In OTL circumstances (oil embargo, etc.) pushed the two Japanese services together and enhanced the prestige of the IJA. Here, the IJA is doing a little less well and the fact that the IJA General Staff was set up by the Germans while the IJN was very heavily modelled on the Royal Navy. There's nothing firm, but I think it's strongly suggestive that tensions between the two services will be much higher while the IJN at least will have no interest in starting a war with the Entente powers.Japan is doing the math on "Is an army/navy civil war more or less costly than starting a war in SE Asia against an alliance that's looking *much* more stable than IRL (plus, America doesn't have the political capital to force an oil embargo, so the Allies are allowing sales if the Japanese have hard currency to buy) and right now, civil war might be a winner.
What I have in mind is more or less what happened to Germany in OTL under a Japanese-style pacifist constitution (possibly even more stringent than Japan's). It'll be quite some time before Germany gets that level of self-government though: short term policy is that there is no longer a German government of any sort and civil government is handled by the military occupation authorities, although I'd bet that plan doesn't survive long in contact with reality.Likely outcome in Germany is a demilitarized state cut down to Poland's benefit, policed by UK&France for two generations, with German minorities outside Germany forcibly relocated, as the Allies are super disinterested in fighting this war again in twenty years.
I've partially written it (technology and hardware but no politics). What I have in mind is somewhere between OTL and the 1930s, played out by very nuclear-heavy forces.Certainly wary, the Soviets in this TL have been no friend of the Allies, bellicose with Finland and Romania, and are responsible for no small amount of material support to the Nazis (Stalin, hoping to string Hitler along just enough to let the West bleed itself white in preparation for Red revolution).
Long term, Tube Alloys and the Franco-British nuclear program look to keep the USSR out of Europe, the future looks to be nothing short of very interesting, with a cold war likely very similar and yet very different from our own in the cards
The 1950s British Global Strategy Paper (pre-Sandystorm) is driving a lot of this: the British were well aware that they would lose any conventional war with the Soviet Union, and that they had no interest in invading the USSR. Therefore, the logic (which they never quite followed through to it's logical conclusion - largely due to the influence of the US via NATO I suspect) was that they needed the cheapest possible colonial gendarmerie, a handful of armoured divisions to act as a credible tripwire and as many nuclear weapons as they could lay their hands on. ITTL, Japan means that they need a high-end navy rather than some floating airbases, but fundamentally the logic reads across to this timeline.
That rather relies on people believing it'll happen quickly. Right now the ZWZ controls something like a third of Poland, and with some very limited support (anything heavier than small arms, essentially) could take the rest pretty quickly.Wouldn't the advantage to taking Berlin be that a general Surrender might be agreed to by the German leadership allowing the Polish Home Army to not have to fight any more?
It's scheduled to happen the day after tomorrow, so they'd better get a move-on. Crippled by a lack of trucks or not, I'd be surprised if the RKKA can't occupy all of it by sunset given the amount of high-level attention they're getting and the distinct lack of defending forces.The question is whether Stalin is going to get his plans to invade the remainder of pre-war Lithuania or not.
The rail lines out of the Ruhr are comprehensively smashed, mostly by the RAF - fuel is coming in via Hamburg and then shipped by rail from there. The system is much more intact but has lots of low-level problems and a severe coal shortage - that's why they can get a trickle through so fast. The lines out of the Ruhr won't be much use before the springtime.So once the rail connections in the Ruhr are fixed, the British and French can ship the fuel by rail almost to the front line? I presume the break of Gauge is on the pre-war Polish/Soviet border?
Norwegians in the north, British in the south, and potentially Union in the east if they keep fighting after a German surrender. Zero chance of it surviving more than a few days after the rest of Germany.Also without the fanatics, I don't think there is any chance of a Fortress Norway.