"Alternate Airships"

Ok, so to get a bit more into the "Alternate Axis" background, I need to make this here thread. In this thread, we will be focused on the OTL airships and this ATL other uses.

Normally, I would just do a google search, and illustrate the thread with pictures, to help get the idea across, but google no longer supports windows XP nor IE 8, and even when I installed Firefox, I still cannot use google!

That being the case, I would refer folks to the wiki site to read up on the airships that historically were developed OTL, with special attention to both the German and USA efforts.

What you should come away with, after the required reading, is that the historical airships had one (ok, many) problem in common, and that was that they were lighter than air when attempting to 'dock' to their towers or land. Being lighter than air is a requirement for a lighter than air ship, but let’s start looking into some alternatives that I cannot find any information on anyone trying.

To give my poor eyes a break, I'll hold off on more till someone responds with the dimensions of both the Hindenburg and Los Angles airships. and the hangers that held them. Bonus points if they can post pictures of same.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LZ_129_Hindenburg

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Akron_(ZRS-4)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Los_Angeles_(ZR-3)

Any thoughts?

One more for good measure:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Shenandoah_(ZR-1)
 
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Normally, I would just do a google search, and illustrate the thread with pictures, to help get the idea across, but google no longer supports windows XP nor IE 8, and even when I installed Firefox, I still cannot use google!

...


I'd recommend converting to Mac. One of my machines is runnning a ten year old OS & it Googles just fine. ..and no one write malware for Macs that old :D
 
I thought there would be folks all over this.

If you saw a thread about a victorious WWII Germany, and in the OP was a picture of a Hindenburg class airship, with a caption that read:

"The ships that won the war"

What would be your first reaction?
 
First reaction: Okay, so a sausage shortage caused by building a Hindenburg fleet caused Germany to starve and surrender.

Second reaction: Oh, a victorious Germany?

Third reaction: Zeppelins make wonderful targets...

Fourth reaction: Maybe a fleet of Hindenburgs could lay a giant Bailey bridge across the Channel?

Fifth reaction: Still too vulnerable. A Panzerzeppelin is needed. IIRC, a 60 km-long scaled Hindenburg could have 240 mm of armour (and not be able to support its own weight of course...) and double up as a cross-channel bridge.

https://www.alternatehistory.com/discussion/showthread.php?t=328025&page=3
 
There are of course other issues with airships, they're big, slow, vulnerable, and require extortiante funds to build, not simply in themselves, but as much in the cost of the hangers.
 
20130504-R100-Ad-Diagrams.jpg


Why no mention of the R101 the pride of the British Air Fleet that first linked its global empire by flight?
 
I'm a bit unclear exactly what it is you're after.:confused:

However, for uses of airships, there really are a bunch: anything you can use helicopters for, from casevac to logging. (I'm also of the view that the "a/c carrier" variant is credible, given air-air refueling: the problem is comparable.)

Airships do have drawbacks on landing (mooring), but tilting rotors can solve that easily enough.
 
I thought there would be folks all over this.

I have been. See below for just two detailed and very different TLs based on a longer survival of rigid airships.:

https://www.alternatehistory.com/discussion/showthread.php?t=310325

https://www.alternatehistory.com/discussion/showthread.php?t=122855

The basic facts about zeppelin airships are these:

(1) In theory, until the mid-1940's there were and could have been legitimate roles for large rigid airships n the US Navy and in filling a commercial niche between steamships and piston-engine airplanes in long distance passenger and freight transport. The US Navy's actual and proposed programs reflected the first and both the British and German passenger programs reflected the other. They can still do some things that airplanes can't, so even today, large airships might have value.

(2) Unfortunately there legitimate issues that precluded their widespread acceptance, and that probably still play into public perceptions as well as the repeat financial failure of modern commercial attempts to reinvent them:

-Unreliability. Manned airships were, and always will be much more vulnerable to weather than ships, trains, and (after about 1935) airplanes. They are too slow and can't fly high enough to avoid bad weather and even relatively light winds can make takeoffs and landings dangerous. This makes it virtually impossible to develop an intensive network or interlocking service routes that customers can count on. This might not matter so much for pleasure cruises, but even then it would be a real pain to plan on a 10-day luxury airship cruise only to discover that the flight will be delayed 3 days because of high winds.

