The Missiletoe Command Arcade & Slushy Bar

Part I: The Pacific

jallenecs said:

Japan didn't want a war with us, they wanted us unable or unwilling to interfere while they invaded the Philippines. So I can derail their actions for the purposes of my story idea; just give them something else to worry about besides conquering the South Pacific. That solves part of my problem.

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Only it doesn't.

And on this side of the war I'm on much firmer footing, because modern Japan is something I studied in much greater detail.

It wasn't just about the Philippines: we were scattered all over the Pacific, including spheres of influence in China. Remember, the Doolittle raids were launched out of China. Japan had aspirations of creating an empire- albeit using what was already an outmoded model, but nonetheless an empire along the lines of what the British had. They needed the resources available throughout the region, and this was in fact the practical reason they were seeking such an empire in the first place. (There were geopolitical considerations as well, but securing resources the islands of Japan did not themselves have was a major point.)

Now while the Japanese didn't want a war with us, they did know they were going to have to deal with us, and our navy, eventually. Japan probably knew this better than anyone else, seeing as it was our navy which showed up in the 1800s and forced them to open up to the West in the first place.

Which was why the attack on Pearl Harbor was supposed to cripple our fleet (only the carriers weren't at Pearl). They weren't naive enough to believe we wouldn't retaliate, but the goal was to knock us back far enough that by the time we recovered sufficiently, Japan's conquest of the South Pacific would be a fait accompli.

And there really wasn't anything else for the Japanese to worry about. The Chinese were not a sufficient threat, being essentially in the middle of a civil war in the middle of the world war, and the Australians weren't numerous enough to pose a major threat.

And politically, achieving that empire was seen as crucial for Japan's future. They were operating on the model that all great powers were empires, and Japan saw itself as such.

jallenecs said:

I guess what I'm asking is, if you were Eisenhower, faced with a resisting but still conquered Great Britain, and Russia and Germany at least pretending to be good buddies for the moment, what would you do? How would you conduct your war to free Europe?

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But... the moment Germany decides to take all of Poland, Russia and Germany are no longer good buddies. THAT's the key moment that sets the two at war.

Prior to that, while they hated each other's guts, Stalin and Hitler had been willing to divide Europe between them. Conflict, given their hatred, was inevitable, but at least initially they had split it all between them.

Then Germany decides they don't want to split Poland, they want it all, and voila, war with Russia.

amergina said:

What about the via Iceland, or way the heck up north in Scotland, like the Orkneys?

Or heck... Ireland. Would the Germans taken Ireland along with GB? Or launching from Scandinavia?

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Scandinavia, or at least chunks of it, were nominally under Nazi control.

But the Orkneys or Ireland are possibilities I had not even begun to consider.... That's interesting. I don't know if that's a little too close to the main body of the UK for the Germans to allow any sort of military staging. That's something for Boston to answer.

But for the purposes of my story idea..... yeah, I like that!

Crap. There's no way I can make this work, is there, Boston? This stuff is all so complicated. He has to do Poland, because the gerrymandering of Poland after World War I was one of his big talking points that got this whole mess started.

Very interesting WWII discussion. *listens in*

jallenecs said:

The latest news: my mother has congestive heart failure, the same thing that killed my father. That explains the dropsy. They don't know what's causing the dropsy, but they did a stress test to see how much damage has been done to her heart. She failed the stress test: her heart is in good shape, but the arteries aren't.

Long story short: my sister and I, as medical power of attorney, had to go down tonight and sign papers so that they can do a heart catheterization tomorrow. It's risky as hell -- she's 78 -- but the alternative is a death by inches with repeated bouts of dropsy.

Not a good day in Hillbilly Land today. Or tomorrow, for that matter.

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Big hugs. I hope that everything goes okay.

Part II: North Africa

jallenecs said:

The only option would have to be up through Africa or the Middle East, and that brings its own problems.

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You're forgetting that this is what we did, though. We were in North Africa before Normandy, and while it was decided for a multitude of reasons that going from the north would be easier than coming up from the south (including that small problem of the Alps), we had already been coming at the Axis from the south. If, for some reason, we couldn't launch via England, we'd have come up from the south. Perhaps invaded the south of France via a staging in Italy.

Italy folded like a lawn chair, after all.

We could have also come up through Greece, or any other number of routes, any of which sported a local populace that, the moment the Allies (or in this case primarily the US) rolled through, would have been on our sides.

It would have changed the logistics of the war in Europe, but even the campaign through northern France wasn't exactly a picnic. The fighting through the hedge rows of France was a slog.

Failing that, there were other northern options, and we'd probably have started by liberating the UK anyway.

