British and Austrian Infantry Advance on Blindheim Village¹ Source
The Battle of Blenheim (which you may or may not have heard of) was the greatest victory of a British general on the continent since Henry V defeated the French at Agincourt some 300 years earlier. It would be eclipsed by the Battle of Waterloo a little over a hundred years later. Which may be why you've never heard of it.
Sir John Churchill, 1st Duke of Marlborough, was a member of the family which gave the world Sir Winston Churchill as well as Diana Spencer, Princess of Wales. (Whose older brother Charles wrote an excellent account of the Battle of Blenheim which I'm nearly done reading.) He's the general you may or may not have heard of and the victor at Blenheim.
In order to rectify any gaps in your knowledge of European history which might exist, I give you the following, from a fellow on YouTube known as The History Chap². Sorry lads and lassies if I've given ye another way to waste time. But history is important. And sometimes it rhymes ...
So yes, I'll be spending some more time with The History Chap and I'm starting to hear from The Muse that the War of the Spanish Succession might be a great setting for a bit of historical fiction. It's a fascinating period in European history what with Louis XIV³ throwing his weight around.
By the way, the aforementioned war was fought because the King of Spain died without leaving an heir. So Louis XIV volunteered his grandson to take that throne. Other European countries, particularly Austria, objected. So, true to European custom (and truth be told, human custom), they fought a war over it, killing thousands to benefit the few.
The "noble" few.
Sigh, there's an old story there. Which is why we Americans threw off that particular yoke.
Do we ever learn?
Hard to say.
Editor's Note: As I write this, it's snowing, again. Yay, sarcastically, of course. It's pretty, but enough already!
¹ Blindheim is known as Blenheim in English.
² The fellow is a great storyteller, though his pronunciation of Bavaria drives me nuts. Then again, I know it as Bayern, not Bavaria, regardless of that latter name's pronunciation. 🙄
³ The Sun King, surely you've heard of him? (Sorry for calling you Shirley ...)
I recall saying I was done posting about the weather last week.
And yet, here we are, another weather post.
We're in for some more snow, maybe, but not all that much. I will say this, modern weather prediction is far more accurate than back in the day. Knowing the variables helps.
Storm might stay further out to sea, which means we don't get much snow. Might slide right up the coast and give us a mix of rain and snow (argh, the worst thing is when it's freezing rain). Or it could go further inland and miss us completely.
Satellites help the weather guessers and they usually get it right, for certain locations on the earth's surface. I've also noted that weather will sometimes get here later than predicted, or earlier than predicted.
It's that butterfly in Beijing flapping it's wings again!¹
Snow aside, we're getting some really low temperatures this weekend. After a week in the Arctic, then this week where temps were closer to normal, the weekend plunges us back into the Arctic. Might see wind chills² of down to -35°!
That's a killing cold if you're outside and unprepared.
I've been out and about at -30° and it was seriously unpleasant. Like "If I don't get inside soon and get warm, I'm going to die" unpleasant. And I was dressed for it!
Think we'll stay hunkered down this weekend.
Another weather prediction I'll be paying attention to, that's for sure.
² Wind Chill is a term used to describe what the air temperature feels like to the human skin due to the combination of cold temperatures and winds blowing on exposed skin. In simple terms, the colder the air temperature and the higher the wind speeds the colder it will feel on your skin if you're outside. So even if it remains the same temperature, but the wind speed increases it will actually feel colder to your skin. Source
Titus Pullo and Lucius Vorenus (Ray Stevenson and Kevin McKidd) Source
One of my favorite series, ever, is Rome, which came out on HBO, in the US, and BBC2, in the UK. With twenty-two episodes overall, the series began in 2005 and ended after the second season in 2007. I understand there was to be a third season but the cost of the thing was just too high to get anyone to sign off on that. Pity, considering the garbage which comes out of Hollywood these days.
An outstanding cast, a well-told story, and very high production values, I daresay, they just don't make them like this anymore. More's the pity.
If you haven't watched it, you should. It's entertaining and doesn't stray all that far from the historical record.
Caesar commands it!
