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Sheepster
Post subject: Posted: March 18th, 2023, 2:45 am
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Advance On Puerto Bolívar

On the 26th a ceasefire was declared, but it collapsed within hours. Ecuadorian troops, exhausted and without ammunition, started leaving the field. Unsure of his own position, the Ecuadorian president was maintaining more and better troops to maintain his government in Quito, rather than defending the country. This extended even to the meagre Ecuadorian Air Force. Ecuador’s offensive air wing composed only 6 Curtiss-Wright CW-19R very light fighters, only 3 of which were serviceable, and these were not risked in combat against the superior Peruvians, but instead held in reserve to protect the Ecuadorian government.

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Peru recommenced their advance on 29th July, with bombing attacks on the Ecuadorian towns of El Oro, and a leaflet drop on the capitol city of Guayaquil. On the ground Peruvian troops advanced almost unopposed, and easily occupied the deserted towns of the province, advancing on Puerto Bolívar.

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Peruvian aircraft had bombed the harbour at Puerto Bolívar on the first day of the offensive and reported the presence of Ecuadorian warships, unable to leave with the Peruvian blockade. The bombers returned on following days to attack the vessels, and inadvertently took attention away from Ecuadorian munitions stores at the docks.


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adenandy
Post subject: Re: Manchester AUPosted: March 20th, 2023, 9:24 am
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Excellent AU!

Very enjoyable read, and great illustrations. I honestly can't wait for the next installment.

Jolly well done old chap :)

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llamaman2
Post subject: Re: Manchester AUPosted: March 25th, 2023, 1:29 pm
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I've really been enjoying this AU - great work so far

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Currently working on:
The October War, 27-10-1962 (apparently forever);
"Saxonverse" alt-UK;
Federation of the Channel Islands AU;
Republic of Yopur & Andaman;
some sort of overarching AU;

Regaining my sanity.


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Sheepster
Post subject: Re: Manchester AUPosted: March 28th, 2023, 8:19 am
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Fall Of Puerto Bolívar

With the collapse of organised Ecuadorian defence the calls of the US, Brazil and Argentina for a halt to hostilities finally took hold, and a ceasefire was ordered for 18H00 on the 31st July. While Ecuador took this as a countdown to an end to hostilities, the Peruvian military took it as a deadline to capture as much territory as possible. To that end Peru mobilised a force held by very few other nations, a dedicated paratrooper corps. Mounting up in Caproni Ca.111 transports, a small contingent of paratroopers was emplaned from the Peruvian airbase at Chiclayo. Even with the small numbers involved, the audacious assault was only the third use of paratroops in combat, and the most successful, with the Ecuadorian garrison being thoroughly surprised and demoralised by the appearance of the Peruvian airborne troops.
To solidify the occupation a contingent of soldiers was also enroute by warship, and with the city captured they were offloaded and the city secured for Peru before the ceasefire came in to effect. Peru was now in control of the whole of the Ecuadorian El Oro province, and in position to capture the rest of the country in further action if needed.


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Sheepster
Post subject: Posted: April 1st, 2023, 8:03 am
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The New American Hegemony

Even with the official end to hostilities, Peruvian and Ecuadorian border posts continued snipping at each other in the isolated bush country of the Amazon, but with the US leading the international coalition that had brokered the peace Theodore Roosevelt’s “big stick” kept both sides from re-escalating further.
The US’s new Monroe Doctrine required a united Americas, and the possibility of South American internecine strife could not be tolerated. Within days US marines were landed in Ecuador, and established a controlling force in the Ecuadorian countryside captured by Peru. This pleased neither side of the conflict, especially as Peru had intended to use those lands as bargaining chips in the post-war settlement. Instead the Peruvian military slowly and grudgingly returned to their ante-bellum positions, while the Ecuadorians were not allowed back in, creating a demilitarised zone between the two former combatants.
To remove the source of the conflict, US cartographic services embarked on the most thorough airborne mapping project undertaken up to then, while US, Brazilian and Argentine negotiators worked through the intricacies of the border dispute.
But the biggest inducement to repair American solidarity came with the first implementation of the US Pan American Leasing Service, providing military equipment, training and support, and US economic aid to the 2 nations. Understanding that minimising European economic power in the Americas required the Americas to be more closely tied together economically and militarily, and the only way that could be achieved was by undercutting existing European connections, the US had created a system whereby modern US military materiel could be provided to other American nations on a lease basis, while non-American nations were still able to purchase the same items at full price “cash and carry”. With the equipment being fully supported, the US would be able to instil a united and pro-US military culture. And following the military aid would come US commercial interests, carpetbaggers seeking to replace European economic influence with US.


