delivered by the friendly bartender Dante

3 of Keighley & District's 16 Transbus Mini Pointer Darts off the road for a Tuesday afternoon. 708 (YJ04LXR) 709 (YJ04LXS) 717 (YJ04LYA) are seen parked up at the back of the garage, must have been some substitutions with B10's this day.

one of the first to be ever done .. big up azid

Zuiko Digital ED - 12-60mm - f/2.8-4 - SWD

Velbon PH-156

After collecting my new lens somewhere in Zeeland. I went on to the famous ghost town of Doel. By the place's night security I was told that today, only 22 people stand their ground, right here where they have lived for so many years while being built in by industry and unsafely operating power plants. As the capitalistic management of the harbor and the local government tried to make them move out in order to create more harbor space which they technically never really needed, not even today. And for as long as nothing happens the rest of the village lays abandoned and dilapidated right where it is, partly vandalized and sprayed over with graffiti. Some of which are works of art, but mostly pointless tags. My best hopes and wishes go with the inhabitants still fighting for their rights to live where they always have, without accepting no-good capitalists to tell them what to do.

I like this piece of wood and yellow rope. Others in my family suggested it was a pointless photo.

pointless film spam because I can.

Teaser photos get kind of pointless once you already know which photo series I’m continuing on a given week, but they at least afford me the opportunity to squeeze in some extra pics that didn’t make the cut for the length of the Saturday uploads at least :P Case in point, here you’re looking at the gas station in the Horn Lake Walmart Supercenter parking lot. This place holds some significance, in that it’s not a Murphy USA gas station but a true Walmart-branded fuel center (complete with convenience store to boot, although I’m not quite sure what one would purchase in there when you’ve got a 24/7 superstore just yards away, lol!). This was the first of its kind to open in DeSoto County, but another one has followed over at the Olive Branch Walmart, retroactively giving that store a fuel center (as it never had one on the property beforehand). I haven’t been by to see or photograph it myself, but as usual, l_dawg2000 has been there, done that which I have not! :D

-------------------

Because I have an apartment this year, I have to clean. When I clean, I listen to music. And when I listen to music, you guys get the picks of my playlist!

In addition to those eight, here's this one as well, just for kicks. Fun fact: I actually met the stars of both of those shows, in Memphis, back in 2011. Tween me was really proud of that. Meanwhile, pushing-20 me is a bit startled to hear that it’s already been a decade since iCarly premiered.

EDIT: Aaaaand this makes me feel even older.

Walmart Fuel Center // 4150 Goodman Road W, Horn Lake, MS 38637

(c) 2017 Retail Retell

These places are public so these photos are too, but just as I tell where they came from, I'd appreciate if you'd say who :)

x x

3373

Oblio & Arrow are banished to the Pointless Forest

Pointless you say - - Well, a point in every direction - is the same as No Point at all

Just why I took this photograph I have no idea as it did not fit in with my 15 year + age criteria in operation for all but my 'favourite' fleets. However I kept the image nonetheless. GM Buses had thirty of these Northern Counties bodied MCW Metrobuses painted in GM Express livery. 5207 (C207 FVU) was working service 400 to Manchester Airport when observed at the bus station in Stockport on September 4th 1994.

Here are three last propaganda pieces I made for an upcoming show in Detroit.

And now that I have featured pretty much all of my favorite animals and slogan variations, I think I am going to officially consider this series CLOSED.

Expect to see these pop up in my Etsy store very soon.

XO

...

...

"Wake up."

...

I slowly open my eyes, looking up at the ceiling.

"Sit."

I hear a deep, gravelly voice to my side, and look up to see my attacker from the warehouses looking down on me.

"I say, sit."

Before I follow his demands, I cast my mind back to the events at the warehouses, trying to recollect exactly how I got here.

I remember the brawl with the armed thugs, then the pounding on the rooftop, and then...The gorilla.

"Last time. Do as I say. Sit."

I slowly prop myself up with my elbow, allowing the blood to slowly arrive in my head.

I remember the gorilla stood next to me from the warehouses, and how he was the one who knocked me unconscious. Sitting up fully now, I twist my neck around to relieve the pain and turn to face the talking gorilla.

The thing flares it's nostrils and growls, looking rather disgruntled, and speaks in short, grunting puffs..

"Special place. French Alps, exactly."

I nod, processing the information. The French Alps? I do know this place roughly; the snowy mountain range located in Central Europe. As to what this place is exactly, still remains a mystery.

"And what is this place?"

