Dark Earth Timeline Discussion

[Simon Darkshade]

July
July 1: Beginning of the Grommet series of U.S. nuclear tests with the Diamond Mine test at the Nevada Test Site; some attached personnel are heard to comment that patrolling the Mojave makes one wish for a nuclear winter.
July 2: British Army scientists test their latest arcane supercomputer by programming a simulated reenactment of the hard fought close victory at the Battle of Isandlwhana with modern weapons, resulting in a much quicker and more decisive triumph in 16 minutes and 24 seconds; a variant featuring close air support cut this to 5 minutes and 32 seconds, but requests to try out a tactical nuclear solution were refused on grounds of being a bit silly.
July 3: The Indonesian national election results in a resounding victory for President Sukarno, with over 97.3% of the vote in his favour.
July 4: Unveiling of several new US aircraft at the Independence Day air show in Washington D.C., including the North American-Convair F-20 long range interceptor and F-21 fighter-interceptor and the Boeing FB-111.
July 5: The British Commonwealth South Atlantic Fleet arrives in Port Stanley on the first stop of an official tour of the Falklands, Prydain, Argentina and Uruguay. Consisting of HMS Hermes, the battleship HMSAS Good Hope, four cruisers, eight destroyers, six frigates, the Royal Navy skyship carrier HMS Leviathan with her squadron of RNAS Hawker-Siddeley Nimrods and the RAF aerodreadnought Solaris, the fleet’s goodwill visits have been bought forward by the recent unrest in Uruguay and the precipitous Argentine naval exercises.
July 6: Sir Charles Ratcliffe single handedly slays a monstrous Nile crocodile on Lake Tanganyika with his holy sword, with the beast having been reportedly responsible for eating several dozen people.
July 7: The Food and Drug Administration issues an urgent recall for all canned soups produced by the Bon Vivant Soup Company, a total of over 1.5 million cans, after an unknown number were contaminated with botulism and brucellosis in an apparent deliberate mass poisoning.
July 8: An earthquake registerring 8.4 on the Richter Scale strikes the Valparaiso region of Chile, destroying several small towns and killing over 800 people.
July 9: Scotland Yard’s Vice Squad and Special Branch assists Surrey Police in raids on a number of properties including 22 Acacia Avenue, Little Whinging after a long running investigation into harlotry and suspected links with a Soviet spy ring. They are assisted by a banana-costumed superhero, ever alert for the call to action.
July 10: The Royal Palace of Morocco is assaulted by over 1500 rebel army cadets in a coup attempt during the birthday party of King Hassan. The fighting rages on for several hours before loyal troops and the royal wyvern crush the uprising, with dozens of captured officers and other suspected traitors summarily executed throughout the night.
July 11: Chile’s Senate approves of Prime Minister Allende’s controversial yet popular copper nationalisation plan, sending the bill to the King for royal assent.
July 12: The Wonka Chocolate Company completes the prototype of a medicinal chocolate bar for the British Army, with the 3 oz bar combining enriched minerals, vitamins, fibre and 800 calories of energy with an anti-inflammatory, a pain killer, temperature stabiliser and healing accelerator as well as microdoses of ketamine and D-IX. It is anticipated that the bar will be included in emergency ration packs along with American proton pills.
July 13: Establishment of the Pan-Arab Liberation Organisation in Lebanon. The Soviet backed armed guerrilla force is implacably opposed to the presence of Israel, distinct from the general acquiescence that characterises the mainstream Arab governments and political parties in the region.
July 14: The US Army begins deployment of reinforced training groups and specialist teams in Central America to assist in combating revolutionary groups in the region.
July 15: Transfer of sovereignty of Okinawa back to Japan from the United States under the Okinawa Reversion Agreement
July 16: The USAF expands its 'Women in the Air Force' programme, broadening the entry requirements for minimum height, strength and fitness depending on roles, whilst maintaining its exacting grade restrictions and standardised testing requirements.
July 17: Jackie Stewart wins the 1971 British Grand Prix, finishing ahead of Jim Clark and newcomer James Hunt.
July 18: Christening of White Star’s new super ocean liner RMS Titanic II at Harland and Wolff in Belfast by Queen Elizabeth II in front of a crowd of almost 200,000. White Star’s ultimate response to Cunard’s new generation of superliner dwarfs the previous ship to bear her name at over 240,000 tonnes.
July 19: FBI counter intelligence agents arrest a ring of suspected Soviet spies in Ohio and Indiana, with the illegal agents having allegedly taken on the identities of ordinary American suburban families as a cover.
July 20: Construction of Southampton Cathedral is completed after 483 years, some 17 years ahead of the informal schedule given in 1488 by master builder Thorin Shattersilver; his son presents Church authorities with the adjusted bill.
July 21: The Soviet Union conducts a semi-atmospheric nuclear test at Semipalatinsk in the Kazakh SSR, causing some political consternation in the West as to the most optimal countermeasures to take.
July 22: Discovery of very large oil and gas deposits off the coast of Sable Island, Nova Scotia.
July 23: England breaks the previous record for the most Test Matches without defeat with a narrow triumph over India at The Oval, taking their streak to 25 Tests.
July 24: The President of Uruguay is formally impeached by the Uruguayan House of Deputies over his controversial security measures and suspension of civil rights as a result of the Tupamaros uprising.
July 25: Japanese vampire slaying samurai Nakashima Tsuyoshi ends the recent plague of murders in Tokyo by cornering a monstrous vampire serial killer in Ueno Park using a series of cunning traps and destroying it with his enchanted katana.
July 26: A USAF SR-71 flight is diverted to its emergency landing base in India after being damaged by some form of unknown missile over North Laos. The matter is further confused by no North Vietnamese SAM batteries being present in the area.
July 27: Two officers of Scotland Yard's Flying Squad are commended for successfully preventing a major armed robbery through securing information from one of the criminal's mistresses, or, as they put it "findin' out about the blag from the slag who grassed her old feller, then fangin' down the battlecruiser to find the geezer wiv the motor and comin' in like the Light Brigade yellin' that no _______ move or they'd be brown bread."
July 28: Entry into service of HMS Ocean, first of a new series of modern commando carriers designed to carry the Royal Navy's amphibious force into the 1980s and beyond. The Ocean class are designed to operate with the Fearless class amphibious cruisers and the proposed amphibious assault super battleships, with the latter providing the first British Empire counterparts to the USN's Freedom class and the Soviet Slavas.
July 29: Rebel groups in Northern Afghanistan begin a new wave of attacks on road and rail traffic, once again seemingly employing Soviet small arms. The King is sufficiently concerned to send an urgent emissary from Kabul to Delhi to discuss expanding current deployments of British and Indian security forces.
July 30: Signing of a new treaty of protection and cooperation between Britain and the Trucial States aboard HMS Superb off Sharjah, with the battleship flanked by HMS Gibraltar and the three cruisers of the Royal Navy’s Persian Gulf Station.
July 31: Clandestine US Army search and destroy operations fail to track down the reptiles that had escaped from the secret experimental facility in Arizona, leading to fears that the beasts may have made it as far as Nevada.

