Thanks for the courtesy of your prompt responses Billy and Ben.

Appreciate it can be difficult to prevent. Seen this kind of thing before when the perpetrators are targeting a site forum specifically trying to crash the site's server and slow down or the forum until it has to be reconstructed from backup, resulting in disruptive downtime and time consuming for the site admin/s.

[br]The usual motivation for attacks on the other sites I've referred to is their popularity vs alternative sites. Perhaps Guitar Tricks is 'guilty' of being too successful against its competitors?