Not that it's crucial or a game-changer, I just like the clean lines of Trebuchet. O well. I'd better notify Blogger and have them quiver in their boots at my Frothing Nitric Ire.
I would like to revisit the Siege of Drogheda, if I may. I may? O thank you so much!
I have gone over this in some detail previously, but, having a conversation with myself whilst walking Edna, Conrad realised there was even more to add to the tragedy. Art?
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| Crommy - not a man to get on the wrong side of |
As mentioned before, the commander of the garrison at Drogheda was Sir Arthur Aston, who seems to have been a bit of a bottom. He turned down Oliver Cromwell's demands for surrender of the town and seems to have hoped that hunger and disease would thin out the English ranks, which would have taken weeks if not months. Being able to see the impressive siege train that Olly brought to the fight ought to have persuaded him that there were only days in it. Art?
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| Drogheda |
Sir AA also seems to have been caught with his literal pants down, if not across the room and down the hall on the back of a chair, because Crommy's arrival appears to have taken him by surprise. Conrad is no Von Clausewitz, yet even he would know to construct outer defensive works beyond the city's medieval stone walls, what they called "ravelins" or "sconces", as well as trenches. This would have kept the English artillery well distant from the town walls, forcing them to begin formal siege operations in order to sap closer and get within range. This would have gained AA the time he sought.
There is also the question of how AA was so wrong-footed. Again, Conrad no Von Moltke*, yet he would have had cavalry scouts out on the roads from Drogheda, who would have reported back on the New Model Army's progress. This seems to have been a staggering tactical innovation too radical for Western warfare in Sir AA's estimation.
Another weakness and more of Sir AA's stunning incompetence -
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| Part of Drogheda's city walls |
The thing is, medieval walls like this were highly vulnerable to modern gunpowder artillery firing iron shot, as they lacked depth and were perpendicular to the ground. Not all was lost, however: to be effective in defence, you would need to bank earth behind then to four or five times their original thickness, which protective backing made them far less frangible. Again, this would take time, which Sir AA didn't have, that missing cavalry screen again.
Now, let us have the map of the town again. Art!
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| Note the significant water feature running right through the town - |
That's the River Boyne. At that time there was only one bridge across the river. What Sir AA ought to have done, once the NMA artillery breached the town walls, was leave a couple of forlorn hopes to delay the English, retreat across the SINGLE bridge and then blow it up or burn it down. This would immediately make things much, much harder for Crommy, having to co-ordinate a river crossing in order to begin siege operations from scratch all over again. But no, Sir AA apparently feared the NMA could walk on water, or somesuch. O, as a refinement, Sir AA could have retained some fireships a couple of miles upstream, to be ignited and let loose when the English tried to cross the river.
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| Conrad: old, grey and tactically devious |
Conrad has to wonder how on earth such a monumental buffoon as Sir AA ever got appointed as commander of the luckless garrison. Won it as a dare?
Motley! Go and check the anti-locomotive ditch is full of molten Ytterbium, for I hear the sinister chugging of steam boilers.
Good lord! 680 words on the intricacies of seventeenth century warfare? Whatever next!
Relations Are Better Now, Thanks
Keeping with the Irish theme, Conrad has on occasion mentioned the armed forces of the Irish Republic, whom are not numerous yet are right up there at the top of the Arse-Kicking Table. The Chieftain, whom in another life was a member, has detailed the laughably out-of-date armoured cars that the Irish peace-keeping forces went to the Congo with in the Sixties.
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| Retro-chic? |
Then there is the Air Corps ...
Currently the Irish Air Corps has some - hang on, let Art fulfil his function here -
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| (Antiquated And Obsolete) Death From Above! |
Now, whilst there is no question that these pilots would perform prodigies of valour in defence of their homeland, there are things they simply cannot do. Intercept incoming hostile aircraft, for one thing, which is becoming a thing thanks to Tsar Putin, whose minions in long-range patrol aircraft are continually entering Irish airspace.
This is where the better relations come in. Thanks to some deniable and secret back-channel comms, the RAF is perfectly happy to come "escort" these "accidentally strayed" Ruffian aircraft out of Eire's airspace. There are some in the Republic, though, who yearn for a modern air force of their own - which is when the money mounts up.
I think we shall come back to this one, it has legs.
Blimey, nearly at Compositional Ton and only two items in.
What's Going Off?
Conrad decided, in the interests of verisimilitude (not a word you expected to encounter today, nicht wahr?) to check out the BBC webpage about "Are There Aliens On The Moon?" and -
Nothing. It's not up on the current webpages, I cannot find it in a search on the BBC website, and it doesn't come up when I Google for it.
NO I AM NOT IMAGINING IT! Art?
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| NO! |
Finally -
Further to our earlier post about Moon and photographs of same, the LRO has, on occasion, managed to resolve images of the LEM Lander's shadow when the sunlight is in the right direction. Art?
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| Thus |
Of course this won't convince the swivel-eyed loonwaffles, whom you could take on a trip to the Moon to view the Apollo landing sites, and who would insist it was all smoke, mirrors and hypnosis, but pretty compelling for the rest of us who aren't bumbletucks.
And I think with that, we are so very done done done!
* The Elder, not The Younger. The Younger! Pshaw, as if!
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