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Good fun and a little real info passed too. 
For an Arsenal of Democracy that’s an awful lot sunk into espionage. Is that for a short-run surge or will it go for a fair while? I take it with the US an initial big buy iof IC is standard. Is that a rolling program or just a big hit up front? Wondering about the the efficiencies of such large blocks, but I guess you want them sooner rather than later.
For an Arsenal of Democracy that’s an awful lot sunk into espionage. Is that for a short-run surge or will it go for a fair while? I take it with the US an initial big buy iof IC is standard. Is that a rolling program or just a big hit up front? Wondering about the the efficiencies of such large blocks, but I guess you want them sooner rather than later.
So 167 IC/day <=> 16.7 billion/year kewl
That makes 1 IC/day <=> 100 million/year
(making the slight rounding error of 333.3 day/year)
1 IC/day = 0.3 million/day
But then we also need to pay the scientists and other public employees so the estimate of 10IC/day is 1 million/day is not that far off
You have to keep in mind that the US budget at this time ran from July to June and is denoted by the year in which it ends, so the 1936 fiscal year runs from 1 July 1935 to 30 June 1936. Additionally, as I only control the federal government we do not count for state and local budgets which have nothing to do with the military due to separation of powers in the US, although some states might fund additional recovery programs.
I've been working off of sources like this one to work out approximate budget numbers, which gives a total expenditures of about $8.5 billion for FY1936. Dividing this over 365 days gives just shy of $22 million per day, which when divided across my 167 IC + 23 LP works out close enough to $100,000 per IC/LP for government work.
I do want to keep the number nice and round, as this is an AAR and not an accounting textbook. For the same reason I will not be adjusting my $/IC ratio for each year's historical budget but rather sticking with the calculated number since it works well enough. This will actually turn out somewhat ahistorical when our IC eventually quadruples to ~700 or so, since in OTL government spending increased by even more than that during the war! But, again, close enough.Hail Capitalism!
In seriousness, HoI3's built-in money mechanic is simply awful and entirely ahistorical as far as how it works in-game. For this AAR, in the capitalistic spirit I assume that all trade is being carried out by private corporations (in-game, set to AI control) and will do my best to ignore the in-game money value.As for the research, these techs are chosen as prerequisites for the eventual secret techs we would like to pursue. Not that anyone in this ATL knows that yet...
Very nice work! Hoover seems to be on a roll, perhaps "choosing the socialist" as we put it didn't go down too well for him?
More infantry hitting power in the research, nice, nice, that should be helpful in invading Canada, especially the AT weapons in case they have assault moose. Although I don't see the benefit in the ships, since the Army can just walk across the border, but I reckon they will look very nice which is enough for me. Hey, has invading Mexico been considered yet?
You had me at "assault moose". Perhaps we can make peace with Canada and license-build those for ourselves!
The US did invade Mexico back in 1914, so we've already had enough of that I think.
We'll be seeing quite a lot of him, I think. Though like all Cabinet members, he won't have so easy of a time getting his nonsense past FDR.
Good fun and a little real info passed too.
The espionage spending will be used to support our military observer program, since HPP greatly reduces the amount of spies gained per LP (checking the modded game files, it looks like 1 LP = 0.075 spies per day, so our current investment of 12.8 should give nearly one spy per day (before counting modifiers, as I'm not in-game to check these - vanilla HoI3 uses a value of 0.15 here). That means in about two months we should have enough "observers" to cover all of the current belligerents (Italy, Ethiopia, NatChina, CommChina, and Xibei San Ma) along with a full 10-spy roster for domestic affairs. I'd expect another month to replace losses and build up a reserve ahead of the SCW as well. I haven't decided what to do after that point, I may find other uses for our LP and only switch to mostly research once the new fiscal year starts in July for narrative purposes, or we may just start funding research ahead of that date.
Never fear, though. I have a complete record of what research needs to be done to achieve our ultimate goals technologically, and we are very much on track for this!
The IC buy is pretty standard, as it makes the most sense to build IC early to get the most benefits. It does help to build a few actual units now and then to keep practicals up, but we should be able to crack ~700 IC at some point in the war, at which point "practicals" are really just a rounding error in the bank's favor. Wagner may not be happy about this, but our generals will not care so much.
You had me at "assault moose". Perhaps we can make peace with Canada and license-build those for ourselves!
Peace? Nay, war! We will pry the blueprints from their perpetually-frozen, dead hands! And then, by God, we will have the banks build us the newest all-American invention: the Heavy Assault Moose (air-mobile), and invade Siberia and the rest of the filthy commies in the USSR with those! And Mexico is going to pay for it!
The IC build is the standard bread and butter of quite literally every nation in every playthrough in every mod, I feel. Perhaps excepting nations that can expect to get invaded by a substantially stronger opponent in the first year or two, ie. Chinese nations and Ethiopia, perhaps Austria and Czechoslovakia. The earlier you build it, the more IC it will produce over the timeline of the game, or conversely, the later you build a point of IC the less benefit you will get from it.
