Dark Earth Timeline Discussion

[Simon Darkshade]

July
July 1: A mass strike of NFL players begins during a pay and conditions impasse in the lead up to summer training camps, with some team owners beginning to talk of mass sackings as a response to the strike.
July 2: BBC’s Panorama carries a feature on the impact of the North Sea and Irish Sea oil rig construction boom on the British shipbuilding industry, which, along with extensive orders for supertankers, bulk carriers and container ships, and new modules for the Floating Fortresses, is experiencing record breaking growth and performance.
July 3: Sweden defeats Germany 5-4 in a thrilling Soccer World Cup semi-final in Berlin, whilst England upset the Netherlands 3-2 in the corresponding final in Munich, setting up an enticing final between the aging English and the burgeoning Scandinavian juggernauts, whose fast running and high scoring game has won many plaudits across the tournament.
July 4: USNS Hughes Glomar Explorer successfully raises a portion of the sunken Soviet submarine K-129 containing cryptographic machinery, code books, nuclear armed torpedoes and her three SS-N-5 Serb SLBMs.
July 5: The Soviet ambassadors to the United States, Britain and France pass on official notes indicating that the Soviet Union is giving notice of its right of withdrawal from the Treaty Banning Nuclear Weapon Tests in the Atmosphere, in Outer Space and Under Water, under Article V of the Treaty, citing the need to conduct a limited but unspecified series of underwater and partially atmospheric tests at some point in the near future. NSA and GCHQ sources note an increased amount of signals traffic occurring between Moscow and certain closed cities in the Northern Urals, whilst a British source alleges that the withdrawal is actually preemptive cover for the eventuality of a need to use thermonuclear weapons against certain facilities with the USSR which have had...issues...of late.
July 6: Opening of the Arlberg Road Tunnel under the Arlberg Mountains between Tyrol to Vorarlburg by Kaiser Otto. It is the longest road tunnel in the world at just over 14 miles and capable of allowing 5000 vehicles per hour to pass through it, with over 10,000 dwarven engineers and tunnellers having completed the structure in eighteen months.
July 7: Sweden win the Soccer World Cup Final, beating slight favourites England 4-2 in front over 200,000 spectators in Berlin in a commanding display of attacking soccer, with the margin made slightly more acceptable by a late goal by retiring champion Duncan Edwards.
July 8: Over 50 leading NFL players have their contracts cancelled in a concerted response to perceived ring leaders in the player's strike. The firm action has an unexpected immediate effect, with students scheduled to play in the College All-Star Game voting not to practice until the strike is resolved.
July 9: A lawsuit filed by the National Organisation for Women in the New Jersey Superior Court on behalf of a 13 year old girl for the opening of Little League Baseball to girls is resolved, with the court finding in favour of the defendant, citing previous precedents from higher courts whereby provision of separate and equal programmes is seen as being in compliance with legal obligations. An accompanying amicus brief filed on behalf of a purported organsation known as GROSS is dismissed without being heard.
July 10: Merger of Knight Newspapers and Rider Publications to form America’s largest newspaper company, Knight-Ridder; the revenue of the new conglomerate is expected to help offset the recent investments of sister-company Knight Industries in the Knight Industries Two Thousand, a new intelligent computing engine fitted in a special robotic automobile.
July 11: A Sikh marksman of the Indian Army's Corps of Guides records the longest sniper shot on record during operations against revolting tribesmen in the foothills around the Khyber Pass on the North West Frontier, destroying a machine gun nest with an L79 25mm heavy automatic rifle at 2987 yards.
July 12: The South African Ministry of Home and Internal Affairs publishes a white paper on the implications of the 1970 Census. The population of 36,967,276 (now estimated to be over 40 million with subsequent growth over the intervening years) consisted of 16,524,811 Blacks, 15,236,367 Whites (over 10 million being of Anglo-South African, British or European extraction, with the Afrikaner fraction of the population continuing to steadily shrink), 2,489,425 Coloured, 2,216,422 Indians and 500,251 Orientals (principally Chinese and Malays), with immigration trends indicating that a white plurality may be reached at some point prior to 1980, if it has not already, but strong Black African birth rates are expected to continue over that time.
July 13: The Home Office declines an application for a construction permit for a proposed new mosque in London, citing potential inconsistency with the Supremacy of the Crown Act 1562 and the additional precedent of the recent refusal for a similar permit for the establishment of a Mormon tabernacle. The total number of mosques in Britain remains two, consisting of those in Woking and Southfields, built in 1965 and 1970 respectively.
July 14: Commissioning of USS Pegasus, the first in a new class of hydrofoil Fast Attack Strike Craft designed expressly for littoral operations, particularly around the Americas and Eurasia. The Pegasus class is the first of several new lighter surface combatants whose development was first postulated in the Torry Plan of 1963, named after then CNO Admiral Rockwell Torry, with the others being the Navy's first dedicated corvette design, the 2500t New London class, and the intermediate multipurpose 1200t Hawk class Light Combat Sloop.
July 15: A joint study by the government of North Vietnam and the Soviet advisory mission indicates that the state will need to at least 10 years to recover from the damage of the war, with full modernisation of her industrial capacity and rearmament likely to take longer than that.
