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Post by Max Sinister on Aug 21, 2024 23:40:18 GMT
By Jon Kacer aka CalBear, to be found at some other Althist internet forum. Meanwhile available as a printed book as well. It's one of the best-known TLs out there, maybe you already know it. Might have to do with the popularity of TLs involving the Nazis, whether they win or lose. {Spoiler}
In AANW, they do both in fact - first win, then lose.
Careful, unmarked spoilers ahead.
Summary:
The title already tells us about the three main participants who get the most spotlight: Anglos, the US, and the nazis. Well, with significantly more spotlight for the US than for the Brits, after all the author is from California.
The PoD is quite late for a "Nazis win" TL, with the battle of Stalingrad in late 1942, to be precise. Long story short, the Wehrmacht wins and takes the whole city, instead of "only" 90% of it as IOTL.
At this point your suspension of disbelief may already break, if you think that Stalin was still too rational (albeit very paranoid) for what comes next. After all, he didn't found the city which bore his name, he was just involved with its defense during the Russian Civil War which helped his rise. (At that time, it too was important for the connection between Moscow and the oil from Baku.)
Anyway, ITTL Stalin goes crazy because of the loss of one city. So crazy that he decides to shoot his best generals, starting with Zhukov. Apparently even those who were too far from Stalingrad to be able to do anything about it. As a result, the Red Army is unable to throw the Wehrmacht back during winter 1942/43.
In 1943, when spring has come, the Wehrmacht attacks again and smashes the remains of the RA as if it was nothing, it seems (despite the fact that millions of redarmists are still there, and L&L wasn't cancelled either). Nazi Germany manages to reach its seemingly utopian (...) aim of getting the Urals as the new eastern border.
The western Allies are still able to bomb the Reich, but they can't start an invasion to save the European continent. So the whole war is toned down, even if no peace is made.
Meanwhile, the Nazis are able to implement their genocidal plans - Jews and "gypsies" first, but Poles and other Slavs next. When TTL is over, only a minority of European Poles has survived.
Oh, their other opponent Japan is brought down until 1946 at least. This is because of a very controversial decision of TTL Truman, i.e. not using nukes against them. Which costs the Allies many dead bodies, as had to be expected.
We don't learn much of what happened in the rest of the world, but at one point Mao is mentioned as a "failed Chinese Communist revolutionary".
But in the 1950s, the WAllies are ready to strike back. And they do.
The AANW proper
CalBear really seems to be into arms developed by the US in the 1950s which were never put to their intended use during OTL's Cold War. Because he describes them a lot during the TL. And the destruction they cause. And not just those. Because the WAllies also use their strongest arms, which are nukes of course. And if that wasn't bad enough yet, biological (up to Anthrax!) and chemical weapons are used too.
At first though, we have the non-nuclear Saint Patrick's Day Bombings, with which the war gets really hot again.
Frankly, even summarizing TTL is depressing if you have to think about all the destruction and death in it.
Of course, things go really bad after the original "führer" dies and Himmler takes over. (Many people have stated that in this case, the various powerful nazis would immediately start to kill off each other, and some even have written TLs or books about it, but ITTL nobody really dares to challenge Himmler.)
When he understands that the war is lost, he decides to destroy as much as possible. Götterdämmerung style. Just like Hitler tried in the last months of OTL's WW2, which fortunately was prevented because his underlings didn't want to destroy e.g. Paris. Which I mention here because Himmler does what Adolf Nazi only dreamed of: Yes, he has one of the greatest cities in the world destroyed, just so the Allies won't have it.
At the end, TTL's WW2 is finally over, and the death toll has nine figures. Not really a reason to go ecstatic.
Oh wait, the winners from the title actually gain a bit: Britain the French Channel coast, and the US eastern Siberia which becomes the new state of "West Alaska". Seriously.
Criticism
You may have notices that I'm not really fond of TTL. Others have stated before me that the author only got away with it because he happens to be the second-most powerful guy on the web forum where he published it. Whereas other users would have received a ban for it. But that's something hypothetical (...) as well.
Maybe you think that this section is superfluous, since it's about a story that's both epic regarding the time and space it covers, let alone the horrible crimes committed by the Nazis in it. But then I might argue as well for which reason we need to know which type of B-XX planes the WAllies used to bomb the Nazis. "Because some people like rivet-counting" isn't that great a reason.
Now I only read the thread in the sub-forum for finished scenarios, so it might be that e.g. the print version has some mistakes corrected. But I seriously wonder what's going on here. I can forgive him the reichsgau Saxony-Anhalt which never existed IOTL because it was only created as a land in 1946 - but hey, we're talking about althist here.
A bit odder is the use of a certain "Calallero", who is the successor of Mussolini. I didn't find someone with that name on WP (looks like a case of As Long As It Sounds Foreign), and I rather would have expected Ciano or Badoglio or so as his successor. After all, many people from OTL should still be alive at this time, even in Fascist Italy.
