WW II Insanity Options

[Salamander]

1) The RAF carpet bombs Germany with anthrax in retaliation for gas attacks on Britain.
2) The USA decides to attack Japan via the Kuriles as well as the other campaigns, not trusting the Soviets to actually declare war on Japan.
3) The IJA ignores Tokyo (again) and invades Siberia post-Stalingrad because screw the IJN.
4) MacArthur leads a suicidal bayonet charge against the Japanese lines in the Bataan Peninsular.

 

[CaptainCalvert]

1) The RAF carpet bombs Germany with anthrax in retaliation for gas attacks on Britain.
2) The USA decides to attack Japan via the Kuriles as well as the other campaigns, not trusting the Soviets to actually declare war on Japan.
3) The IJA ignores Tokyo (again) and invades Siberia post-Stalingrad because screw the IJN.
4) MacArthur leads a suicidal bayonet charge against the Japanese lines in the Bataan Peninsular.

Option 2 is good for me. It's nuts but has enough sense [1] that someone could propose it and it gets the nod by someone from Florida or Tennessee who hasn't seen sub-Arctic weather and islands. Unlike Attu and Kiska, it would be supported, but what a terrible idea.

[1] well since it's essentially stealing an idea from WW2 Japan, that's for a very narrow definition of making sense.

 

[Salamander]

Option 2 is good for me. It's nuts but has enough sense [1] that someone could propose it and it gets the nod by someone from Florida or Tennessee who hasn't seen sub-Arctic weather and islands. Unlike Attu and Kiska, it would be supported, but what a terrible idea.

[1] well since it's essentially stealing an idea from WW2 Japan, that's for a very narrow definition of making sense.

That's the problem with logic. It really is just a tool and, as IT people know all too well, its vulnerable to the good, old, GIGO rule. That was Japan's decision making process in a nutshell. Their decisions made logical sense according to the narrow focus of their goals, the criteria that their biases led them to select to attain success, and the data they inputted into their calculations. They just fell victim to the belief that it truly would be a short, victorious war.

 

[Hammerbolt]

1) The RAF carpet bombs Germany with anthrax in retaliation for gas attacks on Britain.

4) MacArthur leads a suicidal bayonet charge against the Japanese lines in the Bataan Peninsular.

1) this is not insanity, it was actualy prepared. See operation vegetarian
4) insanity or "how to improve the US in the Pacific post 1942..."

 

[cortz#9]

1) this is not insanity, it was actualy prepared. See operation vegetarian

It was still a pretty insane idea.

 

[Hammerbolt]

It was still a pretty insane idea.

Very much so; I meant that it's not a AH/whatif discussion, bit something actually set up...

 

[cortz#9]

Very much so; I meant that it's not a AH/whatif discussion, bit something actually set up...

Ah, I got ya.

 

[Nell_Lucifer]

The insanity option for the British would not be to retaliate with anthrax against German gas attacks, but to escalate directly to Anthrax after the start of Barbarossa and continued U-Boat happy times.

As it would have a modicum of logic to it. The majority of the Luftwaffe forces are deployed in Eastern Europe, the RAF won the BoB, the British merchant shipping is continously suffering and the US looks to be a long way before joining the war.

 

[Raferty]

It was still a pretty insane idea.

The name is apt, surely it is proof that the Fuhrer was right about the problem of eating meat

On a more serious note, I think the Allies would be wary to do this as a first strike instead of in reaction to something similar. The Germans had nasty stuff up their sleeves that they didn't deploy, but would in this case.

 

[Fire and shadow]

-Britain pays for lend-lease by giving N&L or part of the Caribbean to America.
-Germany and Finland attacking the White Sea area to stop Anglo-American convoys.
-Hitler leads Steiner’s ordered counterattack himself.
-Germany selling NSDAP merchandise to fund the war effort.

 

[Hammerbolt]

-Germany and Finland attack the White Sea area to stop Anglo-American convoys.

Didn't this actually happen, even if in small scale?

 

[ennobee]

-Germany starts selling NSDAP merchandise to fund the war effort

This gets my mind racing towards something that one day I might turn into a AH.com timeline(*):

The copyright wars: as OTL, German author Thomas Mann became a political refugee in London, he is recruited by the British ministry of propaganda. His task: supervise the translation of his books into English (and possibly French) so the ministry can print them and sell them in neutral countries to spice up their working budget. In the end the ministry will operate not a clandestine but an openly UK war effort printing house in Sweden that sells Thomas Mann and E.M. Remarque's books in Swedish to a Swedish audience and uses the profits to buy Swedish ball bearings for their UK aircraft engines.

Follows a proxy war between the UK printing house and a German-owned publishing company printing Swedish translations of Karl Mey for the money to buy Swedish tungsten alloys. Both parties not being afraid to resort to arson and assassination to get the other side out.....


(*) Yea, as if I will ever write a timeline while I am so busy responding to other people's posts...

