In 1917 there was the Zimmermann Telegram. Mayhap now there could be a Litvinov Telegram?
South America seems very hostile to Communism, and very close to either the Allies, or the Axis... I'm not sure a single telegram will do the trick...
Glad to see progress continues in my absence.
The show must go on...
Sinkiang seems, well, surprisingly well prepared and lead, which is always a plus. Their use of support units baffles me (a landlocked power in Asia running INF/INF/AT/AA? okay then...), but you can't have everything I suppose.
Even from a Combined Arms perspective AA and AT are of the same 'class' meaning that the CA bonus is still only applied once. Moreover, their Research department is developing decent Artillery, seems like there is some miscommunication going on there...
The need of troops on the Turkish border is again in question, but as long as they are not solidly in some camp we have to take precautions.
If we don't use them on the Turkish border, we could launch a campaign to 'liberate' the Norwegian proletariat, or use them to push the Japanese out of Manchuria (that last one is dependent on the supply network being able to supply two more corps of Mtn...)
Diplomacy-wise I'd rather not court anyone except Communist China. The other options (Persia, Afghanistan etc.) are too small and too low in potential to be of any real use and I'd rather just annex them. Communist China does (IIRC) have cores in the entire mainland China, meaning if it gets some (read: a lot of) help, it could grow to be a power only rivaled by ourselves. Especially considering how the US is stumbling, they could prove very valuable against the Japanese if the Brits don't get them first.
Communist China seems to be the safe bet here, though it should be noted Sinkiang also has cores on all of China... I like how you're suggesting the
British could well beat the
Americans to
Tokyo...
And of course, I have brought the promised pictures! It was a cloudy day, so the pictures are a tad on the low contrast side, but I have neither the skills nor the software to correct it nor am I willing to acquire either at 2 am. I'm also sorry about the amount of traffic (both vehicles and foot) in all the images, but Helsinki is a very crowded city (by Finnish standards, anyway - almost 20% of the populace live in the capital region!).
I scoff at that level of traffic... that's off peak traffic. Brussels is about twice the population of Helsinki, and you should see how crazy things get around here... though some of that is due to planning and pretty bad coördination between the different regional and national public transport providers (all state owned...the Railways are National, and in Brussels, you find busses coming from Walloonia and Flanders, which are part of their region's state-owned providers. And Brussels has it's own region, and it's own provider of public transport, including tramways and underground trains. Coordination with the national trains is pretty bad from an ease of use point of view, and also the national railways have a problem in the way they plan their lines which means that a single issue around rush hour often means that trains will run late in most of the country for the rest of the day...)
It's interesting how 5 million people live on so much territory, and still 20% find themselves living in and around the capital... which is the size of Antwerp. (not counting the port, obviously)
It kind of make sense, but it's still a lot. We have pretty bad spatial planning (considering the population density) so there is this web of sub-urbanised areas and smaller cities linking the cities of Brussels, Antwerp, Ghent, and Hasselt into a sort of big blob with lot's of semi-detached and detached single family dwellings. Though, at least expansion has slowed and city centres have recently started densifying, which is a good thing, as our cities aren't very dense to star with, and it's pretty easy to add one or two floors across the board in most central locations without making them feel claustrophobic. There is this rule in parts of Brussels that you can extend your house/building upwards. If you are the first to do so on your street, you may go up to three m higher than the highest original roof on your street, after that normal rules apply for the others, meaning that they can pretty much raise their roof to your level. It's a great way to create more space without paving over un-built areas.
The first one is from where the original picture was from, more or less. I didn't go quite far enough to the left, but I only realized that later on when comparing.
The second one is actually along Pohjoisesplanadi. Pohjoisesplanadi translates to North Esplanad, which, logically, is on the northern side of the Esplanadinpuisto (Esplanad park) in the center of Helsinki (Google Maps will show you just how in the middle of town it is). This is from behind the Swedish theatre from the viewpoint of the first image. This picture is almost directly towards east, as the Esplanad park and both Pohjoisesplanadi and Eteläesplanadi are all aligned almost perfectly east-west.
And the last one is the Esplanad park, in between Pohjoisesplanadi and Eteläesplanadi (South Esplanad), taken almost directly from behind the Swedish Theatre from the viewpoint of the second picture and from right side of it from the viewpoint of the first picture. This picture is again almost directly towards the east, with Eteläesplanadi just barely visible on the right side and Pohjoisesplanadi similarly just about visible on the left.
Very nice of you to take these and share these, it's interesting to see just how many of the buildings in that photo are still standing... Also, they need more bicycle parking spaces in
Helsinki, the one on the second photo is really bursting. But one ponders the benefits of adding more parking capacity for it to sit empty most of the year. I know this from personal experience, when the weather is nice, in certain places in Brussels, even at my university, all the bicycle racks are full, but in the middle of winter (what you'd probably call spring weather...), I can just park wherever I want. I call those days the days where everyone suddenly discovered they had a bicycle all along...
Now, this all makes me want to go on holiday in Helsinki. It just looks like such a nice place to be from those pictures... and dont get me started on Finnish modern and pre-modern architecture...
December and no German DoW: all quiet on the Western Border! And still the tense wait continues- perhaps the Germans will get impatient in the early spring?
They could charge tomorrow, or maybe in two years, when the N-A pact runs out... it's anyone's guess really.