What If

Les_the_Sarge_9_1 · Post by **Les_the_Sarge_9_1** » Mon Jul 08, 2002 2:57 am

Hades

I got my copy of that book not so long back through the Military Book Club. I think it is something of an on again off again offering with them. You might be able to locate it through them.

They have a web site but it is not my idea of a very efficient site.

All I can say is, the book blew me away with how the material wasn't even remotely science fiction material (it has an air of accuracy that is plainly obvious to a well read military fan).

I consider it one of my primary references when the subject of "could it have been much different" enters the picture.

The particulars in my first post should give a decent sized bookstore the needed info in ordering it as well.

G_X · Post by **G_X** » Wed Jul 10, 2002 9:51 am

I've skimmed the book Les, I thought it was pretty good for being a What If scenario type book

I'm not terribly interested in all this, but I do have a great What-If

What-If Mexico had've invaded the US 2 days after D-Day with German assistance?

I don't know any real figures, but I think that America wouldn't have had the resources in Texas to repell any kind of major assault.

Also, to my knowledge, Hiroshima and Nagisaki were picked because of their Strategic Value...neither of them were massive cities really, that's why the damage was almost complete.

Also, to my knowledge, despite the fact that German's tried it over London, Stone (Which those expensive appartments were) Doesn't burn nearly as well as the paper-and-wood slums that were bombed in Tokyo.

During the Blitz many Fire-bombs were dropped on London, and usually thanks to helpful Londoners, they were put outbefore they could spread.

Just my tidbits of knowledge on the Subject.

Les_the_Sarge_9_1 · Post by **Les_the_Sarge_9_1** » Wed Jul 10, 2002 7:36 pm

Hello gang just reading a new book I got the other day (The Universe and Everything).

From Stephen Hawking (yes THE Stephen Hawking, if you don't know that name odds are you don't like science much either hehe).

In reading it a further twist on the German bomb surfaced.

You see much of the work done in nuclear science was rooted in the science being studied by such well known persons as the well known name of Einstein, (yes the E=MCsquared guy), as well as many other names, but I won't list a string of names you might not have encountered before.

Einstein was of jewish background (not entirely sure if he was any more interested in being jewish though, than I am of being christian, but that's immaterial).
What is important is the mindless intolerance of the time.

It was labelled "jewish science". The minds of the time in Germany, were just as willing to throw a brick through a cobblers store front as they were to attack a scientific theory.

Could Germany have had the bomb? Well during the 30's they had a great many of the minds that were pivotal in making research breakthroughs. And they gave those minds the same reasons for fleeing as all the rest of the jews.

So yet again a twist of fate allowed major repercussions to take place. Einstein ended up in the states along with a great many other persons. They ended up studying outside of Germany, and as a result, the Germans were denied the brilliance of these persons.

The loss of these great minds was perhaps the deciding factor in history not knowing of the German bomb.
Hitler never really had quite the chance of making a working bomb afterwards.
Remember, technology is the application of what you already know. And you can't apply what you don't have, to make what requires knowledge in advance.

The Germans had the jet, but it is unclear if they were going to put a bomb on it any time soon.
This is a clear indication, that a good "what if" is more than a study of the military situation in place at the time.

Egg_Shen · Post by **Egg_Shen** » Wed Jul 10, 2002 7:50 pm

Originally posted by Les the Sarge 9-1
Ok assuming I read the post correct...
100 Mile House is from Nazi Germany? Can you be a bit more exacting.
As there is currently no such place (thank god), I am assuming you have chosen that for "whimsical" purposes?

unquote...

Would likely get you quite thoroughly hospitalised in almost any country BLah blah balh etc...t.

You are a product of your own propaganda.

hey I'm baaaaaack

Les_the_Sarge_9_1 · Post by **Les_the_Sarge_9_1** » Wed Jul 10, 2002 8:45 pm

Well as they say, every family has one, guess Egg is ours.

Still he does seem to be a harmless distraction.

Now if I can only figure out his pointless posts I might be able to more easily understand him....or do we need too:D

rlc27 · Post by **rlc27** » Wed Jul 10, 2002 8:54 pm

Hey Egg are you back to 100 Mile House? How did you get there?