Apropos real people: Only few of them get the (sometimes, dis-)honor of a mention. Himmler and Truman I already mentioned. Good, there's Göring, Goebbels, Rommel, Manstein, a certain POTUS initially not named, but whose younger brother is an important senator from Massachusetts named John... but not many more.
Except (an odd choice) Luther Terry who still becomes Surgeon General (minister of health) of the US. And a certain Frenchman I'll mention later.
Being German, I was irritated a bit by the use of "scheisekoffen". Not because it's used on the SS guys who'd deserve worse, but because it shouldn't have been too hard to find out that it's "Scheißköpfe". Which isn't even a typical German insult. Not anymore at least. But worse mistakes have been made in AH.
Unfortunately, here as well. Even if talking about typos in words pretty common in WW2 AH. Goring is acceptable, not everyone has umlauts on his keyboard, but Reichmark, Werhmacht, Kriegesmarine, Volkstrum, Ensatzgruppen, Louv[r]e, Mainstein, Gobbels, Deisberg (Duisburg, we guess), Cotenin / Conenin Peninsula, Loraine, even "the Nazi’s", and "distain"?
Did he want to tick off the Wehraboos with broken German? One should think that writing a lot about a) which horrible crimes the Nazis commit - several times more than IOTL! - and b) having them killed off in horrible ways should have been sufficient for it.
Sometimes the story gets really weird (well, if you understand some German), whenever CalBear mentions the "mobelwagen" of the Germans. Furniture wagons? No, apparently supposed to be war-related. No idea what he had in mind.
At one point, he fails basic political science when he mentions the "Russian Tsarist Republic" (supposedly a Constitutional Monarchy). What?
The thing that ticked me off most is this, however: In this story, Alain Poher is the education minister in nazi puppet France. Which is an odd choice to say the least, because he not only existed, but actually was a member of La Résistance. - He dies of Anthrax. Frankly, that's offensive, turning a resistance member into a nazi puppet. What did this guy ever do to hurt you, CalBear?
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stevep
Fleet admiral
Posts: 24,869 
Likes: 13,254
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Post by stevep on Aug 22, 2024 10:46:12 GMT
By Jon Kacer aka CalBear, to be found at some other Althist internet forum. Meanwhile available as a printed book as well. It's one of the best-known TLs out there, maybe you already know it. Might have to do with the popularity of TLs involving the Nazis, whether they win or lose. {Spoiler}
In AANW, they do both in fact - first win, then lose.
Careful, unmarked spoilers ahead.
Summary:
The title already tells us about the three main participants who get the most spotlight: Anglos, the US, and the nazis. Well, with significantly more spotlight for the US than for the Brits, after all the author is from California.
The PoD is quite late for a "Nazis win" TL, with the battle of Stalingrad in late 1942, to be precise. Long story short, the Wehrmacht wins and takes the whole city, instead of "only" 90% of it as IOTL.
At this point your suspension of disbelief may already break, if you think that Stalin was still too rational (albeit very paranoid). After all, he didn't found the city which bore his name, he was just involved with its defense during the Russian Civil War which helped his rise. (At that time, it too was important for the connection between Moscow and the oil from Baku.)
Anyway, ITTL Stalin goes crazy because of the loss of one city. So crazy that he decides to shoot his best generals, starting with Zhukov. Apparently even those who were too far from Stalingrad to be able to do anything about it. As a result, the Red Army is unable to throw the Wehrmacht back during winter 1942/43.
In 1943, when spring has come, the Wehrmacht attacks again and smashes the remains of the RA as if it was nothing, it seems (despite the fact that millions of redarmists are still there, and L&L wasn't cancelled either). Nazi Germany manages to reach its seemingly utopian (...) aim of getting the Urals as the new eastern border.
The western Allies are still able to bomb the Reich, but they can't start an invasion to save the European continent. So the whole war is toned down, even if no peace is made.
Meanwhile, the Nazis are able to implement their genocidal plans - Jews and "gypsies" first, but Poles and other Slavs next. When TTL is over, only a minority of European Poles has survived.
Oh, their other opponent Japan is brought down until 1946 at least. This is because of a very controversial decision of TTL Truman, i.e. not using nukes against them. Which costs the Allies many dead bodies, as had to be expected.
We don't learn much of what happened in the rest of the world, but at one point Mao is mentioned as a "failed Chinese Communist revolutionary".
But in the 1950s, the WAllies are ready to strike back. And they do.
The AANW proper
CalBear really seems to be into arms developed by the US in the 1950s which were never put to their intended use during OTL's Cold War. Because he describes them a lot during the TL. And the destruction they cause. And not just those. Because the WAllies also use their strongest arms, which are nukes of course. And if that wasn't bad enough yet, biological (up to Anthrax!) and chemical weapons are used too.
