Axis & Allies on the 8th Continent

[Trenacker]

What's the big idea?
I'm designing a home-brew map for the old Milton Bradley (now Hasbro) board game Axis & Allies. It incorporates both an alternate history and an eighth continent of my own design.

Here's the map. The southern-most continent (yes, it's all supposed to be connected) is still incomplete. Enjoy!

I'm looking for help building on two fronts:

1. Building out the alternate history necessary to "produce" the borders one sees on the map
2. Exploring how warfare on the eighth continent, called Shamash, might be different from that in both the Old World and the New

Tell me a bit more about the inspirations for your world.
About twenty years ago, while poking around the Warships1 web forums, I ran across some historical fiction produced by a fellow named Grey Wolf. The name of this story was A Feast of Eagles. The story was inspired by the question, "What if 1848 had gone awry and France was still the dominant power in Europe going into the Great War?" Germany, Italy, and Spain had never achieved unification. The Great War had been fought between the Entente of France and Russia against the Alliance of Britain and Northern Germany. The Alliance won: France was laid low and Russia plunged into Civil War. The Bonaparte Dynasty was unseated and replaced. Much of the action of the story focused on the division of spoils between the victors, the spreading fires in Eastern Europe, and the intensifying strategic competition between the world's two largest economies, the British and the American. On my map, both the Italian and Spanish peninsulas are disputed by rival claimants.

One of my favorite alternate history books is Harry Turtledove's How Few Remain. The idea of a Second (or Third) Civil War dovetails with one of my map design philosophies: create more opportunities for play in areas of the map that are typically out-of-focus, specifically the Americas and southern Africa. The Confederate States of America are represented, and at the apogee of their power.

I was one of a regrettably very few fans of the short-lived NBC television series Kings, starring Ian McShane. The show was a modern treatment of the Biblical story of King David. Many of the characters, storylines, and place names I've incorporated into Shamash are borrowed from Kings.

Another of the influences on my thinking is the short story The Cherry Trees Spared, which looks at the consequences of a very different outcome to the surrender of the German High Seas Fleet at the end of the First World War.

Dr. Mike Bennighoff's discussion of the fulfillment of Greek irredentist ambitions in the 1920s influenced by decision-making on the map as it pertains to Anataloia and the Crimea.

Sketch out your vision for the alternate history.
Germany and Austria-Hungary concentrate on Russia at the outset of war in 1914, inflicting a series of defeats that not only collapse the Tsardom but give the Whites enough of a leg up to endure in Northern Russia, the Caucasus, and the Far East well into the mid-1920s, with little danger of being dislodged by the Reds, who retain control of most of the population centers.

Germany swings wide through the United Netherlands, which does nothing to stop them. The House of Savoy, which is also ruling in Aragon, decides to jump on the bandwagon and finally honors its commitment to the Triple Alliance. France and Britain receive a drubbing before a U.S.-brokered peace in late 1916 spares Paris from likely occupation, just as all sides run out of credit.

The war only seems to stimulate, not discourage, similar adventurism by those who had lingered on the sidelines. Most notably, Greece leaps on the collapsing Ottoman Empire. The Swedish Empire makes undeclared war on Soviet Russia to expand its territory along the Baltic's eastern shoreline.

So what are the great powers doing circa 1925?
For Germany, the Great War was both triumph and calamity. On both fronts, German Armies ran wild. The Tsarist enemy was utterly laid waste. In France, Germany came close to repeating the incredible successes of 1870. Both the vaunted British Army and the Royal Navy were well and truly humbled. But what did it profit Germany, this display of unmatched prowess? On the Western Front, there was a return to the status quo antebellum. In Africa and China, the Entente powers and their allies overran German colonies that they did not later relinquish at the Peace of Washington. Traditional German ally Austria-Hungary was revealed to the world as a serious liability. To the east, neighbors Sweden and Poland, not Germany, are the ones growing fat on the Russian kill. Once home, many German soldiers refused to settle down, and an alarming number answers the bugle call of International Socialism. Months of rioting nearly brought down the German government. Germany's chief interests are as follows: to sustain the Austro-Hungarians, to woo the United Netherlands as an ally, to incite Shamash against the British, and to equip Poland to frustrate both the Russians and the Swedes.

Austria-Hungary survives to 1925, one scarcely knows how. Despite a dismal showing against Putnik in Serbia, there were minor successes on the Eastern Front against a Russian enemy who was even more inept, though Austria's every success came at thrice and quadruple the cost of those achieved by Germany. Then arose Poland, vigorous in arms and mighty in extent. Romania, too, has more than doubled in size. Aragon, a latecomer to the war, ended it in possession of not only Tunisia but much of the Rhône River Valley! The Regia Marina subsequently helped add Cilician Armenia to that already-impressive tally. Like Germany, Austria-Hungary is preoccupied by internal dissension, although more serious because it stems from ethnic as well as ideological cleavages. Austria-Hungary's objectives are as simple as they are urgent: point the Aragonese jackal westward and keep the Poles preoccupied with the Russians, both Red and White, while preparing to crush the Serbs... and probably the Romanians, when it comes down to it.

