Against all Odds: The British Empire in World War Two

[trekaddict]

ViperhawkZ I wouldn't go that far. It's just that Canada has a foreign situation so clearly defined that even the dumbest, most anti-military PM can see that tinkering with the Armed Forces is at best hazardous to one's career.

zeppelin247 This pretty much. But even if they were putting more against the British gains would be made, it would just take longer and force the Allies to divert more resources from Europe.

El Pip That would be TTL's Implacables. Hardly meant as disposable they turn out to be sort of like the Midway Class IOTL did. TTL's Formidable is the last one in service, she even is at the Falklands.

The Yanks are indeed into tough times. No Radar or Sonar to stea....borrow from their British Allies. No Magnetron, no British Jet technology, no Merlins for their fighters. I believe you once called the American engines as so bad that terrible and awful weren't enough and coined terriful.

BTW, a Major General of our mutual accquaintance makes a new appearance in the next update. Post-war Fairey is likely to build him a monument.

[trekaddict]

Chapter 331

Major General Sir Phillip Quelch (KCB, DSO and bar) was pacing back and forth below George Washington's statue on Trafalgar Square waiting for his latest appointment. The Commonwealth Technology Commission had become the go-to branch of the Government for persons with all sorts of crazy schemes. For example just this morning he had been forced to turn away a group of men that had advocated building a massive, island-sized Carrier out of Ice and Sawdust of all things. The very idea had been instantly dismissed as ridiculous.


The chap he was meeting now had been going hat in hand from nearly every branch of the Air Force to every Branch of the Navy and was now desperate enough to offer his contraption to the Army.

Quelch had been intrigued enough to agree to this meeting and to be frank, he enjoyed London at this time of the year even during wartime.

He looked around and was about to take off his cap and go for a cup of tea as he saw the man walking across the square from Nelson's column.

“General Quelch?”

“Mr. Sikorsky, a pleasure to meet you.” the General said and held out his hand.

Sikorsky took it and shook it.

“Sorry for this meeting, General, but I had to try and get the Admiralty to see reason.”

Quelch nodded and with his customary sarcasm he replied: “I trust they didn't.”

Sikorsky shook his head. “They did not. Why don't we go to my office?”

Once there Quelch noted that the walls were adorned with pictures and drawings of several strange flying machines and about half a dozen pictures of the flying boats Sikorsky had designed before the Civil War in America.

“So why are you approaching me, Mr. Sikorsky? Just of what use would your machine be for the Army?”

“Let me show you.”

Sikorsky stepped over to the window and pulled back the blinds. Outside the General saw the machine from the photographs. The two wing-like things overhead where wirling at an increasing speed before it eventually took to the air. Vertically.

"That is indeed impressive I must say."

“Problem is, there has been exactly no progress in this field since 1940. It's probably the Germans have a considerable advantage on us.”

“What makes you say that?” Quelch asked as he watched the machine fly a few circles and then come in towards landing.

Sikorsky handed him a wad of papers and photographs.

“They flew an Autogyro in the late '30s and when the war broke out I personally knew of at least several projects at the very least near the prototype stage.”

Quelch looked the various pictures and papers. He made a mental note that he would have a look into this. The papers sometimes dated back to before the war and he could see how Sikorsky had been left to wither on the vine.

“So what is it that you want of me?”

“Just enough funds to continue testing and maybe construct a prototype of my next version of that machine.”

“There still remains the basic question. Of what use would this machine be?”

“Artillery observation planes that need only a patch of open ground, or evacuation of emergency casualties, scouting... there are infinite possibilities.”


“Give me any papers and information you are comfortable to release and I will have a look at them. If I like what I see I will make a recommendation. That's all I can promise, Mr. Sikorsky.”

“I will ask for no more.”

But Quelch could see that Sikorsky was desperate. Not out of fear for his next meal, he was working working with Shorts as one of the Chief Engineers after all but it was clear that he was trying desperately to keep his ideas alive. That he had been forced to go that route hardly surprised the General. There were too many crackpot ideas out there for the severely taxed British Economy to support and a good number of those that received funding and support were dead-ends anyway.

