Fictional 3: Battlestation (Battalion Wars)

Fictional 3 : Battlestation (Battalion Wars)

“Qa-Len's pathetic assault was no match for the immortal fury of my Iron Legion! Now I shall deal my cruellest blow! Stoke the furnaces, fire up the engines, arm all batteries! Release the BATTLESTATION!” - Lord Ferrok, on the first Battlestation to be used in battle, during Incursion.

From: Battalion Wars (Nintendo Gamecube, 2005)
Number built: 25+. In use by 4 armies.
Weight: Unknown.
Length: Unknown.
Width: Unknown.
Height: Unknown.
Crew: 6
Engine: Varies between diesel and steam-electric, depending on army.
Armament: 2x artillery (88 mm) or naval guns (12 inch), 2x or 4x anti-vehicle turrets, 3x .50 cal machine guns.

Background: Right, at some point whenever I do the next fictional one, I'll see if I can actually find some specs on it, instead of this vague 'Unknown' stuff.

So, the Lightning Wars, 200 years before the events of Battalion Wars 2, where the Iron Legion, having conquered the rest of the world, marched on the Solar Empire, and their empress, Qa-Len.

Slowly, the Iron Legion was beaten back to Old Xylvania, and trapped there by anti-air frigates, as the Solar Empire began to try to gain a foothold.

Lord Ferrok, the Iron Legion's leader, responded by designing, and penning the name of Battlestation, himself, which was promptly deployed after his forces fought off 7 attack waves of Solar Empire troops. When it's unleashed, things go badly for the Sols, as they get quickly crushed, losing a number of gunships and heavy tanks in the process.

The Solars, fearing losing the war, respond by deploying a superweapon, a big damn killer satellite, which creates a freaking big crater which resembles an asteroid impact, and the Iron Legion loses by virtue of being annihilated, dinosaur-style.

The Battlestation turns up in a variety of battles, mainly used by the Xylvanians throughout the two Battalion Wars games, and each time if you don't have your own heavy firepower, you get to play the fun game of hit and run away like a little girl before it blows you back to your country.

Even if it is under the control of the AI, which can be kinda useless.

In other words, think of it this way. The original design is 200 years old. It has remained unchanged since then, or with only minor modifications.

What does it do? And why should I be afraid of it?

“Unleash the Tundran Battlestation!” - Marshal Nova, on the Mammothka Battlestation, being deployed in the snowy wastes of Tundra as part of Day of Reckoning.

It's a super-tank. It's big, it rattles, it shrieks, it clunks, and it probably drinks enough fuel to drain about 4 large oil fields, or get rid of 6 forests, and that's not mentioning the amount of smoke it generates when moving. It does not give a damn about ecology, or about solar panels, mostly because it's a tank. Tanks aren't known for political viewpoints.

Hearing it engage the enemy is beautiful, from the mechanical coughing of the main cannon, to the noises from the other two turrets, to the crackle of machine gun fire, as it sets about blowing up light tanks, annihilating infantry and any poor aircraft that is in range and hasn't taken off yet.

Of course it has counters, like an air strike, from helicopters or bombers. Or a naval bombardment, maybe. Or your own Battlestation.

If you don't have that, maybe you could lure it off a cliff or crack away at it with your lighter units (which is everything else on the ground.), or harsh propaganda.

It was impressive in the first game, even though the aiming system was average, but the Western Frontier smashed through Xylvanian defenses with it, first on the Coral Atolls, and second, while marching towards Xylvania itself.

The Iron Legion would have reconquered the world with theirs, if it wasn't for the superweapon being deployed.

Tundra used theirs to put an end to the events of the second game, in impressive fashion, taking out the heavily defended Mining Spider which would have given Kaiser Vlad, the leader of Xylvania, the Solar Empire's superweapon, which had been sealed away.

None of this may make much sense to those that haven't played it. But think of it this way. Heavily-armoured tank that cannot effectively be engaged in a ground war, that spews smoke, shells and death, and is nearly immune to your bazookas.

Sources:
Battalion Wars
Battalion Wars 2
Battlestation – Battalion Wars Wiki
Battlestation – Wars Wiki

Fictional 2: The Battleship Halberd (Kirby)

Fictional 2: The Battleship Halberd (Kirby)

“Fight me.” - Meta Knight.