At first though, we have the non-nuclear Saint Patrick's Day Bombings, with which the war gets really hot again.
Frankly, even summarizing TTL is depressing if you have to think about all the destruction and death in it.
Of course, things go really bad after the original "führer" dies and Himmler takes over. (Many people have stated that in this case, the various powerful nazis would immediately start to kill off each other, and some even have written TLs or books about it, but ITTL nobody really dares to challenge Himmler.)
When he understands that the war is lost, he decides to destroy as much as possible. Götterdämmerung style. Just like Hitler tried in the last months of OTL's WW2, which fortunately was prevented because his underlings didn't want to destroy e.g. Paris. Which I mention here because Himmler does what Adolf Nazi only dreamed of: Yes, he has one of the greatest cities in the world destroyed, just so the Allies won't have it.
At the end, TTL's WW2 is finally over, and the death toll has nine figures. Not really a reason to go ecstatic.
Oh wait, the winners from the title actually gain a bit: Britain the French Channel coast, and the US eastern Siberia which becomes the new state of "West Alaska". Seriously.
Criticism
You may have notices that I'm not really fond of TTL. Others have stated before me that the author only got away with it because he happens to be the second-most powerful guy on the web forum where he published it. Whereas other users would have received a ban for it. But that's something hypothetical (...) as well.
Maybe you think that this section is superfluous, since it's about a story that's both epic regarding the time and space it covers, let alone the horrible crimes committed by the Nazis in it. But then I might argue as well for which reason we need to know which type of B-XX planes the WAllies used to bomb the Nazis. "Because some people like rivet-counting" isn't that great a reason.
Now I only read the thread in the sub-forum for finished scenarios, so it might be that e.g. the print version has some mistakes corrected. But I seriously wonder what's going on here. I can forgive him the reichsgau Saxony-Anhalt which never existed IOTL because it was only created as a land in 1946 - but hey, we're talking about althist here.
A bit odder is the use of a certain "Calallero", who is the successor of Mussolini. I didn't find someone with that name on WP (looks like a case of As Long As It Sounds Foreign), and I rather would have expected Ciano or Badoglio or so as his successor. After all, many people from OTL should still be alive at this time, even in Fascist Italy.
Apropos real people: Only few of them get the (sometimes, dis-)honor of a mention. Himmler and Truman I already mentioned. Good, there's Göring, Goebbels, Rommel, Manstein, a certain POTUS initially not named, but whose younger brother is an important senator from Massachusetts named John... but not many more.
Except (an odd choice) Luther Terry who still becomes Surgeon General (minister of health) of the US. And a certain Frenchman I'll mention later.
Being German, I was irritated a bit by the use of "scheisekoffen". Not because it's used on the SS guys who'd deserve worse, but because it shouldn't have been too hard to find out that it's "Scheißköpfe". Which isn't even a typical German insult. Not anymore at least. But worse mistakes have been made in AH.
Unfortunately, here as well. Even if talking about typos in words pretty common in WW2 AH. Goring is acceptable, not everyone has umlauts on his keyboard, but Reichmark, Werhmacht, Kriegesmarine, Volkstrum, Ensatzgruppen, Louv[r]e, Mainstein, Gobbels, Deisberg (Duisburg, we guess), Cotenin / Conenin Peninsula, Loraine, even "the Nazi’s", and "distain"?
Did he want to tick off the Wehraboos with broken German? One should think that writing a lot about a) which horrible crimes the Nazis commit - several times more than IOTL! - and b) having them killed off in horrible ways should have been sufficient for it.
Sometimes the story gets really weird (well, if you understand some German), whenever CalBear mentions the "mobelwagen" of the Germans. Furniture wagons? No, apparently supposed to be war-related. No idea what he had in mind.
At one point, he fails basic political science when he mentions the "Russian Tsarist Republic" (supposedly a Constitutional Monarchy). What?
The thing that ticked me off most is this, however: In this story, Alain Poher is the education minister in nazi puppet France. Which is an odd choice to say the least, because he not only existed, but actually was a member of La Résistance. - He dies of Anthrax. Frankly, that's offensive, turning a resistance members into a nazi puppet. What did this guy ever do to hurt you, CalBear?
I remember it mentioned when I was on the site which is about a decade or so back but can't remember much of the details. Does seen a lot of poor ideas and dodgy assumptions, including the initial POD. Thanks for the summary.
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Post by Max Sinister on Aug 24, 2024 2:37:40 GMT
By Jon Kacer aka CalBear, to be found at some other Althist internet forum. Meanwhile available as a printed book as well. It's one of the best-known TLs out there, maybe you already know it. Might have to do with the popularity of TLs involving the Nazis, whether they win or lose. {Spoiler}
In AANW, they do both in fact - first win, then lose.
Careful, unmarked spoilers ahead.