And then we will invent the Nuclear Assault Moose to crush the fascists!
The general wisdom when it comes to IC building is that you want to at least break even before war starts, as otherwise you would be in a better position if you had built actual soldiers. So if a point of IC costs you 5 IC for one year, it would take five years after you built it before you broke even. Of course this math is affected by laws, practicals, and other bonuses to IC over the course of the game, but the general idea holds true, building IC is a long-term investment.
So for HoI3, at least (I can't speak to other games in the series), usually the only countries who can justify building IC are the USA and USSR, since they don't get into the main war until 1941. Germany can justify it as well since they don't need a full allotment of forces until 1941 as well, but at least in HPP I usually find that the resource situation is too difficult to make that practical. Same for Japan, even if you feel like you can beat China with your starting forces you lack resources for the whole game and building IC makes that worse. The UK can justify it if they plan for a long war instead of going all-in to save France, but the latter is probably a better strategy.
Of course, this is all speaking about optimal gameplay, and in practice as the US I usually build at least partial runs of IC up until Pearl Harbor, since the "real" USA didn't know they were going to be attacked in 1941 so it makes for an overall more historical game experience.
And then we will invent the Nuclear Assault Moose to crush the fascists!
The general wisdom when it comes to IC building is that you want to at least break even before war starts, as otherwise you would be in a better position if you had built actual soldiers. So if a point of IC costs you 5 IC for one year, it would take five years after you built it before you broke even. Of course this math is affected by laws, practicals, and other bonuses to IC over the course of the game, but the general idea holds true, building IC is a long-term investment.
So for HoI3, at least (I can't speak to other games in the series), usually the only countries who can justify building IC are the USA and USSR, since they don't get into the main war until 1941. Germany can justify it as well since they don't need a full allotment of forces until 1941 as well, but at least in HPP I usually find that the resource situation is too difficult to make that practical. Same for Japan, even if you feel like you can beat China with your starting forces you lack resources for the whole game and building IC makes that worse. The UK can justify it if they plan for a long war instead of going all-in to save France, but the latter is probably a better strategy.
Of course, this is all speaking about optimal gameplay, and in practice as the US I usually build at least partial runs of IC up until Pearl Harbor, since the "real" USA didn't know they were going to be attacked in 1941 so it makes for an overall more historical game experience.
Ah, fair point on the resources. Last HoI3 game I've played was with BICE, where it can usually be justified to build at least one round if you can expect to survive until 1940, but I admit to having no experience with HPP. HoI4 is a different ballgame, since it separates "civilian" (any on-map structures, trading etc) and "military" (equipment and units only) factories, so you usually want to always keep something in the queue, and I admit to mostly playing that over the last year, which can skew my view. Also, most AARs are of countries where you actually can justify the expense, so I guess that has an effect too?
To my understanding (having never made it past a week in my attempts to play BICE), the way that IC is handled in BICE is much different from vanilla or other HoI3 mods, and with all of the events and modifiers it makes sense for more countries to build IC before the war starts. Which I suppose is more realistic, since in reality most nations did not expand their armies nearly as much as a player can in HoI3 but instead invested in economic recovery (or, in France's case, useless boats).
And on the subject of army expansion, we return shortly to Washington D.C. for the conclusion of our Cabinet meeting, in which General Craig will present his case for a budget increase...
Chapter Three: Of Battleships and Baseball Bats (Part 2)
Arsenal of Technology: A Hearts of Iron 3 AAR
Chapter Three: Of Battleships and Baseball Bats (Part 2)
The Cabinet meeting continues…
0937 hours ET, 8 January 1936, The White House exterior, Washington D.C.
On a tree branch outside the West Wing, a squirrel ran out and briefly paused, appreciating the sun on its fur in the midst of an otherwise cold and dreary winter morning. A slight breeze ruffled the squirrel’s fur, and for a moment it shivered from the chill. The breeze passed, and the squirrel resumed basking in the light, trying to remember where it had left its nuts.
Suddenly, a loud shout broke the morning silence to shocking effect:
“OVER MY DEAD BODY‼”
Startled, the squirrel scampered off to find a more relaxing location to resume its musing, while the White House lawn was filled with the echoes of angry shouting from the occupants within.
0905 hours ET, earlier that morning
As the members of the Cabinet took their seats again, placated with a pot of Missy LeHand’s finest dark roast, J. Edgar Hoover stood up to deliver his report on homeland security.
“Mr. President, esteemed members of the cabinet, and Commie-in-Chief Hull—”
A loud harrumph sounded from across the table.
“—it is with great distress that I must bring you a most disturbing report. Communist activity is not only in the rise in Oklahoma, it has in fact tripled in the past week!”
Those around the table gasped at this news, except for the President who simply inquired, “Director Hoover, this wouldn’t be about that report you sent me last Thursday, would it?”
“Well, yes, Mr. President,” Hoover replied, “I assume that you read it, of course, and are aware of the grave threat this rise in Communist sympathy poses to our great Nation.”