The superb Irish actor, Ciarán Hinds, as ... Gaius Julius Caesar Source
Really, you should make the time to watch this. I've watched all 22 episodes three times and am about to embark upon a fourth viewing. It is really good.
Many are the hours I spend looking for, finding, and watching cool videos on YouTube. With all of the crap that is on the internet in these modern times, YouTube still has some good stuff.
The Australian Armour & Artillery Museum has a number of really great videos on YouTube. They restore and display some of the most iconic vehicles of the World Wars. The Grant tank being one of them. If you chase that link under the opening photo you can watch an hour and a half long video of the restoration of a Grant tank.
While working on that vehicle they had teams looking for parts to restore it, amazingly enough, they found another Grant tank.
A barn find!
Their Workshop Wednesday videos are awesome, I learn something every time I watch one. Here's a taste of those videos ...
Great stuff.
I spend a lot of time on their page, if you like armor and artillery, you should too.
We departed Maryland on Monday morning at approximately 0833 local. Weather was CAVU and bloody cold, roughly 15 (sit down you Northern tier types, we don't want to hear how farking cold it is up there, we're glad it's up there, and not down here). Vehicle was fully fueled and all that was required was a coffee and ration stop (Dunkin').
Once that was done, we set a course for Little Rhody via the Chesapeake Bay Bridge (not to be confused with the Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel, which is much further south). We wanted to avoid Baltimore's rush hour (we did) and the Eastern Shore side of Maryland is pretty, much prettier than the environs of Baltimore. It's very rural, lots of farms and open fields.
As you can see in the opening photo, Annapolis has snow, rather a lot. Thing is though, it's about four inches of packed snow, almost a solid, topped by three to five inches of ice. The stuff is impenetrable, except by anti-tank ammo. Seriously, the stuff is solid and hard as a rock.
The further north we traveled the fluffier the snow got. The quantity varied from perhaps six inches in some areas to one to two feet in Little Rhody. Seriously, we got pounded last weekend. But it was nice light snow, easy to shovel.
How do I know you might ask?
Well, our next door neighbors cleared the driveway for us, which was awesome pulling up to a nice clean driveway after driving 425 miles. As we prepared for extra-vehicular activity, i.e. unloading the car and moving stuff into the house, I noted that the path to the deck and the deck itself were still piled high with virgin snow. Maybe a foot? Maybe less? But there it was.
Fortunately I keep a shovel handy at the back of the deck and within minutes a path was cleared.
OAFS Photo
More will be cleared on the morrow (today as you read this) but after 7.5 hours behind the wheel with a semi-busted up knee, I was in no mood for further physical activity. So I left it, it will still be there when I get up.
Unless it melts.
Fat chance of that happening, seems the polar vortex is planning an extended stay for the month of February.
So it's winter, real winter, like when I was nobbut a lad.
But back then Dad did the shoveling, now I am the Dad.
Bummer.
OAFS Photo
Gotta admit though, the stuff is pretty when viewed in the right light.
Well, the weather down here hasn't been as bad as a lot of other places, Temperatures right at freezing when we wake up. Been topping out in the high 40's . Forecast for this week is highs in the 60's and 70's and lows in the 30's and 40'. Had icy roads when this front first came through, but they cleared up by lunch. So not a really big deal, most people stayed home for a day or at least a morning. Not a lot of meat in that for a posting.
So, anyhow I re-posted a tale from 5 years ago, flying related. Hope you enjoy it.
...Abundance of Caution
Abundance
of Caution. I've only spoken those words once in my life. I was a
student pilot early in the T-37 phase of pilot training. The syllabus
for the ride I was scheduled to fly that day included "Introduction to
Spins and Spin Recovery." This was generally considered the least
favorite mission in the entire syllabus. One would take an airplane up
and intentionally put it out of control, spinning in flat circles with
unexpected pitch up and down moments all the while falling out of the
sky. Literally, the aircraft was no longer flying. On this flight, I
was scheduled with an IP whose callsign was IronMan. He had been an
F-105 pilot with a couple of tours you know where.
Been
there, done that, got all the respect that he deserved. But...He
didn't put up with much BS, you either knew your S*** and executed it
properly or you didn't pass the ride. And...
You re-flew it with him!
