Agua Perdido

Trouble your Rent-a-car self to send me a turn, you lazy git.</font>

Stop punning and send me a goddam turn you drooling old crone. And the rest of you disappointments who followed me (I'm looking at you, Lars, you girly-drink drunk... we will exchange some Die-a-lot next month and I will have my revenge!) are just jealous that I cheat well enough to beat Jabos! as Axis. Agua Perdido

The COMFY CHAIR?! Agua Perdido [Edited to note that Croda is a brainless prat, which I have been woefully remiss in noting lately.] [ August 14, 2002, 10:09 AM: Message edited by: Agua Perdido ]

Yeah, but it's something like, "Our liege is a fumbling twit who can't recall what side he's playing in a pbem, doesn't send you a fecking turn for weeks and weeks, then finally (after much prodding and abuse) sends you back the same goddam file you sent him weeks and weeks ago, but only after first whining that he had already sent said incorrect file, when in fact he had merely confused his in-box with his out-box (down, Bauhaus!)," except in Latin or somefink. Agua Perdido PS: Joe, send me the right feckin' turn, already! You, too, jdmorse. I see you skulking back there.

Dammit, Shaw, quit fingering the SSN's necks for Adam's apples (when you should be lining 'em up for the axe) and send me a feckin' turn! Agua Perdido

Are you actually daft enough to suppose that is an accident?</font>

No, Bauhaus, he didn't mean in the biblical sense. For either of them. At least I hope he didn't. UPDATES! Joe Shaw: Where's my frickin' turn? jdmorse: Where's my frickin' turn? stevetherat: Where's my frickin' turn? Those generic dozens waiting for me to get off my arse and send them a frickin' turn: Sod orf! Agua Perdido

This oft-misunderstood "rule of thumb" (as I understand it) refers to needing 5 Shermans to kill a German heavy with minimum risk (that is, loss of 0-1 Shermans in the process). It does not mean that the Allied player has to sacrifice 5 Shermans to kill the bad cat. Agua Perdido [Edited to add: "D'oh! I type too slowly..."] [ July 16, 2002, 03:08 PM: Message edited by: Agua Perdido ]

Yes, why not add Where's my feckin' turn? to the list? UPDATES! The aforemention Joe Shaw continues to stagger through the bocage, blindly groping for my inept defenders. Well, not so much stagger as sit around. I don't really want any more detail on the blind groping, I'm just trying to keep my horde of already-panicky conscript untertruppen well away from it. Now, where's my feckin' turn? I want to see more of your Canuckleheads bleed. Speaking of which, poor, reduced-initialled jd-formerly-jdmorse has finally run afoul (and possible afowl) of my paltry runeish reinforcements. Pathetic as they are, they still cost him two tanky things, and we're looking for his other tankety-tanks, too. Where's my feckin' turn? I want to see more 'splosions. And as for stevetherat, where's my feckin' turn? I don't really want to see more of the tragic farce that is our game, but I do enjoy the shouting. Agua Perdido

I also found it lacked a certain, oh,... what's the word I'm looking for... pileofsweatynakedstenographers? It's reassuring to see that however low the 'Pool gets, there is always a newer, suckier SSN... a droolier, more idjity drooling idjit... a gamier, more bastardesque gamey bastardy. Plus the same old sucky idjit gamey bastards that've always been here. Speaking of which: UPDATES! Joe Shaw, how is it that I seem to have your Canuckleheads surrounded? I thought you were attacking in this one? You keep shelling those empty woods, now, if it makes you happy. As for the game with jdmorse: feh and poot, as Peng would say. Our over-the-hill ambulance-chaser has rickets, a platoon of StuGs, a battalion+ of FallingGerbils, and what Rune give me? Bob and Doug MacKenzie's slow cousin and Hoser the Wonder Dog. The [censored] I got for reinforcements on [censored] would almost [censored] if [censored] [censored] [censored]! And the pathetic, Hiramesque flailing in the game with stevethehorriblelittlerat-facedgit is dreary to behold. I can't kill his tanks, and he's almost out of infantry. Another dreary round of "is the clock up yet"? As for Seanachai, I will be revenged on you, sirrah! I'm planning to get around to that Real Soon Now, too. Punters. Agua Perdido

Was it on a tripod?

