Fall and Rise: An ISOT

[Bernard Woolley]

Has he also just lost his intelligence network in the U.K.?

[jemhouston]

Has he also just lost his intelligence network in the U.K.?

Had not thought about that.

[Simon Darkshade]

The Soviets have absolutely lost their (much smaller than @) network in Britain, being shifted back to square one. The DE British have lost their network in the USSR, though, offsetting the benefit somewhat; Sidney Reilly is in London, though, beginning ‘retirement’.

[Simon Darkshade]

It is also important to know that Stalin doesn't know about the losses of intelligence from Britain, as the NKVD haven't told him everything about the minutiae of their agents; something that might well save them from the aftermath to some small extent.

Another related question popped up on another forum on whether the Dark Earth version of Winston Churchill looks or acts differently, so I thought I'd add it here to add to the DE mix:

"In terms of his looks and general physical appearance, he is very similar indeed, with two areas of difference.

Firstly, he is 6'1" rather than 5'6", a testament to the combination of (very ancient) elven blood, magical influences in the air and earth making for slightly taller humans in the British Isles and the cumulative influence of centuries of better nutrition through more meat. Also, as a generalisation, the upper classes have a very slightly higher average height, coming from breeding within the aristocracy and even more of the aforementioned improved nutrition.
Secondly, as of the early 1940s, he looks like he did in ~1920. This comes from the very small effects of longer lifespans, but particularly from that same phenomenon we see in Hollywood types and celebrities today of getting some sort of 'work' done. Rather than Botox, plastic surgery and the like, DE has rejuvenation potions that make someone look a bit younger and spruced up. For Churchill, the most notable difference we'd see is slightly less jowly cheeks and less of an extra chin, along with a ruddier complexion.

As far as his actions are concerned, they are again very similar, but just slightly modified by the world he has lived in, the company he has kept and the experiences he has gone through. The world has impacted him by slightly modifying his views on race and nationality to those generally held in DE by men of his class and generation; it is hard for the same views to develop in a world not only with other intelligent humanoid species, but life on other planets. He has many of the same friends/cronies, along with a Lord Birkenhead who doesn't die young in 1930, former South African PM Cecil Rhodes, an Australian cavalry officer chum from the South African War, two more younger brothers as well as Jack, a Scottish warrior priest and a Jewish wizard. In his family, he also has a younger son, William, as well as his daughter Marigold not dying in infancy.

His tastes are almost all the same - Havana cigars, but more often chewed than chain smoked and never inhaled; excellent champagne and brandy and blended whisky, but almost never to the actual point of drunkeness; and insofar as food is concerned, a great enjoyment of traditional English dishes and meats, along with shellfish, bottled orange juice, clear soups, Indian curries and certain French dishes appropriate to his class and time. The only alteration I've made is to his preferred foods, where he doesn't dislike black pudding and has even more of a yen for beefsteak and roast beef.

His experiences have been broadly similar, but without several of the same 'downs' in his career, most notably the Dardanelles expedition having a very different basis and outcome. He serves as Foreign Secretary between 1921 and 1924, providing for a clean sweep of the Great Offices of State. His 'wilderness years' consist of the period of National Government from 1929-1933, where the nominal Liberal leadership precluded his inclusion in the Cabinet. During this time, he doesn't quite get wiped out by the Great Crash and recovers much of his financial breathing space in the rebuilding economy. He doesn't have either 'great cause' of the mid 1930s to dash himself upon in the absence of the same India debate or the Abdication Crisis. After the 1933 General Election and the return to power of Baldwin's Conservatives in their own right, he is Secretary of State for Air from 1933-1936 and First Lord of the Admiralty from 1937-1940; in the Cabinet formally but not quite in the inner circle of Baldwin and Chamberlain's clique, at least until the rolling start to mobilisation from the beginning of 1939. Less of a Cassandra and more of one who progressively comes in from the wilderness, but that is related to a wholesale discussion of DE 'appeasement' and the different events of 1936-1939 that build up to the war. Prior to all that, by the by, he is knighted in 1919 in the aftermath of the victory in the Great War, retired as a Major General in the Territorials in 1924 and won the Victoria Cross at the Battle of Diamond Hill in the South African War.

So, like many things in DE, a slight level of physical difference, but a bit more below the surface."

[jemhouston]

Churchill is still a force of nature.


That's why I prefer to judge people by the standards of their times instead of ours. Granted some things are beyond the pale in any time.

[Simon Darkshade]

He is indeed mercurial.

