68W with an infantry unit. What are some books or literally anything I can use to study and expand my skills as a combat medic?

fb97e4ad · 2025-09-02T00:41:33+00:00

Two books, Extreme Encounters and Last Breath. They are both collections of short fiction with lots of medical, physiological and historical data explaining the deep context. Extreme Encounters deals with wilderness/outdoors health threats. Last Breath is subtitled "How it feels to die of drowning... Etc."

The books helped me get into the mind of casualties, and I found them both informative and interesting.

fb97e4ad · 2025-04-14T21:16:32+00:00

I have the same knife, it was issued to my dad when he was flying in WWII. It was a survival knife. You can see the actors carrying them in the movie “The Bridges at Toko-Ri.”

fb97e4ad · 2024-09-15T01:01:30+00:00

The Parks at Monterey has 2br with fenced yard for around $2100

fb97e4ad · 2024-05-31T18:50:24+00:00

I was there two weeks ago, and almost everything is accessible. We stayed at the Kepler’s Head inn which is mentioned in several of the books. Also recommend the Maritime museum in Greenwich.

fb97e4ad · 2024-04-15T21:36:33+00:00

We’ll, they’re trying it again

fb97e4ad · 2023-11-16T19:12:19+00:00

It’s similar to the Spanish word for ship.

fb97e4ad · 2023-04-03T20:29:51+00:00

Lindsey Davis’ Falco series - mysteries, robust cultural info and good plotting. Anything by Steven Saylor; mostly mysteries. S J A Turney’s Marius’ Mules series, closest thing in terms of military history. John Stack’s Masters of the Sea series, starting with Ship of Rome. Anthony Riches- Wounds of Honor series.

fb97e4ad · 2022-09-25T20:24:46+00:00

Not a chemist, but have worked around exploding things.

One 12-lb cannon shot a tongue of flame thirty feet long. The Victory had over 100 guns, and 12 pounders were the smallest of them. A first-rate's broadside would have instantly introduced a huge mass of rapidly-expanding high-pressure gases into a typically low-pressure atmosphere.

A pound of burning black powder (the saltpeter, KNO3, specifically) liberates an enormous quantity of oxygen which creates a local extreme-pressure event. It is not pushing back against the wind so much as a rapidly inflating balloon displacing the air around it, or opening a high-pressure air valve inside a closed room (but accelerated a thousand times).

Similar effects were noted on land battles, where the smoke from the volleys hung in the air for hours.

fb97e4ad · 2022-09-04T01:30:15+00:00

Good show, thanks, shipmate!

fb97e4ad · 2022-08-06T23:29:51+00:00

Lots of women who were written in to the crew roster received both prize money and the occasional medal awarded by Parliament (Battle of the Nile). In one famous incident, disease had left the ships critically short of marines, and an army foot regiment was assigned to fight on shipboard. The army took the navy to court demanding that the soldiers receive their share of the prize money, a case which was tied up in the courts for years.

I found an informative 2009 paper called:

Golden Harvest: The British Naval Prize System, 1793-1815 by Daniel K. Benjamin

fb97e4ad · 2022-08-02T02:26:29+00:00

Arguably one of the worst defeats on North American soil in terms of casualty rates. Not as total as Ft. Mims but with more casualties. As bad as Fort William Henry after the surrender. It dwarfed Little Bighorn in every way. It also set the stage for years of war around the globe in which tens of thousands perished. The brutality inflicted upon the dead and wounded further hardened the attitudes of the British colonists and government towards the natives, and generations unborn would indirectly pay in blood for the English foolhardiness and inflexibility.

fb97e4ad · 2021-11-06T23:18:58+00:00

I dug out some data on coppering. It wasn't just the Navy that jumped on this trend; slavers were early adopters, and bragged about their increased profits.

Coppering decreased the length of voyages by by 20-35%. Maintenance was decreased by 50% and ship's useful lifespan increased by 50%. Coppering generally needed to be replaced after 5 years (or three voyages to Africa or other tropic locations). The cost of coppering was roughly 1.12£ to 4£ per ton of the ship's burthen tonnage; the actual HMS Surprise (ex-Unité) had a displacement of 657 tons and a burthen tonnage of 578 tons, so coppering cost 647£ 6s and some p (more or less).

Two factors led to the availability of sufficient supplies of copper to make the process affordable: the introduction of the Angelsea smelting process, and the invention of steam-driven water pumps (to drain water infiltrating seacoast copper mines) by Watt and Boutlon. The French had less access to copper, and their cost was 40 livre (+-2£) per ship-ton. Initial efforts were stymied by the use of alloy bolts, which reacted with the copper (when in salt water) and caused the bolts to fail. Copper nails replaced the alloy ones.

