-------------------- "You are a terrible human, Ritten." Magnus "Urgh, you are a sick sick person..." Austin Powers A leek too, pretty much a negi.....
Registered: Sep 2000
| IP: Logged
posted
So...we rally around who? Omega for the Christian Conservative angle? Liam for the...er...y'know, where the fuck is Liam anyway?
I say we have MaGic as our standard-bearer (she's photogenic and can dance) whilst we all do the dirty jobs that make an Empire function.
like greasing the wheeels of bureacracy with the blood of all who oppose us.
-------------------- Justice inclines her scales so that wisdom comes at the price of suffering. -Aeschylus, Agamemnon
Registered: Aug 2002
| IP: Logged
posted
We orchestrate a complex multilateral strike with the many operatives we have stationed around the globe. Timo, Masao, Bernd, Liam, Omega, Jason, Balaam, me...
We will give new meaning to the term 'blitzkrieg' when the world wakes up and finds that the Bible was mistranslated -- the GEEK have inherited the Earth.
Boo-yah!
--Jonah
-------------------- "That's what I like about these high school girls, I keep getting older, they stay the same age."
--David "Woody" Wooderson, Dazed and Confused
Registered: Feb 2001
| IP: Logged
posted
Well at least we're talking about a fictional fleet of Germany during WWII instead of the fictional Federation fleet during the Dominion War.
-------------------- "It speaks to some basic human needs: that there is a tomorrow, it's not all going to be over with a big splash and a bomb, that the human race is improving, that we have things to be proud of as humans." -Gene Roddenberry about Star Trek
Registered: May 1999
| IP: Logged
posted
Y'know...I was museing about these losers I used to know: The Black Hand. They showed the world that even rank amaturs could cause the world to go to war.
I was considering a possible curent Black Hand band of anarchists and I think it could really work on two conditions: First, they'd have to recruit a Hezbollah member (or someone that could pass for one) and second that person would have to kill off one lynchpin figure on the world stage. Probably Condi Rice at present.
This would draw the U.S. into unavoidable conflict in Lebanon and ultimately spark a war between the US/Israel alliance and Iran/Syria. As U.S. forces are stretchd so thin just now, Britan may itercede on the U.S.'s behalf.
It's not perfect- North Korea would need to get involved to really fuck things up, but it's a start. ALL THIS IS OF COURSE SPECULATION AND IN NO WAY INTENDED TO GET ME ARRESTED BY BUSHCOTM.
-------------------- Justice inclines her scales so that wisdom comes at the price of suffering. -Aeschylus, Agamemnon
Registered: Aug 2002
| IP: Logged
posted
Nobody ever mentions me in these lists. I'd like to think it's because I'm held in reserve as a last resort, the doomsday option, but really I suspect it's because no-one likes me.
Ken MacLeod's books set in the mid-21st century feature Germany embarking on a War of European Integration (without ever once mentioning Nazis). They come a cropper when a US-dominated UN nukes occupied Kiev, and Frankfurt and Berlin too.
One thing that's puzzling me about the Battle of Britain, now: in order for Operation Sea-Lion to succeed, the Germans needed air superiority (and didn't get it). But what danger, exactly, did the RAF and Fleet Air Arm actually pose to an invasion fleet? As we've seen, most of their maritime aviation assets were less than stellar; did they even have a respectable torpedo-bomber? I don't see how a few Spitfires, but mainly Hurricanes and Swordfish etc. could ever have been seen as a serious threat.
posted
It's not that RAF or even the Home Fleet would have been a serious deterrence against the invasion - Hitler's previous maneuvers had all been harebrained gambles that by conventional tactical analysis should never have succeeded, and Seel�we could simply have joined that club.
If Hitler had decided to push forth with Seel�we, and gained a few airstrips on the Albion side early on, odds are that Britain would have folded. After all, France folded even though it had the stronger army, merely because Germany had more audacity. It would have required extremely good luck - favorable weather in the Channel, Churchill getting cold feet about risking the Home Fleet, G�ring choking on a Wienerschnitzel and being replaced by somebody like Galland... But Hitler had been a lucky bastard before, and might continue to be so.
Why Seel�we failed to be attempted is not because what Hitler was facing. It was because what Hitler THOUGHT he was facing. G�ring, out of incompetence, convinced him that the RAF was powerful when it was not (after first having convinced him of the exact opposite, with equally disastrous results). Canaris, out of deliberate high treason and desire to see his F�hrer burn, convinced him that England had twenty-seven divisions ready to throw the attackers back to the sea, when perhaps two could have been mustered at best.
That particular battle was won through propaganda and self-delusion, not by the actual strength of armies or navies or air forces involved. Hitler was never prepared to do anything, he just did it, or didn't, based on "personal risk analysis". This time, he didn't.
(All that aside, the Hurricane would probably have been the worst air threat to the invasion - a steady gun platform on which devastating rockets were already being fitted, in mass production and with a reliable engine. Things like the Beaufighter were also coming, and the strategic bombers could have done their part against the beachhead as well.)
posted
Yes, Lee, you are the last resort, the one from under the bottom of the barrel. 8)
Timo, how much of this information was based on plywood cutouts, as far as divisional strengths and aircraft numbers?
