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Royal Marine Light Infantry Landing Craft


Deon

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Following this earlier post..

Hi guys,

thought you might be interested in this letter which I found in the War Museum Archives...

Sirs,

Clearly the Admiralty is in its usual state of stores confusion. As you well know, the amount of unobtainium for your Fearnaught far exceeds the capacity of the moon mining expeditions despite the ease of refinement of moon deposits. The vast majority of unobtainium held in naval stores was that stripped from my late father's (Admiral Woolley-Cardigan RN Engineers - Geology Sect.) Excelsior Landship project, derived from meteoric unobtainium from northern India and Tibet in 1896. It is the unique nature of un refined meteoric unobtainium due to the high temperatures it experiences that it is so light, indeed it is quite repellent of any normal material and almost unmanageable. It was the addtional demands of your somewhat ambitious project that has led to the current (and costly) expedition to Tibet, which I am about to join despite the protestations of my man-servant.

On arrival I will be commanding a sizeable detachment of Marines using the latest landing boats which are reported to lay an ingenious metal carpet ahead of themselves. It is these very boats that will be bringing back the next shipments of unobtainium for Admiralty use, since Tibet is very much closer than the moon and Marines are a good deal more plentiful than Lunarnauts.

I trust in your usual discretion and look forwards to seeing the launch of your ship in person,

Major A Woolley-Cardigan Jnr. ( Royal Marines Light Infantry )

21st June 1906

There are several other documents that I am currently researching and I shall publish these in a separate thread but I thought this one might interest you as the reference to Fearnaught may be the one and same, despite the different spelling.

Cheers

Deon

Hi Chaps

Subsequently I am pleased to have recovered an old photo from the H.G. Wells Collection, during an unrelated project. As many of you will know the old fellow was into wargaming and it appears he bypassed the Admiralty Censor by building a model of a naval contraption. I believe this is the same naval landing craft referred to by Woolley-Cardigan. Wells gives the name of the mother ship as the Hindustan and the operators as the Royal Marine Light Infantry ( 51st Highland Division ). After further research into the Admiralty files at Portsmouth I have discovered that both the Hindustan and the Excelsior were docked at Arbroath. Whether the landing craft operated with Excelsior I am unsure, although that was my initial suspicion. I hope further ferreting will produce more evidence.

Deon

rmlicraft.jpg

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Sir,

Major Woolley-Cardigan is possessed of a MOST ENVIABLY BRITISH apellation causing feelings of awe and patriotism in all RIGHT-THINKING MEN and OLDER BOYS. I salute you!

I must add that your INGENIOUS contraption appears most compleat in function, but would those brave souls not risk a sorry fate of EXCESSIVE INHYDRATION 'neath the briny waves owing to the relatively high sinkability (as lately determined by STERN MEN of LEARNING) of the cast iron wherefrom its composition is formed?

Yrs,

Vale, Royal Steam Hussars.

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Sir,

Major Woolley-Cardigan is possessed of a MOST ENVIABLY BRITISH apellation causing feelings of awe and patriotism in all RIGHT-THINKING MEN and OLDER BOYS. I salute you!

I must add that your INGENIOUS contraption appears most compleat in function, but would those brave souls not risk a sorry fate of EXCESSIVE INHYDRATION 'neath the briny waves owing to the relatively high sinkability (as lately determined by STERN MEN of LEARNING) of the cast iron wherefrom its composition is formed?

Yrs,

Vale, Royal Steam Hussars.

Messr Vale RHS,

Sir ,

I am pleased to make your literary acquaintance and deeply grateful for your kind words of support and encouragement. I should make it known however that the RMLI LC is not entirely of my own design and that much credit is due to Snr Technophile Ivan Grosse-Wurst of the Admiralty Design Board for the metal track laying idea and to Mssr Bequerel of the Chemistry Department, of the Brittanic Military Liason School in Lyons, for the unique propulsion system. Whilst the original conception was mine it would not have been possible to make my dream a reality without the help of these men and many others.

For fear of boring you I would not expand on the nature of the propulsion, but yet I think you might be interested to learn of it considering it's potential application to your own steamships.