“Would you please inform the rest of this Cabinet, for the sake of discussion, just how many Communist sympathizers your agency has discovered in Oklahoma?”
Hoover fidgeted a bit. “As I said, Mr. President, three times as many as last week.”
“And how many Communists were you aware of last week?” Roosevelt pressed the question. The rest of the men at the table leaned forward in their chairs, eager to hear the answer.
Hoover adjusted his tie, attempting to look confident. “Well, ah…one, Mr. President.” At this, the rest of the table broke out alternatingly in laughter at this overblown matter, and insolence for the colossal waste of their time.
Roosevelt looked over his glasses at Hoover. “Well, then, seeing as three Communists hardly constitute a threat to our National security, I suggest we move on with the agenda, Director.”
Dejected and deflated, Hoover complied. “In other news, the Federal Bureau of Investigations currently has nine teams of agents trained and deployed throughout the United States. All of our operatives have been instructed to seek out and neutralize foreign intelligence assets – with a particular emphasis on intercepting those attempting to sway our citizens to the Soviet way of thinking.” Hoover placed special emphasis on that last part.
Roosevelt looked up from perusing Hoover’s report with another question. “I see from your report that we have been fairly successful in this effort, detecting two hostile spies already. However, I do not see which foreign power was responsible for the presence of those operatives. Do you have that information for me?”
Hoover shook his head. “Unfortunately, the operatives, um…forgot to file their paperwork. Yes, uh, a very unfortunate mistake. The agents responsible have been assigned to undergo, hmm…remedial paperwork training with the Internal Revenue Service, yep, yep.”
Roosevelt suspected that part or all of that answer had been a fabrication, but he was eager to move on. “Very well, Director, thank you for that stimulating discussion. Now, what’s next on the agenda?”
After a few brief reports from some of the less-important departments (Secretary of War Dern delivered a particularly engaging speech consisting of five words: “We are not at war.”), William Friedman was up next to deliver a report on the Signals Intelligence Service. Roosevelt was particularly looking forward to this part of the meeting, since it would be the first real update on the crisis in Ethiopia that hadn’t been filtered through the Italian propaganda machine. Thankfully, the coffee was just starting to kick in, and Roosevelt had no difficulty paying full attention.
“To begin with, I’d like to note for the Cabinet that we have a total of eighty-one teams of intelligence operatives spread throughout the majority of foreign nations in the world.” Friedman began. “This being said, many of those operatives are not expected to remain in their current positions for long, due to a combination of budget cuts imposed by Congress and global increases in counter-intelligence activity due to the increasingly-belligerent international environment.”
“Boo, boo!” Hoover gave in to his compelling need to make himself heard. “Enough about budget cuts, talk about the war!” Simultaneously with Hoover’s mention of war, the various Chiefs of Staff experienced a synchronized caffeine kick, and were suddenly quite attentive.
“Ah, Mr. President?” Friedman was somewhat unsettled from the unexpected outburst. Roosevelt nodded, giving him the go-ahead. “Well, moving on then, I’ve prepared a helpful set of maps to summarize the most recent developments in this conflict.”
In the first week of 1936, the Ethiopians appear to have the better of the Italians, having taken control of two provinces with rapid advances. The Italians have struck back in the north with a thrust into the center of the Ethiopian lines.
“As you can see, the situation this early in the year is fairly back-and-forth, but the Abyssinians appear to have the advantage thus far, notably advancing to the Red Sea coast in the past week. That said, at this point we have only a very limited number of ‘observers’ on the ground, so the actual status of the Italian East African Army is still quite uncertain. However, the reports I have seen so far indicate that the early Abyssinian victories are temporary in nature, as the Italians are still in the process of organizing their forces despite being nearly three months into the war.”
“Leave it to the Italians to declare war without deploying their army first!” General Craig wryly observed, drawing a few quiet chuckles from his fellow Chiefs of Staff.
Roosevelt had a few concerns, however. “Hold on a minute. You mentioned that our observers are very limited in number. Just how few men on the ground do we have?”
Friedman retrieved a document from his seat at the table and handed it to Roosevelt. “At the moment, we have three teams of observers who have sufficient training to undertake this mission, most of whom have been redirected from missions with the diplomatic corps. Most of these individuals are still in transit from Rome to East Africa, and as a result while we have some fairly recent reports on the Italian economic and political situation, we have very little intelligence regarding their military efforts thus far.”
Roosevelt nodded. “Well, as long as we’re getting our men trained and deployed as quickly as we can, I suppose.”
“We’re doing our best, Mr. President,” Friedman affirmed. “That is all I have to report on at this time. Mr. Hoover, was that quite satisfactory?”
Hoover shrugged, “I don’t know…I guess I thought it would be funnier, somehow.”
To conclude the meeting, General Craig had been requested to give a brief update on the status of the military he kept complaining was “underfunded” and “woefully unprepared”. He was only too happy to oblige.
