AMW Big Discussion Thread

[Acadzia]

So, soon, I am going to have a civil war soon in Atlantis. It was my plan from Day 1, pretty much.

There is room for it to be a clusterfuck, but I do want it to end a certain way. Of course there can be small victories for all sides, and threads that will continue on in Atlantis, but it will end with King Arthur, the bastard, half-Walmingtonian, first-born son of Kedunaga II, whom was legitimized by his father in the latter's will, on the throne.

But, there will be those loyal to King Orm Ancinor, the Kurosites, and those loyal to Arthur. I'll leave it up to you all to decide if you want to get involved, and how, and with which faction, or none.

The war isn't ready to crack open yet, but that's where I hope to take The Once and Future King in the next week or so.

[The Amyclae]

United Kongo, I have no objections. I think Africa, for the moment, is your plaything.

And Acadzia, good! I'm stoked.

[Europe - Prussia]

So, soon, I am going to have a civil war soon in Atlantis. It was my plan from Day 1, pretty much.

There is room for it to be a clusterfuck, but I do want it to end a certain way. Of course there can be small victories for all sides, and threads that will continue on in Atlantis, but it will end with King Arthur, the bastard, half-Walmingtonian, first-born son of Kedunaga II, whom was legitimized by his father in the latter's will, on the throne.

But, there will be those loyal to King Orm Ancinor, the Kurosites, and those loyal to Arthur. I'll leave it up to you all to decide if you want to get involved, and how, and with which faction, or none.

The war isn't ready to crack open yet, but that's where I hope to take The Once and Future King in the next week or so.

If you don't mind Acadzia, I want to get Valendia involved in this little civil war you're planning. I leave it to you how deep you want the involvement to be though. For now, it will a "wait and see" policy with threats thrown in the middle, using as pretext the protection of it's territories (Brunei) from unwanted influence (Kurosites and the like).

[Acadzia]

Be glad to have you on board! Any questions, just TG me or write 'em in here.

[Iansisle]

I'm sure the Gulls wouldn't be above sticking their beaks in where they don't belong. I'll see if I can write something up tonight.

[Chrinthania]

Hello AMWers,

Forgive me for almost dropping off of the face of the planet. I have gotten my drivers license straightened out and had it reinstated as well as renewed my taxi operators permit. So, beyond dispatching, I'm also driving, which is taking up a fair bit of my time while I work to repay those who've lent my the cash to get to this point. I will return to a more active level within the next week as I will have paid everyone off this week.

Anyway, just a heads up.

[Acadzia]

Hello AMWers,

Forgive me for almost dropping off of the face of the planet. I have gotten my drivers license straightened out and had it reinstated as well as renewed my taxi operators permit. So, beyond dispatching, I'm also driving, which is taking up a fair bit of my time while I work to repay those who've lent my the cash to get to this point. I will return to a more active level within the next week as I will have paid everyone off this week.

Anyway, just a heads up.

How many times have y'all welcome me back with open arms?

Apology not accepted, because it's not necessary, IMO. Glad things are looking up for you!

[The Shambles]

Honestly guys, I am back with a view to being more "full time" than I have.

Look - new flag and everything

[Acadzia]

Honestly guys, I am back with a view to being more "full time" than I have.

Look - new flag and everything

Sexy.

[Iansisle]

Hurrah for California's return, and oh, sorry, I quite forgot about the Kutch claim, which is also fine by me.


Now that space is back on the cards, I need to figure out whether the Empire raced California or not. It seems the only alternative to trying to beat those hippies to the moon so that they don't get the Clangers stoned would be to co-operate with them. Walmington's missile programme has been vague as AMW's lunar exploration, and I now wonder if anything akin to the US proposal of the 1950s to have they and the UK split missile development between them, or the later European strapping together of British, French, and German rockets to make something space-worthy might be viable and desirable in AMW. That'll settle once and for all whether WoS chucks things at space using an evolved Black Prince or a Europa with a bear on it. I suppose this would be a matter for the discussion thread.

"All right, scissors-paper-stone, winner takes the small step first."

Bringing this over from the apps thread, along with some mildly-related musing on potential foreign relations and defense and such.