Whilst reading through my late father's naval diaries I happened upon this entry-

'Land Torpedo test this afternoon - everything seems to be working and the technician ratings are as busy as bees. The contraption itself looks quite ungainly, but I am assured it is both accurate and quite stable. I have taken considerable pains to ensure the Bequerel tip is of the finest Uranium although my personal stores of Uranite are sorely depleted, the Admiralty have assured me that I shall be fully compensated. Mssr Bequerel was unable to join us in Somaliland for the testing of this new weapon, so I have agreed to make a full report to him on conclusion of the tests.'[

'Disaster! The Excelsior is hit and listing badly. One of the legs has been badly buckled and several ratings have been burnt, one poor soul- completely vapourised. The torpedo ran true, but there appears to have been a malfunction in the Reflected Signal Detector. I advised the Technical Office against testing two new sytems at once on grounds of scientific rigour, but with typical hubris they announced that my contribution was merely another shell type. I would seem the the RSD identified the Excelsior as a target, promptly turned about and exploded just below the keel. There was a tremendous explosion, temporarily blinding all onlookers and I seem to have developed a nasty sunburn. Damage reports indicate the the unobtainium plating is badly buckled and were it not for the underlying wooden construction- the ship would surely have shattered. It would appear that the Uranium torpedo head has reacted strongly to the Unobtainium leading to the very sand beneath the ship turning to glass. It was here that the poor sailor was completely lost. If that were not bad enough, on seeing the ship wounded so, some local rebels took the opportunity to fire on the ship from the local village of Addis. Return fire was quick but overeffective resulting in several native deaths and the destruction of a brothel during which one of our own officers was badly wounded in the buttocks'

I believe Mssr Bequerel was able to use my father's report and subsequently examined the interactions of Uranium and Unobtainium and devised a sealed Unobtainium cannister filled with Uranium poles. When water is passed through, it is immediately vapourised into high pressure steam. I have had a valve fitted to the cannister, which when opened, releases the steam down a pipe. Within the pipe is a long shaft, mounted to which are several fans which spin as the steam passes. This shaft is then coupled to a gear which translates rotational force to the forward wheels of the RMLI LC and also, by selection, to a directable, shrouded propellor at the rear of the craft providing, in calm conditions, almost 6 knots of speed. Once the Uranium poles are spent they are (very) carefully removed, cut into suitable lengths, machined to a point at one end and fitted to our 2' shells. The craft is fitted with a Self Loading Ordanance- Bequerel Gun, named after Bequeral as it was he that pointed out that spent Uranium was not only heavier than lead, but more ameanable to accurate machining. I am almost certain though, that the Uranium tips of the shells might have a devastating effect on our own Unobtanium clad craft, so I must urge you Sir to keep this information most firmly under your busby, shako or whatever you chaps are wearing these days!

Yours,

A Woolley-Cardigan.

P.S The craft does not sink due to the displacement effect coupled to the internal and external bouyancy tanks. I am certain that if you carfully seal some of your own landships, you might find them quite capable of crossing rivers.

Edited by Deon
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Ah ha! Another fascinating experiment for my exploding billiard balls! A fine coating of Uranium on the balls and a dusting of Unobtanium on the cushions - that should make a fine display in the club's billiard room! I shall have to proceed adroitly!

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Ah ha! Another fascinating experiment for my exploding billiard balls! A fine coating of Uranium on the balls and a dusting of Unobtanium on the cushions - that should make a fine display in the club's billiard room! I shall have to proceed adroitly!

I can see your club bills escalating somewhat, I recommend that you wear tinted glasses and a thick coating of Kaolin on any exposed body parts, particularly if you continue experimenting in your night gown.

A Woolley-Cardigan

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Further to your excellent advice regarding Kaolin (Nature's prophylactic!) a well-constructed smoking jacket may be turned inside-out and used as a MOST CONVENIENT shield for your masculine attributes.

Edited by Will Vale
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Further to your excellent advice regarding Kaolin (Nature's prophylactic!) a well-constructed smoking jacket may be turned inside-out and used as a MOST CONVENIENT shield for your masculine attributes.

Salutary advice my freind, which I shall pass on to the ships quarter master as my men are still accustomed to wearing kilts

AWC

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  • 3 weeks later...

Its so tiny, and yet strangely compelling! Great thread too.

Did you know that there used to be a real problem with exploding billiard balls back in the distant past. They tried making them from a cellulose compound; it was cheaper than ivory but degraded into nitro-cellulose (gun cotton) which could detonate if struck sharply enough! I say bring it back, it would perhaps liven up the snooker on the TV.

Edited by per ardua ad ostentationem
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Yup thats where I got my idea from for this character :) many years ago I played this "mad professor" type character in a Cthulhu by Gaslight RPG with a bunch of friends and we ended up inventing a billiard ball firing gattling gun to defeat one of the big nasties...

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  • 3 weeks later...

The barely floating beast is finished. I have carefully reconstructed the craft from the few extant sketches left by Wells, together with a Marine detachment based on his own models. I can't be absolutely sure about the tartan as for some unknown reason there is no official history for the RMLI (HD). I suspect their involvment with the Excelsior and Hindustan projects in Tibet and Somaliland was removed from Govt. files after the projects were inauspiciously shut down in order to placate the Health and Safety ( Avoidance of Semi-unobtaneous Explosion ) Comittee.

frnt.jpg

Further photos

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