Tropic Lightning, Byronic Thunder: An AK-47 blog series (special report!)

    As the Tropicañan "Guardia Presidenciale" takes form on the paint shelf, a new idea hit me. Whilst contemplating the Falklands War I suddenly got inspired to create a new "dictatorship" not on the Fascista model of Tropicaña, but on a decidedly British Feudal model, the Dominion of South Byron! I even purchased a WWII Achilles tank for the Byronic Levy as it shall be known.

The Dominion of South Byron, formerly the South Byron Islands:

 

(Flag of the Dominion)

       In the wake of the Second World War and with mounting independence movements across the British Empire in India and elsewhere, a curious collection of islands in the South Atlantic, not terribly far from the Argentine coast and yet no closer than the neighboring Falklands, the South Byron Islands (named so by British explorers after the legendary poet Lord Byron) declared their independence from the Empire. Such a turn of events went largely unnoticed by the British public what with the huge splash India's independence movement was making at the same time, but the War Office and Parliament did take notice of the deftly written Articles of Separation submitted in the House of Commons by representatives of the peculiar governor of these islands, Percival Thomas Adamstroud, Lord Waterdowne. A veteran of the recent War, Lord Waterdowne was appointed governor of the South Byron Islands towards the end after returning from North Africa having been an RAF pilot there. Upon his appointment as governor of the islands, Waterdowne took it upon himself to "free" the peoples of South Byron from their obligations to the Crown Government. Being a romantic, raised on Byron's poetry, Arthurian legends, and the history of Britain, Waterdowne fancied himself a reborn Arthur and with the dismantling of the Empire, he saw the best way to preserve British culture (as he thought) by becoming an independent "feudal" state. So after consulting with the leading men of the islands, both landowners (a few sheep farmers and one alpaca herder), and leading merchants (a few pub owners, the Mayor of Queensport, and the Chief Justice and barristers, along with the two shipping merchants) the Articles of Separation were drafted and sent to London to officiate the independence movement steadily growing upon the sleepy islanders. (Most of whom were quite confused on the subject of why, whom and what they were fighting for.)     

 

(Old flag of the Crown Colony of the South Byron Islands)

      Having a handful of second hand tanks, rifles, and other equipment sent by the War Office to allocate for the islander's defense against a possible German invasion, Lord Waterdowne prepared the islands to resist what would undoubtedly be a severe reprisal from the Mother Country. It took some months for Parliament to react to the "separation" as they were concerned with far larger problems at the time. When things finally did settle down though, they sent their own representative to South Byron to investigate and either bring Lord Waterdowne to account for his actions or to negotiate with the islanders if need be. The director of the War Office assumed Waterdowne was "barking mad", in his own words.

     Upon arriving at Byron Airport, Mr. Carsdale, the under-secretary of colonial management, was greeted by a booming cannon blast from one of Waterdowne's "knights", an Achilles tank painted with heraldic livery on the turret. (As per the regulations of the South Byron Office of Heraldry) Carsdale was quickly "captured" by Sir Harry Milford, the alpaca farmer turned feudal baron. 

 

     After several months on the island and a hefty land grant from Waterdowne, Mr. Carsdale has settled in nicely to his new post as Castellan of Shelly Home. After some months, the War Office had had enough of what was termed "utterly ridiculous lunacy" and dispatched a "task force" to recover the islands and bring Lord Waterdowne to justice. A company of Royal Marines and a single cruiser were deemed sufficient for the task. They couldn't have been more wrong.

 

(An abandoned fishing vessel off Coleridge Island.)

     The cruiser HMS Goliath dropped anchor on the north shore of South Byron deploying the marines before making ready to fire some preliminary shots inland as a show of force. Aside from killing a few sheep grazing near the impact zone, little damage was done til the marines reached Queensport. Upon reaching the outskirts of the town, they were met with a line of tanks (3 to be exact) charging towards them followed by a motley throng of villagers armed with everything from rifles to grenades to pitchforks. At their head rode Waterdowne in his personal tank. After accepting the marine's surrender, (To be fair, they were ordered not to inflict casualties at all costs as this would only embarrass Her Majesty's government.) Waterdowne had them swiftly escorted off the island with fishing vessels (the Byronic Navy) taking them back to the HMS Goliath and a thoroughly embarrassed War Office. The "War of Separation" lasted less than a day, as the Goliath sailed back to Blightey and the War Office, thoroughly disgusted by the whole affair, promptly put it behind them and got on with the real business of more pressing affairs, like the Cold War, which had just begun.

 

     Lord Waterdowne was quickly acclaimed the "Hero of Byron" and immediately drank himself along with all the other islanders into a stupor at the White Wyvern Pub. 

 

(Lord Waterdowne's personal tank, a refurbished WWII Achilles. Emblazoned on the flanks of the turret is the Waterdowne crest: A shield azure, a bend sinister argent, with three arrowheads purpure [representing the three islands of South Byron])

 

(Sir Harry Milford's tank with his newly achieved arms  emblazoned: A shield gules, a cross bleu celeste, with four arrows d'or quartered.)

     Today the Dominion of South Byron is a surprisingly pleasant, prosperous, and well run state. Though the Dominion has fought few wars since the "War of Separation", Lord Waterdowne and the Circle of Knights maintain a small, well drilled military with the Byronic Levy (a militia essentially) that can be called up in times of crisis. Along with this are the Byronic Knights themselves. Mostly old sheep farmers (and one alpaca farmer) their sons are quick to take their fathers' place in the armored company. Old WWII surplus British tanks are more than adequate defense for the islands and recently Waterdowne has deployed the knights (with Levy support of course) to the Caribbean Island of Tropicaña to counterattack the previous year's unprovoked invasion of South Byron by that island's Guardia Nacionale. Needless to say the Byronic Knights have wrought quite a bit of damage on Presidente O'Donnell's mega plantation and cost him a lot of revenue.