Egg_Shen · Post by **Egg_Shen** » Wed Jul 10, 2002 9:01 pm

Originally posted by rlc27
Hey Egg are you back to 100 Mile House? How did you get there?

wASN'T eASY!!

rlc27 · Post by **rlc27** » Wed Jul 10, 2002 9:14 pm

Well guys, our friend Egg here is a citizen of British Columbia, Canada. That's where 100 Mile House is!

:rolleyes: :p

Egg_Shen · Post by **Egg_Shen** » Wed Jul 10, 2002 10:13 pm

Originally posted by rlc27
Well guys, our friend Egg here is a citizen of British Columbia, Canada. That's where 100 Mile House is!

:rolleyes: :p

good to know we are friends:)
I thought you were mad at me

I think everyone is my friend here now right?

I've been good lately haven't I?

Egg_Shen · Post by **Egg_Shen** » Thu Jul 11, 2002 12:00 am

and my name is Egg Shen!! Not EGG

....

...

hehe

rlc27 · Post by **rlc27** » Thu Jul 11, 2002 1:20 am

Egg_Shen, we are all friends here

Anyway, to get back to the original purpose of this thread,
I have a "what if" that I originally saw in Talonsoft's Rising Sun--what if Japan had followed up the attack on Pearl Harbor with a lightning invasion of the west coast of the USA, using naval artillery support from various battleships? A likely target--or at leat the one they've got in the game--is a less densely populated area of Washington state. The whole point of the invasion, I surmise, would be to so demoralize the US that a quick truce could be negotiated to get the US out of the war and allow Japan to consolidate the East Asian Coprosperity Sphere.

Re: Mexico invading--I'm not sure of any stats, but it seems logical that the vast majority of US troops were at the time deployed overseas. I wonder, though, if Mexico had at that time an infrastructure that could support an extended campaign into the US?

Hades · Post by **Hades** » Thu Jul 11, 2002 2:51 am

I doubt Mexico would be able to invade. I don't know anything about the Mexican military but I doubt they had anything like the Sherman, and Texas is all flat. It wouldn't be hard to use an armor divsion and just encircle the whole invasion force or use spoiling attacks to sap the strength out of the advance. Plus most of Texas is wonderful defense ground.

mogami · Post by **mogami** » Thu Jul 11, 2002 10:34 am

Hi, Just guessing but I would be willing to bet that at no time were there fewer american troops in county USA then would outnumber Mexico. There were I think 4-5 Divisions of Nat Guard always on West Coast. Each States Nat Guard retained units not on Federal service and all the training bases contained a sizable amout of trained and experiance troops/pilots/what nots to form a cadre for use in emergancy. With the national RR then the movement of newly produced AFV/AC/Arty to any where threatened by Japan or other country would not have been a problem. Here is a scary fact. Prior to the Soviet Union becoming involved in the war the US planned to raise 1000 infantry regt's.
It never had to, instead the USA gave to allied nations enough material/cash to raise and equip 555 Tank divisions (figure out what it would cost to raise and equip 555 Tank divisons and the USA gave away more then that) and beyond what was given away the USA out produced every single nation combined including our allies. Whats more the USA did not reach maxium output. There are other countries of course with larger populations but they suffer from not being able to support the percentage of the population as military units or can not afford to lose the trained/skilled workers that also make the specialized troops needed in war. The USA in WWII left a large number of persons out of military service because they were not needed. (they could have been used had the need been there. A very large number of trained and combat veteran americans in their late 30's to mid 40's were at home (WWI vets) They certainly could have formed a defense.

Hades · Post by **Hades** » Thu Jul 11, 2002 3:32 pm

555 tank divsions!!!!! Thats gotta cost billions upon billions. Maybe not the much but still. WOW!!!

Curieus · Post by **Curieus** » Thu Jul 11, 2002 5:07 pm

but not all costs were borne by the USA.
Many of the tanks (if not all?) sent to the UK were lend/lease tanks.
Not always were the americans paid in money, they also were paid in territory (iceland and others).