-------------------- "You are a terrible human, Ritten." Magnus "Urgh, you are a sick sick person..." Austin Powers A leek too, pretty much a negi.....
Registered: Sep 2000
| IP: Logged
posted
If Lee's the last hope, I say we install the Flare Matrix of Sarcasm into his chest and when he shows up to save the day, Shik has to sing that godawful song "The Touch" from the Transformers movie.
-------------------- Justice inclines her scales so that wisdom comes at the price of suffering. -Aeschylus, Agamemnon
Registered: Aug 2002
| IP: Logged
quote:Timo, how much of this information was based on plywood cutouts, as far as divisional strengths and aircraft numbers?
I don't think the British themselves ever hoped to turn two divisions to twenty-seven with such tricks. They were really only attempted in large scale to mask Operation Overlord, three-four years later.
I think German aerial reconnaissance over Britain in 1940-41 was also rather impotent. But that lack of capacity made it possible for the Abwehr to deceive Hitler as much as they did - about 80% of Britain's landmass was beyond the reach of his aerial eyes, and could theoretically hold just about anything. (Perhaps a bit fewer war elephants and a bit more munitions factories than in the paintings delivered by agent Blackadder, but still.)
Basically, Canaris pulled those figures out of his ass, pretending e.g. that the veterans rescued at Dunkerque had been distributed to form the core of the new formations (they weren't, and their expertise would only first see use in the North African campaigns). The first time there would be dozens of divisions to defend Britain would be when the Yanks began arriving in force. And THOSE arrivals were in turn belittled.
The sad thing is, Hitler's brave backstabbers can never receive the public admiration they deserve, because that would strengthen the myth that Hitler wouldn't have been defeated by his own utter incompetence alone.
WizArtist II
"How can you have a yellow alert in Spacedock? "
Member # 1425
posted
Well, ANY landing on an opposing shore is going to receive massive casualties. You typically need a 3-1 advantage before embarking on an invasion to provide a high percentage of success.
The problems lie in the logistics: 1. Jerry lacked long range 4-engine bombers that could reach deep into Britain and destroy resupply routes to the beaches. 2. Jerry lacked the ability to provide constant naval support to the landings. They wouldn't risk their BB's for a close support action for fear of losing them in the channel and couldn't provide the required air cover to protect them. 3. Jerry lacked the proper landing craft to move the necessary equipment ashore in a landing. They had no amphib's and only at a real port would they have been able to offload tanks. WIthout that support, German infantry would be hard pressed against even moderate defenses. 4. Jerry didn't have the supply chain to pour the equipment necessary to support a breakout from the initial beachhead. Without supplies and reinforcements an invasion is doomed to die on the beach.
-------------------- There are 10 types of people in the world...those that understand Binary and those that don't.
Registered: Nov 2004
| IP: Logged
posted
The key to Seel�we would have been the virtually complete lack of opposition. Albion had basically two and a half armored vehicles, available artillery was antiquated and in untrained hands, and "Dad's Army" was guarding most of the coastline, some 50% of which was suitable for beaching by the ersatz landing craft available to the Nazis.
The only thing that Britain didn't lose in France was the RAF, which Churchill ordered to withdraw when defeat was inevitable; and the now unarmed veterans.
But of course Hitler didn't know that, and wouldn't have believed it even had he known. If he hadn't lost his nerve with paratroopers after the Netherlands, those could have thrown defenses into complete disarray, especially by overrunning key airfields and radar installations; and southern England out of necessity was full of fuel that the Germans could have utilized.
Even though virtually unarmed, Britain in 1940 could have thrown the invasion back to the Channel. Or then Britain could have folded in a week, out of sheer shock. That was the main weapon of the German Invasion: surprise and fear. Wait, those were the two main weapons. Surprise, fear and a fanatical devotion to the F�hrer...
quote:Originally posted by Timo: Surprise, fear and a fanatical devotion to the F�hrer...
Three
Hitler was just waiting for his deathstar before taking on Britain, all those super weapons his people were trying to create.
-------------------- "You are a terrible human, Ritten." Magnus "Urgh, you are a sick sick person..." Austin Powers A leek too, pretty much a negi.....
Registered: Sep 2000
| IP: Logged
WizArtist II
"How can you have a yellow alert in Spacedock? "
Member # 1425
posted
What is frightening to consider is: What would have happened if Germany had waited 12-18 months to start WW2. I remember seeing a comic entitled "Luftwaffe 1946" or such that had a similar scenario and the Jerrys were flying all this advanced stuff. Granted the U.S. would have still had a viable fleet in the waters by 1942/3, but could even superior numbers overwhelm an advanced AND supplied GermanY?
-------------------- There are 10 types of people in the world...those that understand Binary and those that don't.
Registered: Nov 2004
| IP: Logged
Printer-friendly view of this topic
