A Monster Of A Weapon

Not To Be Confused -
 - with the weapon of a monster.  Art?

Sic

     Of course you'll now get some bumbletuck blathering on about how the Gorn was not a monster, it was a sentient being blah blah blah - Conrad says it's a monster.  So, it's a monster.  Glad we got that sorted out.
     Now, about Erich the Ingenieur, which is Teuton for "Engineer", because he was one.  Which is logical enough; if he had been a shoe salesman there might have been trouble.  You can just imagine Herr Schickelgruber saying he wants the mightiest gun imaginable, and being offered a pair of leather brogues instead.  Art!

With puny humans for scale

     This monster - you see?  you see where today's title comes from? - was designed by Erich Mueller, one of the top design dogs at Krupps, the famous or infamous Teuton manufacturing firm.  It was named "Schwerer Gustav" after the head of Krupp, which sounds rather like toadying to Your Humble Scribe.
     Anyway, it was designed in a kind of retro-process, thanks to the fortifications of the Maginot Line, which helped defend France from unkind neighbours.  Art!

The Line, looking fine.  In the sunshine.

     To pierce seven yards of concrete or one yard of armour, which is what the ML protected it's squishy human occupants with, required a shell that weighed seven tons.  A shell that big required an equally immense gun, hence Gustav.  Art!

Gussie in all his glory

     This piece of ordnance took so long to manufacture that France had long since fallen by the time it went into service, which sounds a bit like the French cheating if you ask me.  It weighed 1,300 tons and was conceived at a time when there was a severe shortage of steel for military production.  The Allies thank you, Erich!
     The statistics for SG are daunting in themselves.  As you can see from above, it could only move on railway tracks, and had to be assembled first since it was transported broken down.  When used in the Crimea during the Second Unpleasantness, it required thousands of men and weeks of work to construct special curved railway tracks for it, because it could only elevate and depress the main gun; to aim, it would be moved along the railway tracks.  Art!

One of the shells

     You may have heard the expression that the Teutons prior to and during the Second Unpleasantness were liable to over-engineer things, making shizzle complicated simply because they could.  Schwerer Gustav is definitely an example of this taken to extremes because a squadron of bombers could have done what it did, at a fraction of the cost, and far faster, too.  Still, one supposes that, if you have the world's biggest gun, Chekhov's Law states that you have to use it eventually.

Wonder what this gent would have made of it?

     Gigantomania gone mad, you might say.
     Well, motley, the reason you're standing, naked, in a washing-up bowl of water, whilst I am holding a cattle-prod, is because the ICC lifted that injunction on you.  Now, get ready to spasm!

Conrad's Cunning TheoryFor Lo! we are back on the subject of "The Invaders" and how David Vincent managed to get access to all sorts of high and mighty officials in the military and various other organisations.  It is implicit that some people take his claims of surreptitious alien interference seriously.  Art?

We shall come back to you, Mister Rennie.  O yes.

     Well now well how, you ought to know Conrad by this point in time, never one to let the opportunity to do a little serious pondering on an utterly trivial subject go to waste.
     You can imagine the dialogue in a scene that got edited out, probably in the second or third episode.

SENIOR N.A.S.A. HEAD OF RESEARCH: Okay, Mister Vincent, there are some who consider you to be a babbling loonwaffle -
DAVID VINCENT <sarcastically>: Thanks!
IMPORTANT-LOOKING POLITICIAN: But we're not those people.  No, we think you're on to something here, Dave, and we want you to keep nosying around.
FOUR-STAR GENERAL: I ain't too sure about the loonwaffly bit.  However, we in the Air Force believe you might be uncovering a Commie plot.
DAVID VINCENT: So you want me to keep investigating?
SENIOR N. - oh we'll just call him "NASA GUY", okay?: We certainly do!  There does seem to be a correlation between observed UFOs detected and your allegations.
4-STAR <muttering>: More loonwaffles.
POLITICIAN: However, Dave, we can't be seen to be helping you.  That would put these scummy sci-fi swine on their guard.  Publicly, we'll either ignore or mock you.
DAVID VINCENT: I see.  Privately, then?NASA GUY: You'll get access to us and any of our direct reports.  That amounts to hundreds of people.
POLITICIAN:  The FBI and state police won't give you any bother, though you're kind of on your own with small-town cops.
4-STAR:  Yeah.  See, we figure that these possible Commies have infiltrated their way into all sorts of positions, and they could stymie our carrying out an investigation -
DAVID VINCENT: But I, as a sole individual, don't need to worry about moles or saboteurs?
POLITICIAN: Exactly!  You're a lot more efficient and effective than a bureaucratic, inept, monolithic organisation strangled by red-tape!
4-STAR:  Hey, don't look at me when you say that!
     Of course, I could be over-thinking this ...

Conrad: over-thinking things since 2014
(With extra added pens)

     Wow, I rather went to town on those two articles, didn't I?  We're nearly at the Compositional Ton.

Finally -
After reading an Ask/Reddit post on Youtube, Conrad went and did a little background check into a South Canadian called Bill Cowher, who was a "coach" for a South Canadian "Football Team" - stop me if I get too technical, won't you? - called the Pittsburgh Steelers.  Apparently he was inducted into their Hall Of Fame about his careers, which one supposes means he's done good.  Art?

"Also, I can shout REAL LOUD!"

     In the Reddit, Mister Cowher came into a golf clubhouse at 08:30  to get some breakfast before starting his golfing.  Cue one of the shop workers talking loudly about how rubbish the Steelers were, what a loser their coach was, blah blah blah.  Mister Cowher overhears this, as he's intended to, and pops into the admin office.  One of the club owners comes out and immediately fires the gobby commentator at 08:45.
     His first day and he'd only been there two hours.  Way to go, champ!