" This place special. This place make me, Mallah."

"Mallah? That is your name?"

"Yes."

I rub my forehead and ask him another question.

He nods at two men wearing garments similar to those from the warehouses and they open the door in front of me.

"You here because you special."

Mallah gestures to the now open door and speaks.

"Come, you will meet Master. He will explain."

I get up off the table and stand at the door. Mallah nods at the men again, and they disappear down the corridor outside. Mallah then nods at me, and I do the same. Following me out, he shuts the door and joins us as we begin the journey to his "Master".

We walk through the facility for a few minutes before we arrive at a set of large, metal doors. Mallah looks at one of the men and speaks.

"Go see Master. Tell him special one ready."

The man goes through the doors, and returns a few moments later.

"He's ready for you."

He holds the door open and Mallah walks in. The two men gesture for me to follow, and I do.

Mallah turns to me.

"Welcome, special one."

He gestures in front of us, and now I see his Master, stood on a podium at the end of a long green carpet.

The first thing I notice is the glass dome shining in the spot lights above us, resting on top of a heavy looking machine beeping and humming in the darkness. I look closer into the dome, and only now do I notice exactly what is inside.

A human brain.

"This, special one, is my master. The Brain."

I am about to speak, but just before I do, the Brain's metal casing stops buzzing and starts to speak in an accent originating from France.

There are always a few pencils to sharpen when my grandchildren have been colouring!!

2015 Weekly Alphabet Challenge. Week 43. P is for Pointless.

Hemingway pissed here maybe

School project

Extract from a short film I shot and co-realized on the subject "Feminine/Masculine".

www.flaneurphoto.com

her bathroom

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Pimlico station London Underground, a lone passenger waits for the tube....Shot on the way to Wembley just prior to Wigan Athletics' historic FA Cup Final win against Manchester City - completely unrelated but just thought I'd mention it again :-)

View my most interesting shots on Flickriver here: www.flickriver.com/photos/pete37038/popular-interesting/

I found this old gem of mine on someone else's flickr in better resolution that it is on mine.

outside of pointless fest in philly a few years ago

Irenas and Gray got to start their own corpse, a pece keeper sort of mission with their own squads the White-blue-Whites and The white-red-whites...

...at fist they thought that the company leadership finally took their ideas seriously about keeping peace in the galaxy, but when their first mission commissioned to their squads was keeping two under-city gang s from bashing each other up, they understood that their leadership, just wanted them sidelined doing second-rate policing work...

They didn´t even get to go to space, just stuck in the capital, and what was worse, they were unarmed, Imagine trying to fend off two furious gangs from smashing each others up and you only had your body the separate them...

- (mutant leader) Hey Bot´s this is our turf our area, go back to the factories and serve your human masters as cheap labour slaves...

- (droid leader) click-Click! You stinking mutated piles of the worst kind of hillbilly inbreed human, Click-Click, you are even worst that the ordinary fleshies, extra ams, furry and inbreed, not even the other fleshies would even touch your stinking organic hides without gloves!

- (Irena) Hey boys, I say boys since, most of you seem to be boys, have you tried something else to ease the inner stress you feel, Violence is such a bad solution, I would suggest...

Irena doesn´t get to say more since Gray puts her hand on her mouth...

- (Gray) ...(whisper) No! I don´t think they will respond well to what you are about to say.

- (Gray) (not whispering any more) Hey Gangers! We are here for the federation to solve this gang-conflict before in gets infected and spreads and affects this urban eras and innocent entities will be hurt, please step aside and return to your own designated zones, I hearby declar this sector, B22 Level 56 Neutral and non of your gangs get to use this area... operate or even get seen here...

- (droid leader) Click, Click! Mutant scums, can I make a proposition about this situation, that we first gang together temporarily and beat the shit of these, Click-Click! unarmed feds, then we have our fight about this zone, when they are at hospital!

- (Mutant leader) Slimy Rust-bucket, I like what you say even if you are a oxidized ugly rubbish bin, Mutant Hillbilly´s Robot Gangers Attack those ugly feds!

(designers note) I discovered far to late that it was a classic castle day today, so today it will be space, then I will be back on track as normal, sorry for my horrible mistake!)

{Portraits without series get pointless stories without ends}

‘I was surprised, I was happy for a day, in 1975’

It's 2am on a Friday night. I’m in a dingy corner of a dingy nightclub, sweat is dripping from the walls, the DJ is playing the 4th interminable Belle and Sebastian track of the night and worst of all, my beer is broken. What I want to be is drunk and somewhere else instead of here and sober. No, what I want to be is very drunk and anywhere else rather than this sweaty wee room that is trying to pass itself off as a den of iniquity.