From: Kirby Super Star (Super Nintendo Entertainment System, 1996)
Number built: 1
Weight: Unknown
Length: Unknown
Width: Unknown
Height: Unknown
Crew: 9.
Engine: Reactor, powering 3 small, and 1 large, vents at the rear of the ship.
Armament: 1x Combo Cannon (claw, laser and cannon), bomb bay, 8x double-barrelled laser turrets, 2x wing-mounted laser cannons, 1x main cannon, 10x side mounted laser turrets, 6x (12?) various other mounted laser cannons, ranging between double to triple barrelled, unknown amount of missile launchers. (SSBB), 16x single shot cannon, 1x double shot cannon, 4x triple shot cannon, 1x laser cannon, 8x flamethrower, (Kirby's Epic Yarn), let's just call it pretty well armed, without mentioning the other games or anime that it's in.

Background: Before I begin, I must confess that isn't a full and accurate description of the weaponry it has, I'm fairly sure it has a few others that I haven't been able to 100% confirm. But yes, that does make it over 30 various cannons and claws and other things on the thing. If wanted, I can try to recheck the weapons shown, but... dear god, it would only make the number, and length of the armament section even higher and longer.

Alright, so, this is the Battleship Halberd, personal ship of Meta Knight, the enigmatic knight of the Kirby series, who often acts as a friend and a foe to the pink blob, and who obviously believes that anything less then 20 guns on something is underarmed.

Anyway, Meta Knight's really into the code of honour thing, and whenever he and Kirby end up fighting, he always throws a sword out, so that Kirby can fight against Meta Knight's legendary sword, Galaxia, which is a pretty neat looking sword that shocks anybody unworthy of wielding it, while firing sword beams and other things that real swords can't do.

So, the Halberd was created by Meta Knight to take over Dream World, to put an end to the inhabitants being lazy (Although, to be honest, he could do that just by firing at the ground, they'd run soon enough, I know I would.), and Kirby sets about destroying it, since he's got no respect for giant flying death machines.

He gets to the reactor, since video games don't recognise such cunning tactics like locking the door, throwing the key into the ocean, and mocking loudly, and blows it up, causing the Halberd to crash into the Secret Sea.

Afterwards, the Halberd is raised from the sea floor, and heads to the Gamble Galaxy under Kirby's control, because Meta Knight challenged Kirby and lost.

And it makes an appearance in Kirby's Epic Yarn, as an optional last level, as a side scrolling shooter.

What does it do? And why should I be afraid of it?

“The bow looks like his mask. What kind of weirdo puts his face on the bow of a ship, anyway?” - Snake Solid, on the Halberd.

As mentioned above, it is a flagship. Now, flagships, by themselves, are usually impressive (Yes, even the Icelandic flagship), and this is no exception.

The numbers for the armament mentioned above are fairly accurate, and if not, it's because I've missed some. Missed some as in, they could be even higher then what's listed.

In Super Smash Brothers Brawl, it's shown under the command of the Subspace Army, after Meta Knight failed to prevent them overrunning his ship (Thanks, King Dedede.), and was thrown off. It does a variety of thing, like creating Primids from the shadow bugs dropped from the bomb bay doors, to shooting down Arwings, to shooting down the Great Fox, with excessive amounts of inaccurate, but heavy firepower.

It gets shot down by the Subspace Gunship, which I mentioned in a previous article, but allows the heroes to invade Subspace, and generally raise a bit of hell.

In Kirby's Epic Yarn, Kirby battles through the Halberd, destroying the weaponry on it, and eventually the reactor, in an optional final stage.

It appears in Kirby : Right Back At Ya!, where it's able to rip through a UFO thing called a Destrayer, and shrug off hits from them in return, although it eventually gets destroyed.

Ultimately, whatever shape it's in, (The layout and design keeps changing between games), or whatever material it's made from (Including wool!), it is covered in guns, and will easily enjoy ripping through whatever is in range, with a absolutely tiny crew.

Be afraid. Unless you're a pink blob.

