for this sort of thing.
  
  
• And the Forge, as mentioned by others.
  
  That's a pretty good list of theory and texts and stuff.
  
  One of the ways to learn good RPG theory, I've found, though, is to just read good RPGs.
  
  It's also highly worth digging through acknowledgements and credits of your favorite RPGs and then tracking down the names mentioned. If you're reading a big, hefty RPG, like D&D, pay special attention to any consultants, specialists, or other people listed under strange credit areas.
  
  Anyway, when you eventually dig your way through all of this, I'll probably have read some more, so hit me up if you want more suggestions. Those top seven or eight things are probably the best place to start.
  
  Edit: my personal list of games was rather reductive, as several commentators have called me out on, so I've removed it. Go read lots of RPGs.

Michael Shaara wrote historical fiction, yes? Well there are a ton of great books and documentaries with a more "narrative" perspective to help you get started with WWI.

• The Great War from the BBC, filmed and broadcast in the 1960s. It's very old school but still, in my opinion, unsurpassed in its breadth and detail (though it is, of course, somewhat more focused on the British experience). If you google it you should be able to find some options for purchase.
  
  
• They Shall Not Grow Old is a brilliant little documentary just put out by Peter Jackson (of Lord of the Rings fame). You can find the trailer here and I believe there are some streaming options if you live in the US.
  
  
• The Great War youtube series is also great and geared more towards digesting the war in small bites. Very well produced and sourced videos. The best part is, they have a very global perspective. Go to their Youtube homepage and just click around until you find a video you like. You can also try and watch them in release order (they covered the war "as it happened" a hundred years later).
  
  
• Storm of Steel by Ernst Jünger is, I think, the best book for getting the soldier's perspective on life during the war, and on combat. He was a highly decorated German infantry officer who, to be frank, really enjoyed his experience of war, or at least considered it to be a positive, life-changing experience. If you can read German I'd suggest the original, but you can also grab the Penguin Classics edition or see if they have it at your library. Henri Barbusse wrote a similar book, Le Feu, that was written from the French perspective and much more critical of war/combat than Jünger.
  
  
• I really want to recommend Egon Erwin Kisch's Schreib das auf, Kisch! which is the published (and lightly edited) version of his war diary from 1914 to 1915. Unfortunately, I've only ever been able to find it in German (or Czech), but I figured I'd post it here in case OP reads German or in case anyone reading this thread later does. It's a beautiful portrayal of the war from the Austrian perspective, and takes the reader to the Serbian and Galician fronts, which some readers may not be familiar with. Someone desperately needs to translate this to English.
  
  
• Oh yeah, getting back to documentaries for a second, I forgot about The First World War (2003). It's a ten-parter from the BBC and it's based on the companion book by esteemed historian Hew Strachan. I'd recommend both.
  
  Ok these next two are a bit out there, but I'm trying to answer within OP's question, so mods, don't send me over the top!
  
  
• Since you mentioned Shaara, I can recommend Fall of Giants by Ken Follett, which is a historical novel set just before and during World War I. It follows several families from Germany, Wales, Russia and America, and their intertwined stories during the Great War. There are two sequels, which follow the same families and characters through 1) the interwar period and WWII and 2) the Cold War. They are fiction but they do a serviceable job at communicating the texture of the era and they may introduce you to some interesting people/places/things that you haven't heard about before.
  
  
• Finally, if you like video games, I think Battlefield 1 is a good way to passively learn some WWI history as you play. You won't learn much just playing online, but the Operations game mode does an interesting job of having players play along some famous WWI campaigns, all while explaining in broad terms the operational and strategic implications of the battles. I don't suggest that people learn their history, per se, playing BF1, but the game very much succeeds at highlighting theaters and battles that are not first in the public's imagination regarding WWI. So at the very least, you may have your interest piqued, say, regarding Monte Grappa and the Piave Front.
  
  These books/docs do not by any means stand in for sitting down with a good book on WWI (which we can also recommend), but they should hopefully present reliable information in a more narrative and gripping fashion. These are the works I recommend to people when they say "I know nothing about World War I, where should I start?" These are interest-piquers, so whenever you're confused by something write it down and start your research.
  
  Again, I wasn't sure how to answer this question within AH's guidelines, since this isn't exactly a history question per se. Let me know if I need to edit anything.

Sigh.

I would like to recommend you a book Napoleon the Great. The audio book edition is also really well read.

One of my personal observations from this book was regarding Napoleon's rise following the revolution.

Napoleon was Italian and his father was a minor court administrator in Corsica. At that time Italy was not yet a nation state, just a collect of city states and in order to sure up political influence, all Corsican nobility where allowed to claim admittance to the French court. Napoleon's father saw an opportunity and sent his young son to the French military school.

Fast forward a couple of years and Napoleon is now an officer in the French army. He was very well read and had written a couple of minor essays in support of the revolution. With the majority of the officers coming from French nobility, many fled (or were executed) as the revolution heated up. Napoleon was one of the few people with officer training and experience but was outside of the traditional French aristocracy and could be trusted as a revolutionary. Napoleon was a singlely talented individual, but without the circumstances of his origin, such talent may never have seen the light.

With Napoleon's personal story on your mind (as well as JP's comments about how powerful the ability to write makes you) I would like you to re-consider your stance on the Jews.

The Jews maintained their unique culture and literary traditions while literacy was lacking in the general population. Despite their high level of education they were often excluded from society due to their religious differences. Because of their education (and freedom from leading restrictions) they were often wealthy, and that wealth plus cultural exclusion would often lead to persecution.

It is easy to hypothesis that this tradition of both high education and social exclusion would put them in the perfect position if there was ever some large scale social unrest. Like Napoleon, once the educated ruling class fled (or were killed) they would be the only ones with the skills to lead. Secondly, as they had been ostracised by the ruling classes, it is only natural that they would foment revolutionary thinkers and be trusted by the masses.

There is no Jewish conspiracy. They didn't plot and they certainly didn't benefit from it. Rather, just as Napoleon was an educated individual in rare position to make use of his education, so too certain Jewish individuals, who benefited from their cultural heritage, were in a position to take advantage of the situation of large social change.

Hopefully it goes without saying that you can't learn something physical from the books.

But if you're the kind of person who likes to read a lot, and want to supplement your learning by reading about fencing theory, then here's what I would recommend.

First, read pretty much any general book about fencing. I've read quite a few books about fencing, but generally they're mostly all the same. Here's one that I've read that is indicative of most books, but there's loads

The only thing you're really trying to take away from it getting basic descriptions of the equipment, some basic nomenclature - "lunge", "fleche", "quarte", "disengage", "ballestra", etc. Maybe some basic history. You could also get all this stuff from wikipedia if you wanted, but maybe a book form might be presented in a nicer way.

A lot of these books will talk about mental game, perfect technique, and the great masters of whenever. This is mostly absolute garbage. Most of the history will be incorrect, and only semi-true 'factoids'. It often comes off as a bit of "mysticism". If you have any experience in the culture of martial arts you probably know what I mean.

So once you have a rough idea of what all the parries are, and what we call all the footwork movements, more or less, I would recommend reading Epee 2.0 (2.5 or whatever it's on now).

This book talks about a pragmatic based approach to fencing. No one makes a perfect lunge, and in fact, there is not even such a thing as a perfect lunge. Lots of moves that you learn aren't actually all that useful. etc. If you can internalize the themes of this book, that is very useful for approaching fencing in a way conducive to competitive success.

Then I would look at understanding fencing, which has a lot of very technical thoughts about fencing. E.g. Beyond just what is a step, or a lunge, he talks about different kinds of actions tactically speaking (e.g. pre-planned vs open eyes etc.).

If you read those three, you'll be in good shape

Other comments here are spot on.

The simplistic version that underlies all of them is humans are smart so they can identify a problem and approach the desired solution iteratively. This creates a feedback loop.

Before "modern" (the mid to late 1800's onwards) machine tools, you had people making a lot of things custom every time using files to get parts to mate together. There are some exceptions to this with specific measurement and manufacturing tools that were conceived and used but they weren't in wide spread use before the Industrial Revolution and they didn't look as similar to today's machines as everything after. We humans are really good at tweaking stuff slightly until it is far beyond the precision of the individual pieces itself.

Similarly, if I took any old lathe or mill, measured my part to be 0.100" and needed it to be 0.050", I could dial a cut in at 0.05" and take it but depending on the quality and rigidity of the machine, workholding, bearing surfaces and tooling, I would be hard pressed to hit that 0.050" dead on. However, I could take as many passes I wanted while remeasuring until I'm happy with the result. Cut 0.020" off, measure again, I should have 0.030" left but I actually have 0.027" left. Cut again this time at 0.010" and I should have 0.017" left but I have 0.015" left etc.

As others mentioned, the 3 plate method allows you to generate with time and effort, a very precisely flat surface. I could generate that surface, use it as my surface referenced plate and then hand scrape a piece to match it's flatness and squareness to the best of my willingness to work on it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hand_scraper if you're unfamiliar. The craftsman inks (blues) up a reference surface, imprints the work piece by rubbing it on that surface. Only the points in contact touch. Using a scraper and some training, you can remove .0002" with a scraper cut. Remove all of the high spots that are blue bringing the high spots closer to the average. Remark and do it again iteratively. Each time you bring your work surface closer to your reference.

The same thing was done with precision lead screws. Hand made screws were cut with primitive methods and put in early lathe like machines to cut more screws. These machines had error compensation methods built in that averaged the thread cutting across the original screw (or sometimes multiple screws) resulting in a screw that was more precise than what you started with.

For calibrating a reference surface for flatness, you can use levels or autocollimators for overall variations. The precision of your level can be increased by increasing the longitudinal radius of your glass bubble dial.

An excerpt from another post I made in /r/cnc:
Some source material to consider:
LINK A great site with collections of documents covering major works in the development of precision tools.

Precision Machine Design - Slocum more of a textbook on precision machine design but has tons of footnotes and talks about some of the developmental history.)

Inventing Accuracy: A Historical Sociology of Nuclear Missile Guidance talks about some of the accuracy needed in Oakridge etc to help make the atomic bomb and precision guided missiles before GPS existed even for the military. A number of military interests drove ultra precision development such as this and the large optical diamond turning maching (LODTM)

Rolling Bearings and their contribution to the progress of technology covers the history of bearings that allowed precision machinery.

Machine Tool Reconditioning is an older book and highly technical but is considered the bible for old machine tool rebuilding and goes into the processes of how one would make precision flat surfaces and check all of the geometry on their machines and fix them in a time before lasers and fancy computer controlled equipment.

Foundations of Mechanical Accuracy and the followup book Holes, Contours and Surfaces was written by Moore and his son (I believe, respectively), the first especially is considered a bible on the theory of obtaining super precision tolerances. The authors are part of Moore Tool Company which made amongst other machines Moore Jig Borers.