“Now, I won’t go into detail, since I know not all of the Cabinet members are what you could call ‘numbers men’, but suffice it to say that this data clearly indicates that while the Navy and Air Corps are more than adequately funded, the Army is woefully undersized and requires a sizable allocation of funding and production orders to bring up to a respectable standard.”
“Now that’s a load of horse hockey!” Chief of the Navy William H. Standley was quick to interject. “You grunts have more brigades than the Navy has got ships! If any branch needs attention, it’s clearly the Navy, especially since many of our ships are older than the average Army grunt and in desperate need of replacement.”
“Ah, if I might add, gentlemen,” Chief of the Air Corps Oscar Westover timidly tried to make himself heard, “The Air Corps could use just a small investment to build some new—”
“Shut up, Oscar,” Craig snapped.
“Yeah, no one cares about your piddly planes,” Standley added.
“Sorry, sorry…” Westover quietly sunk back in his chair.
“Anyways, Mr. President,” Craig resumed making his arguments, “You will readily see from this diagram that not a single one of our infantry or National Guard divisions has an artillery regiment to support them in combat. Our Navy men have dozens of 14-inch guns at the ready, while the largest caliber available to our noble Army heroes is Smith & Wesson! This is clearly an intractable situation.”
“Smith & Wesson, Mr. President, is a quite respected name and is certainly more than enough for the job our Army boys have to do,” Standley rebutted Craig’s argument. “The Navy has the critical task of protecting not only our Nation’s coastline but also all of our overseas possessions. The Army boys, well, what do they really have to do besides stand in line and look pretty?”
“Gentlemen, please…” Roosevelt attempted to regain control of the Chiefs.
“We need more ships, Mr. President!” Standley exclaimed. “We must be able to fight in two oceans at once. The Japanese have us outnumbered in the Pacific, to say nothing of the Royal Navy in the Atlantic if things take a turn…”
“Forget the Royal Navy!” Craig roared, “What if we wanted to invade Canada? Mr. President, artillery must be the Nation’s number one priority!”
At yet another mention of invading Canada, Roosevelt finally snapped. “If you don’t both calm down and let me make the decisions here, I’ll demote you both so far down, you’ll be peeling potatoes for a dozen years!”
Both Craig and Standley were taken aback by Roosevelt’s ranting. Standley quietly took his seat, knowing what was good for him. Craig did not, choosing instead to reply directly to Roosevelt, “Mr. President, I apologize for the intensity of our discussion, but it really is absolutely imperative that the Army receive more funding. In fact, if there is not an increase in funding to raise artillery regiments in the next budget, the Army will be forced to pursue alternative financial options…most likely in the form of taking out a loan from a bank.”
“OVER MY DEAD BODY‼” At the mention of the trigger word, Wagner went into a flying frenzy, attempting to leap at Craig across the table but fortunately being restrained by his fellow Cabinet members. Unable to reach his opponent, Wagner settled for ranting incoherently about banks in Craig’s general direction.
Alarmed by the rapidly-developing hostilities within his Cabinet, Roosevelt quickly made his move, “Well, if there is nothing else, this concludes the meeting. Let us all disperse and return to our duties – quickly!”
The rest of the Cabinet was more than happy to oblige.
Notes
J. Edgar Hoover is, of course, the most famous head of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). In OTL he served in his position for a whopping 48 years, from 1924 until his death in 1972. In popular lore, he is best known for capturing or killing numerous high-profile gangsters in the 1930s. Perhaps more importantly in the long term, though, he was largely responsible for building the FBI into the preeminent organization in domestic intelligence, an effort which included major expansions to the FBI fingerprint files and the creation of a new evidence laboratory in 1932. In OTL, he was not known as a strong anti-Communist until after the War, but anti-Communist sentiment throughout the country was certainly high enough during this time period to motivate a man as paranoid as Hoover.
William F. Friedman led the US Signals Intelligence Service (SIS), the predecessor to the modern NSA, for over 25 years, from its inception in 1929-1930 until his retirement in 1956 (by which time the department had been renamed as the National Security Agency). Aside from his legacy as an intelligence boss, his greatest contribution to US military history was most likely his solution of rotary cipher machines and his development of a new cipher which eliminated the vulnerabilities he had discovered, the SIGABA machine. He also spearheaded the effort to break the new Japanese cipher throughout 1939 and 1940, leading to the decryption of Japanese intercepts indicating the probable onset of war in late 1941 – a subject of some controversy even today. His wife, Elizebeth (spelled as written), was also a respectable cryptographer in her own right, and is sometimes known as America’s first female cryptologist. However, she spent most of her career with the US Navy, and did not work very much with her husband after the early 1920s or so.
General Malin Craig served in OTL as Army Chief of Staff from 1935-1939 before retiring briefly before being recalled for service in 1941. He was noted particularly for his aggressiveness and tenacity during the Great War, and served in various capacities during the interwar period. As Chief of Staff, Craig made a sticking point out of the Army’s lack of preparedness in both manpower and equipment, although perhaps not as brusquely as in this ATL.
