What A Blast!

And Then Some
For Your Humble Scribe is once again referring back to "The Guns Of War" by George Blackburn, and the awesome expenditure of ammunition by the gunners of the Canuckistanian (I think I like that name quite as much as "British American" and may alternate between the two, just to confuse you*) 4th Artillery Brigade.
     Here an aside.  At one point in August one of the 25 pounder's NCO's asks an officer to time his crew with a stopwatch: they manage to fire off 17 rounds in a minute, which is faster than most infantrymen could fire a rifle.

Our hero

     Anyway, during the last three weeks of July, the 4th are firing off colossal amounts of shells. Ol' Geo illustrates this by explaining that over 3 weeks  the regiment's guns fire 93,000 rounds, averaging 195 rounds per gun; for three days they averaged 469 rounds per gun, and on July 21st they averaged 1,000 rounds per gun.  That's eleven tons of HE fired per gun.
     Now, you know I loathe Shakespeare with a passion, so I shall invert one of his sayings here and say that all this artillery fire was most certainly not "a tale of sound and fury, signifying nothing", because the British American's Intelligence reports, as well as prisoner of war interrogation, showed that even the hardest-bitten SS troopers were getting to dread making an attack on the Allied lines; they knew that the instant they got out of cover they would immediately be shelled (literally) to bits.

Say "Uncle"

     You may not have read my notes about Mike, Uncle and Victor fire calls**.  If a Forward Observation Officer called in a Mike fire plan, all the guns in the division would fire - all 24 of them.  For an Uncle call, all the guns in an Army Corps would fire - over 200 guns.  For a Victor fire plan, everything in range would open up, meaning possibly 800 guns. Under this kind of hell, as the Teuton high command ruefully admitted, any attack mounted would be stopped (again, literally) dead.
     You don't often get any appreciation if you're a gunner, as the impression is of sitting in comfort miles behind the lines, drinking tea and nibbling on biscuits.  Not quite true, and if Ol' Geo heard you say that, he'd skin you.

Aha!  Found the source of the cover illustration on "The Guns of War"
(A SOUTH CANADIAN artillery crew!)

     Now, motley, we are going to go shopping for BOOKS!  Hours and hours roving round bookshops!  What a treat, eh?  Motley?  Why are you weeping?

Apologies To Our Ruffian Friends!
(Both of them)  More about that nuclear cruise missile prototype that exploded in August.  News has slowly - oh so verrrrrry slowly for Tsar Putin does not like to be seen with egg on his chin - emerged that a total of nine people were injured, and nine killed outright when the prototype blew up.  Rosatom, the Ruffian nuclear industry, confirmed that seven of their colleagues were killed when a reactor apparently blew up.  The nine injured are likely to have been seriously irradiated as well, poor devils, and there may be more deaths.
     Popular Mechanics, where I got my update from, also states:  "Rosatom said it was working on a number of experimental technologies, including “miniaturised sources of energy using [fissile] materials,” though a spokesperson did not explain how such research was related to the explosion".

An artist's impression

     Well, let Conrad tell you how that research is related to the explosion.  The Ruffians are trying a modern iteration of that South Canadian nuclear nightmare, SLAM, which was a monster in both senses of the word.  Art?

The engine

     Clearly, this thing was enormous.  The Ruffians are trying to create a workable weapon considerably smaller than the above, which is where Rosatom and it's scientific staff come in.  The South Canadians abandoned SLAM over 50 years ago because of the insurmountable problems it created, so one wonders what on earth Tsar Putin is playing at with this particular project***.  So he can gloat over it when it trundles past him in a Red Square parade?

I was thinking of adding in an item about a Polish tank destroyer, but I think we've had enough of matters martial so far.  Bring on something light and frothy!

First Bus
O the tale of woe.  It continues.  One feels that, were First Bus in charge of Perfidious Albion's war effort in the Second Unpleasantness, we'd have capitulated three days before war was declared.
     Today your humble scribe was standing in Oldham Bus Station, waiting for a bus.  And waiting.  And waiting.  We were already late because football match crowds of passengers were getting on an already crowded (SINGLE DECKER!) bus until it was standing room only, on the way into Oldham.  This is the 409 service we're talking about, "one better than every 10 minutes" lie the posters.

Lies made concrete

     Except whilst I was standing wand aiting for the normally-reliable 83, which showed up 20 minutes late, over the space of 12 minutes there were 4 x 409s.  Obviously at least two of these were late, which was why the single decker had been so rammed.
     Then the traffic into Manchester was awful and a journey that normally takes 35 to 45 minutes took over an hour.
     My plan had been to get into the office for 09:00 and blog away at BOOJUM! for an hour before starting work, but - alas, 'twas not to be.  Hence me typing this at lunchtime.  I hope you feel my pain.
     Okay, it wasn't light or frothy, but it was entertaining for you, watching an old man rant, and cathartic for me, venting my Frothing Nitric Ire

Finally -
I can't load up any photographs from my phone since I am typing this from work, but I think Popular Mechanics may prove to be a fruitful source of material, judging from the fingernail links at the bottom.  "The US has given up on particle beam weapons" is one such example, and I'm glad about that - they had me worried.

Groovy experimental prototype!

*  Don't complain.  It's excellent mental training.
**  If not, WHY NOT!
***  If it works, the South Canadians will promptly copy it.