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Sei Shōnagon

Sei Shōnagon (清少納言) was a Japanese author, poet, and a court lady who served the Empress Teishi (Sadako) around the year 1000 during the middle Heian period. She is the author of The Pillow Book (枕草子).

Name
Sei Shōnagon's actual given name is not known. It was the custom among aristocrats in those days to call a court lady by a nickname taken from a court office belonging to her father or husband. Sei (清) derives from her father's family name "Kiyohara" (the native Japanese reading of the first character is kiyo, while the Sino-Japanese reading is sei), while "lesser councilor of state" (少納言) refers to a government post. Her relationship to this post is unknown, though—neither her father nor either of her two husbands held such a post. Bun'ei Tsunoda has suggested that it may have belonged to a third husband, perhaps Fujiwara no Nobuyoshi.

Her actual name has been a topic of debate among scholars, and the name Kiyohara no Nagiko (清原 諾子) is a possibility.

Early life
Little is known about her life except what can be found in her writing. She was the daughter of Kiyohara no Motosuke, a scholar and well-known waka poet, who worked as a provincial official. Her grandfather Kiyohara no Fukayabu was also a waka poet. The family were middle-ranking courtiers and had financial difficulties, possibly because they were not granted a revenue-producing office.

She married Tachibana no Norimitsu, a government official at 16, and gave birth to a son, Norinaga. In 993, at 27, when she began to serve the Empress Teishi, consort of Emperor Ichijō, she may have been divorced. When her court service ended she may have married Fujiwara no Muneyo, governor of Settsu province, and had a daughter, Koma no Myobu, although some evidence suggests she became a Buddhist nun.

Hiroaki Sato questions whether Lady Sei and Norimitsu were actually married or just close friends, "the ladies and gentlemen of the court teased them by calling him her big brother and her his little sister."

Rival
Shōnagon is also known for her rivalry with her contemporary, writer and court lady Murasaki Shikibu, author of The Tale of Genji who served the Empress Shoshi, second consort of the Emperor Ichijō. Murasaki Shikibu wrote about Shōnagon – somewhat scathingly, though conceding Shōnagon's literary gifts – in her diary, The Diary of Lady Murasaki.

Writing
Shōnagon became popular through her work The Pillow Book, a collection of lists, gossip, poetry, observations and complaints written during her years in the court, a miscellaneous genre of writing known as zuihitsu. Shōnagon's essays describe the various daily experiences and customs of the time, and the affairs of the Imperial Court in Kyoto where she lived, from a unique point of view. The Pillow Book was circulated at court, and for several hundred years existed in handwritten manuscripts. First printed in the 17th century, it exists in different versions: the order of entries may have been changed by scribes with comments and passages added, edited, or deleted. Four main variants of the text are known to modern scholars. The two considered to be the most complete and accurate are the Sankanbon and Nōinbon texts. Later editors introduced section numbers and divisions; the Sankanbon text is divided into 297 sections, with an additional 29 "supplemental" sections which may represent later additions by the author or copyists.

In The Pillow Book, Shōnagon writes about Empress Teishi, and her disappointment after her father's death when Fujiwara no Michinaga made his daughter Shōshi consort to Ichijō, and then empress, making Teishi one of two empresses at court. Because of the risk of fire, the Imperial family did not live in the Heian Palace. Empress Teishi resided in a part of Chūgushiki, the "Bureau of Serving the (Middle) Empress", and moved to other residences as circumstances changed. Shōnagon writes with apparent lightheartedness about events at court, de-emphasizing or omitting harsh realities such as Teishi's death from childbirth in 1001. According to the prevalent fashion, to have written more passionately would have been considered unstylish. Her writing is considered witty, depicting Teishi's elegant court from a detailed, gossipy perspective.

Shōnagon was regarded by contemporary courtiers as having an excellent memory. Her writing includes many reminiscences of events at court, often including precise details such as the clothes people wore, despite being written down several years after the events took place. She was also known to be especially adept at recalling and quoting a classic poem to suit the occasion, even by the standards of a court in which knowledge of the poetry canon was considered an essential skill.

The entries in The Pillow Book on rhetoric include advice and opinions on conversation, preaching, and letter writing. Shōnagon advocates pure language and rigorous use of formalities in the sections of advice on conversation, but also offers vignettes showing witty repartee and sociable give-and-take among the empress's ladies and between ladies and gentlemen. Shōnagon also touches upon the topic of preaching; priests who preach should be handsome and well trained in elocution, with excellent memories, and their audiences should be attentive and polite individuals who do not come to services to flirt and show off. She says that one can become distracted and inattentive when the priest is unattractive, but when he is good-looking one remains focused on his face, and as such better experiences the holiness of his sermons. Later, she offers detailed information on letter writing, offering prescriptions for paper, calligraphy, accompanying gift and bearer, and appreciation for the value of letters as gifts of love. In particular, Shōnagon paid special attention to "morning-after letters". In Japanese court society, sex between courtiers was illicit but happened very often. A social requirement was that the male send a poem on beautiful paper with a decorative flower or branch to the lady, and that she reply. Shōnagon goes in depth about this subject matter in her section called, "Things That Make One Nervous."

One of her waka is included in the famous anthology Ogura Hyakunin Isshu as No. 62.

Later years
There are no details about Shōnagon's life after the year 1017, and very few records of her after the death of the Empress Teishi/Empress Sadako in 1000. According to one tradition, she lived out her twilight years in poverty as a Buddhist nun. Another tradition has her marrying Fujiwara no Muneyo, the governor of Settsu province, after her court service ended, and having a daughter, Koma no Myobu. The Pillow Book is thought to have been finished sometime between 1001 and 1010, while Shōnagon was in retirement.

==Chronology == '''Main background events are included. Names are given in the Japanese order, family name first.'''

966? Sei Shōnagon born. Father Kiyohara Motosuke, mother’s name unknown.

967 Emperor Murakami, Ichijō’s grandfather, dies. Interregnum for two years.

969 Enyū(b. 959), Ichijō’s father, succeeds to the throne.

975 Princess Senshi (964–1035) becomes Kamo High Priestess (until 1031).

977 Fujiwara Teishi born. Father Fujiwara Michitaka (b. 953), mother Takashina Kishi (d. 996).

978 Fujiwara Senshi (962–1001), daughter of Fujiwara Kaneie, becomes Empress of Emperor Enyū.

980 Ichijō born. Father Emperor Enyū, mother Fujiwara Senshi.

984 Emperor Enyū retires and takes Buddhist orders. Succeeded by Kazan (968–1008), eldest son of Emperor Reizei.

986 Emperor Kazan retires and takes Buddhist orders. Succeeded by Ichijō.

990 Teishi becomes High Consort to Emperor Ichijō. Fujiwara Kaneie, Michitaka’s father, becomes Chancellor.

991 Retired Emperor Enyū dies; Empress Dowager, Fujiwara Senshi, takes the tonsure.

993 Fujiwara Michitaka becomes Chancellor. ? Sei Shōnagon becomes a gentlewoman in Teishi’s court.

994? Fujiwara Korechika (974–1010), Michitaka’s son, presents Empress Teishi with the paper Sei Shōnagon will use for her Pillow Book.

995 Chancellor Fujiwara Michitaka dies. Michitaka’s brother and rival, Fujiwara Michinaga (966–1027), increases his power.

996 Teishi’s brothers Korechika and Takaie (979–1044) attack Retired Emperor Kazan; they are arrested and forced to leave the capital. ? Governor of Ise Minamoto Tsunefusa visits Sei Shōnagon and discovers and circulates the early draft of The Pillow Book. Teishi gives birth to a daughter, Princess Shūshi.

997 Korechika and Takaie are allowed to return to the capital.

999 Major fire at Imperial Palace. Teishi gives birth to a son, Prince Atsuyasu.

1000 Michinaga’s daughter Shōshi becomes High Consort to Emperor Ichijō, replacing Teishi in his favour. Teishi gives birth to a daughter, Princess Kyōshi, and dies two days later. Sei Shōnagon leaves the court.

1011 Emperor Ichijō dies. Succeeded by Sanjō.

1017 Last reference to Sei Shōnagon.

title: Sei Shōnagon


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Egyptian nightjar

The Egyptian nightjar (Caprimulgus aegyptius) is a medium-small nightjar which occurs in south west Asia and north Africa and winters in tropical Africa. This is a fairly common species with a wide distribution which faces no obvious threats apart from habitat destruction, so the International Union for Conservation of Nature has rated its conservation status as being of "least concern".

Etymology
The genus name Caprimulgus is derived from the Latin capra, "nanny goat", and mulgere, "to milk", referring to an old myth that nightjars suck milk from goats. The specific aegyptius is Latin for Egyptian.". The common name "nightjar", first recorded in 1630, refers to the nocturnal habits of the bird, the second part of the name deriving from the distinctive churring song.

Description
The variegated plumage is much paler than the European nightjar. The adult is sand-coloured, barred and streaked with buff and brown. The under parts are sandy or whitish. It is smaller, but relatively longer-winged and longer-tailed than the more widespread species. Like other nightjars, it has a wide gape, long wings, soft downy plumage and nocturnal habits. The male has tiny white wing spots. The length is 25 cm, and the wingspan 55 cm. Its call is a repetitive mechanical kroo-kroo-kroo…, which rises and falls as the bird turns its head from side to side.

Distribution and habitat
The Egyptian nightjar is native to northern Africa, the Arabian Peninsula and the Middle East. Its range includes Afghanistan, Algeria, Bahrain, Chad, Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Israel, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Kuwait, Libya, Mali, Mauritania, Morocco, Nigeria, Oman, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Senegal, South Sudan, Sudan, Tajikistan, Tunisia, Turkmenistan, United Arab Emirates, Uzbekistan and Yemen. It is a rare visitor to Europe, and has occurred as a vagrant in Denmark, Germany, Italy, Malta, Sweden and the United Kingdom. Its typical habitat is open desert with a few scattered trees or bushes. It is often found near water in areas with sparse vegetation and scrub. Over-wintering birds in Sudan can be found in areas with long grass.

Ecology
During the day, this crepuscular nightjar lies silent upon the ground, concealed by its plumage; it is difficult to detect, blending in with the sandy soil. It flies at dusk, most often at sundown, with an easy, silent moth-like flight; its strong and deliberate wingbeats alternate with sweeps and glides with motionless wings. Crepuscular insects, such as moths, are its food. No nest is made; the two elongated and elliptical eggs are placed upon the bare ground; the brooding bird, sitting closely, is their best protection. The population in northwestern Africa breeds in the desert and sandy steppe where there are areas with limestone outcrops, and overwinter in dry countryside with Artemisia, Tamarix and Salsola.