I’m crouched in this corner alone. My friends are either engrossed in conversations with people I don’t know and don’t care to know or are bopping their schmindie little bops on the crowded dance floor. God knows how they do it. There is a time and a place for such music but the pulse and sway of a late night crowd is not. So, as I said, I’m sitting alone, in silence, staring at this malfunctioning beverage and wondering why I come to this god awful club week after week after week.

My flat being just across the road is one reason. What else? Well, my friends seem to enjoy it and if I’m honest with myself, I have some flawed hope that repetition of deed will engender some soggy form of camaraderie between me and them. It’s been a while since I’ve felt that buzz of ownership, of belonging to anything. Gone are the days of linking arms with friends and foes alike, of climbing on the stage to whirl in abandon to the force of my favourite new tune.

Sadly, for the umpteenth night, I feel nothing of the sort. I feel the opposite if I’m honest. The more often I come here and the more familiar the faces become, the more profoundly I feel that stolid lump of sadness swell up in my chest. I so want to be part of all of this. I so want to feel my feet crashing down on that dance floor, to see nothing but those flashing lights and dry ice, to hear nothing more than that next, wonderful tune. But I can’t. I don’t feel it and I can never lose myself in it. So instead I sit here in my sodden corner wondering where else on this world I could possibly go.

Home is always an option. Or at least it would be if those grey walls and quiet rooms didn’t provide such a dank welcome. It doesn’t matter if I’m there alone or if she comes around, it’s been a while since it felt like an escape or even a home. So instead I sit here, spinning out my weekends like some sad sack character from a Smiths tune. Back turned on the crowd, my eyes fixed on the floor and my head tuning it all out to nothing.

‘I’m going to write the song, that makes Israel and Palestine get along’

From the outside, Glasgow has this great indie scene. Every year at least one group stumble together a collection of songs that have nothing to do with the Glasgow I know and send them spinning across the world. Mogwai, Belle and Sebastian, Camera Obscura, The Twilight Sad, The Phantom Band, Franz Ferdinand, The Vaselines, Frightened Rabbit and on goes the list. It's commendable and I would never change it, but I do wonder how and why I have come to float around on its periphery. This nightclub is where the indie kids come for their weekly baptism of sweat and beer. This is where the collaborations are formed and the big boys, the ones that made it, can come to switch off from the wider world.

Here is a place where everybody knows your name, and yes, they are always glad you came, if only so they can feel that frisson of dancing to a Franz Ferdinand track with someone from the very same band. Here is where people aren’t just friends, they’re band mates. They are gangs and groups of knowing, oddly smug scenesters who know that, if they can just nail that elusive tune, that the roads outside are paved with tweed, chord and fanzine adulation.

‘What do I get, ohoooohoh, what do I get?’

The thing is though, I don't write songs, I can't play guitar and am the sprawling embodiment of arrhythmic. My musical ambition stretches to learning all the words to Wichita Lineman and maybe, just maybe, getting into jazz. What’s more, my hair is bluntly drab and lacks the irksome foppish flop that is in permanent fashion. And as for my clothes, well, I own a few chord jackets and have been known to frequent second hand shops from time to time but let’s just say that I have no intention of ensnaring what I consider vital organs into jeans that cling quite so tight.

Yet here I am, once again suffering a night in the National Pop League. It's the cities prima indie club where the wannabes and the never will be’s strut their swaying strut alongside the already made it. This tiny room with its bar queue and its sweating walls is the fizzing catalyst for all that spins out of this city in the way of music and song. Here is a club so full of emoting young writers and sensitive new guitar heroes that if you cut the power I swear you would here the quiet hum of a hundred unwritten songs, each one gestating inside their genteel new parent’s mind quietly waiting for the right person to unlock that particularly Glasgow combination of fop and rock from it’s unsung shackles.

‘Stay out super late tonight, picking apples, making pie’

I have no problem with this world. I admire it in a way. Here in this sweaty old social club, happy, like minded people congregate to sweat and sway their night away. What is it to me if they seek out individuality with a myriad of slanting, awkward fringes that all look the bloody same. Where is the harm if the room is packed with a prosaic parade of vintage clothes and tweed under-wear? No, there is no harm in any of this. I’ve already said that if I could lose myself in it, that this would be a moment of some not inconsiderable joy.

