Last edited:
Stupid Luck and Happenstance, Thread II
- Thread starter Peabody-Martini
- Start date
Germany and Korea have very little space to play with. If the Chinese can take the rest of the Korean border, they can cut the train line between Germany and Seoul and make the logistics very difficult for them. If Korea is the same shape as OTL, that would not be difficult.
Also, the Germans and Koreans have had people captured. Are the Chinese POW camps up to standard or something that is going to escalate the war if information gets out?
I've been considering what would happen if the US government gets concerned about the deaths of its military advisers and decides to double down to make sure they didn't die in vain.
Apart from China, do they have any other allies in the region to act as logistical bases? What's the status of the Philippines ITTL? Sinking US ships, even carrying war supplies, would be another potenetially dangerous escalation.
Also, the Germans and Koreans have had people captured. Are the Chinese POW camps up to standard or something that is going to escalate the war if information gets out?
I've been considering what would happen if the US government gets concerned about the deaths of its military advisers and decides to double down to make sure they didn't die in vain.
Apart from China, do they have any other allies in the region to act as logistical bases? What's the status of the Philippines ITTL? Sinking US ships, even carrying war supplies, would be another potenetially dangerous escalation.
Has Germany put in place a naval blockade for China? If that then could have conflicts with US shipping trying to smuggle weapons into China.
I have no doubt that there is a massive propaganda war being fought out in the United States over the “Hearts and Minds” of the American people.
The pro German side is making the case that it was China and specifically a very corrupt Chiang Kai-shek that invaded Korea without any provocation and all that Germany is doing is coming to the aid of an ally and it is keeping its operations on the Korean side of the border.
The China Lobby headed by Henry R. Luce is saying ‘Murica.
The pro German side is making the case that it was China and specifically a very corrupt Chiang Kai-shek that invaded Korea without any provocation and all that Germany is doing is coming to the aid of an ally and it is keeping its operations on the Korean side of the border.
The China Lobby headed by Henry R. Luce is saying ‘Murica.
People like simple answers, so who do you think the american public will support?
The American people probably do not want this conflict to widen and send a massive Expeditionary Force to China and by this time it has been two years since Chiang Kai-shek started his Sabre rattling and there should be plenty of stories in the American press on how corrupt China is.
Same press that even if not anymore in the near sole control of someone like Randolph Hearst, it is still in the hands of a few people who determine most of WHAT, WHO and HOW it's published?
Until bodies start to return weekly and conscription starts to be actually skirted in numbers i doubt that the American population is actually learning much about the actual degree of corruption in the KMT dominated Chinese Republic....
And this is where I have to say that you are massively wrong, at this point IOTL and there is no reason for it to be any different ITTL virtually every large city and even medium sized cities has more then one newspapers.
The war in Korea is the biggest story out there now and every major newspaper has at least one correspondent out in the field and for the chain papers they have teams covering every angle possible.
In Korea right now the Germans have someone who very much understand the mindset of the American people and this person knows that there is one thing that will make the American people mad is the knowledge that their hard earned tax dollars are being wasted and stolen by a corrupt leader who is trying to and has actually gotten American boys killed in war that he started.
This person can tell the Germans and Koreans the best thing that they can do to win over the American people is to open doors and roll out the red carpet for the American press.
Take the reporters to Ridge 609 where a German battalion held off a Chinese Army regiment, if they want a human interest story, orphans always make good copy and the fact that there a lot of German civilians volunteers helping to care for them is a plus.
Another human interest story that the reporters would love to have is out on the SMS Brandenburg where Prince Louis Ferdinand is serving and when they ask him about his sister Kristina all he has to say is that she is not available right now for the press but hopefully she will be soon.
-No Baby Boom post OTL WWII.
-No Uber scale industry and worker mass expansion, what demanded said mentioned multiplication of newspapers past the level of control of few figures like Hearst.
With a slower expansion of population and more natural expansion of printing numbers, there are good odds that the same newspapers managed to keep their dominance....
-Only the MAIN Newspaper chains have the monetary muscles to flex and to send Reporters. Even if there are smaller newspapers and such, they more than often paid commissions to those few reporters who worked for the bigger newspapers in exchange for the right to publish said news....
-The KMT Controlled Chinese Republic while not an outright Dictatorship like OTL Communist China, is NOT A DEMOCRACY.
