Spanish Civil War GB?

[Weaver]

All food for thought - cheers!

Here's an article based on Gerald Howson's Arms for Spain (which I intend to buy):

http://struggle.ws/spain/review_arms_gold.html

Most of it's about how the Soviet Union royally ripped the Republicans off, but note this passage towards the end:

Even Poland, governed by a right-wing junta which admired Franco, sold the Republicans huge quantities of arms, often overpriced and obsolete. Polish officers afterwards claimed they had made the equivalent of £296m out of these deals. "Why should you worry?" one of them observed. "It's only to the Spanish Republicans!"

That appears to solve the dilemma: business over politics! Like I say, I'll be ordering the book shortly.

So up the cynicism and have them openly selling to both sides, old stuff to the Reds and new stuff to the Nationalists.

P.7s in Republicans markings versus P.11s and P.24s with Nationalist black balls and Falange arrows.

Money from both sides and assistance for their buddy Franco.

Aint' the world just a grand place?

Indeed - however, they couldn't sell P.11s (or Jupiter-engined P.7s?) to anyone, because their licence from Bristol Engines prohibited them from building them for export. That's why the Gnome-Rhone-engined P.24 existed: an alternative way of selling the airframe. I believe there was a GR-engined Karas offered for export too.

[Weaver]

I've read the relevent chapters of Howson's Arms for Spain now - ye gods, what a web of deceit and double-dealing!  

Some interesting stuff:

1. The Poles were not just selling to the Republicans, they were their second largest arms supplier after the Soviet Union. Given that they were the first to declare an arms embargo, a high level of secrecy prevailed, and all of the trading was done through intermediaries and arms dealers, so may have been "masked" until Polish records became available for inspection in the 1990s. The reasons for this trade were simple: Poland desperately needed to re-arm but was nearly broke. The Nationalists may have been politically more appealing, but they had little cash to spend and were in any case getting pretty much everything they needed on generous credit terms from Germany and Spain. The Republican government, on the other hand, was short of everything, willing and able to pay extortionate rates in cash or gold (having control of the country's gold reserves), and was forced by the arms embargo into illegal deals where there would be little come-back.

2. There's more detail on the Los deal, although Howson still says the whole story is "far too complicated to tell here". Howson has the aircraft offered to the Spanish in July '37. There's also a suggestion that at least one of the intermediaries in this deal was a con man, however the despatch of airmen by both governments on missions apparently related to this deal suggests that the essentials of it were real.

3. Another factor enabling Polish re-armament was a whacking great loan from, of all places, the pro-Republican left-wing Blum government in France. Now if, as in the whiff history I proposed, France was more solidly behind the Republicans and the rest of the Western European nations were showing generally firmer backbones with respect to Hitler and Mussolini, then the Poles might well have felt more obliged to support France's stance and less concerned about appeasing Germany (the whole point of the French loan was to stop them drifting towards Germany), and since selling arms to the Republicans was in their financial interests anyway.....

4. Stalin was by no means as enthusiastic as you might expect about supporting the Spanish Republican government, because by that point he had abandoned the goal of "spreading internation al Communism) in favour of a realpolitik approach, cultivating the good will of the Western democracies in order to form alliances against Hitler, or at least prevent them from allying with Hitler against the Soviet Union.

[JayBee]

Hola! Just back to-day from a weeks holiday in Menorca. Did you know that Menorca was the lsat place to surrender to the Nationalists?
Well, 'What If' they didn't?
The ideas that have been buzzing around my head for the last four days DEMAND that this GB gets going.

JimB

[pyro-manic]

Balearic Republic?

[JayBee]

Balearic Republic?

You better believe it, Alun!

[Spey_Phantom]

i voted for the spanish Civil War GB, and with a very special reason.

a couple of years ago, my father told me that my family decended from the spanish, the history goes as far back as the Siege of Ostend (my old hometown).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_of_Ostend

as a tribute to my ancestrial heritage, i have voted to participate, so if the GB gets started, count me in  

im thinking Nationalist FW190.
or if jets are allowed, a nationalist FW229 Flitzer  
other ideas are for a republican Spitfire Mk.1, Blenheim Mk.1 or even a Beaufighter  

EDIT: i found a cool site with an overview of aircraft that were used, and some that were not used (what-if's)  
http://www.zi.ku.dk/personal/drnash/model/Spain/index.html

[Brian da Basher]

The Spanish Civil War GB is one of two left from the last GB poll. To get this one off the ground, we'll need a set of proposed rules and a GB moderator. Alt. Luftwaffe will probably go first, but it's never too early to get all our ducks in a row.

Brian da Basher

[Brian da Basher]

It looks like the Alt. Luftwaffe GB will start March 1st. I'd like to get the Spanish Civil War GB going April 1st which is the date the war ended in 1939.

We still need rules and a GB moderator. Let's hear some ideas!

Brian da Basher

[Brian da Basher]

I would be willing to act as chief cat herder for this GB.... 

I would need to think about the rules, I would like to keep this one as open as possible, so armour and maybe even ships could be included?



Duncan

Thanks for volunteering, Duncan! It'll be a treat to have you lead this GB. Feel free to suggest some rules. Looks like we're on track to run April 1st - July 1st.

Brian da Basher

[Weaver]

Rule 7 - GB to run from 01/04/2010 to 01/06/2010

Rule 121 - Finished builds are to be posted up in a "Finished Builds" thread no later than Midnight Local Time on the 1st of June 2010 (I'll apply a very fudgy definition of "Midnight"  )

I thought it was running until July? If it's June, you're going to get a severely reduced entry from me, because I need a serious break from deadline modelling after April 1st to sort out various RW stuff.

[JayBee]

I agree with Weaver, two months is not enough. Make it 1st July.

JimB

[JayBee]

Thanks Duncan, old chap, you'r' a good egg!

Jim

[Weaver]

I agree with Weaver, two months is not enough. Make it 1st July.

JimB

I thought it was running until July? If it's June, you're going to get a severely reduced entry from me, because I need a serious break from deadline modelling after April 1st to sort out various RW stuff.

Err...exactly what is the standard time for GB's, the Alt Luftwaffe GB is 1st March to 1st May (according to the Forum Home Page listing), so only two months... 

July the 1st it is then (still puzzled why the Alt Luft is only 2 months then)

I was simply going off Brian's comment that it would run from April 1st to July 1st.

[NARSES2]

Err...exactly what is the standard time for GB's, the Alt Luftwaffe GB is 1st March to 1st May (according to the Forum Home Page listing), so only two months... 

July the 1st it is then (still puzzled why the Alt Luft is only 2 months then)

There's no such thing as a standard time for GB's Dunc, it's up to the moderator/participants to agree one

[Radish]

Bonzer.....

thought of doing a Hs-123 Paella