Stupid Luck and Happenstance, Thread II

[weasel_airlift]

It would be interesting to know just how accurate the A4 knockoffs were. At least two had come close enough to the target according to PM. About the other four?

Had the Greeks done any test launches of their A4s? Was this their first crack at using the homing guidance system? It would be one massive gamble to assume the A4s would work the first time, especially with an untested guidance system, not to mention the payload. But then again, desperate times call for desperate measures.

Please keep up the great work PM, love the story !!

Making an active radio homing system is child's play, and would be easy to test on a small scale. I could easily build a simple homing system with a common household coffeemaker, six feet of rubber hose, a pair q-tips, a twenty-two degree angle, a steering wheel from a 1940 Ford, a rat, a photo of Caroline Munro (1970s), and a Grand Rapids phone book

If they've been playing with rockets, I imagine they are confident enough that it will work. Maybe they've been lobbing them at derelict ships.

 

[snassni2]

Nah, no real issue. I mean, if it was Mecca, then maybe....

I'm talking about governments but the people.

 

[Peabody-Martini]

The reaction of Muslims around the world would be interesting. Will this trigger rebellions across the British and French colonies? What about the Muslim population of Russia?

What you find frequently in that part of the world is that it is not so much a question of religion so much as a question of ethnicity or nationality. The Syrians and the Kurds would be pleased as punch with the developments depicted even though they share the same religion as the Turks.

 

[jlckansas]

Within this part of the world and the Balkans, having friends who's family immigrated here to the US from there and talking with them, it can mean literally which side of mountain your family were born on and lived on. THis includes even if you were not from that place. It can take tribalism to an extreme.

 

[ejpsan]

One of the problems for the United States is that there is a large Greek-American population that is opposed to anything that may seem like support for Turkey in this conflict and they may be sending money to the Greek government that allows them to buy things that they need on the secondary market.
There may be some Americans who are singing "Onward Christian Soldiers" and are seeing this as some sort of a "Crusade" and will not back any effort by the administration to resolve this situation .
The American Jewish community while not seeing the concept of Zionism as being as necessary ITTL are still the most generous contributors to Jewish communities in the Palestinian Mandate and are going to watch and wait to see if there is going to be a move on one side of the other to deflect blame and use Anti-Semitism to excuse repression against Jews in their countries, as an example Turkey blames "treasonous Jewish spies for Greece" for the attacks or Greece claims that Turkey is being financed by the "International Jewish Bankers" and encourages anti Jewish violence in Greece and other parts of the Balkans.

 

[snassni2]

What you find frequently in that part of the world is that it is not so much a question of religion so much as a question of ethnicity or nationality. The Syrians and the Kurds would be pleased as punch with the developments depicted even though they share the same religion as the Turks.

I know the turks were not liked by the arabs or kurds but it still can trigger some kind of reaction. Like Imams calling for Jihad or even creating TTL Alqaida.

 

[simssss]

Having read Ignition! this development does not fill me with much joy. Damn, I thought that this timeline would be lucky enough to avoid the worst excesses of war, but no.

"For as they were maneuvering the cylinder onto a dolly,
it split and dumped one ton of chlorine trifluoride onto the floor. It
chewed its way through twelve inches of concrete and dug a three-
foot hole in the gravel underneath, filled the place with fumes which
corroded everything in sight, and, in general, made one hell of a mess.
Civil Defense turned out, and started to evacuate the neighborhood,
and to put it mildly, there was quite a brouhaha before things quieted
down. Miraculously, nobody was killed, but there was one casualty —
the man who had been steadying the cylinder when it split. He was
found some five hundred feet away, where he had reached Mach 2
and was still picking up speed when he was stopped by a heart attack."

Mach 2 for a human ? How?

 

[Obfuscated]

Mach 2 for a human ? How?

The author may tend to a slight bit of humor in the non-science parts of his book.

 

[ShortsBelfast]

Making an active radio homing system is child's play, and would be easy to test on a small scale. I could easily build a simple homing system with a common household coffeemaker, six feet of rubber hose, a pair q-tips, a twenty-two degree angle, a steering wheel from a 1940 Ford, a rat, a photo of Caroline Munro (1970s), and a Grand Rapids phone book

If they've been playing with rockets, I imagine they are confident enough that it will work. Maybe they've been lobbing them at derelict ships.

I presume you begin by sacrificing the rat on the 1940 Ford steering wheel?

 

[weasel_airlift]

I presume you begin by sacrificing the rat on the 1940 Ford steering wheel?

No, you begin by getting the rat addicted to coffee, then putting the coffeemaker at the target location

 

[Dan]

Mach 2 for a human ? How?

Normally by standing next to a source of an explosion where they may ride the shockwave briefly. Not always in the same direction though.

 

[weasel_airlift]

Normally by standing next to a source of an explosion where they may ride the shockwave briefly. Not always in the same direction though.

Or in one piece

 

[LordVorKon]

Mach 2 for a human ? How?

I assume that was hyperbole for humorous effect.