So, we're in the briefing for the mission. He asks me to recite the bold faced Emergency Procedure for Spin Recovery.
Bold
Faced procedures are required to be memorized perfectly, down to the
punctuation and spacing. Students would be selected at the Flight
Briefing at the start of the flying period (as opposed to academic
period) and given a hypothetical flying situation. Most required bold
face. If the bold face was incorrect (e.g. not perfect), the student
would be told "Sit Down!" and he'd be grounded for the day.
That tended to mark you for further inquiry if you actually "Knew your S***" or were just bluffing.
I manage to recite the spin recovery procedure to IronMan successfully.
Throttles – Idle Rudder and Ailerons – Neutral Stick – Abruptly full aft and hold Rudder – Abruptly apply full rudder opposite spin direction (opposite turn needle) and hold Stick – Abruptly full forward one turn after applying rudder Controls – Neutral after spinning stops and recover from dive Yes, 47 years after the fact, I did that from memory. Although I confirmed the accuracy here. (A short post with some additional entertaining commentary, go read it. I'll wait.)
So,
IronMan and I start to talk about the mission and how we'll go about
it. He'll demonstrate the first spin and recovery then it'll be me.
Suffice it to say, I'm nervous.
You might understand why.
Airborne, we set up for the spin. Ironman has the throttles at about 80% and the nose about 45o
high. The stall warning horn is going off like crazy, the airplane is
shaking and finally stalls. Ironman then steps on a rudder as it stalls
to induce yaw.
My eyes are about as big as basketballs now.
He holds the controls as they are for three complete turns.
I now have a good idea how long eternity is.
He
executes the bold face, the aircraft recovers in a dive and he smoothly
pulls it out of that. Hands it over to me. We climb back up
I pull the throttles back, nose up, it stalls and pitches down. I immediately do the bold face and recover.
He
snatches the aircraft from me asks me "WTF was that?" I said, "out of
an abundance of caution I thought I'd try an easy one first."
He replied "My Aircraft". We flew home and landed. I've busted my first & last ride in UPT.
He
said a pilot can and must use caution in performing the mission.
However, accomplishing the mission is his first priority and too much
caution is not acceptable. One is always at risk when flying.
He then went and scratched out the student he was flying with that afternoon and wrote my name in.
I was peeved. I'll show this SOB! We get up in the air. He asks if I want him to demo another one.
"NO, sir"
I
entered the spin, held it for four turns (I'll show him!) executed the
bold face and even managed to recover from the dive without exiting the
bottom of the airspace. Which would have been an automatic Flight
Safety Bust.
Got
back on the ground. Got an excellent on the ride. Found out later
that he'd been key to my getting a fighter out of Pilot Training.
We
flew a lot more together in the program. I learned a lot from him but
having an "Abundance of Caution" was not on the curriculum.
Here's a longer version of Spin Training, but does include what it looks like from another airplane.
So, what brought this up, juvat? Got a little bit behind the power curve on the posting timeline, so had to publish a replay. Why you ask?
Did a walk through of our property Friday with the Builder. He's got the property clearing team ready with the dozers and stuff. They're going to take down a limited number of mature trees and virtually all the undergrowth.
Just a tad bit of pruning needed. Let's get started!
Oh yeah, he's also going to take down the old house and cart that debris away also.
Tuttle pointed out that block of ice out by the street the other day. Later on, when The Nuke and Your Humble Scribe went out to fetch BBQ for the tribe, there were a lot of those ice monoliths everywhere.
Last Sunday we started with snow, by the time I got up (9-ish) it was sleet, around noon it was light rain and as it was still very cold, that drizzly rain froze when it landed. By sunset we had a thin glaze of ice on everything. Fortunately there wasn't much of that.
But the parts of streets, roads, driveways, and so forth that hadn't been plowed (or treated) wound up with a good inch or two of ice on top of the snow. So when the town (and state) got out from under all the snow on the main roads and came back to plow the neighborhoods once more, the plows were lifting up those frozen monoliths depicted above.
The Nuke went into work on Wednesday and saw that someone had collected a number of those ice blocks and had built an igloo! I'm guessing it was kids and not that the Inuit were tracking polar bears and seals this far south.