I'll admit, I hadn't initially conceived of the Californian moon-shot as a race, but it certainly could be one. The biggest problem is simply money -- with only 1/6th the population but a fraction the military spending, California can sustain long-term space projects but would seem to have trouble bursting up to the sort of numbers the US put out in the 1960s, which is why I had spread the timeline out a bit. Still, once national pride gets into it -- and we seem to spend a lot of time trying to be the fastest out here on the west coast -- it is possible that competition egged San Diego to perhaps unwise levels of expenditure. Given the somewhat disjointed nature of AMW, I'm not at all adverse to joint ventures.

I had, after all, been hoping that WoS and California would be rather cozy with one another. Perhaps not the best of friends -- Presidio Hill is unlikely to condone Walmy actions in Drapol in the 1980s, for example, nor approve of its African colonies -- but I'd like to imagine that the Oakist overrunning of Amberland was a key factor in our Great War intervention, and that the Walmy Empire can provide a spring-board for the projection of Californian humanitarian and peacekeeping force. Similarly, I'm hoping for such a relationship with Nibelunc -- a lot in this case, I think, will depend on the relationship between ourselves and Gandvik. Certainly we have no problem dealing with less-savory types if there's an economic interest in it, but I'm not sure how Gandvik's political elite will respond to constant low-level violations of their censorship laws, for example. If Riga does take a directly antagonistic role, its even possible that some drone and missile (and possibly even manned aircraft) units could be based in Nibelunc -- Munstra willing, of course.

As for the CAF, I haven't decided exactly what aircraft I'm looking at nabbing, but I will try to stay to offerings by iconic Californian corporations -- that is to say, Ryan, Convair, and General Atomics (San Diego), Lockheed (Burbank), Martin (Santa Ana), Douglas (Long Beach), Northrop (El Segundo), and Hughes (Glendale). Now, of course, many of their designs have power plants and avionics packages from outside the scope of my claim. I haven't decided if I'd rather contract foreign power plants or invent a couple of domestic producers, but I do know that we'll be doing avionics in-house. Similarly, in terms of armament, I can't say that I've any great desire to do an entire range of air-to-air and air-to-surface missiles -- if relations are suitably close with WoS and Nibelunc (perhaps as part of a general anti-Gandvik international understanding?) I think I'll just pirate most of their range, with perhaps a few iconic Californian weapons thrown in. For helicopters and CAS, I'm not sure I have a huge range of options (outside of the generally underwhelming YA-9) and might look to foreign suppliers in that case too, especially WoS and the Nibs.

I've of yet only put minimal thought into the exact composition of the Air Force inventory. For the Great War, we're probably looking at early composition of primarily B-10s and B-18s, quickly replaced by B-24s and B-26s. The B-32 may have seen some limited action at the tail end of the war. In terms of fighters, we'll probably have to make do with the P-38 for the duration, presumably updating to the -J variant after Geletia and Boh/Cass spent most of 1943-44 thrashing them up one side of Europe and down the other. The P-61 would appear as a late-war night fighter, of course. And I suppose we'll have to make a few Catalinas for the Walmies or someone. The F-80 would do as a first jet, I should think. For the age of the interceptor, I'm thinking the F-102, -104 (and corresponding scandals) and/or -106. I think we'll nab the U-2 as well. For bombers in that time period, I'm tempted to go for one of Northrop's wacky flying wings, but it's also late. I'll reconsider at a more decent hour. Anyway, then fighters move into the F-5, followed by the F-20 (which will probably still be in service as a rough F-16 analogue). Meanwhile, everyone is pouring money secretly into reducing radar cross-section, resulting in (very small individual numbers of) the F-117, the B-2, and the YF-23. Then, 'round come the drones.

Shit, I think I nodded off three times writing that. Right, bed time.

[Amerique]

I must say, a lot has changed and I'm quite liking it, it gives Amerique more interactions and more to do just as my job is winding down after the hectic summer shutdown. For one thing, the presence of a Royalist France means that I no longer need a Kingdom of New France in my history and now the mid-Atlantic states could have been direct colonies of the French Crown and, as a bonus, NG's Pays de Galles seems to be more Goidelic-focused as opposed to Welsh (perhaps because BG focuses on the Welsh? Or maybe it was just to use the banners of the Bourbon-era Irish Brigades), which works perfectly with my conception of the early pre-independence Americans as primarily Gaelic in background but speaking French as a lingua franca. I'll keep the Vinlandic-style Gaels of Fenia and Maryland as is since it's quite an interesting story, but this means that the political and religious dissidents which first came to Massachusetts under Walmingtonian protection could well have been as much "Gaels" from Britannic France as they were Bretons, Gallo and Normans escaping the Habsburg Valendian Empire and thus had much more to relate with the New World Gaels than with their Walmingtonian protectors. Perhaps New England can even be "Nouvelle-Gallelande" now. It also means that French and Gaelic can be used bilingually with a special American French arising from this, though while the original pioneers and coureurs-des-bois may have been of some of the Celtic peoples under English and French occupation along with Native Americans, the ideas of liberty and a non-sectarian culture divorced from Old World European links will be universal and the American Republics would, at present, be very ethnically diverse with a distinct and unique American culture. This does mean that I'll change Boston's name to something familiar to RL Boston itself, Boyleston, with the name arising from the English referring to the town by the surname of the expedition leader. This also gels well with much of the early RL definition of "American" having included Scots-Irish ancestry.

