There is no way that the rest of Europe are going to let a recently defeated Russia do that. They didn't fight a major war in Europe just to see Russia start going expansionist again. It doesn't matter that it was "the Evil Bolsheviks," a renewed Russian Empire taking direct control of Constantinople will set off alarm bells across the continent. Czar Georgy should be slapped down diplomatically and told in no uncertain terms that supporting the Greeks is fine but any attempt by Russia to occupy Constantinople or make Greece an actual puppet instead of just a client state would be viewed as a threat of war to the rest of Europe.
Stupid Luck and Happenstance, Thread II
- Thread starter Peabody-Martini
- Start date
There is no way that the rest of Europe are going to let a recently defeated Russia do that. They didn't fight a major war in Europe just to see Russia start going expansionist again. It doesn't matter that it was "the Evil Bolsheviks," a renewed Russian Empire taking direct control of Constantinople will set off alarm bells across the continent. Czar Georgy should be slapped down diplomatically and told in no uncertain terms that supporting the Greeks is fine but any attempt by Russia to occupy Constantinople or make Greece an actual puppet instead of just a client state would be viewed as a threat of war to the rest of Europe.
We are coming up on the Tenth Year Anniversary of the end of the European War and this is a Russia that has lost four wars in the first half of the Twentieth Century, Russo-Japanese War, The Great War, The Soviet-Polish War, and The European War.
The only wars that they have won is The Russo-Finnish War in which they took greater than expected losses and their late entrance into The Pacific War fought mostly with German equipment.
Russia has also undergone a massive, destructive civil war, two induced famines, and purges by Stalin and Russia is looking for her to regain the prestige and influence that they think they deserve.
They have lost large amounts of land with the independence of Belarus and the Ukraine along with their agricultural and industrial production.
I don't know if they were able to keep the Central Asian Republics, if so it was very bloody and I would think that the Transcaucus Republics were able to become independent on their own.
By now Russia is reaping the minerals riches from Siberia, the oil and gas fields and more and more pipelines to carry them to the rest of Europe are being built.
So what I am thinking is with the limited information that we have been giving is that Russia may think that the rest of Europe will not like but will not interfere with a Grekko-Turkish War and if Greece gets in trouble and are losing, having Russia swoop in and rescue Greece is better than having Turkey getting control of Constantinople, the Bosporus, and the Dardanelles.
The only wars that they have won is The Russo-Finnish War in which they took greater than expected losses and their late entrance into The Pacific War fought mostly with German equipment.
Russia has also undergone a massive, destructive civil war, two induced famines, and purges by Stalin and Russia is looking for her to regain the prestige and influence that they think they deserve.
They have lost large amounts of land with the independence of Belarus and the Ukraine along with their agricultural and industrial production.
I don't know if they were able to keep the Central Asian Republics, if so it was very bloody and I would think that the Transcaucus Republics were able to become independent on their own.
By now Russia is reaping the minerals riches from Siberia, the oil and gas fields and more and more pipelines to carry them to the rest of Europe are being built.
So what I am thinking is with the limited information that we have been giving is that Russia may think that the rest of Europe will not like but will not interfere with a Grekko-Turkish War and if Greece gets in trouble and are losing, having Russia swoop in and rescue Greece is better than having Turkey getting control of Constantinople, the Bosporus, and the Dardanelles.
Part 72, Chapter 1063
Chapter One Thousand Sixty-Three
21th May 1954
Alexandra, Virginia
The car was finally starting to come together, and Jonny had finally managed to figure out how to get the power he wanted out of the engines that they were using without blowing them up. He had been right about the newer overhead valve engines being superior to the older engines, even if they still were not quite what he wanted. It made him wonder what Ford was thinking he would do with engines that looked they had come off of an old Model T which was what those side valve engines were, so it was a good thing he had raised some Hell to get the better engines. Now he had something else to contend with, the garage they were working in was filling full of stuff. They had to be prepared for anything that might happen along the way. Judging from the travel advisories that the US State Department had just put out there was a good chance that a couple portions of the selected route of the race could well be through active warzones and he had not received word that anyone was talking about cancelling the race. A radio, maps, food, water, first-aid and tool kits, guns and ammunition, that was just the cargo space behind the driver and co-driver/navigator’s seats in the Anglia.
