OTL AH misconceptions

Sumeragi

Banned
All the same, the idea that Germans in the 20th Century made space travel possible with primitive ballistic missiles is nonsense.
Again, it's the political vision thing. Major difference between "uber German tech made it happen!" and "the political vision and strateguc push helped move the US toward that direction".

the Soviet invasion of Manchuria played an equal role in the 1945 decision as it meant the last illusion died in the wake of Soviet victories in Manchuria.
No, it did not have an equal role. While the rest of the Big Six might have thought about it, it was the Showa Tenno's position that the atomic bomb was the main (and possibly sole) reason why the Imperial Throne would be threatened should Japan lose the war. The most that August Storm did was to help deadlock the decision-making process, thereby allowing the Showa Tenno to make the final decision.
 
Thing is that I said that the German scientists did not invent space travel, which they clearly did not. In the Soviet Union sending Yuri Gagarin and Sputnik to space did not rely on Nazi scientists who invented primitive ballistic missiles by working Jews to death. Neither did the US counterpart.

The Soviet invasion meant Japan's illusion that the USSR, which it attacked in 1939, was remotely interested in dickering a peace for them on the terms they wanted, was foregone, and Japan had nothing to use against nukes. Thus, the surrender, before everything went all the way into Hell as opposed to 6/10ths of the way in.
 

Sumeragi

Banned
Nazi scientists who invented primitive ballistic missiles by working Jews to death
That's just plain wrong. They "borrowed" the work of Robert Goddard :p:D

The Soviet invasion meant Japan's illusion that the USSR, which it attacked in 1939, was remotely interested in dickering a peace for them on the terms they wanted, was foregone, and Japan had nothing to use against nukes. Thus, the surrender, before everything went all the way into Hell as opposed to 6/10ths of the way in.
That's just an illusion on part of the people who think August Storm was earth-shattering. The Showa Tenno did not take that into account in his decision, and as such ultimately it was not as important as people think it was.
 
Allied to this is the idea that logistics don`t exist; logistics is what total war is about! It`s one thing to drop a bomb on a target, it`s another entirely to do it every day for 4-6 years.
Thank you! Thank you! Thanka, thanka, thank you! Thank you, thank you! Thanka, thanka, thank you!:D Joho:D:)......... And/or armies just keep on conquering and conquering...Such as Rommel's Afrika Korps would have defeated Montgomery, crossed the Nile, jumped over the Suez Canal and before ya know it, they'd be linkin' up with the Japanese in Delhi and a few of Rommel's tanks would have invaded the Soviet Union from the bottom!:rolleyes: This skewed view of how: _______ could have conquered the ______ is due to people playing too many games of RISK or video games that don't take into account boring things like.....MOUNTAIN RANGES, rivers that have no BRIDGES spanning them for MILES upon MILES, lack of food or fuel, low ammo, death of good NCO's and mid level officers, bad weather, droughts, floods, dysentery, diarrhea, epidemics, homesickness, mental breakdown of ordinary troops, non-existent maps of local areas, malarial marshes, oh and the enemy shooting at them. Sorry for going on like that but Riain's post was just what I believe in as well. Joho :)
 
simonbp said:
...it took a megalomaniac management genius like von Braun to convince the US government to spend billion of dollars on the fairly ridiculous idea of landing men on the moon. Again, without him, rockets would have stayed small, practical military devices.
Actually, as I understand it, it was "without JFK". He asked for something big & flashy the U.S. could be confident of beating the Sovs at, & (IIRC) something that could masquerade as a civilian program. Von Braun gave him something. If it'd been somebody else, JFK'd still have gone for it.
Sumeragi said:
That's just an illusion on part of the people who think August Storm was earth-shattering. The Showa Tenno did not take that into account in his decision, and as such ultimately it was not as important as people think it was.
Denying it had a comparable effect is denying reality. B-29s had been burning Japan's cities with abandon for about a year. Nukes were qualitatively little different. Notice, the surrender came after the Sov DoW, & not immediately after the first Bomb, which you'd expect if the Bomb had been the decider.
 
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Thank you! Thank you! Thanka, thanka, thank you! Thank you, thank you! Thanka, thanka, thank you!:D Joho:D:)......... And/or armies just keep on conquering and conquering...Such as Rommel's Afrika Korps would have defeated Montgomery, crossed the Nile, jumped over the Suez Canal and before ya know it, they'd be linkin' up with the Japanese in Delhi and a few of Rommel's tanks would have invaded the Soviet Union from the bottom!:rolleyes: This skewed view of how: _______ could have conquered the ______ is due to people playing too many games of RISK or video games that don't take into account boring things like.....MOUNTAIN RANGES, rivers that have no BRIDGES spanning them for MILES upon MILES, lack of food or fuel, low ammo, death of good NCO's and mid level officers, bad weather, droughts, floods, dysentery, diarrhea, epidemics, homesickness, mental breakdown of ordinary troops, non-existent maps of local areas, malarial marshes, oh and the enemy shooting at them. Sorry for going on like that but Riain's post was just what I believe in as well. Joho :)
This is exactly what happened in my HOI game.:cool:
 
Here's a very very common misconception:

"The revival of Star Trek in the late 1970s with Star Trek: The Motion Picture was a direct result of the success of Star Wars."

THE TRUTH: In fact, the exact opposite is true. A Star Trek film was in the early stages of being made as early as the year 1976 -- a very different film to the one we got, called Planet of the Titans. But when Star Wars was released in May 1977 and was a phenomenal success, the executives at Paramount actually decided "Well, shit, there's no way there can ever be two science-fiction blockbusters" and actually cancelled the film.

That's why Star Trek: Phase II, the planned TV revival, was greenlit in the first place: they decided to bring back Star Trek on television instead in 1977, after the release of Star Wars. It wasn't until Close Encounters of the Third Kind was released in November 1977 and also ended up being a blockbuster that Paramount decided to go back to the original idea of making a Star Trek film instead of a revival on TV. Rather than making Planet of the Titans story, they ended up adapting the story they would've used for the Phase II pilot episode.
 

Delta Force

Banned
Nah, it would just mean a whole bunch of stuff (mostly Warsaw Pact) would be blown away.

Probably a good chunk of Europe too, and a few areas in the American South. The largest problem for America would be surviving the nuclear winter, not surviving the nuclear attack.
 


The USA was ever able to win the Vietnam War-not so long as it follows an OTL path. If it doesn't, it's not the Vietnam War as we know it but a completely different scenario of US troops fighting a Vietnamese nationalist movement in the Vietnamese jungle.

What does this even mean?
 
What does this even mean?

There is no way for a Vietnam War as per OTL with a Tonkin Gulf Resolution to end in a US victory. There are scenarios where US troops fighting Communists in Vietnam could end in victory but it can't be done with the OTL scenario as its foundation, there needs to be a complete alteration of the political foundation of the war as a first and foremost. Thus the USA can win *a* war in Vietnam, it cannot win the OTL Vietnam War or any Vietnam War with a POD after 1964.
 
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