There are also some items on the agenda to discuss. For one, I was going to say that with NG having a dilemma over his fighters, he need not only use the Mirage 2000 as I have no designs on the Harrier and probably won't. There's actually some RP propositions I have for NG if he wants to continue to pursue revolutionary unrest in British France itself. I am really excited to see Ian took the plunge on recreating California, as there was great anticipation for it on my part.

I was actually wondering if the Greater Republics of America could have almost acted in a "big brother" sponsor role for the first two centuries, perhaps influencing the choice of republic as the governmental system for the new state and seeing California as a vital part of a type of Monroe Doctrine of pushing out imperialism from the Americas by way of aggressive spreading of republicanism, one which worked at home, in California and potentially Chrinthanium, but ultimately failed in Canada and "Aquilonia" (British Columbia), which both remained a part of the Walmingtonian Empire. Indeed, if you wouldn't be opposed, California could have had a role in the last Anglo-American Détente War or acted as a safe port in the Pacific for American ships. At some point in the 20th century, of course, California has overstepped its former sponsor on the East Coast financially to be seen as a sibling to America and we could RP these close ties further. I would be excited to see California as one of America's principal partner in the world, which could provide easy explanation for some of our shared uses of US tech and people (Upton Sinclair is all yours, btw, I have no qualms).

As far as space exploration goes, I hadn't thought of it much or featured it as most of AMW hadn't mentioned it either. Though as a student of astrophysics, I'd be remiss to say that I don't have an interest in getting involved. A Californian could have been first to space but an American first on the Moon, or vice-versa, and perhaps form a combined North American effort for a future mission back to the Moon and to Mars?

Oh, and your claim reminded me of something. I had intended for hockey and baseball to feature prominently in American sports, along with rugby (instead of American football), so we could perhaps have an international/transcontinental version of the MLB between American, Californian and Chrinthani cities.

[Iansisle]

Responding quickly before I have to run off to work, apologies if it seems terse! I don't mean it to be at all.

1) History! I had been hoping for WoS as an original patron mostly to give an excuse for having English alongside Spanish as my national languages. This is mainly a knee-jerk response against having to rename all the places. That having been said, I don't see why California would have particularly cared where assistance came from, although I am given to understand that Amerique and WoS were rather antagonistic in the 19th century? Perhaps as their relationship warmed, somewhat cordial relationships between our two claims became closer leading up to alliance in the Great War? I do like the idea of California having some sort of security commitments around the world, perhaps as a legacy of our own Great War involvement.

2) Space! So, I do think that in the heady original days, if other nations were involved, California would probably chart an independent course for reasons of national pride. Random inclusion: our main space port is outside Cabo San Lucas, with a backup at Vandenberg. In more recent years, it is likely that we'd be more willing to accept help as the cost of the 1960s and 1970s weighs on the government. Being an absolute nerd, I have of course made a spreadsheet with the general outlines of the Californian state budget along the nordic model. I have started to worry that my social spending as a percentage of GDP is a mite too low and, in an extremely realistic turning point, wouldn't mind the opportunity to shave a few billion off the space program to bump it up.

3) Béisbol! Sure, I've no problems with a major league, probably even starting in Amerique and expanding to California at some point (the Great War?). I'd probably stick mostly to RL franchises in terms of which teams, moving the Arizona team to Tucson and possibly inventing new teams for Tijuana, Hermosillo, and Las Vegas. I can't see us much getting into hockey, though. Talk to the Shield about that one!

[Chrinthanium]

Certainly there's no reason to sneeze at the idea of an MLB-style league between the three of us in North America. Would make relations between the Chrinthani, Californians, and Americans more fun in my opinion.