 

[ejpsan]

Tomorrow, her mother would insist that Kiki accompany her to church the way she always did along with Rea and Vicky.

As I kept re-reading the sentence, I started to get a feeling of something might go wrong at the church.

 

[Peabody-Martini]

Chapter One Thousand Seventy-Eight


27th July 1954

Over the North Sea

Albrecht was flying the lead plane of the two airplanes on this patrol. It was a long flight over water so there was not a whole lot to see yet, so he found himself talking to Risky about his personal life which seemed to be growing stranger as the weeks went by.

“I understand that she’s a real ball buster” Risky said over the intercom, “What you are saying doesn’t sound like that at all.”

“Ilse’s sister is though as nails, she’d have to be if she’s done half of what she’s said to” Albrecht replied, “The exception seems to be her family. She said that she just wants Ilse to be happy.”

“And she thinks that you can help?” Risky asked, “The Gräfin must really be desperate.”

“I don’t think it’s that” Albrecht said, “She just doesn’t want to see Ilse make any more stupid choices.”

“And she’s trying to keep her little sister in a relationship with you?” Risky asked sarcastically.

Recently Ilse had told Albrecht that if he were smart he would not only stop seeing her, but he would be running the other way. There was a lot in her past that Ilse said that she couldn’t expect anyone else to live with. When Albrecht had asked what was so bad, she had refused to answer. A day later the Tigress herself had turned up in Kiel wanting to know what was going on. What she had said to Albrecht had seemed simple enough. He could make the easy choice, do what Ilse asked of him and no one would judge him for it considering what gigantic mess Ilse was. Or he could try to understand where Ilse was coming from. Years of neglect and abuse had left a mark and Ilse was trying to spare him from the implications of that. Katherine had just asked him to not give up so quickly.

“Yellow, Fritz” Albrecht heard a crackly voice say over the headphones, weak but growing stronger.

Albrecht had been expecting it at any time and these were his orders. He and his wingman were to fly a patrol across the North Sea and see what the Brits were up to. Perhaps they would get lucky and catch a glimpse of something that they ought not to. Word around the Flight Groups out of Kiel and Wilhelmshaven was that the RAF had a new toy and the High Command wanted a good look at it. Whoever got them that look would be well rewarded and they best have their cameras ready. All they had heard so far were the rumors that a pair of interceptors from the Voss claimed that they had intercepted a large plane with wings like a bat but had lost it when it had somehow turned inside of them and vanished into the clouds. No one needed to say just how absurd that sounded but that was the story they were sticking with.

The four white specks in the distance were drawing closer from behind were far more conventional. Hawker Hunters, the planes that had become a common sight over the last few months whenever Albrecht got sent on these spoiling missions. The British plane was smaller and a bit more maneuverable but lacked speed compared to a Ju-331.

“Let me guess Vulture, you lost your way and happened to drift towards our side of the North Sea?” The British pilot asked. It was a reminder that the Ju-331 had been named for the Ossifrage vultures of the Alps.

“No” Albrecht replied, “We got sent to see if you were awake over here.”

“There are easier ways.”

“But those aren’t as much fun.”

“Real funny Fritz” The Brit said, “We’re awake, now go back the way you came.”

Albrecht could hear Risky working his camera as the Hunters drew close. The Brits might not like it, but he had gotten exactly what he had come for even if it wasn’t the bat-winged mystery plane.


Potsdam

Anya looked at the paper in front of her sourly. On top of her regular school lessons she had an hour of tutoring before she would be allowed to go to dance class. She just had to get through the torturous exercise that was addition and subtraction of fractions. The same lesson that had humiliated her in class that morning was being repeated this afternoon.

Sasha had tried to help her, but Anya had realized that she was not much better than she was when it came to math. She had taken the classes at University level but years later she couldn’t remember a whole lot of it. Sasha’s work these days was typing a manuscript and recording interviews with Herr Reinhardt in the parlor nearly every day. It seemed like there was a never-ending parade of artists and musicians through the house. Sasha said that she wanted to pick up what Feodora had left off as a Patroness of the arts. There was also the project that Sasha was working on that she had only shared with Anya. She had been gathering information on the children under state care and was hoping to start a study that would be the largest of its kind regarding their condition and the eventual outcomes.

Until Sasha had started to explain it to her Anya had no idea how lucky she had been. The Nuns in Pskov had not always been gentle in their treatment of Anya, but she had never starved. Sasha had said that there were thousands of other children in Russia who had died of malnutrition in the years following the Soviet War and that was not even factoring in what had happened in Belarus and the Ukraine. There were also things that were happening to the women that Sasha regarded as sisters who were having health problems as a result of things that had happened to them early on. Sasha was trying to get the laws changed in Germany and Russia so that there would be minimal conditions that would have to be met for all children.

“Are you paying attention?” The Tutor asked, then he started on about lowest common denominators again.

 

[NHBL]

I have a feeling that something's due to go wrong at the church. Not only that, but people will make a bigger stink if something bad happens there than elsewhere
Looking forwards to seeing what the bat winged plane is! Vulcan bomber?

