AMW News Centre

[Great Italy]

Polls open for the 2015 federal elections and referenda


Priority voters (PWDs) were the first to cast their ballots in a polling station in Catania (Sicily) as poll watchers look on.

23 August 2015 last updated at 0935

English • Italiano

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ROME – Polling stations opened throughout the 76 states of the Confederation for the 2015 federal elections and referenda. 94 million voters are enjoined to cast their ballots, to elect their representatives in the National Assembly and decide on the five referendum questions.

National Assembly Elections

A ballot cast in the 2011 National Assembly elections.
Today's ballot paper for the National Assembly election
will also resemble this.

Voters from all states will be voting for their state representatives in the National Assembly. Each state is allocated a certain number of seats, depending on population. The most populous state, Venice, has 25 seats, while seventeen states have only one seat.

Each voter will cast a vote for a particular party’s list of candidates in the state. Each voter will cast only one vote for one party list, regardless of the size of their state’s representation in the National Assembly. The seats will be distributed in each state via the d’Hondt method of proportional allocation, based on the number of votes the list attained.

The ballot paper for the National Assembly elections is, as usual, white. Voters should mark the box above the party and list they intend to vote for.

Referenda
Five propositions are being decided today. They are:

• Proposition 241 (red ballot paper), concerning the removal of the Roman Catholic Church as the state religion;
• Proposition 242 (blue ballot paper), concerning confederate guarantees for the expansion of the Suez Canal;
• Proposition 243 (green ballot paper), concerning the admission of the Province of Atlantina and Republic of Vandalia to the Confederation;
• Proposition 244 (purple ballot paper), concerning the commissioning of two navy flotillas with aircraft carriers; and
• Proposition 245 (yellow ballot paper), concerning the ratification of the Treaty of Strabourg.

State Votes
This year is also a big elections year for state governments, as one-third of states are also concurrently holding state elections. Voters in Amalfi, Amazigia, Ancona, Aurasia, Biserta, Bizacena, Bugia, Cabiglia, Cartenia, Costantina, Cirenaica, Fasania, Ferrara, Forlì, Helvetia, Ipponia, Irpinia, Lucerne, Malta, Orania, Pisa, Pomaria, Sinai, Tangeri, and Tripolitania will be electing their state legislatures and state governments. Ballots for state elections are colored brown.

Apulia, Benevento, Bergamo, Brescia, Cesena, Geneva, Gigelia, Icosia, Kyburg, Lucania, Montefeltro, Numidia, Pavia, Rimini, Sardinia, Schwyz, Spoleto, and the Valtellina will also be holding local elections this year. Ballots for local elections are colored gray.

Voting
Polling stations are open until 9 PM today. The Confederate Electoral Commission expects the results to be released by tomorrow morning.

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Top Stories Today

Voter's Guide to the Electoral Process
Five Propositions: what you need to know
Polls open for the 2015 federal elections and referenda
Claudio Proetti: Yes to All Propositions

Related Stories

Voter's Guide to the Electoral Process 2 Aug 2015
Five Propositions: what you need to know 17 Aug 2015
Called up as Electoral Captain? An Overview 21 Aug 2015
Pope ups the ante for the Referendum 6 Apr 2015

[Depkazia]

Vatan
(Homeland)
Evening Edition

Caliphal Forces Move in Strength to Gallaga as Apostates Strike
Bomb, Gun, Knife Attacks kill 14, injure dozens

Militants in Gallaga dubiously identifying themselves as students of the Ja'fari Fiqh this weekend launched several unprovoked attacks in newly liberated Gallaga, apparently targeting servants of the Caliphate and their supporters in the former Shieldian colony. More than fifty people were injured and five terrorists are reported killed by security forces.

In a swift and firm response the Khagan has ordered more than eight-thousand additional soldiers deployed to the region -drawn largely from now quiet southern areas- and promised more funds for local security forces in an emergency budget to be announced next week.

The Caliph has asserted that Ja'faris and other Shia remain, 'paid-up citizens' of his domain, as do other People of the Book, and commands reflection and restraint amongst his fellow Hanafi who represent the overwhelming majority of the Depkazi populace.

Semerkand also sends reassurances to neighbours in Gandvik and the Shield to the effect that the significant troop deployment is not intended as a hostile act and will not feature, “strategic-level weapons”.

The Depkazi ambassador in Riga, meanwhile, is said to have handed intelligence on a possible Gallagan-linked terrorist threat to local authorities according to a leak 'close to the foreign service'. It is rumoured that motives for an alleged anti-Gandvian plot pertain both to Gandvian co-operation with the Caliphate and continued Christian occupation of historically Muslim lands, though Chingiz has said that such an issue need not be resolved by force where negotiation remains an option.

“Certain confused elements in the long-abused region of Gallaga” said PM Chorpan in a public address given in Qo'qon Sunday night, “appear to be taking the view that because the Khagan does not seek war so much as reconciliation with the Shield, and because he is open to trade and friendship with Gandvik, that he must be in some way illegitimate. The Gallagan people's long resistance to Shieldian oppression is always to be commended, but perhaps for some old war-horses this up-bringing now proves incompatible with the peace the Khagan has brought to us by God's will. We pray that they will see the error of their ways and return to the bosom of the Rightly Guided Caliph so that we may prosper together in faith.”

Gunboats on the Yrkani Denizi this morning reportedly fired on militant apostate positions near Hajji Tarkhan in a twenty-minute barrage that was followed up by local militias and Caliphal police units.

Inside!:
*2016 to be, 'Year of Rhubarb'
Caliph designates 'priority crop' for the next planting season, vows 'end to constipation'
*Khagan throws egg over half a mile
Taking part in a, 'light-hearted' local festival in the Sogdian Khanate on Friday, Chingiz tossed a hen's egg almost nine-hundred yards, according to event organisers. “It's all a matter of correct revolutions creating a gyroscopic effect through the yolk” the Khagan explained

[The Crooked Beat]

(OCC: Probably not quite appropriate for the news thread, but I've finally managed a post and I'm not quite sure where to put it, so, maybe with some creative framing, it could go here? Also, I hope Amerique doesn't mind my appropriating an American magazine from him. If so I will gladly remove the reference!)

Two Stories from Modern Gandvik, as published in L'Hebdomadaire de Harper of Nouvelle-Yorque
by our local contributors

Much as Doctor Olev Haberman might normally hold, in keeping with his political views, to a progressive interpretation of history, he had to admit that, as things then stood, history was looking rather more cyclical than he would have liked to admit. And while far from a specialist in that subject himself, it seemed that patterns unfolding near at hand were in their basic characteristics fundamentally no different from what had happened, with depressing regularity, during previous decades. Odd, for what so many supposed was a dictatorship, one of Europe’s most enduring, that nobody actually appeared to be in charge.

Events, as was fairly typical of Gandvian social history, after a long stretch of inactivity suddenly began to fly thick and fast, and interesting it was, alarming as well, to watch like forces of nature the confused interplay of so many tangled and obscure plans. After the pace of events finally began to wind up, matters quickly ran away from, it very much appeared, anyone’s control or direction at what struck most of those involved as a decidedly bewildering speed. In that endeavor Haberman, as chief though freshly quite powerless negotiator for ‘democratic’ Ingermanburg, enjoyed a privileged station, albeit under circumstances which he would not, earlier, have ventured to guess at.

Lieutenant-General Benckendorff, at whose headquarters Haberman sat as a de facto prisoner, was to no-one’s surprise first to take the leap, and he did so, dashing, impetuous paratrooper that he was, in every expectation of complete success. Then again, though the lithe, relatively young, athletic and active Benckendorff had inherited neither the love of fine living harbored by officers of the General Staff and those staid and sedentary regional commanders, nor the haunted sort of asceticism which characterized a few standouts, Bjorgstrom and von Knorring key among them, Benckendorff had the ancestral predilection for wishful thinking, and the para’s stereotypical self-confidence, in spades, and it would not have been unfair to say that planning suffered somewhat in consequence. Inevitably, then, Benckendorff’s coup d’etat all too reliably spiraled into chaos, and few were privileged to enjoy a perspective on the unfolding farce much more commanding than that into which Haberman, by no means of his own intent, had been placed. A comedy writer, he thought to himself, he having been given more than enough time for reflection, could scarcely have drummed-up better material, though in spite of it all Haberman found very little to laugh about.

Much as he was, for all practical purposes, Benckendorff’s captive, the manner of his removal from a morning commuter train leaving little doubt about that, Doctor Haberman’s confinement at the para headquarters was by no means particularly close, and he soon gathered that the general saw some value in keeping the municipal government’s senior elected official near at hand. Benckendorff himself had evidently left headquarters soon after Haberman’s arrival, he suspected for Riga, and staff officers, though openly contemptuous of their involuntary guest, and never above cracking a lewd joke over his invariably chuckle-inducing gynecological profession, saw fit to install him in a small room that directly abutted the operation’s very command center, and whose paper-thin walls, made in fact of a heavy paper, insulated sound about as effectively as one might imagine. At minimum, it kept boredom in check through long hours of enforced inactivity, and when the door swung open to reveal a paratrooper Major of somewhat crestfallen aspect, Haberman could well imagine the reason for his visit.

Benckendorff’s plan of action was probably not as farfetched in conception as it would doubtless appear in retrospect, and in choosing to found his plot on Gandvians’ apathy, suspicion, and pessimism, he was not breaking any new ground. Indeed, sheer disinterest in political goings-on, and a fairly reasonable expectation of universal ill intent among the political-bureaucratic class, had crowned with success schemes of an even more harebrained variety. And not to mention, it would have taken a careful observer indeed to parse-out exactly what degree of control the municipal government, such as it was, even exercised, a tangled issue even before one turned to consider city politics, which a word like morass scarcely began to accurately describe. In short, Benckendorff harbored expectations, quite reasonably, of a walkover.

In fact, Benckendorff’s grand design was doomed from the outset, and things started going wrong almost immediately. The city government had, of course, been expecting just such a move for quite some time, and while Doctor Haberman’s approach, his steadfast advocacy of negotiations with a regime in Riga which itself seemed poised to collapse at any moment, had clearly failed, the very skepticism with which the entire process was greeted by many sides meant that certain other contingencies had been taken into account, albeit not quite officially. News of a stand-off at Pietaari Suuri international airport, therefore, was as much of a surprise to Haberman as it was to Benckendorff and his staff.

Intelligence on regular army formations in and around the city was, justifiably, considered entirely adequate in completeness and quality by the airborne corps staff, due in no small part to an undiminished readiness on the part of most officers and men to divulge nearly any piece of information if asked in a suitably authoritative tone. Again not entirely unreasonably, the paratroopers assumed that the regular army, its mass of notoriously unenthusiastic short-service conscripts, would as it had at numerous prior junctures through history stay put in its garrisons and wait for things to blow over. Serious resistance, to say nothing of organized or still less decisive resistance, simply did not rate as a possibility in operational planning, so when word arrived at airborne corps HQ of abnormal activity among certain city-garrison regiments, it was only too easy to explain them away. And more than likely, such was his disdain for a regular army undeniably expert in embarrassing itself, General Benckendorff would not have altered his preparations if he did possess a full and accurate assessment of the reception awaiting his troops.

Victory, as it turned out, actually belonged to a certain Captain Olavi Jarvinen, incidentally not related to General Jarvinen of Rockfurth Reservoir distinction. Until so very recently a complete unknown, one junior officer out of thousands kept on to shepherd successive classes of conscripts through their 450-day national service, Jarvinen was one of those rare Gandvians who kept his own counsel, a characteristic, as subsequent experience would demonstrate, crucially important to present circumstances. History could scarcely have offered a more ideal moment to such a man, and an environment of administrative paralysis, where boldness and initiative could garner immense rewards, was one in which Jarvinen thrived. In line with the vast majority of Royal Army officers, and for that matter most Gandvians, harbored few of what could readily have been described as political convictions in a traditional binary sense, and his personal sense of ideological identity, incompletely-formed as it was, hinged upon considerations of a fundamentally corporate character. Rather Jarvinen was, like most Gandvians of an upwardly-mobile sort, a first-rate opportunist, and one moreover who shared with a rough plurality of his comrades a sense of professional frustration which he had found, amid his immediate circumstances, immensely useful.

And now that his plan had collapsed entirely, his prized elite troops, Habermann gathered from all too audible radio traffic, held in effect as prisoners by a scratch armored unit under Jarvinen’s energetic leadership, Benckendorff wanted Haberman himself, formerly so ill-treated and clearly seen until mere hours ago as a personage of no real consequence or import, to be his chief negotiator with the upstart Captain. As the paratrooper Major explained this, Haberman grew ever angrier, and, had he possessed a smaller measure of composure and self-control, he may well have lost his temper altogether. Instead, he sat in frustrated silence, before at length replying.

“Perhaps, if your commander had asked me this morning, or earlier,” a deliberate reference to Benckendorff’s previous scorn for the city assembly which was clearly not lost on the para officer, as his guilty frown betrayed, “I might have been able to help you. But now, what do you expect me to do?”

Klara Antturi awoke to the sound of her own hearty laughter to find, not entirely unexpectedly, that she remained exactly where she had been when last conscious of her surroundings several hours earlier. Sprawled about her in various unorthodox sleeping poses, snoring or else hiccupping intermittently, was a dangerously large share of the Ruthenian Star’s editorial and journalistic staff, none of which, it appeared, had succeeded in carrying festivities through to sunrise, such as it was in a frigid northern midwinter. Whatever she had been laughing at, and it must have been amusing indeed, she could not recall from her dream, and immediately as she yawned, clearing her bleary eyes, Klara was struck by a tidal wave of awareness and a rush of adrenaline that swept away all weariness. Draining in one mighty gulp a mug of fresh coffee placed before her by an attentive waiter, Klara hurriedly extricated herself from among her colleagues, others of whom were beginning to stir as well, and, pausing only to settle with the grandmotherly cashier her portion of a typically substantial tab, ran outside into the pale morning for the trolleybus downtown. Her watch read just after 6:30, and Vitstenkyrka had only just begun to shake itself alive, but there was such important work to do and not a moment to be lost.

Founded in that time-honored Gandvian tradition of thriftiness and enterprise, Falkman’s Restaurant was of a type that existed in every city and town, and which was in each case an indispensable part of its served area’s social fabric. In strictly legal terms, at least as would be substantiated by municipal records and building inspectors’ files, the Restaurant was in fact a parking lot, title to which was held by a distant third uncle of the eponymous Falkman and owner of a scrapyard specialized in disposing of worn-out city busses. Oddly enough, it was his tenure as a teenage attendant in that very same parking lot-by-way-of-scrapyard that launched Falkman, who epitomized that peculiar brand of Gandvian entrepreneur, on his path as a restauranteur. For an old bus, after all, stood in marvelously as a diner, two busses even better, and three better still, and in its fortieth year of operation Falkman’s had expanded to a whopping ten busses, five stacked atop five more, interconnected by old doors and exits enlarged by acetylene torch and by refurbished spiral staircases salvaged from the city’s many crumbling great houses. In return for his paying next to no taxes, and in violating, more or less flagrantly, almost every municipal building and zoning ordinance in the books, itself no small feat given the formidable girth of those hallowed volumes, Falkman ensured that police and city officials were well cared-for, fed discounted drinks and, more subtly, cash kickbacks in a semi-formalized fashion based on rank and seniority. As such, his was the establishment of choice for municipal and provincial government officials looking, as went the common saying, to tie one on, and by extension for those with an ear to government workings, alongside a diverse clientele drawn from all walks of life whose loyalty Falkman, a maître d’ hotel par excellence, cultivated with care and consideration.

Among the Restaurant’s most notable patrons could be numbered no less august a personage than Matthias Wahlforss, Mayor of Vitstenkyrka and, by virtue of his near-total control over governor Artur Nordstrom, effective leader of West Ruthenia province as a whole. Wahlforss could easily be regarded, depending on a given observer’s ideological cant, as either the best or the worst sort of Gandvian politician, an operator who moved entirely outside formal channels of government and one who generally sought to maintain civic peace by buying it. Wahlforss was, personally, a good deal less grasping than his exalted title might, in Gandvik, suggest, and that portion of state finances which he skimmed off for personal use went, in greatest part, to the maintenance of his elderly parents’ modest apartment. Instead, he took as his privilege of office the right to carry on as he was accustomed to, and that meant, invariably, passing weekend evenings, and nights that featured major sporting broadcasts, at Falkman’s. As luck would have it, the evening whose effects Klara Antturi was then attempting to shake off had been the occasion of a much-anticipated championship match in university hockey season, exactly the sort of thing that Wahlforss would never in life have missed. A game of such stature and importance brought out many more important individuals besides, and, in a flush of comradely feeling at the National Institute of Art’s improbable and very near-run victory in play, Wahlforss, gregarious, open, good-natured, and eager by nature to make friends, had grandly and amid much, some might say excessive, toasting signed his name to an entirely new municipal charter, a virtual carbon-copy of that recently placed into operation by Ingermanburg’s much-harried provisional council. Alongside Wahlforss’ signature, shockingly enough, were those of Major-General Kreutzwald, commandant of the nearby Armored Troops School, and governor Nordstrom as well, in addition to those of numerous intellectuals, trade union officials, and no small number of lay well-wishers simply caught up in the spirit of the moment.

Whether or not they had truly meant it, word of the new charter had spread as rapidly as Gandvik’s paper-and-radio media network would allow, and even that very morning, as Antturi sat smoking on the trolley, writing sentences in her head, she could count not less than seven individual transcripts posted within the car. And while almost empty, the car’s other handful of passengers were discussing the night’s momentous events almost to a person. To her great amusement, Antturi even noticed that an amorous young student couple, evidently on their way back from a round-the-clock discotheque and covered in the fluorescent dyes to prove it, were carrying on a political discussion between kisses.