Mitutoyo has a pdf on the history of gauge blocks

You can further go down that rabbit hole and look at metrology books as one can achieve great tolerances by iteratively approaching a desired value and having proper metrology equipment to check your work as you go. For example, metrology standards

You can also look at old professional telescope building books and newer diy telescope making books as there's a lot of interesting information and techniques to obtain precision optics on the order of wavelengths of light.

As someone else here mentioned: How Round Is Your Circle

I can probably dig up a lot more. I've spent way to much money purchasing old out of print books related to precision machinery, machining and metrology.

From the iterative process of making basic tools, you can then use those tools to make even better tools through iteration. In many ways, it's similar to Moore's law in the electronics world; a exponential curve where we stand on the shoulder of giants and improve upon what already exists. Many have proposed technology as a whole as just that such as Ray Kurzweil in "The Singularity is Near" etc.

Edit: Thanks for the gold!

You are correct in that all of these things will help you enter and strike.

The manuals are a compendium of techniques, not a guide to "this is exactly what you must do". From the sounds of things, you are wanting more information into how to approach a fight rather than the actual techniques themselves. In that regards, there have been numerous books regarding fencing theory written for modern olympic fencing that would be of great use to you. The weapons are not the same but all preparatory actions translate very well into each other. The only part of the manual that talks about these (to my knowledge) are the naichraissens, the vor/nach plays and vaguely glossed over in the first part on the line, "All Art has Length and Measure".

Recommended reading:

• "The Onion - Vor & Nach flow exercises" by Roger Norling
  
  
• Understanding longsword - K. Ruokonen's blog
  
  
• Understanding Fencing - By Z Czajkowski. This is actually about modern epee fencing and fencing in general but works well as a modern take on fencing theory
  
  
• Epee 2.0 - by Johan Harmenber. Another modern book focusing on how to win. Essentially boils down to "do several things really really well instead of lots of things really well". And some other stuff.
  
  
• MS 3227a - "Hanko Dobringer" - a little more esoteric than the modern ones but at least its period. You may find it useful.
  
  
• The Art of Combat - By Joachim Meyer (trans by J Forgeng). This is out of print until next year but it is the best translation of Joachim Meyer's text available. It covers a wide range of plays intended, I think, for the instruction of fencers. It really is a wonderful resource and well worth getting your hands on.

I can think of a few

• Paul Kennedy's "The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers" - WHY and how whole empires fall
  
  
• Niall Ferguson's "The Ascent of Money" - How money rules the world - here's how.
  
  
• Jarred Diamond's "Guns, Germs and Steel" - his thesis might not be entirely correct - but it's a VERY fair look at how our history was influenced by these factors.
  
  
• Bruce Bueno De Mesquita's - "The Predictioneer's Game" - - How quantitative models are SCARILY accurate
  
  
• Emanuel Derman's "Models Behaving Badly" - And how sometimes quantitative models are totally wrong.
  
  
• Paul Roberts - "The End of Oil" - Probably the most serious and balanced read on what could be one of the most important economic problems facing our modern civilization in the next 20 years.
  
  
• Frank & Cook's "Winner Take All Society" - and why things are a problem.
  
  
• Richard Florida's "The Great Reset" - Florida is a pretty good author all around - far better than some others in the pitch.
  
  
• James Bamford's amazing "Body of Secrets" - Not all our enemies are external, and sometimes our allies turn out to actually be thuggish & deadly enemies.
  
  
• Iris Chang's "The Rape of Nanking" - Nobody here is exactly as they appear.
  
  
• Carl Sagan's "A Demon Haunted World"
  
  
• Robin Marantz Henig's "A Monk in the Garden" - Yeah - the priest that proved Darwin's theory, in 1865.....oh yeah and he invented statistics along the way.
  
  
• Brian Sykes' "The seven Daughters of Eve"
  
  
• Douglas Hofstadter's "Metamagical Themas" - Every page is practically amazing - a collection of amazing old articles from Dr. H's work
  
  
• Kristina Borjesson's edit of "Into the Buzzsaw" - the hard truth about a couple of things in the US media
  
  
• Richard Dawkins' "Climbing Mount Improbable" - a great work about such an amazing idea.
  
  
• Kim Sterelny's "Dawkins vs. Gould" - this is a REAL debate about evolution!
  

> I don't think you can have quality emergent complexity (depth) without elegance. Elegance is a byproduct of a strong core mechanism, and without that you really have no chance.

Sorry, but that is just euro-gamer-snobbery. Emergent complexity is very strong in over-designed complex games like many oldschool roguelikes (Nethack etc) or Cataclysm: DDA or Dwarf Fortress. Nothing elegant about the designs, but just throwing in that amount of complexity creates an environment where interesting complex stories emerge all the time.

There is at least one equivalent in boardgames I have experience with: Advanced Squad Leader. Hundreds of pages of rules, but thanks to there being rules for everything and lots of different units moving on different terrain fun things happen all the time.

Of course almost any pen-and-paper role-playing game ever would probably be a good examples of this as well. Even when the rules are (unusually) short, the presence of a human game-master means that complexity is limitless.

This is something that comes up a lot in the book Playing at the World: Games where players can "try anything". Of course only real rpgs can really do that, but some roguelikes, computer-rpgs, and ameritrash-games (and a few wargames like ASL) also comes close. Allowing the player to attempt to do anything that would make sense in a situation, rather than restricting them to some small set of "elegant" rules, is a fantastic way to make interesting things emerge.

I started kendo about three months ago, so I can tell you where I'm at:

Footwork, footwork, footwork. Every week most of the time is spent on footwork and yet I still don't feel confident about it. I know I'm improving because my sensei said so, but I feel like I have a long way to go before I can even begin to feel confident in it. Ki-ken-tai-ichi is still not there for me.

At my dojo we had shinai from the very first day, and we practice swinging in each class as well. The first few weeks were men-focused, but we moved on to kote, and dou most recently. Dou is taking some time to learn to do properly.

My stamina has definitely improved, and I notice a bigger improvement if I practice several times throughout the week rather than just at class. Now I can actually make it to the end of class without feeling like I'm going to pass out! Initially, however, it was definitely a struggle. Just after the half hour warm-up I would be completely exhausted.

I still wear work-out clothes (no hakama/keikogi yet) and own no bogu. However, my sensei did start encouraging people to buy their own bokken just last week.

Early on, I bought this book to help me learn all the terminology. I highly recommend it - it has helped me immensely.

Three_Letter_Agency: ^^original ^^reddit ^^link

History of Bin Laden/Al Qaeda

• US Security officials rejected key information on bin laden by Sudan (theres a theme here with investigating bin laden before 9/11 isnt there)
  
  
• "Bin Laden was, though, a product of a monumental miscalculation by western security agencies. Throughout the 80s he was armed by the CIA and funded by the Saudis to wage jihad against the Russian occupation of Afghanistan. Al-Qaida, literally "the database", was originally the computer file of the thousands of mujahideen who were recruited and trained with help from the CIA to defeat the Russians. Inexplicably, and with disastrous consequences, it never appears to have occurred to Washington that once Russia was out of the way, Bin Laden's organisation would turn its attention to the west." - Robin Cook, former UK Foreign Secretary
  
  
• The CIA created and armed the Mujahideen with 7.5 billion in 1979 and the Saudis matched them dollar for dollar
  
  
• Bin Ladens MAK, precursor to Al Qaeda, received funding from the ISI (which received funding from the CIA)
  
  
• Bin Ladens tunnel complex, which he would later use after 9/11, was financed by the CIA
  
  
• "The Sudanese security services, he said, would happily keep close watch on bin Laden for the United States. But if that would not suffice, the government was prepared to place him in custody and hand him over, though to whom was ambiguous. In one formulation, Erwa said Sudan would consider any legitimate proffer of criminal charges against the accused terrorist." Their negotiations concluded as such: ""We said he will go to Afghanistan, and they [US officials!] said, 'Let him.'"- Washington Post 2001
  
  
• Clinton declined to charge bin laden with a crime in 94 even though he had been clearly linked to the WTC bombings.
  
  
• MI6 paid large sums to al qaeda in Libya to assassinate gadhaffi in 96. Gadaffi issued an INTERPOL arrest warrant for bin Laden in 98, US and UK downplayed it, likely because they had recently funded the libya cell. 5 months later, al qaeda bombed US embassies in Tanzania and Kenya
  
  
• Al Qaeda and the US fought on the same side of the war in Kosovo and Bosnia. They recently repeated the process with Libya and Syria
  
  
• According to the official story, bin Laden turned against the US after they occupied military bases in Saudi Arabia. This doesnt make sense, because: Scott Armstrong, at the time the top investigative reporter for the Washington Post, stated that the United States and Saudi Arabia had jointly conspired to covertly build $200 billion worth of military installations between the years 1979 and 1992. Steve Coll, eminent Bin Laden biographer, states that the Binladen group received a multitude of these contracts, with the knowing intent to support to house US military personal during wars that may threaten Saudi territory. This was occuring at the same time that Osama was tight with his family and using Binladen group assets to build bases in Afghanistan. Of course he was aware of the business dealings between the company.
  
  
• Prince Bandar bin Sultan of Saudi Arabia, on Larry King Live: "In the mid-'80s, if you remember, we and the United - Saudi Arabia and the United States were supporting the Mujahideen to liberate Afghanistan from the Soviets. He [Osama bin Laden] came to thank me for my efforts to bring the Americans, our friends, to help us against the atheists, he said the communists. Isn't it ironic?"
  
  
• And then there is the fascinating story of Egyptian Ali Muhammed, only tangentially related but thoroughly interesting nonetheless.
  He was a part of the fundamentalist military unit that assassinated Egyptian President Anwar Sadat in 1981. In 1984, he was hired by the CIA, though they claim that their relationship was short-lived. He would soon join the military and become a member of the Green Berets, and serve as a drill sergeant at Fort Bragg while providing clandestine training to jihadists such as Mahmud Abaouhalima, convicted perpetrator of the 1993 World Trade Center bombings.
  
  
• He would take a short leave from his military duties and travel to Afghanistan in 1988 to assist the Mujahideen, returning just months later.
  
  
• In the early 1990's he would return to Afghanistan and began training jihadists with the skills he had learned at Fort Bragg. According to former FBI special agent Jack Cloonan, in an interview with PBS, his first training session included Osama bin Laden, as well as Ayman al-Zawahiri, the current leader of Al Qaeda.
  
  
• Former Directors of Counter-terrorism at the National Security Council have alleged that Muhammed took maps and training materials from Fort Bragg and used them to write the Al Qaeda terrorist training manual.
  
  
• His superior at Fort Bragg, Lt. Col. Robert Anderson, has stated that “I think you or I would have a better chance of winning the Powerball lottery, than an Egyptian major in the unit that assassinated Sadat would have getting a visa, getting to California, getting into the Army and getting assigned to a Special Forces unit. That just doesn’t happen.”
  
  
• Elsewhere he stated that "It was unthinkable that an ordinary American GI would go unpunished after fighting in a foreign war," and that he assumed that Muhammed was sponsored by the CIA.

There are some really good suggestions here, but a couple of books that were good entry points for me haven't been mentioned yet:

Sync by Steven Strogatz.

