From A Crusade To A Challenge

Greetings, Pilgrims!

Or, if you like, "Tervitab palveraundureid", which is Estonian for the very same phrase, because 1) why not, and 2) broaden your horizons, dudes.

     Okay, no word of a lie, this Intro is going to focus on TANK.  I make no apologies.  Only quitters leave at this point.  Did Percy Hobart die in vain?  Art!

     This, ladies and gentlemen and those unsure, is a British Crusader tank, Mk. VI, present in the field in 1941.  Note the elegant yet soon-to-be-obsolete 2 pounder main gun, and the bizarre machine gun turret on the forward hull.  What looks like an edited bike-frame on the turret roof is an anti-aircraft mounting for a Bren gun.  Art!

     Here you can see the silly separate machine gun turret has gone, partly because if ever used in action it used to hog cordite fumes and choke the gunner.  Art!

     This is the version with the 6 pounder gun, which proved to be an extremely effective anti-tank gun, very much to the chagrin of the Axis.  It would turn anything they had into iron filings, out to a mile and a half.  Keith Douglas wrote lyrically of these.

     Well, we've had Crusade with an "R", what about the Challenge?

     O I thought you'd never ask!  Art?

     This, gentle reader, is the Challenger 2 Main Battle Tank, a concept not really appreciated at the time of the Crusader.  That gigantic explosion behind the lead tank is actually the rear tank firing, which gives you some comprehension of what awaits The Enemy downrange.

     Why do I bring this up?  Well, apart from TANK, the Challenger 2 is the lineal descendant of the Challenger 1, but with very little <inhale before buzzword> interchangeability.  The Challenger itself is a derivation of the Shir tank as ordered by the late Shah Of Iran.  Before that we had the Chieftain - Art!

     This biscuit used cast armour rather than Chobham, so it had pervy curvy lines not seen since the Seventies.  It was designed to lurk behind cover and destroy waves of Sinister armour as they infested the West German plain, and Bob Forrest-Webb's "Chieftains" is worth a read if you can afford it.  Hint: it does not end well.  For either side.

     If you go back before Chieftain, then you hit the outer margins of WW2, and the Centurion - I hope you've noticed a trend with the initial letter "C" - which was a frightening combination of firepower, armour and speed that lambasted the battlefield for 30 years.  Art!

     Which design came out of combining the previous British idea of an infantry tank that would plod along at slow speed amongst the accompanying soldiery, and a tank that would whiz across the battlefield at high speed.  Art!

     The reason I've put all this scrivel up is because there are noises being made about Ukraine being given British Challengers, which I think would be a propaganda masterpiece, since the Chally is a monstrous mobile metal myth.  I don't think anyone's managed to actually destroy one on the battlefield.  However, the MBTs in Eastern Europe are all Leopard A2s, which have the supply chain, logistics, technicians, spare parts and etcetera to sustain their neighbours further east.  If a Chally broke down in Ukraine it would need either repatriation to the UK, or the Ministry Of Defence sorting out forward deployment of engineering workshops in Poland.  This wouldn't happen because £££.  And because they can't tie a shoelace without a 25 page A4 summary.

     Conrad is unsure if he's missed you out on the list of People Who Have Been Annoyed - let me know!

   

"RRRRRRR Jim, lad!"

     I ought to apologise because I  never got this finished last night, thus no new blog content today, except I'm horrid and won't.  Deal with it!

In Memoriam

We here at BOOJUM! are not noted for being remotely sentimental or reflective, so it may come as a surprise that we held a minute's silence for the passing of Jeff Beck, guitar maestro extraordinaire.  Art!

     Conrad first heard him when Peely played tracks from the platter above. Conrad knows nothing about guitars but was rather gobsmacked at the sounds Beck wrought from his Fender, live at that.

     Jeff was blessed - or, as he felt, cursed - with a big commercial hit when he released "Hi Ho Silver Lining", because he felt it was so unlike the rest of his oevure, and it was dangerous to request it live, because then he'd look as he was going to get into the crowd and brain you with his Strat.  Art!

     "Beck's Bolero" is top stuff, mind you.  In later years Jeff grew to reluctantly acknowledge HHSL and it's present on one of his CDs that I have.

     His passing at 78 is rather a shock because he was an abstemious chap who eschewed the rock 'n' roll lifestyle.  Speaking of which, I have laundry to sort.

     

"The Sea Of Sand"

The Doctor, under cover of an explosive conflagration, is sneaking about in between the stacked supplies at Mersa Martuba.

Darting from stack to stack, the Time Lord felt uneasily aware of another presence.  Stalking him.  Or was he imagining it?  He paused to look around, not being able to check properly because time was tight.  No, nothing there.  A bio-vore wouldn’t bother to sneak about.

          There was Dobie’s office!  A great black hole with rubble around the wall underneath.  Sarah and the other captives certainly made an effective escape route.  Or, in this case, an ingress route.

          Zing! went a hot piece of metal, inches from his head.

          ‘Discretion is called for, I rather think!’ he muttered.

 

          Following not far behind, Sarah clutched her weapon and tried to catch up with the Time Lord, who had outpaced her across the desert without trying.  Plus she had a stitch, and he didn’t bother much about keeping an eye on the bio-vores, whereas she did.

          Her heart flew into her throat in fright as a great black shadow detached itself from behind a pyramid of crates with Italian writing stencilled on them.  Seven feet tall, with pillar-like legs and arms splaying out directly from the torso: a bio-vore. It seemed to have been sheltering in the lee of the crate, and caught sight of the Doctor without him seeing it.

     Ooops!  Is that what was stalking him?  Tune in tomorrow to find out!

Twinkle Of Glory Postponed

Ah - er - yes.  Conrad got it wrong.  His finish date is actually 29th January, not the 13th.  

     Which does indeed means gainful employment getting more book-tokens, yet it also means having to trudge along the canal towpath tomorrow and Sunday, an experience your clumsy and oafish scribe does not enjoy.  Art!

Imagine this with no lighting or guardrail and you're getting there

     And, of course, putting up with the young folks dreadful taste in music.  I bet none of them have the faintest idea who Jeff Beck was.

     "Do you mean Beck?"

     NO I DO NOT!

     Bah.

Finally -

Better wrap this scrivel up, I've got lunch for tomorrow to sort out - a panini, I think - as well as sort out that laundry, charge my phone - because I'm still working at Footasylum, did I mention that? - and in what time is left over give the old World Domination planning a whirl.  I tell you, being an apprentice dictator is no easy business.

Chin chin!