Meaning that the ONLY reporters allowed more than often to stay in China and specially to be in the Chinese front of the conflict, likely are those who the State Department gave the permits to do so.. And they would give priority to those reporters who are likely to publish their news more in the line of what the Chinese and the State Department prefers....
FBKampfer
Banned
Re: the Pfeil
People tend to greatly overestimate how much punishment aircraft can take. Even an A-10 is quite killable.
Realistically, 4 hits from 30mm weapons with good grouping would probably take a wing off like it's a toy.
Their toughness comes from resilience to infantry weapons, and redundancy of controls. But yeet an AIM-9 up one of its exhaust ducts and it's still gonna auger.
Looking at the CF-105, it looks like it would be a bitch to fly with even moderate wing damage under load, much less a section straight up gone.
Get your right wing shredded, you're gonna be shoving the stick hard left all the way back to base, if you can even maintain controlled flight.
Is the CF-105 a good design? Certainly. But there is never a magic bullet, and anything can be killed.
People tend to greatly overestimate how much punishment aircraft can take. Even an A-10 is quite killable.
Realistically, 4 hits from 30mm weapons with good grouping would probably take a wing off like it's a toy.
Their toughness comes from resilience to infantry weapons, and redundancy of controls. But yeet an AIM-9 up one of its exhaust ducts and it's still gonna auger.
Looking at the CF-105, it looks like it would be a bitch to fly with even moderate wing damage under load, much less a section straight up gone.
Get your right wing shredded, you're gonna be shoving the stick hard left all the way back to base, if you can even maintain controlled flight.
Is the CF-105 a good design? Certainly. But there is never a magic bullet, and anything can be killed.
Part 95, Chapter 1492
Chapter One Thousand Four Hundred Ninety-Two
4th June 1962
Beijing, China
It was with a great deal of disgust that Parker threw aside the latest missive from Washington D.C. There seemed to be a disconnect between what he along damn near everyone else posted to the Embassy in Beijing had to say and the official word that they were getting back from the United States. It felt like if they were believing their own line, the same one that had been articulated by the President months earlier. The Chinese had been very careful to stage manage just how they were seen in America with the mounting casualties in Korea and the horrific amount of graft that was happening in Beijing being glossed over.
Now today, Parker had received a query from the Pentagon asking if he had proposed cutting the rail links across the Tumen River. Yes, it would deny the Koreans and their Allies an important supply line, but the Chinese didn’t do that for the same reason the Germans were not blockading Chinese ports. They were corrupt and self-serving but not stupid or suicidal. Where the Germans understood that if they fired on an American vessel then they would be at war with another nuclear power, Chinese Intelligence estimated that the Russians had fifty Divisions just across the border. If the Chinese entered Russian Territory, which was what cutting those rail links would entail, then there would be an avalanche of Russian armor into Manchuria. Those Russian Divisions also gave the Generalissimo the perfect excuse to keep his best Divisions close to Beijing.
It was moments like this that Parker missed Jonny, he always had a swift, cutting remark about the absurdity of their situation. Recently he had received a letter from Jonny’s girlfriend saying that the absence of the 1st SFG had been noticeable when they had buried him. Parker put that at the end of a very long list of grievances that he had with the KMT.
Next was a memo about how the Chinese Air Force had not been completely aware of how the avionics packages of their airplanes had worked. The RF receiver that would have warned if the plane was subjected to radar lock and missile launch had not been configured properly when the Krauts had targeted them with medium to long-range missiles. Parker was having to deal with the war of words between Curtis Aircraft and the Chinese Government. The CIA was in a tizzy because they had no idea that the Luftwaffe had managed to field the Hermelin missile system. By now they should have realized that when it came to the goddamned Krauts, if you are reading about it then they have already found a way to stick it up your ass. That went double if it was something that went boom.
Tempelhof, Berlin
“I have to change something, because it seems like what I’ve been doing isn’t working” Zella said, which happened to be music to Nora Berg’s ears.
Where Kiki treated lunch with Berg like if it were an appointment. Zella drifted in when she knew that Berg would be present. Today, she had started by mentioning that her father’s racing team was on the Isle of Man for a motorcycle race. Zella had wanted to go, but her father had said that University was more important because quote, “Had the events of the last year taught her nothing?” That had been a few days earlier and Zella was still smarting over it.