But ya never know!
The knee is better, gets a bit better every day and I'm happy with that. I have avoided walking on ice since then. Should have avoided it altogether but my attention wandered and BAM, next thing you know I'm on the ground wondering just what I was thinking.
I mean, I grew up in this stuff, walking on (as is driving on) ice is not possible without special equipment. Armored fighting vehicles weighing in at nearly 70 tons will slide on that slippery stuff.
Par exemple ...
I mean I'm fairly hefty but nowhere near as hefty as an Abrams, those bad boys slide on ice too. But they don't tip over like I did ...
It's the end of January, nearly the beginning of February, so ...
At first the weather report said multiple inches of snow in the Annapolis area (I don't remember the exact amount, might have been six inches) and about the same up in Little Rhody. Perhaps more. Also high winds, 20 sustained with gusts up to fifty or sixty mph.
The Missus Herself overheard Tuttle and Your Humble Scribe discussing the weather possibilities ...
"We shall leave on Friday!"
"But honey ..."
"I have spoken."
I waited a while, then pointed out that upon arrival in Little Rhody on Friday it was forecast to be below zero. A chance of heavy snow and high winds on Sunday.
"We don't have a generator. dear."
"I know that."
"Chez Tuttle et Nuke has a generator."
"And ..."
"If we lose power ..."
"We lost power before, three days."
"The outside temperature was in the low 30s. It's going to be subzero during this storm, possibly. The indoor temperature dropped to the low 40s during that storm. Tolerable with a coat or a blanket. This time it's going to be colder if we lose power. Much colder."
"Hhmm, maybe we can stay until later then."
"Yes, like maybe Monday."
I got a dirty look, but it was followed by a thoughtful one.
Friday dawns and the weather says no snow in Annapolis, no snow to maybe an inch in our area of Little Rhody. Supposed to be a bit windy on Sunday, that's it. In other words, a normal winter day on the coast.
So yeah, we're leaving Sunday, as originally planned.
If the weather changes?
I don't care, we'll go where we need to go.
As for the knee? Still sore as hell but getting better. It doesn't ache constantly, which it did yesterday, even with Advil onboard. So things are looking up.
As my old sergeant used to say, "I wonder what will go wrong next?"
It's sore, but there's no swelling. A single Advil and I'm good to go.
Really looking forward to sitting behind the wheel for seven to eight hours today.
But The Missus Herself has spoken and I must bend the knee.
Ah, Hell no.
(I can bend it, would just rather not.)
See you on the flip side.
Update:
Return to base has been postponed due to possibility of a nor'easter on Sunday. Nothing predicted for Maryland, but Little Rhody might see snow and high winds. I'd rather be south with a generator than north without one.
Departure day depends on the forecast, after all, it ain't like I have to go to work, right?
Whilst out and about¹ to inspect the driveway I was told that one part was okay, the rest was like an ice rink.
Me, Mr. Vermonter and supposedly knowing better, decided to check the slippery bit. Long story short, body went one way, lower left leg went t'other.
While hitting the ground, no damage there, I fall gracefully, I felt a stretch in the inner ligament running beside my left knee. Stretched the hell out of it. Hurt like hell, felt nauseous for a moment.
Couldn't get up, it was that slippery. Had Tuttle drag me to the walkable part of the drive where I was able to regain my feet. Decided that "fun time outside" was now officially over and I withdrew to the house to ice that knee.
Yes, it hurts sometimes to get old.
Hurts worse when you realize that your motor skills ain't what they used to be.
I'll be offline for a few days.
The Muse saw me fall and said, "Eff that, I'm outta here."
Tuesday was spent hanging out with the grandkids and digging Blue¹ out of the ice. The weather guessers are postulating yet another big snow storm this coming weekend. The weekend we had planned on heading north. The Missus Herself has decided that we will travel on Friday. In order to "miss" the snow. Maybe an inch here, maybe a foot up there.
Who knows?
I sure don't, but she has spoken and I can but obey.
I tried pointing out that we have a generator here, we don't there ...
I fought the law and the law won.
Remember the book, Almost a Lifetime, ya know, the one I keep promising to get published, some day?