How The Universe Got Its Spots by Janna Levin.

Both of these books are rather specific interest type books, but they're both written so well that they are easy entry points into more reading later.

Edit: Ooh ooh I forgot about Plagues and Peoples. A great read that really makes you rethink global history, along the lines of (and drastically predating) another great book about cultural history Guns, Germs and Steel. Both of these books are kind of a mix of history, sociology and science, so it might not be what you're looking for though.

History of Bin Laden/Al Qaeda

• US Security officials rejected key information on bin laden by Sudan (theres a theme here with investigating bin laden before 9/11 isnt there)
  
  
• "Bin Laden was, though, a product of a monumental miscalculation by western security agencies. Throughout the 80s he was armed by the CIA and funded by the Saudis to wage jihad against the Russian occupation of Afghanistan. Al-Qaida, literally "the database", was originally the computer file of the thousands of mujahideen who were recruited and trained with help from the CIA to defeat the Russians. Inexplicably, and with disastrous consequences, it never appears to have occurred to Washington that once Russia was out of the way, Bin Laden's organisation would turn its attention to the west." - Robin Cook, former UK Foreign Secretary
  
  
• The CIA created and armed the Mujahideen with 7.5 billion in 1979 and the Saudis matched them dollar for dollar
  
  
• Bin Ladens MAK, precursor to Al Qaeda, received funding from the ISI (which received funding from the CIA)
  
  
• Bin Ladens tunnel complex, which he would later use after 9/11, was financed by the CIA
  
  
• "The Sudanese security services, he said, would happily keep close watch on bin Laden for the United States. But if that would not suffice, the government was prepared to place him in custody and hand him over, though to whom was ambiguous. In one formulation, Erwa said Sudan would consider any legitimate proffer of criminal charges against the accused terrorist." Their negotiations concluded as such: ""We said he will go to Afghanistan, and they [US officials!] said, 'Let him.'"- Washington Post 2001
  
  
• Clinton declined to charge bin laden with a crime in 94 even though he had been clearly linked to the WTC bombings.
  
  
• MI6 paid large sums to al qaeda in Libya to assassinate gadhaffi in 96. Gadaffi issued an INTERPOL arrest warrant for bin Laden in 98, US and UK downplayed it, likely because they had recently funded the libya cell. 5 months later, al qaeda bombed US embassies in Tanzania and Kenya
  
  
• Al Qaeda and the US fought on the same side of the war in Kosovo and Bosnia. They recently repeated the process with Libya and Syria
  
  
• According to the official story, bin Laden turned against the US after they occupied military bases in Saudi Arabia. This doesnt make sense, because: Scott Armstrong, at the time the top investigative reporter for the Washington Post, stated that the United States and Saudi Arabia had jointly conspired to covertly build $200 billion worth of military installations between the years 1979 and 1992. Steve Coll, eminent Bin Laden biographer, states that the Binladen group received a multitude of these contracts, with the knowing intent to support to house US military personal during wars that may threaten Saudi territory. This was occuring at the same time that Osama was tight with his family and using Binladen group assets to build bases in Afghanistan. Of course he was aware of the business dealings between the company.
  
  
• Prince Bandar bin Sultan of Saudi Arabia, on Larry King Live: "In the mid-'80s, if you remember, we and the United - Saudi Arabia and the United States were supporting the Mujahideen to liberate Afghanistan from the Soviets. He [Osama bin Laden] came to thank me for my efforts to bring the Americans, our friends, to help us against the atheists, he said the communists. Isn't it ironic?"
  
  
• And then there is the fascinating story of Egyptian Ali Muhammed, only tangentially related but thoroughly interesting nonetheless.
  He was a part of the fundamentalist military unit that assassinated Egyptian President Anwar Sadat in 1981. In 1984, he was hired by the CIA, though they claim that their relationship was short-lived. He would soon join the military and become a member of the Green Berets, and serve as a drill sergeant at Fort Bragg while providing clandestine training to jihadists such as Mahmud Abaouhalima, convicted perpetrator of the 1993 World Trade Center bombings.
  
  
• He would take a short leave from his military duties and travel to Afghanistan in 1988 to assist the Mujahideen, returning just months later.
  
  
• In the early 1990's he would return to Afghanistan and began training jihadists with the skills he had learned at Fort Bragg. According to former FBI special agent Jack Cloonan, in an interview with PBS, his first training session included Osama bin Laden, as well as Ayman al-Zawahiri, the current leader of Al Qaeda.
  
  
• Former Directors of Counter-terrorism at the National Security Council have alleged that Muhammed took maps and training materials from Fort Bragg and used them to write the Al Qaeda terrorist training manual.
  
  
• His superior at Fort Bragg, Lt. Col. Robert Anderson, has stated that “I think you or I would have a better chance of winning the Powerball lottery, than an Egyptian major in the unit that assassinated Sadat would have getting a visa, getting to California, getting into the Army and getting assigned to a Special Forces unit. That just doesn’t happen.”
  
  
• Elsewhere he stated that "It was unthinkable that an ordinary American GI would go unpunished after fighting in a foreign war," and that he assumed that Muhammed was sponsored by the CIA.

History of Bin Laden/Al Qaeda

• US Security officials rejected key information on bin laden by Sudan (theres a theme here with investigating bin laden before 9/11 isnt there)
  
  
• "Bin Laden was, though, a product of a monumental miscalculation by western security agencies. Throughout the 80s he was armed by the CIA and funded by the Saudis to wage jihad against the Russian occupation of Afghanistan. Al-Qaida, literally "the database", was originally the computer file of the thousands of mujahideen who were recruited and trained with help from the CIA to defeat the Russians. Inexplicably, and with disastrous consequences, it never appears to have occurred to Washington that once Russia was out of the way, Bin Laden's organisation would turn its attention to the west." - Robin Cook, former UK Foreign Secretary
  
  
• The CIA created and armed the Mujahideen with 7.5 billion in 1979 and the Saudis matched them dollar for dollar
  
  
• Bin Ladens MAK, precursor to Al Qaeda, received funding from the ISI (which received funding from the CIA)
  
  
• Bin Ladens tunnel complex, which he would later use after 9/11, was financed by the CIA
  
  
• "The Sudanese security services, he said, would happily keep close watch on bin Laden for the United States. But if that would not suffice, the government was prepared to place him in custody and hand him over, though to whom was ambiguous. In one formulation, Erwa said Sudan would consider any legitimate proffer of criminal charges against the accused terrorist." Their negotiations concluded as such: ""We said he will go to Afghanistan, and they [US officials!] said, 'Let him.'"- Washington Post 2001
  
  
• Clinton declined to charge bin laden with a crime in 94 even though he had been clearly linked to the WTC bombings.
  
  
• MI6 paid large sums to al qaeda in Libya to assassinate gadhaffi in 96. Gadaffi issued an INTERPOL arrest warrant for bin Laden in 98, US and UK downplayed it, likely because they had recently funded the libya cell. 5 months later, al qaeda bombed US embassies in Tanzania and Kenya
  
  
• Al Qaeda and the US fought on the same side of the war in Kosovo and Bosnia. They recently repeated the process with Libya and Syria
  
  
• According to the official story, bin Laden turned against the US after they occupied military bases in Saudi Arabia. This doesnt make sense, because: Scott Armstrong, at the time the top investigative reporter for the Washington Post, stated that the United States and Saudi Arabia had jointly conspired to covertly build $200 billion worth of military installations between the years 1979 and 1992. Steve Coll, eminent Bin Laden biographer, states that the Binladen group received a multitude of these contracts, with the knowing intent to support to house US military personal during wars that may threaten Saudi territory. This was occuring at the same time that Osama was tight with his family and using Binladen group assets to build bases in Afghanistan. Of course he was aware of the business dealings between the company.
  
  
• Prince Bandar bin Sultan of Saudi Arabia, on Larry King Live: "In the mid-'80s, if you remember, we and the United - Saudi Arabia and the United States were supporting the Mujahideen to liberate Afghanistan from the Soviets. He [Osama bin Laden] came to thank me for my efforts to bring the Americans, our friends, to help us against the atheists, he said the communists. Isn't it ironic?"
  
  
• And then there is the fascinating story of Egyptian Ali Muhammed, only tangentially related but thoroughly interesting nonetheless.
  He was a part of the fundamentalist military unit that assassinated Egyptian President Anwar Sadat in 1981. In 1984, he was hired by the CIA, though they claim that their relationship was short-lived. He would soon join the military and become a member of the Green Berets, and serve as a drill sergeant at Fort Bragg while providing clandestine training to jihadists such as Mahmud Abaouhalima, convicted perpetrator of the 1993 World Trade Center bombings.
  
  
• He would take a short leave from his military duties and travel to Afghanistan in 1988 to assist the Mujahideen, returning just months later.
  
  
• In the early 1990's he would return to Afghanistan and began training jihadists with the skills he had learned at Fort Bragg. According to former FBI special agent Jack Cloonan, in an interview with PBS, his first training session included Osama bin Laden, as well as Ayman al-Zawahiri, the current leader of Al Qaeda.
  
  
• Former Directors of Counter-terrorism at the National Security Council have alleged that Muhammed took maps and training materials from Fort Bragg and used them to write the Al Qaeda terrorist training manual.
  
  
• His superior at Fort Bragg, Lt. Col. Robert Anderson, has stated that “I think you or I would have a better chance of winning the Powerball lottery, than an Egyptian major in the unit that assassinated Sadat would have getting a visa, getting to California, getting into the Army and getting assigned to a Special Forces unit. That just doesn’t happen.”
  
  
• Elsewhere he stated that "It was unthinkable that an ordinary American GI would go unpunished after fighting in a foreign war," and that he assumed that Muhammed was sponsored by the CIA.

Not OP, but spent time on attack subs myself.

1. Rescues are possible well beyond the normal operating depths of a submarine. Check out this Wiki about the Navy's Deep Submergence Rescue Vehicle.
   
   
2. The problem isn't whether there is capability, it is whether the North Koreans would allow us anywhere close to the situation to help. Russia/the USSR has lost a surprising amount of submarines over the years that the US may have been able to save. Pride and politics stand in the way. There is international law regarding/mandating the rescue of mariners in distress, too. In contrast, there have been at least a couple occasions where we were able to help with foreign sub rescues.
   
   
3. Can't answer for OP, but I will say most people in the sub force prefer "submariner," but pronounced like submarine-er. English speakers tend to pronounce the word like submariner. This is said to be offensive, as it implies the person is a sub-par mariner, rather than a person in the submarine force. As far as the coolest stuff that happens/happened on submarines, check out Blind Man's Bluff: The Untold Story of American Submarine Espionage. It's a fascinating collection of stories that can be neither confirmed nor denied.

The NRA offers a solid set of rifle and pistol 101 classes. One of these would be a good way to get started. After that, competition is a great way to meet experienced shooters and grow your skills. The same applies with classes taught by a good instructor. Check out IDPA for practical pistol shooting. You didn't specifically mention what kind of firearm you're planning to learn.