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: Egyptian nightjar


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Talk:Strategic Simulations

List
Still need a full list of games published - underdogs list seems pretty complete. Stan 07:18, 6 Nov 2003 (UTC)

Added the Underdog list Xiag 00:00, 29 April 2006 (UTC)

World of Aden: Thunderscape
I added this to 1990, but I don't know the actual release date. The date on MobyGames is incorrect since it's sequel was released that year (1995). So 1990 was an educated guess—5 years seems like a reasonable lag for a sequel. If anyone knows the acutal year, please move it (and update MobyGames too! :-) ). — Frecklefoot | Talk 16:30, 8 June 2006 (UTC)
 * Nope, Moby is correct. Searching Usenet, Thunderscape seems to have been released in August 1995, and Entomorph in October. TerokNor 20:39, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

Move list to article of its own
I think the list of games is too long for this article and should be moved to its own article, say List of Strategic Simulations, Inc. games. Anyone second the motion? — Frecklefoot | Talk 21:31, 7 December 2006 (UTC)
 * Support. Yes, I think that makes sense. -Slordak 21:45, 7 December 2006 (UTC)
 * Support Common sense move.  Coll7 00:43, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

That's good enough for me! I went ahead and moved it. Please see the question I posed on its talk page. :-) — Frecklefoot | Talk 15:29, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

Confused about game and game engines
The artical says that Panzer general 2 was unsuccessful that to my knowledge is untrue. It then says panzer general III scorched earth is based on the same engin as Peoples General that is untrue. Peoples general is based on the Panzer General 2 engine. Panzer general III scorched earth is build on the same engine as Panzer General 3D.

Does someone wish to fix this up? otherwise i can if ive got time. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Wonx2150 (talk • contribs)

 * It sounds like you know the straight dope. So, go for it! :-) — Frecklefoot | Talk 14:20, 21 May 2007 (UTC)

Fair use rationale for Image:SSI-0.PNG
Image:SSI-0.PNG is being used on this article. I notice the image page specifies that the image is being used under fair use but there is no explanation or rationale as to why its use in this Wikipedia article constitutes fair use. In addition to the boilerplate fair use template, you must also write out on the image description page a specific explanation or rationale for why using this image in each article is consistent with fair use.

Please go to the image description page and edit it to include a fair use rationale. Using one of the templates at Fair use rationale guideline is an easy way to insure that your image is in compliance with Wikipedia policy, but remember that you must complete the template. Do not simply insert a blank template on an image page.

If there is other other fair use media, consider checking that you have specified the fair use rationale on the other images used on this page. Note that any fair use images uploaded after 4 May, 2006, and lacking such an explanation will be deleted one week after they have been uploaded, as described on criteria for speedy deletion. If you have any questions please ask them at the Media copyright questions page. Thank you.BetacommandBot 09:43, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

Using the "Inc."
In April of last year, this article was moved from Strategic Simulations, Inc. to Strategic Simulations. I have never known this company to be called by this name. In my experience, the company was either called "SSI" or "Strategic Simulations, Inc." I would like to move this back, but I want to hear any objections first.--Mike Selinker (talk) 23:39, 31 January 2009 (UTC)
 * So moved.--Mike Selinker (talk) 02:38, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

title: Talk:Strategic Simulations


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Mulberry harbours

The Mulberry harbours were two temporary portable harbours developed by the British Admiralty and War Office during the Second World War to facilitate the rapid offloading of cargo onto beaches during the Allied invasion of Normandy in June 1944. They were designed in 1942 then built in under a year in great secrecy; within hours of the Allies creating beachheads after D-Day, sections of the two prefabricated harbours were towed across the English Channel from southern England and placed in position off Omaha Beach (Mulberry "A") and Gold Beach (Mulberry "B"), along with old ships to be sunk as breakwaters.

The Mulberry harbours solved the problem of needing deepwater jetties and a harbour to provide the invasion force with the necessary reinforcements and supplies, and were to be used until major French ports could be captured and brought back into use after repair of the inevitable sabotage by German defenders. Comprising floating but sinkable breakwaters, floating pontoons, piers and floating roadways, this innovative and technically difficult system was being used for the first time.

The Mulberry B harbour at Gold Beach was used for ten months after D-Day, while over two million men, four million tons of supplies and half a million vehicles were landed before it was fully decommissioned. The partially completed Mulberry A harbour at Omaha Beach was damaged on 19 June by a violent storm that arrived from the northeast before the pontoons were securely anchored. After three days the storm finally abated and damage was found to be so severe that the harbour was abandoned and the Americans resorted to landing men and material over the open beaches.

Background
The Dieppe Raid of 1942 had shown that the Allies could not rely on being able to penetrate the Atlantic Wall to capture a port on the north French coast. The problem was that large ocean-going ships of the type needed to transport heavy and bulky cargoes and stores needed sufficient depth of water under their keels, together with dockside cranes, to offload their cargo. These were only available at the already heavily defended French harbours. Thus, the Mulberries were created to provide the port facilities necessary to offload the thousands of men and vehicles and millions of tons of supplies necessary to sustain Operation Overlord. The harbours were made up of all the elements one would expect of any harbour: breakwater, piers and roadways.

Preparation
With the planning of Operation Overlord at an advanced stage by the summer of 1943, it was accepted that the proposed artificial harbours would need to be prefabricated in Britain and then towed across the English Channel.

The need for two separate artificial harbours – one American and one British/Canadian – was agreed at the Quebec Conference in August 1943. An Artificial Harbours Sub-Committee was set up under the Chairmanship of the civil engineer Colin R. White, brother of Sir Bruce White, to advise on the location of the harbours and the form of the breakwater; the Sub-Committee's first meeting was held at the Institution of Civil Engineers (ICE) on 4 August 1943. The minutes of the Sub-Committee's meetings show that initially it was envisaged that bubble breakwaters would be used, then blockships were proposed, and finally, because not enough block ships were available, a mix of blockships and purpose-made concrete caisson units were used.

On 2 September 1943 the Combined Chiefs of Staff estimated that the artificial ports (Mulberries) would need to handle 12,000 tons per day, exclusive of motor transport, and in all weathers. On 4 September the go-ahead was given to start work immediately on the harbours. Infighting between the War Office and the Admiralty over responsibility was only resolved on 15 December 1943 by the intervention of the Vice-Chiefs of Staff. The decision was that the Admiralty managed the blockships, bombardons and assembly of all constituent parts on the south coast of England. It would also undertake all necessary work to survey, site, tow and mark navigation. The War Office was given the task of constructing the concrete caissons (phoenixes), the roadways (whales) and protection via anti-aircraft installations. Once at the site, the army was responsible for sinking the caissons and assembling all the various other units of the harbours. For the Mulberry A at Omaha Beach, the US Navy Civil Engineer Corps (CEC) would construct the harbour from prefabricated parts.

The proposed harbours called for many huge caissons of various sorts to build breakwaters and piers and connecting structures to provide the roadways. The caissons were built at a number of locations, mainly existing ship building facilities or large beaches, like Conwy Morfa, around the British coast. The works were let out to commercial construction firms, including Wates Construction, Balfour Beatty, Henry Boot, Bovis & Co, Cochrane & Sons, Costain, Cubitts, French, Holloway Brothers, John Laing & Son, Peter Lind & Company, Sir Robert McAlpine, Melville Dundas & Whitson, Mowlem, Nuttall, Parkinson, Halcrow Group, Pauling & Co. and Taylor Woodrow. On completion they were towed across the English Channel by tugboats to the Normandy coast at only 4.3 kn and assembled, operated and maintained by the Corps of Royal Engineers, under the guidance of Reginald D. Gwyther, who was appointed CBE for his efforts. Various elements of the whale piers were designed and constructed by a group of companies led by Braithwaite & Co, West Bromwich and Newport.

Beach surveys
Both locations for the temporary harbours required detailed information concerning geology, hydrography and sea conditions. To collect this data a special team of hydrographers was created in October 1943. The 712th Survey Flotilla, operating from naval base HMS Tormentor in Hamble, were detailed to collect soundings off the enemy coast. Between November 1943 and January 1944 this team used a number of specially adapted Landing Craft Personnel (Large), or LCP(L), to survey the Normandy coast.

The LCP(L)s were manned by a Royal Navy crew and a small group of hydrographers. The first sortie, Operation KJF, occurred on the night of 26/27 November 1943 when three LCP(L)s took measurements off the port of Arromanches, the location for Mulberry B. A follow-up mission, Operation KJG, to the proposed location for Mulberry A happened over 1 and 2 December but a navigation failure meant the team sounded an area 2,250 yards west of the correct area.

Two attempts to take soundings were made off Pointe de Ver. The first sortie, Operation Bellpush Able, on 25/26 December had problems with their equipment. They returned on 28/29 December, in Operation Bellpush Baker, to complete the task.

(On New Year's Eve 1943, the 712th Survey Flotilla carried a Combined Operations Pilotage Party (COPP) to the Gold Beach area just west of Ver-sur-Mer. Two soldiers – Major Logan Scott-Bowden, of the Royal Engineers, and commando Sergeant Bruce Ogden Smith, of the East Surrey Regiment – landed on the beach at night in Operation KJH and took samples of the sand. This operation was to check the load-bearing capabilities of sand and help determine whether armoured vehicles would be able to cross the beach or become bogged down, rather than being in connection with the Mulberry harbours.)

The final Mulberry harbour survey, Operation Bellpush Charlie, occurred on the night of 30–31 January but limited information was gathered due to fog and because German lookouts heard the craft. Further sorties were abandoned.

Design and development
An early idea for temporary harbours was sketched by Winston Churchill in a 1915 memo to Lloyd George. This memo was for artificial harbours to be created off the German islands of Borkum and Sylt. No further investigation was made and the memo was filed away.

In 1940 the civil engineer Guy Maunsell wrote to the War Office with a proposal for an artificial harbour, but the idea was not at first adopted. Churchill issued his memo "Piers for use on beaches" on 30 May 1942, apparently in some frustration at the lack of progress being made on finding a solution to the temporary harbour problem. Between 17 June and 6 August 1942, Hugh Iorys Hughes submitted a design concept for artificial harbours to the War Office.

At a meeting following the Dieppe Raid of 19 August 1942, Vice-Admiral John Hughes-Hallett (the naval commander for the Dieppe Raid) declared that if a port could not be captured, then one should be taken across the Channel. Hughes-Hallett had the support of Churchill. The concept of Mulberry harbours began to take shape when Hughes-Hallett moved to be Naval Chief of Staff to the Overlord planners.

In the autumn of 1942, the Chief of Combined Operations Vice-Admiral Lord Louis Mountbatten, outlined the requirement for piers at least 1 mi long at which a continuous stream of supplies could be handled, including a pier head capable of handling 2,000-ton ships.

In July 1943 a committee of eminent civil engineers consisting of Colin R White (chairman), J D C Couper, J A Cochrane, R D Gwyther and Lt. Col. Ivor Bell was established to advise on how a number of selected sites on the French coastline could be converted into sheltered harbours. The committee initially investigated the use of compressed air breakwaters before eventually deciding on blockships and caissons.