The British Empire is licking its wounds. Though he will not say so, John Bull owes much to Cousin Jonathan's timely brokerage of peace. The fruit of British manhood could not have saved France, and the whole world knows it. The Navy fared no better than the Army and the Marines, losing contests large and small. Minor powers in Shamash sank British warships and generally provided aid and succor to the German enemy—all without penalty. Amazingly, Parliament still clings to ideas of being able to shape events in far-off places. That is why British expeditionary forces still languish at Arkhangelsk and Baku and the Royal Navy did so much to guarantee Greek power on the Black Sea. It is why scarce money continues to be spent making a Shah in Iran. It is also why the British choose to turn a blind eye to scarcely-concealed Japanese designs on China and the Spanish Philippines. Germany, once thought to be a near-equal, has proven the stronger, and so Britain will seek to "accommodate the reasonable ambitions of certain Continental powers." The Opposition charges that the Government is craven, but even they can hardly argue that the Empire is well-positioned politically or financially for another general war. Not even war hawk Winston Churchill. "There is too much to defend," he laments in his diary, "and from too many, with too little and too few." But this does not mean that Britain will retreat from the world stage. "Lesser" states—Aragon, Dū'chou, and especially Fellän in Shamash—must not be allowed to forget their place in the pecking order. These attitudes have occasioned something of a crisis for those concerned with colonial defense, especially within the Commonwealth governments, which have begun loudly agitating for somebody to help them raise the ramparts.

Russia is prostrate still. Though the Soviets have mostly consolidated their control of the epicenter of Russia's population and industry, they face determined enemies on all sides. In the south, White armies are sustained from the sea, while in the North it is impossible to tell whether the enemy is a fellow Russian or in fact a Swede. The Tsar's gold made it all the way to Vladivostok, just ahead of the Red Guards. While the Polish and Finnish amputations were perhaps unavoidable, no Russian expected to lose Crimea to Greece or the Ukraine to Romanians. Even the Iranians have piled on, invading territory that was Russian for barely two generations. The situation for the Whites is pitiful, but sustainable. In the North, they are creatures of Sweden; in the Crimea, of the Entente Powers; in the Caucasus of the Germans; and in the Far East, of the Japanese.

The United Netherlands now thinks itself rather wise. For the negligible cost of credibility with a British government that they (correctly) suspected would be wholly unable to defend them, the Estates General spared their country both certain occupation and potential annexation. The result has been several years of healthful austerity: guilder that would have gone to swords went instead to ploughshares. (Years of German occupation were disruptive, but mostly profitable.) The country's leadership fully expects to follow the same path in the future should the need arise. Yet they might contemplate war on other fronts. The Anglo-Japanese threat to the East Indies is palpable. What if Whitehall decides to consider the Dutch co-beligerents the next time there is a general combustion on the Continent? And don't both Nod and Fellän overlook critical sea lanes not far from the Cape? . The solution, short of that outright alliance with Germany (which would probably provoke the dreaded British swoop) is a credible fleet on colonial station, built around hard-hitting battlecruisers like Ver Huell, that can hunt the would-be hunters.

Greece invaded the reeling Ottoman Empire in 1917. Through deft diplomacy, King Alexander secured Allied assistance that helped Greek armies occupy Eastern Thrace, Ionia, Constantinople, and even Trabizond, though the latter two were transferred rather than won. In this way, there was virtually complete achievement of the Megali Idea by 1923... at a catastrophic cost in lives and treasure for Greece. Since that time, Greek troops, always too few in number, have struggled to stamp out Turkish resistance. The Greek economy is now in free fall, with predictable results for the country's military efforts. Many conscripts are sent up to the front with neither boots nor rifles. More than half are not Greeks at all, but Armenians, Georgians, Jews, Circassians, or Russians. Smyrna and Constantinople, two of the three most-important cities in the Greek-speaking world, have yet to be rebuilt. Greece cannot go on in this manner much longer. Either they must secure the renewed assistance of Britain and France or else conceded that their appetite has exceeded the size of their stomach.

The Kalmar Union is expanding. In 1919, when civil war came to Finland, the Whites turned to fellow Scandinavians rather than become too familiar with the Germans. "Volunteers" from the Swedish Royal Army led White forces to victory in Finland, Latvia, Estonia, and Lithuania. The fledgling states that emerged from this fray have hardly required the instructive example of the Polish-Soviet War to set upon a course of confederation with powerful Sweden to preserve their hard-won independence. The idea was half-good. Ongoing border disputes with Poland have now led the Union's government to consider the very cooperation with Germany that its members had previously hoped to avoid.

