Photos from Featherston's Confederacy/ TL-191

[HongCanucker]

How is THAT a machine gun? That is clearly not a machine gun. That is a Rocket Launcher.

In all honesty that should probably be a Confederate with a Featherston Rocket, or whatever the hell they were called.

They were called Stovepipes. HT pretty much ripped off the Panzershreck for that.

 

[Captain Reynolds]

They were called Stovepipes. HT pretty much ripped off the Panzershreck for that.

I thought they wee more like the bazooka than the Panzershreck personally

 

[Tiro]

When in doubt, split the difference!

 

[08hurley]

Given that the UK is RIGHT NEXT DOOR to the Emerald Isle and therefore Ireland's nearest neighbour, I suspect that it would be very difficult to wall off the Republic from diplomatic and commercial relations with Great Britain indefinitely (although it is probable that certain parties would TRY to do so).

If nothing else one imagines that the Problem of Ulster would be much easier to solve (and therefore cease to be a running sore on the face of the Emerald Isle) if the United Kingdom were to co-operate with the Irish Republic (no matter how long the hard-liners might take to admit this).

But they're an island nation. They don't share a land border so they can afford more distance. Not too mention that the U.K. would've no doubt been stripped of her naval force and that the U.S. would most likely set up naval bases in the country to protect the periphery of its sphere of influence, there's no reason to fear any possibility of future military encroachment. Britain has no resources that Ireland needs or wants and there's nothing ideologically connecting them. It isn't impossible at all to presume a complete diplomatic blackout by the Republic of Ireland on Britain. The way I see it, it is like the relationship between the United States and Cuba until recently or between Japan and N. Korea. In these two analogies all the countries are of close distance to each other but were able to ignore each other except in unusual cases. It actually is quite amazing what even a small strait of water can lend in way of being able to shut out another country.

Now, with that said, sure there will be cases where Ireland and Britain will ahve to interact, like in cases of undocumented entry into the country or the possibilities of dealing with organized crime, and there might be a gradual warming of relations in the next century as again the United States and Cuba. But knowing traditional Irish attitudes towards the British, after having had their national independence only to have had it lost again and then regained, I don't foresee any official diplomatic relations for a long time.

 

[08hurley]

The Japanese Imperial Army does chemical warfare training as part of General Ishii's massive buildup for the Final Pacific War in the late-1960s. Photo taken circa 1964.

 

[Darth_Kiryan]

It certainly could be, but I'd argue that the fore-and-aft cap coupled with that greatcoat makes for a silhouette sufficiently nondescript to allow this fellow to be described as either a United States Local Defence Veteran looking to keep the Snake at bay in the early days of Operation Blackbeard (before the US Army proper mustered for a proper counter-attack) or a Confederate making a Last Stand later in the War.

Well i would kinda figure that its a COnfederate making a last stand. Jake the Snake did go in for the older and younger crown when he was short on manpower. And the guy in the picture is noted to be apart of the Volksstrum Division.

 

[HongCanucker]

Well i would kinda figure that its a COnfederate making a last stand. Jake the Snake did go in for the older and younger crown when he was short on manpower. And the guy in the picture is noted to be apart of the Volksstrum Division.

Sounds better. Plus there's also the fact that the Confederates procured rocket weapons first.

 

[Tiro]

I wonder how they managed that? (My personal theory is that some Howard Hawks-type genius enthusiast liked the idea of a Space Race and the Confederate Government just LOVED the by-products from his experimentation … ).

But knowing traditional Irish attitudes towards the British, after having had their national independence only to have had it lost again and then regained, I don't foresee any official diplomatic relations for a long time.

Your logic is very sound, although I think that there would be more commercial traffic than you might think; even absent a Royal Navy Great Britain is still a far larger nation and as late as the Second World War I believe that Ireland was dependent upon her for Manufactured Goods.

If nothing else the economics of proximity would mandate SOME commerce, although I agree that the Republic would really prefer that this was not the case - I agree that an Emerald Isle fully walled-off from Great Britain would be the Dail's ideal (at least the goal of a Democratic Majority) but I'm not sure it's entirely practical.

The United States/Cuba arrangement was sustainable because the USA is so much bigger than Cuba; I believe that South Korea and Japan did business even when the North refused - I would also like to point out that the end result of this refusal to do business was not positive, so I would hope that Eire would be willing to bend (although not break) the barriers erected between itself and Great Britain to a degree sufficient to allow some interchange of a commercial nature.

