A Moment's Silence For Conrad's Breakfast Of Choice Before The Diagnosis, Please
Thank you so much. I know you feel my pain.
ANYWAY what I mean by 'I.C.B.M.' is indeed the more conventional derivation of 'Inter-Continental Ballistic Missile', more colloquially known here at BOOJUM! with shocking irreverence as The Big Bang Bombs. Art!
The aptly-named Titan II launching
Yes yes yes, it's a missile not a bomb. Honestly, if a nine megaton warhead goes off a few doors down from your domicile, are you going to call my ISP to protest terms? I rather think not.
ANYWAY I wanted to yark on about 'fratricide' again, this time with less bad taste and more sheer pant-wetting terror, because it's a very real concept when you're throwing The Big Bang Bombs around. Art!
That's one of the South Canadian's test shots in the Pacific, where they detonated the device underwater amidst a cluster of mothballed warships to see what happened to them. You can see one ship in the water column has been rotated through ninety degrees. Also, you won't see pictures like this from the early Sixties onwards, as above-ground testing was deemed too hazardous to the planet. Spoilsports.
ANYWAY the picture above is intended to show the enormous destructive power of a fusion warhead at ground zero. In this case, perhaps Sea Level would be more apt. I feel the need for another example. Art!
Those smoke trails in the background are from rockets fired seconds before detonation, to provide
ANYWAY my point is, one of these things going off is tremendously destructive: the flash from detonation will ignite flammable materials, the shockwave will destroy structures and thousands of tons of soil will be sucked up by the ascending fireball.
IF.
Yes, firing an ICBM during wartime is a rather iffy business. A launch in peacetime is not at all realistic, since the missile in question is essentially taken apart, polished, sweet-talked and put together again. Back in the Eighties it was held that South Canadian ICBMs were on the order of 75% - 85% ready to rock if things went pear-shaped and their Operations Officers turned the keys. In the Sinister Union they were at 65% - 75%, or as one jingoistic SC Air Force officer put it, "Their best is our worst". Art!
Is this important? Does it matter? Well, yes. It won't spread the butter on your toast, yet it matters, because of cross-targeting.
You see, if the Sinisters/Russians decide that they're going to risk global annihilation and indulge in a nuclear shoot-out, one of their primary targets will be NORAD. Art!
One problem they have is that NORAD is inside a mountain, so they'll have to hit it with a whacking big warhead. Second problem is that Sinister/Ruffian nukes are unreliable, so they may not even launch on command. If they launch they might hit Oregon instead of Colorado. Even if they hit NORAD the warhead might 'fizzle' or not detonate at all.
Dilemmas, dilemmas. What to do? Well, you cross-target with separate ICBMs that have Multiple Independent Re-Entry Vehicles (jargon for 'missiles from a missile'). NOT MIRVs from the same ICBM, because they will arrive on target within seconds of each other, and the first one that detonates will destroy anything in the air - see above for nuclear blast effects. That's where you encounter fratricide. Art!
The marvel of MIRV
Of course - obviously! - it's not that simple. You have to allow a significant pause before your cross-targeted MIRVs arrive, or else they stand a good chance of hitting aerial debris and disintegrating in mid-air. Even a grain of sand will do a number on a warhead travelling at Mach 16. You also have to allow for possible interception - see the insanely fast and furious Sprint ABMS - and thus you cross-target with at least three warheads spaced at thirty minute intervals. That way at least one will hit, at which you cross your Ruffian fingers and pray that nobody scrimped on components or microchips. For what it's worth, an unattributable source on Quora said only 15% of Ruffian ICBMs would launch if the Fun-Sized Foot Fiddler went more bonkers than usual and gave The Order.
They may be right, they may be wrong; we don't really want to find out, do we pilgrims?
 |
| "Is Conrad mocking me again? IS HE?" <collapses into hysterical weeping> |
Upsetting The Applecartography
One of the lesser-known facts about the armies of Perfidious Albion in both the First and Second Unpleasantnesses is the sheer volume of maps that were produced. Conrad has a few replicas of same, which cover but a small section of the Western Front in 1917. These would be re-printed every few months to allow for advances, retreats and amended or enhanced defences. Art!