After all, here is a ready made world of make believe. Of big smiles when you see your little friends. Of cheering when your mate’s band get a gig. Of working behind the bar while you wait for your big break and of knowing where the party is without ever being told.

That’s the story anyway. Sometimes though, if you look closely enough, if you maybe catch a sly glance in a sweaty mirror or see a momentary drop of someone’s sensitive demeanour, that’s when you see a world where inspiration has been replaced by aspiration. The door, for this generation at least, was opened by Belle and Sebastian, Camera Obscura and Mogwai. Behind them the rest are forming a disorderly queue.

‘Dance, dance, dance to the radio’

From my corner, I see a lot of this. I watch the interactions and the mingling out there. At its best, it looks like stilted posing, at its worst; you watch the horror that is a networking session for the indie crowd.

Tonight I’m feeling especially bitter. Maybe it’s this defiant pint and it’s ineffective alcohol content, or maybe it’ sitting here watching all the jolly japes that pass for fun in here. Why don’t they see that this is a snide labyrinth of cliques and groups? What I see are people who profess to be sensitive and open minded who wander around in a politely vicious world of sniping and backbiting. I see all those girls who flirt with cold eyes and all those guys who flash you sharp smiles while they wait patiently to **** your friend.

It's a veneer I can't help but want to snap every time I see it, but what's the point? It's there, it's harmless and after all, I chose to be here. And anyway, if I could climb beneath its protective cover, wouldn’t I do just that? I’ve sought comfort in other patterns and places, I’ve sought comfort from the stability of her but it’s not enough. It’s never enough.

‘Trudging slowly over wet sand’

The third Morrissey track of the evening comes on. Have you ever tried to dance to the likes of 'Suedehead'? I have and it’s hell. Whatever innate sense of beat that lies within us all rebels against the jangling, verbose outpourings of our bequiffed hero and you find yourself jerking across the floor looking all the world like a drunk mannequin.

Tonight of all nights I’m even less inclined to repeat this feat. I'm tired. Very tired, and Mr Morrissey is not the man to shift my bones of an early morning. My eyes sag with grit and weight. My face, even in the pallid disco lights is pale and drawn. I used to be able to sit through the most drawn out nights with a ready made smile and a fidgeting sense of fun. Not in here and not tonight. It's starting to feel like I've grown old, or at least grown out of all of this. I look around me. The dance floor still bops to that polite beat, the sweat that lines the room now marks everyone's brow and all around me. These people are laughing, happily and cynically lost on the other side of the veneer. Well, everyone apart from her that is.

‘Maybe lily does the Astro’

She has been looking at me all night. Looking but never smiling. If I was being more accurate, I would say she had been staring with an aggressive scowl. Surveying both me and the rest of this room with a cynicism I can relate to all too readily. I meet her eye for a moment and try to express some level of communion about our shared disdain for this night. She looks away and frowns some more and with that I am locked into the inescapable rules of attraction. She doesn’t want me and thus, I must have her.

I shift my seat slightly and shout some mind clogging line about the music. Befitting the low rate comedy I’ve just shat out of my mouth she raises an eyebrow, looks me up and down with her dark eyes and sighs. I grab for my pint and swill some more of it down my mouth. It’s part sweat, part beer and all warm by now but all previous insults are off, I need it’s help.

‘Come on, come on, you think you drive me crazy’

What would I have done before, on a good night? Before I became a corner hugging bore? Would I have gone up to talk to her again? Would I f*ck, that’s suicide of the pride that is. I’ve never, ever chosen the shuffling sacrifice of ego that is trying to dance with a girl, that’s the post nuclear option I felt the need for a more effective beer, or beers or a cold, straight vodka. The 30 person bar queue meant this was unlikely to be implemented before closing time. . I sat back defeated.

Us Scottish lads, for all our noise and flustered bluster are shy types deep down. Just at the beginning of this night some of us had gathered together to agree which girls we were definitely too frightened to speak to. A shameless show I admit, but better the companionship of the pathetic than the solitude of a romantic kicking.

It's an odd thing though, I’ve never really needed to do the chasing, in the past I've usually relied upon (and rarely been let down by) the 'let them come to you' strategy. I would claim with no ego to be of reasonable attractiveness and too many years in my sisters company meant that I project well as the elusive understanding, sensitive male. For reasons that remain baffling, there was always a certain kind of girl who would fall for this. The more you outlined that you genuinely weren't interested in shallow liaisons, the more they would crave one with you. I can't claim to have the highest success ratio in town, but this odd combination of effete conversation and semi-celibate announcements had more benefits than negatives.