There's a lot of culture and history wrapped up with firearms. Unintended Consequences is a great way to get a quick overview of that. I see that it's now out of print and rather pricey, but perhaps your library has it.

Tactical Pistol Shooting is a good text on serious use of a pistol. After that, Practical Shooting, Beyond Fundamentals is your guide to reaching the stars. The book will make no sense the first time you read it, but keep shooting and returning to it, and it will not only take your shooting to the next level but change the way you experience the world. Gabe Suarez's books are also good discussions on fighting with pistols. The hardware section in In the Gravest Extreme is woefully out of date, but the sections on legal use of lethal force still apply.

FM 23-10 is a good text on shooting a rifle. The Art of the Rifle is a very readable intro text but leaves out a lot of important things. Jim Owens's book on sight alignment and trigger control is a masterpiece, and his others are worth the price. Green Eyes, Black Rifles is the best book I've found for getting down to business with an AR-15.

But really, you're not going to learn all this from books. They'll mostly help once you've reached a level of proficiency where you can begin to accurately self assess your performance. Note that you'll be ahead of 95% shooters at that level. See Unskilled and Unaware of It for an overview of that. I thought I knew how to shoot a pistol when I showed up for my first IDPA pistol class and ended up getting my ass handed to me. It was quite a humbling experience. After that, I took some classes, spent time shooting with master-class pistoleros, and developed my skills. A few years later I was placing at the top of local matches and teaching other newbies to shoot. I've gotten fairly good with a rifle and carbine thanks to a few classes and shooting with guys that have spent time downrange.

Julie Goloski likely wouldn't appreciate the comments on male family members being the only ones qualified to teach shooting ;-)

Can't help you with shotguns.

I'm using general symbology, the shape and colors. I've been interested and studied militaria since I was a kid. I've also served in the military and been assigned to facilities that are home to USASOC, AFSOC and JSOC units and some that house and assemble projects that show up on the congressional budget with nothing more than a two word title.

Not having anything to back up an explanation of a black project's or super secret unit's or facility 's insignia is sort of the point. They're kept vague on purpose so as to be confused with many other things, yet at the same time, have clear symbolism that have direct and explicit ties to what they represent.

Without a slogan or company name or personal rank, title or name, it points toward something that's unpublicized. Because of the selection of the red circle around the diamond shape, it tells me that a few things. Given that there is a near perfect representation of the Have Blue aircraft in the color blue inside a red circle, it's easy to deduce that the circle represents a radar display that shows nothing as the aircraft (Have Blue) is flying through the observed area. This flight path is shown by the blue vector line that bisects the aircraft. It is all represented on a desert tan background, because the aircraft was tested and flown out of Groom Lake. At the time of the project, military flight suits were sage green, so the desert tan is there to add emphasis for some reason.

Also, there can be a few different flight suit or uniform insignia used on black projects, because it confuses people and the insignia aren't required under the Geneva or Hague Conventions or the more modern UN conventions, rulings or guidelines for R&D projects that don't initiate hostilities.

I could be really wrong, I'm just positing one rather obvious theory. I'm just giving a fairly educated guess without having done any research.

If I was to seek further verification personally, I'd take a look at the works of Trevor Paglen. He has done a lot of work into researching the insignia of secret US defense projects and units. He has a book or two that have been published on secret US insignia and seems to be obsessed with them. He's a pretty good guy, look up his website and contact him, if he doesn't outright have an answer, he'll at least be very interested in researching it.

https://www.amazon.com/Could-Tell-Then-Would-Destroyed/dp/193555414X/ref=mp_s_a_1_4?keywords=trevor+paglen&qid=1565136762&s=gateway&sprefix=trevor+p&sr=8-4

I've got relatives that have retired after a life working in defense and aerospace, as well as some that were USAF lifers that have worked on interesting bases from Eglin to Beale. I'll ask them and get back to you if they've any ideas.

Sorry this is a big post, but you've asked a big question

If you want a full and complete (but lengthy) answer, you need to read Guns, Germs, and Steel by Jared Diamond

I'll sum up some of his main points to give you an answer here. It all began with food production. There are many different parts of the world that independently "invented" the farming of many different local crops, but it was mainly the Fertile Crescent area that really began having agriculture on a large enough scale to support enough people in a small enough area to form cities. Why? Well, long story short, they had the right types of indigenous plants for farming. The same goes with the domestication of animals. There are many types of wild cattle, horses, and sheep in the middle east/fertile crescent region. What did north/south america have? They did domesticate animals, but mainly dogs, chicken-like birds, and alpacas. They had no large animals to break the land and increase the productivity/acre. All of this began in the fertile crescent and eventually was imported into Europe.

Another obvious advantage Europeans had was resource allocation. Iron and copper (along with other elements) were readily available throughout Europe, and other less obvious but equally vital resources such as rivers and wild animals were easier to navigate/hunt. The geography of Europe is also such that it isn't too difficult building roads that can carry goods quickly and efficiently from point A to B. Trying building/maintaining a road in the Amazon.

Next germs. As I'm sure you were taught in history class, Europeans wiped out most native americans in North and South America with several diseases, mainly smallpox but also the flu, malaria and others. What you probably weren't taught was just how massive this die off was. Tens of millions of native North/South Americans were killed off decades before whites even made it to most areas. The devastation that smallpox wreaked on these native populations was massive, swift, and in some cases, total. Whole societies were wiped off the map in a matter of months, so invading whites didn't really have to complete (ie go to war) with millions of natives. So why was it Europeans giving diseases and not the other way around? Once again he answer lies with livestock. Many of these diseases were a result of either humans living in very close contact and constantly spreading them around (the flu), or they were diseases in livestock that "jumped" to humans, like the cowpox virus. After thousands of generations of battling these diseases, Europeans became (comparatively) immune but Native Americans were left with no defense. This doesn't really answer why Europe was "ahead" of the Americas, but it certainly is telling when it comes to wondering why it was seemingly so easy to colonize the New World and subjugate the natives.

Another huge reason (perhaps the largest one you could actually point to) was that Europe became organized socially much sooner than anyplace else in the world. I mean this in terms of religion, class, and especially government. All other places in the world had these ideas at some level or another, but it seems that in Europe it reached a sort of critical mass where all of these institutions fed one another to form a stratified and organized culture. Once you have specific classes of people that are either on top or the bottom, the "ruling class" and run the land, making laws and a government that funds things like infrastructure and trips around the world looking for gold to steal.

Finally a more minor point, but one that I found most interesting. Look at a world map. All the continents except Eurasia are "tall" and not "long". In theory, being "long" is much much better for the transmission of crops and livestock because when you move longitudinally the climate changes rapidly, but when you move along a latitude line the climate doesn't change nearly as much. All livestock, and especially crops are very sensitive to the climate they live in. If it's too cold or too hot or too wet or the season isn't the right length, your crops won't grow well. Therefore it's much easier to spread agriculture and crops east west instead of north south.

If you really want to understand RPG culture, I can recommend nothing better than Jon Peterson's brilliantly researched Playing at the World.

This book take you on a historical journey through the history and tropes of table-top gaming, with a focus on the early history of D&D. The quality of the research is breathtaking and I learned a great deal about the amazingly innovative gaming groups that gave rise to modern tabletop RPGs.

Essentially, D&D was the byproduct of two mutually compatible lines of gaming experimentation:

First, wargamers who began playing at smaller and smaller scale. (Gary Gygax and his Chainmail miniatures rules)

And secondly, a type of proto-roleplaying game played by some of the groups in the Upper Midwest where people took on the roles of medieval villagers. (Notably in the early Braunstein-style games and Dave Arneson's Blackmoor.)

These two forces collided with one another and the rest, as they say, is history. Gygax brought the serious-minded combat rules, and Arneson brought the ideas of "leveling up," and the entire idea of "Dungeons," which were originally the literal dungeons beneath the castle in his world, as well as much of the early fantasy tropes and roleplaying elements.

That's just the tl;dr though, and I highly recommend reading Peterson's work if you want to really grok the early tabletop gaming scene.

Shadow Divers by Robert Kurson.

From the book description: In the tradition of Jon Krakauer’s Into Thin Air and Sebastian Junger’s The Perfect Storm comes a true tale of riveting adventure in which two weekend scuba divers risk everything to solve a great historical mystery–and make history themselves.

The audio book is particularly good with great narration by Michael Prichard with his raspy and dramatic voice.

http://www.audible.com/pd/ref=sr_1_1?asin=B002V57VVS&qid=1348609611&sr=1-1

Glad you liked it! That’s Ryan Cleckner, and I agree with you. I’ve really gotten into his stuff. He has more videos on YouTube (try searching “NSSF Ryan Cleckner”) and I’m loving going through his book (I’m a beginner). Best of luck!

I read finished Volume 5 of Churchill's WW2 memoirs, and then took a break and read the first three trades of The Wicked + The Divine and The Rise And Fall of D.O.D.O.

Churchill remains an extremely rewarding read, even though it's taken me ages, I'm really glad I've done it. It really gives a strong perspective on the period, supported by so many documents.

Wicked and Divine is fantastic from the stuff I've read so far. Definitely gonna continue reading it when I get a chance.

Rise and Fall of DODO was kind of disappointing, but it was a halfway decent novel. Just not as good as I was hoping. Having Stephenson co-write is probably a good idea, because there are actual coherent characters other than the Competent Nerd Dude. In point of fact, the Competent Nerd Dude is a super-minor character, and the book is actually written partially first person from a lady's perspective!

Definitely looking forward to August or so, when I finish up the Churchill memoirs and read a whole stack of novels for a break.

I find JRPGs fascinating, particularly the early games; they took D&D in an almost retro direction, skipping over a lot of character customization and emphasizing exploration of a huge, monster-filled landscape. It's like they refocused on the games that inspired D&D, making modern fantasy-themed miniatures wargames.

I heartily recommend Jon Peterson's Playing at the World for a deep history of role-playing games. You might also be interested in The Creation of Narrative in Tabletop Role-Playing Games, The Fantasy RPG: A New Performing Art, and Gaming as Culture. And my book, of course.

There are definitely games that rely too much on the Tolkien tropes, but overall, I think it's not a problem --there's so many good RPGs that have nothing to do with fantasy at all, and plenty of great sword & sorcery games that bring their own ideas to the table.

You might enjoy reading Guns Germs and Steel by Jared Diamond. He discusses among other things the evolution of languages and dialects and how they spread, specifically in Africa. The book tries to explain the reason certain people's from certain continents prevailed over others. It's pretty awesome read if you're into that sort of thing.

http://ebookee.org/Guns-Germs-and-Steel_318098.html

Or if you feel like paying

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0393061310?ie=UTF8&force-full-site=1&ref_=aw_bottom_links

Any book by Mary Roach- her books are hilarious, random, and informative. I like Jon Krakauer's, Sarah Vowell's, and Bill Bryson's books as well.