“Exactly what do you have in mind?” Berg asked.
“No clue” Zella replied, “I was hoping that you could help with that.”
“Considering how life almost made some decisions for you, I would think that you would have put more thought into it” Berg said.
Zella frowned. She didn’t like to be reminded of the chapter of her life that she was trying to put behind her. Until Zella showed that she had absorbed the lessons from it, Berg would continue to bring it up.
“I’m thinking of putting my credentials from the BT to use this summer” Zella said changing the subject, “Far East, Vladivostok or Seoul. You know, where the action is. Perhaps even Beijing.”
“That would absolutely infuriate your mother.”
Zella just shrugged. “She wasn’t much older than I am when she went to Spain” She said, “Momma was cruising around the country with Robert Capa and Ernest Hemingway. Herr Capa is Aurora’s father and he has some stories to tell about my mother and how even then her relationship with my father wasn’t nearly as innocent as she pretends it was.”
“She could just have your credential revoked” Berg replied, “She is the Editor-in-Chief at the Berliner. It would only take her seconds to do that.”
“Only if I was stupid enough to tell her what I am up to before I do it” Zella said, “Easier to ask for forgiveness than permission, that sort of thing.”
Berg heard that and one question occurred to her.
“Are you trying to change things or merely running from them?”
Zella just gave Berg a bit of a smile. “If you can run fast enough and those become the same thing” She replied.
Berg knew that was very seldom true, but that wouldn’t stop someone like Zella from trying. She seemed to regard speed and distance the same way that a woman in her position might have regarded a religious epiphany in an earlier era.
4th June 1962
Beijing, China
It was with a great deal of disgust that Parker threw aside the latest missive from Washington D.C. There seemed to be a disconnect between what he along damn near everyone else posted to the Embassy in Beijing had to say and the official word that they were getting back from the United States. It felt like if they were believing their own line, the same one that had been articulated by the President months earlier. The Chinese had been very careful to stage manage just how they were seen in America with the mounting casualties in Korea and the horrific amount of graft that was happening in Beijing being glossed over.
Now today, Parker had received a query from the Pentagon asking if he had proposed cutting the rail links across the Tumen River. Yes, it would deny the Koreans and their Allies an important supply line, but the Chinese didn’t do that for the same reason the Germans were not blockading Chinese ports. They were corrupt and self-serving but not stupid or suicidal. Where the Germans understood that if they fired on an American vessel then they would be at war with another nuclear power, Chinese Intelligence estimated that the Russians had fifty Divisions just across the border. If the Chinese entered Russian Territory, which was what cutting those rail links would entail, then there would be an avalanche of Russian armor into Manchuria. Those Russian Divisions also gave the Generalissimo the perfect excuse to keep his best Divisions close to Beijing.
It was moments like this that Parker missed Jonny, he always had a swift, cutting remark about the absurdity of their situation. Recently he had received a letter from Jonny’s girlfriend saying that the absence of the 1st SFG had been noticeable when they had buried him. Parker put that at the end of a very long list of grievances that he had with the KMT.
Next was a memo about how the Chinese Air Force had not been completely aware of how the avionics packages of their airplanes had worked. The RF receiver that would have warned if the plane was subjected to radar lock and missile launch had not been configured properly when the Krauts had targeted them with medium to long-range missiles. Parker was having to deal with the war of words between Curtis Aircraft and the Chinese Government. The CIA was in a tizzy because they had no idea that the Luftwaffe had managed to field the Hermelin missile system. By now they should have realized that when it came to the goddamned Krauts, if you are reading about it then they have already found a way to stick it up your ass. That went double if it was something that went boom.
Tempelhof, Berlin
“I have to change something, because it seems like what I’ve been doing isn’t working” Zella said, which happened to be music to Nora Berg’s ears.
Where Kiki treated lunch with Berg like if it were an appointment. Zella drifted in when she knew that Berg would be present. Today, she had started by mentioning that her father’s racing team was on the Isle of Man for a motorcycle race. Zella had wanted to go, but her father had said that University was more important because quote, “Had the events of the last year taught her nothing?” That had been a few days earlier and Zella was still smarting over it.
“Exactly what do you have in mind?” Berg asked.
“No clue” Zella replied, “I was hoping that you could help with that.”