Trials
In August and September 1943 a trial of three competing designs for the cargo-handling jetties was set up together with a test of a compressed air breakwater. The pier designs were by:
 * Hugh Iorys Hughes (a civil engineer) who developed his "Hippo" piers and "Crocodile" bridge spans;
 * Ronald Hamilton (working at the Department of Miscellaneous Weapons Development) who devised the "Swiss roll" which consisted of a floating roadway made of waterproofed canvas stiffened with slats and tensioned by cables;
 * Lieutenant Colonel William T Everall and Major Allan Beckett (of the War Office's 'Transportation 5 Department' (Tn5)) who designed a floating bridge linked to a pier head (the latter had integral 'spud' legs that were raised and lowered with the tide).

The western side of Wigtown Bay, in the Solway Firth, was selected for the trials as the tides were similar to those on the expected invasion beaches in Normandy, a harbour was available at Garlieston, and the area's remoteness would simplify security matters. A headquarters camp was erected at Cairn Head, about 5 mi south of Garlieston. Prototypes of each of the designs were built and transported to the area for testing by Royal Engineers, based at Cairn Head and in Garlieston. The tests revealed various problems (the "Swiss roll" would only take up to a seven-ton truck in the Atlantic swell). The final choice of design was determined by a storm during which the "Hippos" were undermined causing the "Crocodile" bridge spans to fail and the Swiss roll was washed away. Tn5's design proved the most successful and Beckett's floating roadway (subsequently codenamed whale) survived undamaged; the design was adopted and 10 mi of whale roadway were manufactured under the management of J. D. Bernal and Brigadier Bruce White, the Director of Ports and Inland Water Transport at the War Office.

Elements

Mulberry was the codename for all the various structures that created the artificial harbours. These were called gooseberries, which metamorphosed into fully fledged harbours. Mulberry "A" and "B" each consisted of a floating outer breakwater called a bombardons, a static breakwater consisting of "corncobs" and reinforced concrete caissons called phoenix breakwaters, floating piers or roadways codenamed whales and beetles and pier heads codenamed spuds. These harbours when built were both of a similar size to Dover harbour. In the planning of Operation Neptune the term Mulberry "B" was defined as "an artificial harbour to be built in England and towed to the British beaches at Arromanches".

The Mulberry harbour assembled on Omaha Beach at Saint-Laurent-sur-Mer was for use by the American invasion forces. Mulberry "A" (American) was not as securely anchored to the sea bed as Mulberry "B" had been by the British, resulting in such severe damage during the Channel storm of June 19, 1944 that it was considered to be irreparable and its further assembly ceased, It was commanded by Augustus Dayton Clark.

Mulberry "B" (British) was the harbour assembled on Gold Beach at Arromanches for use by the British and Canadian invasion forces. The harbour was decommissioned six months after D-Day, when Allied forces could use the recently captured port of Antwerp to offload troops and supplies. Mulberry "B" was operated by 20 Port Group, Royal Engineers, under the command of Lieutenant Colonel G.C.B Shaddick.

Corncobs and gooseberries
Corncobs were 61 ships that crossed the English Channel (either under their own steam or towed) and were then scuttled to act as breakwaters and create sheltered water at the five landing beaches. Once in position the corncobs created the sheltered waters known as gooseberries.

The ships used for each beach were:
 * Utah Beach (Gooseberry 1, 10 ships): SS Benjamin Contee, David O. Saylor, George S. Wasson, Matt W. Ransom, SS West Cheswald, SS West Honaker, SS West Nohno, Willis A. Slater, Victory Sword and Vitruvius.
 * Omaha Beach (Gooseberry 2, 15 ships): Artemas Ward, SS Audacious (1913), Baialoide, HMS Centurion (1911), Courageous, Flight-Command, Galveston, George W. Childs, James W. Marshall, James Iredell Illinoian,  Olambala, Potter, USS West Grama (ID-3794) and Wilscox.
 * Gold Beach (Gooseberry 3, 16 ships): Alynbank, Alghios Spyridon, Elswick Park, Flowergate, Giorgios P., Ingman, Innerton, Lynghaug, Modlin, Njegos, Parkhaven, Parklaan, Saltersgate, Sirehei, Vinlake and Winha.
 * Juno Beach (Gooseberry 4, 11 ships): Belgique, Bendoran, SS Empire Bunting, Empire Flamingo, Empire Moorhen, Empire Waterhen, Formigny, Manchester Spinner, Mariposa, Panos and Vera Radcliffe.
 * Sword Beach (Gooseberry 5, 9 ships ): Becheville, FRENCH BATTLESHIP Courbet, SS Dover Hill, HMS Durban (D99), SS Empire Defiance, Empire Tamar, Empire Tana, Forbin and HNLMS Sumatra.

Phoenix caissons
Phoenixes were reinforced concrete caissons constructed by civil engineering contractors around the coast of Britain, collected and sunk at Dungeness in Kent and Pagham Harbour in West Sussex prior to D-Day. There were six different sizes of caisson (with displacements of approximately 2,000 tons to 6,000 tons each ) and each unit was towed to Normandy by two tugs at around three knots. The caissons were initially planned to be moored along the coast, but do to a lack of mooring capacity they were sunk awaiting D-Day, and then refloated ("resurrected", hence the name).

The Royal Engineers were responsible for the task, and questions had arisen about whether their plans were adequate. US Navy Captain (later Rear Admiral) Edward Ellsberg, a known expert in marine salvage, was brought in to review the plans and determined that they were not. The supplied pumps were designed for moving large volumes of sewage horizontally, and were incapable of providing the necessary lift to pump the water up and out of the caissons.

Ellsberg's report resulted in Churchill's intervention, taking the task away from the Royal Engineers and giving it to the Royal Navy. Newly-appointed commodore Sinclair McKenzie was put in charge and quickly assembled every salvage barge in the British Isles. The phoenixes, once refloated, were towed across the channel to form the "Mulberry" harbour breakwaters together with the gooseberry block ships. Ellsberg rode one of the concrete caissons to Normandy; once there he helped unsnarl wrecked landing craft and vehicles on the beach.

Bombardons
The bombardons were large 200 ft by 25 ft plus-shaped floating breakwaters fabricated in steel and rubberized canvas that were anchored outside the main breakwaters that consisted of gooseberries (scuttled ships) and phoenixes (concrete caissons. Twenty-four bombardon units, attached to one another with hemp ropes, created 1 mi breakwaters. During the storms at the end of June 1944. some broke up and sank while others parted their anchors and drifted down onto the harbours, possibly causing more damage than the storm itself. Their design was the responsibility of the Royal Navy; the Royal Engineers designed the rest of the Mulberry harbour equipment.

Whales
The dock piers were codenamed whales. They were the floating roadways that connected the "spud" pier heads to the land. Designed by Allan Beckett, the roadways were made from innovative torsionally flexible bridging units that had a span of 80 ft, mounted on pontoon units of either steel or concrete called "beetles". After the war many of the "Whale" bridge spans from Arromanches were used to repair bombed bridges in France, Belgium and the Netherlands. Such units are still visible as a bridge over the Noireau river in Normandy, Meuse River in Vacherauville (Meuse), as a bridge over the Moselle River on road D56 between Cattenom and Kœnigsmacker (Moselle) and in Vierville-sur-Mer (Calvados) along road D517. In 1954, some whales were also used to build two bridges (still visible) in Cameroon along the Edea to Kribi road. In the 1960s, three whale spans from Arromanches were used at Ford Dagenham for cars to drive from the assembly line directly onto ships. A span from Mulberry B reused after the war at Pont-Farcy was saved from destruction in 2008 by Les Amis du Pont Bailey, a group of English and French volunteers. Seeking a permanent home for it, they gifted it to the Imperial War Museum and it was returned to England in July 2015. After conservation work it is now part of the Land Warfare exhibition at Imperial War Museum Duxford.

Beetles
Beetles were pontoons that supported the Whale piers. War work by the Butterley Company included the production of steel "pontoons used to support the floating bridge between the offshore Mulberry Harbour caissons and the shore on Gold and Omaha beaches after D-Day 1944". Roy Christian wrote: "The workers who made mysterious floats had no idea of their ultimate purpose until one morning in June 1944 they realised that their products were helping to support the Mulberry Harbour off the low coastline of Normandy, and by that time they were busy building pontoon units and Bailey bridge panels ready for the breakthrough into Germany. But if they were often in the dark about the purpose and destination of the products over which they toiled for days in workshop, forge and foundry, they understood their importance. No time was lost through the war years on strikes or disputes, and absenteeism was low. Some of those workers were women, for in the first time in its history female labour was being employed at the Butterley works." 420 concrete pontoons were made by Wates Ltd. at their Barrow in Furness, West India Docks, Marchwood and Beaulieu sites. A further 40 concrete beetles were made by John Laing (for Wates)at their Southsea factory and 20 were made at R. Costain at Erith, Twelve were made by John Mowlem at Russia Dock as were 8 by Melville Dundas and Whiston. They were moored in position using wires attached to "Kite" anchors which were also designed by Allan Beckett. These anchors had such high holding power that few could be recovered at the end of the war. The Navy was dismissive of Beckett's claims for his anchor's holding ability so Kite anchors were not used for mooring the bombardons. An original Kite anchor is displayed in a private museum at Vierville-sur-Mer while a full size replica forms part of a memorial to Beckett in Arromanches. In October 2018 five Kite anchors were recovered from the bed of the Solent off Woodside Beach, which had been an assembly area for Whale tows prior to D Day. The anchors were taken to Mary Rose Archaeological Services in Portsmouth for conservation treatment.

Spuds
The pier heads or landing wharves at which ships were unloaded were codenamed spuds. Each consisted of a pontoon with four legs that rested on the sea bed to anchor it while it could float up and down freely with the tide.

Deployment

Components for the Mulberry harbours were constructed at many different locations in Britain, before being transferred to assembly points off the south coast. Then on the afternoon of 6 June 1944 (D-Day) over 400 towed component parts (weighing approximately 1.5 million tons) set sail to create the two Mulberry harbours. It included all the blockships (codenamed Corncobs) to create the outer breakwater (gooseberries) and 146 concrete caissons (phoenixes).

Arromanches
At Arromanches, the first phoenix was sunk at dawn on 8 June 1944. By 15 June a further 115 had been sunk to create a five-mile-long arc between Tracy-sur-Mer in the west to Asnelles in the east. To protect the new anchorage, the superstructures of the blockships (which remained above sea-level) and the concrete caissons were festooned with anti-aircraft guns and barrage balloons manned by the men of the 397th and 481st Anti-Aircraft Artillery (Automatic Weapons) Battalions, attached to the First US Army.

