So, I was looking into why I had a random illustration of a Soviet and Chinese bombing raid on Taiwan in February 1938 on my computer. It led to this fascinating discovery. www.tcdb.com/Checklist.cf...

This came up on livestream last week. This kind of thing is why I give no credence to "rendering more realistic air combat isn't exciting enough" for film in an effort to justify P-51s pulling 60g backflips or whatever. This CG isn't totally realistic. It's filmic in presentation, just grounded.

An impromptu thread (thank you @bantiarna.bsky.social!) of my reading recommendations for those of you who are Shinsengumi fans in particular or curious about the Bakumatsu (late Edo) period in general.

So, I was looking into why I had a random illustration of a Soviet and Chinese bombing raid on Taiwan in February 1938 on my computer. It led to this fascinating discovery. www.tcdb.com/Checklist.cf...

I'm finding it difficult to get excited over an announcement that Total War: Medieval III is in "early pre-production" (lol) and that the game engine might actually function in future. I guess we'll see if the long rumoured Total War: 40K gets announced at The Game Awards.

Following up his previous post, here's @karyuu.bsky.social giving a brief rundown of Japanese tank optics. karyu.org/2025/12/03/j...

So, hey, my new book on Truman and the Bomb comes out NEXT WEEK! In this post on Doomsday Machines, I give a rundown of WHAT IT IS ABOUT, and other useful information, including the talk I am giving about it on December 16. doomsdaymachines.net/p/the-most-a...

Mitsuo Fuchida's personal photo album "Autobiography: Summer is Near" is now available on the Hoover Institution's website. Link: digitalcollections2.hoover.org/view/ark:/54...

This is some pretty outstanding research from @karyuu.bsky.social and makes for an interesting read. karyu.org/2025/11/24/m...

When the forces of postwar economic growth keep unearthing painful reminders of the wartime past: three episodes from Tokyo 1) June 1967: construction crews expanding the Tozai line discover the remains of 4 adults and 2 children entombed in an air raid shelter in Koto ward.

Ooh so this is a really good question and worth exploring, because there's an interesting complexity in the answer! 🧵

I just finished Dispatch! It's very reminiscent of the peak Telltale Games, particularly The Wolf Among Us (my favourite). The animation was beautiful, the voice-acting and character writing was excellent, and I enjoyed the light gameplay sections as well. youtu.be/ZbERWU5bc50?...

Chris and I are live now! www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ECk...

Just a heads up that @milavhis.bsky.social and I plan on streaming this Sunday at 11AM-ish MT.

That’s Sunday 1800/1900 UK/Continental Europe for those living in the civilised world and not…you know….Canada

Just a heads up that @milavhis.bsky.social and I plan on streaming this Sunday at 11AM-ish MT.

Bannerlord got a new expansion that adds Naval Warfare, a new Faction and a new campaign. I got sponsored to provide historical commentary, be sure to check it out here: www.youtube.com/watch?v=pfAx...

Making the first real snowfall of the year a decent-sized blizzard preceded by freezing rain is certainly one way to cause anarchy. Snow + poor visibility + layer of solid ice underneath + almost every driver can't remember what driving on snow is like.

I'm so close to my annual rewatch of Tora! Tora! Tora! that I can almost taste it.

Ruby's Rebalance mod for Halo CE is great. Very tasteful.

another darling bites the dust

Publication day in 🇬🇧 #AdvanceBritannia

Getting back to some of the combat footage from Rabaul in NHK news reels. There isn't tons of it, but what is there is quite striking.

Chris got to walk and crawl around a beautifully restored B-29A! youtu.be/lIBtpED-vUw?...

Being released this Tuesday, 4 November. Also available as E book, and through Amazon as both hardcover and on Kindle.

It's wild how load-bearing Halo 2 is narratively for the franchise. CE had a very simple story that leaned heavily on mystery. It worked well, but Halo 2 had the far harder job of expanding the universe in a satisfying way. If it had failed, CE's story would have fallen apart by association.