In Gath, these are the years of salt but no rain (shout out to Kim Stanley Robinson). Gath was one of many polities to emerge from the ashes of the shattered Carmelite Empire in 1915. What little economic activity took place there before the war with Shiloh was centered on the country's then-capital at Port Prosperity. This was the hub for Carmel's large whaling fleet as well as a center for the production of leather, meat, grain, and steel. The cattle and grain were run from the wide Gathi plains while the iron ore was brought up by rail from mines due south in Arked. Until the invasion of 1923, Silas Benjamin was revered as a founding father. To their credit, Gathi armies stopped the Shilohne advance after just four weeks of fighting--but too late to keep hold of those things most precious: their sole outlet on the sea at Port Prosperity and the all-important watershed of the Ussite River, which quenched the thirst of all Middle Gath. Shiloh dammed the headwaters, starting the clock on a long and scouring famine. Descended from eighteenth-century military colonies, the Gathi were mostly independent smallholders engaged in subsistence agriculture. Political power resided with about three dozen families that ran cattle on huge spreads in central and western ("Far") Gath. Bureaucrats, always from Selah, watchfully calibrated the cattle drives: the cattle cropped the tall grasses as they moved, fertilizing the fields in turn. Gathi cattle barons scrupulously observed the same rules even without a tyrant to enforce them, but Shiloh's successful seizure of the Ussite Hills removed a final and most essential ingredient: water. More than 600,000 Gathi died in the year after the guns fell silent. (Most died of starvation, but a very large fraction succumbed to diseases brought on by poor sanitation.) Virtually the only money coming in was from salt mining operations on the country's western border. It financed the press that told the world of Gath's plight. In July 1924, having saved the nation from Shilohne imperialism only to find that they hadn't even retained the basic means for survival, the civilian government voluntarily made way for a military junta pledged to Gath's total territorial restoration. Less than five months later, diamonds were discovered at a place called Ebenezer's Drift. Gathi purchasing agents now scour Europe's depots and marshaling yards for the weapons to help them win a war of national salvation.

Shiloh is the nation that made war on three fronts and won each time. It was a race. Silas Benjamin's adopted domain was almost entirely alluvial floodplain, gently sloping to meet the continent's huge inland sea. Large-scale cultivation of sub-tropical cash crops and, to a lesser extent, aquaculture sustained a small elite presiding over nearly a million serfs. No sooner was the House of Benjamin enthroned than King Silas was beset by trouble. The famed treasure houses of Carmel's last king, Vesper Abaddon, were empty. Shiloh's water flowed from Gath, which also supplied beef and grains. (Shiloh was a net importer of foodstuffs.) Old fuels, too, came from Gath in the form of whale oil, while petroleum to grease the cogs of modern industry had to be piped from Dan. Engineers and agronomists crucial to the proper functioning of the Shilohne economy could be made only at the monastic universities of Selah. Iron ingots were brought in by train from Arked or Ermar, gems from Vesesh, and weapons from the arsenals of Fellän. What Shiloh did have was the larger part of the Royal Carmelite Army.

What's up with Shamash (eighth continent)?
Shamash was never colonized by the Europeans despite a brisk trade with, and considerable immigration from, the Old World, and as such was not very susceptible to entreaties to spend blood or treasure far from home. The powers of Shamash played only a small role in the so-called "Tragedy of 1914." None sent troops to fight in Europe, although nearly all militaries sent observers. A handful of naval battles broke out as footnotes to the broader conflict between the British Royal and German Imperial Navies. Mostly the Royal Navy's cruisers got the short end of the stick far from home as they chased or harassed Triple Alliance traders and raiders--kind of a "stay-off-our-lawn" initiative on the part of some of the bigger powers of Shamash.

Shamash's great problem is the secession conflict caused by a recent change of government. Silas Benjamin, previously a general in service to the despotic Vesper Abaddon, ruler of the Empire of Carmel, mounted the "Parlor Coup," arresting his master while the latter was at a game of billiards. Benjamin dissolved the empire and had himself crowned king in Shiloh, one of Carmel's half-dozen constituent nation-states. He then proceeded to launch a three-front war against as many enemies. Shiloh won all of these contests, two of them handily. Now, Shiloh's old enemy, Gath, licks its wounds and rearms for a new reckoning.

In what ways is Shamash unique?
Inspired by the Purelake in The Stormlight Archive, the eighth continent's key feature is arguably the shallow inland sea that fills its center. This body of water, which has a maximum depth of ten feet, is often beset by severe storms. In Shamash, the "Lake Battleship" concept has emerged--a heavily armored warship of enormous size, possessed almost entirely of guns between 4" and 6", designed to duke it out at extreme close range.

Shamash is sparsely-settled and generally agrarian. Industrialization has been slow. Roads, rails, and telegraphy rarely penetrate very far inland. On the other hand, the continent's river systems are extremely well-developed for purposes of trade and irrigation: hydraulic engineering has been a historical preoccupation of multiple Shamash civilizations.

The huge size and relative under-development of Shamash mean that the horse is still very prominent in war. Shamashi armies have adopted the machine gun and the modern breach-loading cannon, but the mounted trooper's charge is still reckoned the decisive factor in battle. From the standpoint of modern transportation, the armored train, motorcycle, aeroplane, and rigid airship are all of greater interest to Shamashi militaries than to those elsewhere in the world.

Mercenarism continues to be a significant aspect of warfare in Shamash. Both Shiloh and Gath have spent heavily to lure whole divisions worth of Freikorps to make up their own deep losses. Foreign technicians are prominent in the support branches of all Shamash militaries, especially from countries upended by the Great War. Immigrants also hold many top posts in governments and militaries.

A note on the artwork.
The original map of the world was created by a fellow named Canomer on the Paradox Games forums, as the credit indicates. I've added the new continent.

I am finishing this project in MS Paint. I own vector graphics programs, including Adobe Illustrator, and plan to make the switch, but I'm completely hopeless when it comes to using anything but MS Paint, so if you've got any map-making skills, I'd be grateful for shared advice, especially about how to faithfully transform this map into a vectored format without losing anything.

