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National party parallels
IMO the National Party of this AAR can be seen as (darker, more sinister) the Bull Moose party of Teddy Roosevelt. Popular and topical, but only for a given set of circumstances and with a certain central unifying figure. Once Teddy stepped down, the Bull Moose party evaporated. Most likely, Lindy's Nationals won't survive long after his departure either.
Mett, bravo on a fantastic story. Looking forward to seeing what you can do once you get familiar w/ HOI2.
IMO the National Party of this AAR can be seen as (darker, more sinister) the Bull Moose party of Teddy Roosevelt. Popular and topical, but only for a given set of circumstances and with a certain central unifying figure. Once Teddy stepped down, the Bull Moose party evaporated. Most likely, Lindy's Nationals won't survive long after his departure either.
Mett, bravo on a fantastic story. Looking forward to seeing what you can do once you get familiar w/ HOI2.
CatKnight said:
"Cthulhu for President. Why vote for a lesser evil?"
Beautiful work. I hope it ends well(literarily, not necessarily for our ahistorical counterparts). Hopefully, I'll get a chance to reread this in paperback someday.
Met's observed several times that, in its existing form -- a historical chronicle rather than a tale of characters -- that the AAR would be pretty hard to publish.
However, I'm sure that wouldn't stop him from using this as a BACKDROP -- a timeline -- upon which to construct that personal, character-driven story.
(And, who knows? We might all be invited to guest-write short stories in the universe. ^_~)
However, I'm sure that wouldn't stop him from using this as a BACKDROP -- a timeline -- upon which to construct that personal, character-driven story.
(And, who knows? We might all be invited to guest-write short stories in the universe. ^_~)
Bagricula said:
LOL!!
actually, cthulu is a lesser evil. azathoth is the worst of the bunch.
I personally can think of two cool endings
1: SU defeated in some way (anyway is cool)
2: The SU manages to do a huge counterattack and takes all that OTO has taken in Europe and so Eurasia is created
1: SU defeated in some way (anyway is cool)
2: The SU manages to do a huge counterattack and takes all that OTO has taken in Europe and so Eurasia is created
Bagricula said:
...you're....you're RIGHT! I see now....I see everything....
Hey Met, what do we have to do to get Cthulhu on the ballot??
TheBee: It would be nice, but I'm starting to think it might be militarily difficult. Not much of Moscow left to reach actually.
LewsTherin: Well, I do have a poly sci minor but if I know anything about politics, it's from reading lots and lots of history books. After a while, you maybe have a taste of the ins and outs of geopolitics and history.
La France Libre: Sure I can provide a screenie, a political one this time in my next update. Well, a continued advance is likely but certainly you'd have a discussion on the subject, even if academic.
Sir Humphrey: Thanks!
Vincent Julien: Actually, they have a strong minority, but they're still last in all the parties. At last count, they have twenty-four senators and one hundred thirteen Congressmen. I don't think they'd collapse immediately if Lindbergh were to leave, but a decline would be highly likely.
Mind Elemental: Well, it would be fun, but all good things must end sometime, and this is a good year to do it in, with the election. Plus I'm anxious to focus more on HOI2. Yes, I do intend to do some epilogue writing to discuss how the world might progress beyond the end of the game.
CatKnight: Yeah, I agree, the nuclear race is probably what's going to end it, more so than a conventional victory.
Vandelay: Mr. Dolman helped begin it all, and I certainly wouldn't end it without him.
Backfire: Well, I can safely say it would not be the United States unless I found some different yet stimulating what-if. I would hate to tread over the same ground twice. I've always thought of Japan or the UK, but who knows. It wouldn't be immediate anyhow, so there'll be time to think.
cthulhu: Now there's a thought.
Frankie: I thought you liked him?
VILenin: True enough, and there might indeed be a reaction to 12 years of rightist government, although 1952 is most probably a wartime election.
Timpino: Sorry, sir! Coming!
Von Lippe: Good way of putting it. It's a dynamic party, I think, with a conservative edge.
Bagricula: Thanks.
Meltdown1986: Well, cthulhu is for another style, I think, if I ever went more fantasy.
---------------------------------------
Thanks everyone! I'm sorry for the lack of screenies, but I'm pressed for time and this war goes by so fast when you're playing it. By the time you notice something interesting, the moment is gone.
LewsTherin: Well, I do have a poly sci minor but if I know anything about politics, it's from reading lots and lots of history books. After a while, you maybe have a taste of the ins and outs of geopolitics and history.
La France Libre: Sure I can provide a screenie, a political one this time in my next update. Well, a continued advance is likely but certainly you'd have a discussion on the subject, even if academic.
