Conrad Has Hit A Dilemma
Not that our title has anything to do with racing or gambling or jockeys or betting odds, none of which Your Humble Scribe has either any acquaintance with nor intention to resolve. Art!
The only horse-y novel I ever read
NO! We are intent on an incredibly niche area of military history, which I am trying to package as an item slightly more palatable to the general public. You, in other words. Art!
What you see here is a British 3.7" anti-aircraft gun working in North Africa during the Second Unpleasantness. What, Vulnavia, you thought that Clacton Sands looked this tropical? Please!
ANYWAY North Africa was where the dreaded Teuton 88mm dual-purpose anti-tank and anti-aircraft gun became famous, thanks to it's devastating usage as an anti-tank gun. Not it's debut - that's another story for the Battle Of France and the Spanish Civil Unpleasantness - yet where it became quite iconic. We have already mentioned it during Operation BATTLEAXE. So - if the Brits had a weapon of similar intent, why didn't they use it in a similar way? Art!
Thanks to 'Out Of The Foxholes' for tackling this question, which is a lot more nuanced than 'THE BRITISH WERE STOOPID'. Please let this Intro stand as an exhibition of what you thought was ridiculously straightforward, actually being much more nuanced. Art!
Yes, that is The Doctor. He is pondering one lump or two in a cup of char, which leads to a philosophical discussion about the cost of sweetening a drink being Africans sold into slavery. Because who else is going to harvest the sugar cane?
Nuances. I warned you.
Art
These guns were monstrous bits of kit, weighing in at 9 tons each (4 tons heavier than the 88), which lacked any of the visual or telescopic kit the 88 possessed. Not only that, they were designed to fire at an angle, i.e. aiming at the heavens, meaning the trunnions and recuperator suffered high levels of stress when used horizontally. Nor did they come equipped with a gun-shield, to protect their crew.
Shelford and Bidwell, in their magisterial "Fire-power" also lay out the requirements for the 3.7" being used in an anti-tank role during the war in North Africa. Art!
Shelly and Dommy iterate what has been related O so often afterwards: defending British positions in the Middle East required guns and aircraft, and the fewer guns there were, the more aircraft were needed. Thus, in this calculus, if you send out 3.7" guns into the desert, you needed more aircraft anchored to static locations in the Nile Delta.
Dommy and Shelly also work out the tactical requirements for anti-tank units composed of the 3.7", a significant administrative detail most of the Wehraboos ignore. They estimate 48 guns in two regiments, with 24 guns in reserve to accommodate losses. To which you have to add tractor vehicles, limbers, HQ trucks, ammunition vehicles, and one where you pass the port to the port. Plus, I would suggest, a bulldozer or two to excavate positions to fit guns into. Art!
Tubeway army?
There are few accounts of the 3.7" being used in a ground role in North Africa, although Your Humble Scribe recalls one about the Axis conquest of Tobruk, where a solo 3.7" stood off the Afrika Korps until they managed to get enough infantry in close to mount an assault.
Being hit by a shell from a 3.7" was not a pleasant experience for a tank crew. The shell travelled at 8,000 feet per second and weighed 28 pounds, so much the same velocity as the 88 flak but a much heavier shell; thanks to the complicated predictors and remote data predictors it was extremely accurate even at the limits of it's range. Art!
Another interesting technical characteristic from 1943 onwards was the automatic loading mechanism, giving it a rate of fire of one round every 2 seconds, faster than a lot of soldiers could manage with a bolt-action rifle. For this reason, after the D-Day landings, 3.7" batteries were sometimes called forward to deal with troublesome Teuton armoured vehicles, in which case they were rapidly converted into scrap metal. I have read elsewhere of a unit of Jagdpanthers that were proving rather sticky during Operation MARKET GARDEN. Art!
A formidable beast
A battery of 3.7s was sent to the front lines, where they outranged and outgunned the Jagdpanthers, which were swiftly destroyed under a hail of shells - 100 rounds per minute from a battery of 4 guns.
There you go: nuances.
It Never Rains But It Poors
No! That is not a typo, it's an hilarious pun, I tell you! Laugh or it's the Remote Nuclear Detonator!
As ever, we here at BOOJUM! take great delight in mocking the orcses of Mordorvia and their disintegrating society and infrastructure. Art!
This is the 'Novorossiyisk', a Ruffian submarine we covered a few days ago. Their technical problems were so bad, thanks to an internal fuel leak, that they were pumping fuel directly into the Med, for they lacked the technical equipment (a spanner) or trained personnel (a monkey) to repair it. Poor dears. Poor shape, too, Novo.
They have now limped their way into the English Channel where NATO navies are keeping a rather smug eye on them, now that they're under tow in the North Sea. Art!
That's Mark Rutte, Secretary General of NATO, who cruelly jested that the orcses position is less like 'The Hunt For Red October' and more like 'Hunt for the nearest mechanic'. The Ruffians confirmed everything above as true by denying any of it happening.
A More Perfect Schedule
After doing a nine-hour shift on Monday, making it more miserable than it needed to be, I now have a seven hours and forty five minutes shift today and tomorrow, and two shifts on Thursday and Friday that end at three thirty.
I realise this is not earth-shattering news, but I like to keep you informed. Art!
Schedules are not gripping stuff so have a dangerous atomic shopping trolley on fire instead.
What's In A Name
The naming of British tanks in the Second Unpleasantness fell under either long-dead generals ('Lee', 'Grant', 'Cromwell') or abstract names beginning with the letter 'C' ('Crusader', 'Covenanter'). One exception was the Churchill. Art!
Today's dose of Bovvie!
There it is, named after Winnie, who was none too pleased, as it was rushed into production before proper development had been run to get rid of teething troubles, rendering it unreliable. The version you see here is one armed with the 6-pounder anti-tank gun, and possibly represents one of the Royal Irish Horse tanks that helped capture Tiger 113 in Tunisia. Tunisia is where the very heavy armour of the Churchill came into it's own, and also where it gained a reputation for being able to climb even the steepest hills. The teething troubles had, by then, been resolved. There were umpteen different variants of Churchills made, the AVRE which we have already seen. Art!
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| A brace Churchills having a bit of a stroll |
The Irony Is Strong With This One
Conrad could not resist posting this one, partly because he's a dinosaur for whom nothing exists unless it's written down. For example, yesteryon I hiked down into Lesser Sodom and forgot to write down any of the ingredients I wanted. So I forgot to get butter. Art!
It ought to be obvious that, if your IT is hacked, you may very well be unable to access that IT. Ergo, you need hard copies of What To Do When Things Go Pear-Shaped. The government is making a big noise about this because, although the number of hack attacks has remained stable, their targets are now much bigger.
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