Part of what should be kept in mind here is that the US had naval superiority. There's a lot of romance around the U-boats, but truthfully the US had more projection power than Germany did. It would have been less convenient to go across the Mediterranean, but we'd have made it work.

jallenecs said:

Scandinavia, or at least chunks of it, were nominally under Nazi control.

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Having lived there, albeit briefly, they are very proud of the fact that they were fighting back, and *hard*.

Tifferbugz said:

Very interesting WWII discussion. *listens in*



Big hugs. I hope that everything goes okay.

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Thanks, Tiff.

And Boston is the brain here. What I know about WWII I know from my own casual reading, what I remember from American History class when I was 16, and listening to my dad and Cousin Jack talking about the war. Granted, my dad was a huge history buff, but second-hand is still second-hand.

slcboston said:

Having lived there, albeit briefly, they are very proud of the fact that they were fighting back, and *hard*.

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Oh, definitely agreed. They were balls to the wall, and deserved all props for giving the Nazis more trouble than they could cope with.

slcboston said:

You're forgetting that this is what we did, though. We were in North Africa before Normandy, and while it was decided for a multitude of reasons that going from the north would be easier than coming up from the south (including that small problem of the Alps), we had already been coming at the Axis from the south. If, for some reason, we couldn't launch via England, we'd have come up from the south. Perhaps invaded the south of France via a staging in Italy.

Italy folded like a lawn chair, after all.

We could have also come up through Greece, or any other number of routes, any of which sported a local populace that, the moment the Allies (or in this case primarily the US) rolled through, would have been on our sides.

It would have changed the logistics of the war in Europe, but even the campaign through northern France wasn't exactly a picnic. The fighting through the hedge rows of France was a slog.

Failing that, there were other northern options, and we'd probably have started by liberating the UK anyway.

Part of what should be kept in mind here is that the US had naval superiority. There's a lot of romance around the U-boats, but truthfully the US had more projection power than Germany did. It would have been less convenient to go across the Mediterranean, but we'd have made it work.

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Which route would you have chosen? And what would the advantages and disadvantages of that route?

jallenecs said:

Crap. There's no way I can make this work, is there, Boston? This stuff is all so complicated. He has to do Poland, because the gerrymandering of Poland after World War I was one of his big talking points that got this whole mess started.

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Well, I think I missed something in the earlier discussion, because I am not sure what you are trying to do. But for a way it might have gone down differently, I recommend Fatherland by Robert Harris - or the HBO miniseries of the same name. A lot of his alternate history hinges on the Germans being successful in cutting off the Russians from their oil reserves (which I'm not sure I buy) and, more importantly, the Germans being aware that Enigma had cracked their codes. That, I think, would have made a huge difference.

There's a good summary of the plot and the historical set-up on the Wiki page. If I recall correctly, the war in the Pacific still happens - again, Japanese ambitions being what they were and, in all reality, WWII was for all intents and purposes two separate yet simultaneous wars.

Also, depending on what you're after, you might consider killing Hitler. With him dead, preferably at the hands of Rommel and the other generals, the outcome of WWII becomes much different. A cease-fire along then existing lines would have been much more possible.

jallenecs said:

Oh, definitely agreed. They were balls to the wall, and deserved all props for giving the Nazis more trouble than they could cope with.

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Finn resistance not only kicked Nazi butt, but also held their own against the Soviets, too.

Tough, tough people.

slcboston said:

Well, I think I missed something in the earlier discussion, because I am not sure what you are trying to do. But for a way it might have gone down differently, I recommend Fatherland by Robert Harris - or the HBO miniseries of the same name. A lot of his alternate history hinges on the Germans being successful in cutting off the Russians from their oil reserves (which I'm not sure I buy) and, more importantly, the Germans being aware that Enigma had cracked their codes. That, I think, would have made a huge difference.

There's a good summary of the plot and the historical set-up on the Wiki page. If I recall correctly, the war in the Pacific still happens - again, Japanese ambitions being what they were and, in all reality, WWII was for all intents and purposes two separate yet simultaneous wars.

Also, depending on what you're after, you might consider killing Hitler. With him dead, preferably at the hands of Rommel and the other generals, the outcome of WWII becomes much different. A cease-fire along then existing lines would have been much more possible.

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I just have this idea for a variant on The Scarlet Pimpernel, only set in a Germany that is winning the war, or at least holding their own for the moment, and an occupied Britain. Where the war ends up isn't all that relevant, since my story isn't about the ending, but I want to get my setting right, and that means getting the geopolitical thing spot on.

jallenecs said:

Which route would you have chosen? And what would the advantages and disadvantages of that route?