Churchill was born in 1875, 12 years short of Queen Victoria's Golden Jubilee and a year when:
- The US Army was still in the throes of the Indian Wars, before even Little Big Horn in 1876
- The Meiji Restoration was still an early shaky project
- Disraeli bought the Suez Canal, or at least the Khedive's shares
- The Tongzhi Restoration came to a shuddering halt with the Emperor's death

Very much a different world to the 20th century, especially after the Great War. The further circumstances of his class and background simply establish the idea more firmly. Judging by the standards of today is silly.

[Simon Darkshade]

The first days of Operation Deliverance pushed the logistical capacity of the Breton and Norman points to breaking point, with a great bottleneck of men and vehicles clogging the roads out of the ports and the limited railways running at maximum capacity pushing troops forward to the front line. As scheduled, the ‘Old British’ and French forces were filtered through to the lines of communication for rest, refitting and eventual rearmament, but this too acted to congest the avenues of transport. The use of a large portion of the priceless skyship armada for the sole purpose of supply delivery to inland dumps was one vital means that eased this process, but to some commanders, the organised chaos was akin to Dunkirk in reverse in certain ways. The administrative movement of the major combat and support units of the reinforced British First Army would take several days to complete after the 16th, with congestion of shipping in the ports and harbours of Southern England acting as a further constraint; Second Army has much the worse of the traffic jam. By June 20th, British I Corps and I Canadian Corps had pushed forward to Caen and Avranches, relieving the erstwhile Second British Expeditionary Force’s front, whilst I Anzac Corps held the line down to Rennes and IV British Corps covered the southern portion of the bridgehead alongside the French.

The nearest mobile German unit to the first objective line had been the 5th Panzer Division, which had been reduced to a combat ineffective rump by a terrific concentration of fighter-bomber attacks and dragonstrikes over the 15th and 16th, with longer ranged attack aircraft, light bombers and strike fighters being dispatched to hit the 9th and 10th Panzer Divisions further south. The Luftwaffe’s fighters made for scant opposition against the Spitfires, Tempests and Mustangs of the RAF over Western France, with a strong air envelope being established that reached down to the beleaguered French in Bordeaux.

German Army Group B could muster 30 infantry divisions, a motorised division and the 1st Cavalry Division, yet this was far from concentrated, being spread out across the German western flank. As such, direct contact with the mustering British and Commonwealth forces was relatively rare and, where it did occur, saw the German units encounter a concentration of firepower that for them was unprecedented, with garbled reports of automatic 25pdrs and massed machine gun fire filtering up the German chain of command, along with near fantastical reactions to the seemingly invulnerable Centurion tanks.

In the main, though, contact along the new front was largely the stuff of mobile reconnaissance troops and special forces, with the Commandos, Reconnaissance Corps and Special Air Service hitting German forward forces wherever contact could be made. One such engagement saw a heavily outnumbered SAS patrol, pinned down by German fire, deploy a terrible weapon as yet unknown to the battlefields of this world.

Joke warfare.

Upon the utterance of the dolorous couplet, translated into the Teutonic for safety, the Hun were struck down by hideous and uncontrollable paroxysms of frenzied mirth until the entire platoon expired, stone dead. This was the only notable direct use of magic against the German Army, with other surprises being husbanded away for the time of the great offensive. With the exception of the use of The Joke, it was the stuff of more conventional, if equally shocking weapons, such as the terrible rain of ruin delivered by the swarms of tactical warplanes from above.

For now, sufficient unto the day was the evil thereof.

[jemhouston]

The JOKE will be on the Germans.

[Simon Darkshade]

Only in a certain manner of speaking.

The general balance of forces in the Northern/Western France sector is shifting rapidly, with the mobile lead elements in the form of the German armoured divisions scouted for, located and swarmed. This constrains their general speed of advance somewhat.

[Simon Darkshade]

A little bit of reflection on tanks:

Jerry has the Panzer I, Panzer II, Panzer III, Panzer 35t, Panzer 38t and Panzer IV. At the start of the BoF, per Guderian and wiki, they had ‘523 Panzer Is, 955 Panzer IIs, 349 Panzer IIIs, 278 Panzer IVs, 106 Panzer 35(t)s and 228 Panzer 38(t)s.’ The IV has the short 75mm that can penetrate 43mm at up to 700m and a few of the IIIs has the 50mm which could do the same to 43mm at 500m.

