Author Topic: WWI Ideas and Inspiration  (Read 14937 times)

Offline ysi_maniac

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Re: WWI Ideas and Inspiration
« Reply #25 on: March 29, 2016, 04:45:22 AM »
Let me think on a german tank design for early '20.

Offline GTX_Admin

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Re: WWI Ideas and Inspiration
« Reply #26 on: March 29, 2016, 05:12:52 AM »
Let me think on a german tank design for early '20.


A couple of options:

Leichter Kampfwagen II:  The German Army actually ordered of 580 of these tanks but the war came to an end before any reached the front-line.



Sturmpanzerwagen Oberschlesien:  Towards the end of the First World War it was clear that the only operational German tank, the A7V, was too expensive to produce and had too large a crew. Therefore, it was decided that a lighter tank was required which could spearhead assaults and which could be mass-produced.  Designed by Oberschlesien Eisenwerk (Oberschlesien-Eisen-Industrie at Gleiwitz / Gliwice), it featured central turret armed with 37mm or 57mm gun and two small turrets, each armed with a machine gun. The tank was planned to weight some 19000kg. It was powered by 195hp engine and could travel at maximum speed of 19km/h. Maximum armor protection was to be 14mm. It was to be operated by the crew of 5 men.  Two prototypes were ordered but were only partially completed when the war ended

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« Last Edit: March 29, 2016, 05:15:37 AM by GTX_Admin »
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Offline Rickshaw

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Re: WWI Ideas and Inspiration
« Reply #27 on: March 29, 2016, 09:43:41 AM »
I recall reading somewhere that an allied victory in WWI was inevitable, with or without US assistance, it just would have taken longer.  The RN blockade was starving Germany and while the French and British were both bleeding their empires could still be cannibalised to keep going, where Germany had lost most of hers and definitely any access to them.

Germany and Austria were starving by 1918.  In 1916, the decision had been taken (mistakenly) to slaughter all the domestic livestock of both Empires.  The result was that by the winter of 1917-18, the population was seriously short of protein and everybody was looking for food.   The German troops, when they attacked in 1918, discovered massive dumps of supplies behind the Allied lines which they pillaged (indeed, there is an argument that if the Germans had not stopped to do this, they might have reached Paris as part of their Operation Michael offensive).  The German assaulting troops could not believe their eyes when they discovered the loot.

The German colonies, unlike the British and French ones had always been a serious drain on the German economy and there is an argument that when war was declared in 1914, the Germans had actually won when their access to their colonies had been cut.  It saved them millions of marks annually.   There were serious arguments for Germany abandoning it's overseas empire within the German government before the outbreak of war. 

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I have also read that US industry benefited massively from transferred technology, processes and procedures from the UK and Europe.  For example the faulty RN shells we hear and read about so often were actually predominantly sourced from the US prior to their factories getting up to speed on the latest quality standards.  There is a school of thought that in two consecutive world wars the UK and Europe bankrolled the expansion and modernisations of, not only their own industries but also, US industry.  I am not suggesting in any way that the US was behind or backwards, rather that circumstances handed them, lock stock and barrel, the full sum of British knowledge and expertise on top their own.  Had the US stayed out of it they would have received none of the benefits of foreign orders boosting their own expansion and modernisation efforts, none of the technology transfers, tactical insights, access to detailed battle and damage reports, let alone intelligence obtained from the Central Powers.

It has been said that before 1917, the US was still largely set in the mindset of a "frontier rural society", after 1917, when there was a massive flood of British and French advisors and experts, it's industry was transformed and American society changed.   The same occurred, to a lesser extent in 1940, again from the influx of orders and plans from the UK.

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The flipside is France and Britain would have bled deeper and for longer and would have had to make greater use of their empires, the British in particular having to invest in their larger, richer dominions to obtain what the US was not supplying.  Thus Canada primarily and to a lesser degree Australia and NZ would have seen their industries expanded and modernised to make up for short falls in the UK.  Many of the tactics used to end the war had been developed earlier than they could be effectively used due to lack of material, in particular artillery, this short fall was eventually made good by the US, had they stayed strictly neutral the short fall would have had to have been made up by the dominions meaning that all they treasure and credit the US earned during WWI would have ended up within the British Commonwealth instead. 