July 16: France conducts a hybrid underwater/underground thermonuclear test at Mururoa Atoll in French Polynesia, with a new 50kt warhead for a multipurpose submarine launched missile performing satisfactorily.
July 17: President Reagan gives a speech from the Oval Office on the recent successes of America's journey into space, providing an update to the American people on the planned expansion in size and role of both NASA and the USSF, and setting very ambitious goals for the decades to come. One interesting section sees the apparent canvasing of free world cooperation with the British, French, Germans, Italians and Europe on the U.S. starship project.
July 18: A group of Korean dissidents are sentenced to lengthy periods of imprisonment for sedition by a civilian court over a recent wave of demonstrations in what is regarded as harsh sentences, but not approaching the crushing ones desired by the military and the government.
July 19: The Egyptian Ministry of Defence begins a new review of the next steps in its ongoing armament, expansion and modernisation programme, with an unspoken aim of diluting the relative political power of certain current commands and officers who regard the ongoing British Imperial presence in the Suez Canal Zone as something of an imposition upon future ambitions.
July 20: HM Treasury report that major British economic indicia have now exceeded their expected levels prior to last year’s recession, with new jobs up by 5.2% in the second quarter, house construction exceeding projections with 375,922 new dwellings over the same time, and exports of electronics, cars, aircraft, machine tools, textiles , ships and North Sea oil and gas and petrochemicals all showing very strong growth. The potential for future export of British electricity to the Continent also provides for further positive projections.
July 21: An informal transatlantic air race occurs between strategic reconnaissance planes of the USAF and RAF, with a SAC SR-71 Blackbird scheduled to deploy to RAF Fairford from Griffiss AFB and a Bomber Command Bristol Bluebird scheduled to make an appearance at an air show in Kansas both agreeing to synchronise their take offs. The Blackbird wins relatively comfortably by 38 minutes.
July 22: Vampire hunters affiliated with SOE, operating clandestinely behind the Iron Wall in Communist Romania, report that investigations of the infamous Castle Duckula, home for many centuries to a dreadful dynasty of vicious vampire ducks, have uncovered that an undead scion of the Duckulas has apparently been restored to existence. The team, headed by noted hero Captain Fantastic and including an undercover surrealistic music hall band, reports that this latest reincarnation has not run according to plan, and that tentative contacts have been made with the vegetarian Count Duckula; a preliminary offer of a recurring role on a British variety television show, such as The Two Ronnies, in return for cooperation in operations against both the Soviets and other nosferatu (such as his more humanoid namesake) has apparently been received with much interest.
July 23: Completion of the expansion of the British Commonwealth base complex on Cyprus, with two new airfields, a number of missile silos and a large SAGW installation in the centre of the island adding to the facilities of the great Imperial bastion of the Eastern Mediterranean.
July 24: Quarterly oil and gas revenue from fields on and around the Falkland Islands passes £40 million for the first time, with some locals ruminating on the societal consequences of the influx of new workers to what had been quite an insular community of but 30,000.
July 25: General Alexander Haig is promoted to Supreme Allied Commander Europe, with General George Patton IV assigned command of Seventh Army, controlling US Army forces in Germany, and by extension command of CENTAG. Plans to stand up a separate U.S. Army field army in Austria-Hungary under SOUTHAG, mooted by Reagan Administration officials last year, continue to be finalised.
July 26: Criminal Paul Knowles seriously injures a Jacksonville prison guard whilst attempting to escape from a Florida jail. He subsequently attempts to confess to a number of murders in California, which cannot be proved, and is tried and sentenced to a total of 25 years imprisonment for assault, attempting to escape and aggravated battery.
July 27: A delayed broadcast from the Soviet Kosmos 17 spacecraft en route to Neptune is aired on the All Union Programme of Soviet television, with Mission Commander Alexei Leonov and his bridge crew of Vladimir Komarov, Valentin Bondarenko and Georgy Dobrovolsky showing the audience the bridge, scientific module, crew quarters and engineering module of the Kosmos in their 20 minute telecast.
July 28: Spanish aircraft carrier Purísima Concepción apparently spots the Flying Dutchman whilst moving to conduct flight qualifications off the Canary Islands.
July 29: British and Canadian agronomistic research wizards produce a new series of ‘super strains’ of staple crops after a five year experimental project costing over £600 million. Special varieties of wheat, barley, corn, rice, potatoes, oats, spelt, amaranth, rye and bulgur that are highly disease resistant and produce yields upwards of 250% of current leading seeds offer the potential for the widescale elimination of most modern incidences of famine, in concert with the incredible advances made under the Green Revolution.
July 30: A special conference of a sub-committee of the Combined Chiefs of Staff in Washington D.C. agrees upon a raft of logistical cooperation arrangements between the military forces of the USA and the British Commonwealth, with field rations, personal equipment, war machines, and tactical signals equipment being the first to be addressed. It is considered that the advantages of coordinated production and some degree of relevant standardisation are even more marked given recent projections of the probability of a more protracted and largely conventional war due to ongoing scientific advances.
July 31: Boeing completes the 4256th and final Minuteman long range ballistic missile (LRBM), a Minuteman V destined for the 820th Strategic Aerospace Division at Volk AFB, Wisconsin.

