The Walmingtonian Empire ((AMW))

[Walmington on Sea]

The Walmingtonian Empire



"Suaviter in modo, fortiter in re"
Calm in manner, firm in deed- the Walmingtonian Way

History: Foundation and Rise
History: The Second Empire and Beyond
Geography
People
Government
Economy
Fishing and Merchant Fleets
Culture
Primary Imperial Subdivisions
Cities
Very Important Walmingtonians
Military Overview
Evolution of Military Technology: Small Arms
Evolution of Military Technology: Aircraft
Military Equipment: Sea
Military Equipment: Land
Military Equipment: Air

[Walmington on Sea]

History: Foundation and Rise

If, 'the English race' can rightly be called such -and not merely a nationality or even a regal affiliation-, those white Anglophones who constitute its membership may trace their ancestry across Europe to discern for themselves what is sometimes otherwise called an Anglo-Shieldian identity.

Starting in the fifth century AD, Angles, Saxons, and Frisians residing throughout the Jutlandic peninsula and much of what is today England and northern Nibelunc began to migrate from their homelands, apparently by sea, settling in force around the Frisian Bay in Eastern Europe. These Germanic peoples engulfed, destroyed, or displaced the bulk of the Celtic population, which had itself subsumed the earlier Slavonic people of the area. The pagan beliefs of the Anglo-Saxons and Frisians were somewhat enriched by those of the Celts, and during the Dark Ages the basis of an Old English language began to form. Warring with neighbouring Celtic peoples in what is now Cassanoia, proto-Gandvian tribes to the north, and early Shieldians, the usually outnumbered Anglo-Saxons became militaristic, respected as infantrymen, and were forced to organise their social and economic structures in an efficient and thoughtful manner. One of the most developed tax codes in Europe and an extensive legal system arose amongst the Anglecynn, as these people came to be known. Communications between the new settlements and the old homeland to the west remained strongly supported by a burgeoning naval tradition.

It was not until the mid thirteenth century that the Anglecynn status quo was seriously altered. Having for centuries stood firm against local foe, the East Angles fell to an invasion by their own brethren. The West Angles having largely converted to the Christian faith after a series of military campaigns launched by their southern neighbours, the pan-Anglecynn relationship was much weakened as the distinction between pious and pagan challenged old ties of kinship. During the short-lived dominion of the Damanan Empire on the Shield, and specifically during Damana's Crusade against the Gallagans, a wandering soldier-of-fortune arrived in Mansbar-Oeseld with a big idea of his own. Hailing apparently from the Angeln, Edwy ('rich warrior') is remembered by the English as a journeyman preacher and Crusading hero, and by more objective historians as something of an opportunist and even con-artist.

Capitalising on the fervour of the newly converted and a people inspired by the rolling-back of the Gallagans, Edwy sought sponsors, advocates, and soldiers amongst the Shieldians, founding on his own cognition a monastic order, which he called the Order of Brothers of the English House of St. George.

Whether Edwy was refused papal sanction (perhaps in view of Damana's rather more high-profile struggle in the Jaizar Basin) or never in fact sought it (conventional Godfreyite histories suggest the former, neutral academic opinions seem to be leaning increasingly in the other direction) he certainly proceeded without, though he apparently lead various others to believe either that Rome's official support existed or that it was pending. The adventurer was able to gather a small band of lesser knights and nobles, Celtic and other mercenaries, warrior-clergy, and peasants from Friesland, Angeln, Jutland, Saxony, the western Shield, Cassanoia, and Geletia, with which he marched on the northern pagans.

Though accused of a great many short-comings -from dishonesty and cheating to heresy and murder, not to mention leading a supposedly Crusading army in fact composed in no small part of non-believers-, Edwy proved a fierce soldier and able commander. Against the traditional Anglo-Saxon shield-wall, Edwy pitted the Welch longbow and Shieldian light-cavalry skirmishers in a battle of considerable endurance, inflicting casualties at what in modern terms seems a surprisingly low rate over several hours until, exhausted, the discipline of the pagan army evaporated and the Crusaders broke their formation. Edwy established at the north end of the Frisian Bay on the shoulder of the Sambian peninsula a fortress of motte-and-bailey design, later to be called Cyningesmont, around which would grow today's city of Kingsmount.

The population would be diverse from the start, including amongst others Angles, Frisians, Saxons, Shieldians, Celts, and Gandvians, with the first three groups dominant in the state. Edwy at first intended to subordinate the domain he called Amberland to Damana or else to the Roman Church, and operate it as an erarde or monastic state of sorts, but shortly following his triumph the Depkazi host fell upon the Shield, destroying the formative empire there and leaving Edwy answerable to no earthly master as Christian Europe was cleaved through its middle by pagan Turks and Celts. Having previously given himself the working title of Grand Magistrat, Edwy was crowned King of the Anglecynn and sovereign of a wholly independent nation in 1272, after defeating a large Depkazi raiding party in the forests of his realm.

Traditional English histories paint Edwy's victories over the Depkazis as the miraculous defiance of a small circle of Christian knights against an almost infinite horde, but in fact there is little archaeological evidence of a concerted effort by the Turks to penetrate far north of the Shield beyond a few probing raids that Edwy appears to have repulsed successfully enough. Never the less, this national myth cemented the English, in their own conflicted self-regard, as both underdogs and supermen, and as God's chosen people, spared while the Shieldians were left to endure the yoke.

Isolated in the wild north, Edwy's little kingdom of Amberland naturally became an ever more seafaring nation, trading around the Baltic and remaining in contact with Christian states to the west, growing rich on commerce and its position as world leader in production of the amber from which its name was derived. As Edwy's reign was legitimised by the inflated legend of his miraculous defiance of the pagan host that had consumed the mighty Damana Empire, the self-made king -defender of the faith, defended by God- was able to gain the acceptance of western Anglecynn high society, and the intertwining of eastern and western proto-English nobility began anew.

The discipline of Amberland's small standing army and the efficiency of its civilian levies in time of crisis became widely noted, especially after several famous battles of 1402, which came late in the long reign of Edwy's great-grandson, Daegmund (the day guard). Newly unified and perceiving the extremely elderly Daegmund as frail, Gandvik conducted large scale raids on the Anglecynn borders, probing for weakness and sapping morale in the sack of several communities as part of a concerted effort to annex the region.

Fought in late spring, the Battle of Krug Moor saw barely two-hundred hurriedly-raised militiamen confront a Gandvian raiding force of approximately twice that size and decisively defeat it with practised bowmanship after an orderly section of pikemen turned the enemy's flank and trapped the Gandvians between the river Memel and the Frisian Bay into which it flows. Along with dozens of common soldiers one knight was captured and three killed in the battle or while attempting to flee and, though the Gandvian losses were on a small scale compared to those frequently absorbed in fighting Depkazi or Shieldian opponents, Krug Moor exemplified the problems posed by widespread Anglecynn mastery of the longbow and the drilled proficiency of Amberland's so-called 'Spear Guard'.

The clash set the stage for a decisive show-down between Daegmund and his northern neighbours, and ten weeks later, as harsh weather approached, what Gandvian forces were available for the Amberland campaign advanced on Memelton, near the opening of the Curonian Lagoon, and made camp threateningly close to the coastal town, which stood-to its militia but did not dare meet the overwhelmingly larger number of invaders beyond the community's palisade. Daegmund had anticipated the threat to the northern outpost, and concealed in the dunes of the Curonian Spit a large contingent of professional soldiers, whom he ferried across the narrow mouth of the lagoon during the night.

The Battle of Memelton saw the bulk of Gandvian strength in Amberland (variously reported at between 5,000 and 12,000 men) take on a rare four-figure Anglecynn force (thought to be slightly in excess of 2,000 men) of mixed professional and militia troops, and ended with the total rout of the larger army, which sustained heavy casualties including the lives of several noblemen.

Though fringe Gandvian claims to Anglecynn soil would be maintained by hardline chauvinists for generations and hostilities would flare numerous times down the ages, after 1402 there were few genuine attempts to force a military solution as the emergent Gandvian nation focused its energies elsewhere.

By the middle of the fifteenth century the Angelish provided their own enemies as Amberland was gripped by dynastic struggle. Daegmund, having endured to a remarkable age, was not long outlived by his immediate progeny, and the throne of the House of Edwy came to be contested by daughters, nephews, and cousins as one elderly king died promptly after another. After more than a century and a half of intermarriage and two-way migration between Amberland and an England now much reduced through Nibelung encroachment, claimants from amongst western noble houses also threw their hats into the ring.

Thirty years of sporadic conflict drew the small nation in on itself, but the increasing militarisation brought on by the dynastic Wars of the Houses dissuaded foreign intervention as the Angelish greatly increased their use of cavalry and began to experiment with gunpowder weaponry along side their renowned pikemen, archers, and mariners.

According to Godfreyite archives the island now known as Albion was sighted and landed-upon by an expedition sailing from Brycgstow (today's Bristol, in Amberland) in search of the mythical island of Hy-Brasil in the year 1481 A.D.

The voyage and subsequent settlement was sponsored by a man named Godfrey Walming, who had apparently taken considerable liberties during the Wars of the Houses and had amassed a fortune in which he no longer felt secure. Remembered in Walmington as a moderniser and a visionary, Walming had fallen-out with Church authorities over his reformist ideas, which included education of all boys and girls and dissemination of Wyclif's Bible, and he sailed with a mix of religious supporters and local fishermen hired to crew his vessel, the Saint Aldhelm. Recent discoveries suggest that the Saint Aldhelm was in fact the flagship in a small fleet of at least two ships carrying Godfreyite believers fleeing religious persecution, but the exact number of settlers and the names of any further ships are matters that remain in dispute.

While England and Amberland were consumed by depressing and violent introspection, Godfrey spoke and wrote extensively on the lost years of Christ, at first theorising and later passionately preaching that Jesus had travelled far to the west to greet the people of a distant land. That land, he claimed, was Hy-Brasil, an island he had come to know through interactions between English and Celtic fishermen. Godfrey lead his supporters in search of this semi-mythical westerly isle, and consequently rediscovered the Americas.

The colony of Walmington was established on the site of today's Great Walmington on the Avalon Peninsula, the name of which speaks to the significant Celtic contingent in Godfrey's party. In Geletian folklore, Afalon (Anglicised as Avalon) is a mysterious island of plenty, its name deriving from a supposed abundance of apple trees (Celtic root abal- 'apple'). Godfrey is thought at first to have believed the peninsula an island in its own right, and today the name Avalon has been retained in the peninsula, while the whole island has become called Albion.

The relevant belief most commonly held by Walmingtonians today is in the postulate that, as the larger part of the island was explored, confusion arose as to whether Avalon was the name of the island or the peninsula, and that the Godfreyite penchant for teaching literacy combined with the multi-lingual composition of the first fleet left Anglophones uncertain of the relation between various Celtic words and different spellings there-of, unsurprising given the lack of standardisation in spelling at the time. Thus there arose a belief that the island had been named Aballon (one of the variant spellings), which in time was incorrectly copied as Abalion. This was either 'corrected' in error to Albion, or deliberately manipulated to its modern form as part of the construction of a new national identity. Notably, the proto-Celtic albien has the meaning 'earth' or 'world', while educated persons amongst the settlers may also have been familiar with the Latin album, 'white', and the association of that colour with notions of purity can hardly be ignored.

As the settlement of Walmington grew to dominate the Avalon Peninsula and the settlers extended their influence across the whole island and throughout the lesser isles there about, the Godfreyites encountered, to their mutual surprise, apparently iron age Celts seeming to be distantly related to the Western Geletians. These Celts, who came to be known as Fenians, were apparently Catholic but long out of contact with Rome. Never the less, sporadic conflict between they and the Godfreyites became a fact of life, Fenian raids against the settlement being driven off by the outnumbered but better-armed and better-drilled veterans of the English dynastic conflicts.

Back in Europe, those dynastic struggles concluded in 1485, when the England-based Langleys, who had been in the ascendancy at the time of Godfrey's voyage, saw their fortunes reversed at Bosworth Field. The Langley monarch, Richard, who had in some sense united England and Amberland by his earlier victories, which included the capture, killing, or legal ostracism of rival claimants, had become unpopular not only in Amberland but also to some degree in his own homeland as word of his often cynical political and judicial machinations reached an uncomprehending public. The defection of the powerful Duke of Buckingham, one of the England-based King's most senior agents in Amberland, reflected the popular mood, and approximately a thousand supporters of a previously obscure Tudor claimant to Edwy's throne met the King's army -twice that size- when it arrived in Leicestershire, Amberland, near the Frisian Bay.

Additionally, the powerful but conflicted Stanley family arrived on the field with twelve-hundred men, initially observing the melee and taking no direct part, a third party apparently holding a purely pragmatic view of the confrontation between the two major contenders for dominion over both England and Amberland.

The Tudor force, modern historians believe, consisted chiefly of Celts tired of persecution under the Langleys, while the second largest component was of Frenchmen hired by the Tudors. Only between sixty and one hundred of the thousand strong rebel army could truly be called Amberland-born Englishmen. The Tudor challenger to the throne was himself raised bilingual, speaking both the English of the day and the Geletian trade language.

The crucial battle saw the outnumbered Tudors advance over soft ground towards the Langleys, all the time receiving cannon fire from the high ground. Neither the experienced French mercenaries, the fearless Celtic warriors, nor the tiny hardcore of Englishmen who had remained loyal to the apparently defeated Tudors in spite of murderous persecution wavered in the face of these difficulties, and all pressed on until engaged by the King's infantry. Despite being the more tired, harried by a long bombardment, and fighting both outnumbered and up-hill, the mixed Tudor infantry had the better of in an engagement that can have done little to calm the boasts of Celts elsewhere in Europe.

In light of this unlikely progress by the seemingly disadvantaged rebels, their leader, Henry, rode towards the Stanleys, presumably hoping to convince them to join the battle on the winning side. Observing this from the high ground, the Langleys saw an opportunity to slay the last pretender to their hard-won throne, and launched a cavalry charge. A brutal melee engaging the bodyguards of both would-be masters of the English saw the Tudor standard-bearer slain, and left the challenger's bodyguard tightly surrounding the man they regarded as their king, fighting desperately for his salvation.

Observing both potential kings engaged at close quarters in one sector, and the smaller rebel army apparently in the ascendancy elsewhere, the Stanleys joined the battle, descending on the crucial conflict between Langley cavalry and Tudor bodyguard. Richard of Langley, then self-styled King of England and Amberland, was unhorsed, and yet continued to fight on foot in spite of his well-documented physical disabilities, but was soon beset by Henry's Welch infantry and killed where he stood, the English throne decided by a Celtic swordstroke to the back of a cripple's head.

England and Amberland were united under Henry Tudor, some few ill-supported revolts notwithstanding, and yet despite their decisive role in the establishment of this new order the east's Celts were not to receive better treatment from the new dynasty they had helped to enthrone, not once Henry had the loyalty of Englishmen in both Amberland and England besides.

On the 24th of June, 1497, sponsored by the crown of England, the Matthew arrived in North America, at Albion. John Cabot (A.K.A. Giovanni Caboto, a Roman-born navigator in the paid service of Kingsmount) was amazed to find Walming's small colony of English -as the mongrel race was by now known- locked in a life-or-death struggle with the elements and aboriginal Mi'kmaq and Beothuk communities, and the savage yet Catholic Fenians. In August he was back in England with word of the settlers and their plight. He described how a handful of heretical Wars of the Houses veterans and their teenage sons used pikes, crossbows, and longbows to ward off heathen natives and Fenians alike while sheltering behind a palisade and relying on the skills of their fishermen to sustain their colony on seemingly infinite cod and shellfish.

Immediately after Cabot's departure Walming formalised the long-standing de facto establishment of his reformist Godfreyite Church, pre-empting Protestantism in Europe as he was crowned King of Albion and declared head of the national Church. Walming feared that England would take possession of his colony, and perhaps that his enemies had not forgotten their quarrels with the dodgy-dealing runaway that he is alleged to have been, and he was desperate to reinforce his position and that of his private empire before a new expedition could be sent across the Atlantic.

Interestingly, Godfrey was helped to some degree through the invention by one Adrian Glamorgan of a new printing press that aided the literacy and indoctrination of the small population and the beginning of proselytism directed at aboriginal communities, where upon the focus of relations between settlers and natives began, slowly at first, to shift away from the martial and towards the commercial and political.

The precise identity of Glamorgan remains one of Walmington's keenly debated colonial mysteries, many believing that he arrived aboard the Matthew and was the only member of Cabot's small crew to remain in Walmington, though suggestions that he had known Walming in Amberland raise further questions about Cabot's prior knowledge -or usually supposed ignorance- of the Godfreyite expedition. Glamorgan, it is thought, may have been a Godfreyite 'sleeper' agent in Amberland, and deserted the Matthew along with reputedly stolen treasures. Ultimately the inventor received a royal commission from King Godfrey for the establishment of the Black Gull Publishing House, though in practice this amounted to little more than Walming's ordering the felling of a tree and salvaging of materials from the rotting Saint Aldhelm in order that Glamorgan's press be constructed.

Before the turn of the century a second ship had arrived from the homeland, this time carrying settlers responding to Cabot's news of Walming's colony. Some of these settled in islands neighbouring Albion. Despite the new arrivals, the European population still numbered in the hundreds by the end of 1498.

In 1501 a Catholic expedition from Valendia arrived in the region with three caravels, though it is believed that it came without realising that this was England and that it landed some distance from any European settlement. The Catholics took almost sixty native men to be sold as slaves and dispatched two of their ships homewards, the expedition's leader continuing his explorations.

Incensed by the mass abduction, locals came to the settlement at Walmington and forged an alliance against the Catholics, whom they discerned to be already disliked by Godfrey, and a trap was laid as the Godfreyites enticed the bemused Valendians into a meeting at which they were ambushed by native warriors, thought to have been Beothuk. This event is another controversial item in early Walmingtonian history, but local scholars assert that the Valendians, who never returned to Europe, were variously killed in the battle or executed afterwards by distraught natives whose relatives had been enslaved, and that their ship, weapons, and cargo were seized by Godfrey's men.

Knowing nothing of the Walmingtonians and believing him shipwrecked, the brother of the first Valendian expedition leader set out in 1502 in search of the third caravel’s crew. Once more sailing with three caravels, the Catholics were scattered in a storm, and though, as before, two ships returned home, the one commanded by the expedition's leader pressed on alone. Finding the missing ship safely anchored in a cove, the excited European came ashore expecting to find his brother alive, and instead watched helplessly from the beach as his ship was hijacked and made part of a growing Protestant squadron, which sailed off to gather Walmingtonian militiamen and First Nations warriors, suspecting that one of the ships responsible for capturing slaves last year had returned for more. The Battle of Maddox Cove saw approximately two dozen Valendians outnumbered three-to-one on unfamiliar ground, expecting a reunion rather than a fight, and another rout ensued. This time several of the Catholics were enslaved by native communities, some later reportedly naturalising, while a handful are recorded as having converted to the Godfreyite Church, convinced by Godfrey's considerable force of character such as had enabled him to make his fortune and gather support for his colonial expedition in the first place.

Still lacking the strength of numbers to expand far beyond Albion without exposing individual hamlets to attack by Valendia or another rival, Godfrey had attempted to manage the new arrivals from England and Valendia, most of whom remained Catholic, by encouraging them to settle the various 'Albionian' islands of the Gulf of St. Aldhelm and at the mouth of Fortune Bay, rather than Albion itself.

By 1503 children of the original settlers were coming of age amidst a population that had recently begun to incorporate small numbers of newly baptised natives. At this point, the new community of Catholic settlers began to clash with Godfreyites as the self-styled King attempted to assert his sovereignty. In response Godfrey established the Army of Albion and launched a campaign that would secure the islands with, according to records from the time, 'a force of eight-hundred men of pike and bow'. It is now thought that this force could only be mustered by impressing old men, young boys, and hiring or allying-with aboriginal warriors for the task, while some Catholic accounts refer to women in the Godfreyite ranks, scholars being split on whether this was a true reflection of Walming's radicalism or a Papist attempt to belittle their reformist enemy.

The Walmingtonian Civil War (1503-05), called such despite being argued in some circles to have represented a Walmingtonian invasion of independent Fenian communities, saw the first violent repression of Roman Catholics by forces loyal to the Godfreyite Church. During the conflict Walmington was struck by a famine that straddled the years 1503-04 and may have killed as many as 4,500 people according to the highest estimate. This, modern scholars believe, includes the aboriginal population, which is thought to have been decimated around this time, though that was possibly due to diseases spread by increasing contact with the Europeans, and more importantly the new livestock they had lately transported. The conscription of able-bodied men including farmers and fishermen, deliberate destruction of stores and crops otherwise to have been used by newly-arrived Catholic populations, and the increase in the sedentary population that came with more native conversions and the incorporation of the second Valendian crew all contributed to shortages that left already stressed colonies on the brink of collapse.

The capitulation in 1505 of Catholic militia at Newry, in Iweriu, closed the war, and was brought about by an invasion accomplished with the help of the newly-established Royal Albionian Navy, which apparently made use of one captured caravel as its flagship. Evidence of Papal assistance to the rebellious Catholics was allegedly uncovered, though today this is regarded as having been either a Godfreyite fabrication or possibly as related to the survival in the islands of Valendians who had not been sincere about their conversions and had absconded from Albion.

Crucially, Godfrey's only son, Arnold Walming, who rode one of the Walmingtonians' two horses during the Battle of Newry, was killed there, accounts varying as to whether the deathblow came from a Fenian dart, native tomahawk, or Valendian musketball.

Following the war, Iweriu was renamed Ríoga Oileán, or Royal Island, and harsh methods were used to pacify the populace in a struggle that has flickered on and off ever since.

King Godfrey I passed in 1507 after suffering from a heavy fever. Some sources lay blame for his death on the exertions of his wartime campaign or an alleged war-wound said to have been suffered in the siege of Newry. In any case he was likely to have been at least sixty years of age and had lived for twenty-six years in the difficult conditions of colonial Albion, during which he had done much to shape a nation and secure its independence. Despite his age Godfrey, his only son dead, had an infant daughter who was able -thanks to his progressive reforms- to be crowned Queen Mavis, and who would go on to the longest reign in Godfreyite history.

The first years of the Mavisian era saw Albion managed by a Church Council as the Queen was under age. Independence was maintained and the Godfreyite Church greatly strengthened. The nation was essentially a city state, based in Great Walmington, with a frequently contested hold on several thinly populated islands inhabited by small numbers of shepherds, foresters, and fishermen.

In 1520, having taken the reins of government at the age of twenty-two years, Queen Mavis continued her father's work, making efforts to preserve Walmingtonian independence with the view that seizure by England was a greater threat to nationhood than Catholic or aboriginal invasion. Most settlers viewed their mother countries as suffering under the unholy influence of the Papacy, and hoped some day to be reunified with a Godfreyite king ruling both lands.

In this historic year Queen Mavis commissioned Harold Wendsleybury, once captain of a cod fishing boat and lately infamous privateer responsible for numerous daring campaigns against Catholics in the North Atlantic, to explore a large tract of the North American mainland with the intention of securing a Godfreyite foothold. Wendsleybury was also tasked with investigating rumours of so-called, 'Welch-Indians' supposed to have originated with Geletian Madog ab Owain in the late C12th. In the event this early Walmingtonian explorer charted large tracts of what would one-day become Norbray and Canada in a year long expedition.

In 1521 a newly knighted Sir Harold Wendsleybury attempted a circumnavigation of the globe, travelling around the southern tip of the Americas and across the Pacific before being shipwrecked in 1523 in Borneo, having spent some months exploring South East Asia, establishing the first English contacts with the Emesan, Drapoel, Bruneian, and Atlantean civilisations. Sir Harold also helped to pioneer what would become Tobago, Australia, Fireland, and the Neptune Islands.

Back at home, 1524 saw the Albionian Kingdom visited by Valendian-employed Giovanni da Verrazzano, who was disappointed to find it expanding to the south and west.

From the 1530s onwards tiny Albion cheated death in continued badgering of Valendian imperial enterprises. When, in 1534, explorer Jacques Cartier arrived in search of the Northwest Passage, he blundered into trouble, slaughtering a thousand birds that were (probably without his knowledge) called property of the Godfreyite Crown, and planting a huge cross inscribed with an exultation to his king on land already claimed for Mavis.

It was also in 1534 that Valendia, at the second attempt, captured Bandar Seri Begawan, capital of the Bruneian Empire, and killed the Sultan there, leading to civil war that soon drew in the English as Sir Robert Spiers was retained by a claimant to the Sultanate to fight his rivals and defend the remainder of Borneo against further western aggression. Valendian expansion, meanwhile, saw much of Sarawak fall despite Spiers' efforts, which did at least contribute to the salvation of the bulk of the island beyond the central north-west coast and its immediate hinterland. So much so, in fact, that the new Sultan granted Spiers the title Rajah and ceded to him the territory of Sabah.

Cartier's second visit to the Albionian region, in 1535/36, ended with Cartier's disease-depleted expedition being chased from the region by the small but highly proficient RAN, and he returned home with stories of what native peoples called Kingdom of Saguenay, modern histories differing on whether this was in reference to a Walmingtonian, Gaelic, or other settlement.

Later, as trans-Atlantic contact became slightly more frequent, Mavis was most excited to learn of English King Eadgar's break with Rome, and for a time it appeared that Walmington might even realign itself with a reforming motherland. Eadgar's later rolling-back of many progressive changes were received in Walmington with considerable disappointment, and Mavis resorted to espionage and the maintenance of a considerable covert apparatus within the Church of England as part of an underground community of Godfreyite sympathisers across the country. It seemed that once the break with Rome had been made in England and Amberland, the extreme radicalism of the early Godfreyites held more sway in English hearts than the comparative moderation of the mainstream Protestants.

Jacques Cartier returned for a third time, in 1541, with an enlarged fleet of five ships. A second fleet was to follow with artillery and a future governor of a Valendian territory to be established in Saguenay, presumably at the expense of the locals. Having divided their force, the Valendians' would-be conquerors met with disaster familiar to their explorers, Cartier retreating with heavy losses and a 'bounty' in what turned out to be false diamonds and fool's gold, leaving his lately-arrived countrymen to deal alone with an unknown enemy in an unknown land, and with predictable results. The Godfreyites gained more victories, more loot, more ships, more converts, more prison labour, more native respect, and, for the first time, modern artillery. This would prove effective in Godfreyite wars against Fenian Catholics on the mainland.

In the late 1550s, after receiving word of the first English Catholic restoration and the execution of the Marian Martyrs, a reinforced Queen Mavis prepared an invasion of the mother country in which just a few dozen Walmingtonian soldiers would have been expected to gather Protestant support once ashore and, with the help of her established covert agents, over-throw the 'traitor' Mary. This likely suicidal action was averted only at the last moment when a ship from England arrived at Great Walmington with word of Cecilia's late-1558 coronation and the subsequent restoration of Protestant rule.

By 1574 Mavis was attempting to stamp her authority on mainland North America in anticipation of further European settlement. Walmington would be out-gunned against the Catholic powers, and Queen Mavis sought to carve out an empire 'before it was too late'. Numerous settlements were established on the eastern seaboard, and despite the many failures much of Canada was established as an area of Walmingtonian interest under the protection of the crown. It is partly owing to this that Mavis I is remembered along side her father as one of Walmington's greatest monarchs.

Less than a decade after initiating this campaign, and then one of the oldest Europeans ever to have lived in the new world (thought to have been aged 85 years), Queen Mavis died in 1583. Her final resting place, Red Bear Island, was renamed in her honour, becoming today's Queen Mavis Island, the nation's favourite domestic holiday spot. Despite its large size, proximity to the capital of the English New World, and not unreasonable climate, the island still has only a tiny permanent population, and is visited by gentleman hunters who range across much of its extent while the new middle class often holiday on its quiet shores, and indeed one may almost call it a land sacred to Godfreyites, dedicated to the Most Christian Heroine Her Majesty the Queen Mavis of the House of Walming.

Having died without issue, Mavis left Albion exposed to that which she had feared most: the threat of annexation by England.

But by 1583 the Reformation had taken firm hold in England and Amberland, and King James, though not a Godfreyite, was an openly Protestant monarch. After resisting for so long, the Walmingtonians invited James to be their monarch on condition that he not interfere with the particular traditions of the Godfreyite Church and allow the Church Council to act as his government in the New World as the Magistracy did in Europe.

1605's infamous Jesuit Treason in England, in which the Magistracy was blown up by Catholic conspirators during an address by King James, reinforced the commitment of the New World English to reform. Decadent Catholics were traitors and terrorists, afraid or incapable of meeting hardy Protestants in direct combat or open debate, and upset by even the slightest hint of democracy. In 1606, having planned for it half a century earlier under Mavis I, the Walmingtonians belatedly undertook the invasion of England with the full support of local Protestants.

Mutinies and sabotage aboard England's ships and mass desertions from her army made it relatively easy for a small Walmingtonian fleet, after passing unopposed through the English Channel, to land a modest force on the Samland peninsula, from where the Godfreyites marched on Kingsmount while their sleeper agents spread rumours of a Jesuit conspiracy to have the country invaded by the Catholic Shieldian Empire, inciting a peasants' revolt in support of the Walmingtonians.

Controversy remains with regard to how well the Treason had been planned, as several months passed between the assassination of James and the arrival of Walmingtonian forces without a new monarch being put in place by the conspirators, who are thought to have disagreed over whom to offer the throne, with some in England-proper preferring Gandvian or Shieldian royalty, and others in Amberland, suspicious of their over-land neighbours, favouring candidates from local -all be it lesser- nobility.

Though some conspirators escaped over one border or another many of the ringleaders were captured and sentenced to be hung, drawn, and quartered. Walmingtonian troops remained in Kingsmount and London, sending a single ship, the Albionoria, back across the Atlantic with news of the triumph, which was announced on entering the harbour at Great Walmington by the ringing of the ship's bell and lighting of lanterns. This event is mirrored each year by Godfreyites, on what they call Bonfire Night.


Volunteers with the Home Guard re-enact a skirmish on the road to Kingsmount during the War of 1606, the first time that now-familiar Godfreyite maroon had been worn openly in Europe

Reuniting the thrones of Amberland-England and Albion, the Church Council in the latter nation and an ad hoc assembly of clergy and land-owners in the former voted to support the claim of James' son, appointing him King George I of England, Amberland, and Albion. The Act of Union, creating The United Kingdom of Walmington on Sea, was then ratified by a new Combined Parliament, which would sit for two years in Kingsmount and/or London and then two in Great Walmington, an impractical procedure that was soon abandoned in favour of twin parliaments and a system that would sometimes take weeks longer to pass major legislation but was deemed otherwise superior. George, an Amberlander, adopted the surname Godfrey -associated with the Albionians- in recognition of the fact that his reign was one of union, not of one nation over the other. At the same time, the Royal Albionian Navy absorbed its defeated European counterpart, and the qualifier, “Albionian” was dropped.

1610 saw an increase in Walmingtonian privateering and deal-making between the Godfreyites and aboriginal peoples as Valendia increased its presence in the New World. Additionally, so-called New Norman settlers, principally Valendian dissidents who'd migrated to the New World via a number of private expeditions, swore fealty to the English crown, thus establishing a state-approved mandate for their colony and securing the protection of a nation on the rise, much needed as Valendia viewed the New Normans as anything from squatters to traitors. Having already built a reputation for landmark covert operations with the infamous Godfreyite spy rings and 'sleeper' agents in Amberland and trained de facto 'commandos' for the invasion plan, Walmington now pioneered further asymmetric warfare strategies, training native and New Norman partisans and seeking to entice further disgruntled Valendian minorities to their comparatively liberal cause.

In 1617 Walmingtonian explorers, following in Sir Harold Wendsleybury's storied wake, sighted what they called Vazimbaland and reportedly attempted to build colonies there, though to this day its location remains in dispute. Not much later, in 1619, records state that Walmingtonian mariners founded the first outposts around the African coast, though once again physical evidence is lacking in most regions. In 1625, however, Walmingtonians established a lasting presence in Southern Africa and were motivated by competing European Catholic proselytistic pressure to make an impression on the continent.

In the Americas, English victories against colonial Valendia continued apace, all Valendian territories eventually being over-run either by the English army or New Norman militias and native peoples allied to Walmington. In New York and Land's End, English settlement was undertaken on a significant scale, but elsewhere the Gaelic and usually non-Belkan Valendian populations remained dominant.

Early contacts with African civilisations continued during the middle of the century, and in the 1650s one such contact turned decidedly sour as English frustration over the hostile reception extended to both missionaries and merchants lead to an armed confrontation between the United Kingdom and the Bantu Kingdom of what would become Nilosahara. Following the bombardment of Dar es Salaam and other coastal cities, the Spice Islands were ceded to Walmington in order to serve as a conduit for trade between the African interior and the rest of the world.

Though not yet officially styled such, in its early days this was a most peculiarly English 'empire', one based on commerce rather than conquest. It was in such actions and ambitions as the Spice Islands enterprise that the germ of the latterly dominant civilising mission was planted in the Walmingtonian psyche. It was, perhaps, only through the Royal Navy and Royal Marines that corrupt, despotic, and regressive rulers could be induced to allow the light of rational Godfreyite civilisation to shine on their benighted peoples.

1655 saw the outbreak of war closer to home, however, as Valendian settlers and Fenians fell in behind a self-styled King of New France, claiming lands won by the English during their wars with Valendia. Many subjects and dependants of the United Kingdom, being Gaels, Bretons, and Franco-Normans, rebelled in support of New France, and were put-down by forces loyal to the crown, including the army and the New York provincial militias, many of whom were forever troubled by their role in the violence.

In 1667 the (haemorrhagic) Plague reached Albion. Records indicate that 14,000 people died in the first wave of the disease, and twice as many in 1668's second wave. This would seem to indicate that more than a hundred thousand people had lived in Albion in the mid seventeenth century, and that this event was crucial and rolling-back the growth of the statelet's population after a wave of European immigration (which may, ironically, have been responsible for the arrival of the plague and for the urbanisation that quickened its spread).

Faced with such a drastic collapse after hopes of empire and fearing increased Catholic European interest in the Americas, the UK began to construct its own 'device forts', particularly at Southend, where 1671's fortifications remain visible and even imposing to this day, having been updated several times over three centuries. Many survivors of the plague turned their backs on Albion and headed west in this period, leading to the establishment of numerous settlements that would one day become some of the continent's great cities, and forcing great territorial expansion in the name of the Godfreyite crown.

The landmark publication by Black Gull in 1699 of the first extensive 'English' dictionary containing standardised spellings known in England and a great many Albionian colloquialisms, aboriginal loan words, and significant Celtic vocabulary influence, much of which would subside in centuries to come.

1717 saw the still-contentious discovery of allegedly pre-Godfreyite European ruins at Jellyfish Cove, England. At the time local scholars declared them proof of Madog and the Celtic Indian theory, but many alternative theories have since been postulated, the most popular being that it was the entry point for the Fenians in the New World.

In 1740 the Royal Merchant Marine, established by Queen Mavis I as the peacetime manifestation of the then-RAN and using the same few ships as that military organisation, arrived in what the nation would call Ceyloba. A trade mission was established and called Vollombo (also spelled Volombo, Vollumbo, or Volumbo).

This year also saw the birth, in slightly different form, of what is now the English bowler hat, and was initially worn by mariners who found taller hats impractical in high winds and amidst rigging yet still required a readily identified mark of rank, and appreciated even the limited protection at work and war as was afforded by the hardened dome and reinforced brim.

In 1741 slavery was outlawed in the United Kingdom, though it may be said that this progressive move was in some part racially motivated as one vocal faction in the abolition lobby expressed concern that using 'foreign' slaves to open-up Norbray and Canada and develop the sparsely populated nation would significantly alter the 'European character' of the territories, which still had an over-all population of little more than quarter of a million, including several thousand aboriginals. A poster campaign initiated by this faction identified slavery with Roman Catholicism. Using slave labour was for decadent Catholics, activists claimed, and to use slaves from southern climes would significantly reduce productivity in any case. A famous poster depicting a a fat Valendian sleeping in the midday sun asked (all be it in the different language of the day), 'Would you let this man work for you? Imagine the man too lazy to escape from him!'