 

[Trenacker]

Understanding The Balance of Power
One of my favorite books on the period in question is Philip J. Haythornthwaite's The World War One Sourcebook (1992). Scanning the appendix, we find that the book covers: a history of the war on all major fronts, discussion of weapons and tactics, country profiles, and biographies. I have tried to give similar treatments to some of the major combatants above.

Today's discussion: comparative economy. Let's talk about the movers and shakers in this setting.

Design Principles of Axis & Allies
When designing a game of Axis & Allies, several factors play into the relative strengths and vulnerabilities of each power:

1. Starting deployment
2. Production potential
3. Placement on the map
4. Turn order

Starting deployment concerns the distribution and disposition of forces at Turn One. By design, Axis & Allies Global 1940 (hereafter, "Global") gives the two major Axis powers, Germany and Japan, enough turn one forces to immediately do some combination of the following: (1) occupy France, (2) decimate the Royal Navy, (3) attack the Philippines, (4) attack Pearl Harbor, (5) expand the war in China, (6) invade the Russian Far East, (7) activate the Axis minors in northern and/or south-central Europe, or (8) funnel help to Italy, the junior Axis member.

Notice that Italy doesn't feature prominently. This is because their position in the turn order is behind that of the British, who routinely sink the Italian navy and slaughter the Italian forces at Tobruk before the Italian turn begins.

Production potential is a long-term factor that determines not only whether and how quickly a nation can expand its military, but where it will choose to concentrate its forces. Germany and the United States start the game with the greatest production potential, whereas Italy and Australia-New Zealand have the least. In the case of the latter two, this makes early reverses much more difficult to overcome and incentivizes territorial conquest to accumulate more wealth.

Placement on the map is a final consideration. The United States begins with very little but is very safe with two oceans of distance between either of its coasts and the epicenters of conflict on Turn One. Weak Australia will likewise have at least one turn of advance warning even if the Japanese swing south first thing. Far-flung territories create unique problems for defense, just as one would expect. In the out-of-box game of Global, is partially mitigated by their low production values and the absence of forces sufficiently close to justify attempted defense, as in French Indochina, British Hong Kong, and the Philippines. Some homebrew games increase the number of garrison troops so that the colonies won't be written off so easily, or else use point-based objectives systems to tempt the players to redirect resources to colonial defense.

Matters of Scale
Generally speaking, for my game, the following principles will apply:

• Ground units are equivalent to Army Corps (roughly between 30,000 and 50,000 men).
• Naval units are equivalent to squadrons.
• Air units are equivalent to wings.

There will need to be some suspension of belief for independent commands such as colonial garrisons.

Figuring the Economies
I intend to set my game c. 1925, but the best information on comparative economics I've been able to find for the World Wars era comes from the year 1938. Whatever baseline we choose, the most important thing is to correctly model the relative sizes of the economies, each to the others.

Adjustment factors to bear in mind are as follows:

• The Great War was shorter but sharper. The Entente got the worst of it by far. France lost even more lives and money than was the case historically, gave up extensive territories in the south, and won't benefit from any reparations. Britain's experience was less materially but more psychologically damaging. The Soviet Union is reduced both in terms of historical core territories (the Ukraine was lost) and at the peripheries.
• The existence of an eighth continent suggests a higher worldwide total GDP.
• We'll have to correct for the comparative sizes of the Great Power economies in 1913, one year prior to the outbreak of the First World War. Fortuitously, these 1913 GDP numbers are set of 1990 dollars, the same as the 1938 GDP numbers.

National Discussions
Musings at random. Still excludes

• Germany is worth something on the order of $440 billion in 1936 equivalent GDP, or 66 IPC, the overwhelming majority of it generated in Germany itself.
  • Is this realistic? In 1913, French Real GDP was approximately 61% the size of German Real GDP, while in 1938 the French economy was only just 52% as large. (With the colonies included, in 1938, French GDP was still just 66% the size of Germany.) In our timeline, Germany's woes after the war are much less, so we will assume the German lead has increased substantially and that French Real GDP, empire and all, is now just 50% as large. Looking at the French calculation, this puts Germany at 66 IPC, assuming $1 billion in GDP is worth 0.15 IPC.

• In 1914, Austria-Hungary's economy, at GDP of $100.5 millions in 1990 dollars, was just 42% the size of the German economy. Let's assume that Austria-Hungary enjoys especially rich trade with Shamash in this timeline--an outlet for the Dual Monarchy's frustrated colonial ambitions. By the start of our game, Austria-Hungary's economy has grown to 45% the size of the German, for a total productive value of 30.
  • Before the Great War, Austria-Hungary's economy was just 69% as large as that of France. In this setting, that gap has narrowed since 1914 to 91%.

• The French Empire was collectively worth approximately $233 billion in 1938, which translates to 37 Industrial Production Credits (an Infantry corps, the basic unit of play, is worth 3 IPCs). We'll need to adjust that based on the foregoing discussion regarding French war losses (a big part of Southern France and Tunisia), the absence of Alsace-Lorraine and Corisca for historical reasons, and retention of French Quebec, which during this time period had quite a bit of industry and is worth a whopping 5 IPC. The French also picked up Cilicia, Togoland, and Darfur at various times in this timeline, but only the first is worth anything for purposes of this count--1 IPC. I've also trimmed the value of Ile-de-France to represent the lingering economic damage of having fought a mostly losing war on home turf. The result is 33 Industrial Production Credits, of which 23 (70%) are generated on the Continent.

