News and Stories of Note for Italia

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What the Title says, anything interesting I come up with for Italia will go here.  I ask that you place all comments in the Comments to the Crown and Senate post in my Nation section. (mostly so I can order stories as they should be later on)

Bit out of Order here honestly atm but I have one story mostly finished and the one that proceads it is only like half finished so ill reorder them when its finished.

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Honor felt far more nervous than he hoped anyone could guess as he joined the party assembling outside the hatch to Captain Bachfisch's dining cabin. RMS Nike was only three days out of Tranto, and he and his fellow midshipmen had been surprised, to say the least, to discover that the Captain habitually invited his officers to dine with him.  The captain's quarters were indisputably larger and far more splendid than Middy Row, they were however cramped and plain compared to those aboard larger ships, which made his dining cabin a tight fit for even half a dozen guests. With space at such a premium, he could hardly invite all of his officers to every dinner, but he apparently rotated the guest list regularly to ensure that all of them dined with him in turn.

It was unheard of, or almost so.  But Captain Courvoisier, Honor's favorite instructor at the Academy, had once suggested to him that a wise CO got to know his officers—and see to it that they knew him as well as possible, and he wondered if this was Captain Bachfisch's way of doing just that. But whatever the Captain thought he was up to, finding himself on the guest list was enough to make any middy nervous, especially this early in the cruise.

He looked around as unobtrusively as possible as the Captain's steward opened the hatch and followed his seniors through it. As the most junior person present, he brought up the rear, of course, which was only marginally better than being required to lead the way. At least he didn't have to be the very first person through the hatch! But that only meant everyone else could arrive, take their seats, and turn to watch him enter the compartment last of all.  This evening promised to be stressful enough without borrowing reasons to crank his adrenaline, but he could at least be grateful that Elvis Santino wasn't present. Midshipman Makus had already endured this particular ordeal, as he had had to put up with Santino's presence.

At least his lowly status precluded any confusion over which seat might be his, and he scarcely needed the steward's small gesture directing him to the very foot of the table. He settled himself into the chair as unobtrusively as he could, while the steward circled the table, moving through the dining cabin's cramped confines with the grace of long practice as he poured coffee. Honor had always despised that particular beverage, and he covered his cup with his hand as the steward approached him. The man gave him a quizzical glance, but moved on without comment.

"Don't care for coffee, huh?"

The question came from the senior-grade lieutenant seated to his left, and Honor looked at him quickly. The brown-haired, snub-nosed officer was about Santino's age, or within a year or two either way. Unlike Santino, however, his expression was friendly and his tone was pleasant, without the hectoring sneer the OCTO seemed to achieve so effortlessly.

"I'm afraid not, Sir," he admitted.

"That could be a liability in a Navy career," the lieutenant said cheerfully. He looked across the table at a round-faced, dark-complexioned lieutenant commander and grinned. "Some of us," he observed, "seem to be of the opinion that His Majesty's ships actually run on caffeine, not Coal. In fact, some of us seem to feel that it's our responsibility to rebunker regularly by taking that caffeine on internally."

The lieutenant commander looked down his nose at him and sipped from his own cup, then set it precisely back on the saucer

"I trust, Lieutenant, that it was not your intention to cast aspersions on the quantities of coffee which certain of your hard-working seniors consume on the bridge," he remarked.

"Certainly not! I'm shocked by the very suggestion that you might think I intended anything of the sort, Sir!"

"Of course you are," Commander De Luca agreed, then looked down the length of the table at Honor from his place to the right of the Captain's as yet unoccupied chair. "Mr. Harrington, allow me to introduce you. To your left, we have Lieutenant Saunders, our assistant navigator. To his left, Lieutenant Commander LaVacher, our chief engineer, and to your right, Lieutenant Commander Hirake, our gunnery officer." LaVacher, faced De Luca, who sat at Hirake's right, across the table. She and the Exec completed the group of dinner guests, and Layson gave a small wave in Honor's direction. "Gentlemen, Mr. Midshipman Harrington."

Heads had nodded at her as the Exec named each officer in turn, and now Honor nodded respectfully back to them. Not a one of them, he noticed, seemed to exude the towering sense of superiority which was so much a part of Elvis Santino.

Saunders had just opened his mouth to say something more when the hatch leading to the captain's day cabin opened and a tall, spare man in the uniform of a senior-grade captain stepped through it. All of the other officers around the table stood, and Honor quickly followed suit. They remained standing until Captain Bachfisch had taken his own chair and made a small gesture with his right hand. "Be seated, ladies and gentlemen," he invited.

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01Jan1900
The Folowing add is found posted on Broadsides and as a full page add in all major newspapers throught the world, people who do even a little investigating will discover that if even one of their grandparents was Italian that they are Eligable.  Also that the Empire will actualy pay their passage and give them a grant to get their new property up and running.

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Aashif El-Sayed wondered for at least the thousandth time what he had been thinking when he walked (none to calmly) up to the big black Sergeant Major who had visited his village and made his mark in the big black book that was reverently referred to as the Libro Legionis.  Less than pleased was a rather mild description of his fathers reaction, and both his mothers had cried and wailed so much you would have thought he had died.   In spite of all that the first few days had actually been fun, traveling with the Sergeant Major and his party as one of the growing number of recruits they had gathered for the Legions he saw places outside the tiny Village of his birth (although until his recent travels he had thought it large), girls and women dressed absolutely scandalously without even a headscarf (although he had enjoyed looking at them) and most excitingly he had traveled not only on a train, but one of the mighty iron hulled steamships.