Summary:
The title already tells us about the three main participants who get the most spotlight: Anglos, the US, and the nazis. Well, with significantly more spotlight for the US than for the Brits, after all the author is from California.
The PoD is quite late for a "Nazis win" TL, with the battle of Stalingrad in late 1942, to be precise. Long story short, the Wehrmacht wins and takes the whole city, instead of "only" 90% of it as IOTL.
At this point your suspension of disbelief may already break, if you think that Stalin was still too rational (albeit very paranoid). After all, he didn't found the city which bore his name, he was just involved with its defense during the Russian Civil War which helped his rise. (At that time, it too was important for the connection between Moscow and the oil from Baku.)
Anyway, ITTL Stalin goes crazy because of the loss of one city. So crazy that he decides to shoot his best generals, starting with Zhukov. Apparently even those who were too far from Stalingrad to be able to do anything about it. As a result, the Red Army is unable to throw the Wehrmacht back during winter 1942/43.
In 1943, when spring has come, the Wehrmacht attacks again and smashes the remains of the RA as if it was nothing, it seems (despite the fact that millions of redarmists are still there, and L&L wasn't cancelled either). Nazi Germany manages to reach its seemingly utopian (...) aim of getting the Urals as the new eastern border.
The western Allies are still able to bomb the Reich, but they can't start an invasion to save the European continent. So the whole war is toned down, even if no peace is made.
Meanwhile, the Nazis are able to implement their genocidal plans - Jews and "gypsies" first, but Poles and other Slavs next. When TTL is over, only a minority of European Poles has survived.
Oh, their other opponent Japan is brought down until 1946 at least. This is because of a very controversial decision of TTL Truman, i.e. not using nukes against them. Which costs the Allies many dead bodies, as had to be expected.
We don't learn much of what happened in the rest of the world, but at one point Mao is mentioned as a "failed Chinese Communist revolutionary".
But in the 1950s, the WAllies are ready to strike back. And they do.
The AANW proper
CalBear really seems to be into arms developed by the US in the 1950s which were never put to their intended use during OTL's Cold War. Because he describes them a lot during the TL. And the destruction they cause. And not just those. Because the WAllies also use their strongest arms, which are nukes of course. And if that wasn't bad enough yet, biological (up to Anthrax!) and chemical weapons are used too.
At first though, we have the non-nuclear Saint Patrick's Day Bombings, with which the war gets really hot again.
Frankly, even summarizing TTL is depressing if you have to think about all the destruction and death in it.
Of course, things go really bad after the original "führer" dies and Himmler takes over. (Many people have stated that in this case, the various powerful nazis would immediately start to kill off each other, and some even have written TLs or books about it, but ITTL nobody really dares to challenge Himmler.)
When he understands that the war is lost, he decides to destroy as much as possible. Götterdämmerung style. Just like Hitler tried in the last months of OTL's WW2, which fortunately was prevented because his underlings didn't want to destroy e.g. Paris. Which I mention here because Himmler does what Adolf Nazi only dreamed of: Yes, he has one of the greatest cities in the world destroyed, just so the Allies won't have it.
At the end, TTL's WW2 is finally over, and the death toll has nine figures. Not really a reason to go ecstatic.
Oh wait, the winners from the title actually gain a bit: Britain the French Channel coast, and the US eastern Siberia which becomes the new state of "West Alaska". Seriously.
Criticism
You may have notices that I'm not really fond of TTL. Others have stated before me that the author only got away with it because he happens to be the second-most powerful guy on the web forum where he published it. Whereas other users would have received a ban for it. But that's something hypothetical (...) as well.
Maybe you think that this section is superfluous, since it's about a story that's both epic regarding the time and space it covers, let alone the horrible crimes committed by the Nazis in it. But then I might argue as well for which reason we need to know which type of B-XX planes the WAllies used to bomb the Nazis. "Because some people like rivet-counting" isn't that great a reason.
Now I only read the thread in the sub-forum for finished scenarios, so it might be that e.g. the print version has some mistakes corrected. But I seriously wonder what's going on here. I can forgive him the reichsgau Saxony-Anhalt which never existed IOTL because it was only created as a land in 1946 - but hey, we're talking about althist here.
A bit odder is the use of a certain "Calallero", who is the successor of Mussolini. I didn't find someone with that name on WP (looks like a case of As Long As It Sounds Foreign), and I rather would have expected Ciano or Badoglio or so as his successor. After all, many people from OTL should still be alive at this time, even in Fascist Italy.
Apropos real people: Only few of them get the (sometimes, dis-)honor of a mention. Himmler and Truman I already mentioned. Good, there's Göring, Goebbels, Rommel, Manstein, a certain POTUS initially not named, but whose younger brother is an important senator from Massachusetts named John... but not many more.
Except (an odd choice) Luther Terry who still becomes Surgeon General (minister of health) of the US. And a certain Frenchman I'll mention later.
