Making Waves

Blog Post
Larry-Lambert

 

 

Caltrops

A caltrop, also known as a caltrap, is an anti-personnel weapon designed to injure or disable enemy soldiers, vehicles, or animals. (Each caltrop is a tetrahedron)

For those of you who are old enough to remember your children leaving Jacks on the carpet for you to step on during the night – it’s the same thing but larger. Barbie shoes worked and today they are leggos.

Spike strips used by law enforcement to disable cars by puncturing tires work on the same principle.

A caltrop is a multi-pointed device with sharp spikes or prongs arranged in such a way that no matter how it lands on the ground, one spike always points upward. This characteristic ensures that at least one spike is positioned to cause harm when stepped on or driven over.

Caltrops have been used throughout history for defensive and offensive purposes. They were often scattered on the ground to impede the movement of enemy troops, cavalry, or vehicles, making it difficult for them to advance or retreat without encountering injury or damage.

In addition to their military use, caltrops were sometimes employed in ancient warfare as a means of disabling chariots, horses, or elephants. They were simple yet effective tools that could inflict pain, slow down adversaries, and create obstacles on the battlefield.

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Bullet Points:

** Envy used to be considered one of the seven deadly sins until today when it is possibly the most admired under the name, social justice.

** Fact-Checking – My company (under contract not to USGOV) has been watching various components of the Wagner Group make their way through Belorussia to Poland for the past week. A news outlet reported it and the MSNBC and CNN fact checkers went insane, branding it all to be “fake news”. Early on my guys asked me what I thought was going on. I said, “They’re going to ask for asylum. Maybe USGOV will repurpose them and use them as mercenaries elsewhere? That’s what they’re hoping for. A better paycheck, and a better life.” I hear you asking how we could track Wagner Group remotely without a heavy ground game in denied areas. It’s a trade secret. But if I told you, you’d say, “Of course.”

** In a similar way, we were tracking high-value targets traveling to Tanzania last week and my guys asked, “What happened?” Tanzania suddenly sprouted fangs. I said, “Relax, it’s the next war. AFRICOM and Big Army arrived there, the Tanzanians (Christians) tossed the atheist Chinese (cheap) out and embraced big American money.” USGOV moved the Predator drones out of Mali and they had to go somewhere. The evolving war in Afrique is worth watching.

** The trip to Norway was green-lighted so we’re going to schedule something for next month. I only hope that the Norwegians aren’t disappointed with the training. I’m thrilled to visit my friends in Norway again.

** The Fat Kid was Indicted Again Sam Bankman-Fried used stolen customer funds from American Humanitarian Aid to Ukraine to make more than $100m in campaign contributions to democrats ahead of the 2022 US midterm elections, federal prosecutors said on Monday in a new indictment filed against the founder of the FTX cryptocurrency exchange.

The new indictment charges the 31-year-old former billionaire with seven counts of conspiracy and fraud over the collapse of the exchange. He has previously pleaded not guilty.

Bankman-Fried’s personal fortune was once estimated at $26bn and the cryptocurrency mogul was once one of the biggest political donors in Washington.

** Oregon and Utah have mandated GPS trackers be added to every electric vehicle so they can be taxed by the mile. Michigan is next. The excuse for this is electric vehicles don’t purchase gasoline, and it’s gasoline taxes that pay for road maintenance. Obviously, this is the government’s camel nose wedging its way into the liberty tent. The end result will be much more sinister.

** Last night was the last straw.  The Marxist horde indicted not just President Trump, but 18 other conservatives, several of whom President Trump has never met in a made-up conspiracy that never existed. Gateway Pundit weighs in. I left the Republican Party because I found that for the most part, it served in the role of the “loyal opposition”, supporting the Swamp wherever possible. It’s true that I find myself voting for the Republican candidate in the absence of something better. But the Party is lost. I have nothing in common with the War Turtle, Mitt Romney or his cousin who runs the Party. Frankly, though I like Pres. Trump, he’s a populist, not a conservative. We’re $32 trillion in debt going on $33 T. We’ve had enough ‘bread and circus’.

** OPINION – September 11 – Barack Hussein Obama declared it a day to honor community organizers. I was asked to participate in “a day of service” this year on 9/11.  I asked if there was also a remembrance of the attack on the World Trade Center, Pentagon and the loss of Flight 93 – and a recollection of the massacre at Benghazi? “Uh, no,” they said. I told them to count me out. I contribute heavily to help those less fortunate than I am. I participate in community activities to better the place. I support literacy as a ladder to help the impoverished. But I don’t forget what the Wahhabists did on September 11 and that’s that.

