(Stupidly long) Alternate WWI Maps.

[Khib yusa]

Greetings.

This is another Map thread (I'm sorry if people are sick of them) I'm afraid. This was something that my mate started up at Uni last year and now it has started to be a lot more coherent now that we have got a lot of the dross out of the way.

The basic premise is upon the Harry Turtledove Great War books (for those who don't know of this the American Civil War was a draw and so the Confederate States of America urvived upto and including past WWI), our POD for this is two months prior to WWI. Unfortunately the maps only start at March 1915 (and the first one has Austro-Hungary, the Balkans and France have their borders screwed up) and there are four of them (sorry).

The sides during WWI were,

Central Powers,
German Empire, Austro-Hungarian Empire, Ottomon Empire and the USA.

Entente Powers,
British Empire (which became the Imperial Commonwealth after the war. I'll give reasons later), French Empire, Russian Empire, Empire of Japan, CSA and the Empire of Brazil.

Basic rundown of the war,

Stateside.
US attempted to steam into CSA, got munched by artillery, then split into three by Canadian, CSA and Mormon forces. Also an Indo-Japanese landing at San Francisco caused the death blow. USA now split into 4, US, Allied States of America, Pacific states of America and the Mormon Republic (or Deseret) as well as Canada stealing a few states. Ended March 1915.

Europe.
France out of the war due to A-H and Germany mugging them through Switzerland and Alsace, Lorraine (lasted a total of two months). BEF landed in Pomerania causeing the Germans to send a million men to defend against the British. Russia did SFA apart from attacking Bulgaria (don't ask...). Italy declared war on A-H.
Belgium asks the British Empire to help defend Belgium. So the BE gives Belgium 9" and 12" deck guns off 26 OB's to place upon the Belgian Fortresses. The nickname of 'Fortress Belgium' is now in common use about some place hard to get into (instead of Fort Knox, which isn't about).
The Kriegsmarineflotte was destroyed coming out of dock by the Home Fleet (the Kiel canal was blocked by 26 OB's with their armaments removed and then filled with concrete and scuttled), Germany sues for peace with British Empire and gets it. The war lasts a total of six months in Europe and the only thing that continues is the Austro-Hungarian and Italian conflict (which lasts untill November 1916, both are exhausted and need to regroup. A peace is brokered by the Imperial Commonwealth).

Asia.
Japan invades German held French Indo-China and starts to invade China along Russias border.
Russia invades Mongolia with cavalry and takes it.
The British Empire invades China from the coast and India.

Africa.
All German territories are invaded by the British Empire.
Ottomon Empire invades Egypt and takes Cairo and the Suez Canal (now holding an accord with Imperial Commowealth, German and Ottomon forces for rights of passage). Ottomons steam into Italian held territories in North Africa and the Italians lose half of it (they kept the coast).

South America.
Brazil invades Columbia (I think) and German held French Guiana (sp???).

WWI ends March 1915. Only A-H and Italy are still fighting over their borders.

I'll send the other maps up next as there is a limit of one map per post.

Regards,

Khib Yusa

[Khib yusa]

Part two

March 1916.
Nothing much happens. Imperial commonwealth gets more of China as does Japan, Germany takes Denmark.

Regards,

Khib Yusa

[Khib yusa]

Part three.

October 1916.
France sell of a large amount of its African Empire to the Imperial Commonwealth.
Russia and Germany invade Scandinavia. Imperial Commonwealth forces (having been there for a year are prepared) and the Germans and the Russians run into trenches.
Japan invades Russia and Portugal, Italy and Brazil join in the Scandinavian conflict (it ends up like the Western front).

Regards,

khib Yusa

[Khib yusa]

Part four.

November 1916.
Crap hits the fan big stylee.

Imperial Commonwealth sends 200+ tanks with infantry to Denmark landing at Ejsberg and cutting off all German reinforcements.
Italian mobile Artillery trounce the Russian forces and break through their lines and half way to Helsinki.
Germany invades Holland (and cowers from the Belgian border. Hehehehehe..). Fokker and the Dutch Royal Family manage to escape to England in a prototype large twin engined plane, very much dis-chuffed at the Germans.