Like for example that bomber that was supposed to fly in what was called a 'sub-orbital' path to bomb Siberia and Japan from Britain, or an idea to put rockets with various payloads into an empty submarine that was supposed to be towed by a second submarine to the enemy coast, abandoned and that would then fire it's rockets at the enemy or, and that was the first of it, a proposal for an automated tunnelling machine that would be used to build an invasion tunnel under the Channel through which the Army would invade France directly. Really. The very idea of a tunnel under the Channel!

The proposed route.[1]

But that said, Sikorsky's idea seemed to have some merit.

If it could be made to work that is.

“Can this be scaled up? And most importantly, how does this work.”

“I am very confident in that, General.”

Sikorsky successfully offered the General a seat.

“As to how it works,” a knock on the door interrupted him, “A cup of tea, General?”

Quelch nodded. At least the man hadn't offered him the plunk he called Coffee.

“As to how it works, it is in principle rather simple. As you know,” Sikorsky said, expecting the General to have some brains, “the rotating bits on top are wing-shaped. When they rotate they generate the lift. When this principle was first tested it was discovered that this creates a torque problem in that the engine-torque makes the body of the aircraft rotate against the direction of the rotors, making the whole thing useless.”

“But you did fix that, as I could see myself.”

“We did. The Germans ran into the same problem and by the looks of it they solved it by using two horizontal rotors going in opposite directions, whereas we simply used a gear to transmit engine power.”

“Why if I may ask?”

“Well, not only would this likely increase the strain on the engine but it would also massively increase the complication of the second major component, the transmission gear. Yes, the Focke-Wulf machine did break several records but we did not go down that route for the above reasons.

Sikorsky sipped from his tea.

“You see, with that configuration you have to design a transmission that goes to two horizontal rotors instead of only one and I have found the attachment of the vertical tail rotor to be easier to do with less moving parts.”[2]

Quelch nodded in agreement.

“More moving parts means more things that can break.” One of the other banes of his professional existence. Over-engineering.

“Indeed, General.”

“Well, let me have a look at those papers again...”

“There is also a film of a test if you want it.”


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Comments, questions, rotten Tomatoes?

I know, I know. I said I wasn't going to do this any more but when I saw this and watched with with some appropriate music. Bell Helicopter won't appear though. Pop culture is so radically different by the 60s I can't even begin to imagine what popular music looks like (though I do have some ideas) but there will likely be an appropriate replacement for “Fortunate Son”. That being said, what made the UH-1 my favourite was a German TV series that had the Heeresflieger SAR version and it's crew as the protagonists. It's been released on DVD but I am too broke to get all 11 seasons....

[1] Yes, no Chunnel ITTL. Franco-British relations are...cool. Nowhere near enough to start sortieing the Channel Fleet to blockade Brest and Toulon, but enough to prevent such things as the Chunnel or Concorde. On the upside this means the Hoverferries survive, and Hovercraft are cool.

[2] There is of course a certain amount of posterior-pulling involved here but Sikorsky wants to sell his design, and admittedly the basic configuration did succeed for a reason. Admittedly I'm no engineer so I can't tell you if Sikorsky is correct but the way I see it you can, simplified, say that adding the transmission to the tail rotor is only a matter of a few cogs. Besides, there is also the space issue to consider, especially on ships. There is no way any of the WW2-German choppas could ever have fitted on a ship.

[ViperhawkZ]

For example just this morning he had been forced to turn away a group of men that had advocated building a massive, island-sized Carrier out of Ice and Sawdust of all things.

Myth: Plausible, but ludicrous.

Oh, and:

GO! GET TO DA CHOPPA!

[Kurt_Steiner]

Choppah yes, Concordah nay. Not bad at all, sirrah.

[Lord Strange]

There will be some sort of Imperial Supersonic Commercial Plane I hope though?

Or will the sub-orbital bomber pay off? *crosses fingers in vague hope*

[trekaddict]

ViperhawkZ That project was actually a very real one. IIRC they got so far as to build a few testing blocks of the Material somewhere in Canada. Google Project Habakkuk for more information. ITTL they aren't nearly as hard up for Carriers so the projects never goes beyond the CrazySuperscience! form.

Kurt_Steiner Thank ye kindly, good Sir.

Lord Strange First part: Maybe. Second part: Definitely not. I make a point of shooting down all those NaziSuperscience! ideas.

[Agent Larkin]

[CENTER][B][SIZE="6"] but there will likely be an appropriate replacement for “Fortunate Son”.