The tanks they are up against are the Crusader V with the QF 25pdr 90mm gun, 4” of frontal armour and 2.5” on the sides; the Centurion with the 36pdr 105mm gun, a minimum of 6” sloped armour on the front, and 4.5” of sloped armour on the sides; and the Churchill heavy tank with a QF 120mm gun, 6” on the front and 4” on the sides.

The German tanks can’t penetrate any of them.

What of the 88s? At 1000m, they can get through 95mm of 30 degree sloped armour with their standard AT round; I don’t believe they had the hollow charge rounds at this time. So at best, they could get through a Crusader from the side.

When the war turns mobile again, then the German tank units are in a bit of bother, even if they didn’t have to worry about the small matter of thousands of jabos.

[Simon Darkshade]

From the first confused moments of The Event, the two Royal Navies had been the forces with the most interaction with each other. The initial meetings had been quite the shock, to put in mildly, but the experience had been different across the major fleets and stations. The Home Fleet of 1940 and other such ‘Old British’ naval forces in the vicinity of the British Isles, with 8 capital ships, 3 aircraft carriers, 21 cruisers and 33 destroyers, had been the strongest such concentration of the nations arrayed in a new World War, but that position had been overtaken in that single flash of light.

Admiral Sir Charles Forbes had entered Scapa Flow in Rodney on June 14th to behold the main part of the transported 1943 fleet - 9 aircraft carriers, 15 capital ships, 25 cruisers and 80 destroyers. Mere numbers alone barely began to convey the difference, with nine of the battleships clearly larger than any ship, of war or of peace, that any of the officers and men had seen before. Their guns were different, their aircraft were more advanced and their RDF had capabilities well beyond what had been considered state of the art.

Forbes’s initial meeting with Admiral Sir John Tovey, the Commander-in-Chief of the 1943 fleet, had been quite the experience, with the former layer describing it as seeming akin to ‘being the brand new boy summoned to see the Headmaster on his first day at school.’ The subsequent orders for the ‘New British’ Home Fleet to put to sea and strike the Kriegsmarine in Norway did emphasise this feeling of being pushed aside by the new arrivals, which irked the 1940 RN to no end; however kindly the shove, being thrown aside does quite naturally evoke feelings of humiliation. By the 20th of June, an ad hoc committee of high ranking officers of both fleets (which included the quite awkward circumstance of officers meeting their slightly younger selves from a different world) had formulated an initial means of working around the ‘Two Fleet Question’.

Firstly, the most advanced units of the 1940 fleet, namely Rodney, Renown, Repulse,Hood, Ark Royal and the miraculously fully repaired Nelson, along with the Counties and the newest light cruisers and destroyers, were to be sent down to Plymouth to assist the squadron deployed there to cover the (sooner than anticipated) return to France. It was further anticipated that they would then deploy to Gibraltar and French North Africa. The second group, consisting of Valiant, Queen Elizabeth, Barham, Furious, the older carriers and battleships on escort duty in the Atlantic, and all the older light cruisers prior to the Southamptons, would be laid up in the Gareloch, allowing their crews to be freed up for reassignment. The final group, made up of the balance of the 1940 destroyers, were assigned to convoy escort and anti-submarine patrol in the Western Approaches and the Bay of Biscay. Whilst they were less suited to the full range of combat missions compared with the New RN destroyer fleet, they were still more than capable of defending against the limited German U-Boat threat in concert with the scores of New escorts and specialised aircraft. Their larger moment would come with the reorganisation of the major Transatlantic convoys when supply arrangements with North America could be appropriately restored.

The capacity of the 1943 Home Fleet was to be greatly augmented as the various lighter vessels assigned to the Atlantic Fleet were summoned back to Britain to face the differently positioned German threat. Two dozen escort carriers and over 500 destroyers, escort destroyers, frigates, corvettes and sloops were scattered across the North Atlantic, whilst Force H at Gibraltar had been alerted to be reinforced by the cream of the Old Home Fleet as part of the tremendous pincer to be applied to the hapless Italians.

The disparity between the Mediterranean Fleets of 1940 and 1943 was and yet was not as marked, with the New Fleet only mustering 5 battleships, 5 carriers, 23 cruisers and 60 destroyers compared to 4 battleships, 1 carrier, 11 cruisers and 24 destroyers of the older force. Admiral Somerville and Admiral Cunningham had swiftly reached a modus vivendi to unify their commands, given their general concentration around Alexandria and the eastern reaches of the Mediterranean, with a general plan determined should the Regia Marina steam out on an ill-starred death ride.

