GR translation: battery-loading crew
Mike Jing
gravitys.rainbow.cn at gmail.com
Thu May 12 03:51:55 CDT 2016
Thanks a lot, Monte.
On Tue, May 10, 2016 at 7:18 AM, Monte Davis <montedavis49 at gmail.com> wrote:
> More likely an electric battery. A truck supplied power to the rocket's
> electrical systems during setup and testing, via cables detached just
> before launch. Given the risks of corrosion and vibration along the way,
> the crew would have had to check battery connections anyway before
> switching over, so it made sense to install a fresh one at the last moment.
>
> "By the time they reached their launching sites, more than half were not
> fit for firing. Long storage was causing the inner workings of many rockets
> to corrode. From the time the rockets left the Central Works factory at
> Nordhausen, they were stockpiled in depots along the northwest German
> border. There they remained, for weeks at a time. When they were finally
> brought over to the launching crews many of the V2s were in poor condition.
> Vital components had corroded away and electrical systems were especially
> vulnerable."
>
> http://www.v2rocket.com/start/deployment/denhaag.html
>
>
> On Mon, May 9, 2016 at 11:45 PM, Mike Jing <gravitys.rainbow.cn at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
>> V757.17-24, P772.22-30 “Räumen,” cries Captain Blicero. Peroxide and
>> permanganate tanks have been serviced. The gyros are run up. Observers
>> crouch down in the slit trenches. Tools and fittings are stashed rattling
>> in the back of an idling lorry. The battery-loading crew and the sergeant
>> who screwed in the percussion pin climb in after, and the truck hauls away
>> down the fresh brown ruts of earth, into the trees. Blicero remains for a
>> few seconds at launch position, looking around to see that all is in order.
>> Then he turns away and walks, with deliberate speed, to the fire-control
>> car.
>>
>> Is the "battery" in "battery-loading crew" used in the artillery sense?
>>
>
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://waste.org/pipermail/pynchon-l/attachments/20160512/69efabc3/attachment.html>
More information about the Pynchon-l
mailing list