Sources:
Halberd: The Kirby Wiki
Meta Knight: The Kirby Wiki
Revenge of Meta Knight: The Kirby Wiki
Super Smash Bros Brawl

Fictional 1: The Subspace Gunship (SSBB)

Fictional 1: The Subspace Gunship (SSBB)

“Once the mass production of Subspace gunships yielded a certain number of units, it would then be possible to launch all of them through the hole at once. Once the gunships were in our world, there would be no way to stop them from dragging all the remaining pieces of our world into theirs.” - The Self-Destruction of the Isle of Ancients, Smash Bros DOJO!!

From: Super Smash Brothers Brawl (Nintendo Wii, 2008)
Number built: 1, maybe more.
Weight: Unknown.
Length: Unknown
Width: Unknown
Height: Unknown
Crew: 2, or above.
Engine: Unknown.
Armament: 1x Subspace Cannon, 5x Triple-barrelled Laser Turrets (Orange), 10x Side-mounted lasers (Green)

Background: First of all, don't take unknown to mean it's small or anything, this thing is absolutely goddamn massive. I mean, it has to be at least bigger then most islands in our world. And I'm not kidding.

Right, so Tabuu is working on turning the World of Trophies into Subspace by means of Subspace Bombs, which are powered by two R.O.B.s (which I may touch on in a later article). As for why, according to Smash Bros DOJO!!, he is the embodiment of Subspace, and as such, cannot leave it to enter the World of Trophies.

To do so, he uses the Ancient Minister's forces (The R.O.B.s) to create the Subspace Bombs from the Isle of Ancients, which, when they explode, draw large areas of the World of Trophies into Subspace, where they have to be connected to other regions of Subspace.

Even though a great many areas are destroyed in this way, the heroes slowly progress towards the Isle of Ancients, which is fairly bad for the villains, and as such, the Subspace Bombs that were being made on it were detonated to bring forth the Subspace Army's ultimate weapon.

A effing massive goddamn ship.

What does it do? And why should I be afraid of it?
“Ganondorf made the Subspace Bomb factory self-destruct in order to draw this ultimate weapon out from Subspace. It's capable of infinitely rending space, and it's firepower is greater than that of any weapon. It exists to draw all of this world into Subspace, but the last-ditch efforts by the fighters might prevent this.” - Trophy description of Subspace Gunship, Super Smash Brothers Brawl.

Right, you saw that huge cannon sticking out the front, right? That emulates a Subspace Bomb, but at range.

Now, that is very bad in terms of world not being destroyed/drawn into Subspace.

The Gunship only appears in one cutscene, 'The Great Invasion', so we don't know the construction facility, or the date, or who it's first kiss was with.

All that's known is that it has a crew of at least 2, and that it is absolutely gorgeous for a superweapon.

So, Ganondorf gives the order by pointing, and the Gunship charges up and fires, ripping apart some air and sea since Ganondorf is too manly to consider using a normal fishing rod to get his fish.

The reclaimed Battleship Halberd comes rocketing in from another direction after to have a go at screwing up their plans, and that's when the five laser turrets appear, and raise hell, ripping apart the Halberd with two glancing blows, and one shot that rips right through it, nose to tail or bow to stern, depending on what you call a flying ship.

It seems bad, but then the main theme starts playing as the five heroes on board bail out safely in their various craft, Samus and her Gunship, Olimar and the Hocotate Ship, Falco's Arwing, and Captain Falcon's Falcon Flyer, and start ripping towards the Subspace Gunship.

Cue Nintendo's attempt at a bullet hell shooter as the ten other laser cannons start firing, with all of the shots missing, because it would be pretty horrible to see one of the heroes be ripped apart by a giant laser beam. After a few seconds of the four ships racing towards the Gunship, there is a twinkle in the sky as Kirby (Yes, the pink blob that goes HAAAAAIIII and sucks more than an Electrolux.) appears on the Dragoon, and rips straight through the ultimate weapon of the Subspace Army, causing the Subspace Gunshp to blow up for the last 30 seconds of the cutscene, while the Dragoon gets off scot-free.

Ganondorf and Bowser get to head back through the void, presumably to have a sulk at about why they lost the a pretty damn sexy weapon.

Ultimately, the ultimate weapon kinda failed, but think back to the top quote.