Sir Humphrey: Thanks!
Vincent Julien: Actually, they have a strong minority, but they're still last in all the parties. At last count, they have twenty-four senators and one hundred thirteen Congressmen. I don't think they'd collapse immediately if Lindbergh were to leave, but a decline would be highly likely.
Mind Elemental: Well, it would be fun, but all good things must end sometime, and this is a good year to do it in, with the election. Plus I'm anxious to focus more on HOI2. Yes, I do intend to do some epilogue writing to discuss how the world might progress beyond the end of the game.
CatKnight: Yeah, I agree, the nuclear race is probably what's going to end it, more so than a conventional victory.
Vandelay: Mr. Dolman helped begin it all, and I certainly wouldn't end it without him.
Backfire: Well, I can safely say it would not be the United States unless I found some different yet stimulating what-if. I would hate to tread over the same ground twice. I've always thought of Japan or the UK, but who knows. It wouldn't be immediate anyhow, so there'll be time to think.
cthulhu: Now there's a thought.
Frankie: I thought you liked him?
VILenin: True enough, and there might indeed be a reaction to 12 years of rightist government, although 1952 is most probably a wartime election.
Timpino: Sorry, sir! Coming!
Von Lippe: Good way of putting it. It's a dynamic party, I think, with a conservative edge.
Bagricula: Thanks.
Meltdown1986: Well, cthulhu is for another style, I think, if I ever went more fantasy.
---------------------------------------
Thanks everyone! I'm sorry for the lack of screenies, but I'm pressed for time and this war goes by so fast when you're playing it. By the time you notice something interesting, the moment is gone.
March – May 1952: The Presidential Election of 1952 – Part II
As it stood, the 1952 election was most likely going to be decided on the merits of the conflict against the Soviet Union. Having experienced, since 1936, twelve years of warfare, the public sensitivity to the sheer scale of conflict seemed to dim over time, until the casualty figures from Europe barely registered in the national consciousness. Having lost around three hundred thousand men in Mexico, seventy thousand in Central America, and one hundred and fifty thousand in the Pacific, the United States had already lost more than this combined in just over two years of war in Europe. Yet the public continued to resolutely stand behind the conflict. Indeed, as one New Jersey politician put it, ”people were tired of Communist fears, tired of the rhetoric, tired of the suspicions, and they saw victory over the Russians as the way to end it all.” It was perhaps a mark of twelve years of anti-Communist government, perhaps a slow education from the press that sometimes bordered on propaganda, or perhaps a sense of how far the United States had come in over a decade, that kept popular opinion firmly behind the policies of President Lindbergh. From a country which stumbled into a protacted war in Mexico over nationalized oil, the United States had confidently taken the stage as a world power, the embodiment of the anti-Communist protector against the very real threat of a Communist world conquest. Now that the Red Army seemed on the run in Europe, the long hard struggle could at last be put to rest.
Having been forced to slow and consolidate after his seizure of Berlin – while Simpson pushed into Austria and Bradley in Czechoslovakia, Patton had persuaded MacArthur to continue the advance in Germany, and his tanks were advancing in early spring, having overrun almost all of Germany in a matter of months. The German army, spread out and lacking enough mobility to contend with a mass mechanized advance, disintegrated swiftly after the early defeats in the west. As the Eighth and Tenth Armies approached the Alps and the Carpathians, however, the advance began to slow. Boasting well-trained armies that had rivaled even the Germans, the Czechs and Austrians counterattacked successfully in Bavaria, forcing Simpson’s withdrawal from Salzburg and even conceding Nurnberg and Munich. MacArthur was forced to contend with the protracted fight to reduce the Soviet salients in the West. The British and French armies would not advance into Germany until Belgium had been liberated, the Dutch put down, and Spain settled. Although this was achieved in measure by the end of April, two months had been spent in which the Americans were forced to battle in Germany virtually alone, time during which the Vienna Pact stiffened the line. By the time Patton’s forces bludgeoned into Stettin on April 29th, the Soviets outnumbered him two to one in Poland. The rapid advance was over.
After the lightning advance of early spring, the American armies began to stall in the mountains and rivers of Central Europe
On the 6th of May, deciding to take a more hands-on approach with the fighting, President Lindbergh flew to London to consult with Churchill and DeGaulle, both of whom gave him a polite, if grave reception. American neutrality during the war against Germany was still uppermost in many minds in the European armies, and several former British Dominions now enjoyed close ties with the United States. For his part, Lindbergh was perturbed by the need to take a ‘light approach’ in Italy and Spain. He backed the British, over French objections, on the question of a southern occupation zone in Spain, and he insisted on the removal of the Spanish government from power. ”The Italians might pretend they were no longer Communist, but we would not try the same view in Spain,” he was to write in his memoirs. To the alarm of many, the President also insisted on viewing a B-36 bombing run up close. Although the high-altitudes and air superiority made the mission almost completely safe, few staff officers breathed again until the President’s bomber touched down in southern England.
