Schwerer Gustav and Dora

[crazyankan]

I think it was even cooler that they sended up Sputnik 2 with Laika only two weeks after Sputnik 1. That must be the point that mankind started to really realize that it will be some human being up in space someday soon.

And 12 April 1961 Yuri Gagarin was the first man that he became the first human to orbit the Earth.

Send a man up in space with computers that has less CPU power then my pocketcalculator, that is really impressive.

[moooV]

Send a man up in space with computers that has less CPU power then my pocketcalculator, that is really impressive.

Most calculations were made WITHOUT computers, only using engeneers' brains and lots of paper. In USSR cybernetis was called a pseudoscience and computers existed only in secret labs.
Great work, great people did it.

[ashod]

I'm sorry I haven't read all the replies, I'm tired right now (10 hours at university).
I stopped at the nazi part, and I just want to say what I think about it.

There's no nazi relation or anything. We see in the story with wilma the vampire that humanity is nearly finished, and that only a few thousands survive until the long winter ends. My guess is, during these times where people had to come together to survive, multiple languages/nationalities came to live together. Let's say English was the spoken language around the world at that time (like us right now) and some people kept speaking their languages until words integrated the 'English'....Do you guys see where I'm getting at? I'm really tired to make a long development but it already should give you an idea of how it evolved later. So *I* think there's no relation to nazis in the story (apart from the language).

I'll take the time and read all the replies tomorrow, just to be sure I'm not completly off track here.

[Sergio Nova]

Send a man up in space with computers that has less CPU power then my pocketcalculator, that is really impressive.

Most calculations were made WITHOUT computers, only using engeneers' brains and lots of paper. In USSR cybernetis was called a pseudoscience and computers existed only in secret labs.
Great work, great people did it.

It is clear that you are proud of being Russian.
The fact is: you are right.

[Sergio Nova]

So *I* think there's no relation to nazis in the story (apart from the language).

It is clear that it is more than the language.
Nazis were responsible for the colonization of Mars.
I have identified a point about Queen Limeira (after her surname) that may suggest you something. Take a look in the second edition of the glossary.

Kishiro will certainly bring more data.

[Sergio Nova]

Just a question, crazyankan:
What's the meaning of the dodo in your signature?

[crazyankan]

Ankan is my irl nickname, and it means "the duck" in Swedish.
Then I was thinking I should have a bird, and I took the most pointless animal that the evolution has created...the dodo bird.

And then I was thinking I should have someone famous Swedish guy also, too bad that we don´t have so many famous Swedish guys, so I took the actor Dolph Lundgren.


About the huge cannon and the Mothman, I sent a email to Kudos List http://www.nick15.com/kudos.html.
And he is gonna add it to the list.

[Sergio Nova]

Ankan is my irl nickname, and it means "the duck" in Swedish.
Then I was thinking I should have a bird, and I took the most pointless animal that the evolution has created...the dodo bird.

And then I was thinking I should have someone famous Swedish guy also, too bad that we don´t have so many famous Swedish guys, so I took the actor Dolph Lundgren.

Interesting, but about a famous Swedish guy, what about Bjon Borg?
He's already history, I agree, but he's immortal.

[crazyankan]

Björn Borg, the five times in a row winner of Wimbledon.
He is selling underpants and lives in Monte Carlo


But still, we swedes loves him

[Sergio Nova]

I had written by memory, so that explains the misspelling.
Anyway, if you were to use an image of his, I believe it wouldn't be that one.

[Kern]

Its first targets were some Sevastopol coastal batteries. Eight shots were all that were

required to demolish these targets, and later the same day a further six shots were fired at the

Fort Stalin. By the end of the day that too was a ruin and preparations were made for the

following day. Schwere Gustav was in action again on 6 June, initially against Fort Molotov.

