World War II

My contribution to this discussion is as follows: many decades ago I dated a girl from Oak Ridge. When I went to visit her in my old '57 Ford, we always ended up at her favorite make-out spot: a dark road overlooking the Y-12 plant where they separated U-235 from U-238. We would always pause for a few minutes to take in the sight of that truly enormous complex at night.
Ah, the sweet memories of youth.

Handling the goals and setting objectives is one of the big challenges facing most war games (and armchair generals). WiF handles it by naming certain locations as victory cities - control enough of them and your side wins. How many do you need? It's a sliding scale that depends on which side you're playing (Democracies, Fascists, or Communists). Each side has a different target number.

The game also has a mechanism for the US entry into the war. The more the other democracies do the longer it takes for the US to get involved... And the more the Communists do the more likely the US is going to say "Let them two fight it out". The US can also try to do things before it is at war (lend-lease ships, etc) but the more they do the slower they get into the war. It's interesting, because it tries to map public opinion into the game.

As for the Civil War, one of the big causes for it was the South's desire to ship raw materials to Europe (where they could get a better price) than to send it North to fuel Northern industry. I've come across some experts who suggest that it was only the British anti-slavery movement that kept them out of the war - if nothing else they could have easily broken the US blockade of Southern ports. Still, the British did haver over whether they would go to war then.

That was you in the Ford? I had a Chevy. I guess that's why some unmentionable parts of mine glow in the dark. Hey, I heard a rumor that this was a spanking site--think there's any truth to that?

I heard a rumor that this is a discussion forum. Discussions sometimes wander...

Since the Russians developed an atomic bomb in the late forties I certainly think that the Germans could have developed it earlier. Especially since if they had not gone to war with the US or Russia, as I hypothetically proposed, they would have had many more resources available.

Here, they USUALLY do.

Goodgulf. Thanks for the tip on 'World in Flames'. As a enthusiastic wargamer since middle school (SSI & Avalon Hill) I had heard distantly about it and now have taken a closer look. Good 'Grand Strategy' games are hard to come by and are much fun for the armchair commander so I want to take a more detailed look but what I saw on-line in just a few minutes made be drool. As a naval history buff may I recommend NWS's 'Fighting Steel' and it's campaign level companion 'Thunder at Sea' as excellent PC based 3D naval wargames. And least I forget; 'Fleet Command' deals with cold war naval issues; Storm Eagles most excellent 3D 'Jutland', run on their servers rather than your box is not only accurate but visually the most impressive naval game I've ever seen. And yes I have not forgotten my assignment with your Amber take off. Grin!

Guy. I agree with you about Turtledove. Good writer and I enjoyed his 'Alternative Presidents' many years ago but I tried the WW II series and it left me cold for the same reasons.

CF Pubs. Thanks for that little factoid Steve. Just goes to show ya!

blimp Excellent point old man! Only Gaeus Julius Caesar, William of Normandy, General Monck, and William Prince of Orange have pulled it off. Everyone else has failed. As a naval enthusiast and former sailor I can testify personally that the channel is one of the most treacherous bodies of water on the planet!

All. It has been my understanding that Hitler's 'Brain Drain' plus the Nazi's inability to set realistic industrial and production priorities.......and stick too them are the two principle reasons they never came close to developing nukes.

Rollin. Bronx Cheer! Grin!

That, and a lack of resources. There just wasn't much pitchblende available for them to work with. Russia had more and it didn't execute or exile its top scientists. Plus, they knew that it could be done and had at least some ideas of how the US did it - which was a huge advantage.

WiF (with the DoD expansion) is sometimes called a life style game. You need a room to play it in (4 main maps for Europe/Asia, plus extra ones for Africa, Scandinavia, and the Americas). It can take hours to do one turn (each turn has a variable number of phases depending on the weather). On the plus side, there are a set number of turns - 60. It starts in 1936 and ends 1946 (or is it 66 and goes to the end of 46?) - or when one side's victory conditions are met, or two sides agree that the third side has won. We've never played to the "last turn" - someone always wins before then.

Goodgulf

Yes, that's true, if Germany hadn't invaded the U.S.S.R. and had avoided going to war with the United States, the German situation RE resources would've been significantly different.

A 1941 British commando raid on its site in Norway that seriously damaged the German heavy-water production facility resulted in Hitler being told that it would take at least two years for Germany's atomic research program to recover from the setback. Since Hitler didn't anticipate the war lasting for another two years at that point, according to HITLER'S WAR (David Irving), the German effort in that area was curtailed.

By 1943, Germany was in "an armaments crisis," according to Albert Speer (who became the German minister for armament and war production early that year) in his memoir, INSIDE THE THIRD REICH, and what resources were available for weapons development were focused on jet airplanes and long-range rockets.

However, had Germany somehow been fighting only Britain, or even moreso had the Germans either defeated the British or worked out a negotiated peace with them, their resources available for atomic research would undoubtedly have been much greater... --C.K.

Well, I never read Turtledove's World War II alternate history novels that dealt with an alien invasion, but the ones dealing with an alternate history in which the Confederacy won the U.S. Civil War (a four-novel series called Settling Accounts) were quite entertaining AFAIC. However, you would probably want to start back with How Few Remain, about a war between the U.S.A. and C.S.A. in the 1880s, then work through two trilogies, The Great War (World War I) and American Empire (the interwar period) first.

There's a lot of social history included, since many of the 'point-of-view characters' are ordinary citizens rather than military and political leaders, and numerous brief references to parental spanking of children.

SPOILER:
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Germany does become the first country to develop a "superbomb" (atomic bomb)... --C.K.