If I Were To Say "Stinger"

Then You Could Rest Assured I Was Being Deliberately Vague

Because here on the blog we think it highly amusing to be duplicitous and divisive.  Yes, that's the way we roll.  

     Well, depending on whether you watch far too many episodes of "Police Interceptors", you interpretation of exactly what 'Stinger' means may vary.  To Conrad, with his bent for military stuff, it immediately calls to mind the South Canadian MANPADS (for MAN-Portable Air Defence System).  Art!

     

     It's been in operation for over 40 years and is one of the reasons one witnesses planes and helicopters loosing off volleys of flares, since it homes in on heat sources thanks to an infra-red sensor.  The warhead is about a kilogram of HE and is impact-fused, principally because that's not a large warhead and a proximity fuse would be ineffective.  The Stinger has a short range, only two miles, which is still enough for infantry to defend themselves from aerial attack, because pilots don't like the risk of being shot down.  Art!

     This, ladies and gentlemen and those unsure, is the KIA Stinger, which I never knew existed until about thirty minutes ago, and which I don't care one iota about now that I do.  It's a car; a metal box with a wheel at each corner that drinks magic go-juice and moves from A to B.  That's it.  Art!

     Just imagine!   You go out to the garage and your Kia Stinger has been stolen!  So you report it to the feds.  This alli bit of kit is the Stinger Spike Strip, which is a set of spike strips lazy-tonged into a carrying case.  The idea is to hurl this across the road in the path of a car being pursued, where it unfolds to completely cover the road's surface width.  Art!

     Driving over it guarantees that at least two tyres will get punctured by the spikes, which causes rapid deflation.  I have seen video clips of truly desperate criminals in cars that have been Stingered, where they continue driving on flat tyres, which rapidly shred, leaving them screeching along on bare rims, generating enormous clouds of sparks and with no ability to steer.  They must have been realllllllly naughty to keep going like that.  Art!

     Note the absence of anything like a tyre on that rear wheel.  Also - Art!

     Yes, it completely lost control and ended up facing the wrong direction, which was directly at a lot of angry police officers.  Art!

     Good job none of them were carrying one of these.  This, gentle reader, is a replica of the South Canadian 'Stinger', which was a Frankenstein piece of kit put together by South Canadian soldiers in the Pacific during the Second Unpleasantness.  The main gun is an ANM2 .30 calibre machine gun, a weapon used on aircraft and thus 'tuned-up' to fire at an extremely high rate of fire: 900 rounds per minute.  The stock is from an M1 Garand, and the bipod is from a Browning Automatic Rifle.  No matter how fanatical a soldier of Japan you were, one of these would turn you into dogfood in one-third of a second.  Art!

     Yesssss.  Or perhaps no.  This was a South Canadian band from the Sixties, whose schtick was doing rock 'n' roll versions of classical music, "Nutrocker" was their take on the "Nutcracker" suite.  The thing is, who you see here were not the actual musicians who played the song, as they were studio musoes with days jobs and commitment to other music.  So a touring band was 'created' to play live sets.  This is totally outrageous and would not be tolerated today <coughcoughMilliVanillicough>.  Art!

     That's Phones, Troy (modelled after James Garner) and Aqua-Marina.  The first two are employees of W.A.S.P. (World Aqua Security Patrol) which is a tad confusing as wasps aren't what you associate with the briny deeps, but whatever.  Marina - her I'm not sure about.  Possibly given Temporary Visitor status to smooth over security issues?  Definitely one of the best theme tunes EVER and I will brook no argument.  Art!

For all the hair-splitting pedants out there.

     The rather more prosaic creature that is a stingray, displaying the venomous stinger.  You're welcome.  

     And that, I think, wraps up the subject of stingers.

 

More Robotic Warriors

Conrad, who has a mind like a skip (or 'dumpster' for our South Canadian friends) recalled a story from, I think "Heavy Metal" back in the Eighties.  However - that word again! - I couldn't remember the artist or title.  It did feature infantryman Brak Braktor, that I do recall.  Thank you, Steve (responsible for my memory around here).

