Against all Odds: The British Empire in World War Two

[stevep]

talt
What I mean is that for one the Empire and the Allies have literally all their mobile or deployable forces available at the moment in Austria/Eastern Europe or in readiness positions in Italy and North Africa, and for the moment these are all that there is in way of a Strategic reserve and until the Co-Prosperity Sphere is defeated that won't change as that front is bound to tie up at least 80% of Indian manpower, especially once the front widens when the Allies push into Siam and French Indochina.

Overall this means that barring a massive military catastrophe of some sort the Germans and the Soviets have the ability of tying up the Allies in Europe for years.

That sounds like, other than possibly India, the empire and allies are pretty much at the end of their manpower reserves. I.e. can [probably easily] replace material losses but not much more human casualties.

While their capacity isn't as large as the US one was in WW2 in the end superior British manufacturing will crush the Germans and ironically the Japanese are at the same time fighting the Allies in Asia and supporting them in Europe by way of tying up two thirds of the Red Army and making a good fight of it.

This sounds like things would be a lot nastier if Stalin hadn't been such a burke.

In the end though, all this is written from an in-universe perspective. I know of course when the war ends and what cities beginning with B fall at what time to what units, and you must remember that in this war the proverbial can of Instant Sunshine is used twice, and both times in the ETO.

We're going to lose Birmingham and Bristol!

So there's going to be two nukes used, in the European theatre. Interesting and worrying. I suspect by that time it will be somewhere very much in eastern Europe but see how things develop.

Steve

[ViperhawkZ]

With manpower scraped thin like butter over too much bread, I can't help but think that the Allies need a new, uh, ally. OTL Brazil sent an expeditionary force to the Italian Campaign, and Mexican pilots flew in the Pacific war...

[Derek Pullem]

With manpower scraped thin like butter over too much bread, I can't help but think that the Allies need a new, uh, ally. OTL Brazil sent an expeditionary force to the Italian Campaign, and Mexican pilots flew in the Pacific war...

In a year or so the British minor allied allies (Romania, Bulgaria, Hungary, Yugoslavia - and Greece??????????) will have finished re-equipping. Thats another 70 divisions or so to hold the line and create strategic reserves.

I do wonder if Black African troops will be used to any extent in this timeline as per the French

[trekaddict]

stevep Dear god, that was by no means what I was trying to say. What I meant is that they don't have any trained military manpower at the moment, the training machine is working overtime. Ironically the British Army is probably even slightly smaller than OTL thanks to a stronger Commonwealth and Allies!

That doesn't mean that they won't feel the pinch in a few years, but so far British losses have been relatively light (no Singapore catastrophe, none of the various other mass surrenders) and a lot of Imperial, especially African Manpower that was untapped OTL for various reasons is actually being mobilized.

To give an example, Canada for example has by now about 1.5 to 1.6 times their OTL population.

And yes, if Stalin hadn't decided to whip the Japanese there and then the Brits would be in a sticky situation in Europe.

Birmingham, Bristol and not to forget the centre of British Civilization, Blackpool!

In all seriously, it's Berlin of course, but I'm not gonna say more about the Nukes than Berlin won't be eating one. By the time my Nukes were ready in game the city had long since fallen.

ViperhawkZ I point you to the above, but yeah, a few more Allies won't hurt.

Derek Pullem Not Greece, (the Queen will never meet OTL's Prince Phillip for example) but rather more the Italians. With decent kit even they could be a useful Cannonfod....erm Allied Force.

[Kurt_Steiner]

Supermarine is going to have a lot of work in this TL. And Vickers, Avro, Westland, Fairey, Gloster...

[trekaddict]

Supermarine is going to have a lot of work in this TL. And Vickers, Avro, Westland, Fairey, Gloster...

Supermarine went into the war as a small, tiny company constantly on the verge of bankruptcy and will come out of it as Britain's go-to people for Fighters of all forms, with all the economic advantages that offers, even though the late 40s aren't a perfectly good time for them.

[stevep]

trekaddict

Thanks for explaining. I was wondering about the situation since as you say we're avoided the worst OT disasters, although there is a huge imperial/allied force ploughing it's way through southern Europe.

I gathered that the nukes would be somewhere further east, since it looks like Germany will be out of the war before Torchwood comes to fruition.

Berlin was the obvious one but since you said 'which cities' plural I was trying to think of other significant cities beginning with a B.

Would be interested to see a TL where Stalin hadn't fouled up. Wonder how close it would have been then?

Steve

stevep Dear god, that was by no means what I was trying to say. What I meant is that they don't have any trained military manpower at the moment, the training machine is working overtime. Ironically the British Army is probably even slightly smaller than OTL thanks to a stronger Commonwealth and Allies!

That doesn't mean that they won't feel the pinch in a few years, but so far British losses have been relatively light (no Singapore catastrophe, none of the various other mass surrenders) and a lot of Imperial, especially African Manpower that was untapped OTL for various reasons is actually being mobilized.

To give an example, Canada for example has by now about 1.5 to 1.6 times their OTL population.

And yes, if Stalin hadn't decided to whip the Japanese there and then the Brits would be in a sticky situation in Europe.

Birmingham, Bristol and not to forget the centre of British Civilization, Blackpool!

In all seriously, it's Berlin of course, but I'm not gonna say more about the Nukes than Berlin won't be eating one. By the time my Nukes were ready in game the city had long since fallen.