-They may be structurally unsound and dangerous. This is a debatable item, but its a major perception. Although zeppelin fans like myself will always find extenuating reasons and excuses for every airship crash in the 1920's and 1930's, the simple fact is that with a very few exceptions, all of them ended up crashing after only a few months or years of service and killing lots of people. Only two airships, USS Los Angeles and LZ-127 Graf Zeppelin actually survived to what may be considered a "ripe old age" and even these ships suffered structural failures or accidents in their history that could have destroyed them had their crews responded poorly.

-They never were more than experimental craft, and experimental aircraft often crash. Excluding German wartime zeppelins (which also crashed about as much as they were shot down), one can almost count the number of zeppelin airships built in the 1920-1940 period on one hand, and most of them were in effect prototypes built to experiment with different design and construction concepts, explore potential uses and missions, and so forth. They were never established, proven, technologies. When a small experimental airplane crashes 1931 and kills the test pilot it is not news, nor does it cause an outcry against airplanes. The company just designs another plane and tries again. When the huge British R-101 crashes in 1931, kills almost its entire crew and passengers, and burns up millions of 1931 pounds invested in the scheme by the British taxpayer on what is in effect its first significant test flight, the British government kills its entire airship program. Only the Germans ever seemed to manage the doctrine and training to successfully build and operate large rigid airships..and even then the only civil zeppelin crash in history that killed people (the Hindenburg) ended their program (although I suppose the US helium embargo and then WW2 nailed the lid on the coffin).

-They were expensive to operate and maintain. Zeppelins were big (700-800 feet long), required huge hangars and building sheds and flying fields to operate from safely, and ground crews numbering in the hundreds. Their construction was also time consuming and labor intensive. Plus, as noted above, it can be asked if anyone (even the Germans) truly developed the body of operational doctrine that would turn them from an experiment into a proven and reliable means of transportation.

-However, they never got a chance to prove themselves. As a zeppelin fan, I believe this, in part because of what I've said before. There were few of them, they were all basically experimental, a consistent operational doctrine never developed, they were expensive, always in the public eye, and any crash was a big deal. Countries were making very sound decisions at the time when they cancelled their rigid airship programs. However, later US naval success with non-rigid airships (blimps) in WW2 and into the early 1960's give a hint of what zeppelins might have done even better. Even the few blimps and the Zeppelin NT operating today demonstrate that the operational doctrine for airships has improved and, with computerization and improved technologies, they are far less expensive to man, handle on the ground, and fly. So who knows?
 
I thought there would be folks all over this.

If you saw a thread about a victorious WWII Germany, and in the OP was a picture of a Hindenburg class airship, with a caption that read:

"The ships that won the war"

What would be your first reaction?

Excessive skepticism and a careful lookout for ASBs lurking in the corners. And I am a believer in the glory and wonder of zeppelin airships.
 
As a first class method of lazily travelling the world I believe that they still have a place even today that could not be bettered

However as a weapon war their time was done by 1916 with the advent of Aircraft that could shoot them down and other Aircraft that were better bombers.

Up to the early 30's I can see them being useful for long range communication but seriously with an expanding train and cable communication network across the globe, Larger faster and longer ranged flying boats coming into service.

I too love the idea of Airships but to be honest they were overtaken and made obsolete by a series of improving technologies.
 
British Rigid Airships in World War One

I dug this out of one of my Royal Navy in the Great War - Money No Object essays.

In the real world the British developed rigid airships spasmodically with the result that satisfactory machines did not appear until after the war was over.

HMA No 1, "Mayfly" was ordered from Vickers in 1909 and completed in 1911. However, she was written off in an accident before she flew. The next rigid airships were R.9 ordered in June 1913 and 2 sisters ordered in the 1914-15 Navy Estimates. They were all were cancelled when World War One broke out because it was thought that the war would be over before they could be completed. However R.9 was reinstated later on and delivered at the end of 1916.

10 R.23 class were ordered in April 1916 and the first 4 were completed in 1917. In common with Mayfly and R.9 they provided vital experience that was read into succeeding designs and were useful for training, but could not be used operationally because they didn't produce enough "disposable lift". Therefore the last 6 were re-ordered as the R.23X class. This was the first operationally useful design and could have been mass produced. However, only 2 were completed. The captured German airship L-33 was better and the R.23X programme was cancelled in favour of new designs influenced by the L-33. These airships were much better than the R.23X class, but none of them were completed until 1919.

