Keynes' Cruisers Volume 2

[formion]

Is there any reason at this point to want the Turks to enter the war? I understand the geography, would it be worth whatever we would need to promise them?

Entrance to the war is not of paramount importance. It is vital though to deprive the german economy of vital minerals. IOTL there was a lot of political pressure to Turkey to sell those minerals to the WAllies (in higher prices). The Allied war economy didn't need turkish chrome, but they were eager to pay a huge premium for it, just to deprive it from the Germans. Establishing a Balkan front and control of the Aegean add a lot of ammo to the Allied diplomacy.

 

[David Floyd]

As to a Greek campaign, with the significant Greek forces in existence and projected, it seems that that would increase the political pressure for SOME kind if Greek/Aegean campaign. Even a Greek/Commonwealth effort seems like it could be done in conjunction with Sicily, given the additional shipping and ground forces available.

Why would the Greeks want to die in France or Italy when they could be reclaiming Greece, or at least fighting to do so?

 

[fester]

Singapore, January 21, 1943


Doric Star was being loaded. Two batteries of artillery along with three dozen Valentine tanks were already in her holds. The tanks and the guns had been reconditioned in the great port city’s workshops. Liners were still being assembled and sent to the port city. The safe passage was still through the Sunda Straits. The equipment convoy for the 7th Armoured Division would be leaving for Egypt in two weeks. The troop convoy was tentatively scheduled to leave in a month. Replacements had already departed Liverpool while orders to split up one of the brigades into cadre for a new brigade as well rounding out the current divisional structure had been received the night before. The high command wanted to allow the division at least six months in Egypt to rebuild and rest before it was to be committed, but tenatively, it would be available for emergencies in the last part of spring.


Until then, the twenty five cargo ships hauling the division’s gear were still slowly being loaded. Any extra space would be filled with rubber ingots, tin and lumber. Industry needed the materials.

 

[Driftless]

Metaphoric wheels, cogs and worm drives turning....

I don't quite know what to make of sending the 7th Armored to Egypt (theoretically) for six months. I guess we will see where they go after that layover.

 

[fester]

Metaphoric wheels, cogs and worm drives turning....

I don't quite know what to make of sending the 7th Armored to Egypt (theoretically) for six months. I guess we will see where they go after that layover.

It's entering theatre reserve to reconstitute and re-equip. No one quite knows what to do with the division after that, but it will be far more useful there than in Malaya mopping up under-equipped and ill supplied light infantry units.

 

[fester]

Warsaw, Poland January 22, 1943


“Mama, mama, mama.” She pulled the toddler to her chest. The young woman turned and offered her body to the wind. The train kept on moving, slowly going through the capital of the occupied nation. Thick, brown coal smoke penetrated the leaky slats that held up the box car’s walls. The walls offered little protection from the wind. They held in no heat, not even the heat from eighty people huddled together. She was one of the few young women in the car. Guards had removed most of her friends and her sisters the day before. Their children were left to the elderly and their prepubescent sisters to care for. Somehow the guards had missed her. Since then, she had become the hugger of any child.

Rebeccah tried to wipe away a tear as she thought of her sister. Her brave sister, Miriam, had been one of the women marched off the train. Her chin was high and her mind was clear. She knew, just from looking at the middle aged soldiers and guards, that her entire worth was only between her legs to these animals. She knew she was disposable in their eyes. She knew that survival to the end of the war was an absurd question. She did not beg. She did not offer herself. She walked out as strongly as she could and helped another young girl down the ramp so that she would not be bayoneted.

Rebeccah held the toddler closer to her. She kissed his skinny cheeks and ran her hand through the thinning hair. He was alive, which was more than could be said about many toddlers, but not well. She could offer him no promises beyond a few moments of comfort as he wanted his mama who no longer was on the train still heading south.

 

[Killer in]

How is British Tank development progressing without all the panics and half measure design

 

[Driftless]

I suppose that series of moves can be used by Churchill at the Casablanca Conference to partly mollify Stalin, as tangible action about re-orienting to Europe First strategic focus.

JS: "grumble, grumble, grumble - no useful ground action in Europe, grumble, grumble"
WC: "We're currently reallocating significant and powerful forces to the European Theatre for imminent action. For example....."

 

[historyfelon]

Warsaw, Poland January 22, 1943


“Mama, mama, mama.” She pulled the toddler to her chest. The young woman turned and offered her body to the wind. The train kept on moving, slowly going through the capital of the occupied nation. Thick, brown coal smoke penetrated the leaky slats that held up the box car’s walls. The walls offered little protection from the wind. They held in no heat, not even the heat from eighty people huddled together. She was one of the few young women in the car. Guards had removed most of her friends and her sisters the day before. Their children were left to the elderly and their prepubescent sisters to care for. Somehow the guards had missed her. Since then, she had become the hugger of any child.

Rebeccah tried to wipe away a tear as she thought of her sister. Her brave sister, Miriam, had been one of the women marched off the train. Her chin was high and her mind was clear. She knew, just from looking at the middle aged soldiers and guards, that her entire worth was only between her legs to these animals. She knew she was disposable in their eyes. She knew that survival to the end of the war was an absurd question. She did not beg. She did not offer herself. She walked out as strongly as she could and helped another young girl down the ramp so that she would not be bayoneted.

