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Alternate History General Discussion

JesterBL said:
It's actually pretty fascinating to consider how a rump Virginia and a larger West/North Virginia would develop into the present day.
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I actually find it more fascinating what a smaller West Virginia without the Eastern Panhandle and Southern West Virginia would look like. It would have been much more Northern and Republican. For decades following the American Civil War or actually the removal of the test oaths, a coalition of former Confederates and former Copperheads dominated West Virginia. I posted a thread about this, https://forum.sealionpress.co.uk/index.php?threads/smaller-west-virginia.4777/.
 
Charles EP M. said:
Whoops!
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Like I said, not the first time it's happened. First time it did a couple of writing buddies in the NYC area messaged me, excited I was going to be doing a talk and signing. I was shocked, to put it mildly, and took a little digging to discover that it was Kressel not Kresal going to be there!

I will admit I'd considered submitting to that anthology but never had an idea that really came together. Hence some mild surprise on my part when you tagged me akin to "Wait, I didn't send something into that, did I?!"
 
Seems to predate 2007 (that's when Guthrie's quote is from), I'd guess from article this - if true - was something earlier. Mugabe was big news in the early 2000s and pre-Iraq planning we'd have some capacity for it. Guthrie retired from Chief of the Defence Staff in mid-2001, 2000 or 2001 seems the right time for this, Blair riding high from Kosovo and Sierra Leone working

Not really a good idea at all, it'd be seen as Britain deposing an old rebel to save white farmers (and that was what got more play here than dead black Zimbabweans, I doubt that was the driver when Guthrie got asked about it) and South Africa helping Britain do the same. That's before, as Mbeki and the MDC say, "yeah and who would be in charge after?" People would keep getting killed over that question.

(Mbeki's wrong in Mugabe being "part of the solution", as he didn't help solve the problems he caused and finally got couped)
 
TheKennedyMachine said:
Apparently, around 2007, Blair wanted to invade Zimbabwe but was talked out of it due to the current unpopularity with Iraq.

Could make an interesting TL … 👀

Tony Blair plotted military intervention in Zimbabwe, claims Thabo Mbeki | Zimbabwe | The Guardian

Former South African president says his country was asked by UK for help with military plan to remove Robert Mugabe
amp.theguardian.com amp.theguardian.com
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The French are good in Africa operations, they still have major presence across the continent, just see how quick they responded with their Mali intervention, the British however need as staging base, which would be South Africa which i doubt their government is going to allow as it would be seen as former colonial power removing a African government.
 
Invading Zimbabwe and Sudan as a generic BLUFOR Eagleland is actually interesting in wargaming purely because it simulates having to conduct operations without direct close bases (a real life example of this sort of problem was Afghanistan, particularly early on). Sudan you don't have any politically reliable bases nearby, so everything has to be either amphibious or long-range air. Zimbabwe's even harder in that it's pure air.

Obviously it's a spherical cow scenario whose background would just get handwaved aside with a 1990s technothriller plot brief explanation, but it's still an fascinating wargame problem.
 
Coiler said:
Invading Zimbabwe and Sudan as a generic BLUFOR Eagleland is actually interesting in wargaming purely because it simulates having to conduct operations without direct close bases (a real life example of this sort of problem was Afghanistan, particularly early on). Sudan you don't have any politically reliable bases nearby, so everything has to be either amphibious or long-range air. Zimbabwe's even harder in that it's pure air.

Obviously it's a spherical cow scenario whose background would just get handwaved aside with a 1990s technothriller plot brief explanation, but it's still an fascinating wargame problem.
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Isn't Egypt a politically reliable base for an US invasion of Sudan?
 
There appears to have been a widespread feeling among Democrats that Al Gore was cheated out of the Presidency by the Supreme Court in 2000. However, 9/11 significantly changed the political atmosphere and caused President Bush to experience a massive popularity boost.

Without 9/11 and Bush's resulting popularity boost, would Gore have ran again?
 
