No! That Is NOT A Typo
For one thing, Blogger's Amerocentric spell-checker would throw a wobbler and give it a red underline, which in fact it has already done for 'Amerocentric', proof later on, and it hasn't. If we add in a hyphen then it passes muster, thus: Amero-centric. See? No red line.
ANYWAY having recourse to my Collins Concise, it states that Calvary is: "The place just outside the walls of Jerusalem where Jesus was crucified", and I seem to recall P. J. Caputo's telling phrase about South Canada no longer being involved in warfare in Vietnam, " - died, without redeeming anything, on calvaries like Hamburger Hill or The Rockpile". Art!
By extension, we equate a modern-day 'calvary' with pain and suffering.
"Cavalry" has been around for longer than Calvary, as mounted troops offered significant advantages over ground-pounders from antiquity onwards. A cavalry charge was a difficult proposition to defend against, as a horse weighing one quarter-of-a-ton carrying a rider wielding a large sharp object and moving at twenty miles per hour tended to crush and pierce any opposition. Art!
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| The Royal Scots Greys, out for a bit of scarlet |
The word itself derives, inevitably, from Latin, 'Caballus', meaning 'Horse', which transitioned via the Italian "Cavaliere" or "Horseman", then the French "Cavallerie".
Quite by coincidence, a vlog on Youtube from the "Daily Mail" illustrates just how dangerous a rampaging mass of horseflesh can be. 'Twould appear a pair of cavalry horses from the Household Cavalry got loose in London, injuring five people without even trying. Art!
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| <Insert humourous caption here> |
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| Ditto |
How do you stop cavalry charging?
I've cheated here. These are caltrops from 2024, made by a Ukrainian company that previously specialised in replicas of historic armour and weapons. You can clearly see the tetrahedral design that ensures one spike always points upwards, which will cripple or lame any horse that inadvertently treads on them. Definitely a calvary moment for any cavalry so affected.
Except that modern armies have replaced the horse with mechanised transport, powered by the internal combustion engine and running on wheels, not legs. Art!
These are Daimler armoured cars of the 12th Royal Lancers, near the River Po in Italy, 1944. Like many ex-horsed formations, when mechanised they moved into the reconnaissance role, as per their cavalry heritage. In fact, let me quote a line from "History Of The Second World War: The Mediterranean And Middle East Volume IV: The Destruction Of The Axis Forces In Africa", 1966/2004.
"Most of 10 Corps halted for the night, but at 6 p.m. on the 5th [of November 1942] the 1st Armoured Division, led by 12th Royal Lancers -"
So the division has a screen of armoured cars, working miles out in front to spot retreating enemy, rear-guards, demolitions, bad going, tracks or roads to follow and so on. Which would have been performed by horsed cavalry forty years prior. Art!
They aren't anticipating action or the aerial and pennant would be lowered.
ANYWAY we finally get to the meat of the matter. You see, the canny Ukes are now using drones to drop those caltrops as seen above, well behind orc lines. They are highly effective at destroying cheap Ruffian tyres bought on the cheap as the quartermaster pocketed the difference. Art!
With one or more tyres completely shredded, the vehicle is forced to a halt, and, since the Ukes know where they've 'sown' their metal harvest, they can cover that location with a spotter drone and call in either artillery or FPV drones to attack the static trucks or vans. Or, thanks to a certain aid bill, HIMARS or GLASDiBs. You can imagine the sheer frustration of the orc drivers and passengers getting out of a truck immobilised in such a way, and then, especially if it's after nightfall, standing on one of these little beauties. Tetanus ahoy!
Right, enough horsing about, time for lunch.
Kadyrov Gets Stoned
You may be familiar with the Chechen dictator, Ramzan Kadyrov, who is bezzy mates with Putinpot, and whom keeps Chechnya sternly aligned with the Kremlin for money.
There have been rumours about Kaddy's health over the past year, which has led to him posting cringy videos of how fit and healthy he is. This is like a certain Flatulent Fraudster claiming he's a 'Very stable genius'. If you have to keep saying it, then odds are you're lying. Art!
He checked into hospital last year, and has claimed that he's been poisoned by doctors, which sounds like an affirmation of "Uneasy lies the head that wears the crown". In an old video he proved how manly and alpha and full of beans he was by jogging a hundred metres. Now - he's resorting to bench-pressing a lump of stone. Art!
Is it a stone or a large piece of resin? Only Kaddy can tell!
The latest details claim that he's suffering from pancreatic necrosis, which is treatable yet still potentially terminal in about 1/3 of cases. Unfortunately it's not catching or Putinpot wouldn't be nearer than a hundred yards away. Time will tell, one supposes.
The Timing Is Telling
As you may be aware, the South Canadian Congress has passed the $61 billion aid bill for Ukraine, which Pres Biden will sign into law, probably on Wednesday, thus allowing at least $1 billion in aid to go to Ukraine per week.
Firstly, this kind of support must horrify the Ruffian high command, because it's in addition to a lot more support now being provided by the EU. Nobody's bankrolling Ruffia.
Secondly - Art!
This is a Ruffian depot at Yartsevo. The rayon governor claimed that all the unidentified UAVs were shot down, so that blazing inferno must have been called by the usual "Falling debris", or else a Ruffian petroleum engineer will come along and state that this is a perfectly normal part of the refining process, and then a Ruffian court will sentence a Telegram poster to five years in the gulag for daring to display pro-Ukrainian propaganda - and so on.
Notice that this attack only took place after the bill got passed. That Budanov chap is pretty shrewd.
"City In The Sky"
Things are humming aboard Arcology One, the only question is what their alien foes, the Lithoi, are going to resort to in the near future?
Busiest of all were the six teams tasked with erecting three axial
struts, each of which constituted two separate half-units connected by a middle
unit that looked like a die manufactured from steel and rubber. Each strut measured two hundred and fifty
metres in length and had been created by welding multiple sets of three girders
around a central girder that projected a metre beyond those three surrounding
it. This created a cavity that the
girder set below could plug into.
The plan was to create three
half-struts, two lying flat on the sphere’s surface with the last one
projecting vertically from the crux. The
two horizontal struts would each be bedded-in at an attachment point and the
construct would be hauled upright on cables to mate with the other set of
half-struts, with the vertical struts bedding-in at two other attachment points
on the hull. In this way the half-struts
would be cushioned against compression by their attachment points – metre-thick
layers of dense plastics and steel sandwich – and the central “die”, again a
composite of compressible metal, rubber and plastics.
A fair amount of damage had
already been caused by two failed attempts at hauling the struts upright; this
third attempt was testing the tempers, patience and peace of mind of everyone
involved, including the Doctor. After
the last failure, half a metre had to be torched from a strut to ensure the six
components met at exactly the correct angle.
It sounds convincing, which is what matters.
I Bet Your Pardon!
I described our last look at "The War Illustrated" as being from Edition 187. Well, I was wrong, it was from Edition 186. This is Edition 187. Art!
Here you see two of the better British generals in Normandy: General Richard O'Connor at port, and General Miles Dempsey at starboard.
O'Connor has an interesting background. He'd been in charge of British forces in North Africa when they trounced the Italians, and by an unbelievable stroke of bad luck, was captured by a Teuton patrol when swanning about near the front lines in early 1941. He was held as a PoW in Italy, escaping when the Romans changed sides, and came back to command VIII Corps in Normandy.
Finally -
After dining on Sunday Stew, I am going to annoy Edna by swanning off myself, to do the weekly shop. Read 'em and weep, Edna, read 'em and weep.
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