Stupid Luck and Happenstance, Thread III

Bascially unless you pay extra a grave expires after a set time after the last person was buried there - so if husband and wife are buried and one diese significantly later than the other the relevant time starts from the later burial date.

You can buy extended leases or even permanent ones but that's decent car money territory.
 
For the Ecuadorians the solution to the Peruvian tanks is pretty simple, it is the M72 LAW Light Anti-tank Weapon which came in service to the United States military in IOTL 1963 and that should be very effective against an almost thirty year old Panther II tank.
One of the main jobs of the Special Forces is to train the trainer plus by having demonstrations of firing the weapon in to a target that has the same thickness of armor as the Panther II it will give confidence to the Ecuadorian soldiers about their chances against the Peruvian tanks.
That assumes that the USA developed the LAW in TL. Remember there are little to no pressing needs to get it and I think that the whole situation for the USA is radically different then OTL. No Cold War, no Policeman of the Free World and most importantly little to no actual combat experience against a peer opponent.

Add that the USA still are worse off in race relations and that the problem has been bubbeling for several years or decades and you get the picture... so would a light AT weapon be that high on the list?
 
That assumes that the USA developed the LAW in TL. Remember there are little to no pressing needs to get it and I think that the whole situation for the USA is radically different then OTL. No Cold War, no Policeman of the Free World and most importantly little to no actual combat experience against a peer opponent.

Add that the USA still are worse off in race relations and that the problem has been bubbeling for several years or decades and you get the picture... so would a light AT weapon be that high on the list?
It could be the sort of thing that is developed in a shed in Yorkshire by an ex soldier who'd served in WWII and cost about £20*, it will be offered to the War Office who will turn it down as "having no use in modern warfare", and then bought and developed by someone like Canada or South Africa and sold world wide, including, at quite a mark up, to the War Office for the British army to use...


*In pre decimal value, so maybe $4-500 in today's value.
 
It could be the sort of thing that is developed in a shed in Yorkshire by an ex soldier who'd served in WWII and cost about £20*, it will be offered to the War Office who will turn it down as "having no use in modern warfare", and then bought and developed by someone like Canada or South Africa and sold world wide, including, at quite a mark up, to the War Office for the British army to use...
*In pre decimal value, so maybe $4-500 in today's value.
I am not sure what piece of kit you imply...

But that ex soldier would have to have an idea what the current situation is like. And for that I think some kind of combat experience or other external pressure would be needed. Not that it could not happen without, but after WWI we know the USA was not involved in a conflict with a peer power. And Mexico, while certainly a good "proving ground", did not need that kind of kit.
 
A more plausible way for portable antitank weapons to enter the hands of the US military is for someone in procurement of the Special Forces to acquire original German Panzerfausts or licensed copies thereof through third parties.

If they see an immediate need, they will be the most likely branch of procurement that has the needed clout and flexibility to pull it off.
 
I am not sure what piece of kit you imply...
Chobham armour was an example of just this. Although it was not developed in a shed.
As for having to have an idea, if they served in WWII, they'd have seen the Panzerfaust, they'd have also seen Soviet and German, (and some British), tanks in action and though, "how do you stop one of them without AT guns, but without the fuss of one of them Panzerfist things". History is littered with examples of a bloke in a shed designing something world beating. The AI L96 for example...
 
That assumes that the USA developed the LAW in TL. Remember there are little to no pressing needs to get it and I think that the whole situation for the USA is radically different then OTL. No Cold War, no Policeman of the Free World and most importantly little to no actual combat experience against a peer opponent.

Add that the USA still are worse off in race relations and that the problem has been bubbeling for several years or decades and you get the picture... so would a light AT weapon be that high on the list?
It comes down to a single battle fought in late 1944. In the early stages of the Battle of the Bulge, the US Army discovered that they lacked the means to effectively counter enemy armor at or below the Platoon level. The M-9 Bazooka had already proven less than adequate by that point as well and captured Panzerfausts were frequently used the US Army whenever they found them. ITTL that battle was obviously never fought and beyond a handful of observers, the US remained shockingly unaware of Soviet War in TTL, much like most Americans knew very little about the same conflict in OTL until video games in just the last couple decades.
 
It comes down to a single battle fought in late 1944. In the early stages of the Battle of the Bulge, the US Army discovered that they lacked the means to effectively counter enemy armor at or below the Platoon level. The M-9 Bazooka had already proven less than adequate by that point as well and captured Panzerfausts were frequently used the US Army whenever they found them. ITTL that battle was obviously never fought and beyond a handful of observers, the US remained shockingly unaware of Soviet War in TTL, much like most Americans knew very little about the same conflict in OTL until video games in just the last couple decades.

