Beyond The Sprues

Modelling => Ideas & Inspiration => Scenarios => Topic started by: Story on August 01, 2024, 10:33:07 PM

Title: MAN IN THE HIGH CASTLE (How the Axis won WW2)
Post by: Story on August 01, 2024, 10:33:07 PM
From the Group Build I suggested -

In The Man in the High Castle alternative history, Giuseppe Zangara assassinates President-elect Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1933, resulting in the continuation of the Great Depression and the policy of United States non-interventionism at the start of World War II in 1939. American inaction allows Nazi Germany to conquer and annex continental Europe and the Soviet Union into the Reich. The exterminations of the Jews, the Romani, the Bible Students, the Slavs, and all other peoples whom the Nazis considered subhuman ensued. The Axis powers then jointly conquered Africa, and still compete for the control of South America in 1962.[1] Imperial Japan invaded the West Coast of the United States, while Nazi Germany invaded the East Coast; the surrender of the Allies ended World War II in 1947.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Man_in_the_High_Castle

Triggered by tripping over this map
(https://i.pinimg.com/564x/61/66/da/6166da371a19dd1ac574eecc6a18489c.jpg)
Title: Re: MAN IN THE HIGH CASTLE (How the Axis won WW2)
Post by: Story on August 01, 2024, 10:40:07 PM
Looking at that map, I can see the following scenarios in sequence

1) Putting the Kremlin in check
2) Isolating and strangling the Home Islands into submission.
3) Turkish perfidy, Japanese logistical assertiveness and the fall of the Suez
3A) The fall of Aden (IJN vs Commonwealth)
4) The Vichy fleet joins the Axis
5) The D.A.K. with Italian and Japanese auxiliaries in West Africa (not shown - Mussolini's *One Million Bayonets* create a bigger A.O.I.)
6) "The Leap" - Dakar to South America (Japanese 5th column in Central/Latin/South America)
7) Battle of the South Atlantic (USN/RN vs Axis combined fleet)
8 ) Axis Island Hopping in the Caribbean (includes Ernest Hemingway's Last Stand, Fortress Cuba)
9) The invasion of New Orleans (Creole guerillas, Axis war crimes)
10) Defense of the Heartland (behind every blade of grass, a redneck with a rifle in his hand and hate in his heart).

Modeling, wargaming, etc - it's all there.
Title: Re: MAN IN THE HIGH CASTLE (How the Axis won WW2)
Post by: Frank3k on August 01, 2024, 11:14:50 PM
In the South, the Axis would just have to declare that they would allow the South to "Rise again" and re-implement slavery and they would have an instant ally. Better than the Vichy. I can see Bf. 109s and Fw 190s with confederate markings and eager redneck pilots. Not that would have gone well...

In the West, they would have been working on Mexico for a few years and would have given them weapons and logistics to attack and capture some of the south-west territories, maybe with less success than the Southern Strategy, but diverting US resources to protect the factories, oil fields and farmlands.

 If Hitler had held back invading Russia for a bit, they could have had a third front with the Russia and and Japan invading Alaska and the North West - although the Russians and Japanese cooperating on anything or the Riussian Navy getting across the Pacific (even the Bering Strait) without a major disaster makes this the least plausible part of the plan.
Title: Re: MAN IN THE HIGH CASTLE (How the Axis won WW2)
Post by: Story on August 02, 2024, 01:47:06 AM
Quote from: Frank3k on August 01, 2024, 11:14:50 PM
In the South, the Axis would just have to declare that they would allow the South to "Rise again" and re-implement slavery and they would have an instant ally. Better than the Vichy. I can see Bf. 109s and Fw 190s with confederate markings and eager redneck pilots. Not that would have gone well...

Interesting notion, particularly when coupled with Sinclair Lewis (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/It_Can%27t_Happen_Here) although the Business' Plot might have had more of a twist if Smedley Butler hadn't had his 1940 heart attack.

Supposing Butler answered the call and raised the requested militia of WW1 veterans, only to have his heart attack at the Second Battle of New Orleans? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Business_Plot

Title: Re: MAN IN THE HIGH CASTLE (How the Axis won WW2)
Post by: Story on August 02, 2024, 01:50:25 AM
Given the Axis penchant for being driven to seize oil hubs they could not neutralize, I could see a MALTA / LEROS style Fallschirmjaeger operation launched on Aruba as soon as the Axis were established on the South American coast.