All of that though was before the fall out that has dogged me this past year. That was back then before I had these lines on my face and bad thoughts in my mind. These days that easy chat and subtle shifting of melancholy eyes which made such a heady mix has been replaced by stultifying mundane blathering and the genuinely scary twitches of sadness that rippled across my face. My chest is too laden down with the recent past to allow me the air needed to leaven conversation with jokes and quiet questions.

‘I’m calling your name, don’t let me blow up or honk it all up’

So here I am, in this club I don’t like with these people I can’t stand trying for no reason to communicate with this girl I don’t know.

I sink back into my corner to consider my loss. Not just her, but all of this. I have to decide when all this light and noise just stopped meaning something to me. Maybe I have to admit to myself that I just don't get lost in music the way I did before, I just don't have the energy to chase or be chased by a girl and worst of all, whatever it was that once made me attractive was gone. I’ve grown so ugly, in outlook and in looks and I never ever noticed. I’m little more than a staid, worn down nobody in a comfortable rut that can no longer lose himself in the simplest of pleasures. Now I am nowhere and it’s now.

Is this how it happens? One day you're something, the next nothing? Have I really become tired of life and tired in looks? Grown so ugly and I never even noticed.

‘Oooooohhhhhaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhah!

'You look tired' it’s her! She is sitting right across from me, speaking to me. Her harsh look still unwavering, but there she was, sitting right across from me.

'Yeh, I'm pretty tired, I guess' is my coruscating opening line. Brilliant, fucking brilliant, I am the great seducer, watch me work.

'I think it looks sexy’ she says and with a straight face. I think she means it. I am staring back at her, it is all I can do.

‘I like men who look like that, worn out, tired. It turns me on'. She looks into my eyes with what I hope is intent and then sits back.

Saying nothings seems better than any of the below par drivel that is whirling through my mind. I shall swig my beer, an act that could be construed as cool defiance if my hand hadn't started shaking. She is slouching coolly in her chair as insouciant as they come, but her leg moves across until it is gently touching mine. Her scowl continues to scan the room but it never falls on me anymore.

I know what she is seeing, I see the same thing. The DJ plays the Hidden Cameras 'Smells like Happiness' and I want to sing, I want to sing so fucking loudly that I'll drown out the PA. I may have grown so ugly in so many ways, but as long as she's sitting there, as long as that song is playing and as long as this beer is going down as well as this, I've still got something to smile about.

I look around the room once again. People are dancing to the tune, singing to the whooping, wailing chorus without a care. Sweat drips from the mirror ball and onto their faces, sweat drips down my forehead and into my tired, vibrant eyes. There is so much wrong with what is about to happen. Tonight is a night that should not happen, she is someone I should move away from but, I can’t. Or to speak honestly, I won’t. Here and now is where those grey rooms gain some lustre, here is where I feel the beat of the music again, here is where I decide that I will reach out for a girl who is not and should not be mine. Here and now is where I know that I have grown so ugly in so many ways, and in this glowing moment, it feels so good.

Not sure when Solo 47162 lost it ex Routemaster plate. This has been applied when it was launched as the dedicated JET Connect vehicle. It now carries the plate BSK 744, presumably as someone senior somewhere wants the WLT 794 for their company car.

© David K. Edwards. I cannot honestly say why I downloaded this boring and pointless photograph.

As pointless as a broken pencil....part one.

Seen here negotiating the street furniture in St Vincent Street is 63229 (SN14DYH) about to turn into Union Street on the 21-route heading to Greenhills in East Kilbride.

You may wonder about all the street furniture. Well, this is the Council’s latest wheeze to make getting about Glasgow more difficult....I mean increase pollution. Or social distancing....or something nonsensical pointless thing that Councils do because they can. Low betide they actually fix the road surface but of course there’s never enough money to do that of course.

Apparently the official reason is that they’re reducing the road space and extending the pavements for social distancing....which as the restrictions are eased is the equivalent of turning the central heating off to save money and staying warm by burning £50 notes. So apparently in order to reduce pollution they are increasing it. Madness. Anyway...I digress. Streetlite looks smart in the new livery. I suppose....

New Orleans, LA

158864 Manchester Piccadilly

1R78 14:57 Norwich to Liverpool Lime Street

“If we are incapable of finding peace in ourselves, it is pointless to search elsewhere.”--François de la Rochefoucauld.

july 2021

canon a-1 | fd 2.8/100 | pro image 100

Amtrak 161 the Phase I heritage unit leads Amtrak train #3 at Hinsdale, IL.

