NationStates Jolt Archive

Trying to defend three major South Pacific islands and an empire of Polynesian and subantarctic archipelagoes, four million Walmingtonian subjects face a substantial challenge. Suspicious of Catholic incursion and Soviet expansion, the nation struggles to maintain friendships in difficult times.

The Royal Walmingtonian Navy is dominant, with twelve-thousand full-time personnel and five centuries of tradition. It has long been integral to a barely workable Walmingtonian habit of association with Europe ahead of Asia.

The Royal Walmingtonian Army was established perhaps a couple of years previous to the Navy but has retained less significance. Walmington has never been invaded, and most Walmingtonians credit the navy as a preventative force. As such, the RWA, in the last five centuries, has only ever been deployed as part of a coalition, usually a junior party in British-lead operations. Today, the RWA has ten thousand full-time personnel.

The Royal Walmingtonian Air Force is around eighty years old, being formed between the world wars. It has seen very limited action in its history, and has suffered from gross under-funding in recent years. The RWAF today appears ready for combat in the 1970s at best. It has around ten-thousand full-time personnel, but presently too few aircraft to occupy their energies.

With a surge of communist thought across South East Asia and recent Catholic Imperialism, Walmington today, as a Protestant unionised-capitalist multi-party democracy, looks to rebuild its defences.

--And this will come later--

Defence Ministry invites defence manufacturers to Norbray proving-grounds

Having done precious little, since the 1960s, to update national and imperial defences, Walmington on Sea has been shaken by events in the wider region, which have left Walmingtonians in fear for their lives and liberties.

The siding of Roycelandia with the Holy League -considered a potential enemy- and uncertainty about British will to oppose the same since the defeat of the BID Party has recently worsened Walmingtonian fears, growing ever since Indian National Union reconciliation with the slightly feared Indian Soviets that Mumbai was once counted-upon to oppose.

Sectarian troubles centred on the Empire's Catholic minority are a long-standing problem made a serious international security issue only since the rise of the Holy League. Marginalisation of the Social Labour Party is a new problem caused by the unexpected Tory split that birthed the Whig Party, socially-conscious nationalist reformers who came to power at the last General Election, and there are now fears that the extreme wing of Social Labour's old support base may be forced further left into the arms of the globally resurgent communists, and Great Walmington perceives a new threat to the Polynesian colonies.

First Minister for Defence General Sir Jack Jones has extended invites to state and private defence manufacturing firms from Walmington on Sea, the Indian National Union, and Strathdonia primarily, and from the United Kingdom and Roycelandia, and with less enthusiasm to the rest of the world, over which Great Walmington is typically quite suspicious.

The Royal Walmingtonian Army

The Army today would hardly have an edge in combat against a single division in the armies of a major power in World War II, its tin-hatted infantry marching into battle with SMLE and No.4 Enfield bolt-action rifles; its artillery barrages guided by spotters with a biplane, field glasses, and a radio; and its armour support split between howitzer-bearing slab-sided Marching Tanks and foil-armoured Cruiser Tanks.

Foreign contractors are invited to attend the military's proving grounds in Norbray, southern Walmington, in a bid to supply the Royal Artillery with new targetting equipment for the RWA's Gun, Medium, Eighteen Pounds (3"/76mm) and Gun, Heavy, Twenty-Eight Pounds (4"/101.4mm) since this is an area of modern warfare in which Walmingtonian firms are not advanced.
Walmingtonian manufacturers are experimenting with extended-range munitions for the mentioned guns, but this does not prevent foreign designers from presenting their own technologies in that field.
Mortars are heavily under-represented, and the army wishes to acquire a light artillery piece by issuing highly portable mortars with a more useful range than its current grenade-launcher type infantry mortars.

The Army is also seeking a single Battle Tank to replace its Marching and Cruiser models.

There is also a need to replace ancient service revolvers based on the Webley/Enfield types with something slightly more modern: the main issue here is that the .455 ammunition is considered out of date, and is different to the .40 Walmingtonian Automatic round now used in submachine-guns.

