Excalibur Squadron OOC - European Tour '39 - CLOSED

[The Tiger Kingdom]

It's moving in that direction
Not sure if I actually want to or not; I try and stay away from that shit these days

it seems to have been contained

[The Tiger Kingdom]

Historically, the city of Danzig was a key power center in the Baltic region, and sat more or less on the borderline between predominantly German and Polish territories. In the aftermath of the First World War, German reservists and militia had engaged in a number of skirmishes with troops from the nascent Republic of Poland in the area, requiring that the League of Nations mediate the dispute in order to prevent more fighting from breaking out.



The League’s solution didn’t really satisfy anybody. Under their plan, Danzig and its immediate environs would become a “Free City”, administered directly by the League of Nations and belonging to neither Poland nor Germany. The city would have a narrow German majority, but the Polish government would be allowed certain concessions within the city, including the establishment of a military depot at Westerplatte, as well as the administration of the city’s mail and transportation systems. All other governmental functions would be either under the League’s control, or delegated to the city’s own legislative body (known as the “Senate of Danzig”), widely dominated by Germans.

As German rearmament and aggression intensified, the reclamation of Danzig from “Polish” control became a central feature of German propaganda and militarism. Germany demanded that the Polish government withdraw all of its interests from the city. Poland refused, as Germany knew it would. In the intervening years, Germany had seeded the Danzig Germans with pro-Nazi and anti-Polish propaganda, resulting in the city’s government not only being German, but highly Nazified. The Free City also contains Poland's sole outlet to the sea, making it even more important to the Polish government.

[The Tiger Kingdom]

The T-Class fleet boats were the most powerful fleet submarines in service in the Royal Navy in 1939. While the RN had never been particularly keen on submarines (certainly not to the same extent as the Germans), the interwar Admiralty realized that long-range submarines would be extremely useful for securing Britain’s far-off colonies east of Suez from any potential Japanese aggression, especially given how the Royal Navy would probably be unable to send a large surface fleet to the Pacific in the event of a European war.
The T-Class were effective boats - slow, but heavily armed. They can be easily distinguished by the large protrusions bulging out of their bows in order to accommodate their forward six torpedo tubes.



Crew: 48
Main armament: 6 bow torpedo tubes, 4 rear torpedo tubes
Secondary armament: 4-inch deck gun
Displacement: 1,290 tons
Operational range: 8000 nautical miles
Speed: 16 knots

[Goram]

Is there likely to be a Tempsford thread again, or similar?

[The Tiger Kingdom]

Is there likely to be a Tempsford thread again, or similar?

I'm still trying to figure that out. It would be, for obvious reasons, difficult to do that as a thread, given that I plan on having us move around a lot and be changing locations.
I frankly think it would work better as something like a collaborative one-shot format.

[Goram]

Is there likely to be a Tempsford thread again, or similar?

I'm still trying to figure that out. It would be, for obvious reasons, difficult to do that as a thread, given that I plan on having us move around a lot and be changing locations.
I frankly think it would work better as something like a collaborative one-shot format.

I think we ought to, if it can be managed. A base of ops would be a necessity and, in the previous Excalibur, having that other thread allowed us to keep the thing ticking over in quiet periods as well as attracting new people.

[The Tiger Kingdom]

I got my ass kicked by work pretty hard this week, but this weekend should hopefully be free for me to get stuff going.

Once my finals are over at the end of this month, I'm not sure how demanding my schedule will be. I anticipate that it will be less heavy than it is now.

[Morrdh]

Well this looks like it could be interesting...

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b09zg6dm

[Grenartia]

I plan on getting a post up either today or tomorrow.

[The Tiger Kingdom]

Making post progress, but I hilariously fucked my sleep schedule this week, so I couldn't get the post done. Ugh.
But at least some more ES Files stuff is done.

One of the most powerful pistols of its era, the Webley Mark VI .455 was the final installment in the classic Webley line of revolvers that had been in development and production, in various incarnations, since 1887. Webley revolvers had already been the preferred sidearm of the British Empire throughout countless colonial conflicts and imperial policing actions, but the First World War prompted the creation of a standardized new officer sidearm, optimized for maximum stopping power and reliability. The Mark VI rendered excellent service on the Western Front, and continues to serve throughout the ranks of the British Army as an officer’s close-quarters sidearm. The .455 round offers a relatively mild recoil without sacrificing stopping power.



