How Very Apt

We've Had Enough Of HOAs For The Moment

So I'm going to venture forth and return to 'Charley's War', where we bust a few myths, confirm others and admire the accuracy of Joe Colquhoun's artwork.  'How Very Apt' because it is November 5th, Bonfire Night, and the endless banging and thumping of fireworks detonating resembles an intermittent artillery barrage reminiscent of the First Unpleasantness.  Conrad does not approve, they frighten Edna, as with all pets.  Art!

You see?  You see what happened to Outpost 31 after their firework accident?

     ANYWAY one of the things that has distinguished the First Unpleasantness from almost all previous and post wars was the extensive use of gas warfare, with the Iran-Iraq Unpleasantness being the only other contender.  Art!

     What hideous apparition is this? I hear you quaver.  O I thought you'd never ask!  This, gentle reader, is a British cavalry officer carrying a lance, a sword in it's scabbard and a Lee Enfield, whilst kitted out with a 'PH Helmet' gas mask, one of the earlier models.  Yes, his horse is also wearing a gas mask, because otherwise it would last about 30 seconds in a gas attack.  Art!

     In this chapter, Charley, Ginger and Lonely are stuck in No Man's Land whilst British cavalry move up to make an attack on the Teuton lines.  Art!

     "The Deccan Horse will take on the Germans in the wood -" references an actual attack that took place on 14th July, where the Indian Cavalry Division was ordered to advance to join up with advancing British infantry divisions at High Wood.  In reality the infantry had not got anywhere near the wood, and only the Secunderabad cavalry brigade got near that position, of which only the Deccan Horse reached it, so about 550 cavalrymen.

    Conrad would like to point out Ol' Joe's accuracy in depicting the weapon being used in the middle of this frame: a Hotchkiss Portative light machine gun.  This was an air-cooled weapon far lighter than the water-cooled Vickers, a weapon far too heavy to carry on a single horse.  Art!

     Conrad also notes, with some ire, that Ol' Pat is repeating one of the old First Unpleasantness canards, about the cavalry being wiped out in the attack on High Wood.  Firstly, they were enfiladed by Teuton machine guns, not artillery.  Secondly, their total losses were 11 killed and 39 injured or 50 men, about 9% of their whole regiment.  Hardly the extermination popular history would have you believe.  Art!

     This is the Victorian Vaudeville Villain, Lieutenant Snell, who is cowardly and conniving and a thoroughly bad lot, Ol' Pat laying the character defects on with a shovel.  Conrad suspects he will either come to a bad end, or go on to promotion and being an even bigger bugbear for Charley.  Watch this space.  Art!

     "They're shelling us!  Our own blinking side are shelling us!".   This was, I have to regrettably say, not uncommon.  Normally it would be a single gun in the rear firing short, thanks to excessive wear and tear on the recuperator or trunnions or barrel rifling.  The solution would be to identify which gun in a battery was firing short, pull it out of position and get it renovated with replacement parts. A whole battery inflicting 'friendly fire' happened if they didn't realise that the Tommies were in a particular trench, usually an ex-Teuton one.  Art!

     Ol' Joe getting the depiction of a Vickers gun spot on, even to the screw-elevation gear on the back sights.  The closer to the bottom of the sight, the closer the target, and Charley, in a killing fury, is slaying Teutons at barely 100 yards range.  He'd have trouble keeping up sustained fire as under more normal circumstances the gun's Number Two would be helping to feed the ammunition belt into the breech, but when you're blood is up in an actinic rage you make do.  Art!

The real thing

     This is Pat and Joe echoing Sargent's famous and tragic painting of gas victims, entitled 'Gassed' and if all politicians and generals had to sit and study it for 10 minutes, forcibly, they might be less inclined to bleat about the 'honour' and 'glory' of warfare.  Art!

     The common theme in both the comic frame and oil painting is that these men have been temporarily blinded by CN gas or fumes from mustard gas.  Both make the eyes run like taps and render the victim militarily useless for days.

