In today’s sermon we shall ramble through WWI nautical ingeniousness,
Old West architecture, Major League Baseball fashion, and, if we’ve done the
job right, wind up with an observation or two regarding the cost-to-benefit analysis
of being a bad-ass or simply “dressing like a bad-ass.”
Let’s start with our WWI history.
Q-Ships.
What exactly is/was a Q-Ship?
Let me back up a little, let’s discuss why Q-Ships were conjured
in the first place.
U-Boats.
We all know what these are. The U-Boat, or “Unterseeboot”
[you guessed it, “undersea boat”] was a major contribution to Germany’s success
at sea. These roving bands of submarines sank exhaustive tons of ships, cargo,
let alone the number of lives lost.
Many were lost on both sides, as submarine duty is particularly
hazardous-even today, all the more so in the early days of the technology.
U-Boats stalked shipping lanes, looking for ship profiles that
read as easy prey and then they struck.
This strike from the shadows or depths struck many as not quite
cricket, but the days of ships of the line sailing in, well, a line with colors
raised high, or men marching in tight formation into cannonade was rapidly [and
wisely] becoming a thing of the past.
It seems the skulking, stalking, stealthy way of war practiced by indigenous
peoples the world over was returning to the “civilized” nations on a mass scale.
In response to this skulking sea gambit of the Germans, the British
Navy, sought their own means of subterfuge.
A Q-Ship was any vessel disguised/decoyed as an innocuous vessel,
a merchant marine ship hauling hay for instance. Their profiles were altered
from standard warship silhouettes to lure U-Boats into attacking so that the
Q-Ship could launch its own attack.
Many ingenious methods were used to render commercial ships
somewhat war-ready or to deform the usual profile so that viewing them on the
horizon via binoculars or periscope they would be considered easy prey.
In some instances, bales of hay were stacked around gun-emplacements,
hinged apertures to hide gun batteries, even false smokestacks complete with
re-directed smoke to mimic a tramp steamer. The methods of disguise were elaborate
and thought to the tiniest detail.
One never knew when they were being watched via periscope, so even
the sailors were dressed as merchant seaman, encouraged to “fake lounge” on
deck, behave in manners not at all militarily.
Q-Ships went so far as to drill “panic parties”, that is, designated
sailors who were to appear to “panic” at first sign of a U-Boat. They would “panic”
and go so far as to abandon ship to lure the U-Boat into closer range before the
decoys would be hinged away and counterfire could commence.
Ballsy tactics.
Complete commitment to deception for a purpose on both sides.
With the Q-Ship we have an example of a worthy adversary looking
rather unworthy and, in most cases, non-warlike at all.
Now, let us head out West.
If you’ve seen a Western film or Old West TV show you’ve likely
seen the high fronted buildings along the main street of these towns. What often
looks like a two-story hotel is a single story, what appears to be impressive
marble masonry above a bank’s first floor is likely a thin sheet of pressed tin
laid over a wood support.
“False fronts” for some odd reason became a thing out West. A way
to give small towns or towns that hoped to survive a more prosperous appeal. The
“eye appeal” was to say to an arriving train passenger, “See? We’re a town
on the move!”
The “false front” phenomenon was so prevalent that entire businesses
specialized in offering ready-made false fronts. One such business was The
Mesker Brothers who offered a catalog of dozens of choices of pediments and cornices
all made of less than a quarter inch of crafted and stamped galvanized steel
and cast iron. The Mesker Brothers product was so well-known their name became
a shorthand noun for false fronts.
False-fronting was an open-secret amongst westerners who always
knew, “Why, that hotel ain’t got two-floors, that’s just a Mesker.”
In other words, we have here a phenomenon the exact opposite of
U-Boats and Q-Ships.
U-Boats and Q-Ships were deadly serious business and sought to conceal
these qualities to better do their deadly job.
Whereas, a Mesker, with its intent to be impressive fooled no one
in the know. It was accepted as a go-to practice for any business or “moneyed” individual
that wished to put on airs. They didn’t exactly have the cash or wooden or stone
resources to actually have a second floor, or an impressive cornice, but they could
drop just enough money and effort to “look” like they had a floor no one could
walk on.
Which brings us to UFC T-Shirts. Tap Out gear. Tactical wear worn in
the day-to-day by anyone not in the military or LE business who ain’t stopping
for a gallon of milk on the way home.
What are we seeing here?
Conspicuous signaling? You betcha.
The very opposite of U-Boats and Q-Ships.
It says, “Check this out, I’m high-speed, low-drag, watch your step,
Brother.”
But is it a true signal or is it a 21st-century Mesker?
Well, it could go either way, but…I have many a friend who is/was of
the Special Forces cadre and in the day-to-day, they leave their SEAL capes in
the Batcave.
Or consider the number of baseball caps seen in the world versus
the actual number of baseball players in the world. [Any sports garb will also serve
here.]
How many Major League ballplaye
rs dress like they just walked off the diamond when in line for toilet paper at Wal-Mart?
Native warriors, frontiersmen, special forces operatives, solders,
Q-Ships all sport camouflage to better do what they do.
Meskers do not provide a floor to stand on, they just dress that
way, and I wager they fool very few.
[For techniques, tactics, and strategies of Rough and Tumble Combat, Old-School Boxing, Mean-Ass Wrestling, Street-Ready Frontier Scrapping & Indigenous Ability culled from the historical record see the RAW Subscription Service. http://www.extremeselfprotection.com
Comments
Post a Comment