While i am sure that the US gouvernment has given many tanks for free, the benificiary probably was not the UK.
I expect the major beneficiaries to be the USSR and some overrun countries without resources (except for men) like Poland. I expect that countries like France and the Netherlands paid for at least part of the materials with resources from colonies (for france that probably became possible after the fall of Vichy or liberation of Paris, for the Netherlands, the oil refinery at curacao and the bauxite mines in Surinam were great revenue providers).

Culiacan Mexico · Post by **Culiacan Mexico** » Thu Jul 11, 2002 5:56 pm

Originally posted by rlc27
The only way I could see it having been feasible would have been if Germany had developed heavy jet bombers capable of flying at 35,000ft+ earlly in the war, say 1940-42

If Germany has a jet power heavy bomber n 1940-42 they probably don't need 'Nukes'.

Les_the_Sarge_9_1 · Post by **Les_the_Sarge_9_1** » Thu Jul 11, 2002 8:05 pm

The only way I could see it having been feasible would have been if Germany had developed heavy jet bombers capable of flying at 35,000ft+ earlly in the war, say 1940-42

If Germany has a jet power heavy bomber n 1940-42 they probably don't need 'Nukes'.

**** good point of course, some "what if" statements become silly when you stand back and really look at them

If Germany had had heavy jet bombers at that early stage of the war, their opposition wouldn't be much opposition. And Nukes would have been a something hardly necessary.

Hades · Post by **Hades** » Thu Jul 11, 2002 8:15 pm

In a paralel universe a group of wargames are debating what would have happened if the Thousand Year Reich hadn't devolped the bomb. One gamer says, "I think the Russians might have won." and the whole board goes crazy saying maybe but NO!!! Just a theory.

Kevin E. Duguay · Post by **Kevin E. Duguay** » Thu Jul 11, 2002 10:47 pm

With the scientists that Germany had durring the War she had no chance of making an atom bomb. After the War the very scientists that were working on the project were questioned extensively. The head of the German program even claimed that he and others sabotaged and slowed down their own efforts so that Hitler would never have access to an atomic weapon. But when asked about the tehcnical aspects of their work it was found that all their assumptions about how to build "The Bomb" were compleatly wrong. They were useing the wrong formula and had no chance of making a working atom bomb.

_________________________________________________

"Small change, small change. One Parisian night will soon adjust these losses" Napoleon, while turning over the corpses of French soldiers with his foot, after the French victory at Eylau over the combined Russian and Prussian forces.

G_X · Post by **G_X** » Fri Jul 12, 2002 4:00 am

OK, About mexico: Do you HONESTLY believe anyone would have been prepared for Mexico to invade Texas? If they did it today would YOU be suprised?

If you say no then you're lying :p

And actually Mexico's army isn't that bad, and I highly doubt there were enough standing US Army regiments left in the states to outnumber an entire Mexican invasion. If there were, I would be pissed that there weren't more troops in North Africa and Western Europe then, the war might've been over faster. Does that honestly make sense to you, think of it in terms of SP:WaW, you have a choice between taking a 2.5k army, and a 5k or so army, and you just decide to take the 2.5k army just because your home base (Which isn't on the map) Needs to have troops at home, even though it's thousands of miles away from the fighting, and the opposition has almost no chance to invade.

Sure, I see having NG Regiments being called up to defend the West Coast, But I doubt there were a large number of standing US Army Divisions in Texas at the moment.

I don't think that much of Texas has "Wonderful Defensive Terrain", but that may be because of different tactical viewpoints, so I won't debate that.

And even a Tank Division would have a hard time totally encircling an army that's perhaps 3 or 4 divisions large of infantry. Or maybe your Tank Division is an extremely elite fighting force.

Uhhh...if it is I'm wondering why it's not in North Africa or over in Normandy helping the other US troops.

Perhaps you know something I don't (

)

Onward! Kevin:

That's disturbing in and of itself, what if those scientists had've been dedicated and Loyal to the Fuhrer? Then Germany might've gotten the bomb after all.

Hades: In a Parallel universe there's a bunch of wargamers arguing over what would have happened if Stalin hadn't stolen the plans for the Nuke from the Americans, they'll be speaking Russian by the way

What If

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Mexico

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