Caliber: .455 in.
Action: Double-revolving action
Magazine Capacity: 6 rounds

A Belgian adaptation of a classic American design, the Hi-Power was developed by FN Herstal and was intended primarily for the French market to replace their WW1-vintage sidearms. Incorporating many of the features of the legendary Colt .45 Automatic, the Hi-Power’s main selling point was its ability to carry 13 rounds in a single magazine, which was almost double the capacity of many of its competitor designs. As a result, the Hi-Power gives its holder a pretty serious firepower advantage, but also is frequently regarded as overly heavy and even painful to use, given the remarkable trigger pull and the tendency of the hammer to “bite” the thumb-index webbing of the user’s hand upon firing.



Caliber: 9mm
Action: Recoil-powered semiautomatic
Magazine Capacity: 13 rounds

The classic World War infantry weapon of the British Empire, the Lee-Enfield Mark III was a mainstay in the hands of British and Imperial forces throughout the first half of the 20th Century, serving in the hands of millions of British and Commonwealth troops across the entirety of the Empire. Often modified and simplified over the years in various subdesigns and limited-production runs, the Mark II was entering its thirty-second year of service by the time the Second World War began, and had already given sterling service in the trenches of France in the First World War.

Firing a powerful .303 cartridge, the Enfield’s main drawback was its relative degree of complexity to manufacture, incorporating a number of complicated and fiddly features that often had to be toned down or eliminated entirely in the interest of mass-production. The Mark III could also be easily adapted into a sniper’s or sharpshooter’s weapon, further increasing its combat flexibility.



Caliber: .303 in.
Action: Bolt-action
Magazine Capacity: 10 rounds, subdivided in 5-round clips

The defining weapon of interwar lawlessness and violence, the Tommy-gun was sleek, deadly, and powerful, even if the world’s militaries were slow to realize it. Originally conceived of as a replacement for bolt-action rifles and then as a “trench-sweeper” for use at close-quarters, the Thompson was developed too late to see action during WW1, and was ultimately released onto the civilian market in 1921. Picked up en masse by rebel movements and criminal gangs, the Thompson saw use all across the world in the hands of the Irish Republican Army, various Central American militaries, the US Marine Corps, and most famously of all, in the hands of the American organized crime syndicates in their endless internecine wars over bootlegging routes and urban territory.

Even though the Thompson quickly became tainted by its association with organized crime, savvy armaments experts realized that the “Tommygun” had a real future as a military combat weapon. It fired a large and powerful .45 round, it was accurate, and it could blast bullets at an unbelievable rate. While it had drawbacks as well - namely that it was heavy and its early magazines, especially the 50-round drums, were prone to jamming - various militaries, including the armies of the United States, Nationalist China, and Great Britain, began to show significant interest in buying either huge quantities of Thompsons or the actual production rights themselves. Emerging from the gutters of Chicago, Detroit, and New York, the Thompson SMG looks like a lock for the battlefields of Europe and Asia in the near future.



Caliber: .45 ACP
Action: Blowback
Magazine Capacity:20-round or 30-round magazines, or 50-round drums

Originally designed in the formidable Skoda armament works of Czechoslovakia, the British military adopted the “Bren” (so named by combining “Brno”, the town where it was originally designed, with “Enfield”, the factory where it would be produced in Britain) as its standard light machine gun in 1937. Simple, rugged, and reliable, the BRen was the bedrock of the British infantry section, forming the central "pivot" around which the various riflemen would maneuver in order to cover ground and assault enemy formations. The BRen was also easily adaptable to vehicle mounts, forming the primary armament of the Bren Gun Carrier (logically enough), as well as many others.

The Bren is magazine-fed, which slows its rate of fire relative to its German and Russian competitors. In addition, because of the location of the sights, the Bren can only be fired right-handed.