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Sheepster
Post subject: Posted: April 2nd, 2023, 6:55 am
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Rio de Janeiro Protocol

With foreign pressure Ecuador and Peru signed the Rio de Janeiro Protocol on 25th September 1941, with Ecuador formally renouncing its claim to an outlet to the Amazon River, and both nations confirming their common border. Peru gained land and finally gained security in its northern borders, but the result for Ecuador was less obvious.
Ecuador had so far missed out on recovery from the Great Depression, and national infrastructure was poor. The depressed state of the economy had contributed significantly to the poor state of Ecuador’s military in 1941, and the threat of internal rebellion was of a greater concern to the president than foreign invasion. But now the US government arrived with the desire to uplift the Ecuadorian nation, and the cash to do it.
The first US move was the acquisition of South Seymour Island in the Galápagos Islands for the establishment of an aircraft base. For decades the US had been trying to gain this concession from Ecuador to establish a defensive shield for the Panama Canal, and now with another site for an airbase on the mainland at Salinas too, the US was finally able to construct the long-range defences always planned for the Canal. As a priority construction mission, American engineers arrived within days at both sites to start work.
With the poor Ecuadorian military in absolute disarray, US military advisors and training teams followed in short order, as did new air force equipment supplied under PALS starting with 10 Ryan PT-22 Recruit trainers. Italy had a small training mission already in place, and found itself unceremoniously dumped, as a more insidious branch of the American state set up shop in Ecuador, the FBI.

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Germany, and to a lesser Italy, had a strong role in South American business, especially airlines and military aircraft. German nationals, Nazi-era refugees, and imperial businessmen had built a multinational airline net through South America, and American business interests, particularly Pan Am’s Juan Trippe, were strident in breaking their power – Pan Am had already forced SCADTA in Columbia to sell out its Austrian principle’s shares to themselves and the Columbian Government using the bogeyman of Nazi acquisition of the company. Junkers floatplanes and airliners had proliferated through South America, and especially with the post-Nazi demobilisation of Ju 52/3m’s had led to even more discount priced aircraft filling the South American skies. Meanwhile Italy had been supplying military aircraft and support, even if not particularly good models in comparison to US designs, but at a price that made them appealing. While the European international services to the Americas were outside reproach, internal services could not be held by “un-American” interests, in the interests of a continental Pan American sovereignty.
In the background the FBI started building information on Ecuadorian businesses and powerful non-citizens, and under pressure the Ecuadorian government started introducing measures to curtail the economic rights of “un-American” individuals and foreign citizens. Germans and Italians took the initial brunt as aviation engineers and specialists found themselves deported, while businessmen found themselves constrained in their activities.


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Sheepster
Post subject: Re: Manchester AUPosted: April 5th, 2023, 5:53 am
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Sociedad Ecuatoriana de Transportes Aéreos

Ecuador’s domestic airline had been formed in 1937 as a part of the German South American airline network with a fleet of exclusively German types, primarily Junkers W34 and Ju 52/3m’s. The airline had gown successfully and by mid-1941 had leased in a further 2 Ju 52/3m’s from another German backed airline, Syndicato Condor of Brazil. The War hit SEDTA hard, with one aircraft being captured by Peru, and the Brazilians reclaiming one of their leased aircraft back as soon as possible (the captured aircraft was their other), as well as their W34 floatplane.

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The majority of the company’s senior technical staff, pilots and engineers, were German nationals and soon found themselves to be no longer welcome in the country. As SEDTA services now tailed down and the remaining Ju 52’s became hangar queens, one Ju 52 was formally transferred to the Ecuadorian military and the other was “appropriated” by the US military and became the sole Junkers C-79 transport based out of the Canal Zone.
Ecuador’s domestic air transport was now taken over by Pan Am’s PANGARA subsidiary with DC-2’s.


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Sheepster
Post subject: Posted: April 26th, 2023, 5:40 am
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Peru

With the end of hostilities the US moved to cement its position in Peru as well as Ecuador. Alongside the establishment of military bases in her northern neighbour, the US negotiated for the construction of a joint naval-air base at Talara, at the westernmost point of South America. As the most oil rich location in Peru, the Peruvians themselves saw that a major defensive installation there would be in their own best interests in the event of future wars.
But the Peruvians still needed sweetening, and were approved to acquire modern military equipment, as they phased out their predominately Italian aircraft for new US models. A joint services inspection team was soon sent to the US to select aircraft and armour.
With recent experience, and with knowledge of their country, the army were looking for another AFV to augment the LTP’s. US tank design had been in the doldrums for years and had really only started to catch up with global trends since the Entente had declared war on Nazi Germany, and so potential vehicles were surprisingly limited. Marmon-Herrington were producing tanks for the Netherlands East Indies, but not the US military, and were the premier builders of light tanks, but they were so heavily committed to that order that they were unable to contemplate building tanks for any other customer in the foreseeable future. Fortunately the Light Tank M3 had just entered production for US service at American Car & Foundry Company, and a batch of 30 vehicles was allocated for Peru.
The air force inspectors went first to the manufacturers of the US aircraft already in service, visiting the Douglas facility at El Segundo. The engineers at Douglas had taken the battle reports of the miserable performance of the Dutch 8A-3N and Fairey Battle aircraft in the battles over the Low Countries, and updated the design of the 8A to a new 8A-6 standard with a more powerful engine and better armour. This revised model had caught the attention of the US military, and had been ordered into production for the rapidly expanding Panama Canal Air Force as the Douglas A-33. With delivery to Peru fitting in with the US expansion plans, agreement was made to redirect 20 aircraft directly from the production line for Peru, with the USAAC order being increased to meet that reallocation.

