The United Kingdom In The Twilight War

[Rainbow Six]

Evening all,

As I've mentioned on a few occasions in the past, one of the biggest disappointments for me was the Survivors Guide to the UK. It just seemed to fall well short of the mark in a number of ways, and for the past six months or so I've been working on my own alternative version. I have tried to follow the basic tenets of the original, with some changes, e.g. having the Capital in Oxford rather than Portsmouth, utilising onshore oilfields rather than offshore, and reducing considerably the amount of time spent under Martial Law. I've also totally changed the situation in Northern Ireland, and placed the south east of England in a state of anarchy.

It's still very much a work in progress, and will remain so for some months (at least!), however I thought I'd post what I had so far - basically a somewhat enhanced timeline (working on canon 1.0 timeline), an orbat for British and US forces in the UK as of 01 August 2000, some details on the Security Service and 2nd Infantry Brigade (in time I hope to have something similar for each major formation). There is more to come, but I hope you find this of interest and I'd welcome any comments / feedback that you may have. I'll be glad to answer any questions anyone has.

Finally, thanks to Tigger for sharing some insights on Northern Ireland and Dude UK who used to post on the old boards for contributing some ideas and general inspiration - some of the work on the timeline is his.

Cheers

Dave

[Slappy]

Very nice work. I've only had time to read the timeline but I found it both very credible and entertaining.

[Caradhras]

I always planned on taking my players to the UK and also wasnt too impressed by the 'official' material so left it on hold.

This may be the answer

[Benjamin]

Very nice work, though I have to admit that I kinda liked the Civil War in Ireland. It reminded me of the situation hinted at in one of Tom Clancy's best works, Patriot Games. Also, I always felt that there would be a far larger population of stay behind Americans. I figured that many of the ships damaged in the North Sea fighting limped back to Britain and their crews became stranded. Add these service men to the Air Force personnel and their dependents plus all of the casualties evacuated out of mainland Europe and you easily have number pushing into the tens of thousands. After four years of living in Britain, I think a large number of them would have elected to stay behind.

But that's just my two cents.

Benjamin

[Legbreaker]

I think four years is probably a bit extreme. Many, if not nearly all of these "shipwreck" survivors would soon find themselves on another ship headed to Europe.
Don't forget that the UK was still sending troops to the front from home quite late in the war which I think is a good indication of the existance of at least limited shipping.
Add in the fact that foriegn troops, even allies, wouldn't be all that welcome once things started to break down and the UK would be bending over backwards to shift these troops on as soon as they could.

[Rainbow Six]

All, thanks for your comments.

I do have one US Warship (The USS Normandy) tied up alongside at Portsmouth, crippled after a torpedo attack from a Sov submarine. The US Navy Detachment in Portsmouth forms a caretaker crew for this ship. Beyond that, I’ve tended to take Legbreaker’s view that any US sailors stranded in Portsmouth (or elsewhere) would have ended up serving on another ship fairly quickly.

Likewise, in the early stages of the War, I think the UK would only serve as a transit point for any movements of dependents and wounded soldiers (exception is obviously the dependents of 3rd Air Force personnel, many of whom I think would indeed have stayed on in the UK), and then only in the early stages of the War, hence the reason I kept the numbers low. (As an aside, I have in general tried to err on the low side with regards to troop numbers as having large numbers of troops on the British mainland would decrease the amount of areas in anarchy, thus reducing campaign options).

That said, the DC Working Group have kindly shared some of the information that they had collated with me, particularly with regard to the USAF presence in the UK, and in light of that I will be making a few amendments to the US Armed Forces section (and I’m very grateful to them for sharing that info with me!)

Cheers

[Graebarde]

Great very detailed work.

[Nowhere Man 1966]

Originally Posted by Rainbow Six

Evening all,

As I've mentioned on a few occasions in the past, one of the biggest disappointments for me was the Survivors Guide to the UK. It just seemed to fall well short of the mark in a number of ways, and for the past six months or so I've been working on my own alternative version. I have tried to follow the basic tenets of the original, with some changes, e.g. having the Capital in Oxford rather than Portsmouth, utilising onshore oilfields rather than offshore, and reducing considerably the amount of time spent under Martial Law. I've also totally changed the situation in Northern Ireland, and placed the south east of England in a state of anarchy.

It's still very much a work in progress, and will remain so for some months (at least!), however I thought I'd post what I had so far - basically a somewhat enhanced timeline (working on canon 1.0 timeline), an orbat for British and US forces in the UK as of 01 August 2000, some details on the Security Service and 2nd Infantry Brigade (in time I hope to have something similar for each major formation). There is more to come, but I hope you find this of interest and I'd welcome any comments / feedback that you may have. I'll be glad to answer any questions anyone has.

Finally, thanks to Tigger for sharing some insights on Northern Ireland and Dude UK who used to post on the old boards for contributing some ideas and general inspiration - some of the work on the timeline is his.

Cheers

Dave

Going over your work now, it is interesting on how the death of Lady Di was "butterflied" away in this timeline along with Prince William becoming King. Any word on Prince Harry?

[Rainbow Six]

Originally Posted by Nowhere Man 1966

Going over your work now, it is interesting on how the death of Lady Di was "butterflied" away in this timeline along with Prince William becoming King. Any word on Prince Harry?

I think the divergence from the real World timeline is sufficient to justify "saving" Diana. Harry is mentioned, in December 1998.

"In December the UK Capital was moved once more, this time to Oxford; a rump Parliament was formed from surviving Members of Parliament, now numbering just over forty, with Douglas Montgomery confirmed as Prime Minister. The Emergency Parliament’s first act was to implement a continuation of the MACA (Military Aid to the Civilian Authorities) Act; whilst this formally lifted Martial Law, the Military would remain responsible for law and order for the foreseeable future, whilst Parliament would, nominally at least, run the Country (or at least those areas over which it had control). Most of the surviving members of the British and Dutch Royal Families moved to Oxford at this time, although those in the immediate line of succession to both Thrones (Prince Harry for the British and Prince Willem Alexander of Orange for the Dutch) were moved to secret locations in secure areas controlled by the Military (rumours persisted for some time afterwards that the Princes had gone to either Australia or New Zealand)."

I figured that after losing much of the national leadership in one go in the York strike, going forward the British and Dutch Governments would ensure that the heirs were never in the same place as the reigning Sovereigns to ensure a line of succession. I left the exact location of the heirs delibarately vague...personally I would have them holed up in a country house in Wiltshire guarded by a platoon of Gurkhas, but the option is there for the GM that would prefer to send them overseas.

[TiggerCCW UK]

Rainbow, I really like this. Thanks for the credit, but all I did was ramble at you a bit

As far as the Northern Irish/Irish part goes I reckon that's a more likely timeline than the canon one. If however a GM wants an Irish Civil war (another one!) You can use the idea of Free Derry as a catalyst for it. With Free Derry being established more extreme loyallists, who have been marginalised prior to this, could gain support and push for an Op Motorman 2 to reclaim the No Go areas. This could bring the Irish Army in to defend the Catholic/Nationalist/Republican controlled areas. Not the way I'd go, as due to population movement there aren't likely to be many Loyallists left in republican areas in need of "Liberation" and I reckon the struggle for survival will out weigh any local political concerns.