The Stuart = Supatra Conspiracy theory

[warshipadmin]

They are a bit on the heavy side tho.

[Craiglxviii]

They are a bit on the heavy side tho.

Yep, no argument there, but that was the whole point. They looked intimidating.

[David Newton]

I did get a number of misfeeds when I fired Stuart's.

[Calder]

The other problem with the man playing woman theory is that Stuart very clearly said he met her. He said that to me himself in person.

Maskirovka?

If so, to do so in person goes rather beyond an internet prank and points to some form of deep delusion/ mental illness. And Stuart never struck me as mentally ill.

Shrug, I was only a member for a year or two while Supatra was still posting so I don't feel like I saw enough to have much of an opinion on whether they were the same person. I will note that creating sock puppets to support arguments you were making on the internet was really common in the 2000s so I don't think using one was a sign of mental illness it was more a reflection that the tools for detecting such weren't in common use and people really enjoy winning internet arguments.

I do recall them supporting each other positions frequently but I don't recall thinking they always did so. Does anyone recall Stuart and Supatra strongly disagreeing on anything? While not proof it would strongly support they weren't the same person.

[Craiglxviii]

Not sure I remember strong disagreements but I do remember a number of corrections the Suphi character made to some of Stu’s posts, one comment was along the lines of “Stu would make very good general but very bad sergeant” after he had assumed/ fluffed up some organisational admin assumptions in a fairly involved conversation.

My recollection is that they weren’t always hand in glove.

[warshipadmin]

No sock puppet really, just a fictional character (another voice). I just thought it was an amusing game, no malice intended, I'm still undecided on that theory having read the above. I'm hoping my memory will dredge up her surname.

[Micael]

No sock puppet really, just a fictional character (another voice). I just thought it was an amusing game, no malice intended, I'm still undecided on that theory having read the above. I'm hoping my memory will dredge up her surname.

Suovapop.

[Calder]

I will admit that the whole idea of a female Thai colonel who dual-wields matching Desert Eagles certainly pings really high on my BS meter but it is a military-orientated forum and everyone else accepted her so I never said anything. Shrug.

[Belushi TD]

I strongly suspect that Supatra was actually a person in the Thai military. I also strongly suspect the name, rank, sex and all other details were completely false to prevent identifying the person in question. Considering Stuart's work in real life, it would not at all surprise me if the person who posted as Supatra was in Thai intelligence after having served significant time in a front line unit.

The combination of having served in a front line unit and then serving in intelligence would explain both the knowledge of how to run a unit, and the paranoia about being able to be identified through online methods. The intelligence aspect would give a means why Stuart knew them.

Assuming my above surmises are correct, it would not surprise me either, if the reason "Supatra" stopped posting is because it came to the attention of their boss, who said "Knock it off, dumbass".

Belushi TD

[Calder]

Not sure I remember strong disagreements but I do remember a number of corrections the Suphi character made to some of Stu’s posts, one comment was along the lines of “Stu would make very good general but very bad sergeant” after he had assumed/ fluffed up some organisational admin assumptions in a fairly involved conversation.

Please correct me if I am wrong as this is far back enough that I have a lot of uncertainty but didn't Stuart agree with Supatra criticism? It could also be argued that the above comment could be taken as a complement anyway. Given Stuart's background being compared to a General instead of a sergeant is something he would prefer to hear anyway.

[Calder]

Assuming my above surmises are correct, it would not surprise me either, if the reason "Supatra" stopped posting is because it came to the attention of their boss, who said "Knock it off, dumbass".

Again my recollection here is very hazy but Supatra didn't just quit out of the blue right? Wasn't she leaving more of a gradually posting less and less kind of thing? Or was she always a somewhat infrequent poster?

[MikeKozlowski]

Assuming my above surmises are correct, it would not surprise me either, if the reason "Supatra" stopped posting is because it came to the attention of their boss, who said "Knock it off, dumbass".

Again my recollection here is very hazy but Supatra did just quit out of the blue right? Wasn't she leaving more of a gradually posting less and less kind of thing? Or was she always a somewhat infrequent poster?

That's the way I remember it, FWIW.

Mike

[Calder]

Assuming my above surmises are correct, it would not surprise me either, if the reason "Supatra" stopped posting is because it came to the attention of their boss, who said "Knock it off, dumbass".

Again my recollection here is very hazy but Supatra didn't just quit out of the blue right? Wasn't she leaving more of a gradually posting less and less kind of thing? Or was she always a somewhat infrequent poster?

That's the way I remember it, FWIW.

Mike

I assume you mean posting less and less. Does that also mean she was a much more active poster earlier during the TBOverse or was she mostly an infrequent poster? The slow tapering off strongly implies she wasn't a sock puppet controlled by Stuart. It also argues strongly against Belushi's theory of a boss telling her to stop posting.

Beyond that, I don't think we are going to learn much.

[MikeKozlowski]

Again my recollection here is very hazy but Supatra didn't just quit out of the blue right? Wasn't she leaving more of a gradually posting less and less kind of thing? Or was she always a somewhat infrequent poster?

That's the way I remember it, FWIW.

Mike

I assume you mean posting less and less. Does that also mean she was a much more active poster earlier during the TBOverse or was she mostly an infrequent poster? The slow tapering off strongly implies she wasn't a sock puppet controlled by Stuart. It also argues strongly against Belushi's theory of a boss telling her to stop posting.