Similar attitudes persist today in moderated form, many Walmingtonians regarding as established the debilitating influence of a hot climate and a person's consequent vulnerability to debauchery and Romanism. Consequently, colonials in Africa and Asia prefer to send their children back to Albion, England or Amberland, or even Canada, New England, or Australia, to attend boarding schools lest they grow-up 'soft'.

Perhaps more persuasive even in 1741, though, were the ever-important fishermen and their allies in other professions who feared that the proposed use of slave labour to build roads to the interior and haul products away from several new mining sites would drive down wages, spread to other industries, and ultimately lessen English North America's appeal to future Protestant settlers from Europe.

1747 saw The Standard, now Walmington's favourite newspaper, launch a small pilot issue. The headline spoke bafflingly of a Mrs. Pike's 'Trouble With The Gulls' but no complete copy survives to clarify the matter. It was some time before The Standard became a regular publication really identifiable with modern newspapers, perhaps due to a lack of newsworthy activity in the Walmington of the day!

An event worth reading about finally transpired in 1754, when war broke out between Walmington and Amérique in Ohio and the Great Lakes, a conflict that would do much to define the modern borders between the two nations, and one in which a growing American manpower pool would run into explosive English industrialisation. The conflict lasted until 1763, ending in a treaty that modified the frontier but left neither side feeling completely satisfied.

In 1775, political tensions in the far west of North America, relatively newly settled land beyond Canada, erupted into violence. Wealthy colonists, remote from Great Walmington, began to object to regulations pertaining to trade and taxation, and to the outlawing of the slave trade, which, many felt, limited the profits that could be made from the enormous tracts of viable farmland on which the settlers found themselves. Ceyloban tea arriving in Portsmouth was thrown into the Solent by radicals apparently inexpert in the field of public-relations, enabling the press back east to brand them insane.

This and other rebellious actions compelled the Crown to further limit local powers, a move resulting in an outcome opposite to that desired, and forced many newly appointed administrators to effectively withdraw from many of their duties and seek refuge in the few urban areas existing at the time in the region. When the Army attempted to seize munitions held by the Legion of Frontiersmen its troops were confronted by members of that militia, and a shot rang out, precipitating an exchange of fire that left several Frontiersmen dead. Though there is little contemporary evidence beyond the accounts of the survivors -by definition the victors-, most Walmingtonian histories suggest that it was an untrained and rebellious militiaman who fired first rather than a single Maroon, trained to follow orders and fire in volleys.

Shocked by the encounter, the troops never the less tried to complete their mission, but were driven back by several thousand Frontiersmen and forced to take refuge in Portsmouth, which was brought under siege by the rebels. There was by this point no turning back, and the rebellion had become a fully fledged revolution. In Portsmouth, the garrison was isolated, more than twelve hundred miles from the Canadian border and almost thirty miles north of the nearest town of significance, at Southampton.

Around the world, a 1776 attack on the English Trade Mission in Vollombo by a Prince of the Ceyloban Gauls ignited a spark in the Walmingtonian nation, which was in much need of reassurance and inspiration. Heavily outnumbered and with little prospect of immediate relief, the defenders held out thanks in part to the revolutionary Durnford Defence Gun, invented by the Captain in charge of the mission, and a Sgt. Brent's iconic one-man stand on the mission's central wall when attacked by five 'savage' warriors, four of whom he killed in close-combat before being knocked unconscious. The incident inspired Walmington's fledgling journalism industry, a generation of artists, and the striking of the first national military medals. Intervention by a RMM East Indiaman armed with heavy cannon saw to the mission's preservation after its occupants defied repeated assaults through the night, often in hand-to-hand fighting across makeshift barricades, bayonet against broadsword.

During 1776, the garrisons at Portsmouth and Southampton were forced to withdraw to Anvil Island and the Isle of Wight respectively. Worse, the rebels declared an independent nation, styled the United States of Aquilonia, and the Americans began to smuggle arms across Lake Superior to 'Aquilonian Patriots' operating in western parts of sparsely-populated Devonshire, enabling them to take control of the countryside. An Aquilonian invasion of Canada was repulsed by regular troops and the Home Guard, and fighting wore on.

In August the Crown counter-attacked strongly from Canada, driving back the rebels after a decisive meeting of several thousands of men that proved to be one of the biggest battles of the entire conflict. However, as the Crown's forces pressed on, the hoped-for Loyalist rising failed to reach the scale envisioned, Tories, as they were called, rarely operating effectively without the direct over-sight of regular commanders, making it impossible for the Army to hold on to territory after driving rebel forces from the field.

In 1777 a weary Crown army, having advanced hundreds of miles through difficult terrain in harsh weather conditions and against irregular resistance, suffered a major defeat when more than fifteen thousand Aquilonian militia converged on a depleted and isolated force of fewer than seven thousand. This rebel victory was sufficient to convince the Americans to make official their support, recognising the independence of Aquilonia, sending regular troops across the Great Lakes to join the militia, and attacking Walmingtonian shipping and over-seas outposts.


American warships bombard Mogador, Mauretanian Viceroyalty

American efforts against the Walmingtonians in other theatres largely resulted in failure and even a strengthening of the English position internationally, and forced the United Kingdom to take the Aquilonian conflict more seriously as an existential threat. America's involvement in the war placed tremendous strain on its economy and may be to blame for the comparative smallness of the nation's over-seas empire, as the Royal Navy generally had the better of its Republican opponent and had free rein to attack what American colonies did exist. Never the less, these new fronts did force the Walmingtonians to divert resources away from the Aquilonian revolt, and by 1778 the Crown had given up on hopes of a speedy conclusion, deciding instead to focus on securing its frontier against America and attaining superiority on the Great Lakes as part of a strategy to gradually strangle the rebels, whom public opinion in the east now regarded as treacherous American puppets.

After extensive preparations leading up to 1780, a truly intercontinental Godfreyite Empire was born in the expansion of Walmingtonian interests across much of Ceyloba's coastal extent. The breech-loading Ferguson Rifle, too radical or too expensive for the tastes of contemporary powers, was embraced by the Walmingtonians in their desperation to multiply the power of their meagre forces, enabling the men of the Royal Marines Corps regularly to defeat enemies several times their number. Despite the best efforts of the world's most advanced industrial base, the new rifle remained for many years confined to privileged units such as the RMC and the Guards Division, helping these usually red-coated formations to attain all the greater mystique as improbable victories contrasted with the more erratic fortunes of the maroon-coated 'lesser' infantry, armed still principally with muzzle-loading smoothbore muskets akin to those used by their opponents.

Fighting between the Empire on one hand and the Aquilonian-American alliance on the other began gradually to run in Walmington's favour as the growing industrial and scientific might of the English left a sparsely-peopled Aquilonia and yet a unstable and divided American Republic unable to compete in the long war. An uneasy Anglo-American peace was secured as the latter party strained under (an admittedly sometimes porous) maritime blockade and the tensions inherent to its still young multi-national composition, and the former sought an end to the unwelcome distraction of a bloody southern front. In 1781 Crown forces returned to Aquilonia with a new determination, joined by new recruits from amongst returning -often embittered- English settlers in what was now American territory, and set about a fierce campaign of pacification that saw whole communities burned to the ground and scratched from the maps. Those who had remained loyal found themselves well placed to benefit from the extermination of their rebellious neighbours, and displaced settlers from America could stake rich claims on the property of rebels they in turn evicted.

The United States, isolated from its erstwhile supporters in America, was crushed under the wheels of a new-found empire's guns, and Aquilonia was renamed New England then promptly resettled by a generation of 'super-loyal' Englishmen forced from New York and other areas of former Anglophone settlement to the south.

[Walmington on Sea]

History: The Modern Epoch

Riding high, Walmington's fortunes were further improved in 1802, The Year of the Golden Harvest, in which expanded tea and spice plantations in Ceyloba, the annexation of the northern Great Plains, and the first reforms of the Agricultural Revolution in Canada all produced record yields. Previously a relative pauper state reliant on privateering against Catholics in the Atlantic, Walmington began to find the wealth with which to exploit its imperial holdings not only in Ceyloba but also sprawling Norbray, New England, Canada, South America, Asia, and Africa. With the sinking of several coal mines in Eastgate the industrial economy began a rise that has barely abated to the present day and would ultimately make Walmington one of the wealthiest nations on earth. An era of weird and wonderful invention, related abstract art, and extreme political thought took hold and was characterised by the growth of the press as The Bugle appeared to compete with The Standard and continued spread of public literacy was encouraged by the Godfreyite Church. Modern typewriters and fountain pens would become widespread remarkably quickly in Walmington, outpacing even the introduction of reliable steam engines, and an Empire of the Mind was much vaunted.

In 1803 Walmington declared war on Napoleonic Valendia and its allies, and launched an invasion of the Banjarmasin Sultanate that styled itself successor to the old Bruneian Empire and had allegedly sought alliance with Napoleon in hope of annexing the Kingdom of Sabah. The Sultanate was quickly defeated with the capture of its coastal capital, but efforts to follow up with the conquest of Valendian Brunei proved more problematic for English troops unaccustomed to the climate. Most of the island was eventually over-run, but the garrison at Bandar Seri Begawan held out despite a loose naval blockade as imperial troops were called to Europe to respond to Napoleon's strengthening position there, which threatened England herself. Lacking the manpower to carry through a direct assault, the English would never take the city.

Following two years in which radical left-wing movements shook parts of Walmington a series of reforms enacted in 1804 slightly reduced the powers of the monarchy for the first time since the Combined Parliament was created in 1606. This was a largely successful attempt to subdue republican sentiment, helped greatly by the military peril in which the nation found itself.

Prosperity wore two faces, however, as Walmington was soon to discover. One spoke to social liberty and political reform in the language of arts and parliaments, the other expressed itself in the Newry Risings, which began in 1806 as Aiden Brien's fiery speeches and public protests for concessions in the Catholic-majority islands in the Gulf of Saint Aldhelm became bloody riots and murderous lynch mobs. Violence flared a number of times through the course of a generation, periodically interrupting the party atmosphere that gripped an upwardly mobile Godfreyite society to the neglect of its Catholic minority.

These disturbances were mirrored by unease elsewhere in Canada, as Gaels, remaining settlers of Valendian descent, and liberal English disquieted by the reactionary attitudes of many loyalist English settlers returned from America were courted by the American Republic, and efforts made to foment revolt in Canada akin to that seen earlier in Aquilonia and presently in the city of Newry.

In the America, dreams of a 'manifest destiny' in which all of the North American mainland would be brought under the Republic, had been frustrated by English support of native tribes resisting American expansion and the continuing flow of immigrants from Amberland and England to Canada and New England. The Empire's focus on Europe, where Napoleon's conquests belaboured its old-world territories, and the Royal Navy's engagement with the Valendian fleet, emboldened the American-sponsored declaration of a Canadian Republic, very much a minority endeavour dominated by a small number of Celtic radicals, and an 1812 American invasion in its support.

This invasion succeeded in sacking the ill-prepared city of York and scattering many of Walmington's native allies, but faltered as the Home Guard resisted sieges of other communities and the Legion of Frontiersmen harried the American Army's supply lines in concert with surviving native tribes. Initial English counter-attacks, however, lacked the strength to make sustained progress in Ohio, and a second American invasion attempt in 1813 came unstuck just south of London, capital of Canada, when a regular force eight-thousand strong was defeated by just nine-hundred regular and Home Guard troops. A resumed English counter-offensive out-manoeuvred Republican forces and wrought destruction south of the border, but by 1814 it was apparent that while American arms could not match the sophistication and weight of English industry, the English in turn could never hope to subdue or wholly defeat the American populace. Peace, once more unsatisfying to all parties, was inevitably negotiated.

Following the failure to overwhelm the English when they had seemed most vulnerable, the American Republic's interest in empire building and the high seas, so important to their long-term rivals, informed their ability to capitalise on a major 1815 revolt by the coastal Ide people against the Sudrap Dynasty in Drapol. The Americans captured the rebellious port and former local capital of Ide'tou, as well as the off-shore island of Sun'gachi. These acquisitions were major landmarks in the struggle for Drapol, as both the Americans and the English, to say nothing of the Valendians, Byzantines, and Emesans amongst others, had struggled without success since the sixteenth century to open the mysterious hermit kingdom to international commerce, spurred on by tales of giant rubies, endless forests of exotic hardwoods, and the agricultural bounty of the Myian Delta. This setback in the region convinced the English to increase their friendly relations with Emesa.

The Newrian nationalist movement waned as Brien's reputation began to fray in later life thanks in part to sophisticated manipulation of public opinion through The Standard (while its younger rival remained more independent and less popular). The cross-border Fenian Raids launched by Gaelic nationalists harboured by America, which carried on sporadically for many years with limited success, gradually soured formerly neutral members of the public on the question of Celtic independence or union with the Republic, and the Risings were subdued by 1839, enabling the liberal party to go on.

And go on it did, both at home and in the empire. The English Company of the Cape had increased ventures in Africa, and English business was doing a good turn across the globe.

In 1860, in an effort to secure English interests against the threat of American, Valendian, and Byzantine influence, the island of Singapore, then an insignificant speck on the map, was obtained by the English East-of-India Company -an off-shoot of the Cape Company- on a ninety-nine year lease from the Empire of Emesa. An understanding was reached by which the Company would fortify the island and as such command the straits on which it lay, simultaneously developing upon it a modern, industrial town to be returned to the Emesans come 1959.

After three-score years of unrestrained growth and what some regarded as decadence, author Alexander Vale's 1865 publication through Black Gull of several influential works, most notably Modernity heralded a change in direction. Vale's moralistic novels, short stories, and academic papers seemed to restore order to an unusually racy and wild Walmington that was feeling increasingly hungover and the Liberal Age, begun at the start of the century, was decidedly finished. Colonial subjects did not universally share in the home counties' reaction, however, and there, in some cases, the liberal trend continued.

Back to business, the nation was caught-up in yet another Anglo-American conflict, beginning in 1883 after continued American attempts to support the long forlorn notion of a Canadian Republic and on-going cross-border Fenian Raids, which continued even after the conclusion of the Newrian Risings.

The last great Anglo-American conflict, which would come for that reason to be remembered as the Détente War, was anything but a relaxed affair, as America's exploding population base combined with a level of economic development previously denied to what had traditionally been a less industrialised country, and Walmington's global empire brought the clash to an intercontinental scale. The war began in earnest after members of the Legion of Frontiersmen, now armed with Ferguson Rifles previously reserved for the regular military and now loaded with Minié ball ammunition, apparently pursued a group of Fenians back across the border in an attempt to put an end to their attacks. The pursuit turned to plunder and revenge when a small American town was found unprepared for English attacks and poorly defended. The Frontiersmen rounded up a number of young men whom they alleged to be terrorists, and after reading a hurriedly compiled list of charges, put several to death by hanging, before seizing property in pursuit of compensation for damages caused by Fenian attacks, and set fire to the town hall as they departed.

Tit for tat raids quickly escalated, both sides deploying regular troops to the border and neither proving willing to disarm rogue militias that might prove useful for national defence. After a number of Frontiersmen were killed and others captured by the American army, the Walmingtonians declared war and moved, as ever, to blockade the enemy's ports. A punitive expedition under-taken by the Royal Marines ended in shambles after troops were confronted by new American fire-power in the form of the Billinghurst-Requa Battery, a multi-barrel weapon capable of firing 175 rounds per minute, and regular infantry armed with new model Trapdoor Springfield breech-loading rifles.

Following this set-back, fighting decreased until the spring thaw in 1884, by which time both sides were prepared for large scale military operations. During the northern hemisphere's winter, the Royal Navy attacked American possessions abroad, and the Royal Marines occupied Sun'gachi and Ide'tou, establishing an English foothold in Drapol.

In sheer manpower, the Americans held a tremendous advantage in the North American theatre, with perhaps more than twenty-four million citizens against approximately five million in all Albion, Canada, Norbray, and New England combined. The contribution of little England and Amberland to this meagre total had depleted the European homeland of the English to barely three million souls, and other English colonies counted between them just a few hundred thousand whites. But while American industry had advanced by leaps and bounds since the last serious Anglo-American conflict, Walmington's had lead the world, and continued to do so.


Whatever happens we have got the Maxim Gun, and they have not!

When faced by American firepower increasing from the traditional three rounds per minute to three rounds per second from their volley guns, the English would retort with ten per second from the Maxim Gun, which was trialled during 1884 and entered widespread service in 1885 despite some teething problems. English line infantry, meanwhile, fought with the Pattern 1877 rifle, which was based on a weapon used by Geletians fighting the Grand Empire of the Shield in the War of Henderson's Pig, and many examples were soon converted to fire new .303” ammunition.

Over-all, the English, who favoured a volunteer recruitment strategy for their army, supported by the Home Guard and Legion of Frontiersmen, were heavily out-numbered by a larger opponent imbued with a republican view of a citizen's duty to serve, but enjoyed a qualitative advantage in their armaments as well as less difficulty in keeping their smaller field armies supplied.

On the Great Lakes gunboats and faster vessels clashed as did larger ships at sea, and coastal batteries frequently engaged enemy shipping, the English relying heavily on Armstrong Disappearing Guns to defend choke-points, while a disproportionately vast fleet of cruisers and battleships forced the Americans to think creatively and take chances on such projects as the Fenian Ram, perhaps the first 'modern' submarine to be obtained by a fighting force.

Just as early English raids had been repulsed by America's volley guns, so the Republic would find attack after attack bloodily thwarted by the Maxim Gun, and the war became a quagmire unlike anything previously known. American Rodman guns and Parrot rifles and English Armstrong guns pounded infantry positions made increasingly static by the impossibility of advancing against such rapid small-arms fire as each side could bring to bear. The English introduced highly accurate Whitworth breech-loading rifled artillery specifically to serve a counter-battery function, and it became apparent that as one technical innovation would inevitably be answered by another the outcome could only be further slaughter.

By 1886 a cursory examination of casualty lists would have appeared to signpost impending English victory, with thousands of Englishmen killed against tens of thousands of Americans, but the American nation was better able to absorb its human losses, and efforts to starve the Republic simply by belabouring her ports had certainly failed in light of advancing American agriculture. To the English it was apparent that though they held a considerable technological lead and continued to introduce the next standard in armaments of every sort, each day that the war dragged on would see the Americans put to rest another of their prior inadequacies and gain another step on the scientific leading-edge. To the Americans it was equally apparent that every day spent catching up could also see their Republic bury another hundred of its most promising sons.

The peace made that year would prove enduring, and in the dozen decades since, the American Republic and Walmingtonian Empire have become entwined by commerce and shared colonial interests, former enemies fighting as allies both in the Great War and in Drapol. Sun'gachi was returned to the Republic, but the English remained in Ide'tou with the Americans little able to object given the Royal Navy's supremacy in the region and the English alliance with Emesa.

In 1890 the First Cape War erupted as native vineyard workers and copper miners staged a mutiny against the colonial authorities. Transplanted Ceyloban labourers were willingly drafted to put-down the revolt as English forces took heavy losses in the face of guerrilla tactics employed by rebels reputedly armed by hostile powers, one Member of Parliament openly accusing the Americans of supplying rifles (some circumstantial evidence of Fenian involvement was later reported, but mainstream histories agree on a lack of involvement by the Republic itself) and the Byzantine Empire of operating a smuggling ring.

1894's greatest local disaster saw 172 people killed when a new rail bridge over the Kenilworth Rift collapsed under the Wychwood North Eastern. The long-term significance would be the steady decline of the Wychwood Engineering Company, which lasted through several decades and enabled the rise of the firm's now-iconic up-market rival, Stockley Motors.

The First Cape War did not end completely until 1900, by which time heroic bayonet charges, often conducted by young Englishmen struck with 'Brentitis', had saved the day at several isolated outposts and plantation manors, leading to the dangerous belief that 'the old cold steel' remained the central part of warfare as the new century dawned, though it was in fact the Maxim Gun which could truly take credit for having destroyed native hopes and bodies.

Far from being discouraged by discontent in the empire that already existed, Walmington pushed on, and 1902 saw the signing of the first in what would become a string of complicated and often unequal treaties between the English East-of-India Company and the hermit kingdom of Drapol, which Company guns had for several years been forcing gradually open as the Chaspot-Waynes pursued legendary reports of rubies and other gems of fantastic size and quality. These reports had originated with the Americans, who had long since established their presence off the Drapoel coast but had been unable to push inland in the face of fierce resistance by a determined and xenophobic people.

The treaty was regarded by the Company as giving it exclusive economic rights in Drapol, and by the Drapoel as a sort of mercenary contract obliging the Company's ships to prevent further unwanted intrusions by America and the other industrial countries, Byzantine and Valendian ships already being known in the region. Sadly for the Drapoel, the English and Americans were now essentially allies and happy to co-operate in order for the former to expand their regional influence and the latter to retain the profitable trading post at Songac.

In contrast to the backwardness of military thinking exhibited in the Cape War and the on-going colonial approach to foreign countries, 1903 brought the progressive measure of women's suffrage in Walmington, though it was granted only to women over twenty-two years, the age at which Queen Mavis I had assumed full power after years of deference to the Church Council. Walmingtonian men could vote at twenty-one years, and for some time many -men and women alike- regarded a woman's right to vote as largely symbolic and akin to a man's theoretical right to stay home and care for the children rather than join a trawler in the cod fleet or head down the pits as he almost inevitably would. There was a paradoxical sense that women were above politics- members of the nobility rarely voted, and the right was generally held to be a concession to the working man (and a symbolic one at that, for then like-minded Tory, Whig, and Liberal parties headed by Capitalists and titled gentlemen dominated Parliament).

In 1905, reportedly in response to incursions from Catholic Europe, Drapol was declared a Company Protectorate and East Indiamen began to be replaced at expanding company-built ports by heavily armed windjammers and steamships. Following this, in 1910, the Drapoel Prime Minister was compelled to sign the Anglo-Drapoel Annexation Treaty, which would be treated as a binding document despite the absence of an imperial seal supposed to have been applied by the Regent on behalf of the under-age Emperor Wiman in addition to or instead of the Prime Minister's signature. The Company circumvented not only the Drapoel Emperor but also the new English King, who would not be informed of the treaty until after its conclusion, despite references in the text to the precedence that His Most English Majesty would take over young Wiman. This whole affair was much at odds with Walmingtonian imperial tradition, which had typically been more about commerce than conquest and tended -outside North America- to feature colonial outposts of limited size established to provide strategic harbours and access to regional markets. Where colonial holdings had expanded, they had generally done so through sparsely populated tundras, mountains, jungles, and deserts. Now the Company had, on paper, a rapidly expanding population of nearly nine million foreign people to administer.

In practice, however, while the former domains of the Ide, Ke, and Pin'draps came to be known as Lower Drapol and were controlled by the Company, the heartland of the up-river Su'drap Dynasty was never fully pacified, and Da'Khiem, rejecting the treaties into which it had been lured, continued to defy English ambitions.

With the Drapoel Emperor coming of age in 1919 and the Company fearing that he would attempt to recover his authority an attempt to cement a new constitution protecting company interests met with violent popular opposition, and local police were deployed along-side Company militia in a brutal crack-down that may have killed as many as 7,500 Drapoel and lead to the imprisonment of several times that number. How many were killed by Company men and how many by Drapoel officers is a question that remains controversial, with Walmington and Da'Khiem today offering incompatible answers, and Kheol attempting to erase the incident from history entirely.

The outbreak in the same year of the Second Cape War ensured that Walmington would turn a blind eye to the Company's campaign in the Far East. Ceyloban officers trained by Walmington to fight the First Cape War, having spent the two intervening decades in preparation, lead a new revolt against their employers, seizing several police stations and military depots in a surprise rising. A combination of Anglo-Shieldian military discipline instilled by the Walmingtonians themselves and partisan tactics learned from the original rebels was employed along with weapons captured in the initial action to make this mutiny far more effective, especially as Asians and Africans appeared relatively united against the colonists. Depletion of company militias thanks to the Drapoel revolt enabled the rebels to achieve significant early gains, greatly alarming the establishment as a number of white towns were laid under siege.

In response to early rebel gains, a Walmington that was at the peak of its powers deployed its new armaments, developed to meet growing European demand in the aftermath of the watershed Saimonan War. Consequently the Second Cape War became proportionately the bloodiest conflict in Godfreyite history to that point in terms of the casualty rates endured. The Cape Company armed its soldiers with deadly accurate Pattern-1913 magazine rifles, defended outposts with Maxim machine-guns, began widespread issue of the versatile Gun-Machine-Light, Mk.I, and deployed armoured cars, while the RAF deployed primarily in reconnaissance missions to support Company forces.

While imperial forces were dispatched to hold the line on the Cape, Henry Wayne III lead a private expedition deep inland in 1921, attempting to crush the mutiny while testing new arms produced by his companies. The expedition was sponsored by the Cape Company, and reporting of the adventure was entirely under Wayne's control. It proved to be a long time before the shelling of villages and deployment of mustard gas would become matters of public record, and Henry was knighted partly on the strength of his self-described successes in the campaign... despite which the conflict would endure as a rolling insurgency for another six years until its 1927 conclusion in Walmington's favour with the creation of the Company Protectorate of Waynesia.

The modernisation and battle-hardening of the nation's small military secured it several years of peace after the mutiny's suppression. Starting in 1934, the nation's famous tram lines began to be upgraded from horse-drawn and in rare cases steam-power to electric motors (deployed decades earlier on the streets of Kingsmount) while other significant economic projects were tackled. The first off-shore oil and gas platforms were opened in and near the Gulf of St. Aldhelm, adding another feather to the already impressive plumage of the nation's economic cap. The home counties' coal mines expanded, and diamond mines were opened in Waynesia. The imprisonment by the East-of-India Company and the puppet Wiman of so many Drapoel dissidents after 1919 even lead to the extensive use of indentured labour in the distant protectorate, and thousands of locals were forced to work in the extraction of the country's petrochemicals, timber, and gemstones.

The Company's harsh rule in Drapol inspired the creation, by a dissident using the nom de guerre Brother Sulo, of the Drapoel Free Army and even a so-called Free Republic of Dra-pol, though much of its government had to exist in exile due to increasing attacks from the south. A 1929 student revolt in Lower Drapol enabled the Free Army time to embed itself, and the consequential 1931 reinforcement of company rule, which saw the removal from Wiman's hands of most significant powers, spurred many government officials to defect to the rebel camp at Da'Khiem.

In 1937 the Free Army's activity increased dramatically and the company found itself no longer trying to contain an insurgency but instead fighting a fully-fledged war as its local conscripts defected in large numbers. In an attempt to breed more loyal supporters the company began to enforce the teaching of English, banned publications in the Drapoel language, and mandated Church attendance for school-children, who were also obliged to take Christian names. Even the Emperor Wiman became 'William'.

To meet the increasing costs of the conflict the company also began to seize and sell-off cultural artefacts, a policy that only caused greater dissent, and with its manpower base already limited and now riddled with enemy informants the company's tactics became increasingly brutal. During the Great War, many of Sulo's staff were deployed to Europe, where they lived in states signatory to the Pact of Oak, observed European combat, and obtained arms with which to fight the Walmingtonians and their American allies.

By 1945 pretensions to authority over Upper Drapol were all but abandoned as a scorched earth policy in the borderlands failed to dissuade peasant farmers from sheltering rebels in their midst, and the company withdrew towards the coast, effectively ceding the north to the Free Republic though never formally recognising its legitimacy. By this time, however, the Chaspot-Waynes had made a fortune in industries built on supplying the Great War's belligerents with raw materials and manufactures. After the conflict Walmington had coal, oil, iron, hydropower, timber, lead, zinc, copper, nickel, diamond, and fishing industries of formidable scope in such a small nation and was in North America mostly untouched by the war's devastation. Finding enough workers to sustain such expansion and diversification proved the greatest challenge. Despite the end of wartime demand, the smallness of Walmington and its capacities and the rebuilding efforts of many European nations as well as the creeping industrialisation of other states meant that there would always be room for such a little nation and its economy to grow if men could be found to tend it.

Walmingtonian mariners, who had braved conflict zones in the course of their trading, were called by one foreign statesman,“the hardiest and most skilful boatmen in rough seas who exist" and would continue to hold together the far-flung outposts of the Godfreyite Empire.

Unfortunately dissent was not confined to the colonies. In the home counties, a 'Captain' Marcus Cole made himself the nation's most hated man by his outspoken Chairmanship of the Newry National Socialist Party, an openly Fascist political party that was banned amidst fears that Cole intended to support a clandestine Papist incursion. The Party's membership was of a combination of Gaelic nationalists and recent continental European immigrants. Cole was gaoled during the Great War on inflated charges of spying for Rome and plotting sabotage against Virginia, but the NNSP continues as an underground movement even today, apparently lead by one Owen Kilbane.

A southern Drapoel mutiniy in 1948 was supported by the Free Republic and harshly repressed by the company, and in 1950 Sulo's forces crossed the frontier in far greater strength than Company intelligence had indicated was possible, Walmington's western rivals soon being implicated in the supply and training of the Drapoel Free Army. The Company had expected the bulk of the DFA to be armed with medieval and improvised weapons, and small quantities of single-shot rifles once issued to native levies and which were expected to be in a poor state of care. Accordingly, many of the Company's troops were issued with shotguns and large calibre revolvers designed to halt unprotected men rushing their positions with melee weapons, and these forces were often out-gunned by riflemen.

A brutal three year war rocked back and forth, company troops being driven to the south coast before RN warships such as the heavy cruiser Godfrey Grace à Dieu arrived to shell Suloist forces and deliver regular troops for a counter attack. This was halted only after crossing the Free Republic's southern plains and entering the northern highlands, where Sulo once again took the initiative, out-manoeuvring conventional English forces in the challenging terrain and forcing an emergency evacuation by river of Walmingtonian troops, company personnel, and Drapoel converts. There after the conflict stalemated close to the original border, and peace returned with Sulo's demise as leader of the north in 1953, and his replacement by the Communist Chao Shih-an, who took the cadre name Kurosian. The south also saw changes as the Walmingtonian crown stripped the Company of its mandate, enabling the creation of a Drapoel National Republic.

After ten years of relative peace punctuated by minor border incidents, a river steamer carrying English, American, and other dignitaries was sunk in 1963, and Company investigators were quick to implicate Communist insurgents said to be working for the People's Republic that had replaced Sulo's Free Republic in the north. With Trémont hesitant to take military action the Company launched its own punitive expedition. The resulting Three Day War was intense and characterised by the liberal use by Company forces of air-power, leading to almost five thousand deaths.

Terms forced upon the reeling People's Republic included allowing western diplomats, Christian missionaries, and Company prospectors into the north, while the National Republic was further enfeebled by expanded Company interests.

This show of weakness by the Nationalists along with a shift in tactics on the part of Kurosian may have contributed to the emergence of the Red Bamboo, a Communist guerrilla resistance movement operating in Lower Drapol with the support of the People's Republic. The Red Bamboo's effectiveness convinced the Company and the Americans to greatly reinforce their concessions, which the former did to the general neglect of the unstable Nationalist Drapoel state. Before 1963 was out the Communists had regrouped, and the foreigners allowed north were detained en masse and executed, many being crucified along the border in full view of some of the first journalists to record colour photographic and televisual footage for truly global consumption.

The reorganised People's Army stormed into the south with the help of the Red Bamboo, which attacked border defences from the rear and assassinated off-duty military personnel, and Kurosian's army was soon in a position to attack the coast and threaten the Concessions. Meeting small numbers of professional, well-supported troops, however, the Communists suffered enormous casualties. In spite of the terrible scale of the Communists' early failure, the war known to Walmington as Kurosian's Rage dragged on until 1975 thanks in part to effective Communist use of asymmetric warfare tactics.

A number of nations sent forces to aid the Company and the Americans, motivated largely by the Chaspot Waynes' manipulation of popular media and the Communists' helpfully cruel retaliation against western civilians. Emesa in particular contributed blood and treasure to the effort, along with some -mostly logistical- support from Nibelunc, and another bloody stalemate descended.

The uneasy peace held near the 21st Parallel North for five years, all of which were put to good use by both sides. Desiring to legitimise and cement the National Republic, Walmington invited it, America, Nibelunc, Emesa, and other nations to convene a so-called Parliament of Nations, whose members would begin a project of reconstruction in war-ravaged Drapol and contribute to a multi-national security force that would patrol the border between what were called 'Upper' (People's Republic) and 'Lower' (National Republic) Drapol, and suppress the Red Bamboo.

At the same time, however, the People's Republic engaged the co-operation of revolutionaries in Geletia and the Congo in its drive to re-arm, alarming Walmington sufficiently for the Special Operations Wing (SOW) to be secretly tasked with the assassination of Director Kurosian and Wang Kuo-fang, A.K.A. Hotan, his protégé and a top Political Director in the People's Army. While the elderly Kurosian was successfully dispatched, Hotan survived to lead the People's Army south in 1980.

Bypassing multi-national forces on the border via a series of secret assault tunnels, Hotan delivered enormous casualties and trapped countless westerners before driving on towards the coast. The Parliament of Nations, lacking the single-minded determination of the Communists, rapidly disintegrated as many nations concentrated their efforts on evacuation. While English forces fought to hold back tens of thousands of Communist infantry, the Nationalist army once again struggled with mass desertions, and an increasing number of defections to Hotan's all-conquering banner.

General Hozaro's 100th Assault Division advanced hundreds of kilometres to the south, capturing M'ko and M'aek and driving a wedge between allied forces in the east and west as the out-numbered multi-national were forced off the so-called Devil's Neck. The English army too was driven from its positions to the west and forced to fall-back on Ide'tou's formidable defences, while in the east a multi-national detachment and Nationalist troops fought a desperate defence of the strategic Three Pagodas Pass, repelling several enemy attempts capture the principle conduit through the hills that divide Lower Drapol's eastern extent from the rest of the nation, buying the disorderly remnants of the National Army time to regroup there.

Meanwhile, 1984 saw the dramatic rise in Ceyloba of the Liberation Tigers of Eelam, another Communist insurgent group comprised of Tamil, Geletian, Moorish and other imperial subjects acting with the support of Beddgelert's opposition League of Communists, Sopworth ApGraeme having travelled to the Dominion to fight with the rebels.

Worse, in 1987, Robert Bantu's Republic of Nilosahara, having over-thrown the minority rule of the Falster family four years earlier, launched a surprise assault on the English Spice Islands, which lie just a few miles off the Nilosaharan coast. With the bulk of English forces engaged in Ceyloba and Drapol, or else stationed to protect Amberland and England herself in light of Anglo-Gandvian tensions, the tiny garrison on Zanzibar and the islands' lightly-armed guard-ships were wholly inadequate to oppose a large scale assault that benefited from Bantu's inheritance of apartheid-era fast jets. Most of the islands were taken with little if any resistance, though the submarine HMS Conqueror, on patrol in the Indian Ocean, arrived in time to sink one enemy warship involved in the operation with a spread of straight-running torpedoes before being forced to withdraw, unable to further impact the course of events ashore and in the air.

By 1988 most of the allied forces -save those of Walmington, Emesa, and a minor contingent from America- had withdrawn from Drapol entirely, but fighting continued as the renamed Unified People's Army struggled either to over-come the relatively defensible Concessions or to fight through the eastern hills where Nationalist resistance had belatedly stiffened. The return to the front lines of the formidable General Hozaro and his re-equipped 100th Assault Division promised to break the allies hold in the hills, however, and Prime Minister Charles McAllister authorised the deployment of the Umsobomvu Device. This was the world's first and to date sole instance of nuclear warfare, and was successful in crippling the 100th and forcing a conclusion of hostilities.

