The Killer Caterpillar

NO!  I Don't Refer To "Love And Monsters"

Even if it is an entertaining blast of a picture, proving - as do all the Zombie Apocalypse films ever made - that the real problem is Hom. Sap. not the Monster De Jour or the walking undead.  Art!

     Conrad - ever the hair-splitting pedant of note - does have a couple of issues, because the film features various enormously-enlarged insects and other creatures, thanks to the deus ex machina action of exhaust fumes that supposedly mutated insect life on Planet Earth.  They were intercepting an asteroid, you see.  Art!

     Sorry but that's not how insect physiology works.  The spiracles in their skin that allow oxygen diffusion to take place are strictly limited in size, which is why you won't find an insect larger than a lobster; any bigger and they would suffocate in seconds.

     Then you have their exoskeleton.  There is a hard physical limit to the size of a creature with an exoskeleton, because of mass versus the cross-section of an  exoskeleton squared.  The larger the critter the more fragile the exoskeleton in relation to that mass, until it simply collapses under it's own weight.  Art!

Frog in a bog

     Actually the Frog In A Bog did have an aquatic lifestyle going for it, since the water would support it's colos

     ANYWAY the 'caterpillars' in question were caterpillar tracks, those things that tanks use to scoot across the landscape with.  Art!

Yes, that is the mighty Challenger

     This noble and mighty chap is Ryan McBeth, who was a sergeant in the South Canadian army for decades, and who specialised in anti-tank weapons.  He answered the question "What do Western tanks bring to Ukraine?" quite succinctly, so I have stolen his story here.  You can preface each answer with "Soviet/Ruffian tanks don't have this -"

1)  Thermal Imaging.  This means being able to detect your opponent using their ambient temperature instead of visible light.  The most obvious use is at night, but it can also help with mist, fog, smoky or rainy conditions.  Being able to operate even during the hours of darkness gives your army a significant advantage.  Art!

2)  Laser sights.  These are aligned with the gun barrel and will put a dot on the enemy target, so you know you're going to be able to hit them.  No need to rely on guesswork or a sub-calibre spotting round with the same ballistic character as your Long Rod Penetrator.  Art!

3)  Ballistic computers.  There are a lot of factors involved in making a successful hit on your opponent.  Range, which can be a function of the laser sight; wind; precipitation; if you're on the move or not; temperature of the gun barrel; curvature of the Earth*; type of ammunition being used; barrel wear and tear.  And so on.  The ballistic computer doesn't guarantee a hit first time, just maximises the chance of that happening.  Art!

One of these might be the BC.  Or the self-destruct mechanism.

     4)  Modularity.  NATO and Western tanks in general are built along the lines of being able to swap-out components, rather than having to repair in-situ.  If your engine, for example, is giving problems, then you simply swap it out for a new engine and allow the grease-monkeys to solve whatever the problem was with the old one.  Art!

"Yeah, mate, I see what the problem is.  Give me ninety minutes."

5)  Survivability.  NATO regards tank crews as the most valuable part of the tank.  You can build a new tank in six months or so; to get an experienced crew you need to train and integrate them for about two years, on top of the eighteen years it took for them to grow up and join the army in the first place.  Thus their tanks are designed to preserve the crew if possible.  Art!

The crew survived

     Ammunition is stored in a compartment separate from the turret, with doors designed to blow outwards if the ammo is hit.  Yes, you might well lose the tank, but the crew will survive.

6)  Hull Down.  Actually Ryan didn't mention this one, but I shall.  Because Ruffian tanks were designed to be as low profile as possible, their main gun cannot be lowered to anything below horizontal level and indeed by default remains several degrees above horizontal.  This means they cannot easily hide behind terrain features.

     NATO tanks can do this spectacularly well.  Art!

     This is French Le Clerc hull-down behind cover, leaving very little for the opposition to see, let alone hit, and if this was a real action the tank commander would have lowered his aerials.

Nothing Remotely Martial

Your Humble Scribe appears to have made the transition from being a baker to a more general main-course cook.  Last week, if you remember, I got a punnet of assorted Polish mushrooms from the fruit & veg trader in Royton, and even went so far as to Google a recipe for Wild Mushroom Risotto, since Wonder Wifey observed that they'd go well in same.  Art!

      It's really nice!  Not to mention that there's tons of it.  Conrad will be eating it for a few days yet I imagine.

"Project Hail Mary" By Andy Weir

Just finished reading this.  You may remember Andy as the author of "The Martian", which I've both read and seen.  The cover blurb intrigued me, so I bought it and read it.  Art!

     A 'Hail Mary' means a ridiculously hopeful longshot, as defined in that bizarre South Canadian mutant version of rugby that they call 'Football'.

     PHM is definitely recognisable as Andy Weir, thanks to the extensive use of hard science fiction tropes and his lapses into pop culture commentary.  Plus, in 'Rocky' it features one of sci-fi's more appealing aliens, with absolutely none of that romance slush fan fictioneers like to expunge.

"The Sea Of Sand"

At this point, the miniscule air forces of the Free French unwittingly help to save the human race.

‘Sst!  Regardez,’ said the pilot to his co-pilot, indicating the flashes below.  By this time the Lysander had flown away, but the pilot knew what he’d seen.  The co-pilot looked, aware that their Lysander reconnaissance plane went missing in this area.

          A mass of black dots, enemy MT doubtlesss, crawled over the gravel and grit of the land below, preceded by a remarkably regular sandstorm, one that roiled and rolled yet always remained just ahead of the advancing black beetles.

          ‘L’Italiens,’ said the co-pilot, making a gesture as if spitting.  ‘Putains.’

          The pilot looked over his shoulder, as if he could see back to the bomb bay, then back at his colleague.

          ‘Oui!’ said the co-pilot, grinning with a nasty smile.  ‘Ecoutez moi, mon amis Italien,’ he spoke into an imaginary loudspeaker.  ‘Attendez!  Attendez!  Votre mort commencez en vingt seconds.  Merci.’

          The bomb run commenced at three thousand feet, depositing two-hundred pound bombs along the middle row of vehicles.  Under such a smashing assault, a whole row was pulverised into fragments.  Other vehicles were crippled by bomb fragments, and the precise array of black tanks became a chaotic flurry.

          Nor was that all.  The Mk V Blenheim had been fitted with four machine guns in the nose, for ground attack.  All three aircraft made passes at low level, firing twelve thousand rounds of ammunition.  Any bio-vore out of cover was killed.  Bio-vores under cover, in their vehicles, were killed when bullets found entry and ricocheted around interiors.

     Apologies for the schoolboy French, this was written when Google Translate was a distant speck on the horizon.

Szanuj Polske!

Which, as I am sure you all know is Polish for "Respect Poland!".  It's an odd but indisputable fact that the UK had a significant minority of Poles who lived here after the Second Unpleasantness, since they had been in the Allied armies and were thus deemed to be reprehensible traitors to the Socialist motherland under the tender auspices of the Sinister Union.  Therefore they settled here, and have been thoroughly assimilated as being as British as British can be, if with some hard-to-pronounce surnames.  

     Why this item?  Well, because I came across a wonderful post on Quota that sums up our Slavic chums.

"When other countries let their grudges fade, Poland has their grudge stuffed and mounted on a wall so they can be reminded of it every day."

     This, gentle reader, is why Poland is doing everything short of all-out war to support Ukraine, because they have endured conquest and enslavement by their eastern neighbour and won't tolerate it in 2023.  Art!

Polish Winged Hussars

*  YES REALLY given the ranges involved in these engagements.