Dunkirk is the only film ive felt close to having a panic attack watching (fear of deep water). I can see a Nolan in this universe making a Hilton Head movie
Cinco de Mayo
- Thread starter KingSweden24
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Just so long as Michael Bey doesn't beat him to the punch first. You KNOW he'd end up focusing heavily on the FDR scenes (likely one of his leads is an XO on board the ship), but I cringe at thinking about the inevitable love triangle. - because, you know, somehow the Union and Confederate leads would be fighting over the same woman. Somehow.
Although, come to think of it, I could see James Cameron doing a long Hilton Head epic instead - he's long had a fascination with the ocean after all. And it seems that the SS Titanic has avoided her OTL fate.
wikipedia.en - Battle of Hilton Head
The Battle of Hilton Head, alternatively but not commonly known as the Battle of Port Royal, was a major naval engagement on May 5, 1915 in the immediate vicinity of Port Royal Sound in South Carolina, CSA during the Great American War. Fought between the two fleets of the United States and a combined sortie of Confederate and Brazilian vessels known as the Combined Fleet, the engagement was, at the time it occurred, possibly the largest naval battle in recorded history, only the second to feature dreadnoughts on both sides (after the Battle of the Desventuradas a year earlier between the United States and Chile). The battle was one of the most lopsided and decisive defeats by a naval force in history - of the Combined Fleet, only a single battleship and four submarines was able to escape un-sunk, and an estimated eleven thousand Confederate and Brazilian soldiers died while countless others fled to shore or were captured.
The battle occurred in a strategic context of early 1915 in which the Bloc Sud powers of the Confederate States, Brazil and Mexico had successfully begun a campaign of harassment and interdiction against US shipping in the Caribbean and, to a lesser extent, central and north Atlantic by way of increasingly deploying battleship assets out of port and a strategically novel campaign of semi-unrestricted submarine warfare. The United States, having secured naval supremacy in the Pacific over the prior year, elected in early 1915 to seek a decisive coup de main against the Confederate First Fleet of Admiral Richmond Hobson operating out of the vicinity of Charleston and Savannah - as it turned out, the protected sound of Port Royal in between the two. To this end, the US Navy sent a massive task force under Admiral Joseph Murdock from the Pacific through to the Caribbean in early April, and dispatched a smaller fleet under Admiral Reggie Belknap out of New England at the same time to lure the Confederates into an engagement. Concerned about the massing of American force in the Caribbean, Hobson joined his fleet up with a Brazilian squadron under Admiral Isaias de Noronha off the Florida coast and sailed north to respond to Belknap, unaware that Murdock's fleet was in the Bahamas, and not near the Virgin Islands as he believed.
Belknap successfully drew Hobson out to Bermuda, giving Murdock time to position his fleet to intercept Hobson on his return to port when the Confederate admiral deduced that he was being forced into a battle out at sea that was not to his advantage. Upon returning to South Carolina, his Combined Fleet had its T crossed both from in front by Murdock and behind by Belknap, who had trailed him back at a distance, creating a "cauldron at sea," as it would later be known. In a massive, daylong battle featuring more tonnage than any before in history, the Combined Fleet was decisively eliminated; attempts to break for Port Royal and Savannah were both unsuccessful. Both commanding admirals were captured, with Hobson pulled from the sea after being blown from the deck of his flagship by a shell; Murdock, the American fleet admiral, was killed early in the engagement when the bridge of his flagship was nearly totally destroyed. Only the CSS Texas was able to successfully break through, though with severe damage, and escape to port in Savannah.
The decisive loss of three of the Confederacy's four dreadnoughts, and one of its two pre-dreadnought battleships (the Confederacy had captured two American battleships at Baltimore, but they were being held in reserve in Mobile under repair after taking severe damage) essentially eliminated the Confederacy as a viable naval force for the remainder of the war (the fourth dreadnought, Arkansas, would be severely damaged and captured in the Battle of the Florida Straits three months later) and badly set back the ability of Brazil to project power in the Caribbean; indeed, it was the first and only major naval engagement between the United States and Brazil in the entirety of the war. By a quirk of fate, it occurred on the same date that the major breakthrough into Nashville occurred in the Midlands Theater of the war, and "Black May" is a term used in the Confederacy to this day for the moment when the war turned irreversibly against them with the twin defeats. As for the United States, it remains celebrated as a foundational military triumph, with the deceased Murdock in particular enjoying the legacy of national martyrdom. Internationally, it remains one of the most studied battles strategically and tactically, as there was no particular mistake made by Hobson's maneuvers and due to the sheer firepower involved; lessons drawn from Hilton Head would prove highly influential in the naval battles of the Mediterranean during the Central European War.