There is a serious need for replacement of the bolt-action rifles currently issued to troops. The RWA produces its own .303" ammunition, which is believed to be less powerfully loaded than Roycelandian and old British rounds, and has a so-called belt-fed-Bren, which is used as a SAW and a GPMG, which -along with the small stature of the average Walmingtonian gunner- possibly explains this. It is not thought that there is a desire to replace the .303" ammunition with a more modern cartridge, and so an unconventional solution may be required in replacing the SMLE and like weapons.

Finally, the army lacks portable anti-tank weapons. The RAT .55" anti-tank rifle was possibly the best on earth when it was introduced, but has remained in service for decades after its value almost vanished. Sticky-Bombs and Gammon Bombs have also been issued, but troops will be badly under-prepared to face enemy armour if the situation ever arises.

It is likely that WoS will want to licence-build most of the equipments selected for service, perhaps excepting for some of the more extremely high-tech systems that may take several years to integrate into domestic production facilities.

(OOC: Navy and Air Force later, this has already dragged on for longer than expected. An important thing to note is that Walmington doesn't always do what makes sense: its is a capitalist economy, but not one really committed to the free market, nor entirely absorbed with profit-making.
More to the point, WoS is achingly traditional, and even this talk of using laser-designation for artillery causes commanders and troops to feel woozy with confusion, and the nation considers a great many methods and systems of warfighting to be unsporting, even today. I also want to preserve much of the character of the important nation-shaping armed forces, so the army will favour Chieftains and Centurions over Challengers, or enhanced Enfield rifles over rechambered assault rifles.)

Leocardia wants to support your work in Defensive Arts. We have almost the state of the art technology in defensive weapons, and will be proud to be the Arms Dealer for Defensive Weapons for WoS.


Leocardia hereby donates 16,000 M4A1 Maverick Cabines, 12,000 AK-74's, and 3,000 AntiTank Launchers (with 9,000 AntiTank Rockets).

OOC: Thanks for the offer, but the (AMW) tag indicates that this thread is significant only in A Modern World, or, essentially that it is closed. Besides, M4A1 and AK-74 rifles, apart from using different ammunition to that which was specified in the post above, don't even use the same as each other, unless the Maverick designation indicates a change to 5.45x39mm chambering.

The Union MoD takes a rather long time to make an offer to the Walmingtonians, conscious of Bedgellen pressure as usual.

First on the Indian offer is the Lightning F.53/8, the IAF's recently-retired variant of W.E.W. Petter's famous interceptor. It is still powered by twin Avons and has essentially the same performance characteristics as the Lightning F.6, but in place of the severely limited Airpass radar there is a considerably more powerful Type 100F5 multi-mode pulse doppler set. The Type 100F5, while not the most modern of radars, can look out to around 70km for fighter-sized targets and 150km for bombers and transports, and also offers look-down capability. Besides the new radar, the F.53/8 has a zero-zero ejection seat and is wired for a wide range of AAMs (Python 3/4, AIM-9, DRAB, R-73I, Derby, U-Darter, R-Darter, A-Darter).

As for ground equipment, the first thing that Mumbai offers to sell the Walmingtonians is recoilless rifles. Melghat Ordnance Factories produces its own copy of the 73mm SPG-9, and it can penetrate 550mm RHA with the right projectile. Copies of the RPG-7 are also churned out in massive quantities by Union arsenals, and they can be had for an equally low price. Neither of those systems represent anything close to the cutting edge of antitank technology, but can destroy many tanks and most APCs if used with the right warhead. The joint Indo-Strathdonian 75/105mm super-high velocity antitank gun, mounted on a wheeled carriage, is offered as well. While possessing all the disadvantages of size, weight, and ballistics, the 75/105mm antitank gun can penetrate the armor of any MBT known to man, the Leclerc included.

Mumbai can't actually claim to be much better-off when it comes to service rifles, its troops being equipped with the semi-auto L1A1. And even then, the SMLE arms irregular units. The Indian-model L1A1 is essentially the same as the British L1A1, with the exception that the INA's rifles can fire bullet-trap rifle grenades. It is widely believed, though, that the Roycelandians have the market cornered with their semi-auto SMLE conversion, which retains .303 ammunition.