[Ehran]

Exactly. So why bother with fighters when you can just use a few Torps from those nifty DNs floating about out there?

i've yet to find an sf game where one could make a convincing argument for fighters. most of what fighters can do is readily accomplished with drones and long range missiles. what you would need is the ability to carry significant firepower, some sort of vastly faster propulsion system than a real ship can use and a way to overcome the point defense systems on actual warships to make fighters viable.

closest i've seen yet is the traveller 2300 game where most of the warships are small and relatively fragile. in that one it's all about being the first one to shoot and using fighter like platforms to extend and refine your sensor reach is somewhat viable. i naturally designed a ship for the game that entirely trashed the accepted wisdom of warship design hehe.
The Canuck class heavy lift freighter was large enough to carry a brigade of troops with 30 days supplies and could be converted on fairly short notice into a battleship, carrier, hospital ship or restored to it's bulk cargo mode. it simply used brute force active sensors and relied on a strong multilayered missile defense system and sheer mass to survive enemy fire. never did find any reasonable force that could survive to reach energy weapon range against either battleship or carrier mode.

[Ehran]

Guys

Again a bit off topic but why presume that the designers of space stations, especially military ones which will have considerable power capacity for weapons and defences [armour and/or shields depending on the technology] will neglect to add some propulsion capacity?

If they don't or even if they do, depending on the ability to move and detection capacity possibly the simplest approach are some relativistic rocks. High energy impact, minimal warning and very simple with no fancy electronic on the actual missile to detect or influence.

Steve

if you can boost the rock to anything like relativistic speeds what you want to do is to use a nuke of your own to vapourize the rock a tiny bit before impact. the cloud of particulate or plasma will still obliterate the station quite effectively and the cloud depending on the timing of the blast will expand enough to allow for any feeble bit of motion the station can likely produce. it would be impressively more difficult to design a space station to move under thrust than to build an actual stationary one. another thing with stations is they tend to accrete bits and pieces after they go into use which makes moving them at anything but a snail's pace rather difficult to manage.

there was a nice discussion of this in weber's forums a year or two back which is where i found out about the limitations of vapourizing missiles as a means of defense.

[Ehran]

i'm still having real problems trying to imagine how the jappanese even with a nearly endless supply of chinese cannon fodder could withstand a russian assault. the jappanese were terribly short on arty, their armour was mediocre by great war standards and their anti tank equipment was literally non existant unless you count satchel charges and samurai spirit.

i remember reading what the russians did to them in a few weeks in 45 and being quite stunned by just how bad and how fast they went down.

[ViperhawkZ]

The Russkies are fighting a two-front war here, and their good equipment is probably all tied up on the Romanian border - if they were just stacking bodies in front of the British, they'd be blown away. Not to mention that driving tanks out to the middle of Siberia is going to take a long time even with good infrastructure.

[trekaddict]

The Russkies are fighting a two-front war here, and their good equipment is probably all tied up on the Romanian border - if they were just stacking bodies in front of the British, they'd be blown away. Not to mention that driving tanks out to the middle of Siberia is going to take a long time even with good infrastructure.

This pretty much. Also, the Japanese are slightly stronger in armour as the Army clearly is the senior service in the wake of their victory over China. The body stacking is done vs Japan and China.

[Ehran]

did read one time the japs did build a tank in 45 that would have been better than a sherman would have been back in 43. got 40 50 of them built but couldn't ship them over to china by then.

[trekaddict]

This is pretty much their best Tank.

[Ehran]

another thing i'm interested in is how the nips are doing for fuel. the dutch east indies were pretty much their major fuel source during the war i thought and in this time line their supply lines to the indies are under severe threat. where are they getting the gas to fuel their war machine?

[trekaddict]

another thing i'm interested in is how the nips are doing for fuel. the dutch east indies were pretty much their major fuel source during the war i thought and in this time line their supply lines to the indies are under severe threat. where are they getting the gas to fuel their war machine?

They discovered the Oil sources in Manchuria by accident in the late 30s. In fact the presence of this oil was what delayed the war by two months as the pressure to act was less severe. Still the flow is less than what they want and they will still run out of fuel eventually.

[stevep]

They discovered the Oil sources in Manchuria by accident in the late 30s. In fact the presence of this oil was what delayed the war by two months as the pressure to act was less severe. Still the flow is less than what they want and they will still run out of fuel eventually.

Trekaddict

That's a point. Where are the oil deposits in Manchuria and are they being affected by the Soviet attacks? Given Manchuria is the easiest part of the Japanese empire for Russia to attack and they presumably realise the importance of the resource to Japan the fields are probably a primary target.

Steve

[trekaddict]

Trekaddict

That's a point. Where are the oil deposits in Manchuria and are they being affected by the Soviet attacks? Given Manchuria is the easiest part of the Japanese empire for Russia to attack and they presumably realise the importance of the resource to Japan the fields are probably a primary target.

Steve

From a map I've seen they are rather closer to Beijing (sp?) and Korea than the Soviet Union. Also Manchuria is where the Japanese have concentrated their and the Chinese's best forces, so the fight the Soviets are facing there is hard. Very hard. Still, they will get these wells and fields eventually, hence my statement about the Japanese running out of fuel.

[Derek Pullem]

They discovered the Oil sources in Manchuria by accident in the late 30s. In fact the presence of this oil was what delayed the war by two months as the pressure to act was less severe. Still the flow is less than what they want and they will still run out of fuel eventually.

Not if they found Daquing. If they found that field then the whole Southern Resource Area strategy is to some extent irrelevant. Simply occupying Indochina would be sufficieint

[trekaddict]

Occupying French Indochina meant war with the rest of the Allied powers as France never surrendered, so they were pretty much forced into the whole caboodle. They knew that if they went to war with France then the British would go to war with them. They attacked the DEI not only for the oil but also for the other goodies there and for the defence perimeter.

Also, that they hold onto the area for the moment doesn't mean they will do so forever, and that's only if they can easily exploit the fields.