The National Republic was greatly reduced, to the benefit of the now-called 'Chaoist' People's Republic, but the Concessions retained, all be it after suffering heavy shelling. The Parliament of Nations faded into history along with McAllister's government, which, despite a costly and incomplete victory in Ceyloba, was hurt by the organisation's collapse, the failure to push back the Communists, and the soon-revealed horrors of nuclear warfare.

[Walmington on Sea]

Geography

The Godfreyite Empire sprawls over the five continents of Europe, North and South America, Africa, and Asia.

The United Kingdom of Walmington on Sea properly consists of the former kingdoms of England (13,420km2), in Northern Europe, Amberland (40,004km2), in Eastern Europe, and Albion (108,860km2), in North America.

Despite considerable losses, much remains of an empire that once also included the rich holdings of Lower Drapol. Still bound to the Empire are the Territory of Norbray (sometimes included in references to Walmington or Canada); the Colony of Tobago, the Dominion of Australia; The Colony of Fireland; the Territory of the Neptune Islands; the informally-called English North African holdings of the Territory of Saharaland and the Viceroyalty of Mauretania; the Colony of St. Thomas and Prince's Island; the English Cape Colonies of the Skeleton Coast, Namaqualand, and Waynesia; the Viceroyalty of Ceyloba; the Dominion of Borneo; and the city state Colony of Ide'tou. Additionally, the self-governing Kingdom of Sabah, ruled by an ethnically English dynasty, is considered a protectorate; the English Spice Islands, lost to Nilosahara in the 1980s, have been recently recaptured and are under-going reintegration as a Territory; and Nilosahara itself has been declared a Protectorate under the name of the Tribal States of East Africa, including Bantuland and Sael.

While England and Amberland cover some 53,424km2, the whole of English North America (including Norbray, New England, and Canada in addition to Albion and surrounding minor islands) covers some 11,794,412km2 excluding the 9,104km2 of the Caribbean island of Tobago; the Empire's three South America divisions of Australia, Fireland, and the Neptune Islands amount to 1,171,703km2; African holdings cover 2,125,570km2; and remaining Asian territories constitute a further 810,776km2, making the Empire's total surface area approximately 15,964,926 square kilometres. This is equivalent to almost twelve times greater than the Byzantine Empire, or almost twenty times the size of the Western Roman Empire.

Much of the North American mainland under Walmingtonian control was shaped by the retreat of the ice sheets during the last glacial period. Rolling hills feature prominently in national poetry and art, and the southern mainland's coast is dotted with lakes, swamps, and sandy beaches. This region features extensive forests and several mountain ranges, amongst which stands the 6,288 foot or 1,917 metre Mount Royal, site of the world's highest recorded wind-speed, and the 6,194 metre Mount Denali (also known as Mount George), highest point in the Walmingtonian Empire.

In the City of Walmington the average July temperature is 11 degrees Celsius and the average January temperature a biting -9 degrees, while elsewhere the range is often more extreme. Meanwhile, northern parts of the Cape Colonies often reach temperatures above 40 degrees.

Natural resources abundant in various parts of the Empire include iron, uranium, petroleum, natural gas, coal, diamonds, amber, nickel, zinc, copper, gold, silver, asbestos, granite, potash, phosphates, timber, hydropower potential, windpower potential, and fish. In the home counties areas such as the Kenilworth Basin and near-by Devonshire Magnetic Anomaly are enormously rich in minerals, Amberland -as the name suggests- is the world's primary source of amber, English North Africa is the world's top exporter of phosphorus, Saint Thomas and Prince's Island show enormous potential for off-shore petroleum, and in the Cape Colonies Chalisbury is famous as the diamond capital of the world, while Namaqualand contains the overwhelming majority of the world's known manganese and a significant portion of global iron ore.

The Empire


England and Amberland


English North America

[Walmington on Sea]

People

The population of English North America is some 36,634,626. Of this an estimated 485,000 live in Albion, with over half concentrated in the island's south-eastern Avalon Peninsula where sits the capital, Great Walmington (107,000 city, 200,600 metropolitan). The total imperial population is estimated at 141,428,092 making the Empire, despite dense concentrations in many colonial outposts and homeland cities, a very sparsely populated civilisation, which is thanks largely to the great tundras of Norbray, the thick jungles of Borneo, and the arid expanses of the Cape and Saharaland. Fewer than fifty million of Godfrey's subjects are white Anglophones, while more than ninety million are variously Native American or Innuit, black African or Afro-Caribbean, Arab or Moorish, Dravidian or Indo-Aryan, Drapoel, Malay, or Dayak, or counted amongst smaller minorities or of mixed-race.

The populace in the Empire's European homelands as well as in Albion, Canada, New England, Australia, and Fireland is overwhelmingly white, of chiefly Anglo-Shieldian, Gandvian, and Celtic stock. This mongrel race is today called English. The term Walmingtonian is often applied to the race, referential in fact to their monarch and church. Some subjects self-identifying as Celts prefer not to be known as English, though most are accustomed to the error and unlikely to be greatly offended.

In North America the aboriginal community is several tens of thousands strong, including Cree, Ojibwe, Inuit, and other groups, and forms a substantial portion of the populace in Norbray especially. There is a small black minority descended largely from runaway slaves who were welcomed by the Godfreyites, and small numbers of Ceyloban, Drapoel, Bornean, and African subjects emigrated to Walmington during the turbulent 1980s. Another minority community of some significance comprises mostly wealthy Emesan expatriates, though some of these are only part-time residents in the Empire, maintaining properties in fashionable parts of cities such as Great Walmington, York, and London, or country estates and hunting lodges in remote parts of Canada, New England, and Norbray.

Amberland reports a total of 2,589,934 residents, and England 3,033,952. While these are mostly English and Anglophone-Celts, some Shieldian refugees have recently been accepted. There is a long-term trend for net migration from Amberland to North America. There are in South and Central America some 10,384,027 imperial subjects, mostly in Australia and Tobago. Despite the loss of some territories, the English African territories contain an estimated 47,531,041 people, though this figure is likely an under-estimation due to high growth rates and the fact that Mauretania is almost a decade removed from its last census. The Empire's Asian holdings, meanwhile, count 41,254,512 subjects despite the losses of the late twentieth century. It should be noted that these figures include the Kingdom of Sabah and the theoretically independent Tribal States of East Africa.

In most of the Empire the Godfreyite Reformed Catholic Church is the dominant religion with Roman Catholicism a distant second amongst whites, its observance concentrated in Royal Island and parts of Red Island, and a few rural villages in Amberland. Other Protestant churches have a minor presence, chiefly in Amberland. Self identification as Atheist is rare, though numbers have marginally increased in recent years, and growing numbers of Protestants, including Godfreyites, are less than thoroughly observant. A number of 'native' beliefs persist throughout the Empire, though many exist only as habits bereft of their former meaning, or blended with Christian traditions. Mauretania is far more religiously diverse, with Protestantism and Catholicism joined by Sufi and Ismaili Shi'a and Maliki Sunni Islam and several polytheistic folk religions, while in Ceyloba the Godfreyite Church competes with other Christian sects as well as Buddhism, Hinduism, and to a lesser degree also Islam. Borneo is home to people of numerous Christian and animist beliefs.

Walmingtonians are typically regarded as socially conservative, happy to get on with their daily work so long as the status quo is not threatened, where upon it is easy to ignite the spark of nationalism in this relatively little-populated country that is apt to feel mortally threatened by any challenge or perceived slight. While the government today enjoys strong relations with neighbouring America, a nation with which Walmington has a centuries-long history of antagonism and which has long out-populated Walmington's English territories, the general public -and indeed many establishment figures, particularly in the Admiralty- retain at the very least a strong sense of Anglo-American rivalry.

Wholesome sporting pass-times are popular and encouraged, and a great many of the world's most popular sports are English inventions or at least were first codified by the English, whether arising in Amberland and England or later in the New World. Rugby football is one of the most high profile outlets today for the aforementioned rivalry with Franco-America, marginally less bloody than meeting in line of battle at sea, and class politics are upheld through sporting divides, rugby's union and league codes being associated with the wealthy and working classes respectively, while association football is also popular with the latter and cricket with both the middle and upper classes.

Popular reverence for the Walmingtonian Crown -worn at present by HM King Charles III- is extremely high, and there is probably no greater celebration in the Empire than that which accompanies a public appearance by members of the royal family, at which it is not uncommon to see weather-beaten North Atlantic fishermen or burly drill sergeants shed tears.

Generally, the Walmingtonian people may be noted for their short stature yet upright constitution. Fishermen, woodsmen, miners, and soldiers remain the archetypes of English manhood, punctuated by the (once) dashing figure of rare adventurer-heroes such as Sir Henry Chaspot Wayne IV, who has spent a large part of his life -and fortune- on safari in Africa. In contrast, idealised women are mothers, nurses, and diligent clerical workers et cetera, with both genders being lauded for stoicism, hard work, and a Godfreyite reserve that some foreigners perceive -perhaps naively- as prudishness.

[Walmington on Sea]

Government

The Walmingtonian Empire, also called the English Empire or the Godfreyite Empire, operates a parliamentary democracy under a constitutional monarchy. Though the Crown's powers are no longer so extensive as was the case early in the nation's history the sheer popularity of the royal family means that savvy Prime Ministers consult privately with the Palace before embarking on significant reforms. How much influence the Palace retains is a matter of some debate amongst those interested in Walmingtonian politics, with some suggestion existing that real power continues to rest with the King.

The House of Edwy achieved royal status in Amberland in 1272, while the House of Walming gained the same self-appointed status in the New World during 1481. By the time of the latter house's inception the former had collapsed, leaving England and Amberland trapped in violent dynastic struggle that lead eventually to the establishment of a Tudor dynasty, which would itself expire, bringing on the crowning of King James, who, after the death without issue of Queen Mavis I of the House of Walming, was made by invitation King also of Albion, uniting for the first time England, Amberland, and Albion. James' assassination in a Catholic plot of 1605 brought about the invasion of Amberland by Walmington and the 1606 reunification of the two domains under James' son, and this line continues today as the House of Godfrey, which is based in Great Walmington at Cherry Tree House. Since the Palace's move from Kingsmount to Walmington, the Monarch's first-born son has traditionally been made Prince of Amberland, and if coming of age prior to the monarch's death or abdication has been sent to live at Kingsmount and act as regent, taking-over from a Governor General who represents the crown if there is not a Prince of Amberland above 21 years of age. An official royal palace also exists in England, and is used by the Monarch for part of the year.

The current monarch is His English Majesty (also styled His English Highness, His Godfreyite Majesty, and His Royal Highness) King Charles III. The crown's heir apparent is the king's only son, Prince Edryd (popularly called Eddie), Prince of Amberland. Other senior royals include the King's sisters, Princesses Dorothy and Cecilia (popularly called Dotty and Cissy respectively), both of whom enjoy similar popularity to that surrounding the King himself.

Today Walmington's parliament is generally recognised as a three party system. Though only two factions have ever actually held power there is at last a reasonably strong challenge from a third.

Following recent elections the historically-dominant Conservative (or Tory) Party, then lead by Beauregard Rain, lost power to the Whig Party as lead by successful banker George Mainwaring (pronounced man-er-ing not, as commonly thought, main-ware-ing), leading to Rain's replacement as party leader by former Defence Minister General Geoffrey Square. The third strongest party is Social Labour, while for the first time in recent memory a further challenger was evident in the English Industrial Democratic Party (or EID Party), which is the only major party to be lead by a woman.

An over-view of the major parties follows.

Whig Party
Prime Minister George Mainwaring
Chancellor James Frazer
Deputy Prime Minister Sir Arthur Wilson
Minister for Defence Jack Jones
The Whig Party represents the viable centrist stance in Walmingtonian politics.

Conservative Party
Leader of the Opposition Gen. Geoffrey Square, MCWE, DSO
Shadow Chancellor Beauregard Rain
Shadow Minister for Defence Col. Robert Pritchard
The Tory Party represents the legitimate right-wing of Walmingtonian politics.

English Industrial Democratic Party
Party Leader Alice Meadows
Since Meadows' arrival in the leadership the EID Party has eclipsed all minor parties to become recognised as a major force in Walmingtonian politics, uniting elements of the marginalised left, aboriginal-rights activists, and Catholics opposed to the radical and illegal Newry National Socialist Party. Despite these successes the EID remains very much in the shadow the traditional two party elite. The EID Party represents the legitimate left-wing of Walmingtonian politics.

Social Labour Party
Party Leader William Hodges
The SLP represents the radical left-wing of Walmingtonian politics, and despite some support in port cities, mining regions, and former mill towns it has been unable to make sustained headway against the staunch royalist views of the majority, which are also held by many in the working class and, it has been suggested in spite of much rhetoric about republican ideals, even privately by the party leadership itself.

Liberal Alliance
This is a loose and shifting coalition of independent MPs, and has failed to become a major force as its membership encompasses both those who view the 'Liberal' tag from an economic standpoint, and those who regard their liberalism as social in character. Some of the latter were lost to the EID Party, leading to an on-going debate as to whether the LA will become exclusively an economic-liberal party or its remaining membership be absorbed by the Whigs and Tories.

A number of flags are associated with the Empire, the most important being as follows-


Banner of Arms of the House of Walming and the Sovereign of the English Empire, often regarded as the flag of the Empire at large





National Flag of the United Kingdom, combining the crosses of the Patron Saints of England, Albion, and Amberland, namely Saints George, Arnold of Avalon, and Aldhelm respectively; sometimes called the Union Flag.

George was adopted as England's Patron Saint after the exploits of the Order of Brothers of the English House of St. George, a religious military order founded to protect early pioneers on the road to what would become Amberland, where the Order soon established a base, first at Nogguard and later at Kingsmount. His cross is of conventional configuration, and consists of red bars on a field of white.

Arnold of Avalon was the only son of Godfrey Walming, and was, according to Godfreyite tradition, Martyred while fighting Roman Catholic insurrection, reputedly dying astride his horse with his arms stretched to Heaven. His demise paved the way for the accession of his sister, Mavis. Arnold's cross is a saltire, apparently mirroring the Prince's stance at the moment of his Martyrdom, featuring white bars against a blue field.

Aldhelm is said to have been Abbot of Malmesbury, located in Wiltshire, in the age before Amberland's Christianisation was complete. Scholars today doubt the veracity of many accounts of Aldhelm's life, but his apparent status as a well-educated man and a pioneer both in Amberland itself and in academic terms, being the first Anglo-Saxon to write in Latin verse in addition to Old English, appeals to the English sensibility. Controversy also surrounds his cross, which appears to have been altered for some obscure and possibly political purpose perhaps as recently as 1783, being today a saltire with red bars on a white field, while proponents of a conventional cross inverting the colours of St. George continue to exist in England, much to the annoyance of proud Amberlanders. Godfrey Walming is reputed to have delivered some of his early radical sermons at Malmesbury Abbey, and no doubt his reformist legacy has much to do with the contrary nature of information pertaining to St. Aldhelm.

[Walmington on Sea]

Economy

In its Anglo-Shieldian northern-hemisphere homelands of Europe and North America, Walmington is, in per-capita terms, one of the wealthiest nations on earth, held back only by arguable manpower shortages and the relative vastness of its territorial extent. Historically building much on the basis of North Atlantic fisheries, amber, Eastgate coal, and tea, spices, and rubber from Ceyloba and the Spice Islands, wealth was expanded greatly through the domination of Lower Drapol, with its gemstones, hardwoods, and petrochemicals. The loss of that colony -along with the temporary loss of the Spice Islands and Communist destabilisation of Ceyloba- would be a blow mitigated greatly by the development of technology enabling the efficient exploitation of New England's vast tar-sands, where more than seventy percent of the globe's bituminous deposits are found, and by the exploration of Norbray gas fields and expanding estimates of oil and shale gas reserves in Australia. Uranium from the Cape Colonies has also become economically important, while the collapse of cod stocks compelled the fishing fleet to remodel itself around larger vessels that travel further in search of rich catches. Today Walmington is by some margin the world's leading exporter of lobster, and turns enormous profits from exploitation of bluefin tuna stocks that environmentalists have called anything from 'short-sighted' to 'cynical'. The Chaspot-Wayne lead Chalisbury Group based in Waynesia dominates the global diamond trade and has been accused of human rights abuses in Africa as well as artificially inflating prices.

Supplying Allied powers during the Great War and the arms race that preceded it vastly expanded Walmingtonian manufacturing capacities and enriched its banks, and the nation remains a centre for the insurance industry. The powerful financial sector is tainted by accusations that Walmingtonian bankers and insurers wilfully exploited Jewish, Orthodox, and Catholic victims of the various European campaigns of extermination during the Great War despite the Empire being at war with most of the responsible powers, and the industry and government have collaborated to defend against charges related to the refusal of insurers to pay out in a number of controversial cases involving the alleged destruction by Oakist forces of relevant documentation.

Fluctuating resource prices have challenged economic stability, but the high demand for workers in a wide range of resource-based industries usually means that the loss of one is the gain of another. New oil and gas discoveries are still being made even as nickel, zinc, gold, copper, and silver mines open, and production of phosphates, manganese, iron, and uranium remain at globally important levels, while the Cape's world-famous diamond mines are still profitable. In terms of fossil fuels, the Empire is one of the best placed powers in the world, with on and off shore deposits of conventional and non-conventional resources existing in significant scale on at least four continents.

Under the leadership of the prudent ex-banker George Mainwaring the economy has diversified into new areas of financial service provision lead by the powerhouse Swallow Bank for which Mainwaring once worked. It should be noted that Walmintonian commercial and investment banks remain largely distinct, and though some of the largest have branches in both sectors each is financially independent of the other. The Whig Party has based its platform on sound fiscal management against the Conservatives' focus on traditional values maintained at all costs, which is not to say that the Whigs are necessarily socially progressive. While some Whig politicians have occasionally hinted at a willingness at least to discuss the possibility of lowering barriers to free trade, PM Mainwaring is committed to the Empire First! policy, reminiscent of the Splendid Isolation of the Empire's golden age, which Mainwairing appears to be of like mind to the Tories in wishing to restore. The Pound Sterling is the world's leading anchor currency, and Walmington is committed to maintaining gold and silver reserves equivalent to a significant fraction of currency in circulation (having only grudgingly ceased to maintain a gold standard during the C20th).

GDP per capita/total:

Albion and Isles £60,000
Canada £41,000
New England £44,000
Norbray £57,500
North American Total- £42,800 / £1.568 trillion

England £38,500 / £116.8 billion
Amberland £43,000 / £111.37 billion
Europe Total- £40,570 / £228.17 billion

Tobago £16,500 / £60.62 billion
Australia and Fireland £30,000 / £200.04 billion
Neptune Islands £57,000 / £1.42 billion
South & Central American Total- £25,280 / £262.08 billion

North-West Africa £5,000 / £121.156 billion
Spice Islands £14,000 / £18.9 billion
East Africa £1,500 / £32.257 billion
Saint Thomas and Prince's Island £15,000 / £2.802 billion
Cape Colonies £12,500 / £40.78 billion
African Total- £4,540 / £215.895 billion

Ceyloba £6,200 / £128.4 billion
Ide'tou £23,000 / £4.3bln
Borneo incl. Sabah £5,100 / £98.929 billion
Asian Total- £5,615 / £231.629 billion

Imperial Total- £17,720 per capita / £2.505 trillion

By and large, growth rates in recent years have been decreasing in North America and Europe, and increasing in the Afro-Asian colonies, with the Cape performing best. North West Africa's economy is also growing faster than the American and European regions over the long term, though individual years show fluctuating growth due to erratic rainfall and unstable resource prices.

Growth for 2011 was just over 2% in North America, just over 1% in Europe, around 2.5% in Australia and Fireland, and between 2 and 6% in the lower-income territories, though Tobago has suffered a recent down-turn due to 'brain-drain' and inclement climactic conditions.

Walmington takes a largely protectionist view of its own empire, but operates Mogador and Ide'tou as free ports, and favours free trade in many commodities not considered to be of paramount importance to internal producers.

As of 2012 government spending across the Empire accounts for approximately forty percent of GDP, billed in the popular press as the Empire's first ever trillion pound budget, with a figure of £1.0023 trillion touted.

However, around a third of this -£334bln- is controlled by regional authorities including the Counties, Bailiwicks, and Territories as well as the Parishes and Boroughs et cetera organised within them. Only the remaining £668 billion is administered centrally and incorporated in the Chancellor's budget. Under the management of Prime Minister Mainwaring and Chancellor Frazer, the imperial budget has been approximately balanced, deficits and surpluses typically being equivalent to not more than 0.2% of GDP.

[Walmington on Sea]

Fishing and Merchant Fleets

Walmington is famous for its fishing industry, and recognises fish and chips as its national dish, cod, plaice, and haddock having official status. The scale of the industry is staggering, causing the collapse of regional cod stocks in the early 1990s. This disaster was tackled in part through a brutal and dubiously effective 'war' on harp seals, one of the cod's major natural predators.

Today the national fishing fleet contains thousands of boats and displaces several hundred thousand tonnes. Some large trawlers can be readily modified for military duties, and have in the past served as intelligence gathering platforms, slow patrol vessels, submarine chasers, and minelayers, their crews being given military status. English trawlers have had many historical run-ins with the fishermen and maritime authorities of foreign nations, and often act aggressively in any dispute over fishing rights, secure in the knowledge that the Royal Navy has more than once demonstrated its preparedness to forcibly support the industry at sea.

Given such a strong seafaring tradition and an intercontinental empire, it is hardly surprising to learn that the Royal Merchant Marine, bearer of the famous Red Ensign, is also large, having several thousand vessels including hundreds of over 1,000 GRT, for a total tonnage of many millions. The RMM is believed to be the largest merchant fleet in the world, and its operations are worth many billions of pounds to the imperial economy. The organisation has a long history of military participation, being established by Queen Mavis I to serve as the RN's peace-time counterpart, vessels of the day being put to dual combat and cargo use. Later the RMM carried explorers, colonists and soldiers across the globe as the English Empire established itself in Africa and Asia, and the modern Merchant Marine continues to serve military purposes in time of declared national emergency.

[Walmington on Sea]

Culture


If a chap tries to tell you that Godfreyites are no more than dour Anglicans,
you just reach for the pipe and tabor, and put that fellow right!

It is a fact little researched but popularly known that Walmington is the world's leading per-capita tea consumer. At a rate of ten yearly pounds per head -or more than a hundred billion yearly cups across the empire-, the matter is probably beyond dispute.

Better to go three days without food than one day without tea.

The love-affair began in earnest during the 1740s with the establishment in Ceyloba of an English Trade Mission. Plantations would also be established in Drapol, and the Empire's collapse there in he 1980s was felt perhaps most directly through the alarming spike in the cost of tea, often citied as a significant factor in the collapse of the government of the time.

Tea in its various forms is almost a cradle-to-grave habit for Walmingtonians in the home counties and across much of the empire. Children not yet at school age are fed large quantities of weak milky tea, ailing centurions look to herbal blends to stave off the impact of this or that health complaint, and for most of the populace it replaces the bulk of all other liquids consumed in other countries.

For a typical member of the middle classes a working-day-in-tea might proceed as follows. After rising, breakfast will be served with a mug of tea before proceeding to work. On arriving at the office at nine o'clock sharp one's first task is usually to acquire a cup of tea from the employee kitchen. This is to be consumed while settling into the office for a hard morning's work, and perhaps familiarising oneself with the details of the task ahead. Two hours later it is proper to break for elevenses, which means another trip to the kitchen area for a third cup of tea, and perhaps a plate of biscuits. There-after, work continues until approximately midday, when everybody breaks for lunch, many retreating to a public house for a traditionally hearty meal and a pint or half of ale, others opting for a packed lunch and a fourth cup of tea in the office, while some visit tearooms for a whole pot of tea -perhaps shared with a friend or colleague- and lighter meal. After lunch those returning to the office are likely to reach the desks only via the kitchen kettle, and work continues until perhaps three o'clock, when it is, of course, time for tea, which may once again be taken with biscuits or with cake or scones. Work continues until approximately five o'clock, and there terminates for high-tea, which is consumed on arriving home or at a restaurant, and incorporates a large quantity of tea along with a meal likely to feature fish or other meat. A pot of tea will then be shared by family members meeting at home in the evening, and a mug of relatively weak tea taken to bed at the end of the day.

In short, it is considered normal and almost natural for a Walmingtonian to be sipping tea throughout the whole of every day of his or her life.

Alternatives

Coffee is not viewed as an alternative to tea, rather as something slightly exotic, a curiosity usually the preserve of pretentious members of the upper-middle class, or nouveau riche. Coffee houses exist in small numbers, with a town being unlikely to have more than one, and it is almost unheard of for more than one cup of coffee to be taken in a single day. Though St. Thomas and Prince's Island produce a significant quantity of coffee the vast majority is destined for export beyond the Empire.

Until a kettle can be boiled, a glass of water is typically seen as the proscribed stop-gap in cases of hysteria or other sudden-onset illness, or on receipt of shocking news, but is otherwise rarely enjoyed.

Soft drinks have made little impression, though non-alcoholic ginger beer may be offered in bars and public houses as an alternative for those too young or otherwise unable to consume alcohol, and dandelion-and-burdock enjoys marginal popularity with young people, especially on picnics and when far from a kettle, though sales were hurt by the introduction of vacuum flasks enabling the carriage of hot tea.

Without the fishing industry it is safe to say that the Godfreyite Church could never have survived its infancy. Settlers from the St. Aldhelm were barely sustained on a diet heavy in North Atlantic cod during the difficult early years after their arrival at what would become Great Walmington, and the fish retains an almost religious importance to the populace. The collapse of fisheries in the 1990s not only ruined hundreds of small businesses and sparked a horrific and ill-advised 'war on harp seals' but delivered a stinging blow to the national sentiment.

Fish and chips -often served with a side of mushy peas-, usually soaked in vinegar and sprinkled with salt, stands as the Empire's national dish, and several species of fish have official status. While cod is the most prestigious, plaice and haddock are also officially recognised as legitimate alternatives, and a great many other species have been used throughout the Empire.

Herrings, salted or pickled then cold smoked, are a traditional breakfast food in Amberland and England, while bloater and buckling (also prepared herrings) are sometimes eaten at high tea or supper.

Today battered and smoked fish continue to stand along side other traditional favourites such as roast beef and relatively modern curries brought from Ceyloba and Drapol as the best known fare of the Empire, and the fishing industry continues to be of great economic and social importance.

Shellfish have been increasingly caught since the decline of fisheries off Albion, and while many are consumed domestically they are more important on the foreign market, Walmington being the world's leading exporter of lobster.

Though the Godfreyite Church was officially established in 1497, its first chapel had been holding services since the 1481 arrival of the English in the New World, and its founder, Godfrey Walming, had begun preaching his reformist ideas in Amberland probably during the 1470s.

Godfrey was an early reformist who broke with the Roman church ahead of the wider Protestant Reformation, though his ideas largely built on those of earlier if less radical reformists such as John Wyclif's Lollards in England. Godfreyites contested the authority of the church and championed secular education, distributing Wyclif's bible amongst laypeople. That text would form the basis of the later King Godfrey Bible, which is itself now over half a millennium old.

Most Walmingtonians insistently self-identify as Godfreyite Christians, but few consider the Church terribly important beyond its function as a social club and national charity co-ordinator. Much of the Church's strength is drawn from chronic popular suspicion of 'Papists', and it is perhaps owing to this suspicion that the Godfreyite Church itself is unable to wield the sort of political influence popularly associated with the Catholic Church.

In fact it is widely thought that a significant portion of the Godfreyite flock is, “nearly Agnostic”, a fact that does not preclude participation in Church functions, or even in some cases membership of the clergy.

”What event is more awfully important to an English colony than the erection of its first brewhouse?”
-Rev. Sydney Smith

Along with the church, the fish market, the chip shop, and the cricket club, one of the most iconic of Walmington's domestic institutions and the place in which people are most likely to socialise is the local public house. Here friends will meet to drink -usually cask ale, though lager is known, and spirits are common, along with wine, which is usually consumed by women-, hold community discussions, or play indoor games such as darts, dice, cards, billiards, skittles, coin pushing games, and drinking games, notably the infamous yard of ale.

Though over all consumption of alcohol is high in per capita terms and a large portion of the population visit pubs on a regular basis, and despite the aforementioned drinking games, attitudes towards drink and drunkenness do not mirror those of the world's other renowned drinking culture in Geletia, where drunken incapacity is often the expressed aim of imbibing. Many working class men in particular will consume several pints of ale at the end of every work day, but will usually return home before becoming heavily drunk. Similarly it has been noted that the Royal Navy for centuries functioned on large quantities of weak beer and small doses of brandy, port, and gin, in an age when keeping freshwater aboard ship for long periods was difficult.

Today there are thought to be fifty-thousand pubs throughout the Empire, including more than six thousand in the European territories alone.

”He that buys land buys many stones. He that buys flesh buys many bones. He that buys eggs buys many shells. He that buys good ale buys nothing else.”
-John Ray, naturalist

Resistance to elsewhere more popular lagers continues in the Empire, which continues to favour cask ales, often noted for their bitter taste. Walmingtonians maintain that their beers express a greater range and richness of flavours than is the case with foreign types, and lagers have also suffered from (ale industry supported) associations with Catholic countries and hot climates.

Though Walmington played a pioneering role in the creation of television's technologies, the medium is still seen by the mainstream of Godfreyite society as an intrusion into the family home, and is enjoyed in strict moderation. The English Broadcast Corporation, which was born with broadcast radio, also maintains several television stations, while commercial broadcasters are dissuaded by a formidable bureaucracy and restrictive set of standards and guidelines as enforced by the state. Radio remains more popular, and also somewhat more diverse, though the EBC continues to dominate ratings with its typically high-brow Empire Service broadcasts.

In addition to revenues from licence fees, which must be paid by all television and radio owners, the EBC obtains funding by selling content to foreign broadcasters. Perhaps most consistently successful are the corporation's documentaries, addressing the natural world, the cosmos, history, and social trends, but a great many dramas and comedy programmes have achieved international acclaim despite often working with lower budgets than are available to some independent commercial production companies abroad.

Sports viewed as wholesome and constructive (teaching teamwork, respect of officialdom, physical fitness, and discipline, while providing a healthy outlet for youthful energies and competitive urges) are encouraged in Godfreyite society. The Empire is noted for an usually great contribution to the sporting world through the development or at least codification of a variety of sports and games now internationally popular.

The Empire's official summer sport is cricket, while the winter equivalent is ice hockey, though this is less popular than either association or rugby football and may have been chosen as a compromise.

The first direct written reference to the sport of hockey appears in a proclamation by the English King in the fourteenth century, all be it in a decree attempting to ban this and other 'idle games', and modern field hockey appeared in the mid eighteenth century, while the origin of ice hockey remains in some dispute, many crediting early Anglo-Shieldian settlers of Norbray with its development. Ice hockey is the most popular sport in Norbray and one of the most popular in Amberland, and is also played in much of Canada, Albion, New England, and some parts of Australia and Fireland where the climate prohibits many alternatives, though it has little if any presence in the Afro-Asian empire. International success has waxed and waned, since the populations of regions in which it is popular tend to be quite sparse, especially compared with those of major rivals such as the Shield, and strength can be difficult to maintain.

Rugby football appeared in Amberland's public schools in the nineteenth century, with the 'league' format diverging from the 'union' in the last decade of that century. The sport is still often played (chiefly though not exclusively by boys) in the Empire's schools and universities, with the preferred code varying from region to region. University rugby competitions can attract crowds of several thousands when teams from the leading schools meet.

England, Amberland, Walmington (a side incorporating players from Albion, Canada, and occasionally New England and Norbray), Australia, and South West Africa meet regularly in the toughly contested Five Nations competitions in the original union code, while the break-away league format is dominated by the struggle between England and Australia, with Amberland and 'Walmington' securing only occasional victories over the top sides. The main teams (in both codes), along with the minor teams organised by the other parts of the Empire, combine forces to field Empire teams under the name English Lions in frequent showcase clashes against America, often attracting tens of thousands of spectators to games broadcast to a television audience of millions. At club level in the Union code, Walmingtonian North America divides itself into numerous rugby regions, each supporting a professional league. The various league champions enter a regular competition with their Franco-American equivalents to determine the top side in North America.

Association football is one of England's better known gifts to the world of sport, though the nation's small size and competition from other sports precludes much great success in the highly competitive modern game. Embarrassingly, all imperial teams failed to qualify for the last world cup competition in the Western Roman Empire, despite England being one-time World Cup winners. During the Olympic Games a combined Walmington-on-Sea side features players from parts of the Empire usually competing separately.

Cricket is the best supported team sport over all, with the County Championship typically drawing crowds in the thousands while rare international games on Walmingtonian soil are attended by tens of thousands where facilities allow. Domestic cricket competitions in England, Amberland, New England, a 'Walmington' that incorporates both Canada and Albion, the Cape Colonies, Ceyloba, Tobago, Australia and Fireland, North West Africa, and East Africa include county championship or equivalent leagues in which games are played over four days, and limited overs leagues featuring one-day games consisting of one innings of fifty overs per side.

England, Amberland, Albion, Canada, New England, Ceyloba, Australia & Fireland, and Tobago all have Test status, while the Skeleton Coast, Namaqualand and Waynesia play separately in limited overs and field a combined test side under the name of the Cape Colonies. Both the North West African and East African constituent colonies and protectorates play limited overs cricket independently and occasionally in combination, with consideration being given to awarding them test status at some future point when the game is sufficiently developed there to make them competitive against the Big Nine, and the game is also played to some degree in Borneo, including in the Kingdom of Sabah. The Empire is by a wide margin the world's foremost cricketing force.

At the highest level amateur and professional players compete side by side, most clubs being dominated by 'gentlemen amateurs' and sprinkled with paid professionals from the middle and working classes. Some competitions limit the number of professionals that any side may field, continuing to regard cricket as 'the gentleman's game', which may explain why it has not been a great success in less stratified and class-conscious societies than Walmington's.


The Prime Minister takes guard during a charity match on Alexandra Park

Tennis is also a Walmingtonian development, all be it with roots sunk distantly in French and Valendian history, an indoor relative of the game being played by they and adopted by their colonial neighbours in Walmington, where it developed to become the game known today. Tennis in the Empire tends to be played at clubs attended by the higher classes, and at some schools.

Badminton is thought to have developed in the Walmingtonian colony of Ceyloba after military officers observed Gaulish locals playing a game involving a shuttlecock and added a net and new set of rules. One theory holds that a distant relative of the sport was transported to Ceyloba with the Celts who may have observed shuttlecock games being played in ancient Greece (while looting it).

Baseball was first described in England as just one of many similar games played throughout the land, and was taken to the new world with the Godfreyites, who developed the rules somewhat but never took it very seriously. Today the distantly related game of rounders is commonly played by schoolgirls across the Empire, but there are no professional baseball teams, since even lunatics and vagrants have better things to do with their time.

The uncooperative attitude of the English weather and the sensitive nature of cricket, the gentleman's game, has ensured that traditional pub games such as darts and other indoor sports like curling remain extremely popular in the Empire. Bowls is played both in crown green and indoor forms, and is popular with elderly men from the middle and working classes especially, though it is not at all unheard of amongst the elite, Sir Francis Drake, second in command of the English fleet at the time, once allegedly insisting on finishing a game before engaging with an attacking Catholic force.

Gender roles remain fairly pronounced in conservative Walmington, and this applies to sports as much as to any other walk of life, with women's sports generally maintaining a lower profile than their male counterparts, and most 'male' sports having a quite different female equivalent. While Walmingtonian men play cricket in summer, women play rounders, and while men play one or other form of football, women play netball. Though women's sports events are generally less well attended, exceptions do exist, with exhibition matches in a range of sports sometimes drawing large crowds.

The nation's reasonable level of international success in sporting pursuits has been reinforced by resistance to such things as international film and video-game media, often viewed as decadent and inappropriate by the establishment and heavily censored. In the relative absence of such entertainments, sports flourish, but despite state and community support it is rare for English sports to receive the level of investment known to -for example- association football in Europe, where commercialisation and professionalism predominate over the English bias for amateurism.