Klara leapt out of the trolley’s accordion doors as it squeaked and shuddered to a stop outside the Ruthenian Star’s formidable headquarters high-rise, skipping all three steps to land directly on the sidewalk, and rushed inside without even bothering to extinguish her cigarette. After what seemed an agonizingly long elevator ride she arrived to find the tenth-floor editorial offices in a state of total chaos, her editor-in-chief, portly, balding Johannes Halonen, moving about in unaccustomed activity amid a general maelstrom of telephones ringing, typewriters clacking, papers shuffling and secretaries darting, the entire scene under a haze of cigarette smoke that, if everyone continued to burn through their cheap and ubiquitous Javas at an undiminished rate, threatened to become a veritable fog.

“Klara, thank God!” announced Halonen as he spied the first of his staff reporters to arrive for work that day. “Where have you been, where are the others?” he asked, breathlessly, having hastened over to greet her, though his mind was evidently moving faster than his mouth and he left her no time to answer. “What I need is for you to get down to the Wuhlburn building, in the business district, fast as you can. Here,” he continued, pressing a hundred-mark note into her hand, “take a taxi, there’s no time to waste. Word is there’s a riot on, somebody’s been thrown out of a window…Defenestration!” added Halonen with a nervous chuckle, “I always wondered when we’d get a chance to use that one.”

Halonen motioned furiously to a young man leaning nonchalantly against a desk, evidently unperturbed by the hurricane raging around him and quite untroubled by the heated telephone conversation carried-on by the desk’s bespectacled occupant, so untroubled in fact that he puffed quite openly on a joint which he held in his gloved hands. “Here, take Jussi. He’s new, but he’s a first-rate photographer. Come now, lad, shake a leg, this is our big moment!”

[Amerique]

An 17ú Feabhra 2016

The Ballyston Globe

Scientific Progress on the march! Mars probe launch a success!



Cayenne, Arcadia - Not but a few miles along the freeway connecting the port city of Cayenne to the state capital of Nouvelle-Orléans, the Kennedy Space Center rises out from between the palms and marshlands with a few remarkably immense launch platforms. Residents and visitors alike in the area were able to view a long-overdue and spectacular sight this morning: the launch of the first interplanetary probe in eight years and the first mission to Mars in over a decade. As the blue rocket clad in Republican Air Force and NAA insignia containing the fragile cargo reached up into the clouds in a magnificent trail of smoke and water vapor, and the Saoirse rover along with it, the scientists working with the previous Opportunité rover breathed a collective sigh of relief. While they take pride in the longevity of the tenacious little rover, it is more than long overdue for some extra help as its technology and computer systems are reaching the limits of exploration with limited processing power and functionality and an on board laboratory which is limited in scope and ability. The National Astronautics Administration had been petitioning the past three governments unsuccessfully as science research and funding for the administration, and public projects in general, reached a historic low and the space program appeared to be crumbling, with the previous administration favoring a plan for the privatization of space. Few at Cape Kennedy were expecting the surprise that a massive and much-needed boost to space and climate research would be in with the science and aeronautics infrastructure improvements included in President Marascail's National Recovery program - the Fair Deal - from the start. While the Fair Deal has earned praise from many of America's working-class, it continues to be controversial, earning the scorn and enmity of most business interests amid claims by some of the top global businesses that measures such as the seizure of corporate assets in place of direct bailouts and breakups of "too big to fail" large trusts into worker-operated or entrepreneurial grant leadership are draconian and overreaching. Nevertheless, the improvement of infrastructure, research and education funding are clearly welcome to NAA scientists and the now-growing high-tech and aeronautics industries alike with some of the first signs of success visible today from the rejuvenated launch site in the Cajun coast.

Néill de Grasse, the NAA director, is visibly jubilant as the rocket carrying the fragile capsule clears the mesosphere of the Earth and achieves orbit for the slingshot maneuver that will take it to Mars. There were many opportunities for unpredictable faults and yet the systems on board the orbiter, lander and rover components indicate that the launch was a complete success with no damage sustained. "The Saoirse is the most advanced exploration vehicle in the world to date, the impressive array of instruments, all-terrain capabilities and advanced laboratory will allow us to shed new light on our cosmic neighbor, the only other terrestrial body within the habitable zone of our Solar System that we've been limited in understanding. Among other key missions, we'll see the cosmic radiation accumulated on the yearlong voyage to the Red Planet, the search for water ice within Martian soil, the chemical composition of the red-hued soil, check for any appreciable geologic activity and monitor atmospheric conditions, all with the fastest possible communications given the light speed barrier, ease of control and the capacity to send and receive immense amounts of data that we've previously never had the opportunity for," the ecstatic project director continues, "while it'll make planetfall on the slopes of Aeolis Mons, Saoirse will have the ability to travel the entire surface of Mars and function indefinitely, and might even be able to be partnered up with Opportunité for some missions where extra sets of limbs are needed." President Benjamin Marascail watched the launch live with eager anticipation and telephoned the command center in South America directly, stating that this opens up "new paths for human and scientific endeavor and progress beyond our limited worldview", hinted at the "great potential" this will lend in the years to come for the rumored Andarta Program, the manned mission to Mars, and promised, "mark my words, the mission to other worlds by representatives of the human race, and this great nation, will begin anew within the next ten years." A bold promise indeed, and one the NAA and many others will be watching to see if the President keep. The recently-created Secretary of Economic and Infrastructure Development, Maire-Ann Riordan, under which the National Recovery Administration is managed, was present for the launch and explained the logistics which went into the mission, "the Saoirse program is American-made from top-to-bottom. We cooperated with democratic workers' cooperative-run aerospace plants previously abandoned by the economic decline, corporations who agreed to work for the public good and factories granted to ambitious young entrepreneurs willing to accept supervision, all of America came together to upgrade existing facilities, build new ones and provide the training and education to the workforce to handle such sensitive and advanced work. What we sent up today has parts from every state and a large part of the drivetrain and robotic arms, capable of working on the smallest grain of soil with the utmost precision, were actually assembled at a specialized facility in Detroit, a city which had over 50% unemployment just five years ago. This is good for science, good for America and good for the world. With more careful investments and the investigation, removal of corporate greed and waste which hurts both progress and the working people of America, we can turn the 'Rust Belt' into a paradise for high-tech and aeronautics industry, the world's greatest comeback story will show us more of these astounding achievements."

The optimism and bravado is surely infectious and points to a bright future, Saoirse is good news for all and hopefully a point of pride for years to come. Director de Grasse assures that, "we will learn more about ourselves and the processes which built and continue to affect our world when looking through the lens of another. Current data suggests Mars was very much like Earth and, who knows, it could be once again in the centuries to come." Something of a dream, to be sure, but there is very real tangible research conducted with these grants on the state of the global climate and environmental impact which gives us a better understanding of our future. By the evening, President Marascail stated that the Andarta Project following Saoirse will be one which any nations interested, and the global community as a whole, can participate in.

[Beddgelert]

Y Wreichionen (The Spark): Môr Du Ballistic Missile Test A Success
Missile launched from Serdica 'splashed-down' just outside Depkazi territorial waters

The Commonwealth Guard this Sunday conducted a successful test of a new short-range ballistic missile (SRBM), the Taranfollt-Tri (Thunderbolt-3). Launched from Serdica, the missile flew the intended 900km before landing within 120 metres of the target point in the eastern Black Sea, a few dozen kilometres from Gallagan waters controlled by Depkazia.

Depkazia, Rumyak, and the Gull Flag Republic were notified earlier in the day of the Commonwealth's intentions and the approximate course and exact target area.

Carrying a 480kg warhead, the Taranfollt series of missiles has seen succesful tests of first and second generation models, those reaching 150 and 300 kilometre ranges respectively, usually within Commonwealth territory. The success of Taranfollt-3 -trebling the range of the prior model- paves the way for a planned fourth type intended to reach 2,500km with similar precision.

The Commonwealth has already demonstrated the ability to build missiles capable of orbiting small satellites, but many of these, 'launch vehicles' are unsuited to strategic deterrence in a military context due to the time it takes to move, erect, and fuel them.


Taranfollt-Tri launch

'League' Code Given Official Recognition By Commonwealth Rugby Council
Union to be stripped of central funding

In a move perhaps telegraphed by Comrade Sopworth ApGraeme's part-time coaching in amateur matches over the last five months the younger of rugby football's two principle codes has received official state backing in the CSR at the expense of the slower and older game familiar to the British upper classes.

Rugby League originated in England late in the nineteenth century as a split emerged between predominantly working-class northern and predominantly upper-class southern rugby playing areas, partly over payments to players of the original form of rugby football which is now known as 'Union'.

'League' is a faster-paced, harder-hitting, and more physically demanding form of the old posh-school game. It is still more popular in some of the marginalised parts of the Walmingtonian domain while the old code continues to be a staple of the ancient school systems in England's Home Counties, wherein the children of high-born parents are taught rough lessons in discipline and obedience. In contrast -so says Comrade Sopworth- League teaches and depends upon co-operative thinking and teamwork.

Tellingly, during his reign Llewellyn outlawed Rugby League, alleging that it had a, “corrupting influence” on Geletia's youth.

Calls from the LoC's fringes for the outlawing of the Union code never came to a vote in the Council of Ministers but central funding for the sport has been axed from the Commonwealth's sports budget in favour of increased support for the, 'morally progressive' Rugby League game.

Plans call for the state sponsorship of professional teams in each of the Commonwealth's Republics and Autonomous provinces, with university, community, and factory clubs providing opportunities for grass-roots players to make their case for professional selection.

The Chair of the Council of State has declared his intention to see the Commonwealth's Rugby League side defeat its opposites in England, Australia, and New Zealand at least once a piece in his lifetime, committing to make the CSR a major force in the sport.

Also:
-Ffenics UAV successfully launches air-to-surface missile in landmark test
LORANA missile strikes target at range of almost 3km after launching from the Commonwealth's latest and largest aerial drone during trials in Galatia; previous UAVs built in Geletia have been incapable of deploying 'smart weapons' meaning that the combination of the Galatian Ffenics and Scordisci LORANA represents an entirely new capability for Commonwealth forces
-GDG plans to orbit mirror arrays to illuminate Lygos at night
Controversial project aims to eliminate the need for street lighting in Commonwealth's largest city

[Amerique]

An 10ú Aibreán 2016

The Ballyston Globe

President Maresial responds to potential Geletian nuclear program

Ballyston, NI - The revived Geletian ballistic missile tests since the declaration of renewed tests across the Black Sea from Akink at 13:33 EST on 22ú Feabhra of this year reveal Geletian capabilities for a ballistic missile with nuclear warhead capacity reaches as far as Depkazia, a potential range of 2,770 km, or 1,722 miles, an easy jump to any major European capital. Since the restored program, speculations abound as to what response, if any, the American Republic or the League of Nations as a whole should have to further Geletian development of ballistic missiles. Political pundits and defense officials around Ballyston contemplate a stern response or even hostility towards the nascent self-declared communist super-state in southeastern Europe. Still others look towards a common cause and identity, with the primary entities of the CSR sharing a similar Celtic root with a diverse multicultural landscape familiar to most Americans, as a way of fostering Geletia as an American ally and economic partner to encourage the Commonwealth away from upsetting global peace.

Among this climate, President Maresial urges restraint from both sides in dealing with Geletia, and makes clear that the CSR poses no existential threat to the Republic, its interests or other nations on the world stage. "We have to examine the situation with a clear-headed and rational approach, rather than be stirred by emotion into any foreign wars or diplomatic quagmires. The CSR we see today is not the ethnic-supremacist, genocidal and imperialistic Geletia of Chivo, it has a different ideology, different motives and incorporates the various ethnicities of the region as allegedly equal partners towards those goals. However, little is actually known as to what is really occuring in Akink and the full story of the CSR's geopolitical goals and plans, and their intentions, remain a mystery to all outside Portmeirion," the President discussed in a press conference on the green of the Áras na Uachtarán. Having convened a closed cabinet session on the matter after requests from Congress, the Administration reached a satisfying conclusion in conjunction with State Secretary Ms. Bríghid Mac an Léigh, who President Maresial states will contact her Geletian counterpart regarding a Presidential visit to the CSR. The President mentions that, should common ground be made on geopolitical issues with the Commonwealth's Council of State, then the trip will transform into one of "goodwill and friendship," an outcome which Maresial states is his personal hope for the visit with a "strong" and "developing" fellow republican state. Mr. Maresial closed the speech with a succinct and laconic pledge, "I will go to Akink!"

In Other News:
- Saoirse clears Van Allen belt and enters interplanetary space after final slingshot maneuver around Earth orbit - Science

- American government pledges full support from Continental Army assets at Shannon AFB near Galway to Irish gov't for the crackdown on Faithful Ireland-based unionist paramilitaries operating in the Free Republic of Ireland after thwarted attack on the Curragh Camp in Kildare killed 3 soldiers and 18 civilians in residential area; attack reportedly linked with FI, British nationals - International

[Beddgelert]

Y Wreichionen: Marascail to Visit Commonwealth
American Premier set to be the first major foreign leader to be welcomed since the Revolution

The rise of the Commonwealth of Socialist Republics has united more than half a dozen nations and created great opportunity and unheard of security in South-East Europe and Western Asia but even before its establishment there have been grave concerns for this new state's international position. Anti-Capitalist and Anti-Imperialist, the CSR appears to have few natural allies on the geopolitical stage. Indeed, many trade deals have collapsed and though the economy has made great initial strides the long-term outlook presents a view that is at best extremely murky.

So it comes to many as some surprise to learn that the President of the United Republic of America is Commonwealth-bound.

Tomás Marascail will be the first major foreign statesman received in Akink since the Revolution. Whether he comes in friendship or with intent to rebuke is not public knowledge, but his up-coming visit is inarguably one of historic significance.

Marascail's unashamed hostility to certain senior Commonwealth politicians is bound to stir controversy on both sides of the Atlantic, and Y Wreichionen understands that both the Milisia and the Gwylwyr will be providing heavy security during the visit.

Provincial Elections Unlikely to Smooth American Visit as Chivo Sweeps Durcodi Poll

Former Beddgelen President and Principality-era spy-turned-revolutionary Comrade Chivo has won the Durcodi premiership by a wider than expected margin. Running unopposed as the Social Democratic Party candidate late last year, Chivo was chosen to lead his party with 94% of the membership turning out to support his bid. This week's provincial elections saw the SDP candidate take the CSR's largest second-level administrative division with 54% of the vote on an 89.4% turn-out, easily surpassing his nearest challenger. The Trade Unions Alliance candidate -in second place- garnered 17% of the vote and the representative of the Democratic Farmers' Party 12%.

Other results from around the Commonwealth are expected over-night, and it appears that Durcodia may be something of an exception as the TUA and Women's Democratic Front poll strongly in other parts of Geletia and Tsalland, and the DFP looks strong in Galatia and Aigosagion, with Greece apparently hard fought on a disappointing turn-out that may favour the Young Igovians and the League of Culture.

Also:
-CSR To Trial 27-Hour Working Week
Auspicious 3x3x3 principle agreed to balance work, recreation, and productivity
-”Media must give corrections equal prominence to original lie or be nationalised”
Graeme lays into right-wing press culture of deception after front-page headline reverses results of study on health service & correction appears in small-print on page 17 of next edition
-Leap in hunt fatalities as boars fight back!
With three hunt participants gored to death and seven maimed before summer this could be the deadliest season in a decade

[Chrinthanium]

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[Amerique]

The Republic Today
An Poblacht Láthair
La République Maintenant

Spread of republicanism celebrated, French political exiles remembered on Bastille Day; More than just a summer holiday after July 4th


Not on the same scale as the 4th of July display, it is nonetheless an impressive and poignant display of solidarity with those living in tyranny

Nouvelle-Yorque (Núa Eabhrac), WK - A mix of revellers and solemn memorials in Breuklen the past two days were treated to an impressive fireworks display synchronized to the performance of anthems of the French revolutionary movement both past and present. The municipally-sponsored commemoration of the day in 1789 when French republicans and the downtrodden masses stormed the infamous Bastille prison was one of many throughout the country, an annual display of solidarity with the struggle of French political dissidents and the beleagured French people since the end of the Napoleonic Wars in 1815. Throughout the years, many who escaped the government suppression have come to live in exile in America and continue to be accepted by our Republic's government. While many have gone on to lead successful and prosperous lives for themselves and their future generations in their new home, a lot of these exiles still yearn for the same peace and liberty to reign in their maternal homeland or to return. The Bourbon regime has long been known for its flagrant human rights abuses in both its African colonies and in Metropolitan France, the former rivaling the Da'Kheim dictatorship in Drapol, and is notorious for its enforcement of a hereditary aristocracy which flaunts its power over the citizenry and its brazen suppression of political expression and communication, more recently through internet and social media censorship.

Bernadette Labelle, a recent exile, recounts being hounded by the Maréchaussée and threatened with incarceration in the notorious political prison at the Bastille for a blog post mocking her local marquis' generous dipping into public funds for personal extravagance while showing a noticeable distaste for the general public. "Mine was not a horribly egregious offense and perhaps that's why I escaped France with my life," she recounts "my story seems trivial compared to the sufferings of les noires or political writers in France but it does go to show have far-reaching and pervasive the surveillance and absolutism of the French King's state really is. Many of my countrymen are not as lucky as I was after expressing their dissent." It has been difficult, it seems, to fully know the goings-on within the Bastille but it is clearly operated solely for the purpose of an ominous political prison to threaten those who might dare speak against the King or the state. There is, no doubt, acts of torture, human rights abuses or summary executions both to extract information and as a form of punishment within the prison but the details and extent still remain unknown, which greatly benefits the Versailles regime. Columbina University Political Science professor Maurice Fitzroy, who has studied the Kingdom of France at length in his book "The Secret Kingdom", states that is probably intentional on the part of the inner workings of the Royalist system. The rumors and stories, as they grow in number and intricacy, themselves serve a purpose of silencing any future ideas of dissent, impropriety or, most importantly, reform, states Dr. Fitzroy.

