[4Tran]

I'm a little late commenting on Valkyria Chronicles, but I've been liking it so far, albeit not quite to the extent that I expected/hoped for. One of the nice things about the show is that it pays attention to real tactics, and uses them as resolutions to problems instead of using gimmicks. The latter is a trend that I can see the show veering towards from time to time, but it can avoid it for the most part. In fact, I think that this episode could have been more entertaining had it used even more realistic tactics than what we saw (will someone please use cover? ). Still, Valkyria Chronicles is better on this score than most anime that I can think of.

As an aside on national analogs, the use of German equipment, uniforms (Welkin's uniform is a dead giveaway) and iconography puts Gallia as WWII Germany. The Empire is much more of a mishmash, but it seems to mostly be a combination of the Soviet Union and Imperial Russia.

Originally Posted by Tyrone Biggums

I love how 2 platoons can take a base...

It's not the most horribly realistic scenario, but you can chalk it up to game mechanics. As an additional caveat, we don't know the size of the base (it looks awfully small), and since Squad 7 was deemed sufficient force to take it, it shouldn't be all that big. Admittedly, this doesn't jive with the amount of importance placed upon it by both sides (general-rank officers assigned by both sides), but the forces at their disposal didn't seem to be that large either.

Actually this does bring up a good point. Welkin is said to be the CO of Squad 7 of a Militia regiment. Does that mean that the regiments are so small that their maneuver elements are squads (making them either company or platoon sized), or that the Militia squads are much bigger than real life ones. I get the feeling that it's the latter; that Squad 7 is about equivalent of a modern platoon, and it seems to be confirmed when the Imperial soldier reported the Gallian attacking force as company-sized.


On a semi-related note, why is it that anime almost always use IJA ranks for their fictional militaries? I think that I've seen SDF ranks used just once or twice, most notably in Zipang, and that was because most of the main cast were members of the SDF.

Originally Posted by Tyrone Biggums

And I've never even seen them train.

Not once. I'd like to see them running some drills or something. ITS A WAR!

Why though? We already know that they have had some training, and running drills and the like aren't that exciting when they can depict more interesting events instead. The only exception is to show specialized training, but that smacks of the kind of gimmicky storytelling that I hope the show avoids.

If they had the extra time, I'd much rather see more involvement from the other soldiers - there's got to be more to them than just Rosie and Largo.

Originally Posted by spawnofthejudge

I want to see the Drill Sergeant in the anime.

I'm much more sad at the lack of machinegunners. Seeing German-esque infantry in the field without their ubiquitous machine guns is awfully strange. And for that matter, where are the Imperial machine guns?