>>Hannelore (who strikes me as someone who would fit in beautifully in
>>the old WDF)
>
>It occurs to me that WDF Hannalore would be the person sent out to
>liason with other military forces a lot, because the Not Fun Officer
>sorts were all sure she was a serious military officer.

I have a feeling she'd be a favorite of a certain type of officer--not even a martinet, necessarily (Her old dueling foe here seems to be one, and he loathes witches in general) but the officers who think the witches are far too informal and they have to be chivvied back into form every so often. A perfect example is in one of the early episodes (I've only started watching this) and Minna is reporting to two officers, one of whom was unhappy with Miyafuji joining and the other overrode the first, subtly pointing out the obvious--they're allowed to get away with slackness no other military personnel are because they're utterly indispensable to the war effort--the girls know full well the military needs them a thousand times more than they need the military. And as long as they put up the numbers -without- that military discipline, that dynamic won't change.

The only thing about this story that is making me wonder, though, is the patent -silliness- of Richtenberg (I know I am misspelling his name in SOME way, dangit) and this whole rocketpack idea. It makes perfect sense he wants to get the witches out of the military, partly because he's a misogynistic asshole and partly because he simply cannot -control- them. But there's more than one factor that makes the witches indispensable to the war effort, and the Miyafuji engine Striker is actually the lesser of the two. After all, they already have mundane aircraft. Which can mount the same weapons the witches use. The witches are effective not because they can fly, and not because they have guns...

It's because they have -shields-.

Mundane soldiers in mundane aircraft simply have no answer to the Neuroi plasma weapon. I'm assuming Richtenberg is not a dumbkopf, he has to have a plan in place to deal with that. I can't wait to see how lethal to his own soldiers it is.

--------

this world created by the
hands of the gods
everything is false
everything is a LIE
the final days have come
now
let everything be destroyed

--mu