NO THAT IS NOT A TYPO!
It's Conrad being hilariously witty and clever. You'll see.
Okay, in reverse order, be advised that this Intro will concern what's going on in the Black Sea, so if you're fed up with Dimya's 'Special' Military Operation you may want to skip this bit. But if you do I WILL KNOW AND THERE WILL BE CONSEQUENCES <eyes Remote Nuclear Detonator lovingly>. Art!
We put that in to ensure you are really paying attention, not merely moving your glazzies from left to right.
ANYWAY Conrad wondered what the cost to the Ruffians was in terms of having the 'Moskva' and 'Saratov' blow up and sink. These are expensive big ticket items. You have doubtless seen pictures of 'Moskva' listing badly and on fire, on a nice calm Black Sea (or 'Chernoye Mor' in Ruffian, so now you understand today's title), which makes one wonder where the bad weather came from. Art!
In healthier times
A bit of internet snooping reveals that the ship cost £575 million. Ooo-err Matron! though I cannot find anything about the cost of the 'Saratov', but can speculate it would have been a lot cheaper since it was about fifty years old and not heavily armed. Guesstimate at £100 million? So a combined total of £675 million. Art!
'Saratov' pre-submarine status
Two-thirds of a billion pounds. That's not chump-change. Nor is that all, because replacing these ships today would 1) cost a lot more and 2) Be impossible. The Ruffians, you see, lack the shipbuilding capacity to build anything as large as the Moskva again; currently they produce frigates or destroyers, at a very slow rate indeed. This is one reason why their cursed aircraft carrier, the 'Admiral Kuznetsov', is still stuck in port and has been for the past four years.
This is where things get ironically interesting, because the Ukrainians have, at Mikolayiv, shipbuilding capacity capable of building aircraft carriers, or guided-missile cruisers, and the Ruffians haven't been able to get anywhere near it. Art!
Mik
Another interesting wrinkle is that only the Ukrainians have a construction plant capable of building gas turbine engines. For those not in the know, gas turbines are the go-to form of propulsion for naval vessels, since they produce such high energy output. The Moskva had them; that old clunker the Saratov had to make do with diesel engines. The Kuznetsov has steam turbines, which were supposedly going to be replaced. Hmmmm. Not any time soon.
Tsar Poutine had lots of plans to beef up and modernise the Ruffian navy, which have come to naught, principally because of money, and also because Ukraine - you might be ahead of me here - refused to have anything to do with Ruffian shipbuilding after Crimea was annexed. As indicated above, modern naval vessels are hideously expensive and from design to commissioning will take years. People better informed on Ruffian naval matters state that the Ruffians will produce the lead ship for a class, and then there will be a seven or eight year wait before the next one turns up. Art!
TLDR: Ruffia's not replacing those lost ships anytime soon.
Gin And Senility
Conrad blames both of these for making him forget that, yes, people really do read this scrivel, and even comment on it at times. I also get peculiar spam comments, occasionally in a foreign language - quite what that Vietnamese one said is anyone's guess.
ANYWAY some kind and anonymous soul helped with my item about 'GOLEM' - in the Comments, which I only rarely check.
Well thank you kind person. Now if only the foes of Roddy MacDowall in "IT!" had known this ...
Well that's a bummer. The BBC link that I had to a set of photographic listings has decided not to work. Art!
"Tormentor" Again, Folks
Getting near the end now, and since nobody has said they don't like it that means everybody loves loves loves it, so you can rely on LOTS more extracts.
‘Oh! You mean – er – “Upstairs”.’
The immaculate stranger sighed.
‘Honestly, humans! There is no up or down in space, you
know. Don’t be so literal.’
He stopped and gave Louis a long,
penetrating stare.
‘You have come to the attention
of management, Louis. Whilst not
endorsing your treatment of Eric Miller, we are impressed with your vanquishing
several earthbound malevolent spirits.
You can work off your sin in the first by dealing with the latter.’
He stopped speaking and walked
around the room, picking up a bible.
‘The good old King James,
eh? The other message is about you and
Yvonne, and your bond-and-bind.’
Louis exchanged glances with the
spirit, who looked as puzzled as he felt.
‘It is nearly unique, but there
are precedents – one in Renaissance Italy and another in the early
Louis felt like a schoolchild,
holding his hand up.
‘What on earth is
“bond-and-bind”?’
Michael spoke slower, as if
explaining to a child.
‘Mutual fealty and obligation
expressed by both parties, sealed with blood.
Sorry, blood and the spirit equivalent – ectoplasm,’ and he grinned
amusedly at the use of the cliché.
What a wag this mysterious 'Michael' is!
Meanwhile, Back In Tunisia ...
I need to get this batch of "The War Illustrated" photographs done and dusted before time rolls on entirely too far. Art!
For Your Information, 'R.E.M.E.' stands for "Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers', probably known to the rest of the army as 'Rear Echelon Meal Eaters'.
The first two photographs show REME recovering tanks in order to repair them and send them back into action, since a minor mechanical fault could cause a breakdown and abandonment, and you don't want to lose a £10,000 tank because a gasket worth 6 shillings blew out*.
That middle picture shows a workshop in action, where kit can be repaired or replaced. No, Your Humble Scribe has no idea what arcane mysteries they're performing. O hang on - the blurb says that they're blacksmiths. Wowsers, imagine having to work in close proximity to a furnace IN THE DESERT. That last picture is of their main workshop, where the sandbags are said to provide shade. Yes, and also to ensure whatever appallingly noisy power tools they use SOUND AS LOUD AS POSSIBLE!
Finally -
No, don't worry, nothing about Tsar Poutine here, I got all of that out of the way in the Intro. Which you should know UNLESS YOU SKIPPED IT <eyes Remote Nuclear Detonator lovingly>.
No, just to say that I've been re-reading "Once And Future" again, Volume 2, and am very impressed with the artwork. Art!
What can happen is that your lead artists simply cannot keep up to schedule, so there are verrrrrrrrry long gaps between publications, or they bring in a second-stringer to keep to schedule, which is what happened to "Scalped" and why I immediately stopped buying it. Dunno if they went back to the original artist or not, or even if it made the end of it's run. I may chase up on that.
And with that, we are done!
* Old pre-decimal coinage being used here.
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