Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Justin Pyke

@justinpykehistory.bsky.social

2.6K followers 510 following 990 posts

MA in History. Studies intelligence, sea power, air power, and the Asia-Pacific War. Researching U.S. intelligence assessments of Japanese air and sea power, 1919-1941. Andor appreciator and PC gamer.

Posts Media Videos Starter Packs

Pinned

Justin Pyke @justinpykehistory.bsky.social · Nov 9

A sincere welcome to all of my new followers! I don't claim to be anyone important, but I mostly post about my research, the Asia-Pacific War, Star Wars (mainly Andor... let's be real), PC gaming, tabletop, and the brunches that will probably stop my heart one day.

Me taking a photo of an A6M7 (late production zero fighter) at the Yamato Museum in Kure, Japan.

An eggs benedict with bacon and a side of hashbrowns that I consumed at Monki Bistro in downtown Calgary.

A screenshot of the character Syril Karn from the incredible TV show Star Wars Andor. The descriptive text reads "corpos wailing in pain."

A screenshot of a neat vista while I was playing the campaign of Warhammer 40k: Space Marine II on my gaming PC.

5 2 51

Justin Pyke @justinpykehistory.bsky.social · 20h

This is definitely a major pressure in the YouTube ecosystem. Good quality history videos take a lot of time and work, and won't necessarily be rewarded at the end of it with views. Also, the highest return on effort tends to be directed at the visual spectacle over the intellectual content.

Reposted by Justin Pyke

Lucy Betteridge-Dyson @lmbd1418.bsky.social · 1d

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

12 29 100

Justin Pyke @justinpykehistory.bsky.social · 1d

You can play around it, and I do on occasion, but you are basically defensive from game start and constantly fight from an inferior position. It quickly gets frustrating that you never get to dictate an engagement unless the other person messes up significantly.

Justin Pyke @justinpykehistory.bsky.social · 1d

Yeah. Of course the average American line player is terrible, but when you run into even somebody average in an F8F while flying the A6M2 it's pure pain. The A6M3s (beyond the Mod 32) and the A6M5s are near unplayable at their BRs. Almost every plane in your spread is vastly superior.

Justin Pyke @justinpykehistory.bsky.social · 1d

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.

Conrad Hackett @conradhackett.bsky.social · 2d

Has anything great happened in your life because of social media?

Reposted by Justin Pyke

Lucy Betteridge-Dyson @lmbd1418.bsky.social · 1d

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! ☺️

1 11 31

Justin Pyke @justinpykehistory.bsky.social · 2d

I'm about six hours in and it's beautiful to look at, fun to just ride around in, and the combat is a lot of fun. The story is pretty mid samurai trope stuff, but it's good enough to do the job. Overall, it's a great fantasy samurai adventure experience. I have a lot left to go and I'm hooked!

Justin Pyke @justinpykehistory.bsky.social · 2d

Yeah, I suspect I will as it gets away from playing a gruff movie samurai stereotype. I'll have to wait until it makes its way to PC though! I'm still really loving the vibe of Ghost of Tsushima. It's a beautiful game and the combat is a lot of fun.

Justin Pyke @justinpykehistory.bsky.social · 2d

Oh yeah, the Allied train wasn't stopping to be "sporting." There was a lot about Japanese defensive preparations for an invasion that made the task daunting, but the Allies weren't playing around either. Giangreco's Hell to Pay is the best book on this.

Justin Pyke @justinpykehistory.bsky.social · 2d

Lord Shimura in Ghost of Tsushima: "Whoa, whoa we samurai always look our enemies in the face and announce ourselves. Attacking people from the shadows is bad."
Actual early medieval samurai:

"Written sources, other than literary texts, from the Heian period tend to be terse in their accounts of battles, making it difficult to assemble meaningful statistics on strategy and tactics. Nevertheless, the majority of the battles fought during the period appear to have involved some form of surprise attack: out of fifty-eight episodes recounted by various sources in sufficient detail to permit judgments concerning order of battle, forty-one involved ambushes and/or surprise attacks of one form or another.
Ambush is, however, an effective tactic only if the enemy's whereabouts can be reliable predicted. For early medieval bushi, this was most easily accomplished by attacking his home. Night attacks were especially effectual - and particularly favored - for this purpose." - Karl Friday, Samurai, Warfare and the State in Early Medieval Japan, page 116.