Germany and Russia sue for peace in December 1916 after they can go no further into Scandinavia.
Russia has a revolution but General Brusilov is put in charge with Tsar Nicolas II as a figurehead.

More of China gets taken.
CSA looks like there is going to be a 'Black uprising'.
ASA is led by Custer and has gone Fascist.
USA has gone Communist.
PSA has been funded by France, Japan and the Imperial Commonwealth so that is Democratic).

Its all gone a bit wierd in the short term and it'll be totally screwed up in the long term.

Regards,

Khib Yusa.

[Bulgaroktonos]

The big problem I see is some of the logistical problems. The problem with this Alternate World War I was that you couldn't get Austria to attack France, or Germany to move through Switzerland. The French would be there. The best plan the Germans have that I am aware of is the one they used, the Schlieffen Plan, and that wasn't even close to a guarantee of victory. Germany has to go through Belgium to win, and Austria has to defend against both Italy and Russia? It isn't going to send troops to France, its going to crap its pants.

[NFR]

Originally Posted by Bulgaroktonos

The big problem I see is some of the logistical problems. The problem with this Alternate World War I was that you couldn't get Austria to attack France, or Germany to move through Switzerland. The French would be there. The best plan the Germans have that I am aware of is the one they used, the Schlieffen Plan, and that wasn't even close to a guarantee of victory. Germany has to go through Belgium to win, and Austria has to defend against both Italy and Russia? It isn't going to send troops to France, its going to crap its pants.

Not to mention invading China from Burma. Gluttons for pain invade China. Gluttons for torment invade China from Burma via Yunnan province. The place is as bad as the Caucasus, and it's bigger.

Also, Russia should be able to take Mongolia a lot quicker. Mongolia is sparsely populated and China really has no defences to speak of (not when Britain and Japan is invading all the useful bits of China). Three cavalry divisions can take the place in three monthes. The Chita garrison can take the place on its own. It'll take a bit longer, but it can do it. This isn't the China we know today, or even back in the 50s.

[Khib yusa]

Greetings,

The problem with A-H and Germany invading France has caused a couple of headaches. I still don't think that it would be possible to move through Switzerland at the speed that they did, but it made it an interesting part of the game so we let it slide (and fudged it a hell of a lot).

Italy only joined in at a later date. A-H lost a lot of troops trying to get into France and even more died when the Italians opened the Alpine front. Russia did SFA, they even had a treaty with A-H of 'we will attack you when you attack us'. All that the Austro-hungarians did was fortify their border.

Invading China through Burma with 375,000 troops would still cause a lot of pain? It wasn't all invasion by the way, some of the Chinese warlords, leaders and Generals welcomed the Imperial Commonwealth troops with open arms (and giving them caches of arms {not left or right ones} didn't hurt). Once I got started we just didn't stop, apart from making sure that I managed to consolidate the territories that had been recently won. I have something like 500,000 well trained infantry, 1,000,000 infantry and 1,500,000 Chinese militia under arms all in China.

Russia did take it in three months, but they only started in Febuary 1915. You are seeing their progress halfway through.

Regards,

Khib Yusa

[Bulgaroktonos]

Okay, well then lets go to 200+ tanks invading Denmark via the North Sea. I find it highly implausible, due ot sheer numbers, and as the British never even realized the true value of tanks until late in the war. And once they did, the war was over. Thus, you need to have some kind of reason for the British to realize the potential of tanks before they start mass producing them and using them to launch a sea borne invasion of Denmark.

[Grey Wolf]

Hmmmmm......

Are there two threads on this, or has this one been purged of off-topic posts?

Grey Wolf

[Khib yusa]

Greetings,

The invasion of Denmark was after WWI, this needs to be remembered. The tanks had been used as pillboxes in the Alpine theatre and they were altered so that they could be used the same but they were a bit faster (they were only MkI's and MkII's). This allowed them to deploy across Denmark. They were not used for a Blitzkrieg apart from going from one side of Denmark to the other. They were only used as a ploy to stall the German reenforcements and allow time for other Imperial Commonwealth troops to mobilise and force the Germans into a stalemate that they could not hope to break.