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The North American NA-50 formed the cutting edge of Peru’s air force, but the Peruvians wanted a machine that was a more significant step-up in performance than North American’s follow-up model, the NA-68. Discussions with Curtis for either their P-36 or P-40 were not successful, as production backlogs for both meant a delivery could not be given for a date acceptable to Peru, and so attention returned to NA. In contrast, having just completed an order for Thailand, NA was ready to start immediate production of their fighter. But even this prospect hit an immediate hurdle, the PALS leasing system only applied to types in US military service, rather than just manufactured in the US, and the NA-68 had only been designed as an export fighter. And so a special arrangement was determined whereby all flight testing of completed aircraft was to be completed by the USAAC, under the US designation of P-64. With this in agreement in place an order for 30 aircraft was placed, with deliveries starting before the end of the year.

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Hoping for more advanced fighters, the Peruvian pilots did not find their new steeds a noticeable upgrade from their bright silver “Little Bulls”. Although delivered without a name, the dull olive drab P-68’s soon earned the unofficial nickname as “Burro”, donkey.

Adjusted gunpod on P-64


Last edited by Sheepster on May 2nd, 2023, 7:15 am, edited 1 time in total.

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eswube
Post subject: Re: Manchester AUPosted: April 27th, 2023, 7:34 pm
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Nice drawings. I really admire the effort You put into writing the backstory.


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Sheepster
Post subject: Posted: May 4th, 2023, 7:38 am
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Iraq

At the end of the Great War the Ottoman Empire was dismembered, and Britain and France were given mandates over the various liberated territories in the Middle East. The League of Nations established the French Mandate for Syria and the Lebanon, while Britain was given the Mandate for Mesopotamia and the Mandate for Palestine. Britain’s Protectorates on the Persian Gulf retained their status’s while the former Ottoman possessions on the Arabian Peninsular were annexed by the Sultanate of Nejd.
Under the terms of the Mandates the controlling nation was to prepare the territory for self-governance rather than to colonise, and all of the Mandates suffered from tensions as various groupings within them jockeyed for power and influence. The Mesopotamian Mandate was granted over the three Ottoman vilayets of Basra, Baghdad and Mosul, and with each region’s cultural and religious differences there was no Mesopotamian national cohesion. Britain chose to set up a Mesopotamian monarchy, wanting to install Emir Faisal bin Hussein as the King. Faisal was a member of the Hashemite Dynasty, being the third son of the Grand Emir and Sharif of Mecca, and with Captain T.E. Lawrence had led the Northern Army of Arab Revolt against the Ottomans. In August 1921 Faisal was installed as king of the renamed Kingdom of Iraq and the British attempted to set up government and public services. By 1932, at Faisal’s urging, Iraq became fully independent – although under the terms of the 1930 Anglo-Iraqi Treaty Britain would provide government advisors, would still retain two airbases in Iraq and the right to transit military forces through the country at any time. This treaty was an update to the original Treaty of 1922, as the discovery of oil in Mosul in 1927 had made the British want to maintain some degree of control over a formally independent Iraq.
The new nation was beset by continuous unrests and coups, with pressure from Pan-Arabist and Iraqi nationalist factions for Britain to completely withdraw from Iraq. With the death of King Faisal I in 1933 his son King Ghazi took the throne and adopted a more anti-British attitude. His playboy death in a motor accident in 1939 was rumoured to have been a British assassination, and his 4 year old son became King Faisal II, but the former king’s cousin Prince Abd al-Ilah was appointed Regent. Abd al-Ilah now adopted a more pro-British outlook, and severed relations with Germany on 5th September 1939.
But Iraq now found itself becoming the home to Arab refugees from Mandatory Palestine after the failed Palestinian Arab Revolt, and the pro-British factions in government found themselves being overwhelmed by the more militant factions calling for complete independence for Iraq. With the support of Italy, both clandestine and in open supply of materiel, a cabal of Iraqi generals finally staged a coup on 1st July 1941 and overthrew the Regent and the Prime Minister, establishing a new “National Defence Government”. On hearing of the coup the Regent fled to the British airbase at Habbaniyah. The new government did not abolish the monarchy, they merely installed a more compliant royal relative, Sharaf bin Rajeh, in his place.


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