1 3

Justin Pyke @justinpykehistory.bsky.social · 2d

Yeah, air power advocates frequently overreached and air power didn't live up to their expectations during the war. BBs also still had use during the war, even if it was clear they were entering the twilight years. Heck, new USN BBs arguably saved the US position on Guadalcanal.

Justin Pyke @justinpykehistory.bsky.social · 2d

One of my favourite books related to this is Trent Hone's Learning War. He does such a wonderful job arguing this from the USN perspective through the Pacific War. It's still my favourite account of the night actions in 1943.

1 1

Justin Pyke @justinpykehistory.bsky.social · 2d

The Yamatos are an easy punching bag because of strategic and operational decisions made by the IJN during the war rather than the ships themselves. Air power radicals existed and argued against new battleship construction at the time, but the key point was they only had (often unrealistic) theory.

1 5

Justin Pyke @justinpykehistory.bsky.social · 2d

It's a whole other topic, but I know the Yamato-class is easy to take cheap shots on. I don't necessarily disagree with the logic behind them. BBs were going to be built in the mid-1930s, and the IJN legitimately needed new ones by that time. The only real debate was what they would look like.

1 4

Justin Pyke @justinpykehistory.bsky.social · 2d

Smaller BBs were logistically more usable during the war, though that doesn't mean the IJN would have done so given its doctrine. IIRC Yamato's fuel consumption for its size was actually fine, it's just that it was so damn large. Maybe more efficient BBs would have tipped a decision-making scale.

1 4

Justin Pyke @justinpykehistory.bsky.social · 2d

Yeah, I'm just roughly spit-balling here. The key point I'm reaching at is people obsess over the technical minutia when, as Eugen notes, the real core of the issue is the IJN not using what they had to begin with. Fuel usage of the Yamato class was one factor behind that, but not the only.

1 5

Justin Pyke @justinpykehistory.bsky.social · 2d

If they had, say, 3-4 modern BBs that were individually less capable than Yamato, would they have been horded during decisive moments in 1942 to the same degree? Possibly, I don't know. It's not really a mark against the warships as a piece of technology though and more a critique of IJN strategy.

2 5

Justin Pyke @justinpykehistory.bsky.social · 2d

Eugen's point on IJN cautious deployment (i.e. lack of usage) is good. I wonder what the doctrinal use of a Kongo replacement (studies existed) would have been. Factored into night fighting, like the Kongos? There's OK info out there on the technical details, but I haven't seen specifics on usage.

2 5

Justin Pyke @justinpykehistory.bsky.social · 2d

I don't like counterfactuals, so all I'll say is usage of newer IJN BBs in an aggressive fashion off Guadalcanal would've been a significant danger to the US position. The Iowa-era USN battleline was past the window of opportunity for the IJN. Technical details of IJN BBs don't matter much by then.

2 5

Justin Pyke @justinpykehistory.bsky.social · 2d

It's important to note the war started before Feb 1943. The IJN BBs were previous generation, historically and in this scenario. The two plausible what-if BB action scenarios in the PTO was a night action off Guadalcanal (by far the most strategically relevant) and a last ditch showdown in Oct 1944.

1 3

Justin Pyke @justinpykehistory.bsky.social · 2d

Yeah, that's a fair point. My understanding is at least in part fuel consumption was a factor in decision-making regarding usage of the Yamato-class at specific moments. The rather timid, for lack of a better word, usage of high value assets is a harder problem to surmount.

1 3

Justin Pyke @justinpykehistory.bsky.social · 3d

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.

3 8

Justin Pyke @justinpykehistory.bsky.social · 3d

Yup. The key point is the quality of Allied organization/systems as a whole, rather than getting stuck in the reeds of technical minutia.

1 12

Justin Pyke @justinpykehistory.bsky.social · 3d

Trying not to go too crazy with hindsight, I think a more reasonable 35k ton battleship design that the IJN could have used heavily would have been more worthwhile than 65k ton monsters that mostly sat idle. The Kongo-class were overworked because they were fast and modestly sized, despite their age

1 10

Reposted by Justin Pyke

Alan Owlport 🦉 🎃 @alanallport.bsky.social · 4d

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

18 14 56