So far in July I've been in 5 provinces and 1 US state (kind of) - Ontario, Quebec, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Alberta and North Dakota.
This last week I was in Calgary on business and stopped into two favourite stores.
Sentry Box They have a really good selection of SF/fantasy reading and a very good miniatures store (yes with good historical ranges on site). I restrained myself to the second volume of the Romanicus series that my family enjoys but is hard to get, and 12 mixed Italian and British destroyers from GHQ.
Livingstone and Cavell (unfortunately the site is very limited). They stock a treasure trove of old style toys - Mamod and Wilseco steam engines, Marklin trains and lovely tin wind up German toys. Best in store category goes to this wind up HMS Dreadnought. When I win the lottery....
BlueBearJeff asked me to finish off this train of thought so here goes.
Austria-Hungary
The Hapsburg empire had the closest ties to Spain (the Queen Regent was a Hapsburg Princess) and therefore was the most likely to back Spain for diplomatic reasons. However, in naval terms they basically had diddly-squat (to use a precise term) of use to Spain - old ironclads, coast defense ships and cruisers- and its difficult to see any of these having any impact on the war. The Austrian cruiser Maria Theresa did accidentally appear at the tail end of the battle of Santiago, and was nearly set upon by the US Navy before she was correctly identified. However, there might be the possibility of the Hapsburgs applying diplomatic ties to other European powers (e.g. Germany) especially if the US did fire on their ships.
Germany
Along with the French, the Germans represent the two best options for foreign intervention - both in real terms and game terms. Unlike other powers, the main interest for Germany would be acquiring an empire. Therefore it's likely that a Hispano-German alliance would be based on transfer of Spanish overseas possessions to German control.
Germany provides a useful battle fleet that could give the US a run for its money, with supporting cruisers and torpedo craft (but no U-boats yet). They would be involved on both the Caribbean and Philippine theatres, Admiral Dewey famously threatening to fire on a German cruiser flying the flag of a Crown Prince in Manila Bay.
The challenge for Germany would be to get their fleet into the Caribbean to provide active support. I suspect that this would involve transferring the fleet first to the Canaries and then across to Puerto Rico or Havana. However, it is also possible that they would pressure the Danes or Dutch to allow use of the Virgin Islands or Dutch Antilles respectively. However, this gives a very good campaign option sure to challenge both the US and German commands.
Japan
It's early days for a US-Japan naval rivalry, but the Japanese fleet was among the best in the world and hot off an overwhelming victory over China. Obviously Caribbean intervention is not practical but intervention in the Philippines was certainly possible. The Japanese couldn't match the US battle fleet but their cruisers could overwhelm Dewey's force and give the US a nasty shock. Also they had a very good torpedo arm. Now the US is faced with sending a large expedition across the Pacific to save face.
Russia
Oddly similar to the Japanese in this case - might intervene in Asia but not in the Caribbean. Again they couldn't math the whole fleet but could give a shock locally.
I'll give a shout out to the navalwarfare blog for today's post on the USS Brooklyn (the pre-dreadnought CA-3, although the next Brooklyn also had history of note). The Brooklyn played a key role in the Span-Am war, and looked cool to boot. I have modeled the base hull for her (dating back 10 years ago) and while I got the tumblehome about right I'm still not sure how to mount the wing turrets on her.
Lots of cool pictures c1898 at the blog, both of the ship from a distance plus on board activities. Past entries cover ships (mostly of the USN) over the last 100+ years. Well worth a look.
I've been off line for a while, mostly due to a week long business/holiday trip to Ottawa. The CIA (the Canadian Institute of Actuaries, not the other one) scheduled it's annual meeting for June 29-30th in Ottawa (the 2 days before Canada day for non Canucks), so we combined my trip with family holidays.
Say the royals, didn't quite get to Parliament Hill on July 1st (300k people did which made it difficult), but did other Canada Day stuff including the fireworks. We also did the National Gallery and the Museum of Civilization. Good times all around.