Greywolf, this is the first time that anyone from this game has posted on this site as far as I am aware. If something similar has appeared like it it was not from us. We started this in October 2003, but we only started to get the maps and everything during Febuary 2004. The WWI stuff was a right pain to sort out and we would have been going through maps at a rate of knots (at least one a week for each theatre).

Regards,

Khib Yusa.

[Grey Wolf]

Probably my mistake then, not sure which other thread had loads of maps and I made a comment about Russia, but now that I recall that was a later Russia. Apologies for that.

Grey Wolf

[MrP]

Originally Posted by Bulgaroktonos

The big problem I see is some of the logistical problems. The problem with this Alternate World War I was that you couldn't get Austria to attack France, or Germany to move through Switzerland. The French would be there. The best plan the Germans have that I am aware of is the one they used, the Schlieffen Plan, and that wasn't even close to a guarantee of victory. Germany has to go through Belgium to win, and Austria has to defend against both Italy and Russia? It isn't going to send troops to France, its going to crap its pants.

Yes, my fault, I'm afraid. I'm the fool responsible for all the *ahem* hiccups you see here. Germany & A-H were originally controlled by one player, whom I let invade Switzerland with A-H troops, while the rest of his armies sat around inactive. To be honest, I felt a bit sorry for the guy, and let this cloud my judgement. I've since rationalised the A-H success by appeal to the fact that Sw was pretty internally messed up by WWI because of internal faction. So I've backdated this to yield a civil war and mess of internal hatred. Whether this'd've let the Austrians through is still dubious. However, post-war it does give A-H another province filled with natives who hate their neighbours and everyone else.

IRL Germany promised shortly prior to the war not to invade Sw, as the Swiss were very nervy about it. I agree that getting through Sw mountains is no fun. In my defence, A-H took such appalling casualties in the action that all they were able to do was divide Fr attention.

Germany feinted at Belgium, but most of the army was in the south, and Fr had to divide her army up still further to cover the gap created by the Sw defeat. In short, the French were unable to perform the historical concentration in the North, and had army groups running down the Dijon-Lyon-Grenoble line. There was also great fear in the French high command of Italy coming in on the side of her Triple Alliance partners. Further troops were diverted to guard against this.

A decisive campaign near Belfort (my memory escapes me, and my notes are elsewhere) knocked a hole in the defences that couldn't be plugged, and France suffered another 1871. As I hadn't been able to get a player for France, and was then running her and adjudicating, it's almost certain I bent too far in the direction of not helping her enough, rather than too much.

Originally Posted by NFR

Not to mention invading China from Burma. Gluttons for pain invade China. Gluttons for torment invade China from Burma via Yunnan province. The place is as bad as the Caucasus, and it's bigger.

Also, Russia should be able to take Mongolia a lot quicker. Mongolia is sparsely populated and China really has no defences to speak of (not when Britain and Japan is invading all the useful bits of China). Three cavalry divisions can take the place in three monthes. The Chita garrison can take the place on its own. It'll take a bit longer, but it can do it. This isn't the China we know today, or even back in the 50s.

As Khib says, Mongolia collapsed in the face of Russian invasion - the populace are mainly in camps at the moment. Well, the survivors, anyway. There's still some guerilla activity, but copying Britain in the latter stages of the Boer War has prevented the worst of it.

China wasn't invaded via Burma. The scenario's more like this: China is even shakier than IRL, various foreign and internal concerns prod her till she falls to pieces. Then Britain and Japan, as the major powers (Germany having lost Tsingtao by now) start shovelling troops into the area. These troops initially merely secure the areas near their nations' holdings, but subsequently "friendly" warlords receive the benefit of English or Japanese training, weaponry &c.

The Indian Army was a large part of this operation. As you all know, the IA mainly can't serve outside India - so to fix this the Empire promises greater autonomy in exchange for the help. Local princelings forming a "house of Lords", who knows, maybe even an Indian PM in a decade or so. Chuffed at the idea of getting some more power, the aristocrats support the idea, and so do there subjects, who promptly sign up in droves as volunteers. The IA doubles (or triples, as I say, my notes are elsewhere atm) over the course of a few years. Large numbers of personnel go to China after training, where they train locals. A few careful (or callous) demonstrations of the danger of annoying the Anglo-Indians convinces all but the stupidest coastal rulers of the wisdom of cooperation. A number of warlords extend their areas substantially with Anglo-Indian assistance, acting as good publicity.