These things were to be mass produced, and sent through en-masse. Now, assuming that it's above, say, 4, that would be pretty frightening to go up against. Instead, they sent one through, and took out a battleship that is, being ridiculously generous, a twentieth of it's size, and some ocean.

It's enough to make you want to cry.

Sources:
Smash Bros DOJO!!: Mysteries of The Subspace Emissary
Subspace Gunship: Mario Wiki
Subspace Gunship: SmashWikia
Subspace Bomb: SmashWikia
Subspace: SmashWikia
Isle of (the) Ancients: SmashWikia
Subspace Emissary: The Great Invasion: Youtube
Super Smash Brothers Brawl

Structure 1: The Stobie Pole

Structure 1: The Stobie Pole


“It consists of two flangled beams of iron or steel, preferably rolled steel joist of 'H' or of channel sections, placed one beside the other with their flanges inward and preferably at a slight angle one with the other and held together with means of tie bolts, the space between them being filled with cement concrete.” - James Stobie, describing the Stobie pole, 1924

Nationality: (South) Australian
Year of Production: 1924-current
Number built: Unknown, but many.
Weight: 8.5 tons for 12 metre pole. Other sizes vary.
Length: Unknown
Width: Unknown
Height: 6 to 26 metres, reportedly able to be built to 36 metres.

Background: Yes. I know where a few of these are. No, I am not into measuring power poles. Length and width will remain unknown unless ETSA or the like is interested enough to tell me.

Anyway, back in the days of 1924 of South Australia, there was a shortage of termite resistant wood, which is a bad thing for a wooden power pole that may get munched on by, well, termites.

Now, not being munched on by termites is a good thing, but having a pole that can't really be knocked over by a car or be set on fire is better, since it avoids the fuss of cutting off power, putting pole back in, internet users mocking car driver for being an idiot that cut off their power so they couldn't play Planet of Peacebuild or whatever, even though it hadn't been invented yet.

A man called James Stobie decided to get around that problem by using the most common materals he had access to build power poles out of, which were iron and concrete. Stobie and his mate, John Brookman were so confident, they set up a company to patent and sell manufacturing rights, and thus, the humble Stobie pole was born.

In 1924, South Terrace in Adelaide started receiving them, and they soon began to appear throughout South Australia, being cheap and easy to build, a standard appearance and long life expectancy, estimated at over 80 years.

Minor side effects of their construction such as being immune to termites, unless they eat steel and concrete, and being very very slightly fire and car proof.

By car proof, I mean a small amount of damage.

Very very small.

Why should I be afraid of it? And what does it do?

“The Stobie split the car in two and it's basically up where the gear stick should be.” - Vlado, on a black Ferrari Mondena that collided with a Stobie pole in 2008. (Link to article in sources)

Right, I'll add a slight correction to that quote above. The Ferrari wasn't split in two. It was merely 'converted' from a front-engined model to a mid-engined model. Mid-engined as in the engine being right next to you in the passenger seat. Thanks to the Stobie, who's favourite food is speeding drivers. Although it didn't get it's meal on that occasion, both people in the car survived.

The Stobie was undamaged. Maybe they had to scrape the paint of the car off it or something, but that's it. Not too shabby for a power pole.

You should be afraid of it if you're a speeding idiot, these things are set into the ground, and will happily attempt to shift the position of your engine, and if you're in the way, then that's too bad. Especially if you drive a rear-engined model sports car.

Sure, if you had a tank or something, then maybe you'd damage one, but anyway.

These poles are quite simply ridiculously strong, especially the older ones, reported to be stronger then all-steel poles, but I don't smash power poles up, so I don't know, and are mainly in use in the state of South Australia, although a town in New South Wales uses them as well, reportedly, so if you're ever lost in Australia and you see one of these, you know where you are.

Although they're not the most beautiful of sights (there are Stobie pole beautification projects though), they're sturdy, an icon of South Australia, damned intimidating when feeding on cars, and have remained in production for over 80 years. Oh, and are used to carry street lights.

Not too bad for something that was built through lack of timber.