Walmingtonians are entitled to free primary and secondary education, and children are obliged to attend primary school for six years between the ages of five and eleven, followed by high school for a further five years until sixteen years of age.

Following this eleven year period of compulsory education many take advantage of free higher education for a further one or two years, either at a sixth-form addendum to high school or at a college offering intermediate qualifications beyond those offered during mandatory schooling. Some colleges offer free courses supported by the state, while others are funded through fees.

Beyond college, Walmingtonian higher education -which is subsidised to various degrees depending on the particulars of the institution, course, and student- is of global repute, and the English workforce (in the UK core territories) is one of the most highly educated in the world, more than a fifth of its participants being university graduates.

Top universities in the Empire include the University of London and its many constituent colleges such as the London School of Economics, Imperial College London, and the School of Oriental and African Studies, Leeds Metropolitan University, the University of York, the University of Manchester, the University of Lancaster, and the University of Exeter; in Albion, the so-called Oxbridge universities of Oxford and Cambridge; in Lothian the University of St Andrews, the University of Edinburgh, the University of Glasgow, Durham University, University of Warwick, Southampton University; and numerous others besides.

In Amberland, Immanuel Caunte Baltic Imperial University is the largest centre of higher learning; the University of London maintains the prestigious Kingsmount College, an institution attended largely by children of the nobility and upper classes; the University of Bristol receives forty undergraduate applications for its most popular courses; and Amberland State Technical University provides courses related to fisheries, navigation, marine engineering, and other maritime subjects.

[Walmington on Sea]

Primary Administrative Subdivisions

ENGLAND

3,033,952 people (2,900,000 Anglo-Celtic), capital at London, key industries include shipbuilding, wind power, banking, fishing, livestock, tourism

AMBERLAND

2,589,934 people (2,500,000 Anglo-Celtic), capital at Kingsmount

ALBIONIAN ISLES

Approximately 780,000 people (760,000 Anglo-Celtic); GDP £60,000 per capita, £46.8bln o/a; capital at Great Walmington

THE DOMINION OF CANADA-


THE DOMINION OF NEW ENGLAND


THE TERRITORY OF NORBRAY-

[Walmington on Sea]

Cities

Great Walmington
47° 34′ 3″ N, 52° 42′ 26″ W


Looking over St. Aldhelm Harbour, where the Godfreyites landed

Capital of the Godfreyite world, Great Walmington is far from being its largest settlement, the city-proper being home to approximately 106,000 people, urban area 165,000, and metropolitan area slightly above 197,000, making it a mere fraction the size of York, London, or Kingsmount, though the city is still experiencing gradual population growth. It was here that the St. Aldhelm arrived with the original Godfreyite settlers in 1481 and founded the first Christian city in the new world. The Walmingtonian capital is also the most easterly city in the Americas.

The city was attacked several times by the Americans and Valendians during its history, and was heavily fortified in several stages. Typical battles during the late seventeenth century pitted just dozens of Walmingtonian citizen militiamen against invaders, but were often extremely fierce and commonly resulted in extremely high casualty rates. The capital's most serious modern crisis was perhaps the 1990s collapse of the northern cod fishery, which struck a devastating blow to the local working class and also hurt small banks involved in lending to boat operators and owners. A recovery has been lead by the development of the Terra Nova, White Rose, Hibernia, and Hebron off-shore oil and gas fields along with a shift to shellfish and long range deep-ocean fishing.

A humid continental climate features cool summers but relatively mild winters thanks to the moderating impact of the Gulf Stream. Perhaps in payment for this reasonable climate, Walmington must endure an average of 124 foggy days each year along with some of the heaviest rain and snowfall and highest average wind speeds of any North American city, and just 1,497 hours of sunshine.

For the most part the capital is a relatively low-rise city with many buildings dating back more than a century, and a few having stood for longer than half a millennium. Some residences and small businesses feature brightly painted façades, especially in roads such as George Street, which is a centre for night-life and is said to be home to a greater density of bars and public houses than any other city on the continent.


A Wychwood automobile passes The Empire Building, CoW's tallest building

Grindstone, Isles of Scilly
47° 23′ 0″ N, 61° 52′ 0″ W


Port of Grindstone

An important fishing and ferry port with a sheltered harbour, Grindstone's population of approximately 1,685 is engaged largely in lobster fishing and secondarily in tourism and by the city's port.

St. Peter Port, Guernsey, Channel Islands
46° 46′ 40.08″ N, 56° 10′ 40.08″ W


St. Peter Port from above

Located on the southeastern and smaller of the two principle Channel Islands, St. Peter Port faces the Atlantic Ocean, with a harbour protected by a chain of islets. The population of 5,273 represents the overwhelming majority of the Channel Islands' total. The economy is based largely on fishing.

Saint Michael, Jersey, Channel Islands
47° 6′ 0″ N, 56° 22′ 40″ W


Saint Michael

Home to 615 people, Saint Michael is the second largest settlement in the Channel Islands. The city boasts an airport with a 3,281 foot paved runway, and a small medical centre.

W.I.P.

W.I.P.

W.I.P.

Kingsmount (Kingsmount), Amberland
54° 43′ 0″ N, 20° 31′ 0″ E


Kingsmount Castle

Established in the late thirteenth century by Edwy of Angeln, Kingsmount remains one of the largest cities in the Empire and continues to buck the local trend for population decline, having recently recorded 431,491 residents, a marginal increase on the 2002 census. Kingsmount is the capital of the Principality of Amberland.

The city lies at the mouth of the river Pregel, on the Frisian Bay, and is one of the Baltic's chief ports. Kingsmount is famous for its large and ornate gates and for its many bridges, which feature in the famous Seven Bridges of Kingsmount problem in mathematics. It is also home to one of the world's oldest electrified tram networks, earliest stock exchanges, and a famous cathedral. The Royal Navy's Baltic Station is based on the bay.

Bristol (Bristol), Amberland
54° 39′ 0″ N, 19° 55′ 0″ E


The port of Bristol

Famous as the port from which the St. Aldhelm departed more than half a millennium ago, carrying the Godfreyites to the new world, Bristol was then known as Brycgstow, its name evolving to the current form over many generations. Bristol is administered as a ceremonial county. Located on the Frisian Spit, the old fishing town is now a major base for the RN's Baltic Fleet. The population was recently reported at 32,670.

Dorchester (Dorset), Amberland
54° 58′ 0″ N, 20° 29′ 0″ E


Dorchester

One of few locales in Amberland to show positive population growth in recent years, with 13,026 residents at present, Dorchester is capital of the county of Dorset. The town is a popular weekend destination for Kingsmount residents, and is noted as an inspiration to novelist and poet Thomas Hardy. Historically, the town has been fiercely Godfreyite, Catholic chaplain Hugh Green being beatified by the Pope after his execution by Godfreyites who later played football with his head. Later, the Todpuddle Martyrs were tried in Dorchester for their participation in a then-illegal trade union. Today the area is more progressive, having been granted Fairtrade Town status, and embarking on a number of sustainable development projects.

Bournemouth (Dorset), Amberland
54° 40′ 39″ N, 20° 07′ 54″ E


Oil terminal at Bournemouth

With 21,375 residents at last count, Bournemouth is the largest settlement in Dorset. The town promotes itself as a centre of business, situated on the Frisian Bay, and contains an international conference centre. Traditionally more important, if less appealing, is the oil terminal at the docks.

Poole (Dorset), Amberland
54° 57′ 06″ N, 20° 14′ 0″ E


Long range radar site under construction near Poole

With a population of 11,016, Poole is one of Dorset's principle towns. The town's old fishing harbour, active for many centuries, is today a significant draw for tourists seeking a beach resort. In contrast to this history and tranquillity, the new Dorset Radar Station, an early-warning facility with a range greater than 2,600 miles, is situated just six miles to the south. Poole itself hosts the headquarters of the Royal National Lifeboat Institute, and there is a Royal Marines presence in the town. Poole is the birthplace of the Right Honourable Major David Croft, Speaker of the House of Commons.

Weymouth (Dorset), Amberland
54° 57′ 0″ N, 20° 09′ 0″ E


Weymouth beach

Important as a departure point for North American settlement, and in the spread of the Black Death, Weymouth is today recognised as a spa town. Its population is 10,772 according to the last count, but has been in gradual decline in recent years.

Christchurch (Dorset), Amberland
54° 52′ 22″ N, 19° 56′ 26″ E


War memorial on the seafront at Christchurch

Another rare example of population growth, however slight, Christchurch today has a population of some 5,455. The town is perhaps most infamous for a massacre of locals, including much of the Jewish population, carried out by retreating Oakist forces in the late stages of the Great War, as Canadian troops advanced on the occupied town. The region is also notable for its role in the amber industry, with many old mines in the area, and at least one still in operation.

Aylesbury (Buckinghamshire), Amberland
54° 46′ 18″ N, 20° 35′ 50″ E


Residential area in Aylesbury

With a population of 12,431 people, Aylesbury is capital of the County of Buckinghamshire. Regarded as part of the Kingsmount commuter-belt, the town is affluent, and its local economy revolves around regular market days, tourism, and leisure industries. Arctic pioneer James Clark Ross ended his life in Aylesbury.

Northampton (Northamptonshire), Amberland
54° 39′ 0″ N, 21° 4′ 0″ E


Northampton early in the twentieth century

County town of the mostly agricultural region of Northamptonshire, the town of Northampton is home to 13,899 people. A major battle at the town during the Wars of the Houses saw the capture of the then king, though this did not prove ultimately decisive in the succession of conflicts. Later, Northampton became known for leatherwork, providing much of the nation's footwear, including that of the army. Northampton Saints rugby union team have had moderate success, while Northampton Town football club also plays at a professional level and Northamptonshire's cricket club is a participant in Amberland's County Championship. The town lies near the confluence of the rivers Daymer and Pregel.

Gloucester (Gloucestershire), Amberland
54° 51′ 0″ N, 21° 30′ 0″ E


Gloucester from above

Today Gloucester, county town of Gloucestershire, is experiencing gradual population decline, with just 7,581 residents, but remains a city with substantial history and some economic importance, the mortgage and savings bank Cheltenham & Gloucester being based there. Ancient Celtic residents called the place Caerloyw, meaning bright-castle, but were unable to hold their hillfort against Anglo-Saxon invaders. The city lies on a railway junction, between Kingsmount and Reading, and has historic ties to the fishing industry as well as to import and export in wool, minerals, and manufactures. The Bishop John Hooper was martyred here, burned to death during the Marian Persecutions. Gloucester's cathedral is the burial place of numerous historic figures including kings, and has been made famous again after providing the backdrop to scenes in a cinematic adaptation of a famous children's novel. Gloucestershire saw the first flight of an English jet aircraft, after being liberated from Oakist occupation during the Great War.

Nottingham (Nottinghamshire), Amberland
54° 38′ 5″ N, 21° 48′ 43″ E


A postcard depicting a Nottingham street

Located in the heart of Amberland, Nottingham is noted for its history, popularised in folklore, and as a centre for horse breeding in the Empire. Most of the Empire's bicycles are manufactured in the city, and Nottingham has a strong sporting pedigree. The county cricket ground at Trent Bridge often hosts test matches, while the city's two professional football clubs -Nottingham Forest and Notts County, both established in the 1860s- are amongst the oldest in the world, as are several of its public houses, perhaps most notably Ye Olde Trip to Jerusalem, which was established in the Middle Ages. The Nottingham Goose Fair -a fun fair- has been held (with interruptions caused by the Great Plague and the Great War) since the time of Edwy. The city is capital of the county of Nottinghamshire. Ravaged by plague in the early 1700s, Nottingham invited Protestant refugees from across Europe to help repopulate the area. Today the city's population is 40,464. It is currently home to a Royal Air Force base.

Derby (Derbyshire), Amberland
55° 2′ 31″ N, 21° 40′ 29″ E


Old residential street in Derby

Located on the Reading-Kingsmount railway line, Derby has a population of 4,614, and is the most important town in the county of Derbyshire. Though now the centre of a mostly rural region, depopulated by emigration to New England, the town was an early centre for the industrial revolution. Andrew Handyside and Company notably produced iron products from street lamps and post-boxes to bridges for customers throughout the Empire and in neighbouring countries, while Sir Francis Fox was responsible for famous bridges in Canada, Africa, and Australia. Today, Derby is unusual for its large deaf population, said to be several times higher than the imperial average as a proportion of the over-all populace.

Reading (Berkshire), Amberland
55° 5′ 0″ N, 21° 53′ 0″ E


Reading's Tower Bridge, crossing the Memel into Gandvik

Lying on the south bank of the river Memel near the Gandvian border, Reading is one of Amberland's major towns, having a population of 41,709. The city is well known for the local Tilceter cheese, a flavourful semi-hard cheese enjoyed throughout the English world along side brown breads and dark beers. Large parts of Reading were destroyed during the Great War, when the English tried to resist being driven out of Amberland by superior Oakist forces, and later had to fight their way back across the Memel. The modern town has a strong tradition in the IT sector, and is also known for popular music and beer festivals.

Greater Windsor (Berkshire), Amberland
55° 2′ 0″ N, 22° 2′ 0″ E


Windsor Castle's ruins and the modern town around them

Just a few miles from Reading, Windsor, featuring old and new districts, is a small settlement of world renown. The ruins of Windsor Castle recall brutal frontier wars with Gandvik, and the region still has a small Gandvian minority, mostly engaged in seasonal and other agricultural work in this food-producing and lumbering region. Along the road between Windsor and Reading may be found the small district of Eton, home to a famous old public school, as well as the storied Sandhurst military academy, while the Slough Trading Estate is also near by, supposed to benefit from economic relations with both Gandvik and the Shield.

Swindon (Wiltshire), Amberland
54° 36′ 0″ N, 22° 12′ 0″ E


Town of Swindon

Home to 28,260 people, Swindon lies in the Principality's east. The region has a tradition of producing soldiers and military commanders, perhaps owing to a relatively unusual lack of maritime tradition in what is one of the most easterly major settlements in Amberland. The Bodleian Library, located in the town, houses 153 miles of bookshelves. A major railway line runs through the town and on to Gandvik, and was home to Isambard Kingdom Brunel's Swindon Works. Areas around the important town are sparsely populated, containing only small (though often historic, and even administratively significant) settlements such as Wilton, Trowbridge, Salisbury, and Amesbury, though the Salisbury Plain in Wiltshire is well known for its use by the English Army when training and testing new weapons and tactics. The now remote Malmesbury Abbey is also important in Walmingtonian history.

Oakham (Rutland), Amberland
54° 37′ 50″ N, 22° 34′ 24″ E


Oakham from the air

With 4,595 residents, Oakham is the largest settlement and county town in the thinly populated county of Rutland. The small town lies on the railway from Kingsmount to the major Gandvian city of Vitstenkyrka. An unusual tradition maintained for more than half a millennium obliges royalty and peers of the realm passing through Oakham to leave tribute in the form of a horseshoe, many of which are today produced in out-sized form and elaborately decorated. They are hung upside down, usually thought to be unlucky but said locally to prevent the Devil from sitting within. The riding school of the Rutland Fencible Cavalry maintains a stables and museum in the town.

Shrewsbury (Shropshire), Amberland
54° 24′ 32″ N, 22° 0′ 54″ E


A Shrewsbury scene

An old market town with substantial Celtic heritage, and home to the 53rd Shropshire Regiment of Foot, which played an important part in the Napoleonic Wars. The town is the birthplace of naturalist Charles Darwin, and site of the world's first iron-framed building, a flax mill famed as the father of the skyscraper. The Shrewsbury Flower Show has been running since the late C19th, and the largely agricultural Shropshire County Show is also held in the town. Shrewsbury has a declining population of some 4,740, having peaked at more than six thousand in its heyday.

Cambridge (Cambridgeshire), Amberland
54° 27′ 0″ N, 21° 1′ 0″ E


Cambridge

Cambridge, great university rival to Oxford, lies on the River Cam, and is county town of Cambridgeshire. The settlement is home to 4,323 permanent residents, plus thousands of short-term and seasonal occupants drawn by the renowned university that has its principle campus here.

Peterborough (Cambridgeshire), Amberland
54° 21′ 40″ N, 21° 18′ 42″ E


Central Peterborough

With 2,767 residents, Peterborough is usually considered the second town of Cambridgeshire. Historic industry in the town centred on brick making, though English Sugar also based itself in Peterborough, which became important in sugar beet processing.

Leicester (Leicestershire), Amberland
54° 27′ 50″ N, 19° 56′ 29″ E


Water tower in Leicester

After joining most of the region in seeing an exodus to Canada in the 1990s, Leicester's population has recovered slightly in recent years to a total of 7,761 residents at last count, amongst them a larger than usual proportion of citizens from around the Empire, including many Ceylobans and Drapoel. A number of Gandvian servicemen fearing political or religious persecution in their homeland stayed in Leicester after the Great War and founded a small community there. Historically Leicester has been one of the world's richest cities, relative to population, but has also been important in the labour movement in Amberland.

Loughborough (Leicestershire), Amberland
54° 23′ 0″ N, 20° 38′ 0″ E


Old Loughborough centre

Home to 6,400 people, Loughborough has perhaps more than its share of claims to fame. It was the first ever destination for a package tour, Thomas Cook organising the visit of a temperance group from Leicester in 1841. The town is home to the world's largest bell foundry, which has cast bells for many of the Empire's cathedrals as well as for foreign customers, including Gozo Cathedral in the Western Roman Empire, and also houses the nation's only bell museum. Another important part of the economy is the highly-rated Loughborough University. Perhaps the town's most notable son is Robert Bakewell (1725-1795), who was instrumental in the agricultural revolution and the first to implement selective breeding of livestock in a systematic fashion, leading to his work being cited in On The Origin of Species. One of the most famous of the town's sports teams, though it may be generous to describe it as such, is The Old Contemptibles Cricket Club, which is comprised of self-effacing middle-aged no-hopers.

Melton Mowbray (Leicestershire), Amberland
54° 34′ 0″ N, 20° 10′ 0″ E


Ancient tree at the town's heart

Populated by just 3,796 people, Melton Mowbray is known as a culinary capital, most famous as home to the eponymous Melton Mowbray pork pie, the gold standard in such dishes, and as one of the homes of Stilton cheese. Situated near the Frisian Bay, the town is home to an airbase -RAF Melton Mowbray- and formerly housed a strategic missile base, since removed.

Chichester (Sussex), Amberland
54° 14′ 0″ N, 20° 8′ 0″ E


Winter in Chichester

County town of Sussex, Chichester is known in the local dialect as Chiddester. Population was 2,975 at last count. Copernicus was briefly based in Chichester. Two art galleries and a theatre recall the history of the small city and indicate its governmental significance even today. The cathedral and old market with its centuries-old buttercross foster a tourist industry, and other work is created by the local salad packing plant. Chichester is home to the youngest person ever to play for the Amberland women's cricket team, and the late Major-General J.F.C. Fuller, inventor of 'artificial moonlight' and early armoured warfare theorist whose contribution to the Aventine victory in the Great War can hardly be over-stated.

Brighton and Hove (Sussex), Amberland
54° 23′ 0″ N, 19° 49′ 0″ E


Brighton and Hove

Largest city in Sussex, the amalgamation that is Brighton and Hove is home to 18,068 people as of the last count. The city lies close to the Frisian Bay, and is a centre for tourism as well as being known as one of the Empire's most liberal cities, celebrated by some and demonised by others as the 'gay capital' of Amberland. The Royal Pavilion served as a the Prince Regent's home during the Alexandrian era, and has lately been a focus of ill-informed protest for far-right activists believing it to be a grand mosque, much to the bemusement of everyone who stayed awake at school. The West Pier, officially part of Brighton, is also a listed building. The city is also home to the world's oldest electric railway, operating since 1883. Though tourism is supremely important to the economy, 'new media' is also a major local industry, and cosmetics chain The Body Shop was founded in Brighton. Sussex County Cricket Club is based in Hove, at the County Cricket Ground, which has a capacity of 7,000 spectators... many seated on deckchairs and park benches.

Hastings (Sussex), Amberland
54° 21′ 25.2″ N, 19° 40′ 51.6″ E


Hastings waterfront

The population is just 2,528, but the city is steeped in history, once being home to Nicolaus Copernicus. The 700 year old cathedral was badly damaged during the Great War. Hastings was one of the famous Cinque Ports, though today the port is of minor significance. Before the arrival of Edwy, the town was known as Hastingas, meaning Hasting's Council.

Truro (Cornwall), Amberland
50° 15′ 36″ N, 5° 3′ 3.6″ W


Truro scene

Truro is county town of Cornwall, one of the most Celtic regions of Amberland, many of whose residents style it Truru. Its population is 10,123, which represents locally unusual growth in recent years. Truro-educated Humphry Davy was famous as the inventor of the miner's safety lamp, and today the town is known as the home of one of the best-regarded 'new' breweries in Amberland.

Ilfington (Ilfingshire), Amberland
54° 10′ 0″ N, 19° 24′ 0″ E


Ilfington's Cathedral square

A port on the river Ilfing, 10km from the Frisian Bay, Ilfington is capital of the county of Ilfingshire. The population is 127,055. Historically the city was an important trade hub dealing in amber and furs, but its importance has diminished slightly as the port can handle only vessels of limited draught. Steeped in history, Ilfington was mentioned -as Ilfing- in proto-English chronicles before Edwy came to Amberland, and the city is considered the birthplace of modern English common law, with the first legal manuscripts having been created there during Edwy's lifetime. The Ilfington Brewery is almost as old, being established in 1309.

Hockerton (Ilfingshire), Amberland
54° 4′ 0″ N, 19° 40′ 0″ E


Hockerton old town

Renowned as the staging post for the Great Sleigh Drive, in which the English army commandeered civilian sleighs in order to out-manoeuvre an enemy raiding party, the city of Hockerton is some to 12,179 people at last count. During the Great War, Hockerton was over-run by Cassanoian troops and badly damaged as the local Home Guard, outnumbered and out-gunned, tried to hold out for help that never arrived, but parts of the old castle and city walls remain, all be it in damaged condition.

Allenstone (Allenstone), Amberland
53° 47′ 0″ N, 20° 29′ 0″ E


Allenstone city hall

With a population of 176,387 city and 270,000 metropolitan, Allenstone is one of the largest English settlements in Europe, and is both a city and ceremonial county within Amberland. The city was built in a cleared area of forest, and remains surrounded by extensive woodlands as well as numerous lakes. Allenstone is home to a number of cultural and academic centres, and is associated with Copernicus, who lived for some time in the city. A major employer is the Allenstone Tyre Company, which produces the majority of Empire's tyres.

Laundburgh (Laundburghshire), Amberland
53° 50′ 0″ N, 22° 21′ 0″ E


Laundburgh and its lakes

The capital of the county of Laundburghshire, situated on a lake in forests near the border with Thortaria, Laundburgh is a centre for hunting, popular with the English nobility. The population of 60,156 includes a small Shieldian minority thought to have been resident for several centuries.

Nogguard (Nogguard), Amberland
54° 2′ 0″ N, 19° 3′ 0″ E


Nogguard Castle

Situated in Amberland's far west on the River Nog, a distributary of the Vistula, this city was enormously fortified by King Daegmund during the early 1400s, and today Nogguard Castle is the largest in the world. Capital of County Nogguard, the city is still of military significance, having an air force base with a civil defence flying club and workshop facilities for assembly of swarm fighters in the event of war. Population is 38,472.

Chester (Cheshire), Amberland
53° 45′ 21″ N, 19° 11′ 51″ E


Historic Chester

Capital of Cheshire, the city of Chester is one of Amberland's most affluent. Home to 8,488 people, the city developed around a castle built by the proto-English conquerors after the destruction of an earlier Old Prussian fort. Today it is also notable as home to Amberland's largest zoo. Amongst other pieces of local trivia it is said that Chester was home to the inventor of the caterpillar track, while an urban legend holds that it is legal to shoot with a bow and arrow any Shieldian found within the city walls after midnight (this being so as not to wake residents with the report of a musket).

Bishops' Eyot (Cheshire), Amberland
53° 44′ 9″ N, 18° 55′ 51″ E


Bishop's Eyot castle, cathedral, and residences

Site of a large army barracks, Bishop's Eyot lies in Amberland's south-west and is home to a total of 37,814 people. Major employers include a paper mill and electronics manufacturing services.

Garnsley (Cheshire), Amberland
53° 36′ 0″ N, 18° 55′ 8″ E


Garnsley's golden age

Garnsley lies on the Thortarian border. Despite having a modern population of just 2,500, the town formerly held city rights, which were lost after the Great War, Garnsley having remained the administrative centre of a thinly populated rural region, and having been quickly over-run by forces from Cassanoia and the Shield. Today the border town is most readily described as 'sleepy'.

Chaspot (Chasshire), Amberland
54° 15′ N, 20° 49′ E


Chaspot city gate


Ancestral home of Sir Henry Chaspot Wayne

Though its population today is just 24,994, Chaspot has been one of the most influential and famous of English -and, by extension, world- cities. Home to the storied Chaspot-Wayne family, the city became an important centre for the industrial revolution when the trans-Amberland railway came to the area. Previously reliant on agriculture and oak timber, the city saw the establishment of an iron foundry, machine factory, and, most importantly, the Chasshire Wagon Company, which later became Chassire Automation and eventually birthed the Chassire Aviation division. The Chasshire county court was established in Chaspot, and the city soon became a garrison town for the English Army.

Hereford (Herefordshire), Amberland
53° 14′ N, 20° 11′ E


Central Hereford

Situated close to the Thortarian border, Hereford, the capital of Herefordshire, has a population of 20,824. Hereford's name is said to derive from the Old English here, meaning a formation of soldiers, and ford, suggesting that Edwy's Crusade may have crossed the River Wye at Hereford's location. The city has changed hands several times throughout history, falling to Shieldian and Nibelung states as well as to Napoleon, only to be recovered each time by the English. Hereford today is a significant international railroad junction.

Ross-on-Wye (Herefordshire), Amberland
53° 16′ N, 19° 49′ E


Central Ross-on-Wye

Passing back and forth between several powers, Ross-on-Wye, lying close to Amberland's border, was for much of its history a Catholic strong-hold in the English world. Today's population of 8,670, however, is predominantly -though far from exclusively- Protestant. The city has been a centre for dairy farming, brewing, and also has a sawmill and iron mill.

Oxford (Oxfordshire), Amberland
54° 56' 32″ N, 22° 29′ 23″ E


Part of a sprawling, sparsely peopled Oxford

County town of the sparsely populated rural county of Oxfordshire, Oxford is world renowned as home to the oldest university in the Anglophone world, which today maintains campuses throughout Amberland and Walmington's North American territories. Historically raided many times by proto-Gandvian and later Gandvian foe, Oxford has a long history wrapped in both violence and progress. Today, the town's permanent population is just 3,522, but this is seasonally swelled by thousands of students, both English and fee-paying foreigners. In addition to these student fees, the local economy enjoys other university spin-offs, including the Oxford University Press, a publishing house that offers at least a modicum of competition to Great Walmington's Black Gull; various technology firms such as Oxford Instruments; and has also fostered a significant brewing industry no doubt helped somewhat by the presence of so many students. Oxford University is rated one of the two best in the Empire, along with traditional rival Cambridge, and, according to widely recognised Walmingtonian sources, also competes with the top American institution of Jeannebois for recognition as the world's finest school.

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Ide'tou, Neptune Islands, Saint Thomas & Prince's Island

[Walmington on Sea]

Very Important Walmingtonians

His English Majesty King Charles III

Né Charles Godfrey. King of England and Amberland, Head of the Walmingtonian Empire, Emperor of Ceyloba. While the Crown remains in any case the most respected institution in the Empire, Charles is a particularly popular monarch, seen as kindly, courteous, and quietly courageous. A second son, he never expected to inherit the throne, but the tragic malarial death of his elder brother, a consequence of an imperial tour, thrust Charles to the head of the line of succession. Because he was not expected to inherit the throne, Charles, still in his late teens, was able to serve near the front line during the Great War, and was decorated for his actions in the Medical Corps after exposing himself to enemy fire in order to assist stretcher-bearers in their duties.

His Royal Highness Prince Edryd Amberland

Only son of the King, Prince Edryd the Prince of Amberland is heir-apparent to the English throne. Edryd has served in the Royal Navy and the Army,

Her Royal Highness Princess Dorothy

Referred to fondly by her brother and public as 'Dolly'.

Her Royal Highness Princess Cecilia

Popularly known as 'Cissy'.

The Right Honourable Major David Croft

Speaker of the House of Commons

George Mainwaring

Prime Minister, leader of the Whig Party

Admiral Sir James Frazer

Chancellor of the Exchequer

Sir Arthur Wilson

Deputy Prime Minister

General Sir Jack Jones

Defence Minister
Drapol General Service Medal (1963-75), Ceyloba Medal (1984), Long Service and Good Conduct Medal

Sir Henry Chaspot Wayne IV

A billionaire, reputedly the richest man in the Empire and one of the richest on earth, Sir Henry's fortune is based on his family's land ownership in Amberland and on his large stake in the Chaspot Automation company. The family's wealth increased greatly during the twentieth century with the conquest of Waynesia, which was largely financed by the Chaspot-Waynes, and which today exists almost as a private estate of unparalleled scale. The current Sir Henry, the fourth successive eldest son to bear the name, is chairman and CEO of the Chalisbury Group, which controls the majority of the global diamond trade.
Sir Henry once cut a dashing figure, and was most often seen by the public in newsreel and magazine articles detailing his life as a big game hunter and adventurer, but in his old age the Knight's taste for fine dining and alcohol has taken its toll, and he is today an over-weight alcoholic often lost in nostalgia. Rumours about the singleton's sexuality have circulated since his youth, but his influence and the prudish nature of Walmingtonian public discourse prevent serious scrutiny of alleged encounters with much younger men.
Despite his controversial behaviour and declining health, Sir Henry remains greatly influential and is often employed by the government as a consultant or middle-man in business and diplomacy.

General Geoffrey Square, MCWE, DSO

Leader of the Opposition
Military Commander of the English Empire, Distinguished Service Order, Queen's Africa Medal, 1984 Ceyloba General Service Medal, General Service Medal

Beauregard Rain

Shadow Chancellor, pictured here (left) with Colonel Zedock Laundburgh.

Colonel Robert Pritchard

Shadow Minister for Defence

William Hodges

Leader of the Social Labour Party, noted for his heated encounters with Mainwaring during Prime Minister's Questions. A greengrocer by trade and patron of the ARP (Air Raid Precautions) organisation established in Amberland before the Great War.

Ms. Alice Meadows
Leader of the Walmingtonian Industrial Democratic Party

Admiral (ret.) the Lord Virgil Tempest Pollock
Governor General of Mauretania

Lady Maltby
Governess General of Saharaland

Lord Christopher Bagley

Harold Baxtorly-Adams

His Excellency The Lord Standish
Ambassador to the Gull Flag Republic

His Excellency Colonel Zedock Laundburgh
Ambassador to Arabia

[Walmington on Sea]

Military Overview

Amongst of the core institutions of the English Empire, His Majesty's Armed Forces are generally afforded respect comparable to that with which the Church and the Crown itself enjoy. The Walmingtonian military is one of the most capable in the world, highly trained, disciplined, and capable of operating in any environment.

However, tasked with defending the world's most far-flung empire, spread across five continents yet populated thinly, Great Walmington has adopted an Empire on a Shoestring policy. This strategy relies on the defensive bulwark of the unpaid Home Guard and Legion of Frontiersmen volunteer militias while maintaining a comparatively small active strength of professional and national-service personnel. The policy is also reflected in research and development, and in procurement. The well-known Swarm Fighter concept, imitated by the cash-strapped Shieldians, is one example of this thinking. Other manifestations of the strategy in action may be seen throughout the military, but remain most pronounced in the air force, where large numbers of advanced fighters and support aircraft are not thought necessary to police the colonies in peace time, but where a serious capability gap could leave the Empire vulnerable to aggression from Gandvik, the CPRD, or elsewhere. The massive Larus strategic air-lifter was a joint endeavour of English and Shieldian empires, designed by Chassire in Walmington and assembled by Graye & Bankfield's low-cost labour on the Shield, and the Sachem lead-in-flight-trainer was designed as a jet aircraft at the cost of a turboprop, while the generations-old Chipmunk soldiers on as a basic flight trainer after receiving a modern instrument panel.

The shoestring strategy is controversial, as, although it does enable the Empire to respond to uprisings in any of its far-flung colonies and to present an apparently well-equipped defence force to the outside world, the effectiveness of some of the equipment adopted under the concept when faced with a truly modern opponent has not been well proven. For the most part, rivals have not dared to test the notion that the English military's might may be a bluff supported by pomp and ceremony.

The Ministry of Defence is one of the largest in His Majesty's government, consuming £110.2bln in 2012, equivalent to approximately 16.5% of the central budget or 4.4% of imperial GDP. Special budgetary appropriations are sometimes made for major equipment purchases, such as new large warships or new fighter types. While the Industrial Democrats, Social Labour, and Liberal Alliance all advocate a reduction in spending to one degree or another, the opposition Conservatives favour increased funding for the armed forces, with the Shadow Budget earmarking almost £133.6 billion -fully one fifth of the central budget- for defence concerns, and the Whig government has committed only to a 'target cap' of 4.5% against GDP, further stating that war-time or other emergency appropriations would not necessarily be bound by this target.

Due to the small population of the English homelands relative to those of the nation's neighbours and global rivals, and the comparatively large and extremely far-flung territory controlled by the Empire, Walmington is strongly compelled by the force of circumstance to retain the institution of National Service. A young person's national service is widely seen as an important step into adulthood and is thought by a majority of His Majesty's subjects to be partly responsible for maintaining the discipline, honour, and moral order of the English nation. While not universally popular with those facing service, the obligation tends to be recalled later as a necessity, and support for its abolition is muted with the exception of a few small anti-imperial movements in Newry and various colonies. Even the manifesto of the left-wing Social Labour party does not call for an end to national service, though it does suggest the introduction of more alternatives to combat positions. The obligation applies only to men, and individuals may be excused on grounds of health, higher education, or reserved occupation. Conscripts to the Army, Naval Service, and Royal Air Force are Citizens of the Empire as opposed to mere Subjects of the Crown, meaning that the overwhelming majority are Anglo-Shieldians, and hold passports issued in (in descending order from most to least) Canada, New England, Australia, England, Amberland, Norbray, Albion, or the Cape Colonies, with relatively few hailing from the rest of the Empire.

While it is felt that non-citizens should not be faced with a national service obligation, colonial levies also exist in North West Africa, St. Thomas and Prince's Island, the Cape Colonies, Tobago, and Ceyloba. These are primarily designed for counter-insurgency duties, and are usually small in size: typically a few dozen English officers will over-see a few hundred local soldiers, and numbers will only be increased to the thousands in time of emergency. The aforementioned officers will be volunteers from the regular forces, while the native component will be levied in response to an imperial quota, with local officials -including native community leaders et cetera- expected to provide a given level of manpower. In some cases this requirement may be met through volunteers, and only when this fails do officials select individuals for Imperial Service. Native volunteers who have been vetted by the colonial authorities and English officers may become officers in their own right, taking command of their men in the field, but will always be subordinate to their English colleagues. However, an enlisted English soldier will still be expected to follow orders issued by a native officer where they do not conflict with those of English officers.

In contrast to the mixed volunteer/conscript royal forces of the citizenry and the levies of the 'native' subjects is the Brigade of Pindraps, volunteers from the eastern Drapoel community now representing the bulk of the National Republic. Distinguished service in this organisation, several thousand strong and attached to the Walmingtonian Army, entitles veterans to apply for citizenship, which -if obtained- greatly eases movement within the Empire and confers full voting rights amongst other benefits. There is never a shortage of volunteers, and hundreds of aspiring warriors are turned away each year, adding to the elite mystique of this most storied formation, which has fought for the Empire in numerous theatres over many generations, engendering fear with its matter-of-fact battle cry, Dini'no Pin'drap ! - Pindraps are here!