 

[CaptainCalvert]

This gets my mind racing towards something that one day I might turn into a AH.com timeline(*):

The copyright wars: as OTL, German author Thomas Mann became a political refugee in London, he is recruited by the British ministry of propaganda. His task: supervise the translation of his books into English (and possibly French) so the ministry can print them and sell them in neutral countries to spice up their working budget. In the end the ministry will operate not a clandestine but an openly UK war effort printing house in Sweden that sells Thomas Mann and E.M. Remarque's books in Swedish tona Swedish audience and uses the profits to buy Swedish ball bearings for their UK aircraft engines.

Follows a proxy war between the UK printing house and a German-owned publishing company printing Swedish translations of Karl Mey for the money to buy Swedish tungsten alloys. Both parties not being afraid to resort to arson and assassination to get through other side out.....


(*) Yea, as if I will ever write a timeline while I am so busy responding to other people's posts...

It does sound like it would make for a good short story.

My take was a bit more 21st century, with replica NSDAP shirts, hats, armbands etc for fundraising and doctored versions of Mein Kampf [1] which undermine some key concepts - to be distributed widely for free, swapped for legit versions, impregated with poison etc.

[1] I was going to suggest including incoherently expressed ideas that were clearly bonkers, but Adolf had already included more than enough.
And 1930s is too early for parody pop vinyl and plushy SA, SS and NSDAP figures.

 

[ennobee]

Blohm & Voss BV40-Bertha or how to bat-shit an already bat-shit idea

To the original BV40 project: in 1944, while Germany was perfecting its anti-bomber aircraft force, the allies perfected their bomber tactics. So soon it became apparent that if the bombers were operating in close formations, the defensive machine gun turrets of the combined force would cover each other and any attacking fighter would be expected to be hit at least once if not by the bomber he is attacking, then by one of the bombers flying next to it. And of course, flying a frontal attack, the part of the plane most expected to be hit was its engine.

So Blohm & Voss, a company known for constantly thinking outside the box decided to solve this problem by simply throwing out the engine so hitting it would not be a problem anymore. The resulting project BV.40 was in essence a pilot holding two heavy machine cannons encapsulated in stub-winged body armor falling more than sailing through a bomber formation, shooting at will at everything they can get their sights on while at the same time impervious to all enemy fire.

Makes sense... Somehow. Until you realize that in order to dive through a bomber formation the plane must get in top of it first.

Yet testing continued apparently to the designers' and the RLM's satisfaction. Until the BV40 got a victim of its own premise. While the plane was getting tested, Rheinmetal cannon builders took the idea a step further by not just eliminating the piston engine but also the pilot itself. The resulting R4m rocket ammunition was just that. A rocket that just like the BV.40 was launched from far away, would bust into the bomber formation without offering a target and explode, showering the bombers with shrapnel.... And it was dirt cheap, even compared to the already cheap BV.40

So the right thing to do was to shelve the BV.40 and arm the interceptor squadrons with racks of the new rockets under their wings. To their honor, this is exactly what the Luftwaffe did.

but if you want to go completely bat-shit....
then Goering or even the Führer himself would instead of scrapping the BV.40 order it to be equipped with the new R4M rockets and order Blohm-Voss and Rheinmetal to come up with some way of shooting it high enough to start their attack run.

the result would be about halfway between a Messerschmitt me.163 and a Bachem Natter, having the worst parts of both.

 

[mudhead]

-Germany selling NSDAP merchandise to fund the war effort.

Bruce McCall thought of this.

(You have to go to page 57 - I can't copy the images)​

 

[Caledon]

Maybe France could respond to the Anschluss by invading Germany, by way of Belgium.

Or preempt the expected Schlieffen 2 by a spoiling attack that alienates Belgium and the Netherlands, and makes the Breda plan look like a well-rehearsed military display.

But, really it's a diversion. As soon as everyone is focused on the attack through Belgium, France launches the real assault - through Switzerland.

 

[CaptainCalvert]

But, really it's a diversion. As soon as everyone is focused on the attack through Belgium, France launches the real assault - through Switzerland.

For complete strategic surprise, attack through Italy into Austria.
Hey Adolf - bet you didn't expect that!

 

[Salamander]

Britain pays for lend-lease by giving N&L or part of the Caribbean to America.

They did. It's the Lease part of Lend-Lease. In return for "lending" stuff to the UK, they "leased" bases on British territory for roughly 99 years, hence the US base at Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean, plus a few other places.

 

[Father Maryland]

They did. It's the Lease part of Lend-Lease. In return for "lending" stuff to the UK, they "leased" bases on British territory for roughly 99 years, hence the US base at Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean, plus a few other places.

And actually transferring outright some of the Caribbean territories in exchange for aid/debt reduction and such isn't that crazy. For Britain by the 1940s the Caribbean island colonies have lost pretty much all value. It's not the prime days of the sugar islands. So selling the US say the Bahamas and Bermuda makes sense.

 

[Peg Leg Pom]

It was still a pretty insane idea.

It's no more insane than any form of Mutually Assured Destruction, though they should really have leaked the plan to the Germans with the warning that if a single drop of any chemical weapon is used on allied troops or territory then it will go ahead within the day.