It was not a "radar" in the sense that it didn't have the round screen with the lighted sweep going 'round and little "blips" lighting up that we've all come to know from TV and movies. Of course, neither did many early radars, which had all sorts of user-hostile display schemes before some bright bulb came up with the "Plan-Position Indicator" (PPI) display. Note, the method you describe in your quote is quite legitimately a CW ranging radar. It sends out a continuous beam of RAdio waves, achieves a Detection when it receives a signal bouncing off something reflective, And Ranges it by going "pop" when the signal achieves a certain strength (via the assumption of the target's reflectivity to radio waves producing a return of a certain strength at a certain distance). Now, I'll grant that the VT fuze isn't as clever as to say, "there's a bogey bearing 260 true at 10 kiloyards," it only says "hey, there's something 10 yards away! bang!" But that still qualifies. Save that kind of talk for the Peng Thread! Agua Perdido

I recall reading about the pre-war testing of shrapnel shells, I believe in Germany (no, I don't recall the source and for all I know this is a grog urban legend). The measure of effectiveness for the shells was the ability of the fragments to penetrate 1/2" pine boards during tests, which was assumed to be sufficient to kill or incapacitate a person. A post-war accidental detonation had fewer that the expected casualties, and further study demonstrated that humans were evidently tougher than 1/2" pine boards. Operational test and evaluation is tough. (Especially if you're one of the "pine board proxies".) A prox fuse does measure time, albeit indirectly. If you set the fuze to go off 40m above the ground, it effectively measures the time from when it is fired until it gets to 40m above the ground on the way down, at which time it goes bang. Since this time varies, based on the dispersion of the gun or variations between powder charges, the fuze is effectively "variable time." No one calls them that, but it's effectively what they are. They go off at a fixed time from leaving the muzzle, but variations in muzzle velocity/wind/whatever cause that detonation to happen at variable proximities to the ground. That said, I'm willing to believe that "VT" began life as an arbitrary designator, especially given its US Navy origin. Anchors aweigh, Agua Perdido

Do one with Pippu, again. He had a funny voice. UPDATES! I'm back. Blah, blah, blah. Seanachai has at last fallen (again) before our forces of righteousness (or at least of superior violence). It was an almost direct replay of our previous game, which asked the eternal musical question, "can a company of vets hold back a battalion of regulars?" The answer has, again, proven to be "no" in a major key. So, Lorak, mark against Seanachai's name one of those things we record, while we labor on, unnumerated. In our match with Joe Shaw, we ask the eternal musical question, "can a company of vets with tanks and engineers overrun a battalion of crippled, unarmed Cub Scouts?" The answer here appears to "yes," although things are still playing out at the agonizingly slow pace anything plays out with me. In the rest of our matches, that is no music at all. jdmorse and stevetherat have some chance of further replies from us, in spite of the dreadful mauling they are inflicting on our forces. As for Croda and Lars (with whom we vaguely recollect that we are setting up games, and whom we strongly recollect are at least chowderheads if not downright brainless prats), we despair of continuing (read: "starting") our contests with you, and offer to convert them to CMBB games at no additional cost as soon as we have a copy on our hard drive. Punters. Agua Perdido [Not edited for MarkIV's benefit: I had a marvelous barbecued tri-tip roast when I was in Santa Barbara last month.]