• The United Netherlands is an amalgam of the BeNeLux countries and their colonies, including a South African enclave worth 3 IPC alone. As compared with the French, the United Netherlands should come in at just 75% of the actual 1938 total, or 28. Here, they have 30, which reflects added outposts in South Africa and Formosa. Of this total, 13 is generated by the BeNeLux countries themselves, and another 5 from the East Indies.

• The United Kingdom and Dominions (basically, the U.K., Canada, and British colonies in the Americas, Africa and the Middle East as far as the Indus) are together worth 49 IPC, Canada accounting for 6.

• The British Far East Command weighs in at 54 IPCs, 43 of which are generated by the Raj and another 7 by Australia. (I added a total of 3 IPCs to reflect trade with Shamash.)

• In 1938 GDP, the United States was worth approximately $800 billions of 1990 dollars. But what about in this timeline, with the Confederate States so large? I've been unable to find a good source for Confederate GDP during the Civil War, so I'll riff on a product of the U.S. National Park Service. If the South in 1860 had 21,000 factories to the Union's 101,000, and the Border States (which mostly fell into Southern hands after the war) contributed another 9,000, that's a ratio of 30:101, or 30%. Over time, one assumes this gap would have widened even as the South worked hard to industrialize and exploit the resources of its own western hinterland. It seems fair to say that, by 1930, Confederate GDP is just one-fifth the size of US GDP, and while the Confederacy includes Chiahuahua and Sonora, we can fudge. Of the $800 billion value, the Confederacy gets $160 and the Union $640.
  • The Union produces 96 IPC.
  • The Confederacy produces 24 IPC.

• The Swedish Empire (Kalmar Union?) incorporates Sweden, the Baltics, and Finland in a confederation dominated by Stockholm. In 1938 reckoning, tabulation of Swedish, Finnish, and Baltic GDP nets a value of roughly $55 billions of 1990 dollars. Let's assume that the benefits and drawbacks of Swedish imperialism balance out. That leaves us with 8 IPC for the Union.

• Siam appears as an independent power in this game, worth 3 IPCs total. The Siamese Empire is slightly larger in this timeline, representing fewer losses to the British and French in the Shan States, Laos, and Cambodia.

• Greece is worth a total of war 5 IPC. Most of its territories have been rendered worthless by war. Greece Proper contributes 2, and the remainder of Greek-occupied Anatolia, 3.

• Bulgaria weighs in at 3 IPC, but with much shorter interior lines than either the Greeks or the Romanians.

• Shiloh's economy after the War of Three Nations is in better shape than that of Greece, but its overall level of industrialization still falls well behind the standard set by the small Kalmar Union. We'll estimate the Shilohne IPC count at 6, with the expectation of quick growth in Far Shiloh.

• Gath, larger in size than Shiloh but much the poorer of the two, is worth just 4 IPC, and only because of its diamonds and salt.

• Nod, the Shamash superpower, has an economy comparable to that of European France in 1938, meaning 27 IPC.

 

[Sterr]

The Confederate States of America are represented, and at the apogee of their power.

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Lmao, well, that's not much.

For Germany, the Great War was both triumph and calamity. On both fronts, German Armies ran wild.

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Apparently Germany stumbles onto the modern system (what Biddle calls mobile warfare and some other stuff) before WW1? Because managing to get a paradigm ahead in doctrine is the only way I can think of them managing what you're describing w/o a lot of luck. And even then they're going to be pretty limited by the lack of mechanization.

Given their OTL plans for France it stretches the imagination that a Germany so victorious as to be almost occupying Paris would let a status quo antebellum happen- or that Poland would be released as an independent nation. Maybe make their victory in the west less impressive: for example, it's a stalemate until Aragon-Italy get in at which point France, facing a war on 2 fronts, sues for peace. That gets you your map.

Then arose Poland, vigorous in arms and mighty in extent.

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How?

The Navy fared no better than the Army and the Marines, losing contests large and small.

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How did the British navy become a paper tiger in 1914? Were they ever at the level in OTL? What was/is their colonial empire like? This is an important question to answer, since you're apparently setting up a world without one side of WW2 being a dominant naval power.

The Kalmar Union is expanding.

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Wait, what? If the Kalmar Union never broke up the 30 Years' War probably looks different enough to leave modern Germany unrecognizable.

This body of water, which has a maximum depth of ten feet, is often beset by severe storms.

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It probably shouldn't be, outside of late summer. That's not deep enough for hurricanes, and unlike the Great Plains, a water plain wouldn't see large daily temperature extremes, meaning it'll only be warm underneath cold air (tornado conditions) seasonally. Actually, given the shallowness there should be few currents. Shallow salty water, in real life, creates brackish swamps (the environment on the coast of my home state, actually).

In Shamash, the "Lake Battleship" concept has emerged--a heavily armored warship of enormous size, possessed almost entirely of guns between 4" and 6", designed to duke it out at extreme close range.