There was also the chase van which had also been provided by Ford that they were going to cram full of anything else that they thought that they might need, tools, car parts and tires being the most important things. Into this were Dave and Red, two friends of Jonny’s who he had known since he had been training in Colorado. Sanderson who was the representative from Ford Motor Company, he was also supposed to help the team with any legal problems that they might have along the way. The sixth man on the team was Frank, a jack of all trades who had been Parker’s college roommate and now taught High School English in New York. When Jonny heard Frank’s voice he had wondered if it was Parker’s idea of a joke, it was the same accent from the West Counties where Jonny’s Grandfather was from. When Frank had shook Jonny’s hand he had said that he had heard that Jonny was just another arrogant Yank with a chip on his shoulder. That was when Jonny knew that he was going to get well with the Irishman.
Washington DC
The Turks were making a hash of things and that wasn’t what Truman had been told was going to happen. The CIA had been secretly arming the Turks for the last year because the chance to change the strategic situation was too good to pass up. The Germans collectively, would prefer a trip to the Dentist than to have another war right now with the rest of Europe following suit. The idea had been to draw them into the morass of Asia Minor, there no matter what the outcome was American interests would benefit.
What no one had counted on was Russia and a handful of small principalities that no one had had heard of until they figured predominantly in International affairs. It was something that had irked Truman. “No one realized that Serbia would become such a factor” was what one National Security Adviser had said. The silence that had fallen on the room after that statement had told the entire story. How could a supposedly learned man make such a stupid comment? It had been all he could do not fire him on the spot.
The plan had worked though, all of the world’s eyes were on Asia Minor. Just in time to watch as the American tanks that had been sold to the Turks revealed themselves to be critically flawed when they came up against Greek Panther IIs left over from the Second World War. The reason why the Germans had not deployed their own tanks to Mexico but had instead let French and American armor have its day in the sun was suddenly very apparent. They had been busy taking notes.
Potsdam
A Gutter Blues band was playing on the Variety show, they were wearing clothes that looked like something from a Buck Rogers comic book and the lyrics did not match the theme by any stretch of imagination. Kiki realized that it just wasn’t as much fun without Zella’s comments about how the extremes that the band had gone to in order to get attention were. Zella would be gleefully ripping them apart. Just who had made those costumes and why did they think it was a good idea? Tonight, Zella was absent because she had been arguing with Kiki. Aurora didn’t want to come between her friends, so she had stayed away as well.
Anya had fallen asleep despite the barely contained excitement that she was pretending that she didn’t have over her birthday party on Sunday afternoon and the novelty of staying up late on a Friday night. She had never watched television before she had come to live with Gia and said she found it a poor substitute for going and doing things. Kiki supposed that Anja was right about that, but there was something alluring sitting on the couch and doing nothing at all. As she sat there watching the absurd spectacle unfold Kiki came to the realization that without Zella this was actually incredibly boring. That was what prompted her to turn it off.
21th May 1954
Alexandra, Virginia
The car was finally starting to come together, and Jonny had finally managed to figure out how to get the power he wanted out of the engines that they were using without blowing them up. He had been right about the newer overhead valve engines being superior to the older engines, even if they still were not quite what he wanted. It made him wonder what Ford was thinking he would do with engines that looked they had come off of an old Model T which was what those side valve engines were, so it was a good thing he had raised some Hell to get the better engines. Now he had something else to contend with, the garage they were working in was filling full of stuff. They had to be prepared for anything that might happen along the way. Judging from the travel advisories that the US State Department had just put out there was a good chance that a couple portions of the selected route of the race could well be through active warzones and he had not received word that anyone was talking about cancelling the race. A radio, maps, food, water, first-aid and tool kits, guns and ammunition, that was just the cargo space behind the driver and co-driver/navigator’s seats in the Anglia.
There was also the chase van which had also been provided by Ford that they were going to cram full of anything else that they thought that they might need, tools, car parts and tires being the most important things. Into this were Dave and Red, two friends of Jonny’s who he had known since he had been training in Colorado. Sanderson who was the representative from Ford Motor Company, he was also supposed to help the team with any legal problems that they might have along the way. The sixth man on the team was Frank, a jack of all trades who had been Parker’s college roommate and now taught High School English in New York. When Jonny heard Frank’s voice he had wondered if it was Parker’s idea of a joke, it was the same accent from the West Counties where Jonny’s Grandfather was from. When Frank had shook Jonny’s hand he had said that he had heard that Jonny was just another arrogant Yank with a chip on his shoulder. That was when Jonny knew that he was going to get well with the Irishman.