Ol' Jonno has a very interesting chapter in this work that deals with the South Canadian Civil Unpleasantness, specifically the Confederate general Thomas 'Stonewall' Jackson and his campaign in the Shenandoah Valley. Art!
He was not only one of the Confederacy's best generals, he had grown up in the Shenandoah Valley and knew it intimately. He was thus able to use it's geography to telling effect against superior numbers of Union soldiers, whom were hampered by 1) Not knowing the terrain and 2) Lacking maps. Both were major handicaps, whereas Stonewall had a local draw up a variety of what is called 'a map' for him, if in somewhat idiosyncratic style, by one Jed Hotchkiss. Art!
It might look a bit pawky but this was streets beyond anything the Union armies possessed and conveyed a distinct advantage on Ol' Jonno. He exploited this to defeat the encroaching Union armies in detail. Allow me to present you another version of a map. Art!
Behold the Shenandoah Valley in isometric detail. Them Yankees would have given their eye-teeth for this back in the day.
Conrad Is ANGRY!
You know Conrad, a spelling mistake or grammatical error simply leaps off the page and slaps him round the chops, it's in my blood and I can't help it, which is why the following thumbnail on Youtube raised my hackles. Art!
"Man Killing War Dogs" would be cause to get the RSPCA involved. What they meant is "Man-Killing War Dogs", i.e dogs that kill men because they're trained to do so. You see the difference a hyphen makes?
"City In The Sky"
The Doctor has aroused his own sense of curiosity (always a dangerous thing) about why, exactly, the Great Northern War broke out.
The Doctor turned
to look at her, looking only slightly less-puzzled than she did.
‘It had to do with
the Big Crash, the Great Northern War and the Human Salvation Project,’ he
said, before stopping. ‘I did plant some seeds about possible survival methods
at the time, but didn’t stay to see if they were ever taken up. Do you know, I never visited the Arc-ipelago,
not once. Nor Earth at the time. Bit of a mess. I stayed clear until the background count
diminished to a safe level.’
‘Hang on,’
complained Ace. ‘What are all these
things you’ve just introduced?’
Shrugging,
the Doctor got to his feet and offered
his companion a hand up.
‘I don’t
know. Shall we go and find out?’
‘Cool!’
CITY IN THE SKY
CHAPTER 1 : “Your Application’s Failed …”
Knightsbridge
2015
When Mark Harris’s wife heard the front door to the apartment slam shut, her heart sank. She could tell, by the force used to slam the Yale closed, that Mark’s day had not been good.
‘I’m in the kitchen,’ she called.
‘Shelling peas.’
Her husband audibly dropped his attache case on the sitting room floor,
draped fabric on the settee – his overcoat – and grunted in reply. He came padding onto the kitchen floor in his
stocking soles, making a face as the chill from the tiles sank into his
feet. He thoughtfully gave her a hug
from behind, kissing her neck and making her drop a few peas.
‘How was your day?’ he asked, backing off and trying to steal peas.
‘Probably better than yours.
Ellen let drop the hint that she’s thinking of taking early retirement,
so the school will need a new head.’
‘Oh. Thinking of applying?’
‘Maybe. Could you fill the
kettle? And – how was your meeting?’
He sighed, deeply, and Marcie felt her stomach flip in sympathy.
‘Not good. The European Space
Agency isn’t able to commit anything due to the need to get a political
consensus. Which, unofficially, would
take years to obtain. Years!’
Doncha just love bureaucracy?
Finally -
I intend to make Zharkoe this afternoon, to use up that beef from a week or two ago - hey, it's matured not dangerous! - and so I intend to stroll into Lesser Sodom and see what's going cheap in the Co-Op's remaindered chiller. Have to wait for the rest of the family to return, can't leave Edna all on her lonesome, she pines so.
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