SPOING!

Wheeeeeeeeee.... SPOINNGGG Wheeeeeeeeee.... SPOINNGGG Wheeeeeeeeee.... SPOINNGGG Wheeeeeeeeee.... SPOINNGGG

...That's what it sounds like being under artillery fire when the shells transform into big springs in mid-flight.

They have to do it that way because firing springs out of a gun barrel doesn't work very well. Have to fire transforming shells instead.

It's for "less-lethal warfare". The idea is that instead of blowing a soldier up, you just drop a spring over him and trap him in the coils.

Also the advance following the barrage is supposed to be easier because the ground isn't all churned into mud and shell-holes.

Only that doesn't work because all the springs that missed are lying about and get in the way nearly as much as barbed wire, without spikes.

And anyway it doesn't take the enemy long to work out that all they have to do is lie down and the springs can't drop over their heads.

So really it's a pretty shit idea and you might just as well stick to ordinary exploding shells which are a lot easier to make.

Another shit military idea is cement shells for when you're fighting in a swamp.

The idea is you bombard the swamp with cement shells and wait for the cement to set, so you can advance over it without sinking in.

What actually happens is you get a lot of concrete-lined shell holes which are great for the enemy to hide in and shoot at you.

And they don't join up unless you bombard for weeks, so you still get stuck in the squishy bits in between. Where you can easily be shot.

You're much better off using tanks and those spoingy rolled up steel things that unroll themselves to make instant roads.

Or militarised hovercraft.

Or hippos. Hippos do just fine in swamps. They fight like complete bastards as well and you need trench artillery to reliably take them down

And for smaller transports you can use crocodiles. As long as you don't try and use hippos as well otherwise they'll kill each other.

And then you're fucked.

Though of course you could make them not the transports but the actual army. One side has a croc army and the other has an army of hippos.

Only problem is how do you decide which side gets the crocs and which side gets the hippos. Hard to agree on it when you're at war already.

If both sides have crocs then they just end up shagging each other and you get left with a swamp full of crocodile eggs.

Which are much harder to deal with than UXO. No metal in them so they're hard to detect, and they start going off by themselves eventually.

If both sides have hippos they fight all right, but you can't make them wear uniforms so you just get lots of unidentifiable dead hippos.

Makes it a bit tricky to work out who won if you can't tell t'other from which.

You can't even work out your losses because the live ones don't come back either, they just stay out there buggering all the dead ones.

Or at least, those of them which are still complete enough to bugger.

(Nobody is quite sure why giving hippos military training turns them into raving necrophiliacs, but it does.)

But it's either that or have them going around eating the commanding officers and shitting in the canteen, which is no bloody good at all.

At least untrained crocs are easier to deal with. They only eat the occasional sentry sleeping at his post, which kind of saves hassle.

Or it does until anyone on sentry duty starts getting nervous and shooting at shadows in supposed self-defence.

And crocs are difficult to train because they are reptiles, so they're a bit thick, whereas hippos are mammals and more intelligent.

So really you're best off sticking with hippos and putting up with a bit of corpse-buggery. They only bugger dead hippos so it's not too bad

And just hope the other side chooses crocs.

Because soldiers wearing brightly-coloured crappy plastic shoes don't fight very well. Ahahaha.