Omaha
Arriving first on D-Day were the bombardons, followed a day later by the first blockship. The first phoenix was sunk on 9 June and the gooseberry was finished by 11 June. By 18 June two piers and four pier heads were working. Though this harbour was abandoned in late June (see below), the beach continued to be used for landing vehicles and stores using Landing Ship Tanks (LSTs). Using this method, the Americans were able to unload a higher tonnage of supplies than at Arromanches. Salvageable parts of the artificial port were sent to Arromanches to repair the Mulberry there.

Storm
Both harbours were almost fully functional when on 19 June a nor'easter of force 6 to 8 blew into Normandy and devastated the Mulberry harbour at Omaha Beach. The harbours had been designed with summer weather conditions in mind, but this was the worst storm to hit the Normandy coast in 40 years.

The entire harbour at Omaha was deemed irreparable, 21 of the 28 phoenix caissons were completely destroyed, the bombardons were cast adrift and the roadways and piers lay smashed.

The Mulberry harbour at Arromanches was more protected, and although damaged by the storm, it remained usable. It came to be known as Port Winston. While the harbour at Omaha was destroyed sooner than expected, Port Winston saw heavy use for eight months, despite being designed to last only three months. In the ten months after D-Day, it was used to land almost three million men, four million tons of supplies and half a million vehicles to reinforce France. In response to this longer-than-planned use, the phoenix breakwater was reinforced with the addition of specially strengthened caissons. The Royal Engineers had built a complete Mulberry Harbour out of 600,000 tons of concrete between 33 jetties, and had 10 mi of floating roadways to land men and vehicles on the beach. Port Winston is commonly upheld as one of the best examples of military engineering. Its remains are still visible today from the beaches at Arromanches.

Post-war analysis
Although it was a success, the vast resources used on the Mulberry may have been wasted, as the American forces were supplied mostly over the beaches without the use of a Mulberry right through to September 1944. By the end of 6 June, 20,000 troops and 1,700 vehicles had landed on Utah beach (the shortest beach). At Omaha and Utah, 6,614 tons of cargo was discharged in the first three days. A month after D-Day, Omaha and Utah were handling 9,200 tons, and after a further month, they were landing 16,000 tons per day. This increased until 56,200 tons of supplies, 20,000 vehicles, and 180,000 troops were discharged each day at those beaches. The Mulberry harbours provided less than half the total (on good weather days) to begin with. The Normandy beaches supplied the following average daily tonnage of supplies:

By the end of June, over 289,827 tons of supplies had been offloaded onto the Normandy beaches. Up to September, U.S. forces were supported largely across the beaches, primarily without the use of the Mulberry. "However, in the critical early stage of the operation, had the Allied assault ships been caught in the open without the benefit of any protection, the damage in the American sector especially could have been catastrophic to the lines of supply and communication."

"Mulberry B was substantially reinforced with units salvaged from the American harbor and that the Phoenixes were pumped full of sand to give them greater stability, measures that undoubtedly explain the extended service which the British port was able to render. Furthermore, the planners obviously underrated the capacities of open beaches. The tremendous tonnage capacities subsequently developed at both Utah and Omaha were without doubt one of the most significant and gratifying features of the entire Overlord operation."

Surviving remnants in the UK
Sections of Phoenix caissons are located at: Beetles are located at: Other artefacts around Garlieston include: At Southampton, Town Quay, a short section of whale roadway and a buffer pontoon, now derelict, used after the war for Isle of Wight ferries, survive between the Royal Pier and the Town Quay car ferry terminal.
 * Thorpe Bay, Southend-on-Sea – while being towed from Immingham to Southsea, the caisson began to leak and was intentionally beached on a sandbank in the Thames Estuary. It was designated as a scheduled monument in 2004. It is accessible at low tide.
 * Pagham Harbour, West Sussex – off Pagham Harbour a Phoenix Caisson, known as the 'Near Mulberry', that sank and could not be re-floated is still visible at low tide. Further off the coast in 10 m of water, is a second Phoenix Caisson, known as the 'Far Mulberry',  that broke its back and sank in the storm the night before D-Day. Both sections were scheduled  in 2019.
 * Littlestone-on-Sea, Kent – caisson could not be refloated. The site was scheduled in 2013.
 * Langstone Harbour, Hayling Island – faulty caisson left in-situ at place of construction.
 * Littlehampton - caissons about five metres underwater and dived by novice divers.
 * Portland Harbour, Portland, Dorset – two are located at the beach at Castletown. They were designated as a Grade II listed building in 1993.
 * Bognor Regis, on the shore line West of Marine Drive, Aldwick, where it washed up a few days after D-Day. Easily accessible at low tide
 * Garlieston, Wigtownshire - concrete beetle remains are accessible on foot on the north side of Garlieston Bay (Eggerness) and at Cairn Head on the south side of Portyerrock Bay on the road to Isle of Whithorn.
 * Old House Point, Cairnryan, Dumfries and Galloway, three beetles at the shore line.
 * a conspicuous stone wall at the back of Rigg Bay beach: this was the landward terminal for a "Crocodile" link to a "Hippo"
 * the remains of a collapsed "Hippo" visible at low tide in Rigg Bay
 * a number of abandoned brick buildings, once the camp at Cairn Head
 * some lengths of concrete roadway on the beach at Cairn Head, intended for use with "Swiss roll".

German equivalent of Mulberry
In the period between postponement and cancellation of Operation Sea Lion, the invasion of the United Kingdom, Germany developed some prototype prefabricated jetties with a similar purpose in mind. These could be seen in Alderney, until they were demolished in 1978.

Daily Telegraph crosswords
"Mulberry" and the names of all the beaches were words appearing in the Daily Telegraph crossword puzzle in the month prior to the invasion. The crossword compilers, Melville Jones and Leonard Dawe, were questioned by MI5, which determined the appearance of the words was innocent. Over 60 years later, a former student reported that Dawe frequently requested words from his students, many of whom were children in the same area as US military personnel.

title: Mulberry harbours


text:
Hugh Troy

Hugh Charles Troy, Jr. (1906–1964) was a US painter who is noted for his pranks.

Troy was a son of a Cornell University dairy professor of the same name, and both father and son were members of the Quill and Dagger society. Troy attended Cornell as an architecture student from 1922 to 1927, although he was suspended without receiving a degree due to a particular joke that offended the administration. Although many of his practical jokes on campus are legendary, university historians have been unable to prove their truthfulness and some suspect the majority of his tales to be exaggerated or entirely fabricated. After serving in the military in World War II (under Gen. Curtis LeMay), he made his living as an illustrator for books and magazines, authoring three children's stories. He died in 1964.

Notable practical jokes

 * Using a wastebasket made of a rhinoceros foot borrowed from Louis Agassiz Fuertes, Troy made what appeared to be rhinoceros tracks across campus and to the lake that was the source of drinking water for the area, Beebe Lake. This was done during a winter snowstorm. Troy also cut a large hole in the ice on the edge of the lake so it appeared that the animal had fallen in. Reportedly, many people stopped drinking the water until Troy revealed the prank with an anonymous letter.
 * Troy took the galoshes of a Cornell lecturer and painted human feet on them. Then he covered his handiwork with a black paint that would wash off. When the lecturer used the galoshes in the rain, he looked like he was walking with bare feet.
 * While working as the student sports reporter at Cornell, Troy invented a character named "Johnny Tsal". Tsal was a poor wretch of a character who would inevitably finish last in whatever race that Troy was assigned to cover. "Tsal" was "last" spelled backwards. Troy said he invented this perpetual loser so that he would not have to feel bad about reporting someone's defeat.
 * In New York City, Troy would visit Central Park carrying a park bench he had bought. Police, suspecting he was trying to steal it, arrested him a number of times. He always presented the bill of sale and was released. Hugh got his revenge by coordinating with a number of friends to take the park benches all at the same time. Because the police thought it was "that guy with the bill of sale" again none of the bench thieves were stopped as they walked out of the park.
 * Troy and friends once dressed up as workers and began digging in the middle of the street. Police arrived and began to divert traffic. Once they dug a large hole they left leaving confused policemen.
 * Troy also dressed as workers and removed all of the light bulbs from the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel without being questioned.
 * According to one story from Ithaca, New York, Troy and his friends saw a large sign that read "JESUS SAVES". They decided to remove it from its original place beside a bridge and put it where it would do some good: on the front of a local bank.  Legend has it that the bank did a record amount of business the next day.
 * In 1935, at an exhibition of the works of Vincent van Gogh in New York's Museum of Modern Art, Troy took a piece of corned beef, carved it into a shape of an ear and put it on display with a plaque that declared it was the ear that Van Gogh had cut off in 1888. People flocked to see it until museum authorities removed it.
 * During World War II, Troy got fed up with military bureaucracy. He invented a new form for reports on the use of flypaper and sent it to command. The story goes that the Pentagon demanded that other units send theirs as well. Just when Hugh was sure that everyone was wasting time with these flypaper reports, he sent another letter to the Pentagon mentioning that counts might be inaccurate due to the counting of old flies from previous counts. To counter this, he suggested that each fly be daubed with a little ketchup using a toothpick. By doing so, previously counted flies would now have a marking for the next count. This task was then added to the roster.
 * One of his jokes can still be seen. The giant globe in the lobby of the old Daily News Building in New York was painted by Troy.  All the cities on it are national capitals, except one: Ithaca.

title: Hugh Troy


text:
Ludwig III of Bavaria

Ludwig III (Ludwig Luitpold Josef Maria Aloys Alfried; 7 January 1845 – 18 October 1921) was the last King of Bavaria, reigning from 1913 to 1918. Initially, he served in the Bavarian military as a lieutenant and went on to hold the rank of Oberleutnant during the Austro-Prussian War. He entered politics at the age of 18 becoming a member of the Bavarian parliament and was a keen participant in politics, supporting electoral reforms. Later in life, he served as regent and de facto head of state from 1912 to 1913, ruling for his cousin, Otto. After the Bavarian parliament passed a law allowing him to do so, Ludwig deposed Otto and assumed the throne for himself. He led Bavaria during World War I. His short reign was seen as championing conservative causes and he was influenced by the Catholic encyclical Rerum novarum.

After the German Revolution of 1918–1919, the German Empire was dissolved and the Weimar Republic was created. As a result of this revolution, the Bavarian throne was abolished along with the other monarchies of the German states, ending the House of Wittelsbach's 738-year reign over Bavaria. Fearing that he might be a victim of an assassination, Ludwig fled to Hungary, Liechtenstein and then Switzerland. He returned to Bavaria in 1920 and lived at Wildenwart Castle. Ludwig would die shortly after, when he was staying at Nádasdy Mansion in Sárvár.

Early life
Ludwig was born in Munich, the eldest son of Luitpold, Prince Regent of Bavaria and of his wife, Archduchess Auguste Ferdinande of Austria (daughter of Leopold II, Grand Duke of Tuscany). He was a descendant of both Louis XIV of France and William the Conqueror. Hailing from Florence, Auguste always spoke in Italian to her four children. Ludwig was named after his grandfather, King Ludwig I of Bavaria.