Seven shells demolished that structure and then it was the turn of a target known as the White

Cliff, This was the aiming point for an underground ammunition magazine under Severnaya Bay and

so placed by the Sviets as to be invulnerable to conventional weapons. Nine projectiles bored

the way down through the sea, through over 30 m (100 ft) of sea bottom and then exploded inside

the magazine. By the time schwere Gustav had fired its ninth shot the magazine was a wreck and

to cap it all a sailing ship had been sunk in the process. The next day was 7 June, and it was

the turn of a target known to the Germans as the Sudwestspitze, an outlying fortification that

was to be the subject of an infantry attack. After seven shots the target was ready for the

attentions of the infantry and the gun crews were then able to turn their attentions to some gun

maintenance and a short period of relative rest until 11 june. On that day Fort Siberia was the

recipient of a further five shells, and then came another lull for the gun crews until 17 June,

when they fired their last five operational shells against Fort Maxim Gorki and its attendant

coastal battery. Once Sevastopol had fallen on I July schwere Gusta was taken apart and dragged

back to Germany. Including the 48 operational shells fired against the Crimean targets, schwere

Gustav had fired about 300 rounds in all, including proofing, training and demonstration rounds.

By May 1945 schwere Gustav was scattered all over central Europe. Parts that were still in one

piece were wrecked by their crews and left for the Allies wonderment. Today all that is left of

schwere Gustav are a few inert projectiles in museums.

[Akumeno]

yay we must remember that japanese mangakas love using foreign languages, but the most used are german, french and english (but kishiro used spanish in aquanight *DIFUNDE LA ALEGRIA* and kubotite too) IMO Spain and GB were the number 1 colionalist nations, and true France were invaded, and excuse my english I´m jus a crazy mexican fan of Gally!!

[Cailon]

Could we make this a general "Reference" thread? Cause I think we don't have one yet. Or would a new thread be more fitting?

Both ways:
1. Has Kishiro used a reference for a character/theme/scenery?
2. And has another manga/anime/movie/comic paid tribute to BAA/ GLO with a character, a theme or a scenery?

We already gathered some for #1. (Schwerer Gustav, the Electra(?) comic and many more). But I'm interested if you've spotted something for #2.

@1: Just recently I watched "Blade Runner" for the first time (shame on me for I didn't watch this earlier!) and Los Angeles in the opening sequence looks exactly like Scrapyard City!


@2: Just maybe, but this - girl could be a reference to Alita. She has octo-lips at least^^

[Sergio Nova]

@1: Just recently I watched "Blade Runner" for the first time

What? I cannot believe that! Abandon your hopes, believers!

[moooV]

I'm quite ashamed, but I've never watched too.

I'll fix that flaw when I get some free time.

[Sergio Nova]

I'm quite ashamed, but I've never watched too.

Yess! I myself have already abandoned my hope!

[Cailon]

I'm quite ashamed, but I've never watched too.

I'll fix that flaw when I get some free time.

Make sure to watch the "Final Cut" version from 2007. All others aren't the real thing as Ridley Scott initially wanted it to be. Hell, for one of the old endings, they recycled unused footage from "The Shining" and Harrison Ford's voice-over sounds totally pissed (I'd post a youtube link but its a spoiler).
It's really amazing how many movies have copied this style. While watching, you'll recognize lots of other movies/ animes. The story is rather straight forward but the look of the film, duuude!! And the special effects! I like "old" special effects, they have more feeling. Even if only a little, you can see through the effect and take a glimpse at the work and thoughts behind it - this way you can appreciate it even more.
CGI nowadays sure is astonishing but it's so real... If a perfect animated helicopter circles in the sky, I don't see the "special effect" anymore, I only see a helicopter

[moooV]

I've watched the thing today, the "Final cut" version. I would really confirm that lots of interesting concepts were adopted by other movies (I don't watch animes, so I can't say anything about them). The look - yes, remove the skyscrapers, remove flying craft, add some cyborgs and a garbage pile in the center with a flying city above it, you'll definitely get a scrapyard - stylistics is really close to it: rain, lowlifes, architecture, even the monitors in the streets - only netmen are missing.

I've expected this look from a classic cyberpunk. Obviously, it has influenced a lot of minds the time it was shown.

However, the movie hasn't touched me at all, I'd rather say that it was really boring for me. To be absolutely honest, I've watched this movie only for the aesthetics of it - the plot is plainly bland.



The interesting thing is that this movie has quite correlated to what I've seen yesterday, take a look, it's quite amazing:

Philips was making an advertisement campaign - a contest of a short-length film containing a dialogue:

-What is this?
-It's a unicorn.
-I've never seen it so close before.
-Beautiful.
-Go away! Go away!
-I'm sorry.

