Miscellaneous >1900 (Alternate) History Thread
- Thread starter RMcD94
- Start date
Soviet Union Census of 1926 would probably be the best source for that.... Just need to have an idea of what the internal administrative divisions were at that time....
So I'm not naive enough to say that Germany could win an arms race against Great Britain, even assuming a delayed WWI. But I don't know why, specifically. Would more resources have made a difference? Let's just say they had annexed more of Lorraine to include Briey Longwy, Luxembourg, and most Belgian land West of the Meuse. That's a ridiculously large addition of iron and coal to German industry. So could this give them an edge in significantly boosting their navy?
I assume naval arms race, since Army wise, arguably Germany led all the way up to when the blockade strangled munitions production by limiting incoming nitrate/guano late during WW1. (Ignoring of course, that it wasn't exclusively Britain vs Germany, but the not so small contribution of France and Russia and others...)
Naval arms race wise, political will to allocate more budget to the navy and sufficiently large ship yards are more of a bottleneck than all the steel and coal in the world.
So you'd have to find a way to produce a budget surplus large enough that a significant part will flow into naval building - shipyard expansions just as much as ships themselves. And well, as far as I know there weren't any easily annexed yards near enough the German borders. And if they did try for the French or Belgian Channel ports (if they even had sufficient big yards - I'd assume Antwerpen had, but less sure about the other candidates), well you'll more likely to have that showdown earlier than later - though it might also be a more limited event compared to WW1.
He'd have pretty low credibility among nationalists, unless it was an incidental thing like the urban legend about Hitler being part Jewish or actual Nazis with Jewish ancestors like Erhard Milch. Granted, there were DNVP members who were Jews, but it's hard to imagine a Jewish person becoming a Hitler-style dictator simply because their fellow nationalists would hold a suspicion of them, even if they were otherwise tolerant.
what British Navy or any navy tbh focused TLs are there? I loved Jutland Redux and now I'm hankering for more like it
I highly recommend Dread Nought but the Fury of the Seas by @sts-200
Dread Nought but the Fury of the Seas
Rumours of War The assassination of an Austrian Archduke would trigger a war that had been building for years. However, as the echoes of the shots died away, it was not immediately obvious that would be a world war. The Great Powers did not react immediately; ‘We should not be greatly concerned...
www.alternatehistory.com
Grey Wolf
Donor
You'd have to expand some of the secondary shipyards so they are capable of dreadnought construction:- Schichau, Danzig for example. This can only really be done with government money as these yards won't have the capacity to expand on spec.
Then you need to solve the navy/army split, though if you have significantly increased territory then you have done that to a degree as the question is always the manpower going into the navy rather than into the army.
Viable overseas bases would of course help - but this is a hard one. On one level, of course, Tsingtao was such a base. But these bases are only viable if not under direct amphibious attack, and all of Germany's colonies would eventually fall that way. Planned division of the Portuguese Empire with Britain might have helped somewhat, though the most useful potential additions would not have been up for grabs (eg Azores) as they were considered an integral part of the Portuguese state.
Then you need a strategy to win
- bringing the Grand Fleet to battle
- cruiser raids on convoys under cover of the HSF
- ability to break into the Channel
Something that does something with the fleet, and uses seapower in a meaningful sense
best regards
Grey Wolf
New Brunswick was divided internally between French-speaking north (Acadie) and English-speaking south.
So, because I have completely failed to find any sort of "Alternate History Spacecraft" thread where I could ask this question (that wasn't several years dormant, at least), I'm going to ask here.
I've been thinking about "post-Shuttle" spacecraft designs, inspired pretty heavily by Eyes Turned Skywards and Boldly Going - specifically, the idea of combining the "X-33 derived fly-back/fly-forward first stage" of Starclipper (from Eyes Turned Skywards) with the "optionally manned fully reusable second stage" of Shuttle II (from Boldly Going).
My primary questions are 1), how feasible would it be to swap the aerospikes on the Starclipper first stage for RS-25 or RS-68 derived engines (assuming this would also mean X-33 operates with non-aerospike engines), 2) how feasible would it be to scale Boldly Going's Shuttle II (which is either 8 crew or ~15 tons of payload to LEO) up to carrying OTL!Shuttle sized payloads (assuming you got those payloads in the unmanned configuration), or 8 crew and a lighter logistics/satellite payload?
Basic idea is the first stage would be shaped roughly like the X-33/VentureStar, but built exclusively as a fly-back first stage. Thrust would be provided by conventional bell nozzle engines, ideally ones with minimal alteration to existing engine hardware to allow for an earlier first flight. Second stage would be closer to the Shuttle II in Boldly Going - normally unmanned, cargo bay/mount sandwiched between LH2/LOX tankage, non-toxic RCS and APU, RL10s or similar small cryogenic engines for OMS (supplemented by large RCS thrusters for fuel settling/small maneuvers). Launch profile more or less as seen with ETS!Starclipper - first stage boosts second stage and then separates to glide forward to a landing site in Florida for normal launches, while the second stage air-starts its main engine and carries on to orbit.