Sources:
Stobie Pole: Wikipedia
Stobie Poles: SAMemory
Most amazing Ferrari crash ever: Daily Telegraph
Stobie, James Cyril: Biographical Entry
Own personal knowledge

Aircraft 3: Hughes (HK1) H-4 Hercules

Aircraft 3: Hughes (HK1) H-4 Hercules ('Spruce Goose')


“You'll never know.” - Howard Hughes replying to his chief designer, who asked if he had meant to take the H-4 out of the water on it's flight.

Nationality: American
Year of Production: 1947
Number built: 1 (3 planned)
Weight (empty): N/A (180 tons for fully laden aircraft)
Wingspan: 97.5 metres
Length: 66.65 metres
Height: 24.2 metres
Speed: 354 to 407 kph (projected, actual attained speed was approximately 217 kph)
Engine: 8x Pratt and Whitney R-4360 Wasp Major engines, developing 4000 hp each. (32000 hp in total)
Armament: Unarmed.

Background: The U-boat wolfpacks were impeding America's attempts to supply Britain. Obviously, something had to be done to avoid this problem, either by blowing them out of the water, or by flying the equipment and men in by air, since a torpedo is a very poor anti-aircraft weapon.

This is an example of the latter, a brainchild of a Henry Kaiser, who led the former idea in the form of Liberty ships, which was a program to quickly get more ships into the water, and prevent submarines and surface raiders from being too much of a nuisance.

Mr Kaiser consulted the eccentric Howard Hughes in 1942 to build a massive flying boat, which could carry 750 fully equipped soldiers, or one Sherman tank. The aircraft was to be delivered, along with it's siblings, in two years, but it had to be made out of wood, since steel was in short supply for rifles, ships, bombs, monocles for bad impressions of German officers, etc.

Construction of the first Hughes-Kaiser collaboration (HK-1) started 16 months after the contract was given by the US government, at which point Kaiser left, since Hughes was an obsessive perfectionist, and the plane probably wasn't going to be built in time for it to be of any actual use for the war.

Hughes rebranded the plane the H-4, and signed a new contract that now left his company with permission to build one example.

The aircraft was finished in 1947, which was a pity since the war ended two years beforehand. The US government was so pleased at how quickly the thing had been built that it called him before the Senate War Investigating Committee to ask what the hell taxpayer money had been put into this thing for.

Why should I be afraid of it? And what was it for?

“The Hercules was a monumental undertaking. It is the largest aircraft ever built. It is over five stories tall with a wingspan longer than a football field. That's more than a city block.” - Hughes, before the Senate War Investigating Committee, 6th of August, 1947.

Alright, so it wasn't armed with a giant death cannon that played 'The Star Spangled Banner' at 180 decibels, but it could transport 750 armed troops, and that would be a bad thing to come face to face with, or it could deliver a tank, which may or may not be as bad to face. That, and the thing was massive. And unwieldly.

During a break from being questioned by politicians, Hughes went to California to perform tests on his toy, which had more wood in it then most forests. November 2, the aircraft began to undergo tests, consisting of three taxi runs. The crew and press, for 32 in total, were on the aircraft at the time. The first two were mostly the plane showing how well it went as a giant boat, but on the third test run...

The aircraft took to the skies, reaching a staggering 21 metres above sea level at a speed of 217 kph, for over 1.5 kilometres.

And that was it. It demonstrated it's amazing lifting capacity, carrying 32 men, including the crew, 21 metres above sea level, before never being used again, thus ensuring that no other aircraft in the world, except for damn near all of them, could match that amazing, nay, staggering record.

A crew of three hundred full-time workers were ordered to keep the H-4 (I refuse to call it by it's name. It's name is, in my opinion, for a much better aircraft.) airworthy in a climate-controlled hanger, but the workforce was reduced to fifty in 1962, and axed entirely after Hughes died in 1976.

After a bit of fun, involving Disney, the aircraft was given to Evergreen Aviation Museum, being moved by trucks and barges to Oregon, a distance of 1700 km.

It did lead itself to many, more successful, large transport aircraft, like the Galaxy and the An-124, and that's really all it did.

Also, yes, this is the Spruce Goose, which was a nickname for it by critics, which is rather offensive to trees and geese, in my view.

Sources used:
Wikipedia: Hughes H-4 Hercules
Hughes HK-1 (H-4) 'Spruce Goose' – The Aviation Zone
Boeing: History – Hughes H-4 Hercules Flying Boat