Washington DC
The Turks were making a hash of things and that wasn’t what Truman had been told was going to happen. The CIA had been secretly arming the Turks for the last year because the chance to change the strategic situation was too good to pass up. The Germans collectively, would prefer a trip to the Dentist than to have another war right now with the rest of Europe following suit. The idea had been to draw them into the morass of Asia Minor, there no matter what the outcome was American interests would benefit.
What no one had counted on was Russia and a handful of small principalities that no one had had heard of until they figured predominantly in International affairs. It was something that had irked Truman. “No one realized that Serbia would become such a factor” was what one National Security Adviser had said. The silence that had fallen on the room after that statement had told the entire story. How could a supposedly learned man make such a stupid comment? It had been all he could do not fire him on the spot.
The plan had worked though, all of the world’s eyes were on Asia Minor. Just in time to watch as the American tanks that had been sold to the Turks revealed themselves to be critically flawed when they came up against Greek Panther IIs left over from the Second World War. The reason why the Germans had not deployed their own tanks to Mexico but had instead let French and American armor have its day in the sun was suddenly very apparent. They had been busy taking notes.
Potsdam
A Gutter Blues band was playing on the Variety show, they were wearing clothes that looked like something from a Buck Rogers comic book and the lyrics did not match the theme by any stretch of imagination. Kiki realized that it just wasn’t as much fun without Zella’s comments about how the extremes that the band had gone to in order to get attention were. Zella would be gleefully ripping them apart. Just who had made those costumes and why did they think it was a good idea? Tonight, Zella was absent because she had been arguing with Kiki. Aurora didn’t want to come between her friends, so she had stayed away as well.
Anya had fallen asleep despite the barely contained excitement that she was pretending that she didn’t have over her birthday party on Sunday afternoon and the novelty of staying up late on a Friday night. She had never watched television before she had come to live with Gia and said she found it a poor substitute for going and doing things. Kiki supposed that Anja was right about that, but there was something alluring sitting on the couch and doing nothing at all. As she sat there watching the absurd spectacle unfold Kiki came to the realization that without Zella this was actually incredibly boring. That was what prompted her to turn it off.
They had been busy taking notes.......Or making an Olympic effort to not facepalm and scream "WHAT KIND OF MENTAL RETARD BUILT THIS PIECE OF %&?·#ING SCRAP!?" after they saw the American vehicles in action?
Aaanyway...... methinks that Truman its going to likely pick the biggest whiner about the fatal defects of the American Tanks that nobody heard until that point, namely a certain head of West Point, our well known Coronel Patton, and give him a 2 ranks raise, and the order to clean house in the Army Corps's Armored Branch, dismiss every and each of the idiot officers and inspectors that certified the American Tanks as anything else than crap, and make VERY clear WHAT should be the minimal requeriments for an American MBT like the Germans were standardizing their units instead of keeping varying classes of tanks.....
And the laughingstock only has started. The Russians are now getting into this.....while their industry its recovering, there its the fact that the legacy of the Soviet War is that they if anything, learned HOW to build an extremely effective tank, for what amounted to be a pissant amount of resources....Moreover the Russian Empire ironically its profiting from the lessons, as they likely will be unveiling the T-54 MBT, a tank that for once will make groan EVERY analyst in the German Side....the tank may be more expensive than the usual crap during the Soviet dictatorship.....but still its highly economical and VERY WELL designed.....and if Panther II are killing the American Tanks.....the T-54 its going to make the Americans PALE from the sheer beatdown ....
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You mean to say Panther II, ITTL 50 tons and a 8.8cm L56. Not a cat to mess with.
Yeah. Still i can see the Germans during Mexico inwardly laughing or screaming to the POS that the Americans thought as "Modern" Armored units. And Patton being during the years of the Second World War being the "Lone Voice in the Desert" warning about the multiple errors of design and doctrine of the current American Armored Vehicles of the Line compared to even SOVIET units, a difference that became abysmal when compared to current German Panzer units of the line....