The Dutch Antilles and Caribbean in the Second World War
https://ipms.nl/artikelen/nedmil-luchtvaart?view=article&id=2540:antillen-ww2-english&catid=180

Attack on Aruba
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attack_on_Aruba#:~:text=Aruba%20was%20home%20to%20two,of%20vital%20Allied%20fuel%20production.

(https://qph.cf2.quoracdn.net/main-qimg-f9c7f2abb093c9db7f5d45e4def4d671-lq)
Title: Re: MAN IN THE HIGH CASTLE (How the Axis won WW2)
Post by: Frank3k on August 02, 2024, 02:46:18 AM
One problem is transporting significant troops across the Atlantic. While the US did it, I don't think the Axis powers would have been able to do it easily. Maybe by a slow buildup prepositioning troops and materiel in friendly countries (Japan invading Peru, Germany possibly in Central America (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latin_America_during_World_War_II)). This would let them supply their allies relatively quickly during any uprising. Although the security of the Panama Canal would have made a secret buildup difficult.
Title: Re: MAN IN THE HIGH CASTLE (How the Axis won WW2)
Post by: Frank3k on August 02, 2024, 02:50:41 AM
Quote from: Story on August 02, 2024, 01:50:25 AM
Given the Axis penchant for being driven to seize oil hubs they could not neutralize, I could see a MALTA / LEROS style Fallschirmjaeger operation launched on Aruba as soon as the Axis were established on the South American coast.

Maybe a larger or sustained attack would have been successful. Also would have threatened traffic through the canal or the canal itself.
Title: Re: MAN IN THE HIGH CASTLE (How the Axis won WW2)
Post by: Story on August 02, 2024, 07:49:58 AM
Quote from: Frank3k on August 02, 2024, 02:46:18 AM
One problem is transporting significant troops across the Atlantic. While the US did it, I don't think the Axis powers would have been able to do it easily. Maybe by a slow buildup prepositioning troops and materiel in friendly countries (Japan invading Peru, Germany possibly in Central America (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latin_America_during_World_War_II)). This would let them supply their allies relatively quickly during any uprising. Although the security of the Panama Canal would have made a secret buildup difficult.

German industry was incapable of duplicating America's LIBERTY SHIP program, so I'd project that the Germans would do what they'd done in reality - impress the warships and merchantmen of the vanquished.

There'd be no way to conceal "The Leap", and what could the Allies do about it?  The Axis advance would be an inevitable Inch Worm from 1942 to 1947 (when the Americans capitulated, per TMITHC).



Title: Re: MAN IN THE HIGH CASTLE (How the Axis won WW2)
Post by: ChalkLine on August 02, 2024, 09:49:36 AM
The problem is in economic history it's the general academic agreement that the USA entered both world wars because the side that had phenomenal loans to them was losing and the USA faced a catastrophic economic outlook if the Axis was victorious as the losers obviously don't have to pay their loans back.

In many ways the Bretton-Woods system was a measure to avoid this in the future.

So the USA will go in at 1940 anyway.
Title: Re: MAN IN THE HIGH CASTLE (How the Axis won WW2)
Post by: Story on August 02, 2024, 05:49:28 PM
The map was from a 1942 LIFE MAGAZINE article, along with these images.

(https://i.imgur.com/NqSA2it.jpeg)


(https://i.imgur.com/My3yZtJ.jpeg)


(https://scontent-lga3-2.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t39.30808-6/454005180_122164650710224076_2570228265827392517_n.jpg?_nc_cat=104&ccb=1-7&_nc_sid=aa7b47&_nc_ohc=K7lL1u9PX3gQ7kNvgEpkgK8&_nc_ht=scontent-lga3-2.xx&oh=00_AYCC8xox7kIW7mkW62_YuorGwSudUlzWs8IQHWlH2hHtkg&oe=66B803D7)
Title: Re: MAN IN THE HIGH CASTLE (How the Axis won WW2)
Post by: Story on August 03, 2024, 05:33:04 AM
Quote from: Frank3k on August 02, 2024, 02:50:41 AM
Quote from: Story on August 02, 2024, 01:50:25 AM
Given the Axis penchant for being driven to seize oil hubs they could not neutralize, I could see a MALTA / LEROS style Fallschirmjaeger operation launched on Aruba as soon as the Axis were established on the South American coast.

Maybe a larger or sustained attack would have been successful. Also would have threatened traffic through the canal or the canal itself.
I suspect the Usual Suspects would have played their part.

(https://i.imgur.com/ZhEYxPb.jpg)