Banging On About Banging

Don't Look At Me Like That
<squints suspiciously>  What's going through your sordid, seedy minds?  Well, flush it out with water.
     Okay, as you ought to be aware, Your Humble Scribe is currently reading "The Guns Of War" by Canuckistanian artillery officer of Second Unpleasantness vintage George Blackburn.  There's a thousand pages to get through and I'm up in the 700s at present.
     Now, Ol' Geo's regiment, the 4th Field, uses the incredibly robust and reliable 25 pounder gun-howitzer.  Art?

About to deliver bad news

     In December, his regiment gets a visit from a very specialist unit, the Canadian Calibration Team, whose job it was to inspect all artillery pieces and check for wear and tear; also providing measurements to compensate for that wear.  They found that, despite firing astronomical amounts of ammunition, these guns were so solidly made that they had suffered hardly any reduction in performance.
     However, the same could not be said for all guns.  5.5" guns, whose barrels were supposed to last for 10,000 fired, are having to be junked at 7,000 shells fired; their Bofors guns, which can fire alarmingly rapidly at the best of times, and which had been used in spectacularly lavish amounts, have to have bulged barrels swapped.  I'm not sure what the consequences of a "bulged barrel" are, though since we're dealing with lots of high explosives and extremely fast bits of metal being bunged about, probably not very pleasant.

A Bofive gun

     Craftmanship, eh?
     Anyway, this is only half of what I wanted to talk to you about, the second half being still to do with bangs, only in a kind of Big Science way.  Take a look at this beast - Art?

CAUTION!  Not a tank

     Looks impressive and frightening together!  I know it looks like a tank, because it has a turret and tracks and a whacking big gun, except it's not: it's a self-propelled gun, i.e. an artillery piece mounted on tracks. Armour is considered almost un-manly for these vehicles, since their job is to lie miles behind the front lines, well out of (most) danger, and make things as miserable as possible for the opposition.
     Distance, darkness and dust have always been the friends of that opposition, making it tricky to discern them at a distance and even harder to heap mounds of HE upon their scrofulitic hides.
     Until now!  Enter C-DAEM, which will inevitably end up being called "See-Damn". It stand for "Cannon Delivered Area Effects Munition".

The round itself

     This Pinata Of Death consists of several "sub-munitions" carried inside the shell, which can be fired Roughly In The Direction of your suspected opponent, who can be up to 40 miles away.  Once the shell splits apart, these horrid little hunting hounds from Hell scan an area of terrain about 20 miles square, locate the target and direct themselves upon it.
     Once again, I think Tsar Putin is unhappy.

Someone's going to a Gulag ...

     Gunner George would have been impressed, though, you can bet.  A range of 40+ miles without having to scope out tens of thousands of reconnaissance photographs and being able to hit moving targets -      Enough of mayhem and madness!  Bring on the prancing horses!

Oh My Oh My!
Conrad had completely forgotten about this, because his memory is organised with all the order and formatting of a rubbish skip - or "dumpster" for our South Canadian friends*.  I suppose the inevitable picture would help here:

My memory in metaphor

     I refer, of course, to that paragon of animated excellence, "Samurai Jack", which I began to watch as Darling Daughter liked it as a small child, back when she was still cute.  It's okay, I can belittle her all I want, she never reads BOOJUM!**  Art!

Jack attack

     The series focuses on Jack, a samurai warrior who came within a whisker of defeating the demon Aku, who, in desperation, casts Jack adrift in the far future.   Here he again seeks to track down and destroy Aku, having countless adventures along the way.  The series ended after Season 4 with absolutely no resolution; partly by design, partly due to the studio not knowing enough to get off it's hairy knuckles and make a decision.      Then, in 2017, came Season 5!  Art?

That's Jack.  Note to others: do not attack Jack.  If you attack Jack you aren't coming back

     This finally ends up the whole series in a satisfying manner, so hopefully it features the Scotsman.  Because it debuted on Adultswim rather than Cartoon Network, it has a rather darker tone (allegedly as I've not seen one second of it).
     AND I'D FORGOTTEN ALL ABOUT IT!  <Kicks Steve in the pants, Steve being my memory>
     Not sure if it's available on DVD yet, so I shall enquire and resolve.

Do As I Say Not As I Do
Because, heaven forfend, some people in positions of power do not adhere to the same standards they inflict upon others.  Hardly believable that a senior politician or general could fail to live up the levels of probity they demand, is it!***
     I mention this because "We Have Ways -" addressed the very same issue with regards to a Field Marshal Ferdinand Schoerner, whom you may not have heard of.  Art?

Ferdy smirking.  Probably just had someone executed, the bumbletuck.

     This is because he was Lord High Muck-a-Muck at the fag end of the war, when things were visibly collapsing all round in the Third Reich.  If my work "Nazi Twods Of The Second Unpleasantness" ever sees print, he will be right in there at the beginning, Chapter 2.
     Let me explain.  Ol' Ferdie's idea of a good day was one in which he had hung at least half a dozen Teuton soldiers, on little or no evidence, as deserters.  This wasn't a reaction to the imminent end of the war, he'd been doing it since 1944.  When people talk about "fanatical Nazis", he's the kind of FN they mean.
     Ol' Ferdie may have been a FN, yet he was also extremely protective of his delicate skin; he abandoned his command near the final days of the war, flew to Bavaria and went back to wearing his civilian clothing, all things that he'd had people executed for.

Ferdie stands trial.
(And loses)

     Jim, co-host of "We Have Ways", was waxing livid at Ol' Ferdie and his behaviour, which is indeed a prime example of DAISNAID.

Finally -
We are way over count for the Compositional Ton, so I shall keep this short.

Goodbye!



*  Not sure what the Canuckistanians call them - "skumpsters"?
**  You know, thankless child and serpents teeth and all that 
***  That, lest you be unaware, is irony.  Irony with teeth.