Call us back back when you've actually read it, you not-singling-out-someone-specific-with-vicious-and-eloquent-abuse-in-hopes-of-getting-a-game-while-putting-the-boot-in eighth-wit. Or, better yet, don't. Really, Captain--Pippu would be ashamed. As for the rest of you sad, sorry sacks of ****e (I'm not afraid to cavalierly demean unhappy, pathetic bags of waste along with you lot), I'm back from the dire wastes of Virginia Beach (down, Bauhaus!) and trying to fend off exile to Crystal City or (worse!) Rosslyn. My email situation is still hopelessly tangled and inoperative. But rest assured, those of you unhappy idjits mired in inactive battle with me, I will get to your turns Real Soon Now. Pillocks. Agua Perdido

I've stood aside from this inane sci-fi prattling long enough. I will not hear of UFO being disparaged, especially by some squirely (not to mention squirrely) idiot who should've been crushed by a giant papier-maiche ham and then shot by Gregory Peck. Gerry and Sylvia Anderson's tour de force UFO was nothing less than a grand, operatic vision of a dark future, replete with toy merchandising (I had a friend who had one of the missile-launching APCs, and my brother and I constructed our own rocket-fighter-launching submarines out of Legos, although ours also had design influences from Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea), creepy conspiracies, drug abuse, and moon bases crewed entirely by purple-haired hotties in tight sweaters and silver catsuits (which they switched for silver miniskirts when off duty, of course). A masterful blend of twisty plotting, grown-up themes, loads of toys, and gratuitously sexy costumes--indeed, the apotheosis of Bad SciFi. Repent your evil ways or it'll be another ep of Grogs in Space. Speaking of which, time for another episode of UPDATES! Hah! As if! I've played virtually no CM in the last month. Now my email is down, since those fascists at Yahoo started charging for POP access and the dunderheads at Earthlink have created a powerful set of on-line account management tools that are never available. But none of that matters because I'm going to be away from net access for the next three weeks anyhow. To sum up: Seanachai-- dying. jdmorse--killing me. Joe Shaw--both. Croda, dalem(?), stevetherat--in well-deserved limbo, where I hope they rot away bit by bit, their healthy flesh nibbled at by dull-toothed little vermin while the rest festers and sloughs off in smelly little unpleasant heaps. me--either languishing in goddam Norfolk or trying to get some goddam sleep with airplanes landing on the roof. Now go and make sandcastles on Elugelab. Agua Perdido

A time and place for all beverages, my dear, unimaginative Stuka, even the banana daiquiris you are said to favor when doing your singularly unconvincing Robert Benchley impression. Besides, why settle for beer when someone else is paying? Agua Perdido

200-round belt, bipod, quick-change barrels... I don't know if US doctrine calls for an ass't gunner, but (cyclic ROF aside) that sounds closer to an MG42 than to a BAR. Agua Perdido