It's kind of amazing how so much stuff we take for granted can hang on single events - one reason I love AH so much is seeing just how easily things can be butterflied away.

Kind of a funny coincidence for me that this talk on man-portable anti-tank weapons is happening now - I was just re-reading Red Storm Rising for the first time in a while, and one thing Clancy underlined there is just how useful anti-tank missiles are for whittling down enemy armour (especially command vehicles) even when you're retreating...
 
It is very plausible for the United States to deploy the M72 LAW ITTL, first they would have seen the need to replace the Bazooka after the introduction of the new Russian tanks in the Greco-Turkish War of 1954 and seeing the performance against German armor in the Mexican Intervention.
All of that would have been confirmed on how the American anti-tank weapons preformed vs. on how the German anti-tank weapons preformed in the Sino-Korean Conflict in 1962.
Just as Germany was able to obtain the grenade launcher from the Americans, Americans could have gotten the improved Panzerwaffw thru the Chinees Army.
Also the M72 was developed by Sweden.
Edit: Sorry misread the Wikipedia entry, there was a Swedish equivalent to the M72, the propellent was developed at Redstone Arsenal.
 
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Burial places are normally leased. You can prolong it though in most places but some are restricted. Simple reason is space.
If the space is at a premium then a better use of the land would be to remove the bodies and grave markers to another location to make way for a housing development, better yet to make it even more profitable just remove the grave markers and leave the bodies...
 
I don't know whether it's just Germany or a general continental Europe thing, but graves there are used for a finite and by my standards remarkably short time. I'm not sure what's done with the remains after the lease has expired.
 

ferdi254

Banned
I am pretty certain it is the same in the USA or where is the graveyard for the 15 milion New yorkers which have died the last century?
 
I don't know whether it's just Germany or a general continental Europe thing, but graves there are used for a finite and by my standards remarkably short time. I'm not sure what's done with the remains after the lease has expired.
This comic from SATW called "Say hello to your new roommate" sort of answers your question, unless other arrangements have been made.

say-hello-to-your-new-roommate.png
 
I am pretty certain it is the same in the USA or where is the graveyard for the 15 milion New yorkers which have died the last century?
Cemeteries in the US are permanent in nature. You buy the plot and keep the grave for all perpetuity. Most states have laws that require burial grounds to have a bond put up for the care of the area if they close or go out of business. It takes lots of legal paperwork if you want to remove a burial ground for even simple reasons like they go out of business.

Besides haven't you heard the phrase "Vote the tombstones", everyone knows they own their own plot of land and should be voters like any other property owner.
 
Part 112, Chapter 1852
Chapter One Thousand Eight Hundred Fifty-Two



23rd June 1968

Sonnenberg

Like always, Kiki felt absurd when she wore the uniform of the Johanniter Order. The red tunic, white skirt, black cloak, and matching hat were absurd. She had joined the other Knights in the Order that afternoon as they had conducted the procession from the hospital to the castle. Because all members of the Order were equal, Kiki had found herself walking beside her father. He had smiled at her and told her that he was happy that that she had come.

The Renaissance castle that was the Seat of the Order’s Brandenburg Bailiwick and was probably the last place on Earth Kiki wanted to be this evening. However, she had run out of excuses for not coming to the Neumark for Saint John’s Eve. Presently, she was the only Dame of Honor in the Order and by far the youngest member. Her cousin had said that would change in the future, but Kiki wasn’t so sure about that. It seemed that the public reputation of the Order tended to proceed it. When the subject of the Order had come up when she had gone on the rounds with Doctor Berg on Friday afternoon. Berg had seen the pin of the Order on Kiki’s white lab coat and had been rather cynical when Kiki had tried to explain what it was about.

“A bunch of rich old men parading around in funny costumes trying to buy their way into Heaven with money as opposed to deeds” Was how Berg had put it. That was perfectly in keeping with what Kiki knew about Berg’s opinion of hypocrisy. The thing was, that described most of the chivalrous Orders when it came right down to it. Kiki also knew that Berg, along with the entire University Hospital’s administration, had never turned away anyone who wanted to donate money to it. Berg had also seen fit to mention that the Order’s Patron Saint had probably been a Paranoid Schizophrenic who had spent much of his life deep in the throes of religious mania.