A potent and powerful symbol in the psyche of many living within the French state, as well as those who left it, the storming of the Bastille and the beginning of the French Revolution is commemorated in the hopes that it may happen again. Many more optimistic exiles, like Mlle. Labelle, believe that King Louis-Auguste's reign of terror is ultimately unsustainable and her beloved homeland might see a brighter day within her lifetime. Until then, Mlle. Labelle and others like her from France and the Congo find the American Republic as a welcoming and gracious host and, most importantly, a friend. "Both the United Republic's government and the people have been nothing but sympathetic and understanding since I had to flee Paris, and as I had heard, my refugee status and permanent residency were quickly approved despite the usual protests from the agents of the French embassy. As well, coming from France, I was surprised to see that my Congolese friends received the same treatment." She adds, however, that they have not always received the same treatment from all segments of society. "Every nation has its faults and working with like-minded people here, I will continue to show areas where America could improve on itself, but it is done out of love and I remain grateful. My only hope is that the United Republic would be there to help rebuild should the situation in France change."

The Bastille Day march featured many such ex-pats of France as well as Americans in solidarity and was joined by Mayor de Blasio and Governor Mac Dermott. The tricolore, flag of the French Republic from the storming of the Bastille to Napoleon's declaration of empire and later used by the Republican Resistance since the Great War, featured prominently alongside our own Starry Banner in the parade and later during the fireworks in the bay. In a more tangible action towards the common goal, since the most recent state suppression in 2014, a ban on Congolese goods and companies involved in the French Congo has been in effect and continues to be championed by the Maresial Administration. The Bastille Day festivities are probably the oldest American protest of the Bourbon Restoration: an annual tradition for 150 years, in America's largest and most prominent city it continues to show the desire for a free republic for the beleaguered French people.

[The Crooked Beat]

Battle Fleets of the World (1938 Edition)
A biennial publication of the Ministry of the Navy, Riga
Edited by Lieutenant-Commander Franz Wirth, Royal (Gandvian) Navy

By its own reckoning, at least, the Shieldian Grand Imperial Navy stands easily shoulder to shoulder with any other fleet in Europe, and in fairness to that view it should of course be stated that, like much that is Shieldian today, its pedigree is beyond reproach. Nonetheless, an impartial observer would doubtless draw some very different conclusions about a fleet which, its impeccable lineage and fine manners aside, has, again in parallel with most aspects of the venerable Shieldian state, endured a lengthy, one might even say torturous decline, which even today shows no sign of stopping.

Accurate estimates for Shieldian strength at sea are notoriously difficult to arrive at, a circumstance which is mostly attributable to a peculiarly Shieldian tendency for moving ships in and out of reserve status according to no readily discernable plan, and a habit of keeping in active commission vessels whose age and condition would, to all appearances, render them imperfectly seaworthy at best. This latter characteristic very much applies to the pre-dreadnoughts Damana of Mansbar-Oeseld and Ian of Shadoran, nominally the Grand Imperial Navy’s heaviest line-of-battle ships and, with their four 305mm guns, potentially the most powerful warships currently to be found in Black Sea waters, yet which have not been observed away from their berths at Mansmouth, running under their own power at least, since 1922. The Damana, moreover, listed for many years as lost to a magazine explosion in 1911, was in fact painstakingly raised and rebuilt over a nine-year period, though her recommissioning cruise in September of 1921 was, it seems, her last. Much the same sense of ambiguity applies to the Grand Imperial Navy’s rather younger submarine fleet, consisting of between fifteen and twenty Holland 602-type boats built under license from Bateau Electrique between 1915 and 1923. Twenty boats are officially in commission, covering the full production run, but only fifteen have been positively identified, and rumor has it that at least two examples have been lost in accidents. Whether these have since been raised and recommissioned is not presently known.

Still unmistakably in active service as she approaches her fortieth year is the venerable armored cruiser St. Adie, which currently serves as the Grand Imperial Navy’s flagship. One Walmingtonian naval attaché famously described the St. Adie as a splendid anachronism, and this she surely is, a towering and ungainly specimen of a type otherwise discarded uniformly by all major navies, yet one still maintained in immaculate condition, her –arguably- limited utility notwithstanding, by a Navy which obviously continues to take great pride in her. With her six tall funnels, pronounced tumblehome, and ram bows, which according to most available evidence still sweeps down to an actual ram, St. Adie is impossible to misidentify.

The Grand Imperial Navy is somewhat more soundly provided-for in the article of those rather prosaic, if undoubtedly much more functional, minor warships which comprise the great majority of any navy’s numerical strength. Seven 1,090-ton Noriker class destroyers are, as far as is known, the Navy’s most modern vessels, the last of which, Colt, having been commissioned late in 1937. These Thornycroft-designed ships were all built domestically, with the Admiralty yards at Mansmouth accounting for three hulls, Dorchet and Ianapalis two others apiece, though fittings and machinery were, it seems, all imported from Walmington. These serve alongside an undetermined and, it appears, fluctuating number of much older destroyers also of Walmingtonian design, closely similar to the RN’s old ’30-knotter’ classes and immediately distinguishable by their pronounced turtleback forecastle structures. Due to the great local abundance of coal, these old and, one must only imagine, by now quite tired destroyers have never been converted to run on oil.

Approximately thirty locally-built Coastal Motor Boats of the Thornycroft type, a total composed mostly of the commonplace 55ft design though inclusive also of the 40ft variant since discarded by the British Royal Navy, ought probably to be counted as some of the Grand Imperial Navy’s more useful items of equipment. In Black Sea waters these small, fast torpedo boats, if handled with the customary Shieldian cavalry dash, might be expected to operate effectively against conceivable Geletian opposition, whose own 11t motor launches are somewhat less impressive craft. Shieldian 40ft CMBs, which have been observed carried aboard the St. Adie’s boat davits, would be of particular utility in harbor raids by virtue of their small size, shallow draught, and excellent turn of speed, and stand to increase the offensive potential of that rather antiquated vessel considerably.

For a nation whose heavy-manufacturing sector remains, by continental standards, somewhat under-developed, Iberia has managed some impressive feats of shipbuilding and industrial mobilization in its clearly quite strenuous effort to maintain a fleet in keeping with its status as a significant imperial power. It would certainly seem that notions to the effect that Iberia’s day as a first-rank maritime power is emphatically behind her, have been afforded scant consideration in Madrid, and such plans as have recently emerged in that quarter might well be sufficient cause for concern in London as well as in Rome. While the space between Iberian aspirations and the Armada’s present-day condition is undeniably a wide one, the crossing of which will require a substantial outlay of funds, it must be said that Iberia has managed to make very full use of those resources it has to hand.

Iberia’s somewhat ornamental line-of-battle consists of four by now quite elderly dreadnoughts, and the limited amount of work put into modernization would seem to suggest that the Armada itself does not rate their value terribly highly. Nonetheless they are undoubtedly of some use in coastal-defense and shore-bombardment roles, and reportedly also serve as training ships. Long-range building plans as recently published provide for a four-strong successor class of fully modern design, and possibly based to an extent on the Valendian Hildegard-class, though construction has yet to begin and these ships probably should not be expected before 1945. Considerably more attention has been paid to the not-inconsiderable force of cruisers and sloops, essential to the maintenance of Iberia’s vast colonial empire, and while no new hulls have appeared since the completion of three 10,000 heavy cruisers between 1932 and 1934, a requirement for up to sixteen additional vessels has been identified. Of Iberia’s eight commissioned cruisers, five belong to a pair of similar 4,900t classes designed with Geletian assistance, built between 1919 and 1928 and since modernized notably, for instance losing their original four-funnel profile in exchange for an equally distinctive pair of trunked-together stacks amidships. Some fourteen sloops are in service, the largest of which displaces roughly 1,800t standard, alongside six similar-sized minelayers with which some interchangeability of role is possible.

Flotilla craft are, as befits a nation lacking in large drydock facilities, a great deal more numerous, and some 43 destroyers and large torpedo boats have recently been joined by an ever-growing tally of Lürssen-type motor torpedo boats, the likes of which local boatbuilders have shown themselves capable of turning-out remarkably quickly and in striking quantities. The standard-type Iberian destroyer is an 1,170t Blohm & Voss design, an acceptably seaworthy, for the most part typical vessel armed with four 105mm quick-firing guns and six 533mm torpedo tubes, and believed capable of 35 knots under average load. Like most of Iberia’s smaller warships, these thirty-five destoyers, built in several distinct series from 1920, are fitted-out for minelaying. Another eight 500t fleet torpedo boats, virtually identical to the Geletian 500t type, are in service as well, though it is thought that the Armada found these vessels too small for its purposes, and plans for a substantially greater scale of construction were not pursued.

In light of the very low probability that the nation might manage to achieve parity with its rivals in the article of large surface warships, Iberia has embraced the submarine to a remarkable extent, and the Armada’s force of seventy such craft is in fact Europe’s second most numerous, though it should be noted that few Iberian submarines exceed 600t in displacement. Valendian assistance in design and construction, strongly in evidence throughout the modern-day Armada, played a particularly important role in Iberian submarine development, and it is believed that all submarine classes currently in Iberian service were drawn-up wholly or in large part by Valendian builders, chiefly Valendiawerft of Kiel and AG Weser of Bremen. While Valendia and Iberia are not known to have signed any formal pact of alliance, it would seem that the two powers’ interests are closely in alignment on most points, and it might safely be assumed that Valendian involvement in Iberian naval-building programs is far from exclusively commercial in character.

France under Louis Auguste maintains what might be described, in terms of dreadnoughts afloat at least, as the world’s second-largest navy, and there can be little doubt that it exists primarily to challenge a hitherto-unsurpassed Walmingtonian superiority at sea. Confederated Italy represents a potential enemy of only slightly lesser importance and danger, and whose own recent dreadnought-building efforts, though curtailed on cost grounds, have nonetheless forced La Royale to divide its forces more equally between Atlantic and Mediterranean commands. France’s present-day oceangoing navy owes its size and structure largely to the Etat-major General’s fleet program of 1914, which, under heavy pressure from an enthusiastic King Louis XX, effectively doubled an already-ambitious program of construction outlined in 1912 with a view to arriving at a fleet of not less than 24 ‘superdreadnought’ battleships by 1921. This brutally taxing industrial effort encountered a perhaps inevitable succession of delays and setbacks, and was constrained in scale and speed chiefly by twin bottlenecks in the supply of necessary high-quality steel and a parallel program of dockyard improvements required to permit the berthing of planned ships. As a consequence, while the planned run of 24 hulls was eventually completed, the last of these, Vendôme, was not commissioned until 1933, and such was the perceived urgency of dreadnought construction that, for want of time, materials, and facilities, the Ministère de la Marine persisted in building what were, effectively, enlarged variants of the Dauphin Royal for many years after plans for the Walmingtonian Godfrey Grace à Dieu and Valendian Hermann von Eichhorn, of significantly greater displacement and larger gun caliber in each case, were disclosed. Scarcity of steel, of shipyard labor, and of funds, maximum priority for allocation of all three aforementioned articles having been assigned to the battleship program, also compelled a sharp reduction in scope of certain cruiser and destroyer projects, which were only resumed in earnest after 1920.

French tactical and strategic planning for a prospective major war at sea is therefore constrained by the present composition of its line-of-battle, able to boast of, at best, 340mm artillery at a moment when this is in fact the smallest main-battery caliber carried by a commissioned Walmingtonian dreadnought, and when Valendia’s Hermann von Eichhorn disposes of eight 420mm rifles. And while Italy chose to complete only two of the planned four Francesco Caracciolo class, these are both armed with eight 381mm rifles comfortably superior to the standard French battleship gun in range and weight of shell.

The four-strong Richelieu class of fast battleships, their 380mm main battery arranged in two of the French Navy’s signature quadruple, internally-subdivided turrets, should help immensely to close this gunnery gap once they reach active service, and it is rumored, moreover, that these may be followed by an even larger design which adds a third quadruple 380mm turret aft. Unless some unexpectedly rapid and significant increase in French shipbuilding capacities is brought about, however, it still seems altogether unlikely that France might expect to match, even less to exceed, the pace of battleship-building set by Walmington and Valendia, and in pragmatic if officially very grudging acknowledgement of this fact the Ministère de la Marine has eagerly sought out means by which it might attempt to usefully deplete an enemy line of battle prior to what most take to be the inevitable gunnery duel between capital ships.

Where the Royal Navy might be characterized by a marked degree of – albeit usually more or less justifiable - conservatism with regard to technical matters, France, perhaps contrary to what her political system would otherwise suggest, has throughout her history looked upon innovations, adaptations, and novelties with a far keener eye. La Royale’s early and enthusiastic adoption of the automotive torpedo and the submarine give strong evidence of this tendency, interrupted somewhat by the grand plan of 1912 but by no means repudiated. From the middle 1920s, when pressure upon French shipbuilding industry had eased markedly, numerous, varied, often highly original designs began to appear on slipways and in drydocks, the sum of which was widely interpreted to indicate an earnest return to the lingering problem of how best to prepare the maritime field of battle for the big-gun capital ships. As France does not appear to support any strong interest in carrier-borne aviation, having commissioned nothing more than a solitary and to all appearances semi-experimental flat-top, Royale Thérèse, and a very large seaplane tender, Normand, this ‘thinning-out’ doctrine almost certainly rests on the dual pillars of the contre-torpilleur and the sous-marin d’escadre.

The uniquely French contre-torpilleur is a type of warship which many navies have studied, but which few have shown audacity enough to actually construct, and none in such numbers as La Royale. Thirty of these exceptionally large, fast, and heavily-armed destroyers neatly divisible into five six-ship major classes, operate in company with just under twice as many torpilleurs, destroyers of a more ordinary type, to provide the French line of battle with its primary means of tactical reconnaissance, its defensive screen, and a very potent detachable raiding force. The contre-torpilleur concept is expressed perhaps most effectively by the recently-completed Hercule class of 2,600t, whose reported 43-knot speed at trial displacement was greeted at first skeptically and then with unfeigned amazement by foreign observers. All six vessels are believed capable of 40 knots at full power, and their five 138mm guns are thought to be the most powerful currently carried by a destroyer. Two more contre-torpilleurs of still larger dimensions were recently laid-down, and once completed will be, by a comfortable margin, the world’s largest and most heavily-armed destroyers. Fleet submarines of the ‘1500-tonnes’ type perform a complementary scouting, screening, and raiding role in current French tactical-operational thought, the Marine Royale standing almost alone in its preference for the deployment of submarines, in great concentrated strength, in direct support of the surface battle fleet. The ‘1500-tonnes’ design accounts for approximately half of France’s entire submarine force, believed to number approximately 80 boats of all types and sizes, and while relatively few of its particulars are known with any exactitude, the type has been observed maneuvering at nearly twenty knots in company with dreadnoughts during fleet exercises. With luck, fleet submarines and large destroyers in wartime would manage, between themselves, to negate French disadvantages in numbers and in gun-power by sinking, between them, substantial numbers of enemy capital ships prior to any direct line-of-battle engagement.

It is virtually certain that, in a war with any of its most likely opponents, France would choose to conduct a concerted and wide-ranging campaign of capture and destruction against enemy commerce on the high seas, chief responsibility for which would most likely fall upon a number of fast light cruisers of the Armide and Gloire classes, and the mightily impressive Triton class of croiseur corsair submersible. Triton and her five sisters are evidently the last survivors of what was once a widespread fad for extremely large cruiser submarines, whose heavy gun armament would supposedly allow them to fight it out on the surface with destroyers and convoy escorts. All other examples of this type have, without exception, disappeared from service, most fleet staffs having evidently concluded that a submarine armed with heavy guns forfeited a submarine’s traditional advantages in terms of stealth and surprise without gaining those of a surface warship, though all evidence points to a radically different interpretation on the part of the Ministère de la Marine, which seems only to have stopped construction on additional Triton-class hulls so as to accelerate building of ‘1500-tonnes’ type fleet submarines. While the French cruiser submarines evidently lack certain refinements such as were observed on the RN’s own X1, since scrapped, such as a telescoping mast for its main battery rangefinder that partially overcame a submarine’s inherent disadvantages in terms of long-range observation, their twin-203mm armament, carried in a traversable, watertight, and armored forward turret, is undeniably formidable and poses a genuine threat even to light cruisers. The Triton class is particularly noteworthy for its aircraft-carrying capacity, with accommodation for a single Besson light floatplane in a cylindrical hanger built into the conning tower, spotter planes having only ever been embarked on an experimental basis previously. And although a submarine caught by a force of destroyers or sloops in the process of either launching or recovering its spotter plane would undoubtedly find itself in a critically awkward position, it has also been observed that the chances of an enemy surprising a Triton class submarine with its Besson spotter aloft would likewise be sharply reduced.

Commerce-raiding and blockade operations in North Sea, Channel, and Mediterranean waters is, meanwhile, the province of several dozen more austere sous-marins de moyenne patrouille of the ‘600-tonnes’ and ‘630-tonnes’ types, built in private yards to a relatively loose government specification, and the larger, more modern Hercule, Ecureuil, Laurier and Tourbillon classes, launched by the various French Royal Dockyards. Certain criticisms have been leveled against these boats, especially the ‘600-tonnes’ and ‘630-tonnes’ classes, with regard to their habitability and mechanical soundness, and it is thought that a French affinity for lightweight machinery, coupled with an insistence upon a necessarily somewhat cramped double-hull structure, have contributed to these boats’ less than outstanding reputation. More than once French coastal submarines have been observed returning to port under tow, while the earlier private-yard boats are thought able to carry no more than a few days’ worth of provisions. Nonetheless, it is upon these submarines that the great burden of any wartime blockade set against the heavily-trafficked Walmingtonian, Valendian, and Italian coastlines would inevitably fall.