Vickers wanted to build “Mayfly” with a fully streamlined hull but the idea was rejected by the Admiralty owing to constructional difficulties and she was built with a "Zeppelin" shaped hull. The R.80 begun at the end of 1917 and flown in the middle of 1920, was the first airship to be built with this type of hull and in terms of technology she was the best airship of its day. Vickers also designed their R.100 airship for the Burney Scheme with this type of hull.

In this version of history the point of departure is the report of the Esher Committee, which recommended that the Admiralty should order two rigid airships for evaluation instead of one.

The Admiralty decided that the first should be of the conventional Zeppelin type (i.e. the Mayfly) and the latter of the fully-streamlined type (effectively R.80 with less powerful engines). Before they were completed it was decided to order a pair of R.9 type airships (i.e. enlarged Mayflies) in the 1910-11 Navy Estimates and four R.23 type airships (i.e. enlarged R.9s) in the 1911-12 Navy Estimates.

Mayfly was still written off in an accident before she could be flown. However, H.M.A. No. 2 (the streamlined prototype) was completed in the first quarter of 1912. It was faster and produced more "disposable lift" than the R.9s (which were completed in the second half of 1912) in spite of being smaller. This led to quartets of R.80 class airships being ordered in the 1912-13, 1913-14 and 1914-15 Estimates. The R.23 class came into service in 1913 and the first two R.80 class were in service when the Great War broke out. That is the British had completed 10 rigid airships by August 1914 and 9 of them were in RNAS service at the outbreak of war.

By comparison the Germans had flown 33 rigid airships (27 Zeppelin, 4 Gross Basenach and 2 Schutte-Lanz) by August 1914 and 13 were in service. The German Navy had 8, the German army had one and the airline, DELAG, had 3 (of which 2 went to the army and the other to the navy).

This head start allowed the Royal Navy to build up a large force of rigid airships during the Great War in place of the non-rigid airship force that was created in the real world.

Rigid airships were more expensive to build and needed larger crews than the blimps, but the extra cost was more than outweighed by their operational advantages, which saved money in other areas.

Rigid airships were better than blimps because they had heavier armaments, were faster and could spend longer on patrol. Observers in rigid airships did not tire so easily as those in the open cockpits of the Sea Scout and Coastal blimps. Thus a rigid airship was more likely to spot a U-boat and trials conducted in the real world showed that they were no more likely to be spotted by U-boats than a blimp.

The proportion of sightings to attacks by blimps was low because their low speed meant the U-boats had time to submerge before they could attack. However, this was less of a problem with the rigids because they were faster and they were armed with a 4” gun. The guns never sank a U-boat but kept many on the surface until the airship got within bombing range or close enough for it to shadow the submarine until surface forces arrived.

In the real world the RNAS could not provide enough sheds for its blimps. The problem was solved by housing some of them in quarries and forest clearings. Trials conducted with R.9 and the R.23 class showed that this was also feasible with rigid airships.
 

iddt3

Donor
I have been. See below for just two detailed and very different TLs based on a longer survival of rigid airships.:

https://www.alternatehistory.com/discussion/showthread.php?t=310325

https://www.alternatehistory.com/discussion/showthread.php?t=122855

The basic facts about zeppelin airships are these:

(1) In theory, until the mid-1940's there were and could have been legitimate roles for large rigid airships n the US Navy and in filling a commercial niche between steamships and piston-engine airplanes in long distance passenger and freight transport. The US Navy's actual and proposed programs reflected the first and both the British and German passenger programs reflected the other. They can still do some things that airplanes can't, so even today, large airships might have value.

(2) Unfortunately there legitimate issues that precluded their widespread acceptance, and that probably still play into public perceptions as well as the repeat financial failure of modern commercial attempts to reinvent them:

-Unreliability. Manned airships were, and always will be much more vulnerable to weather than ships, trains, and (after about 1935) airplanes. They are too slow and can't fly high enough to avoid bad weather and even relatively light winds can make takeoffs and landings dangerous. This makes it virtually impossible to develop an intensive network or interlocking service routes that customers can count on. This might not matter so much for pleasure cruises, but even then it would be a real pain to plan on a 10-day luxury airship cruise only to discover that the flight will be delayed 3 days because of high winds.

