Kolechian Armed Forces Council Negotiations, Round 3:
The Armed Force Council is back in full swing in the morning, as the Army and Navy continue bickering over the division of resources. In the middle of all this, the petition for “uniform standardisation” is presented to the Ministry of War, with a group of generals and admirals tagging along to watch the show.
It doesn’t go over well – the Minister for War, Ludwik Mazur isn’t pleased that the KPAF managed to sneak in the parachutes in what should have been a routine updating of the dress uniforms. He’s absolutely against the Ministry funding more things for the army and navy, outside of their already established procurement process. Nevertheless, the quartermaster corps are at least satisfied that the KPAF tried the petition, and tempers have cooled down.
The army and navy are ready to sign the first KPAF proposal – the balloon transfer. Essentially, the KPAF will hand over all Hykib squadrons, effective immediately, to the army and navy, including their design plans. Additionally, the KPAF will provide some defence for the balloon squadrons, in the form of a minimum of one squadron of fixed-wing aircraft on every front, in accordance with the army’s deployment plans.
The navy is also ready to sign the agreement for a mutual development fund. To recap, the navy and KPAF will both pay 3 PP into this fund every turn, which can only be spent on naval designs or revisions. Further, the KPAF will commit to spending at least 8 dice over the next year to developing a light carrier-launched bomber with at least 90kg bombload and a cargoship-carrier conversion. In return, the navy will assist in the latter project with two dice. Some noise is made about a possible torpedo design as well, but ultimately this is not added to the agreement.
At lunch, the KPAF design team goes around asking about interest in partnering with their alloy design project. Neither the army nor the navy are interested in aluminium alloy, but help comes from an unexpected quarter – the Ministry of Industrial Revolutions. Recently renamed in the hopes of boosting Kolechian industry with revolutionary fervour (Kolechia has already industrialised a few decades prior), they are looking for something that Kolechian might be a world leader in, and this new aluminium alloy could be it. They are willing to pay 2 PP for the alloy’s development, in return for the formulae.
Finally, the commissar from the Ministry of Integrity (who seems to have invited themselves to this council) passes the design team a small note smelling strongly of carrier pigeon droppings. The commissar assigned to the KPAF has been tasked to infiltrate and sabotage the Verusan Sky Crusaders at their own council. While he was unsuccessful in this, his papers having been uncovered for fakes, he has nevertheless managed to spy on part of the proceedings by the simple expedient of climbing up a tree and listening at the window. It seems that the VSC are negotiating with the Verusan Navy to develop either a heavy torpedo bomber or a reconnaissance floatplane. Which one will be developed was apparently the subject of much debate last night, but he didn’t quite manage to hear what exactly the VSC are getting in return before he was forced to abandon his spot. No one at the table seems eager to dispose of the note by the traditional Kolechian method of oral ingestion, but eventually a stray dog is found to do the dirty work.
(Going to need three majority-wins votes here: one on the balloon handover, one on the navy mutual development fund, and one on accepting funding from the Ministry of Industrial Revolutions. If no other proposals are made, there will be no further council phases.)
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Topic: Knights of the Skies: Kolechia Thread - Early Summer 1916, Production Phase (Read 55403 times)