I thought the worst Halo-related thing I'd have to handle would be the internet discourse around a mediocre Halo CE remake. US politics keeps reminding me that my bar is never low enough.

A cartoon from 1941 ridiculing American efforts to project air power -- the stuff of carriers -- from the rugged reaches of China

My take on the Halo CE remake so far is I don't feel too strongly one way or the other. On the technical side, I can see all the UE5 issues with stuttering, artifacts, generic look (as a result of the ubiquity of the engine in modern games) on display. youtu.be/hSjbIM0iegY?...

Every once in awhile I'm a bit sad that interest in my areas of study is relatively modest. Then I look at what people studying the European Theatre in the Second World War have to frequently put up with and conclude my niche knowledge kiddie pool over here ain't so bad after all.

Only until 27th October! 20 % off on all our books and 25 % off on our new Stuka Book: www.lulu.com/spotlight/mhg ACHTUNG! Achtung Panzer?, Mythos Stuka & StuG are ONLY in German. All other books are in English or English & German.

Thrilled to announce the publication of my article "The Invention of the Kamikaze: Dissent and Resistance in the Japanese Military" in the October issue of the Journal of Military History!

There are few books I've more eagerly anticipated than Andy Bernstein's magisterial new biography of Mt. Fuji. Ten plus years in the making, its now out in the world. I had the chance to read the entire manuscript and, friends, it's a stunner. See for yourself: press.princeton.edu/books/hardco...

Excited to dig into Hannah Shepherd's new book, out in December from UC Press: www.ucpress.edu/books/the-na...

Corey's Datapad is easily among my favourite Star Wars lore YouTube channel these days. youtu.be/Z9nqvS4shuw?...

I finished everything in Ghost of Tsushima outside of the Iki Island DLC and the little collectable stuff. It was a really fun game and consistently beautiful to look at. It's a shame that the narrative, while serviceable, didn't quite live up to the rest of the presentation.

A Japanese "science warrior" rampages through NYC (in Oct. 1943), blending healthy doses of tradition, modernity, and delusion

A Japanese cartoon from Oct. 1941, ridiculing Londoners during the Blitz "Don't worry," reads the caption, dripping in sarcasm, "We are blessed with an abundance of supplies."

I have a few of my books facing out to make it easier to insert new arrivals into the relevant part of my shelves. This always hits me as a great title.

Ghost of Tsushima is a great example of art direction easily beating out games that are better graphically on a technical level.

I've started reading Jennifer Yip's _Grains of Conflict The Struggle for Food in China's Total War, 1937–1945_ and I can tell it's gonna be fascinating.

Happy Publication day to me! 🥳 Jungle Commandos is out now! @ospreypublishing.bsky.social

Getting to follow and interact with so many historians who are smarter than me. I've learned so much over the years as a result. Social media also directly led to me starting to do appearances on YouTube almost a decade ago now. I never thought I'd do much in my field before that.

Tomorrow at 19:00BST I’ll be on @ww2tv.bsky.social having a chat with Woody about Jungle Commandos and answering your questions! So if there’s something you want to know about the Third Arakan and/or the book, now is your chance to ask! ☺️

I picked up Ghost of Tsushima on Steam and am enjoying it so far! I get I'm playing a fantasy samurai from a Kurosawa movie and not a grounded historical one, but all the bushido stuff still makes my eyes roll. I think it's grating on me so much because of how central it is to the game's plot.

Excerpt from #AdvanceBritannia which is released in the UK on 6 November, preorders appreciated! uk.bookshop.org/p/books/brit...

I think the core of why this argument repeatedly appears in discussions is the casual assumption that if you make a vast amount of something then it must be mediocre-to-bad, when the reality in the Second World War was that the Allies were so industrially dominant they had both quality and quantity.

War Thunder does its best to make flying zeros miserable, but it's still fun on occasion.

a graph of changes in the bombing altitude of the major B-29 operations against Japan, starting with high-altitude raids on the Nakajima aircraft plant and ending with 16th and final four-city fire raid on Aug. 14

Just testing if it's possible to post about enjoying waffles without being a raging asshole.