Sino-Soviet War

That timeline, which I only saw for the first time yesterday, is, IMO, awful, even dreadful.

Really lousy research, utterly impossible events (Canada dispatches 60,000 troops TWO DAYS :eek: after declaring war, from a standing start, the UK send 50,000 Royal Marines in a single event when I am pretty sure that the Royal Marines never even mustered 50,000 men), casualty figures that are obviouslly pulled out of a dark body orifice, a through, rather depressing, lack of understanding of strategic theory, tactical planning, and logistical possibility, and departures from logic and common sense that are frankly incredible. It is exactly the sort of drivel that causes people to roll their eyes at the mention of Alternate History. Worst of all, it isn't even entertaining.

If it is a masterpiece, I have at least two works (Endless Summer & A/A-NW) posted here that deserve Nobel Prizes for Literature, with a third (PWR) in progress.
Yeah, the Ussuri River War is really quite bad. The author has China opening up a war with so many fronts you can't even count them (Ussuri River, Mongolia, North Korea, Vietnam, Pakistan, India, Australia...) and then turns Mao into a weird expy of Hitler in the bunker. Strategy? Tactics? You can't tell in the choppy, one-event-per-day style of othertimelines.com.

But to me what makes it downright obnoxious is the insistence on making people famous in the subsequent decades into all the major actors. Having Bush and Kerry as friends, having Milosevic go from writing a letter to overthrowing Tito, Gorbachev and Yeltsin doing Perestroika in the '70s...totally ludicrous. Even John Edwards gets too big a role.
 
Just re-read it... I gotta admit, it would seem I was blinded by nostalgia. Still, if someone gave it a serious tune up and face lift... it could be great.
 
Back in the days of a much smaller Board (all the way back in 2007 :eek::eek::p):

https://www.alternatehistory.com/discussion/showthread.php?t=55116

Huh... that isn't the kind of quality I was really expecting from you Cal. It overstates the effects of both EMP and kinetic weaponry (EDIT: and metal storm) and ignores that there is a counter to orbital weapons* although those are not within easy reach of nations such as North Korea or Iran.

It also has the misfortune of being set just far enough in the future that certain details are hilarious in hindsight, although you are hardly to blame for that. :p


*Anti-Sattelite Weapons
 
Last edited:
Top