In the East Indies, Admiral Sir Ralph Leatham had the largest shock of all on that fateful day, as the Grand Fleet under Admiral Sir Andrew Cunningham appeared off Singapore, which had hitherto had a garrison of two older destroyers. After he had been revived with smelling salts and a generously stiff brandy, the evidence of his eyes and that of his officers firmly established the primacy of the 1943 RN in the Far East. Even the ‘small squadron’ left behind at Singapore under the command of Admiral Mountbatten, which would be reinforced by Admiral Crutchley’s Pacific Fleet within the fortnight, was enough to profoundly shift the balance of power in the Orient.

The first week after The Event had not seen any dramatic battles at sea on a par with the raids on Berlin and Hamburg, or with a visible reversal of fate such as Operation Deliverance, with the destruction of the Kriegsmarine ships at Trondheim being more reminiscent of the dispatching of a rat in a cage with a 1 bore shotgun, but the movement of forces, consolidation of command and organisation of the immediate priorities of strategy were to prove just as important to the conclusion of the Second Great War of 1939-40.

For, as each day of the new world at war went by, Cunningham and the Grand Fleet would make almost 500 nautical miles of progress of their journey back to Europe from Singapore, passing Addu Atoll on June 20th.

[jemhouston]

To be a fly on the wardroom's wall.

[Simon Darkshade]

Ah, but which one?

You wouldn't want to be a fly on Bismarck, nor on anything Italians.
It would be very interesting to be one on the 1940 Rodney.
We might hear more from a Japanese room, eventually.

The very, very interesting fly's position, that is next up in planning, is for the Americans when the DE British skyship arrives with the 'embassy' on board; the options for where it comes into land will be interesting. I'm leaning towards Norfolk.

[bobbins66]

Looking forward to the US reaction. Which I’d guess to be

[Simon Darkshade]

It will be an ‘interesting’ experience all round. The tenor of US media reports of 1940 was quite notable for its ‘extra charitable’ interpretation of American military strength.

It is also worth considering that the Canadian Army, RCN and RCAF elements that have ‘come along for the ride’ in and of themselves outgun certain aspects of the downtime US armed forces.

[jemhouston]

Didn't Argentina out gun the US in the early 40s?

[Simon Darkshade]

Not at sea, nor in the air, nor, for that matter, on land. The Argentine Army of 1938 had 47,467 men in five (nominal) divisions.

The US Army of 1939 had 189,867 men in the Regulars. As of late June 1940, there is the 1st-6th Infantry Divisions, the 1st Cavalry Division, the Philippine Division and the Hawaiian Division, with 7th, 8th, 9th IDs and 1st and 2nd ADs following in July and August, along with the call up of the National Guard.

[Simon Darkshade]

Norfolk Naval Base
0832 June 22nd 1940

The British were coming.

The arrival of the ship had been advised as occurring at some point before 0930, depending on winds for some reason. The Army Air Corps and the Navy both naturally had patrol planes up and out looking for the British ship over the last 24 hours, but to no avail. The interception of the Rex had after all occurred to an ocean liner operating in peacetime conditions, but this was still a vexing failure; the new radars would put paid to this.

Vice-Admiral Ernest King, as a member of the General Board, had been ordered to Norfolk for the arrival of British delegation, but had drawn the fairly short straw of awaiting it aboard USS New York, rather than with the shoreside party. Thus, it was, after substantive internal grumbling about the damned Limeys, he found himself on the battleship's bridge when the XAF radar starting going berserk that fine summer morn. Something big was flying in, high and relatively fast, at over 45,000 feet and 250mph.

It was not long after the radar indiciation that one of the Navy's patrol planes picked up on the British aircraft and sent the rather shocked radio message "It's a goddamned flying ship!"

This rather put a different cast on the morning and things did not get better as it got closer quite rapidly, swelling from a speck on the far horizon to a rather more concerning sight as it hove into land. King had initially thought it to be some sort of dirigible, but that impression had been a rather deceptive function of the protuberances of the flying vessel's hull. It was at least eight hundred feet long and seemed to be fitted with a variety of guns, all manner of aerials and protuberances and of course a few large British roundels and even a hastily painted Union Jack for good measure.

Where in the hell have they been hiding that and HOW in the hell is that thing flying?