There are a lot of cultural changes I can accept from this AAR.

This is not one of them, Seriously there is no such thing as an appropriate replacement for Fortunate Son. Besides as long as there are still marraiges between important people that song will get written due to the fact it has nothing to do with Nam or the Huey helicopter. There just what it became synonomis with.

[El Pip]

I do like the idea of the army being presented with the idea of a tunnel under the Channel, given how many decades they spent vetoing the entire idea on defence grounds (and all the bits they had built into the Chunnel. Just in case. )

I should hope General Quelch was well aware of autogyros, after all Britain has been using them to scare Frenchmen since the early-1930s!

No Concorde? So Bristol Type 223s instead then, excellent! Without all those expensive arguments with the French over the fuselage it should emerge cheaper and sooner than OTL. As a bonus with Britain keeping a close eye on those Middle Eastern types TTL the world should also avoid any unpleasantness over oil prices and so it will be supersonic transport for the masses! Huzzah?

[trekaddict]

Agent Larkin I know, but I am a believer in the theory of limited butterflies, i.e. that development of certain things will be similar to OTL no matter the changes up to a certain point from the first change. But consider the circumstances under which CCR wrote the song IOTL and then compare it to the AAO-verse America of the same time-frame. At the very least the lyrics will be radically different and it will probably never be as widely known globally. I can't see the Communists allowing any song that besings the "Red, White and Blue" for example. Besides there is something like "Too good for the Reds".

No Vietnam war means no fusion of the songs of the time and this one in particular with helicopter-born assaults. For example ITTL the Ride of the Valkeries is likely to be just another piece of unknown classical music without Vietnam and Colonel Killgore using it in psy-ops.


As for "appropriate replacement" I meant something else that would be enhanced by the sounds of a helicopter running at the same time.


El Pip I always thoughts the extra bits were only urban legend.

The Bristol Type 223 might appear, but not as mass transport, as the Price/performance ratio (in this case passengers carried for pounds of fuel expended) just isn't there for anything by high profile trans-Atlantic or trans-continental routes.

As for keeping an eye on the Middle East: That's what the current side story is about. I'm just waiting for my muse to pinch me again in that regard.

[trekaddict]

Chapter 332

The battle for the Danube crossing was still ongoing, and more than twenty-five Divisions were involved. After the Black Watch had relieved the 6th Airborne Division the British had used the relative calm of the night to ceaselessly push troops across and when the German XXXV. Korps had attacked the next morning at near full strength it had found three full and one extremely depleted Divisions facing them. The 6th had seen no combat, forming the reserve but the battle had been fierce fierce enough that deploying them forward had seriously been considered.

In the end the German attacks were too weak to break into the bridgehead. Most of XXXV. Korps had been fighting for the very same bits of real estate for more than a week while the British troops were for the most part relatively fresh and the Germans were also light on Armour as the Großdeutschland-Division still needed to reorganize after they had failed to destroy the Paras.

RMP personnel inspecting a knocked out Panther.

Even the introduction of two Soviet reserve Infantry Divisions failed to crush the perimeter. It was constantly being reinforced and because of the nature of the Battle the Allies had more reserves close at hand while the Axis were forced to keep most of theirs ready to guard against another assault crossing. Rommel had argued for this tactic while the other Army Group commanders argued against it.

It was now that Hitler, fed up with the performance of his vaunted Wehrmacht against 'subhuman subject peoples of the plutocratic Empire'. When before the political clout of the military establishment on the back of the victories in the west had limited his direct influence on day-to-day operations he now felt that the time was nigh. On 10th April he formally assumed the post of Commander in Chief of the Army. While this formally merely gave him leadership over the OKH he also was the de-facto head of the OKW, thus concentrating all of the German military leadership in his one person.

The Generals were hardly happy about it but Hitler could always point to the admittedly less than stellar performance of the Heer against a numerically inferior force and too loud an opposition attracted the uncertain mercies of the Security apparatus.

Ironically the worst of the opposition against this move could potentially come from the Soviet Union as this would place considerable Soviet Forces under Hitler's direct command but Stalin, up to his knees in an increasingly bogged down campaign in China and all that entailed[1] so he had no mind for politicking with the leadership of the Axis forces in the west. In any case, STAVKA had long since been reduced to little more than an official rubber stamping agency of Stalin's directives so in his eyes this was merely an adjustment of the German situation to Soviet standards.