The primary concerns facing the Ministry of Defence are the need to protect the Empire's vital maritime bridge between Europe, the Americas, Africa, and Asia; the protection of fisheries and a valuable off-shore economic exclusion zone (exemplified by the so-called Cod Wars with the Shambles); the immediate threat of war in Drapol; the dangers inherent to the relative isolation of England and Amberland, and their proximity to the unstable Shield and authoritarian Catholic Gandvik; and the ever present threat of anti-colonial insurgency and terrorism.
Many of the personnel of the Royal Merchant Marine are traditionally also members of the RN Reserve, and historically this has often lead to foreign nationals serving the Walmingtonian crown in time of war. Several chartered companies are legally allowed to raise military forces for defence of their imperially-sanctioned interests abroad, and they have often hired mercenaries (commonly but by no means exclusively Geletian, and historically sometimes Nibelung and Saxon, such as during the Anglo-American Wars) to augment modest strength in times of crisis.

While most personnel are based within the Empire, the largest over-seas presence is in the National Republic of Drapol, where Walmingtonian forces continue to serve training, observation, and liaison duties with the National Army. Small forces are also based in near-by Emesa, while a limited aviation contingent has been deployed to Italia in support of Rome's opposition to the Second Geletian Empire, and a token English presence is also maintained in the International Protectorate of Ionia. Many conscripts from relatively populous Canada and volunteers from particularly-loyal and forthcoming New England are posted to other parts of the Empire, such as England, Amberland, or the African territories, where lower populations and/or greater perceived threats preclude local satisfaction of defence requirements.

Irregular forces, including the Home Guard and the Legion of Frontiersmen, fluctuate in size from territory to territory depending on local needs at a given moment and regular attendance figures at platoon meetings are usually skeletal, but have at times represented several percent of the population.

While the Naval Service (Royal Navy and Royal Marines) and Royal Air Force are coherent organisations drawing on personnel from throughout the Empire and Commonwealth, the Walmingtonian Army is in fact a collection of armies including, confusingly, the Army of England, Amberlandian Army, Albionian Army, Canadian Army, Army of New England, Australian Army, Royal Norbray Regiment, Fireland Defence Force, Neptune Islands Volunteer Unit, Tobago Regiment, English Ceyloban Army, Saharaland Defence Force, Royal Maueratanian Frontier Force, King's African Rifles, St. Thomas and Prince's Island Defence Force, English Spice Islands Defence Force, Borneo Regiment, Idetou Volunteer Rifle Corps, and the Brigade of Pindraps.

The strength of regular forces drawn from England and Amberland is approximately 50,000; from Albion, Canada, New England, and Norbray 330,000; from Australia and Fireland 60,000; from the Neptune Islands 250; from Tobago 2,200 (50 English); from Mauretania and Saharaland 18,000 (300 English); from Ceyloba 13,000 (150 English); from the Cape Colonies 4,500 (3,000 English); from St. Thomas and Prince's Island 160 (50 English); from the Spice Islands 800; from Idetou 1,700 (50 English); from Borneo 9,500 (75 English); from East Africa 12,000; and in the Brigade of Pindraps 2,500.

Additionally, the thousand-strong Sabah Rangers receive some degree of support and over-sight from the Walmingtonian Armed Forces.

Inclusive of the Sabah Rangers, there are an estimated 505,610 regular military and paramilitary personnel under Walmingtonian command. This figure does not include the unpaid Home Guard and Legion of Frontiersmen, but does include both active and regular reserve forces.

HMNS consists of three branches, namely the Royal Navy, Corps of His Majesty's Royal Marines, and Royal Fleet Auxiliary.

The Royal Navy proudly holds the official status of the Empire's senior service. Having been established by King Godfrey I in 1505 it is one of the oldest naval services in the world. The RN was joined 101 years after its formation with the small navy maintained at the time by Amberland, which was something of an ad hoc affair with few traditions of its own. The organisation is held to be absolutely vital to the Walmingtonian economy and to imperial viability, and can be rapidly swelled by experienced mariners from the merchant and fishing fleets, which are large even compared with those of far bigger nations. Though often outnumbered by European and Franco-American opponents, many of the Empire's most famous military triumphs are credited to the Royal Navy and the Royal Marines, both forces enjoying global renown for their professionalism, discipline, and application of pioneering tactics and technologies.

The RN's official march is Heart of Oak.

Three distinct commands lead by full Admirals exist within the RN, in the form of the Grand Fleet (formerly the War Fleet and renamed for reasons of public relations, and containing the Fleet Air Arm), the Home Fleet (formerly the Domestic Fleet and renamed for reasons of internal morale and prestige), and the Submarine Service. The Home Fleet in fact, like the others, is organised into squadrons based around the Empire and not merely at the English homelands.

The RN enrols 41,025 personnel, the Royal Navy Volunteer Reserve 3,855, the Royal Navy Reserve 38,730, Royal Marines 11,850, Royal Marines Reserve 1,050, and Royal Fleet Auxiliary 4,050, for a total of 100,560, of whom 61,830 are active in peace time. This makes the Naval Service the smallest of the three primary military arms, though it remains the most prestigious. In Wartime, the Empire traditionally relies on an abundance of experienced civilian mariners who have also experienced military discipline in national service or at least the Home Guard in order to relatively quickly increase naval manpower.

Grand Fleet

3x Gloriana (CVA-01) Class fleet aircraft carriers
HMS Queen Mavis I
HMS Alexandra
HMS Ark Royal

3x Venture Class (Albion) landing pad dock ships
HMS St. Aldhelm
HMS Matthew
HMS Charlotte

1x Godfrey (Belfast) Class heavy cruiser
HMS Godfrey Grâce à Dieu (Good Godfrey)

5x Victory (Type 45) Class destroyers
HMS Prince of Amberland
HMS Invincible
HMS Illustrious
HMS Ineluctable
HMS Victorious

4x County (Type 43) Class destroyers
HMS Suffolk
HMS Durham
HMS Norfolk
HMS Cumberland

12x City (Type 23) Class frigates
HMS Great Walmington
HMS York
HMS Kingsmount
HMS Manchester
HMS Liverpool
HMS Sheffield
HMS London
HMS Eidynburh
HMS Newry
HMS Allenstone
HMS Eastgate
HMS Birmingham

8x Saints (Restigouche) Class destroyer escorts
HMS Alban
HMS William Tyndale
HMS John Wycliffe
HMS Thomas Cranmer
HMS Nicholas Ridley
HMS Hugh Latimer
HMS John Echon
HMS Arnold

5x Pitt the Elder Class (Vanguard) Class SSBNs
HMS Pitt
HMS Primrose
HMS Perceval
HMS Pelham
HMS Peel

8x Pelagian (Astute) Class SSGNs
HMS Pelagian
HMS Freebooter
HMS Kettle
HMS Tenebrous
HMS Admiral Horton
HMS Royal Sovereign
HMS Bladensburg
HMS Indefatigable

Home Fleet

14x Falcon (Kingston) Class MCM sloops
HMS Forfender
HMS Fatidical
HMS Futurity
HMS Fulgent
HMS Fortitude
HMS Frenzy
HMS Famous
HMS Fustigation
HMS Fantastic
HMS Forayer
HMS Foiler
HMS Filibuster
HMS Farmer
HMS Fulmar

6x Quick (Hero) Class mid-shore patrol craft
HMS Quixotic
HMS Qui Vive
HMS Quarantine
HMS Koorbash
HMS Brixton
HMS Magical

6x Thresher (Orca) Class training tenders
HMS Thresher
HMS Favourite
HMS Hare
HMS Hancock
HMS Princess Cecilia
HMS Princess Dorothy

Royal Fleet Auxiliary

Auxiliary vessels are associated with the Royal Merchant Marine, which historically replaced the Navy during peacetime, the nation's few ships being suitable to dual-use. The increasing specialisation of warships brought this arrangement to an end in the nineteenth century, but the RMM continues to operate military auxiliary vessels with mostly civilian crews, putting many to commercial use in peacetime. Many other RMM vessels exist, but all are built to civilian standards and their crews have no military training prior to war being declared or closely anticipated, and they are not ordinarily under Fleet Auxiliary administration.

4x Adventurer Class (Bay) dock landing ships
HMAS Wendsleybury
HMAS Edwy of Angeln
HMAS Phillip
HMAS Frobisher

12x Patron (Protecteur) Class auxiliary replenishment ships
HMAS Patron
HMAS Longevity
HMAS Constant
HMAS Futurity
HMAS Admiral Coney
HMAS Convivial
HMAS Provider
HMAS Wadi
HMAS Wealthy
HMAS Lady Penrhyrn
HMAS Fishbourn
HMAS Borrowdale

3x Street (Ann Harvey) Class icebreakers
HMAS Slope Way
HMAS Mount Street
HMAS Hancock Way

4x Town (Glen) Class tugs
HMAS Cod Fortune
HMAS Jugglerscove
HMAS Kippens
HMAS Comeby Chance

4x Author (Hudson) Class research vessels
HMAS Adrian Glamorgan
HMAS Alexander Vale
HMAS William Shakespeare
HMAS Coeur Loyal

4x Wayne Class training ketchs 'Wayners'
HMAS Fallal
HMAS Kayak
HMAS Magical
HMAS Karoo

Fleet Air Arm

54x Blackburn Super Buccaneer strike fighters
54x Sea Vixen FAW.4 multi-role fighters

7x Wychwood Wheatear trainers
6x Chassire CA-6 Twin Otter multi-engine trainers
18x Stockley Sachem jet trainers

12x Westland Westminster heavy-lift cargo revolverplanes
24x Westland Lynx multi-role revolverplanes
76x Westland Wildcat multi-role revolverplanes
12x English Bankfield Model-61 Sea King SAR revolverplanes

6x GBE (Graye-&-Bankfield-Elliot) Pythia (An-72) early warning aircraft

The English Army traces its origins to the edge of pre-history, but its seniority is disputed by the Navy because its existence has not been continuous, the army often disbanding in time of peace during the nation's early years and being replaced by civilian militias. It is today the largest armed forces branch by manpower, and has the highest proportion of national service personnel to volunteers. Like the rest of the Walmingtonian military, the army is well trained and equipped with modern technology, and is supplied primarily with domestic equipment and also with some particular items of Shieldian, Franco-American, Emesan, and Nibelung origin, though many items of foreign design are manufactured locally in modified form, while some Walmingtonian designs have been produced on the Shield. Despite the Empire's 'Splendid Isolation' agenda, partnerships between Walmingtonian and foreign manufacturers continue to be of importance as the cost of modern systems increases.

Due in part to its great age the Army is laden with tradition and its own culture, much of it relating to the romantically-recalled imperial golden age that lasted for two centuries from the mid seventeen hundreds to the late twentieth century and saw Walmington widely recognised as the sole global superpower in light of victories against America, the decline of Roman America, and serious Valendian defeats in Europe and on the colonial front. Sun helmets are included in the dress uniform of many recruits, bagpipes are included in military bands possibly due to extensive use by company militias of Geletian mercenaries, and the traditional weapon of the English Army continues to be the bayonet, with infantry still receiving exhaustive training in the proper conduct of a bayonet charge. Despite the withdrawal of bolt-action rifles from all but Home Guard units (and sniper roles), the 'mad minute' -in which recruits must fire as many aimed rounds as possible into a target while using a bolt-action rifle- is also maintained in standard training.

The official march of the Walmingtonian Army is Albion the Brave, depicted here in a popular Anglo-American film about the first active military co-operation between English and American forces, during the Great War. The scene depicts the arrival of the 31st Regiment, Canadian Army, largely comprising descendants of Celtic mercenaries and some of Godfrey's first followers, at a training base on the Cape, run by the English East of India Company, whose flag can be seen overhead. It also illustrates prevailing prejudices held in both nations despite their fledgeling alliance, as the shabby American republicans brawl amongst themselves and the uptight Walmingtonians stand to attention and pretend not to have noticed.

The Army has 155,000 regular personnel in addition to the 2,500 men of the elite Brigade of Pindraps, for a total of 157,500. Additionally, the part-time Yeomanry enrols 47,500 volunteers, for a sum of 205,000 salaried personnel, while the Army Reserve contains a further 87,000 individuals. In all some 292,130 persons fall under the army's remit.

Equipment of the English Army is as follows:

Infantry Weapons

-Norbray Pattern combat knife/bayonet
-W1 Sykes fragmentation hand grenade

-Webley revolver
-Enfield No.2 revolver
-Brigadier semi-automatic pistol

-Rifle No.9 Mk I
-Rifle No.9 Mk II (carbine)

-C14 sniper rifle

-General Purpose Machine Gun (Taden)
-Vickers-Maxim .50HV

-LAW 80 anti-tank rocket launcher
-Javelin anti-tank guided missile (America)

Artillery

2,850x L9A1 51mm Light Mortar
675x L16A2 81mm mortar

160x L118 105mm light gun
46x M777 155mm howitzer

20x M777 Portee LIMAWS (G) 155mm self-propelled howitzer
114x Gun Equipment 155mm L131 self-propelled howitzer

62x LIMAWS (R) multiple rocket launcher

Air Defence

64x Vickers Marksman self-propelled anti-aircraft gun

36x Rapier short-range SAM fire unit
218x Starstreak LML short-range SAM system
92x Starstreak Bobcat HVM self-propelled short-range SAM system

Tanks

610x Challenger 2 main battle tank
492x Lynx light reconnaissance tank

Armoured Infantry Vehicles

734x Warrior infantry fighting vehicle
1,740x Leyland Bobcat armoured personnel carrier
410x Warthog all terrain tracked carrier (Emesa) (some belong to Royal Marines)
664x Unibuffel mine-protected armoured personnel carrier
440x First Win infantry mobility vehicle
600x Foxhound light armoured patrol vehicle
1,325x Terradyne Pindrap light armoured vehicle
725x Land Rover Snatch light armoured vehicle
220x Thunder-1 light armoured vehicle

Special Purpose Armoured Vehicles

126x Warrior command vehicle
232x Bobcat command vehicle

42x Bobcat Shielder minelayer
50x Trojan minefield breaching vehicle

75x Bobcat ambulance

110x CRARRV repair & recovery vehicle
162x Warrior repair vehicle
58x Warrior recovery vehicle
149x Bobcat repair vehicle
90x Terrier combat engineering vehicle

78x Warrior artillery observation vehicle
28x Warrior artillery command vehicle

50x TITAN vehicle-launched bridge
208x Alvis Unipower tank bridge transporter

235x Scammell Commander tank transporter

Soft Skin Vehicles

636x Supacat Jackal MWMIK (Mobility Weapon-Mounted Installation Kit) 4x4 patrol vehicle
106x Supacat Coyote 6x6 tactical support vehicle
555x Land Rover WMIK (Weapons Mount Installation Kit) light patrol vehicle
18,000x Land Rover Wolf light utility vehicle
13,952x Leyland/Foden DROPS (Demountable Rack Offload and Pickup System) lorry
10,928x Bedford TM 4x4 and 6x6 lorry
178x Land Rover Pulse ambulance
750x Motorcycles

Aircraft

24x Chassire CA-6 Twin Otter light observation/transport aircraft

162x Lynx AH.7/9/9A and Wildcat attack/battlefield revolverplanes
34x Wychwood Scout reconnaissance light revolverplanes


numerous x Aeryon Scout micro-UAV
18x SnowGoose cargo UAV
81x Guardian ISTAR UAV

Watercraft

numerous x Mk 6 Assault Boat
numerous x Rigid Raider
numerous x Combat Support Boat
6x Ramped Craft Logistic landing craft
6x Mk 4 Army Workboat general-purpose tug
numerous x Mexeflote ship-shore transport raft
57x M3 Amphibious Bridge (Nibelunc)

Junior amongst the three regular armed forces, the RAF commands a non-the-less modern fleet of aircraft covering a variety of combat and support roles. The RAF's guiding philosophy is highly unusual, and its doctrine much debated at home and abroad. It counts 59,160 regular personnel, 3,690 in the part-time Royal Auxiliary Air Force, and 50,070 in the Royal Air Force Reserve. In all this represents 112,920 personnel, 62,850 being classed as active forces.

Backing the front line strength of the junior service is a daring and controversial strategy for imperial survival. It is one based around family of compact, low-cost jets that can be assembled quickly with modest tooling in small, dispersed factories throughout the Empire, and easily transported to conflict zones to operate from crude runways and used to overwhelm modern opponents with superior numbers while still maintaining one-on-one superiority over third-world opponents. This does require support of substantial training capabilities and a large reserve force of qualified pilots and ground crews to make use of the 'swarm fighter' concept, a latter-day 'Spear Guard'.

The RAF's official march is Aces High.

Combat Jets - 333 (plus inactive wartime reserve)

?x Wychwood Wren (Gnat Mk4) swarm fighter (in wartime emergency storage)
73x Stockley Typhoon (BAe.110) air superiority fighter
92x Avro Arrow Mk.IV interceptor
168x Chassire Comet (TSR-2 with Orenda engine) strike/reconnaissance aircraft

Reconnaissance/AEW/EW - 31

12x Chassire CA-6 Twin Otter light observation aircraft
8x Wychwood-Elliot Nimrod AEW.4 AEW&C aircraft
6x Stockley-Elliot Sentinel battlefield surveillance aircraft
4x Wychwood-Elliot Nimrod MRA.4 maritime patrol aircraft
((15x UAV))

Revolverplanes - 255

48x Wychwood Scout light training/reconnaissance aircraft
16x Lynx HT.3 training aircraft
46x Wychwood Lynx battlefield utility aircraft
40x English Bankfield Commando transport aircraft
69x Wychwood Westminster heavy lift transport aircraft
12x Wychwood 30 utility aircraft
24x English Bankfield Sea King HAR3/HAR3A search and rescue aircraft

Transport/Utility Aircraft - 96

12x Bombardier Challenger-600 VIP transports
3x DHC-5 Buffalo STOL utility transport.
48x AW.681 STOL medium transport.
12x GBC Larus strategic lift aircraft (WoS/Shield)
21x Vickers VC10 multi-role tanker-transport

Training Aircraft - 780

98x Grob Vigilant motor glider (Nibelunc G109B)
120x Grob Viking cadet sailplane (Nibelunc G103 Twin II)
178x Chassire Chipmunk Mk.II elemental flight trainer
15x Chassire CA-6 Twin Otter twin engine trainer
138x Wychwood Wheatear (NDN Firecracker) advanced trainer
231x Stockley Sachem (Venga TG-10 Brushfire) lead-in flight trainer

Air Defence Weapons - 124

124x Bristol Bloodhound Mk.IV self-propelled SAM launcher (31 batteries)

Air-Launched Weapons

-Hawker-Siddeley Taildog infrared-guided short-range air-to-air missile
-Wychwood-Elliot Rascal infrared-guided Advanced Short-Range Air-to-Air Missile
-Elliot Rhubarb radar-guided medium-range air-to-air missile (Skyflash)
-Elliot Forced Rhubarb active radar guided medium-range air-to-air missile

-GEC-Marconi Brimstone anti-armour missile
-Stockley-Elliot Gavel multi-role cruise missile (JSM)
-Wychwood-Elliot Googly Air-Launched Anti-Radiation Missile
-Stockley-Elliot Sea Eagle anti-ship missile

-Bristol Aerospace RV7 Grapeshot 2.75" folding-fin ground-attack rocket

-Vickers Blue Boar television-guided 1,000lb glide-bomb
-various free-fall ordnance including cluster bombs

[Walmington on Sea]

Evolution of Military Technology: Small Arms

When, in the late thirteenth century, Edwy of Angeln marched into what is today Amberland at the head of a multi-national army of Angles, Saxons, Celts, and Shieldians to confront, defeat, and absorb a Prussian population, the result so far as military technology is concerned was a blending of concepts drawn from Greece to Jutland and the Danube to the Jaizar. The first proto-English armies relied heavily on a practised partnership between ordered ranks of pikemen and concentrations of longbow-men. Amongst other soldiers were often deployed so-called billmen, whose weapon blended agriculture scythe with military halberd and was likely derived from the falx, brought by Geletian mercenaries in the employ of Edwy. This weapon is thought to have been used both to drag horsemen from their mounts and to deliver sufficient force to defeat steel armour.

The mid fifteenth century Wars of the Houses -a brutal dynastic struggle in Amberland- saw the first sustained English use of gunnery as smiths such as the famous Geletian, Orban, were employed to cast advanced artillery pieces on a small scale. Cavalry also became more important during this period, though the English, according to their enemies, always made better infantry and -in particular- archers and artillerymen than they did cavaliers. The longbow was used as a form of 'militia artillery', with tight groups of arrows being 'walked' around the battlefield to support infantry actions and suppress enemy forces.

Greater even than their repute as archers, though, was the fame of Amberland's sailors, and the tiny nation's ships were often built to trend-setting designs emphasising speed, agility, and later gunnery over size and capacity as favoured by many users of fighting ships.

It was aboard one of these well-built vessels that Godfrey Walming and his followers travelled to the new world in 1481, taking with them the armaments of the day. Along with the longbow, pike, billhook, and a small number of primitive fire-arms possibly including one light cannon, the Godfreyites carried several swords, daggers, and, perhaps most importantly, crossbows.

Though their gunpowder weapons were the more modern, and their reputation remained tied to the longbow and pike, it was arguably the crossbow that proved most useful in early clashes between the English and native peoples of the Americas. Aboriginal warriors rarely gathered their initially superior numbers in tight formations that could be attacked with inaccurate artillery and concentrated longbow volleys, and the English pike formations made better defensive than offensive tools. Man to man, the easy operation of the crossbow enabled the settlers to deliver accurate direct fire against their unarmoured opponents, even in the case of those who were not skilled or experienced veterans of the Wars of the Houses.

Another significant early 'weapon' was Godfrey's horse, the only one believed to have survived the passage from Amberland, which naturally terrified the natives and enabled Godfrey, clad in high quality armour of steel and leather and armed with a long-sword, to break-up several raids single handed, and to single-out and run-down native leaders or particularly formidable warriors.

Godfreyite accounts record that Walming was in one clash struck by an arrow from a native's bow and that it penetrated his tunic and stuck there, having been stopped by his breastplate. The impression left on the natives, according to the Godfreyite interpretation of events, was that the English leader had been shot but had not bled, nor expressed either pain or incapacity as a result of his ostensibly severe injury. This, combined with what was at first taken for an ability to shift shapes, sometimes appearing as a man and sometimes -thanks to his steed- as half-man and half-beast the size of a hut and speed of a hawk, was credited with winning for Godfrey his first converts from amongst the suitably impressed natives.

During the decades following the reign of Godfrey I armament shifted gradually towards musketry and cannons, and over time horses were reintroduced (Godfrey's own horse having died in isolation). Most military production was undertaken in small family workshops by generations of skilled artisans, and there was little standardisation. The Walmingtonians still favoured their bows and melee weapons with the support of light cannon, facing as they did relatively little competition in North America.

Increasing pressure from French and Valendian settlers and militaries forced change from the new-world English, who initially met their incursions with traditional and improvised weapons, but were gradually overwhelmed by the European standardisation of armaments, exemplified by the likes of the Charleville musket.

One of the English improvisations came in the form of a cricketball-sized orb fitted with a fuse and filled with black-powder and shot, then thrown at attacking enemies. The Franco-Americans called this the pomme-grenade (pomegranate), in reference to the fruit that it was thought to resemble. Aware of their weapon's terror value, the Walmingtonians adopted the word 'grenade', leading to the establishment of the famous regiment of the Grenadier Guards and through them to the later evolution of the term, 'pomme' or more recently, 'pom' or, 'pommy' to describe soldiers of the Empire and, eventually, all Englishmen.

Still, the crude grenades of the age could not answer uniform American musketry in open-field confrontations, and the chaotic workshop landscape of English armouries was forever changed by the establishment of the Royal Small Arms Factories, where mass production of armaments was undertaken using the latest technology. Henceforth the English would often set the pace of military and industrial invention.

Outnumbered to an ever increasing degree, the English -whose flow of settlers came from a country dwarfed tens of times over by the European sources of their Catholic rivals-, once committed to standardised production, threw themselves into the concept wholeheartedly. The result was the expensive but vastly superior Durnford Rifle. Pitted against the Charleville musket, the Durnford was accurate to perhaps almost as much as half the American weapon's range again, and offered at least double its rate of fire in the hands of a properly trained shooter thanks to its screw breech design.


Durnford rifle with bayonet

The weapon was considerably more expensive, and required refinement of the original design in order to be sufficiently hard-wearing for regular use, but the advance of English manufacturing and the comparatively small size of English armies made the investment seem worthwhile. The weapon was designed by a field officer, Captain Durnford, son of a successful Celtic mercenary, during his command at the Volumbo trade mission, and first used there to defend the station against a native mutiny, soon becoming standard issue with the Royal Marine Corps, the Grenadier Guards, and the Prince's Own Life Guard in Amberland, designated Rifle Pattern 1776. Soldiers in less prestigious formations continued to use non-standard muskets, including captured examples, for some time, the Durnford Rifle being several times more expensive than the Charleville.

After more than forty years of service the Durnford began to be replaced by a new breech-loading rifle, the Pattern 1820, which hinged a short rear section of barrel behind the main rifle barrel, which when held tightly together essentially turned a pistol into a long arm. The breechblock could in fact be detached and carried as a pistol. Due to escaping gasses where the two sections met, muzzle velocity was somewhat lower than might otherwise have been the case, but against contemporary American smoothbores the rifle's superior accuracy compensated greatly for this shortcoming, and its rate of fire could be as much as three times that of the enemy's muzzleloaders.


Pattern 1820

English superiority in firepower was considerable, compensating for an inferiority in manpower, and manufacturing advanced greatly, the P.1820 being produced in successive marks with greater standardisation of parts and improved manufacturing quality attending each new issue.

By the mid 1850s, rifled muskets were becoming common in Franco-American armies, reducing -though not entirely closing- the firepower gap, and increasing the difficulty of the English situation, and in the 1860s the Empire's rivals began to use new minie-ball rifled muskets which, though still slower to reload, offered a superior range and threatened English battlefield superiority. The emergence at the end of the decade of the breech-loading Berdan rifle in American service eliminated the Walmingtonians' advantage in in rate-of-fire, and prompted a search for a new service rifle. A method for converting muzzle-loaders to breech-loaders was employed to update all of the Empire's such weapons, previously in the hands of volunteer militias, in an effort to answer the Berdan threat, but much more was needed.
Observing the unexpectedly good performance of the Triarchy's forces in the 1877 Shieldo-Geletian War, the Empire retained the services of Ffridericos o Dyffryndur. Geletia had been the principle user of the otherwise unsuccessful Franco-American Peabody action, and Ffridericos further developed this system for the Walmingtonian contract, resulting in the adoption of the Pattern 1877 rifle.


Foorastani levies receive instruction on the P.1877

Combined with English machining and a new rifling system, the P.1877 proved a resounding success, and would remain the best rifle in imperial service for quarter of a century. After the bitter experience of various colonial mutinies, the decision to keep native levies at least one generation behind English troops meant that the P.1877 would soldier on in Africa and Asia until the middle of the twentieth century, and there after in the hands of native auxiliaries to the Legion of Frontiersmen for decades more. Converted to a shotgun, a similar weapon was used by some colonial police until the era of imperial decline in the 1980s. To this day, examples of the rifle still occasionally turn up during swoops on rebel arms caches in parts of Africa and Asia.

The P.1877 was used in the last Anglo-American war before the détente and proved a more than adequate match for the Berdan, and was used in the Cape Wars some years later with varying degrees of success as some rebels were armed by European powers.

Under the pressures of the last American conflict, one Hiram Stevens Maxim, native of Essex, patented his machine-gun, and not a moment too soon as American forces pressed into English territory. Even with a crew of four men to each gun, this invention boosted the firepower of English soldiers by something approaching 1,500% over night. Suddenly the English were arguably the world's most powerful race. Drapol was opened up, the Byzantines were dissuaded from ever again challenging Walmingtonian power in the Indian Ocean and any lingering thoughts of Francophone conquest in the Americas or of Gandvian, Shieldian, or Cassanotian conquest in Europe were decisively silenced by ten rounds per second from the Maxim Gun.


A Cape Company soldier manning the Maxim Gun: architect of the Second Empire

The Maxim Gun initially used the same formidable .455” drawn-brass black-powder cartridge of the P.1877s, but still heavier versions were eventually produced and used in more modern .5” (12.7x81mm, later replaced by the more powerful 12.7x120mm 'HV', which achieved a muzzle velocity of 3,040fps) and even 1” (25.4x189mm), 1.5” (37x94mm), and 2pdr (40x158mm) sizes, many of which were commonly fitted to anti-aircraft mounts on RN warships, while the standard medium machine-guns of the army would be updated with the introduction of a new rifle cartridge in the late 1880s.


.5” HV Maxim-type guns in dual anti-aircraft mount

The rising popularity in Europe of rifles based on the Mauser and Mannlicher actions, firing small calibre ammunition from integral magazines, finally made the once world-leading P.1877 obsolete, and though a conversion allowed it to chamber a more modern cartridge, the single-shot system could not compete for long. The Empire hurriedly developed the .303” cartridge with the intention that it should be one of the first smokeless rounds in service, but development of the new cordite propellant lagged, and the .303” was introduced with a black-powder charge. The .303” MkI would be fired from a new Maxim-type machine-gun and modified P.1877s, designated P.1877/89, the weapons with which the Empire entered the twentieth century. Shortly before the turn of the century, with new smokeless propellant in use, the .303” bullet itself was modified to take advantage of the more efficient charge, doing away with the old round nose in favour of hollow-point and pointed 'spitizer' configurations, the latter sort of bullet having become prevalent in Europe and Amerique.

However, as the new century began, other great powers tended to favour cartridges of a more modern form than the .303”, which was bottle-necked but rimmed and somewhat conical. Though basically sound, this was obviously not the shape of the future, and work was undertaken to discern the 'perfect' military rifle cartridge, taking into account all recent technical developments, and tactical experience in contemporary imperial conflicts. Concurrently, a new rifle would be developed to provide the Empire's troops with repeating magazine rifles of the finest order.

Walmington's eventual solution came in stages. Chambering the old .303” ammunition while work continued on an optimal round, the Pattern 1903 Magazine Rifle, with its unusual straight-pull bolt and artillery-like screw-mounted bolt locking lugs, offered a substantially higher rate of fire than that possible with the Mauser action, and was also noted for its accuracy, winning many shooting competitions against European and American contemporaries. A number of faults identified in trials with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police lead to numerous modifications and the adoption of the Pattern 1905 rifle, before the Pattern 1907 appeared with a new .280” (7.3x66mm) rimless 'magnum' cartridge. This was arguably the first practical round to approach a 3,000 foot per second muzzle velocity. Unfortunately the new round suffered from its own success, though providing great range and accuracy the bullets of the time tended to fragment rather than penetrate efficiently, and it would be some time before the round came to maturity with the development of new materials.

Experience with the P.1910 in the Afro-Asian colonies quickly revealed fatal flaws with what was on the face of it a reasonably priced, quick-firing, accurate, and powerful long-arm. Some were teething problems that could be resolved, others were not. Chiefly, the unusual mechanism had a poor tolerance for dust and dirt, making it enormously unpopular and impractical as an infantry weapon in the deserts of Namaqualand and Saharaland, and the jungles of Eelam and Drapol. Sniper's, though, rated the weapon and were reluctant to surrender it when a 'more practical' replacement battle-rifle was developed. Chambered in .280” (later fitted with an improved bullet), the P.1910 remained in use by snipers through much of the twentieth century, receiving successive optical sights and several minor improvements along the way.

For several years, the .280” P.1910 served as the Empire's standard sniper's rifle while the single-shot .303” P.1877/89 soldiered on somewhat past its prime as the most common service rifle. It proved fortunate for the English that their army endured this painfully long process of transition without having to fight a major war against an industrialised opposition, Great Walmington and Trémont having achieved the long-awaited détente in the preceding years.


The P.1910 Sniper's Rifle

Retired Pattern 1905-10 rifles were also used for several decades for training and parade purposes, while a novel use for the thousands of unneeded weapons was Gun, Machine, Light MkI, developed by an engineer from Lancashire. Using 33 parts from surplus rifles, the design added a gas piston parallel to the barrel, actuating a sleeve attached to the bolt. With the addition of a 25-round magazine and a cooling system inspired by the contemporary Franco-American Louis Gun, this system, built at the Empire Rifle Factory, turned unwanted rifles into effective light machine-guns at far less cost than would have been incurred by purchasing American Louis's or any other competing designs, and in a far lighter and more compact form than could be achieved with air-cooled Maxim variants. In fact twenty could be obtained for the price of a single American equivalent. For many years, the English army had a higher ratio of automatic weapons to personnel than any other major army, and spent less money achieving this superiority.


GML.MkI (above) compared to Louis

In sharp contrast to the rifles on which it was based, the GML.MkI was highly reliable, capable of normal operation after being immersed in mud with the proviso of a few clearing rounds being put through the weapon. Few if any of its like-for-like contemporaries could boast the same capacity, and the new English weapon could fire 4,000 rounds without so much as oiling. The magazine could be changed in four seconds, and an empty magazine refilled in thirty, and the weapon fed effectively even if upside down. The gun served ably as a light partner to the water-cooled Maxim, and would go on until the middle of the century before being handed over to Home Guard and Legion of Frontiersmen units. Large numbers of the cheap and reliable weapons were handed to allies such as Emesa after leaving English stockpiles.

The aged P.1877/89, meanwhile, was replaced at last by the Pattern 1913, or P.13 rifle, chambered for the .280” cartridge. The P.13's action, after the experimentation of the prior screw breech mechanism, was based on the tried and tested Mauser but was optimised for rapid fire. The English, perpetually outnumbered, were drawn to their previous rifle's high-risk design by the promise that it could deliver a higher volume of fire than the Mauser and weapons closely based on it, such as the contemporary Franco-American M.1903 rifle. Unlike most Mausers the P.13 cocked on closing as opposed to opening, making sustained rapid fire easier, and the bolt featured a distinctive 'dog-leg' shape taking it closer to the shooter's hand. The weapon's safety catch was positioned close to the hand and could be operated silently, and in addition to its superior rate of fire compared with the conventional Mausers, the P.13 was able to retain a high level of accuracy thanks to its strong action and heavy barrel, helped by particularly good sights featuring long-range point sights and more practical 'battle' sights for quick aiming at likely combat distances, a feature that served the Empire's forces well in the desperate defence of Amberland during the Great War.


P.13 in the hands of a Home Guard recruit

Compared to its -justifiably well-regarded- American contemporary, the English rifle had a slightly higher rate of fire and slightly superior accuracy, and was every bit as hard wearing. It was also somewhat easier to manufacture than had been many of its predecessors. Though loaded with the same five-round stripper clips of the P.1910, the P.13 was able to accept a sixth individually-loaded round. However the P.13 was slightly heavier than either the P.1910 or the American M.1903, and longer than the latter. The English, of course, saw this last characteristic as a boon to bayonet fighting.

In the first decades of the twentieth century the Maxim Gun was in widespread service in medium and heavy forms along-side a well-regarded light machine-gun, and the matter of a magazine rifle was gradually worked out much to Walmington's benefit. The pace of armaments development in Europe and North America was formidable.

The outbreak of the Great War in Europe and adjacent lands left the Empire rightly fearing for Amberland's security, and had the effect of sparking an arms race in the rest of the world. The Franco-American adoption of the semi-automatic eight-round M1 Garand battle rifle left ordinary English fusiliers -with their five and six-round bolt-action rifles- out-gunned, all be it for now by a tentative ally, and so too did the Empire's reluctance to adopt a sub-machine-gun as had the forces of many European and North American nations, though the large number of light machine-guns was positive.

