Being Stand Offish

Once Again, Mister Ambiguity, Meet Gentle Reader

I need to caution you that we are going to be mixing in a few military themes in this Intro, so if all you want to read about are fluffy bunnies and sparkly rainbows, I have to wonder why you're reading a blog obsessed with tanks, zombies and atom bombs.  Art!

     Here we have Happy Harry, as nobody ever imagined nor called him, who is pretty much the definition of standoffish, which is to say cold and unsocial.  I haven't seen this iteration of "The Stand" so am not sure how well this actor nails it, yet I wanted both the character and the novel's name.

     Then we have the Cold War derivation, where "Stand Off" was applied to ordnance launched, fired or dropped from an aircraft that enabled it to hit a target, whilst remaining outside the range of defensive SAMs, radar and guns.  Art!

Big Ugly Fat Fella manifesting Hound Dogs

     Believe me, if those got launched, the crying would come to an abrupt stop.  The 'Hound Dog', or AGM-28 to be less canonically canine about it, was intended to be launched from it's aerial platform, and hit Sinister air defence networks and systems, obliterating them with a 1 megaton warhead.  This would effectively punch an enormous hole in the collective air defences of the Sinister Union, allowing other B52s packing lots more shorter-ranged nuclear ordnance to reign, or rain, o'er the Sinister Union.  Don't think ill of South Canada, the Sinisters had their own equivalents*.  Art!

HD with puny humans for scale

     Back to  more prosaic matters, which Alexander Pope called 'Bathos', despite the name not being anything to do with balneomaniacs.  You may, if you are lucky, get that sentence explained more thoroughly in the near future.  As it is, let me introduce a specimen of Allied tank as seen in the North-Western theatre of war during the Second Unpleasantness.  Art!

     Yes, these chaps are welding a frame onto their tank in order to be able to stack a layer of sandbags around the entire hull front and sides.  Other tankers were known to use logs, or concrete.

     "Why so?" I hear you ask, and I thought you'd never query!

     Because of the Monroe Effect, I have to say.  Art!

Art!

     O Dog Buns, has he gotten a pash for another B & W femme fatale?  Hang on, let me just adjust the horizontal gain a tad - there, that should do it.  Art!

     Perfidious Albion discovered the Monroe Effect during the Second Unpleasantness, and used it in anti-tank weapons such as the bazooka and PIAT.  So, too, did the Teutons, with their ubiquitous Panzerfaust being doled out to every other stubble-hopper in their armies.  Art!

     The idea with weapons like this is that they have a 'sweet-spot', this being the distance from the armour they are fired at where the warhead detonates - or, being more technical, the 'stand off distance'.  Beyond this distance and the 10,000ºC plasma jet disperses and merely creates a scorch mark; below this distance and - Art!

     "No jet".  The hideous irony with ad-hoc tank protection like sandbags or logs or track links is that they may well allow an enemy shaped-charge warhead to detonate at precisely the right stand-off distance.  Allied technical officers swore horribly about this impromptu shielding, as it increased the tank's weight considerably, over-strained the suspension, caused engine problems and affected reliability.

     We have seen more recent examples of tank crews practicing stand-off improvisations.  Art!

     This might well, again, create the ideal stand-off distance for drone attacks to have the most efficient Explosively-Formed Penetrator effect.  It also heightens the tank's profile and width, making it easier to spot.  Well done, Ruffia - you have just re-invented the A7V!  Art?

     One has to recall the incessant Ruffian use of 'cope cages' since Day One of the Special Idiotic Operation, and how they were great as a barbecue, yet completely useless as a defensive measure.

     Dog Buns, it's been raining heavily at the exact moment I was due to take Edna trotties.  Give me five minutes and I'll see if Ham The Weather Wizard cannot be importuned to clear the skies -

"Siege"

I thought I'd update you as to the state of the game, which I am playing against myself, which is conducive to not cheating, for that way lies madness.  Art!