Certainly I am interested in having some French and Walmington influence in Chrinthania early. Just to add some more fun to trying to create this history. I certainly want some type of interactions with Walmington in the early days if only to add English into the pot. I feel that Chrinthania could act as a nice little spot for both Walmington and America to attempt to compete with each other for supremacy after the Romans pull out, with a rather murky stalemate ensuing and both focusing on other locations after it becomes apparent the Chrinthani aren't really interested in siding with one over the other (or something to this general effect).

As a side note, even though I have included Rome as the main historical antagonist, I haven't really decided to make their relationship be akin to the modern British-American relationship IRL. This is done to accomplish two goals: 1) retain the general anti-Papal view of the Chrinthani and 2) to prevent any worries about having them be chummy OOC. Besides, we know how the Chrinthani are and they're far from what Rome would consider civilized.

Again, the Chrinthani probably view Nibelunc as their key international ally, they're probably friendly with the Walmingtonians and Americans, we may, just because of proximity, have a friendly competitive relationship with California and America, though we're like the broke cousin who lives around the corner. I'm pretty certain that we're not opposed to Gandvik publicly for anything going on in Europe if only to maintain the idea that Chrinthania trades with anyone willing to do business with it. And I'd like Chrinthania to retain it's more open relations with Beddgelert in spite of recent international issues. Furthermore, the move does keep Max's idea for his filibusters to do what the do.

I am working on internal borders and renaming a few things because there's no reason to have states named after British monarch (or Walmingtonian monarchs) unless, of course, one was originally a Walmingtonian colony and we just kept the name because why not.

Economically, I may have crushed Chrinthani economic prowess as it was before, but I haven't given up hope on finding other Unique Secondary Purposes for some things that exist IRL but make no sense ICly. It is imperative to my own purposes to ensure that there are things in Chrinthania beyond oranges, tangerines, grapefruit, phosphates, and cotton.

And I think that's about as many vague and general statements as I can make in a discussion post.

[National Socialist City of Cologne]

I offer my sincere apologies in prelogue to the inevitable bloc of text, as it may contain some hideous abominations of inaccuracies; Not intended, but in lack of better sources they're probably inevitable. Also my apologies in the event that some events in the following may not be canon; They are written on a 'as is' basis of how I'd ideally view Colognea; For example, when dealing with other nations without the other nation's consent, this will inevitably be subject to scrutiny/removal of the event/relationship in the event of the other player's nation not agreeing with the points made in this post;

With that;

COLOGNEA

14,164,115 km2
40,522,957 people.
Bordering the following nations: Gandvik - Depkazia (And Walmington by water border.)

HISTORY ETC. (This is where the possible inaccuracies / non-canons come. - I really do apologize to those I name who may or may not hear of Colognea's possible relationship with them for the first time here.)

A monstrous empire stretching from the West of Asia to the East of Asia, governing 7 timezones and 40.5 million people. Established in the 4th Century AD, its sole reason for still standing to be attributed to its climate more than anything, it has seen many incarcenations over the centuries; An independent nation for all of the Dark Ages, with the occasional Mongol/Turkic tribesman prying off some parts of the land], it first gave up some of its sovereignty somewhere in the early 20th Century, when it, following a massive economic struggle, ceded some of her sovereignty to Gandvik, which led to the establishment of (Gandvik-Colognean Dual Monarchy name here.).

Colognea is in essence not a true Empire, and never really was one to begin with; It never used coercion to obtain the vast lands it now holds. The true political definition of Colognea is disputed; It is both a Tsardom (Empire) by name, but a de facto Federation as it was the federation by peaceful means into the land it now is. While many would call Colognea a Fascist nation, there are also those who would call it a Communist nation, and yet others who try to come up with words as to describe the strange position that Colognea finds itself in.
A few words are universally accepted to describe Colognea;

-Third Position
-Nationalism
-Slavic
-Christian (Syberyan Orthodox; Eastern Orthodox with more Greek influences and Roman Catholicism.)

Colognea, under its newest ruler, however, has shifted away from Nationalism and decentralized even more in light of the Monarch's wishes for the people to be happy and capable of making their own choices. While it is by all means an Absolute Monarchy, the Tsaritsa openly threatened to abdicate whenever her ministers would push for a decision/law that was unpopular with the people.
She personally attends all political discussions and meetings, and, exercising her power, pushed for more open relations with other nations than her ministers would ever dare propose. The Tsaritsa, unlike her father before her, seeks to improve relations with all the nations around the world. Many would call her naive, but only few would say that her naivety would come with no results; She's got a cheerful, albeit sometimes imposing, character, who'll stop at nothing to make her nation better for her people, while at the same time attempting to help the people of other nations, too.

