This here is the unprotected cruiser Milan. Revolutionarily designed to forego guns entirely in favour of a new and exciting revolving torpedo launcher, you can gauge exactly how that experiment went by the fact it entered French service with five guns and no torpedo launcher.

Too true. :/. Details here: www.dianeduane.com/outofambit/2...

As well as the history of illustrated cigarette ads in truck stop paperbacks, I just learned that Pratchett once left his German publisher because they worked a soup advert into the text of one of his novels without asking him. gmkeros.wordpress.com/2011/09/02/t...

RIP @themerl.bsky.social's mentions, I guess...

File under the ever-growing subgenre of my work which I’m calling ‘Inanimate Object Has A Massive Go At A Person For No Reason’

I don't know, but if they did you'd better believe everybody said 'Wayo'

References to the Outhere Brothers suggest @maryrosemuseum.bsky.social really do know their key demographic...

The minimum sound level for a ship horn at 1 meter distance for a ship >200m is 143dB. For a vessel less than 200m but larger than 75m it should be a minimum of 138dB. She didn't expect that... 😅

HMS Mallard - 680 tons of big duck energy. If it were any fiercer it'd be a goose. (Sadly for our theme it doesn't seem to have worn Western Approaches camouflage - which was designed by Peter Scott, the post-war founder of the Wildfowl and Wetland Trust)

HMS Belfast narrowly avoided the breaker’s yard to be moored in the shadow of Tower Bridge in 1971. She survived critical damage early in her career to serve on Arctic convoys, at the Battle of the North Cape and off the Normandy beaches. Belfast would later serve in Korea. 📷 IWM MH 15063 🧵1/10

Ah, yes. That famous chapter in LOTR - "The Scraping of the Barrel"

holy ship bsky.app/profile/drea...

Helen Kerly was 130th #pilot employed by Air Transport Auxiliary #ATA during #WWIII. She was 1 of only 2 ATA women to be commended as pilots. Her commendation was given for landing a #Spitfire that had technical difficulties on 25 June 1944. b. #OTD 6 Jan 1916 bit.ly/2WZq0PT

Ah, yes. That famous chapter in LOTR - "The Scraping of the Barrel"

Regret to announce the rise of the autonomous ships has opened up whole new vistas of potential ugliness

Auxiliary Territorial Service searchlight operators, London, 1943, photographed by Lee Miller. Seen at Tate Britain.

Something you rarely see in defense procurement. French deliver Barracuda class nuclear submarine a year early! Two more are expected before 2030. With US ☢️ umbrella waning this is great news for #ReArmEU armees.com/sous-marins-...

Seems unfair that somebody can cosplay as a senior military figure and order an invasion of Venezuela whilst Walt here gets a £500 fine, but them's the breaks, eh?

Regret to announce the rise of the autonomous ships has opened up whole new vistas of potential ugliness

Does anybody else want to know if her arms make sad accordion noises as she walks?

Seems unfair that somebody can cosplay as a senior military figure and order an invasion of Venezuela whilst Walt here gets a £500 fine, but them's the breaks, eh?

Highly recommend this graphic novel for the young nerd in your life. The book is based on a wild but little known industrial accident in Louisiana in 1980, when drilling for an oil well intersected a salt mine... under a lake. By it from your local bookshop: bookshop.org/p/books/the-...

Bsky help please: After the loss of our lovely Pip, we’re now ready to give a loving and experienced home to a healthy, safe, heavy horse, 7-15y/o, >15hh, for happy hacking and maybe a spot of trek. Based in south east UK. If anyone knows of anything please get in touch. 🐴 🧡

Ok. So. They anonymised the sheep.

So the defence is woeful and the last manager was sacked without any thought as to how to replace him... Sam Allardyce is going to get the Venezuela gig, isn't he?

A Shaftesbury chemist, eh? That HOVIS ad’ (you know the one everyone erroneously thinks is Northern), filmed on Gold Hill suddenly takes on a totally different complexion.

Your regular reminder that the highest parts of cycle races, at least traditionally, were very rarely the mountain passes

Timeline cleanse

Timeline cleanse

If he carries on like this it's going to make the FIFA Peace Prize look ridiculous

Imagine the mixed feelings of the former captain of Venezuelan patrol boat Naiguatá? He'll wake up this morning to discover that, on the positive side, at least he's moved down a couple of ranks in the list of people the Venezuelan military are still mad at.

Cosigned. I've had it muted more or less since I've had an account here and never once missed hearing about the latest idiocy. It helps to dial the volume down though.

If he carries on like this it's going to make the FIFA Peace Prize look ridiculous

Bad news: somebody left the door of the car slightly ajar and the battery was flat Good news: it's an Aygo. You could probably wire a couple of AA batteries in parallel and still get enough oomph to start it

And the French might as well not have bothered, fwiw.

Es ist wieder soweit! It's time to take down and responsibly dispose of your xmas tree. Please consider the Christmas tree cannon

Fascinating insight into the reunification of Germany from the British man on the ground... "I ended my last year's review with the remark that 'accidents apart, I expect no substantive change of course in 1989'. Two major 'accidents' occurred..."

I have some great Resolutions for the New Year:

Owls in Towels: exactly what it says on the tin.

Hootenanny!

Lads, I've got a plan...

Just been reminded - through pretty shit family circumstances - that seven years ago I spent New Year's Eve with my dying grandmother. My sister and mother were measuring out drugs for a future that likely wouldn't come. I was on tea duty. It was a great night. We laughed. We cried.

Ok, this is genuinely a pathetic number of extra followers needed to get a nice round number - personally I'd be begging like the absolute whore I am.

You know the worst bit of New Year's Eve for many of us? Realising your account is close to a nice round number of followers but not *quite* close enough that begging for extra followers is a slam dunk...

2025 highlights reel (thread) Jan, broke story of Chinese ‘invasion barges’. Initial analysis proven materially correct www.navalnews.com/naval-news/2...

Have just discovered that the whole run of The Big Knights is on YouTube, and seriously, I watched this exactly once, years ago, and haven't forgotten it since. "Sir Boris - the finest swordsman in the world. And Sir Maurice - not the finest swordsman in the world, but the MOST ENTHUSIASTIC!"

"Let's use AI to write and design an embroidery stitch book, what could possibly go wrong"

Nah, because those guns actually have something worthwhile to fire. If you really want the OG Zumwalt...