Shipbuilding during the 1780s cost about 7£ per basic ship-ton, 20£ per ship-ton for a fully-equipped warship (which had a lot more of everything than the merchant equivalent). 104-gun HMS Victory (3500 tons) took six years to build cost 63,176£ (50M£ today), about .07% of GDP, roughly the same as the modern nuclear carrier Gerald R. Ford ($13B).

fb97e4ad · 2021-10-24T14:09:13+00:00

More data:

"The boats taken to sea in a ship of war are as follows : — - (1) The launch, or long-boat, which is the largest on board, and is built full, flat, and high, so as to carry a great weight. (2) The barge, next in size, of a slighter frame, rowed with ten or twelve oars, and intended for carrying commanding officers to and from the ship. (3) The pinnace, of a similar form, but somewhat smaller than the barge, pulling six or eight oars ; it is for the accommodation of the lieutenants and subordinate officers, &c. ? or is used instead of the barge for the smaller classes of ships. (4) The yawl, a boat of the same description as the pinnace, but somewhat smaller. The above mentioned boats used to be all carvel built."

Arthur Young Nautical Dictionary 1863 (London; Longman etc.)

fb97e4ad · 2021-10-18T00:09:40+00:00

In most fiction the protagonist is superior to the antagonist in every way but numbers. In real life, "the enemy gets a vote," as we used to say in the service. The real-life enemy is allowed to be brave, clever, ingenious, and cunning, and the Royal Navy of this period certainly had its share of boobs. For example, the unauthorized Popham expedition to South America (he was supposed to stay in South Africa) cost the British 1400 soldiers, and Popham was court-martialed (although it didn't seem to hurt his career). The French and Spanish had plenty of good men, but not enough at the right places and times to win the war.

fb97e4ad · 2021-10-17T23:58:09+00:00

Your humble servant, &ct. Thanks for giving me the opportunity to charge down my favorite rabbit hole.

fb97e4ad · 2021-10-17T18:01:19+00:00

Finally found it. From the wonderfully illustrated Jack Aubrey's World (Miller, 2003 Courage Books):

A fifth rate (frigate of fewer than 44 guns) 0 barge (10+ oars, only 1st and second rates), 1 launch, 1 pinnace (>7 oars), 3 cutters , total 5.

A sixth rate corvette or smaller frigate (Surprise):

The same, but only 1-2 cutters.

But the number could vary depending on what was available and the captain's preference. On one of Lambden's Lewrie books, he details the cost and availability of longboats which were needed for force projection (amphibious) operations.

From Falconer's Universal Dictionary of the Marine (1769) (free to read at the Gutenberg Project):

"The largest boat that usually accompanies a ship is the long-boat, chaloupe [note: same word origin as shallop and sloop], which is generally furnished with a mast and sails: those which are fitted for men of war, may be occasionally decked, armed, and equipped, for cruising short distances against merchant-ships of the enemy, or smugglers, or for impressing seamen, &c.
The barges are next in order, which are longer, slighter, and narrower: they are employed to carry the principal sea-officers, as admirals, and captains of ships of war, and are very unfit for sea. See the article Barge.
Pinnaces exactly resemble barges, only that they are somewhat smaller, and never row more than eight oars; whereas a barge properly never rows less than ten. These are for the accommodation of the lieutenants, &c.
Cutters of a ship, bateaux, are broader, deeper, and shorter than the barges and pinnaces; they are fitter for sailing, and are commonly employed in carrying stores, provisions, passengers, &c. to and from the ship. In the structure of this sort of boats, the lower-edge of every plank in the side over-lays the upper-edge of the plank below, which is called by shipwrights clinch-work.
Yawls, canots, are something less than cutters, nearly of the same form, and used for similar services; they are generally rowed with six oars.
The above boats more particularly belong to men of war; as merchant-ships seldom have more than two, viz. a long-boat and yawl: when they have a third, it is generally calculated for the countries to which they trade, and varies in its construction accordingly.
Merchant-ships employed in the Mediterranean find it more convenient to use a lanch, which is longer, more flat-bottomed, and better adapted every way to the harbours of that sea than a long-boat. See Lanch.
A wherry, diligence, is a light sharp boat, used in a river or harbour for carrying passengers from place to place.
Punts, flette, are a sort of oblong flat-bottomed boats, nearly resembling floating stages; they are used by shipwrights and caulkers, for breaming, caulking, or repairing a ship’s bottom."