-They may be structurally unsound and dangerous. This is a debatable item, but its a major perception. Although zeppelin fans like myself will always find extenuating reasons and excuses for every airship crash in the 1920's and 1930's, the simple fact is that with a very few exceptions, all of them ended up crashing after only a few months or years of service and killing lots of people. Only two airships, USS Los Angeles and LZ-127 Graf Zeppelin actually survived to what may be considered a "ripe old age" and even these ships suffered structural failures or accidents in their history that could have destroyed them had their crews responded poorly.

-They never were more than experimental craft, and experimental aircraft often crash. Excluding German wartime zeppelins (which also crashed about as much as they were shot down), one can almost count the number of zeppelin airships built in the 1920-1940 period on one hand, and most of them were in effect prototypes built to experiment with different design and construction concepts, explore potential uses and missions, and so forth. They were never established, proven, technologies. When a small experimental airplane crashes 1931 and kills the test pilot it is not news, nor does it cause an outcry against airplanes. The company just designs another plane and tries again. When the huge British R-101 crashes in 1931, kills almost its entire crew and passengers, and burns up millions of 1931 pounds invested in the scheme by the British taxpayer on what is in effect its first significant test flight, the British government kills its entire airship program. Only the Germans ever seemed to manage the doctrine and training to successfully build and operate large rigid airships..and even then the only civil zeppelin crash in history that killed people (the Hindenburg) ended their program (although I suppose the US helium embargo and then WW2 nailed the lid on the coffin).

-They were expensive to operate and maintain. Zeppelins were big (700-800 feet long), required huge hangars and building sheds and flying fields to operate from safely, and ground crews numbering in the hundreds. Their construction was also time consuming and labor intensive. Plus, as noted above, it can be asked if anyone (even the Germans) truly developed the body of operational doctrine that would turn them from an experiment into a proven and reliable means of transportation.

-However, they never got a chance to prove themselves. As a zeppelin fan, I believe this, in part because of what I've said before. There were few of them, they were all basically experimental, a consistent operational doctrine never developed, they were expensive, always in the public eye, and any crash was a big deal. Countries were making very sound decisions at the time when they cancelled their rigid airship programs. However, later US naval success with non-rigid airships (blimps) in WW2 and into the early 1960's give a hint of what zeppelins might have done even better. Even the few blimps and the Zeppelin NT operating today demonstrate that the operational doctrine for airships has improved and, with computerization and improved technologies, they are far less expensive to man, handle on the ground, and fly. So who knows?
This, Airships could have had, and could still have, a much bigger role than they do. But that role is very much niche, and *very* much outside of any combat zones.
 
As a first class method of lazily travelling the world I believe that they still have a place even today that could not be bettered

However as a weapon war their time was done by 1916 with the advent of Aircraft that could shoot them down and other Aircraft that were better bombers.

Up to the early 30's I can see them being useful for long range communication but seriously with an expanding train and cable communication network across the globe, Larger faster and longer ranged flying boats coming into service.

I too love the idea of Airships but to be honest they were overtaken and made obsolete by a series of improving technologies.

Except for the bolded statement, I completely agree. Airships were extremely useful to the US Navy in the anti-submarine role during WW2 (primarily in spotting subs and directing DDs and aircraft to the targets), and if the ZRCV type rigid airships had been built they would have had a very effective offensive capability in terms of their own aircraft. The airships' vulnerability to modern airplanes would not be a major concern, since the Germans had only a minimal aerial presence over the mid-Atlantic, and none over the western Atlantic. Also, one can legitimately ask how vulnerable a helium-filled rigid airship would actually be if attacked by an early WW2 German long-range recon plane like the Fw 200. There are relatively few critical and solid areas to be hit (small engine cars, control car, magazines, etc), and most bullets fired by a fast-moving airplanes attacking an airship moving at 70kts would probably miss these critical targets and just pass through the envelope. Any fires started by incendiary bullets would be extinguished by escaping helium, not create a massive explosion. Since the gas in a zeppelin is not under pressure, helium leakage would be minimal. Certainly a sustained attack by carrier-borne fighters and dive-bombers would bring a zeppelin down, but unless the Germans get the loan of HIJMS Zuikaku, what's the risk of that happening?
 
I dug this out of one of my Royal Navy in the Great War - Money No Object essays.

In the real world the British developed rigid airships spasmodically with the result that satisfactory machines did not appear until after the war was over.