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But why? Battleships are big ships with artillery on them, their advantage is the ability to shoot farther than anything else and the fact that smaller ships have to get close and travel through that effective range to reliably do damage. And one of the biggest (pre-aircraft) threats to a battleship was torpedoes, which were more effective at closer range. Given any other option you wouldn't make a close ranged battleship. And these are artillery pieces, closer range either means less power (why would you do that?) or a much bigger projectile.

A large shallow sea like that would basically preclude battleship use anyway. It's too shallow for such large ships and would be full of dangerous banks. The ship you'd use there would be more like an OTL gunboat, it's just too shallow for cruisers much less battleships (and you wouldn't call a gunboat like that any sort of battleship, that term at that time was understood to mean a certain size of ship and gun). For context, 10 feet is about half the draft of the Emden. It's also going to be of limited use in shipping, leading to trade and logistics focused on the outer coast of the continent.

"Shallow" today, with respect to water, means <1000 feet.

The huge size and relative under-development of Shamash mean that the horse is still very prominent in war. Shamashi armies have adopted the machine gun and the modern breach-loading cannon, but the mounted trooper's charge is still reckoned the decisive factor in battle.

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The breech loaded rifle (not machine gun or artillery) pretty much ended shock cavalry in OTL. The last widespread use of shock cavalry in a large European war I know of was the Franco-Prussian War. The massive casualties for little effect (see: Reichschoffen, Mars-la-Tour- success was only when the cavalry was lucky and concealed on the approach) is why cavalry stopped being used in a shock role with a few exceptions. Sorry, but I don't buy this- it just didn't work in real life and a lot of people tried to make it work.

Using cavalry like WW2 Poland- riding to battle then dismounting to fight as a budget mechanized force- is what you'd expect. And it worked quite well, though not enough to save Poland, and it was overshadowed by mechanization anyway.

The Swedish Empire (Kalmar Union?)

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Ah- that's not the Kalmar Union.

Shagash sounds a lot like OTL West Africa, which has a pretty rich military history. Try Before European Hegemony (Abu-Lughod), IDK any books about it specifically unfortunately. Lots of cavalry, contrary to popular perception. The Mali Empire is a good start. Heavy cavalry dominated, similar to Europe in the high middle ages with the military aristocracy that comes from that arrangement dominating the governments. Infantry was used to support the cavalry, and archers dominated the infantry. Armies were logistically supported by canoes via river networks, marching along rivers similar to how armies in Europe marched along roads. Gunpowder had a similar effect as in Europe, weakening the dominance of cavalry. The great advantage of importing guns lead to strong incentives to trade with Europe, which was a big factor in the triangle slave trade. Unlike Europe in the 18th century on, Africa remained divided into many smaller states limiting domestic production, unlike Shamash. So Shamash should probably be have been more or less taking the same path Europe did historically minus colonialism since the introduction of gunpowder. IRL that happened worldwide after the world wars, IDK if you can realistically get a fundamentally different system with real life technology.

Best historical parallel is the North African campaign of WW2.

 

[Trenacker]

Welcome, Sterr! It's a pleasure to have you join the discussion.

Lmao, well, that's not much.

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No, it isn't, but that's a feature, not a bug.

The inherent problems of counter-factual history aside, sustaining Southern independence even to 1900 is quite the feat. The Federal advantage in military potential alone means they'd be quickly tempted into another war, and on even better circumstances than in 1860 since the developmental gap will only widen.

British perceptions of Confederate value can only decline as their primary exports are supplanted by imperial crops from Egypt and India. Over time, the Confederacy will become less a true ally and more a dependent market.

The French in Mexico will themselves probably quickly tire of a big, boisterous neighbor for whom filibustering is basically a way of life. Castille is likely to feel the same about Confederate behavior in the Caribbean, and to the extent that Madrid is aligned with Paris or London, it would count as another strike against the South.

Domestically, the Confederacy would be a mess. States refusing to contribute their fair share to the national defense. Rejecting schemes to promote river navigation and interstate commerce. Insistence on maintaining a socio-political underclass that is literally prevented from contributing fully to a commonwealth that won't even recognize their very humanity.

To make it possible to give even feeble resistance to Federal armies in 1914, I've assumed (almost) maximal outcomes in two previous wars since 1860. The South retains Kentucky and so-called Confederate Arizona after the Civil War, then later picks up Chihuahua and Sonora from the French. I'm still seriously considering saying they kept Missouri, too, just for the cumulative economic boost it would confer, although I had the idea that Missourri would be the major Federal "pick-up" of the Second War Between the States. To compound Union problems, West Point is dubbed a "forcing house for treason" after so many Southern officers defect, and shuttered after the Civil War ends. A multiplicity of private military educational institutions arise and make a disorganized hash of things. The Regular Army wanders in the wilderness for a long time.

Apparently Germany stumbles onto the modern system (what Biddle calls mobile warfare and some other stuff) before WW1? Because managing to get a paradigm ahead in doctrine is the only way I can think of them managing what you're describing w/o a lot of luck. And even then they're going to be pretty limited by the lack of mechanization.

Given their OTL plans for France it stretches the imagination that a Germany so victorious as to be almost occupying Paris would let a status quo antebellum happen- or that Poland would be released as an independent nation. Maybe make their victory in the west less impressive: for example, it's a stalemate until Aragon-Italy get in at which point France, facing a war on 2 fronts, sues for peace. That gets you your map.