Credit to Soren (www.flickr.com/photos/bricklovinfreakboy/) for the Chub base.

an episode of David's Pointless Minute

I've always wondered why ADL bother to make the destination screen change when the bus is backing up.

Granted - changing the rear display might be helpful for those with impaired hearing (not that they should be walking across a bus station forecourt in the first place ...), but if you can see the front display, then the bus is moving away from you, and so you're hardly in a position to be squashed by the thing.

Discuss. 😁

26155 - SN67 WVZ

Alexander Dennis Enviro 200MMC (C43F)

Stagecoach South (PM)

Hard Interchange, Portsmouth

11 October 2017

A Spanish beach resort not far from Cadiz.

+++ DISCLAIMER +++

Nothing you see here is real, even though the conversion or the presented background story might be based historical facts. BEWARE!

Some background:

The "Entwicklung" tank series (= "development"), more commonly known as the E-Series, was a late-World War II attempt by Germany to produce a standardized series of tank designs. There were to be six standard designs in different weight classes, from which several specialized variants were to be developed. This intended to reverse the trend of extremely complex tank designs that had resulted in poor production rates and mechanical unreliability.

At the time of the Sd.Kfz. 192/3’s introduction, anti-aircraft aiming was already augmented by mobile radar systems like the “Würzburg” device or special command vehicles like the Sd.Kfz. 282 “Basilisk” which combined an autonomous radar system with a powerful visual rangefinder and an integrated analogue range calculator, the Kommandogerät 40. However, fire control development had continued, and at least one Sd.Kfz. 192/3 was used in late 1946 during trials to fully automatize gun aiming and firing remotely through electric drives through “slaving” a turret to an external director. This was a modified Sd.Kfz. 282/1 that successfully controlled the Sd.Kfz. 192/3 via cable from an elevated location 50 m away from the SPAAG’s firing position. The objective of these trials was to connect several anti-aircraft weapons to a single command unit with improved sensors and high accuracy under any weather condition for concentrated and more effective fire and an improved first shot hit probability.

Specifications:

Crew: Six (commander, gunner, two loaders, radio operator, driver)

Weight: 64 tonnes (71 short tons)

Length: 7.27 m (23 ft 10 ¾ in) (hull only)

9.57 m (31 ft 4 ½ in) with gun forward

Width: 3.88 m (12 ft 9 in)

Height 3.46 m (11 ft 4 in)

3.81 m (12 ft 6 in) with commander cupola

Ground clearance: 495 to 510 mm (1 ft 7.5 in to 1 ft 8.1 in)

Suspension: Conical spring

Fuel capacity: 720 liters (160 imp gal; 190 US gal)

Armor:

30 – 60 mm (1.2 – 2.4 in)

Performance:

Speed

- Maximum, road: 44 km/h (27.3 mph)

- Sustained, road: 38 km/h (24 mph)

- Cross country: 15 to 20 km/h (9.3 to 12.4 mph)

Operational range: 160 km (99 miles)

Power/weight: 14 PS/tonne (12.5 hp/ton)

Engine:

V-12 Maybach HL 234 gasoline engine with 900 PS (885 hp/650 kW)

Transmission:

ZF AK 7-200 with 7 forward 1 reverse gears

Armament:

1× 8,8 cm Flak 41 L/72 anti-aircraft cannon with 57 rounds in turret and hull

1× 7.92 mm Maschinengewehr 42 with 2.400 rounds, remote-controlled on the commander cupola

The kit and its assembly:

This fictional German SPAAG never existed, not even on the drawing boards. But I wondered, after ModelCollect had released an E-100 SPAAG with a twin 88mm gun some years ago, why there was no lighter vehicle with the powerful 88 mm Flak in a closed turret? There were plans to mount this weapon onto a tracked chassis in real life, but it would have been only lightly armored. Then I recently came across a whiffy aftermarket resin turret with a single 88 mm Flak, based on the Tiger II’s Porsche turret, and I liked the idea – even though the rather MBT-esque aftermarket turret looked rather dubious and too small for my taste – esp. the potential angle of the AA weapon appeared insufficient. From this basis the idea was born to create a personal interpretation of a Flak 41 in a fully enclosed turret on a tank chassis.