 

[GriffinFTW]

Official Presidential Portrait of the current US President, Bernie Sanders of the Socialist Party, who has been president since 2009.

 

[Tiro]

… this gentleman looks ASTONISHINGLY like an Alec Guinness character.

 

[racefan31]

Official Presidential Portrait of the current US President, Bernie Sanders of the Socialist Party, who has been president since 2009.

Let's not get carried away there.

Confederate soliders advancing north into Ohio during Operation Blackbeard, late 1941.

 

[Fenrir_Angerboda]

Official Presidential Portrait of the current US President, Bernie Sanders of the Socialist Party, who has been president since 2009.

This is probably going to sound rude, but everytime you make a post here it's ridiculous, even by Turtledove standards.

 

[Darth_Kiryan]

Let's not get carried away there.

This is probably going to sound rude, but everytime you make a post here it's ridiculous, even by Turtledove standards.

These two i kinda have to agree with. Even though Bernie is a socialist, it does seem a bit overreaching that he is going to be there in 2008. I mean, Sanders parents emigrated from Poland to the US to escape the holocaust. As being a Jew is not as terible in Europe around this time, it is debatable that he would even be in the US.

 

[vesica]

These two i kinda have to agree with. Even though Bernie is a socialist, it does seem a bit overreaching that he is going to be there in 2008. I mean, Sanders parents emigrated from Poland to the US to escape the holocaust. As being a Jew is not as terible in Europe around this time, it is debatable that he would even be in the US.

Chancellor/Prime Minister of Poland?

 

[Turquoise Blue]

Chancellor/Prime Minister of Poland?

Bernard Sanders, incumbent Prime Minister of Poland from the Polish Socialist Party, Poland's first ethnically Jewish Prime Minister and an experienced statesman with decades in Socialist politics finally culminating in his grabbing the leadership and the Prime Ministership from an unpopular Aleksander Knasniewski, is photographed here giving a speech in Warsaw defending his radical-populist policies that has proven popular with the Polish people, but not with the conservative establishment.

 

[racefan31]

Young German and Polish soldiers off to fight Russian forces, early 1943.

 

[GeorgeUK]

Here's something that popped into my head based on posts by Luath and Tom_NUFC in the DBWI thread and an article in this month's Railway Magazine...

A 1960s plan for high-speed rail on the British side of the channel tunnel. Due to budget constraints, however, only the Glasgow/Edinburgh to Dover section was built. The London-Paris section was opened in 1969, with extensions to Birmingham in 1976, Edinburgh in 1980, Glasgow in 1984 and Marseille in 1993. Today, the third-generation "Silver Bullet" does the run in 5 hours and 18 minutes, and construction of a dedicated line from Lille to Berlin is 70% complete. London to Cardiff is also under construction, with 140mph "Javelin" units to operate services between the two cities. However, fares would be more expensive than those on conventional services.

Built in 1948, the CIE 001 class was built to replace steam locomotives on Irish Railways, to the dismay of rail enthusiasts on the emerald isle. Despite concerted efforts to save what they could, steam in Ireland ended in 1960. This led to large numbers of Irish railfans descending on Britain to see steam still at work. In fact, some lines, such as the Settle & Carlisle, continue to employ steam traction. [1]

One of the early successes of the Railway Preservation Society of Ireland was the salvation of the Tralee and Dingle Light Railway in the 1950s, with the help of Ivo Peters and Tom Rolt, the former of whom had photographed the line in 1947 for the Railway Magazine and the latter of whom had helped save the Talyllyn Railway in Wales. In 2013, the Castlegregory branch was reinstated after a long rebuilding process. [2]

[1] Based on the employment of Class 37s on Cumbrian Coast services OTL.

[2] Based on the OTL histories of the Talyllyn and Welsh Highland Railways.

 

[New Cleo Genesis]

A lone Quebecois soldier somewhere in the woods of Ontario, 1942.

(Actually a Finnish literary figure conscripted in Karelia during the Continuation War. BTW, yay, my first post in this thread.)

 

[racefan31]

A lone Quebecois soldier somewhere in the woods of Ontario, 1942.

Is that a mistletoe I see?

 

[New Cleo Genesis]

Is that a mistletoe I see?

Sorbus, most likely. Never seen a mistletoe in the wild around here.