Combat (pronounced kuhm-bat or kom-bat (verb); kom-bat (noun))
(1) To fight or contend against; vigorously to oppose.
(2) In military matters, certain parts of branches of the services which engage in armed conflict with enemy forces.
(3) An action fought between two military forces.
(4) As a descriptor (in the military and of weapos and weapons systems), a means to distinguish between an item design specifically for use in combat as oppose to one intended for other purpose.
1535-1540: From the Middle English intransitive verb combat (to fight, struggle, contend), from the sixteenth century French combat, from the twelfth century Old French combattre, from the Late Latin combattere, the construct being com (with (each other) (an an archaic form of cum)) + battuere (to beat, fight) (source of the modern English verb "batter"). The transitive sense dates from the 1580s; the figurative use from the 1620s. The noun combat (a fight (originally especially "a fight between two armed persons" and later distinguished as single combat in the 1620s)), emerged in the 1560s and soon was applied in a general sense to "any struggle or fight between opposing forces". Combat is a noun, verb & adjective, combater & combatant are nouns, combatted & combatting are verbs and combative is an adjective; the noun plural is combats.
Combative and dressed for combat: Lindsay Lohan in boxing gloves.
The phrase hors de combat (out of action; disabled; no longer able to fight (literally "out of combat")) was constructed from hors (out, beyond), from the Latin foris (outside (literally "out of doors")) + de (of) + combat. It dates from 1757 and was related originally to battlefield conduct (the principle of which which would later be interpolated into the the rules of war) and is now a literary and rhetorical device. It shouldn't be confused with the French expression hors concours (out of competition) which, dating from 1884, is applied to works of art in an exhibition but not eligible to be awarded a prize. Given the sometimes nasty battles waged in galleries, perhaps hors de combat might sometimes be as appropriate but in exhibitions it's most often used of works which have either already won a prize or have been awarded the maximum number provided for in the competition rules. Other sporting competitions sometimes use hors concours to describe entries which don't conform with the rules of the event but are for a variety of reasons permitted to run (notably in motorsport). The adjective combative (pugnacious, disposed to fight) is from 1819 and by the mid nineteenth century had become much associated with the long discredited pseudo-science of phrenology, the related forms being combatively and the earlier (1815) combativeness. Combatant (contending, disposed to combat) was an adjective by the mid fifteenth century and a noun (one who engages in battle) by circa 1855, both from the Old French combatant (which survives in Modern French as combattant) (skilled at fighting, warlike) where it had also been a noun. The adjective combative (pugnacious, aggressive; disposed to engage in conflict (though not necessarily violence)) seems not pleasing to some because the incorrect spelling combatative is not uncommon.
The Combat: Woman Pleading for the Vanquished, oil on canvas by William Etty (1787-1849), National Gallery of Scotland.
Unusually for works in this tradition, The Combat is not a depiction of a historical or mythological event but a kind of morality tale exploring “the beauty and quality of mercy”. Structurally, the picture is of a woman clutching a warrior who, with sword raised, seems poised to inflict a fatal strike on his fallen foe whose own blade lies shattered on the ground, the woman begging he be spared. Praised for its technical accomplishment The Combat also attracted the criticism the ahistorical piece seemed just another of the artist’s opportunistic pretexts for painting more nude figures, long his favourite motif, but the painter dismissed the carping, reminding critics such imaginative works had a tradition dating from Antiquity, the Romans calling that school of composition “the Roman Visions, works not having their origin in history or poetry”. Mr Etty certainly made a seminal contribution to the genre and he’s regarded as the first English painter of any skill to produce a substantial number of nudes, something which, predictably, has overshadowed his catalogue of estimable still lifes. His life was solitary and in some ways strange and in much of the popular press his output was damned as “indecent” but when in 1828 proposed for membership of the Royal Academy, he was elected, defeating no less than John Constable 1776–1837) by 18 votes to five so his fellow artists rated him highly.
The Norton Commando 750 Combat
1968 Kawasaki 500 Mach III (H1).
British manufacturers once regarded competition from the far-east with little concern but by the late 1960s, Japanese motorcycles had become serious machines enjoying commercial success. Kawasaki’s 500cm3 (H1, Mach III) two-stroke triple debuted in 1968 while Honda’s 750-Four was released a year later, the former fast but lethally unstable, the latter more refined. Three years on, the release of Kawasaki’s 900 cm3 Z1 confirmed the maturity of the Japanese product and the era of British complacency was over though the realization was too late to save the industry.