[Belushi TD]

July

July 20: Construction of Southampton Cathedral is completed after 483 years, some 17 years ahead of the informal schedule given in 1488 by master builder Thorin Shattersilver; his son presents Church authorities with the adjusted bill.

His SON? I know lifespans are expanded in DE, but this seems a bit extreme. Should that be a grandson, or possibly a great grandson?

Belushi TD

[Simon Darkshade]

With a name like Thorin Shattersilver, he was a dwarf, as is his son. Longer lives.

[jemhouston]

July 31: Clandestine US Army search and destroy operations fail to track down the reptiles that had escaped from the secret experimental facility in Arizona, leading to fears that the beasts may have made it as far as Nevada.

Perhaps they should call in Burt Gummer. He's an expert in strange animals.

[Simon Darkshade]

That's certainly a thought. Given that the creatures in question are these https://fallout.fandom.com/wiki/Deathclaw , he'd need to be on his A game.

[jemhouston]

That's certainly a thought. Given that the creatures in question are these https://fallout.fandom.com/wiki/Deathclaw , he'd need to be on his A game.

Give Burt the right info to know what weapons to bring, he'll do it. If you don't know that, give him another truck.

[Bernard Woolley]

July 1: Beginning of the Grommet series of U.S. nuclear tests with the Diamond Mine test at the Nevada Test Site; some attached personnel are heard to comment that patrolling the Mojave makes one wish for a nuclear winter.

Will the next series be codenamed Wallace?

They are assisted by a banana-costumed superhero, ever alert for the call to action.

He was reputed to be a bit thick, however. Was the senior local policeman an Irishman, perchance?

[Simon Darkshade]

The next scheduled test series is Toggle; there may be some developments in response to the increasing failure of the Partial Test Ban Treaty.