Admiral William H. Standley was the Chief of Naval Operations (CNO) from 1933-1937. Unlike Craig, his service during the Great War was spent at home, pushing for enlargements to the Naval Academy buildings to accommodate the large increase in seamen-in-training after the US joined the war. He did command several vessels both before and after the war, culminating in taking command of the US Fleet Battle Force in 1933 (fun aside: the title “Commander in Chief, United States Fleet” was abbreviated as “CINCUS”, pronounced “sink us”; Navy men certainly never lack for bravado…).
General Oscar Westover was the fourth Chief of the Air Corps from 1935-1938. He spent most of the interwar period involved in various military aviation projects, becoming proficient in piloting balloons, airships, and airplanes before simultaneously commanding and attending the Air Corps Tactical School (I can imagine that the instructors would have felt a certain pressure to award him high marks!). During his time as Chief of Staff, Westover was a big proponent of keeping the Air Corps integrated with the Army, rather than developing a separate Air Force branch as many other airmen wanted. As seems to be traditional for airmen of the period, he died in a plane crash in 1938.
With that, the traditional start-of-game information dump has been achieved, and the gameplay may now begin in earnest! Updates from this point may be more frequent but shorter, following the various events that occur both historically and seemingly at random, perhaps punctuated by longer expositions on various historical points of enduring interest…
Chapter Three: Of Battleships and Baseball Bats (Part 2)
The Cabinet meeting continues…
0937 hours ET, 8 January 1936, The White House exterior, Washington D.C.
On a tree branch outside the West Wing, a squirrel ran out and briefly paused, appreciating the sun on its fur in the midst of an otherwise cold and dreary winter morning. A slight breeze ruffled the squirrel’s fur, and for a moment it shivered from the chill. The breeze passed, and the squirrel resumed basking in the light, trying to remember where it had left its nuts.
Suddenly, a loud shout broke the morning silence to shocking effect:
“OVER MY DEAD BODY‼”
Startled, the squirrel scampered off to find a more relaxing location to resume its musing, while the White House lawn was filled with the echoes of angry shouting from the occupants within.
* * * * *
0905 hours ET, earlier that morning
As the members of the Cabinet took their seats again, placated with a pot of Missy LeHand’s finest dark roast, J. Edgar Hoover stood up to deliver his report on homeland security.
“Mr. President, esteemed members of the cabinet, and Commie-in-Chief Hull—”
A loud harrumph sounded from across the table.
“—it is with great distress that I must bring you a most disturbing report. Communist activity is not only in the rise in Oklahoma, it has in fact tripled in the past week!”
Those around the table gasped at this news, except for the President who simply inquired, “Director Hoover, this wouldn’t be about that report you sent me last Thursday, would it?”
“Well, yes, Mr. President,” Hoover replied, “I assume that you read it, of course, and are aware of the grave threat this rise in Communist sympathy poses to our great Nation.”
“Would you please inform the rest of this Cabinet, for the sake of discussion, just how many Communist sympathizers your agency has discovered in Oklahoma?”
Hoover fidgeted a bit. “As I said, Mr. President, three times as many as last week.”
“And how many Communists were you aware of last week?” Roosevelt pressed the question. The rest of the men at the table leaned forward in their chairs, eager to hear the answer.
Hoover adjusted his tie, attempting to look confident. “Well, ah…one, Mr. President.” At this, the rest of the table broke out alternatingly in laughter at this overblown matter, and insolence for the colossal waste of their time.
Roosevelt looked over his glasses at Hoover. “Well, then, seeing as three Communists hardly constitute a threat to our National security, I suggest we move on with the agenda, Director.”
Dejected and deflated, Hoover complied. “In other news, the Federal Bureau of Investigations currently has nine teams of agents trained and deployed throughout the United States. All of our operatives have been instructed to seek out and neutralize foreign intelligence assets – with a particular emphasis on intercepting those attempting to sway our citizens to the Soviet way of thinking.” Hoover placed special emphasis on that last part.
Roosevelt looked up from perusing Hoover’s report with another question. “I see from your report that we have been fairly successful in this effort, detecting two hostile spies already. However, I do not see which foreign power was responsible for the presence of those operatives. Do you have that information for me?”
Hoover shook his head. “Unfortunately, the operatives, um…forgot to file their paperwork. Yes, uh, a very unfortunate mistake. The agents responsible have been assigned to undergo, hmm…remedial paperwork training with the Internal Revenue Service, yep, yep.”
Roosevelt suspected that part or all of that answer had been a fabrication, but he was eager to move on. “Very well, Director, thank you for that stimulating discussion. Now, what’s next on the agenda?”
* * * * *
After a few brief reports from some of the less-important departments (Secretary of War Dern delivered a particularly engaging speech consisting of five words: “We are not at war.”), William Friedman was up next to deliver a report on the Signals Intelligence Service. Roosevelt was particularly looking forward to this part of the meeting, since it would be the first real update on the crisis in Ethiopia that hadn’t been filtered through the Italian propaganda machine. Thankfully, the coffee was just starting to kick in, and Roosevelt had no difficulty paying full attention.