Caliber: .303 in.
Action: Gas-operated tilting bolt
Magazine Capacity: Usually a 30-round box magazine

The only real infantry-level antitank weapon available to British troops in the early phases of the war, the Boys rifle was excellent at dislocating the shoulders of its users...and not much else. Designed to fire a fairly puny .55-caliber round, the Boys was excellent at knocking out light vehicles, but simply couldn't stand up to the armor of almost any Axis tank, save at extremely close ranges or from the rear. The Boys might have furnished fine service as a dedicated anti-material rifle, to knock out enemy equipment and soft targets, or perhaps as a heavy sniper rifle to put the fear of God into enemy infantry, but as a heavy, recoil-happy, and ineffective antitank rifle, it truly earned its reputation as a glorified door-knocker.



Caliber: .55 in.
Action: Bolt-action
Magazine Capacity: 5 rounds

The standard infantry grenade of the British military, the 36M is a typical “pineapple”-style grenade. It is often referred to as a “defensive” grenade, by virtue of it being fragmentary rather than incendiary or concussive in nature, but as you might guess, this wasn’t a very meaningful or even logical name. The 36M model was specially shellacked to keep moisture and dust out of the mechanism.



Caliber: About a pound of Baratol per grenade, coated in pre-marked fragmentary steel
Action: Pull the pin, throw it, and count to 7
Magazine Capacity: Most British riflemen carry two

[Great Confederacy of Commonwealth States]

Alright, guys, I have to hand in my thesis tomorrow at 12, so whether I am done or not, I will have time afterwards to make a nice post.

Also, I am reading 'The Black Book' by J. Trow, about what would happen to Great Britain should the Germans have invaded. It paints an interesting picture of Britain preparing for the German invasion, which I could share with you should you like to know. In short: the Germans would have landed with 200.000 troops, and there were only 70.000 rifles available in Britain at the time.

[Morrdh]

Alright, guys, I have to hand in my thesis tomorrow at 12, so whether I am done or not, I will have time afterwards to make a nice post.

Also, I am reading 'The Black Book' by J. Trow, about what would happen to Great Britain should the Germans have invaded. It paints an interesting picture of Britain preparing for the German invasion, which I could share with you should you like to know. In short: the Germans would have landed with 200.000 troops, and there were only 70.000 rifles available in Britain at the time.

A few points, please let me know if the book addresses them.

1. The surface fleet of the Kriegmarine was nowhere near ready to take on the Royal Navy, IIRC German admirals have been quoted as saying that they needed another five years to get anywhere near being able to take on the RN on an equal footing.

2. If Sealion went ahead in 1940 the RAF needed to be neutralised, this would then allow the Luftwaffe free reign to deal with the RN.

3. Didn't the Germans hastily converted a bunch of barges to serve as landing craft? Even then these would've only been capable of ferrying infantry across, they needed to capture an English port pretty quickly to bring in tanks.

4. What of the Home Guard? Also the fact that, especially in rural areas, private firearm ownership was still pretty common.

Recall that they did a couple of wargames to see how successful Sealion would've been, one of them had the actual commanders of the time on both sides. Both wargames saw the German invasion attempt fail; they struggled to push inland due to resistance from local Home Guard units, this allowed time for the British Army to mobilise and counter-attack.

Oh, whilst I think about it...any mention of the Auxiliary Units in that book?

[The Tiger Kingdom]

Alright, guys, I have to hand in my thesis tomorrow at 12, so whether I am done or not, I will have time afterwards to make a nice post.

Also, I am reading 'The Black Book' by J. Trow, about what would happen to Great Britain should the Germans have invaded. It paints an interesting picture of Britain preparing for the German invasion, which I could share with you should you like to know. In short: the Germans would have landed with 200.000 troops, and there were only 70.000 rifles available in Britain at the time.

I will write a short analysis of this when I get home, using Peter Fleming's analysis of Sea Lion. Fleming was a consultant to the War Office on irregular warfare and was charged with training the Local Defense Volunteers during the summer of 1940, so even if the book is pretty old, I think it's safe to say that a lot of newer analyses are just drawing on his stuff.

I will say right now, though, that I have no idea where they got those rifle figures, and the Germans putting 200k troops in the invasion at all would be flatly impossible, even given the fact that they never tried. I have heard that the German order of battle was somewhere between 150-200,000 troops, but I cannot confirm that.

Interestingly, "J Trow" appears to be "MJ Trow", "Mei Trow" or "Meirion Trow" according to Amazon, who isn't a military historian, but actually appears to be a mystery writer? I guess a part of that is having four different names.