Few states in Europe face strategic prospects quite so bleak as Confederated Italy, its northern, eastern, and western borders all shared with nations known to harbor at least a lukewarm hostility to that island of representative government on an otherwise staunchly autocratic European scene. Italy draws great strength, however, from her extensive colonial holdings in North Africa, and like imperial Rome of old the Italian Confederation is master of ‘Mare Nostrum.’ Italian naval strategy, therefore, is oriented above all to the defense of maritime traffic between peninsular Italy and its colonial ports, and Rome’s recent sharp uptake in warship-building can be explained by the ever more pressing need to counterbalance a French Mediterranean fleet recently reinforced by the two modern fast battleships Tigre and Couronne.

Italy’s very multiplicity of terrestrial enemies means that fleet construction must inevitably compete for funding with at times equally urgent Army and Air Force priorities, and not surprisingly many of the Marina Militare’s more ambitious building programs, the Francesco Caracciolo class super-dreadnoughts perhaps most notably, have either not been carried through as planned or have been abandoned altogether. Luckily for Rome, the chances that its two main rivals, France and the Geletian Triarchy, might put aside their deep differences in favor of alliance, however pragmatic, appear remote at best, and a tacit assumption among Italian naval planners that they need only expect to fight against one of those two fleets at a time has traditionally set Rome’s requirements in terms of its line of battle at a far lower mark, proportionally, than is the case, for instance, with Walmington.

Cancellation of Marcantonio Colonna and Francesco Morosini, which would have followed Francesco Caracciolo and Cristoforo Colombo into commission as the nucleus of a thoroughly modern and impressively well-armed line of battle, compelled the Marina Militare to invest in a thorough modernization of its five Giuseppe Garibaldi and Andrea Doria class dreadnoughts, still sound and serviceable vessels which however found themselves outgunned by the new French 340mm-battery super-dreadnoughts after they began to appear in Mediterranean waters from 1918. So that these might help to anchor in battle a fleet that, almost in a mirror-image of French tactics, began to place ever greater emphasis on the torpedo and the night engagement, each was reconstructed with modern director-tower fire control, increased deck armor, anti-torpedo bulges, and a greatly thickened anti-aircraft battery, while their 305mm main guns were bored-out to a more competitive 320mm. In this form they continue to provide Italy with the core of its strength in capital ships.

It appears that Italy may well stand to capture a decisive measure of both numerical and technical superiority over its French and Geletian rivals in the very near future, however, as Italian builders have succeeded in launching the first pair of what is meant to be a class of four new 40,000t battleships months ahead of their prospective counterparts in the Marine Royale. Assuming Ansaldo and C.R.D.A. keep to their contracted timetables, Confederazione and Semper Vigilans should join the fleet late in 1939 or early the next year, Verdi and Unificazione following later in 1940 and in 1941 respectively. As Geletia evidently plans no enlargement of its own eight-ship line of battle, and as the French Espérance de Dieu and Saint Thomas d'Aquin, still some way from completion, are both rather smaller and less heavily-armed, the four Confederazione class battleships should supply the Marina Militare with a comfortable margin over its likeliest opponents in any future Mediterranean naval war.

The Italian line of battle is supported by a numerous force of cruisers, included among which are some very fine vessels, and others which, though subject to a measure of criticism both foreign and domestic, undeniably betray a great deal of technical originality. Four ships of the Venice class, displacing 11,000t and sporting eight 203mm rifles, are regarded especially highly for their neat lines, useful armament, and 33-knot speed. The twelve light cruisers in service, all named after Italian cities, range in size from the small Bari class of 6,500t, intended to overtake and overpower the French contre-torpilleurs, to the 11,300t Bergamo class ‘large light cruisers,’ and this tally is shortly to be increased through the addition of a planned twelve Esploratori Oceanici, 3,750t ships of exceptional speed almost certainly intended to beat the contre-torpilleur at its own game. The first of these, Avellino, is planned to start building at OTO Livorno next year, and recent reports suggest that Gandvik’s naval attaché has entered into serious discussions over a potential license-building agreement for the design.

The Marina Militare’s 60-odd destroyers are decidedly a mixed bag, and like nearly all modern navies Italy too has felt compelled by force of circumstance to keep in active service vessels whose utility under modern conditions is perhaps questionable. Many of Italy’s newer classes of destroyer betray a definite degree of French influence, and reflect if nothing else an awareness that, in any prospective future war with that power, Italian destroyer flotillas will necessarily have to contend with a set of almost uniquely well-armed opponents. Qualities such as long-term habitability, seakeeping, and steaming endurance have always been treated as secondary to considerations of speed and armament in Italian destroyer design, the Marina Militare’s area of operations being almost wholly confined to the relatively calm and confined Mediterranean, and as a consequence the average Italian offering in that class is typically held to lack the sturdiness and sureness of handling demanded by nations like Walmington and Valendia of its fleet destroyers. Most Italian destroyers, the very large Esploratori notably excluded, were as a rule significantly smaller than those built for other navies, and what increases in size and displacement were eventually brought about tended to be taken-up with heavier armament and improved fire control. The distinctively Italian propensity to install advanced gunnery directors aboard many of their destroyer vessels has attracted special criticism from abroad, as it seems unlikely that a ship so small and so lively in a seaway as a destroyer, even a large one, would gain much in terms of gun accuracy from such equipment, but the Marina Militare shows no sign of discontinuing the practice. In fairness, it should be noted that French destroyers are widely held to suffer from many of the same deficiencies, their greater displacement and larger dimensions carrying in turn a proportionally heavier weight of armament and gunnery-direction gear and by all accounts a mid-Atlantic cruise aboard a contre-torpilleur is a distinctly hair-raising experience.

Proper fleet destroyers, at least as they are understood in Italy, are supported in their turn by a large number of torpediniere, functionally quite similar to Walmingtonian sloops-of-war or the Valendian Geleitboot, and intended to carry the burden of convoy defense work in wartime. Approximately 30 of these small, efficient ships are thought to be in service, and in many aspects, especially by virtue of their torpedo armament and good turn of speed, they might almost be considered miniature destroyers. Their great advantage over destroyers of the larger variety, of course, is their relative ease and rapidity of construction, suiting them ideally for the less glamorous though in no way less vital missions of convoy escort, antisubmarine warfare, and harbor defense. As the Royal Gandvian Navy discovered, however, after commissioning four license-built examples into its Baltic fleet, if the average Italian destroyer suffers in terms of seakeeping, accommodation, and range, this is doubly true for the small, one might say over-armed torpediniere.

Italy’s fleet of submarines stands, at present, at a grand total of some 107 such vessels, and this is by far the world’s largest, though Amerique measures up at a close and closing second. Much in the French manner, the Marina Militare has, for most of its modern history, looked upon the submarine as ideal insurance against any temporary French or Geletian line-of-battle superiority, and as an excellent means of whittling-down its prospective enemies’ fleet strength prior to a decisive clash of dreadnoughts. The doctrine of the sous-marin d’escadre, however, is not one in which Italian naval planners have ever placed much faith, not least due to the immense technical challenge represented by the building of sufficiently powerful diesel engines, and Italy’s submarine force is instead composed of long-range oceanic patrol classes, most of which operate out of North African ports within easy reach of Atlantic shipping lanes, and smaller coastal types, regarded as especially important for the defense of peninsular Italy’s Adriatic flank. Modern Italian submarines are, as a rule, competently-designed, efficient, mechanically reliable, and decently habitable designs which do not suffer from the apparent French propensity to cram their own designs with new, often untested equipment, and which are subject to no requirement that they be capable of making and sustaining fleet speeds, with all the attached stresses on motive power and hull weight.

No few eyebrows were raised upon publication of Geletia’s intent to complete four 24,500t Amaethon class super-dreadnoughts from 1914, a development which caused great alarm in Rome and puzzlement elsewhere, most experts having been unable to discern why exactly such a nation, whose maritime commitments beyond immediate coastal waters seemed next to nil, would choose to pursue a costly and industrially taxing program of dreadnought construction. Foreign opinion notwithstanding, the four dreadnoughts were duly launched and commissioned, to join the three surviving Andred class dreadnoughts and to furnish the Geletian Triarchy with a line of battle briefly superior to, and thereafter roughly equal to, that of Italy. All seven of these ships remain in commission today, as far as can be discerned, though ships of the Andred class tend to leave port somewhat rarely, and it is clear that the lion’s share of funds and resources available for modernization has been directed to the Amatheon class, their 350mm main battery by far the more useful caliber.

Celtic dreadnought-building is perhaps still more surprising in light of the Triarchy’s otherwise inordinate enthusiasm for torpedo craft, and apart from a relative handful of scout cruisers, themselves displacing not more than 4,500t, no Geletian warship exceeding 4,000t standard displacement has been commissioned since 1923. The Triarchy’s destroyer force, conversely, is immense, numbering over 80 hulls, and generally composed of large, fast, heavily-armed ships which compare very favorably to most of their prospective Italian and Shieldian opponents. Nearly as many large torpedo boats are in service as well, most of them somewhat smaller than the typical Italian torpediniera, though admirably well-adapted to their intended function nonetheless and notoriously difficult to spot at night. With a small handful of older ships, retained for training or minelaying duties, excepted, the Llynges has largely standardized on two main destroyer designs, the 1,270t Cacynaidd class, most numerous at present, and the impressively well-armed 1,700t Glaif class. The latter is closely comparable to the Valendian Großes Torpedoboot 1916, particularly in its very heavy battery of four 150mm guns, though as with the Valendian ship one wonders whether the advantages of an unusually large gun caliber are not cancelled by the inevitable reduction in ammunition supply and rate of fire, the awkwardness attendant in handling a perhaps uncomfortably heavy cartridge along a heeling and slippery deck, and a destroyer’s inherent instability as a gunnery platform. Main torpedo boat classes are the 500t Terrwyn and 1,000t Cleddyfwr classes, the latter, it is believed, having originated as an export project for Iberia, which tends to share Geletia’s animosity to Italian dominance within the Mediterranean sphere. There is also an 11t fast motor launch in service, evidently in quite substantial numbers, which can be fitted out either as a gunboat or torpedo carrier, and while not equivalent in performance to the latest Baglietto MAS boats, it is, to all appearances, perfectly sufficient for its primary coast-defense and harbor protection role. Most of these are operated by part-time naval reservists and militia, and customarily stored on land, so it has proven rather difficult to establish exactly how many might be available for wartime use.

Foreign observers have offered up a number of hypotheses aimed at explaining the surface torpedo craft’s preponderant importance to Geletian naval tactics, many of them entirely convincing if, individually, rather less than complete, and to begin with there can be no doubt whatsoever that Celtic thinking in this field was shaped decisively by the often stunning successes achieved by such vessels during the Saimonan War, of which Cymorthcenedlaethol’s sinking of the Romanian dreadnought Ereuthalion, an exploit which entirely altered the maritime balance of power in the space of an afternoon, is only the most celebrated example. These experiences served to demonstrate in starkest terms the relative value for Geletian maritime strategy of capital ships, unwieldy, expensive, lavish in their demands on metallurgical and manpower resources, and of inexpensive, maneuverable, relatively expendable torpedo craft, albeit in in a manner that clearly failed to put the Llynges off dreadnoughts for good. The peculiar Celtic system of divided command and split responsibility doubtless weighs heavily on the issue as well, numerous flotillas of small ships providing space enough for initiative and independent action on the part of commanders and crews who, one might presume, would find the inflexible discipline and immediate obedience inherent to effective maneuver by a large body of line-of-battle ships entirely unacceptable. The accuracy of this view seems to be upheld by the fact that Geletian dreadnoughts are seldom observed to sail in groups of more than two ships, while those rare attempts made at maneuvering the whole line of battle in concert tend to exhibit a marked sloppiness which stems, presumably, from the absence of a single overall commander.

There also exists an undeniable cultural affinity for the type and manner of warfare that the torpedo boat embodies, the dash and daring required of a successful small-ship officer, and the ample opportunities presented for highly visible acts of individual courage, conforming, no doubt, far more readily than the ponderous and intricately-choreographed evolutions of a battleship squadron to the deeply-rooted traditions and notions of military honor that characterize what remains, to a very remarkable degree, a warrior society. Indeed, many experts have opined that Geletia’s dreadnoughts are meant to function above all as bait, helping to draw an enemy line of battle in search of a decisive gunnery showdown into a torpedo ambush. An identical dynamic can be seen in Geletia’s almost wholesale repudiation of the submarine, in the near-unanimous Celtic view a skulking, dishonorable, unmanly weapon perfectly suitable for the cowardly Shieldians and Italians, but far beneath the dignity of a self-respecting Celtic fighting man. Less easy to credit are certain persistent rumors that the Llynges’ lack of a submarine force is due at least as much to an allegedly morbid fear among Celts of any significant descent below the sea-surface, explained as the consequence of a still-widespread belief in sea monsters and aquatic necromancy of a more general sort.

One of the most interesting developments in Geletian shipbuilding since the Saimonan War has been the Lynges’s pursuit of ever-increasing operating ranges for its vitally important flotilla craft, especially the Glaif-class large destroyers, and this trend may well tie-in neatly with the presence aboard those particular ships of heavy 150mm guns. As Italy, doubtless, looms larger than any other power in Celtic naval planning, it might reasonably be inferred that the Triarchy means to employ its large destroyers as fast surface raiders and minelayers, against maritime traffic between the Italian Confederation’s substantial North African colonial holdings and metropolitan ports. The prospect of an anti-Italian alliance between Geletia and Iberia, both linked, to an extent at least, by a powerful strain of Celtic chauvinism, and perhaps more significantly by a shared hostility to the Mediterranean’s predominant imperial power, would make any potential break-out from the Eastern to the Western Mediterranean in wartime that much more troublesome. Any campaign against Italian commerce either within the Medierranean or on the wider oceans would undoubtedly feature Geletian auxiliary cruisers in a prominent role, and it is widely believed that most Celtic merchantmen, certainly those built in domestic shipyards, carry all the fittings and reinforcements necessary to support heavy gun armament and possibly torpedoes. Still others, most notably the rather smaller ferries and steamships operated by the military-owned Black Sea line, are known to have been designed for rapid conversion into auxiliary minelayers.

[spoiler=The Royal Navy]Despite troubling signs that its once-unmatched margin of superiority at sea is diminishing at a rapid rate, due not least to a substantial increase in naval construction on the part of the American Republic, its vast shipbuilding and metallurgical capacities hitherto under-utilized, the British Empire’s position as sovereign of the seas remains, for the present time, beyond dispute. As author of the all-big-gun dreadnought battleship, by now adopted universally by all nations able to bear the requisite economic burdens, Walmington set capital ship development on its present-day course, and a characteristic aversion to anything untried and untested has categorically failed to erode the RN’s perhaps uniquely high standard of excellence in the naval-architectural field. A full three decades after Dreadnought’s launching, British builders and engineers continue to put forward designs every bit as important and innovative, and the RN is still in overwhelming part the standard against which all others are evaluated.

An extensively developed domestic base of industry and an early lead in what would become known as the dreadnought race permitted Britain to maintain for some time a force in keeping with the so-called Two-Power Standard, itself to be numbered among the most striking manifestations of popular nationalist fervor observed in Europe so far this century. By this, the RN was committed to maintain a line of battle that surpassed in strength those of the next two largest navies combined. Unrealistic though it certainly appears in retrospect, this policy grew the RN to monstrous proportions within a relatively short span of time, and at its peak, British strength in capital ships stood at a well-nigh unassailable 48 battleships and battlecruisers in either active service or reserve. Such a pace of building was, under conditions of ever-increasing overall size and technical complexity, and therefore of construction costs per hull, manifestly unsustainable, much the same holding true where fleet numbers were concerned, and after approximately 1922, amid signs of economic exhaustion, the formerly lavish scale of spending on navy projects was scaled well back. At present, in pragmatic deference to Valendian, French, and American building programs which even British industry cannot hope to vastly overshadow in its earlier fashion, the RN strives to maintain a fleet ‘second to none,’ probably a sensible policy in light of the very remote possibility that states so hostile to one another as Britain’s traditional antagonists might attempt to combine against their mutual enemy. Diplomatic rapprochement with Amerique, meanwhile, seems likely to foster at least some level of military cooperation related to both powers’ strategic misgivings over French and Valendian imperial ventures.

The wholesale scrapping of older 12-inch-gun battleships and battlecruisers between 1920 and 1925, inevitable as an economy measure and additionally justified by France’s standardization on the 340mm (13.5in) gun, almost halved the RN’s line of battle with a precipitousness that alarmed many a jingoistic temperament, and under present circumstances it seems highly improbable that Britain will ever again approach its former standard of numerical strength. Some 32 battleships and battlecruisers are nonetheless available for war service, as against 28 French and 19 Valendian line-of-battle ships. Contained within that total is a round dozen of somewhat aged 13.5-inch-gun ships, kept on in reserve, it seems safe to guess, due more than anything to the near-impossibility of replacing them on anything close to a ship-for-ship basis. For so long as the 340mm gun remains preponderant in French usage, they will doubtless retain some value in battle, and while most funds for modernization have been allocated to the ten 15-inch-gun ‘super-dreadnoughts,’ whose appearance coined that term, the older ships have received modern fire-control equipment and additional antiaircraft weaponry in the course of successive refits.