“Considering how life almost made some decisions for you, I would think that you would have put more thought into it” Berg said.
Zella frowned. She didn’t like to be reminded of the chapter of her life that she was trying to put behind her. Until Zella showed that she had absorbed the lessons from it, Berg would continue to bring it up.
“I’m thinking of putting my credentials from the BT to use this summer” Zella said changing the subject, “Far East, Vladivostok or Seoul. You know, where the action is. Perhaps even Beijing.”
“That would absolutely infuriate your mother.”
Zella just shrugged. “She wasn’t much older than I am when she went to Spain” She said, “Momma was cruising around the country with Robert Capa and Ernest Hemingway. Herr Capa is Aurora’s father and he has some stories to tell about my mother and how even then her relationship with my father wasn’t nearly as innocent as she pretends it was.”
“She could just have your credential revoked” Berg replied, “She is the Editor-in-Chief at the Berliner. It would only take her seconds to do that.”
“Only if I was stupid enough to tell her what I am up to before I do it” Zella said, “Easier to ask for forgiveness than permission, that sort of thing.”
Berg heard that and one question occurred to her.
“Are you trying to change things or merely running from them?”
Zella just gave Berg a bit of a smile. “If you can run fast enough and those become the same thing” She replied.
Berg knew that was very seldom true, but that wouldn’t stop someone like Zella from trying. She seemed to regard speed and distance the same way that a woman in her position might have regarded a religious epiphany in an earlier era.
I take it as a good sign that no one is trying to expand the conflict beyond Korea.
Zella may not be allowed in China because she is a German citizen and if she does happen to get in the possibly of her getting arrested for being a spy is just too high of a risk for her to take.
The corruption in China is just too blatant to ignore forever and there are always means to get a story out past any potential censor.
Gloria and Parker may keep corresponding with each other and that may spur Gloria to dig deeper in to what is really going on with the Harriman Administration policy in China.
Zella may not be allowed in China because she is a German citizen and if she does happen to get in the possibly of her getting arrested for being a spy is just too high of a risk for her to take.
The corruption in China is just too blatant to ignore forever and there are always means to get a story out past any potential censor.
Gloria and Parker may keep corresponding with each other and that may spur Gloria to dig deeper in to what is really going on with the Harriman Administration policy in China.
Part 95, Chapter 1493
Chapter One Thousand Four Hundred Ninety-Three
18th June 1962
Anju, Korea
Meeting Kiki for lunch in Anju was wonderful, just sitting and talking like they had in the past. The entire time though, Ben was getting the impression that something was off with Kiki. She seemed tired and somewhat scattered, which was completely unlike her. Kiki was also not wearing her glasses. While Ben might have been tempted to tell her that her dark blue eyes were pretty, he knew better than to mention it. It was really a sign that she had mentally checked out for the day, it was still early afternoon.
“Oh” Kiki said, and with that reaction Ben discovered exactly what he had accomplished in Korea meant in the greater scheme of things, to her anyway. It wasn’t that she didn’t care, it was that she didn’t find it particularly impressive. Worse, she was giving him the impression that telling her about it had been a bit of a mistake.
He had been telling her about the incident a few weeks earlier when he had managed to become one of the rare “Aces in a day” when he had shot down five Chinese airplanes in that offensive where they had caught them with their proverbial pants down. This had been when she had just finished telling him a story about being on a helicopter a few days earlier with one of her teams struggling to keep a man alive who had basically been gutted by shell fragments. Kiki had described the bother of having to find new clothes aboard the SMS Prinzessin Marie and how they didn’t seem to have any small enough to fit her. That was when Ben had launched into his own story and Kiki had listened in silence.
“This isn’t a game Ben” Kiki said tiredly.
A bit late it had occurred to him that there had been a reason why Kiki had needed to find new clothes once she was aboard the hospital ship. One she had not mentioned because it was so profoundly obvious. He had missed it and had launched into a stupid story instead.
“That man?” Ben asked, “The one you brought in, did he make it?”
“I have no idea” Kiki replied, “It’s always the messy ones that I seem to remember.”
“I had no idea” Ben said, inadvertently repeating Kiki’s words.
Kiki just shrugged, “I don’t know why I told you about that” She said, “It wasn’t the worst one I’ve had to deal with.”
“You’ve had to deal with worse?” Ben asked, somewhat aghast.