A conservative military establishment was forced to make limited concessions to the advance of American firepower: even if it was no longer regarded as a direct threat, English pride and the prestige that underpinned imperial legitimacy was at stake. Still, with one senior officer referring to the SMG concept as, “a pistol with pretensions” the first sub-machine-gun to enter service was in fact classed as a 'machine carbine', and did not appear until the Great War was already almost two years old and Amberland largely over-run. The Carbine, Machine, Pattern of 1941 was very much a wartime product, designed to be cheaply and rapidly manufactured. Constructed of stamped material and simple welds, the CM.P.41 could be produced in small workshop facilities, allowing forces around the Empire to be rapidly equipped, and even being manufactured behind enemy lines in occupied Amberland. Oakist forces are believed to have copied the design in their own darkest days late in the war. Numerous marks were developed, most of those in general service in the Empire chambering a version of the .455” pistol cartridge modified for automatic weapons and feeding from 24 or less common 36 round magazines, while some were built in 9x19mm and often supplied to allies, resistance forces, and used in various clandestine operations.


A factory worker in Yorkshire poses with a CM.P.41

After the war, the poor quality of many P.41s and their reputation for accidentally discharging rounds set the military looking for a sturdier replacement, but the low cost manufacturing techniques used in its production were much appreciated, and the sub-machine-gun concept was felt to have been validated by wartime experience.

The Avargan M.46 made a positive impression in trials, and a Walmingtonian variant was developed under licence. Eventually accepted as the CM.P.53, this chambered the .455”-auto cartridge, and was issued to replace many P.41s lost during the first great Drapoel War.

Walmington's grudging adoption of the sub-machine-gun concept was to some extent mirrored in its suspicious regard of the self-loading battle rifle. The American M1 was observed at arm's length, and similar -less widely embraced- European weapons likewise, but the Defence Ministry old guard doubted the reliability and accuracy of such weapons and even feared that self-loading rifles would encourage profligacy with ammunition that might lead to a corresponding decline in effort put into aiming... the army had not long since been cajoled into placing more emphasis on individual marksmanship after generations of drilling for massed volley-fire, and was reluctant to make what some of its luminaries imagined to be another about-face.

The onset of war seemed to make a switch even less likely given that it would entail not only re-tooling production lines when the immediate priority was to produce as many weapons as possible in the quickest available fashion, but also altering training to account for the new technology. However, the war brought about a heavy English presence in Gandvik, and this lead to an alternative coming to light. A young Gandvian engineer working at one of numerous arsenals operating during the conflict had devised a means for converting various bolt-action rifles to semi-automatic operation at lower cost than would likely be inherent to designing an entirely new weapon, but had been unable to interest the authorities in his own country due to an already existing programme to produce a purpose-built self-loading rifle. Recounting his tale of woe to an English officer over a bottle of Lothian whisky, the engineer apparently shared pertinent information that would lead to the application of his system to the Empire's P.1913 rifle. Opinion is divided on whether the Gandvian sold his design at a fair price or was taken advantage of by his well-connected drinking partner, but in any event he was destined to pass the rest of his working life in an obscure post at the Royal Small Arms Factory.

The combination of his system and the P.13, meanwhile, would produce Walmington's first self-loading service rifle. Designated Pattern-1942, its production during the war was at a low rate, and it did not come close to fully replacing the P.13, but saw some action as Allied forces went on the offensive. More expensive than hoped, it never the less provided a stop-gap measure, freeing Walmington to spend the immediate post-war years working on a more advanced future rifle with the knowledge that a reliable fall-back position existed. The P.42 chambered the same .280” ammunition as the P.13 (and P.1910 sniper's rifle, GML.Mk.I, and Maxim Medium machine-gun), and feed was from a ten-round integral box, reloaded with 5-round stripper clips.


P.42 conversion

[Walmington on Sea]

Evolution of Military Technology: Aircraft

For some years, Walmington looked upon heavier-than-air flight as an exciting curiosity to be pursued for the sake of scientific endeavour and imperial pride rather than as a useful tool of industry or weapon of war. The Empire was allowed to be comfortable in this approach by the beginning of the détente with the French and the comparative industrial and scientific backwardness of Amberland's potential enemies in Gandvik and the Shield. It was widely assumed that even if a foreign power could master powered flight, their glorified hang-gliders could be brought down by the Maxim Gun before they could accomplish any feats of espionage or strategic mobility.

Never the less, English civil aviation pioneering advanced not far behind the spearhead of the new field. A design team comprising several Englishmen and two Frenchman co-operated to develop aircraft with some public support in what was called the Aerial Experiment Association. Founded in Lothian by two of the Walmingtonians, the association went on to set several early aviation records, and produced aircraft such as the Red Wing, which was built by the Anglo-French AEA, and flown by a Walmingtonian at a site in Franco-America. The partially successful aircraft crashed on its first flight, though the pilot escaped, and it was followed by White Wing, which made several flights before also being lost while attempting to land. The Yellow Wing flew shortly there after, ranging more than a kilometre in front of many witnesses.

With English authorities finally taking interest and another pair of American aviators claiming (with highly dubious reasoning) that the collaborative aircraft had stolen their steering system (despite it pioneering the use of ailerons and not relying on their wing-warping controls), the AEA was brought back to Walmington, where the Silver Dart made a series of flights, and similar aircraft were demonstrated to an unimpressed military.

It would take some years for the Walmingtonians to really embrace aircraft for anything other than public shows, rich men's toys, and interesting busy-work for talented engineers during time of peace (when they were not needed to design real military tools such as new artillery pieces or the next Maxim Gun).

In the 1920s the Walmingtonian military utilised a range of biplanes, often relying on French airframes powered by early Stockley-Wychwood Wasp-series engines and armed with one or two air-cooled Maxims. Most were resolutely pedestrian in performance, but quite adequate to the demands of imperial reconnaissance and policing, or of protecting Amberland's airspace against Gandvian incursion.

In late 1926 the Chassire 566 Avenger appeared, streamlined and fast, particularly clean for its day. It was capable of speeds well above 170mph, and considered fairly advanced. The success of this design meant, however, that Walmington would once again rest on its laurels and allow European powers such as Valendia and Geletia to move far ahead of the Empire in fighter technology.


Chassire Avenger: 'good, but not irreplaceable'

It was not until the end of 1934 that a low-wing, metal-skinned monoplane was introduced in the form of the Wychwood Type 133. This had an inverted gull-wing and was armed with four machine-guns, two either side of the nose and two in the wings. The undercarriage was retractable with the use of a hand pump. The aircraft was powered by a 600hp Wasp engine and was capable of almost 260mph.


Wychwood 133, accepted in service as the 'Wraith'

In 1937 the Chassire CA.29 light bomber entered service, powered by a S&W Twin Wasp Junior engine. Capable of little more than 210mph and armed with just two machine-guns the aircraft was horribly vulnerable to contemporary fighters, and its thousand pound payload was unimpressive, but the bomber was useful in suppressing colonial mutinies against opponents with no interceptor aircraft of their own, and would also be used as a training platform. Examples still in service in Europe when the Pact of Oak attacked Amberland were quickly destroyed, either on the ground or in the air, having made little impact on the advancing enemy.


CA.29 on the runway

One design of interest in the mid 1930s that did not enter Walmingtonian military service was a light aircraft developed by Avargan aviator Alp Molnar. His touring aircraft was constructed of round section thin gauge steel under a fabric cover and was designed for simple construction by semi-skilled persons and easy maintenance access, and was reported to have pleasant flying characteristics. In 1936, Harold George Stockley brought Molnar to Walmington, and through 1937 he worked with the naturalised Shieldian immigrant Ernie Bankfield to develop his ideas at Stockley Aviation.

A noted pacifist, Bankfield was happy to work on touring, utility, agricultural, and racing designs that would combine safe flying characteristics and new crash features with low costs and other practical features.

Come 1938, however, as war fears grew in Europe, the Molnar-Bankfield project took a distinctly militarist turn, leading to the latter's resignation from Stockley (to the eventual benefit of English rotary-wing aircraft). The company never the less pressed on with Molnar as chief designer and an industrial base he could never have hoped to find in his native Avarga. The project retained a reference to Bankfield in the designation, “MB.2”, which was applied to a new fighter based on the principles of the earlier Molnar tourer.

The Empire wanted an eight-gun, low-wing monoplane fighter with an air-cooled engine for service in the hot climates of the African and Asian colonies. It would have to be inexpensive and easily maintained in remote outposts where the small number of airframes deployed would not warrant constant posting of highly skilled engineers or investment in advanced maintenance facilities et cetera.

This specification pitted Stockley's Molnar-Bankfield design against another Anglo-Avargan collaboration submitted by Wychwood. Avarga's UHAA took a leading role in development of what Tucarliman regarded as a back-up to the MB.2, which they saw numerous reasons to doubt despite having made an informal commitment to acquire it as their principle fighter.

The RAF was less critical of the Molnar-Bankfield's distinctive square-cut airframe, which was greater in length than it was in span, contributing to good stability and yaw control, and which was -like the earlier Walmingtonian Avenger- a particularly clean design. The MB.2 demonstrated good spin recovery characteristics (several Wychwood 133s, which the winning design would replace, had been lost after spinning out of control), and Bankfield's safety-conscious civil aviation influence was also preserved in the sensible arrangement of the cockpit and the addition of a crash post to protect aircraft and pilot in the event of a nose-over landing.


MB.2 'Middle Mark' with revised fin and fixed landing-gear

The MB.2 initially featured almost no tail fin, an ambitious scheme that proved unsatisfactory, but this was soon rectified with a more conventional arrangement. The Stockley design was accepted into service just months before the start of the Great War in Europe, and became Walmington's first fighter to carry eight guns (double the armament of the plane it replaced) and first to break the 300mph mark, all be it only doing so by a hair's breadth. The aircraft was inexpensive and could be mass produced rapidly at sites throughout the Empire with a minimum of skilled labour, and maintenance was even easier than with Molnar's earlier touring plane. A fixed undercarriage -though well shrouded with streamlined fairings- was something of a throw-back, and a 'Late Mark' derivative was soon introduced with retractable landing-gear, adding fractionally to top speed and fuel economy.

Despite these revisions, the airframe's potential for further development was somewhat limited, and the new Stockley H-block engine was plagued by difficulties that could not be overcome at the time without resorting to a much larger and heavier configuration.

Though the English liked their Late Mark MB.2s, these problems could not be ignored, and Avarga opted instead for the aircraft's Wychwood-UHAA competitor, which was powered by a proven S&W Wasp radial engine, adopting it as the UHAA F.4. However, as war closed in on the region, the Avargans were unable to build the fighter in sufficient quantity, leading to production being under-taken by Wychwood's North American factory.


Wychwood-built Type 34, 'Weston'

This local production, and the reliance on a readily available and well-proven domestic powerplant, meant that the MB.2's competitor remained in the Air Ministry's sights. In view of the MB.2's unreliable powerplant, the UHAA-Wychwood design was eventually adopted by the RAF as a 'home' fighter for North America and Europe, while MB.2s were relegated to remote imperial outposts. Designated Type 34 by Wychwood, in service the aircraft was called 'Weston', and proved a considerable success. With a top speed of 316mph the Weston did not quite match the best contemporary European fighters, but it offered good take-off and initial-climb characteristics, and was highly manoeuvrable. In the combat area, Avargan pilots also found that the bubble canopy offered a useful degree of all around vision.

Chassire, with little work besides low rate production of a light bomber, had also been sceptical of the Molnar-Bankfield design, but more than that was yet to be convinced that two wings were better than four. Planning to develop a biplane that might take advantage in the event of their rival's failure, the company was approached by another Shieldian ex-patriot, Michael Gregory, who had fled troubles in his birthplace, Gallaga, and impressed the prestigious old Walmingtonian firm with is assertion that, if a new war really was approaching in the Old World, “They [the prospective combatants] will start this war with monoplanes, but they'll finish it with biplanes”. While this did not exactly pan out, he and Chassire did succeed in selling the notion to the Air Ministry's old guard, and the Chassire Aviation Gregory-1 fighter entered service late in 1939.


CAG-1 interceptor/dive-bomber

The clean, stream-lined, all-metal biplane, with its retractable landing gear proved to be incredibly agile, and was said by pilots to climb, “like a home-sick angel”, performing so well that no contemporary monoplane could engage it: the CAG-1 would simply break off with an improbably tight turn or vertical manoeuvre that could not be matched, even by modern low-wing fighters that had a speed advantage. The French F2F-1, with the same engine power as early mark CAG-1s, climbed at an initial 2,050 feet per minute compared to the (slightly heavier) English aircraft's 3,500ft/min, and the latter could reach a ceiling some 5,000ft higher.

Top speed was also superior in trials, but the addition of armament and self-sealing fuel tanks cut down this advantage. However, Gregory was aware that the S&W Twin Wasp radial engine was under-going further development, and ensured that his design would readily accept the up-rated models to come. From an initial 700hp, late production CAG-1s would be driven by engines generating 1,350hp. Top speed was far above the 300mph mark that few other biplanes could even dream of approaching.

Pilot vision in level flight was also excellent thanks to the bubble canopy and gull wing, though the lower wing made downwards visibility on landing quite abysmal.

With its fantastic rate of climb, Gregory's design made an ideal interceptor, while its phenomenal low-level agility made it a fine fighter. However there was more: the CAG-1 also exceeded design specifications for airframe strength by 60%, making it incredibly rugged, capable of sustaining great punishment, surviving crash landings, and performing high-stress aerial manoeuvres such as steep power-dives. Capable of carrying two light bombs, the CAG-1 became the dive-bomber of choice for both RAF and the Fleet Air Arm. It continued in this role even after being replaced as an interceptor due to eventually being bested for speed by new monoplanes and to what was deemed insufficient armament for tackling bombers: the biplane carried just two .5” machine-guns firing through the propeller-arc, effective against lighter aircraft but hardly up to destroying multi-engine bombers.

Bested by rivals at Wychwood and now over-shadowed by apparently backwards Chassire, Stockley pressed on with its plans for an effective in-line engined fighter with Molnar urged to continue design work in anticipation of such a powerplant becoming reality. The H-type engine of the MB.2 never became reliable, and its immediate successor, though more promising, stubbornly refused to progress as hoped, being more powerful and reliable but over-sized and unexpectedly resistant to improvement. It took until early 1943 for the MB.3 to begin delivery to front-line squadrons under power of a S&W 24 cylinder H-block engine generating 1,800hp.


MB.3: the world's most heavily armed fighter

The MB.3 followed the old Molnar-Bankfield design team's prior methods of construction, using steel tubes, but this time they were encased in a metal rather than fabric skin. Ease of maintenance remained one of the aircraft's strong-suits, which was also highly manoeuvrable and easy to fly. Engine power eventually increased to 2,000hp, giving a top speed of 415mph, and the MB.3 was armed with six 20mm cannon in the wings, eclipsing the batteries carried by contemporary fighters abroad, quite a leap from the 7.3mm machine-guns of prior English fighters. Powerful, marginally faster than the formidable Fw-190, agile, and featuring pneumatic flaps that were reliable and eliminated the maintenance-headache of hydraulics, the MB.3 was a formidable machine, and gave pause for thought to any who might wish to challenge the English in their own skies.

Having been left behind several times before due to complacency in a successful design, the Empire encouraged Stockley to continue with the Molnar-Bankfield design, and organised a national collaboration with Wychwood to push the series to the limit of its potential.

The MB.5, appearing in limited numbers at the end of 1944, had wings similar to those of the MB.3, but a new steel fuselage, four 20mm cannons, and new engine powering two contra-rotating propellers. The aircraft was embraced by the Air Force, which was still seeking to prove that propeller-driven aircraft could compete with emerging jet projects. It was noted for taking prior Molnar-Bankfield characteristics to new heights, offering excellent pilot visibility, easy maintenance through detachable panels, impressive handling, strong armament, and high speed. The MB.5 could climb at 3,800 feet per minute to a service ceiling of 40,000ft. Top speed was 460mph, and range was 1,100 miles.


MB.5

The last propeller-driven fighter accepted by the RAF would serve on through the first major conflicts in Drapol, even undertaking some training and COIN duties into the 1980s for Walmingtonian and Drapoel Nationalist forces.

The English preference for fighters that could be quickly and cheaply produced and readily maintained with modest means while still delivering competitive performance was established with the Molnar-Bankfields, but it carried over to the jet age, and found new expression there.

In the post war years, at the core of the junior service was a family of small combat jets designed by Wychwood Aviation, along side a more conventional brood from Chassire.

The Chassire C-100 Challenger was a two-seat, twin-engine, all-weather interceptor supposed to protect the Empire's cities from attack by bombers. Introduced in the early 1950s it had a short take-off run and good climb rate, but made a relatively poor dogfighter. Fitted with a comparatively powerful radar set, the Amberland-based Challengers were for some time the only fighters in Europe able to operate in zero-visibility conditions, a point hammered home by a number of uncharacteristically provocative sorties over the Baltic and, reputedly, Gandvik itself.


Chassire C-100 Challenger

Initially capable of 552mph, the Challenger was progressively upgraded after it was discovered that, far from the design specification for an airframe life of 2,000 hours, the Chassire machine was good for 20,000 hours in the air. More than that, one example broke the sound barrier in a dive and remained controllable, a first for a straight-winged aircraft. The interceptor was modified to act as a reconnaissance aircraft and later an electronic warfare platform, was given uprated engines, and eventually was outfitted with a pair of Rhubarb beam-riding and finally semi-active-radar guided air-to-air missiles.

A swept-wing variant designated C-103 Champion closely followed the original configuration and received similar upgrades during its service, though the long airframe life of both types meant that the straight-wing originals were not withdrawn for many years.


C-103 Champion in the workshop

During the late 1940s and early 1950s, RAF policy was dominated by the 1947 Defence White Paper, also known as the Philby Report, which -reflecting English resistance to the coming of the jet age in which it had been a pioneer- predicted that while jet aircraft would surpass propeller-driven machines in terms of speed, acceleration, rate of climb, and ceiling, conventional aircraft would remain more agile, and would be cheaper and easier to maintain. Thus the Empire planned to retain the contra-rotating propeller driven MB.5 as a dogfighter/air-superiority fighter, advanced trainer, and light attacker, while utilising the Challenger and/or Champion as an interceptor. Doctrine called for MB.5s to loiter near enemy airfields to engage jets on take-off and landing approach.

In the 1950s, with the Chassire C-100 and C-103 providing for English air defence, the Wychwood Warbler was developed as a deliberately simple light fighter for production in far flung imperial outposts that may have limited industrial capacities, and for easy transport from one theatre to another as local conditions required.

It would not be long, however, before technical developments over-took the C-100 and C-103, foreign powers building ever larger and more capable fighters. As imperial decline set-in it was the low-cost Warbler that bore the weight of responsibility in Drapol and in Ceyloba and the Spice Islands. While the interceptors struggled, being increasingly outclassed by developments abroad, the Wychwood Warbler became an export success, keenly sought by poorer countries and those attempting to gradually restore capabilities lost during and after the Great War, and was built at numerous small Walmingtonian plants on several continents. Perhaps the most enthusiastic foreign customer was the Grand Empire of the Shield, which used Warblers for counter-insurgency work in Depkazia and was able to construct enough local variants, designated Colts, to field squadrons opposite all of its many long and dangerous borderlands.

During the Drapoel Wars the RAF managed by the sheer unmatchable number of Warblers to sustain patrols on the perimeter of Communist air bases and so destroy enemy fighters at a favourable rate by jumping them, the small jet gradually taking over the role previously envisioned as belonging to propeller-driven fighters. The comparative simplicity of the little aircraft not only made it easier for factories to build, but also easier for pilots to learn, a further help in the attrition battle.

The Warbler was copied by Communist forces after several examples were captured -some damaged-, and the type found to suit the limited experience and infrastructure of the Chaoist state.

The contrasting fortunes of the two Walmingtonian jet fighter families brought about the line of thinking that prevails today on the Crescent, which had decided on a risky strategy for imperial survival. It was one based around family of compact, low-cost jets that could be assembled quickly with modest tooling in small, dispersed factories throughout the Empire, and easily transported to conflict zones to operate from crude runways and used to overwhelm modern opponents with superior numbers while still maintaining one-on-one superiority over third-world opponents.

Based ultimately on the Warbler, a whole family of light jets was developed to satisfy a range of demands. The Warbler MkII owed something to the Shieldian Colt-II, which sought to solve issues of poor reliability in some of the licence-built Warblers used by the Grand Empire. Other features also adopted by the Warbler MkII were Molnar-Bankfield ejection seats, an all-flying tail, and the use of wet-wings to improve fuel capacity and allow under-wing hardpoints normally needed for tanks to instead be used as weapons stations. This aircraft was configured as a combat-capable trainer, and has seen extensive service in Drapol.

In light of its success, the MkII was followed by a greatly evolved descendant that became the Wychwood Wren. Still recognisably a relative of the Warbler, the Wren brought the family into the supersonic age, and it carried a powerful Infra-Red Search-and-Track set in its redesigned nosecone, enabling deployment of guided weapons. The Wren remains in RAF service, and is described in detail elsewhere.

Having proven itself capable of supersonic flight and deployment of guided weapons, the Wychwood swarm-fighter concept was taken further with the radically different Wryneck, designed as an interceptor.

The Wryneck was larger than Wren in order to achieve specified performance levels, but was still be classed as a light fighter, and a fairly small one by global standards. It was optimised for interception, and was required to be in the Mach-2 class. In order to achieve this aim, and retain the transportability and impressive take-off and landing performance of the prior Wychwood jet fighters, the Wryneck became Walmington's first swing-wing fighter. It was fitted with full-span leading-edge flaps and slotted trailing-edge flaps. The afterburning turbofan featured a thrust-reverser, and with wings extended the short-field performance and low-speed agility of the Wryneck proved equal or even superior against prior members of the family despite the slightly increased over-all length of the airframe and the considerably greater speed that may be achieved with wings folded.

Top speed was marginally above Mach-2, ceiling 55,000ft with some examples reported to have gone beyond that possibly in essentially unpowered glide.

Wryneck had just two pylons under the wing gloves and one centreline station in addition to an internal 1" cannon. Though the aircraft flew fairly well, the RAF was anxious about its short range and limited endurance, the lack of space for avionics upgrades, and the limited payload. Though still one of the cheapest fighters in the world, the design proved to be slightly more expensive than anticipated, partially due to the uncommon variable geometry wing. There also appeared to be no chance of securing export orders for the unconventional aircraft, and ultimately it would be condemned to a limited production run and service as a supersonic trainer, the ability to modify the wing geometry to aid take-off and landing being seen as a safety aid for inexperienced pilots. Wryneck has since been retired from service.


Wychwood swarm fighters, diagram showing 'maroon-and-gold' RAF roundels

The Wychwood Warbler lineage having provided the RAF with an armed jet training aircraft, a multi-role fighter, and an interceptor, it remained only for the family to spawn a dedicated strike platform, and so came the Weebil tactical bomber. The first of the Wychwood jets to be fitted with two engines, Weebil remained a small aircraft. Despite being scaled up approximately 1.5 times compared to the Warbler, the tactical bomber was a mere 44ft in length and 37.5ft span. Wing area was some 375sq.ft.

Armament included two automatic cannons (though one could be removed to save weight or increase ammunition stowage for the other) and a recessed under-belly bomb bay able to accommodate a 4,000lb bomb, along with four under-wing pylons rated for 500lb each, though usually these were intended to carry drop-tanks, countermeasures pods, or relatively light ordnance such as short-range air-to-air missiles for self defence or Gavel light air-to-surface missiles, while the primary payload remained in the bomb bay.

Weebil also served in Drapol, but was later withdrawn from Walmingtonian service. The MoD retains plans for resumed Weebil production in the event of war with a major power, anticipating that the small and cheap aircraft could be used to overwhelm enemy air defences and help to secure air superiority despite the probability of heavy losses.

[Walmington on Sea]

Current Military Equipment: Royal Navy

Gloriana Class Fleet Aircraft Carriers

Restoring Walmington's carrier aviation capability after a gap of several years, the Gloriana Class is essentially an extensive re-build of ships requested late in the Great War and delivered on a delayed schedule once the war ended, after significant design improvements had been made. Some hulls were cancelled, and one halted during construction after materials had been gathered. Others served in the Drapoel conflicts and took part in multi-national exercises during the 1970s and '80s before being gradually withdrawn and most broken-up. Recently, the hull surviving in best condition was stripped down, and reconstruction began, while the incomplete vessel was brought out of stasis and finished with substantial revision of her design, and a second mothballed ship was finally scrapped, some materials apparently being used in the construction of a third redesigned hull.

The carrier has begun sea trials while final fitting continues, and is provisionally referred to as Gloriana, with the intention that she will commission later in the year as Queen Mavis I, inheriting the name from the current 'Merry Mave', while her sisters are to be named Alexandra, after another great English Queen, and Ark Royal, a name steeped in carrier aviation history.

The first ship retains her armoured belt, while the second, being built from an incomplete hulk, is, like most modern warships, less heavily protected in order that costs may be reduced, having comparatively thin deck armour, limited armouring of the hangars, and no armoured belt, though bulkheads are reinforced and damage control systems of modern character.

Dimensions-
Length: 804'
Beam: 171'
Draught: 36'
Displacement: 54,100 tons full (Gloriana/Queen Mavis I), 53,950 tons full (Alexandra, Ark Royal)
Complement: 2,600 including air staff
Power and Performance-
Engine: 8 boilers, 4 geared turbines, Tedley & Crooke
Horsepower: 152,000
Shafts: 4
Max.Speed: 31 knots
Range: 7,000nm at 16 knots
Armour-
Belt: 4” (Gloriana/Queen Mavis I only)
Deck: 1” to 4”
Hangar: 1” side and roof
Armament: Two dual 3”/70 dual-purpose guns, two Postbox CIWS, two Crosier SAM posts, four dual 1” guns
Aircraft: typical air wing- 26x Wychwood Wyvern strike fighters, 3 or 4x Elliot-Raytheon Pythia AEW&C aircraft, 4 to 6x Squall ASuW revolverplanes, 2x H-76N SAR revolverplanes; alternately up to 60 swarm-fighters, UAVs, and revolverplanes
Ships of Class: 3; HMS Gloriana (trials; to commission as Queen Mavis I), Alexandra (building afloat) Ark Royal (laid down)


Gloriana

Godfrey Class Heavy Cruisers

With the Great War raging the Godfrey Class heavy cruisers were ordered as a deterrent to foreign powers that tended to favour land and air forces over their high-seas fleets. The length of time required to prepare the slips at Essex Ship and Engine Building Company and gather materials for the enormous cruisers while resources were consumed by demand for aircraft and army equipment meant that the war had concluded before any could be completed, and all but one were cancelled. A single Godfrey Class cruiser was then built on an extended schedule, enabling incorporation of numerous world-leading advancements, and finally accepted into service on the 14th of May 1949, christened Godfrey Grace à Dieu, a grandiose title clinging to imperial glory as the fleet's last battleships were gradually decommissioned. The ship became popularly known as the Good Godfrey after that name was popularised by The Bugle following the cruiser's participation in the Drapoel war of 1950-53, when her gunnery was credited with saving a Royalist city from advancing Suloist forces.

HMS Godfrey Grace à Dieu boasted a primary battery of nine eight-inch guns, which were the world's first guns of the size to be automatic, and were the first to use cased ammunition instead of separate shell and bag loading. Their ability to load at any angle of elevation coupled with (incrementally upgraded) radar fire control, a seven rounds-per-minute rate of fire for each barrel (equivalent to more than one round-per-second across the battery), and modern proximity fuses and air-burst warheads furnish on the battery some secondary anti-aircraft capability and largely theoretical anti-ballistic-missile potential.

The ship was modernised in the 1960s, and overhauled twice more since, and she remains the flagship of the Grand Fleet. The Good Godfrey initially carried ten twin 3"/50-calibre anti-aircraft gun turrets, which were replaced during later updates by four Postbox close-in-weapons-systems and two quadruple box launchers for Sea Robin anti-ship missiles. Meanwhile, an initial secondary armament of six twin 5"/38-calibre dual-purpose guns was reduced to four such mounts, with two on each side of the ship while the forward turret was replaced first by an anti-submarine mortar system and later an RUM-125B Sea Lance anti-submarine missile launcher, and the rear turret by an eight-missile Elliot-Raytheon Custard vertical-launch surface-to-air missile system.

Good Godfrey was the first RN warship (and possibly the first in the world) to be air conditioned throughout, and also pioneered the use of helicopters (in Walmingtonian parlance, "revolverplanes") in lieu of seaplanes, eventually incorporating a pair of Royal Bankfield H-76N into its anti-submarine and anti-ship capability in addition to using them in search-and-rescue, limited ship-to-shore and ship-to-ship supply and transport, and over-the-horizon detection and observation roles.

Dimensions-
Length: 717'6"
Beam: 76'6"
Draught: 27'
Displacement: 20,980 tons
Complement: 1,667 officers and men
Power and Performance-
Engine: 4 boilers (oil fired) Tedley & Crooke
Horsepower: 120,000
Shafts: 4
Max.Speed: 31.5 knots
Range: 10,500nm at 15 knots
Armour-
Belt 6"
Turrets: 8"
Deck: 3.5"
Conning Tower: 6.5"
Armament: Three triple 8"/55-calibre guns; four twin 5"/38-calibre dual-purpose guns, four Postbox CIWS, two dual 1" guns, eight-cell Custard SAM VLS, two Crosier SAM posts, RUM-125B Sea Lance anti-submarine missile launcher, countermeasures
Aircraft: Two Royal Bankfield H-76N revolverplanes
Ships of Class: 1; HMS Godfrey Grace à Dieu


Godfrey Grace à Dieu on a European visit prior to her complete modernisation

Gloriana Class Cruisers

Built during the late 1950s and accepted into service in 1961, HMS Queen Mavis I (known to crew and public alike as Merry Mave) was the world's first nuclear powered surface warship, and was used to introduce the Royal Navy to phased array radars. The initial Elliot Radio Company system proved too ambitious and highly unreliable in practice, and was soon replaced, but lessons learned would lead to Walmington's modern world-leading naval radar systems. The Gloriana Class was ordered as a single hull with an option for more pending extensive trials of the first ship's sensors and heavily missile-reliant weapons fit, but as many in the government and Admiralty had suspected the expense and complication soon saw to it that Mave would be the lone ship of her type.

After the radar suite was replaced, Queen Mavis I underwent a modernisation of her armament, replacing first and second generation missiles and heavy guns with modern cruise missiles and defensive weapons.

The cruiser remained in service following a reactor overhaul, and continued to show the Walmingtonian flag across the globe for over half a century. In 2012 she began a farewell cruise of the Empire and selected foreign ports before a planned withdrawal as an aircraft carrier completes and takes over the name of the Queen Mavis.

Dimensions-
Length: 721'3"
Beam: 73'3"
Draught: 31'
Displacement: 15,025 tons
Complement: 1,160 officers and men
Power and Performance-
Engine: 2 English Electric nuclear reactors
Horsepower: 80,000
Shafts: 2
Max.Speed: 32.5 knots
Range: unlimited
Armament: Two magazine-fed twin-arm Campanile-ER SAM launchers, two quadruple Red Robin LACM box launchers, two quadruple Sea Robin AShM box launchers, two launchers for 21" Type-II ASuW torpedoes, RUM-125B Sea Lance anti-submarine missile launcher, two 5"/38-calibre guns, two Postbox CIWS, countermeasures
Aircraft: landing pad for one revolverplane, limited facilities
Ships of Class: 1; HMS Queen Mavis I


HMS Queen Mavis I under way

Victory Class Destroyers

The Victory Class destroyers are amongst the most powerful surface warships in the world, designed as the English platform for the multi-national ATARMS (Advanced Trans-American Radar and Missile System) air defence programme. The ships operate around a state of the art multi-function phased array radar, and are far larger than any previously classified as a destroyer by the RN. Development began in 1980, by which time Walmington had abandoned a prior attempt to develop an advanced missile management system. Initial plans called for several more hulls than were eventually constructed, as the decade's imperial decline altered priorities and capabilities alike.

The ATARMS (At-Arms) project brought on board Franco-America, and proved far more successful than the earlier independent Walmingtonian venture. Due to its prior experience and more pressing need for new warships, Walmington lead the project through Elliot-Raytheon and other high-tech companies.

The Victories are some of the first RN ships to incorporate features designed to reduce radar reflectivity, and were the first to be designed with a complete NBC protection system, a feature likely inspired by brutal experience in the Drapoel conflict that ended three years before the commissioning of the first Victory Class destroyer. The loss of several ships to Communist cruise missiles also convinced the admiralty to demand a return to all-steel construction after the light-weight aluminium superstructures of some previous-generation vessels proved vulnerable in cases of serious fire.

The four destroyers, some of the most expensive ships in Walmingtonian history, were built in Essex's renowned Crabapple Cove Ironworks. Five more are on order to replace the remaining County Class destroyers, but budget constraints have slowed the programme.

Dimensions-
Length: 505'
Beam: 59'
Draught: 30'6”
Displacement: 8,184 long-tons full load
Complement: 303 officers and men
Power and Performance-
Engine: 4 English-Electric gas turbines
Horsepower: 108,000
Shafts: 2
Max.Speed: over 30 knots
Range: 4,400 nautical miles at 20 knots
Armament: 96 vertical-launch silos for Campanile-ER SAM, or Red Robin LACM, or Sea Robin AshM, or RUM-125B Sea Lance ASuW rockets; one 5”/54-calibre gun; two Postbox CIWS; two triple launchers for 12” Type-III ASuW torpedoes
Aircraft: none usually, but flight-deck for one revolverplane and electronics to support ASuW operations
Ships of Class: 4; HMS Prince of Amberland (Eddy), Invincible, Illustrious, Victorious


The first three Victory Class destroyers on review

County Class Destroyers

The latest in a long line of destroyers bearing the County name, this generation appeared in the 1970s and was originally designed with a strong anti-submarine warfare focus as the conservative Admiralty came grudgingly to terms with the reality that submarines were not going to be proven a toy or a curious trick. Their aviation facilities were superior to most of their foreign contemporaries in the same weight class, but other weapons were comparatively weak. A pioneering feature was that the Counties were the first large warships to be powered entirely by gas turbine engines.

The ships were later overhauled to focus on air defence as a stop-gap while the complicated and expensive Victory Class and multi-national ATARMS projects completed and anti-submarine duties transferred to the new City Class frigates.

Dimensions-
Length: 425'10”
Beam: 49'10”
Draught: 15'4”
Displacement: 5,100 tons full load
Complement: 280 officers and men
Power and Performance-
Engine: COGOG; two cruise gas turbines, two boost gas turbines
Shafts: 2
Max.Speed: 29 knots
Range: 4,500 nautical miles
Armament: 29 vertical-launch silos for Campanile SAM; one 3”/62-calibre dual-purpose gun; one Postbox CIWS; six 1/2” machine-guns; two triple launchers for 12” Type-III ASuW torpedoes
Aircraft: two S-61 Squall revolverplanes
Ships of Class: 5; HMS Kent, Suffolk, Durham, Norfolk, Cumberland


County Class destroyer steaming into the Mediterranean

City Class Frigates

The City Class frigates are the final product of the English Patrol Frigate Project, which was initiated in the 1970s on a low priority footing at a time when the Saints Class frigates were already serving as a low-cost escort ship to protect the Royal Merchant Marine throughout the Atlantic and Indian Oceans. The Cities are capable of air defence duties in addition to the traditional anti-submarine duties of a frigate, and have significant anti-surface capabilities.

Advanced sensors were provided by Elliot-Raytheon, and the ships pioneered the computerised Integrated Machinery Control System later used by the Victory class destroyers. There are plans to install cutting-edge Nibelung long-range IRST sensors and computerised countermeasures as part of an upcoming refit that will extend planned service life to at least 2030. The refit also includes new propellers, and the addition of anechoic tiles to reduce noise signature, the latter feature having already been added to some ships, and all vessels have distinctive funnel housing designed to diffuse their heat signature.