Britain’s line of battle is anchored upon the eleven 15-inch-gun ‘super-dreadnoughts,’ ships whose standard of firepower and protection, together with their then-impressive 24-knot speed, placed them squarely at the summit of maritime technology when they first appeared. Their heavy main battery preserves, in large part, their military usefulness in spite of their age, and all have been treated to a number of extensive modernizations throughout their commissions. Many of these ships have been rebuilt with visually striking tower-type bridge structures, massive, slab-sided constructions not a little reminiscent of a medieval castle keep, atop which are carried the ships’ new main battery director control towers and a variety of other gunnery directors for medium-caliber antiaircraft and secondary-battery weaponry. This particular design made its debut on the three entirely unique and immensely distinctive ‘O3’ battleships of 33,900t, whose highly innovative ‘all-forward’ battery of nine 16-inch guns, at present the RN’s heaviest, permitted a marked reduction in the length of the main armored belt. By grouping the guns in such a manner, British constructors were able to obtain a first-rate standard of protection, particularly against high-angle shellfire and torpedoes, on a very modest displacement, a remarkably odd-looking ship being the unavoidable result.

Perhaps the most dashing and elegant of Britain’s line-of-battle ships are the four Admiral-class fast battleships, their clipper bows, fine lines, and massive, clean superstructures making for a sharp contrast with the typically cluttered older dreadnoughts and the ‘wrong-ended’ O3s. The class was very nearly cancelled outright, their advanced stage of construction alone saving them, following the results of gunnery trials with a pair of recently-decommissioned early dreadnoughts in 1919, which illustrated in starkest terms the terrible danger posed by plunging shells at long range. As the design had been finalized well prior to the general appreciation of that particular hazard, their deck armor was perilously thin, necessitating lengthy and expensive rebuilding before any could be accepted for fleet service. Now clad in many unanticipated new tons of heavy armor, the four Admirals, quite understandably shorn of their original battlecruiser rating, are limited to a best speed of approximately 27 knots as against their designed 31, and in consequence of their reduced freeboard tend to ship a great deal of water in rough seas. Two more 27,000t battlecruisers, completed prior to the 1919 gunnery trials, were modernized also in accordance with its findings though not near as thoroughly, and can still approach, if not quite attain, their 31-knot design speed.

In parallel with the latest round of battleship-building underway in virtually all of the maritime powers, work has begun in Britain as well on the new 35,000t King Godfrey I-class, five hulls having been laid down last year with 1940 as their planned year of completion. That the new class should wield 14-inch (360mm) guns at a moment when 15 inches is to all appearances now the standard European caliber was decidedly a puzzling piece of news, and one which most foreign observers have put down to an economy measure, replacement of aging 13.5-inch-gun ships presumably rating so urgent a priority as to dictate strict limitations on displacement. The new class is otherwise understood to be of thoroughly modern design and capable of high speeds, and it should be expected that what is to appearances an interim ship will soon be followed by a new design more in keeping with the global trend for greater displacement and heavier armament.

Great Britain’s extensive, indeed unparalleled colonial commitments, coupled of course with the great importance attached to fleet scouting, compel the maintenance of an extremely large and varied cruiser force. Especially prevalent in home waters are the approximately three dozen C, D, and E class light cruisers built between 1914 and 1926, whose seaworthiness, ruggedness, and limited size are qualities admirably well-suited to their primary role as scouts for the battle fleet. Fully-turreted armament schemes serve to usefully distinguish seventeen generally far larger and more heavily-armed fast light cruisers added to the fleet from 1933, of at least twice as many understood to be on order, from those older vessels, still chiefly carrying their guns in partially-open mountings. Equivalent at least, if not in some aspects superior, to the numerous French light cruisers built since 1922, the new cruisers are routinely deployed on colonial stations where their advantages, relative to the C and D cruisers, in terms of habitability and autonomy stand them in good stead. In any prospective conflict at sea with the likes of France or Valendia, both powers known to entertain some sort of commerce-raiding strategy, these station-keeping cruisers would shoulder the burden of protecting Britain’s tremendously vital maritime trade in distant waters. A full twenty eight-inch-gun heavy cruisers are in service as well, disposed among a similar range of fleet, colonial, and trade-protection roles, though some doubts have been expressed as to the merits of the 10,000t Wendsleybury-class design that accounts for the preponderant share of this total. Nonetheless it has proven something of a success in export sales, Iberia operating two almost identical ships and understood to be contemplating another pair.

Again in line with the battle fleet’s tremendous scouting and screening requirements, and to say nothing of the importance placed upon anti-submarine warfare by that famously trade-dependent Empire, the RN’s destroyer force is, at over 180 hulls, undoubtedly the world’s largest. Trade protection and colonial policing are seen to by over fifty sloops-of-war as well, manned in many cases by contingents drawn from the wider British Empire. The RN has, with one important exception, spurned the French-inspired trend otherwise so strongly evident European navies for the ‘super-destroyer,’ building instead a succession of weatherly, functional, rugged, and economical standard classes whose basic form the Admiralty established with its Finch-class design in 1916. The vast abundance of Finch-class hulls, still quite useful in spite of their age, permitted the wholesale retirement of nearly all older destroyers, only a handful of which now remain in the reserve fleet. The new Falcon class of some 1,800t represents something of a departure from normal British practice in its ample dimensions and very heavy gun armament, eight 4.7-inch (120mm) weapons being fitted in four partially enclosed twin turrets, the great size and gun-power presumably justified in light of the strong probability that the class, while discharging its designed fleet-scouting role, would in wartime encounter the fearsomely-beweaponed contre-torpilleur or the equally formidable Valendian Zerstörer.

British doctrine as it pertains to the wartime use of submarines bears some important differences with that of France or Valendia, the RN, though having to all appearances abandoned its search for a high-speed fleet submarine along French lines, still tending to see submarines as, within its particular national context, most useful for attacks on an enemy battle fleet. As neither France nor Valendia could expect their merchant marine to survive for very long in the event of a war with Britain, whose station-keeping cruisers would probably round up whatever belligerent merchantmen happened to be at sea in a matter of weeks, the RN tends not to see commerce-raiding as a productive use of its submarine flotillas if for no other reason than a presumptive scarcity of worthwhile targets. British submarines would instead strive to intercept enemy fleet elements, commerce-raiding cruisers and enemy submarines especially, as they left their anchorages, while simultaneously maintaining a picket line for warning of any unexpected sortie. The results of this shift in doctrine can be observed most readily in the new submarine P100, which can, if necessary, loose a salvo of not less than ten 21-inch torpedoes from its forward tubes, such firepower a direct reflection of the difficulties inherent in attempting to hit a maneuvering, fast-moving warship at anything but the shortest ranges.

Of the approximately 65 submarines currently in service, at least two dozen are older Holland-type boats and their enlarged domestic derivatives chiefly employed for crew training and as targets for antisubmarine forces, efficient, reliable, and generally well-liked boats in spite of their gaining years. About twenty of the not altogether successful ‘overseas’ submarines appear only seldom at their intended colonial postings, the RN evidently preferring to maintain what undoubtedly accounts for a large proportion of its modern submarine strength in home waters. Initially designed with fleet cooperation as one of their main tasks, the very large overseas boats were never quite able to make their designed speed, while the need for extra fuel bunkerage in order to support their colonial mission saw them fitted with a notoriously leaky set of external tanks. Though far less ‘stretched-out’ than the French fleet boats, where the insatiable quest for 20 knots on the surface carried in its wake a parcel of serious engineering problems, the British overseas submarines are often described as unwieldy, and are thought to have encountered their own share of mechanical problems. Closely based on the overseas boats is a class of six submarine minelayers, notable for their use of a conveyor-belt minelaying system, running nearly the full length of the boat’s upper casing, rather than the somewhat more common arrangement of external mine tubes.

A great deal more is clearly expected of the 730t P50-class of coastal submarines, whose record in service so far is usually characterized, excepting the normal range of teething troubles, as stellar, and which would most likely serve as the foundation of any prospective war emergency construction program. Eight of those sturdy and maneuverable double-hulled boats are believed to be in service at present, with up to another twenty on order, and while comparable in size to the French sous-marin de moyenne patrouille, they appear to have been free from the range of mechanical defects known to dog the Marine Royale’s coastal submarines. P100, meanwhile, is the first of what might be up to several dozen new medium-range boats remarkable, as noted, for their extremely heavy torpedo battery. Joining those two classes, expected to form the bulk of British submarine strength into the next decade, is yet another new design, a small 630t coastal patrol type originally designed as an antisubmarine target, yet found suitable for general fleet service on strength of its excellent handling both surfaced and submerged, and quick diving time. Such a submarine would in all likelihood find itself very much at home in relatively shallow Channel and North Sea waters, where its necessarily limited range and small torpedo battery would not be such important disadvantages on short-range patrols, and where its maneuverability and compactness would doubtless prove very handy.

After a long-running succession of attempts at building a truly effective high-speed fleet submarine that ranged in character from the merely unsuccessful to the downright calamitous, the RN, much as it might have wished otherwise, has now abandoned the concept fully, a planned class of some twenty very large fleet boats having been cancelled after the completion of three hulls. These particular boats, while naturally of limited importance to a fleet which now has no especially clear role for them, make for an interesting comparison with parallel French developments, and help to illustrate the magnitude of technical obstacles standing in the way of the fleet submarine concept’s realization under present circumstances. P700, P701, and P702 are quite possibly the finest examples of their type, and apart from their elegant lines do not suffer from the 1,500-tonne sous-marin d’escadre’s chronic engine troubles. Nonetheless, in order to accommodate the massive diesels needed to achieve the specified 22-knot design speed, Walmingtonian constructors were compelled to draw-up a boat whose sheer size precluded adequate submerged maneuverability or safe handling in coastal waters, and one so closely governed by the need to obtain every possible horsepower from those diesels as to sacrifice armament and diving depth to a degree that, on strength of the project’s result, seemed unreasonable. All of those engineering compromises, moreover, were needed to achieve a surface speed that, in light of recent developments in battleship construction, no longer appeared adequate, the ultimate consequence of which was to persuade the Admiralty that its limited funds would be better spent on more cost-effective endeavors.

Britain alone among the maritime powers of Europe has devoted significant resources to the development of a fleet air arm and its primary agent at sea, the through-deck aircraft carrier. While the RN has shown a definite reluctance to assign its aviation forces a role independent of the main battle fleet, as, for instance, American doctrine appears to entertain, as a subsidiary task at least, there can be little doubt that, if nothing else by virtue of its considerable size, the British Fleet Air Arm constitutes a very powerful offensive and defensive element in its own right. Of six commissioned carriers, five can be considered suitable for fleet work, with the sixth example chiefly used for training and as an aircraft ferry, though all of these hulls are by now somewhat elderly and cannot be compared to the far larger, far newer American vessels. The thoroughly modern Typhon of 22,000t, however, is nearing completion and should join the fleet by the end of this year, where she will soon be joined by the four somewhat larger Minos-class ships. Still notably smaller than the two largest American fleet carriers, which were, after all, initially laid down as battlecruisers, all of these new British vessels carry armor over their flight decks and hangars, and must therefore be regarded as inherently more resistant to battle damage. Perhaps the British carrier arm’s most glaring weakness is its clear lack of modern aircraft, a condition attributable in no small part to the RAF’s monopolization of funds necessary for design and development, and of course to Admiralty officials’ preference to concentrate their own far from bottomless budget upon what are deemed more critical capital ship projects.

[The Crooked Beat]

Battle Fleets of the World (1938 Edition, Volume 2)
A biennial publication of the Ministry of the Navy, Riga
Edited by Lieutenant-Commander Franz Wirth, Royal (Gandvian) Navy

As continental Europe’s foremost industrial and therefore military power, one which has never shown any reluctance to assert its interests either in the European sphere or further afield, Valendia is set, it sometimes seems, in natural opposition to Walmingtonian sea-power and colonial preeminence. Steady increases in Valendian industrial output, which by 1900 comfortably matched that of Walmington, engendered in almost direct consequence a conviction, by now immensely influential in political discourse and in the world of civilian opinion, that Walmingtonian control over the oceans was unfair and unjustly burdensome to the growing Valendian economy with its hunger for export markets. Overseas, meanwhile, Walmington seemed intent on hoarding the fruits of colonial conquest for itself, to the arbitrary exclusion of those states with at least as much right to territorial aggrandizement in that manner. These various strands of ideology and economic circumstance very soon wound together to set off perhaps the century’s greatest arms race, and one which even today, though susceptible of course to temporary lulls, shows no sign of abating. Now that political power in Valendia has been seized by the fervently nationalist and revanchist Wilde Jagd party, the chances for a violent reckoning of those hitherto unresolved controversies appear better than ever.

Valendian dreadnought construction has always tended to lag some way behind that of Walmington, at least in terms of pace and scale, largely for the basic reason that while the Royal Navy clearly enjoys priority of need, receiving the lion’s share of an already very large treasury allocation, the Kaiserliche Marine’s status in government, eminent to be sure, is nowhere near as exceptional. A multiplicity of landward rivals, albeit none of them individually quite so powerful as Walmington, dictates the maintenance of an immense and well-equipped army as well, a far cry from the small RWA, and funding is seldom to be had in quite such abundance as to fully underwrite the ambitions of both services simultaneously. Conditions of worldwide economic depression as were encountered during the late 1920s and the first half of this decade, which among much else helped to bring the Wilde Jagd movement to power, were of course hardly conducive to ambitious naval construction programs either, with the result that progress on a number of important projects was stalled altogether for years. It now appears that a much more ambitious Valendian program of 1922, drawn up in response to the Walmingtonian Admiral class and the distinctive O3s, has, in abridged form, been taken up by the Wilde Jagd government under the designation ‘Plan-Z,’ the chief objective of which seems to be the building of ten modern fast battleships by 1947. These, once completed, will presumably allow some of the older dreadnoughts, retained in service as a consequence of the economic situation, to be progressively replaced, promising to leave Valendia, on paper, with a line of battle more modern and, with respect to the individual qualities of its ships, more powerful than any other in immediate prospect.

Like all naval powers, Valendia was compelled to make up a great deal of lost time in its effort to match Walmingtonian dreadnought-building, and an important consequence of this late start was to place an emphasis on numbers, rather than upon technical characteristics necessarily. At a time when experienced and well-developed Walmingtonian yards were completing heavy battleships at an incredible rate, the preference of the Valendian Admiralstab was for a dreadnought of proven and established design that could be built relatively quickly and within the limitations of existing dockyard facilities. Circumstances similar to those governing French dreadnought construction tended to guarantee that Valendian battleships were smaller and less heavily-armed than those of the RN, as the time needed to bring about any significant change in practice would only see the Kaiserliche Marine falling yet further behind.

Early Valendian dreadnoughts did, however, carry a proportionally far greater weight of armor than their average Walmingtonian counterpart, savings made in weight of armament and in high-speed machinery being customarily reinvested in protection, as it was considered vital that the Kaiserliche Marine’s line of battle be able to survive significant damage in any surface gunnery engagement. Shell-handling and flash-proofing practices were, moreover, far in advance of what prevailed in the contemporary RN, and it should be noted that Valendia alone among the major European navies never lost a battleship to an accidental magazine explosion. This engineering focus on armor and survivability, even if at the expense of armament and speed, is still very much at work in Valendian naval architecture, and its influence can readily be perceived in admittedly scanty published designs for the recently laid-down Hildegard-class fast battleship.

At present, the Valendian line of battle consists of nineteen battleships and battlecruisers, most of them extensively modernized. The four 26,000t Heinrich VII-class dreadnoughts are the oldest in service and, with their 305mm guns, most lightly-armed, though in most respects they are probably not all that inferior to one of the older French or Walmingtonian dreadnoughts still in commission or reserve. Four Brabant-class dreadnoughts are equivalent in gun power to the RN’s 15-inch-gun ships, and, if significantly slower, most likely superior in the article of armor and watertight subdivision. Seven large battlecruisers of the Steyr and Sagëbrecht classes might more properly be termed fast battleships, and, having been designed to counter the Walmingtonian ‘super-dreadnoughts,’ are not only larger and faster, but much more heavily-armored as well, while retaining an identical main battery of eight 380mm heavy guns.

After what was by any reasonable standard an extremely high pace of building, economic exhaustion brought on a sort of lull in the dreadnought race between approximately 1919 and 1924, a notable slackening of Walmingtonian construction offering Valendia an opportunity to begin serious work on the extremely large Karl der Große class of 43,800t. As it had become, by that point, fairly clear to Valendian naval planners that they could not really ever expect to out-build Walmington, certainly not to anextent where they might stand some chance of achieving numerical parity with the RN, the Admiralstab formalized a policy that had undoubtedly already exerted considerable influence over Valendian battleship design. Namely, it was decided, in future, to focus upon building the largest and most powerful ships practicable, a single one of which might well manage to do the work of several smaller French or Walmingtonian dreadnoughts while simultaneously making more efficient use of personnel and materials. In the event, owing in no small part to the fact that dockyard-space limitations permitted construction of only one hull at a time, work proceeded at an agonizingly slow pace, the fourth and final ship launching only in 1929, a full decade after the class was authorized. The Karl der Große is nonetheless still, by a notable margin, the largest battleship afloat, and looks likely to keep that title for the moment at least.