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Without the delay in Belgium, I figured the German offensive on the Western Front is even more effective than in OTL. Since France barely survived even with the Belgians in the fight, I assumed that keeping the Germans out of Paris meant sending more German troops east first-thing, which had the added benefit of helping to explain why the White Movement hangs on for so many years after the Great War ends.

How?

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I assume the Germans have more access to American loans during the war, which makes them more susceptible to pressures for a brokered peace.

How did the British navy become a paper tiger in 1914? Were they ever at the level in OTL? What was/is their colonial empire like? This is an important question to answer, since you're apparently setting up a world without one side of WW2 being a dominant naval power.

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Does it really take that much for the Germans to win outright at Jutland?

The British colonial empire is largely the same as in OTL, with significant carve-outs for the French in Quebec and the Dutch in the Transvaal and Natal.

It's more a question of a series of humiliating bloody noses and individual contests in Shamash waters than anything else. A plot hook on which to hang special objectives that can lure the British player that far south.

Wait, what? If the Kalmar Union never broke up the 30 Years' War probably looks different enough to leave modern Germany unrecognizable.

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If it's the Union to which you take exception rather than the fact of Swedish power on the Baltic, I'm happy to come up with an alternative.

It probably shouldn't be, outside of late summer. That's not deep enough for hurricanes, and unlike the Great Plains, a water plain wouldn't see large daily temperature extremes, meaning it'll only be warm underneath cold air (tornado conditions) seasonally. Actually, given the shallowness there should be few currents. Shallow salty water, in real life, creates brackish swamps (the environment on the coast of my home state, actually).

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What if we made it 60' at greatest depth?

But why? Battleships are big ships with artillery on them, their advantage is the ability to shoot farther than anything else and the fact that smaller ships have to get close and travel through that effective range to reliably do damage. And one of the biggest (pre-aircraft) threats to a battleship was torpedoes, which were more effective at closer range. Given any other option you wouldn't make a close ranged battleship. And these are artillery pieces, closer range either means less power (why would you do that?) or a much bigger projectile.

A large shallow sea like that would basically preclude battleship use anyway. It's too shallow for such large ships and would be full of dangerous banks. The ship you'd use there would be more like an OTL gunboat, it's just too shallow for cruisers much less battleships (and you wouldn't call a gunboat like that any sort of battleship, that term at that time was understood to mean a certain size of ship and gun). For context, 10 feet is about half the draft of the Emden. It's also going to be of limited use in shipping, leading to trade and logistics focused on the outer coast of the continent.

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This particular facet of the fiction was to try to "back into" a new type of capital warship. If worse comes to worst, I can always scrap it and just say that the Shamash Sea is every bit as deep as the Mediterranean.

The breech loaded rifle (not machine gun or artillery) pretty much ended shock cavalry in OTL. The last widespread use of shock cavalry in a large European war I know of was the Franco-Prussian War. The massive casualties for little effect (see: Reichschoffen, Mars-la-Tour- success was only when the cavalry was lucky and concealed on the approach) is why cavalry stopped being used in a shock role with a few exceptions. Sorry, but I don't buy this- it just didn't work in real life and a lot of people tried to make it work.

Using cavalry like WW2 Poland- riding to battle then dismounting to fight as a budget mechanized force- is what you'd expect. And it worked quite well, though not enough to save Poland, and it was overshadowed by mechanization anyway.

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I've seen some pretty interesting objections to the argument that the cavalry charge was no longer a viable battlefield tactic even as early as the Civil War. Here's one, although I acknowledge that it doesn't ever address the elephant in the room. But here's another assessment that seems to suggest that "traditional" cavalry charges were carried out repeatedly on both the Eastern and Middle Eastern fronts.

Forgive me, but I know some Great War armies experimented with personal armor at the start of hostilities. I've tended to look at those pictures purely as a retrospective in naivete, but is it the case that some of those experimental devices worked? In an environment with a very low density of machine guns per kilometer, and if cavalry are charging in divisional strength, what happens then? What if the cavalry of one power adopt something like the Luger Model 1900 pistol carbine as a standard weapon?

Key here is that Shamash has a great many open spaces that are also unsuitable for motorized travel.

Shagash sounds a lot like OTL West Africa, which has a pretty rich military history. Try Before European Hegemony (Abu-Lughod), IDK any books about it specifically unfortunately. Lots of cavalry, contrary to popular perception. The Mali Empire is a good start. Heavy cavalry dominated, similar to Europe in the high middle ages with the military aristocracy that comes from that arrangement dominating the governments. Infantry was used to support the cavalry, and archers dominated the infantry. Armies were logistically supported by canoes via river networks, marching along rivers similar to how armies in Europe marched along roads. Gunpowder had a similar effect as in Europe, weakening the dominance of cavalry. The great advantage of importing guns lead to strong incentives to trade with Europe, which was a big factor in the triangle slave trade. Unlike Europe in the 18th century on, Africa remained divided into many smaller states limiting domestic production, unlike Shamash. So Shamash should probably be have been more or less taking the same path Europe did historically minus colonialism since the introduction of gunpowder. IRL that happened worldwide after the world wars, IDK if you can realistically get a fundamentally different system with real life technology.

Best historical parallel is the North African campaign of WW2.