Today, Hilton Head Island in South Carolina remains a national military cemetery, with several thousand of the remains of the Confederate war dead from the battle buried there (though it is rumored that unidentified Americans and Brazilians are entombed in unmarked graves there, too). On the centennial of the battle, American President Brian Schweitzer became the first-ever American President to visit the Hilton Head National War Cemetery; indeed, only token dignitaries had traveled there on previous anniversaries, taken as a sign of warming relations between Richmond and Philadelphia.
(I didn't quite get the Confederate flag looking the way I'd hoped, oh well)
(Yes that is the USS Arizona burning as my stand-in for the sinking Virginia; if you're ever in Hawai'i, Pearl Harbor is worth seeing)
The battle occurred in a strategic context of early 1915 in which the Bloc Sud powers of the Confederate States, Brazil and Mexico had successfully begun a campaign of harassment and interdiction against US shipping in the Caribbean and, to a lesser extent, central and north Atlantic by way of increasingly deploying battleship assets out of port and a strategically novel campaign of semi-unrestricted submarine warfare. The United States, having secured naval supremacy in the Pacific over the prior year, elected in early 1915 to seek a decisive coup de main against the Confederate First Fleet of Admiral Richmond Hobson operating out of the vicinity of Charleston and Savannah - as it turned out, the protected sound of Port Royal in between the two. To this end, the US Navy sent a massive task force under Admiral Joseph Murdock from the Pacific through to the Caribbean in early April, and dispatched a smaller fleet under Admiral Reggie Belknap out of New England at the same time to lure the Confederates into an engagement. Concerned about the massing of American force in the Caribbean, Hobson joined his fleet up with a Brazilian squadron under Admiral Isaias de Noronha off the Florida coast and sailed north to respond to Belknap, unaware that Murdock's fleet was in the Bahamas, and not near the Virgin Islands as he believed.
Belknap successfully drew Hobson out to Bermuda, giving Murdock time to position his fleet to intercept Hobson on his return to port when the Confederate admiral deduced that he was being forced into a battle out at sea that was not to his advantage. Upon returning to South Carolina, his Combined Fleet had its T crossed both from in front by Murdock and behind by Belknap, who had trailed him back at a distance, creating a "cauldron at sea," as it would later be known. In a massive, daylong battle featuring more tonnage than any before in history, the Combined Fleet was decisively eliminated; attempts to break for Port Royal and Savannah were both unsuccessful. Both commanding admirals were captured, with Hobson pulled from the sea after being blown from the deck of his flagship by a shell; Murdock, the American fleet admiral, was killed early in the engagement when the bridge of his flagship was nearly totally destroyed. Only the CSS Texas was able to successfully break through, though with severe damage, and escape to port in Savannah.
The decisive loss of three of the Confederacy's four dreadnoughts, and one of its two pre-dreadnought battleships (the Confederacy had captured two American battleships at Baltimore, but they were being held in reserve in Mobile under repair after taking severe damage) essentially eliminated the Confederacy as a viable naval force for the remainder of the war (the fourth dreadnought, Arkansas, would be severely damaged and captured in the Battle of the Florida Straits three months later) and badly set back the ability of Brazil to project power in the Caribbean; indeed, it was the first and only major naval engagement between the United States and Brazil in the entirety of the war. By a quirk of fate, it occurred on the same date that the major breakthrough into Nashville occurred in the Midlands Theater of the war, and "Black May" is a term used in the Confederacy to this day for the moment when the war turned irreversibly against them with the twin defeats. As for the United States, it remains celebrated as a foundational military triumph, with the deceased Murdock in particular enjoying the legacy of national martyrdom. Internationally, it remains one of the most studied battles strategically and tactically, as there was no particular mistake made by Hobson's maneuvers and due to the sheer firepower involved; lessons drawn from Hilton Head would prove highly influential in the naval battles of the Mediterranean during the Central European War.