The war would have lasted longer, losses would have been greater, but the allies would still have won and the wealth and IP transfer from Europe to the US would not have occurred.  Also the US would not have earned the international prestige of being on the winning side and likely would not have had the diplomatic and financial weight to drive the Washington naval Treaty meaning the UK likely would have called it instead with a somewhat different outcome in terms of ship size and numbers.

Retribution would have been greater as well.  As bad as Versailles was the effects on Germany and Austro-Hungary would have been much, much worse.   While the German economy essentially collapsed, I doubt there would have been the same zeal to rebuild it from the Allies.   Hitler was IMHO inevitable, if not in 1933, it would have been someone else who'd have still blamed the most obvious scapegoats and created WWII.  German society was unwilling to accept that they had been defeated - remember no triumphant armies marched through Berlin in 1918, the troops just came home from France, demoralised and hating the civilians who they believed had betrayed them and so resentment built on those feelings, something Hitler took advantage of.   In 1945, seeing their cities destroyed, their citizens killed and the Allied armies marching through their cities and in particular Berlin meant that the Germans finally had to admit that they weren't the great race that Hitler had proclaimed them to be.

Offline ysi_maniac

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Re: WWI Ideas and Inspiration
« Reply #28 on: March 29, 2016, 12:00:59 PM »
Another alternative, more in the line of Greg, is that a vitorious Germany would become an industrial (and political too) power of first order, with main competitor (UK) defeated and second (France) under control. In this case I do not see Nazi party reaching power. But competitive tensions with USA ...

Offline GTX_Admin

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Re: WWI Ideas and Inspiration
« Reply #29 on: March 30, 2016, 02:27:34 AM »
I agree - if Germany had been victorious there would be no impetus for Hitler to rise to power.  He would simply have been yet another veteran from the war.  Maybe he would have gone back to painting older and wiser...

Moreover, depending upon how France & the UK were treated by the victorious Germans, you may well have not seen WW!! take place at all.  In fact, depending upon when/how the war ended, you may well have seen WWI as truly the "war to end all wars" leading to a totally different 20th Century...albeit with the world of Empires still prevalent.
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Offline elmayerle

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Re: WWI Ideas and Inspiration
« Reply #30 on: March 30, 2016, 10:43:36 AM »
A victorious Germany might lead to something like Robert Conroy's 1920: America's Great War which is a most engrossing and interesting read.  For a different Germany, one defeated and altered before 1914, there's his first novel, 1901, which definitely has it's geography right (lived in the general area while I was in Connecticut).

Offline Volkodav

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Re: WWI Ideas and Inspiration
« Reply #31 on: March 30, 2016, 10:49:47 AM »
Another option could have been a negotiated peace once the stalemate was realised, maybe after the great loss of life after attempts to break through heavy defences consistently failed in 1915/16, but definitely after the Battle of Jutland showed that even a decisive naval battle was unlikely.  So lets say this armistice occurred two years earlier on November 11 1916 instead of 1918, driven by an outbreak of common sense rather than the collapse of the Balkan front and the Central powers realisation they could no longer secure their southern front and had also lost access to much needed oil and food.

As peace came out of stalemate, rather than capitulation prior to an inevitable defeat, there were no reparations or territorial annexations, no forced disarmament or onerous treaties, each side basically was left to lick their wounds and get on with life.  Russian, Turkish and other civil wars/revolutions would still occur as the underlying social and economic problems would still exist, but there would be no certainty of who would win and form government, nationalists, royalists, fascists, socialists or communists.

Another thought is what would have happened in the UK, would a negotiated peace have boosted the left or the right? For instance a very real fear at the start of WWI was that the Indian independence movement would take advantage of the situation and launch a revolt against British rule, instead India as a whole, including many desiring self government, actively supported the British during WWI, in the hope that this loyalty and support would be rewarded.  Post war the likes of Churchill and other conservatives actively opposed Indian self government let alone independence, disappointing and disheartening the great majority of Indians who had actively supported the British war effort.  Possibly a negotiated peace could have seen a softer line being taken with India, including self rule as a self governing Dominion within the British Empire, or perhaps even an earlier evolution of Empire into Commonwealth.