That this would hurt the Axis long-term wouldn't become apparent for some time but Winston Churchill's famous quote 'Between them Hitler and Stalin were a greater Weapon for the Allied cause than anything Science could devise.'

In one of his first acts of his new position he over-ruled Guderian and dispersed the reserves of Army Group Centre and Army Group West.

The decision to disperse the reserves instead of massing them for one large attack is correctly seen as one of Rommel's biggest mistakes during his leadership of Army Group Centre as a strong multi-corps attack during the first two or three days would almost certainly have crushed the weak British forces that at first relied on a single bridge but XXXV. Korps on it's own was too weak and at first the other reserves stayed put.

This allowed the Allies to construct three more assault bridges and concentrate enough AA in the area to throw up a virtual wall of steel. Once it became apparent what the Allies were doing the Axis tried their best to destroy the bridges but three full Fighter Squadrons were at all times patrolling the airspace over the crossing. In a way it was an ironic reversal of the situation at the Meuse River crossing in 1940 and the Axis attacks met with similar success.

By the time Rommel had realized the size of his blunder and had received permission from Berlin to deviate from the plan it was too late and almost the entirety of the 8th Army's combat units was across and pushing the perimeter outwards.

The battle grew ever more fierce, even more so when on the 11th Rommel's old 7. Panzer, the 9th and 15th Light and the 90th Panzer-Grenadier Divisions made a coordinated attack on the 8th Army's left flank. Only that the 7. Panzer ran into it's old nemesis and British counterpart as the 7th Armoured let them advance deep and then slammed headlong into them from an angle. The two Armies slugged it out for most of the day. In the end the stubborn resistance of the 7th Armoured forced the Germans to break off the attack for fear off being encircle. Losses to the British were relatively light as they had been in prepared positions for the most part.

Hat in hand and suitably chastened Rommel called off all offensive operations against the bridgehead on the 13th to consolidate their front. He had realized that he had let the defensive line on the Danube fall with less of a fight than he would have liked and he knew that history would mostly place the blame at his feet. At the moment though he requested and got permission to enact the plans that had been made for the eventuallity of a successful allied crossing.

From hereon out the Allies would have to fight a war of manoeuvre as the Axis would have to be dislodged from position after position as the Allied powers moved northward. But even in the gloom after the two near-disasters of the last month he was quietly happy that at last the front had broken out of the confined space south of the alps. Even in the densly populated areas of Germany sweeping manoeuvres and potentially massive tank battles would be far better and much preferred by the Officers than banging one's head against line after line after line of defences, both natural and man-made.

True, the Danube would hardly be the last river crossing but there would be no more mountains and in the future there would be far less constraint in choosing a crossing site.

In a way Alexander felt as if a weight had been lifted off his shoulders. There had been far too great a chance of re-creating the Western Front of the last war for his liking and he was an admittedly relatively recent but all the more faithful convert to modern manoeuvre warfare. He longed to employ his armoured fist the way it was supposed to[2] and in his considered opinion the war had gone on long enough.

He always had wanted to visit Berlin.

One problem was that with only one crossing the plan needed to be modified. So instead of advancing northward immediately parts of the 22nd Army Group would advance along the river (northern flank guarded by the 21st) and secure the second crossing from the other bank. Or rather that was what the plan was. Alexander knew it was more than likely that something else would happen. The advantage was that even if it did then Allied Grand Strategy was hardly in any danger.

After all, Berlin was still in the same place and so was occupied France.

It was also fairly obvious that now that their homeland was directly threatened the German would fight like the Devil Incarnate but now that they had breathing room and space the Allies would be able to unleash their full strength, the full might and power of British Industry and ingenuity.

He knew that there were some things that he had yet to try. There were the contents of six freighters that had been unloaded last week and that were now at last at the front and combat ready. Of these objects he had only twenty four so far but the Soviets had been rather successful with a similar weapon, so it had to be tried.

In some ways this was an entirely new war. Mechanization. Tanks. Planes. Aircraft. Rockets. Bombs..

However when it came down to it men were still maimed and still died. Because if he was to be honest with himself there was only one universal truth in his chosen line of work in spite of technology. War...War never changes.