Probably, but then do the American units at least get the advantage of being dead reliable, and easy to maintain? That is an inestimable value there.
There is still a lot of deadwood and rot in the U.S. Army, while some of it was exposed in Mexico and there is going to be a lot of field grade officers finding themselves on the next retired list, there still is a lot more to be rooted out.
The United States should by this time have acquired a bunch of Panther II on the secondary markets and sent them to the Aberdeen Proving Grounds to be tested against American tanks, stripped down to the last bolts and screws to how they are constructed.
So the performance of American tanks should not been any surprise to anyone especially since these tanks were apparently ITTL M4 Shermans which is a far different tank IOTL.
The United States knows about the newest German tanks the Lynx, but they don't have the details about them and are going in blind on approving a new tank design.
IOTL the M48 Patton was coming online in 1953 and how does that real tank compare to the fictional Lynx?
The United States should by this time have acquired a bunch of Panther II on the secondary markets and sent them to the Aberdeen Proving Grounds to be tested against American tanks, stripped down to the last bolts and screws to how they are constructed.
So the performance of American tanks should not been any surprise to anyone especially since these tanks were apparently ITTL M4 Shermans which is a far different tank IOTL.
The United States knows about the newest German tanks the Lynx, but they don't have the details about them and are going in blind on approving a new tank design.
IOTL the M48 Patton was coming online in 1953 and how does that real tank compare to the fictional Lynx?
..........PFFFFFFFTTTT.....hahahaha...HAHAHAHA!!!!!!
...seriously, THANKS for that joke.
Do i have to even REMOTELY mention the sheer amount of issues that in OTL the American Tanks had during the early and mid parts of WWII, issues that were learned . then fixed more than often to the price of many lives lost ? Hell, the Sherman Tank was INFAMOUS as a near literal deathtrap......Low Armor compared to even PANZER IV, what resulted in the interior of said tanks easily burning or the ammo exploding. If anything that was an acknowledgement of the sheer courage of American Tank crews to keep fighting in THAT to the end of WWII, for not talk of the miracles done more than often for the Mechanical Crews of these same tanks, that in multiple times did modifications to try to reduce the odds of an early death and fix the issues of the baseline Sherman design....
Here the American Tanks's experience against other Armored Units amounts in big fat words to ZERO. No learned lessons, no defects of design, doctrine, weapons and armors shown one and a hundred times until they learned the lesson. This in raw words its the FIRST encounter of American Tanks with their counterparts of the other Powers since 1917.....and its showing the abysmal difference between theory and experience.
The German tankers did not refer to their encounters with the Sherman (against the unfortunate British crews) as "Tommy cookers" or the "Ronson" (cigarette lighter) without reason.
I'm sorry but you are dead wrong and seem to be buying in to the myth-making around WW2. The Sherman was a great tank and it's a shame that a few books that rely on outlier personal accounts rather than actual data and combat reports has slandered it. I would urge you to watch Nichols Moran's (aka The Chieftain) video presentations about the Sherman. He's proved that it was in fact one of the best, most effective tanks of the war.
Leaving aside your blind acceptance of Death Traps (written by a guy whose job it was to fix the broken tanks) and related memes, the Sherman was just fine. Also the Germans didn't have anywhere near enough tanks OTL to make the Tiger/Tiger II relevant, so the Shermans were fighting Panzer IVs and Panthers 99.9% of the time, where their supposed "flaws" didn't matter.
Points for not repeating the stupid "gas engine makes you burn easier" bit.
Saying this to the same Lt Harry S Truman of Battery B, who fought in the Great War, an event triggered by events in Serbia, is indeed the kind of Collosal Stupidity that gets people sent to Alaska to count trees for the Forestry Department.
(Although it does give them a redemption route if they return with evidence of acid rain/acid snow killing trees up there.
Part 72, Chapter 1065
Chapter One Thousand Sixty-Five
25th May 1954
Wunsdorf-Zossen
When Kurt was promoted to Oberst he was expecting to be transferred to Panzer Regiment. Instead he was assigned to the staff of Generaloberst Erhard Raus, the present Chief of the OKH and heard a number of jokes about how the tiny Bohemia was conquering the German Empire by taking over the Heer. Gerta didn’t mind because she was now living a stone’s throw away from her friend Helene even if the children missed the horses and the dogs at the Wolvogle house in Werder. The sting was taken out of it by Suse Rosa being promised a kitten from Princess Kristina and Suse had already named him Finster, which was a big clue about what color he was after Gerta took Suse to visit.