     Of course - obviously! - a little Google-fu had to be done, and Hay Pesto!  Art?

     So, the artist is Juan Giminez, and the writer is Ricardo Barreiro.  Art!

     I've just followed a link to read the whole story, which was naughty of me because I'm still crafting words of wit, wisdom and wonder.  The not terribly subtle ending SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER is that the human infantrymen have been fighting robots, when they are practically robots themselves.  Art!

     I got the date and the central character's name right.  Not bad after 43 years <preens a little>.  Nor are we done with robot warriors.  O noes.

"City In The Sky"

The Doctor is now aboard the evillll Lithoi's baseship, which has been dug vertically into the Nullarbor Plains, as cover and concealment.  They're neither covered nor concealed now.

     If, he cajoled himself, if the Lithoi were distracted during this last most vulnerable time for the sphere, as it sloooowly fell to earth under it’s parachute.  There were slatted panels in the chute’s multi-hectare area that could be opened or closed, thus allowing a small degree of control over the descent, as long as there was no urgency.

     ‘ “Lay on, MacDuff”,’ he quoted, opening the doors and stepping out.

     Immediately the dead, stale, dehydrated air of the baseship assaulted his lungs and nose, forcing his eyes to water in self-defence.  Smarting with dessication, he continued on past the sealed doors of this particular corridor, noting the descriptions on their jambs:  “Collar Components: non-lethal force”  “Ceremonial whips and pinions” “Entertainment videos: lowest caste compatible: nil literacy required”.

     He had a choice: a lift halfway down on either side of the corridor, leading to who-knew-where, or a spiral staircase at each terminus of the corridor.  Choosing the stairs, since he could control how rapidly  he ascended, the Doctor noticed more information panels on the stairwell wall.

    “BRIDGE ↑↑↑↑↑

      BIOLOGY ↑↑↑↑

      ANTHROPOLOGY↑↑↑

      ASTRONOMY ↑↑

      PHYSICS ↑

      STORES←→

      MECHANICS↓

     COMMISSARY↓↓

     PRISON↓↓↓”     

     This latter caught his eye.  Were there any human prisoners held there, stolen from their communities to allow a Transport version of themselves to parade around at leisure?  Or those who couldn’t be mind-controlled into obedient slavery, perhaps.  Or relatives or friends held to coerce those who might resist the Lithoi.  Or –

     I feel a Shakespeare quote coming on.

Take That!

Conrad has pointed out several times that China is not Ruffia's friend, and that the leader of the Populous Dictatorship, Winnie The Pooh - a nickname he apparently loathes - is playing a long game to see if he can get back the Chinese territories that Tsarist Ruffia annexed in the nineteenth century.  They're carrying out a kind of soft invasion in Siberia, and with Putinpot's attention being solely devoted to the Special Idiotic Operation, they have a free pass.  Art!

     This rather trumps Ruffia's Moonshot, which landed alright, except at full speed into the lunar regolith, turning it into an expensive crater.  If you recall, the Indian Moonshot also went swimmingly.  I wonder if either event were reported in Modern-Day Mordor?  "Ruffia returned to the Moon 50 years after South Canada abandoned it!"-level nonsense aside.

Star Arts

I would like to post a picture or two of the original 'Daedalus' concept from the Seventies, which served as an inspiration for the Project Icarus people.  Art!

     Here the first stage has expended all it's fusion fuel, and the actual robot probe is accelerating it's 450 tons away.  The concept called for a flyby of the target - Barnard's Star at 5.9 light years away - within a human lifetime, which is an excellent criteria in my mind.  "My grand-children will eventually see my work accomplished" is a rubbish motivator.  Art!

     This is the robot probe, the mission-critical part of the starship.  The design team were imagining that fusion power would be available for the mission, which was a bit of a stretch in the Seventies as we don't have it yet fifty years later.  Art!

     You can see the limitations of a fly-by probe, which is why the Project Icarus design parameters included being able to decelerate and spend time loitering in-system.

Finally -

Conrad will not be a happy bunny next week, as we are on the Silly Schedule.  Nine hours on Monday, seven hours on Thursday.  Bring me my vat of gin!