HMA No 1, "Mayfly" was ordered from Vickers in 1909 and completed in 1911. However, she was written off in an accident before she flew. The next rigid airships were R.9 ordered in June 1913 and 2 sisters ordered in the 1914-15 Navy Estimates. They were all were cancelled when World War One broke out because it was thought that the war would be over before they could be completed. However R.9 was reinstated later on and delivered at the end of 1916.

10 R.23 class were ordered in April 1916 and the first 4 were completed in 1917. In common with Mayfly and R.9 they provided vital experience that was read into succeeding designs and were useful for training, but could not be used operationally because they didn't produce enough "disposable lift". Therefore the last 6 were re-ordered as the R.23X class. This was the first operationally useful design and could have been mass produced. However, only 2 were completed. The captured German airship L-33 was better and the R.23X programme was cancelled in favour of new designs influenced by the L-33. These airships were much better than the R.23X class, but none of them were completed until 1919.

Vickers wanted to build “Mayfly” with a fully streamlined hull but the idea was rejected by the Admiralty owing to constructional difficulties and she was built with a "Zeppelin" shaped hull. The R.80 begun at the end of 1917 and flown in the middle of 1920, was the first airship to be built with this type of hull and in terms of technology she was the best airship of its day. Vickers also designed their R.100 airship for the Burney Scheme with this type of hull.

In this version of history the point of departure is the report of the Esher Committee, which recommended that the Admiralty should order two rigid airships for evaluation instead of one.

The Admiralty decided that the first should be of the conventional Zeppelin type (i.e. the Mayfly) and the latter of the fully-streamlined type (effectively R.80 with less powerful engines). Before they were completed it was decided to order a pair of R.9 type airships (i.e. enlarged Mayflies) in the 1910-11 Navy Estimates and four R.23 type airships (i.e. enlarged R.9s) in the 1911-12 Navy Estimates.

Mayfly was still written off in an accident before she could be flown. However, H.M.A. No. 2 (the streamlined prototype) was completed in the first quarter of 1912. It was faster and produced more "disposable lift" than the R.9s (which were completed in the second half of 1912) in spite of being smaller. This led to quartets of R.80 class airships being ordered in the 1912-13, 1913-14 and 1914-15 Estimates. The R.23 class came into service in 1913 and the first two R.80 class were in service when the Great War broke out. That is the British had completed 10 rigid airships by August 1914 and 9 of them were in RNAS service at the outbreak of war.

By comparison the Germans had flown 33 rigid airships (27 Zeppelin, 4 Gross Basenach and 2 Schutte-Lanz) by August 1914 and 13 were in service. The German Navy had 8, the German army had one and the airline, DELAG, had 3 (of which 2 went to the army and the other to the navy).

This head start allowed the Royal Navy to build up a large force of rigid airships during the Great War in place of the non-rigid airship force that was created in the real world.

Rigid airships were more expensive to build and needed larger crews than the blimps, but the extra cost was more than outweighed by their operational advantages, which saved money in other areas.

Rigid airships were better than blimps because they had heavier armaments, were faster and could spend longer on patrol. Observers in rigid airships did not tire so easily as those in the open cockpits of the Sea Scout and Coastal blimps. Thus a rigid airship was more likely to spot a U-boat and trials conducted in the real world showed that they were no more likely to be spotted by U-boats than a blimp.

The proportion of sightings to attacks by blimps was low because their low speed meant the U-boats had time to submerge before they could attack. However, this was less of a problem with the rigids because they were faster and they were armed with a 4” gun. The guns never sank a U-boat but kept many on the surface until the airship got within bombing range or close enough for it to shadow the submarine until surface forces arrived.

In the real world the RNAS could not provide enough sheds for its blimps. The problem was solved by housing some of them in quarries and forest clearings. Trials conducted with R.9 and the R.23 class showed that this was also feasible with rigid airships.

Good AH discussion and analysis.
 
Well, I have to say that I am a happy camper at this point, because I have learned a few things about the history of rigid airships that I probably would never have found on my own. I do kinda wonder why when visiting the Hindenburg wiki page, I got links to the American programs' pages, but not the British nor French pages.

That being said, I actually have an interest in discussions about modern airships and some alternate designs that I don't know if anyone ever tried, and of course, maybe they could never work, but hey, talk is cheap.

So for a timeline idea, let’s say the Germans get their enthusiasm up and decide to build the world’s first worldwide network of passenger air service, which would require an earlier and more robust program than IOTL, with sales to other nations being part of the plan, but an agreement that allows each nation to operate round trip routes between the two.