Bananaman is a bit thick, but his heart is in the right place. The policeman in charge was DCI Ronald Craven, though, not Chief O'Reilly.

[Bernard Woolley]

I'd worry about Craven turning into a tree!

[Simon Darkshade]

No fear of that happening, even if he was on the very edge of darkness itself!

Funny that we mention trees and DCI Craven. He has a funny story to tell that his chum Captain Mike Norman (then Lieutenant) told him about the sudden forest that appeared in the Falklands back when Norman was deployed there a few years back.

(Funny thing is that he and Craven look very like one another )

The garrison down there is rather larger than @, as can be surmised from this snippet from some 1968 discussion:


“As of 1968, there have been a number of changes due to the demands of Vietnam and elsewhere:

Land Forces
2 x Reinforced British Army Infantry Companies
1 x Reinforced Royal Marine Company
1 x Reinforced RAF Regiment Field Squadron

Falklands Islands Regiment (1 x Regular Bttn + 2 Territorial Bttns)

Field Artillery Battery (8 x 125mm Light Guns)
Royal Engineer Squadron
Armoured Troop (8 Vickers Valiant MBT)
Air Defense Battery (8 PT.428)

695 Coast Regiment: 4 x 9.2" Automatic Coastal Defence Guns, 6 x twin 5.25” Automatic DP Anti-Aircraft/Coastal Defence Turrets

Air Forces
No. 1417 Flight RAF: 6 Avro Arrows
RNAS Flight: 6 Hawker-Siddeley Phantom FGR.1
RFC Helicopter Flight: 6 Bristol Bulldogs
RNAS Rotodyne Flight: 6 Fairey Rotodynes

Naval Forces
HMS Endurance (Note 1)
Guardship - Typically a River class frigate
Falklands Patrol Sloop (Note 2)
2 Gunboats
Naval Party 8902 (4 hovercraft)

1 = Endurance is a new cruiser-sized nuclear powered Antarctic Patrol Ship with icebreaking capabilities (25,000t, 4 x 12", numerous AA and light guns, Sea Wolf SAMs, 4 Helicopters/Rotodynes, maximum speed of 28 knots)
2 = This is one of the new Medium Patrol Ships/OPVs (10,000t, 4 x 6", numerous light AA/GP guns, 2 x Sea King helicopters, range 20,000nm, CODAG engine, maximum speed of 28 knots) mentioned in ANJ Part 15.

The general RN OPV/Patrol Sloops are the Black Swan class (2400t, 250ft x 40ft x 16ft, 1 x 4.5"/55, 1 helicopter, 25kts). The MPS's are for the South Atlantic, South America, West Africa, East Africa, the Persian Gulf and the Red Sea, along with two of the Large Patrol Ships for the Pacific and Indian Oceans; thought is being given to acquiring more Medium Patrol Ships for the West Indies and East Indies, but is running into funding issues.“

[Bernard Woolley]

What's the population of the FI?

[Simon Darkshade]

A bit over 24,000 permanent residents, concentrated in Port Stanley, Port Howard, Darwin and San Carlos. There is a bit more than sheep farming going on down there in the form of fishing, mining, forestry (now), offshore oil, scientific support and some other secretive government business.

[Bernard Woolley]

Quite a difference from @!

I'm guess the Argies are still quite a threat?

[Simon Darkshade]

Quite the difference.

As for Argentina, they are and they aren’t. They have a big economy, large population, a decent fleet, large army and modernising air force but there are some significant differences.

1.) With no succession of coups and Peronism since the 1930s, they are a more stable country and more prosperous. A lot of that prosperity is tied up with being strong friends with the British Empire.

2.) That last entity is not in retreat.

3.) The (primarily geographic) nature of Prydain sticking in the way makes the Falklands pretty much a non-factor in DE due to its sheer range from the nearest Argentine bases, both air and naval. The border between Prydain and Argentina is the southern frontier of Rio Negro and Neuquén Provinces. Even with that, it still puts Argentina 1200 miles away from the Falklands.

Consider this map:
en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argentine_air_forces_in_the_Falklands_War#/media/File%3AFAA_Air_Bases_1982.gif

All of those bases are out. That means that no Argy tactical fighters can reach the Falklands. They can fly bombers down that far, but without escort fighters. If they wanted to have a go, they would be limited to heavy bombers and carrier aircraft, whilst leaving their flank open to airfields in Prydain.

