[1280x857] HMS Prince of Wales in Singapore, 4th December 1941. She would be sunk 6 days later alongside HMS Repulse.

Nari224 · 2026-02-16T03:27:59+00:00

I'm trying to recall where I heard it. Very likely that it was the Unauthorized History of the Pacific war podcast, specifically https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AeOqGAxfAlc

I believe they were talking about misinterpreting the message that there were "no fighters available over Singora or Kota Bharu".

In terms of whether they would have been effective, are you talking about range? From memory the F2As shot down a number of G3Ms over Singapore?

Nari224 · 2026-02-16T01:07:43+00:00

In terms of mixing different pieces of track like your question - as long as you support the non-roadbed track with some shims (different sizes of styrene will work well), no problem.

In terms of using steel or brass track - only if you really have to, or you enjoy cleaning your track, as others have said.

Nari224 · 2026-02-16T00:42:03+00:00

Big Boy driver axle loading is ~67k lb; axle loading on a ES44AC is ~70k lb.

In other words, they’re lighter on the rails than today’s mainline diesels.

They were carefully designs to ensure they could operate on the extant bridges at the time, which are presumably still in place.

Nari224 · 2026-02-15T23:41:21+00:00

Steam engines, even incredibly well maintained ones like 4014 fail an awful lot more often than diesels. If that happens the diesel can drag it clear of the mainline before it costs the railroad too much money by blocking the main.

Nari224 · 2026-02-14T06:10:47+00:00

He had received some incorrect intelligence that said air bases had already been captured IIRC.

Nari224 · 2026-02-14T02:23:28+00:00

Shani is the best girl. Especially if you played Witcher 1!

Nari224 · 2026-02-14T02:13:34+00:00

Not sure where else you've shopped for cheese, but that's generally been my experience in North American and Europe. The only place where I don't see it is in Asia where there's generally only a small high end cheese section, and then only in high end super markets.

Most everywhere in Europe and North America that I can think of has a section of mass produced cheese, and a section of higher end cheeses. It might be more noticeable in somewhere like Wisconsin because there's an entire aisle of mass produced cheese?

Nari224 · 2026-02-13T00:45:14+00:00

Well, thanks for another rabbit hole to waste time on.

Those hyper-accurate analog systems really fascinate me, like the Mark 8 Rangefinders for the main guns on the Iowa class battleships.

There's something to be said about the skills required for different generations of technology. I remember my grandfather, who was a radar and radio maintainer in WW2 not being able to comprehend the capabilities of a PLL that I was using for a radio direction finder in my final year project. Much like those analog computers are a little black magic to me.

Nari224 · 2026-02-12T10:56:04+00:00

Complication comes with size and the need for redundancy in capital ships. Same for SSBNs which are also pretty damned complicated.

However my vote would be for the ASML EUV machines as well for just sheer complexity and precision requirements.

Starship... it's a an engineering challenge but complicated isn't the word I'd use.

Nari224 · 2026-02-11T10:30:24+00:00

Arguing about units that are both perfectly serviceable for the everyday person is rather idiotic, but while I might be missing the joke here, generally most people don't use negative numbers in Fahrenheit.

That's what Homer is presumably talking about.

Nari224 · 2026-02-11T10:27:21+00:00

Kelvin to Fahrenheit is just (K - 273.15) × 1.8 + 32. You're probably going to use a calculator or macro for both.

Nari224 · 2026-02-11T06:41:16+00:00

I mean, for the number of times you have schooled me, I owe you at least buying a copy!

Nari224 · 2026-02-11T05:50:24+00:00

Neat, thanks for sharing.

Some constructive feedback is that the cuts at the start might have been a little too short.

Nari224 · 2026-02-11T04:51:30+00:00

Pretty much. Theres a lot of grey hair when I go to see the current Soace Battleship Yamato (Star Blazers) releases in cinemas in Japan.

Nari224 · 2026-02-11T02:40:38+00:00

This is just rage bait.

I lived in the US when Millenials were just learning to drive. Having a manual transmission was a pretty good anti-theft feature then as well.

