WesWorld

Bar Harbor Times, Friday, June 27th, 1930
A disturbing incident occurred in the coastal waters off of West Quaddy Head Light in far, northeastern Maine last night when the Coast Guard cutter Antietam spotted a Canadian rum-runner unloading its cargo onto small boats just inside United States waters. The Antietam, operating out of Boston, had been sent to patrol the waters between Maine and Grand Manan Island, New Brunswick, considered a hot spot for rum-running from Maritime Canada. With the new moon, and according to reports from informants that a big shipment was coming in, the Coast Guard sent the Antietam to try and catch the Canadian smugglers in the act.
The cutter did not have to wait long. Just after midnight, an unidentified small freighter was spotted three miles southeast of the West Quaddy Head lighthouse and several small boats were observed transferring cargo from the ship to the shore near Gulliver’s Hole. The Antietam quietly approached the freighter, closing to only a few hundred yards before turning on its spotlight and ordering the vessel to surrender and prepare to be boarded. Instead, it got under way and began heading towards Canadian waters and the port of Dark Harbour on Grand Manan. The Antietam quickly fired a warning shot across the freighter’s bow and the smuggler apparently decided to not risk a second shot to his hull and stopped. That’s when things became much more complicated. Suddenly, both vessels were illuminated with multiple searchlights as four huge warships approached from the northeast. It seems that the Antietam and its prey had stumbled into the Canadian navy’s new Fourth Cruiser Squadron, made up of four newly transferred British heavy cruisers! The lead ship, the Effingham, signaled the Antietam and demanded to know what it was doing chasing a Canadian ship. The cutter’s captain signaled back that they were in pursuit of a suspected smuggler and were about to board the vessel, which they insisted was still in United States territorial waters. The Effingham thought otherwise, claiming they were now in Canadian territory and demanding that the Antietam leave at once. Faced with four huge cruisers, the tiny Antietam had no choice but to comply. The freighter was last seen heading towards Grand Manan. All was not lost though, as Coast Guard and Bureau of Domestic Security agents were able to capture two of the small boats ferrying the illegal booze to shore. Five men were arrested, three Americans and two Canadians. Several hundred cases of beer were also captured. The American men were identified as Patrick, Sean, and Collin Burne of Bar Harbor. The two Canadian men arrested are identified as Robert and Douglas McKenzie, possibly of Toronto, Ontario. All five will be charged with smuggling and resisting arrest for trying to flee on foot when cornered by authorities. Governor Gardiner decried what he saw as “a deliberate attempt by the Canadian military to facilitate the smuggling of alcohol into Maine for the purposes of corrupting our fine citizenry!” He demanded that the State Department officially protest the actions of the Canadian Navy, and also suggested that the US Navy should station units to guard against the “Canadian Menace to our state.” So far there has been no comment from Washington. There have been numerous cases since Prohibition went into effect in 1920 where alcohol has been smuggled into the United States, often allegedly by Canadians, from the sea, or across the Great Lakes. The Coast Guard has said that while it does make frequent arrests, it is able to capture only a fraction of the smugglers with the resources available to it.

"Robert and Douglas McKenzie..."

Too funny!!!

Ottawa Citizen
June 28th, 1930
OTTAWA, ONTARIO

The Prime Minister's Office has released the following press release in response to the recent "West Quaddy Incident";
The Dominion of Canada sincerely regrets the recent and unfortunate confrontation between the Royal Canadian Navy's Fourth Cruiser squadron, and USCGC Antietam. The Dominion of Canada has no wish to interfere in the internal legal affairs of the United States, or any other nation, as we are sure the United States has no wish to interfere with matters within Canadian territory and waters."

Sources within the government have stated that as long as the United States remains a 'dry' country, and her people continue to be willing to pay high prices to obtain liquor regardless, there will be incidents like this. Other sources have indicated that the RCMP is just as fustrated with the willingness of Canadian citizens to participate in such illegal activity as the American FBI is.

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4 Heavy Cruisers (even the Effinghams) vs. a Coast Guard Cutter. Everyone knows that's funny. :x

Nice story indeed.

What´s this name thing?

Look up "strange brew".

Quoted

4 Heavy Cruisers (even the Effinghams) vs. a Coast Guard Cutter. Everyone knows that's funny

Perhaps we're gonna see USCG cutters get a tad bigger, and running in packs, so they can tell Effinghams to "take off, hoser".

"Eh!"

*just kidding!* (maybe...)

Seriously, I've been neglecting the Coast Guard so the next year or so will see major increases in units since several classes were introduced in the late 20's and early 30's. Basically I forgot...which is pretty inexcusable for the grandson of a Coasty from WW2!

You could always assign the "monitors" to the coast guard as the state militias have probably be disbanded by now. While a single twin gunned ship won't be too impressive under most circumstances, one with twin 12 inch guns will be intimidating in white with a big red diagonal stripe near the front.