Ludwig spent his first years living in the Electoral rooms of the Munich Residenz and in the Wittelsbacher Palace. From 1852 to 1863, he was tutored by Ferdinand von Malaisé. When he was ten years old, the family moved to the Leuchtenberg Palace.

In 1861 at the age of sixteen, Ludwig began his military career when his uncle, King Maximilian II of Bavaria, gave him a commission as a lieutenant in the 6th Jägerbattalion. A year later, he entered the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich, where he studied law and economics. When he was eighteen, he automatically became a member of the Senate of the Bavarian Legislature as a prince of the royal house.

In 1866, Bavaria was allied with the Austrian Empire in the Austro-Prussian War. Ludwig held the rank of Oberleutnant. He was wounded at the Battle of Helmstadt, taking a bullet in his thigh. The incident contributed to the fact that he was rather averse to the military. He received the Knight's Cross 1st Class of the Bavarian Military Merit Order.

Marriage and children
In June 1867, Ludwig visited Vienna to attend the funeral of his cousin, Archduchess Mathilda of Austria (daughter of his father's sister Princess Hildegard of Bavaria). While there, Ludwig met Mathilde's eighteen-year-old step-cousin Maria Theresia, Archduchess of Austria-Este, the only daughter of the late Archduke Ferdinand Karl Viktor of Austria-Este (1821–1849) and his wife Archduchess Elisabeth Franziska of Austria (1831–1903), and they married on 20 February 1868 at St. Augustine's Church in Vienna.

Until 1862, Ludwig's uncle had reigned as King Otto I of Greece. Although Otto had been deposed, Ludwig was still in line of succession to the Greek throne. Had he ever succeeded, this would have required that he renounce his Roman Catholic faith and become Greek Orthodox. Maria Theresa's uncle, Francis V, Duke of Modena, was a staunch Roman Catholic. He required that as part of the marriage agreement Ludwig renounce his rights to the throne of Greece, and so ensure that his children would be raised Roman Catholic. In addition, the 1843 Greek Constitution forbade the Greek sovereign to be simultaneously ruler of another country. Consequently, Ludwig's younger brother Leopold technically succeeded upon their father's death to the rights of the deposed Otto I, King of Greece.

By his marriage, Ludwig became a wealthy man. Maria Theresa had inherited large properties from her father. She owned the estate of Sárvár in Hungary and the estate of Eiwanowitz in Moravia (now Ivanovice na Hané in the Czech Republic). The income from these estates enabled Ludwig to purchase an estate at Leutstetten in Bavaria. Over the years, Ludwig expanded the Leutstetten estate until it became one of the largest and most profitable in Bavaria. Ludwig was sometimes derided as Millibauer (dairy farmer) due to his interest in agriculture and farming.

Although they maintained a residence in Munich at the Leuchtenberg Palace, Ludwig and Maria Theresa lived mostly at Leutstetten. They had a happy and devoted marriage which resulted in 13 children:

 * Rupprecht, Crown Prince of Bavaria (18 May 1869 – 2 August 1955), married Duchess Marie Gabriele in Bavaria on 10 August 1900. They had four children. He remarried Princess Antonia of Luxembourg on 7 April 1921. They had six children.
 * Princess Adelgunde of Bavaria (17 October 1870 – 4 January 1958) married Prince Wilhelm of Hohenzollern on 20 January 1915.
 * Maria Ludwiga, Princess of Bavaria (6 July 1872 – 10 June 1954) married Prince Ferdinand Pius of Bourbon-Two Sicilies on 31 May 1897. They had six children.
 * Karl, Prince of Bavaria (1 April 1874 – 9 May 1927)
 * Franz, Prince of Bavaria (10 October 1875 – 25 January 1957) married Princess Isabella Antonie of Croÿ on 12 July 1912
 * Princess Mathilde of Bavaria (17 August 1877 – 6 August 1906) married Prince Ludwig of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha on 1 May 1900. They had two children.
 * Prince Wolfgang Maria Leopold of Bavaria (2 July 1879 – 31 January 1895)
 * Princess Hildegard of Bavaria (5 March 1881 – 2 February 1948)
 * Princess Notburga of Bavaria (19 March 1883 – 24 March 1883)
 * Princess Wiltrud of Bavaria (10 November 1884 – 28 March 1975), married Wilhelm, Duke of Urach on 26 November 1924.
 * Princess Helmtrud of Bavaria (22 March 1886 – 23 June 1977)
 * Princess Dietlinde of Bavaria (2 January 1888 – 15 February 1889)
 * Princess Gundelinde of Bavaria (26 August 1891 – 16 August 1983), married Count Johann Georg of Preysing-Lichtenegg-Moos on 23 February 1919. They had two children.
 * Count Johann Kaspar of Preysing-Lichtenegg-Moos (19 December 1919 – 14 February 1940)
 * Countess Maria Theresia of Preysing-Lichtenegg-Moos (23 March 1922 – 14 September 2003), married Ludwig, Count von und zu Arco-Zinneberg on 25 January 1940. They had one son. She remarried to Ludwig's brother, Ulrich Philipp Count von und zu Arco-Zinneberg, on 26 September 1943. They had three sons, two of whom survived to adulthood.
 * Rupprecht-Maximilian Count von und zu Arco-Zinneberg (b. 14 January 1941) married Katharina, Countess Henckel von Donnersmarck on 11 July 1968. They had two children.
 * Alois Maximilian Count von und zu Arco-Zinneberg (b. 5 June 1970)
 * Isabella-Gabriela Countess von und zu Arco-Zinneberg (b. 5 December 1973)
 * Ludwig Count von und zu Arco-Zinneberg (1944–1944)
 * Riprand Count von und zu Arco-Zinneberg (25 July 1955 – 24 August 2021) married Archduchess Maria Beatrice of Austria on 31 March 1980. They had six daughters.
 * Countess Anna Theresa von und zu Arco-Zinneberg (born 1981) married Colin McKenzie on 29 September 2018.
 * Countess Margherita von und zu Arco-Zinneberg (born 1983) married Charles Douglas Green on 19 March 2022.
 * Countess Olympia von und zu Arco-Zinneberg (born 1988) married Jean-Christophe, Prince Napoléon on 17 October 2019.
 * Countess Maximiliana von und zu Arco-Zinneberg (born 1990) married Byron Houdayer on 17 May 2023.
 * Countess Marie Gabrielle von und zu Arco-Zinneberg (born 1992)
 * Countess Giorgiana von und zu Arco-Zinneberg (born 1997)

On the death of her uncle Francis in 1875, Maria Theresa inherited his Jacobite claim to the thrones of England, Ireland and Scotland, and is called either Queen Mary IV and III or Queen Mary III by Jacobites.

Service and politics
Throughout his life, Ludwig took a great interest in agriculture. From 1868, he was the Honorary President of the Central Committee of the Bavarian Agricultural Society. In 1875, he bought Leutstetten Castle and made it a model farm. He was also very interested in technology, particularly water power. In 1891 at his initiation, the Bavarian Canal Society was established. In 1896 Prince Ludwig was appointed honorary member of the Bavarian Academy of Sciences.

As a prince of the royal house he was automatically a member of the Senate of the Bavarian legislature; there he was a great supporter of the direct right to vote. Since 23 June 1863 already, Ludwig had been a member of the Chamber of the Reichsräte. In 1870 he voted as a member of the Bundesrat for the acceptance of the November treaties to join the North German Confederation. In 1871 he ran unsuccessfully for the first Reichstag elections as a candidate of the Bavarian Patriot Party. In 1906 he supported the Bavarian electoral reform, which the SPD founder August Bebel praised: "The German people, if the Kaiser were to be chosen from one of the German princes, would presumably elect Wittelsbach Ludwig and not Prussia's Wilhelm."

Regent of Bavaria
On 12 December 1912, Ludwig's father Luitpold died. Luitpold had been an active participant in the deposition of his nephew, King Ludwig II, and had also acted as prince regent for his other nephew, King Otto. Although Otto had nominally been king since 1886, he had been under medical supervision since 1883 and it had long been understood that he would never be mentally capable of actively reigning. Ludwig III immediately succeeded his father as regent.

Almost immediately, certain elements in the press and other groups in society called for Ludwig to take the throne himself. The Bavarian Legislature was not, however, currently in session, and did not meet until 29 September 1913. On 4 November 1913, the legislature amended the constitution of Bavaria to include a clause specifying that if a regency for reasons of incapacity had lasted for ten years with no prospect of the king ever being able to reign, the regent could proclaim the end of the regency and assume the crown himself, with such action to be ratified by the legislature. The amendment received broad party support in the Lower Chamber where it was carried by a vote of 122 in favour, and 27 against. In the Senate there were only six votes against the amendment. The next day, 5 November 1913, Ludwig proclaimed the end of the regency, deposed his cousin and proclaimed his own reign as Ludwig III. The legislature duly ratified this action, and Ludwig took his oath on 8 November.

The constitutional amendment of 1913 brought a determining break in the continuity of the king's rule in the opinion of historians, particularly as this change had been granted by the Landtag as a House of Representatives. Historians believe this marked a definitive step toward a modern constitutional monarchy with the king as a figurehead. Bavaria had already taken a step toward full parliamentary government a year earlier, when Georg von Hertling headed the first government that depended on a majority in the legislature.

King of Bavaria
Ludwig's short reign was conservative and influenced by the Catholic encyclical Rerum novarum. Prime Minister Georg von Hertling, appointed by Luitpold in 1912, remained in office. Also as King Ludwig lived in the Wittelsbacher Palais rather than in the Munich Residenz.

At the outbreak of World War I in 1914 Ludwig sent an official dispatch to Berlin to express Bavaria's solidarity. Later Ludwig even claimed annexations for Bavaria (Alsace and the city of Antwerp in Belgium, to receive an access to the sea). His hidden agenda was to maintain the balance of power between Prussia and Bavaria within the German Empire after a victory.

A spurious story holds that, a day or two after Germany's declaration of war, Ludwig received a petition from a 25-year-old Austrian, asking for permission to join the Bavarian Army. The petition was promptly granted, and Adolf Hitler thereupon joined the Bavarian Army, eventually settling into the 16th Reserve Bavarian Infantry Regiment, where he served the remainder of the war. However, this account is based on Hitler's recollections in Mein Kampf. Historian Ian Kershaw holds that Hitler's story is simply not credible on its face, due to the remarkable bureaucratic effort it would have required to attend to this minor matter during days of extreme crisis. Kershaw suggests that bureaucratic error, rather than bureaucratic efficiency, was responsible for Hitler's enlistment; indeed, as a national of an allied country, he should have been sent to Austria for service in that army. Based on Bavarian government investigations in 1924, the more likely scenario in Kershaw's view is that Hitler applied for enlistment, along with thousands of other youths, on or about 5 August 1914, was initially turned away because the authorities were overwhelmed with applicants and had no place to assign him, and eventually was recalled to serve in the 2nd Infantry Regiment (2nd Battalion), before being assigned to Bavarian Reserve Infantry Regiment 16 (the List Regiment), which was principally made up of raw recruits. In 1917, when Germany's situation had gradually worsened due to World War I, Hertling became German Chancellor and Prime Minister of Prussia and Otto Ritter von Dandl was made Minister of State of the Royal Household and of the Exterior and President of the Council of Ministers on 11 November 1917, a title equivalent to Prime Minister of Bavaria. Accused of showing blind loyalty to Prussia, Ludwig became increasingly unpopular during the war. As the war drew to a close, the German Revolution broke out in Bavaria.