“To begin with, I’d like to note for the Cabinet that we have a total of eighty-one teams of intelligence operatives spread throughout the majority of foreign nations in the world.” Friedman began. “This being said, many of those operatives are not expected to remain in their current positions for long, due to a combination of budget cuts imposed by Congress and global increases in counter-intelligence activity due to the increasingly-belligerent international environment.”
“Boo, boo!” Hoover gave in to his compelling need to make himself heard. “Enough about budget cuts, talk about the war!” Simultaneously with Hoover’s mention of war, the various Chiefs of Staff experienced a synchronized caffeine kick, and were suddenly quite attentive.
“Ah, Mr. President?” Friedman was somewhat unsettled from the unexpected outburst. Roosevelt nodded, giving him the go-ahead. “Well, moving on then, I’ve prepared a helpful set of maps to summarize the most recent developments in this conflict.”
In the first week of 1936, the Ethiopians appear to have the better of the Italians, having taken control of two provinces with rapid advances. The Italians have struck back in the north with a thrust into the center of the Ethiopian lines.
“As you can see, the situation this early in the year is fairly back-and-forth, but the Abyssinians appear to have the advantage thus far, notably advancing to the Red Sea coast in the past week. That said, at this point we have only a very limited number of ‘observers’ on the ground, so the actual status of the Italian East African Army is still quite uncertain. However, the reports I have seen so far indicate that the early Abyssinian victories are temporary in nature, as the Italians are still in the process of organizing their forces despite being nearly three months into the war.”
“Leave it to the Italians to declare war without deploying their army first!” General Craig wryly observed, drawing a few quiet chuckles from his fellow Chiefs of Staff.
Roosevelt had a few concerns, however. “Hold on a minute. You mentioned that our observers are very limited in number. Just how few men on the ground do we have?”
Friedman retrieved a document from his seat at the table and handed it to Roosevelt. “At the moment, we have three teams of observers who have sufficient training to undertake this mission, most of whom have been redirected from missions with the diplomatic corps. Most of these individuals are still in transit from Rome to East Africa, and as a result while we have some fairly recent reports on the Italian economic and political situation, we have very little intelligence regarding their military efforts thus far.”
Roosevelt nodded. “Well, as long as we’re getting our men trained and deployed as quickly as we can, I suppose.”
“We’re doing our best, Mr. President,” Friedman affirmed. “That is all I have to report on at this time. Mr. Hoover, was that quite satisfactory?”
Hoover shrugged, “I don’t know…I guess I thought it would be funnier, somehow.”
* * * * *
To conclude the meeting, General Craig had been requested to give a brief update on the status of the military he kept complaining was “underfunded” and “woefully unprepared”. He was only too happy to oblige.
“Now, I won’t go into detail, since I know not all of the Cabinet members are what you could call ‘numbers men’, but suffice it to say that this data clearly indicates that while the Navy and Air Corps are more than adequately funded, the Army is woefully undersized and requires a sizable allocation of funding and production orders to bring up to a respectable standard.”
“Now that’s a load of horse hockey!” Chief of the Navy William H. Standley was quick to interject. “You grunts have more brigades than the Navy has got ships! If any branch needs attention, it’s clearly the Navy, especially since many of our ships are older than the average Army grunt and in desperate need of replacement.”
“Ah, if I might add, gentlemen,” Chief of the Air Corps Oscar Westover timidly tried to make himself heard, “The Air Corps could use just a small investment to build some new—”
“Shut up, Oscar,” Craig snapped.
“Yeah, no one cares about your piddly planes,” Standley added.
“Sorry, sorry…” Westover quietly sunk back in his chair.
“Anyways, Mr. President,” Craig resumed making his arguments, “You will readily see from this diagram that not a single one of our infantry or National Guard divisions has an artillery regiment to support them in combat. Our Navy men have dozens of 14-inch guns at the ready, while the largest caliber available to our noble Army heroes is Smith & Wesson! This is clearly an intractable situation.”
“Smith & Wesson, Mr. President, is a quite respected name and is certainly more than enough for the job our Army boys have to do,” Standley rebutted Craig’s argument. “The Navy has the critical task of protecting not only our Nation’s coastline but also all of our overseas possessions. The Army boys, well, what do they really have to do besides stand in line and look pretty?”
“Gentlemen, please…” Roosevelt attempted to regain control of the Chiefs.
“We need more ships, Mr. President!” Standley exclaimed. “We must be able to fight in two oceans at once. The Japanese have us outnumbered in the Pacific, to say nothing of the Royal Navy in the Atlantic if things take a turn…”
“Forget the Royal Navy!” Craig roared, “What if we wanted to invade Canada? Mr. President, artillery must be the Nation’s number one priority!”
At yet another mention of invading Canada, Roosevelt finally snapped. “If you don’t both calm down and let me make the decisions here, I’ll demote you both so far down, you’ll be peeling potatoes for a dozen years!”