The Valendian battle fleet is screened, in home waters, by a numerous force of fast fleet scouts, Flottenkreuzer, built in several related, progressively-enlarged and improved series from approximately 1916, ocean-going or fleet torpedo boats, and the large new Zerstörer classes, super-destroyers comparable in many important respects to the French contre-torpilleur. From an initial preference for relatively small, short-range fleet torpedo craft whose designation as ocean-going torpedo boats was very apt, as a rule significantly smaller than corresponding Walmingtonian ships and neither as seaworthy nor as heavily-armed, Valendian designs grew markedly in size, sophistication, and armament to a point best represented by the Großes Torpedoboot 1916, which, contrary to what its rating might otherwise suggest, was by any reasonable international standard a very large destroyer. Variations on the highly satisfactory 1916 design account for the largest single share of Valendian destroyer strength at present. A series of three Flottentorpedoboot classes, much smaller ships intended to replace the older ocean-going torpedo boats, covers approximately an additional two-dozen hulls.

Sixteen 1934-type destroyers, in effect Valendian contre-torpilleurs and in some respects, perhaps, a logical next step beyond the Großes Torpedoboot 1916, have recently joined the fleet as well, and will almost certainly be followed by at least twice as many such vessels, if not many more, so as to completely replace the serviceable, though undeniably aging, 1916 design. The 1934 design’s 2,300t displacement and correspondingly heavy armament place it in almost the same class as the French super-destroyers, and would appear to provide for a significant margin of advantage, in the article of firepower, over all except the largest Walmingtonian destroyers. Recent reports suggest, however, that the 1934-type destroyer as built suffers from a number of very serious structural and mechanical defects, necessarily placing in doubt the attainability in practice of their 36-knot design speed, while the destroyers’ propensity to ship an excessive amount of water over their bows in a seaway would seem liable to render their two forward guns almost useless in rough conditions. It remains to be seen as to whether subsequent Valendian large destroyers, of which perhaps up to fifty may eventually be built, will rectify the 1934 type’s observed deficiencies.

Valendia’s maritime commerce-raiding strategy is at least as well developed as that of France, if somewhat different in precise character, and, likewise, doubtless considers Walmington the most probable wartime enemy, one, moreover, widely considered especially vulnerable to disruptions in merchant traffic. Cruiser warfare, clearly, serves as the central prop of Valendian plans in that arena, and where France would constitute its raiding forces from among fast light cruisers and the colossal Triton submarines, the Kaiserliche Marine has gone so far as to create what is, in many respects, an entirely new class of warship for that purpose. While roughly equivalent in displacement to a typical heavy cruiser, the three Kerala-class Panzerschiffe sport an armament of six 280mm rifles, in triple turrets fore and aft, furnishing a comfortable gunnery advantage over all contemporary heavy cruisers of orthodox design. These so-called ‘pocket battleships’ are particularly noteworthy on account of their all-diesel machinery, the first such arrangement used aboard a warship of anywhere near that size. For a vessel not necessarily required to attain fleet speeds, diesel propulsion offers both significant weight savings over a more typical steam plant and the promise of a great increase in unrefueled range. These ships are customarily deployed to colonial stations in peacetime so as to place them to best advantage in the event of a war breaking out, their exceedingly heavy armament presenting a serious obstacle for the light cruisers and sloops customarily employed by other powers for trade protection tasks.

It is widely suspected that two 32,000-ton battlecruisers and three new large heavy cruisers of 14,000t, all currently under construction and nearing completion, would be employed as detached surface raiders in wartime, though, as they appear likely to join the Valendian High Seas Fleet in home waters, they would presumably operate in the northern mid-Atlantic area. The Kaiserliche Marine’s current force of seven modern light cruisers are believed to lack the range for independent raiding missions, while progress on a planned class of six improved follow-on cruisers, more suitable for open-ocean convoy raiding, has reportedly suffered from a number of lengthy setbacks including, if recent information is to be taken as valid, an almost complete revision of the originally-approved design. At present, it is not clear as to when these ships might be completed, though they should probably not be expected before 1940.

The Kaiserliche Marine, though an early leader in submarine design, and particularly in the design of high-power diesel engines so essential to submarine operations, maintains a submarine force roughly equivalent in numbers to that of Walmington, consisting primarily of small coastal boats ideally suited to mass-production in wartime. A new 770t medium-range type has recently been introduced as well, and it is understood that a large number of hulls, many of those undoubtedly built to a somewhat modified design, are on order. Valendia has largely abandoned the concept of the large, gun-armed cruiser submarine, having never much taken to the high-speed fleet submarine for that matter, and while Valendian boats would almost certainly help to interdict a prospective enemy’s merchant traffic, current shipbuilding patterns suggest a confidence in the gun-armed surface raider’s greater value.

Offensive and defensive minelaying operations have always appealed strongly to the Valendian Navy, which expects to fight any prospective naval war in relatively confined and heavily-trafficked waters, quite possibly also at a numerical disadvantage, and while offensive minelaying at least has always been seen as a mission suitable for destroyers, a number of specialized minelayers have been built as well. In addition to a standard array of coastal and convertible auxiliary craft, the Kaiserliche Marine has recently commissioned four large open-ocean minelayers of 5,800t, which are believed capable of carrying up to 400 mines and can boast of a 28-knot speed. Two other ships of a very similar design and, it might be guessed, similar capabilities are in service as cadet training vessels, and in wartime would almost certainly revert to a mine-warfare role.

While auxiliary and coastal craft have, for the most part, been omitted from this particular study, mention should be made of Valendia’s standard type of motor torpedo boat, the several classes of Schnellboot currently in commission. These quite outstanding diesel-powered boats, manufactured for the most part by Lürssen Werft, are especially noteworthy for their abnormally large displacement, at up to and over 100t often twice the corresponding figure for most widespread foreign designs and almost four times the displacement of Walden-Vulcan’s Type 7W MTB. Valendian S-Boats differ also in their use of a traditional rounded hull form, preferred for its better seakeeping characteristics, in place of the hard-chine or planing hull found on most modern British and Gandvian coastal torpedo craft.

After an extended holiday from major warship construction projects, a result at first of attempts to secure an international treaty on arms limitation and then of a painful economic depression, the American Republic has committed itself to a rearmament program of immense scope and scale, one which Amerique’s unmatched industrial capacity would furthermore appear to render eminently practicable. In reply to a deteriorating political situation in Europe generally, and in particular to some perhaps ill-judged, undoubtedly farfetched revanchist rhetoric issued by both Versailles and Steyr, each of which power no doubt harbors some very distant desire to recover their lost North American colonies, Amerique has undertaken to build hundreds of new destroyers and submarines, dozens of cruisers, and most crucially, close to ten large fleet aircraft carriers and fifteen modern fast battleships by 1947 at latest. Even when replacement of obsolete or soon-to-be obsolete hulls is taken into account, this effort will almost certainly furnish Amerique with one of the Atlantic world’s largest and best-equipped navies.

Its major-construction holiday notwithstanding, Amerique has still succeeded in maintaining quite a formidable fleet by any standard, at present tied with Valendia for third-largest line of battle at nineteen dreadnoughts. Many of these are by now quite elderly, and doubtless slated for replacement once the new fast battleships are completed, though others remain powerful and competitive designs. In common with most contemporary Valendian and British line-of-battle ships, the nineteen American battleships have all been treated to a series of extensive refits so as to preserve their military usefulness during a time of rapid technological change, and in its modernized form the American line of battle can be considered entirely the equal to any other currently afloat, ship for ship. Important changes were made, generally, to propulsion arrangements, with oil-fired machinery substituted for coal-burning boilers, to fire-control systems, to masts and superstructures, the old and structurally-suspect ‘lattice’-type masts replaced with stronger and more stable tripods, and underwater, nearly all hulls receiving anti-torpedo bulges for additional protection from that particular weapon at some slight penalty in speed. Many of the newer ships also saw their casemated secondary batteries removed and replaced with turreted dual-purpose guns.

As a rule, American battleships compare favorably to most contemporary European classes in the article of protection and firepower, the Continental Navy having, in some ways, managed an ideal fusion of the characteristically British focus on heavy firepower and the Valendian emphasis on survivability in battle to yield designs whose only real deficiency is in speed. This is especially true of the so-called ‘Grand Cinq,’ five vessels of approximately 32,000t displacement, distinguished by their highly successful turbo-electric machinery, and while Amerique has only recently started work in earnest on a modern type of fast battleship, the Franklin and Guillaume Tell, currently under construction and expected to launch in 1939, can certainly match any French or British dreadnought in immediate prospect. Only the British Admiral, Valendian Hildegard, and Italian Confederazione classes are significantly larger, and these fit a 380mm main battery to the American ships’ 406mm rifles. It is understood that Franklin and Guillaume Tell will most likely be the first two, most likely also the smallest, of more than a dozen new battleships, the entire run to be completed not later than 1947.

Two exceptionally large and fast aircraft carriers, initially laid-down as part of a cancelled battlecruiser class, are at present the most powerful ships of their type afloat, and have played an especially interesting role in the doctrinal development of fleet aviation. Constellation and Constitution have recently been joined in commission by a pair of new 20,000t carriers, Rousseau and Tigre, with a third, Indivisible, and a fourth, Hercule, albeit of a somewhat different design, soon to follow, and these, taken together with the rather older Chasseur of 14,800t, should bring the Continental Navy’s shipboard aviation force to a strength of seven such vessels by 1940. Britain alone might be expected to acquire a comparable number of aircraft carriers by that date, and while the value of carrier-borne aviation remains a point of considerable disagreement among the various national fleet establishments, France and Valendia in particular appearing to reject its importance almost entirely, it seems most difficult to conclude that a mobile aviation force of such size and operational maneuverability could not be employed to influence any prospective modern war at sea in a very significant direction.

A sizable scouting and screening force close in strength to those of France and Valendia if notably smaller than the Royal Navy’s corresponding arm is thought to include some 18 heavy and 19 light cruisers and nearly 130 destroyers. American light and heavy cruisers are powerfully-armed and well-protected ships by international standards, and while at least one variety of the latter is known to have encountered some seakeeping issues, it is believed that all such problems were largely cured over the course of subsequent refits. The seven just-completed Nua Eabhrac class light cruisers are especially impressive ships, sporting no less than fifteen 152mm guns in five triple turrets, and would appear to have set the standard for future cruiser construction in Amerique as all known planned classes notably repeat their distinctive flush decks and high freeboard.

Until a point, by no means all that far off, where new construction programs begin to bear visible results, several very similar classes of old flush-deck vessels, known locally as ‘four-pipers’ due to their distinctive funnel arrangement, will continue to form the plurality of Amerique’s sizable destroyer force. Of almost two hundred hulls built with stunning rapidity between 1917 and 1922, in some respects as a reaction to the so-called French War Scare of 1916, over seventy remain in active commission with at least as many available in reserve, presumably able to be returned to operational condition in short order. Given that a successor class to the flush-deck type did not appear until 1932, the speed at which Amerique has subsequently built up its fleet scouting elements is all the more striking, and the approximately fifty ships delivered since that date, divisible into five distinct classes, are of a recognizably modern design. Significantly larger than their predecessors, and featuring a more typically European raised-forecastle hull, these vessels all sport the new-standard 38-caliber 127mm (5in) dual-purpose gun, alongside an ample armament of torpedoes.

After several decades of often frustrating and unrewarding experimentation, Amerique has at long last succeeded in devising a fully satisfactory fleet submarine.While undeniably beaten to that particular milestone by strategic rival France, it seems that the latest American classes, comparable in surfaced speed and displacement to the French ‘1500-tonnes’ type and much superior in the article of range, have managed to avoid the French boats’ chronic mechanical issues, excessive noise, and crampedness. It has been reported that the first of a new fleet class, believed to be the prototype for a subsequent mass-production series, exceeded 21 knots on trials without undue exertion, though, like all large fleet submarines, their maneuverability while submerged must be considered suspect. As yet, however, the modern fleet type accounts for only a relatively small proportion of American strength in submarines, and is unlikely to overtake in number the far more abundant, if arguably somewhat obsolete, Holland type until 1940 at the earliest. A group of nine semi-experimental submarines, the so-called ‘V’ series, is also in commission, and while not considered entirely successful designs, they were clearly of some value as test-beds for machinery and building practices. Amerique’s largest submarines, a 2,700t minelayer and two very similar gun-armed cruisers, are included in that ‘V’ group, and are notable for their exceptionally long operational range. These particular boats are believed to have encountered especially severe problems with their diesel powerplants, and reportedly failed to make anywhere near their 17-knot design speed, so it is perhaps not surprising that American interest in this type of submarine has waned sharply.

Of all the major European sea powers, it was Gandvik which, arguably, took Admiral Aube’s Jeune Ecole ideas the most seriously, and in light of recent technological advances the doctrines of intensive mine and torpedo warfare continue to hold great relevance. The Jeune Ecole strategy appeared from its inception one exceptionally well-suited to peculiar Gandvian conditions, namely the immovable facts of geography which compel the Principality to maintain three separate fleets whose ability to reinforce one another in wartime is severely constrained. Matters have only become more difficult since Valendia’s completion of the Kiel Canal, which permits the Hochseeflotte to transfer ships readily between the North and Baltic seas without recourse to the Skagerrak, which would undoubtedly be blocked in wartime with extensive mine barrages. Military and merchant traffic flying the Gandvian flag, however, is obliged to make use of far more uncertain passages, and as a consequence the Principality’s strategic planners have long regarded the Baltic and Atlantic fleets as, for all practical purposes, fully isolated from one another. Recourse to the mine and the torpedo, weapons able to produce effects entirely out of proportion to the size of ship needed to carry them, is seen by the Admiralty Staff as the only practical means of maintaining a sufficient balance of forces in both areas simultaneously.

The clear attractiveness and applicability of Aube’s theories has not, of course, obviated the need for a strong line of battle, and after a relatively late start, the Royal Navy was able by 1912 to join the dreadnought race in earnest. Ten such vessels currently fly the Gandvian flag, of which three customarily operate with the Baltic Fleet, and seven with the Atlantic Fleet. Drydocking facilities of sufficient size to accept dreadnoughts exist, at present, at Nidaros, Gothenburg, Tukholm, Reval, and Ingermanburg, so it is customary for Atlantic Fleet battleships to undergo maintenance in the Baltic when the slipway at Nidaros is occupied. These ten battleships can be divided into the Patria class of 1912, the Karl XII class of 1915, and the Gustavus class of 1922, the first two series comprising four hulls each and two in the latter case. By no stretch of the imagination can the Royal Navy’s battleships be classed amongst Europe’s largest and most powerful, their normal displacement, as built, ranging from 22,000t to 24,600t, and main battery from 343mm to 356mm, all figures which, as it is well known, have been healthily surpassed by foreign designs. It must be conceded as well that their construction, undertaken at a relatively late stage to begin with, was beset by numerous, often severe delays, blame for only a portion of which can be laid at the feet of what one might call external elements such as labor unrest or economic difficulties, and of the ten, only the final two, Eerik VII and Fredericus, were completed both on schedule and within sight of their forecasted costs. With the current line of battle approaching, now, to within a perilously short distance from the end of its planned service lifetime, which for Draken, the youngest Gandvian battleship, should expire in 1951, it is obvious that a successor program is urgently required, and it is understood that the Department of Naval Construction has invested considerable energy into the preparation of several possible designs, though in light of the so-called Stackelberg Line’s immense budgetary needs and its correspondingly deleterious effects on naval building, there seems little chance of such a project gaining formal approval in the near term. Most worrying to fleet officers has been some unguarded discussion within the corridors of power at the Admiralty Staff that the new battleship may well take a somewhat radical form.

Precisely in common with most other navies worldwide, faced with an identical need to preserve in service aging dreadnoughts until long-deferred follow-on classes can be completed, the Royal Navy has treated all of its existing battleships to a series of comprehensive refits and reconstructions, the sum total of which has served to alter their external appearance and equipment outfit considerably. All ships are now fitted with centralized director control for their main batteries, the mammoth armored towers containing relevant optics and calculating machinery resting in turn atop an imposing tower-type forward superstructure which recalls that found aboard the British Nelson class. Many have also received heavily-flared clipper bows in order to lessen the effect of their much-increased normal displacement on seakeeping, particularly the modernized dreadnoughts’ propensity to ship excessive amounts of water over their forecastle decks when steaming into a head sea. Amidships barbettes were plated-over for similar reasons, secondary batteries so disposed being extremely difficult to serve in any sort of a seaway. Less immediately apparent though of immense significance for their military effectiveness were the addition of anti-torpedo bulges on all ships not originally constructed with that feature, significant increases in armor thickness, particulatly to decks and turret tops, and a complete change-over to exclusively oil-fired machinery plants. While the ships’ considerable gains in weight over their designed displacement has scarcely improved their seakeeping characteristics, never regarded as outstanding, the process of reboilering on an exclusively oil-fired pattern served to increase markedly the space available below decks, making possible a much-improved scheme of watertight subdivision.

Ten Gandvian heavy cruisers of the 1921 program are to be joined, if construction proceeds according to schedule, by eight more improved though quite similar vessels by 1941, themselves authorized in 1937. Notably inferior in the article of displacement to most foreign designs, and, it must be conceded, in gun power as well, the Delmenhorst class is nonetheless particularly well-armored by international standards, a characteristic certain to be repeated in the new heavy cruiser class. Somewhat similar in concept to the Valendian Panzerschiffe, though altogether different in role, are ten additional heavy cruisers of the Fenix and Morian classes, displacing 7,200t and 7,600t respectively. These relatively short, beamy vessels can be regarded as a response to Gandvik’s peculiar geographical handicaps, and represent an attempt to gain a maximum practical standard of gun power at least possible cost. As the Admiralty Staff did not consider it essential that these ships should be able to attain high speeds, space and weight which might have been allocated to steam machinery was instead invested in a scheme of protection that, for such a hull, is remarkably thorough, and a heavy armament of four 280mm guns in two twin turrets. So armed, heavy cruisers of the Fenix and Morian classes might be expected to act as useful adjuncts to the main line-of-battle ships under some circumstances at least, while they would undoubtedly present anything short of a battleship with a very formidable challenge.