Already discussed since September 1917, on 2 November 1918, an extensive constitutional reform was established by an agreement between the royal government and all parliamentary groups, which, among other things, envisaged the introduction of proportional representation. Ludwig III, approved on the same day the transformation of the constitutional into a parliamentary monarchy. For the first time on 3 November 1918, initiated by the USPD, a thousand people gathered to protest on the Theresienwiese for peace and demanded the release of detained leaders. On 7 November 1918, Ludwig fled from the Residenz Palace in Munich with his family and took up residence in Schloss Anif, near Salzburg, for what he hoped would be a temporary stay. He was the first of the monarchs in the German Empire to be deposed. The next day, the People's State of Bavaria was proclaimed.

On 12 November 1918, a day after the Armistice, Prime Minister Dandl went to Schloss Anif to see the king in hopes of persuading him to abdicate. Ludwig refused, instead giving Dandl the Anif declaration (Anifer Erklärung) in which he released all government officials, soldiers and civil officers from their oath of loyalty to him. He also stated that as a result of recent events, he was "no longer in a position to lead the government." The declaration was published by the newly formed republican government of Kurt Eisner when Dandl returned to Munich the next day. Although the word "abdication" never appeared in the document, Eisner's government interpreted it as such and added a statement that Ludwig and his family were welcome to return to Bavaria as private citizens as long as they did not act against the "people's state." This statement effectively dethroned the Wittelsbachs and ended the family's 738-year rule over Bavaria.

Final years
Ludwig III returned to Bavaria. His wife, Maria Theresia, died 3 February 1919 at Wildenwart Castle/Chiemgau.

In February 1919, Eisner was assassinated; fearing that he might be the victim of a counter-assassination, Ludwig fled to Hungary, later moving on to Liechtenstein and Switzerland. He returned to Bavaria in April 1920 and lived at Wildenwart Castle again. There he remained until September 1921 when he took a trip to his castle Nádasdy in Sárvár in Hungary. He died there on 18 October.

On 5 November 1921, Ludwig's body was returned to Munich together with that of his wife. In spite of fears a state funeral might spark a move to restore the monarchy, the pair were honored with one in front of the royal family, Bavarian government, military personnel, and an estimated 100,000 spectators. Burial was in the crypt of the Munich Frauenkirche alongside their royal ancestors. Prince Rupprecht did not wish to use the occasion of the passing of his father to reestablish the monarchy by force, preferring to do so by legal means. Cardinal Michael von Faulhaber, Archbishop of Munich, in his funeral speech, made a clear commitment to the monarchy while Rupprecht only declared that he had stepped into his birthright.

Honours
• Kingdom of Bavaria:

• * Knight of St. Hubert

• * Knight of the Military Merit Order, 1st Class, ca. 1866

• * Grand Prior of Upper Bavaria of the Royal Bavarian House Equestrian Order of St. George, 1874

• * Grand Cross of the Military Order of Max Joseph

•  Grand Duchy of Hesse: Grand Cross of the Ludwig Order, 17 September 1863

•   Austria-Hungary:

• * Knight of the Golden Fleece, 1868

• * Grand Cross of the Royal Hungarian Order of St. Stephen, 1893

• * Grand Cross of the Military Order of Maria Theresa, 1917

•  Oldenburg: Grand Cross of the Order of Duke Peter Friedrich Ludwig, with Golden Crown, 14 June 1869

•  Kingdom of Prussia:

• * Knight of the Black Eagle, 24 July 1869

• * Pour le Mérite (military)

•  Württemberg:

• * Grand Cross of the Württemberg Crown, 1876

• * Grand Cross of the Military Merit Order

•  undefined: Grand Cross of the Order of Charles III, 19 December 1883

•  Baden:

• * Knight of the House Order of Fidelity, 1887

• * Knight of the Order of Berthold the First, 1887

•  Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach: Grand Cross of the White Falcon, 1888

• 🇸🇪 🇳🇴 Sweden-Norway: Knight of the Seraphim, 12 July 1895

•  Kingdom of Italy: Knight of the Annunciation, 6 September 1897

• 🇧🇪 Belgium: Grand Cordon of the Order of Leopold, 1900 – wedding gift

•  Kingdom of Romania: Collar of the Order of Carol I, 1913

• 🇩🇰 Denmark: Knight of the Elephant

•  Sovereign Military Order of Malta: Bailiff Grand Cross of Honour and Devotion

•  Ottoman Empire: Order of Imtyiaz

•  Russian Empire: Knight of St. Andrew

•  Kingdom of Saxony: Knight of the Rue Crown

title: Ludwig III of Bavaria


text:
Golden Ring of Russia

The Golden Ring of Russia (Золотое кольцо России) unites old Russian cities of five Oblasts – usually excluding Moscow – as a well-known theme-route. The grouping is centred northeast of the capital in what was the north-eastern part of ancient Rus'. The ring formerly comprised the region known as Zalesye. The idea of the route and the term was created in 1967 by Soviet historian and essayist Yuri Bychkov, who published in Sovetskaya Kultura in November–December 1967 a series of essays on the cities under the heading: "Golden Ring". Bychkov was one of the founders of ВООПИК: the All-Russian Society for the Protection of Monuments of History and Culture (these letters in Romanized form are VOOPIK).

These ancient towns were heavily formative to the centrality of the Russian Orthodox Church in society. They preserve the memory of key events in medieval and Imperial Russian history. The towns have been called "open-air museums" and feature unique monuments of Russian architecture of the 12th–18th centuries, including kremlins, monasteries, cathedrals, and churches. These towns are among the most picturesque in Russia and prominently feature Russia's onion domes.

The Golden Ring of Russia includes: Vladimir-Suzdal-Ivanovo-Kostroma-Yaroslavl-Rostov the Great-Pereslavl-Zalessky-Sergiev Posad

Cities included
For years, tourists and locals debated about which cities were "officially" part of the Golden Ring. There is no official list of which cities make up part of the Golden Ring with the exception of the eight principal cities of Yaroslavl, Kostroma, Ivanovo, Suzdal, Vladimir, Sergiev Posad, Pereslavl-Zalessky and Rostov Veliky. In addition, other old cities in the Ivanovo, Vladimir and Yaroslavl regions also considered themselves as part of the ring, including Palekh, Plyos, and Shuya in Ivanovo Oblast; Gorokhovets, Gus-Khrustalny, Murom, and Yuriev-Polsky in Vladimir Oblast; and Rybinsk, Tutaev, and Uglich in Yaroslavl Oblast. Many cities are to be found along the M8 highway or can be reached from Yaroslavsky railway station in Moscow. Some of the churches, kremlins and monasteries are UNESCO World Heritage Sites. In Russia, the area of the Golden Ring is one of the regions that has strongly preserved many traditions and culture of ancient Russia to this day.

 * Sergiyev Posad (Се́ргиев Поса́д) is the only city in the Moscow Region to be included in the Golden Ring. It is closely linked with the UNESCO-protected Troitse-Sergieva Lavra which was founded in the 14th century by St Sergius of Radonezh. The Lavra is now one of the most important religious sites in Russian and St Sergius is one of the most revered native Russian saints.
 * Pereslavl-Zalesskiy (Переславль-Залесский) is the birthplace of Aleksandr Nevsky – a celebrated Russian hero, prince and saint. It also has links with Peter the Great who used to have a toy flotilla here on Lake Plescheevo. In addition the city also boasts a beautiful 12th-century cathedral, earthen mounds and six monasteries, four of which are active.
 * Rostov Velikiy (Ростов) is known as Rostov-Veliky (Rostov the Great) to distinguish it from the larger and newer Rostov-on-Don. It is among the oldest of cities in Russia, having first been mentioned in chronicles in 862. Its most impressive sight is the white-stone kremlin which stands on Lake Nero and is now a museum-reserve. The city also has three monasteries and museums dedicated to the art of painting on enamel for which the city is famed.
 * Yaroslavl (Ярослáвль) is considered the unofficial capital of the Golden Ring and is also a UNESCO World Heritage Site. It is believed to have been founded in 1010 by Prince Yaroslav the Wise, after whom it is named. The city’s main sight is the Spaso-Preobrazhensky Monastery which is now a museum and among its many beautiful churches the most famous are St Elijah the Prophet’s Church and the John the Baptist’s Church, both of which are beautifully decorated with frescos. Yaroslavl is just a 3-hour express train ride from Moscow.
 * Kostroma (Кострома) Like Moscow, Kostroma is believed to have been founded by Grand Prince Yury Dolgoruky in the 12th century. The city is most famous for its Ipatievsky Monastery which has links with the Romanov Dynasty as the first Romanov tsar – Tsar Michael – was here being anointing to reign. Kostroma is the Golden Ring city furthest from Moscow and can be reached by a night train from the capital.
 * Ivanovo (Иваново) is both the youngest and most industrialised of all Golden Ring cities. Previously the city was known as Ivanovo-Voznesensk after the two villages that were merged to form the new city in 1871. It is forever connected with its once-booming textile trade which led to the city being known as Bride City and Russian Manchester. Ivanovo is notable for its constructivist buildings, industrial architecture and monuments dedicated to the city's rich revolutionary history.
 * Gus-Khrustalny (Гусь-Хруста́льный)
 * Suzdal (Суздаль) is often referred to as an open-air museum for the number of old buildings that have been preserved and the lack of industrialisation. Several sights are protected by UNESCO as the White Stone Monuments of Vladimir and Suzdal. Highlights include the Spaso-Yefimiev Monastery, which is now a museum, and the museums of the kremlin. In addition there are another  four monasteries in the city.
 * Vladimir (Владимир), the former capital of medieval Russia, is historically important. It is somewhat more industrial than its neighbor, Suzdal, but St Demetrius’ Cathedral and the Dormition Cathedral, Vladimir's Golden Gates, are UNESCO protected and masterpieces of ancient Russian architecture.
 * Rybinsk (Рыбинск)
 * Uglich (Углич)
 * Myshkin (Мышкин)
 * Alexandrov (Александров)

Branding
Now the main and most popular tourist route around provincial cities of central European Russia, the promotion of the Golden Ring was a new challenge after the dissolution of the Soviet Union. From a sustainability standpoint, there were new goals that needed to be achieved: the preservation of ancient architectural monuments, modernising the tourism industry within new capitalist system, building new types of infrastructures such as hotels, theme parks, museums and malls that encouraged economic growth. As the result cities of the Golden Ring were the first one that saw the outcome out of investments from new forms of entrepreneurship like privately owned businesses and startups.

title: Golden Ring of Russia


text:
Northrop F-20 Tigershark

The Northrop F-20 Tigershark (initially F-5G) is a prototype light fighter, designed and built by Northrop. Its development began in 1975 as a further evolution of Northrop's F-5E Tiger II, featuring a new engine that greatly improved overall performance, and a modern avionics suite including a powerful and flexible radar. Compared with the F-5E, the F-20 was much faster, gained beyond-visual-range air-to-air capability, and had a full suite of air-to-ground modes capable of utilizing most U.S. weapons. With these improved capabilities, the F-20 became competitive with contemporary fighter designs such as the General Dynamics F-16 Fighting Falcon, but was much less expensive to purchase and operate.

