Aa historical game (rough draft)

I’ve been researching France in World War 2 recently, and I stumbled upon this article on JSTOR:

https://www.jstor.org/stable/286380?casa_token=HrDISj647xoAAAAA%3A4r0lrbG6dLMbOFV1mHpvWIxLmi5kgJmFmZ_TYY5Ct12HpfBVa87FyqGvcP00vs2G1JuM3ol2qcQ

Unfortunately, my regular free JSTOR account cannot access this.

Please let me know if you have access to this article in any way. Thank you!

@SuperbattleshipYamato hard to argue against any of this really. The IJN was so far gone by this point in the war that there’s not really much they could have done to salvage their situation one way or another. The bit about the allies not having many LSTs in general is something I never knew before though.

@SuperbattleshipYamato Yeah I get you 100%. Alternate History is a niche interest in the first place so finding other people willing to go down the rabbit hole is always tough.

@Coldwarrior1984

Reading this, I feel strongly you’re confused about the nature of the German defenses in Normandy. In combination, I feel you are overestimating the Allies ability to place smoke as precisely and in the quantity that would have been required to have a chance to accomplish the goal you lay out. I also feel you’re overestimating the effectiveness of smoke even if I grant that none of the above was an issue.

I’ve been to Normandy three times with tour guides. I’ve read everything from Ambrose and Osprey on Overlord. I’m tempted to repeat my initial post about why you don’t hear or see this tactic being performed en masse in the many assaults in the Pacific or Mediterranean.

I’ll just sum this up and say that the German fighting positions were not composed primarily of Saving Private Ryan style bunkers but widerstandsnest with Tobruks across so much acreage that a simultaneous precision smoke affect against all of them for the required time to get everyone ashore is less realistic that just a mass smoke bombardment of the beach area.

If I was going into Tank on Tank combat I’m taking the M4 Sherman. Better sights, better visibility, an actual turret basket, better ergonomics, better mechanical reliability, and with the 76mm variant a very capable anti armor gun. As well as far more reliable armor due to high production quality standards. The M4 armor is reliable face hardened. The T34 could be correctly hardened, too hard so that it’s brittle or too soft.

If I was trying to drive a tank to get into a fight, the M4 is the obvious choice due to the much better reliability.

If I had to pick a tank to work on. M4 again due to its easy to repair design.

If I wanted to drive a comfortable tank well that’s no contest it’s the M4. Also it’s an easier to drive tank due to the vastly superior production quality.

So the M4 is a vastly superior weapons platform the only reason they seem comparable is on paper armor thickness and gun. Off of paper they aren’t close. Like pretty much all Russian military equipment they seem intimidating but ultimately are trash. Like how the T 72 got smashed by the M2 bradely and infantry fighting vehicle not even a tank.

@Baron:

Does B-17 rather able to do same things than B-25 but at longer range with more payload ?

I read that some of these B-17 were based in Australia and succeed at attacking a few IJN ships?

Yes and no… you’re kinda talking the difference between a tactical bomber (like the B-25) and a strategic bomber (like the B-17).  The B-17 has longer range and a bigger payload than the B-25, but its also less maneuverable, and usually used for different roles (strategic over tactical bombing).

As with anything in war, there can be fuzzy lines that are crossed (B-17s used for tactical missions like bombing ships and B-25s used for strategic bombing, like the Doolittle raid), but generally speaking those two bombers were used for different purposes.

These are more quotes from other games

“when we prepared for operation sealion we were all given rain coats.”
German soldier

“the FFF are so good they take 4 divisions for the loss of one Evan if some of those divisions are armored divisions.”
Impressed English soldier

“the Americans are so rich they build battleships when we build destroyers.”
Herman guderan captain of the bismarck

“we don’t need AA guns we need Chinese soldiers.”
Lord lucius darvin British general of the Burma army

“sssir wwweve lost another 4 fighter wings!”
Japanese soldier to a supirior
“how?”
Japanese general
“5 Chinese infantry divisions!”
Japanese soldier

“The best Russian soldier is 200 times worse then the crapest German soldier ever.”
SS commander

When I lived in Orange County Ca, I remember seeing the platforms for old ww2 anti air guns. Same on the “Queen Mary” docked there.

I think it’s correct in the game to have the guns. Because the nature of the game can cange the way the war really played out, america would have had many more batteries than it did based on the war. We did have anit air batteries but not even close to the amount in England.

For instance, in one of my games, my German airforce bombed the American fleet in the gulf of mexico. If Germany would have had long range bombers like the B-17 and/or carriers capable or bombing the East or West Coast, Americans response would naturally been to have more AA batteries. That’s merely my speculation though.