** A Diet-Weapon to mask a crime?

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Rich Men North of Richmond

Cafe Tiburon reacts.

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Identify the Aircraft

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From the Days of Fighting Sail

Many Navy Sailors wanted to serve on a Merchant vessel and many of the Merchant Sailors just wanted to get away and be back home with their families, as they thought they had never experienced anything worse, but that quickly changed when the Navy pressed them away.

Slowly, though, the Merchant Service was, along with the East India Company, a very important ally for the Royal Navy, because in addition to everyday trade goods, Merchants delivered supplies and even transported troops when necessary. This also meant that the service needed men and besides the officers, which consisted mostly of masters, carpenters, surgeons, and mates, the sailors also had to be there to man the ships.

Unlike the Navy, however, the Merchant Service had the advantage that they were paid more, which was usually determined individually by the owners of the ships, but for a sailor, it was usually double if not four times the pay of a Navy sailor and was around 50s – £1. And the reputation was better than in the Navy. Although the conditions were usually no better. Dr. Samuel Johnson (1709-1784) said: no man will be a sailor who contrives enough to get himself into jail; for being in a ship is being in jail with the chance of being drowned […] a man in jail has more room, better food, and commonly better company.

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A 3-masted merchant barque, a typical merchant vessel, c. 1750-70 

This was true of many ships, but there were exceptions. There were owners who provided their ships with a surgeon or increased food rations. But the punishments were like in the Navy and were carried out even for the smallest offense. And they were usually not allowed to go ashore in a harbor as long as they were signed on. On the one hand, it was feared that the men would simply run away, but also because they were exposed to greater danger, namely the press gangs of the Navy, who saw the Merchant Sailors as popular prey.

There were some contracts that only lasted for one season, which meant that they had to work through the spring and summer but were then without work for the autumn and winter. But some took advantage of this to earn an extra living on the Whalers.

It is not surprising that they were unwilling to fight pirates and that former merchant seamen made up the majority of the pirate brethren. In such conditions, and yet many former Navy officers and Sailors transferred to the Merchants, and if they did, even to the East India Company, because they thought they were better off there than in the Navy.

 

The Sea is a Harsh Mistress

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53 thoughts on “Making Waves”

  1. Oliver Anthony/Cafe Tiburon- Yup. Spot on. And yet TPTB, who a few decades ago would have championed this song/anthem, have turned on it/him like it was toxic. And it is toxic…to their agenda, exposing them for the insidious element they are to the stability of our nation and Constitution.

    We are at the inflection point at the hands of a bunch of morons and criminal elite, and Anthony, a God-fearing young man, just threw water on their dumpster fire…and they respond with dismissive hate, exactly proving his “rich man North of Richmond” point.

    A “well placed meteor.”

    1. The situation in Big China, while different than the one in the USA and the West in general, is a serious one for them, and one we need to be mindful of. The mainstream media refuses to report the news in a fair and honest way to the American public.

      US propaganda antics that champion serial frivolous indictments of President Trump in an attempt to destroy his credibility only serve to bolster it in many parts of the nation including many minority neighborhoods who see the same toxicity that Oliver Anthony sings about.

      None of this toxicity is necessary at all. Dividing America may be a useful tactic for democrats and others, but the blush is off the rose. The world outside of the American bubble understands that the “insurrection” on January 6 was merely political gamesmanship in the same way that the plague hysteria was. There will be more of the same, but there is a limit to the number of lies that people will accept.

      1. Man, that wave hit him abeam.
        Did he lose power to steer?
        From above they seem not so big, but from a surface view…
        Still, he came out aright, presumably with a few broken bones and bruises.

        1. If the ship had power or had put out a sea anchor they could have taken the sea head-on and might have survived. I presume that was the reason for the SOS that brought the Coasties/Puddle Pirates to the rescue. Why no sea anchor? Maybe the master of the pleasure barge lacked the seamanship skills to do that.

          1. I remember when the Coast Guard required anyone running over a 35′ boat to have passed a basic seamanship class, and to have things like sea anchors aboard them.