Dimensions-
Length: 439'7”
Beam: 53'9”
Draught: 16'1”
Displacement: 4,695 long tons full load
Complement: 225 officers and men including air-crew
Power and Performance-
Engine: CODAG, 2 English-Electric gas turbines, 1 cruise diesel
Horsepower: 56,300 combined
Shafts: 2
Max.Speed: over 29 knots
Range: 7,100 nautical miles at 15 knots
Armament: two quadruple Sea Robin AShM box launchers; two eight-cell Custard SAM VLS; two triple launchers for 12” Type-III ASuW torpedoes with 24 carried; one 2” DP gun; one Postbox CIWS
Aircraft: one Royal Bankfield S-61 Squall AsuW/SAR revolverplane
Ships of Class: 12; HMS Great Walmington, Kingsmount, York, Manchester, Liverpool, Sheffield, London, Eidynburh, Newry, Allenstone, Eastgate, Birmingham


City Class under-way

Saints Class Destroyer Escorts

Designed in the late 1940s after the ravages of the Great War, the Saints Class destroyer escorts were originally a family of similar warship classes, some of which have long since been withdrawn. The first ships entered service in the mid 1950s, and began to be replaced in the 1970s by the larger Tribal Class destroyers and in the 1990s by the more capable City Class frigates.

From the outset the vessels were designed to operate in harsh North Atlantic and Baltic waters, protecting commerce between England and Amberland, and a rounded deck edge was formed to prevent ice formation. Limited use of chemical weapons in the Great War lead to the integration of a 'citadel' to contain the crew in safety and a system for washing away contaminants. Comfort was famously good compared with prior warships, with one bunk for each crew-member and air conditioning to improve operation even in the Empire's tropical reaches. Internal communications and the arrangement of command systems were sophisticated for the 1950s, and the latest radar and asdic sensors incorporated.

During the late 1950s an evolved form of the class appeared, followed by two further variants in the 1960s, some designed to operate revolverplanes for anti-submarine duties. Batch-II vessels were refitted in the 1960s with improved sensors and new anti-submarine weapons, and again in the 1970s, receiving electronics upgrades, before a final upgrade during the 1980s as deemed necessary to take part in that decade's fierce colonial wars.

Most have been replaced by the City Class, but several hulls remain active due to the large numbers built and the managed decline of the navy's strength. Walmington is thought to be interested in selling several Saints Class ships, but finding suitable and interested buyers for the elderly vessels has proven difficult.

Dimensions-
Length: 371'
Beam: 42'
Draught: 14'
Displacement: 2,900 long tons
Complement: 214 officers and men
Power and Performance-
Engine: 2 English-Electric geared steam turbines, 2 Tedley and Crooke boilers
Horsepower: 30,000
Shafts: 2
Max.Speed: 28 knots
Range: 4,750 nautical miles at 14 knots
Armament: two quadruple box launchers for Sea Robin AShMs; two triple launchers for 12” Type-III ASuW torpedoes; one dual 3”/70-calibre DP gun; one Postbox CIWS; two 1.5” anti-aircraft guns; six .5” machine-guns
Ships of Class: 7; HMS Alban, William Tyndale, John Wycliffe, Thomas Cranmer, Nicholas Ridley, Hugh Latimer, John Echon


Saints Class destroyer escort at sea

Pitt the Elder Class Guided Missile Submarines

Built by the English Electric Boat Corporation and accepted into service starting in the 1980s, these are some of the largest submarines ever built, and a central component of Walmington's defence policy, providing as they do one arm of the Empire's nuclear deterrent. The boats were conceived as a modern platform for imperial gunboat politics, being capable of deploying an enormous weight of firepower in cruise missiles from relative safety when dealing with colonial uprising or threats from 'low tech' enemies against whom Walmington often lacks manpower. The class was designed to be capable of retrofitting for operation of a ballistic missile arsenal, which is not presently thought to be a necessary capability in light of the airborne and on-shore silo based deterrents already maintained by the Empire. At any given time, either two or three Pitt Class submarines are at sea, and at least one will carry several multi-kiloton cruise missile warheads, though which boat (or boats) are and are not so equipped is kept always a closely guarded secret.

Dimensions-
Length: 560'
Beam: 42'
Draught: 35'6”
Displacement: 16,499 long tons surfaced, 18,450 long tons submerged
Complement: 15 officers and 140 enlisted
Power and Performance-
Engine: 1 English Electric pressurised water reactor, 2 geared turbines, 1 auxiliary diesel
Horsepower: 60,000 main, 325 auxiliary
Shafts: 1
Max.Speed: 12 knots surfaced, over 20 knots submerged
Range: limited only by food supplies
Test Depth: over 800'
Armament: four tubes for 21" Type-II torpedoes; twenty-two septuple VLS for Red Robin cruise missiles
Boats of Class: 5; HMS Pitt, Peel, Perceval, Pelham. Primrose


Pitt the Elder Class in coastal waters

Pelagian Class Guided Missile Submarines

The Pelagian Class boats, built after the last Drapoel conflict as Walmington's period of imperial decline came to a halt, are some of the most advanced and expensive warships in the world. Extremely quiet, they are built from superior steel to that used in prior boats, enabling operation at extreme depths, while they are also outfitted for shallow water operation and are capable of deploying combat swimmers through flooded silos.

The lead boat, Pelagian, and the second hull Freebooter are 100' longer than their sisters, having an inserted section dedicated to support of divers, remotely-operated vehicles, and tapping of undersea fibre-optic cables.

Dimensions-
Length: 353'
Beam: 40'
Displacement: 7,678 long tons surfaced, 8,158 long tons
Complement: 14 officers, 126 enlisted
Power and Performance-
Engine: 1 English Electric pressurised water reactor, 1 secondary propulsion motor
Horsepower: 52,000
Shafts: 1
Max.Speed: 18 knots surfaced, over 35 knots submerged
Range: limited only by food supplies
Test Depth: 2,000'
Armament: eight tubes for 26” torpedoes, Sea Robin AShMs, Red Robin LACMs; 50 carried
Boats of Class: 8; HMS Pelagian, Freebooter, Kettle, Tenebrous, Horton, Royal Sovereign, Bladensburg, Indefatigable


Pelagian Class boat on the surface

Falcon Class Mine-Counter-Measures Sloops

Launched during the mid to late 1990s, the multi-role Falcon Class sloops are crewed largely by members of the Royal Navy Reserve along with just a handful of full-time technicians. The sloops are used for training, mine-sweeping, route survey, and patrol of Walmingtonian maritime borders, fishing zones, and off-shore oil and gas fields.

The Falcon Class is highly manoeuvrable, able to turn within its own ship length, and its engines are fairly efficient, but the multi-role design is not capable of high sprint speeds. The sloops accept modular equipment for different missions, making them highly versatile.

Dimensions-
Length: 181'5”
Beam: 37'
Displacement: 970 tons
Complement: 31 to 47
Propulsion: 2 electric motors, 4 diesel alternators, 2 azimuth thrusters
Max.Speed: 15 knots
Range: 5,000 nautical miles at 9 knots
Armament: one 1.5” (38mm) gun, two 1/2” (12.7mm) machine-guns
Ships of Class: 14; HMS Forfender, Fatidical, Futurity, Fulgent, Fortitude, Frenzy, Famous, Fustigation, Fantastic, Forayer, Foiler, Filibuster, Farmer, Fulmar


Falcon Class

Quick Class Mid-Shore Patrol Craft

Built at the Eastgate shipyards, the Quick Class patrol craft are amongst the most recent additions to the RN. The boats primarily serve fisheries protection duties, but are also available for search and rescue and pollution control missions.

Dimensions-
Length: 140'
Beam: 23'3”
Displacement: 260 tons
Complement: 8 plus up to 6 fisheries protection or other specialist personnel
Propulsion: 2 shafts, electric motors, 5,600hp
Max.Speed: 25 knots
Range: 2,000 nautical miles
Armament: small arms locker; positions for optional mounting of machine-guns; Brixton and Koorbash fitted with stabilised 1” (25.4mm) auto-cannon on foredeck
Ships of Class: 6; HMS Quixotic, Qui Vive, Quarantine, Koorbash, Brixton, Magical


Quick Class serving customs duties

Thresher Class Training Tenders

Built, unusually for RN vessels, on the Pacific, in Hampshire, the Thresher Class Training Tenders are patrol vessels fitted with extra accommodation and warship-grade systems in order to fulfil a training role. Not being commissioned vessels, the Threshers carry the prefix Patrol Craft Tender.

Dimensions-
Length: 108'
Beam: 27'4”
Draught: 8'6”
Displacement: 210 tons
Complement: 4 minimum, 24 maximum
Propulsion: 2 diesels, 5,000hp
Max.Speed: 20 knots
Range: 660 nautical miles at 15 knots
Armament: provision for .5” machine-gun on foredeck, not presently fitted
Ships of Class: 6; PCT Thresher, Favourite, Hare, Hancock, Princess Cecilia, Princess Dorothy


Thresher Class vessel training with Squall revolverplane

Venture Class Landing Platform Dock Ships

Amongst the few ships of (partly) foreign design in the Royal Navy, these originate in the Emesan Endurance Class small LPD.

Dimensions-
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Power and Performance-
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Ships of Class: 4; HMAS St. Aldhelm, Matthew, Charlotte, Phillip

Adventure Class Amphibious Support Ships

Larger than the Venture Class, these ships are multi-role designs capable of transporting and amphibiously deploying small contingents of troops while also providing heavy sealift of equipment and supplies, replenishment to other vessels, command and control functions, and hospital facilities.

Dimensions-
Length:
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Power and Performance-
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Ships of Class: 3; HMAS Wendsleybury, Edwy of Angeln, Forbisher

Patron Class Auxiliary Replenishment Ships

Built at Wolastockmouth, the Patron Class resupplies RN ships at sea with food, fuel, munitions, and spare parts. They are amongst the largest ships in the fleet. The Patrons began to enter service in the late 1960s.

Dimensions-
Length: 564'
Beam: 76'1”
Draught: 33'1”
Displacement: 8,380 tons light, 24,700 tons full
Complement: 365
Power and Performance-
Engine: 2 boilers, 1 steam turbine
Horsepower: 21,000
Max.Speed: 20 knots
Range: 7,500 nautical miles at 11.5 knots
Armament: two Postbox CIWS, six 1/2” machine-guns
Capacity: 14,590 tons of ship fuel, 400 tons of aviation fuel, 1,048 tons of dry cargo, 1,250 tons of ammunition
Aircraft: flight deck and hangar for three Royal Bankfield S-61 Squall revolverplanes
Ships of Class: 12; HMAS Patron, Constant, Longevity, Futurity, Admiral Coney, Convivial, Provider, Wadi, Wealthy, Lady Penrhyrn, Fishbourn, Borrowdale


Patron Class

Street Class Icebreakers

Multi-role vessels best known as light icebreakers, the Street Class ships also serve as search and rescue platforms and buoy tenders. Built at Eastgate in the late 1980s, the ships are named for historic thoroughfares in Great Walmington.

Dimensions-
Length: 272'4”
Beam: 53'2”
Draught: 20'5”
Displacement: 3,854 long tons
Complement: 24
Power and Performance-
Engine: diesel electric
Horsepower: 8,847
Max.Speed: 16.5 knots
Range: 8,200 nautical miles
Armament: none
Aircraft: hangar to house two light helicopters
Ships of Class: 3; HMAS Slope Way, Mount Street, Hancock Way


Street Class in ice

Town Class Tugboats

Built in Iweriu, the Town Class tugs have been in service since the late 1970s. Commercial tugboat operators are also sometimes contracted by the MoD to carry out work for the auxiliary fleet in support of the state-owned Town Class.

Dimensions-
Length: 95'
Beam: 30'6”
Draught: 14'5”
Displacement: 250 tons
Complement: 6 to 10
Power and Performance-
Engine: 2 diesels
Horsepower: 1,800
Max.Speed: 11 knots
Armament: none
Ships of Class: 4; HMAS Cod Fortune, Jugglerscove, Kippens, Comeby Chance


Town Class tugs

Author Class Research Vessels

When, in the 1960s, the Author Class lead ship Adrian Glamorgan was constructed at Wolastockmouth she was the largest ship ever constructed for a purely scientific mission. The Authors are used for oceanographic and hydrographic missions, and have contributed enormously to global surveys over the last four decades. In 1970 Adrian Glamorgan became the first ship to completely circumnavigate the Americas, charting the dangers of the north-west passage, and the ships have also been used to search for wrecked ships and aircraft.

Dimensions-
Length: 272'5”
Beam: 50'
Draught: 18'10”
Displacement: 3,680 long tons
Complement: 37, accommodation for additional scientists
Power and Performance-
Engine: diesel electric
Max.Speed: 17 knots
Range: 23,100 nautical miles
Armament: none
Aircraft: hangar for one light revolverplane
Ships of Class: 4; HMAS Adrian Glamorgan, Alexander Vale, William Shakespeare, Coeur Loyal


Author Class

Wayne Class Training Ketchs

The Wayne Class ketches -known as Wayners- were purchased for the navy by the wealthy Chaspot-Wayne family, hence the class name.

Dimensions-
Length: 102'
Beam: 19'
Draught: 10'
Height: 105'
Displacement: 91 long tons
Complement: 21
Power and Performance-
Engine: 15,700 square foot of sail, marconi rig; 261hp diesel auxiliary
Armament: none
Ships of Class: HMAS 4; Fallal, Kayak, Magical, Karoo


Wayne Class ketch with multi-national students

Campanile Surface to Air Missile System

Campanile entered service in the early 1980s, providing long-range air defence to Walmingtonian surface ships, and was upgraded to form part of the AT-ARMS defence system. Guidance is inertial with terminal semi-active radar homing. Terminal infra-red homing can be used for long-range surface-to-surface strikes against other ships. Near the end of the last Drapoel war a County Class destroyer destroyed a Drapoel fast attack boat using a Campanile missile in anti-surface role.

Range is up to 115 miles, and ceiling 80,200 feet. Elliot-Raytheon is currently developing a more advanced successor to the current Campanile.


Campanile with single-arm launcher

Custard Surface to Air Missile System

Custard is the naval variant of the land-based Crumble surface-to-air missile system, based ultimately on the Rhubarb air-to-air missile. The current generation Custard has a more powerful rocket motor, revised aerodynamics featuring strakes, and is launched from a vertical silo system.

Missile speed is in excess of Mach 4, and range is above 31 miles. Guidance is by mid-course data-link with terminal semi-active radar homing.


Custard missile launch

Postbox Close In Weapons System

Postbox is a radar guided close-in-weapons-system featuring a 1” (25.4mm) rotary cannon produced in 5 and 6 barrel formats. It is fitted to many Walmingtonian military vessels. Effective range is 2.5 miles, and maximum rate of fire 4,500 rounds per minute in 6-barrel format. Elevation is from -25 to +85 degrees. Elliot-Raytheon is currently developing an upgrade to the system. Alternate versions using 20mm weapons have been produced for export and under licence, but continue to be deemed insufficiently powerful by the Admiralty in Walmington.


Postbox with infra-red upgrade

Sea Lance Anti-Submarine Missile

The troubled Sea Lance programme was rescued by extensive state intervention in the early 1990s. The missile can be launched from certain surface ships and submarines. It has a top speed of Mach 1.5 and a range of 35 miles. The warhead component is a 12” homing torpedo. The missile is launched from the surface, or in the case of submarines from a 21” torpedo tube in a capsule that floats to the surface before the rocket is ignited, travelling to the target area on inertial guidance before deploying a parachute-arrested torpedo to hunt down an enemy submarine.


Sea Lance in flight

Sea Robin Long-Range Anti-Ship Missile

Medium-range subsonic manoeuvring anti-ship missile.

Red Robin Long-Range Surface-Attack Missile

Red Robin is an important part of the Empire's modern gunboat diplomacy stratagem, being deployed by several warship types and all Walmingtonian submarines, the largest two of which are designed to act as submerged mobile batteries with enough fire-power to subdue any third-world aggressor.

The missile is produced with conventional high explosive, sub-munition, and nuclear warheads, and provides part of the Empire's nuclear deterrent. Red Robin can also be used as a long-range anti-ship missile.

Speed is approximately 550mph, and range varies with model from 810 to 1,550 miles. Guidance is inertial, terrain contour following, or HAROLD satellite.


Red Robin missile in flight

[Walmington on Sea]

Current Military Equipment: English Army & Corps of His Majesty's Royal Marines

Constable New Service Revolver

One of the oldest weapons still used on active service anywhere in the world, the Constable revolver remains, despite its 125 year vintage, in front-line use as many Walmingtonian servicemen -particularly older officers- continue to put stock in the near absolute reliability of their revolvers. The weapon is also used by some Company and Colonial police forces (ordinary English police officers in Europe and America do not typically carry fire-arms). The large but relatively slow .455” cartridge offers good penetration and phenomenal stopping power, especially at short range, with relatively mild recoil, having been developed originally with charging Drapoel warriors or mutinous African levies in mind as likely close-quarter threats to English officers.

The Constable is a top-break double-action revolver with automatic ejection, making it very quick to reload. Capacity is six rounds, and a number of speed-loaders have been developed over they years. Being a Walmingtonian service weapon, there was even a Constable-specific bayonet, rarely seen today. Though limited in capacity and effective only to relatively short ranges, the Constable remains reliable in wartime conditions and there is little will to remove the weapon from the hands of officers who continue to favour it. Today manufacture is to-order only, and the quality, materials, and finish of modern weapons are somewhat evolved over earlier examples.


The Prime Minister retains his old service revolver when on duty with the Home Guard

Constable Mk.I Automatic Pistol Custodian

The first and only automatic pistol to enter Walmingtonian military service, the Custodian is essentially a Shieldian design, being based upon the P35.35 (as it was designated by the then Grand Empire), which English servicemen encountered during the Great War when Shieldian forces participated in the Oakist invasion of Amberland. Impressed with the sensible ergonomics of the design and its good standard of reliability amongst automatic weapons of the age, the Walmingtonians made use of captured examples before developing a model suited to local manufacture. The .455” cartridge was adapted for use in automatic weapons and applied to the P35.35 design, resulting in a reduced seven-round magazine capacity. The design has been updated in respect of minor details and remains in service today.


Custodian pistol

Carbine, Machine, Pattern 1953

Walmington long resisted sub-machine-guns, viewing them as 'pistols with pretensions' and unsuited to real combat, but observations of the realities of urban warfare in Europe during the Great War, and the complaints of colonial forces attempting to use full-sized rifles in the heavily forested environments of the Empire's South Asian territories, lead defence chiefs to reconsider. Following that conflict the MoD conducted trials, pitting their P.41s against American M3 'Grease Guns' the Avargan M1946, as well as the wartime Nibelung MP40, examples of which had been obtained by the Suloists and used against Colonial forces in Drapol. The Avargan weapon emerged victorious, and, following extensive modification, was adopted in the English cartridge as the C.M.P.53, which has since seen extensive service in Drapol and Ceyloba.

The principle difference is that the P.53 chambers the Walmingtonian .455”-auto pistol cartridge, and feeds from a 25-round box magazine. The Walmingtonian weapon accepts a standard rifle bayonet as mounted on contemporary battle rifles and features a fire-selector absent in earlier Avargan weapons. The design is part of the early wave of 'modern' fire-arms made with modern manufacturing techniques designed to decrease both weight and cost.

Sixty years since its adoption, the P.53 remains in limited use, though it is no longer looked upon as a front line infantry weapon for regular English troops, and is more often seen with rear echelon units. Additionally, Home Guard and LoF units often have at least one example of the gun, and the Drapoel Nationalist Army continues to issue it to front line personnel for use in urban and jungle combat at close ranges and in cluttered environments.


Pattern 1953 machine carbine with bayonet

Rifle, Assault, Pattern 1951

Though the P.42 battle rifle and GM.L.Mk.I light machine-gun were considered adequate weapons during and after the Great War, they offered little or no tactical advantage over foreign designs such as the French M14, Valendian MAS-49, and other emerging battle rifles, a fact at odds with the age old English insistence on clear superiority of arms dating back to the Durnford rifle and perhaps even the longbow. As such the Royal Small Arms Factories were empowered to pursue new designs, and given a considerable mandate for experimentation as the Empire sought to regain its edge.

Concurrent with work being done in Avarga -a long term user of English fire-arms and recent partner in military production- towards what would eventually become the CDV-4, a rifle of intermediate calibre and bullpup configuration, English designers ventured along a similar road, cutting down the .280” (7.3x66mm) rifle cartridge to 43mm, alike to the Avargan steps taken with their 7mm Mauser ammunition, and produced several bullpup designs on an experimental basis.

One of these became the P.51, a weapon weighing 7.9lbs compared to the M14's 9.8, fitting a 24.7 inch barrel into a total 35 inch length while its famous American contemporary managed 22” in 46.5”.

The rifle loads a 20-round box magazine, and mounts conical optical sights supposed to enable rapid aiming, and which are built into the carrying handle. When first introduced in the early 1950s, these sights put English troops far ahead of the competition. So too did the the .280-Short cartridge fired from the P.51's long barrel, which was effective to some 800 yards (and potentially dangerous beyond that when used by a skilled shooter) but delivered easily managed recoil and reduced weight compared to full-power rifle cartridges.

Rate of fire in full-automatic setting is 600 rounds per minute.

The assault rifle accepts short and long English bayonets, and can launch rifle-grenades.


RA.P.51 with bayonet

Carbine, Assault, Pattern 1951

A carbine version of the RA.P.51, featuring a shorter barrel of 19.5 inches. This is more than three inches longer than the Geletian Md.63 assault rifle's barrel despite the English rifle being almost five inches shorter, at 29.8 inches over-all. In fact, the CA.P.51 is similar in over-all and barrel length to the current Valendian assault rifle, which was adopted some thirty years later, and which chambers an inferior cartridge. When introduced, just six years after the end of the Great War, the closely-related RA.P.51, CA.P.51, and GML.P.51 service arms were generations ahead of any others in use, and even today make strong cases against the best in the world, having firmly restored the tradition of superior English firepower on the battlefield.


English soldier firing CA.P.51 on the range during acclimatisation in Emesa, prior to deployment in the first Drapoel War

Gun, Machine, Light, Pattern 1951

Simply the RA.P.51 with a longer (around 30”) and heavier barrel fitted with a bipod, the GML.P.51 accepts standard 20 round box magazines as well as 60 round drums, and can be loaded by the same stripper-clips carried by all Walmingtonian infantrymen. Unusually for a light machine-gun it also accepts a bayonet. Due to the limited magazine capacity and lack of quick-change barrel, the GML.P.51 is sometimes thought of as the weakest member of the P.51 family, as it can not provide a sustained high rate of fire support comparable to that possible with belt-fed weapons that do feature quick-change barrels. Never the less, the high-quality of manufacture, heavy barrel, and small drum magazines latterly developed go some small way towards mitigating this weakness, and meanwhile the weapon is often used as a designated marksman's rifle, a role to which it is well suited.


GML.P.51

Gun, Machine, General Purpose

Having used variations of the Maxim Gun since the 1880s, the Walmingtonian military was forced eventually to seek a more mobile replacement as conflict in Drapol intensified. The design is loosely related to the Bohaeminc Model-24 light machine gun, evaluated by the MoD after the Great War, but is belt fed. The GMGP has a 24.5” barrel, and chambers .280-short ammunition as the P.51 series of infantry arms. It is produced with spade grips and also in a version with pistol grip and butt-stock, and is often vehicle-mounted in the former configuration or with an electrical trigger.


GMGP

Gun, Machine, Heavy, Mk.II

Soldiering on long after the phased withdrawal of its .280-Long cousin, the .5”-HV variant of the Maxim machine-gun was not replaced until the early 1990s. The medium Maxim-type was withdrawn partly due to its excessive weight compared to modern weapons, and this was not seen as such a significant drawback in a .5” gun that was not supposed to be mobile in the same degree. However, by the time of the last Drapoel war, the basic mechanism was one hundred years old, and the MoD grudgingly sought a replacement for the last of its Maxims. With so much investment in the defence industry of the region during the 1980s, Emesa was heavily involved in the development of what would become the GMH.Mk.II.

The new machine-gun finally did away with water cooling of English machine-guns, replacing it with air-cooling and a quick-change barrel. It is gas-operated, and unusually features a dual feed system. This enables rapid changing between standard and specialised armour-piercing ammunition, a feature usually associated with cannon-sized automatic weapons. It also has the same 'constant-recoil' system present in the contemporary Emesan light machine-gun. The GMH.Mk.II chambers .5” HV (high-velocity), which was developed when it was realised that the prior English round lacked the power of competing heavy machine-gun rounds deployed by Valendia, Gandvik, Geletia, and others but was not immediately adopted due to a significant number of GMH.Mk.I already having been issued with a shorter cartridge. While the older cartridge has dimensions of 12.7x81mm, the HV development measures 12.7x120mm, and achieves muzzle velocities above three thousand feet per second.


GMH.MkII

Rifle, Sniping, Mk.II

Replacing the P.1910 sniper's rifle, the RS.Mk.II is produced in both .280-Long and .300 Win-Mag, the latter having been recently adopted in Walmington specifically for use with this new medium-range sniper's rifle. Adopted early in the twenty-first century, the RS.Mk.II is a thoroughly modern if fairly conventional weapon.


RS.Mk.II

2” Mortar, Hand, Mk.II

The 2” MHMk.I was deployed extensively during the Great War and deemed a valuable close fire support tool. During the Drapoel wars the Mk.I impressed Communist forces enough to provoke their development of the lighter Knee Mortar, which in turn inspired development of the MkII. The current weapon has a range of 820 yards, several times greater than foreign under-barrel grenade launchers, while the 51mm weapon also delivers greater damage and at less than 14lbs is considerably lighter and more mobile than the likes of many foreign 60mm mortars. It is possible to launch 8 rounds per minute with an approximate aim.
Illumination and smoke rounds are also issued.


An English soldier operates the 2” MH.Mk.II

3.5” Projector, Rocket, Anti-Tank

The 3.5” PRAT -given the unfortunate nickname the Rocket-Propelled Prat by troops- is known internationally as MATADOR (Man-portable Anti-Tank, Anti-DOor), has its roots in a Nibelung anti-tank weapon, which was used as the starting point for a new Emesan-lead project to be used against armoured vehicles and buildings alike. The weapon is extremely light-weight, and is suitable for launch from confined spaces. Effective range is some five-hundred metres, and the warhead can defeat most light armoured vehicles including light tanks, as well as serving as a breaching tool in urban environments, operating in both HEAT and HESH fashion depending on the extension or retraction of a probe.


The 'Rocket-Propelled Prat'

Missile, Anti-Tank, Guided, Javelin

A man-portable fire-and-forget anti-tank guided missile, Javelin's development brought together English and American industry in a project lead by Elliot-Raytheon.

The system has a two-man crew and, though still fairly heavy, is more easily handled than previous weapons in the same class. The system uses a top-attack profile against armoured vehicles, and direct attack against buildings and low-flying helicopters, and features a tandem warhead to defeat reactive armour. A soft-launch capability allows the missile to be brought into action from a relatively confined space and without creating a large visible signature that might betray the position of a concealed crew.

Effective range is from to 245 to 8,175 feet (75 to 2,500m), and the system is reputed to be capable of defeating all modern tanks, at least in top-attack mode.


MATG Javelin launch

Tank, Cavalry, Mk.VI Blackrider

The English Army has a tradition of deploying light and fast 'Cavalry Tanks' along side heavier 'Marching Tanks', which began with the view that the latter would support infantry in breaking through enemy lines before the latter took on the traditional cavalry's role of rapid exploitation of said break-through and pursuit of retreating enemies.

The Blackrider, built by Chassire Automation, was developed during the turbulent 1980s when the old cavalry tank concept collided with contemporary circumstances and a new trend in defence thinking. Similar to the air force's swarm-fighter concept it was hoped that light tanks equipped with modern technology might be cheaper thank main battle tanks and more easily deployed over-seas in large numbers, besting industrialised rivals through greater quantity and third-world opponents through superior technology.
The Blackrider weighs approximately 24.8 tons, is 30'6” (9.3m) long, 9'10” (3m) wide, and 8'10” (2.7m) tall. It has a four man crew. Driven by a 535hp diesel engine related to that used by the TM.MkVI Turtle, it can reach speeds of 44mph (71km/h) and has a range of 300 miles (480km). Armour is up to 23mm thick and is well sloped, protecting against small-arms fire, shell fragments, and some IEDs. Armament consists of a low-recoil-force version of the Royal Ordnance 4” rifle developed for post-war Marching Tanks, a co-axial .280-Short machine-gun, and a turret-mounted .5” anti-aircraft machine-gun.

The TC.MkVI is still operated in low-threat theatres, and remains one of the most numerous tanks in the Drapoel National Army.


Blackriders in Drapol

Tank, Cavalry, Mk.VII Cuirassier

A further development of the Blackrider, the TC.MkVII features increased armour to provide protection against 23mm cannon fire, uprates the engine to provide 550hp, increases operational range by almost ten percent assuming a road speed of approximately 30mph, improves the main gun's stabilisation system and provides a digital upgrade to the fire control computer, adds the latest passive night-vision equipment, and provides more complete NBC protection.
The Cuirassier is gradually superseding the Blackrider in the English Army, and is expected eventually to be purchased by the NRD. It has also been offered to Emesa.


TC.MkVII Cuirassier exhibiting added armour

Tank, Marching, Mk.VI** Stockley Turtle

Developed in the early 1960s, the T.M.Mk.VI Turtle mounted a Royal Ordnance 4” rifle developed by boring out the exceptionally long 3.5” (89mm) rifle to 101.6mm after it was discerned that the older weapon may be incapable of defeating the frontal armour of several emerging tank designs. The new weapon was 52 calibres in length and capable of firing ten rounds per minute.

The original Turtle weighed 40 long tons, was 32'1” long by 10'5” wide and 10'2” high. Crew was four men. Primary armament consisted of a 4” rifle with 44 round of ammunition including armour-piercing discarding sabot, anti-personnel tracer, high-explosive, high-explosive anti-tank, high-explosive squash head, smoke white-phosphorus incendiary, and practice rounds. Secondary armament comprised a co-axial .280” machine-gun, .280” pintle-mounted machine-gun, and .5” ranging gun. A 535hp Lailand diesel engine and torsion-bar suspension provided a top road speed of 30mph and 19mph off-road, with a 330 mile road range. Armour was up to a modest 80mm, but was of high quality. Fire control was of average quality for the age.

The base-line Turtle was used as the basis of armoured repair vehicles, bridge layers, self-propelled guns, and anti-aircraft vehicles.

The Turtle was upgraded to T.M.MK.VI* standard after experience in the Drapoel conflicts of the 1970s and '80s, providing better turret armour, improved fire control and optics, improved ammunition stowage for 50 rounds, and a new turbocharged diesel unit generating 720hp. This increased road speed to a maximum 37mph, requiring improvements to the suspension and the tracks. Gunnery trials delivered a 100% hit rate at 1,600 yards after eighty rounds of HESH had been fired, and the design was accepted by the Army and the Drapoel National Army.
In the late 1990s the Army was already using the new Mk.VII George tank, but the NRD and Emesa lacked funds or permissions to acquire same, leading to development instead of a Turtle Mk.VI-E, the E standing for Emesa. This added explosive reactive armour and a laser warning system coupled to 3” smoke grenade launchers, and was adopted first by Emsa and later applied to DNA vehicles and to English Mk.I*s in reserve stocks, receiving the designation Mk.VI** in English service.

The Turtle was exported to the Shield, which also acquired a licence to domestically manufacture and later to modify the Stockley design, leading to its use in Depkazia, the Shieldian revolution, and the Gandvian invasion.


T.M.Mk.VI* Turtle on the range

Tank, Marching, Mk.VII Stockley George

After two decades of solid service the Turtle tank had begun to appear vulnerable to improving light-weight anti-tank weapons such as the Drapoel 21st Year RPG, and while the Mk.VI**'s use of ERA mitigated the problem somewhat, the arrival in the 1980s of Geletian tanks in UPA ranks meant that the 4” rifle and modest steel armour of the Turtle began to look pedestrian where previously they had set the pace.

This lead to the development in the late 1980s of the Stockley George, a substantially heavier and all around more powerful vehicle equal to any MBT in service or development at the time. The pressures of war compelled Stockley to look towards Walmington's allies in hopes of a short-cut to the new tank, and while the company worked on a new gun and advanced armour composites, negotiations were under-way in Nibelunc. This lead to the George being based upon the hull of the Fafnir 2, using its original 1,500hp diesel powerpack, while mounting an all-Walmingtonian turret armed with a 52-calibre 4.7” (120mm) rifle and protected by new Onslow ceramic composite armour, which was also added to the front of the hull. The 4.7” rifle has slightly lower muzzle velocity than that attained by the latest 120mm and 125mm smoothbore guns developed by Nibelunc and Beddgelert, though the ability to fire HESH rounds is popular with the English Army, and fire control systems are of world class standard. Secondary armament is of a co-axial .280-Long machine-gun and either .280” or .5” anti-aircraft machine-gun, plus smoke grenade launchers. Crew is 4 men, maximum speed 45mph and range approximately 340 miles.
George is now the Empire's front-line battle tank.


T.M.Mk.VII George on the range

Carrier, Universal, Mk.III, Bobcat

Development on the Bobcat began in the 1950s after Walmington's pioneering use during the Great War of what would today be called armoured personnel carriers, initially by modification of Ram cruiser tanks. It was not until the 1960s that the troubled programme finally resulted in a service vehicle, but before long the Carrier, Universal, Mk.III had spawned a whole family of armoured vehicles to meet virtually every tactical need.

Bobcat is a fairly compact APC, 15'10” (4.82m) long by 8'6” (2.59m) wide and 6'5” (1.95m) high, weighing approximately 8.92 imperial tons (9 tonnes) loaded. The 200hp diesel engine provides a top speed of 35mph. Crew is 2 men, and up to 10 troops may be carried, though in full load configuration space for additional arms and equipment is extremely limited. Later variants have improved transmission, tracks, and appliqué armour amongst other improvements.

The Bobcat prefaced the development of infantry fighting vehicles, mounting its armament, initially a .280-long Maxim machine-gun, later replaced by a .280”-Short weapon, in a small turret mounted forwards. Several thousand machines have been manufactured for Walmingtonian, Drapoel, Emesan, and Avargan customers, and many have been substantially upgraded and modernised along the way.


Early production Bobcat in the field

Carrier, Combat, Mk.II*, Redcat

Redcat (an alternate name for a bobcat sometimes used in Norbray) is an infantry fighting vehicle developed in Emesa with financial support from Walmington. Work began in the closing stages of the last Drapoel war, and benefited from experience in that conflict. The vehicle has a crew of 3 plus 7 combat troops. Ceramic composite armour has been upgraded in the current Mk.II* version of Redcat to provide considerable protection. Armament consists of a high-velocity 1” automatic cannon backed up by two .280-Short machine-guns. Power is provided by a 550hp turbo-charged diesel engine, offering a top speed of 43mph. Operational range is 250 miles. The vehicle is designed to be compact and agile enough to operate in South East Asian jungle terrain. The Mk.II* variant features an integrated digital battlefield management system, improved thermal sights, air conditioning, and a laser range-finder. An optional kit makes the Redcat fully amphibious.


Redcat armoured infantry combat vehicle

Vehicle, Armoured, Medium, Mk.III

An 8x8 wheeled vehicle, the VAM-III is amongst the most numerous and important in the army. Weighing 16.67 imperial tons (16.95 tonnes) combat-ready, the MAV-III's diesel engine makes it capable of 62mph (100km/h). Operational range is 280 miles (450km). The vehicle is 22.9' (6.98m) long by 8.9' (2.7m) wide and 9.2' (2.8m) in height. The vehicle's considerable bulk renders it incapable of amphibious operation. A central tyre-pressure regulation system enhances off-road capability.

