BOOJUM!: A French Land-Travelling Torpedo

Yes, I Know What You're Thinking -
- and - er - why no officer, this strange helmet in no way resembles DARPA's prototype Telepathy Helmet that mysteriously went missing a couple of months ago -

A police sketch

Ahem. Yes, you are thinking "Dog Buns! It's a bit early in the evening for the Old Fat Man to have been at either 1) Peyote 2) Peculiar cigarettes or 3) A litre of gin, ain't it? For surely he is merely stringing words together at random?"
Leaving aside the fact that my frame is at it's ideal 15 stone weight, allow me to -

CHANGE THE SUBJECT COMPLETELY!

Don't whinge so, this is useful mental training, and if you ever expected BOOJUM! to stay on-track then O Boy! you are not merely in the wrong tent and the wrong desert, you are indeed on the wrong continent.*
"Kokuszdio" is what we finished today's earlier post on, and I never explained what this was, though the astute or Magyar amongst you would have known: it is Hungarian for "Coconuts".

The twin cities of Buda and Pest

For the unaware, the Hungarian language - Magyar - is one of the Finno-Ugric family, having vague linguistic connections with the Finns - whose name for themselves is "Suomi" - and genetic connections to the Far East, from where their conquering Mongol ancestors came. If you hear it being spoken, it sounds like a strange combination of French and German, and the only Hungarian words most Westerners know are "Goulash" and "Paprika". To which you can add "Fo Utca", which means "High Street".

Andorra, greatest elevation in Europe and thus - has the highest street.

Blimey. I only meant to say "Coconuts". I do go on rather, don't I?
Right! The tide is coming in, so I need to go see if the motley has managed to dig itself out of that submerged ~~coffin~~ long steel box.

About That Title -
I was neither joking nor inebriated nor high - how dare you! Of COURSE people can tell the difference!** - when I typed it, as I was obviously referring to the Schneider Crocodile, which our resident pictorial expert Art can illustrate -

Art, those are ALLIGATORS
<sounds of sighs and a Tazer being charged up>

Please talk quietly amongst yourselves whilst Art stops spasming. Stop whining, Art - put some salve on it. Are we ready now?

Hey Pesto!

I'd never heard of these things before last week, when I went back and perused my Osprey "French Tanks of WW1", where they are mentioned in passing. They were another attempt to break the deadlock of trenches and barbed wire on the Western Front during the First Unpleasantness, invented by the M8s in 1915, the year before TANK. Their title in M8 was "Torpille Terrestre" or - ba-dum-ching - "Land torpedo" and they were a novel concept. As a small tracked vehicle they were able to surmount the rough terrain of No Man's Land, being directed by remote control via wire, and carrying a 90 lb charge of high explosive. Once into the Teuton's barbed wire, they would be detonated, removing themselves and the wire from the planet.

The stayer of nations

Or such was the plan.
These machines are, to say the least, obscure. The photo above is the only one I can find, and there is precious little information about them, bar the damning detail in my Osprey, which stated that they were far too unreliable to be put into production. Okay, 10/10 for idea, 2/10 for reality. Try harder, M8s!

More Of Matters Military
If you thought this blog would be all about underage children taking drugs (Lewis Carroll we are looking at YOU!) and falling down rabbit holes whilst conversing with sentient playing cards, then - see that crack above about wrong desert.
Let me just bamboozle Art a little - Art? If you stop sulking I'll send you a Playboy photo of Mara Corday*** -

This is an autobiographical memoir of the mid to late 1918, written by an artillery officer, who arrived back with his gunner mates from sick leave just in time to face the enormous Teuton offensive of 22nd March 1918. Full of fascinating incidental details that really bring to life what a gunners daily term involved. At least if you're into that sort of thing, which I am; others might find it an impenetrable bore and be instantly adrift, not knowing what a "4.5 how" was. Art?

"Enemy, Killing, For The Use Of"
(A 4.5" howitzer)

Finally -
A moment's grateful silence for the Forsvarets SpesialKommando Jegertroppen, those valiant ladies of the Norwegian Special Forces, who help to keep our oil rigs safe at night.