Nothing ever quite matched the rawness of the original Kawasaki Mach III. Riders of high performance machines had for decades distinguished between fast, well-balanced motorcycles and those which, while rapid, needed to be handled with caution if used in anything but a straight line and on a billiard table smooth surface but even in those circumstances the Mach III could be a handful, the engine's power band narrow and the entry to it sudden and explosive. Probably the best comparison was something like the BRM grand prix car (1947-1955) which used a supercharged 1.5 litre (91 cubic inch) V16; it was only marginally responsive under 8000 rpm but at that point suddenly delivered its extraordinary power which could be as much as 500-600 horsepower. Many Mach III owners were soon noting while rear tyre life was short, the front lasted well because it spent so little time in contact with the road. Adding to the trickiness, lacking the rigidity needed to cope with such stresses, the frame design meant there was something of a gyroscopic tendency under hard acceleration which could be at least disquieting and the consequences were often worse. Still, nobody denied they were quick. Clearly, only crazy people would buy such a thing but fortunately for Kawasaki (and presumably this was part of the product planning), by 1968 the Western world was populated as never before with males aged 17-25 (peak craziness years) with sufficient credit or disposable income to indulge the madness of youth. It helped that under the Bretton Woods system (1944) of fixed exchange rates, at ¥360 to the US$, the Mach III was quite a bargain; on cost breakdown, nothing on two wheels or four came close and even at the time it was acknowledged there really were two identifiable generations of Mach IIIs: the ones built between 1968-1972 and those from 1973 until 1975 when production ended. Not only was the power-band made a little wider (at the expense of the top-end) but a disk front brake was added, the swing-arm was extended and the frame geometry improved; while this didn’t wholly tame the challenging characteristics created by putting what was then the world’s most powerful two-stroke engine in what was essentially the light and not especially still frame used for their 350, it did mean the later Mach IIIs were a little more forgiving and not quite as quick.
1973 Kawasaki 750 Mach IV (H2).
As a design, the Mach III obviously had its flaws but as a piece of engineering, it exhibited typical Japanese soundness and attention to detail. They borrowed much and while little was genuinely innovative, they had started with a clean sheet of paper and buyers found, unlike the British bikes, electrics were reliable and mechanical parts were not subject to the oil-leaks which the British had for decades claimed were endemic to the breed; far-eastern engineering was now mass-producing bikes a generation or more advanced. However, the British industry was chronically under-capitalized so, lacking resources to develop new models, resorted to "improving" existing models. While they were doing that, the Japanese manufacturers moved on and Kawasaki were planning something which would match the Mach III for performance but deliver it in a more civilized (and safer) manner. This project was a four-stroke, four cylinder 750, developed while the Mach III was being toned down (a little) while the good idea of a broader power band and a (slightly) stiffer frame was used on the Mach IV (750 H2), the ultimate evolution of the two-stroke triple which delivered best of the the Mach III experience while (somewhat) taming the worst of its characteristics.
However, in 1969 Honda, the largest in the Japanese industry and the company which in 1964 had stunned Formula One community when their 1.5 litre V12 car won a Grand Prix, released the motorcycle which threatened the very existence of the new big Kawasaki and the four-stroke Honda 750-Four was for a generation to set the template for its genre, as influential for big motorcycles as the Boeing 707 had in 1957 been for commercial airliners. Kawasaki reviewed this disturbing intrusion on their planning, concluding the Honda was a touring machine and that the Mach III had proved there was demand machines orientated more to high-performance. The board looked at the demographic charts and decided to proceed, enlarging their project to 900cm3 which, with double overhead camshafts (DOHC) was tuned more for top-end power than the more relaxed, single cam (SOHC) Honda. Released in 1972, almost a year after the Mach IV, the Z1 attracted praise for its quality and performance, all delivered while offering a stability the charismatic but occasionally lethal triples never approached. Internally, Kawasaki did their bit to ensure a good reception for the Z1 by making sure it was just a bit quicker than the Mach IV over a quarter mile, the 750 never tuned to the extent possible although as some found, more horsepower quickly and cheaply was available.
