A Few Monsters

Is It A Bird?  Is It A Plane?  Hang On, It's A Lizard?
No!  Not literally, because you don't get that many lizards that weigh in at 30 tons and come made of steel.  Ladies and gentlemen (and those unsure), allow me to introduce you to the Skink.  Art?

The original British American version

     The only lizard native to Ontario, apparently, and because the British Americans had a policy of naming their armoured vehicles after native animals, they went with this feller by choice.  The Skink tank was designed as an anti-aircraft vehicle, to provide mobile armoured protection for British American units when they liberated Europe from the bally Hun.  Art?

A Skink, I think.*

     It looks a bit odd, having too many guns mounted in the turret, doesn't it?  Well, HAH!  You're wrong.  Those are 20 mm cannon, and the turret was powered and geared to crank those babies up and around in seconds; the Skink could traverse it's turret in a full circle in 6 seconds, and get those cannon elevated to 900 in 2 seconds, which is just what you need to tackle pesky low-flying enemy aircraft.  It could spit out 40 cannon shells per second, and unless the opposition were wearing tanks, it would not end well for them.

"But -  but - I Googled 'skink tank' "

     However.  The Allied higher ups decided that an anti-aircraft tank wasn't needed, since the Luftwaffe by this point in the Second Unpleasantness amounted to two men and a dog.** So only one Skink served with the British American armoured forces, and in the role of shooting up infantry and field fortifications, in which it excelled.  After all, one 20 mm cannon shell will blow a hole the size of a dinner plate in anything not made of armour plate; imagine what happens when 39 of it's friends arrive simultaneously?
     Okay, now it's time to tie the motley to the furthest end of a wind-turbine arm and wait for the hurricane to arrive!

Is It A Plane?  Well, Pretty Obviously - Yes!
Conrad is not up on aircraft nor air warfare, so he is not entirely sure why the 'Ilya Muromets" popped up in his mind earlier this week, except that it did.  I think I was looking for anything that rhymed with "Nets" because I'm sad that way.  Regardless, Art?

Ruffian Health And Safety officials race to make arrests

     That photograph is useful because it gives a sense of scale to the aircraft (bloody huge!) thanks to the two idiots standing on the fuselage.  And no, I don't know why they're doing that; it's safe to say that it's very unsafe since the fuselage will be fabric covering over structural spars and if you step wrongly - not far to fall but you will be travelling at 90 m.p.h.  Art?

187 crewmen

     The S22 was a world-leader at the time, being designed as a commercial airliner - and this only 11 years after Kitty Hawk.  Since war unhelpfully broke out in 1914, the S22s were instead formed into strategic bomber units that pummelled the Teuton and Austro-Hungarian forces on the Eastern Front.  Of the 83 made, only one was shot down, because it bristled with machine guns, and enemy fighter aircraft were reluctant to take on something so dangerous.
     As mentioned in the title: a monster!

Is It A Bird?
We'll get to that eventually.  First, allow me to introduce the original Ilya Muromets, who is a hero of Russian folklore, of whom songs are sung.  The songs are termed "byliny", which is probably not pronounced "By-liney", just in case you end up in the land of the Ruffians.***  Art?

You see my point?

     According to the legend, Ol' Illy couldn't walk until he was 33, when he was cured by pilgrims and blessed with superhuman strength; speak for yourself but I'd be looking for a radioactive spider, matey.  He set off as a kind of knight-errant, and encountered one 'Nightingale the Robber' in a forest near Bryansk.  Art?

I feel Magneto is missing a minion ...

     This character seemed to be a kind of human-bird hybrid, since he could fly, but also had mutually-opposable digits - given that he could drink using his hands.  Nightingale would stun or slay people with his 'whistle' and then rob their rapidly cooling corpses, which 'whistle' appears to have been some kind of sonic weapon that could kill at close range, except for Ol' Illy, who promptly impaled Nightingale with a couple of arrows.
     So - I'm not sure what the answer to that one is.  No, it's not a bird, although it does have wings and feathers, also it can use language and artefacts -
     "Does it live on the plains of Africa?" I hear you ask.  "Can you build some kind of rudimentary lathe?" I hear another of you idiots ask.
     STOP BEING SILLY!  Don't bring in the wrong kind of pop culture.  Art?^

Any more nonsense and you'll answer to him.

     Now, say bye-bye to the nice bogatyr and we'll be on our way.

Do svidaniya!



*  Actually I know, that's just poetic licence
**  Two dogs on a good day.
***  Hey, it might happen.  Euro 2018, doncha know.
^  "World War Z" and "Galaxy Quest" respectively.