Crewed by 3 men, VAM-III carries 6 or 7 troops. It is armed with a turret-mounted 1” (25.4mm) automatic cannon with co-axial .280-Short machine-gun and usually a second pintle-mounted machine-gun. An advanced NBC protection system protects the crew, and the vehicle is armoured against small-arms fire, while cage armour is sometimes fitted to protect against shaped charges, and ceramic armour resistant to 14.5mm ammunition is usually fitted to vehicles deployed in Drapol. Heat-absorbing filters are supposed to reduce the vehicle's chances of detection by thermal imaging and infra-red cameras. Further armour enhancements against cannon fire and land-mines are being applied to some vehicles, but are likely to significantly increase weight, further increasing ground-pressure (already greater than with equivalent tracked vehicles) and reducing transportability.

Thermal imaging and image-intensification sights are fitted along with LCD screens displaying real-time footage from cameras mounted on the vehicle to passengers inside.


VAM-III with disembarked infantry

Vehicle, Armoured, Reconnaissance, Coyote

Related to the VAM-III, the Coyote is an 8x8 wheeled vehicle slightly smaller than its fighting cousin. Weight is 14.2 imperial tons (14.4 tonnes), length 21' (6.39m), width 8.2' (2.5m), and height 8.8' (2.69m). Powered by a smaller 275hp diesel engine, the Coyote is never the less capable of almost 75mph (120km/h) on road, and has a range of 410 miles (660km). The vehicle mounts the same turret as the VAM-III.


Coyotes of the Royal Horse Guards (The Blues)

Vehicle, Armoured, Recovery, Light, Mk.III Husky

The Husky is a based on a predecessor of the Coyote and VAM-III, and has a 6x6 wheelbase. It has the same 275hp engine of the Coyote, and is armed with a single .280-Short machine-gun and smoke grenades for self defence. A crane with a 4.5 ton capacity and winch with 8 ton capacity are fitted. Unlike the larger combat vehicles, Husky retains its amphibious capability.


Husky at work

Vehicle, Tactical, High Mobility

A collaboration between Avarga's UMDA and Walmington's Stockley Motors, the VTHM is an air-portable 4x4 multi-purpose vehicle used by both nations and, in small numbers, the National Republic of Drapol. A proportion are equipped with additional ballistic protection, and some mount a range of armament including .5” heavy machine-guns, recoilless rifles, anti-tank missiles, mortars, and Crosier-type air defence missiles. Command and communications variants have also been produced.

The vehicle has shown considerable versatility, but in Drapol has been proven excessively vulnerable to mines and improvised explosive devices, leading the Nationalists to reassess its proper deployment and best function.


Drapoel National Army VTHM

Ordnance Mortar, Medium, Mk.II*

A fairly standard infantry mortar, the MMII* has a uniquely Walmingtonian calibre of 3.5” (89mm). Its performance was deemed sufficient to render obsolete the old 5” (127mm) heavy mortar as well as the 3” (76.2mm) piece it was originally designed to replace. Some are mechanised aboard modified APCs.

Gun, Light

The light-gun, as it is commonly known, is the latest in a long line of 4” (101.6mm) field guns used by the English Army. It is a 38 calibre rifled gun. Maximum range is 18,800 yards, or 22,500 yards using base-bleed ammunition. The gun is compact and light enough to be towed by a 4x4 land cruiser or lifted under a medium revolverplane. The weapon saw heavy use during the Drapoel conflict of the 1980s.


GL.4” performing ceremonial duties

Gun, Heavy

The 6” (152mm) is the heaviest howitzer in use by the Empire since the current generation of weapons made old 8” guns obsolete due to the increased range and power provided by new technologies. Range is 24.6 miles with base-bleed ammunition or satellite-guided Elliot-Raytheon Excalibur rounds, and 31 miles with rocket assistance. Standard shells weigh almost 106lbs. The guns proved fairly effective in slowing the Communist advance during the 1980s in Drapol.


GH.6”

Gun, Heavy, Motor

The GHM is based upon the Nibelung Artillerie Geschütz Modul (Artillery Gun Module), but uses a Walmingtonian 6” howitzer. It is designed to be lighter and cheaper than the Nidhöggr self-propelled gun while offering broadly the same performance, and it features similar fire control equipment. The turret is mounted on essentially the same chassis as the General Support Rocket System, a fact reflecting the economy drive and 'rationalisation' of imperial forces since the trying 1980s.


GHM

General Support Rocket System

An icon of the Parliament of Nations, the this advanced multiple rocket launcher was developed in the late 1970s and early 1980s in a joint effort *involving Walmington, Nibelunc, and Amerique. The system was adopted in Nibelunc as MARS, while Walmingtonian examples are known as GSRS, leading to the troops nicknaming it Grid Square Removal System. Extensive use in the Drapoel Wars caused the Communists to speak of Steel Rain.

The launch vehicle mounts two pods, each containing either six 227mm rockets or one surface-to-surface missile. Rocket warheads include high-explosive and submunition types with up to 644 dual-purpose bomblettes each and range up to 43 miles (70km), mine-laying types with up to 28 anti-tank mines deployable to a range of 23 miles (38km), and chemical weapons types rarely fielded. SSMs carry either submunitions including up to 950 dual-purpose bomblettes or high-explosives weighing 500lb, and have a range of up to 185 miles (300km).

GSRS launch vehicles are usually accompanied by reload trucks and a command-vehicle based upon the Bobcat chassis.


GSRS launching SSM; rockets visible in adjacent pod

*probably

Missile, Infantry, Anti-Aircraft, Mk.IID, 'Crosier'

Produced by Elliot-Raytheon, the MIAA.MkII Crosier began to enter service shortly before the 1980 outbreak of the last Drapoel war, replacing the similar MkI, and has been upgraded several times to the present D standard after experiences in that intense conflict.

The system is thought to be slightly lighter than enemy systems built in Beddgelert and Drapol, while carrying a larger 6.6lb warhead, and its five-mile range is also superior. Naturally, the Crosier is thought to be considerably more expensive. It is broadly equivalent to the likes of the Valendian Mistral.

The Crosier's seeker is capable of tracking IR and UV signatures, giving it better counter-measure rejection ability than its predecessor, and a range of different mountings have been devised for the system, which may be launched from the shoulder, from a static post mounting aboard a warship, from a revolverplane in flight, or from the Abbot air defence vehicle.


Shoulder-launched Crosier aboard a RN vessel, Postbox CIWS seen in background

Missile, Motor, Anti-Aircraft, Abbot

The MMAA Abbot essentially mechanises a quartet of Crosier short-range air defence missiles and an advanced IRST device aboard a very lightly armoured Stockley Land Cruiser 4x4 chassis.


Abbot

Gun, Medium, Self-Propelled, Anti-Aircraft, Twin, 1.5”

The English equivalent to Nibelunc's Midgard-G, this radar-directed anti-aircraft artillery vehicle mounts a pair of 1.5” (38mm) rapid-fire cannon on a Turtle tank chassis, and is said to attain a more than 52% hit percentage against aerial targets. The vehicle usually carries over four hundred rounds of ammunition, including several dozen anti-tank rounds, and also mounts smoke-grenade launchers for self defence.

Crew is three men, but it is common for a second crew to be deployed to ensure constant readiness when in the field protecting armoured formations.

The system's advanced radar has a 7.5 mile (12km) detection and 6 mile (10km) tracking range, while its laser range-finder has a 5 mile (8km) range. Rate of fire is over 1,000 rounds per minute between the two guns, and effective range is approximately 2.5 miles (4km).


GM-SPAAT

[Walmington on Sea]

Current Military Equipment: Royal Walmingtonian Air Force, Army Air Service, Fleet Air Arm

Chassire, Stockley, and Wychwood, known for automobiles, trains, marine engines and other engineering products, have all branched into aerospace design and manufacture with varying degrees of success, and the latter two companies -though usually rivals for the same government contracts- have birthed the collaborative Stockley-Wychwood brand in engine development, now one of the largest aircraft engine manufacturers in the world.

One of the world's most famous helicopter manufacturers -though in Walmingtonian parlance the term 'revolverplane' is preferred- Royal Bankfield satisfies almost all of the nation's rotary-wing demands and earns billions for the imperial economy in exports and licensing agreements. The company was established by the grant of a royal charter to Shieldian exile Ernest 'Ernie' Bankfield, who spent his later life in Walmington after making his name at Graye & Bankfield Aeroflyers and leaving the Shield due to his pacifist disapproval at the military take-over of his designs. In Walmington his revolver-planes were at first used for aerobatic demonstrations at “Empire Shows”, speed record attempts designed to boost imperial prestige, forest-fire fighting, search and rescue, casualty evacuation, ship-to-shore transport, and in the construction and logging industries, only later being turned to use first as battlefield transports and ultimately gunships: Bankfield died in 1972 while his company's 'Semazen' attack helicopter, which he so firmly opposed, was under-going flight trials.

Elliot-Raytheon has become an indispensable part of the military aviation industry globally without which many of the world's most advanced jets and missile systems would be blind and useless.

Chassire Chipmunk Mk.II Elemental Flight Trainer

First introduced just one year after the end of the Great War, the Chassire Chipmunk is an icon of aviation around the world, and remains in widespread use, both military and civilian, more than sixty years later. This is thanks to a simple, rugged design, easy flying characteristics, and an extensive update programme that provided a new bubble canopy, updated instrument panel (in the case of military training variants), and uprated engine in the form of a licence-built Franco-American O-360 flat-four piston engine generating 180hp. The Chipmunk is fully aerobatic, and is used to provide basic training to new pilots in the RAF, Fleet Air Arm, and Army Air Corps. Older versions withdrawn from military service continue to fly with civilian flight clubs around the Empire and abroad, and some of these are used by the Air Cadets, often modified as glider tugs.


Chimpunks in RAF livery over Avarga

Wychwood Wheatear Advanced Trainer

Developed in the late 1970s as a piston-engined trainer designed to replicate the performance of jet trainers and at much lower cost, the Wheatear played into the emerging notion of an Empire on a shoestring and Wychwood's private venture quickly gained state support. Though fitted with a Stockley-Wychwood PT6-series turboprop and hardpoints for up to 1,600lb of external stores, the Wheatear remained an aircraft of simple construction. It was accepted into service in the early 1980s, and began to be produced at several small plants around the Empire. It is offered for export with small or poor countries the intended market, as the Wheatear offers close to jet performance at turboprop cost, and its design facilitates licence production by even infant aviation industries.


Wheatear

Stockley Sachem Lead In Flight Trainer

Adopted at the end of the 1980s, the Stockley Sachem -named for the 'great chiefs' of many First Nations encountered by early English settlers- is a low-cost jet trainer supposed to provide competitive performance while costing only as much as a typical turboprop trainer. Powered by a licence-built Électrique Général J-85 turbojet, the Sachem has a top speed of 558mph, and can climb at 7,000ft/min. Range is 1,094 miles. Five hardpoints, one centre-line the rest under-wing, allow carriage of up to 2,000lb of stores, enabling a secondary role as a light attack aircraft. This, combined with the low cost of the design, appealed to the MoD as it pursues low-cost solutions to the Empire's varied military requirements. Though inexpensive, the Sachem is a fairly modern design, the airframe featuring extensive use of lightweight composite materials.


Stockley Sachem

Wychwood Wren Light Fighter

Wychwood's overhaul of the Warbler convinced the company that the design could be further advanced in order to compete against Stockley Aviation to satisfy the Defence Ministry in its pursuit of the controversial swarm fighter concept. The success of the Warblers enabled the company to secure private funding for development of a dedicated single-seat fighter that would be capable of sustained supersonic flight and the deployment of guided weapons without the aid of external sensor pods.

Developed from the powerplant used in the Warbler upgrade, the Wychwood Red Lion added a reheat function, along with a thin 5%-thickness wing designed for supersonic performance. Wing area is slightly increased to some 160sq.ft (14.9m2), and while various minor airframe revisions and new control surfaces were based upon those found in Warbler MkII, improved wind-tunnel techniques were used to further refine Wren's aerodynamic properties, and some new materials were used in construction, though the more expensive or difficult-to-machine options explored were rejected in line with the swarm fighter ethos. The landing-gear was revised and large 'bush-tires' fitted to aid rough-field operation, enabling Wren to fly from dirt airstrips in fast-moving colonial campaigns or in the service of poorer export customers.

Wren is sometimes fitted with a small but modern radar set in a slightly enlarged nosecone, while other examples in service instead rely on a new IRST (infrared search and track) system backed-up by a laser and optical magnification equipment. Though performance is degraded by cloud and certain other weather conditions, the infrared system from the Elliot Radio Company is capable of tracking multiple targets at beyond visual range, and enables Wren to direct fire-and-forget missiles towards a target without illuminating it with radar. Particularly when using this passive system, the extremely small and nimble Wren stands an excellent chance of sneaking-up on ostensibly superior conventional fighters, and the little aircraft has a more than acceptable rate of climb and acceleration.

Wren is designed with the ability to be transported wings-folded inside a Walmingtonian 'Standard-Large' (40'x10'x10') intermodal freight container by sea, rail, or road, and to be carried under an S-64 Sporran revolverplane from where it can be launched in-flight in a revival of the parasite fighter concept. With its full-span flaps, uprated engine, greater wing area, low weight, and over-sized bush-tires, Wren's rough-field performance is well known, but the aircraft can also be launched with the use of RATOG (rocket-assisted take-off gear), becoming airborne within seconds even from entirely unprepared ground.

Wren's top speed is around Mach 1.5, ceiling slightly in excess of 50,000ft, and combat radius 185 miles at low level with two 500lb bombs.

Armament consists of a 1" (25.4mm) cannon and four under-wing hardpoints for drop-tanks, countermeasure dispensers, reconnaissance pods, dumb or laser-guided bombs including cluster as well as liquid incendiary and thermobaric-effect munitions, Gavel imaging-infrared/semi-active-laser/milimetre-wave-radar-guided light air-to-surface missiles, Grapeshot 18-round 3" rocket pods, or infrared-guided Rascal air-to-air missiles, and wingtip rails for two further Rascal.

Wren remains in service with the Drapoel Nationalist Air Force, and an unknown number of airframes are held in reserve by the RAF. A large quantity of aircraft have been manufactured but not assembled, and are kept in long-life storage for rapid assembly in the event of a crisis.


Wren diagram exhibiting RAF 'maroon and gold' roundel

Stockley Spiteful Mk.II Light Fighter

The ancestor of the Spiteful was a research aircraft built by Stockley in response to a government requirement for research into supersonic flight, and became the first aircraft to travel at greater than 1,000 miles per hour, annihilating the previous world speed record by a margin of several hundred miles per hour.

This aircraft was developed as a fighter, introduced a few months before the competing Valendian Mirage III, an aircraft of similar size, configuration, and performance. If the Spiteful, as it was called, had one killer advantage it was probably in its ability to carry several Rascal infra-red guided air-to-air missiles, while the Mirage would have to wait more than a decade for a similarly effective weapon.

The Spiteful Mk.II is the current service model, most easily identified by the addition of small canard wings designed to enhance the fighter's agility by generating turbulent airflow over the wing and reducing stability. Less visible enhancements in the form of digital avionics upgrades, fly-by-wire control, and the introduction of new composite materials are perhaps more important to the aircraft's combat performance.

The Spiteful obtained a strongly positive kills-to-losses ratio against Gandvian-designed J-17, 19, and 21 fighters over Drapol in the 1960s, '70s, and '80s, and began to be more widely marketed internationally as a result of this comparative success in actual combat.


Stockley Spiteful Mk.I


Spiteful Mk.II diagram

Stockley Swiftsure Mk.IV Interceptor

The story of the Swiftsure begins with a design study initiated in 1953, while Walmingtonian air defence was dominated by designs from Chassire and Wychwood, one relying on powerful radar, the other on low-cost and agility. Stockley put its money on performance, and proved every bit as innovative. While Chassire attempted to improve its C-100 interceptor with a swept wing, Stockley's sights were set squarely on supersonic performance.

The Swiftsure entered limited production in 1957, and was a ground-breaking design featuring advanced fire-control, a large internal weapons bay, and an early example of fly-by-wire control amongst other world-beating features. Initial pre-production examples were powered by two Stockley-Wychwood J75 turbojets and lacked the final fire control system that was still under development. These were used for flight testing, and achieved high supersonic speeds without significant problems. By 1959 the aircraft was ready for series production, but with Chassire's C-100 and C-103 already in service and proving surprisingly durable, funding was restricted, enabling only low rate production, with the expectation being that some Swiftsures would serve high-speed reconnaissance roles early in their career, only gradually taking over interceptor duties from the Chassire aircraft during the course of the 1960s and '70s.

The appearance of Mach-2 reconnaissance aircraft in English colours left many rival powers unable to effectively secure their airspace against RAF incursions, and the Swiftsure broke numerous speed records during its initial service period.

As the Swiftsure became a more common sight in English -and enemy- skies, something of an arms race was engendered, Gandvik struggling to intercept reconnaissance sorties using its contemporary VL J21s (PoN reporting name Fishbed), before losing any chance of doing so when the Swiftsure Mk.II appeared in the early 1960s. This replaced the large SW engines with new Stockley Iroquois turbojets, which made pioneering use of titanium and advanced alloys to increase performance and reduce weight, improving combined thrust from 111 kN dry and 209 kN reheat to 178 kN dry and 266 kN reheat. Gandvik's response came in 1970 with the J25 (PoN reporting name Foxbat), which was capable of speeds in excess of Mach 3, although not without sustaining major damage. Walmington in turn hit back with the Swiftsure Mk.III, a complete modernisation capable of safely travelling at three times the speed of sound thanks to the extensive use of titanium alloys made possible by Walmington's advanced industrial economy and broad imperial resource base.

The Swiftsure serves on today after the development during the 1980s and '90s of a Mk.IV variant featuring more efficient turbofan engines developed from the Iroquois, an updated fly-by-wire control system, new multi-mode radar and other digital avionics upgrades, IRST based on that used by the Wychwood swarm fighters, extensive use of modern composite materials throughout the airframe, and an integral cannon.

The Swiftsure Mk.IV is a 2-seat multi-role interceptor capable of Mach 3 speeds, combat radius of 500 miles (800km), and service ceiling of 65,000' (20,000m). Armament is an integral 1” (25.4mm) cannon; internal weapons bay with 4x hardpoints for Forced Rhubarb active radar guided air-to-air missiles, 500lb or 1,000lb guided or free-fall bombs, Googly stand-off glide bombs, or Garuda anti-radiation missiles; and under-wing pylons, the inner two suitable for droptanks or larger weapons such as Forced Rhubarb, outer two for smaller missiles such as Rascal sort-range air-to-air or Gavel air-to-surface types.


Stockley Swiftsure

Chassire Comet Strike/Reconnaissance Bomber

Entering service in the late 1960s, the Chassire Comet was designed to carry out high-speed low-level penetration strikes with either conventional or nuclear weapons, and to conduct high-altitude reconnaissance with the same airframe. Far ahead of its time on introduction, the Comet is capable of sustained supersonic flight at low altitude, and features blown flaps for the full trailing edge of the wing to achieve short-field performance.

Top speed in current airframes is Mach 3, theoretically possible in original machines but practically limited by the less heat-resistant materials of the time. At altitude, the Comet can cruise at Mach 2.05, and the aircraft is capable of supercruise.

On introduction, the Comet's avionics were streets ahead of the competition, the aircraft mounting forward-looking radar and side-looking radar for navigational fixing, enabling an advanced autopilot that reduced the crew's workload significantly.

Crew is 2 men; length 89', span 37'2, height 23'9, wing area 702'10”; weights 54,750lb empty, 79,573lb loaded, and 103,500lb maximum. Combat radius is 750 nautical miles (860mi) in hi-lo-lo-hi profile, and ferry range 2,500nm (2,877mi). Ceiling is 40,000ft, and rate of climb 15,000ft/min.

Payload is 6,000lb internal and 4,000lb under-wing, and may include conventional bombs or nuclear bombs and rockets.


Comet on take-off

Elliot-Raytheon Pythia AEW&C Aircraft

Walmington's principle airborne early-warning and control aircraft features cutting-edge Elliot-Raytheon phased array radar along either side of the airframe, which is based upon a Shieldian STOL transport aircraft, the Graye & Bankfield Raven, and which is -or was- partially constructed at low-cost Shieldian facilities. The fuselage and wings had to be substantially redesigned for AEW service and carrier operation, as Walmington would acquire derivatives of the same design for both the RAF and the Royal Navy. The Walmingtonian aircraft was also re-engined, with S&W-6000 turbofans, enabling a cruising time of almost eight hours.


ER Pythia

Elliot-Raytheon/Stockley Sentinel Battlefield Surveillance Aircraft

Elliot-Raytheon used the Stockley Global Express long-range VIP/business jet as the basis for their Airborn STand-Off Radar. Introduced in 2008, the advanced system has allegedly revolutionised the fighting ability of the RAF and Army alike with its sophisticated Synthetic Aperture/Moving Target Indicator radar. Elliot-Raytheon is offering a modified version of ASTOR to replace the venerable old Argus maritime patrol aircraft, which is likely to go ahead in the short to mid-term.


ASTOR in flight

Chassire CA-6 Twin Otter Light Observation Aircraft

Since the mid 1960s the Twin Otter has served a variety of roles with both the RAF and Army, including light transport, MEDEVAC, training, special-forces insertion, and more, but today is primarily used as a light observation aircraft with both services. The aircraft's impressive short-field characteristics and reliable S&W turboprops also make the Twin Otter popular in the civil aviation market.


CA-6 Twin Otter

Stockley SP-107 Argus Mk.3 Maritime Patrol Aircraft

Based upon the company's Saxon transport aircraft and introduced in the late 1950s, the Stockley Argus was called the finest aircraft of its type anywhere in the world, and after several upgrades has soldiered on for more than half a century. Though there are finally plans to replace it with a modified ASTOR, some crews and planners are hesitant to let the Argus go. Powered by modified S&W Double-Wasp engines, the Argus carries up to 8,000lb of torpedoes, bombs, depth-charges, and mines, along with a range of equipment such as search radar, asdic buoys, electronic counter measures, explosive echo ranging (EER) and magnetic anomaly detector (MAD). The patrol aircraft boasts an endurance of more than a full day, and has a cruise speed of some 207mph.


A Stockley Argus over-flies a foreign submarine

Royal Bankfield Cypher-II UAV

A development of the Cypher-I UAV, Cypher-II adds small wings and a pusher propeller to increase range and speed. Weighing some 250lbs, the drone is about 10' in span and is capable of speeds up to 145mph, while its ability to hover has been retained. Range is in excess of 115 miles. The Cypher-II is used by the Royal Marines for surveillance duties.


Cypher-II

Stockley SL-327 Guardian UAV

Another distinctively configured UAV from Walmington, the Guardian derives lift from a pair of co-axial rotors set in the waist of the unusual upright, bulbous fuselage. Composite materials and upwards-venting of exhaust represent efforts to reduce the machine's signature. Endurance is almost six and a half hours, and range some 125 miles. The Guardian is used for reconnaissance, target designation, communications relay, and electronic warfare.


Stockley Guardian in flight

Stockley Challenger 600 VIP Transport

A small fleet of Stockely Challengers serves the Empire's diplomatic transport needs, being more than capable of unrefuelled trans-Atlantic flight. Crew is two person, and up to nineteen passengers may be carried, though state jets are often configured to carry fewer passengers in greater comfort. Range is 3,875 miles, and cruise speed 529mph.


Stockley Challenger state jet

Chassire CA-5 Buffalo STOL Transport

Replacing the piston-engined Caribou, the CA-5 Buffalo earned its wings in Drapol from the mid 1960s, and continues to impress with its world-leading short-field performance, surpassing even many light aircraft. Crew is 3, and capacity is 41 troops or 24 stretchers, or up to 18,000lb of cargo. Maximum speed is 290mph, and stall speed 77mph. Range is 691 miles.


CA-5 Buffalo

Wychwood Reprobus STOL Transport

Entering service in the late 1960s, the Wychwood Reprobus offered revolutionary short-field performance in a large multi-engined jet-propelled transport aircraft. Its four turbofans were evolutionarily related to the smaller Wychwood Red Lion, and added thrust vectoring nozzles, which along with boundary layer control, blown flaps, and other features allowed great short-take-off-and-landing qualities. Proposals to re-engine the aircraft to achieve VTOL performance have been repeatedly considered, but have not come to pass. Top speed is 548mph, range 4,800 miles, and payload 35,000lbs.


Wychwood Reprobus

Graye-Bankfield-Chassire Larus Strategic Transport

When introduced in the late 1960s, the GBC Larus was the heaviest aircraft ever to have flown. An English design, Chassire out-sourced much of the aircraft's production to Graye & Bankfield Aerofliers in the Grand Empire of the Shield in order to reduce the costs inherent to the unprecedented machine. Designed to carry troops and their light armoured vehicles into the field, and to operate from short, unpaved airstrips, the design was initially presented as potentially valuable to Shieldian operations in Gallaga and Depkazia, but in truth was principally intended for strategic airlifting in the English Empire.

Only the forward portion of the aircraft is fully pressurised, protecting the crew and up to 28 passengers, while the rear cargo area is only partially pressurised, keeping weight lower and allowing the deployment of parachutists and equipment in-flight without depressurising the cabin.

Payload is 176,350lbs. Maximum speed is 460mph, range 3,100 miles with maximum payload or 6,800 miles with maximum fuel and a reduced payload of 99,200lbs.


GBC Larus

Stockley Saxon ST-107 Multi-Role Tanker Transport

Developed as an airliner in the late 1950s, the Saxon airframe serves as the basis of the Argus maritime patrol aircraft as well as that of this multi-role tanker transport. Many heavily modified ST-107s soldier on as dual-use aerial refuelling tankers and military transports, but the fleet is due to be replaced by tanker-transport variants of the C-series airliners currently in development.

English Bankfield Model-434 Sylph Training/Light-Utility

Greenhalgh Griffin Medium Utility/Training

English Bankfield Model-76 V.I.P. Transport

English Bankfield S-64 Sporran Heavy-Lift

Designed by Ernie Bankfield as a replacement for cranes that could operate in remote or inaccessible places such as Norbray and parts of Drapol, the Sporran was also widely used in a fire-fighting role. The design was adapted by the military at first to recover other revolver-planes that had crashed in Drapol, and even to air-lift light 'cavalry' tanks and other heavy equipment.

At 36,122 feet the Sporran holds the record for the highest level flight by a helicopter. During the Drapoel wars Sporrans recovered scores of downed aircraft, saving millions of guilders and preventing enemy capture of key technologies.


Sporran carrying a container

Royal Bankfield S-80 Sahib Heavy-Lift

The biggest and heaviest helicopter in Walmingtonian military use, the Sahib can transport 55 troops or 30,000lb of cargo, and can carry an under-slung load of 36,000lb. It has a cruise speed of 173mph and range of 621 miles, and is fitted with a refuelling hose that can take on fuel from a surface ship while the revolver-plane hovers. Maximum speed is 196mph.

The Sahib is gradually replacing the Sporran in most military roles. It has also been used as an aerial minesweeper against naval mines.

Crew is 5 in combat role, with 2 pilots, 1 crew chief/gunner, and 2 other gunners.


Sahib preparing to lift a damaged Spindrift

English Bankfield S-61 Squall ASW/SAR/Utility

Introduced in the early 1960s, the Squall has become one of English Bankfield's most iconic products, serving in anti-submarine, anti-ship, maritime search and rescue, mine-sweeping, transport, decoy, and as the basis of the Squall Line (q.v.). The Squall has a boat-shaped hull and is capable of landing on water.

Crew is 2 to 4 depending on mission, and a small number of passengers may be carried. Top speed is 166mph, and range 621 miles. Specifications vary slightly through several different versions that have been produced over the decades.


Squalls

English Bankfield S-70 Spindrift ASW/SAR/Utility

Appearing in the 1970s, the Spindrift has entered service in two forms -land and maritime patterns- with the Walmingtonian military, and has partially though not entirely replaced the Squall. Many special operations versions have also been developed, and today the Spindrift is globally recognised.

The Spindrift has a 2-man flight crew and 2 additional personnel if the mission requires. It may transport 14 troops or 6 stretchers or 2,640lb of internal cargo, or 9,000lb externally. top speed is 183mph, cruise speed 173mph, and combat radius 368 miles.


Spindrifts lifting 4” field guns

English Bankfield S-61 Squall-Line AEW

According with some assessments during the second half of the twentieth century it was felt that the distances involved in protecting the Walmingtonian Empire precluded complete coverage by a limited number of expensive, land-based AEW&C aircraft. In a private venture viewed as a rival to Pythia, English Bankfield's S-61 Squall was provided with an advanced pulse-Doppler radar dome and marketed as a smaller and cheaper alternative to the fixed wing aircraft. Capable of tracing 100 targets in track-while-scan mode and provided with data-links to handle more, the system is highly regarded, though this does not protect it from the humour of its operators, who, for example, refer to the Weapon Target Fighter Global Overview key -which displays data link control lines from other command and control aircraft and their fighters along with targets and intercept vector lines- as the, “What the Fuck's Going On?” button. Currently a small number of Squall are modified to operate as Squall-Line, but in the long term the Admiralty does not intend to allocate continued funding to this situation, and hopes to find foreign buyers for its rotary-wing AEW system.


Squall-Line with the Fleet Air Arm

English Bankfield S-67 Semazen Attack

The machine that sets Ernie Bankfield rolling in his grave, Semazen is the Empire's primary helicopter gunship, used for tank-busting, fire-support, assault, escort, and evacuation missions since the late 1970s. Following on from Bankfield's own S-61 designs, which were well proven in civilian and military applications across the world, the Semazen was the work of Ernie's junior designers and military engineers assigned by Lime Crescent.

With swept blade tips and unusually large wings for a helicopter, the Semazen is unusually fast and -particularly at the time of its introduction- quiet for a military helicopter, its designers claiming that it can approach to 500 yards from a target before being audible over normal conversation. These and other features also reduced vibration, limiting airframe and crew fatigue.

If travelling at speeds above 40kts, the Semazen is able to keep flying and even to land safely in the event of its tail rotor being destroyed or disabled, and can continue flying with a full war load even in the event of one engine failing. A shrouded fan has been substituted for the tail rotor in the S-67* version now used by some Walmingtonian units, further increasing the performance of the aircraft and reducing the number of accidents caused by the tail rotor clipping the ground, trees, wires, or other obstacles.

A controllable horizontal stabiliser helped to limit rotor stress during manoeuvres and enabled the pilot to trim the fuselage independently of the main rotor for better alignment with a target. Speed breaks on the stub wings, a pioneering feature, enhanced agility and control, increasing time on target in a manoeuvre, improving firing accuracy, reducing turn radius, and increasing the angle of dive. The narrow fuselage of the Semazen both reduced drag and presented a narrow target for enemy guns in a head-on engagement, exposing a frontal area of only 17sq.ft compared to 32sq.ft in the Squall.

Maximum speed is stated at 193mph, but a speed record of 220mph was set on a course in the 1970s, and 230mph has been safely achieved in a dive when fitted with the ducted fan tail assembly. Range depends on configuration, but may be 220 miles at 165mph in troop-carrier/cargo configuration, or 600 miles with auxiliary fuel and space for six passengers.

Semazen can carry 8,000lb of weapons and ammunition, and lends itself well to carriage of surveillance equipment. The revolverplane is commonly fitted with a 1” turret-mounted cannon and can carry up to sixteen anti-tank missiles or rocket pods, and has wing-tip rails for Rascal air-to-air missiles. There is an insulated sound-proofed compartment for carriage of 6 fully equipped troops, and the aircraft can be modified to carry up to 15 personnel. Crew is 2 men.


Semazen without ducted tail fan

Elliot-Raytheon Manufacturing Company Model-2000 Crumble

Related to the air-to-air missile Rhubarb and the ship-launched Custard, Crumble is a high-performance low-altitude ground-to-air missile system built on the same family. Range is 17 miles and effective ceiling 11,500ft. The system's strengths are in its ability to handle multiple high-speed manoeuvring targets at short range, while the Chaplain is tasked with higher altitude defence.


Crumble launching

Elliot-Raytheon Manufacturing Company Model-23 Chaplain

The Elliot-Raytheon Chaplain surface-to-air-missile system is a medium range weapon initially developed to attack aircraft in flight and frequently updated to handle new threats including guided missiles. The Chaplain was exported to many of Walmington's allies, and saw heavy action in Drapol.

Current Chaplain missiles have a range of 28 miles and ceiling of 65,000ft. Warhead is 160lb blast fragmentation. Radar includes the formidable AN/MPQ-64 Sentinel radar developed by Elliot-Raytheon and manufactured by its Chrinthani operations.


Chaplain on mobile launcher

Elliot-Raytheon Rascal Infrared-Guided Air-to-Air Missile

One of the earliest, most successful, and cheapest air to air missiles in the world, the Rascal remains the RAF's primary short-range weapon after half a century of service and through many upgrades. It has seen more use than any other air-to-air missile, and has claimed more kills, fighting through multiple Drapoel wars and being copied by several nations.
In the case of the current Rascal, range is between 0.6 and 22 miles and speed is Mach 2.5. The Rascal is an infra-red guided weapon that arms both fixed-wing and rotary-wing aircraft in Walmingtonian service, and has been widely exported to allies.


Rascal test launches from a Franco-American Frelon

Elliot-Raytheon Rhubarb Radar-Guided Air-to-Air Missile

The Elliot-Raytheon Rhubarb appeared in the late 1940s, and has been enormously upgraded during its long service life. For most of the late C20th a semi-active radar guided weapon, the current Rhubarb used by the RAF is an active-radar variant known as the Forced-Rhubarb.

The current Forced-Rhubarb -related to the surface launched Custard and Crumble missiles- attains a speed of Mach 4, has a 32 mile range, and carries an 88lb blast fragmentation warhead.


Rhubarb in flight

Elliot-Raytheon Gavel Air-to-Surface Missile

Based on the Rascal, Gavel is a light air-to-surface missile with a 16 mile range. It is guided by either infra-red tracking, radar, or laser designation, and is primarily an anti-armour weapon, though it has been deployed with success against a range of targets.

Elliot-Raytheon Googly Air-to-Surface Missile

Essentially an advanced 1,000lb bomb, the Googly is a sophisticated glide-bomb with a range of approximately 14 miles for a low-altitude launch and 81 miles from high altitude. It is designed to attack targets from beyond the range of their air defences at low cost, an important matter for the over-stretched imperial forces facing Communist Drapol. The weapon uses a combination of inertial guidance and the HAROLD satellite system to find its target.

An anti-armour variant deploys infra-red guided sub-munitions over an armoured target, and a two-stage warhead variant is used to attack hardened targets. A powered version with a vastly extended range is under development.

The weapon is named for a deceptive delivery in the game of cricket, where-by a right-arm leg-spin bowler, who usually would bowl a ball that turns away from the right-hand batsman, instead turns the ball in towards the right-hander thanks to a sharp bend of the wrist. The silent, low profile long-range glide bomb is thought to offer similar surprise.


Googly deploying combined-effect sub-munitions

Elliot-Raytheon Garuda anti-radiation missile

The Garuda is Walmington's primary anti-radiation missile, used to attack enemy radar sites. First deployed in the late stages of the last Drapoel war it was initially defeated by the propensity of enemy SAM operators, reputedly trained by Geletians, to turn off their radar after brief bouts of activity, often causing the Garuda to crash aimlessly. Later, pilots of all Walmingtonian aircraft learned to issue the brevity code associated with the launch of a Garuda missile whenever their aircraft were illuminated by enemy radar, sometimes prompting a SAM battery to switch off its radar to avoid attack, thus saving many from attack. Garuda is a super-sonic missile. It is subject to frequent upgrades.


Garuda launched by a Franco-American Prédateur

Sanders & Sons Grapeshot 3" FFAR

A conventional unguided air-to-ground missile, the Grapeshot is launched usually from pods with varying number of cells.