I went to a wedding last weekend. It was a fine event. The threatening rain held off, the bride was beautiful, the groom handsome, the food was quite good (featuring a scrumptious Vietnamese-style roast pig), the band was tip-top, and the booze flowed freely. But all was not well. When I got the bar, I asked for my usual pre-dinner libation, a dry martini, up with a twist. "Gin?" asked the bartender. Stifling my usual urge to strangle the misguided idjits who have to ask such an absurd question, I smiled and nodded, mentally adding for the n-thousandth time that if I'd wanted goddam vodka in my martini I would have asked for a goddam vodka martini, because a martini contains gin as its primary booze ingredient and aberrant goddam crap like vodka has to be specified by the deviant goddam wankers who would specify such an goddam atrocity. The bartender proceeded to measure out reasonable amounts and proportions of gin (Bombay, not bad for an open bar at a wedding) and dry vermouth over some ice... in a old-fashioned glass. I raised an eyebrow, but considered that perhaps he had nothing else to mix it in, although I noticed some pint glasses that would be much better suited to the process, as well a chrome cocktail shaker which was literally made for the task. He stirred the drink a few times with a swizzle stick, and handed it to me. In the old-fashioned. With the ice in it. I looked at the long-stemmed cocktail glasses on the bar, the unused cocktail shaker, and regretted leaving my machete in the car. Adapting as best I could, I pressed on. "Sorry, I asked for it up." "No ice?" replied the bartender. Again suppressing the flood of blood-dripping ZIP+4's which filled my vision, I smiled and nodded, fully expecting the bartender to strain the drink into its proper glassware. He started on a fresh drink, instead, mixing an appropriate amount and proportion of gin and vermouth in another old-fashioned glass, which he stirred a few times and handed to me. In the old-fashioned. Totally unchilled. It was at that point that I realized the poor man was, as the Alabama contingent at the wedding might have said, a chucklehead. He obviously had only the vaguest grasp of his job, able to handle chimp-level tasks of opening bottles of beer and pouring glasses of white wine, but woefully unequipped for anything with more than one ingredient or requiring more complex procedures in the preparation than pouring. Filled with pity for the poor creature (it was a pity my machete was still in the car) I patiently explained that he should pour the gin and vermouth into the cocktail shaker with some ice, shake it a few times, then strain it into that glass that looks like a martini glass (since it was a martini glass!). As a happy side effect, I ended up with about a triple and was well on my way to being soused by the time my wife finished with the wedding-party picture-taking. Now, I know none of us would think twice about dropping such a mentally-bereft fool as this lackwit bartender into a burlap sack, stapling it closed with tacks into his skull, beating him with iron rods for a few hours then dropping the remains (suitably weighted) into a local reservoir. He's a dimwitted punter and deserves no better. However... ...compared to Joe Shaw's ability to judge cinematic performances, this learning-challenged chimp of a bartender was a paragon of the mixologist's art second only to Trader Vic. Berli on a bike, Joe, I had forgotten what a simpering, crack-addled, taste-challenge idjit with a brain pickled in formaldehyde you are. If we weren't already slogging through the interminable agony of A Long and Bloody Mile, I would demand satisfaction for this egregious insult of the towering classic The Searchers, which featured not only the comely Natalie Wood in preposterously sexy nightclub-native-American getup, but also John Wayne's finest performance as an angry, obsessed man, wholly consumed with a desire for revenge which he could not distinguish from rescue. It pains me to admit I was once your squire. I think I'm going to start telling people I was Seanachai's squire, as he at least has the wit to... well, he's somewhat less... oh, hell, at least he ain't you. Agua Perdido [Edited and then edited some more, just for kicks, man.] [ April 19, 2002, 11:54 AM: Message edited by: Agua Perdido ]

Oh, come on! Not even any of the SSNs are going to take a crack (hhhhuuhuhuh... I said, "crack") at that one? Even if he is a grog who obviously left it out there on purpose in some misguided... well, something. I can't believe some of you have suddenly developed standards, so I'll take it as further proof you're all a lot of useless, sodding idjits. Speaking of useless, sodding idjits, they feature prominently in this thread's UPDATES! Let me start by noting that Goanna is a scaly, fork-tongued pillock with a sandbag for a brain. This, however, is plenty more in the brain department that many of you lackwits, and his gritty CMBO scenario adaptation of the classic war documentary Where Eagles Dare is top-notch fun vs. the AI if you've got an hour or so where you should be working. I'll note in the way of an AAR that dalem ruined my stealthy approach march by shooting at everything he saw, and chrisl surrendered. Never trust an all-lower-case username. Lars, Terence and Croda are sharing top position on the loathing list this morning, as they've all sent or returned setups that make me wail with despair (even the ones I gamily rigged in my own favor). I'm planning to exit all my forces in these games by turn 5 except for one unit, which I will hide in an obscure corner of the map and make 'em spend 40 turns looking for it, while I just press "GO" and giggle maniacally. First on the loathing list, however, is stevetherat, who is stalling even more effectively than I ever did. Bastard's killing me, too, and has shrugged off something like 25 "gun hits" on his armor with no drop in fire power. That leaves jdmorse above all others on the loathing list. This particular gamey bastage has been graced with several turns this week alone by yours truly (even twice in one day), and how does he repay my generosity? Rickets! Makes me wish I had some mines. Or some limes. Barring that, it's out of the "pending turns" folder for him and back into the "languishing turns" folder. And speaking of mines, j'accuse Seanachai of said abominable practice, and I fully intend to sic that fanatic granola gal who won the Nobel Peace Prize a few years back on his pasty midwestern ass as his reward for leaping to the head of the loathing list. I've already spanked his other TD and the human wave assaults have begun! And last but certainly least, Joe Shaw is number one [too-obvious 'number two' reference omitted] on the loathing list and dangerously close to collecting some Wuss points for his blatant stalling. "Ooh, the file's corrputed... Duh, I can't load it..." I re-sent it days ago, you semi-animate lump! Get the lead out! You only have to flip a movie file! As for the rest of you unworthy catamites, I've saved a place at the top of the loathing list. Agua Perdido [Edited because I should never post before I've had my morning bourbon--er, that is, coffee.] [ March 29, 2002, 10:14 AM: Message edited by: Agua Perdido ]