Being German, I was irritated a bit by the use of "scheisekoffen". Not because it's used on the SS guys who'd deserve worse, but because it shouldn't have been too hard to find out that it's "Scheißköpfe". Which isn't even a typical German insult. Not anymore at least. But worse mistakes have been made in AH.
Unfortunately, here as well. Even if talking about typos in words pretty common in WW2 AH. Goring is acceptable, not everyone has umlauts on his keyboard, but Reichmark, Werhmacht, Kriegesmarine, Volkstrum, Ensatzgruppen, Louv[r]e, Mainstein, Gobbels, Deisberg (Duisburg, we guess), Cotenin / Conenin Peninsula, Loraine, even "the Nazi’s", and "distain"?
Did he want to tick off the Wehraboos with broken German? One should think that writing a lot about a) which horrible crimes the Nazis commit - several times more than IOTL! - and b) having them killed off in horrible ways should have been sufficient for it.
Sometimes the story gets really weird (well, if you understand some German), whenever CalBear mentions the "mobelwagen" of the Germans. Furniture wagons? No, apparently supposed to be war-related. No idea what he had in mind.
At one point, he fails basic political science when he mentions the "Russian Tsarist Republic" (supposedly a Constitutional Monarchy). What?
The thing that ticked me off most is this, however: In this story, Alain Poher is the education minister in nazi puppet France. Which is an odd choice to say the least, because he not only existed, but actually was a member of La Résistance. - He dies of Anthrax. Frankly, that's offensive, turning a resistance members into a nazi puppet. What did this guy ever do to hurt you, CalBear?
I remember it mentioned when I was on the site which is about a decade or so back but can't remember much of the details. Does seen a lot of poor ideas and dodgy assumptions, including the initial POD. Thanks for the summary.
You're welcome. Anyway, there's a sequel: {Spoiler}
The A4 (four atomic powers) are the post-war world policeman. Germany is smashed into a dozen small states, to never rise again. And when the German youth protests that they don't want to suffer for the crimes of their parents, i.e. want reunification, the A4 react by smashing Stettin. No, not with nukes this time. With an strike from space.
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stevep
Fleet admiral
Posts: 24,869
Likes: 13,254
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Post by stevep on Aug 24, 2024 11:35:27 GMT
I remember it mentioned when I was on the site which is about a decade or so back but can't remember much of the details. Does seen a lot of poor ideas and dodgy assumptions, including the initial POD. Thanks for the summary.
You're welcome. Anyway, there's a sequel: {Spoiler}
The A4 (four atomic powers) are the post-war world policeman. Germany is smashed into a dozen small states, to never rise again. And when the German youth protests that they don't want to suffer for the crimes of their parents, i.e. want reunification, the A4 react by smashing Stettin. No, not with nukes this time. With an strike from space.
Why does the word infantile come to mind?
What are the big four, I would guess US. UK, USSR/Russia in some form and either France or China?
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lordroel
Administrator
Posts: 68,117
Likes: 49,506
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Post by lordroel on Aug 24, 2024 12:59:02 GMT
What are the big four, I would guess US. UK, USSR/Russia in some form and either France or China? Is the first thing to be answered in the The Anglo/American - Nazi War own TV Tropes pageThe Alliance is codified as the Atomic Four (A4): America, the UK, Australia, and Canada. The A4's snub towards India causes it to become a peaceful rival for global influence. |
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Post by simon darkshade on Aug 24, 2024 13:51:33 GMT
alternate-timelines.proboards.com/post/140808"The Anglo-American Nazi War It really is the American-Cartoon Nazi War, with the only “Anglo” component to be as a bumbling side kick. It is well written on a micro level, or perhaps tactical is the better term. For it falls down in strategy, whether it be the internal strategy of stupid Allied strategy or the external matter of choosing to tell the tale through a pseudo academic work. It is probably closer to the type of mass consumer/popular history works of Stephen Ambrose, who turned out the same book several times without really getting into the key matter of the topic. It unabashedly wears the author’s opinions and politics on its sleeve, but projects them through the agency of real people who had well established exactly opposite to those in the story. It also bases a lot of its credo around the notion of being based on the real horrific plans of the Nazis in Eastern Europe… when actually, it doesn’t really get into that much; when it was written, the author was not yet a mod, but was a bit of an audience darling so that no one was willing to point out that the emperor had no clothes. As history, it is as said extremely superficial and comes from an internally biased source, but doesn’t do anything daring with it. As fiction, there is no suspense, but rather a succession of vignettes of American equipment. There are no personalities, no humanity and no real impact, despite the