A Case Of Overkill

I Know, I Know -
 - the quippers and quibblers out there will be going "Oooh how much does that cost, then?" and "Can you get it from Lidl?" because they're idiots.  I am the comedian round here, thank you very much.
     Where were we?
     Oh yes: Overkill.
     Grit your teeth and gird your loins, for we are back to reviewing "Defiance" by G.F. Nichols, that account of life in an artillery brigade during the First Unpleasantness in the year 1918 Anno Domini.
     You need some background here - SIT BACK DOWN! this is interesting - to make sense of my recounting.
     Okay, August 8th 1918 and the Battle of Amiens is widely taken to be the beginning of The Hundred Days, three months where the armies of Perfidious Albion (plus a few others) swept the Hun before them.

Amiens 1918

     Here an aside.  In the quaint and restrained language of 1919, Nichols' describes coming across a collection of huts vacated by the Teuton, which huts had been "fouled".  "The Hun," declares Nichols, " - are dirty curs."
     Well, it made me laugh.

Cur, Dirty, One of.

     The Teuton army was in a state of collapse, with lots of desertion quite beside their losses in battle.  The only way to hold back the Perfidious of Albion was by leaving rearguards of machine-gunners, who, unlike the rest of their army, would fight like heroes.  The pursuit would have to stop and array for battle, which takes time.

Teuton MG team, probably cursing Fritz Haber for ever inventing gas warfare.
(Note exhaust pipe to carry tell-tale steam well away from their position)

     Well, Major Bullivant of the 82nd Artillery was forward with a battalion of his parent division's infantry, when one of these very same groups of machine-gunners held up the advance.  The Major crawled forward to within a few hundred yards, determining the exact map reference of the Teuton rearguard.  He returned to a section of guns sent forward with the infantry for just this situation, and they fired on the unfortunate enemy position.
     With four hundred shells.

All of this and more!

     Blimey, I pondered on reading this: that's a bit much.  Although, since this was a period of hot pursuit, one supposes that the long pre-planned bombardments that used tens of thousands of shells were not being carried out.  So they could afford to be generous in spreading the good news.
     There you go, today's first case of overkill.
     Okay, time to see if a double-layer of tinfoil will proof the motley against this flamethrower ...

DID YOU SAY TINFOIL!?

Attention conspiranoid swivel-eyed loonwaffling bumbletucks!  For your Weltanschaung is under threat.  Art?

Quickly!  Don your tinfoil hats!

     This time your long-time foe, NASA, is not responsible.  No, the clue is that small red flag, for this lunar rover comes from the People's Populous Dictatorship, and will be puttering around on the Moon's far side, checking out the regolith and craters and other such scientific shizzle.*  Predictably, since there were Comments, one smarty-pants worked all the song titles from Pink Floyd's "Dark Side of the Moon" into his post.  I didn't bother to read them all, but you can bet there'll be a loonwaffle in the mix, just as you can guarantee one post will be "What a waste of money - ".

45 years?  Wowsers.  Now I feel old.

     So, the loonies now have to extend the conspiracy to the PPD.  I think they may need to add India, too.

"Day of Chaos: The Fourth Faction/Endgame"
Watch out, here be SPOILERS.

     I have been re-reading this trade paperback of Judge Dredd, after picking up the storyline somehow online and deciding to buy it.  The background idea, I think, was to "Thin the herd" somewhat, and have Mega-City One's population dramatically reduced, because dropping it from 800 million to 400 million still wasn't enough.

Someone is about to have an unpleasant experience

HERE IS THE SPOILERY BIT

     Those eeeeevil Sovs who survived East-Meg One getting vapourised plotted to kill off 99.97% of the Big Meg's population, which would have left about 1.25 million alive.  Fortunately their germ warfare agent has been sabotaged, so "Only" 85% of the population choke it, leaving a whole 40 million survivors.    
     There's more, actually - thanks to an intensive immigration campaign, within a few years the Big Meg's citizenry number 73 million, or about a fifth of the pre-Chaos Day total.  Give it a generation and it'll be back at 400 million again.
     Sorry, Sovs.  Must Try Harder.

Oh - everyone's favourite mass-murdering dyslexic PJ Maybe - ends up a hero.  Who knew!

*  Sorry for the technical language.