The basis became the Trumpeter 1:72 E-75 kit of the twin 55 mm Flak with its boxy turret. While I initially considered a totally different turret shape, I eventually settled on a generic design that would have been used for a variety of weapons. This appeared more realistic to me and so I stuck to the Rheinmetall AA turret. However, due to the heavy weapon its certainly massive mount and bulky recoil system as well as the long rounds and a crew of four, I decided to enlarge the Rheinmetall turret. The turret was cut into a front and rear half and an 8 mm wide plug, made from 1.5 mm styrene sheet, was implanted and PSRed. To keep the turret rotatable, the rear extension had to be raised, so that the “oriel” could move over the air intake fairings on the engine cover.

Due to the longer roof, some details were modified there. The most obvious addition is a commander cupola on the left, taken from an early Panzer IV, together with a MG 42 and a small shield on a swing arm, inspired by the remote-controlled installation on some Jagdpanzer 38(t) Hetzer. A stereoscopic rangefinder was added to the turret flanks and a periscope added to one of the loader’s hatches. A cover for a ventilator was added on the right side of the roof, together with a cover for a vertical grenade launcher underneath.

Using the original turret as base, the model’s movable mount for the twin 55 mm guns was retained and the rear extension would also become a good visual balance for the new main weapon. The armor at barrels’ base was cut off and a 1:72 Flak 41, taken from a Zvezda field gun kit, was glued to it, together with parts of the field gun’s recoil system and styrene bits to blend the new gun into the rest of the turret.

The E-75 chassis was taken OOB, since it would be a standardized vehicle basis. Outwardly the hull did not bear recognizable differences to the lighter E-50, which it is supposed to represent, just with more wheels to better cope with the bulky and heavy new turret.

Thankfully, this Trumpeter kit’s vinyl tracks were molded in black – sometimes they come in a sandy beige, and it’s a PITA to paint them! As another bonus, Trumpeter’s running gear on the 1:72 E-50/75 model is of a more sturdy and simpler construction than the one on the alternative ModelCollect kit(s), making the assembly and esp. the mounting of the tracks much easier. The Trumpeter kit is simpler than the comparable ModelCollect models with the E-50/75 basis, but the result is visually quite similar.

Painting and markings:

The paint scheme uses once more typical German late WWII "Hinterhalt" camouflage colors, namely Dark Yellow, Olive Green and Red Brown. This time, however, to adapt the livery to the boxy hull and the huge turret, the pattern ended up as a kind of a splinter scheme – inspired by a real Panzer V Panther from the Eastern Front in 1943.

The basic colors became Humbrol 57 (Buff) for the RAL 7028 Dunkelgelb, in this case as a rather pale (stretched?) shade, plus large areas of brown (RAL 8017, I used this time Humbrol 98 for a darker and less reddish shade) and Humbrol 86 for the green (RAL 6003), which appears quite pale in contrast to the dark brown. The camouflage was applied over an overall coat of sand brown as a primer coat, with the intention of letting this uniform basis shine through here and there. The distribution of the darker colors is quite unique, concentrating the brown on the vehicle’s edges and the green only to the flanks of hull and turret. However, the pattern works well on the huge E-50/75, and I can imagine that it might have worked well in an urban environment, breaking up the tank’s outlines.

As a match for the upper hull the wheels were painted uniformly in the same standard colors –without any pattern, because this would be very eye-catching while on the move. The many delicate tools on the tank’s hull are molded, and instead of trying to paint them I tried something else: I rubbed over them with graphite, and this worked very well, leaving them with a dark metallic shine. Just some wooden handles were then painted with a reddish brown.

Decals/marking came next, everything was procured from the scrap box. The Balkenkreuze came from a Hasegawa Sd.Kfz. 234/2 “Puma”, the tactical code from a TL-Modellbau sheet and the small unit badges on front and back from an UM Models Bergehetzer. A dry brushing treatment with light grey followed, highlighting surface details and edges, and after painting some details and adding some rust marks with watercolors followed a coat of matt varnish.

The tracks were painted with a cloudy mix of dark grey, red brown and iron acrylic paints, and mounted after hull and running gear had been assembled. The antennae, made from heated spure material, were mounted to the turret and, finally, the tank’s lower areas were dusted with a greyish-brown mineral pigment mix, simulating dust and mud residue.

This project was realized in just two days, made easy through the Trumpeter kit’s simple construction. Most work went into the extended turret and the different main weapon, but all parts mostly fell into place – and the result looks IMHO quite believable. In fact, the E-50/75 with a Flak 41 reminds a bit of the Italian Otomatic 76 mm SPAAG from the late Eighties?