Beyond that, I don't think we are going to learn much.

Calder,

Less and less is the way I remember it. She was an active poster, but never an every-day sort of thing - a couple times a week, the occasional thread with multiple replies, and several fairly long absences.

Mike

[Andy L]

I strongly suspect that Supatra was actually a person in the Thai military. I also strongly suspect the name, rank, sex and all other details were completely false to prevent identifying the person in question. Considering Stuart's work in real life, it would not at all surprise me if the person who posted as Supatra was in Thai intelligence after having served significant time in a front line unit.

The combination of having served in a front line unit and then serving in intelligence would explain both the knowledge of how to run a unit, and the paranoia about being able to be identified through online methods. The intelligence aspect would give a means why Stuart knew them.

Assuming my above surmises are correct, it would not surprise me either, if the reason "Supatra" stopped posting is because it came to the attention of their boss, who said "Knock it off, dumbass".

Belushi TD

I remember one discussion with a member who claimed military brilliance as he had played 'war games' for 20-plus years, therefore knew more about battles than Supatra and Stuart combined. Now, the reason I mention this is I had also been exposed to some of these 'sock-puppet' accusations on other Alt-History websites, but during this particular discussion Supatra mentioned a small engagement on the banks of a river between friendly forces and and an enemy force which included an old A34 Comet cruiser tank from WW2; her mention of this was to demonstrate even when the size of your forces easily outmatchs the enemy, the presence of a single tank can cause your entire force to duck and cover, and an assault to falter.

This other member still just didn't accept the reality of real-life combat'.

This example was not something I would have expected from Stuart, and demonstrated, to me at least, to take Supatra at face value.

[Craiglxviii]

I strongly suspect that Supatra was actually a person in the Thai military. I also strongly suspect the name, rank, sex and all other details were completely false to prevent identifying the person in question. Considering Stuart's work in real life, it would not at all surprise me if the person who posted as Supatra was in Thai intelligence after having served significant time in a front line unit.

The combination of having served in a front line unit and then serving in intelligence would explain both the knowledge of how to run a unit, and the paranoia about being able to be identified through online methods. The intelligence aspect would give a means why Stuart knew them.

Assuming my above surmises are correct, it would not surprise me either, if the reason "Supatra" stopped posting is because it came to the attention of their boss, who said "Knock it off, dumbass".

Belushi TD

I remember one discussion with a member who claimed military brilliance as he had played 'war games' for 20-plus years, therefore knew more about battles than Supatra and Stuart combined. Now, the reason I mention this is I had also been exposed to some of these 'sock-puppet' accusations on other Alt-History websites, but during this particular discussion Supatra mentioned a small engagement on the banks of a river between friendly forces and and an enemy force which included an old A34 Comet cruiser tank from WW2; her mention of this was to demonstrate even when the size of your forces easily outmatchs the enemy, the presence of a single tank can cause your entire force to duck and cover, and an assault to falter.

This other member still just didn't accept the reality of real-life combat'.

This example was not something I would have expected from Stuart, and demonstrated, to me at least, to take Supatra at face value.

I remember this too for the fact that the tanks Suphi mentioned were Comets (x2). One of the most unlikely tanks to bring up in a non-western military confrontation of (I’d guess) the 70s- 80s. And that was my conclusion too, not only “that sounds wholly convincing” but “what a random tank to choose”.

[FLW]

As some of the "oldsters" here may remember, I had open heart surgery 23 years ago. I had several members of the board call me in the hospital to wish me well. Suphi was one of them. I spoke with her for about 15 minutes. Stuart also called me, as did Andrew (AT Mahan), Karl Newman, and Soren. So I am of the definite knowledge that there was indeed a "Supatra" female, whether actually a Thai Colonel or not I could say. Didn't she post a couple pics from Iraq about 20 years ago?

[warshipadmin]

OK, I'm convinced. Do you know what happened to Soren? He retired from warships1 a good while ago, which was a shame as he was writing an interesting series of reminiscences about Vietnam.

[FLW]

OK, I'm convinced. Do you know what happened to Soren? He retired from warships1 a good while ago, which was a shame as he was writing an interesting series of reminiscences about Vietnam.

I am not sure. I know he was not in good health the last I heard, and I seem to recall that he has passed away. However I'm old and may be mistaken.

[MKSheppard]

Background from an old Anvil of Necessity Chapter THread I saved:

Stu:

Suphi and I have discussed doing a book on the Thai-French war, she'd gather the information from Thai sources and translate it and I'd gather the European stuff and bash everything together. It's a question of time really; when we started talking about it she was doing contract supervision on the RTA's tactical communications system and was bored. Since then, she's had one thing dumped on her after another.

Suphi:

For me Mon Mak Moon was big change in career. Before that was mostly just office lady write reports do files keepo track of expenses. Degree of mine is in Business Administration. After that started getting postings that were much more operational.

Mon Mak Mun was June 1980; Stuart from 1982-1988 was a Systems Analyst in Defense/Naval Electronics -- he went to Jane's in 1988-1990; then moved to the US and Forecast later in 1990.

Stuart also mentioned somewhere that he helped do systems analysis on the Thai IADS way back in the day.

What's important to an IADS? The communications links. So I can see how the two of them met; Stu gets told to go see the person in charge of the communications contract, etc and that random encounter causes a butterfly to flap it's wings and we know random factoids about the RTA decades later...