However, she's not naive through and through; She perceived the world as filled with greedy people, and so she led by example by personally enlisting under an alias in the Colognean Home Guard; Controversially, she is still enlisted, and, although she makes no effort to disguise herself, still actively participates in the Reserve Training schedule, where she insists on being called after her alias.

ECONOMY (Major issue! Aaah!)

The economy of Colognea cannot be properly defined until I am sure of how many nations would be willing to trade with the strange nation that is Colognea.
Ideally, the GDP would lie in the 29-37K per Capita region. While certainly very resource rich and self-sustaining, if many powerful nations refuse to trade with Colognea, this would certainly sink. (Keep in mind that Asian Russia and Mongolia are very resource rich & have a moderate industrialization in AMW under Colognea.)

The following resources are exploited/used/found in Siberia;
Oil, natural gas, timber, nickel, gold, lead, coal, molybdenum, gypsum, diamonds, diopside, silver, zinc, palladium, fish, wildlife (various commodities), wool, meat (From cattle), wheat, barley, rye and potatoes.

The following goods are produced in Siberia;
Small arms, petroleum, fuel, furniture (Timber), jewelry, iron consumer products, gems, foodstuffs, luxury commodities, All-Terrain vehicles (Tracked, 4x4 SUVs).

Additional exports;
Low-budget films (Mostly Colognean humor; Black humor), Military equipment of all sorts (Surplus/ On contract).

Economic policy in 5 words;
Willing to trade with anyone.

Politics in 5 words:
Them Cologneas be crazy... Yo'?

[Chrinthanium]

Cologne, as far as history, that's between yourself and your neighbors. Whatever you all decide will be fine with me.

Now, moving onto a top in which I have an opinion, your economy. If you reduce the GDP per capita to 28-32K (roughly what you're stating), I'm all for it. Rome will probably not have many dealings with you owing to your geographic isolation. However, we're not opposed to trading with you. Chrinthania trades with everyone who wants to trade with it. Of course, owing to the way your products have to arrive in Chrinthania, they're probably a tad more expensive than the Chrinthani can afford, so you're probably not a major trading partner.

Moving on to Chrinthania..........

Rather than having direct Roman involvement in the formation of Chrinthania, I'd rather sort this out a different way. I do not really want to rely on one particular person/nation for such a thing. Considering my history of claim jumping, most people probably wouldn't be interested in having that much invested in something I did. However, that being said, rather than having one main colonizer and a revolution, I'm thinking that there were several small colonies which started working together. Colonies that were small and, essentially, left to the colonists to run. Having effectively created their own nation over time through treaties and whatnot until they formally banded together and created their own country. From that point on, it becomes an empire of sorts, then there is a civil war replacing the absolute monarchy with a constitutional monarchy. All I need is permission to use people from all AMW nations. I am particularly interested in having the Walmingtonians there for strategic English language purposes. Requires no real investment of your time in rewriting anything, just a simple blurb.

I had toyed with the idea of taking the four states I had and running with it, but had thought against adding North Carolina and Virginia. I'd like to ask, though, for a simple addition of the US State of Mississippi. It's an addition of 2,984,926 to the population, which current sits at 38,783,259. That would bring the total to 41,768,185. That's the only expansion I would ask for. As far as the part of Louisiana that sticks into Mississippi, while I had thought about taking the Right bank of the Mississippi River, but I just don't want to do the math involved.

[Hibernordia]

As far as the part of Louisiana that sticks into Mississippi, while I had thought about taking the Right bank of the Mississippi River, but I just don't want to do the math involved.

The Florida Parishes? Those are East Baton Rouge, East Feliciana, Livingston, St. Helena, St. Tammany, Tangipahoa, Washington, and West Feliciana - total land area 12,134.57 km², total pop (2010) 996,689.

O wait, you mean the right bank?

