The Sun, The Stars and The Sickle: Alt-WWII and a Tripolar Postwar World

What would you like to see next


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Yatta

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I wonder how Tube Alloys/F-Go/Ni-Go/French project/Manhattan Project is coming along. It may be necessary to use them with the current state of the URSS.
 
The Manhattan Project is probably the furthest along, thanks to the sheer amount of money and resources the Americans can throw at the problem compared to their Allies, while still pumping out ships, planes, tanks, guns, and GIs by the thousand per day.
 
You mean the treaty limitations currently being flagrantly ignored by the worlds leading navies and their new building programs

The Paris Naval Treaty was abrogated on September 1st, 1939. Granted, the USN's Oregon class battleships (49 000 t) displaced over the Treaty limit of 44 000 t but well under the 35% escalator (59 400 t). The Yamatos, the first of the real treaty-busters weigh in at about 59 000 t light just in case the IJN really needed to cheat, but Vanguard and the Alabamas are heavier still.

Indeed. There's also the fact that the Allies won't want to push the Mediterannean Pact into the arms of the Germans. And once the war is finished, the Imperial Pact, the USA and Soviet Union all won't want to push Mussolini and his allies into each other's arms either. So I don't think anyone will seriously bother the Italians about those ships, not when the Med Pact is not threatening anyone and there's bigger fish.

Indeed! Mussolini is more than likely relishing his newfound power, even if it is just limited to giving the various Allied nations a headache over who's problem he is. As for the ships, nobody really wants the Soviets to have them either. Even with them, all that means is that the Italians have local naval superiority in the Mediterranean, if the Americans don't get involved. If the RM posed a serious threat to Allied ambitions, the USN could just as easily shift the situation in Allied favour.

No, but assuming they're toothless and totally won't hold a grudge over it, well.....

Stalin can hold a grudge, but how it will play out is yet to be determined. The biggest consequence would be Stalin feeling like he were being treated as a second-class ally, and lashing out at the other Allied nations as a consequence.

I wonder how Tube Alloys/F-Go/Ni-Go/French project/Manhattan Project is coming along. It may be necessary to use them with the current state of the URSS.

The Manhattan Project is indeed the farthest along and best funded. Tube Alloys is in second, the French effort second last. The Japanese projects are stalled, as although the Imperial Palace has ordered the two efforts to be consolidated, the Army and the Navy can't agree on who's responsibility it is. If it is to be a last-ditch weapon used to defend the Home Islands, it would be an Army project, but if it is a strategic power-projection weapon, then it would be the Navy's responsibility. The Navy has its bombers, but the Army wants an Ohka or something like it, and launching them at invaders in the manner of a V1.
 
But do the Allies really fear Mussolini joining Hitler now ?

Not so much that Mussolini will guide the Mediterranean Accord into joining the Pact of Steel (none of the other nations want to) but that they will now be bolder in making demands of the Allies in exchange for cooperation. As much as the Allies dislike Mussolini, they aren't going to bother trying to depose him unless he does something stupid like outright committing Italy to the Pact of Steel.
 
What would be TTLs version of fatherland? My initial assumption would be a cold war between the Pacific Treaty Organization (America and Japan) vs Greater Germany
 
What would be TTLs version of fatherland? My initial assumption would be a cold war between the Pacific Treaty Organization (America and Japan) vs Greater Germany

I was thinking a kind of Heartland vs. Rimland scenario, where it would be difficult to break a deadlock without things going especially hot
 
One figure I have yet to cover is William Forbes-Sempill, the Master of and then 19th Lord Sempill. A Highland Scottish peer and aviation pioneer, he was (in)famous OTL for first being a naval aviation attaché to the Empire of Japan, and after the Anglo-Japanese Alliance expired, a spy for Japan. He also developed a rather unsavoury affinity for far-right authoritarian regimes and even joined pro-Nazi organizations after the death of his wife in 1935.

TTL, the trajectory is much the same as OTL up until 1934- caught spying in 1926 but nothing done about it, but it is around the time of rapprochement where real changes come. The Foreign Office, wary that Sempill may be more interested in representing Tokyo's interests than London's, nonetheless approaches Sempill, informally, as an expert on Japan.

Sempill becomes among, if not the strongest voice in the House of Lords for stronger Anglo-Japanese cooperation in the late 1930s, yet it is almost embarrassing to hear the vitriol he holds for Chiang Kai-Shek and Hitler, especially after they renewed the Sino-German Pact in 1935.

The Japanese are also quite fond of their adopted Scottish lord, even if he is responsible for intoducing the Great Highland Bagpipe to the Imperial Japanese Army...
 
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I'd have thought Churchill would be just fine with a Scotsman pouring on the vitriol against Hitler and his gang.

Churchill would be fine with it, but the Conservative establishment in the "Peace In Our Time" era is a different matter entirely.

As it turns out, Hitler classifying the Japanese as racially inferior does much to inflame Sempill's passions.
 
ITTL version of fatherland
(My unoriginal ass is borrowing from the iron dream)

POD: either something screwing with American and/or Japanese involvement in the war, and/or Germany doing even better somehow and conquer Moscow. Either way, America and or Japan cut their losses after Britain is defeated and distance makes the war more trouble than it's worth.