Technically the British Empire doesn't control China. It DOES have favoured nation status, a near monopoly on trade, and supplies all the warlords with guns &c. Ergo she does control a lot of China unofficially.

Since the game is reliant on human players, and I have them on a very loose rein, there are some nonsense events. The last few game months have witnessed the Ottomans permitting the Italians to sail half a dozen dreadnoughts and 75,000 elite troops through the Dardanelles to invade the Crimean peninsula. Given that the Ott Empire and Italians had been at war shortly before in Libya, I really don't see this happening IRL - but my Sultan agreed to it. So . . .

[NFR]

Originally Posted by MrP

CUT CUT CUT
As Khib says, Mongolia collapsed in the face of Russian invasion - the populace are mainly in camps at the moment. Well, the survivors, anyway. There's still some guerilla activity, but copying Britain in the latter stages of the Boer War has prevented the worst of it.

I have no problem with that. Remember my complaint was that it was too slow. Mongolia has too small of a population, is too flat, and has no railway. Russia has railway, and on that front actually similar population, and a lot more soldiers.

China wasn't invaded via Burma.

Asia.
Japan invades German held French Indo-China and starts to invade China along Russias border.
Russia invades Mongolia with cavalry and takes it.
The British Empire invades China from the coast and India.

Could have fooled me. The only other routes into China is Tibet, which is even worse.

The scenario's more like this: China is even shakier than IRL, various foreign and internal concerns prod her till she falls to pieces. Then Britain and Japan, as the major powers (Germany having lost Tsingtao by now) start shovelling troops into the area. These troops initially merely secure the areas near their nations' holdings, but subsequently "friendly" warlords receive the benefit of English or Japanese training, weaponry &c.

Do you know what happens when you train large numbers of Chinese troops and give them modern weaponry? What reason is there for 'friendly' warlords to stay friendly after they get all they can out of the deal? Only for protection against other warlords and great powers, and that means any control would be tenuous. We saw all of this in our time line. Japan had to physically occupy China in the end because training puppets was just a complete non-starter.

The Indian Army was a large part of this operation. As you all know, the IA mainly can't serve outside India - so to fix this the Empire promises greater autonomy in exchange for the help. Local princelings forming a "house of Lords", who knows, maybe even an Indian PM in a decade or so. Chuffed at the idea of getting some more power, the aristocrats support the idea, and so do there subjects, who promptly sign up in droves as volunteers. The IA doubles (or triples, as I say, my notes are elsewhere atm) over the course of a few years. Large numbers of personnel go to China after training, where they train locals. A few careful (or callous) demonstrations of the danger of annoying the Anglo-Indians convinces all but the stupidest coastal rulers of the wisdom of cooperation. A number of warlords extend their areas substantially with Anglo-Indian assistance, acting as good publicity.

Having an army is one thing. Supplying it is another. Just ask the Imperial Japanese. And your supply centres are further away than Japan, which had Taiwan, Korea and of course Manchuria. And once again you run into the problem of supporting the warlords. They get more land, weapons, and soldiers, and the more powerful they get, the less likely they are to stay loyal. What makes you think they'd stick to the party line? Loyalty? Sheer admiration for Englishmen?

Technically the British Empire doesn't control China. It DOES have favoured nation status, a near monopoly on trade, and supplies all the warlords with guns &c. Ergo she does control a lot of China unofficially.

She controls China only so long as it suits the warlords, who can also get stuff from the Japanese and Russians. Even if they are busy fighting each other, 'controling' anything other than coastal enclaves would be nominal at best.

Bottom line, what I really don't get is why in the middle of a world war Britain would suddenly decide that getting into an expensive wrangle in China would be a good idea. For the trade? Chinese trade was pitiful at the beginning of last century, and if as you said it was more fragmented, trade would only be worse. You have also to supply them with guns, and train their soldiers with your experienced officers and NCOs. You have to supply your own occupation troops. It's just not the sort of thing a British parliament is likely to approve of.