[jemhouston]

I take it General George Patton IV is friends with Mayor Rommel of Stuttgart are friendly.

In Harm's Way made Ryan Szimanski's favorite naval movies list. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=95s1LF0E96A&t=904s

The comments list more movies.

[Simon Darkshade]

General Patton is friendly with Generalmajor Manfred von Rommel, as well as now retired Feldmarschall Erwin Graf von Rommel.

The fellow's description of In Harm's Way isn't that unreasonable an analysis, although I liked the alternate history/fictional parallel angles a bit more than he did.

[jemhouston]

I'll admit, I wish they would either do a remake of "Sink the Bismark" or we get a faithful Battle of Surigao Strait.

I wouldn't mind Taffy 3 vs Center Force.


I need to watch https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=35yLWdYEbZQ
Battle of Samar - What if TF34 was there?

[Simon Darkshade]

You'd probably like the Dark Earth version of Sink the Bismarck, or other naval films such as The Battle of Jutland or a picture that coincidentally I have scheduled as coming out in November 1974 on the Battle of the Philippines (including Leyte Gulf).

The DE Pacific War also had a final surface fight in 1945 in the Battle of Sagami Bay, whose name is something of a geographic misnomer; it will come to film as well, along with the brief Operation Olympic and the extensive tussles between the RN and IJN in the South China Sea in 1941 and 1942.