With a delicacy that belied her size, the ship touched down gently on Chambers Field at 0916, after some very swift radio discussions, and the British delegation, lead by a rather green looking Ambassador Kennedy and consisting of Sir Anthony Eden, Lord Chatfield, the Earl of Cork, Lord Ironside, Lord Trenchard and a bevy of other assorted generals, admirals, Air Marshals, ministers and civil servants disembarked down the smoothly extended steel gangplank. There, after the zephyr of an awkward pause, to meet them was the American reception committee, consisting of General George C. Marshall, General Henry H. Arnold, Admiral Harold Stark, the new Secretary of War Henry Stimson, Secretary of State Cordell Hull and the President's personal emissary Harold Hopkins.

"Good morning, gentlemen. I am glad we weren't late, as we only left Plymouth at 8 o'clock last night. Fluctuations in the aetheric tide, I'm told. I would propose that we retire to the nearest suitable building; there is much we have to discuss." Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs Sir Anthony Eden smiled apologetically.


...................................................

"Well, Harry, in the circumstances, I'm doubly glad you came up here."

"Yes, Mr. President. I felt it would be better to hear it directly from me...else you might find it difficult to believe. Frankly, I find it difficult to believe myself and I saw it with my own two eyes."

“A flying ship.”

”They call it a ‘skyship’, but that is exactly what it was. They were quite open with its design and how it flies, which seems to be some forms of super lifting gas and new minerals unique to their world.”

”So it is true, then. They come from a different Earth.”

”As incredible as it seems, Mr. President, it appears that is the case. Not only a different Earth than our own, but from the future - 1943 to be precise. They’ve been at war for four years and have mobilised their industrial capacity and population to a far greater level than ‘our England’. They have more of both as well - over 116 million people and an economy…if their figures are accurate, it is a third larger than our own.”

If President Franklin D. Roosevelt was taken aback by the effective demotion of the United States of America to the second rank of world economic powers, he did not show it.

First things first.

“How did Ambassador Kennedy strike you?”

”Shell shocked, Mr. President, but the same Joe Kennedy. His position has been shifted a little, after all. The British say that they intend to finish the war within six months. Before this morning, and even after the reports that have come out of Berlin, I would have thought it crazy. Now, I’m not so sure.”

”What do they need?”

”A lot of food and materials, apparently. Their economy snd industry is highly focussed on war production and all of their established trade routes and arrangements have been effectively wiped clear. They don’t seem to want weapons or ammunition at this time, but the figures they bought over for fuel, steel and explosives are astronomical.”

”It would seem that the best way to beat Hitler is to sell them what they need. After that…well, after that we shall see what happens. Now, what details did they share about their Navy?”

”Mr. President, the numbers seem to be accurate, apparently. If they are lying about the size of the Royal Navy, we’ll find out shortly. They were quite enthusiastic about having a delegation from our Navy fly back over to acquaint us with their forces and capabilities; they are quite keen on Vice-Admiral King to be part of it for some reason.”

”We can do that. They may be larger than us, for the moment, but we will catch up with them, even these fleets of ‘sky-ships’ they have. Seeing Hitler and Mussolini beaten and this business with Japan never occurring,” Roosevelt gestured at the black and white pictures of the aftermath of Pearl Harbor with his cigarette holder “will be absolutely in our interests, without our needing to actually fight. We can be like a mighty factory and workshop for the fighting Allies. An arsenal of democracy, if you will.”

”I like the ring of that phrase, Mr. President. It’s got some resonance to it. There is one thing in our favour - they like us, the British. They aren’t as hard up as our old England, but they are very grateful and positively inclined towards us. Eden said that Prime Minister Churchill is keen for a meeting, as soon as the war situation allows it…” Hopkins paused, trying to find the words he sought

”What is it, Harry?”

”For all of that bon homie and gratitude, it was a different kind of positivity; they mean kindly and good, but this kind of patronising…I haven’t seen it from the English since before the last war. It was like what you might find visiting some more backwards cousins in the country.”

Prescient Roosevelt blanched internally.

Having a smaller battlefleet and none of these marvellous sky-ships was one thing, but being compared to the Oyster Bay Roosevelts?

[jemhouston]

Rule one, keep egos in check.

[Simon Darkshade]

Well, that applies to all parties absolutely.

The Americans have been delivered the beginnings of what is a sharp blow to their ego, but nothing truly damaging or fatal. The British are very much condescending and a tad patronising, as many of them were historically in different circumstances; here they have a few good reasons to.

There is a little bit of schadenfreude at play in their request to send Vice Admiral Ernest King over to Britain, but that is more of a one hit joke than a long term plot line.

The final segment of this part will feature good old Uncle Adolf and the fun of trying to get him to see sense.