Girls und Panzer

Ditto. I think one of the Gekkan Senshado articles even mentioned that Elephant and the Jagdtiger were there to counter the I Ss that Pravda would have fielded.

Don't be so hasty to agree. As per below:

There are no failures in that article (unless imagined): Sun Tzu's Art of War can be generalised to account for any situation: recalling that the Nishizumi style demands advancing under all circumstances with no tolerance for retreat, the style would appropriately dictate that against a school on equal footing, they'd simply push forward into their enemy's ranks to accomplish the match's goal. This would entail sacrificing one's own armour for that purpose.

To the other team, watching their opponent ruthlessly advance with no regard to its safety would be frightening: we are speaking of high school girls (rather than trained tank crews), sufficiently to destroy a team's fighting spirit such that even a composed commander might not be able to recover morale quickly enough to mount a comeback. Variations of this approach each match is enough to keep teams guessing and fearful of Black Forest, and these principles operate independently of the teams' setups.

Generalized advice is advice less applicable to any particular situation.

This applies both ways. Indeed, the policy of unwavering advance virtually guarantees that any remotely intelligent opponent will shoot first and hit first because they will allow you to advance into their concealed positions. (Studies by the major powers at the time of WW 2 repeatedly showed that spotting and firing ahead of the enemy won more tactical-scale engagements than maneuver, which poses a different though related problem to this one.) You are positing that there is a significant difference in the level of discipline between Black Forest and the other schools, if your argument is that Black Forest will accept casualties and they won't.

Which is, in fact, what you are saying with this argument; that Black Forest is breaking the enemy by their willingness to take losses to inflict losses. This requires, per force, Black Forest to be able to take losses and not break, where the other schools will; particularly since their situation almost guarantees, if they follow the proposed strategy, they will probably be hurt first and possibly hurt more.

edited 13th Nov '15 10:19:15 PM by Night

Playing the semantics game? Keep testing me: I love this game, and I can play it all day. A novice begins by looking for a specific solution to a problem, and then tries to fit the solution to the problem, whereas those versed in problem solving will find the general solution and tune it to apply for the problem in question. For that, Sun Tzu has proven time and time again to be effective. For everything else, I can agree to disagree, provided that you are not defending the Nishizumi style.

edited 13th Nov '15 10:57:27 PM by Person0123452

Not hardly. There comes a point where advice is too generalized to be useful, even to an expert. Much of Sun Tzu's advice on non-maneuver subjects has reached that level. Amateurs are prevented from that realization by the very fact it's too general to be helpful; it can't really hurt them either, because it's so vague. They imagine themselves to be following the Art of War as they indulge their own experience-based knowledge, because they fit on that vague template.

There is also, of course, the question of whether maneuver is even a significant component of tactical-level senshado. The show would largely indicate it is not, as the majority of maneuver at the scale of an individual match is either a self-evident necessity (run away from things that outmatch you; flank things you can't penetrate) or isn't really organized with the enemy in mind. In fact, pretty much all the tactical maneuver worth the name involves the Hetzer's sneaking into the Black Forest crowd in the last episode, or the Pz 38's overrun trick against Pravda.

For the most part, that's a fair assumption on the tactical level. You are here, they are there, and you shoot at each other. Only the most basic level of maneuver takes place at the platoon and company levels, more concerned with the motions of friends than enemies.

Also, like I said earlier, generally, sports also takes to account the internal workings of a team aside from the players themselves. Sensha-do, for example, seems to take the school's management of their teams and players. As the Nishizumi school is associated with Black Forest Peak's tankery team. We can assume that Shiho Nishizumi has a great influence on the decision making of what they should do with regards to strategy making, with Maho simply acting as field commander.

Besides, it's not like the approach is a total failure as stated in the article, evidenced by the fact that Erika had a clear shot of the Panzer IV during Black Forest's ambush. The battle would've been over in no time were if not for the Anteater team's sudden accidental interference.

So apparently the Japanese Senshado Federation has an (in-universe) theme song, and this is it:

Except added with 1000% testosterone. Uhm.

True sensha-do is played by burly men in girls' uniforms. The one shown to us in tbe series is actually the The Theme Park Version.