Today, Hilton Head Island in South Carolina remains a national military cemetery, with several thousand of the remains of the Confederate war dead from the battle buried there (though it is rumored that unidentified Americans and Brazilians are entombed in unmarked graves there, too). On the centennial of the battle, American President Brian Schweitzer became the first-ever American President to visit the Hilton Head National War Cemetery; indeed, only token dignitaries had traveled there on previous anniversaries, taken as a sign of warming relations between Richmond and Philadelphia.
(I didn't quite get the Confederate flag looking the way I'd hoped, oh well)
(Yes that is the USS Arizona burning as my stand-in for the sinking Virginia; if you're ever in Hawai'i, Pearl Harbor is worth seeing)
Its all the sex
(That and though he's definitely no longer the TL's focus he's still a central foundational part of it and delaying killing him off as long as possible appealed to me)
I'll probably create the thread so there's a spot to land on after I request this get moved to "Finished" but every time I wrap a writing project I try to take a few days off at least to clear my head and pat myself on the back, lol
Uncut Gems was the anxiety-inducer for me lol
Cameron came to mind, too. Maybe he makes a bloated 90s-style epic then Nolan comes out with his own in the mid-10s to align with the centennial?
All hail President Schweitzer
Only in AH.com can you have an earnest discussion about the prefix of Texas Navy ships, lol.
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I've always like Schweitzer. And since we know that Montana in this TL is much more Upper Midwestern in culture and accent - I like this even more. At least our region gets at least ONE President (*glares at New York and growls*)
(The fact that Spain is able to sell Dreadnoughts says most other things than most on how different this world is.
Since I’ll be 45 years old by the time I get to President Schweitzer in the narrative I had to tip my hand on how amazing this universe would be in the mid-2010s because I don’t know that the world could handle how wild a President Schweitzer would be; the man is *very* Montana
…We’re definitely not all total nerds nope not at all
New York is to TTL USA what Ontario is to OTL Canada just think about it that way and you’ll feel better haha
Absolutely haha. Though they are even today one of the more prolific naval contractor states, believe it or not. Northern Spain has a very well developed shipbuilding industry(The fact that Spain is able to sell Dreadnoughts says most other things than most on how different this world is.
@KingSweden24 Incredible wikibox! You always knock it out of the park with those!
Finding out that Spain still has one of the more powerful navies in the world, including an aircraft carrier, was a big surprise to me.
Come on, what does warfare films need? Explosion, lots of it, and who knows explosion better than Michael Bay?
(I’m joking plz don’t take this post seriously)
Thank you!
As was I, to be honest
He certainly understands how to tactfully approach historical subjects with care and grace, too!
Ben Affleck IS Captain Franklin D. Roosevelt!!!
...
Okay, he'd actually probably do a pretty good job to be honest and he definitely as that confident glibbness which a young FDR was known for (I rather like Affleck as an actor).
Isn't Juan Carlos I more of an amphibious assault ship with some capability as a VOTL aircraft carrier?
Last update needs a thread mark.
I feel like a broken record but great stuff!
I feel like a broken record but great stuff!
In some ways it isn't quite fair to describe them all as Aircraft carriers. IMO, there is more difference between Spain's amphibious assault ship Juan Carlos I and the US Nimitz class carriers than there was between the pre-dreadnoughts and the post-dreadnoughts.
(of course that could about the Nimitz class and just about anyone else's Carriers.)
I'm not sure that the US will be as insanely OP in Naval forces in the last half of the 20th century as iOTL, but honestly that has to do with 1) The increased number of *land* neighbors not as swamped/friendly as OTL Canada and Mexico. 2) The lack of Hawaii.
I also like that the CSA and USA are having better relations as of 2013. The trope of "The CSA and USA will always hate each other for decades and decades no matter what" flies in the face of how international relations works historically. The two countries have a lot in common, so it stands to reason that as soon as the bad blood over the GAW subsides (time heals all wounds after all) that they'd be if not BFFs then at least cordial.
Oh this is a pretty mild one
Same. I think it’s a silly trope. Like you said, not BFFs - far from it - but at some point you gotta learn to get along
That being said, there’s a reason I mentioned the 2015 commemoration and not, say, 1990 or (even more pointedly) 1965…
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