Shipbucket

Sort of came up with this one after taking a very strong pain pill.

Here we have a North Korea/South Korea style nation, but in England. I chose this particular area due it being one of the strangest places in England.

Foulness Island, off the coast of Great Wakering, United Kingdom, was granted independence from England during the English Civil War (1654 - 1658), and was then ruled by the Havengore Brotherhood (Named for a locale on Foulness). Having a rather peaceful history (Having avoided being dragged into WW1 by England), there island's troubles began in 1923 at the height of annual 5 year elections, in an event known as.... The Great Split. The ruling Havengore Brotherhood was plunged into chaos by a double party separatist movement, when 2 groups of Havengore members began to argue over who should be the new leader. It eventually got out of control, and the two factions started an armed conflict, sending men, women and children into hiding, and driving the Havengore Brotherhood off the island and back into England, where they sought asylum. The two factions, The Maplin Brotherhood, and the Ridgemarsh Brotherhood, each occupied one section of Foulness after an attempt by both factions to seize control of Foulness ended in a Status quo ante bellum. The two territories were eventually separated by a parallel line called the "Pungi Line"; named for Maplin Brotherhood Commander Maximillum Pungi, who came up with the plan to divide the two areas. Both forces crossed the Pungi Line mostly to engage each other. Now and again, both brotherhoods would cross over the Pungi Line to fight each other in the continued dispute for control of the island, with complete disregard for the safety of the innocent citizens. Both factions eventually began to build their own navies by buying old warships from foreign nations as they were unable to build their own at the time. They eventually began to build their own ships and other military equipment, which was frequently replaced due to heavy combat losses. Both sides continue fighting each other for control of the island, leaving the place in a mess. Kids cannot attend school for more than 20 minutes when they have to be evacuated due to bombing raids or naval bombardments. The United Nations have called for a cease-fire, but all attempts to stop the dispute have failed.


A map of Foulness (Not 100% accurate)

What pills do you take to get such ideas? I wanna try some of them too...

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«A sea is not a barrier, a sea is a road, and those who try to use the sea as an instrument of isolation soon realize their foe has already put the sea into his own service.». - Alfred Thayer Mahan.

I can do that, all I need is an very hard wall to hit my head into first.

This AU is going to be interesting to see.

So far, so good, but you did miss a trick ... you could have used a map of the South-East and listed "Here be dragons!" for everything above the Watford Gap...

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NSWE: viewtopic.php?f=14&t=5695

Over here we they are called ACODOLS. Taking one is bad enough, but taking two really makes you feel weird.

Show me a map of the South East, and its done mate!

I really thought I was going to get negative responses to this, so much that I even had a nightmare about it last night! It will involve taking existing designs (Built or never built) and painting the entire superstructure above the draught either white or blue, depending on the brotherhood, as both brotherhoods paint their equipment and ships in their respective colors (Maplin Brotherhood = White; Ridgemarsh Brotherhood = Blue). Most of these ships are survivors of WWI and WWII (Even some vessels that sunk in real life survived WWII such as the heavy cruiser Mogmai, The Akitsu Maru escort carrier, HMS Hood USS Samuel B. Roberts, etc,etc,etc,), and were bought by both brotherhoods after being put up for sale. The vessels were reverse-engineered in order for the brotherhoods to build their own indigenous designs, but the vessels didn't belong to any classes.Most of these WWII survivors were quickly sunk in the constant fighting, or otherwise got stuck in the notorious navigation hazard that is the Maplin Sands (For which the Maplin Brotherhood is named for.), and the associated "Broomway that runs smack bang in the center of it. The Sands are already cluttered with the wrecks of both civilian and naval ships, as well as an old screwpile lighthouse that wasn't operational for long as it didn't take the authorities long to realize that the sands weren't reliably navigable, and the shipping lane was abandoned along with the lighthouse, whose ghostly ruins still stand in the mud today, albeit surrounded by dozens of shipwrecks, most from the bitter fighting. As for more modern vessels such as the Rothesay Class Frigate HMS Plymouth for example, both brotherhoods weren't able to fully reverse engineer these ships due to lack of recourses for the construction these modern ships. They didn't want to mine the island for raw materials, as they both knew that there wouldn't be much of an island to fight over anymore. Instead, they began to send ships to foreign countries to purchase raw materials to build new ships. They even began salvaging the wrecks of other sunken vessels as supplies of raw materials began to become depleted. However, the old practice of buying decommissioned warships continues.

A good Au can be made good by very good story and drawings, A bad AU can be made interesting and fun... if everything is done with humor that everyone understand.

But doing a good AU with humor... let us see how this AU is going first...

It will have a mix of recolored ships (Due to both warring factions having bought old ships from foreign navies.) and boats I've drawn myself, for the period when the two warring factions began to build their own ships.

Lets start with a few ships....



The Maplin Brotherhood light cruiser MNS Tilbury, formerly the Dutch light cruiser Celebes. Put up for sale as scrap by the Dutch Navy, she was bought by the Maplin Brotherhood and painted white. After just a year of service, she was sunk by torpedoes fired from the Ridgemarsh destroyer Rampside Ex-USS Fletcher on October 3 1947.



The Ridgemarsh Brotherhood escort carrier Castle Meads, the former IJN escort carrier Akitsu Maru. She was sunk off Watford's Gap by the Maplin heavy cruiser Swansea Ex-Aoba on February 13 1946.




This is one I scratch made myself. The Ridgemarsh Brotherhood were able to start building their own ships after 1949 due to them having a larger war chest that the Maplin Brotherhood. The Maplins had to scratch together every cent they had, as well as try to earn more my by setting up businesses in the town areas in order to build up their war chest. The Ridgemarsh Brotherhood's first indigenous warship was the Great War style coastal defence battleship RNS Felixstowe, completed in 1950. After just three months of service, she was sunk off Maplin Sands by her Maplin Brotherhood counterpart MNS Landguard Point, Ex-HMS Royal Sovereign on June 8 1950.