Wednesday, May 13, 2015

Mortar Maggots

It has been easily ten years since I hung 'em up, but there is something about seeing pictures like this...


...in the news feed that jolts me upright in my chair like an electric shock and fills me with the hot, strong rage to stride roaring across the sand:
"What the fucking kind of oiled-up sodomistic cathouse romper room group-grope do you call this fucketty-fucking clusterfuck? Have you fucking people ever heard of goddamn sandbags, or did you use them all up for camel condoms, you spastic, grabastic dripping strings of rabid fennec drool? Have you ever fired a mortar before? Do you know which end of the fucking cannon the fucking round goes in or did that intelligence roll down your momma's leg with the rest of your attractive qualities? Well, I want to see some sand flying and some guns dug in and some ammo tarped and that all better happen in about three-tenths of a fucking picosecond or by Allah if there's a fucking farm and home store within this pestilential grid square a bunch of people whose seat of consciousness resides in their goddamn fourth point of contact are looking at a painfully intimate encounter with a cattle prod."
I mean, sure; I know that the average Saudi troop unit is as worthless as a tampon in a typhoon. But there's knowing things and knowing them, and this sort of rank incompetence trip-wires the slave-chains of some old habits and instincts that, while deeply buried, still remain.

Fuckin' worthless Saudis.

10 comments:

mike said...

What??? Come on Chief, you don't think a Saudi is going to dirty his hands with a pick and shovel do you? They would have to bus up a crew of Pakistani blue collar men.

But you would think with their bucks that each section of tubes could afford a backhoe or a ditchwitch.

Ael said...

I see no evidence that this is actually intended to be anything other than a photo op. I only see one set of aiming stakes.

Anonymous said...

Ael, I think that you've spotted the director/aiming circle. Which is badly sited, though.
There is one tube firing, and one to the left of it looks ready to roll.
I suspect they're not concerned about any threats.
OzGuns

FDChief said...

Yeah, they're pretty clearly in the "don't give a shit" mode for counterbattery fire, which is fairly consistent with my experience with Saudi troops. Bunch of worthless ragbags.

The ammo pisses me off as much as the gunline itself. Even eliding the whole "secondary explosion potential" just hucking those joes down on the sand without tarping them is pretty much guaranteed to produce some pretty significant errors in range as the things heat up during the day and cool off at night, plus the condensation is gonna produce some dud rounds down the road. Again, typical Saudis.

Ael: At least one of the guns is firing, so if it's a photo op it's a live fire one. Frankly I wouldn't put it past the RSA to dick up the gunlaying as well as the overall firing position occupation.

Fucking worthless Saudis; most worst "allies" ever.

Big Daddy said...

Chief, that was one of the most impressive verbal blasts this side of the Archbishop of Glasgow's Monition of Cursing.
Re: Saudis, with friends like these, who needs enemies?

Ael said...

I see two aiming stakes (which appear to be in a direct line from the mortar on the left to the director. They might be stakes from other mortars on the right, but the direct line to the director makes me suspicious.

Plus, as Chief mentions, the casual disregard for the ammo (and indeed personal safety - no place to duck) tells me that this is for show, not actually to be fighting someone who can shoot back.

Furthermore, that horizon looks to be a long way away. Machine gun fire can go a *long* way. No way that these folks are serious.

Anonymous said...

I need to clean my computer screen - I found the aiming posts & indeed they look to be in a straight line to director.
It's certainly a cluster foxtrot of a line of metal. Worse than a Hollywood movie depiction.
OzGuns

Leon said...

Chief, tell how you really feel about the Saudis. I get the sense that you're holding back something out of politeness...

FDChief said...

Leon: If a Saudi princeling was caught in a stamping press and was being slowly mangled to death and dying by screaming inches and I happened to be standing nearby with a .45 with a single round in the chamber and the miserable suffering bastard was screaming and pleading and begging me to end his torment I'd think for a fraction of a second about giving him a Tic-tac before pulling up a chair and enjoying watching him perish in unspeakable agony.

Ael said...

Speaking of Saudi princes caught in a stamping press, I think they placed their private parts in a powered gearbox with the "off" switch well out of reach.

I reckon a lot of people are quietly lining up the lawn chairs to watch.