            But, then again, I grew up reading my dad’s Sea Scout manual (the part of how to man a 3″ gun was quite interesting, for signal purposes only, of course, unless HE or AP was needed) and Chapmans’, so I knew by 10 or so how to use a sea anchor or to make one out of cushions and other things and a long rope, anything to provide drag and to keep the bow pointed waveward.

            People these days? Buy a 60′ yacht and don’t even understand how to properly use a cleat or to follow proper movement methods (who has right-of-way, wake-free zones, stuff like that.)

            Same jackasses that buy a $100,000 car and don’t know how to change a tire.

          2. They watch a couple of you-tuber vid’s then consider themselves influenced experts…real world experience or classes be damned.

      2. Exactly. My much shorter take that encompasses most of my opposition spoutage:

        It’s stupid and asinine to wreck America in this day and age over race and class relations or envy. People need to wake the hell up and wrest control from these enemies within or we’ll wake up one morning as slaves to them in a smoldering landscape.

  3. They asked you for a “day of service” for THAT?

    As noted social commentary Bugs Bunny used to say, they don’t know you very well, do they?

      1. “Day of Service”? That’s a very islamic way of saying things…

        Day of Remembrance. That’s what 9/11 should be, and is in the Beans household. We still talk about what we were doing that morning.

  5. I too left the GOP because I found them to be two-faced liars. For 8 years of Obama I heard an endless stream of ‘We’re going get to the bottom of ___________!’. 8 years of hearings, showboating, and sound bites. All for nothing. Not one body swinging from a lamppost. Not one person jailed. Not one person even fired and striped of their pension.
    8 years of calls of ‘ Vote for us! Send us money! We are all that stands between you and full blown Socialism! We’ll fight the evil Left. The enemy is at the gates!’.
    Only they didn’t. In fact, I watch as some of the people I voted for stand to the side and open the gates.

    Now the mantra from both sides is ‘Stop Trump!’. Their goal is to convict and/or imprison him to keep him from running. If they do, I would say that over half the population will believe that the election was fraudulent. That cannot end well.

  6. Merchant Ships- Leo over at Sampson Boat is maybe a year away (after 2 solid years of serious hard work) from launch in the rebuilt Tally Ho sailing vessel. The amount of work and craftsmanship to build a large wooden boat still astounds, especially when mixing mix of modern systems with the various components and infrastructure custom made to match the original. I can see why Merchant Ships needed so many personnel just to maintain and operate. Amazing what “we” used to know and do.

    1. Paul, I believe your reference to Leo got me watching the series. Many thanks. The amount of time I have spent watching the videos has most probably kept me out of all sorts of mischief.

    2. What was amazing was that the later Clipper style ships were able to do so much with less crewmen. Of course, they had steam (and later gas) engines to power the various winches.

      It’s why when some jerkwad says “New Era of Sailing Cargo Ships” I almost choke on my tongue. Yeah, right. Where are you getting the power for all the winches, or where are you going to get 100 crew so cheap that it’s affordable, or a combo of both?

      It’s like the Blowboat that the Gretard took to come to America. Yeah, made of fiberglass, with Dacron sails and modern poly ropes, halyards, stays and such, with powered winches and a diesel generator that was constantly running, along with a ‘backup’ propulsion consisting of another diesel engine that ran about 25% of the time, using sat nat and constant radio and sat phones and modern waterproof clothing and heaters and… Yeah, exactly, tell me how much more ‘green’ that blow boat was over just taking a plane trip.

      I like blow boats. They’re quaint, and fun, and require the helmsman and the line and sail handlers to pay 100% attention to everything around them, from the boat itself to the weather.

      Most interesting sailboat trip? Kwajalein Atoll, 1972. We took a sailboat from Kwaj north to Bijej on the lagoon side of the atoll. Slow, nice and easy. While at Bijej the wind changed bigly, massive storm brew up, we got the squawk over the radio from Kwaj harbor that bad things were coming, which we already knew. Wind hit and the boat stayed heeled over so far over we in the cabin were standing on the side of the boat and the cute window was giving us quite the view of the coral heads flashing by. Got home and cold peanut butter sandwiches were the best meal ever…

  7. The captain of that boat is a thief that stole the boat and called in the distress when he couldn’t sail in the storm. After being bought ashore and dropped off at the hospital to get checked out he slithered away before the cops could get him.