attempts to constantly one-up himself with new atrocities. The Americans are all competent, humane and perfectly lefty in a manner that would be familiar to a WW2 picture like the “narrators” of Desert Victory; the British are a curious combination of bumbling, puppets and extremely emotive in a manner that conforms more to the old stereotypes of Americans; and the Germans are either fanatic moustache curling Nazis or the other stereotype of purely professional clean Wehrmacht types. It could be a clever pastiche, but the OOC discussion by the author at the time indicated that no, it wasn’t that deep. It was popular because it showed WW2 being fought with 1950s and even 1960s weapons! How novel! The only problem, never acknowledged or answered, is that those weapons were designed and built for a nuclear world, not a conventional world war. They were much more expensive, but are used in frankly stupid ways. The big, ‘elephant in the room’ issue: The Americans have nuclear weapons, but don’t use them against the Nazis because they are upset that a lot of Japanese starved to death in the Pacific War. They aren’t used at the start after a German surprise attack, nor afterwards. They take on Jerry with conventional weapons, costing hundreds of billions and millions of lives. They are finally used in a bit of a spasm attack to a German nerve gas attack on Britain; the main purpose of this sequence, as well as showing the British to be frothing at the mouth with emotion, is to show off the “cool gear”. Even then, Germany isn’t taken off the map. After the war, when this comes out, there aren’t recriminations as natural, but nothing. Economics, industry and logistics don’t get a look in. The timeline is replete with these little and big flaws that together create an extremely cringeworthy piece that has never been critiqued for various reasons. It is an example of something revered by many that actually has feet of clay." Several years later, my opinion hasn't changed much, apart from it trending more to 'This much vaunted story was really not that good at all. - It purports to 'show what Hitler's plans for Eastern Europe would have looked like' but doesn't really do it - The USA and Britain develop nuclear weapons before the travesty of a war, then don't use them. They build nuclear delivery platforms, then used them for conventional war because of the author's desire to write 'WW2 with late 50s weapons' - It wasn't truly poorly written, but in retrospect doesn't rise above that pseudo Stephen Ambrose pop history style - As a technothriller, it doesn't delve into a great deal of technical detail at all, nor are there any thrills. The action is derivative, predictable and very much based on a transposition of the @ 1944/45 Western campaign. Superficial doesn't really do it justice - It really hasn't aged well, although a member here loves to keep commenting in its zombie aftermath thread My unease was encapsulated by the exchange here: www.alternatehistory.com/forum/threads/the-anglo-american-nazi-war.140356/page-106#post-4049918 (Original post pointing out that the British role was to serve as the comic relief/slapstick element) www.alternatehistory.com/forum/threads/the-anglo-american-nazi-war.140356/page-106#post-4049964 (The response, which has nothing to do with the lengthy points made and quoted) www.alternatehistory.com/forum/threads/the-anglo-american-nazi-war.140356/page-106#post-4049964 (My resigned response)
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lordroel
Administrator
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Post by lordroel on Aug 24, 2024 13:55:06 GMT
First simon darkshade, link loops back here, second, the The Anglo/American - Nazi War is in my eyes mod protected on AH.com as it is written by a mod. |
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stevep
Fleet admiral
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Post by stevep on Aug 24, 2024 14:04:51 GMT
What are the big four, I would guess US. UK, USSR/Russia in some form and either France or China? Is the first thing to be answered in the The Anglo/American - Nazi War own TV Tropes pageThe Alliance is codified as the Atomic Four (A4): America, the UK, Australia, and Canada. The A4's snub towards India causes it to become a peaceful rival for global influence.
Ah true the USSR probably doesn't exist as it was annihilated but the US, Britain and two white dominions does seem a rather superficial ruling circle.
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Post by simon darkshade on Aug 24, 2024 14:06:51 GMT
The link now should go to The Most Cringeworthy Alternate History thread.
He wasn't a mod when the story was written 13 odd years ago.
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lordroel
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Post by lordroel on Aug 24, 2024 14:09:01 GMT
The link now should go to The Most Cringeworthy Alternate History thread. He wasn't a mod when the story was written 13 odd years ago. But he is now a mod and still answers and writes material related to it. |
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Post by simon darkshade on Aug 24, 2024 14:14:14 GMT
Criticising something that would be a teenager if it were 'alive' isn't going to achieve much over there, mod or no mod.
It isn't terrible, but it isn't great, nor does the title fit it.