“I had to deal with the triage and evacuation after an incident a few weeks ago where close air support went wrong” Kiki replied, “SC500s, you know what those are? Several of them landed in the wrong spot and one of our Companies was cut to pieces.”
With that Kiki went back to her meal while Ben sat there feeling sick to his stomach. How could she eat after mentioning something like that? Twelve of the SC500 bombs were carried as part of the routine load of Ben’s Pfeil and he had flown close air support missions.
Near Jonchon, Korea
He was nobody’s fool. General Pan knew that the Generalissimo had sent him here with the intention of having this become an inevitable failure. Even in face of potential military defeat, Chiang Kai-shek still came out ahead. Still, Pan Yong had plans of his own that didn’t involve being the scapegoat for what wasn’t even another man’s ambitions. Instead all of this had been so that the Generalissimo could retain the power that he had held since he had defeated the northern warlords almost four decades earlier. Pan had a different take; a good crisis was not something that he would allow to go to waste. When all was said and done, he wanted credit in victory or if in defeat he wanted blame to be placed squarely where it belonged, in Beijing.
To Pan it seemed like the Chinese Army was waiting for their enemies to attack in a time and place of their choosing. He had other ideas. At Pan’s disposal were dozens of the newish American built Buford Tanks as well as several companies from the Dare-to-Die Corps. He had no idea who this Buford was, he had been told that Buford had been a General at Gettysburg when he had asked and couldn’t remember enough about that battle to comment. Instead, Pan understood that they were far superior to the obsolescent locally produced Panther variants that the Chinese Army had been using.
Looking through his binoculars, he observed the Mundeok Line. The first of the defensive lines that the Koreans had built. This portion of the line was occupied by soldiers from other sectors who needed rest after hard fighting. This was seen as a quiet sector because the rugged terrain would likely make offensive operations difficult. Pan saw it differently though. The headwaters of the Taedong River were in this region and that was the gateway into Korea proper. If he could punch through here, then he would be threatening Pyongyang and Seoul itself. The Koreans would have no choice but to throw themselves into an open battle to turn him back, the sort of fight that favored Pan’s own forces.
As he watched, the volunteers from the Dare-to-Die Corps started their advance. As they streamed towards the Korean lines Pan saluted their bravery and willingness to martyr themselves in the name of the Republic. He was going to rip a hole through these lines or die trying.
18th June 1962
Anju, Korea
Meeting Kiki for lunch in Anju was wonderful, just sitting and talking like they had in the past. The entire time though, Ben was getting the impression that something was off with Kiki. She seemed tired and somewhat scattered, which was completely unlike her. Kiki was also not wearing her glasses. While Ben might have been tempted to tell her that her dark blue eyes were pretty, he knew better than to mention it. It was really a sign that she had mentally checked out for the day, it was still early afternoon.
“Oh” Kiki said, and with that reaction Ben discovered exactly what he had accomplished in Korea meant in the greater scheme of things, to her anyway. It wasn’t that she didn’t care, it was that she didn’t find it particularly impressive. Worse, she was giving him the impression that telling her about it had been a bit of a mistake.
He had been telling her about the incident a few weeks earlier when he had managed to become one of the rare “Aces in a day” when he had shot down five Chinese airplanes in that offensive where they had caught them with their proverbial pants down. This had been when she had just finished telling him a story about being on a helicopter a few days earlier with one of her teams struggling to keep a man alive who had basically been gutted by shell fragments. Kiki had described the bother of having to find new clothes aboard the SMS Prinzessin Marie and how they didn’t seem to have any small enough to fit her. That was when Ben had launched into his own story and Kiki had listened in silence.
“This isn’t a game Ben” Kiki said tiredly.
A bit late it had occurred to him that there had been a reason why Kiki had needed to find new clothes once she was aboard the hospital ship. One she had not mentioned because it was so profoundly obvious. He had missed it and had launched into a stupid story instead.
“That man?” Ben asked, “The one you brought in, did he make it?”
“I have no idea” Kiki replied, “It’s always the messy ones that I seem to remember.”
“I had no idea” Ben said, inadvertently repeating Kiki’s words.
Kiki just shrugged, “I don’t know why I told you about that” She said, “It wasn’t the worst one I’ve had to deal with.”
“You’ve had to deal with worse?” Ben asked, somewhat aghast.