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Me? Hell no, I don't fight. :

I think we'd have gone Italy and North Africa to France. Going straight up over the Alps to Germany would present certain logistical nightmares, and coming around via the east not only has mountains but also nations that were much more comfortable with the Germans.

I don't know that there would have been the large-scale invasion of southern France the way it happened in Normandy, but think of something similar to the island hopping we did in the Pacific, only in this case from Italy and Northern Africa into France. From there it's a sweep north - which might even have gone faster than we managed to go south from Normandy, given the terrain (i.e. hedgerows of northern France) we had to go through there.

We had the naval power to cut off the Mediterranean - just watch Das Boot to know what the Germans thought about going past Gibraltar - and that might have even made ferrying things across there easier than it was trying to do so across the North Sea, which was more contested.

Thanks, Boston, and everybody else, for your patience with my nagging questions. It's a fun story idea in my head, if nowhere else, and it could work.

More importantly, it's given me a distraction from thinking and worrying about tomorrow, and given my imagination something to chew on tonight besides what's going to happen to my mother.

Thanks, guys.

Good luck with things tomorrow, JC.

I am off to bed, Cantinaites.

I shall endeavor to be around a bit more, but this semester's schedule is kicking my butt.

One thing to consider Junely - the great mother land was fully prepared to hand over the top third of Australia to the Japanese, and that's when we had our little disagreement with them, withdrew most of our troops from the European war, and dragged them all back here.

The moment Japan gets involved, the Anzacs vanish as troop support. We had too much to worry about elsewhere. I also find it interesting what Britian was willing to...allow in order to make friends with the Japanese. That alone suggests to me that the Brits were spread a bit thin.

Because they essentially were two separate wars, and Japan had been fighting this one long long before the Second World War came about. The Second World War ended most of the Asian wars, it definietly didn't begin them.

Given how... Well, uninvolved America seemed to be back then, I still don't understand why Japan got them involved in the first place. Given how uninvolved Britian was (they really didn't have the option of involving themselves in Singapore, pretty much refused to send people to help out here, tried to hand a good portion of Australia to the Japanese), if pearl harbour had never happened, I doubt America or Britian would have been involved in this region at all, after a point, and I doubt America would have involved itself with World War Two in general. If the wars in Asia had not tied themselves to the European wars, I imagine that the amount American involvement would have been about the same as it was in the First World War. And given how much that cost them, and how the Great Depression effected them, I can't see them rushing into another costly war without reason. Europe was so far away in that age and time.

Maybe eventually, they would have involved themselves, but I can't imagine them jumping up and down to do it. It wasn't their war, not until Japan dragged them in and the wars in Asian were tied to the wars in Europe.

I think the Germans would have had a foothold in Britian if they carried on after Dunkirk, and I imagine America wouldn't be all that quick to get themselves involved. And by the time they did, I imagine the war would have been drawn out much longer. And imagine if Japan had involved America after they' sent troops over to help Britian out

I can't decide if this all makes sense or I'm just babbling...

10trackers said:

Got a request for the first three EvilPants chapters from LooseId.

Oh my God.

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YAY!!!

ION: I've finished my back reading. WWII talk was very interesting. Sorry I have nothing to contribute. Talk to you all tomorrow.

jallenecs said:

Let me ask you all a question. Got to get the question in now, because Boston is here, and I want his opinion, as well.

Okay, according to my dad (who was a history buff, and was alive during all this), Hitler's military campaign suffered two serious errors. (okay, there were others, but these were the biggies). First, the obvious: he tried to conduct a war on two fronts and one of those fronts was Russia. A war on two fronts is suicidal. One of those fronts being a land war in Asia? Not even Napoleon could pull that one off. If he wanted to take on Asia, he should have waited until he had consolidated his hold on the entirety of Europe, and hardened his defenses against any potential American/Canadian/Anzac incursion.

Second. The Battle of Dunkirk. Not to put too fine a point on it, the Germans had beaten the Brits, for all intents and purposes at the end of that battle. If he had pressed his advantage and wiped out those forces, and followed that up by an immediate invasion of the U.K, things could have turned out differently Could he have held the U.K. once he got it? Meh, that's debatable. But with the UK under control, it becomes exceedingly difficult for any non-Europeans (Americans, Canadians and Anzacs) to intervene.

So. Now to the question. What if the German forces had NOT made those two mistakes. How would you see it changing the face of the war after 1940?

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As regards an immediate invasion following Dunkirk:

Hitler would still have needed time to build up invasion forces. Not necessarily in terms of troops and armoured vehicles (though he would have needed those too, and he would have needed time to repair and service the tanks and things that had just fought their way through the Low Countries and France) but in terms of barges, landing craft etc. Hitler didn't have much of an amphibious capability at that point.