Both Craig and Standley were taken aback by Roosevelt’s ranting. Standley quietly took his seat, knowing what was good for him. Craig did not, choosing instead to reply directly to Roosevelt, “Mr. President, I apologize for the intensity of our discussion, but it really is absolutely imperative that the Army receive more funding. In fact, if there is not an increase in funding to raise artillery regiments in the next budget, the Army will be forced to pursue alternative financial options…most likely in the form of taking out a loan from a bank.”
“OVER MY DEAD BODY‼” At the mention of the trigger word, Wagner went into a flying frenzy, attempting to leap at Craig across the table but fortunately being restrained by his fellow Cabinet members. Unable to reach his opponent, Wagner settled for ranting incoherently about banks in Craig’s general direction.
Alarmed by the rapidly-developing hostilities within his Cabinet, Roosevelt quickly made his move, “Well, if there is nothing else, this concludes the meeting. Let us all disperse and return to our duties – quickly!”
The rest of the Cabinet was more than happy to oblige.
* * * * *
Notes
J. Edgar Hoover is, of course, the most famous head of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). In OTL he served in his position for a whopping 48 years, from 1924 until his death in 1972. In popular lore, he is best known for capturing or killing numerous high-profile gangsters in the 1930s. Perhaps more importantly in the long term, though, he was largely responsible for building the FBI into the preeminent organization in domestic intelligence, an effort which included major expansions to the FBI fingerprint files and the creation of a new evidence laboratory in 1932. In OTL, he was not known as a strong anti-Communist until after the War, but anti-Communist sentiment throughout the country was certainly high enough during this time period to motivate a man as paranoid as Hoover.
William F. Friedman led the US Signals Intelligence Service (SIS), the predecessor to the modern NSA, for over 25 years, from its inception in 1929-1930 until his retirement in 1956 (by which time the department had been renamed as the National Security Agency). Aside from his legacy as an intelligence boss, his greatest contribution to US military history was most likely his solution of rotary cipher machines and his development of a new cipher which eliminated the vulnerabilities he had discovered, the SIGABA machine. He also spearheaded the effort to break the new Japanese cipher throughout 1939 and 1940, leading to the decryption of Japanese intercepts indicating the probable onset of war in late 1941 – a subject of some controversy even today. His wife, Elizebeth (spelled as written), was also a respectable cryptographer in her own right, and is sometimes known as America’s first female cryptologist. However, she spent most of her career with the US Navy, and did not work very much with her husband after the early 1920s or so.
General Malin Craig served in OTL as Army Chief of Staff from 1935-1939 before retiring briefly before being recalled for service in 1941. He was noted particularly for his aggressiveness and tenacity during the Great War, and served in various capacities during the interwar period. As Chief of Staff, Craig made a sticking point out of the Army’s lack of preparedness in both manpower and equipment, although perhaps not as brusquely as in this ATL.
Admiral William H. Standley was the Chief of Naval Operations (CNO) from 1933-1937. Unlike Craig, his service during the Great War was spent at home, pushing for enlargements to the Naval Academy buildings to accommodate the large increase in seamen-in-training after the US joined the war. He did command several vessels both before and after the war, culminating in taking command of the US Fleet Battle Force in 1933 (fun aside: the title “Commander in Chief, United States Fleet” was abbreviated as “CINCUS”, pronounced “sink us”; Navy men certainly never lack for bravado…).
General Oscar Westover was the fourth Chief of the Air Corps from 1935-1938. He spent most of the interwar period involved in various military aviation projects, becoming proficient in piloting balloons, airships, and airplanes before simultaneously commanding and attending the Air Corps Tactical School (I can imagine that the instructors would have felt a certain pressure to award him high marks!). During his time as Chief of Staff, Westover was a big proponent of keeping the Air Corps integrated with the Army, rather than developing a separate Air Force branch as many other airmen wanted. As seems to be traditional for airmen of the period, he died in a plane crash in 1938.
* * * * *
With that, the traditional start-of-game information dump has been achieved, and the gameplay may now begin in earnest! Updates from this point may be more frequent but shorter, following the various events that occur both historically and seemingly at random, perhaps punctuated by longer expositions on various historical points of enduring interest…
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Enjoyable Cabinet meeting - to listen to, anyway! Unless you’re a squirrel.
In the end, I think the only decision FDR took was to end the meeting, which was probably a good thing.
I also liked the historical end-notes and am looking forward to the stopwatch starting on the game proper. Best of luck with it! Will you be playing ahead a fair way then writing in retrospect, or playing segments and then writing them up, ‘live’ style? You no doubt mentioned it somewhere earlier, but I’ve forgotten.
Unless you’re a squirrel. In the end, I think the only decision FDR took was to end the meeting, which was probably a good thing.