Much of the F-20's development was carried out under a US Department of Defense (DoD) project called "FX". FX sought to develop fighters that would be capable in combat with the latest Soviet aircraft, but excluding sensitive front-line technologies used by the United States Air Force's own aircraft. FX was a product of the Carter administration's military export policies, which aimed to provide foreign nations with high quality equipment without the risk of US front-line technology falling into Soviet hands. Northrop had high hopes for the F-20 in the international market, but policy changes following Ronald Reagan's election meant the F-20 had to compete for sales against aircraft like the F-16, the USAF's latest fighter design. The development program was abandoned in 1986 after three prototypes had been built and a fourth partially completed.

F-5
When John F. Kennedy entered office in 1961, the U.S. Department of Defense was instructed to find an inexpensive fighter aircraft that the United States could offer to its allies through the Mutual Defense Assistance Act. A number of designs were studied, including stripped-down versions of the Lockheed F-104 Starfighter and Vought F-8 Crusader, and the newly designed Northrop N-156F. On 23 April 1962, the United States Air Force (USAF) informed the United States Secretary of Defense that the N-156F had been selected, under the designation F-5 and given the name "Freedom Fighter." 847 F-5s of various early marks would be produced.

As the Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-21 became more common, the U.S. Air Force initiated the International Fighter Aircraft (IFA) program to provide an equivalent to allies. The USAF desired a light weight fighter with competitive performance to the MiG, inexpensive when purchased in large numbers, and with reasonable operating costs for prospective customer nations. Although numerous companies entered designs, Northrop's existing F-5 put them in a leading position. They submitted an upgrade, the F-5E Tiger II, with the AN/APQ-153 radar and other changes to allow the AIM-9 Sidewinder missile to be fired from wing-tip rails. On 20 November 1970, Northrop's entry was announced as the IFA winner. Northrop produced a total of 1,399 F-5E/F Tiger IIs by the time manufacturing ended in 1986.

F-5G and export limitations
In the late 1970s, the Taiwanese Republic of China Air Force started looking for a fighter aircraft to match improvements made in the Chinese People's Liberation Army Air Force. In particular, they wanted a platform capable of firing the AIM-7 Sparrow long-range missile. At the time, the US was in the process of opening up ties with the People's Republic of China after President Nixon's famous visit in 1972. China considered US support of Taiwan against their interests, and the US State Department wanted to tread carefully. They blocked export of all of the AIM-7 capable aircraft, even otherwise outdated early models of the McDonnell Douglas F-4 Phantom II. The State Department suggested the Israeli IAI Kfir instead; however, it was rejected. Taiwan was already producing the F-5E under license, so the Department of Defense asked Northrop to study adding an AIM-7 capable radar to the Tiger II as an alternative. This effort became the first of several F-5G studies.

In the spring of 1977, Jimmy Carter's administration had announced a new military export policy that limited sales of front line designs to NATO, Australia, and Japan. Carter stated at the time that the U.S. could not be "both the world's champion of peace and the world's leading supplier of the weapons of war." Previously, there was no coherent export policy, fueling concerns that the US's latest technologies might quickly end up in Soviet hands.

Numerous exceptions were made; Israel and Egypt could buy advanced designs under the Camp David Agreements, Israel was even allowed to buy McDonnell Douglas F-15 Eagles, a key component in U.S. air-defense technology. Iran was already receiving the Grumman F-14 Tomcat, and this demonstrated the problem with advanced exports in February 1979 when reports emerged that Iran had sold an AIM-54 Phoenix missile to the Soviets. South Korea's F-16 order was initially blocked under this policy, but later allowed in the context of strengthening relations. Despite exceptions, the export policy was implemented, covering many potential and current customers. As the F-5G was a relatively modest upgrade to the F-5E, the F-5G appeared to be in a strong position for sales given the limitations placed on rival designs; nonetheless, President Carter personally blocked the sales of the F-5G to Taiwan.

FX
In 1979, problems with the export policy were becoming apparent. The Soviets continued to sell newer aircraft designs to their clients, placing allies of the U.S. at a disadvantage. Denied by the U.S., countries were turning to other vendors for modern fighters, notably France's Dassault Mirage 2000. Barry N. Blechman, Assistant Director of the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency, testified that the US reductions in foreign arms transfers had actually encouraged other nations and increased worldwide arms sales. At the same time, there was considerable pressure to provide a suitable aircraft for Taiwan.

The State Department argued that the U.S. needed a modern counterpart for the role the F-5E had occupied in the 1960s and 1970s. In light of Carter's concerns, they suggested that a new aircraft be designed for the role, based on technology that would not pose a threat to the U.S. After a lengthy study, in January 1980, President Carter allowed the development of a new export fighter: the FX. The FX would have to outperform the F-5E; however, it could not use any advanced avionics systems that were also used in U.S. aircraft. Unlike the Mutual Defense Assistance Act programs that led to the F-5E, FX would be entirely privately financed. Moreover, the companies could not market the aircraft directly; all sales would be handled by the Department of Defense.

Both Northrop and General Dynamics (GD) responded to the FX requirement. GD's F-16/79 was a variant of the F-16A, replacing the Pratt & Whitney F100 turbofan engine with the J79 turbojet and equipping it with downgraded avionics; Northrop responded with the F-5G.

F-20
When Ronald Reagan's administration entered office in 1981, the export restrictions put in place by the Carter administration were slowly relaxed. At first, the FX program continued as normal, but a number of events eroded the value of the program and limited the F-5G's potential sales. The signing of the 1982 US-PRC Joint Communiqué was a major agreement on arms sales, which continued blocking sales of the F-5G to Taiwan. By this point the Taiwanese had started their own light fighter project, the AIDC F-CK-1 Ching-kuo. In signing the Communiqué, the U.S. was signaling that Taiwan would not receive modern aircraft; accordingly, the Ching-kuo became Taiwan's primary focus. As a result, the F-5G's sales potential remained unestablished.

In the summer of 1982, Deputy Secretary of Defense Frank Carlucci sent a memorandum to the Air Force, encouraging it to seek out potential foreign customers to procure FX aircraft. However, four months later Carlucci sent a classified memo to the same services to abandon the FX, and green-lighting the exporting of front-line fighters overseas. In December, after prompting from the White House, Carlucci reversed his position again, and directed the Air Force to fund a small number of F-20s in the fiscal year 1984 budget.

The future of the FX program seemed doubtful. Following an agreement to sell F-16s to Pakistan, Northrop felt that the F-5G needed to match the performance of F-16. This would require not only better performance from the engine, but a new and comparable avionics suite as well. Northrop saw that the F-5G was still being viewed as the "FX fighter", a low-cost option for second-tier air forces. To offset this impression, Northrop requested the designation "F-20"; the USAF approved in late 1982, and of the name Tigershark in March 1983.

Design

The primary design change between the earlier F-5E and the F-20 was the use of a single General Electric F404 engine, which was originally designed for the F/A-18 Hornet. The new engine provided 60% more thrust than the combined output of the F-5E's two General Electric J85s. This improved the aircraft's thrust-to-weight ratio from 1.0 to 1.13. The new engine gave a speed of over Mach 2.0, a ceiling over 55,000 ft (16,800 m), an initial climb rate of 52,800 ft per minute (16,100 m/min).

The wing profile remained the same as the F-5E, but had modified leading edge extensions (LEX), which improved the maximum lift coefficient of the wing by about 12% with an increase in wing area of only 1.6%. The original aircraft was fairly sluggish in pitch, so the horizontal stabilizer was increased in size by 30% and a new dual-channel fly-by-wire control system was added. Destabilizing the aircraft in pitch and modifying the LEX improved the instantaneous turn rate by 7% to 20°/sec. Sustained turn rate at Mach 0.8 and 15,000 ft (4,572 m) rose to 11.5°/sec, which compared well with the F-16's 12.8°/sec. Supersonic turn rates were 47% higher than those of the F-5E.

The F-20 would also make greater usage of composite materials in its construction. During its development, several areas using metal were re-designed to use fiberglass, and there were numerous upgrades to various mechanical parts.

The F-20's avionics suite was all-new and greatly improved over the earlier designs. The General Electric AN/APG-67 multi-mode radar was the heart of the sensor suite, offering a wide range of air-to-air and air-to-ground modes. The F-5's electro-mechanical navigation system was replaced with an all-electronic version based on a ring laser gyroscope. Time from power-on to takeoff was greatly reduced as a result, to about 22 seconds, and Northrop boasted that the aircraft had the shortest scramble time of any contemporary aircraft. The cockpit of the F-5 was completely re-worked with a large head-up display (HUD) and two monochrome multi-function displays set high on the control panel, and the addition of a complete hands-on-throttle-and-stick (HOTAS) control system. Many of the avionics promised to have reliability beyond that of any competing aircraft then in service.

The F-20 would have been able to use most of the common weapons in U.S.'s inventory, including the entire range of Mark 80 series bombs, the AGM-65 Maverick air-to-ground missiles, and the AIM-9 Sidewinder and AIM-7 Sparrow air-to-air missiles. Like the earlier F-5s, the test F-20s were equipped with two M39 cannon mounted in the nose. Production F-20s may have substituted two Ford Aerospace Tigerclaw cannons instead of the M39s; while the Tigerclaw was based on the M39, it was lighter and had a higher rate of fire than the M39A2.

The F-20 did, however, have several problems inherent to its small size. The low-mounted wing meant that there was limited ground clearance, and the position of the landing gear meant loads had to be positioned towards the outer ends of the wings. This limited hard point weights to 1,000 lb (454 kg). A single hard point under the fuselage could carry more, a single Mk 84 2,000 lbs bomb or up to five Mk 82 500 lbs bombs. Additionally, although the wing profiling improved lift at higher angles of attack (AoA) while maneuvering, it did not improve cruise lift performance at normal AoA. This did not present a problem in the fighter role, but did severely reduce its payload and range figures compared to similar aircraft like the F-16.