Some of my favorites that I can think of offhand (as another poster mentioned, I loved Devil in the White City)

No Picnic on Mount Kenya

Guns, Germs, and Steel

Collapse

The Closing of the Western Mind

What is the What

A Long Way Gone

Alliance of Enemies

The Lucifer Effect

The World Without Us

What the Dog Saw

The God Delusion (you'd probably enjoy Richard Dawkins' other books as well if you like science)

One Down, One Dead

Lust for Life

Lost in Shangri-La

Endurance

True Story

Havana Nocturne

U-boat.net for a very good online source on German submarines in both World Wars, more encyclopedic than a book, however.

Wolfpack and Battle of the Atlantic are two very readable and good books for a general overview, but there are certainly more academic or exhaustive books as well.

The U-boat War is an oldie but a goodie, written by the same person who wrote das Boot, the fictional counterpart.

On the American side, several submariners wrote very good memoirs. Thunder Below by Eugene Fluckey gives a great overview of both life at sea in an American submarine in the Pacific, but also of operational details, how the patrols worked, etc.

Just wanted to add I'm turning 44 this week and just started kendo in October of last year. So I sure hope you aren't too old!

Honestly you are super young man. While there will be youth that are starting as well, you're at the age where you have some maturity and can probably apply yourself with more focus. The sensei that ran the seminar I just went to over the weekend is 70 years old and still going. So just imagine you have over 50 years of kendo ahead of you.

A couple of resources I found that are really helpful:

http://suffolkkendo.co.uk/KendoTrainingHandbook(rev5).pdf

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/4805312319/ref=oh_details_o04_s00_i01?ie=UTF8&psc=1

Enjoy!

At lot of people mentioned some pretty cool map books already, but these are two geography-related books I'm getting for Christmas: How the States Got Their Shapes (probably better if she's American) and Guns, Germs, and Steel. The latter is less to do with maps and more to do with how geography influences civilizations. Hope that helps!

I haven't read it myself, so I can't comment, but Winston Churchill himself wrote a six-part series called, simply, The Second World War. It is available on Amazon in a styling box-set for $75. Bit pricy but seems like a wonderful gift.

Playing at the World by Jon Peterson is exactly what you are looking for. First and final chapters is the history of D&D itself while the middle chapters are a much more technical look at how the core mechanics evolved from wargaming starting back from chess variants and evolving to the system in the original D&D. It also looks at the gaming and fantasy culture that played a huge part in shaping D&D.

While I found it simply fascinating how so many things happened at just the right time and the right people came together and how things connect. It is mind blowing honestly. I can't recommend the book enough.

If you are new to D&D I do recommend getting a hold of some PDFs of the original rules and giving them a read so you know what they are talking about a bit more. Something I wish I had done, but it didn't hamper my fascination or enjoyment at all.

If you don't know japanese I found kendo books really difficult as a beginner. There are just so many terms in japanese that you will spend more time looking things up than reading. Plus there is a lot of info there you just won't be able to digest without some time in the dojo. You can still get something out of them, but be aware it can be dense. I came back to most of my books after a year or two of doing kendo and understood them a lot more.

My favorite book on kendo. Salmon sensei writes in a way I find really accessible to western kendoka. I like his blog too.

http://www.amazon.com/Kendo-Comprehensive-Guide-Japanese-Swordsmanship/dp/4805312319?ie=UTF8&keywords=kendo&qid=1462375770&ref_=sr_1_2&sr=8-2

The best history of kendo book I've found.

http://www.amazon.com/Kendo-Culture-Alexander-C-Bennett/dp/0520284372?ie=UTF8&keywords=kendo&qid=1462375770&ref_=sr_1_7&sr=8-7

There are some great resources, like the ghfs text that are targeted towards HEMA that will help. "Fencing and the Master" ( http://www.amazon.com/Fencing-Master-Laszlo-Szabo/dp/0965946800 ) and "Understanding Fencing" (http://www.amazon.com/Understanding-Fencing-Zbigniew-Czajkowski/dp/0965946886) are great books about teaching modern fencing which are very useful. They have a lot of great stuff about running group classes, and also things to look for when working with someone individually.

With two years of training in longsword, you have the technical knowledge, but what you'll need for a study group is a plan to transmit that knowledge to student. I'd suggest visiting other groups - modern fencing clubs, kendo, akido, judo, etc... and observing how they are structured and taught. If you find something that you like, keep going, but also see if the instructor would be willing to mentor you while you run your own study group.

ah I was going to suggest red storm rising but it sounds like you have read it.

Blind Mans Bluff is an excellent non fiction book on American Subs in the cold war. It is basically a series of real stories from the 1950's-1990's. Some great stuff, especially because it all actually happened. All the things you mentioned, close quarters, technical, espionage, conflict are right on the money with this one. There is a really good part about an American fast attack trailing a Russian Boomer through an entire deployment on the east coast, also great accounts of how the americans wire tapped soviet comm's cables in the Barrents sea

http://www.amazon.com/Blind-Mans-Bluff-Submarine-Espionage/dp/006097771X

No, I'm not. I just read "the book". :D

​

If you want to learn more about long range shooting, there's a great book by Ryan Cleckner called "Long Range Shooting Handbook." I highly recommend it.

​

https://www.amazon.com/Long-Range-Shooting-Handbook-Cleckner/dp/151865472X

​

He also did several great videos for the National Shooting Sports Foundation that are on YouTube. And he's got a podcast that's really good too.

This.

OP, if you're interested in these kinds of questions, you should read Guns, Germs and Steel by Jared Diamond. The book looks a bit intimidating, but it's really easy to read and he goes right to the root of the inequalities in wealth, technological development, social organization, etc. between the old and new worlds. (Spoiler Alert: It ain't about genetic superiority.)

Old dead classical dudes are always good. I ransack Epicurus and Marcus Aurelius for good ideas and advice fairly regularly. There are some excellent secular philosophers and thinkers out there. I enjoy Sam Harris' work the most. One of my favorite reference books is The Portable Atheist, which is a collection of secular philosophers, edited by Hitchens.

To get a sense of your place in the universe, try to find an old full-color hardback copy of Cosmos.^1 For your place in the Human story, Guns, Germs, and Steel, and your place in the American story with A People's History.


[1] As a minor biographical note, I credit this version of Cosmos for getting me through horrible angsty teenager time.

Edit: Also, good question.

No information? You didn't look very carefully. There are whole message boards dedicated solely to the campaigns currently running and modding it.

http://ruinsofmurkhill.proboards.com/

http://odd74.proboards.com/

The modules are easy and cheap to buy: http://www.dmsguild.com/product/28306/ODD-Dungeons--Dragons-Original-Edition-0e

Believe it or not, the rules weren't arbitrary and were playtested extensively. Here's a fantastic document that goes through the rules and the reasons behind them: http://www.grey-elf.com/philotomy.pdf

Here's a popular essay on the playstyle and mindset behind 0th edition. http://www.lulu.com/shop/matthew-finch/quick-primer-for-old-school-gaming/ebook/product-3159558.html

Playing at the World is one of the most well-known book son D&D and it covers the development of 0e in ridiculous detail. https://www.amazon.com/Playing-at-World-Jon-Peterson/dp/0615642047

There's even a youtube channel by that book's author that really fascinating: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCwYnGnADL76LauJhAYPoivA/videos

This will get buried, but read the book: "The Sunflower: On the Possibilities and Limits of Forgiveness"

Here is the link: http://www.amazon.com/The-Sunflower-Possibilities-Forgiveness-Paperback/dp/0805210601

You do not have to click it, but it is not a referral link. Basically the premise of the book is a Jewish man in a concentration camp was brought to an SS officer (this is a true story). The man was dying and wanted forgiveness. He wanted absolution from a Jew, and had one brought to him, who he then proceded to confess to. When asked for forgiveness, he said nothing.

He always wondered whether he did the right thing and wrote this book to explore that idea. Should he have forgiven him? Condemned him? It also has writings from others on the same topic. Anyway, it might be worth checking out.

>The problem with RPG design theory is that there are barely any references to speak of.

Look, that's both not entirely true if you actually put in the effort (and you can find many resources right here on this reddit) and not an excuse.

Like any field of study, RPG design can't spontaneously burst forth from a void of knowledge. It stems from other fields of study - in this case game design (RPG Design is, after all, roleplaying game design?), game studies, storytelling, writing, &c.

It's okay if that's not your objective, but from you writing the article and bothering to post it here, I figure you're trying to get somewhere with your methodology, right? At least to validate it, subject it to scrutiny. If your objective is to develop something that other people can rely on and refer to, you should find something to back it up.

​

Please, don't interpret this as an attempt to shut you down. Much on the contrary, I like that you wrote this. I'm all for people writing stuff, thinking about RPG design, &c. but when you write something so, as you put it, other people can benefit it I think it's only responsible to do some proper research and hold it to a higher standard.

There are lot of popular books that venture into these type of topics. I recommend The 10,000 Year Explosion, which is about how civilization and agriculture shaped recent human evolution. It's very interesting, though at the same time it sometimes creeps me out thinking to much about human biology in this way. I might add that they have a chapter on human intelligence which is controversial because of the nature of the topic. Anyway it's a good read, just don't turn into an eugenicist. ;)

I also the often recommended Guns, Germs and Steel on my reading list, which looks on how biology and illness shaped human civilizations.

If you're interested in questions like this, you should really take a look at Guns, Germs, and Steel, the good old classic by Jared Diamond. I love it because it confronts questions about human history from a very academic perspective.

This debate on whether you should forgive or even if you can forgive reminds me of a book on the same question. It's called The Sunflower: On the Possibilities and Limits of Forgiveness and is basically about Simon Wiesenthal; him being asked forgiveness by a Nazi officer on his deathbed during his internment at a concentration camp, his response, and various other notable people's opinions on how he should have responded.

It's a fantastic book on the nature of forgiveness, might help you on your decision.

The book list just keeps growing in so many different directions that it's hard to identify which I want to tackle next (I also have a tendency to take meticulous notes while I read and that slows the process down even further!). Some of the topics I intend to read about once I'm done with the books mentioned:

• God: A Human History
  
• Why We Believe in God(s): A Concise Guide to the Science of Faith
  
• The Rise and Fall of the Dinosaurs: A New History of a Lost World
  
• The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck
  
• Occult America
  
• When Prophecy Fails
  
• Astrophysics for People in a Hurry
  
• Cosmos
  
• Norse Mythology
  
• Cadillac Desert: The American West and Its Disappearing Water
  
• Guns, Germs, and Steel
  
• Misquoting Jesus
  
• On Bullshit
  
• The Skeptics' Guide to the Universe
  
• Why People Believe Weird Things
  
  Plus a bunch of books by Sam Harris, Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, Christopher Hitchens, Carl Sagan, and others. There are way too many. And all the fiction books I want to read too! It's not that I didn't read books before, but my faith transition has sparked an intense desire to study and learn far greater than I ever experienced before.