~**---**~

It was night near dawn and the British were quiet. The men in the Großdeutschland-Division were worried for they knew that when the enemy was quiet they were up to something and of the past month was any indication it would be bad.

“What the hell is THAT?” one of the men yelled. When the others looked at the horizon they saw tounges of flame lancing into the air. But most of the men had seen their Soviet Allies do similar things. What had they called it? Steel Rain.

Three miles away 44t (Light) Regiment, Royal Horse Artillery fired all twenty-four of it's brand new Mk.I SRLS.[3] Sixteen launch tubes in two rows per launcher mounted on the back of six-ton lorry firing an enlarged and more powerful version of the 60pound rocket used by Strike Command, all in all a more sopisticated and powerful copy of the Katyusha system used by the Red Army.

The tubes came pre-loaded and were reusable and most importantly gave the projectiles a spin that increased range and accuracy. Two salvoes with 192 projectiles with anti-personnel warheads (somewhat erroneously called 'grapeshot' by the gunners) at the approximated position off the same Regiment that had demanded the surrender of the 6th Airborne. The reload cycle was somewhat longer and more complicated than with the Katyusha.

The gunners removed the used tubes and replaced them with new ones and within less than five minutes they were ready to fire again, which they immediately did..

The two attacks had thrown the Regiment into chaos. Not too many of it's vehicles were knocked out but a great many of the men had been caught in the open and now the rockets were joined by conventional artillery.

Then came the attack on the ground. Tanks. Tanks and more tanks, followed closely by Infantry that was using them as a cover against machine guns. The British gunners walked the barrage backwards with the battlegroup made up of forces 2nd Royal Scots Hussars and the Royal Irish Rangers following closely on it's heels. Resistance had broken under the unexpected barrage and attack and created a gap that the Germans were scrambling to close but that was already being exploited by the 7th Armoured Division. A second attack carried out by the 1st Armoured together with the Irish Expeditionary Corps cut in between the Großdeutschland and 4th SS Panzerdivision and thus the western third of the Großdeutschland was in imminent danger of being cut off.

No one had expected any sort of attack this early and the Divisional command post was in total chaos after a near-miss of several artillery shells and by the time the seriousness of the situation filtered through to the commanding General it was too late. One of his Brigades was cut off and the rest were pushed back lest they be cut off themselves. By using on Armoured and two Infantry Divisions as a crowbar Field Marshal Alexander and pried open a hole in the Axis lines.

However before he could really exploit this Rommel reacted fast and slammed to door shot again with units from the 1st SS Panzer Army. Still, the British had succeeded in pushing the bulge around their still single river crossing another five miles deeper into the Axis frontline. This was a pattern that would repeat itself time and again but in the long run it favoured the Allies as every time a unit had to withdraw to avoid being encircled or to maintain the integrity of the front it increased the territory under allied control.


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Comments, questions, rotten tomatoes?

[1] This war is every bit as dark and dirty as the real one.

[2] The largest Tank Battle in history! British Army vs Wehrmacht and Red Army! Coming on this station! That said it will be epic and large and be a decisive battle.

[3] Salvo Rocket Launch System. Everything that increases the firepower of the British Army is at least looked at, much to the annoyance of Major General Quelch who has to sort through it all.



[1] This war is dark and dirty, every bit as dark and dirty as the real one.

[Raaritsgozilla]

Not too shabby, I like the SRLS on the front, time to give something back.

Will the front now descend into rinse and repeat with the rockets? Will we see an update from China?

[Kurt_Steiner]

Hitler commanding the army? Ok, chaps, in Berlin by Xmas!

[A_C_C]

It seems that the Thousand Years Reich is doomed (well, we knew that from the beginning, don't we? :P). So, the question is, when will the rats start to abandon ship?

[Agent Larkin]

Dear Stalin,

NEVER FIGHT A LAND WAR IN ASIA

Yours Sincerely,
Common Sense

OT: Irishmen and Scots, let's face it the Germans have already lost.

[talt]

It seems that the Thousand Years Reich is doomed (well, we knew that from the beginning, don't we? :P). So, the question is, when will the rats start to abandon ship?

The rats (eg, the Balkan powers) have already abandoned the war and are now fighting on the Allied side. The real question is when will the Soviets begin to decide their ally is no longer worth keeping around (eg, Soviet landgrab in Poland, eastern Germany etc...)

[Lord Strange]

Ah yes, the Hitler takeover.