The M.82 automatic mortar might be of interest to the RWA. Based on the 2B9 Vasilisk, the M.82 can fire four-round clips of 82mm mortar rounds to ranges in excess of 5,000 meters, but the system is rather less reliable than would be ideal. Another M.82, this time a completely conventional 82mm weapon and an unashamed copy of Russian weapons of the same caliber, might also be interesting. It has the advantage of being able to accept, in addition to the standard 82mm bombs, western 81mm rounds if the situation calls for flexibility. The blatantly soviet-styled INA artillery equipment, though, might not find such a following what is assumed to be a more western-inclined RWA.

With almost all the INA's Centurions going to Strathdonia, all Mumbai has to offer the RWA is its T-55/75s. Few believe that the Walmingtonians will approve, given their origin, but they are extremely capable vehicles when their 75/105mm super-high velocity main gun is considered.

Initally Strathdonian defence manufacturers are delighted a thre invitation to WoS but after taking tiem toa ctually think about thing a simple but never the less puzzling question rears it's head.
"What do we actually have to sell to the Walmingtonians?"
"Indeed this question is a tricky one, they are unliekly to be interested in the .30cal shorty SMG and carbine even if .303 bullets were used, Anti tank weapons? well pretty much everything we use is either licensed, ripped off or biult by someone else, arillery aiming devices, well the small ballistics computer PDas have been quite popualr with the world's militaries and i suppose we could stick an interface option for a laser rnage finder into those, so at least that is something. Tanks? well unless we could convicne them to set up a production line for 75/105mm HV gunned Osirios. New rifle, well Henderson's did try to market one fo thier SA58 avrients with a wooden body ripped off a SMLE didn't they, not long after the .30 carbine came out we might be able to convert soem of those to .303 and if those sell well enough they might be interested in the .357sniper rifles"

Weeks earlier, a minor article in Walmington's most popular broadsheet brought to the attention of a few enthusiasts the first sighting of a new flying machine...

The Standard - Fantastic Sighting in Polynesian Sky

Observed at a distance by Roycelandian occupiers of formerly French Polynesian territory, flying over adjacent waters belonged -due to their proximity to the Wendsleybury Islands- to His Walmingtonian Majesty, a new aircraft type bearing the maroon and gold of the RWAF and of RWN aviation has this week surprised industry and defence analysts.

As watched from across the watery border, the plane displayed stubby, thin wings; movable tailplanes; astounding acceleration; possible Wychwood Rascal heatseeking missiles; contra-rotating propellers... and was observed moving at, reportedly, transonic velocity.

This week, The Standard printed confirmation and expanded detail on the half-resolved mystery...

...Since identified as a venture by Wychwood Automation under the designation Freebooter, the single-seat aircraft is now thought to have been operating on a trial basis from the deck of HWMS Queen Mavis, Admiral Sir James Frazer's flagship in the Port Perry Fleet, a ship known fondly as the Merry Mave, which, until this morning, was on a secret deployment to the Empire.

Freebooter's powerplant is thought to be the Red Raven, a so-called turboprop developed recently by Stockley Motors, which gives more power than a piston engine as featured on Stockley's famous historical classics like the Nimbus and Musca, while being more fuel-efficient than Walmington's turbojets and turbofans and giving generally better acceleration.

The plane's unusual propeller arrangement has been described as consisting of, "Dual Variable-Pitch Thin-Blade Contra-Rotating Wychwood Scimitar Airscrew Fans" (Wychwood Automation) that are configured to reduce the efficiency-sapping pressure-related problems associated with trans and super sonic movement.

The obvious suggestion is that the Walmingtonian Defence Ministry seeks a return to propeller-driven aircraft by mastering with Freebooter the difficult art of supersonic travel.

Some commentators, however, doubt the value of the machine recently seen over Polynesia. Small, thin wings are likely to perform poorly for a weapon meant to serve surface-attack missions as those in which Roycelandia deploys its turboprop-driven Spitfires. Neither are they conducive to attainment of what appear to be key aims in the turboprop design, which has a large body containing tanks to provide the already efficient engines with long-range useful in the vast expanses of South Pacific empire, or to great agility such as a propeller-driven airframe might normally hold over big jet-planes.

It has been suggested that a number of good ideas will in fact conflict with one another until the whole dream is scrapped. If the military can decide exactly what it wants from turboprop-driven fighter, there may be great potential for Walmingtonian defence manufacturing to climb back into form... but one can't help suspect another debacle in the making.

(OOC: Back on track with the rest of this thread at some near date)