[Grenartia]

Alright, guys, I have to hand in my thesis tomorrow at 12, so whether I am done or not, I will have time afterwards to make a nice post.

Also, I am reading 'The Black Book' by J. Trow, about what would happen to Great Britain should the Germans have invaded. It paints an interesting picture of Britain preparing for the German invasion, which I could share with you should you like to know. In short: the Germans would have landed with 200.000 troops, and there were only 70.000 rifles available in Britain at the time.

I will write a short analysis of this when I get home, using Peter Fleming's analysis of Sea Lion. Fleming was a consultant to the War Office on irregular warfare and was charged with training the Local Defense Volunteers during the summer of 1940, so even if the book is pretty old, I think it's safe to say that a lot of newer analyses are just drawing on his stuff.

I will say right now, though, that I have no idea where they got those rifle figures, and the Germans putting 200k troops in the invasion at all would be flatly impossible, even given the fact that they never tried. I have heard that the German order of battle was somewhere between 150-200,000 troops, but I cannot confirm that.

Interestingly, "J Trow" appears to be "MJ Trow", "Mei Trow" or "Meirion Trow" according to Amazon, who isn't a military historian, but actually appears to be a mystery writer? I guess a part of that is having four different names.

A true international man of mystery.

[Goram]

Alright, guys, I have to hand in my thesis tomorrow at 12, so whether I am done or not, I will have time afterwards to make a nice post.

Also, I am reading 'The Black Book' by J. Trow, about what would happen to Great Britain should the Germans have invaded. It paints an interesting picture of Britain preparing for the German invasion, which I could share with you should you like to know. In short: the Germans would have landed with 200.000 troops, and there were only 70.000 rifles available in Britain at the time.

I will write a short analysis of this when I get home, using Peter Fleming's analysis of Sea Lion. Fleming was a consultant to the War Office on irregular warfare and was charged with training the Local Defense Volunteers during the summer of 1940, so even if the book is pretty old, I think it's safe to say that a lot of newer analyses are just drawing on his stuff.

I will say right now, though, that I have no idea where they got those rifle figures, and the Germans putting 200k troops in the invasion at all would be flatly impossible, even given the fact that they never tried. I have heard that the German order of battle was somewhere between 150-200,000 troops, but I cannot confirm that.

Interestingly, "J Trow" appears to be "MJ Trow", "Mei Trow" or "Meirion Trow" according to Amazon, who isn't a military historian, but actually appears to be a mystery writer? I guess a part of that is having four different names.

The most I’ve ever heard of is eleven divisions - 80,000 odd men.

[The Tiger Kingdom]

I will write a short analysis of this when I get home, using Peter Fleming's analysis of Sea Lion. Fleming was a consultant to the War Office on irregular warfare and was charged with training the Local Defense Volunteers during the summer of 1940, so even if the book is pretty old, I think it's safe to say that a lot of newer analyses are just drawing on his stuff.

I will say right now, though, that I have no idea where they got those rifle figures, and the Germans putting 200k troops in the invasion at all would be flatly impossible, even given the fact that they never tried. I have heard that the German order of battle was somewhere between 150-200,000 troops, but I cannot confirm that.

Interestingly, "J Trow" appears to be "MJ Trow", "Mei Trow" or "Meirion Trow" according to Amazon, who isn't a military historian, but actually appears to be a mystery writer? I guess a part of that is having four different names.

The most I’ve ever heard of is eleven divisions - 80,000 odd men.

I think the 150-200k number may be including naval and support personnel as well.

[The Tiger Kingdom]

I could either do the Sealion analysis or do the post and I think I made the right call

[The Tiger Kingdom]

This "We March Against England" book on Sea Lion I found on Scribd is an absolutely amazing feat of research and presentation, with some really interesting hypothetical scenarios and some really neat stuff that even I didn't know, that absolutely SHITS THE BED on actual analysis in like the last ten pages
"Churchill should have tried to start negotiations in 1940 with Hitler as a ruse and restart the Phoney War" my ASS

[Monfrox]

This "We March Against England" book on Sea Lion I found on Scribd is an absolutely amazing feat of research and presentation, with some really interesting hypothetical scenarios and some really neat stuff that even I didn't know, that absolutely SHITS THE BED on actual analysis in like the last ten pages
"Churchill should have tried to start negotiations in 1940 with Hitler as a ruse and restart the Phoney War" my ASS

RIP. Well, nothing's perfect.