The F-20 was significantly more expensive than the previous generation F-5E. Among its Teen Series contemporaries, however, the F-20 was offered as a low-cost option; cost-wise it was estimated in 1983 that the unit fly-away cost of the F-20 (based on a 150-unit buy) was $10.7 million, compared to the F-16/79 at $11 million and the F-16A at $12.4 million. Unit life-cycle costs for the F-20 estimated as high as 40–50% lower than for the F-16. Another estimate of the F-20's costs found it less expensive than other designs like the $30 million F-15 Eagle, or $15 million F-16 Fighting Falcon. The F-20 was projected to consume 53% less fuel, to require 52% less maintenance manpower, to have 63% lower operating and maintenance costs and to be four times more reliable than average front-line designs of the era. The F-20 also offered the ability to fire the beyond-visual-range AIM-7 Sparrow missile, a capability that the F-16 lacked at that time, and did not gain until the F-16A/B Block 15 ADF version in February 1989.

Testing
On 30 August 1982, the original engine-change-only F-5G (serial 82-0062, c/n GG1001, registered N4416T) made its maiden flight piloted by Russ Scott. During the 40-minute flight, the prototype climbed to 40000 ft and reached Mach 1.04. GG1001 demonstrated outstanding reliability; by the end of April 1983 240 flights had been accumulated, including evaluation flights with 10 potential customer nations. The second prototype (serial number 82-0063, registered N3986B, c/n GI1001), featuring the complete avionics suite, made its first flight on 26 August 1983. The F-20 flew 1,500 flights prior to its termination; although these were exclusively flown in ideal conditions. According to the Rand Corporation, "Northrop did not take a prototype approach with the F-20… The first F-20 was intended to be a production quality aircraft…"

During the test program, the F-20 fired the AIM-9 Sidewinder and, in February 1985 the AIM-7 Sparrow. In air-to-ground testing, it fired the AGM-65 Maverick, 2.75 in (70 mm) folding fin aerial rockets, dropped Mk. 82 bombs, and fired rounds from a 30 mm (1.18 in) gun pod (GPU-5/A, four-barrel GAU-13/A) in addition to the two internal 20 mm (.79 in) M39 cannon. One of the F-20's flight characteristics was the ability to fly at only 124 km/h at 35° AoA (angle of attack), while the F-16 was limited to 30°; acceleration from Mach 0.9 to 1.2 in 29 seconds (at 9,150 m); climb to 12,200 m (or 40,000 ft) in 2.3 minutes (including 55 sec for the start and 22 for the INS set-up).

Northrop signed a Memorandum of Agreement with the Air Force in May 1983 that made the Air Force responsible for certifying the F-20's performance, air worthiness and fixed-price program. Aerospace legend Chuck Yeager, employed as a spokesperson for Northrop, touted the aircraft as "magnificent" and was featured in advertising.

In November 1982, Bahrain became the first customer. South Korea also explored local production of the F-20, and in support improvements were implemented. These included avionics upgrades, an expanded fuel tank, and the use of fibreglass composites. The changes were so extensive that a fourth prototype was built to test them. By 1983, Northrop was involved in a number of simultaneous negotiations for the F-20, and its prospects appeared positive.

On 10 October 1984, GG1001 crashed in South Korea on a demonstration flight, killing Northrop pilot Darrell Cornell. An investigation cleared the F-20 of mechanical or design faults; it concluded Cornell had blacked out due to excessive g-forces. GI1001 crashed in May 1985 at Goose Bay, Labrador, killing Northrop pilot Dave Barnes. Again the crash was blamed on G-LOC; Barnes had been practicing his aerobatic routine for the Paris Air Show.

Battle for sales
In December 1981, President Reagan, reacting to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, signed a major economic and military aid package for Pakistan that included 40 F-16As. The offer was in keeping with U.S. policy towards the Soviet Union, and the idea of "containment" within a ring of U.S.-friendly countries. The Soviet invasion of Afghanistan was initially viewed as an attempt to break out of the arranged containment system, thus the U.S. placed a priority on quickly building up a new layer of defense. However, other U.S. allies saw this as a potential break in the FX policy, and began requesting only "the very best."

Such approval was increasingly granted starting in 1982. In May, Venezuela, who had long examined the FX project, agreed to buy 18 F-16As and six F-16Bs, replacing a fleet of Mirage III interceptors and Mirage 5 ground-attack aircraft. Sweden decided to develop their own design, the JAS 39 Gripen. In September 1983, Turkey announced plans to buy 132 F-16Cs and 28 F-16Ds to replace their Lockheed F-104G/S Starfighter and Northrop F-5A/B. Greece, stung by its long-time rival receiving the F-16, purchased 34 F-16C and six F-16Ds in November 1984, giving a firm pledge of secrecy.

Then, late in 1983, the U.S. government made a financial commitment to help Israel develop its own new fighter, the IAI Lavi. Northrop objected to this, as the Lavi would be a potential competitor to the F-20 in the export market; while Northrop had to privately fund the F-20, the government was directly subsidizing a foreign competitor. Congressional support for Israel overruled Northrop's complaints along with complaints from other branches of the government.

While other companies marketed directly to foreign air forces, the F-20 could only be marketed by the State Department as part of the FX program. Under this policy umbrella, Northrop had to submit every piece of marketing material to government review, which could take months. The State Department had no interest in selling the FX; from its perspective it was one aircraft among many, leading to a lackadaisical approach, and led to complaints from Northrop that the government was not promoting the F-20 enough.

Congressional investigation
Starting in March 1984, Congress chaired a series of hearings into FX. William Schneider, Jr., the Under Secretary of State for Security Assistance, Science and Technology, testified that FX policy might not result in any sales, in spite of any government support. He stated that the sales of arms such as FX was primarily a matter of foreign policy, secondarily a commercial venture. Thomas V. Jones, Northrop's CEO, argued that there was little point independently developing aircraft if companies were reliant on the government to sell them. He suggested the FX policy be dropped, and F-20 allowed to be sold by the vendor. Additionally, Brigadier General Thomas Baker, USAF Director of International Programs, testified that the Air Force was not actively marketing FX. He observed that over four years the US had sold 100 fighters to 29 countries, none were FX. He also compared France's aircraft exports, showing a market for a low-cost fighter existed. In the Committee's concluding remarks, the State Department and DOD were accused of rhetoric, and lacking support, on FX.

In April 1984, after the Congressional hearings, the USAF was directed to promote FX actively. Several potential customers were briefed during May and June 1984 on the performance and cost of both the F-20 and F-16/79. The Air Force published an internal report on FX in late June 1984. The F-20 was characterized as having outstanding performance against viable threats; and seen as a candidate for the Air Force's aggressor requirement. The report additionally stated that the F-20 had been contractor-funded, totaling over $750 million, compared to $60 million on the F-16/79. However, the report concluded that it had little or no market to sell to.

Aggressor and Air National Guard roles

A possibility for a U.S. purchase opened in 1984, for a small number of "aggressor aircraft" for dissimilar air combat training. In November 1984, Congress directed the Air Force and Navy to study the use of a single aircraft type to fill similar aggressor roles for both services. In January 1985 the Navy announced they had selected a specially configured version of the F-16. It was rumored that the aircraft was sold at a loss to keep Northrop's F-20 out of the market.

Another chance for the F-20 was as an upgrade for the Air National Guard (ANG). Northrop claimed that the F-20's fast scramble time made it a natural fit for this role, its lower cost would allow the ANG to operate larger aircraft numbers, and that it supported the AIM-7 while the F-16 did not. However, the Air Force's requirements had priorities favoring the F-16 for the role; if the ANG flew the F-16, they would further lower unit costs, maintain commonality between the ANG and Regular Air Force, and better equip ANG units to perform front line combat roles. The Congressional Budget Office had also disputed Northrop's lower cost claim in their own research. On 31 October 1986, the Air Force announced that the F-16C had been selected, which had been upgraded to support the AIM-7. As several nations had suggested they would accept the F-20 on the condition that it was inducted into the USAF, the selection was a heavy blow to Northrop.

Cancellation
After six years with no buyers, in late 1986 Northrop canceled the $1.2 billion project. Northrop was reluctant to protest perceived favoritism of the F-16 in fear of losing support for the Northrop Grumman B-2 Spirit stealth bomber project. Ongoing negotiations with the Royal Moroccan Air Force for 20 F-20s were canceled; along with the small order by Bahrain. Later on, a bribery scandal would emerge from the attempts to market the F-20 to South Korea, leading to several Northrop managers resigning and the reprimanding of chief executive Thomas V. Jones, who retired in 1989.

In the late 1980s, local production of the F-20 was discussed with India. A move was also made in the 1980s to market the aircraft to the Pakistan Air Force with a license production manufacture of the aircraft. It was evaluated by a Pakistani contingent in the United States, with the F-20 being flown by Abbas Mirza, a senior Pakistani Air Force fighter pilot. Of the components of the F-20, the radar would end up being the most successful; Taiwan selected it for the Ching-kuo, South Korea also adopted it for the KAI T-50 Golden Eagle trainer aircraft. As sales prospects were not apparent early on, GE sold their radar division, which was eventually acquired by Lockheed Martin.

Aviation author Steve Pace wrote of the F-20 as "one of the best fighters that never went into production." While discussing military procurement, Thomas McNaugher stated that competition between the F-20 and the F-16 served to lower prices and generate "massive savings" for the U.S. government. Writing prior to cancellation, Ralph Nader and William Taylor noted that the F-20 had been commonly described as "the first privately funded U.S. combat aircraft in recent history." Mazher A. Hameed commented in 1986 that the F-20 was a "logical choice" for the Gulf States and Saudi Arabia; however, it had "scant chance of being selected" due to political factors, as well as competition from other candidates such as the Mirage 2000 and Panavia Tornado ADV.

Aircraft disposition

 * 82-0062 (Northrop serial number GG.1001) – crashed at Suwon Air Base, South Korea on 10 October 1984. Pilot killed.
 * 82-0063 (Northrop serial number GI.1001) – crashed at CFB Goose Bay, Canada on 14 May 1985. Pilot killed.
 * 82-0064 (Northrop serial number GI.1002) – California Science Center in Exposition Park, Los Angeles, California.

title: Northrop F-20 Tigershark


text:
Talk:Standard deviation

general mathematics
standard deviation 2001:4455:668:9100:C822:9C1A:E95E:FBBC (talk) 14:39, 1 March 2023 (UTC)

Implementation in Software
I came to this page to see how to implement a simple standard deviation method in software, but this article really isn't helpful for that task. Using the formulas here, I would have to make two passes. I know there's a formula that can do it in a single pass, and this article should include a section on that. We live in a software-driven world. Students of software will be coming to this page. We need to support them. MiguelMunoz (talk) 04:40, 27 March 2024 (UTC)

title: Talk:Standard deviation