 

[ShortsBelfast]

Or Handley Page Victor or a swept wing Canberra or Shorts Sperrin. Or one of Miles' interesting proposals gets built TTL.

 

[holyknight]

I have a feeling that something's due to go wrong at the church. Not only that, but people will make a bigger stink if something bad happens there than elsewhere
Looking forwards to seeing what the bat winged plane is! Vulcan bomber?

Most likely its the test march for the Vulcan Bomber, possibly also checking the issues with fuel and such for a long range insertion with theoretical nukes.

..... And as a random crazy mental image... an older Joachim Marseille being asked to test the prototype of a German SR-71......

 

[Peabody-Martini]

Chapter One Thousand Seventy-Nine


1st August 1954

Beijing, China

They had made it here with a couple days to spare. Just enough time to get the car and the chase van ready. It was not exactly fair considering that the other competitors had already been here for several days. Still, Jonny wasn’t about to start complaining. Complaining was something that others could do ten thousand kilometers from Beijing across the finish line in Berlin. Walking through the pits Jonny could hear many the many languages of the of the other teams, mostly from Germany, Italy and England. There were other teams representing car companies that he had never heard of from Russia and France.

“Sergeant Casey!” Jonny heard a voice call out and he saw a reporter, cameraman and a boom mic operator walking at a brisk pace towards him.

“You got me” Jonny replied as the camera was pointed at him and it started rolling.

“I’m here with John Casey, one of the drivers for the Ford racing team, normally he’s First Sergeant in the US Army but he took some time off for this event” The reporter said.

“Is there a question in that?” Jonny asked.

“No” The reporter said, “Just letting the folks back home know who you are.”

“Well, you got me.”

“You have anything to say?”

Just that I’m proud to represent the United States and Ford Motors” Jonny said and then he walked off ignoring the remaining questions from the reporter.


Berlin

People are just big stupid animals. At few times is that any clearer then when they are sitting there with a look of surprise and confusion on their face at the second their life ended. In her professional life Kat had seen a lot of death, not that it made it any easier to see a friend lying dead with that look on their face. She knew that she could fall apart behind closed doors over this later but at this minute Kat was here as the Executive Officer of the First Foot and that meant that she needed to bury it.

The room was filled with the detritus of life. Glasses, coats and even shoes littered the floor it showed exactly what the panicked reaction had been. One of the pairs of glasses Kat had come for, Kiki being upset that she had lost them. Kat was going to have to tell her that they had been stepped on, one of the lenses shattered and the frame was hopelessly bent out of shape. One more thing for the Princess to be upset about, in the rush for the door the Squad led by Lea had not been gentle in how they had gotten the Princess or her sisters out of the building. While Kiki was unhurt by shooting or the stampede she had still been hit by one of the church’s heavy front doors. It was probably just as well she had lost her glasses otherwise she could have gotten hurt far worse than just a black eye and a swollen, possibly broken nose. The last Kat had seen of her she was being transported to the hospital and asking her to go look for her glasses.

There were also spent pistol cartridges and a great deal of blood. The fortunate part, if one could even call it that, was that the shooter had been trying to reload after just eight shots and two soldiers from the First Foot had jumped him from behind as he had fumbled with the magazine. The pistol had been cheaply made in Russia during the Soviet War and was the sort of thing that had been making its way onto the black market. As it was, the Archbishop Nemolovsky from the Russian Orthodox Church of Berlin was dead along with one other who Kat was trying not to think about or look in the direction of the body that someone had thrown a sheet over. Four others had been wounded in the gunfire, as well as dozens of others injured in the rush to escape. They had been taken to the hospital.

“Are you going to be alright?” Anton asked. Kat had asked specifically for him to be the lead investigator.

“Not much I can do about that” Kat replied.

“In my job, yours as well, shit happens” Anton said, it was obvious that he wasn’t buying her act that she was impassive in the face of what had just happened. “I’m talking about things that no one on Earth could have predicted.”

“This was predicted” Kat replied, “We knew that the war in Greece had divided this community and we thought we had taken precautions but…”

“Bullshit” Anton said, “You weren’t here when this happened, that you came and sealed off the room and helped those you could is the most that anyone could expect.”

“I was too late to prevent tragedy this time and it couldn’t be helped?” Kat asked feeling herself getting angry, “Is that what you are trying to tell me?”

“Hardly” Anton replied, “But you really need perspective sometimes.”

“Perspective won’t make me feel better about any of this” Kat replied.

Kat was exhausted, something that wasn’t helping her overall mood. She had been preparing to meet with Kira this afternoon like she did every Sunday when she had gotten word about what had happened.

“No, it won’t” Anton said, “But I know how you love to torture yourself and this is one of those times when you cannot allow yourself to do that or else you’ll be completely worthless to the investigation.”

“I’m too close to be a part of this” Kat replied.

“Only if you feel it prevents you from doing the job” Anton said.

It was obvious that he wasn’t going to let her escape from this.

 

[Shadow Master]

Ummmm. I didn't see this coming. Who died? Surly, not who I fear....