I'll just go ahead and leave this right here http://www.amazon.com/The-Royal-Navy-Napoleonic-Era/lm/31C0AQAP2Z11 I highly recommend books 2-5, and you can download the first book from Gutenberg (I think).

http://www.amazon.com/Patrick-OBrians-Navy-Illustrated-Companion/dp/0762415401 Pictures... purty

SPOILERS for A-M and (minor) Hornblower
I don't think there's any fiction that is more accurate than O'Brian (on any subject anywhere for that matter), but Forrester's Hornblower series is worth reading for more "naval life". Hornblower and Aubrey were even on station together for the capture of the Spanish treasure frigates! Hornblower does a Hornblowery thing though and laughs when Aubrey gets screwed out of the treasure a mere political point.

Lastly for some quick mindless fun plus tall ship video...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ze8Y1gokHyA

and

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fp9hsQpB3zA (all four parts are in the related videos, and all worth it)

I'm a casual history reader, not a historian but i found Andrew Roberts book on Napoleon really interesting also gonna recommend Zeno the perils of power in 5th centuary Constantinople

Currently gathering books about Metternich for a video, ill post the best books here, though some are out of print

Werner shall we say embellished a few details in Iron Coffins. Still a great read, though. If you liked that one, try out Steel Boats, Iron Hearts, written by a crewman on U-505, which now resides in a museum in Chicago. Another great sub story was Thunder Below, which I actually thought was so great they could make it into a movie.

Hmm..., I've read the interview and something about it rubs me the wrong way. I find it unlikely, even in primitive times, that love was as free or casual as the author suggests. I'm not an expert, but don't humans have high maternal mortality rates that would discourage such behavior among women? That's not to say that I believe monogamy is necessarily the default position for humans, but I have trouble with several things the author purports. (The first link you posted, for example, claims that foraging tribes don't suffer from internal parasites, which I find to be highly unlikely). I am probably just going to have to break down and read this thing >.>

Since you seem to be interesting in this sort of thing, may I recommend:

Yale's open course on global population growth, which starts off with a good discussion of our evolutionary heritage.
Guns, Germs, and Steel, which I believe provides evidence for why the humans of today little resemble the primitive tribes of yore, and:
The Red Queen, which directly addresses this topic from the standpoint of evolutionary biology.

Don't feel obliged, though! ;-)

"Napoleon: A Life" and "Napoleon the Great" are the same book. The US release has a different name for some reason. This should help with price shopping. Life is a cheaper hardcover. Great is a cheaper paperback.

https://www.amazon.com/Napoleon-Great-Andrew-Roberts/dp/0141032014

https://www.amazon.com/Napoleon-Life-Andrew-Roberts/dp/0143127853

You've started out right. Keep safe, buy ammo, use up, repeat.

Read the textbook. Zero your rifle, then get off the bench and get good at shooting from the standard positions.

Once you've done that, you'll be ready to make the most out of a centerfire rifle.

Have fun!

A Basic Fencing Companion by Paul Sise is really good, specially for beginners/intermediate fencers. It reads easily and has a great glossary that I used to get ready for my moniteur exam.

Another good one is Understanding Fencing by Czajkowski (who sadly passed away just last week). This one is more advanced, but it doesn’t read as easily. I took my time reading this one.

Here’s the backstory: I went to check out/purchase this Evo+ unit this morning. It actually had more optional features installed than I expected, so I was pretty psyched. When the seller opened up the hardshell on the back, I noticed a name inscribed on the scrubber canister – a name I recognized. Turns out that the original owner was John Chatterton, host of Deep Sea Detectives on the History Channel and author of Shadow Divers, one of my favorite diving related books. FTW!!!

This book was written by WW2 captain and its awesome!
We had the ww2 battleflag in our mess hall. Pretty awesome.

Do you have both Thedas books? The second one is also great.

I gifted the He-Man and the Masters of the Universe Characters and World Compendium to a friend and he seemed to like it very much.
There are a lot of similar things for Tolkiens universe.

My personal favourite companion book is Patrick O'Brians Navy.

The second link is actually a book. I just like to source a free pdf so everyone can read.

https://www.amazon.com/Could-Tell-Then-Would-Destroyed/dp/193555414X

>In 2008 by the means of hundreds of Freedom of Information requests, Trevor Paglen obtained and analyzed forty mission patches.

http://www.amazon.com/Guns-Germs-Steel-Fates-Societies/dp/0393061310/

Europeans didn't come to dominate the globe because of any inherent superiority.

We lucked out when it came to access to domesticable crops and animals, on which to build a thriving technological society.

Our Enlightenment era values, philosophical and legal heritage, and technological prowess are good things, with which we can help the world. Our history of colonialism, the theft of land and culture from the natives, and legacy of self-interested exploitation of vulnerable peoples around the world are not.

Marsden is simply a racist who doesn't see the value in trying to build a world in which everyone can benefit equally.

Great insight here and in your earlier post!

I just finished reading Inventing Accuracy: A Historical Sociology of Nuclear Missile Guidance. Great read on this very topic!

Books that I found really good are:

Kendo: A Comprehensive Guide to Japanese Swordsmanship

Kendo - Approaches for all Levels

Kendo Kata: Essence and Application I wish this would come back into print so it would be easy for people to get and less expensive.

I also started by watching Sniper 101. This is a better source for all the information found there.
It's available as an ebook and physically. I largely consider the series useful to a point, but not worth the 40+ hour investment. You can learn everything you need in much less time, and without massive tangential ramblings and half an hour of self-aggrandizing per video.

His whole "thing" basically boils down to "record your shots under every known condition so you can hit on a cold bore shot by referencing what you've already done." Requires a notebook to go shooting, in addition to the logbook most snipers use.

A ballistic calculator will basically get you there with a lot less effort.

Some people know this, others don't- you might have heard it already- but don't clean your bore from the muzzle side. That's probably the best tip I can give you to protect you from making a mistake early on.

In the book, however, there is one thing I disagree with, that's my personal preference (and I am by no means an expert- check my flair). The author likes second focal plane scopes; I prefer first focal plane. It's mostly about how you use the rifle, and what you're comfortable with.

Get formal training. It has improved my coaching tremendously and I would not be able the think of any other way to achieve my current level.

Good books for a starting fencing coach are Szabo L. Fencing and the Master, Czajkowski Z. Understanding Fencing and Kogler A. One Touch at a Time.

Are you reading "A Spy Among Friends" by Ben Macintyre? His last book, Double Cross is a fascinating, compulsively readable history of the British double agent system developed and run by MI5 during WWII. Philby makes several appearances throughout the story.

I'd also recommend Spycatcher by Peter Wright, former assistant director of MI5, which details his career as a counterespionage operative in Post-War England. It was famously suppressed by the Thatcher administration upon initial release due to the fact that it named names and embarrassed many senior members of the British Intelligence services.

It is also an excellent book by Ben Macintyre called Double Cross. I would recommend Macintyre's books to anyone who wants to read about espionage. They are all fascinating.

Guns, Germs and Steel: The Fates of Human Societes

An amazing read if you like anthropology/geography. It very briefly recaps the history of human civilizations from evolutionary migratory patterns to civil conquests for land and so forth. The emphasis is on how western civilization achieved it's global dominance today. I would recommend this to everyone.

Here are all the local Amazon links I could find:


amazon.com

amazon.ca

amazon.com.au

amazon.in

amazon.com.mx

amazon.de

amazon.it

amazon.es

amazon.com.br

amazon.nl

amazon.co.jp

amazon.fr

Beep bloop. I'm a bot to convert Amazon ebook links to local Amazon sites.
I currently look here: amazon.com, amazon.co.uk, amazon.ca, amazon.com.au, amazon.in, amazon.com.mx, amazon.de, amazon.it, amazon.es, amazon.com.br, amazon.nl, amazon.co.jp, amazon.fr, if you would like your local version of Amazon adding please contact my creator.

The $20 spring kit for the Compass from Mcarbo helped me a lot, brings the trigger way down and does it safely from what I can tell. Before I installed that kit, I was actually moving the reticle just trying to squeeze the trigger on the lowest setting. With it installed it feels somewhere around 2-3lbs, breaks a lot cleaner, and there's no more jump when I squeeze the trigger. Also, if you're dialing distance with your turrets, you want a bubble level attached to the scope. A $10 one off amazon is doing fine for me. Without one, a couple degrees of cant between shots is inches (or feet) off at distance.

Also, even as an experienced shooter, when I started getting involved with long range this book from Ryan Cleckner taught me quite a few tips that made me even better.

I also bought a T/C Compass this year in 6.5CM, got a discounted shooting mat on Midway, a $20 bipod off amazon and a $100 UTG scope. I plan on upgrading to a Vortex, but the so-so UTG scope does okay for now. With that setup, I'm handloading Hornady ELD-X bullets and am doing a good job whapping golf balls at 300 yards currently.

Nice! If you haven't I'd recommend picking up a copy of the long range shooting handbook: https://www.amazon.com/Long-Range-Shooting-Handbook-Cleckner/dp/151865472X

It's not exhaustive, but it was pretty useful in coming up to speed (and cutting through the chaff).

I really enjoyed The First World War by Hew Strachan. I enjoyed the approach, and it read a little easier than other books on the topic I tried.

http://www.amazon.com/Double-Cross-Story-D-Day-Spies/dp/0307888770

Great book that goes into a lot of hilarious detail about the XX Division. Reads a lot like a wartime Oceans Eleven.

I've been reading Jon Peterson's book about the origin of D&D, so I am really curious to see what a modern version of The Ruins of Castle [Greyhawk] looks/plays like. Colville is great at mixing the best (and oft-forgotten) aspects of classic D&D into What The Game Has Become.

I'm also curious about the source material he'd use for a megadungeon like this. If he uses TSR's cheeky Castle Greyhawk book from 1988, I hope the PCs get farther than that damn gas spore that totaled my party when I was 12. (Y'see, the DM described it as a "sphere," but we thought he said "spear...")

It's not bad, but I felt it was too focused on the author's own life story in relation to gaming, and thin on details. Playing at the World is better, but has a lot of build-up about the history of wargaming (going back centuries) and stops around the time of AD&D 1st edition shipping. The author said he wanted to avoid the ugliness that occurred after that (Gygax's exile to the west coast, the Lorraine Williams hire and takeover, general lack of direction) because it's negative, but the 2nd edition era was still an amazing time for creativity even if the head of the company was weird, and I haven't seen a book that chronicles that. I'd love to get a follow-up to PatW that has a similar scholarly tone and covers the highs (The D&D 'fad' era when they were merchandising like crazy, various big releases) and the lows (morale-killings at TSR, the utter failure to be cool with the internet for years, forced Buck Rogers games, eventual near-bankruptcy and sale to WotC). The designers who were important in that era re often still involved in gaming (often in computers) but they're not getting any younger, and I'd love to read their stories now, instead of rumors and 3rd party anecdotes.

>How is that not ridiculous? I work for a top secret intelligence service. Here's my badge that proves it! LOL

Reality is unrealistic

https://www.amazon.com/Could-Tell-Then-Would-Destroyed/dp/193555414X

Actually most highly decorated US warship of all time. You can read about her incredible missions in Blind Man's Bluff. It's a really great book that I'd recommend to pretty much anyone.