Yeah, that one. Still in the plan. However, as I like writing more than I do researching "how to publish a book," I wrote a prequel to Almost a Lifetime. Which goes by the working title of The Prequel. Yes, I will eventually change the name.
I'm editing that one now, because I want to write more. And I will. I'm looking at a trilogy, maybe more. Depends on my mood, mostly.
You can read both books in their raw form here on the blog. One you can find here, the other you cannot, doing all those links takes time dontcha know, and back then I had a regular job, and not much time to do all those links.
Bottom line, you'll have to hunt for it, start here, that's the first chapter of the prequel. I'd help more, but I'm incredibly lazy, more so since I retired. C'est la vie!
Things are nice and quiet here at Chez Tuttle et Nuke for the most part. The boys get a little rowdy at times (no school yet to help them burn off energy) but hey, that's what I get paid for. (What's that? I don't get paid? This is volunteer work? Okay, they're good boys, I can live with that.)
The bruises will heal and perhaps teach this old man not to try and keep up with a five year old and a three year old. I'll know when I'm really old, that's when the boys beat me in a fair fight! (No, I don't play fair now, they've got me outnumbered!)
And now the driveway is clear! OAFS Photo
Ciao!
¹ Blue is my 2020 Honda Pilot, a fine vehicle she is. She is blue in color, hence the name. Clever lad ain't I?
It's hard to tell from the official weather guesser websites but all told it looks like the Annapolis area received anywhere from 7 to 10 inches of snow on Sunday. Using the MK I Mod 0 eyeball, my estimate is 9 inches at my location, before the sleet and freezing rain began. Fortunately that latter event started later than predicted and also ended earlier than predicted.
So we had that going for us.
As you can see, both above and below, the street across the way did NOT get plowed, Sunday OR Monday. The main street through the neighborhood probably had at least five plows and/or sand/salt trucks go up and down on Sunday. That street is pretty clear, the side streets?
Not so much.
Monday OAFS Photo
Another key thing is that we didn't lose power during the storm. However, we did lose it for an hour or so BEFORE the storm.
The Nuke was preparing Tuttle's birthday supper when everything shut down. Took a while to get the generator up and running, the CO detector kept shutting it down. Apparently that enclosure needs a bit more work. But we did stay powered up, as the stove takes a lot of power, we opted to order pizza.
Apparently the pizza place was running low on tomato sauce so they skimped on that rather than tell anyone. As a result, the pizzas semi-sucked. First world problem, neh?
As to the loss of power, seems a squirrel had crossed two wires or something, toasting itself and blowing the power. Bummer, I've seen that happen.
We stayed warm and cozy on Sunday, watched a lot of football, and woke up to a sunny cold day on Monday. Everyone worked from home (except Your Humble Scribe of course) and the kids had no school.
So Monday was also calm and cozy.
We're just waiting for the sun to melt the ice on top of the remaining snow in the driveway to clear that up.
I'm not sure how Little Rhody fared, they got a lot more snow than Maryland though, of that I'm certain.
The long range forecast is looking at more snow, next weekend.
Given the weather forecast for this past weekend, Electrical Power was kinda "iffy". No power, no posting. So...You get a repeat from a few years ago.
No, Beans, this post has
nothing to do with crack pipes. The idea came to me while reading a link I found
on Instapundit a while back. The post
was fairly interesting as it discussed a proposal to modify F-15E's to
carry a 45' long missile and launch it at altitude and speed.
Currently, most of a missile's fuel is used getting it off the ground
and up to an altitude. Launching it from altitude and speed would
alleviate that problem.
What caught my eye were a couple of things. First, this.
The F-15D, at the top, ~35 years ago had my name painted on the canopy rail. Glad to see she's still around and kicking.
The second thing that caught my eye was the launch profile they proposed to use.
I recognized it immediately. It's called the Rutowski Climb profile. For those of you who are engineering oriented, here's a detailed description. For those of you German Engineers, try this one out. And for those of you with a Naval background, here's one for you.
Basically,
the objective is to get as much altitude and speed as possible in the
least amount of time. It was theorized and developed in the 70's as a
means to defend against the MiG-25 Foxbat, a very fast, high flying
fighter. (That was proven to be somewhat overrated when Viktor Belenko defected in one in '76).