     Okay, I think that's enough grim realism for one day.  We will revisit CW because I am only just 1/3 in.  I bet you can hardly wait.  Then there's Volume 2 and I need to purchase Volume 3 <wallet squeaks in anguish>.

Broe-lling Thunder

Ha!  How hilarious am I?

    VERY HILARIOUS needs to be your response, you laggardly pikers.  I am conflating the Youtuber 'Jake Broe' and 'Rolling Thunder' together, because yesteryon I bit the bullet and donated.  Art!

     This particular video - link below - is Jake's latest request for donations, that will go to purchase, equip and load a fleet of 4x4s for use in Ukraine by their military units.

Our Next $1,000,000 Fundraiser -- Refinery BINGO

      In the 5 campaigns so far he has raised $33,000 dollars -

     - short of SIX MILLION DOLLARS.  That makes 145 trucks equipped and sent, via the '69th Sniffing Brigade', and the aim for this campaign is to once again raise $1,000,000.  Art!

     'Weapons Grade' refers to the official White House Twitter account accusing him of being a 'Weapons grade moron', which Jake has adopted as a badge of honour.  That's a fabric representation of him in his junior Air Force days.  Conrad has requested the refinery 'Bingo' badge, because we all know he's a horrible human being.  Art!

     Conrad unsure if Babylon's burning*, but Ruffia sure is.

Don't Mock The 'Spacedock'

That's my job.  Okay, let's examine Number Three on their list of 'Five Realistic Interstellar Craft' which I have already chided for being only just short of 'Impossibly Complex And Huge'.  Art!

     This is the highly ingenious Bussard Ramjet, invented - or, rather, theorised - by Robert Bussard  in 1960.  The idea was to use the interstellar medium, a jargonesque way of saying all those loose hydrogen molecules floating around in outer space, which would be gobbled up by an enormous electromagnetic scoop.  Art!

     The hydrogen would be compressed until it fused, creating enough energy to propel the ramjet forward.

     That was the theory, and it was taken and run with by sci-fi authors at the time.  Conrad remembers robot ramscoops being mentioned in some of Larry Niven's short stories.

     Problem is, there's vastly less hydrogen knocking around for free in outer space that was realised in 1960.  Ooops.

       On Earth, in an atmosphere, the terrestrial ramjet does not work from a static start; the engine needs to be moving beyond a critical speed before it functions.  Exactly the same applies to the ramscoop, and if you have a method of getting it up to a useful interstellar speed, why bother with the scoop?  Ooops again.

     'Spacedock' does mention a third limitation, that of the exhaust velocity, which cannot be exceeded, meaning there is a hard limit on how fast a ramscoop can travel.  Yes, except the proposed hydrogen fusion method is horribly complex and no velocity is given  or guesstimated.  Art!

     That's the extent of Niven's 'Known Space', as settled by Hom. Sap. using ramscoops.  Just so we're clear.

O Noes!

As a bit of a kicking whilst Manchester Airport is down - Art!

     This is terrible news! 

     Because they'll make up any shortfall by multiplying drop off and car park charges by 1,000%, obvs.  You'll see.  It'll come.

I Know We're Not Supposed To Venture Into Politics

However - that word at last! - if it means puncturing Mister Zeppelin Ego's flabby squamous hide, then I'm all for it.  Art!

"It's not my fault.  It's never my fault.  Covfefe."

     Let me boost the count by adding in a paragraph that will make BOOH wince.

Zohran Mamdani, a pro-Palestinian socialist, was elected the first Muslim mayor of New York City. Democrats Mikie Sherrill and Abigail Spanberger won landslide victories in the New Jersey and Virginia governor races.

     Expect Donold to froth and fume about this, blame everyone and everything bar himself, and threaten to invade the Sanjak of Novi Pazar.

*  The Ruts reference for you there.  Art!