The stripe only appeared in the late 1960's. As for the Monitors, the Navy would be quite reluctant to move them from their current stations in the Southeast US and Hawaii. Historically the Navy did transfer several old destroyers to the Guard during the 1920's to use to enforce prohibition, but since the US destroyer fleet in Wesworld isn't bloated by the WW1 building blitz, that's not an option.

Ottawa Citizen
July 1st, 1930
HALIFAX, N.S.
RCMP officials have announced the arrest of employees of the Lockhart Shipping and Freight company of Halifax in connection to the recent "West Quaddy Incident", as well as other instances of smuggling and evasion of trade regulations. While the incident off Maine has garnered the majority of media coverage, the Lockhart company seemed to send the majority of it's smuggling operations through the Great Lakes. Constable Benton Fraser of the RCMP was described as 'instrumental' in the resolution of this case, including liason work with the Chicago Police and FBI officials in gathering evidence and pursuing leads.

It is expected that should successful convictions be made against the owners and operators of Lockhart S&F that their assets, including several small freighters, and at least two larger vessels will be seized by the Canadian Government. Constable Henry Larsen is said to already be instpecting these ships and studying proposals on how they may better serve Canadian interests.

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As of now, I'm listing the assets of Lockhart S&F as;
2 x 20,000 ton Ocean Going freighters
2 x 10,000 ton Great Lakes freighters
8 x 5,000 ton tramp stamers

I kind of picked that off the top of my head, if anyone has any suggestions, feel free.

I'd say the big 'uns would probably be closer to 15,000 tons (standard, at least...); sounds like a nice pair for conversion to destroyer tenders...

As for the US, perhaps in addition to upgunning the Coasties, Congress will push something for the Great Lakes...

I've got some evil plans for the two big ones, and some of the smaller ones.

Haven't figured out what to do with the two great lakes freighters, but they'll probably end up as some kind of auxilliaries.

Great Lakes is USCG juristiction. I don't think a minor rumrunning dispute, which the Canadians have apologized over, and publicly gone after the instigators of, quite justifies anything like a Great Lakes Baby Battleship race that I know you're thinking about.

No where would the fun be without a baby battleship race?

I hereby propose that we give both the US and Canada 55,000 special CDS tonnage. Allowing 13,000 ton CDS ships with the condition that no ship leaves the Great Lakes.

Historically the US and Canada have forbidden armed warships on the Great Lakes, I think since at least the late 1800's. Right now I have no military infrastructure on the Lakes, even though there are obviously shipyards capable of building freighters up to Size 3 since there were 5-600 footers by now. I'd have to dig out my Great Lakes books. I've got some good references on ships, possibly on yards as well. I don't see much need to build up anything there as far as dedicated military yards.

BTW, how should we handle civilian yards? The shipyards listed in our infrastructures can't be the complete sum of our shipbuilding capacity. The Coast Guard especially used civilian yards for many ships.

The U.S.-Canadian border is the longest unfortified border in the world, and has been for a very long time. Only something extreme would ever change that situation, like if the U.K. and the U.S. went to war. Then over the course of the war and its aftermath the border would be fortified and warships would be produced for the Great Lakes for the first time since probably 1815.

Quoted

Originally posted by CanisD
BTW, how should we handle civilian yards? The shipyards listed in our infrastructures can't be the complete sum of our shipbuilding capacity. The Coast Guard especially used civilian yards for many ships.

Well in my case most ships like that would merely be "storyline" entities, not really costing any tonnage and not having any real use IC. They are merely elements of a good story.

This is however one reason I've preposed to list GDP stats for wesworld nations. This would give us some sort of base to use for determining the civilian infrastructure levels of any nation and to some extent the Army and Airforce limits as well.

The only downside is that it would make things more complex, emagine posting our usual naval quarterly reports and then moving on to army, airforce and civilian reports.

Dosn't navalism have some sort of rules in place for these other military branches and civilian output?

Only Army and other land forces at this time (and some very limited airship rules), and there are no airplanes as of yet (its only 1901 in Navalism). Most smaller forces sea and riverine forces are covered in the Naval upkeep area at this time. Some things are assumed as they've not come up as of yet (like militia forces).

Ships with no direct commercial application, like the large icebreakers, got built in government-owned military shipyards, as listed in the infrastructure area. Ships with direct commercial application, like Normandie, tankers, or tenders get built in private yards in the French case, or government-owned civilian shipyards in Russia's case, and are then refitted for military purposes at government-owned military drydocks.

I hope I haven't confused things more.

That's roughly how the Philippines runs things, too.

(For instance, the Orca-class Whale Factory Ships are receiving Government Furnished Equipment from the production, but as civilian* vessels they're being built "off-stage".)

(* for now. XD )