    1. Interesting insight. Thanks for that. He had no ship-handling skills that one could identify.

  8. 1. Let’s not even get into what the whole Trump kerfuffle is doing to the Market
    2. Sounds like the Wagner Group might be headed towards Grodno (and Kaliningrad) or Brest, a bit to close for comfort to Warsaw or is might just be going to R&R (Rest n’ Refit)quietly in Belorussia fer awhile – interesting arm of Putin-policy that it is/might be.

    1. They’re passing through Belorussia. I watched real time. They’re in Poland now.

  9. Barack Hussein Obama. “A day to honor community organizers.” Just another way of saying “honor me”! What a narcissistic ego maniac.

    Caltrops, would be an interesting project when I get my little forge up and running this fall. One would not be to hard to make but thousands…

    Republicans. I to left the party long ago and now just contribute to individual candidates as I see fit. Definitely they just want to be nay sayers, “loyal opposition” and not really accomplish anything. I left the party but based on the amount of direct mail I still get they haven’t left me. Sigh.

    Rescue swimmers. Very glad there are men (oh wait is that sexist) willing to do that. A truly honorable profession. My ability to swim is now probably limited to just prolonging the act of drowning

    GPS trackers. Soon to come to all vehicles upon initial purchase. There is no end of the insatiable need for more funds for the state to buy votes errr I mean “maintain roads”.

    2. I made Caltrops with rebar, an angle grinder, and cheap (VERY cheap) stick welder. I could easily set up a “production line” that could spit them out with a few people.

  10. 3. Caltrops – not just to injure or disable troops or transport animals, but to create an infected wound channel, like feces-coated punji sticks, not just immediately disabling troops, but resulting in a possible, long, slow, agonizing death unless the af(in)fected limb were immediately removed; those were not the days of antibiotics, and other cures, while likely highly painful, often didn’t work.

  11. 4. in re “** OPINION – September 11”
    The only reason I can see for a “Day of Community Service” on 9/11 is to wipe out the pictures from everyone’s minds of the planes flying into, the resultant destruction of, and the people falling to their death from the Twin Towers.
    What a sick idea! This Day of Community Service on 9/11.
    About the only equivalency I can imagine is establishing a day honoring Ernesto Guevara on 7 December.
    Just my humble opinion.

  12. Republicans. I grew up in a Republican Party family. My Dad was once the local county head and Mom served as an Election Judge for decades. At one time I was a Precinct Committeeman (R) and then became the Precinct Committeeman (D) in the same precinct. My take on Republicans is they don’t want to do the hard work, get their hands dirty, etc. When one of their members isn’t genteel, makes waves, and raises hell they rapidly distance themselves. Example; Lauren Boebert,CO 3rd. They much prefer a Liz Cheney.

    I left the (D) when the Lightbringer nominated Eric Holder as Attorney General.

    1. I really wanted Anthony Weiner to run for president and for Eric Holder to run as his Veep because team WEINER-HOLDER would just have been too fun to blog about.

    1. If you’ll recall 1984, the book, things were set up along the same lines with constant warfare that wasn’t really warfare. They managed to follow the 1984 playbook closely.

  14. That song is definitely on the money! And no, serving on ANY ship back in those days, either Navy or Merchant wasn’t fun…

  15. Ah, caltrops. Scatterable stakes, basically.

    Any good fortification, improvised or long-term, should include stakes, caltrops, some sort of tripping hazards and such. Funnel the enemy into kill zones and then shut them down.

    Those roofing nails with a 1″ square plate attached are good available-from-hardware-store alternatives.

    Smaller ones can be made out of basically coat-hangar wire. And there are some neat folded metal designs that can be cut out of sheets of metal using a plasma cutter or water jet.

    They are, along with S hooks, are excellent practice for any home blacksmith. Can be made out of just about any bar or rod material, from mini ones (like coat-hangar wire) to big ones made out of 4 railroad spikes that will blow the tire of a heavy truck.

    Fun thing, paint most of them black, brown, green or let them rust (brown) and have one or two way back in the field that are nice and shiny, so when someone finally notices that they are standing in a field of caltrops (if they haven’t found them yet, that is) they’ll kind of freak out.

    You can make scatterable mines (basically a tube with a charge in the bottom, loaded up with caltrops) so you can actively close off approaches. Or use a catapult or trebuchet to fire bucketloads out. (You’d be surprised how much and how far a small trebuchet made out of lumber, poles, barbell weights can throw a coffee-can of rocks or other objects.) Air cannon can also be used, like a t-shirt launcher, but more fun and deadly.

    Am I the only one who made caltrops as a teenager?

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