I also liked the historical end-notes and am looking forward to the stopwatch starting on the game proper. Best of luck with it! Will you be playing ahead a fair way then writing in retrospect, or playing segments and then writing them up, ‘live’ style? You no doubt mentioned it somewhere earlier, but I’ve forgotten.
In the end, I think the only decision FDR took was to end the meeting, which was probably a good thing.
With great power comes great responsibility, after all.
I also liked the historical end-notes and am looking forward to the stopwatch starting on the game proper. Best of luck with it! Will you be playing ahead a fair way then writing in retrospect, or playing segments and then writing them up, ‘live’ style? You no doubt mentioned it somewhere earlier, but I’ve forgotten.
Glad you like the notes! I will be more or less playing the game and writing the AAR "live", though I don't think I'd mentioned that. That strikes me as best for an AAR of this style - as your writAAR, I know as much as you do about what might happen next!
Well, perhaps a little bit more than you do, since I've read many of the event files by this point. 
The Chief of the Army forgot to mention that half the army was militia with muskets while the Li... British are building a fully motorized infantry army with infantry tanks.
Excellent - as you say, a good approach for this style of AAR. Means we may offer advice as well as comment. So long as you remember its true value in HOI3 dollars, namely “free advice is worth everything you pay for it!”I will be more or less playing the game and writing the AAR "live", though I don't think I'd mentioned that. That strikes me as best for an AAR of this style - as your writAAR, I know as much as you do about what might happen next!
General Craig would be shocked to find out that all of those militia even have muskets, given his funding situation!
Fortunately, sticks and stones can be procured nearly for free in most parts of the country...In-game, the militia divisions represent National Guard divisions, which is an accurate choice since the NG is really mostly used for domestic emergencies and really not intended as a regular fighting force. Of course that may change in a few years...but suffice to say, if the Canadians were to cross the border tomorrow, we might just end up being British subjects by the middle of next week!
Who needs a war when one has Cabinet meetings like this
Roosevelt, for one, may prefer the former! Fortunately for him, full Cabinet meetings such as this are likely to be relatively infrequent, so he can mostly stick to dealing with one or two crazy people at a time.
Excellent - as you say, a good approach for this style of AAR. Means we may offer advice as well as comment. So long as you remember its true value in HOI3 dollars, namely “free advice is worth everything you pay for it!”
If "time is money", then the time investment in writing this AAR to motivate such advice makes it worth significantly more than HoI3 dollars, I'd say!
I love the Italian strategy in Ethiopia, beautifully incompetent.
Somewhat like that cabinet, though Roosevelt seems on top of things...
Then again, maybe you should invade Canada.
I'm also still waiting for both the baseball bats and the battleships in the title to make an appearance.
Somewhat like that cabinet, though Roosevelt seems on top of things...
Then again, maybe you should invade Canada.
I'm also still waiting for both the baseball bats and the battleships in the title to make an appearance.
The initial disposition of the Italian troops is...well, Italian, to be sure.
The chapter title was a simply in reference to one of Roosevelt's lines in the first part...but, perhaps baseball bats should make recurring appearances later on? Battleships, of course, will be seen plentifully!
That had me thinking of the Al Capone (Robert de Niro) scene in The Untouchables, with the Cabinet in the place of his lieutenants around the fancy dining table. Capone uses the bat to reinforce the need for ‘teamwork’ to triumph over ‘individual achievement’!
I’m looking at you, Mr Hoover. Speak softly but carry a big stick?
Well, if the NG runs out of muskets, they can always have baseball bats. Those should do, at least for invading a bank to procure cash to obtain more muskets to invade Canada with. They haven't figured out how to make musket ball -proof moose yet...
That had me thinking of the Al Capone (Robert de Niro) scene in The Untouchables, with the Cabinet in the place of his lieutenants around the fancy dining table. Capone uses the bat to reinforce the need for ‘teamwork’ to triumph over ‘individual achievement’!
Frankly, with this Cabinet, I'm not sure that speaking in any manner will do much good, and the big stick should be the first resort!
I can see it now...the banks are devastated after assaults by anti-Canada militias across the nation...the Great Depression enters a second, greater and more depressing stage...beset by domestic turmoil, supply lines fail and the invasion of Canada is resoundingly crushed...armies of nuclear assault moose swarm across the border, leaving a trail of devastation and terrible bloodshed in their wake...the government collapses, anarchy reigns, and without the Arsenal of Democracy Hitler and Hirohito are unstoppable...
These are the things that keep FDR awake at night, you know.
I can see it now...the banks are devastated after assaults by anti-Canada militias across the nation...the Great Depression enters a second, greater and more depressing stage...beset by domestic turmoil, supply lines fail and the invasion of Canada is resoundingly crushed...armies of nuclear assault moose swarm across the border, leaving a trail of devastation and terrible bloodshed in their wake...the government collapses, anarchy reigns, and without the Arsenal of Democracy Hitler and Hirohito are unstoppable...
These are the things that keep FDR awake at night, you know.
Or, an even worse nightmare, FDR is removed from office and a Republican becomes a president. There are disasters, and then there are Disasters.