Insofar as film treatments are concerned, the best exemplar for the different approach of Dark Earth is The Longest Day. Here, it is in very high resolution colour (Ultra Panavision 70 with enhancements to boot), has subtitles throughout for German and French bits, and features some very impressive wide views of the invasion fleet, landings and aerial operations, put together using a combination of special effects, camera tricks, illusionary magics and using a lot of actual military equipment/ships/aircraft.

The famous scene when Pluskat sees the oncoming Allied fleet ends up panning out to show the Allied fleet in a manner not done in any Western pictures about D-Day; the best one to provide a broader, non-individual scope of it all was in my view the 2011 Korean picture My Way, the relevant section of which I'll link below. Also of note, and comparable to my vision of DE The Longest Day, is Clint Eastwood's Flags of our Fathers, specifically the naval bombardment and landing scenes.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eRyL1aUlAPU

[jemhouston]

Thanks. Enjoy the comments

[Simon Darkshade]

Thank you for providing the questions and observations which begat them. One of the best parts of writing this all is to get engagement and questions that can further flesh things out and zap life into it all.

[Simon Darkshade]

July Notes
- The NFL strike happens in a slightly different environment, leading to a different response. Professional sports aren’t quite as advanced towards the side of player power, even for America, at this point
- The North Sea boom is really kicking in now, and it, as well as the increasing growth of supertankers and other ships, is driving shipbuilding tonnage into territory only touched upon by Japan historically at this point; British laws regarding shipping and certain tax breaks come into play to offset cost differentials to some extent, whilst Japanese labour costs are rising
- Some different teams end up playing soccer, and, as signposted before 1974, there is a different winner in the form of Sweden; an English defeat should warm the cockles of some hearts
- Success in the raising of K-129 doesn’t yield a lot that wasn’t necessarily known to this point, but it does provide another secret reason for knowing some things, which can then be utilised as a cover story for some future triple agents. Wheels within wheels within…
- The Soviets seem to be pulling out of the Atmospheric Test Ban Treaty for interesting reasons. As a side note, when a delayed version of the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties comes about, this case will lead to some quite precise wording
- The Arlberg tunnel is larger and dwarven
- The Little League remains for boys alone, with a noticeably different wording of some of the law from Brown hinting at a different background of that particular area of law. Calvin’s amicus brief isn’t given the time of day
- Knight-Ridder and Knight-Rider are linked here
- A longer range sniper record is set, with a beast of a rifle
- South African demography impacts upon its politics and social evolution, as well as economics
- The knock back on mosque construction comes down to some pretty old law; the number of mosques in 1974 Britain was around 3 or 4
- The Torry Plan yields some different lighter ships, distinct from Zumwalt in @
- North Vietnam has a lot of recovering to do
- Reagan’s speech indicates that the space race is increasing in importance
- Egypt’s army growth is a novel way of decreasing the influence of those unhappy with Britain not only controlling the Canal, but being in the way of expansion in any direction
- The British economy is in profoundly different shoes to @ 1974, such that it is now very much on a different trajectory, in terms of problems and positives
- The SR-71 remains the fastest conventional long range plane for now
- Duckula getting a gig on The Two Ronnies would be his cup of tea; Captain Fantastic was played by David Jason on Do Not Adjust Your Set, so having him talk to Duckula is a bit of fun. The band with him is the @ Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band
- Cyprus gets some more facilities, with that being the most exciting thing happening there in 1974
- Times are changing on the Falkland Islands
- A new US Army in SOUTHAG comes from an acknowledgment that the Austrians have the biggest section of the Iron Wall/Iron Curtain to cover
- Knowles does not escape to kill dozens of innocents
- The Soviet cosmonauts include some interesting names…
- And slotted in at the end of the month is the world changing news of the new crop strains. Consider the implications for food production, hunger, scarcity and prices
- US and British Commonwealth cooperation on logistics is a common sense step. For example, it doesn’t mean that rations/MREs will be standardised, but some components, structure, packaging and the technologies employee will be; webbing will remain distinct, but sizes of components and lightweight materials will see crossover. By starting small, the practice, success and processes of cooperation and standardisation are troubleshot, whilst other issues are ironed out, such as the British using 6”/152.4mm shells and the Yanks using 6.1”/155mm ones; 125mm, 8” and 240mm have been standardised. Oh, and the bit about a long conventional war being contemplated points to a whole different universe of strategic defence thinking…
- There are a lot more Minutemen, even as new LRBMs/ICBMs enter service to augment them