That was also when they started getting intelligence reports about the performance of Panther IIs in the field in the hands of Greek crews. Kurt almost felt sorry for the Turkish tank crews who had been using American medium tanks, high profile, inadequate armor, ammunition stored in sponsons and a 75mm main gun. Good for infantry support and probably would have excelled in that role, something like the role that the StuG played. Against more modern armor it was suicide. Perhaps more than a decade earlier before the Tigers and Panthers were in the field it would have been a fair fight. It was Kurt who was looking at the photographs in the after-action reports compiled by their observers, the 8.8cm KwK 36 still packed quite a punch and the Greeks were using APCBC shells so the results were not pretty.
Then he saw something in one of the photographs and reached for the phone. After he got connected he waited for the General to pick up.
“Sir, this is Oberst Knispel” Kurt said.
“Who?” Kurt heard the General ask.
“Your Aide from the Panzer Corps” Kurt replied.
“The short one?”
Kurt knew that it was the General's prerogative to remember whatever he wanted and in the bureaucratic structure of the OKH Kurt was one of hundreds of high-ranking Officers. It was however a bit annoying to have that play out in front of him like that.
“I guess Sir” Kurt said, “I was ordered to tell you if I found anything that would interest you.”
Or at least those had been the General’s orders a few days earlier.
“Very well, what did you find?”
“There is a photograph here of a knocked-out Sherman that wasn’t hit by anything we have sold the Greeks” Kurt said, “According to the photograph I’m looking at a hole cut through the front glacis that looks at least ten centimeters in width.”
That got the General’s attention. If they hadn’t been the ones to sell it to the Greeks that left one other seller and there were a lot of troubling implications.
Potsdam
Gia looked at herself in the mirror and for what must have been the millionth time wondered what others saw. She had recently been given an advanced copy of the diaries that her mother had left behind when she had fled Russia, they were to be published. In the wake of Gia’s autobiography and having the knowledge of everything that she had left out at the forefront of her mind she had been left deeply troubled. Who was Jehane Thomas? Or was she Alexandra Lukichna? She had always had a difficult time telling exactly who she was after having to assume so many identities. Perhaps it was as simple as what Anne had said that Anya had told her about the words of that strange bird-lizard in her dream, I know who I am. Did Gia know who she was?
Anya ran past with a smile on her face, she was enjoying the afternoon which was good to see. Trailing after her was a small ball of orange and white fur. Anya wanted to come here every day to visit and that wasn’t a problem. Since Gia had moved to a house in Potsdam itself she knew that Kat had been keeping tabs on her through the bodyguards that she wished she didn’t need. Kira hadn’t said anything, but she had been hinting that there were expectations that Gia might need to start taking seriously. It was obvious what Kira was getting at even without the occasional social invitation from well to do men that her cousin sent her way what Kira was getting at. So far, all she had happened was that Gia had concluded that Czar Georgy had very questionable taste in men and had said as much. Kira had said that wasn’t funny, while everyone else within earshot had disagreed.
Gia scooped Ivan up, he already followed Anya everywhere and Gia just knew that when he got older he was going to be a big easy-going meatball of a cat. For now, he was just a small thing still dependent on his mother for a couple more weeks. When she had been younger she had wanted a kitten, but her father had been allergic to cats so that wasn’t an option. Later having pets had had been out of the question considering how unsettled her life was. She had grown up listening to stories about Ortipo, her mother’s French Bulldog or any of the other dogs and cats that had been left behind when her family had been forced into exile. Gia didn’t want that to happen. Letting Anya have Ivan was a mark of stability that she hoped would last.
“You won’t ever try to fix me up with a man who I can’t talk to because he doesn’t listen?” Gia asked as she scratched behind Ivan’s ears and he purred loudly, “Or worse is an uncultured brute?”
25th May 1954
Wunsdorf-Zossen
When Kurt was promoted to Oberst he was expecting to be transferred to Panzer Regiment. Instead he was assigned to the staff of Generaloberst Erhard Raus, the present Chief of the OKH and heard a number of jokes about how the tiny Bohemia was conquering the German Empire by taking over the Heer. Gerta didn’t mind because she was now living a stone’s throw away from her friend Helene even if the children missed the horses and the dogs at the Wolvogle house in Werder. The sting was taken out of it by Suse Rosa being promised a kitten from Princess Kristina and Suse had already named him Finster, which was a big clue about what color he was after Gerta took Suse to visit.