Retirement of all save for the three youngest Svard-class ships, in spite of their modern features dangerously near and in many cases past the end of their structural lives after three decades or more in commission, has left the Royal Navy with a relatively small, though interestingly diverse, force of light cruisers. This includes, in addition to the three aforementioned surviving Svard-class vessels, extensively modernized between 1930 and 1935, three more Jalopeura-class aviation cruisers of a unique design, two 4,000t Falk-class and two 3,000t Drake-class flotilla leaders. While the four ‘L’ class fast minelayers are often classified as cruisers in foreign publications, the Royal Navy itself does not rate them as such, and additional details pertaining to these particular vessels can be found separately.

The Royal Navy tends to prioritize for its flotilla craft, a term which in Gandvian usage should be read to include submarines, destroyers, sloops, frigates, and small motor vessels, qualities of simplicity, reliability, robustness, and economy, and fairly strict adherence to those somewhat conservative principles has largely allowed the Constructor’s Office to resist agitation, from both within and outside the fleet, in favor of such recent innovations as the fast fleet submarine and the super-destroyer. While Gandvian ships in this category are therefore, as a rule, significantly smaller and less heavily-armed than their foreign contemporaries, it might perhaps be argued that, for small vessels particularly, any attempt to pack a hull with advanced equipment and complex new technologies is far more likely to degrade its military usefulness than to improve it.

Gandvik’s present force of some 105 destroyers ranks as the second largest in Europe and third most numerous overall, though any comparison drawn exclusively on numbers of hulls in service will necessarily be somewhat misleading. This point is aptly illustrated by the so-called Standard Fleet Type, far and away the main variety of Gandvian destroyer with no fewer than 89 hulls in commission, ten in various stages of building, and up to 40 more ordered. A displacement that ranges, depending on exact design, between 950t and 1,060t standard would place these ships far more comfortably in the class of a Valendian Fleet Torpedo Boat than a 2,300t Zerstörer, and if they are not nearly so inferior in scale to most British destroyers, they are undeniably so in armament and in steaming radius. Nonetheless the Royal Navy is reportedly very satisfied with the Standard Fleet Type’s performance thus far, as clearly indicated by the immense volume of past, ongoing, and planned construction, and proposals for larger destroyer designs have, until very recently, been consistently rejected. Economic considerations in favor of a small design, more readily manageable on the part of smaller shipyards, notwithstanding, Gandvian fleet commanders remain very much attached to a doctrine that assigns tactical paramountcy to the destroyer’s torpedo armament, and the Standard Fleet Type with its low silhouette and excellent turn of speed, 1934-design standard destroyers being capable of a full 39 knots under load, is in many ways an ideal large torpedo craft.

To the twelve complete eight-ship standard-type destroyer flotillas, plus one fitting out, has recently been added a single additional flotilla of eight new 1936-design, or 1,750t-type, large fleet destroyers. In its embodiment of an obvious departure from normal Gandvian practice the 1936 fleet destroyer proved, unsurprisingly, a controversial project, albeit one which resulted in a very satisfactory warship, and it is likely that another flotilla will be ordered.

Essential if perhaps unglamorous tasks like coastal escort and anti-submarine patrol are chiefly entrusted to another large fleet of assorted vessels, including some 22 re-rated 500t-type destroyers, eight of the new Italian-designed 800t-type torpedo boats, 41 of the 250t 1930-design minesweeping aviso, and over fifty guard boats of various classes. The latter category includes both Admiralty-type fast motor gunboats and the older ‘contract’ boats, built in private yards to a Navy specification that allowed much latitude for improvisation. Current plans provide for a doubling of the escort and minesweeping force by 1941, orders having been placed, and construction started, on a new 400t sweeper-aviso and wooden-hull 60t inshore sweeper, each to be built in substantial quantities. A design has also recently been approved for a new 730t frigate, up to 30 of which may eventually be required. The Royal Navy’s present order of battle includes some eleven coastal motor torpedo boat squadrons as well, and of nearly one hundred motor torpedo boats in service, by far the most common is Walden-Vulcan’s 12t Type 30, a fast and elegant vessel which possesses the added advantage of being readily transportable by rail. License-built versions of Italy’s recent Baglietto MAS account for the balance of Gandvik’s motor torpedo boat force, and it is probable that they will serve as a starting point for planned future construction.

Standardization and rationalization efforts have lately succeeded in reducing the Royal Navy’s once exceptionally numerous and diverse submarine inventory in both variety and number, albeit while greatly, it is hoped, improving its rates of serviceability and operational readiness. Until such time as a projected long-range patrol submarine appears, and in light of the heavy backlog at most Gandvian shipyards this probably should not be expected in the near term, the Royal Navy will be equipped with two main classes, a 400t coastal type and a 690t medium-range type. Performance is in both cases solidly unexceptional, though the boats are reported to handle well both on the surface and submerged, the 400t design being especially quick to dive and comparatively easy to maneuver in shallow waters. More important, from the Navy’s official perspective, was that the 400t and 690t types should prove mechanically reliable and quick to build, objectives which largely appear to have been met. Twenty-seven 400t-type and thirty 690t-type submarines have been constructed to date, and they are, between them, likely to account for nearly the whole of immediately-foreseeable Gandvian submarine building.

The naval mine, which for both sides proved so devastatingly effective in the Baltic War of 1890-92, continues to occupy a tremendously important place in Gandvian military planning, and it can readily be assumed that any significant naval clash in northern waters would feature minelaying on a vast scale. Since their advent as somewhat rudimentary ‘moored torpedoes,’ naval mines have grown in capability, sophistication, and destructive power to a point where they must undoubtedly be ranked as one of the most important and dangerous maritime weapons, and one which, moreover, might usefully be deployed by even the simplest of auxiliary vessels. All of the Royal Navy’s destroyers, avisos, and frigates are fitted out for this task, as are the four flotilla leaders and a typical assortment of merchant auxiliaries, and in wartime these numbers would doubtless be bolstered by extemporized conversions. The very high priority assigned to mine warfare in Gandvik was also judged to warrant the construction of four special fast minelayers, similar in concept to the Valendian Brummer and Bremse, and while the combination of a very modern dual-purpose main battery with its attendant fire control equipment, and a superheated steam plant able to deliver a sustained 35 knots, carried with it an unsurprisingly high price tag, the ships are undoubdtedly among the most capable of their type. Their primary task in wartime would, in all likelihood, be the establishment and maintenance of mine barriers well out to sea, beyond the normal range of airborne or destroyer minelaying.

(OCC: Well, at last, the great(ly stupid) work is 'complete,' pending of course interminable rounds of more-or-less minor edits. Kept France in, because I think the French Navy is interesting.)

[Amerique]

The Republic Today
An Poblacht Láthair
La République Maintenant

Trouble brewing on the Missouri? Congress passes sanctions on the Gulf Federacy

St.-Louis, Illinois - The Republic's relationship with our southern border has varied greatly over the years, in times in conflict and others in amicability. The stance our avowedly liberal democracy should take towards a white minority-dominated state, one which Amnistie Internationale once termed among "the world's most heinous human rights violators", on our own border is a matter of great political debates in the halls of Ballyston for the past century and a half. From the Frontier War of the 19th century to economic cooperation during the Great War and the cold reception experienced by Gulfer diplomats from various Presidents during mid-century conflicts with California, there have always been sharp differences among foreign policy thinktanks. Some have always argued the realpolitik angle: that the proximity of the Gulf States and their strategic position is vital to the health of the North American economy so the American Republic should look beyond ideological differences and humanitarian issues for the pragmatism of peace and prosperity, as well as avoiding any potential damage to the American heartland itself that any conflicts would no doubt cause. However, in promoting liberal democracy, republicanism and condemning regimes that threaten natural rights, there is an inevitable accusation of vast hypocrisy when the same attention is not applied to the Republic's very neighbors. The radicals among the social-democratic Republicans have always pushed a decidedly more hawkish attitude towards the Federacy of the Gulf States and Fredonia, despite the financial insecurity of disturbing the status quo on the continent and the current Congress finds itself led in this more hawkish direction. While there is hardly any support for hostilities with Fredonia, it is no surprise that the Office of Strategic Services, with the tacit approval of the executive of the Republic and congressional leaders, has worked to support resistance among the non-white second-class and third-class citizens of the Gulf States who have been clamoring for reform for so long. There are some issues lingering on the peripheral, of course. For years, there has been illegal immigration over land at the Missouri River border of the long-suffering second-class of Gulf States society to seek out a better life for future generations in Amerique itself. While the most common response is to accept these migrants as refugees and support their arrival in the Republic as such, sometimes to the consternation of the Federacy's embassy when the Republic refuses to return those deemed "fugitives" or "terrorists" back home, there are nonetheless some congressional voices in opposition, and a few in the President's own party, who ask why the welfare system and social services of the American Republic should be put under such strain for often unskilled or "illiterate" foreign aliens while simultaneously antagonizing a neighbor.

Those voices were dominant in the Republic's foreign policy during the previous decade before Marascail's presidential victory and the Republican-Socialist coalition nudging aside the business-minded Liberalists in Congress. What had been a time of developing economic links across the Missouri and the Mississippi river system, with many Nouvelle-Yorque companies profitting off investments in the Gulf, is now mostly a memory as relations have grown cold again and the President has issued stern condemnations whenever the white-nationalist establishment in the Gulf States flexed their muscle against dissent. Nevertheless, there are hard limits to the executive power of the President and many measures cannot be done alone, which is why both lobbying groups on behalf of human-rights groups and African and Native interests groups and a presidential address to Congress have been focused on concrete initiatives and pressure on the Gulf States. These initiatives materialized shortly before the Holiday Recess when strong punitive economic sanctions passed both the Dáil and the Senate, with a mostly united Republican-Socialist voting bloc with opposition mainly from the Liberalists, some dissenting pacifist Socialists (arguing the move will hurt the non-white labor of the Gulf States most) and the centrist wing of the Republicans. With the return of government tomorrow in Ballyston, the President's office is largely expected to sign these sanctions into law. The response expected from the Federacy itself is still unknown, though prominent financiers and billionaires in NY, as well as privately-owned auto-makers in Detroit, have already made their opposition known as it will require full divestment by American citizens from the Gulf States and heavy tariffs on cross-border goods. On the Mississippi and Missouri river crossings, a stricter inspection regimen is expected with increased security at the major bridges to enforce sanctions. The sanction bill also features a sub-amendment guaranteeing amnesty for African-Gulfer refugees who cross the border, though it doesn't yet apply to other political dissidents from the Gulf States. Members of Native-American tribes, including those elsewhere on the continent, have always had a claim to birthright citizenship in the American Republic and are not a part of the bill.

[Europe - Prussia]

Valendian Associated Press

Valendien Verbunden Presse - Valendien Geassocieerd Pers - Valendien Forbundet Presse - Valendia Cysylltiedig i Wasg

Valendian News Headlines


Die Zwillingslöwen: Valendia’s Emperor Albrecht V dies at 78

After rumors began to circulate due the various agents of the Knights of Peace that began to arrive to the summer palace of Sanssouci in the morning, a spokesperson of the Imperial Household has announced that His Imperial Majesty Albrecht V passed away peacefully last night, at the age of 78.

Elected in 1969, the emperor was a very popular figure due the open opposition he showed to the Van Der Merwe government in the 70’s and his role in the agreement that put an end to the Dawn War. His stance of political neutrality held through his reign, rarely using the powers bestowed on the Crown, was seen as controversial, with people equally supporting it and criticising it.

His Majesty’s personal life has also been a matter of controversy: in 1993 his eldest son Prince Klaus died along his wife on a car crash, leaving three children whose guardianship the emperor took, amidst protests of his youngest son the Prince Erich and the Empress herself.

However, in recent years his health has been in constant decline, with two heart attacks in 2003 and 2008 respectively and a surgery in 2014.

The Imperial Household announced that His Majesty’s body will be placed lying in state on the main hall of the Kaiserpfalz Valkyr for two days followed by the State Funeral, all of which will happen in the following 10 days. It was also announced that there is going to be a mourning period of 6 months.


Die Zwillingslöwen: Electoral College is convened

A couple of hours after the announcement of the Imperial Household, a spokesperson of the Valendia’s Knights of Peace, after expressing his condolences, has announced that in the following days the Electoral College would convene to begin the process to elect the next Emperor of Valendia.

Composed by members of the three powers of the state and the grandmasters of the Windrose Orders, their duty will be elect the next emperor, or empress, from among the members of the House of Lohengramm, Valendia’s royal family. Even though the council is being convened just hours after the death of Albrecht V, the election will not happen until the State Funeral, in other words in 10 days from now on.

Unlike the Imperial Election in 1969, where there were only 4 candidates, for this election there are 8 candidates eligible to the throne: the three grandchildren of the late emperor the Princess Wilhelmine, Prince Baudouin and Princess Sophia; the emperor’s surviving son the Prince Erich; the emperor’s sister the Princess Ragnhild and her son Sir Ludwig Von Verner; the son of the late Prince Wilhelm, the emperor’s brother, Rear Admiral Friedrich Von Lohengramm and his son the six-year old Sigmar.

---

The RP thread of the emperor's death is here

[Chrinthanium]

Emperor Nathaniel IV on a late-night chat show

The Unconventional Emperor
By Cydny Johnson

In October of 2013, just 6 weeks after the death of his father, Emperor Nathaniel stood outside the gates of Quarterling Palace shaking hands with the people passing by, posing for selfies with them, and introducing himself as the new emperor as if no one knew this fact. Hello, my name is Nathaniel and I'm the new emperor. Pleasure to meet you he was reported to say to anyone who'd actually gotten over the initial shock and actually shook his hand.

Emperor Nathaniel arrives via Gorilla in a Dress
at CBC Studios

Christmas Day in 2015, he, Prince Ryan and Prince Peter, and an army of palace staff brought around 200 pizzas to Manly Beach for the usual Christmas beach party. Then, once the Imperial brothers had dished out each and every slice to a thrilled public, the three went surfing as if they were just like everyone else on the beach that day. After an afternoon session with his brothers, an emperor wearing nothing more than boardshorts greeted every single member of the Manly Beach Surf LIfe Saving Club.

On numerous occasions, he has amazed us, surprised us, and sometimes confused us with his general manner since ascending to the throne. Whether it is being a guest on a late night chat show, randomly photobombing tourists outside of the palace, or partaking in the mannequin challenge on the steps of the Parliament building, Emperor Nathaniel IV has maintained a very unconventional approach to his reign.

If you take a look at the polling, it's working. As of 3/15 the emperor enjoys a 58% approval rating compared to a 37% disapproval rating. When asked if respondents believe the emperor is hurting or helping people's opinions of the monarchy, 54% stated he was helping. When asked if they believed they felt comfortable with the emperor representing them diplomatically around the world, 52% said they did.

This is not to say his manner of going things isn't without its critics. The most vocal critics are part of the Chrinthani Imperialist Party in Parliament. MP Sherman Lewis spoke out on CBC News 24 in February when he stated that Emperor Nathaniel IV should be, "reigned in like the spoiled frat boy he is." He went on to say that, "there are traditions and protocols in place to maintain the dignity of the monarchy and Emperor Nathaniel IV is doing his best to destroy all of it." Similar statements have been made by the more conservative factions of the political spectrum.

The Emperor himself has stated that he doesn't mind people question his motives. He has a clear vision of what he wants to do and how he wants to do it. "Perhaps what I should do and what I do do are two different things. Perhaps the critics are right and I am destroying my own credibility. Maybe people will get tired of it or expect more from me the older I get. That's fine. I almost expect that will happen," he said on Late Night Show with Dave Howard last night. "I don't plan on stopping soon, though. I'm having too much fun."

Regardless of people's personal opinions, it seems the Unconventional Emperor will continue to do things in his own way. You simply has to view his personal Instagram account to see the various pictures of him making silly faces into his camera. People can also see pictures he took of various members of the staff. He particularly seems to have an affinity for the catering and janitorial staff of the palace if his Instagram is to be believed. Sometimes all people have to do is walk past the palace to catch him people watching on his lunch. Perhaps all some have to do is find themselves in the right place at the right time to catch one of his numerous surprises like those beachgoers on Christmas Day in 2015. Whatever it is he does, though, it will probably be what we least suspect.

[Walmington on Sea]

The Bugle 'Love it or Hate It'
Royal Marines challenge Chrinthani taste on disputed islet

In Australia lies the Imperial Federation's shortest border. At just ninety-three yards, Britannia's only border with Chrinthania spans an uninhabited rocky outcrop that is aptly named Boundary Islet.

The history of this unusual border is hazy at best, though it probably has its origins in Chinthani assumptions of possession based on history and proximity, pitted against British insistence on proper treaties and cartography coupled with -ironically- a mistake in mapping by a British explorer.

Whether this rocky outcrop is part of the Dominion of Australia or the Chrinthani colony of Victoria is a matter of too little import for either party to countenance recourse to arms. Never the less, it remains an issue unresolved, though not entirely uncontested, as events of earlier this week demonstrate.

The Bugle has learned that, at some point between last weekend and Wednesday night, a launch from the patrol craft HMS Qui Vive -deployed to the Hogan Island Group on an otherwise routine training mission- delivered several Royal Marines Commandos to the islet, where upon they affixed to a large rock a plaque inscribed with a message for the benefit of the next Chrinthanis to visit.

Reportedly, the potentially incendiary inscription read simply, “Marmite is better than Vegemite.”

The message is sure to be at least as controversial at home as it may yet prove Down Under!

