I Know What You're Thinking
If it comes from a tree then it has to be a stick, unless we're talking about the adhesive kind of sticky, except we're not. Art!
That's 'Loggy sticks of doom', using that old trope from 'Doctor Who' where they stuck 'Doom' at the end of every serial title. 'Loggy sticks' only generated a picture of twigs, you see.
ANYWAY that's the best way to introduce a subject that normally makes people fall asleep when you open a discussion: Logistics. SIT BACK DOWN! Allow me to consult my 'Collins Concise English Dictionary' on this. "Logistics, n: the science of the movement, supplying and maintenance of military forces in the field." From the French <cheers loudly that it's not Greek or Latin> 'logistique', derived from 'loger' meaning 'to lodge'. Art!
I am now two chapters into this work, having already read 'Supplying The British Army In The Second World War', which was a very thorough examination. That cover illo above is indicative of a couple of home truths; artillery was critical and horses were vital. Ol' Jan includes a few excellent organisation charts that I haven't seen anywhere else. Art!
Here's a schematic showing how an Army Corps (three infantry divisions plus lots of attached units) was supplied, from a Base Depot. Being more specific, this would be at least 30,000 men and possibly up to 54,000 if both divisions were at full strength, with around 1,800 horses.
The volume of corps supplies meant that they were sent to the railhead by train, where they were offloaded onto trucks. Art!
These are trucks of a Divisional Supply Column, moving supplies to a refilling point, where the supplies are offloaded onto horsed transport, for forward movement to each of the three infantry divisions. Somewhat confusingly they call the horse columns 'Company Trains'. Each infantry division was constituted of three brigades, so one supply column is destined to each brigade, with a separate supply column for Brigade HQ. Art!
Those are General Service wagons, a large four-wheeled wagon, during the war's early years, as nobody is wearing a Brodie-pattern helmet. Art!
Here's a breakdown of supply to one of the three Brigades, and they mention four battalions per brigade, which means this chart is before the 1918 reduction of brigades to three battalions. That blobby blur to port is on the photograph itself, Conrad is not quite that messy with his pens and inks.
ANYWAY AGAIN the solid lines are noted as being 'Transport by Divisional train carts', or wagons and horses. The dotted lines are noted as being 'Hand transport by company ration parties over rough ground and communication trenches.' You can see, before the dotted lines reach that point, that ration bags are made up in the rear, co-located with the field cookers, where hot meals were prepared. Art!
That's a ration party moving forward. Just to be clear, the communication trenches they mention were long, undefended and fairly straight trenches perpendicular to the front line trenches, allowing men to approach under cover. The problem for a ration party is that the communication trenches might be crowded, or there might be shelling along the way, meaning a delay and rations arriving cold. Not a problem for 'bully beef', not so great if it was stew or tea. Art!
Fray Bentos corned beef
Actually, this illustrates the Directorate of Supply chart's complexity. 'Fray Bentos' is the name of a town in Uruguay, a fact which I only just discovered. The 'Frigorifico Anglo' industrial plant there provided this corned beef to the United Kingdom pre-war and continued to do so for the duration of the First Unpleasantness.
I hope you're not bored by this Intro, because we are going to be hearing more about Ol' Jan's work, O yes indeed.
Illegal But Interesting
Unless you live off the grid in the middle of the Amazon rain forest, you can hardly have failed to notice that the South Canadians kidnapped 'Five Dinners' Maduro on Saturday, in what is a blatantly illegal act.
Having said that, the vatniks of Mordorvia are frothing with rage for several reasons. One of them, hilariously, is that this is illegally attacking a sovereign nation, the irony of which is lost on them. Another is that the Delta Force operation was over in 3 hours with nil casualties to them, a horribly embarrassing example of how to do a combined-arms assault properly. Thirdly, Ruffian air defence equipment worked as well as it does in Ukraine and Ruffia, which is to say, not at all. Art!
'Suchomimus' on Youtube did a recent update with geolocations and pictures. What you see above, barely, is one of the Chinooks returning to it's carrier over burning Venezuelan sites that had already been smacked by airstrikes. Interestingly, Maduro was kidnapped from his Presidential bunker in the hills, not from his palace. Art!
Before and after
There were CIA people on the ground who knew exactly where Five Dinners was, and directed the operators onto the target. They probably also spotted the Venezuelan SAM systems and reported in their location, because they were supressed - for which read 'given a right shoeing' - first thing. Sucho put up a couple of pictures showing these being in a state of disassembly. Art!
Ruffia sent a couple of Il-76 transport planes to Caracas late last year, which might have been these SAM systems. Ooops.
How and on what grounds the South Canadians will prosecute Five Dinners remains to be seen, which I look forward to.
Why 'Five Dinners'? Because he's a greedy twod who posted on Youtube about flying to a Turkish haute cuisine restaurant for a meal, well aware that most Venezuelans live on the border of famine. It caused such an uproar it was deleted, but Conrad has a long memory.
Over 30 Feet Is Dangerous
We've covered this before. I mean jumping into water from above 30 feet gets increasingly dangerous the higher you go. This is why idiots jumping from Durdle Door suffer injuries or get knocked out cold and drown.
Here we meet another Darwin Award winner, Johnny Jumper. This was during Spring Break and involved college students, so alcohol may have been involved. Art!
Witness said that JJ tried to jump from his hotel room into the pool, from the fourth floor. This meant needing to jump about 15 feet horizontally. Rather than test within the room whether he can jump 15 feet, JJ goes right out the window. 'The sound of him bouncing into the water is haunting'. He lingered for two days in the ICU then died. Art!
Courtesy the Beeb
Progress Report
Conrad is now well into Episode 3 of 'Zomvivor', the Thai zombie thriller set in a university, which is pretty good. They do follow the old trope of 'How can I possibly kill the loved one who is now a zombie?' and I'll illustrate this. Art!
Don't worry, mate, there's another chap there with an axe and he's got no previous relationship with the zombie. Art!
Problem solved.
Notice, also, that in the first photograph everyone is carrying a weapon. That's what I like about these protagonists; they are intelligent and questioning graduate students, who observe and reason about what the zombies are and how they behave. Art!
Hmmm. Implying that a zombie apocalypse in the UK would be more of a minor inconvenience than the end of civilisation as we know it?
A Bad Day For Dictators
You may recall Assad The Chinless Twod, whose regime fell in about a week, whom is now lurking in Moscow. That meant the Ruffians lost Syria as an ally. Then Maduro gets his collar felt. Now, revolt in Iran, across the whole country. Art!
I wonder if Bunker Grandad is getting nervous? Tee hee!
Finally -
To end with a Biercism.
'Sequestrate, n: A legal term for robbing the under dog in the fight.'
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