Load and & Lock vs Lock and Load

@king_of_tanks

Good point.

@abworsham4

Unfortunately, the powers of both sides are not comparable to any of the games, so we can’t just play it out with side switching house rules (and other stuff too, but I’m just saying a new setup will need to be designed). The Soviets were even less modernised than in 1941. The real question is Germany. If Germany fights with the Soviets, (depends on what Hitler’s short term plan is) the outcome is uncertain, especially with Italy’s allegiance. It Germany fights against the Soviets, the Soviets would probably fall, especially if Japan can be convinced to jump into the war.

I absolutely agree with you here.  Yamato does have better range with her guns.  But I believe that PoW is better able to place her shots on target at these extreme ranges than Yamato.  Regardless, surprise is crucial for PoW.  Which is why I think the engagement would HAVE to happen at night when radar would help.

@CWO:

@jim010:

Let’s assume a chance encounter in the China sea between the two in 1942 when Churchill wanted British raiders operating the way the Germans had done in the Atlantic. � This is the only possible way I see an encounter between the two happening without other ships and carriers taking part (at least on the British side). � We’ll assume that Japanese carriers are engaged elsewhere and Yamato and other ships are hunting for the British raiders. � Low cloud ceiling, so planes can’t participate. � Prince of Wales was destined for this type of operation, so this match-up MIGHT have happened. � We’ll substitute DoY with PoW. � As the ships are identical, shouldn’t be an issue. � And PoW is most likely to have made this encounter, had she survived.

Interesting analysis, but there’s one other factor that needs to be considered: main gun range.  Yamato’s 18.1-inch guns probably out-ranged PoW’s 14-inchers; Garzke and Dulin’s books would give the exact figures, but I don’t have them on hand at this moment.  If so, Yamato would be able to open fire on PoW long before PoW could do likewise to Yamato.  Or to put it another way, any situation in which PoW is in range to hit Yamato (even at extreme range) would automatically be a situation in which PoW would be well within Yamato’s range.

On the issue of who-spots-whom-first, Japanese inferiority in radar might well be compensated by the IJN’s excellent optical rangefinders, particularly in view of the fact that Yamato’s greater size would place her optical fire-control stations (and perhaps her radars too) at a greater height than those of PoW – so Yamato might actually spot PoW first, since the horizon is further away as you observe it from higher up.  PoW did have a slight edge in speed, but in this situation the main advantage this would confer to PoW would be the ability to get away from a situation in which she was confronted with an opponent way above her weight class.  This was basically the same principle behind the Deutschland-class Panzerschiffe: with a few exceptions (these being the three British battlecruisers they might face), they were more powerful than anything faster and faster than anything more powerful…the latter point meaning that, if they encountered a fully-fledged battleship, they were supposed to run away from it.

I think I Go with the Sherman Firefly in this case, since I prefer a 5-men-crew in Tanks.
This is my plus I give to the Firefly ,for wich I choose the Firefly over the T34/85.

Haha, well China invades Russia to secure the Quarantine Zones and the Ruskies use da nukes.  Needless to say, the world goes boom.  Great game, great story!

If you’re looking at physically discernible traits in posterity (i.e., the baby boom generation), I’d say they would require considerable epigenetic or even genetic alterations in the parents (i.e., the people living there at the time). That’s not a very likely effect from such levels of pollution. If anyone was affected in any way, it seems more probable that their overall health would suffer to some degree, but it would probably be difficult to attribute that to any specific factor. An extensive epidemiological study may be able to demonstrate some effects, but I don’t know whether anybody has done one.

Also, it’s uncertain how much of the oil even reached the beaches or the fishing grounds. It seems obvious that the marine ecosystem could handle less oil, over a much longer period of time, and at various locations, much better than the massive BP spill. So a lot of that WWII tanker oil may have evaporated, or sunk to the bottom, or gone down with the ship and slowly dissipated.

I don’t think that the war itself would have played a major role in deciding to either clean up or ignore any oil that may have landed on the beaches. If the oil would have arrived in a town like, say, Biloxi, then people would have probably cleaned it up because it posed a direct threat to the livelihood of the local fishermen. On the other hand, if it would have landed in a remote location, it would likely have been ignored, simply because environmental awareness was not exactly a major concern in the 1940’s, war or no war.

In each case, I’m only speculating - we’d need to look for contemporary reports to know the truth.

And of course, the petroleum flavor does little for the shrimps, so I don’t think too many were eaten.  :-)

Nice. That’s really interesting

The war many had feared erupts as German troops move into, at first, Holland and Belgium lead by air suport and airborn attacks.