[Jatriqya and Hoya]

Right, so as I explained in IRC last night, I feel like Cologne's GDP per capita should be around 20-27k (27k I think is a maximum). As Chemaki and I explained last night, a fascist authoritarian state won't be anyone's number one trade partner. Furthermore, states like the FIS (as stated yesterday by Chemaki) and Byzantium won't be trading through Depkazia, and I can imagine for the Byzantines, at least, the amount of trade will be negligible, with imports from Cologne probably many times more expensive then products from the Empire, Rome or the FIS. Depending on Cologne's own politics, considering Beddgellert's current treatment (read: complete attempt at extermination) of slavs in Tsagija, I can't imagine they would be best of friends either.

Considering Gandvik was late to industrialize, as stated in Gandvik's factbook, it's unlikely that Cologne would have been able to industrialize that much faster - how would they have sold their products, transported them? Yes, it's true that Siberia does have large port facilities, however none of these are anywhere near convenient for transportation to Europe or the East coast of the Americas. Cologne is going to have major debbie downers - a huge country is more difficult to run and more costly, oil & gas are cheaper in AMW which means petro-economies aren't as viable. Finally, in AMW, economies in general aren't as strong, and an economy around 20k is mid-range, and around 27k counts as a relatively rich country.

I had more to say, but I forgot it and am going to dinner.

[Chemaki]

As far as the part of Louisiana that sticks into Mississippi, while I had thought about taking the Right bank of the Mississippi River, but I just don't want to do the math involved.

The Florida Parishes? Those are East Baton Rouge, East Feliciana, Livingston, St. Helena, St. Tammany, Tangipahoa, Washington, and West Feliciana - total land area 12,134.57 km², total pop (2010) 996,689.

O wait, you mean the right bank?

Don't worry, I checked it for the entire right bank of the Missisippi this morning (should've posted that earlier and saved you some trouble!) and the New Orleans spit. Here's what I got:

West Feliciana - 15,625 - 1051 square miles
Ponte Coupee - 22,802 - 591 square miles
East Feliciana - 20,267 - 456 square miles
East Baton Rouge - 440,171 - 471 square miles
Ascension - 107,215 - 303 square miles
St. James - 22,102 - 258 square miles
St. John The Baptist - 45,294 - 348 square miles
St. Charles - 52,780 - 410 square miles
Jefferson - 432,552 - 642 square miles
Plaquemines - 23,042 - 2429 square miles
St. Bernard - 35,897 - 1794 square miles
Orleans - 343,829 - 907 square miles
St. Tammany - 233,740 - 1124 square miles
Washington - 47,168 - 676 square miles
Tangipahoa - 121,097 - 823 square miles
St. Helena - 11,203 - 409 square miles
Livingston - 128,026 - 703 square miles

TOTAL: 2,102,810 people, 13395 square miles

[The Amyclae]

Apparently the first Vice Deputy of the Bank of England was a one Michael Godfrey who, at the battle of Namur, was killed by a cannon ball right after King William finished his plea for him to leave the battle. It led to the "cant phrase" ' to be Godfreyed.' Any relation to our own Godfrey?

[Chrinthanium]

Apparently, the Alabama State Treasurer is named Young Boozer, III. That is all.

Anyway, about the portion of Louisiana on the right bank of the Mississippi River, I'm not going to worry about it. I just want to add Mississippi if the membership agrees. That'd give me Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, South Carolina, and Florida.

[The Shambles]

If I remember to do so, I'll be sending a telegram to y'all in the guise of a student from a Shambles university asking for details about the role we played during the Great War. This helps me write things in character (for one) and makes sure I'm accurate for specifics.

Bedd and I have spoken very briefly, he suggests that at the VERY most, Shambles might have hosted/been forced to host Royal Navy ships and subs and the what-not, which I'd be happy to go with, but to be absolutely sure I thought I'd do it this way.

Ta.

[Ajuran]

While mulling endless possibilities for my new nation's name, I'm also thinking about the shape of its military, and I'm sure there have to be all sorts of armaments firms and designers from Texas, at least, but with how much people and companies move about in the USA I don't want to jump to conclusions and land on somebody's toes.

I'm probably on safe ground with Temco's trainers and counter-insurgency aircraft, which is ideal for [The Gulf States Union], and maybe some Textron armoured vehicles that might suit just as well, but actually there seem to be surprisingly few options. Is Amerique using Ling-Temco-Vought products?

Does anyone know more about what might be available for easy poaching?

