You Might Expect One Of Two Things
First, if you were a sci-fi saddo (a badge you ought to wear with honour!) then you'd immediately jump to the conclusion that Your Humble Scribe was talking about the technology as seen in 'Starry Trex: The Next Iteration', which, if Art will put down his bowl of coal -
This is a 'replicator', although it's really a synthesizer, which can make anything in terms of food, drink, clothing, etcetera, where 'etcetera' has hard limits. They cannot synthesize any living matter, so no chance of a spare kidney, and certain extremely complex compounds cannot be replicated.
Conrad, ever the cautionary cynic, wonders what would happen if you ordered it to make you a kilo of diacetyl morphine - better known as heroin - or trinitrtoluene - better known as TNT? It would probably jib and request whatever passes for the law in STTNI. Art!
Pink Floyd's Rick Wright setting up his keyboard and synthesizer rack for their live tour of 'Wish You Were Here'. Roger Waters, Nick Mason and Dave Gilmour in the background. They revolutionised prog with their use of the EMI Synthi AKS on 'Dark Side Of The Moon'.
BUT NO! For we are instead in this Intro going to look at how fuel shortages influenced the strategies and operations of Nazi Germany during the Second Unpleasantness. I realise this is a long way from prog and sci-fi television, but bear with me and we'll get there. Eventually.
For this Intro I've drawn upon 'Out Of The Trenches', 'History on Youtube', 'Plain Folk Homestead' and 'British Pathé News' and my own calcified memories. So, Art!
The Teutons knew that they lacked the fuel resources for a long war, so whatever conflict they began needed to be short, which went well in the conquest of Eastern and Western Europe. It began to break down in North Africa and completely collapsed when they invaded the Sinister Union in June 1941, because they imported 70% of their oil from - you may be ahead of me here - the Sinister Union, and Romania. Once Operation Barbarossa began, oil from the Sinisters ended, leaving only the Ploesti oilfield to carry the load, which was simply not enough. Art!
Zollverein mine, the Ruhr
The Tuetons had vast coal reserves but almost no oil. Nor could they import it via tankers, as the Royal Navy took a verrrry close interest in shipping travelling to Germany. What could they do about this? Well, one thing was to aim for the oilfields of the Caucasus, deep inside the Sinister Union, and there were oil drilling equipments accompanying the Teutons in their march on Stalingrad and environs further south. A few of their reconnaissance unit got to see Baku in the middle distance but that was as far as Sinister oil supplies got. Therefore, industry had to come up with artificial substitutes for oil and rubber. Art!
ANYWAY by start of 1944 - the fifth year of the war, which rings a distant bell about contemporary matters - the Teuton fuel situation had been partially alleviated, thanks to the efforts of Albert Speer, Reich Minister for Armaments. He had put in place an enormous industrial effort to synthesize oil from coal, using the Bergius process. Art!
By late 1943 these plants were producing 30% of Germany's overall fuel requirements, and 90% of aviation fuel, which is quite impressive yet not nearly good enough. Speer himself admitted that they needed at least three times the industrial capacity to manage, preferably four times. Art!
Behold the Leuna Werke, the largest oil synthesis plant in the world, which at peak in early 1944 alongside the other plants was producing 400,000 tons of fuel per month.
Here enter the Giant Flying Mallets of the RAF and USAF, intent on executing their 'Oil Plan', which meant blamming the synthetic oil plants off the map, which they did very effectively. By May of 1944 monthly production was down to 156,000 tons, and by July just 20,000 tons. Leuna was eventually bombed 22 times, and any Ruffian refinery manager getting to read this will be nodding in sympathy. Art!
Increasingly, from mid-1944 onwards, Teuton tank crews began to abandon their panzers if they ran out of petrol, only pausing to sabotage them if pursuit was still safely distant. Luftwaffe pilots had to put up with a severely truncated training schedule thanks to insufficient aviation fuel to permit them to be properly trained. During the Ardennes offensive, part of the Teuton planning was based on capturing enough South Canadian fuel to continue their advance. Hot tip: they did not capture enough SC fuel to advance. Art!
By the end of August 1944 the Sinisters had over-run Ploesti, meaning no more oil for the Teutons. There was one last fillip for the Nazis: Hungary's own domestic oil production, which amounted to 850,000 tons per year, and which was so crucial to Herr Schickelgruber that he ordered a desperate offensive in March 1945 to keep them out of Sinister hands.
On top of all this, the Teutons were obliged to send fuel to Italy whilst it was still under even partial Fascist control, as it had absolutely no oil of it's own.
There you have it. Synthesizing.
More Gentle Shoeing
This time, however, just to be different, we're going to be mocking Peter The Average rather than his bloated zeppelin-ego protegé. We are now entering the fifth year of the Three-Day Special Idiotic Operation and the stress is telling on Ol' Putin Khoilo. Art!
He looks pretty haggard, as he has done so since his visit to tug the forelock and lick the shoes of Xi, absent flattering lighting and makeup. He's probably overdue for another round of botox to render him Charlie Chipmunk Cheeks the Puffy-Phaced Petrol Pimp. Just imagine the stress he's under, the poor dear!
Pump It Up
Or, more appropriately, down. Art!
I don't expect anyone under the age of 60 to recognise this from first time around, when Elvis rather burst upon the scene out of nowhere and is still around and relevant.
HOWEVER - a word you surely knew was coming - that has nothing to do with the next images I am going to post. Art!
Another queue in Mordorvia, where the orcs optimistically hope that there'll be some fuel left when they get to the pumps. Plot twist: this isn't Krim, it's Sankt Petersbug, the official second city of Mordovia where there are now limits on the amount of fuel you can have, a total of 20 litres per car. Conrad is somewhat bemused, because Putinpot would normally ensure the Buggians are able to get as much petrol as they want, them being second city citizens and all. Art!
An orc posting from Novorossiyisk, where he visited 7 petrol stations and none had any petrol. The handwritten sign is Cyrillic for 'No'.
To quote him: "Novorossiysk has learned to live without water, electricity and internet. But how do you live without gasoline?" which is editing out all his swearing as every other word is 'Blyat'.
Time to get a bicycle, mate.
You've Got To Be Flipping Kidding!
OR
Peter Gabriel Was Right All Along!
I happened to be perusing posts on Twitter and came across one that I will blatantly copy and paste from.
Sosnovsky's hogweed — a toxic plant introduced across Soviet agriculture in the mid-20th century — is quietly conquering Russian territory at a rate no NATO alliance has managed. The numbers: → 93,000+ hectares of Russian agricultural land currently infested
Art!
We've covered the Hogweed before, since it was introduced to Great Britain (Ha! take that, Lavrov!) in the nineteenth century and has no natural competition here in This Sceptred Isle. The chap above in a NBC protection suit with goggles and stout gloves is merely being sensible, as the sap and stem and flowers and in fact every part of this proto-Triffid can cause severe chemical burns, only slightly less intense than mustard gas.
One has to wonder what on earth the Sinisters were thinking, introducing it into their countryside.
Finally -
Going out with a Biercism.
"Witch, n: 1) An ugly and repulsive old woman, in a wicked league with the devil; 2) A beautiful and attractive young woman, in wickedness a league beyond the devil."
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