1938 A very British Civil War

[wardlaw]

Gentlemen.

Have finally got around to joining this fine site.

I am one of the loons who came up with the alternate 1938 idea (but not Simon, the chap who makes the flags).  I'll try and answer some of the questions that have cropped up.

MORE DETAILS - See the links to the Gentleman's Wargames Parlour discussions.  I also posted some pictures of one of our games on the Musketeer Miniatures forum (the link has already been posted up on here).
SOURCE BOOK - Will indeed be fluff only.  The aim is to allow the gamer's imagination to be sparked and then run free in terms of scale and rule-sets.  So it will be the history form 1936 to 1938, a series of descriptions of the main factions and a number of scenarios designed to give a flavour of the conflict.
PUBLICATION DATE - We are hoping to have it out by the end of January, in time for our demo game at the Crusade show in Penarth.
FIGURES - We've been using the IWI range from Musketeer, the SCW range from Anglian and various bits and bobs and head swaps.  There's plenty of stuff out there.  None of the three of us who are behind this are figure designers so you are unlikely to see a set of '1938 A very British Civil War' miniatures being produced (unless some of you out there, and you know who you are, fancy chatting to us and giving it a go  )

So that's it really.  I'm mighty pleased that so many people have been caught up in this idea.  It only started as an excuse to buy two different ranges of figures and use them together!

[Arlequín]

Welcome and thanks for that. 

[commissarmoody]

well I have already took a bit out of that hook and orderd some of MMs IWI range of minis.   Once I get some more of the source mitiural out of ou guys, I am thinking of useing my old VOR rule set for the skermishes.

[MikeH]

Well it's sparked mine and Bills (from Musketeer Miniatures) interest as well

so I think my unit of "The People's Liberation Front of Cwmbach" and of course the splitter organisation of "the Cwmbach People's Front" will be marching down the valley's towards Cardiff in the New year

[Arlequín]

Well it's sparked mine and Bills (from Musketeer Miniatures) interest as well

so I think my unit of "The People's Liberation Front of Cwmbach" and of course the splitter organisation of "the Cwmbach People's Front" will be marching down the valley's towards Cardiff in the New year

Cwbach People's Front? Splitters!

Maybe it will prompt Bill to commission some more IWI figures, civvy support weapons (Lewis gun teams, Vickers teams, mortar crews and maybe even gun crews), as well as more armed RIC police types. With a few exceptions, such general purpose types will be usable for the UK or IWI.

The Anglian SCW are mostly way too Spanish imo, its Trilby's and flat caps all round here... so maybe a head set would be good, anyone?

Obviously it would have to be commercially viable, I appreciate that.

[wardlaw]

Mort has been doing head swaps with the SCW figures.  He's found that a beret or a tin helmet makes a huge amount of differrence (have a look at his piccies on the GWP site for examples).  he's also swapped out some weapons, giving officers webleys as opposed to those fancy automatic things, and some Tommy bguns are also in evidence.

That being said if Paul would like to produce a set of heads in trilbies and or flat caps would prove useful (and the former are a pretty universal piece of headgear).

[commissarmoody]

I am down with the seprate heads and the idea of civ heavy wepons teams with vickers, moters and lewis guns, Maby even toss in a few guys with tommy guns and some oher earler submachin guns.
SO more RIC are also in order.
If this works out I might have my guys serve dubble duty as sparicats in and Red militia for my Frikorp stuff also.
What submachen guns were  the Reguler army useing at around that time?

[wardlaw]

Thompsons I think.  Stens are definitely too late

[commissarmoody]

ok then get a few thompsons, I am trying to think of oher readaly avalaby  guns for import then. What was that Czech designed one that the SS really liked for its realabilty? 

[wardlaw]

Perhaps the ZK-383?

(Listen to me, soundfsd like I kno0w what I'm talking about!  NOt bad for a medieval historian  )

[Arlequín]

Thompsons I think.  Stens are definitely too late

What submachen guns were  the Reguler army useing at around that time?

Sorry guys, but as far as I am aware, the British Army showed no interest at all in SMG's until after Dunkirk. The IRA used the odd Thompson of the stereotypical 'gangster' round drum type and no doubt an MP18 or two.

[wardlaw]

oh right.  Fair enough.

[xeoran]

Tommy guns only turn up in 1940 with their first use being in the French Campaign of '40. The only SMG I know was used in this period was the Lancaster (sometimes called the Rolls Royce of SMG's). Various naval chappies seem to have been equipped with the Lancaster but I'm not sure precisely which groups and units because rum and sodomy was never my thing.

However...

Considering the fighting breaks out in 37 or so its entirely possible that a) Govt. troops have nicked SMG's off those dirty revolutionary types b) The Lancaster has been handed to the Regulars c) The Govt. have realised the deficiency and bought job lots d) Supporting Fascists/Nazis/Right-Wing types have provided them.

Also just to have fun I'd love to see an International Brigade...fighting for Mosely and his bully-boys. Get all the Irish/Spanish/Italian/German/French right wingers and bung them in a unit. My other suggestion would be to involve US Intelligence who were somewhat famously massively anti-Semitic at the time. No doubt should Mosely suggest being beastly to the Jews or if they thought there was a chance they could do so then they might get involved or at least cheer the Blackshorts on. Perhaps the only other thing to say is that Mosely won't take kindly to German/Italian attempts to run the country or take any real form of power. The man had some extremely distasteful views but he was an out and out patriot.

I've got one question- will we start seeing the sort of Left wing beastliness too- gulags, Commissars, murdering priests and capitalists etc? Or will this be played (in true English fashion) rather more sportingly (thereby making the book nice and friendly)?

[Arlequín]

erm *polite cough* it's Lanchester. Which is a copy of the MP28 made for the RAF.

In any case, I don't think it's unconceivable that SMG's would turn up from various sources, I imagine it would be a boom era for gun-running and I can't see the establishment sticking to rifles for long when the opposition starts using SMG's.

While it's accurate to say certain things weren't used before x, it's important to remember that this scenario changes everything. British re-armament and re-organisation came about from the re-occupation of the Rhineland in 1936 and perceiving Hitler as a inevitable threat - The same year as this alternate history scenario begins.

This implies two things to me;

a) As the Government is essentially fascist in outlook, the Nazis are no longer the threat they were and there is no real immediate threat of a European war, therefore no rushed re-armament.

b) There is a resistance to the Government building and the new focus will be on maintaining public order & 'The King's Peace' - the very role the War Department had envisaged for the armed forces prior to 1936.

Now where it goes from there is anybody's guess and we have the freedom to do as we will. So me or anyone else saying 'not before 1940' etc. is pretty irrelevant really, we've changed it to 'not before 1936'.

[xeoran]

erm *polite cough* it's Lanchester. Which is a copy of the MP28 made for the RAF.

Whoops...

I think another point to mention is that if these nasty Fascists/Commies are backing the opposing sides then they'll probably be bunging job lots of kit across the oceans (The Peoples Naval Front of Grimsby) so the various sides will end up with assorted Italian, Soviet, German SMG's and so on.