That was also when they started getting intelligence reports about the performance of Panther IIs in the field in the hands of Greek crews. Kurt almost felt sorry for the Turkish tank crews who had been using American medium tanks, high profile, inadequate armor, ammunition stored in sponsons and a 75mm main gun. Good for infantry support and probably would have excelled in that role, something like the role that the StuG played. Against more modern armor it was suicide. Perhaps more than a decade earlier before the Tigers and Panthers were in the field it would have been a fair fight. It was Kurt who was looking at the photographs in the after-action reports compiled by their observers, the 8.8cm KwK 36 still packed quite a punch and the Greeks were using APCBC shells so the results were not pretty.
Then he saw something in one of the photographs and reached for the phone. After he got connected he waited for the General to pick up.
“Sir, this is Oberst Knispel” Kurt said.
“Who?” Kurt heard the General ask.
“Your Aide from the Panzer Corps” Kurt replied.
“The short one?”
Kurt knew that it was the General's prerogative to remember whatever he wanted and in the bureaucratic structure of the OKH Kurt was one of hundreds of high-ranking Officers. It was however a bit annoying to have that play out in front of him like that.
“I guess Sir” Kurt said, “I was ordered to tell you if I found anything that would interest you.”
Or at least those had been the General’s orders a few days earlier.
“Very well, what did you find?”
“There is a photograph here of a knocked-out Sherman that wasn’t hit by anything we have sold the Greeks” Kurt said, “According to the photograph I’m looking at a hole cut through the front glacis that looks at least ten centimeters in width.”
That got the General’s attention. If they hadn’t been the ones to sell it to the Greeks that left one other seller and there were a lot of troubling implications.
Potsdam
Gia looked at herself in the mirror and for what must have been the millionth time wondered what others saw. She had recently been given an advanced copy of the diaries that her mother had left behind when she had fled Russia, they were to be published. In the wake of Gia’s autobiography and having the knowledge of everything that she had left out at the forefront of her mind she had been left deeply troubled. Who was Jehane Thomas? Or was she Alexandra Lukichna? She had always had a difficult time telling exactly who she was after having to assume so many identities. Perhaps it was as simple as what Anne had said that Anya had told her about the words of that strange bird-lizard in her dream, I know who I am. Did Gia know who she was?
Anya ran past with a smile on her face, she was enjoying the afternoon which was good to see. Trailing after her was a small ball of orange and white fur. Anya wanted to come here every day to visit and that wasn’t a problem. Since Gia had moved to a house in Potsdam itself she knew that Kat had been keeping tabs on her through the bodyguards that she wished she didn’t need. Kira hadn’t said anything, but she had been hinting that there were expectations that Gia might need to start taking seriously. It was obvious what Kira was getting at even without the occasional social invitation from well to do men that her cousin sent her way what Kira was getting at. So far, all she had happened was that Gia had concluded that Czar Georgy had very questionable taste in men and had said as much. Kira had said that wasn’t funny, while everyone else within earshot had disagreed.
Gia scooped Ivan up, he already followed Anya everywhere and Gia just knew that when he got older he was going to be a big easy-going meatball of a cat. For now, he was just a small thing still dependent on his mother for a couple more weeks. When she had been younger she had wanted a kitten, but her father had been allergic to cats so that wasn’t an option. Later having pets had had been out of the question considering how unsettled her life was. She had grown up listening to stories about Ortipo, her mother’s French Bulldog or any of the other dogs and cats that had been left behind when her family had been forced into exile. Gia didn’t want that to happen. Letting Anya have Ivan was a mark of stability that she hoped would last.
“You won’t ever try to fix me up with a man who I can’t talk to because he doesn’t listen?” Gia asked as she scratched behind Ivan’s ears and he purred loudly, “Or worse is an uncultured brute?”
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Mexico remains under LN mandate with a largely Brazilian, French and American peacekeeping force. There will more about that in future updates.
Gia and Asia ended their relationship after Gia was exposed and taken into custody.
