How To Set A 270-Ton Table

None Of Your Slimline South Canadian Tons, Either

No, these are the jolly old Imperial tons that come in at 2,240 pounds each, Vulnavia, meaning you get more <thinks> hound for your pound? 

At £530,000 each, that's an expensive pooch

     You see, Conrad was idly pondering about the General Electric's "Beetle", which we featured earlier in the weekend.  It was manufactured by an entity known as "Jered Industries", and so Your Humble Scribe wondered what else they might have been making, and whether it was interesting.  
     Well well well, what do we have here?  Art!

     This monstrous bit of kit is a "launch table", which was sent from Jered in Georgia to be erected at Cape Canaveral in Florida, travelling for most of the way on a barge, as using marine transport is far easier than moving such a cargo by road.  You can see the tractor-trailer unit here, which is travelling on what seems to be a special temporary road constructed solely to allow the table to get delivered.

    The question is, what's a 'launch table'? and to that I cannot provide an answer, sorry.  It would require more time than I've got to find out to your satisfaction.  I do have a picture of the turning basin - Art?

     And guess what, I also found a picture of the launch table being transported by barge, together with some smoke deflectors that were also bound for Cape Canaveral.  Art!

     You don't need any puny humans for scale, you've got the upper picture for that.

     Motley, you sit on that end of the seesaw and I'll jump onto the raised end from this table I dragged outside.  Then we shall truly have a -

     Hmmmm, you know, all the above was completely impromptu and unplanned and all derived from the launch table picture, which is either a display of creativeness or how easily diverted I am <delete where applicable>.  Excuse me whilst I go re-pimp the blog.  Back in two shakes of a rat's bottom.

Speaking Of Transportation

Back to the Western Front and the First Unpleasantness and Lo! Telpherage or telepherage systems, those things that H.G. Wells boasted about creating despite the stupidity of the Army, because he was brilliant, unlike the Army and everyone else, sounding suspiciously like a case of Look At Me Me Me (Because I'm So Brilliant).

     Apparently the M8s and the Teutons, too, had just such systems in place at the very southern end of the Western Front, where it got into the mountains, and the Italians had lots as well, because their front was all mountains.  Then I had the bright idea of checking on the Great War Forum, under "aerial ropeways" and Bingo By Jingo!  They even had pictures.  Art!

Posted by montbrehain

     This appears to be one of the three systems tried in various parks in the UK.  Art!

Again by montbrehain

     Then along comes Terry Reeves, who informs all that it's a "portable ropeway" and that one had already been in use by the British Army in 1915 <snaps fingers at Hubert George>.  Two others were invented: the Leeming Ropeway, which wasn't ready for use by the time the Unpleasantness ended, and the Hamilton Portable Ropeway, which came in towards the end of the war and had 32 miles of ropeway deployed.
     We're nowhere near the end of this telpherage saga; I've discovered that you can search for 'teleferique', which is the M8's version of the name.  But that raw excitement will have to wait for another day.

Italians avoiding a walk

Speaking Of Matters Martial

Having teased readers with mention of The Chieftain and his TKS tankette, Conrad thinks you ought to get a bit more detail of same.  Art!

Let me see if I can find one with puny humans for scale  ...

     In the meantime, let us stand Nick next to a proper-sized tank so you can see his lanky frame in all it's glory.

Nick and a normal-sized tank

     Okay, I hope you appreciate the bother I go to, for Conrad has just re-run the video and has taken photographs at the relevant points, so let us now include them.  Art!

     I think this place is in Poland, because Nick introduced a young scamp who pronounced the things name in Polish.  You can get a sense of his size and how small this vehicle was.  Human with puny TKS for scale.

     Here he looks at his metal steed with a touch of misapprehension; if he gets in, can he get out?

     Into the belly of the beast.  Don't try this at home: Nicholas Moran is a trained professional, you are not.  He has years of contorting himself into armoured vehicles, and can you say the same?  No, you can't.

     Success!  Nick has wriggled his way into the Tankette Commander's seat and donned stylish Polish protective headgear, without skinning his elbows.  In fact he found it quite accommodating, apart from being right next to the engine, which would mean risking burns when in operation.  Someone who knew the old model well also stated that the electrical wiring from the Thirties was dodgy even when new, and you risked getting electric shocks in addition to burns.

Plus there would be people shooting at you

     The role of the TKS was scouting, patrol and reconnaissance work, definitely not mixing it up with other tanks, where it was bound to come off worst.
     There you go, if your appetite was whetted with Sunday's retrospective, hopefully you are now fully up to speed.

More Murderous Mockery 

Yesterday I was expostulating at "Help! It's The Hair Bear Bunch", a sinister children's - excuse me - 'children's' cartoon from the early Seventies, when the animation studios must have been employing people who'd overindulged in drugs all through the Sixties.  How else can you explain the HBB's use of an 'invisible motorbike'. Art?

Someone has been smoking something, I'll warrant

     HOW INSANELY DANGEROUS IS THAT!  Really, I ask you.  How can you tell what gear you're in?  What speed you're travelling at?  Where is the brake?  How do you indicate, because unlike a car you can't take your hands off the handles, not without swerving uncontrollably.  How on earth do you know which direction you're travelling in?  How close are you to the traffic in front and on either side?  How much petrol do you have left and how do you refuel it?
     The more I think about this program the more it seems to have been written by a bunch of weird perverted drug-addicts out to destroy society as we know it.

CAUTION! In real life this will result in loss of arm

Finally -

Just to warn you that Your Humble Scribe is on lates next week, thus not finishing until 18:00, so BOOJUM! may not appear until after then.  Or, if I've gotten plenty done the night before, and more before starting Nose/Grindstone Interfacing, and more at lunch, then you may get it before then.  Time will tell, as it told for William Tell, who tolled on a bell.

Nope, nothing more down here.  There weren't any asterisks in today's blog, were there?  So why are you nosying around down here in the literary basement?