I Lied!

Rubs Hands, Tweaks Moustache Ends And Cackles

Speaking of that vindictive Victorian vituperative vaudeville villain vanquishment trope, how does the female of the species manage to gloat over their impending triumph?  Conrad is not sure tweaking the end of a ponytail or French braid carries quite the emotional freight of a man and his 'tash.  Art!

     ANYWAY Your Humble Scribe is chortling to himself at how naive you were when he stated that he was done with "White House Down", because we still have two scenes that were earlier in my notes sequence, which is why they were overlooked yesteryon and hence the bleating about being done with it.  Art!

     Guy 1: What are you doing?

     Guy 2:  I heard something.

     Guy 1: This thing is a hundred years old and these things weight a ton.

     'This thing' being the lift, and 'these things' being Javelin anti-tank guided missiles, which we all know about thanks to a certain Special Idiotic Operation in a distant country.  Which our hero John Cale describes as 'anti-aircraft missiles'.

Well, this John Cale might very well be confused about them

     Twenty minutes later, the Prez orders a tank to break through the perimeter fencing around the White House.  ONLY ONE TANK OUT OF FOUR THE REMAINING THREE SITTING IDLE DOING NOTHING must have been implied as it's never actually mentioned.  Of course, these are the same forces who have been sitting outside the WH perimeter doing nothing, a shocking waste of tax dollars if you ask me.  I mean, don't these people have KPIs to hit?  Art!

     Here we see the Abrams tank approaching the fence.  The bad guys instantly spot it, of course - obviously! - and, as evidence that they've no idea what they're doing, start running about and panicking, because apparently none of them realised that TANK might be present.  Art!

     None of them are killed or even injured when the tank - again, only this tank, none of the others also intervene - shells the roof.  The tank appears to forget that it has a co-ax machine gun that would have swept the roof like a broom.  Art!

     The RPG (Rocket-Propelled Grenade) appears to have a warhead with a sub-kiloton yield, so large is the explosion.  

     Except no.  The armour on an Abrams is even better than that on a Challenger, thanks to a depleted uranium mesh and there is an account of a Chally getting hit with 78 RPGs and still being functional.  If they had fired a Javelin, then yes, I could see this happening.  Not with a single feeble RPG.

     Conrad is of the opinion that this engagement is akin to those fist-fights where Our Hero is outnumbered ten to one, but still prevails because his opponents only come at him one at a time.*

     I think I can say that this is the last of me whinging about WHD that you'll be reading about for a while.

Meanwhile, Inside Russia ...

With thanks to Konstantin, whose Youtube channel 'Inside Russia' is no longer inside Russia, as the lad, bless him, had to move to Uzbekistan to avoid being Mobilised.  You could tell whilst he was actually broadcasting from inside Russia that he neither agreed with Putin nor the Special Idiotic Operation, being especially subtle and consistently aligning within the rules.  Art!

     As I've said before, he looks like the stereotypical male Ruffian, built like a brick outhouse seven feet tall.  In reality he's a very soft-spoken and analytical person, an economist by trade, with a particular focus on that aspect of the SMO.  One of his more recent YT shorts looked at the impact of this on life in Ruffia, and he noted that the sales of personal security systems had more than doubled.  Why could this be?  Art!

     Ol' Kon reckoned that part of this was due to Ruffian Logic: if the state tells you that everything is hunky-dory, plan for the opposite.  Conrad would also point out that the first Wagner Group mercenaries recruited from prisons, who survived 6 months in Ukraine, are now arriving back in the community.  You know - rapists, murderers, arsonists, all presumably now fine, upstanding citizens, free to go about their business.  Frankly, Kon, I don't blame you in re-locating.

"The Sea Of Sand"

How very apt.  After describing a society that resulted from a couple of revolutions, here we are light years from Earth experiencing the very same thing.

The defenders suffered casualties themselves.  Not many, but still too many considering their paucity.  A few dozen killed, a few dozen temporarily-alive who were quickly Eviscerated.  Thanks to Fosor’s delay in asking for help, the other Lords were now reluctant to send more than a fraction of their own forces, fearing the spread of revolt to their own Farmers.  The trans-mat complex didn’t have a Manufactory of it’s own, or he’d have given orders for a few dozen Combat Cars to be constructed.

          One of the more bizarre events during their siege was the materialisation, upon the trans-mat platform, of a nine-metre length of canvas and plywood, accompanied by a desperately cowering bio-vore whining about being attacked “from the air”.  Kosad had the wretch Eviscerated at once as a threat to morale, and for being completely mad as well.

          Kosad ventured over to one of the science stations, checking to see how their besiegers were deployed.  The life-signs scanners showed the frighteningly large mass on the landward side of the complex, waiting.

          Waiting didn’t really make sense, though, did it?  Unless the masses beyond were waiting for night to fall.

          ‘Can we increase the width of the glass moat?’ he asked one of the technicians.

          ‘No, Senior Kosad.  The moat is at maximum width right now.’

          Another technician raised an arm, wanting to ask a question.

          ‘Senior Kosad, when can we expect bottled algae supplies?  Some of us have not fed for today, yet.’

     Just wait, mate

The Unbearable Being Of Lightness

     Props if you recognised a Czech novel title in there.

     Okay, as we all know, the fair city of Kyiv is a target for various Ruffian aerial munitions, bombs, missiles and drones, so when there was an enormous flash over the city .....  Art?

     Not so easy to recognise from this still, a Youtube clip would be clearer if you dig it out, but the flash and train of lights is very similar to that over Ruffia a few years ago - a meteor falling to earth, at which point it becomes a meteorite.  No doubt the Ukrainian SAM batteries were wondering WoE was going on.

O Boy

This is cheating a little, yet only a little, because I did write the original.  A person on Quora asked about "https://www.quora.com/In-what-war-were-the-strangest-weapons-used"

     They asked.  Guess who answered?

I would like to nominate the West Spring Gun of early WW1, a type of catapult invented by Captain West. It was intended to hurl a bomb or grenade into enemy trenches, being powered by 24 mighty springs, and with a throwing arm that required three men to fully depress it.

In action it needed to be weighted down with sandbags to keep it stable, and it was just as dangerous to the users as to the Germans. Operators often lost fingers to the mechanism, or had their jaw smashed. The bomb/hand grenade delivery was also fitful, and might well drop the missile at the feet of the crew, or hit the trench wall and bounce back at the feet of the crew.

It wasn’t in service for very long, for which those it was issued to were truly grateful.

     Note matey at back not putting himself at risk, particularly.

*  And because his heart is pure, too.