(Sir Harry Milford's tank after repelling Tropicañan forces near Giles, a small village on Coleridge Island.)

 

(Lord Waterdowne's tank on Victory Day, celebrated yearly on the anniversary of the Tropicañan Invasion.)

Tropic Lightning, an AK-47 blog series

     I've done it again! I've sunk my resources and time into another project that I may never recover from! This time I fell for the classic conflicts of the Cold War and the charm of the AK-47 rules by Peter Pig. With some of my colleagues all fighting a campaign in an alternate, Balkanized Africa, I decided to jump in with my own Latin American/Caribbean dictatorship. Small, insane, and a totally fun banana republic, Tropicaña is my version of Tropico from the famous pc dictator sim of the same name. El Presidente seeks to extend his brand of rule around the world, starting with the task force he sent recently to Africa to aid some his brother dictators (*COUGH!* I meant "Presidentes por Viva"), which required the entire Tropicañan Navy to transport (all 3 ships!).

                           TROPICAÑA

 

     La Republica de Tropicaña is a small island nation located halfway between Cuba and the rest of the Caribbean basin. Beginning as a Spanish plantation colony in the mid 1600's, Tropicaña was known for its export of sugar cane and later in the century became a noted pirate haven to rival Tortuga. After the Age of Piracy, Tropicaña entered the 18th Century as a valuable colony of the Spanish Crown before being lost shortly after the Napoleonic Wars to a Revolución begun by Irish emigré turned governor of the island, Patricio O'Donnell. Using defected Spanish soldiers and colonists turned militia, O'Donnell threw out the Spanish Royalists and established the Republic of Tropicaña with himself as "Presidente por Viva", President for Life. Giving huge land grants to the American, and British plantation owners, the true sponsors of the revolt.

 

     When Patricio died in the mid 19th Century, his son Ambrosio was appointed "Presidente" by the government and acclaimed by the Guardia Nacionale (the Army composed of a small number of professionals and militia conscripts) and the Guardia Revolucionaria (now the Presidential Guard). Ambrosio turned Tropicaña into an agricultural and production powerhouse exporting tons of bananas, pineapples, sugar, and coffee alongside iron ores and even coal and gold. He built railroads and modernized Tropicaña's navy (two Spanish frigates and a ship of the line captured during the Revolución were replaced by two new ironclads and a torpedo launch from France.). Unfortunately for Ambrosio, he overstepped his authority when he sold half the island to the newly formed American owned Columbia Fruit Company, which dispossessed the landed plantation elites without compensation as Ambrosio pocketed the money for extensions to his Presidential Palace. His assassination at the hands of the "Planteros" ignited a decade long civil war on the island between the surviving O'Donnell clan and their fellow Spanish/Irish immigrant followers and the native Tropicañans under the leadership of the equally mixed and foreign Planters Coalition. Even the Navy was split with one ironclad going to the Planteros and the other sunk by the O'Donnell Loyalist torpedo launch. With help from the Columbia Fruit Co. (mainly through hired guns from the American West, and arms and money) the O'Donnells managed to put down the revolt and execute the bulk of the traitorous Planteros, while many others fled the island for Cuba or Brazil.

 

     Fast forward to the mid 1950's. With the end of WWII, Tropicaña found itself the gambling tourist capital of the Caribbean, second only to Cuba in popularity. The capital of Santa Corona was a bustling center of tourism, trade, and presidential pomp and splendor. Amidst which the current Presidente, Augusto O'Donnell, came of age. Upon the death of his father in 57, the O'Donnells were ousted by a Communist backed coup d'etat. Rather than flee the island like any sensible dictator, Augusto chose to stay and fight the rebels. Backed once again by Columbia Fruit, and by the CIA, Augusto swiftly crushed the Communistas, capturing much of the old tanks and equipment gifted to the rebels by the Soviets. He then gave many of the Communistas he captured a "helicopter ride", tossing them out over the Caribbean or shooting them and tossing them out over the harsh Tropicañan jungle. 

 

     In gratitude for recapturing the valuable sugar and banana fields for them, the execs at Columbia Fruit expected these plantations to be returned to their rightful control. They were taken entirely by surprise when Augusto "nationalized" the company's former possessions and made it his privately owned "mega plantation" making the O'Donnells the largest landowners on the island if not in the Caribbean! After surviving several assassination attempts by the CIA (out of rumors he would suddenly side with the Soviets) and an unsuccessful economic embargo lobbied by the now dispossessed Columbia Fruit Co., Augusto turned his political alignments away from the superpowers and decided to strike out on his own and partner with other non-aligned small dictatorships, or as the CIA now classed them, "rogue nations". 

 

     As a "Fascista" Augusto built a cult of personality around his family dynasty and was almost a king in all but name. He built up the military and kept the people dependent on his benevolent rule. Now with war erupting in West Africa, Augusto O'Donnell sent a task force to support fellow struggling dictators in a blind thrust at foreign diplomacy with the Third World. He also sought to use the funds from his newly created Coca leaf fields (most of the yield of which is purchased by a certain American manufacturer of carbonated beverages.) to extend Tropicañan influence beyond the Caribbean and onto the world stage as a true power. Trained by the Irish Republican Army, and armed with tanks and aircraft bought, stolen, or gifted (including a long lost flotilla of Nazi submarines who needed a place to lie low after the Weltkrieg.) this motley force, the Guardia Presidencial, is a force to be reckoned with in West Africa.