[Grenartia]

This "We March Against England" book on Sea Lion I found on Scribd is an absolutely amazing feat of research and presentation, with some really interesting hypothetical scenarios and some really neat stuff that even I didn't know, that absolutely SHITS THE BED on actual analysis in like the last ten pages
"Churchill should have tried to start negotiations in 1940 with Hitler as a ruse and restart the Phoney War" my ASS

Fascist Forever War when?

[The Tiger Kingdom]

This "We March Against England" book on Sea Lion I found on Scribd is an absolutely amazing feat of research and presentation, with some really interesting hypothetical scenarios and some really neat stuff that even I didn't know, that absolutely SHITS THE BED on actual analysis in like the last ten pages
"Churchill should have tried to start negotiations in 1940 with Hitler as a ruse and restart the Phoney War" my ASS

Fascist Forever War when?

Really.
You get 490 pages into a 500-page book, only to have this guy come to the ultimate conclusion that Churchill's actions in continuing the war in 1940 "sealed the death of the British Empire". Lend-Lease was a "poisoned chalice" that "made Britain a vassal of the United States".

"Rather than the deferral of Seelöwe locking Hitler into an invasion of the Soviet Union, the real strategic fulcrum was that Churchill was locked into an extended and one-sided battle of attrition with Ger-
many. Churchill’s decision to stand up to Sea Lion in 1940 doomed the British Empire, rather than saved it – beginning with the loss of Hong Kong, Singapore and Burma to the Japanese in 1942. For centuries, it had been British strategic policy not to fight a protracted European war without allies – and Churchill threw this common sense policy out the window. By choosing to fight an open-ended war without major allies, Churchill committed the Commonwealth to a war that it could not win on its own and which reduced the world’s largest empire to a state of penury. British industry could crank out tanks and planes to match Germany ad infinitum, but every weapon built or purchased only further depleted the British Empire’s economic strength. By 1941, Britain was reduced to a hand-to-mouth financial existence and dependent upon American Lend-Lease. Churchill needed American or Soviet intervention to provide a means for Britain to join a war winning coalition, but it came at the cost of further reducing Great Britain to the role of a junior partner. Hitler over-extended himself in the Soviet Union and doomed the Third Reich to a war of attrition that ultimately cost Germany the war, but Churchill also over-extended Britain in the name of uncompromising bravado. A more practical British strategy after Dunkirk would have been to adopt Halifax’s suggestion of opening negotiations with Germany to seek a temporary armistice, thereby causing Hitler to cease preparations for Sea Lion, as well as U-Boat warfare and bombing of British cities. A renewed Phoney War period lasting into 1941 would have enabled the British military to gather its strength and prepare for a long-term war once it had powerful coalition partners. Instead, like Hitler, Churchill sought an impossible victory rather than call for a time-out. Overall, Churchill proved himself a great wartime leader and advocate for liberal democracy, but that does not absolve him of the critical mistakes in strategic judgement he made in 1940.

1. What the fuck does ending or continuing the war in Europe have to do with the Japanese invading Burma/India/Hong Kong?

2. I think pretty much any sober person can conclude that the British Empire was an economically doomed institution way before the Second World War, assuming it wasn't doomed intrinsically (it's hard to measure this stuff, but Empires tend to be money-losers on the whole). The First World War and the Great Depression had basically sealed that.

3. It's sort of amazing that he argues that the policy of continuing to fight against Germany without any immediate allies was a failure when, you know, Britain had the US and Russia on their side in a little more than a year or so. What fortune! What luck!
Or maybe Churchill made an astute choice that the US would come through eventually.

4. "A renewed Phoney War period lasting into 1941 would have enabled the British military to gather its strength and prepare for a long-term war once it had powerful coalition partners." Guess what factor would have, more than anything else, discouraged prospective partners from joining Britain? Oh, I'd have to say SIGNING AN ARMISTICE WITH HITLER WOULD PROBABLY SCARE THEM OFF. Nothing would have taken the wind out of the sails of the interventionists more than if the British were willing to treat with Hitler. The author thinks that the British would have been better off in the eyes of the US bargaining for their own existence, rather than as the last defenders of freedom in Europe. What the fuck?