Nice one. Thanks for your honest post. If you’re just starting out, I might suggest: https://www.amazon.com/dp/151865472X/ref=cm_sw_r_sms_c_api_i_0uATDb2WJJQG5

• The song of the dodo (if I were to recommend a single book that nobody else would recommend you, it would be this one)
  
• Collapse
  
• Guns, germs and steel
  
• Too big to fail
  
• Freakonomics
  
• Surely you're joking, mr. Feynman
  
• Gödel, Escher, Bach - an eternal golden braid
  
• A walk in the woods
  
• A brief history of time
  
  You will notice the absence of A short history of nearly everything, which is a good book, but frankly it didn't speak very much to me. Bryson is almost only interested in geography.

Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies

I'll throw this in here as well because I see it in just about every thread similar to this. Jared Diamond basically tries to explain why some civilizations on our planet have advanced beyond others by leaps and bounds. So if you're looking for a good overview of the past 15,000ish years that attempts to explain how civilizations advance, this is definitely a good one.

My stateside job was a SIGINT Analyst at the NSA - I worked on a Navy watch, and if you want what amounts to a TRUE inside story, check out Blind Man's Bluff.

Can't say much more than it was a fascinating look into my career field, and a very many things checked out compared to my daily experience!

I highly recommend Jared Diamond's "Guns, Germs, and Steel" if you are interested in this topic. Definitely one of my favorite books.

http://www.amazon.com/Guns-Germs-Steel-Fates-Societies/dp/0393061310/ref=mt_hardcover?_encoding=UTF8&me=

One of my favorite books is Shadow Divers: The True Adventure of Two Americans Who Risked Everything to Solve One of the Last Mysteries of World War II

https://www.amazon.com/dp/0375760989/ref=cm_sw_r_awd_UuWPub08PTZA4

True story that reads like fiction about extreme deep sea divers and the mystery they found at the very edges of what is humanely possible to dive.

If you'd like a richer understanding of the many factors tied into such a question, try reading Guns, Germs, and Steel: the Fates of Human Societies by Jared Diamond.

If anyone is interested, about the first half of this (huge, heavily researched) book covers the history of D&D starting with ancient chess and progressing through 18th-19th century wargames. There's a fair amount of discussion about the things Gygax used which video games subsequently adopted (XP, levels, hit points, polyhedron dice, etc.) It's a big book, and dense, but it is fascinating reading if that's your thing.

Playing at the World

http://www.amazon.com/Guns-Germs-Steel-Fates-Societies/dp/0393061310/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1311947161&sr=8-1

Must-read for topics like the one you are describing. There is a strong belief that Europe had the right blend of raw resources, timely technological discovery, and immunities to otherwise lethal pathogens. Meaning that if we were to turn back the clock and let everything play out again, Europe would likely be a colonial power just as it was in our history.

Well then I strongly recommend going straight to the source and reading Thunder Below!. Written by Fluckey himself, this book is literally too insane to be made into a movie, because no one would believe it.

This is probably the best submarine story ever written. And there's cake.

I’m really excited to see this. I’m guessing you’ve already read Playing at the World ? If you haven’t, it goes into great detail about Braunstein, Blackmoor, and the rest of the hobby’s DNA.

Absolutely. I would direct you to this for a great history of US and Russian submarine operations. It also discusses the current state of the Russian (and US) submarine fleet. It's a very accurate and interesting resource.

It's kind of a niche genre but I too am a history buff. I'm also a certified scuba diver and my all time favourite book is Shadow Divers by Robert Kurson.

https://www.amazon.ca/Shadow-Divers-Adventure-Americans-Everything/dp/0375760989


It's the true story of a WWII U-Boat found off the coast of New Jersey by a couple of divers. The book jumps back and forth between present day while the divers are trying to figure out what the heck the wreck is and figure out how it got there, and the ships history.

I've probably read it half a dozen times now! History, real life adventure and scuba :)

Great book on the topic if you haven't already read it: Double Cross: The True Story of the D-Day Spies.

Dude, do yourself a favor and pick up a copy of this book. One of the best reads ever.

https://www.amazon.com/Blind-Mans-Bluff-Submarine-Espionage/dp/1610393589

There was a brilliant book written about the Double-Cross system that anyone with an interest in that sort of thing should read.

There's this great documentary about his life, absolutely insightful. Also his books are interesting to read, e.g.

• The Second World War
  
• A History of the English-Speaking Peoples

There's some cool stuff in "The Sunflower". It's a collection of essays and short stories written by average people as well as some famous ones. I think the Dalai Lama wrote one of the essays. It might give you some inspiration.

http://www.amazon.com/The-Sunflower-Possibilities-Forgiveness-Paperback/dp/0805210601

There are thousands of images from this time - too name all the sources on the internet and books would be impossible. The best site if you want to browse is http://www.yadvashem.org/

Just an FYI : It does not include any images - and is not a book about the facts of the Holocaust - but it is something I would recommend everyone read The Sunflower: On the Possibilities and Limits of Forgiveness by Simon Wiesenthal.

the book it seeks to explain why certain civilizations rose above others due to environmental differences as oppose to certain races/peoples just being superior.

If this question interests you, you will very much enjoy Jared Diamond's book Guns, Germs, and Steel. His thesis is that the potential for cultural advancement is in many cases restricted by geography and climate.

For example, he looks at the habitat range of various domesticable animals, noting that Europe's horse helped the continent's cultures make huge advancements in civilization, while South America's (IIRC) llama, suitable for different uses, didn't offer the same opportunities in agriculture, transport, and warfare.

Pangaea would surely have mountain ranges and deserts, but on the timeframe we're talking about (tens of My) I don't think those limit the spread of land animals the way that oceans do. If domesticable land animals could spread everywhere, human culture likely would too. At the very least, what we call the colonialism of the last millennium would have played out very differently!

Both of their actions should be appreciated.

People should be commended for owning up to their mistakes and for forgiving others.

While I'm here, linking this book on forgiveness

Anything by Henry Petroski

Skunk Works by Ben Rich Military aircraft aren't really developed this way anymore, but the stories are amazing.

Blind Man's Bluff

Here is a 100 citations: http://www.rpgstudies.net/

John Eric Holmes of "Holmes D&D" fame: https://www.reddit.com/r/DnD/comments/2v6e2q/confessions_of_a_dungeon_master_an_article_from/

Pretty much "THE TEXT" on D&D right now: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0615642047/ref=as_li_tf_il?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=0615642047&linkCode=as2&tag=playattheworl-20

You'd be surprised. The CEP of the Peacekeeper is estimated to be 120 meters or less than 400 feet. I did screw up my units, PKs range is about 10,000KM, not miles. :P The AIRS (Advanced Inertial Reference Sphere) is considered the pinnacle of inertial technology. To really boggle your mind you have to consider that PK is not dropping 1 warhead within 400 feet, but up to 10 warheads, on individual targets, within 400 feet!

The 500 foot number I quoted is for Trident II (Trident D5) SLBM. It is not solely black box though. It takes a single star sighting during flight, which corrects for INS offset due to the launch platform having initial errors in INS calibration. It's CEP is between 300-500 feet (depending on the source you cite). Trident D5 is also suspected of having an upgrade to GPS sometime in the near future (if not already on some lots), which will improve accuracy even further.

I highly suggest reading Inventing Accuracy by Donald Mackenzie. The book is about the most detailed publicly available information on ICBM INS development in the US. It is a really good read.

Pasting my comment from a recent thread:

>Dean King's Sea of Words and Harbors and High Seas are pretty essential, I find.
>
>I also like Patrick O'Brian's Navy: An Illustrated Guide to Jack Aubrey's World, though it's more 'additional reading' than a must-have, for me.
>
>And of course, Lobscouse and Spotted Dog is the essential culinary companion, if you've a mind to spend some time in the galley and want to shout "Which it'll be ready when it's ready!" as authentically as possible.
>
>I've heard good things about the Patrick O'Brian Muster Book, but I haven't used it so I can't speak to it personally.

Such an amazing story. If people find this interesting, definitely read Blind Man's Bluff. This novel is written based off countless interviews of former submariners & others involved with US submarine espionage during the Cold War. USS Halibut is discussed in great length in there.

If you want history the best you can get is "Playing at the World". Very thorough.

https://www.amazon.com/Playing-at-World-Jon-Peterson/dp/0615642047/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1495168274&sr=8-1&keywords=playing+at+the+world

The First World War by Hew Strachan is an excellent read, and goes into this.

I got so engrossed in this, I started naming my EVE Online ships after German Pacific Fleet ships, like the Emden and Seydlitz.

This is a pretty good read, too

High intensity, lots of "aliveness" in the drills.

At least a couple of possible outcomes for each action so that it doesn't turn into "I do this, you do that, I do this".

Working on setups instead of assuming ideal conditions so that it's possible to understand what leads to successful outcomes for given techniques in certain situations.

Basically, read Understanding Fencing and steal as much as possible.

Non-fiction for sure. I do really like history but sometimes its just too dense. I like to switch it up with non-fiction (or some sci-fi) that are kinda self-contained and only relate tangentially to larger events or just a lighter biography. Thinking Shadow Divers, The lost city of Z, Lost in Shangri-La, At Ease - Eisenhower or An American Doctor's Odyssey

Here's a great book that a lot of gun fans enjoy.

https://www.amazon.com/Art-Rifle-Jeff-Cooper/dp/1581605927

• "Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies" by Jared Diamond
  
• "The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals" by Michael Pollan
  
• "The Language Instinct: How the Mind Creates Language" by Steven Pinker
  
  Isaac Asimov wrote quite a few books on physics, some more textbook-y than others.

A Patrick O'Brien book would be helpful, but one of the companions would be even better. For really basic stuff I'd check out this book

That sounds cool. Definitely gonna grab a copy.

Here's the Amazon link to "Blind Man's Bluff" for those that are interested in it.

I'd honestly recommend Hew Strachan's books over this. His work is much more in line with the current views in the field.

Volume one: to arms

His less in depth single volume overview of the war

>I'd still have some sort of low range ping to detect objects within like 20 feet.

The Los Angeles class subs (of which the USS San Francisco is a part of) is 362 ft long, 33 ft in diameter, displaces 6,900 tonnes, and has an official speed of 20 knots (which equals 33.8 ft per second). At that size and speed, they would need a couple thousand feet of detection range just to start to react, and a couple thousand more to actually avoid a collision. Any active sonar that would give a usable return at that distance is also powerful enough to be detected tens of miles away and thus give away the subs position.

>If there is an enemy sub 20 feet away...

If any sub is 20 feet away and it hasn't been heard on passive sonar then it is because it is dead in the water and a collision is less than 1 second away.

>What's the point of being a war sub that can't see nearby giant objects?