In
any case, the F-15 was used to test the theory and did so by busting
several time to climb records in the Streak Eagle program. Most of
those records still stand.
I recognized it, because while stationed at Kadena, we practiced it because the Russian's had the MiG 25 in the area and it was rumored that the North Koreans had some also.
So,
we would practice the maneuver pretty regularly. We referred to them
as the "High Fast Profile". Our target referred to that portion of
their mission as the "Low, Slow Profile".
We
would intercept them as they returned to Kadena from "parts unknown".
We'd orbit in the mid 30's saving gas and GCI would commit us to the
intercept at about 200 miles. Suffice it to say, they were WELL above
us.
We'd turn hot,
light the burners and begin the climb profile. We'd push over to 0 g.
(Basically, Beans, my 200 Lb (then...now +) body would be weightless.)
The engines were at max and we'd continue that descent until we were
well above the Mach.
Then
we'd pull it into a climb to gain as much altitude as possible when we
reached weapons range. Timing of this maneuver was absolutely crucial.
Closure rates of 2000NM/hour were regular. To put that in layman's
terms, that's 33.3 Nautical miles/minute or ~1 mile every 2 seconds. So
the intercept is either made or missed in less than 400 seconds.
So,
yeah, we practiced the Rutowski Climb profile....a lot. In fact the
highest I've ever been was the result of one. GCI turned me hot at
about 190NM. (They needed training also, newish guy on the scope,
didn't realize that 10 NM is critical.) Typically, the climb angle was
about 45o and the target indicator would be steady in the
HUD. That was not the case on this intercept, it was moving towards the
top of the HUD.
So,
me being me, I kept pulling, making my climb angle steeper and
steeper. I pass through 50k' as he passes above me (Well Above) and I'm
nearly vertical. About this time, I learn an important lesson. Jet
engines need air to run. In addition, the flight controls need air to
function. There is very little air above 50K'.
In
short I'm riding a bullet with nothing to do until gravity takes pity
on me and begins pulling me back to Earth. That happened at 78,123' on
my altimeter. The sky was very dark and the SR-71 was a reddish-white.
The GCI guy and I reviewed my video tape in private. No sense in causing consternation in our higher ups.
And THAT is why I recognized the Rutowski Climb Profile immediately.
Little Rhody is probably going to get a metric butt ton of snow. Here in Annapolis, less than originally forecast but we might have the extraordinary pain-in-the-ass ice storm, as in freezing rain. Much more to be feared as trees collapse, power lines come down, and cats and dogs start living together! (Shades of the apocalypse!)
The weather guessers are, of course, freaking out, at least trying to get us to freak out.
Back in the day it was about giving us information, these days? Who knows what their game is.
Hates them we does.
Just report the data you a-holes.
Well, enough of that.
Eyes are tired from the drive on Friday, with my eyes I need to keep them lubricated. The drops for my glaucoma dry them up something fierce. And guess what I forgot to do on Friday?
Yup. Forgot to douse the Mk I Mod 0 Eyeball system with Refresh Tears when stopping for fuel/pee/food/stretch-our-legs breaks during the drive. So I'm paying the price on Saturday. Perhaps I need a version of "Bitching Betty" for my car which will periodically announce, "Eyeballs, eyeballs, eyeballs."
Yeah, I need that now. Perhaps Google could add it to their map software. Yeah, that would be great.
I've been awfully lax in the blogging arena lately. Bear with me, inspiration is bound to return at some point. I think the Muse decided to flee the country until this winter storm passes.
We arrived safe and sound at our destination, fast by the shore of the South River in Annapolis.
Traffic wasn't bad, just the normal collection of yahoos weaving in and out of traffic, making you feel like a bomber pilot when the Luftwaffe is up in full strength, people who have no clue about merging or yielding to traffic on the interstate.
Ya know, driving in the US of A.
But we're here, there's a fire in the fireplace, the grandkids are happy, and life is good.
Now to sleep, perchance to dream ...
¹ The Eagle Has Landed - With apologies to Jack Higgins (who wrote the book) and the cast and crew of the 1976 film of that name.
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