The big Nortons, named Commando since 1967, had long been a benchmark for high-performance motorcycles and although the Mach III had (on paper) matched its speed, its handling characteristics were such that it could really be enjoyed only in a straight line and even then, was best handled by cautious experts. The Honda 750-Four and Kawasaki Z1 were both vastly better as road machines and clearly the future of the breed. The long-serving big British twins, while their handling was still impeccable, were now outdated, no longer offered a performance premium and still leaked oil. Norton’s response in 1972 was the hastily concocted Commando Combat, the engine tweaked in the usual British manner with a high compression ratio, bigger carburetors, larger ports and a high-lift, long-duration camshaft. These modifications, while the orthodox approach for racing engines, are not suitable for the road and the “peaky” Combat’s only advantage was great top-end power though it was noted the clever isolastic engine mounting did work well to limit the extent to which the greater vibration transmitted through the frame. Unfortunately, the gains high in the rev-range compromised the low and mid-range performance, just where a road-bike most often operates. Indeed, at points, the torque-curve actually went the wrong way and the only obvious way to disguise this was to lower the gearing which (1) restricted the top-speed to something embarrassing low and (2) meant even cruising speeds demanded high engine revolutions. Sadly, it wasn’t possible for many long to enjoy the pleasures of all that power because the Combat's specification exposed weaknesses in pistons, bearings and crankshafts. Main bearing life could be as little as 4000 miles (7000 km) but plenty of engines succumbed to other failures long before. As a consolation, even if the Combat wouldn’t keep going, it was easy to stop, the front disk brake (designed by Norton and built by Lockheed, it used a hard chrome-plated cast-iron rotor because the heat-dissipation qualities were superior to stainless steel) was among the best in the industry.
For those who can remember how things used to be done: 1972 Norton Commando 750 Combat Roadster.
So the most of the things that were changed made things worse. Other things stayed the same including the oil leaks (the joke being seals existed to keep the dirt out, not the fluids in) and the absence of electric starting, the right legs of Norton owners reputedly more muscular than the left. For the engine's problems the solution lay in engineering and metallurgy, a combination of a self-aligning spherical roller bearing called a superblend and un-slotted pistons. But, by the time things were fixed, the fiasco had had triggered irreparable damage to market perceptions and Norton quietly dropped the Combat, applying the improvements to their mainstream engines without trying to match its top-end power. Norton went bankrupt within a few years but the name has been revived several times over the past decades.
1954 Norton Dominator 500 (left), 1967 Norton Atlas 750 (centre) and 1972 Norton Commando 750 Combat (right).
When introduced in 1949, the 497 cm3 (30.3 cubic inch) parallel twin was as good an engine as any then available on two wheels and a great success but that popularity was ultimately what doomed Norton in the 1970s. Over the years enlarged and tuned for more power, it proved adaptable to new frame designs and was an engine which kept Norton in the front rank of high-performance motorcycles but in not even half a decade between 1968-1972, the manufacturers in the Far East advanced further than the British industry had achieved in twenty years. In 1967, well aware of the antiquity of the machinery from which they were coaxing another generation, Norton's management had been surprised at both the positive critical reception to the Commando and the volume of orders being received and for a while the immediate feature looked bright. It perhaps could have been because the clever Isolastic engine mounting system had made it possible to absorb much of the big twin's chronically insoluble vibrations before they reached the rider and the Commando was a rewarding ride but what it should have been was a stop-gap while something better was developed. Instead, it proved but a stay of execution.
Isolastic-era advertising: The agencies never depicted women riding Norton Commandos but they were a fixture as adornments, usually with lots of blonde hair and a certain expression. One reason they may not have been suitable to use as riders was the phenomenon known as “helmet hair” (in idiomatic use, the effects of helmet wearing on those with “big hair”), which, upon removing helmet, manifested either as an unintended JBF or a bifurcated look in which the hair above the shoulders was flattened against the scalp while that beneath sat as the wind had determined. There was also the challenge of kick-starting the big twins, the long-overdue electric-start not installed until 1975.
No comments:
Post a Comment