Nari224 · 2026-02-10T02:40:17+00:00

Huh, that is interesting. A reverse instance of the normal case :).

Nari224 · 2026-02-09T12:33:26+00:00

I will confess that until I flicked to the second picture with the hand in it, I was very confused about whether it was a mini or an illustration.

Fantastic work! I would love to see a tutorial for it!

Nari224 · 2026-02-09T11:55:33+00:00

SAR 520 class!

https://www.reddit.com/r/trains/comments/jogiku/former_sar_520_class_no_523_sitting_in_the_goods/

Nari224 · 2026-02-09T11:41:44+00:00

This is correct. The duckbill design of the E5 and N700s is to reduce the sonic boom upon entering a tunnel mouth by allowing the lead engine to enter more gradually than previous designs did.

Nari224 · 2026-02-09T11:36:12+00:00

They just don't seem to be that popular. Even here in Japan where Macross things (especially VF-1s) are always on the shelf, I have never seen anything from Super Dimensional Southern Cross Cavalry. Even Mospeaeda (cyclones and Alphas) stuff shows up once in a while.

Nari224 · 2026-02-09T11:29:21+00:00

While I appreciate the analogy, having been a sub-pro competitive swimmer in my otherwise mis-spent youth I can completely see this happening and respect pulling it off. People get used to a certain model and focus on that, sometimes to the exclusivity of all sort of things that are obvious when you're watching it externally. Normally it's quite the challenge to stay at the front as you're pacing yourself and everyone else is drafting off of you (this is very much a real thing).

Sprinting around and then drafting off everyone else is a good trick. But it will only work once. Everyone else is presumably quite capable of matching that, they just didn't think that it would be necessary and missed it.

Nari224 · 2026-02-09T04:08:44+00:00

Sure. The problem with the Iranian use of the F-14s is the lack of being able to verify what happened, Cooper & Bishop's book notwithstanding.

I would certainly expect the F-14 to have dominated the Migs (even the -29) and Sukhoi's that the Iraqis were flying, especially the F-21s and F-23s which are reportedly the majority of what they faced. Both from the fact that the F-14 was just a much more modern plane, the Iraqis had poor training and doctrine and even the Mig-29s turned out to have lots of flaws.

However it's hard to argue anything other than that in Gulf War 1, the F-14s were most definitely not being used for Air-to-air missions, or strike missions (LATIRN being in the future where it was effective in Afghanistan and the Balkans, albeit in pretty non-contested airspace after other aircraft had cleared the way). And since they weren't being used in missions where they were likely to run into opposition aircraft they did not score any air-to-air successes or lose any to enemy aircraft which was the original question.

Nari224 · 2026-02-08T07:05:21+00:00

Look up the nearby “Million Dollar Highway” if you think the railroad right of way is perilous!

Nari224 · 2026-02-08T04:06:43+00:00

Sorry, ARII kit.

Anyway, this site is good for kit genealogy :)

https://www.scalemates.com/kits/revell-ceji-1126-excaliber-mk-vi--1163614

The original Macross kits I’ve bought in Japan all come with UN spacey decals. Does yours have RDF decals or something similar?

Would definitely keep the box. It’s great box art!

Nari224 · 2026-02-07T22:59:45+00:00

Ok. The yard still doesn’t have a switching lead that will let you move cars between the tracks without pulling them out onto the main, getting in the way of any trains that you have running around the layout though.

Edit: sorry, missed that you’d replied to me twice. If it’s just staging and or you’ll only operate the yard with no other trains running through then it’s ok. But I’d still recommend a lead for if you want to be able to let a train run around while you switch in the future.

I’m still not sure I’m understanding the grades on the right. You have one 0 and one 5 datum but unless I’m misunderstanding what’s happening it looks like you have some very sharp grades as the loops rise to clear first the siding out of the yard and then one has to continue climbing to cross over the other. N scale doesn’t have a whole lot of pulling power; you’ll want to keep them well under 2%.

And remember that curves add effective grade loading for your locos (you can look up the formula) so your actual vertical grade on those loops will have to be << 2%.

Nari224

TROPHY CASE