Well, you clearly need railroad and telegraph, so probably not much before 1840s/1850s. I think after that it's more a matter of military innovation then technological requirements. If you think radio is vital you could have a POD speeding up its development.
So what is the earliest possible POD for a rapid end to "line" warfare? Could widespread adoption of the Ferguson Rifle do it?
Edit: That's probably not good enough. Maybe an Austro-Prussian war (needle guns) in the 1850s rather than the 1860s?
I would be interested in knowing about the relative morale of the NASA and USAF astronauts. Perhaps I've just read too much into The Right Stuff, but in light of the successful X-20 program, are Crossfield, Crews, et al. still thinking that they're the "real" space pilots and the NASA guys are...
Eh, I'm not sure the effects would really be so big. People of English heritage just wouldn't celebrate the holiday, or if they did it would be more like Good Friday or some other obscure religious holiday.
Edit: I'm not sure they really wanted to abolish the holiday, just some traditional...
So we are seeing some financial trade-offs and more emphasis on manned over unmanned exploration. I don't really know how to predict the consequences of that since it obviously didn't happen OTL.
I see his strategy as precursor to modern guerrilla/asymmetric warfare.
There are lots of other examples of a strategic decision to avoid pitched battles resulting in victory. To name a few, American Revolutionary War, Texas Revolutionary War, Russian response to Napoleon's invasion (at least...
What about Quintus Fabius Maximus Verrucosus Cunctator? I'm shocked that he hasn't been mentioned yet. Certainly the most relevant to modern military thought.
Agreed. In particular, the ineptitude of the early Enterprise episodes turned off a lot of people who never came back.
Also, notice how many of these are "covert alien invasion" series. I think that people are a little tired of that at this point.
Really Jericho and Firefly are the only...
Why is France in the war at all?
As others have pointed out in similar threads, the Franco-Russian alliance only involved defense against the Triple Alliance, not against Japan. France has nothing to gain from the Russo-Japanese war.
Also, I think that sharlin is correct that the UK would...