5. We're also expected to believe that trading the existence of the British Empire - an institution that, I think we can safely say, was an imperial institution that had no real right to exist as a world-straddling colonial force - for victory over Hitler and Nazi Germany was a MORALLY BAD TRADE. Stopping Hitler is good, but not at the cost of the Raj, old boy!

6. This whole argument is sure based on Hitler's good faith, which was, of course, a joke in and of itself. How many treaties had Hitler broken by 1940? Four? Five? And the solution to the problem of being outmatched by Germany is to...sign another treaty, asking for Hitler to give you a total-war time-out, right on the heels of his greatest victory?

7. A renewed Phony War would have killed Churchill's government the same way the old one basically killed Chamberlain's government.

I could go on, but I won't. This was a really good book right until this point, but then, with ten pages to go, you come to the conclusion that shattering Nazi Germany and fighting on against the most evil regime in history was actually a bAd cHoIcE

[The Tiger Kingdom]

Anyway, GCCS - I can absolutely confirm that the British had more than 70k rifles, given that one of the stats in here was that the British got 500k rifles just from US aid alone during June-July 1940.

[Grenartia]

Fascist Forever War when?

Really.
You get 490 pages into a 500-page book, only to have this guy come to the ultimate conclusion that Churchill's actions in continuing the war in 1940 "sealed the death of the British Empire". Lend-Lease was a "poisoned chalice" that "made Britain a vassal of the United States".

"Rather than the deferral of Seelöwe locking Hitler into an invasion of the Soviet Union, the real strategic fulcrum was that Churchill was locked into an extended and one-sided battle of attrition with Ger-
many. Churchill’s decision to stand up to Sea Lion in 1940 doomed the British Empire, rather than saved it – beginning with the loss of Hong Kong, Singapore and Burma to the Japanese in 1942. For centuries, it had been British strategic policy not to fight a protracted European war without allies – and Churchill threw this common sense policy out the window. By choosing to fight an open-ended war without major allies, Churchill committed the Commonwealth to a war that it could not win on its own and which reduced the world’s largest empire to a state of penury. British industry could crank out tanks and planes to match Germany ad infinitum, but every weapon built or purchased only further depleted the British Empire’s economic strength. By 1941, Britain was reduced to a hand-to-mouth financial existence and dependent upon American Lend-Lease. Churchill needed American or Soviet intervention to provide a means for Britain to join a war winning coalition, but it came at the cost of further reducing Great Britain to the role of a junior partner. Hitler over-extended himself in the Soviet Union and doomed the Third Reich to a war of attrition that ultimately cost Germany the war, but Churchill also over-extended Britain in the name of uncompromising bravado. A more practical British strategy after Dunkirk would have been to adopt Halifax’s suggestion of opening negotiations with Germany to seek a temporary armistice, thereby causing Hitler to cease preparations for Sea Lion, as well as U-Boat warfare and bombing of British cities. A renewed Phoney War period lasting into 1941 would have enabled the British military to gather its strength and prepare for a long-term war once it had powerful coalition partners. Instead, like Hitler, Churchill sought an impossible victory rather than call for a time-out. Overall, Churchill proved himself a great wartime leader and advocate for liberal democracy, but that does not absolve him of the critical mistakes in strategic judgement he made in 1940.

1. What the fuck does ending or continuing the war in Europe have to do with the Japanese invading Burma/India/Hong Kong?

2. I think pretty much any sober person can conclude that the British Empire was an economically doomed institution way before the Second World War, assuming it wasn't doomed intrinsically (it's hard to measure this stuff, but Empires tend to be money-losers on the whole). The First World War and the Great Depression had basically sealed that.

3. It's sort of amazing that he argues that the policy of continuing to fight against Germany without any immediate allies was a failure when, you know, Britain had the US and Russia on their side in a little more than a year or so. What fortune! What luck!
Or maybe Churchill made an astute choice that the US would come through eventually.