Berg had dropped it when she had started talking to her patient, an unfortunate woman who’d had one child too many and had paid a heavy price. Berg had told Kiki that it was a long recovery further complicated by the woman being rendered surgically menopausal. It was in keeping with the questions that Kiki had for Berg anyway and they had talked afterwards. Berg had said that she should come to the hospital in the afternoons and evenings to work in her department. She felt that Kiki could learn a lot and it would probably be a welcome change from what she will have to endure in the mornings.

With that, the prayer concluded, and everyone seated themselves. As a Dame of Honor, Kiki was seated at the far end of the room, out of earshot of the Grandmaster who was leading this whole thing. She still had the ritualized “feast” to get through and then a hundred odd kilometers back to Berlin to look forward to.



Near Arenillas, Ecuador

The problem of Peruvian tanks would have been easily solved if the pencil pushers back in Washington D.C. could have pulled their heads out of their asses for five minutes. Instead, Parker had sent increasingly terse telegrams back to the States and he kept getting the same answers back. A Special Forces Team like the one he was heading had a specific Table of Organization and Equipment for good reason. That basically said that the US Government didn’t trust their Ecuadorian counterparts and they didn’t want to give them a weapon that might be turned on American forces if the political winds changed. His requests for more of the type of anti-tank rockets currently issued to the US Army had been rebuffed. His team had the only M-20 Super Bazooka in all of Ecuador and only a dozen rockets for it while intelligence said that the Peruvians had a hundred tanks. From long experience, Parker doubled the number of tanks he could expect if the balloon went up and according to Ritchie these were Panther II tanks they would be dealing with. The handful of M-9 Bazookas that the Ecuadorians had would probably just piss off the crews of those tanks and they would return the favor with interest in the form of high-explosive shells.

Into this, Parker had received a letter from Sigi. Just her letting him know that she was well. Pomerania was boring during the winter, so she was happy that summer was finally here. The issue was that the letter had been routed through Langley before it had been redirected to him. It was the CIA’s way of letting Parker know that they were watching him and his personal relationships very carefully.

Meeting Sigi in Nova Scotia and Cuba had been nice. Mostly they had been able to enjoy themselves without the politics of their home countries interfering with matters. The CIA had not been pleased with Parker having done that. During the latest debrief that he had been subjected to upon his return from Cuba, he had been asked if he was trying to turn Sigi. It had been all he could do not to show his annoyance. The CIA saw her as a potential asset, nothing more. Apparently, the CIA’s counterparts in the BND were leaning on Sigi in the exact same way. Sigi had told him that if a couple of meteors took out Langley and Falkensee both of them would be happier for it.
 
Into this, Parker had received a letter from Sigi. Just her letting him know that she was well. Pomerania was boring during the winter, so she was happy that summer was finally here. The issue was that the letter had been routed through Langley before it had been redirected to him. It was the CIA’s way of letting Parker know that they were watching him and his personal relationships very carefully.

Meeting Sigi in Nova Scotia and Cuba had been nice. Mostly they had been able to enjoy themselves without the politics of their home countries interfering with matters. The CIA had not been pleased with Parker having done that. During the latest debrief that he had been subjected to upon his return from Cuba, he had been asked if he was trying to turn Sigi. It had been all he could do not to show his annoyance. The CIA saw her as a potential asset, nothing more. Apparently, the CIA’s counterparts in the BND were leaning on Sigi in the exact same way. Sigi had told him that if a couple of meteors took out Langley and Falkensee both of them would be happier for it.

Clearly the only answer is that sigi works for the CIA now. :p


Well, I am sort-of right. Not really, but sort-of.
 
“A bunch of rich old men parading around in funny costumes trying to buy their way into Heaven with money as opposed to deeds” Was how Berg had put it. That was perfectly in keeping with what Kiki knew about Berg’s opinion of hypocrisy. The thing was, that described most of the chivalrous Orders when it came right down to it. Kiki also knew that Berg, along with the entire University Hospital’s administration, had never turned away anyone who wanted to donate money to it. Berg had also seen fit to mention that the Order’s Patron Saint had probably been a Paranoid Schizophrenic who had spent much of his life deep in the throes of religious mania.

That kind of hypocrisy drives me up the wall. "I think you are a loon and regard your organization with contempt and derision but hey if you are going to give me money I'll smile and cash the cheque". I wonder where she draws the line on which donations are deemed "acceptable"?
 
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