Depends on the type of sub. Missile boats basically just go park off someones coast and wait until they receive orders to launch their missiles towards preprogramed coordinates without ever seeing the target. Attack boats (like the San Fran) have a variety of rolls but generally speaking are not looking for silent terrain. Typically they are looking for other vessels, and they do that by listening for the sounds of machinery. Surface ships are noisy as fuck, and don't require any effort to track passively, but even really quiet subs can be tracked by a well trained passive sonar crew. Coastal defense boats are basically the same as attack boats, except they are smaller and have a more limited range. There are a few other types of subs, but the only type I can think of that might even remotely do what you suggest is sonar mapping subs, but those are not combat vessels and are typically operated by civilians.

I'm not really certain what else you think there would really be to "see". Terrain isn't normally a big problem in the ocean. It's just certain locations that should be indicated on depth charts that you would need to limit operating depth to stay safe and collision free. Else-wise, the ocean is pretty empty, and subs are surfaced when pulling into/out of harbor.

If you want to get a decent idea of what subs do, and how they operate, read the book Blind Mans Bluff. It's probably the most accurate non-classified accounting you will find. Also watch the movie Down Periscope. It's a comedy, and takes some Hollywood liberties, but gives a fair representation when it comes to looking around with sonar.

To those interested in this topic, I highly recommend this book:

http://www.amazon.com/Guns-Germs-Steel-Fates-Societies/dp/0393061310/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1335808328&sr=8-1

They didn't have chickens either, as those evolved from red junglefowl found in Asia. I'm also unaware of there being any large scale domestication of the alpaca and their range is centered in Northern Peru and doesn't extend beyond that. Llamas are bound by the same circumstances, although I believe they had a larger historical range than alpacas. Incas also had access to the guinea pig.

In reality, the only domesticated animals available to central Americans would have been turkeys, which were domesticated roughly 2000 years ago. Dogs were likely kept as a starvation food, and were probably 'unintentionally' domesticated. It's arguable that because of the likelihood that there was a low density of domestic turkey populations, there was a low amount of contact between humans and their domesticated fowl (given that they weren't used for egg production), and that they were domesticated relatively recently, that any diseases carried by turkeys didn't have time or opportunity to find a foothold in New World Human populations.

It should also be noted that the orientation of the New World continents is not beneficial for the transmission of diseases. You must traverse through a variety of different biomes, and thus different species, if you traverse the continents of North and South American from tip to tip. On the other hand, Asia, Europe and the Middle East are oriented in the opposite direction, which causes lateral planes of similar climates (e.g. the climate of France is roughly similar to the Ukraine, which is similar to Kazakhstan). Because of that, similar species can exist along a long lateral corridor and pass diseases between neighboring populations. This effect becomes more pronounced as people use similar domesticated stock in a more widespread fashion.

Most of this can be found in Jared Diamond's book Guns, Germs and Steel in addition to a primer on other reasons why Europeans (and other historical populations) were able to colonize far off places without being fought back into the sea.

If you're interested in a complete list of domesticated animals worldwide, check here.

Cheers.

Edits: Details. Forgot about the tasty, tasty guinea pig.

His book, Thunder Below! is apparently a great read for submariners.

Ghost in the Wires - The story of famed hacker Kevin Mitnick

Any Mary Roach Book if you like Science

In the Heart of the Sea - The true story behind Moby Dick

The Omnivore's Dilemma - A great walk through our food landscape

Gang Leader for a Day - Behavioral Economist embeds with a Chicago Gang

Shadow Divers - My first audiobook. It's a thriller about a scuba discovery of a Nazi Submarine on the Eastern US coast.

The Devil In The White City - A story about a serial killer at the Chicago World's Fair of 1893

thanks, i'll have an eye on it, love the way you are doing this, for sure you have me for this game!
You should get on twitter an tweet your progress... i'm also there (@WLueger), making a card game about the habsburgs, also always wanted to make a war-game, especially the "stalingrad" theme i was interested in. but as i started with this book:
https://www.amazon.de/Playing-World-Simulating-Adventures-Role-Playing/dp/0615642047/ref=sr_1_18?ie=UTF8&qid=1479442167&sr=8-18&keywords=history+war+game+book
i realised that i'm not that far ;-)

Nicely done /u/whibbler. Do you know if Parche replaced Halibut vis-a-vis Blinds Man's Bluff and Operation Ivy Bells? I am curious how that timeline all fits together.

I would suggest reading Playing at the World by John Peterson. I had a lot of questions regarding the history of rpgs and this book was the most precise and well researched book I could find. I would highly recommend it.

Agree. Why, when I had history in high school, did no one think to mention that one of the primary figures of WWII wrote a history that earned him the Nobel prize in LITERATURE??? http://www.amazon.com/Second-World-War-Winston-Churchill/dp/039541685X

The coolest thing of all this is probably its Mission Patch.


Edit:
Apologies. Was not trying to promote sales just trying to encourage thoughts on mysterious and clandestine mission patches. Not sure how accurate these are, pulled from Google images.

Have you ever read Blind Man's Bluff? I found it to be absolutely fascinating.

Some very inaccessible landmarks were first discovered by airplane. The world's highest waterfall, Angel Falls was first described to the world after being spotted by aviator Jimmie Angel (though it was probably discovered by earlier Europeans explorers and certainly was well known by indigenous inhabitants of the region).

Aerial exploration was extremely important in charting and exploring the Arctic and Antarctic regions as well. The flights of Richard Byrd and others were very important in charting and describing much of Antarctica. A very large section of the continent is today named after Richard Byrd's wife Marie.

Much of the interior of New Guinea was considered to be essentially uninhabited until the first aerial surveys revealed it to be densely populated by indigenous inhabitants. (I believe this was discussed in Guns, Germs and Steel but I can't find my copy of it right now, so I'm more than willing to be corrected on this one).

More recently, satellite images have been used to discover new achaeological sites in the Saudi desert and in Italy.

And I'm not sure if this is what you're looking for, but scientists first discovered that grazing cows use the earth's magnetic field to orient themselves using Google Earth satellite images.

EDIT: see my comment in reply to asdjk48 below for a more detailed citation of the New Guinea thing.

Check out operation ivy bells. Then check out the book blind man's bluff. Such a great read, and it will blow your mind some of the things that are done around the world.

Shadow Divers is a great book about the discovery and subsequent identification of a U-Boat off the coast of New Jersey

Jared Diamond has an interesting take on that very subject. read or watch Guns, Germs and Steel. Link

Zones of Control

Or, since he was also into early RPGs:
Playing at the World

There are several books about the creation of D&D/biographies of Gary Gygax, my favorite is Empire of Imagination

His book is a great read. Link below:

​

https://www.amazon.com/Understanding-Fencing-Zbigniew-Czajkowski/dp/0965946886

this book is great, lost my copy a while back.
https://www.amazon.com/Could-Tell-Then-Would-Destroyed/dp/193555414X/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1468632181&sr=8-2&keywords=if+i+told+you+i+would+have+to+kill+you

a colleague on my visual effects and animation team at a big defense contractor designed lots of patches for missile defense tests and other programs. Typically everything present on the patch has some meaning, even if its not obvious. I always loved seeing what he would come up with.

[this was my favorite, for FTM-14 stellar scorpion. sorry i cant find any better images of it.]
(http://thumbs.ebaystatic.com/images/g/FwwAAOSwubRXMXYs/s-l225.jpg)

Read origin of species it is free on amazon https://www.amazon.com/origin-species-Charles-Darwin-ebook/dp/B008478VE8/ref=mt_kindle?_encoding=UTF8&me=

It's a free digital book on Amazon. Read it on the pc or a kindle.
http://www.amazon.com/On-origin-species-Charles-Darwin-ebook/dp/B008478VE8

Anyone into this kind of stuff might enjoy a book called, "I Could Tell You But Then You Would Have to Be Destroyed By Me: Emblems from the Pentagon's Black World" by Trevor Paglen.

Cool book and an interesting read.

Here is the non-mobile link from the comment above
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Thank you for the book suggestion. I read Shadow Divers years ago and it sounds like Torpedo Junction should be right up my alley.

Guns, Germs, and Steel by Jared Diamond

This book gives good insight to why certain societies developed at different rates. The short answer is geography - this is the most basic necessity for humans to move from hunter gatherers to more developed societies is the presence of very specific, interdependent circumstances based on geography.

This! Submarines are really underrated tools of surveillance and intelligence. Just look up the USS Parche.

9 Presidential Unit Citations, and it's records are still sealed til this day. Also, shoutout to Blind Man's Bluff if you want to know more about the hush side of submarines!

[Kendo: A Comprehensive Guide to Japanese Swordsmanship by Geoff Salmon] (https://www.amazon.com/Kendo-Comprehensive-Guide-Japanese-Swordsmanship/dp/4805312319/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1521676294&sr=8-1&keywords=kendo+a+comprehensive+guide+to+japanese+swordsmanship)
Very interesting and informative book. Covers everything from proper etiquette to wazas to how to put on bogu. My sensei gave me a copy.

>The cable isn't armoured so in theory someone could easily cut it and plug in a laptop to gain access to the house network for nefarious purposes.

Common things are common. It would be much more likely that someone would yank your cable out and take it to sell as scrap.

If there was an economic reason for you to have an armored guarded cable, you'd be able to afford an armored guarded cable.

It's much more likely someone will break into your home and steal stuff than someone would "tap into" an outdoor ethernet cable.

Incidentally, lightning hitting that cable, or near it, and destroying everything on your network is also much more likely than the Mission: Impossible team doing a cable tap.

The US Navy tapped into Soviet communications cables. It took AT&T and a billion dollar nuclear sub:

https://www.amazon.com/Blind-Mans-Bluff-Submarine-Espionage/dp/1610393589

Again, if you have super valuable data, an outdoor cable is not your first concern.

If you like those books, also try [Guns, Germs, and Steel](http://www.amazon.com/Guns-Germs-Steel-Fates-Societies/dp/0393061310/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1229375628&sr=8-1 "basically a short history of humanity") by Jared Diamond.

Guns Germs and Steel by Jared Diamond. It explains why there has been such disparity in income and technology between Eurasia and the rest of the world. It touches on most of the topics you said you'd like to learn about.

Can you do a better job summing up WWII in one pithy sentence? If you want the more detailed version here you go.

I have the book. I’m pretty set on what rifle I want. But he says in the intro “read the whole book before you buy if you’re serious”

on Amazon

What scope rings did you buy? I see Vortex. What height?

Long Range Shooting Handbook

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Ryan Cleckner, former Ranger sniper, covers long range shooting (obviously), but the vast majority of the material is applicable to any kind of rifle shooting. He goes into a little history, terminology, choosing and setting up your rifle and gear, rifle maintenance, ballistics, calculations and scope adjustments, shooting technique, and a bunch more.

​

Despite the 'long range' label, he doesn't go overboard on the minutia of reading wind or correcting for Coriolis force. He has a follow up book ("Advanced Long Range Shooting") for the more esoteric stuff. It's all written for a layman, and anyone with two brain cells to rub together could understand it. Essentially, you can read the book with no previous knowledge and come out with a great baseline for getting started with rifles.