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lordroel
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Post by lordroel on Aug 24, 2024 14:16:28 GMT
Criticising something that would be a teenager if it were 'alive' isn't going to achieve much over there, mod or no mod. It isn't terrible, but it isn't great, nor does the title fit it. Seems that being a German in aanw timeline is not good, heck in the TBO after being nuked, given some time the Germans mange to crawl back up again, but not in this timeline as far as i can read. |
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Post by Max Sinister on Aug 24, 2024 21:50:45 GMT
alternate-timelines.proboards.com/post/140808"The Anglo-American Nazi War It really is the American-Cartoon Nazi War, with the only “Anglo” component to be as a bumbling side kick. It is well written on a micro level, or perhaps tactical is the better term. For it falls down in strategy, whether it be the internal strategy of stupid Allied strategy or the external matter of choosing to tell the tale through a pseudo academic work. It is probably closer to the type of mass consumer/popular history works of Stephen Ambrose, who turned out the same book several times without really getting into the key matter of the topic. It unabashedly wears the author’s opinions and politics on its sleeve, but projects them through the agency of real people who had well established exactly opposite to those in the story. It also bases a lot of its credo around the notion of being based on the real horrific plans of the Nazis in Eastern Europe… when actually, it doesn’t really get into that much; when it was written, the author was not yet a mod, but was a bit of an audience darling so that no one was willing to point out that the emperor had no clothes. As history, it is as said extremely superficial and comes from an internally biased source, but doesn’t do anything daring with it. As fiction, there is no suspense, but rather a succession of vignettes of American equipment. There are no personalities, no humanity and no real impact, despite the attempts to constantly one-up himself with new atrocities. The Americans are all competent, humane and perfectly lefty in a manner that would be familiar to a WW2 picture like the “narrators” of Desert Victory; the British are a curious combination of bumbling, puppets and extremely emotive in a manner that conforms more to the old stereotypes of Americans; and the Germans are either fanatic moustache curling Nazis or the other stereotype of purely professional clean Wehrmacht types. It could be a clever pastiche, but the OOC discussion by the author at the time indicated that no, it wasn’t that deep. It was popular because it showed WW2 being fought with 1950s and even 1960s weapons! How novel! The only problem, never acknowledged or answered, is that those weapons were designed and built for a nuclear world, not a conventional world war. They were much more expensive, but are used in frankly stupid ways. The big, ‘elephant in the room’ issue: The Americans have nuclear weapons, but don’t use them against the Nazis because they are upset that a lot of Japanese starved to death in the Pacific War. They aren’t used at the start after a German surprise attack, nor afterwards. They take on Jerry with conventional weapons, costing hundreds of billions and millions of lives. They are finally used in a bit of a spasm attack to a German nerve gas attack on Britain; the main purpose of this sequence, as well as showing the British to be frothing at the mouth with emotion, is to show off the “cool gear”. Even then, Germany isn’t taken off the map. After the war, when this comes out, there aren’t recriminations as natural, but nothing. Economics, industry and logistics don’t get a look in. The timeline is replete with these little and big flaws that together create an extremely cringeworthy piece that has never been critiqued for various reasons. It is an example of something revered by many that actually has feet of clay." Several years later, my opinion hasn't changed much, apart from it trending more to 'This much vaunted story was really not that good at all. - It purports to 'show what Hitler's plans for Eastern Europe would have looked like' but doesn't really do it - The USA and Britain develop nuclear weapons before the travesty of a war, then don't use them. They build nuclear delivery platforms, then used them for conventional war because of the author's desire to write 'WW2 with late 50s weapons' - It wasn't truly poorly written, but in retrospect doesn't rise above that pseudo Stephen Ambrose pop history style - As a technothriller, it doesn't delve into a great deal of technical detail at all, nor are there any thrills. The action is derivative, predictable and very much based on a transposition of the @ 1944/45 Western campaign. Superficial doesn't really do it justice - It really hasn't aged well, although a member here loves to keep commenting in its zombie aftermath thread My unease was encapsulated by the exchange here: www.alternatehistory.com/forum/threads/the-anglo-american-nazi-war.140356/page-106#post-4049918 (Original post pointing out that the British role was to serve as the comic relief/slapstick element) www.alternatehistory.com/forum/threads/the-anglo-american-nazi-war.140356/page-106#post-4049964 (The response, which has nothing to do with the lengthy points made and quoted) www.alternatehistory.com/forum/threads/the-anglo-american-nazi-war.140356/page-106#post-4049964 (My resigned response) A very good critique. I vaguely remembered having read it back then, but not that you specifically had been its author. The link now should go to The Most Cringeworthy Alternate History thread. He wasn't a mod when the story was written 13 odd years ago. Yes, I was one year off - he started writing it in late 2009, but was promoted in late 2010. At that time, the TL was around installment #23.
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Post by simon darkshade on Aug 25, 2024 3:28:32 GMT
Where is the "Anglo" in the war?
- US forces have to come to the rescue of British troops "The recapture of Guernsey Island, along with the smaller Herm and Sark Islands and several of the nearby islets from German forces, while providing a morale boost for the British public, was hardly worth the better part of a British parachute division in the failed assault on Jersey or the loss of HMS Sheffield and three destroyers, along with the crippling of the cruiser USS Savannah in the Force Jersey rescue effort"
- "While regular daylight precision bombing began by the USAAF 8th Air Force, RAF fighter squadrons received reinforcements in the form of American P-38 night fighter squadrons. Soon Luftwaffe bomber pilots learned to dread the silhouette of the “fork tailed devil” in the night sky as the heavily armed and exceptionally fast Lightning took to the skies against their missions."