[jemhouston]

Scary question, what happens if whatever the Soviets nuke shrug it off? Or makes it worse?

[Simon Darkshade]

That’s a very interesting question. At this time, that doesn’t seem to be the case, and that any openings would be closed.

[jemhouston]

That’s a very interesting question. At this time, that doesn’t seem to be the case, and that any openings would be closed.

When door closes, another opens.

[Simon Darkshade]

Without going into too much detail to spoil anything, that isn't how they work in this situation.

[jemhouston]

Great.

I have fondness for crossover fan fiction. In one story to fix their mistakes, the Russian dropped SS-18 Mod 6 at twenty megatons apiece, followed by three SS-27s at one megaton on their own territory.

If it killed the Lovecraft old ones or not wasn't clear.

[Simon Darkshade]

Killing that which is completely *different* shouldn't be too easy, else there is little drama in any story. That was one of my issues with a discussion here on a USAF jokey thing from Kadena about Godzilla, and also with how the cosmic horror element is missing from a lot of modern zombie works; if you reduce zombies to just a virus, they can be rationalised, and if you reduce Godzilla to a mere gecko with gigantism, he isn't much of a threat.

Here, it is something different. Imagine for a moment that there was no way to travel from Britain to France other than the Channel Tunnel. Nuking the entrance to the Chunnel might then cut the two places off, but it doesn't destroy France altogether.

[Simon Darkshade]

Coming up in August
- Velociraptors in the Falklands
- A cure for male pattern baldness
- Exercise Northern Wedding
- Some victories and defeats
- A few recognisable pieces of television
- The push for Red Plenty
- Real football, as distinct from gridiron and soccer
- Some bold economic predictions and analysis in a story from The Economist, amid a ‘Summer of Contentment’

Some general notes
- The BBC is funded not through licence fees, but directly through a budget line. This is accounted for in its charter, making for a different organisation, particularly in its views towards the government. There is even a TA battalion known unofficially as the ‘BBC Rifles’
- Historically, 1970s British television films, mini series and programmes had at times some decent writing and excellent costumes, but not quite the biggest budgets. This isn’t the case here on DE, so we shall see some interesting manifestations of that
- Whilst some aspects of earthly fashion won’t be seen, there will be something of a trend for slightly longer hair amongst boys and young men, albeit not to the lengths seen in our 1970s; rather, it will be a tad reminiscent of certain stages of the Victorian and Edwardian periods
- Through some different events, there will be the makings of a bit of a fitness craze, after the early 1960s similar period at the beginning of the first Kennedy term
- There will be a few warmer summers coming up, particularly in Britain in 1976, but through the combination of a secured water supply and the Grand Contour Canal and by-now quite sophisticated weather control magics (compared to greening the deserts of the Middle East, getting it to rain in Middlesex in June is small fry), there won’t be any drought per se
- With a different degree of affluence, both in Britain and America, we will see some different businesses and products emerging, including a British soft drink able to compete with Coca-Cola, Pepsi and Nuka-Cola
- A very well known film, which later became a series, will be coming out a bit earlier, and be even more popular; the plot and storyline might be a tad different
- Conversely, there isn’t likely to be a hit film about the Monster Shark of Amity Island from back in 1947(see below)
- In many ways, it is a bit of a more innocent and optimistic age, like the rose coloured perceptions of Camelot in @ before that fateful Dallas day
- Whilst the military forces of the USA and USSR are reasonably straightforward to model and develop, postulating the type and size of forces for larger (in both population and GDP) versions of Britain, Canada, France and Germany is a very interesting challenge. None of the latter quartet are headed in anywhere near the same trajectory as historical
- I’ve touched upon this idea on a couple of occasions, but DE doesn’t quite see the same ‘Strange Death of the Infantry Division’ as the @ 1950s-70s, and there will be some interesting developments on the cards
- After 30+ years, the Royal Highway (equivalent to our Motorways)programme is approaching completion, with further big ticket infrastructure to follow being some new ports, airports, completion of rail expansion and some ultra high speed links, more fusion plants, and a special underground vactrain. Incidentally, the Royal Highways do have some features similar to certain Swedish roads
- Some case law will develop on some interesting areas, establishing precedents and even perhaps certain rights in a particular fashion
- A number of Western countries are going to be looking at how to be a bit more selective in their conscription process, as a way of making their money work for them
- There is going to be the beginnings of an education revolution of sorts
- As of 1974, there isn’t really a sick man of Europe that stands out from other countries; in a similar vein, the term ‘nanny state’ hasn’t had cause or opportunity to emerge
- There will soon be a quite articulate voice emerging in the Commons in the form of one of the MPs from Singapore