[The Republic of Septentrional America] will probably enforce national service for white men, which seems likely to render between 150,000 and 200,000 military personnel, plus volunteer service for 'other' non black/native for maybe another 5-10,000, a special 'scouts' unit of indigenous personnel that gets no credit for anything despite being probably about the best formation in the military with a few hundred more men, and then a fluctuating number of black personnel in various official militia and reserve organisations.

When considering the budget, I'm imagining the white population of 15-17 million (pending final territorial discussions) effectively having a GDP around £30,000 per cap, 9-10 million indigenous subsisting at maybe £800, 41-46 million black at £1,500, 7-8 million coloured at £5,000, and 2 million other at £10,000. Ballpark £600 billion GDP, up to £24 billion parity security spending. There's a lot of effort put in to the security services, but they're horribly isolated internationally, meaning that while head-to-head the army could probably slaughter California's (and possibly Chrinthania's) ground forces without breaking a sweat, it seems certain that the air force is comparatively under-sized and struggling to keep pace with developments in sensors and engines in the global market from which it is somewhat excluded,while the navy is barely a token gesture to paddling in the surf.

Howard Hughes was a Texan, I suppose, so hop in! Maybe some light helicopters that seem suitable to bush warfare. But [The Oppidana Commonwealth] clearly needs a battlefield taxi sort of helicopter. My claim to Bell seems as strong as any, but I'm sure someone else has already used their core products by now.

I'd quite like to take the Johnson rifles now that Walmington has gone British with its firearms, because they just look like the sort of slightly odd-ball solution that this isolated state might come up with.

Maybe the desperate [Rivus Barbarus Confederacy] will become yet another Gnat operator.

[The Shambles]

I've now learned "Septentrional" as today's word of the day but I like "Gulf States Union" (or maybe "...Confederacy")

[The Crooked Beat]

First of all, a definite, though by now completely redundant, vote of support for Ajuran/Lusaka's new claim.

To address military matters, a lot of big questions to answer!

I may be totally off the mark here, but I think, after the allocation Sikorsky to Walmington, Amerique ended up with at least the lion's share of Bell helicopters, in spite of its Texan origins. Not so sure about Hughes, depends on what Ian is willing to do on that account I suppose. Maybe a mixture of imported/license-built Eurocopter designs and Hiller can work for California, while the RSA (provisional) gets to use the greater part of those handy Hughes and MD aircraft? Or to further reinforce any aesthetic link with apartheid South Africa, perhaps the option of license-building Valendian Alouette IIIs and SA 330s would be open.

Vought seems like a fairly safe source of aircraft for the RSA's air force, seeing how there's still more than enough to go around, between Lockheed Martin, McDonnell-Douglas, Grumman, and Boeing. While the A-7 and F-8 certainly aren't all that modern, they might still provide a solid foundation for a serviceable if somewhat out-of-date air arm, and I'm pretty sure that nobody else claims them.

Pretty well set in terms of armored personnel carriers at least, with Textron-owned Cadillac-Gage's line available, which also apparently built the Stoner 63 assault rifle/light machine gun. Tanks and tracked fighting vehicles are a little more difficult to locate, since most RL American production was concentrated in Amerique's claim, but possibly some prototypes could fit the bill? The T95 medium tank looks promising. I think Walmington currently uses the Cadillac Gage Stingray, so maybe the M8 Mobile Gun System could be substituted in the RSA's case? I'd guess that NG's England-France would be happy to support the RSA as well, so some RL British vehicles might actually be obtainable to fill gaps in local availability. And the Sheridan, too, if nobody's currently using it.

[Ajuran]

Thank you, TCB.

I'm finding that [the Gulf States Federation] has plenty of interesting and unusual light aircraft, if little else. In addition to the Temco 58 armed piston engine trainer and Temco Super Pinto jet trainer and COIN aircraft there's the Windecker YE-5 which I might use as an observation aircraft and to hint that [the Commonwealth of Fredonia] has or had a largely unrealised project to develop stealthy aircraft, and then the Eclipse very-light-jets for VIP transport and possibly other support uses. If the A-7 an F-8 are available, that presumable also makes the Crusader-III available as well, and I can then just loosely say that there's another project under way either to develop a replacement or import one, and we can assume that it's struggling along with limited prospects because of how expensive modern aircraft have become and how few nations will sell military equipment to [the Confederation of Cypress Erardes]. I'm liking the look of the T-95, and if Amerique doesn't need the Stoner 63 that'd probably be ideal.

Well, I've got something to be getting along with, at least!

I'll also have to spam Higgins Boats, I suppose.