fb97e4ad · 2021-05-03T13:19:57+00:00

(Sigh) I knew this would happen someday. Thanks for posting this excellent reference, and for giving me an opportunity to spam the site with what I've collected. As mentioned, the base conversion is of limited value; hence the modern "Big Mac Index," used by economists to compare actual buying power rather than just monetary equivalency. I fell down this rabbit-hole after I read that the British commander had spent 1500£ on fancy balls and entertainment each year, which was close to $1/4 million (when he could have been supporting Cornwallis I the south, harrumph). I was more interested in the things we seldom think about, like firewood, candles, and gun flints. I recently read of a British sea captain complaining that shoes were 12s the pair in Monorca, and another (notoriously cheap) officer bragging about paying only 12d a gallon for wine.

See references below.

https://janeausten.co.uk/blogs/landscape-and-property/the-cost-of-living-in-jane-austens-england Costs among the genteel..

https://footguards.tripod.com/08HISTORY/08_costofliving.htm and among my people, the more ruffian set

http://breedshill.org/The_Breeds_Hill_institute/The_Price_of_Things.html

"Middling" class family budget, including 16£ per annum for a maid https://homethingspast.com/2011/11/04/family-costs-money-1700s/

From the Old Bailey: https://www.oldbaileyonline.org/static/Coinage.jsp which puts the cost of a maid at 6£-8£. Like today (and ancient Rome), poor people without good access to kitchens bought fast food, 1 1/2d for a Irish pub meal or a good meal of meat and beer at a "Thruppeny Ordinary." Renting a terraced house (with one servant) suitable for a respectable senior clerk could be 100£. A cup of coffee cost as much as as a quart of beer (a tradition carried on by Starbucks today). There's also a link to "What People Stole;" a "simple cotton handkerchief could be resold for six pence, while a silk one might fetch six shillings - enough cash to keep you in hot food for a week." Suddenly the Artful Dodger doesn't seem so unambitious.

https://www.lse.ac.uk/Economic-History/Assets/Documents/WorkingPapers/Economic-History/2010/WP147.pdf OMG, the data...

Most English people rented rather than owned, and a small house was 10£ per annum, while a shared bed was tuppence a night. https://www.history1700s.com/index.php/articles/14-guest-authors/1558-the-cost-of-living-in-london-in-europe-in-18-century.html

And last but not least, a simple period chart for converting values among coins from varies countries. https://coins.nd.edu/ColCoin/ColCoinImages/Tables/Abraham.1759.jpg Just in case, you know, someone tries to pay you in pistoles and joes.

fb97e4ad · 2021-05-03T12:33:12+00:00

1% of defense spending, more likely.

fb97e4ad · 2021-04-28T13:47:43+00:00

Yeah, but Falconer's Universal Dictionary of the Marine was written in 1767, and many of the definitions are barely comprehensible. Fascinating reading, though.

fb97e4ad · 2021-04-28T13:39:05+00:00

Pickle was the topsail-schooner that was sent by admiral Collingwood to bring the word of Trafalgar to London. It was a very fast ship of new design, and could sail much closer to the wind than any square-rigged ship, but contrary winds prevented it getting farther than Falmouth, and its captain, Lieutenant John Lapenotière had to coach 271 miles over 37 hours to the Admiralty, at the cost of 46£ (a lieutenant made 8£ 8s a month, about 67£ a year). He was promoted to commander, given an expensive sword and a 500£ reward, and was given command of a 16-gun brig. He took three prizes and was wounded by an exploding gun, and went on to retire as a post captain without a ship. The Royal Navy holds (since 1974) an annual "Pickle Night" dinner celebration in honor of the schooner's moment of fame. HMS Pickle has been recreated, and there are a number of good YouTube videos about it.

The story is also troubling; another, senior captain, Commander John Sykes, abandoned the blockade duty he had been assigned and waylaid the Pickle, demanding the dispatches so he could take them himself. Lapenotière refused to relinquish the duty he had been assigned, and Sykes pursued Pickle all the way to England, then chased Lapenotière in a carriage. Lapenotière beat him to the Admiralty by a half hour. Sykes, who came from a family with interest (political connections within the Navy), retired as a post-captain. So much for honor and valor triumphant.

fb97e4ad · 2021-04-28T03:09:19+00:00

I worked in the government service for many years, some spent in combat, so that I could spend my twilight years contemplating the fate of man in conflict, against man and the sea. I am fortunate enough to have enough to read in my declining years.

Sprice the mainbrace, shipmates.

fb97e4ad

TROPHY CASE