You Might Think I Was Whanging On About That Card Game
I've never played it and am not generally keen on card games, although I do keep a pack of cards since some wargames rulesets use them instead of, or in addition to, dice. Art!
No sh
ANYWAY I thought I'd lead with a picture of the LBTP, as a card game is intrinsically boring, yet since we've already put the signature photo up that will generate on Facebook, let's have a shot of pontoon. Art!
In fact I could have gone with the alternate title "Bridging Loans", except that's even duller than a card table.
ANYWAY AGAIN the type of 'Pontoon' I am talking about is defined by my Collins Concise Dictionary as: "A watertight float or vessel used where buoyancy is required in water, as in supporting a bridge". It derives from the French 'Ponton', itself derived from the Latin <hack spit> 'Ponto' for 'Punt' itself derived from 'Pons' for 'Bridge', which could lead us down another rabbit-hole about card games were I not there to stamp it shut. Art!
The green marks are Austrian bridges, the blue are British bridges, which unfortunately were done in felt-tip and thus went right through the tracing paper I tried to use.
For Lo! we are back on the First Unpleasantness in Italy, this time on the plain of the Piave River, which was exceedingly flat, and where water was the defining elemental factor, not snow or ice, and one could excavate trenches with an entrenching tool, instead of needing pneumatic drills and explosives. Art!
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| "28tth October 1918 Pontoon bridges over the Piave at Maserada" |
As is visible from the map, Papadopoli Island was really a collection of islands, with the Austrians in possession, and for XIV Corps (the British 7th and 23rd divisions and the Italian 37th Division) to get across to the east bank of the Piave, they needed to bridge the Piave and kick out the occupiers.
This was a lot easier said than done. The Piave at this point runs very, very fast and even at the few fords it's torrent made passage a dangerous occupation. Also, at this time of year, rain in the mountains or upper reaches of the river would cause it to rise rapidly and run even faster. Art!
This photo gives you an idea of how long the pontoon bridges erected by the Royal Engineers needed to be, and how vulnerable they were to spate conditions, let alone Austrian artillery fire. The Romans, very wisely, lent Perfidious Albion a company of 'Pontieri', who were specialist engineers experienced with boats and water, and it's dubious if the operation would have succeeded without their help. The Official History notes here that the British sappers were woefully inexperienced in the erection and maintenance of pontoon bridges, which implies a lack of training and an indictment of their officers. Bad officers! Naughty officers! No biscuit for you! Art?
The Romans also loaned the British lots of their pontoon boats, as visible above. Unlike the British 'blunt' pontoons, the Italian ones had a markedly sharp prow, which enabled them to maintain their position better in fast-flowing waters. The two figures at second and third to port in the photo above are Pontieri, which you can deduce from their casque helmet, visibly different from the British soldier next to them wearing a Brodie-pattern helmet. These Pontieri were able to deliver boatloads of tommies to Papadopoli by rowing them across, before the pontoon bridges got put up. Art!
This is one of the heavy-duty pontoons that were put into position, in order to allow wheeled vehicles across, which mostly meant artillery pieces and limbers. Here you can see the pontoons side by side, with no gaps between, in order to support the maximum weight possible, and just visible at the far end is a motor vehicle preparing to cross.
Of course - obviously! - the real thing was anything but smooth, with several bridges being wrecked by the current when there was heavy rain upstream, and the two British bridges to the north-west having to be dismantled before daylight as they were under Austrian observation. Art!
Soldiers of a Highland regiment (identified by kilts) escorting Austrian prisoners of war back to the west bank, via pontoon bridge. You can see the waters are still somewhat choppy. Probably the 2nd Battalion the Gordon Highlanders, who at the time were known as the "Gay Gordons".
Be Distill My Beating Heart
At about this time of year the orcs of Modern-day Mordor begin to target the Ukrainian electrical grid, hitting it with drones and ballistic missiles, in order to force the Ukes to sit in the dark and freeze.
Up until now.
Also, the Ukrainians have not hit any Ruffian oil refineries for several weeks.
What's going on? Or, rather, what's not going on? Art!
These, to be clear, are Ruffians complaining about lack of electricity, thus having to sit in the dark and freeze, and sit after climbing up 24 flights of stairs thanks to the elevator not working.
Allow me to put forward a Tweet of mine from 24th October:
A Youtuber called "Paul Warburg" speculated as of 1st November 2024 that what I suspected may be a real, if secret, arrangement.
The hidden move that proves Putin's getting desperate
Paul's assertion is that Putin does, in fact, care - or more correctly 'worry' - about what the great unwashed Ruffian public think, and he dare not expose them to another winter like last year, where there were disgruntled Ruffians on the streets of Moscow, keeping warm around bonfires in the street, and other dying of hypothermia. Art!
Paul. No grahpics, just Utah
See first photo in this item. Money that might have gone to replace or repair infrastructure in Ruffia is instead being squandered in Ukraine and lining siloviki pockets, Art!
"Good enough"
Conrad suspects that the Ukrainians have found a loophole in this covert agreement, because whilst they have not bombed any refineries of late, they sure are going to town on alcohol distilleries. Art!
This is Number Four going up in flames, and whilst Number Five may be alive for the moment, don't count on that moment lasting.
"Elevation"
No, not the U2 song. This film is only known to me as a trailer, and for at least half of it, I had to wonder if they had finally made a film of "Plague Year", the Jeff Carlson post-apocalyptic sci-fi thriller I'm currently re-reading. Art!
Nope. Mind you, Ol' Jeff might be consulting his attorney, given that the studio seem to have merely replaced his 'machine virus' with a man in a rubber suit. O, and replacing the barometric safe-zone height of 10,000 feet with one of only 8,000 feet.
To Get To The Chopper
Yes, back to potentially dangerous machinery for chopping up wood. I should explain that people around the globe chop up tree trunks for firewood as this maximises the surface area available to burn, makes the lumber easy to handle, and helps to build upper-body strength. Art!
When they say 'shree' I think they mean 'sheets'. This design is also far, far safer than the previous ones that required a human operator to physically present the wood for chopping, thanks to an overhead lever that keeps Mister Chopper away from any edged blades. Art!
Yes yes yes, more a slicer than a chopper. So sue me.
A Bit Late For Halloween
As if BOOJUM! was bothered about dates or calendars. For here we are on 2nd November with another of Berni Wrightson's cartoon creations, if by 'cartoon' you mean lashings of blood and dismemberment. Here is '29, "All Freaked Out".
Well, thanks for that painting tip, Berni. Can you explain exactly what your pigments are depicting?
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