In such a TL, where the Germans are gearing up for a massive airship building program, and buying up all the needed materials right at the outset, publicly explaining that buying now prevents future price gouging for needed materials, and they purchase enough aluminum to build several hundred airships. Say in the year 1936, Germany announces a 10 year plan to expand their airship construction capacity to be able to build 2 airships per month, by 1946.

I know that construction would not take as long on a mass produced model as on the original, but this would still entail being able to have 24 airships under construction at a time, assuming that you could get the construction time down to just 12 months. That would mean a minimum of 24 construction buildings, and many times that in large hangers to provide shelter and work places for all operations airships. If construction times remained over a year, then this would make more construction sheds a necessity.

Since I lack the time and talent to write a timeline, I’ll just drop the bomb here and now:

The whole point to the airship program, is a military deception, designed to ease folks minds as to why Germany is buying up all that aluminum from 1936 onwards…

You can see where this is going now…

If I had the time and talent, I would research the maximum peaceful need for aluminum, and compare that to the non-peaceful OTL uses for aluminum, and then…

Since I lack said time and talent, I’ll just ask this openly, how much of a deceptively peaceful programs need for aluminum (and any materials needed to make any part or portion of the needed infrastructure) would be needed to tip the scales of 1936-1939 OTL Germany, to allow for doubling the size of the Luftwaffe?

You see it now, the lengths of the ‘military deception’ I would write into a timeline, to keep folks guessing and thinking that they knew what was coming, and then throwing them off at the last minute.

The original thought was how to get a bigger Luftwaffe for Germany, without raising suspicions around the world with the purchase of all that extra material that could be used to build up a powerful military air force.

Now good author, would have thoroughly researched this topic, and then written a timeline where this evil plan would be revealed with due fanfare and shocking revelations to the unsuspecting.

Much entertaining discussion could then ensue, to the pleasure and amusement of us all.

Unfortunately, it was me that had this idea, and so such a timeline will not be written unless a good author decided to pick my twisted brains for all the other factors I have thought of.

For instance, in the parent thread, why is Germany building all these confounded merchantmen?

Anyway, on topic, what if we were to try to build a modern airship, to a totally different configuration? Cigar shaped craft are probably most efficient if your goal is to get from place to place quickly (or at least as quickly as an airship can), but since there are faster, cheaper alternatives already in service, what alternative markets might be possible?
 

iddt3

Donor
A bigger issue is getting the Foreign Exchange necessary to buy it all in the first place. No one is going to be fooled either, because no sane economist would ever recommend doing anything like that if the actual purpose was to build airships. Which in turn means that other countries will assume that Germany is either A. Run by Madmen, or B. Partaking of a Cunning Plan of Some Sort. Either way, Germany isn't coming out ahead here.
 
So its all just a Trojan zeppelin so to speak. It is a fascinating conspiracy, but like all conspiracy theories, I don't exactly see how it would succeed in the long run. I'll let others pull up the facts.

Regarding modern airships you might consider this as a start:
The Dragon Dream, and experimental rigid airship undergoing prototype development as we speak. It may never actually work as designed, but it incorporates experimental technology to adjust lift by compressing and decompressing the helium in gas cells rather than valving off the expensive gas and carrying lots of ballast. It is also supposed to need only a minimal ground crew.

640_dragon-dream.jpg
 
A bigger issue is getting the Foreign Exchange necessary to buy it all in the first place. No one is going to be fooled either, because no sane economist would ever recommend doing anything like that if the actual purpose was to build airships. Which in turn means that other countries will assume that Germany is either A. Run by Madmen, or B. Partaking of a Cunning Plan of Some Sort. Either way, Germany isn't coming out ahead here.

I don't know about that, if a GOOD author was to write an ATL, and build up all the related aspects, from the political/diplomatic to the covert, the huge public opinion/relations parts? There are a great many sides to an ATL, or rather, a good author could create and entertain by inventing such. We have many really gifted writers on this board, and one only has to look at the threads recently closed for exceeding 10,000 posts to see what I mean.

For an example of the difference between me making my barely readable posts and a good author writing an entertaining ATL, they would undoubtably be able to tell you things like the total tonnage of aluminum available to the OTL German war effort from say 1935 to 1945, how much it cost, and so on. I cannot. I just plain don't have the time, nor the writing skills to do all the research, let alone write a good story.
 
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