Interesting possible WW3 scenarios during the 1980's

To be simple… Look at politics as a square.

The top side of the square is 100% government control and authority.  The bottom being 0%

The left hand side of the square is essentially 100% tax.  The right being 0%.

Depending on policy, different groups find themselves at different coordinates in the square.

To answer the original posters question - Communists and Fascists essentially exert the same amount of authority.  But differ in their economic policies.  IE one could be rich in Nazi Germany, where as in communism, the economic freedoms were not as available.  That is one of several conclusions that leads people to see the Nazi’s as right wing.

In simpler terms it’s “Government control of business (Left) vs Business control of Government (Right).”

But is that enough to make the NSDAP a right wing party? In my opinion no. As I feel that all big government is essentially “Left Leaning/Socialistic”.  Meaning that 3/4 of the square is socialism (Anything with more than 50% authority, or 50% tax control of your life)

Again, a very rudimentary and simple perspective, take it or leave it.

http://voices.yahoo.com/al-capones-armored-1928-cadillac-was-used-president-365026.html

I got this in a chain email, but it seems legit.

Really interesting story!  One of those make-sense/but-who-knew kind of moments.

If you’re building a scenario around the interwar American War Plan Orange, you should also look into the interwar Japanese doctrine of Kantai Kessen.  Orange and Kantai Kessen reflected each other nicely, in that both envisioned the US fleet sailing west into Japanese waters, where the two fleets would engage in a Mahan-style decisive battle…which, however, each side expected to win.  Japanese plans envisioned significant attrition of the US fleet along the way (chiefly by submarines, I think), prior to the main event (an old-fashioned slugging match between battleships).

There’s a scene in the movie Across the Pacific in which Sydney Greenstreet shows his pistol (I think it’s a 38-caliber gun) to Humphrey Bogart, who puts his Colt 45 pistol alongside Greenstreet’s and comments, “Mine’s bigger than yours.”

The US opted for imperialism.

USSR was the lesser of three evils between Germany and Japan, the only reason America backed USSR.  Also Japan and Germany threatened US imperialism and the US had to wait until an event like pearl harbor to appear to be the good guy.

USA opted for atrocities instead of invasion or truce in regards to Japan. The logic was, “make Japan surrender, take away their right to military, then try to offer them a right to a military when they are pro american.”

Problem is, Japan became isolationist after WWII, so US imperialism failed military in Japan, but economically it turned out pretty good.

Russia is a huge wrench in US imperialism, but not as bad as Germany would have been if in control of Europe (or Japan in Asia).

It is kind of sad the axis lost WWII, post war SEA would have been liberated while China would be oppressed… possibly liberated later. Europe would eventually collapse into nation-states again.

@legion3:

Naturally though, I voted for the USSR,  :wink: the opportunity to knock them out of the war or at least to take and hold Moscow, a major road, rail and communication hub with no equal in the Soviet Union, was available in the early fall of 41 had the Germans not been diverted and thus delayed in the turn south into the Ukraine. Another Hitler directive.

I take a few issues with this, It is VERY common to overestimate the value of moscow. Because moscow was such a hub, it would be very easy to link the railroads behind moscow, they are not that far apart. The russians built ALOT of railroad in WW2, and this would have been a very small challenge for them. They could probably have made Gorky their new capitol. losing moscow would not have been the end of russia by far.

As long as the russian army is alive and well supplied, russians would win this showdown. What the hitler directive did was to divert the panzers south, to help with the capture of kiev, What this move did was to encircle 700 000 russian soliders and to hasten the capture of Kryvbas and Krivoy Rog, which where the main prodcution of russian steel, dealing another devestating blow to the russian economy. This move severy reduced the resuplyment of the red army and encircled alot of the russian prewar division. This means that the 700k soliders they encircled was among the best equipped and best trained russian divisions. I could very easily argue that if the germans had gone for moscow instead, then these divisions and the increased russian production could have made the summeroffensive of 42 impossible, and the russian winter counterattacks in the winter of 41/42 that much more devestating. It was already devestating because of the of the 18 siberian divisions (guessing about 500K soliders). If you double the number of trained soliders, then the germans would probably have been lucky to even hold moscow, and if they tried, a stalingrad situation might have developed.

Cool!!!  Wow, I wonder what kind of damage the Abrams could do going that fast!!!

@Upside-down_Turtle:

Yeah, I saw that show.  It’s partially what inspired this thread.

Tom Clancy said the Abrams can go 70+mph w/o a governor.  Is that really true?  It’s a lot higher than the “official” stats.

Man, 70+ tons going 70+mph…that’s a load going fast!  It’s faster than the Leopard’s “official” top speed.  However, it’s suposidly ad risk of destroying the drive train, but if that’s true, couldn’t you just somehow make it stronger?  I’m no mechanic, but I’m sure it could be done.

A 70 mph tank would kick @$$!  :-D