Recent content by King Augeas

Fantastic update, not only entirely in line with this WTF-is going-on? TL, but entirely credible too. Likely, even. The bomb went off OTL and had Hitler stuck to his usual schedule, he'd have been there...

Britain has no other road to victory. For all Japan's inferiority in industry, Britain doesn't have the strength or desire to invade. Barring something unexpected, the war would end with a negotiated settlement.

I'm not sure there was a clear idea of how to use GZ. Certainly ideas would have varied during design and construction as the naval situation changed. But I'm fairly confident that the heavy armament and fast speed was an explicit recognition of the dangers of operating in the North Sea at...

Intra-service feuding, bomber carriers, South American arms races... this TL is about as messy as reality. :p

Heavy losses, yes. But they were acceptable, because the strategic goal of resupplying Malta and reestablishing it as an offensive base was achieved for long enough that another major convoy - where the naval and merchant losses sustained in Pedestal might have mattered- never needed to be sent...

Re. Pedestal - it's worth noting that the while the Italian light forces inflicted severe losses, they failed to stop the convoy... well, the survivors... getting through. The Italian cruiser force should have slammed the door shut on the survivors on 13th August. But they weren't there. It's...

I don't get it. A TF is a small fleet. More agile and easier to command? Sure. Capable of standing up to a larger, concentrated fleet? No. It just gives you a chance to either run away more efficiently, or to get a fraction of your fleet crushed by a superior force. Beatty had a TF at...

Don't presume that an alt-Channel Dash would go as the historical one did. While the German plan was excellent, they were greatly helped by not being detected for ages because IIRC the guard submarine had had to withdraw and radar-equipped patrol aircraft had technical failures. It's...

An astute AM will recognise that the war will be won and lost in Russia, most likely outside or in Moscow, and will demand those convoys get through.

Yeah, it tells you that unsupported paratroops get slaughtered. Their role remains for D-Day - seize lightly-held vital points and hold briefly until relieved - but someone might think twice about whether that's a fair description of an alt-Market Garden...

These aren't pacts, they're declarations of war. Let's go back a step and see what the pact might say.

Yep, I'm sure it's bloody fool.

It's also a railway that means Italy doesn't need German support for a drive on Egypt, because there's this wonderful railway to solve their problems. And will take the British counterattack all the way to Tripoli, possibly.

The impossibility of forcing Britain out of the war in any sensible timeframe (or at all!) really shows just how catastrophic Germany's strategic sitation was after the fall of France. Stuck fighting an unwinnable war, blockaded and with inadequate resources to run her own economy, let alone...

Clear North Africa by summer 1941 and then have the foresight to redeploy substantial well-led forces to Malaya, with the expectation that war is coming. Otherwise it's not possible, frankly.