“I had to deal with the triage and evacuation after an incident a few weeks ago where close air support went wrong” Kiki replied, “SC500s, you know what those are? Several of them landed in the wrong spot and one of our Companies was cut to pieces.”
With that Kiki went back to her meal while Ben sat there feeling sick to his stomach. How could she eat after mentioning something like that? Twelve of the SC500 bombs were carried as part of the routine load of Ben’s Pfeil and he had flown close air support missions.
Near Jonchon, Korea
He was nobody’s fool. General Pan knew that the Generalissimo had sent him here with the intention of having this become an inevitable failure. Even in face of potential military defeat, Chiang Kai-shek still came out ahead. Still, Pan Yong had plans of his own that didn’t involve being the scapegoat for what wasn’t even another man’s ambitions. Instead all of this had been so that the Generalissimo could retain the power that he had held since he had defeated the northern warlords almost four decades earlier. Pan had a different take; a good crisis was not something that he would allow to go to waste. When all was said and done, he wanted credit in victory or if in defeat he wanted blame to be placed squarely where it belonged, in Beijing.
To Pan it seemed like the Chinese Army was waiting for their enemies to attack in a time and place of their choosing. He had other ideas. At Pan’s disposal were dozens of the newish American built Buford Tanks as well as several companies from the Dare-to-Die Corps. He had no idea who this Buford was, he had been told that Buford had been a General at Gettysburg when he had asked and couldn’t remember enough about that battle to comment. Instead, Pan understood that they were far superior to the obsolescent locally produced Panther variants that the Chinese Army had been using.
Looking through his binoculars, he observed the Mundeok Line. The first of the defensive lines that the Koreans had built. This portion of the line was occupied by soldiers from other sectors who needed rest after hard fighting. This was seen as a quiet sector because the rugged terrain would likely make offensive operations difficult. Pan saw it differently though. The headwaters of the Taedong River were in this region and that was the gateway into Korea proper. If he could punch through here, then he would be threatening Pyongyang and Seoul itself. The Koreans would have no choice but to throw themselves into an open battle to turn him back, the sort of fight that favored Pan’s own forces.
As he watched, the volunteers from the Dare-to-Die Corps started their advance. As they streamed towards the Korean lines Pan saluted their bravery and willingness to martyr themselves in the name of the Republic. He was going to rip a hole through these lines or die trying.
Last edited:
This has a vague feeling of MacArthur crossing the Yalu. Somehow I think this war ends when China screws up and brings the Bear in. Probably because of this general.
Trying to depict China in the 1960s without Mao Zedong proved to be a bit of a challenge, sort of like depicting Medieval Spain without the Catholic Church. By this point IOTL all the competent Generals were either too old or had been dispatched to the tinder joys of "Reeducation through Labor" where there were a lot of "heart attacks" that happened. The names that were not lost to history were those whose primary mission in life involved who could stick their nose farthest up the Chairman's arse. Like so often in the past, I had to make something, or someone, up that sounded convincing.
So, most figures in TTL RoC would not be OTL figures then. I understand.
Not so much making light of it, more the response of a medic whose job is to pick up the pieces left behind by the combatants. To Kiki, who has been on near constant medivac duty, hearing Ben brag, even slightly, about his combat missions could feel as if salt was being rubbed into the wounds.
It is well documented that naval, air force and artillery personnel tend to have a disconnect between what they do and the damage inflicted on the other end. They see in terms of targets: ships, aircraft, map co-ordinates, etc.
Infantry, tankers and, especially, medical personnel, on the other hand, know & see the end result up close & personal far more often: the shattered bodies and the dead.
There is an episode from the last series of 'China Beach' were a group of Vietnam War veterans are in a therapy session for PTSD: a few combat vets and a nurse. One of the combat vets demands to know why the nurse is there, since she had a 'cushy' rear echelon posting & never saw combat because she was a woman. The nurse fired back that she had, for a while at least, come to hate the combat soldiers, because every time she and the others patched them up, they came back broken & bleeding. Because of the near constant parade of wounded and dead that she saw hour after hour, every single day. Because of how she watched the combat soldiers ostracise their fellows in Graves Registration, due to their association with the dead. Because she had to put on a calm, brave & smiling front in order to cope and to help heal the wounded soldiers in her ward. Because she couldn't tell them apart any more.