     At North you can see the Siege Tower moving into close contact with the battlements, meaning the assaulters can now storm the castle walls.  The scaling ladder alongside the ST and the one at lower starboard have now allowed Sir Wulfric's men onto the battlements, and at the breach his men are pushing back Sir Ralph's defenders.

     I have learned that it's unwise to have character counters in hexes behind counters in the front line, because any retreat is blocked and your characters die instead.  Also, perhaps I should have stuck all the bowmen in one position instead of spreading them about?

     This game is a variety of Finding Out, the next one ought to be more finely balanced.

Midnight Complain To Georgia

It's all kicking off in the Trans-Caucasus!  In the nation of Georgia, vast crowds of demonstrators have been out on the streets for the past two weeks, protesting about their government passing Ruffian-friendly laws, especially the most recent one, which demonises anyone who isn't waving the Ruffian flag and lauding Peter The Average.  Art!

     They have been assaulted by riot police with shields and batons, tear-gassed, water-cannoned and rubber-bulleted, and they still come back for more in their thousands if not tens of thousands.  <coughcoughColumbiaCough>.

     This bears watching, the Georgian populace do not seem to like their government very much and the only thing the authorities can do now is escalate, which is the slippery spiral path to a civil war - see 'Myanmar' for reference.

     In years and decades past, the Kremlin would intervene on behalf of it's proxies, except it's now got it's hands full elsewhere.

"City In The Sky"

The scouts are now reporting back about what they've seen and found in the Australian outback.

     Standing sentry over the embers of a dying bonfire were three South Australian Police and a couple of couriers, all swapping tales of the incredible events taking place across the Bight.  A football-sized lump of clay had been rolled out of the fire, and one of the couriers was preparing to batter it apart when he caught sight of the approaching threesome.

     ‘Hey now!’ he blurted.  ‘Here’s trouble.’

     ‘That’s Doctor Smith?’ asked a courier, nodding at Captain Kirwin.  One of the SAP gave him a good-natured cuff over the head.

     ‘You nork!  That’s the Yank, from Upstairs.  The other beaut is Ace.  Doctor Smith has an umbrella, like I said.’

     ‘Plus a pet dingo,’ observed another courier.  Ace slapped herself across the forehead.  Typical!  She’d forgotten the really important thing.

     ‘Listen,’ she told the dingo.  ‘Get your pack away from that – that – from those lizards.’

     The dingo barked enthusiastically, pawing at the dry earth.

     ‘I mean it!’ emphasised Ace.  ‘That place is going to get blammed, major league blammed if I know the Prof.’

     The American saw what others might have missed.  She did, after all, regard dingoes as a novelty to be closely studied.  The creature’s “pawing” in the dust had created a wavy outline sprouting short sticklike appendages.

     ‘Ace!’ she gasped, gripping the other woman’s upper bicep like a pincer.  ‘That damn dog has drawn one of the aliens!’

     You  didn't think I meant only Hom. Sap. scouts did you?

Talking Of Snakes ...

Welllll the Lithoi are lizards with a distinct snake-y feel to them.  You may recall that, a couple of weekends ago, Your Modest Artisan betook himself over the Snake Pass to darkest Sheffield, to take part in Richard's annual 'Crisis Point' extravaganza.

     The Snake Pass is well named, as it consists of uncountable bends and twists in the road all the way from the top-most moors to the valley bottom.  Not only do drivers have to contend with sheep - which, to be honest, are so used to cars passing a mere 6" from them on the verge that they don't so much as shimmy - but also problems of terrain.  Art!

     This is the kind of road problem one encounters, especially that one to starboard.  Conrad didn't then have the time or angle to take a photo, but this is one of those bottlenecks along the valley road, with one-way light-controlled traffic.  One presumes a new road surface will be laid, after they buttress the downhill slope with gabions and fascines to prevent future erosion or collapse.

Finally -

The rains have ceased - time for trotties.

*  Perfidious Albion's 'V' bomber force were expected to get into the Sinister Union by stunt-flying at rooftop height.