From The Standard
*Interest: Tenbob Tom swallows the anchor
Navy's oldest ship's cat retires to avoid dishonourable discharge after 'unfortunate' encounter with Cedric the raven during shore-leave visit to Tower of London
*Opinion: When is an Emperor not an Emperor?
Can a Joe Soap maintain the mystique required of a monarch, or does an Everyman persona put a clock on the concept of class-based reverence?
*Sport: Six Nations rugby tournament under-way; North American newcomers run Irish close on debut
Wales 21-17 Amberland; Scotland 6-19 England; Ireland 10-8 Canadas

[Chrinthanium]

The Imperial Brothers Respond
The Darionopolis Register

Prince Ryan speaks in Preston

It's been an interesting few days in Chrinthania. There's one thing on everyone's lips: Boundary Island. According to reports from the British media outlet The Bugle it was revealed that assets of the British Navy stormed the beaches of Boundary Island and set up a plaque insinuating that Marmite was better than Vegemite. Millions of Chrinthani have opinions on this topic, but it was the opinions of Emperor Nathaniel IV and his brothers which have taken center stage.

Prince Ryan, the least press-friendly of the three Imperial brothers, took a moment last night to respond to the report while at the Heritage Charity Gala last night in Preston:

"I would also like to speak about the newest addition to Boundary Island," the Prince said as the crowed gave snarky boos. "First of all, everyone knows Vegemite is better. This is an incontrovertible act of science. While people expect us to answer the Pommies in such a way as to bring about a renewed spirit of competition, I can assure you that we will not stoop down to that level of tomfoolery. The only thing I can say is that I have two words for our British friends..." The Prince paused as the crowd began to cheer. "...game on." The crowd then went wild.

Meanwhile, in Buckston, Prince Peter took a moment to answer a press question regarding the incident:

"It's brilliant," Prince Peter stated, "gotta hand it to those Poms. Of course, you can put anything on a plaque, doesn't make it true."

However, it was Emperor Nathaniel IV's response which took center stage:

"I've had both," the Emperor said while being interviewed at the afternoon press conference. "We simply must admire the tenacity of our British cousins. The brave and daring that forged a global empire was on fully display as parts of the British commandos launched an invasion of Boundary Islands to place upon it a plaque stating Marmite was better than Vegemite. Only the British could envisage such a plan and bring it to fruition."

The Emperor continued, "We must sit back and think of an appropriate response to such a dastardly plan. While we could simply mimic them and place a contrary plaque on our side of the border, we would not be original enough. I state here and now I have commissioned a statue to be built to commemorate our sense of competition with the British. A statue in which we can embody the friendship between our nations and what makes both of our nations great. So let it be known today that in the City of Darionopolis that I, Nathaniel IV, Emperor of Chrinthania and her dominions have decreed a statue of Shane Warne shall forever be set on our side of the border to stare down the British as he has done so many times and in so many times been victorious over them."

Also Reported:
Croc Attack Love Story: Boy jumps into croc-infested lake to impress girl and gets her; date scheduled after he is released by the hospital
Mass Hysteria?: Hundreds of Chrinthani report dreams in which they were American, Spanish, Japanese, Balkan, Italian, and even British at some point; no one knows why
Opinion: An Emperor or a King should be a man of the people, not of his class

[Walmington on Sea]

The Standard Wealthy American Tourist Murdered in Belfast
Businessman gunned-down in front of girlfriend

An American property investor visiting Belfast with his partner has been killed in what the RUC has described as a, “robbery gone wrong”.

Aiden Boyle, 43, of MacFarlane Post, Dakota, was shot at close-range with a weapon believed to have been a sawn-off twelve-gauge shotgun while returning to his hotel near Malone Park after an evening drinking and dining on the Golden Mile. Boyle's partner, Charlotte Lemaire, 37, of Des Moines, Ioua, reportedly fled into a side-street and was sheltered by staff and patrons at a near-by bar until police arrived, while the panicked attacker apparently escaped empty-handed.

Mr. Boyle received emergency first-aid within moments of the attack as additional officers were on duty in the area due to anticipated Friday-night revelry, but was pronounced dead at the scene once paramedics arrived.

From The Bugle
*New OS map identifies Boundary Isle as, “Marmisle”
Publication, ”Probably a spoof”
*Murdered tourist's partner: masked attacker cried, “No surrender!” as he opened fire
Boyle gave money to man soliciting legal fees for gaoled dissident in hours before killing
*Scottish oil prospects boosted by probable billion-barrel discovery
Latest find forty times larger than recent average
*Six Nations latest; 'silly' mistakes cost self-doubting Amberlanders, poor kicking confounds late Irish surge
Amberland 7 - 9 Scotland; England 17 - 16 Ireland; Canadas 6 - 21 Wales

[Chrinthanium]

Emperor Nathaniel and the Cameraman
CBC News, staff report

Sydney - Emperor Nathaniel goes into angry mode in front of the Children's Hospital of Sydney's Benefit Gala when a cameraman breaks through the security line. The incident happened last night outside of the Park Suite Hotel in Sydney's central business district as the Emperor and his boyfriend exited from their transport. His Majesty and Mr. Jennings paused for a moment outside of the venue when the press began to push in on the Imperial couple. One man managed to break through the security perimeter and rushed the couple. As he did, he tripped and his camera went flying and hit Emperor Nathaniel IV in the nose. In the aftermath, His Majesty proceeded to use expletives to express his anger as the cowering cameraman who was escorted away by security. According to the Chrinthani Secret Service, the Emperor does not want charges pressed against the man.

This morning, on his official Instagram account, the Emperor posted this image:

According to witnesses, it appeared as if Nathaniel was attempting to shield Mr. Shane Jennings from the brunt of the press frenzy. The Emperor apparently suffered a bruise but was otherwise unharmed in the incident. The Palace did confirm that His Imperial Majesty hopes that the cameraman in question learned from this incident and will not attempt anything similar in the future. The cameraman remains unidentified at this time.

Also Reported:

Four Seasons In One Day: Parts of the southeastern mainland experienced all four seasons in one day with temperatures rising from near 11C to 35C and back to around 13C that night. Forecasts call for a generally cooler period for the remainder of the week as showers are forecast to move into the region

Hot Tradie As Consort?: Beyond the incident outside of the hotel, last night's charity gala saw the first public sighting of Emperor Nathaniel IV and his boyfriend, Mr. Shane Jennings. The Tradie, if the couple were to last through to marriage, would be the first commoner consort since 1930. It would also mark the first time in Chrinthani history that the nation had a male consort.

Snake The Dunny: A Western Chrinthania man had to call animal control to retrieve a 2.5 meter brown snake from the bowl of his toilet. The snake had sought refuge under the lip of the bowl and was only noticeable from its tail sticking out. The man also stated he was happy he took a look before he took care of business. "Never wanna have that up your bum unexpectedly" he told reporters.

[Walmington on Sea]

The Bugle
Plan to Upgrade Gulfer Fighter-Bombers in Walmington
Joint military exercises planned

A deal worth hundreds of millions of dollars to the Walmingtonian economy reportedly rests on London's decision to approve or obstruct the export of British-built Rolls-Royce jet engines kept in storage since the Imperial Federation's large aircraft carriers were scrapped and their fast jets mothballed.

The Royal Walmingtonian Navy formerly operated Phantom fighter-bombers designed in the United Gulf States but fitted with higher-performing engines made in Britain, much as the Royal Navy does to this day. The Gulf's air forces continue to operate their own Phantoms fitted with domestic turbojets, which are less efficient than the famous British Spey turbofan.

The deal calls for the RWN's Speys to be refurbished and fitted to Gulfer Phantoms as the first stage of a broader programme to update the Phantom for the twenty-first century, which will ultimately see new airframes manufactured using modern methods and materials. The long-term plan would entail both Gulfer and Walmingtonian involvement in the supply chain, along with possible sub-contracting to Rolls-Royce in Britain, which Angleish firm Chassire hopes to engage as a partner in developing a new-generation Spey derivative powerplant.

Such significant involvement in arming Fredonia will not be uncontroversial, and is likely to anger onlookers in America particularly. But hopes in Walmington are boosted by the possibility that a new-generation Phantom may also interest the Royal Navy, leading London to back the scheme.

The news comes as RWN warships gather in Macaronesia ahead of a deployment to the Caribbean for planned multi-national military exercises said to be of unprecedented scale.

A large fleet lead by the RWN's flagship, helicopter-cruiser HGMS Godfrey Grâce à Dieu, is set to incorporate one of the navy's two through-deck cruisers, with the Alexandra reported to be under steam in the North Atlantic, while two Venture Class amphibious assault ships have joined the flagship in Macaronesia. The support ship Princess Cecilia is currently leading a squadron including the frigates Magical and Repulse, and the sloop Filibuster on station in the Walmingtonian West Indies, where part of the exercise is to take place. The Royal Walmingtonian Fleet Auxiliary is also set to lend vessels to the operation, most notably the large supply ship HGMAS Pooh-Bah, which is currently making ready to depart from Halifax.

From The Standard
*Terrorists strike timber industry in Honduras
Suspected Communist militants set fire, explosion at timber mill owned by cousin of Sir Henry Wayne

[Chrinthanium]

The Times
British News and Notes

Engines Export Approved:
Parliament today approved the export of Rolls-Royce jet engines to the Walmingtonian Empire. The vote came shortly after noon today. With near unanimous support, Chancellor Grant claimed another political victory to keep the glorious union between the British, Walmingtonians, and Gulfers in their ever-present fight against the decadent democracies of the world. The deal is the first of its kind in exporting Britain's superior jet engines to a foreign power who isn't Walmington. It is hoped that the engines will continue to provide our brothers in spirit the continued belief in the final victory to come!

Multi-National Exercises
The glory and power of His Majesty's Navy will be on full display in the Caribbean soon. In cooperation with the Gulfers and the Walmingtonians, the British will be sending the largest fleet ever assembled for peacetime war games with her compatriots. Two of the King George III aircraft carriers, along with numerous support vessels, and a complement of Royal Marines will be working along elements of the Royal Air Force in the Caribbean as a show of solidarity against the regimes of America and her allies. The exercises are the first in what London hopes are a long and fruitful cooperation with our brother in arms!

Britannia Games
Kingston, Jamaica wins the bid to host the Britannia Games in 2019. This will mark the first time in its 100 year history that the Britannia Games will be held outside of the UK.

[Europe - Prussia]

NEWS FROM THE VALENDIAN EMPIRE…


Die Weißen Zeitung: Herr Ludwig von Werner elected Emperor of Valendia

After 8 months of discussions and dead-locked votations, the designated spokesperson of the Elector Council, the representative of the Kingdom of France Jacques Carvier, announced that, with 13 votes, the 42th Emperor of Valendia will be Herr Ludwig von Werner, who will use the regnal name of Frederick the Fourth.
Son of princess Wilhelmine of Valendia and grandson of the late Wilhelm III, Herr Ludwig is a member of the Valendia’s Knights of Peace, holding the rank of Judge Magistrate, one of the youngest in history. Though his career on the imperial judiciary gives some clues, it his unknown what his political views currently are, on both domestic and international issues (...)


La Vanguardia: Markets react favorably to elected emperor

Lukewarm has been the response of the Barcelona Stock Exchange (XBAR) to the election of Frederick IV to the imperial throne, with most stock indexes remaining stable with an upward trend, but by no means it has been unwelcomed.
Though most economists were hoping for the election of prince Erich, due his known liberal views, the election of the new emperor is seen with cautious optimism due his career in the empire’s judiciary, the Knights of Peace (...)


Le Monde: Aircraft carrier returns to active duty

The nuclear-powered aircraft carrier Hildegard Die Walküre, the second of the Albrecht Der Große class, has returned to active duty after three months of maintenance and update of its equipment, foremost among them the replacement of its air component with Rafale M.
The Hildegard Die Walküre will be escorted to Frederica, where it will rejoin the Indo-Pacific fleet and from there return to its home port in the d’Orange Islands (...)


Arles-Matin: Social media star arrested for fraud and money laundering

Social media star Jacques d’Schalla has been arrested this evening on the city of Monaco by agents of the Knights of Peace and the police of Arles on the charges of fraud and money laundering through dummy corporations.
Known for posting images and videos of his luxurious lifestyle on social media, Schalla was arrested in the middle of a video recording, which was “accidentally” uploaded (...)

[Marimaia]

Margravia Tribune
For a great Marimaia

Lieutenant General Michael Margrave Knighted

In recognition of his military services to the Kingdom of Marimaia as well as his incomparable leadership as commander of the Margravian Royal Guard, Lieutenant General Michael Margrave was honoured yesterday with a knighthood by King Lysander. The King publicly thanked Sir Michael for his near-decade in command of the Margravian Royal Guard and expressed his hope that Sir Michael would continue in his leadership role for many years to come. In exclusive comments made to the Margravia Tribune, Sir Michael expressed his "profound gratitude" for the honour, as well as stating that King Lysander was "a truly modern and visionary monarch, exactly what Marimaia needs". The Margravia Tribune understands that Sir Michael will be taking up permanent residence in the Margravian Royal Guard barracks at Lysar Palace, having been touring the organisation's facilities around the Kingdom of Marimaia for the past few months.


Riyadh Nuclear Power Plant On Schedule

The Ministry of Energy, Industry, and Natural Resources have officially confirmed that our kingdom's second nuclear power plant, located in the vicinity of Riyadh, will be brought online for electricity generation precisely on schedule next month. The Riyadh facility will complement the existing Yanbu nuclear plant and continue our kingdom's commitment to diversifying our means of generating power, as well as bringing additional capacity into our national power grid.


His Majesty's Newest Acquisition

In a move that is certain to bring joy and wonder to many Marimaians, King Lysander has confirmed the acquisition of a whale shark which will be housed at the Royal Aquarium and Aquacultural Centre in Margravia City. The gentle giant, named 'Salih' after the honoured Al-May'eem Sheikh who worked with Thomas I Margrave to found the Kingdom of Marimaia in 1915, will have the freedom of the facility's newest and largest environment which has been specially constructed to provide him with the very best in care and attention; it is anticipated that Salih will be the Royal Aquarium's star attraction for the foreseeable future. The official unveiling will take place in two weeks at a ceremony which will be attended by King Lysander himself.

[Amerique]

An 16ú Samhain 2017

The Ballyston Globe

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Analysis: President Maresial addresses Congress on Immigration Reform
President asserts commitment to social-democratic ideals and pluralism


President Maresial outside Congress flanked by Secret Service agents

Baile Dúin, Mass. - In a publicly-televised address to a joint session of the Federal Congress, President Benjamin Maresial addressed the need for the United Republic to take a more active global role on refugees suffering in conflict zones and under hostile regimes and to seek out skilled and committed immigrants for America's economic future, representing the priorities of the Administration going forward. The most notable direct outline of the program's vision with relation to the nation's principles and values was in the middle of the address:

"Ever since the birth of our Republic, our nation has been one of strength from diverse backgrounds and pluralistic open societies for various, new ideas. Our position at a crossroads between different, distinct worlds, peoples and cultures has been a solid foundation for a dynamic republic where anyone can integrate and make the American identity his own and find safety in it, regardless of the circumstances of their birth. Anyone with a strong commitment to our republic's founding ideals and values and respect for the law can and should be able to find a welcoming home and a safe, prosperous way of life here. To paraphrase one of our nation's greatest Presidents, Theodore Roosevelt, 'Any discrimination against migrants is a wrong that should never permeate our democratic institutions, it tends to put the immigrant at a disadvantage and to cause them to feel bitterness and resentment during the very years of preparation for American citizenship. We cannot afford to, as many other nations have, use hundreds of thousands of immigrants merely as industrial assets while they remain social outcasts and menaces any more than we could afford to keep the black man merely as an industrial asset and not as a human being. We cannot afford to build a big industrial plant and herd men and women about it without care for their welfare.' This resentment and lack of options would lead to the growth of a criminal element in these shunned communities. To that end, I have suggested to the Speaker of the House and the House Committee on Immigration and Border Security to prepare for Congress a legislative package which reduces the naturalization period if the citizenship examination can be completed satisfactorily, reduced work visa requirements for fields in high demand, paired with a requirement of similar pay and treat to citizen workers, easier access to temporary residence and support for those striving for a safe haven from regions of hardship and conflict. Currently immigrants can, after a year of residence, enlist in our armed forces or work in the National Guard or Civilian Conservation Corps to improve our nation's infrastructure and provide disaster relief or medical aid to remote communities, but their path to citizenship is still a complicated one of visas and bureaucracy which encourages a black market. Going forward, there must be a streamlined path to citizenship for foreign nationals willing to serve the American Republic without requiring a period of residence or special scrutiny for those men and women who put everything on the line for our safety and our great republic. Reduction of the bureaucracy and the complexity of the visa system is also a priority which will reduce costs to the current financially burdened system, increase our legal immigration and remove unneeded stress during the transition period for residents settling in to a new locale and a new culture, providing for more dedicated, involved and prouder future citizens of our American Republic."

After the session, the majority of the coalition of the Progressive-Republican and Socialist parties were willing to back the reform plan, with a small dissident group in the protectionist wing of the Progressive-Republican Party seeking to scale back some of the changes to work visas. Notably, the immigration reform issue has begun to cause a rift in the Republican Liberty Party, with the party establishment providing conditional support for the package on the understanding that cost reduction in the bureaucracy would be a priority but opposition to requirements of employers on the jobs market. A somewhat minor faction on the right of the Liberty Party, typically from some of the rural constituencies of Ouisconsin, Sylvania and the Ohio Valley, were perhaps the staunchest opponent to the immigration plan, arguing that the United Republic has been historically too lenient on the quality of migrants it has accepted which has led to a loss of national identity, immigration from cultures incompatible with democratic values, organized criminal elements, and a significant negative impact on working class Americans. Immigration Reform is expected to be a priority for the remainder of the 2017 legislative year and is expected to pass once a consensus is reached between Progressives and Socialists.