The jury was... Ridley Scott. He has chosen five best works. The funny thing is that two of the winners are... his relatives' works.

Anyway, one of them has a completely copied Blade Runner style, and a device to zoom into things. That one has given me a deja vu while watching the Blade Runner.

So, here are the three I really liked:
A blade runner thing - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ue55SLIA3tc
and a Moscow one (amazingly good) - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XOZkLIwbRrw
and a frozen cop-bandit flythrough (the awesomest of all) - The Carousel - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1m-uD0u7QD0


PS.
Of course, watch them in HD quality - it's really worth it.

[moooV]

Quite an old topic to dig out, but here it is.

I've remembered that near the vilage, where I go for the whole summer, is an old fort with train cannons used during the WWII. I've been there several times, but I was always forgetting to photoshoot it and post here.

The place is called "Красная горка" ("Red hill"), it is highly fortified. Also, there are train cannons there, which are smaller than a manga variant (or even the same in size), and designed slightly differently.

Anyway, I've googled the photos - they aren't mine:










And it's photo during the WWII:


UPDATE:

If you search for it in google maps, you will find the wrong place.

I've found it manually, exactly these two trains:
http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&source= ... 3&t=h&z=19

[crazyankan]

moooV: Really cool cannons =D
Many thanks for the pictures
Do you have any more information about the cannons? How many peoples to operate it and the size of that bad motherfucker
btw, do you know about this site http://englishrussia.com/
I check that site at least one time every week.

[kamugin]

I'm jumping in this thread a bit late...

About the big gun - not Anomaly's libido cannon - the Germans had a long tradition of impressive cannons, most of them made by Krupp heavy industries http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Krupp. Before the Gustav and back to WWI, they made the astonishing Paris Cannon http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paris_Cannon. It was used for bombing Paris from back the German lines 120Km away. The 94Kg projectile had a 40km flight ceiling travelling through the stratosphere most of its 170s flight, with an speed of 1600m/s! Only the WWII V2 rocket was able break those records.

The Germany may have lost the WWII, but they revolutionized the face of war, both regarding weapons and tactics. Some examples: the Blitzkrieg and the Panzer divisions, the use of U-boats to strangulate supplies routes. The use of soldier's camouflaged unifom was introduced by an SS official, the assault rifle was also introduced by the Germans, the jet plane (also the swept wing, the forward swept wing, the delta wing, the ejection seat...), many types of missiles (not only the V1 and V2), and so on - the list is huge. The only major achievement they didn't was the atomic bomb.

I have noticed that not only Yukito Kishiro, but many other mangakas like to use German references in theirs mangas. Akira Toriyama (Dragon Ball) for example. I don't think this indicates some preference for the Nazis, but it's just because the German weapons were coolest =)

Also we have a huge debt to the Germans because they made possible the Space Race and the space exploration.

Wait, Russian comrades! I didn't forget Sergey Korolyov http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sergey_Korolyov, the man who effectively started the Space Race. Yukito also didn't forget the Soviet contribution: besides his Space Calendar (Sputnik, year zero) he put an illustration of Alita next to a statue of Kudriavka (laika is the name of a dog breed) in some phase I don't remember which =P

The Germans started WWII (but we can also say that the Treaty of Versailles laid the seeds of WWII) and it was the worst war of History, but if wasn't because of it we could be living today with technology of the sixties =P

[kamugin]

moooV, thanks for the railway cannon pictures, but use Tiny URL http://tiny.cc/ to reduce the Google link next time.

[kamugin]

http://img223.imageshack.us/img223/3782/namnlst1qu2.jpg

Me and ripper also found this. Took a time before we could figure what it should be under the text.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mothman some info about mothman and the picture we think Yukito did use

This mothman is a quite folkloric alien, in spite of being a little ridiculous to my eyes =P
He also appears in the manga Who Fighter with Heart of Darkness http://www.mangaupdates.com/series.html?id=6759 recently released here in Brazil and in the anime Occult Academy being aired this season (good anime, I recommend it).