1947 Amity: The peace of the idyllic holiday island of Amity off Cape Cod was disrupted by a series of attacks on swimmers and boating enthusiasts by a monstrous 56ft Megalodon in late June and early July. Local authorities were initially reluctant to believe reports of a rogue killer shark, but a very public attack on boats inside the island marina that killed four on July 4th made the matter impossible to conceal. Hundreds of would-be shark hunter descended upon the island over July, with five being killed in attempts to destroy the wily beast, including a local policeman on his last day before retirement. The creature was eventually killed by the Police Chief Brody and New York newspaper journalist Clark Kent in an incident involving a Mark 25 torpedo, an automatic rifle and a series of punches.

[jemhouston]

Clark Kent was well known for being a participation journalism believer as opposed to believing reporters shouldn't be part of the story.

[Simon Darkshade]

That approach is a bit more common here, when it comes to crimes, actions to save life and wars. We see the inverse of the situation whereby a U.S. journalist excoriated the idea of warning troops of an ambush; there is a strong sense of everyone pulling for the same team.

This occurs under a background of a very real degree of censorship, very solid guidelines over press operations and a sophisticated information war strategy developed since WW2. A lot of the Cold War mechanisms for this were put in place or fine tuned under JFK.

[jemhouston]

That approach is a bit more common here, when it comes to crimes, actions to save life and wars. We see the inverse of the situation whereby a U.S. journalist excoriated the idea of warning troops of an ambush; there is a strong sense of everyone pulling for the same team.

This occurs under a background of a very real degree of censorship, very solid guidelines over press operations and a sophisticated information war strategy developed since WW2. A lot of the Cold War mechanisms for this were put in place or fine tuned under JFK.

Simon that bit warning troops of ambush is a touchy subject for me. If I come off too intense, it is not directed at you, but the reporters involved.

If I remember right, it was a panel discussion, Mike Wallace (I think) was asked if he was with enemy troops about to ambush US troops if he would warn the US troops even if it cost his life. Well, he said he would.

Peter Jennings (?) took him to task saying reporters shouldn't take sides. Mike Wallace backed down. I'm wondering if Peter Jennings was expecting the US troops not to shoot him.

Being in a capital city being bombed by US forces is one thing, being on the front lines is something else.

[Simon Darkshade]

https://11thcavnam.com/main/mike_wallce.htm

It was the other way around (Wallace carrying on about being a reporter, Jennings willing to warn US troops, even if it cost his life).

Here, the Wallace view would be unthinkable, as it would be embedding American journalists with the SS or the North Koreans. There can be legitimate disagreement as to how or why something is being done, but on DE, that doesn’t lead to some perverse transcendence of national loyalty.

[jemhouston]

Thank you