I owe a couple people thoughtful, insightful answers to some very good questions sitting in my inbox already, but I'm drinking so it's time to throw it open to the peanut gallery again.

#AMA ya doinks.

One of the interesting (read: routinely horrifying) things about being a white, English-speaking immigrant in England was how long and vigorously certain people would hold court on 'what's really wrong with Britain these days,' and how it would always - always! - include a popped-vein, wild-eyed, frothing diatribe about Those Bloody Immigrants.

"I'm an immigrant," I would say, always curious to see if it would go somewhere differently this time. It never did.

"Oh, not like you," would come the answer. I never bothered to push beyond that point because I wasn't really all that interested in starting an actual fight, but I'd pull it out every time and the answer was always Yes, It's Racism.

So tonight as I endure another long, half-drunk rant about What's Wrong With Germany Today, you'll never guess what subject came up. I thought, "You know what? I speak the language like a child. I don't earn enough to pay taxes here. I'm a net negative by all these talking points." So I pushed my luck.

"Ich bin ein Einwanderer."

"Tja, aber. Nicht wie du."

Ah. Okay. That's, um. Not as compelling an answer as you'd think.

merry snmgfiehp, i'm gonna be a grunkle (groovy uncle)?????????

heck

mrs fox, immediately: "oh i'm gonna screw up this kid so bad. how old do you have to be before you're exposed to disco elysium??"

Okay, so. Bearing in mind that I'm pretty drunk? The short answer - about all I'm capable of at the moment - is that it became clear early on that it was easier and more practical to simply create either a fully-tracked vehicle, or to enlarge the wheels on a vehicle that you'd usually expect to see moderately rough terrain like a truck or weapons carrier.

In reality, the half-track came about as something of a stopgap solution to a problem that didn't really exist in the first place; developments in tyres and vulcanization would mean that you could get better and bigger tyres that were capable of inflating and deflating to a degree that meant they were able to traverse muddier terrain without having to worry about the complex track arrangements you'd see on a half-track.

Really, it's far easier to have a driver trained to change a tyre than it is to worry about whether or not your crew of fucknuts can whip off a track and change a suspension assembly under fire. Half-tracks came and went super quickly in the span of modern warfare simply owing to the fact that there were a dozen ways to do what a half-track offered even better, more simply, and with a fraction of the materials.

or as it was known in the field

THE MEAT CHOPPER

yes that's four .50 cal Browning machine guns in an electrically powered traversing mount designed for anti-aircraft operations-

oh

it fires at ground targets too??

oh that's how it got that name??????

The Wolverine

The first American-built tank destroyer that could go toe to toe with the German-built self-propelled guns of the era. The nomenclature between GMC and SPG is a fascinating little bit of logistics and national doctrinal differences which tells you SO GODDAMN MUCH about the Axis and Allies at this point, it's nuts. Even while the Allies are still rolling 'self propelled guns' into the field, the StuG is the most produced armoured vehicle in the Axis armoury and kicking ass wherever it shows up (lol fuck you hitler wants to build fucking panthers, you dipshit, you wanker, cough up the goods it doesn't matter that you can build four working SPGs to one transmission-burning panther) it's still a 'Gun Motor Carriage' to the Americans, which is very interesting. Just one of those little naming conventions that hints at the differences that high command has in mind versus how they're actually used in the field; the donkey punchers (Royal Tank Regiment) Churchill regiments which had integrated M10 'batteries' were surely glad of those massive 3" guns in support.