Had a chance to see Girls und Panzer Der Film while visiting Japan this week. It was amazing and definitely worth the wait, running for a total of two hours and fifteen minutes. I hope everyone will have an opportunity to see this movie, and that's about it, as everything else would venture into spoiler territory.

Someone on another board I go to posted a few bullet points without getting to spoilery. I just wanted to ask if this looks to be the end of the franchise or at least the Oaori girls story-line?

People, not only do we have Centurions, we have Pershings. Holy heck.

Is that Maho in the very last screenshot◊? And on a different note, do we know if there are any high stakes involved in this movie's storyline? Or is it all just a for-fun friendly match that ultimately got out of hand with all of the unplanned arrivals trying to get their piece of the action, becoming a hilarious free-for-all/one-team-against-several?

Anchovy is in the movie!?

There are high stakes. Spoilers below!

MEXT reneges on its promise and closes Oorai anyway, which results in the girls and their families getting summarily kicked out of the school ship. Since they're champions, the rest of the high school school ships take umbrage on this, which ends with SHIHO brokering a more lasting deal with MEXT — if the team Ooarai scrabbles together from all the other school ships wins against their University team, then Ooarai doesn't get closed.

Unfortunately, accordingly, it turns out that MEXT are cheating bastards, going by some of the web summaries, and basically try to turn EVERYTHING in the match in their favor. You think the Centurion 1 and the Pershings were bad? They have a T28 AND a massive field gun, all provided by MEXT.

That seems stupid. If they are champions all you already have really good public relations. Go to the press and vilify the bastards that lied and closed your school anyway. With the public on their side they'd be near unstoppable.

Hm. Not sure I trust that summary. Will have to wait for the subs to emerge.

Speaking of which how are the OVAs? I've never seen them.

The Anzio OVA is a definite must watch, since it details the... Well, the Anzio match. The others are just fanservice-centric fluff.

... I'm half-expecting you to eventually admit that you were just trying to mess with us, and don't actually know anything about the plot so far.

I wasn't. Basically the pretext between the massive — and I do mean MASSIVE, as it's a 30 versus 30 team battle — is just that: Ooarai gets closed, and the teams of the other school ships sees it as a massive insult, since if being a champion doesn't count as security, what's stopping MEXT from going after the other ships. I'm not even kidding.

Ditto with Shiho.

The reason why every other school ship seems to be included is the fact that Ooarai simply doesn't enough tanks to fill out a 30-tank roster, hence the other teams "volunteering".

edited 22nd Nov '15 4:27:24 AM by MyssaRei

OK, just one question: What does "MEXT" stand for?

"Moronic Excremental Xtra-large Twats"

edited 22nd Nov '15 4:49:37 AM by tryrar

You should know by now that it's FAR easier just googling it.

... Wait, it's an actual real-life institution? I thought it was some fictional organization that supervised the school-ships.

@Myssa: If this gets released locally just like Arpeggio of Blue Steel: Ars Nova DC, and the Love Live movie, then hell yes, I'll definitely watch it (as soon as Ars Nova Cadenza gets its turn to be shown here as well).

You had me at Pershings. (Though sadly, it reminded me of the Company of Heroes 2 DLC US Heavy Cavalry Commander that I wish I bought this weekend instead of the Soviet Armored Assault Commander. Oh well...)

Anyway, it will be interesting to see combination strategies and tactics based on the variety of tanks fielded by the high school ships. Man, I can't wait...

Also, are you referring to the US T28 Super Heavy Tank? And man, using a field gun—basically a classic counter to WWII tanks—in a Tankery match?! Very, very unsportsmanlike...

(Yes, there are Girls und Panzer decals, faceplates and vehicle skins for Company of Heroes 2. Just search for them on the game's Steam Workshop.)

@Marq: One could consider the MEXT in Girls und Panzer as an alternate-reality version of the MEXT in real life.

EDIT 2: Got it. Thanks Myssa.

edited 22nd Nov '15 9:12:43 AM by IncognitoNinja

Coding only works per paragraph, and the moment you make a separate paragraph, you have to reuse the spoiler tag again.

And yes, it's the T28 super heavy tank. The reaction of everyone was pretty much, "They're not even remotely pretending this is fair."