That shifts their relative threat, whilst not shifting their general grumpiness about their existence. The bigger issue for Argie nationalists is Prydain, but by virtue of its status as an internationally recognised independent country, their claim is much, much weaker. Even in a world where the League of Nations is weaker than the @ UN, there still hasn’t been an aggressive war of conquest since WW2 for a reason.

Back in 1961, there was this little exchange in Never Had it So Good Part 20:

"Why on earth did they invade the Falklands of all places?"

"They regarded it as their rightful territory, based on the earlier Spanish claim. There had always been a nationalist undercurrent that demanded Argentine control of Las Malvinas, as they call the islands, but it became stronger as the Empire began to fade away during decolonisation. When the military junta finally invaded in '82, it was to distract from the terrible state of their economy."

"Righto. Very different from here then. The main part of Argie irredentism is directed towards Prydain, based on the similar grounds of the old Spanish claim. The Falklands are just too far away from their heartland around the River Plate for more than a handful of firebrands to think that they can claim them."

"How long has Prydain been around?"

"As an independent Dominion, 1905 or thereabouts. As a colony? I think our first settlements down in Patagonia stretch back to the 1820s, when they first found gold down there. Of course, we had been interested in control of Cape Horn and the Straits of Magellan for over a hundred years before then, along with France and Spain, naturally."

"I see. What are the chances of Buenos Aires trying something against Prydain?"

"Extremely small, Sam, for quite a few reasons, both political and military. On a purely practical level, the Argies have a decent military, no mistake about that, but it isn't even the strongest one in South America; that is Brazil. In terms of modern ships, they've got a pair of rebuilt wartime fleet carriers they bought from us, two decent second-rate battleships, three brand-new cruisers and eight good destroyers. Their air force has just over 700 frontline jets, though only a few have the range to cover the 1200 miles or so to the Falklands. The biggest factor, though, is that they're a sensible, close ally of ours, although the new nationalist government is making noises about Uruguay and playing up the border tensions in the south for domestic consumption. Even if they did do something silly beyond what the Prydainians could handle, the Imperial South Atlantic Command would sort it out quite quickly."

"What is that? Some sort of standing naval force?"

"That is what they were initially, back in 1920 when they were established after the Jellicoe Report. Since the end of the Second World War, they have grown into much more substantial integrated commands. There is one in the South Atlantic, one in the North Atlantic, one in the North Pacific and one down in Australasia. At nominal full strength, they each have a carrier task force, a battle squadron, several cruiser and destroyer squadrons, a brigade sized amphibious landing force, a maritime patrol group, a tactical air force, a bomber wing and a reinforced division of ground troops. The cornerstones of British Empire security, as Stanley Barton is want to say."



Long story short, different circumstances. Unlikely Argentina will get in a situation where they would want to come and play, even if they could.

[Eaglenine2]

So what happen to the original RMS Titanic?

[Simon Darkshade]

Maiden voyage was a bit later, so missed the ice. Served in WW1 and WW2 as a troopship, getting the nickname “Unsinkable” for surviving a few collisions with destroyers. Museum ship.

[Eaglenine2]

Isn't Main Battle tanks too heavy for Falklands?

[Bernard Woolley]

Depends on the weight and ground pressure of the Valiant. And, what the topography of the DE Falklands, I'd guess.

[Simon Darkshade]

The Vickers Valiant is a 48t vehicle broadly equivalent to the @ Vickers MBT Mark 4, armed with the standard 125mm tank gun and with a lightweight 'arcane composite' hull, rather than a purely aluminium or steel one. Their ground pressure is 10psi (rather than the historical 13), which is double the @ ground pressure of the CVR(T) Scorpion/Scimitar combo deployed to the Falklands.

Falklands topography: Before we even begin, there are more roads, and sealed ones to boot, in addition to more tracks. In general, it is slightly less boggy due to slightly different soil composition, but not markedly so. Going off the beaten tracks in a tank can lead to complications at many times of year, but this is slightly offset by the greater incidence of roads and tracks that comes from a denser population.

The forest has only been around since 1967 and is located on Lafonia. There is coal beneath/adjacent to Mount Usborne and recent prospecting has found lithium in the central hills of West Falkland.

[Paul Nuttall]

Maiden voyage was a bit later, so missed the ice. Served in WW1 and WW2 as a troopship, getting the nickname “Unsinkable” for surviving a few collisions with destroyers. Museum ship.

Watched a program recently that suggested around seven different things that would have meant no collision if any one of them had happened or not happened....Fate really did hate that ship.