You spam monkeys are lucky I've got a low boredom threshold as I was going to leave this until I'd gotten things more on track at my new house but as I've got nothing better to do at the moment I'll start it now.
This is a resurection of my short WW2 (1939-41) thread from the old board. I've only got time to post a small piece tonight hopefully I'll be able to follow this up this time around.
1939
Either the Poles ignore Franco-British pressure not to mobilize or some in the West decides that a show of force by Poland may face down the Germans. The Germans still attack before the Poles are completely mobilized and the Polish campaign doesn't take much longer than in OTL but the Germans find the going much harder and lose rather more men and material. Stalin watches events carefully, but when it becomes apparent that (a) the Poles are totally occupied fighting the Germans, and (b) the Poles are going to lose whatever happens, Stalin sends the Red Army across the Soviet/Polish frontier to claim "his" slice of Poland.
Throughout the winter of 1939/40 the countries of Europe try and prepare for round two.
The Germans are reasonably pleased with themselves, blitzkrieg has worked, true the Poles frought harder than was expected but the overall concept has been proven (is this correct, I seem to remember reading that the Germans were rather surprised at how quickly they conquerored Poland).
The Russians have also been conducting some after battle analysis, Stalin has been thinking of invading Finland, but what if the Finns fight as well as the Poles? Better to wait a while, put more pressure on the Finns, build up an invasion force that can take Finland out in one go. After all the Germans are going to be fighting the Westerners for years so there's no great hurry.
The British and the French are shocked. Poland had more than a million men mobilised when the Germans attacked and the country was still over run in less than two months. Obviously this new style of warfare the Germans are using has something to it. The Poles who have escaped to join the fight in the West describe the German armoured attacks as being hit in the face with a steel gauntlet, some of the more imaginative politians and soldiers in Britain and France start thinking that they need a gauntlet of their own. The two Allies dig out the books of Fuller and Doumenc and begin to reorganise their armoured forces.
The nuetrals start preparing as well, they don't know for what but they still want to be prepared for it when it happens. The Swedes and Norwegians start to quitely bring their armies up to strength. The Russians are making noises on the Finnish border and while the Scandinavian monarchies aren't worried about being invaded they may want to send a few "volunteers" to help their eastern nieghbour. The police in both countries also increase survalience on the local fascists and communists on general pricipals.
I've a few ideas about the Germans invading Norway only to get their arses kicked in the north and the Allies invading Germany at the end of 1940 but if anyone else wants to put their ore in I'd welcome suggestions.
This is a resurection of my short WW2 (1939-41) thread from the old board. I've only got time to post a small piece tonight hopefully I'll be able to follow this up this time around.
1939
Either the Poles ignore Franco-British pressure not to mobilize or some in the West decides that a show of force by Poland may face down the Germans. The Germans still attack before the Poles are completely mobilized and the Polish campaign doesn't take much longer than in OTL but the Germans find the going much harder and lose rather more men and material. Stalin watches events carefully, but when it becomes apparent that (a) the Poles are totally occupied fighting the Germans, and (b) the Poles are going to lose whatever happens, Stalin sends the Red Army across the Soviet/Polish frontier to claim "his" slice of Poland.
Throughout the winter of 1939/40 the countries of Europe try and prepare for round two.
The Germans are reasonably pleased with themselves, blitzkrieg has worked, true the Poles frought harder than was expected but the overall concept has been proven (is this correct, I seem to remember reading that the Germans were rather surprised at how quickly they conquerored Poland).
The Russians have also been conducting some after battle analysis, Stalin has been thinking of invading Finland, but what if the Finns fight as well as the Poles? Better to wait a while, put more pressure on the Finns, build up an invasion force that can take Finland out in one go. After all the Germans are going to be fighting the Westerners for years so there's no great hurry.
The British and the French are shocked. Poland had more than a million men mobilised when the Germans attacked and the country was still over run in less than two months. Obviously this new style of warfare the Germans are using has something to it. The Poles who have escaped to join the fight in the West describe the German armoured attacks as being hit in the face with a steel gauntlet, some of the more imaginative politians and soldiers in Britain and France start thinking that they need a gauntlet of their own. The two Allies dig out the books of Fuller and Doumenc and begin to reorganise their armoured forces.
The nuetrals start preparing as well, they don't know for what but they still want to be prepared for it when it happens. The Swedes and Norwegians start to quitely bring their armies up to strength. The Russians are making noises on the Finnish border and while the Scandinavian monarchies aren't worried about being invaded they may want to send a few "volunteers" to help their eastern nieghbour. The police in both countries also increase survalience on the local fascists and communists on general pricipals.
I've a few ideas about the Germans invading Norway only to get their arses kicked in the north and the Allies invading Germany at the end of 1940 but if anyone else wants to put their ore in I'd welcome suggestions.