After snatching up what's left of the Soviet Union, Japan and America form the Pacific Rim Treaty Organization to oppose their common foe. Despite this they aren't the best of friends and their relationship shows signs of breaking, something the current fuhrer hopes to exploit by inviting either the president or a member of Japanese royalty to Berlin.
 
How fortuitous then, that the establishment has wised up since.

Indeed it is! Churchill no doubt felt at least some degree of vindication when "Sempill of the Rising Sun" mentions that every promise to Britain Mr. Hitler has made had been broken, in stark contrast to His Imperial Japanese Majesty's government abiding by the naval treaties and becoming a valuable trade partner.
 
ITTL version of fatherland
(My unoriginal ass is borrowing from the iron dream)

POD: either something screwing with American and/or Japanese involvement in the war, and/or Germany doing even better somehow and conquer Moscow. Either way, America and or Japan cut their losses after Britain is defeated and distance makes the war more trouble than it's worth.

After snatching up what's left of the Soviet Union, Japan and America form the Pacific Rim Treaty Organization to oppose their common foe. Despite this they aren't the best of friends and their relationship shows signs of breaking, something the current fuhrer hopes to exploit by inviting either the president or a member of Japanese royalty to Berlin.

Looks like an interesting dystopian novel within this TL!

There is one problem though, and that would be defeating Britain. Unless the TTL-within-TTL Nazis build super bombers and nukes, you're still dealing with an Unmentionable Sea Mammal scenario.

This is also between the Kriegsmarine that pulled off Unternahmen Wikinger* versus the Royal Navy that pulled off Operation Tiger, which... complicates matters slightly.

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* Operation Viking, undertaken February 6th, 1940, was supposed to be a routine destroyer patrol to dislodge British submarines and trawlers in the Dogger Bank. What happened was an embarrassing display of nonexistent interservice communication and bad seamanship.

There were 6 destroyers in the flottilla, and when they spotted aircraft, they fired on them. As it would turn out, they were Luftwaffe bombers, and neither service informed the other of their presence. The bombers sunk two destroyers, and another destroyer, in a panic, started dropping depth charges on the "submarine" that sunk the other two, and damaged herself severely by overrunning charges set too shallow.
 

Yatta

Donor
If the British capture the Luftwaffe pilots, they should give them a medal for their service to King and Country.
 
Re-reading the thread, and I noticed how the British press on the victory in Norway was comparing King Haakon's mustache to Hitler's.

220px-Haakon_VII_FSA.jpg


I wonder if they might do the same to the Japanese princes, at least two of which favor similarly artful styles ;)

There's Prince Morimasa Nashimoto,

Morimasa_Nashimotonomiya.jpg


And there's Prince Kotohito Kan'in.

220px-Prince_Kanin_Kotohito%28cropped%29.jpg


Or, as you've mentioned before, the Emperor at his microscope is a popular piece of propaganda, and I can see how.
emperor-hirohito-puts-specimens-on-a-slide-under-the-microscope,2435510.jpg


The studious and intellectual enlightened ruler of the Land of the Rising Sun, in contrast to the warlike and belligerent Generalissimo of the Kuomintang Clique.
 
There is one problem though, and that would be defeating Britain. Unless the TTL-within-TTL Nazis build super bombers and nukes, you're still dealing with an Unmentionable Sea Mammal scenario.
Did that ever stop anyone who writes these books? It stops the common AHer but not the likes of Philip k dick or Robert Harris
 
Re-reading the thread, and I noticed how the British press on the victory in Norway was comparing King Haakon's mustache to Hitler's.

220px-Haakon_VII_FSA.jpg


I wonder if they might do the same to the Japanese princes, at least two of which favor similarly artful styles ;)

There's Prince Morimasa Nashimoto,

Morimasa_Nashimotonomiya.jpg


And there's Prince Kotohito Kan'in.

220px-Prince_Kanin_Kotohito%28cropped%29.jpg

It is likely that mention will be made of the "regal bearing" of the two Field Marshals, and that Hitler may be suffering from envy of such impressive and gravity-defying moustaches.



Or, as you've mentioned before, the Emperor at his microscope is a popular piece of propaganda, and I can see how.
emperor-hirohito-puts-specimens-on-a-slide-under-the-microscope,2435510.jpg


The studious and intellectual enlightened ruler of the Land of the Rising Sun, in contrast to the warlike and belligerent Generalissimo of the Kuomintang Clique.

Indeed!

"THIS is the man that the Hun call "racially inferior" and a "Yellow Devil". Hirohito, the Emperor of Japan, is seated at his microscope in the Imperial Palace in Tokyo. This image speaks to the character of our allies. He is no savage warlord; he is not only a driving force behind modernization in Japan just like his father and grandfather before him, he is also a scientist who has published several respectable volumes on marine life. While Hitler manically obsesses over discovering new ways to cause death and destruction and making noisy, bombastic speeches, Emperor Hirohito devotes whatever spare moments he can find to discovering life and furthering Mankind's knowledge. When our enemies are led by a mad corporal who speaks through a phony intellectual -yes, that would be Goebbels- it is no surprise that they hate him so, for Emperor Hirohito reminds them of what they are not, and what they can never be. Tyrants, more concerned with burning books than writing them, inexorably drive their people to certain doom."
 
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