You KNEW That Pun Was Going To Emerge At Some Point
Now it has, so we can all be happy. For Lo! we are back on the subject of Teuton zeppelins in the First Unpleasantness, which we left only half-finished at our last visit. First of all, we are going to go off at a partial tangent, thanks to the need to create clickbait interest. Art!
The band themselves are featured, being the three sitting down and the one to starboard, the art director having superimposed their faces upon a real WW1 photograph of a Teuton fighter 'Jasta'. The Zeppelin is more an absence than a presence here.
Okay, back to the real thing. I am drawing upon Wiki, Indi Neidell of 'The Great War' and Ian Stewart's 'Zeppelins, Gothas and Giants' website.
1916 had been the high-water mark of the zeppelin raids upon This Sceptred Isle, forcing the government to get their act together with an accumulation of anti-aircraft guns, searchlights, telephone networks, radio eavesdropping and dedicated night-fighter squadrons. Art!
One of 306 bombing raids carried out over Great Britain and the North Sea, where the zeppelins were used as long range scouts, mine-spotters and to generally try to challenge the Royal Navy's own personal backwater. Art!
One of 971 sojourns
One of the vagaries of a rigid dirigible airship such as the zeppelin was it's vulnerability to weather, since it had such a vast surface area for winds to act upon. Not only that, their captains were always trying to hit ever-higher altitudes to keep out of gun range or scout interceptors, which, joined with trying to make headway against strong winds, tended to cause engine failure. One engine down of six might be sustainable, but not more than that; the zeppelins tried to bomb during night time to make their job easier and that of the British much harder, and losing more than one engine would slow the gas bag sufficiently that it would not be able to get away before dawn. Art!
Count Orlok feels your pain, zep
As previously mentioned, the British came up with increasingly horrid types of bullets for use against the giant gasbags, ending with 'Buckingham' incendiary ammunition, which had a phosphorous core that burned at over 800ยบ C. Anormal machine gun bullet would merely pierce one of the hydrogen cells if it hit, but a Buckingham would ignite the hydrogen and send the zeppelin down in flames. This took a great deal of the fun out of being a Teuton zeppelin crewman, who might have to make the judgement of whether to burn or jump. Ded zeppelin indeed.
Let us take a closer look at the zeppelin activity o'er Perfidious Albion in 1917. Art!
On 16/17th March 5 zeppelins attempted to carry out bombing raids in the south and south east of England, but struggled against strong winds and heavy cloud cover, causing very little damage. One of the five was forced by weather over French territory near Compiegne, and was shelled by three anti-aircraft batteries until it crashed in flames, all the crew being killed. Art!
On the night of 23/24th May, six zeppelins came to attack London but thanks to high winds at altitude, were forced to bomb random targets across the south east, once again causing very little damage - there is much talk of 'broken windows' and 'bombs exploded in a field'. The poor visibility that shielded them from the scrambled night fighters of the Royal Flying Corps and Royal Naval Air Service also prevented them from bombing with any accuracy at all.
They were back in June, on the night of 16/17th, where of 6 gasbags, only two managed to reach England, again prevented from progress thanks to the weather. Not only that, L48 was shot down. She had struggled with engine problems and a frozen compass all night, meaning the British night fighters were able to catch up with her and shoot her down in flames. Art!
Amazingly, 3 of the crew survived
The zeppelin's swan-song in 1917 was another damp squib of a mission, where 5 of the 11 despatched had to turn back and return to Germany. The remaining 6 wildly mis-identified the towns and harbours they attacked, and tended to immediately turn and run for cloud cover as soon as British anti-aircraft guns opened fire.
In fact during 1917 the Teutons had turned to their very large 'Gotha' bomber as a far cheaper and less flammable substitute for the zeppelin, which was able to bomb in daylight with little fear of interception. A Gotha cost about $15,000, whereas the cheapest Teuton zeppelin, the L1 model, cost £300,000, and the very latest model, the LZ53, cost £890,000. Thus, a swarm of thirty Gothas could reliably get to London and bomb it in daylight, meaning they could accurately spot targets.
Which is another story for a different kitchen.
GOLMAN IS ANGRY!
This is unusually abstemious for him, usually there's a lot more four-letter words included. He was fulminating on 5th July about the Omsk refinery, the biggest one in the whole of Mordorvia. Art!
Yes, this is the Omsk refinery, 2.5 thousand kilometres from Ukraine, hit by as many as 12 drones because, after all, what could possibly go wrong? I fear tomorrow's obituaries in the Ruffian media will feature a middle-aged man with a large beard, who died from a rage-induced stroke after punching a hole in his laptop monitor. Art!
That most Ruffian of tropes, memes and behaviours, The Endless Petrol Queue, has now arrived in Omsk, where the locals are desperate to adopt this latest fashion imported from western Mordorvia. Don't get the impression that this will lead to bonding between Benzin beasts; quite the opposite. Art!
Words were exchanged, a milkshake was thrown, a mess was made and a windscreen was smashed in. All free entertainment. Bring your own popcorn*.
No Small Feat
You ought to recall that we here at BOOJUM! are always, always, always seeking to traduce and mock Mopey Dick The Orange Land Whale, and let's face it, he's always been low-hanging fruit. In fact, here's another hideous photo of his sagging sepia sackbut scr - O no, sorry, it's his face. Art!
The lights are on yet there's nobody home. That embroidered name patch is to remind him what his name is.
ANYWAY the person who makes Donold look healthy by comparison is the ex-Majority Leader in the Senate, Mitch McConnell. He is at least 189 years old and looks older, and had the misfortune to undergo a mental 'freeze' in front of cameras a couple of years ago, which nobody has allowed him to forget, least of all us tasteless termagants at the blog. Art!
The reason folks dislike Macca is because he refused to move forward with impeaching DJ Tango on the second occurrence, which would have saved everyone a whole lot of bother.
Macca has been missing in action for days now, with EMTs called to his residence to deal with an unconscious person, meaning -
Well, a few cynics amongst South Canadian political observers reckon the Wizard Lizard Gizzard party will try and pretend he's fine for as long as possible, to avoid having to run an election to fill the empty seat. 'Weekend At Bernie's' kind of vibe.
A Leading Question
Conrad is unsure for whom the recently released 'Supergirl' film was made, as it certainly wasn't him and he has no plans to ever watch it. I have high hopes for the 'Rogue Trooper' animated film in the offing that a couple of verrrry picky film critics have given a definite thumbs up. But 'Supergirl'? No thanks. Art!
Finally -
The ginger beer is now frothing slightly and producing it's own carbonation. Just so you know.
* And possibly a gun, as has already happened.
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