Bratwurst in Berlin within 6 months?

[trekaddict]

Raaritsgozilla While I am usually a firm believer in tube artillery rocket Artillery gives units more soft attack. These days I usually attach SPRART to Tanks and normal SPART to my motorized and Mech units.

Rinse and repeat is a strong word, but there won't be an immediate breakthrough either. Fighting will in some ways resemble the Eastern Front IOTL, only with less of the unpleasant sides, given that the Germans are fighting at home and are facing the Western Allies.

China features in the next update. Your comment reminded me that I was going to do one like that anyway.

Kurt_Steiner He hasn't gone that far of the deep end yet.

A_C_C If you are referring to the frontline squaddies then it'll be some time yet. The deeper the front moves into Germany the less motivated the German Army will be.

Agent Larkin Methinks the issue isn't so much the fact that it's Asia but more that he's facing almost all of the Chinese Army and going about it the wrong way. Conquering China with an Army that's leg Infantry for the most part isn't the smartest of moves.

And yes, Irishmen, Scots and the SAS. What can possibly go wrong?

talt That won't happen quite yet. Stalin and Hitler both have plans for attacking the other (hidden away) but Stalin knows it would be beyond stupid even for him to attack Germany that outnumbers him (meaning that the Soviet Forces in the west are smaller than the field forces of the Heer) and with a vengeful, fully equipped and rather close to their bases Allied Army waiting behind the Germans.

Lord Strange Not quite yet. Hitler is in slightly better shape ITTL so he hasn't totally lost it yet.

[zeppelin247]

well I am glad that the allies are starting make some good progress into Germany but you know just thinking the British are pushing the Germans and Soviets back across Europe and the Japanese back across South East Asia while dominating the sea and the Americans are struggling so much in fighting Japan, that when the war is over I think most of the world well see the British empire as the far superior power to America

[trekaddict]

Well, at the moment the Japanese are ruling the Pacific. Outside of the Dutch East Indies and perhaps the eastern Marshals and the Dutch East Indies Allied and US Fleets tread wearily. The British are for the moment content with leaving everything north of the Phillipines to the Americans, so if the Japanese go the whole way the Americans will be seen as the premier pacific Power just as the British will be seen as the rulers of the North Atlantic.

A cold war is inevitable in this situation. But you do have kind of a point, the Americans will have something of a inferiority complex when it comes to comparing their accomplishments in the war to that of the British. But even so, aside from the RN the actual percentage of British (not counting Allied and Commonwealth) forces in Asia is at best 20%. In regards to Asia they would be perfectly happy with a negotiated peace that gave them a Sino-Japanese withdrawal from South-East Asia, the 'Nam, security for India and maybe influence over the Philippines. Granted, this is incredibly short-sighted but Churchill and the other Allied leaders have understandably most of their attention on Europe.

What I mean to say is that if it comes to digging the Japanese out of every hole they are in the Americans will be left to do all the digging and dying.

[talt]

Well, at the moment the Japanese are ruling the Pacific. Outside of the Dutch East Indies and perhaps the eastern Marshals and the Dutch East Indies Allied and US Fleets tread wearily. The British are for the moment content with leaving everything north of the Phillipines to the Americans, so if the Japanese go the whole way the Americans will be seen as the premier pacific Power just as the British will be seen as the rulers of the North Atlantic.

A cold war is inevitable in this situation. But you do have kind of a point, the Americans will have something of a inferiority complex when it comes to comparing their accomplishments in the war to that of the British. But even so, aside from the RN the actual percentage of British (not counting Allied and Commonwealth) forces in Asia is at best 20%. In regards to Asia they would be perfectly happy with a negotiated peace that gave them a Sino-Japanese withdrawal from South-East Asia, the 'Nam, security for India and maybe influence over the Philippines. Granted, this is incredibly short-sighted but Churchill and the other Allied leaders have understandably most of their attention on Europe.

What I mean to say is that if it comes to digging the Japanese out of every hole they are in the Americans will be left to do all the digging and dying.

Will the American AI do this though? They are not famed for launching large scale amphibious operations, certainly not on the scale required to invade a heavily defended Japan (which it will be by the time the Americans get there). Alternately a nuclear attack by America or Britain might force the Japanese to surrender (althought that will create a real mess during the Cold War if the British do it)