President Lindbergh prior to mission over Cologne
Duxford Airfield in Camridgeshire - May 8th
Only then was it made known that he had actually flown the plane for part of the mission over Cologne. A delighted President then shifted from his political meeting to more military matters, visiting MacArthur’s headquarters in Amiens on the 10th. Patton, whose First Army Group was resupplying on the Oder front, flew to the rear to be present.
The U.S. Army was not going to stop in Poland. Politicians and presidential candidates back home might discuss the theoreticals behind a stop-line, but in the realities of the war in Central Europe, the three men came to that conclusion within minutes of sitting down together. ”You allow Zhukov or any other of these characters to take a breather, and you’ll have yourself one hell of a mess come autumn,” Patton was noted as saying. Logistics, however, more than politics, had held up the advance, and the need to reduce the rear salients in order to free up the OTO armies for operations in the east. There was also a need to rebase the Air Force on the Continent to reduce the range from England and increase the amount of bombing runs. Coupled with the resistance in Bavaria and Poland, there was the realization that the exploitation phase was coming to and end, and the planning phase for the next offensive was arrived.
American troops in action in the Sudetenland – April 1952
None of this was known back home, however, and it mattered little for a public that was enthralled by the stories of tank advances of almost one hundred miles a day in some cases. Patton and MacArthur stirred the imagination of a tired nation. Although hard fighting loomed ahead, most were confident. Every German city that fell was another sign that the war was almost over. The destruction of Soviet cities seemed only fitting for a nation that had destroyed continents. Toymakers envisioned huge sales of model Goddard-Vs and model M-26 tanks – although wartime rationing of materials made this a post-war dream.
This optimism was scarcely stirred by the news of another Soviet ”rad bomb” detonated in Korea, a front almost completely forgotten in America.
On May 3rd, the Soviets detonated their second Korea Bomb
Although the Japanese would suffer another wave of heavy casualties, the Imperial government was somewhat mollified by Lindbergh’s reassurance that there would be no delay in launching the next atomic bomb against the Soviet Union, sometime in late May. As for the election, amid the patriotic debate of the approaching summer, Lindbergh was to find that peacetime meant the resurfacing of old ties and old obligations. Mr. Dolman had returned to Washington and had asked for a meeting.
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Impressing Mettermrck, really impressing.
There seems like no one is able to see where this will end, but it will be a very sad day when you post the last update in this master piece
There seems like no one is able to see where this will end, but it will be a very sad day when you post the last update in this master piece
Well, I guess it was only a matter of time before the Vienna Pact managed to form a new line and stabilise the front. They still have 120+ divisions cut off, don't they? How many are in the new line?
I know it's too much to hope for, but I wouldn't mind seeing Mr. Dolman felled by a mysterious assassin all the same. (Not that he'd be dumb enough to fail to take precautions against that.)
I know it's too much to hope for, but I wouldn't mind seeing Mr. Dolman felled by a mysterious assassin all the same. (Not that he'd be dumb enough to fail to take precautions against that.)
Woah, when was Scandanavia totally overun by the Reds? Last thing I knew, Norway was fighting for the Allies.
Hmmm... after a long advance, the defender often rebounds somewhat... but give the OTO time to do the 5Rs of consolidation; Reduce pockets, Redeploy, Reinforce, Resupply and Rest a bit )) and another tank rush is a real possibility. But will there be time before the elections?
<settles down for the continuation with a bucket of pop-corn>
)) and another tank rush is a real possibility. But will there be time before the elections?<settles down for the continuation with a bucket of pop-corn>
I wonder if the other OTO countries, like England and France, will get squeamish about more US nuke attacks. After all the Soviets do have the ability to irradiate chunks of Europe (even if the AI doesn't have the wit). Then again, maybe the full impact of the A-bomb hasn't been realized by most people like in real life. Great update Mett.
If Dolman becomes President do we get a shadow cabinet?
Great update, par for the course for you Mett
Great update, par for the course for you Mett
Outstanding again Mett! The only question I have is whether or not the Soviets are going to be pushed back to their pre-war with Germany borders before the election, or will the curtain come down in the midst of the "Great Crusade"?