4. "A renewed Phoney War period lasting into 1941 would have enabled the British military to gather its strength and prepare for a long-term war once it had powerful coalition partners." Guess what factor would have, more than anything else, discouraged prospective partners from joining Britain? Oh, I'd have to say SIGNING AN ARMISTICE WITH HITLER WOULD PROBABLY SCARE THEM OFF. Nothing would have taken the wind out of the sails of the interventionists more than if the British were willing to treat with Hitler. The author thinks that the British would have been better off in the eyes of the US bargaining for their own existence, rather than as the last defenders of freedom in Europe. What the fuck?

5. We're also expected to believe that trading the existence of the British Empire - an institution that, I think we can safely say, was an imperial institution that had no real right to exist as a world-straddling colonial force - for victory over Hitler and Nazi Germany was a MORALLY BAD TRADE. Stopping Hitler is good, but not at the cost of the Raj, old boy!

6. This whole argument is sure based on Hitler's good faith, which was, of course, a joke in and of itself. How many treaties had Hitler broken by 1940? Four? Five? And the solution to the problem of being outmatched by Germany is to...sign another treaty, asking for Hitler to give you a total-war time-out, right on the heels of his greatest victory?

7. A renewed Phony War would have killed Churchill's government the same way the old one basically killed Chamberlain's government.

I could go on, but I won't. This was a really good book right until this point, but then, with ten pages to go, you come to the conclusion that shattering Nazi Germany and fighting on against the most evil regime in history was actually a bAd cHoIcE

I think there should be an academic term for that guy's argument. Strategic Appeasement.

[Goram]

So, found this magazine today - it deals with “What If” scenarios, one of which being “what if Hitler invaded the UK?”. Full of badly photoshopped pictures of German troops marching past Buckingham Palace. Got into the text just to see what it says.

“It was a matter of transport and Germany couldn’t cross the Channel.”

Things are looking up, I thought

“But what would have worried people was the possibility of Germany developing Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles (ICBMs) and atomic warheads”

In 1940? U wot?

[The Tiger Kingdom]

I think there should be an academic term for that guy's argument. Strategic Appeasement.

Appeasement 2: European Vacation

So, found this magazine today - it deals with “What If” scenarios, one of which being “what if Hitler invaded the UK?”. Full of badly photoshopped pictures of German troops marching past Buckingham Palace. Got into the text just to see what it says.

“It was a matter of transport and Germany couldn’t cross the Channel.”

Things are looking up, I thought

“But what would have worried people was the possibility of Germany developing Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles (ICBMs) and atomic warheads”

In 1940? U wot?

There is a very attenuated argument, if you squint really hard, that if Germany had maybe held off on the whole Russia thing in 1941 and instead knuckled in on industrial and technological buildup, maybe stuff like the V2 could have emerged earlier. But the German nuclear program was always a shambles and I don't see how it ever transcends that.

One of the things this book does really well, surprisingly, is argue that the German transport capacity has been underrated in most sources, which has sort of convinced me a bit on that issue. According to the calculations, the Germans had "80-85%" of the necessary barge capacity to fit the Sealion plan as constituted for a landing in September, and would have had 100% by October, the last possible window for a landing in 1940. This begs the question of how good these barges actually were for making an opposed landing in the teeth of air/naval/land resistance, but the Germans made an insane amount of progress in collecting an amphibious fleet within a few months, relative to where they had been at the start of the year. He also says the Germans wouldn't just have had enough barges by 1941, but they would have had dedicated landing craft in large numbers as well by then.

I should point out that this guy's ultimate conclusion w/r/t the most likely outcome of Sealion (either "Sealion Classic" in 1940 or "Sealion Redux" in 1941) would be a bloody stalemate. Assuming full-on Kriegsmarine/Luftwaffe support, the Germans would take significant losses, but would likely be able to overwhelm Nore Command in the short term, take advantage of British Army doctrinal flaws and intelligence preconceptions that the landing would come on the eastern shore, and successfully land on the Folkestone-Rye-Bexhill-Brighton frontier. However, this would likely spike American help hugely and the Germans would face massive onslaughts on all fronts, resulting on the Germans being hung on the outskirts of London.

I dunno how convinced I am of that. He goes to some pretty heroic lengths to try and justify how a barge fleet could make it past 30 destroyers, seven cruisers, and a battleship, which doesn't really sell me, but then again, the Germans did something like that in Norway over a much larger distance, so it can't be wholly discounted