Both stages would be using metallic TPS, and composite tanks would be used where feasible (ie., the first stage LH2 tank would probably be similar material to the Shuttle LWT or SLWT, but the others could potentially be composite if they could pass the pressure tests and such). Engines would likely be RS-25 derivatives if possible - 35:1 ratio nozzles on the first stage to optimize for its purpose, while the second stage could either retain the standard nozzle or be upgraded with a deployable nozzle extension to improve vacuum specific impulse (possibly raising expansion ratio to ~150 - 180:1?).
This idea is probably not particularly feasible to get backing for in the 1980s/1990s, but I would be pleasantly surprised if it could replace the X-33/VentureStar SSTO concept without too much finagling if you handwave how the original idea is conceived.
I've been thinking about "post-Shuttle" spacecraft designs, inspired pretty heavily by Eyes Turned Skywards and Boldly Going - specifically, the idea of combining the "X-33 derived fly-back/fly-forward first stage" of Starclipper (from Eyes Turned Skywards) with the "optionally manned fully reusable second stage" of Shuttle II (from Boldly Going).
My primary questions are 1), how feasible would it be to swap the aerospikes on the Starclipper first stage for RS-25 or RS-68 derived engines (assuming this would also mean X-33 operates with non-aerospike engines), 2) how feasible would it be to scale Boldly Going's Shuttle II (which is either 8 crew or ~15 tons of payload to LEO) up to carrying OTL!Shuttle sized payloads (assuming you got those payloads in the unmanned configuration), or 8 crew and a lighter logistics/satellite payload?
Basic idea is the first stage would be shaped roughly like the X-33/VentureStar, but built exclusively as a fly-back first stage. Thrust would be provided by conventional bell nozzle engines, ideally ones with minimal alteration to existing engine hardware to allow for an earlier first flight. Second stage would be closer to the Shuttle II in Boldly Going - normally unmanned, cargo bay/mount sandwiched between LH2/LOX tankage, non-toxic RCS and APU, RL10s or similar small cryogenic engines for OMS (supplemented by large RCS thrusters for fuel settling/small maneuvers). Launch profile more or less as seen with ETS!Starclipper - first stage boosts second stage and then separates to glide forward to a landing site in Florida for normal launches, while the second stage air-starts its main engine and carries on to orbit.
Both stages would be using metallic TPS, and composite tanks would be used where feasible (ie., the first stage LH2 tank would probably be similar material to the Shuttle LWT or SLWT, but the others could potentially be composite if they could pass the pressure tests and such). Engines would likely be RS-25 derivatives if possible - 35:1 ratio nozzles on the first stage to optimize for its purpose, while the second stage could either retain the standard nozzle or be upgraded with a deployable nozzle extension to improve vacuum specific impulse (possibly raising expansion ratio to ~150 - 180:1?).
This idea is probably not particularly feasible to get backing for in the 1980s/1990s, but I would be pleasantly surprised if it could replace the X-33/VentureStar SSTO concept without too much finagling if you handwave how the original idea is conceived.
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You may have better luck in the alternate aircraft of nations thread for the above.
Thanks for your answer Grey Wolf!
How does one find out how much it costs to expand its naval shipyard's construction capacity by say 10-25% per year, how much Germany's budget is, and how much its economy could possibly grow with a massive boost to the pool of its available resources? If the answer is somewhere between an educated estimation and sheer speculation, how far off can you reasonably be from the actual numbers before you dive into the land of ASBs?
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Grey Wolf
Donor
It wouldn't just be capacity per se, it would be to get slips of a length to construct battleships/battlecruisers upon. Not that I can help with calculations, but I thought it needed pointing out, it's not about more of the same/what they are doing, but about a capability leap.
I imagine the figures are out there somewhere, hidden in the accounts of the dockyards that did do this.
What if under Mussolini Italy continues to build railroads in coastal Libya, so by the time of word war two 950 mm gauge railroad stretches from Tripolitania to Cyrenaica?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Italian_Libya_Railways
How would it impact war in North Africa?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Italian_Libya_Railways
How would it impact war in North Africa?
How could women in the "Rosie the Riveter" era stay in the work force after the war ends?
(I'm sorry if this is come out as ignorant or what)
as far as I'm concerned, the indian partition was wanted by at least Pakistanis, so why is there many outcry that the partition was a very unpopular thing to do ? i can understand the horrendous aftermath of that, but as far as i know, the pakistanis wanted that.
as far as I'm concerned, the indian partition was wanted by at least Pakistanis, so why is there many outcry that the partition was a very unpopular thing to do ? i can understand the horrendous aftermath of that, but as far as i know, the pakistanis wanted that.