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Probably true. But Gary Gygax had the insight creativity to move role playing from a hard core nerd activity to a mass movement: - Gygax's D&D had rules of varying levels of complexity and cost (basic, expert and advanced). This allowed it to appeal to ages from 9-99 and attracted a greater...

Hmmm...... Spin off novels: The Dragon Lance and other series such as Elf Stones of Shanara were inspired by "D&D" (especially Dragon Lance). No legions of D&D fans buying new novel releases like clockwork would greatly impact sales. I remember there were other D&D inspired fantasy series...

Jordan: Wants to modestly diversify away from a near total western aircraft inventory. Lacking oil revenue, they also fall in love with the price of Soviet hardware following the collapse of the USSR. Unable to match the lavishly equipped and immaculately trained IAF in fighter strength, the...

Lawrence of Arabia in Burma? (Well, the 1944 campaign, not the 1942 one).

Given the standard of living differences, it would take large incentives. There were also some cultural differences as well. A certain number of the Prussian Poles were members of Polish subgroups with varying degrees of German cultural influences. In the case of some of the smaller groups...

Then factor in that Nicolas was only marginally competent at best. This eliminates say, a Singaporean type benevolent dictator, who may have "quirks", but knows what he is doing. And.... unlike the Saudis who also display marginal governing competency, the Czar cannot buy loyalty to the Olde...

The Russian army was conscript based and not monolithic in terms of inherent loyalty to “the system”. Even worse, the imperial army lacked a well-trained and motivational officer and NCO corps capable of instilling Ancien Regime loyalties in conscripts. Sure, Guard regiments, select...

You could probably add Guyana, French Guinea, Aruba (not countries, but what- self governing possessions?), and Trinidad / Tobago to that list as well.

I am thinking that the dilution would have been minimal. The Waffen SS. like a lot of elite units, had an extremely effective internal training program that delivered first class training to conscript and volunteer alike. Though volunteers were preferred, anybody passing through that the...

I agree completely. Even after three exhausting years of war, the Germans could still produce enough technological, enough training advantages and enough tactical / operational level leadership advantages to fight offensively against a numerically superior enemy of increasing abilities that had...

I need to admit that I am not familiar with German goals for Kursk and am looking forward to reading the 400 page definitive. But dry book by Robert Glantz that is coming in the mail to me. That aside, I think the Soviet blunting of the German attack at Kursk went beyond German lack of success...

I think that is a very good summary of the whole battle. The Germans were winning, but needed to dominate 1941 style. Soviet quantity and Soviet quality improvements prevented the Germans from leveraging their remaining quality advantage to battle field dominance. So... the Germans broke off...

Though not a national leader per se, Israeli super general Moshe Dayan almost became a casualty during a skirmish between British sponsored units and pro Vichy foreign legionaires in Syria.

Though I agree that the UK would eventually reach a use of force level that was not viable, there is plenty of middle ground between acceptance and machine gunning en masse. The border had a pretty secure fence. For example: - Increase fencing and add military level engineering obstacles...

The return of all formerly uhmm...... "appropriated" territories to at least nominal Chinese sovereignty was a matter of deep national pride and a high level policy goal to the Chinese leadership. My guess is that push come to shove, the Chinese were very willing to invade to accomplish that...

In theory, they could do just that. Borders, however, are far harder to control in reality. People have ways of entering and once they have entered, removing them can be difficult. By imperial bling standards not much. Even prior to the ouster, the actual Romanov personal fortune (as...

Denmark was a small, ethnically homogenous nation with no immigrant history that was close to the Russian Empire. Denmark would not only be sheltering the royal family, but the royal family could be a beacon for many more white Russians. France, which did have at least somewhat of an immigrant...

Because the Japanese attitude was changing- though slowly and still suicidal by western standards. About 10,000 prisoners were taken on Okinawa, including 7,000 or so mainland Japanese (the remainder being Okinawans). The proportion of the defenders that that this figure represents can range...

Good point. I would go for two sources of electrical power with the ship board source being retained and mining engineers setting up land generators and running alternate electric cables to the ship (buried in very deep trenches).

I see your point regarding Hanoi. If she could to get to Okinawa, she was not going to make Hanoi. She probably could get to Korea, but that would be a very temporary “escape”. With all that in mind, I am thinking: - Starting immediately, 3,000 IJA engineering troops supervised by...