Secondly, and far more importantly, he needed some way to close the channel to the Royal Navy. If I were him I would have recalled whatever U-Boats I had in the North Atlantic and put them on mine-laying duty (along with at least some of my Luftwaffe). I would have concentrated my surface fleet on the two ends of the channel to intercept whatever units of the RN closed in (those two naval task forces being centred on Bismarck and Tirpitz) while leaving a few subs to intercept Home Fleet assets heading out of Scapa Flow (it is worth reading up on what happened to the battleship Royal Oak).

Meanwhile, the RAF would need to be thoroughly decimated. And not just Fighter Command: Bomber Command and (crucially) Coastal Command would need to be thoroughly shattered beforehand. To that end, I would have the bombers of the Luftwaffe attack radar stations and then airfields. The airfield raids should be conducted with bombs utilising both high explosive (because you need to crater the runways to make them unserviceable) and something like mustard gas, or some other chemical agent wih high persistancy, because you need to kill as many pilots and groundcrew as possible. It takes less time to build a plane than it does to train the pilot, so the more pilots you kill the more effective your attacks on the RAF will be.

You will also need to ensure that your own troops are protected against chemical munitions, since Churchill's plans for the defence of the UK called for chemical artillery to be deployed against whatever beachheads the Nazis managed to create.

Finally, have you considered a two-pronged invasion, simultaneously sweeping into Aberdeenshire from Norway? Or, at least, landing saboteurs in the north to make their way south and disrupt RAF operations on those airfields out of range of your continental bombers. (For the entire duration of the War, the Luftwaffe was handicapped by not having a strategic bomber. If I were Goering, I would have given equal importance to the production of both the Heinkel He-111 tactical bomber and the Focke-Wolf Fw-200 Kondor, this last being the only really successful long-range design the Germans built during the war).

Hope that provides some food for thought,
BM

_Sian_ said:

Given how... Well, uninvolved America seemed to be back then, I still don't understand why Japan got them involved in the first place.

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If you were to pick one thing that defeated Japan, the answer would have to be the American Submarine Service. The Americans succeeded in doing in the Pacific what Germany tried and failed to do in the North Atlantic: namely, they blockaded an island nation and starved it.

Japan wanted overseas possessions for their raw materials - rubber, oil, food etc. Their army was the most powerful in Asia and was battle-hardened already (as you have pointed out), so taking and holding those possessions was not going to be overly problematic. The problem lay with the logistics: once those territories were taken, their exports have to be returned - by sea! - to Japan. It was vital to keep the sea-lanes open. For that reason, the most powerful Navy in the area - the US Navy Pacific Fleet - had to be neutralised. Hence Pearl Harbour: it was designed to ensure the maritime security of Japan.

Of course, the Japanese Army (who by that stage were running the government) had no clue how a naval war might be fought, and believed that Pearl Harbour won it for them in one fell swoop. The reality, of course, was that the most powerful economy in the world, and the most sophisticated industrial base in history, went immediately to full war production and started churning out materiel at a rate that Japan could scarcely believe, never mind match. For a while America had only a single aircraft carrier, Enterprise, available to fight the Pacific War. By the time VJ Day came about, they had ninety-seven.

Pearl Harbour, although it made sense at the time, was indeed a phenomenally bad call.

I'm about to head out, but this is all fascinating. There are AH forums and websites which go into greater detail than you will ever need about what it would have taken for Hitler to win - not being completely psychotic would have helped him, as would a more concrete plan of attack from some of his generals. Remember that by the time the Brits and US forces got to France, most of the "planning" consisted of "lie constantly" and "use inflatable tanks so the Germans think we have a fighting chance". Had they a) seen through the deception, and b) called Britain on it, then things would have gone much differently.

The lesson we learned from this? Never fear a German poker player.

I can't believe I'm saying this, but I agree with Boston about pretty much everything in the previous posts


Also, this was in my inbox this morning after I sent my three chapters in last night:

"I'm really excited about this one, so I hope it's terrific."


So, basically, I'm doomed

No. You are not doomed. It will be awesome : D

jallenecs said:

It's risky as hell -- she's 78 -- but the alternative is a death by inches with repeated bouts of dropsy.

Not a good day in Hillbilly Land today. Or tomorrow, for that matter.

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If it helps - and it probably won't - my gran had a similar procedure at 76 and she's still going now at 93. Yeah, it's risky, but the end results versus the alternative. As you say, it's worth it.

Sending you all good vibes Junely.