The M8 HMC is a lovely little gem in the US OOB (ie, a gamey bit of nonsense). I like to buy pairs, and think of each as half of a Sherman. They're about half the points, with a 75mm gun, a single MG, and about half the rounds of Sherman (40ish). The gun is low-velocity, so they have HEAT ammo for anti-armor, which ain't the greatest. It'll work on a half-track or light tank okay, but the turret is only medium speed (for those used to lightning-quick US tank gun traverses). Since they're built on a Stuart chassis, they also have enough armor to laugh at 20mm, although anything bigger will pop 'em easy enough. Still, the HE is blast 39, just like a Sherman, so it's a terror on infantry and other soft targets. Historically, I believe these were the self-propelled arty that supported US armored recon (someone groggier than I will be along to correct me, I'm sure). Using them as little assault guns (as I love to do, being the gamey bastiche I am), is probably somewhat gamey, as one should buy a 75mm FO instead. I also dimly recall that there weren't all that many of them; the figure 300-400 sticks in my mind. If that's so, I think I've used every single one of them in the QBs I've played. Anyhow, I see the M8 HMC as the US equivalent (game-wise) of the German half-tracks with 75mm guns. Except it has a turret and heavier armor. They're the "little tankettes that could." Agua Perdido [Edited to emphasize the wonderful sweet spot of "bang for the buck" the M8 HMC occupies as a DF HE platform, just like the Hetzer does for Axis as an AT thingy.] [ March 22, 2002, 01:54 PM: Message edited by: Agua Perdido ]

Where's my feckin' turn? I'm talkin' to you, jdmorse! You've had that move nearly a day, now, and I need to see my hapless Canucklehead defenders run around in circles and Die-A-Lot some more. Yeah, and you, Seanachai! Get the lead out or I'll swat your other M10, no matter how many mines you've bought, dastard. And you can shake a leg, too, stevetherat! All you have to do is press "DONE" and bounce the movie file. And as for you, Lars, I'll return that the hell-spawned abortion of a misbegotten scenario setup when the devil gives up smoking! You can pound sand, too, Croda, you mangy halfwit. Just because it's my setup doesn't mean it'll go any faster. And I don't care if you're subject to fines, penalties for early withdrawl, and three weeks in a brank, Joe Shaw, there's no goddam excuse to take more than two days to flip a movie file. Unless I'm making the excuses. Now, go expire, the lot of you. Just send me my feckin' turn first. (Unless I owe you the turn, in which case you may simply expire.) Agua Perdido [Edited because it's 5:30 and I'm not drunk yet.] [ March 21, 2002, 06:05 PM: Message edited by: Agua Perdido ]

I know an old ship-driver who used to say, "I don't begrudge [pilots] their flight pay... it's the rest of their pay they don't deserve..." Agua Perdido

Sounds like someone needs another whack from the Croda-be-dead-a-lot stick, eh? Very well, you mewling, grog-wannabe, pink-feather-boa-wearing, Justicar-as-Bette-Midler-impersonator. With Lars' topplement, and Terence's imminent topplement, I have a spot for quick, soddenly-useless game with you while I make Lars wait for me to set up the Berli abomination he sent me for our rematch. Prepare for pointlessness! Agua Perdido

I still get an uncomfortable chuckle whenever I recall the story about his sister, who, when asked to be in a magazine photo of successful young women or somefink, had the makeup artist do her face like she'd been beaten up, then spent the rest of the day walking around responding to shocked glances on the street with a big smile and "I know, I'm in love!" or somefink equally twisted. [chuckle][shudder] Appropriately enough, I read it while waiting in line to vote in the 2000 elections... [chuckle][shudder] Agua Perdido