So, Batman: Arkham Knight is inbound, and the most notable feature so far for the game is that the Batmobile is now more than just scenery. it's fully drivable. Having the keys to the Batmobile was one of the biggest requests in the Arkham series since the series birth, and now many prayers have been answered. I on the other hand, am worried. Lemme explain myself.

In games working with cars isn't that easy. The environment has to work, if there's more than one car they all shouldn't be copy/pastes with some difference in speed, and so on. Since there's presumably only one Batmobile in AK, Rocksteady (the developers) don't have to worry about building up multiple vehicles and making their feel from speed to handling feel unique. And they went with a tumbler-like Batmobile, so my guess is that the AK Batmobile should feel big, powerful, and damn near unstoppable. But since it's all we got, it should have a great feel of speed and nimbleness. Trust me, you don't want a lead sled as the only thing in your crime fighting garage. Having a jet booster on the back will help for speed and the wheelbase looks good enough to guarantee it can go around tight corners, but mixing the feel of speed and nimbleness with a unstoppable juggernaut-like feel is something that has little room for error. Get it wrong and it could be as much of a mess as the "realistic" driving mechanics in GTA IV.

Second is environment. Rocksteady apparently took a prototype build of the AK Bamoble and test drove it on the map for Arkham City....which is a stupid idea since Arkham City was built for vehicles like say, a person on the national sex offender list is fit for being a supervisor at a Junior high dance. Yep, that bad. Arkham City, though a great map to glide and fight around as Batman, is completely unfit for for even a bat-vespa. The broken and debris clogged roads, which there aren't alot of to start with, are unfit for testing any car, much less one of the most iconic vehicles in fiction. Gotham in AK is supposed to be 5x larger than the map in AC, so a bigger area will hopefully give more breathing room for the Batmobile to drive around in, but I'm worried about how Rocksteady is handling the preliminary testing, dropping their work in progress on a map not built for it. And that could go back to how the Batmobile feels in the end product. Again, since the map is 5x bigger and hopefully built with Batmobile in mind, this might be a void point, but how development is being handled gives reason to worry.

Next thing is balance. The Arkham series gameplay has, for lack of a better summarization, been focused on beating the high-holy crap out of any moron stupid enough to think they can take you, rather you show them how wrong they are with your fist or with gadgets is up to you. There's been puzzle elements as well with some platforming, but none have exactly been Portal-levels of brain workouts. Basically, the Arkham series has mostly been an open world beat'em up, with a simple but more than satisfying game mechanics helping earn it's reputation. Now we're introducing a vehicle, an entirely different field of game mechanics. Putting these two together has to balance out, and they both have to feel good. Rocksteady has had combat down for two games, but introducing the Batmobile could end up with a scenario like the previously mentioned GTA IV. Outside of vehicles it's all good. Once you get in the drivers seat it's all downhill from there. And then there's an overeliance on the Batmobile, if they say, give it offensive measure, which would make sense, but then street fights are rendered pointless. And if it turns out to become a mess and gliding turns out to be a less grating experience, how disappointing will it be that one of AK's most notable features is it's worst because it just wasn't balanced right into the game, or failed to reach any of the previous criteria?

Last, is the fact of experience. Rocksteady has Batman on foot down, but this'll be the first time ever they've done a completely drivable vehicle. Something they've never even really looked at before. The smartest choice I can see from getting this right and avoiding such an issue is hiring some people from other developers with experience in cars, like Criterion games of Burnout fame. Or perhaps the development team is split up into smaller sub-teams, one dedicated to building up the Batmobile, which is most likely what was done. But the issue there is that if they know what they're doing or not. As said numerous times, making a car work in a game is not easy, and depending to get it right on people who generally don't do vehicles to start is a gamble.

Since this is Rocksteady, a development team that has hardly ever failed to deliver, this is likely an irrational fear. But with just how big of a deal this is (it's the freaking Batmobile, c'mon) there's more than enough reason to worry. Only the release will tell the answers.

Outdated Batmobile model for relevance. :P

ジェイミー・カラム

Abandoned (I'd say so) landing on Maria Laach lake.

A shack with only 2 sides and devoid of a roof makes for a poor shelter in my view...

As you know, an isomorphism is a morphism f:X→Y in a category for which there exists an "inverse" f −1:Y→X, with the property that both f −1f=idX and ff −1=idY. (Right?) What you don't know is whether these carrots were trying to create a sober space or whether they were aiming for pointless topology. Well I don't know math but I know these carrots so I'd bet they were pointlessly messing around and probably not too sober.