- "The destruction of the A-4 sites by USMC Corsairs carrying Tiny Tim unguided rockets on September 22, 1945 was one of the few true successes of the air war despite the heavy losses experienced by the attacking squadrons"
- "Operation Bulldog also featured the first jet v. jet combat when USAAF Shooting Star fighters operating out of Scotland in support of the operation tangled with Luftwaffe Me-262 fighters attacking the withdrawing Marine F4U"
- Armoured deck carriers get no praise, only a very miserly assessment that dwells upon the positives of the US approach
- "The July 1943 decision to have the Royal Navy and Commonwealth forces concentrate on the Dutch East Indies and former British possessions of Burma and Malaya also reduced the amount of friction with Admiral King, although the decision did place the Commonwealth forces partially under the command of General Douglas MacArthur depending on their exact deployment. The troops who suffered this misfortune, along with their commanders, would long rue the day"
- "the wholesale destruction of the A-4 missile launch sites by American fighter bombers" vs "the hellishly costly but markedly successful strike by Bomber Command against the German missile facilities"
(Even the extremely rare British successes are qualified with losses or other downgrading, whereas the US successes are unequivocal)
- "This remarkable transfer of personnel was only possible due to the use of Allied, primarily USN, amphibious landing vessels that had been transferred from the Pacific Theater for the express purpose of making the exchange both possible and rapid." (Unlike @, British amphibious landing craft production is apparently absent)
- The Germans manage to build a fleet of "three large carriers, two light carriers, seven 45,000 ton battleships, two Bismarck class BB, two BC, 6 armored cruisers (a unique German design, also known as panzershciffs), 16 CA, 14 CL, 58 DD and 38 frigates"
- A German "fleet in the Black Sea consisting of 2 45,000 BB, 2 CVL, 5 CA, 5 CL, 15 DD, and 21 FF...While the construction of the Black Sea force made sense in many ways, it, along with the Italian Agean Sea fleet, tied down nearly half of the RN and was a serious enough threat that the USN maintained TF 68 (centered on USS Saratoga, USS Enterprise, USS Essex, and all four South Dakota class BB in 1952)"
(Half of the entire Royal Navy is apparently tied down to counter a force in the Aegean and another in the Black Sea, despite extensive bottlenecks, land based air and submarines all existing. The lack of strategic thought makes your head hurt)
- "The Luftwaffe had nothing to equal the American B-47, much less the newly accepted B-52"
"My contention is that not only is it not realistic, but not a good story. There is no tension, no characterisation beyond character assassination of the British, no real examination of the central conceit of the story and a huge authorial thumb on the scales at every point.
As said before, the aircraft and ships of 1943 predominate for the RN and RAF. With a genuine enemy next door, they don’t do anything different from @ peacetime developments and generally bumble around as the ‘butt monkey’ of this travesty. Ongoing German Third Reich with thousands of tanks? Better stick with the 17pdr through to the late 50s, old sport! Nazi air threat? Meteors and a few Sabres!
There aren’t any silver linings, particularly for Britain, nor are there any extra units capable of easy redeployment. India is completely and fully independent along with the former White Commonwealth and every single source of manpower or benefit.
Britain cannot support major ground forces in Europe in the best situation and it faces the opposite of that. Once demobbed, they can maybe support a global force of 6-8 divisions, including Home Forces, but at a dreadful cost.
Where do you see the basis for a recovery? What industries? What export markets haven’t been totally taken over by the Americans or destroyed? Domestic demand is fundamentally limited and doesn’t get hard currency.
The “A4” really…isn’t. Australia and Canada have economies too small to support genuine nuclear forces or any significant military capacity; they are American satellites, as he makes clear. Britain couldn’t use its nuclear weapons to defend itself or her interests or even retaliate properly in an actual WW3 scenario because of U.S. restrictions put in place because of his external opinions. This is not any equal alliance, but a complete takeover.
He has the US and particularly the high command of SAC, men who had a historical belief and record of opinion in favour of massive retaliation, become wobbly 1990s bleeding hearts. The entire war was a colossal waste when the bombs and bombers were there to take Nazi Germany off the map in a day. That would have interfered with a perverse “fight the @ WW2 with the weapons designed for a completely different atomic war” conceit, though.
Characteristic of every one of his pieces was a huge tendency to accentuate and advantage the USA and this was no exception. He proved disinterested in any criticism or alteration of his particular vision. The result was a poor story, a very poor alternate history and a veritable minefield for any who sought or seek to play in that world."
I could go on, but I genuinely don't want to waste anymore of my day off on that poorly rendered nonsense.
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Post by Max Sinister on Aug 29, 2024 2:13:41 GMT
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