How many times do I have to din it into your concrete-coated cerebrums that Your Humble Scribe does not make spelling mistakes, despite the best attempts of this software's hideously Americanised checklist. Art?
| NOT WHAT I MEANT |
Although I do have to commend your knowledge of British comedy programmes from the Sixties and Seventies.
No, for the Barca I wish to discuss or at least introduce you to tonight is one - no, nor is it anything to do with Barcelona the city - Hannibal Barca. Yes, that's right, the chap who was a notable general and commander when the Punic Wars were a-raging. Art?
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| Hannibal, looking a bit liverish. |
I bet you never realised he had a surname, did you? presumably lumping him in with all those single name celebrites like <thinks> Topol or <thinks again> Bono.* Of course every schoolboy knows about Ol' Han bringing elephants across the Alps, to the consternation of the Romans, whom he had a serious disagreement with. A very serious disagreement. Okay, okay, he was at war with them. Happy now? |
| "Quiver in fear, Roman scum!" |
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| Hannibal: still liverish |
Right, motley, you've got a shield three feet in diameter, and we've got darts tipped with the world's most potent neurotoxin. Oh, and you're also naked. Let the competition begin!
Good Lord aloft, it's already 19:16! Where has the day gone? I don't believe it's actually that time. It can't be. Instead - it is only 17:16. There. I feel better now. Where were we? Oh yes - excuse me, I need to pop down to The Mansion's airy Upper Dungeon and release that band of strolling Ukranian players who trespassed. I quite forgot, and they've been down there for, oooh, four years?
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| The Upper Dungeons: an artist's impression |
Overlord's Blog And Nebelwerfers
This one is a bit coincidental, in that BOOJUM! has also been dealing with rocketry systems of the Second Unpleasantness. A brief recap is probably in order. Art?
The Nebelwerfer was a cheap and dirty rocket-firing weapon, which could unload a whole lot of shrieking rocket bombs on an area - not a target, it wasn't accurate at all. It was seen as having a particularly impressive impact on morale, given the noise and smoke and explosions it created. The mobile version could be tootled around quite handily, being fairly lightweight. There is an "however", of course, or this would be a short item.
However Number One: Whilst the launcher was dirt cheap to make, the rockets themselves were not. They were complex and expensive, since the rocket motor was at the front of the missile, and the explosive payload at the back, and there was an annular ring of jets partway down the missile where the <fades away into boring technicalities>
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| Thus |
However Number Two: This is all from Overlord, whom I shall add a link for - but don't go liking him more than me! - apparently the trenches dug around a Nebelwerfer unit were not just because one of their their opponents, the Royal Artillery, could get on target within 30 seconds of a Nebelwerfer firing (and it took up to 5 minutes to shift a Nebelwerfer battery), but also because there was a horribly large misfire rate - 11% or one in nine for the not-mathematically-inclined.
| You are loving that rocket a whole lot too much, matey. |
That link:
http://overlord-wot.blogspot.com/
I meant it - like him, but not too much.
Okay, I need to go and get fed, so you lot are now on your own. Don't whine so, you're going to have to cope later in the week when Your Humble Scribe is in BARCELONA!
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| Hannibal, looking liver - no - hang on - |
* But not Madonna. She's a horrid old hag.
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