Rebeccah held the toddler closer to her. She kissed his skinny cheeks and ran her hand through the thinning hair. He was alive, which was more than could be said about many toddlers, but not well. She could offer him no promises beyond a few moments of comfort as he wanted his mama who no longer was on the train still heading south.

I know it's not why we went to war, but it is why we had to win.

 

[diestormlie]

I know it's not why we went to war, but it is why we had to win.

Well said.

 

[Curtain Jerker]

I know it's not why we went to war, but it is why we had to win.

Wish I could like this comment twice.

 

[fester]

The East China Sea, January 22, 1943

USS Runner accelerated. She had arrived on station two days earlier. Her first war patrol had started at Pearl Harbor with a stop-over and top-off in Wake's lagoon. One sailor was landed with appendicitis and additional fresh ice cream was brought aboard. Her tanks had been filled with California diesel. She had laid a sixteen mine field off of Shimo-Koshiki the night before. All tubes were loaded with an extra salvo available in her forward racks.

Overhead a trio of seaplanes circled. They were hunting for hunters. A sharp eyed observer spouted the shallow water waking. He called out the observation. The pilot curled around even as patrol boats hurried from their patrol box. Soon depth charges were roiling the water. The submarine went to the bottom and slowly slinked away.

Three hours later, the battered battleship Yamato passed 8,000 yards from the barely watertight submarine. The eighteen inch gunned monster was still down seven feet at the bow and holes in her belt had been filled by a mixture of wood, canvas and cement during a three day patch job in Palau. She was due to return to her birth yard for repairs next to the still under construction Shinano.

 

[Unknown]

With regards to the Warsaw update, that is awful but, sadly, as OTL (maybe the war will end sooner ITTL, not that it'll help these poor people) and talk about a missed opportunity in the East China Sea update...

 

[NORGCO]

Three hours later, the battered battleship Yamato passed 8,000 yards from the barely watertight submarine. The eighteen inch gunned monster was still down seven feet at the bow and holes in her belt had been filled by a mixture of wood, canvas and cement during a three day patch job in Palau. She was due to return to her birth yard for repairs next to the still under construction Shinano.

So are we to assume the Yamato will receive a six torpedo salute from the USS Runner and join the majority of the IJN fleet on the bottom of the Pacific?

 

[sloreck]

South from Warsaw is Auschwitz. Rebeccah could get "lucky" and be selected for labor in "Canada" where the possessions of the dead were searched and sorted, she could go to a factory where her nimble fingers can be used. She may have the misfortune to be selected for a soldier's brothel at Auschwitz, or (especially if she claims a child as her own) be sent right to the gas chamber....

 

[Crowbar Six]

So are we to assume the Yamato will receive a six torpedo salute from the USS Runner and join the majority of the IHN fleet on the bottom of the Pacific?

Yamato got a break, the sub is currently spending too much of its time keeping water outside the pressure hull to attack anything assuming it is even aware that its there anyway.

 

[Look More Closely Later]

Is there any reason at this point to want the Turks to enter the war? I understand the geography, would it be worth whatever we would need to promise them?

If Turkey becomes a co-belligerent of the United Nations (or whatever they're called if the allied nations are referring to themselves collectively as something different in this timeline), the United Nations can send whatever they want into the Black Sea. Supplies to Russia, warships, amphibious assault craft, troop-ships, etc, etc.
If it can fit through the Straits if Turkey is fully committed to the cause, it can be openly sent.
The Crimea becomes a possible amphibious assault target and Roumania might start feeling rather vulnerable to invasion.

 

[historyfelon]

Wish I could like this comment twice.

Thank you. I taught social studies (mostly history, geography and government) for 36 years (20 in public schools and 16 in a medium security prison). I understand the importance being placed on the STEM courses, we need engineers and scientists, mathematicians and chemists..but without a decent understanding of history and the humanities we could well produce a generation of Mengeles and gas chamber/crematorium designers. I always tried to stress the humanity in history, put warmth in those old pictures, to bring them to life and to give meaning to what I taught. I think that's what our author is doing so well in his story here.

 

[Some Bloke]

Wish I could like this comment twice.

Or have reactions other than like. Which I previously thought only applied to the Official Pictures of Georgeous Women/Men or Fetish threads.

 

[Richardson]

Thank you. I taught social studies (mostly history, geography and government) for 36 years (20 in public schools and 16 in a medium security prison). I understand the importance being placed on the STEM courses, we need engineers and scientists, mathematicians and chemists..but without a decent understanding of history and the humanities we could well produce a generation of Mengeles and gas chamber/crematorium designers. I always tried to stress the humanity in history, put warmth in those old pictures, to bring them to life and to give meaning to what I taught. I think that's what our author is doing so well in his story here.

Mengel had a Ph.D. in Anthropology. That non-STEM education really helped him alot. Note to the moderator, I meant this as sarcasm. Mengele was a terrible person who I hope is in one of the hotter parts of hell.