Then this happened... even this hadn't looked that bad at first, upon arrival they had been yelled at a lot but as a second son Aashif was used to being yelled at.  They were directed into one of 2 lines, he had chosen the longer one as everyone in the shorter line was doing what were called pushups while waiting for the people in the longer line to finish whatever they were doing.  When he finally got to the front of his chosen line, a man in a strange black robe said some words in a strange language and sprinkled his head with water.  He wasn't sure what the significance of it was at the time but the Sergeant who had taken over his group of recruits had seemed pleased with his decision (he now realized he had at that point voluntarily converted to Catholicism something else he was sure his father wouldn't be pleased with).  Then he and 59 other recruits were off to an appointment with a barber, where their heads were shaved and from there on to a large building where they were issued new clothes, packs, and rifles.  From there it was a short (at least to him it was short some of the others had great difficulty with it) walk  to an empty field where they began setting up a camp under the supervision of 2 Sergeants who had nothing nice to say about their efforts.

Now 90 days after his arrival he both understood what he had volunteered for and gloried in it, for by tonight he would officially be a Janissary.  True he had given up even what limited rights he had as a Resident and holder of Latin Rights, but in 10 years god willing and he survived he would receive his discharge (should he so choose) and Citizenship in the empire.   All these things and more went through his mind as he waited once again in a line to receive his final orders and be marked with the Eagle that represented the empire and her legions.  Gradually the line moved forward and finally it was his turn, the sergeant at the head of his line looked at him checked the Libro Legionis in front of him and tossed him 2 small bits of copper.
"You're out of uniform Lance Corporal"

Aashif glanced into his hand quickly and then smiled.
"So it would appear Sergeant, could you perhaps help me with that?"

The Sergeant in his turn smiled back, took the small pin with its single chevron and crossed rifle and saber.  Removed the frogs from the back placed it properly on Aashif's collar and put the frogs back on it.
"Only to happy to Corporal, now for the rest of it"

Aashif rolled up his sleeve and drew his Bayonet, making a quick slash acrossed his forearm he gritted his teeth as the hot iron was pressed into his flesh marking him permanently with the Eagle of the Legions.

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Buried in the Financial section of most british papers is a minor note about Vickers UK lisencing Vickers Italia to produce 6 copies of their new 9.2 L45 in a twin turret and barbette configuration.  The article ends by saying that financial details were not released at this time.

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20DEC1899 1600 hours
Vittorio Emanuele Cuniberti was not to say the least a happy man, even the Admiralty admited that his big beautiful fast children the Lombardia class Battleships were a resounding success and they had agreed to build two of his Armored Cruisers to serve as heavy scouts for them.  All this would have made most men very happy indeed, but all he could think about was his latest meeting with the General staff and their scathing rebuke of his latest proposal for a ship mounting a Uniform battery of six of the new 11/45 guns.

Vittorio sat down at his drafting table.  So they wanted a battery of their new 8/45 guns on it did they, the 9.2/45 would be a better choice honestly he thought to himself but he could understand the desire to keep the eight inch gun as it used the same shell as the older 8/40s on the preceding battleships.  He began to draw, not really intending much but attempting to improve the secondary broadside while maintaining the existing eleven inch broadside.

23DEC1899 0700 hours
Michael Vincent Rossi unlocked the door and walked into the office, from the scent of even more stale Tobacco smoke the man himself still hadn't left the office, and the odds were he hadn't slept yet either.  He a cautious glance into the office of his immediate superior only served to confirm his thoughts Vittorio looked like hell and the massive glass ashtray beside his drafting table was full to over flowing with several crushed butts having fallen onto the floor, but for as horrible as he looked he had that gleam in his eyes that he always got when he had had some sort of breakthrough.

Vittorio glanced up and Beamed at him "I have by God and all the saints got it" he said
Michael naturally asked cautiously "What would that be sir?" to which Vittorio replied with a chuckle "A Christmas gift that those old bastards on the Naval Board will never forget"

*OOC*
for anyone interested what he came up with is posted here
http://www.navalism.org/index.php/topic,5999.msg80381.html#msg80381

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Proposal to the Crown.  January 1900
Admiral Vittorio Cuniberti, Chief Naval Architect for the Regia Marnia

Of what use is a battle fleet to Italia at war with a foreign power possessing no battleships, but having fast armored cruisers and clouds of fast torpedo craft? What damage would our battleships do to them? Would they wish for a few battleships or for more armored cruisers? Would not we willingly exchange a few of our battleships for more fast armored cruisers? In such a case, neither side wanting battleships is presumptive evidence that they are not of much value.  We being a power largely contained within the expanse of the Mediterranean can easily control it through the extensive use of Torpedo craft, Light Cruisers, and Submarines. 

It is the findings of the Naval Board that the Regia Marina given the large number of ships already possessed that can exceed 20 knots would it is felt benefit greatly from our "ideal" battleship, a large armored warship of 17,000 tons, armed solely with a single caliber main battery of six 11-inch (280 mm) guns, carrying 9 inches (229-millimetre) of Krups belt armor, and capable of 24 knots.  These ships would be used in the Following Roles.

Heavy Reconnaissance. Because of their power, they could sweep away the screen of enemy cruisers to close with and observe an enemy battlefleet before using their superior speed to retire.

Close support for the battle fleet. They could be stationed at the ends of the battle line to stop enemy cruisers harassing the battleships, and to harass the enemy's battleships if they were busy fighting battleships. Also, they could operate as the fast wing of the battlefleet and try to outmaneuver the enemy.

Pursuit. If an enemy fleet ran, then they would use their speed to pursue, and their guns to damage or slow enemy ships.

Commerce protection. The new ships would hunt down enemy cruisers and commerce raiders