[moooV]

2 Crazyankan:
I've never heard of that site before. Anyway, it's good that such site exists.

Ok, the trains:
Here is a small wiki article with characteristics (there is the exact same english version, just scroll down a bit), A LOT of photos.

Here are some more photos:









Some beautiful winter photos:





Another one (as it has turned out, there were several of them in different cities):




Also, Americans had one, which was copied from ours:



And an article about Красная горка, which I'm translating, just as it is (without any editing):
-------------------------------




Constructed in 1930s at the Leningrad Metallurgy factory. During WWII these cannons traveled around the fort (changed positions), and fired towards the occupied by Germans territories. If they weren't there, the blockaded Leningrad would be in a much worse situation.


Everything, that was possible to steal, is stolen by the "grateful" descendants. However, something is done by the military to protect them: roads to the cannons are digged, everywhere is written "Do not steal!", and a single sentinel sleeps in a booth nearby.


Cannon was operational till 1980s, lubrication still remains, and the barrel is capable of firing.


Barrel is made by a company "Wilkers", taken from unfinished cruiser "Ismail", which was started in 1909 and used to make needles out of it in 1920.


More than 50 years have passed, but it's still aimed at the enemy although the enemy has already been defeated long ago...


Also made at LMF, stars on the barrel are the number of destroyed enemy objects, and the sign on the head is by some modern asshole.


Head of 180mm cannon. All modern graffiti and signs are removed with the photoshop. Heads of those, who have originally put them there should be removed without photoshop.


Another one like this is installed in Moscow at Поклонная Гора. Also, one is at the Train Museum at the Warsaw train station, and 3 or 4 of them are in Vladivostok.


A fresh photo. Fenced in the spike wire (guarded zone 15m), a tower with a projector nearby, on the tower - a kind old woman with a rifle. Good! Cannons are freshly painted and especially, the red stars.


A big sign near TM-3-12 says that everything here is guarded by the country, sentinels don't understand jokes, and the museum will exist in spite of the maradeurs.


(Sign: "Mine field clearing. Trespassing is forbidden!")

-------------------------------------


Hope you liked it.

[Cailon]

The only major achievement they didn't was the atomic bomb.

A matter of time and money. Two names: Einstein and von Braun. Nothing to be proud of though - and as we know, Einstein never intended atomic energy to be used in wars.

The Germans started WWII (but we can also say that the Treaty of Versailles laid the seeds of WWII) and it was the worst war of History, but if wasn't because of it we could be living today with technology of the sixties =P

What the eye doesn't see, the heart doesn't grieve over. Technology like the 60s but no space race --- so what? maybe our civilisation would have evolved instead - because as of now we may have super-ultra-technologies, but our culture, ethics and the human mind is still on par with the 19th century's...

Chinghiz Aitmatov said, and I very much like this (sorry, I have to do an easy translation from the german wiki, he speaks with more more eloquence):

"Thanks to the usage of many new impartial laws of the material world, humanity has reached a high level regarding the technical and technological develompent. While perpetually trying to put the most modern achievements of the scientific-technological improvements into use, at the same time humanity has lost sight of its intellectual/spritual-ethical sphere, or, to say it clearly: humanity has ignored this realm, however this real exists and evolves according to strict laws, too. Those laws are no less impartial than those of the material world. A fundamental law of the universe was contravened, and that is: the level of the intellectual/spritual and ethical evolution of human kind should always be a little above the level of the scientific-technological evolution. Only then responsibility for the good of all mankind can spring from the great achievements in science and technology, for the precaution for famine, impoverishment and illnesses in the different parts of the globe."

This may sound a little socialistic but he's not that wrong at all. (And sorry for possible mistakes, I had to do it fast)

Also, the glorious space race is nothing more than arming the cosmos - or, like some journalist asked sharply: "So, is there oil on Mars?"

Wait, Russian comrades! I didn't forget Sergey Korolyov http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sergey_Korolyov, the man who effectively started the Space Race. Yukito also didn't forget the Soviet contribution: besides his Space Calendar (Sputnik, year zero) he put an illustration of Alita next to a statue of Kudriavka (laika is the name of a dog breed) in some phase I don't remember which =P

You're forgetting Tsiolkovsky! I read about him in the manga Planetes. Good stuff