TheKennedyMachine said:
Without 9/11 and Bush's resulting popularity boost, would Gore have ran again?
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Probably not. OTL, he could've very easily ran and won the nomination in 2004 or 2008 (IIRC Obama only ran after confirming that Gore wouldn't run and getting his blessing) but his heart wasn't in it and his personal life was falling apart over the 2000s. The pressure and speculation would be greater than OTL but I doubt he makes a different decision. I'm not even sure that the 2004 Dem primary field even looks that different than OTL.
 
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Been thinking about a bit of a weird idea lately and wondered if people with more modern military knowledge could help as I'm primarily a medievalist.

So historically I'm vaguely aware of the Landship Committee and the various ways in which early tank development was done by the RN even as Army officers had wanted to explore the project.

What I'm more curious about is if there is a way to keep tanks as being akin to Marines and have them be kept in Navy management for longer, perhaps even into the Inter-War years instead of getting over into the Army far quicker than say the evolution of Air attachments to Armies into independent Air Forces.

I'm not sure how feasible it is but I'm curious if there's room for an interesting story about alternate doctrine coming into being earlier and different development trends if the idea of the tank as akin to a Cruiser sticks around longer and other armoured vehicles get developed more explicitly to mimic other naval classifications as a result?

Is this too unrealistic, was there no real institutional pull to make tanks and armoured forces in the British system more akin to the development and shifts in Air Forces from being attached to the Army to becoming their own thing? Is there room to get a 'Tank Force' as it were even if it would be a tremendously flawed approach, for a mechanised equivalent of Strategic Bombing as a doctrine to be developed to pursue funding ends in an independent mechanised branch of the armed forces?

I'm mainly asking here because I'm not familiar enough with trends in the Imperial Staff and politics in the Cabinet at the time to know if a different history of the doctrinal and organisation place of the tank and tanks along these lines is possible?

I don't necessarily want to write about Tanks still being under the Navy even in WW2, I've got a few ideas on where I'd want to go and what I'd want to write about but this was more asking others for a general plausibility check and/or if there's room for a story here even if it would need heavy fudging to stop tanks going to the Army in Britain.

Hopefully I've been clear and any help in this regard would be very much appreciated!
 
Avatar Of Khaine said:
I'm not sure how feasible it is but I'm curious if there's room for an interesting story about alternate doctrine coming into being earlier and different development trends if the idea of the tank as akin to a Cruiser sticks around longer and other armoured vehicles get developed more explicitly to mimic other naval classifications as a result?
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When it comes to doctrinal/design differences with that POD, the first thing I thought was more tanks being made (theoretically) amphibious, or at least better able to fit on board warships for landings. Which means you get objectively less powerful/defended tanks as you're sacrificing two parts of the design triangle for the sake of massively increased strategic mobility.

Unfortunately, I'm as clueless as you (if not more) when it comes to British armored vehicle politics, so I can't help you there.
 
If the army didn't believe in them but there was still drive to try them out, that could be done under naval auspices.

Once they've shown battlefield results, I struggle to see the army doing anything other than grabbing with both hands. It's a major weapon system with only land uses, which means budget and commands and prestige, after all! And while winning the war is important, positioning for the post-war budget fight with the navy is  also important.
 
Callan said:
Probably not. OTL, he could've very easily ran and won the nomination in 2004 or 2008 (IIRC Obama only ran after confirming that Gore wouldn't run and getting his blessing) but his heart wasn't in it and his personal life was falling apart over the 2000s. The pressure and speculation would be greater than OTL but I doubt he makes a different decision. I'm not even sure that the 2004 Dem primary field even looks that different than OTL.
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Yeah between his marriage dying and what we now know about Al and Massage Parlors I don't think he really has a shot. Not to mention the long standing rumors he had a nervous breakdown at the time.
 
Japhy said:
Yeah between his marriage dying and what we now know about Al and Massage Parlors I don't think he really has a shot. Not to mention the long standing rumors he had a nervous breakdown at the time.
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I think his personal life coming apart is a totally underexplored but likely highly consequential part of a Gore presidency.
 
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