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I'll look out for that book, but I think I'm forced still to contend with the technology of European warfare.[/quote]

 

[Sterr]

Does it really take that much for the Germans to win outright at Jutland?

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There's more to it than taking the Baltic Sea. German ships were designed around being a fleet in being, most of them had much less ability to project power around a colonial empire (sacrificing things like food storage for more armor). The OTL German fleet couldn't really be sending out battleships to win battles in tropical Antarctica, so this isn't that navy if it's doing that. The reason they did as well as they did at Jutland is because the German Navy had been built and trained specifically to win that sort of battle- one big fleet close to a friendly port. They should actually be farther behind than OTL in naval power if they're trying to fight halfway across the world unless something big changes. Britain should still be free to pretty much be the dominant naval power worldwide with the US out of the running.

If it's the Union to which you take exception rather than the fact of Swedish power on the Baltic, I'm happy to come up with an alternative.

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Sweden easily dominates the Baltic if they don't lose the Great Northern War/something like it. The Kalmar Union was Sweden, Denmark, and Norway unified under the Danish crown.

What if we made it 60' at greatest depth?

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That's really not a lot. When the British were trying to destroy the Königsberg (in a river delta) the battleship Goliath couldn't get into firing range because of the shallow water. I'm not sure how deep water has to be relative to the draft to be safe but there were different designs for blue and brown water fleets. Brown river ships had a draft of just a few meters.

60' is about on par with the shallowest part of the Amazon. The real life ships used in those depths at this period (river monitors, common in South America) were relatively small.

Forgive me, but I know some Great War armies experimented with personal armor at the start of hostilities. I've tended to look at those pictures purely as a retrospective in naivete, but is it the case that some of those experimental devices worked? In an environment with a very low density of machine guns per kilometer, and if cavalry are charging in divisional strength, what happens then? What if the cavalry of one power adopt something like the Luger Model 1900 pistol carbine as a standard weapon?

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When cavalry charges worked they were used in places where infantry charges would have otherwise been used, which itself is situational enough you wouldn't base your doctrine on it. But in general cavalry was used for its mobility then dismounted to fight, the Russian Civil War is a good example of both uses of cavalry. Early Deep Battle works a lot like what you describe- hit a few spots hard with artillery and infantry then punch through what's left with massed cavalry who go on to exploit the breakthrough, which is a good base to build a mechanized army on. But, as the Germans found out, that sort of formation needs infantry and artillery support.

Given the weight of sappenpanzer armor, I doubt it could have worked as barding. If you're trying to figure out how to make Shamash hit above its weight class have them be the first to implement Deep Battle/Bewegungskrieg/whatever it was Patton was doing due to their experiences in more mobile warfare.

 

[Trenacker]

On the naval arms race
I think I was unclear when I described the situation of the Royal Navy. "Humbled and now suffering performance anxiety" might be a superior summary of its situation. The Royal Navy is still the largest force afloat by a large margin, and despite brisk competition from the Germans and the Americans. The Imperial German Navy might have a squadron on-station in Shamash, comparable to the Royal Navy's China Station or the U.S. Navy's Asiatic Squadron. I'll probably end up providing an aged pre-dreadnought battleship alongside a single light cruiser to represent the whole of the German presence on the game board, mostly so the German player has some reason to spend time on that side of the table.

If we're thinking about protecting meaningful investment through naval power projection, the k.u.k. Kriegsmarine actually floats a greater relative proportion of its total navy in Shamash waters than do their German cousins, although I'd venture that the German presence, while less meaningful to its own admiralty, is overall more powerful because the two navies are not peers. Austria-Hungary's imperial ambitions are partially realized in this setting by the out-sized role it plays as a source of capital and industrial goods in Shamash. The oil fields at Kessarteh in Dan, one of the smallest of the nations freed by the shattering of the Carmelite Empire in 1921, are operated by the Galician-Karpathian Petroleum Company (home offices, Vienna).

It's debatable whether the British have more or less competition in this timeline. Soviet Russia is building fewer ships, although the Soviet Union was never a serious threat to British naval supremacy before 1945 (at least insofar as I am aware). The United States is probably building at least as many ships as the United States before 1940 because relations with the British are much worse and the value of a powerful navy is obvious to a Congress anticipating future war with the Confederacy. Aragon and Castile probably build more than Italy and Spain given that the Mediterranean is a much rougher neighborhood, but that's a problem more for the French and Austro-Hungarians, and the French, at least, could be counted on to rise easily to the challenge.

That's really not a lot. When the British were trying to destroy the Königsberg (in a river delta) the battleship Goliath couldn't get into firing range because of the shallow water. I'm not sure how deep water has to be relative to the draft to be safe but there were different designs for blue and brown water fleets. Brown river ships had a draft of just a few meters.

60' is about on par with the shallowest part of the Amazon. The real life ships used in those depths at this period (river monitors, common in South America) were relatively small.

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I'm trying to find reasons a navy would build a very large vessel with many smaller guns rather than many larger. I figured creating maritime conditions with lower visibility would tend to encourage that, relative to either all-big-gun ships that lacked the visibility to take advantage of their long range or fast-moving small craft, including torpedo-boat destroyers, which would need to get close to assure a good shot.

When cavalry charges worked they were used in places where infantry charges would have otherwise been used, which itself is situational enough you wouldn't base your doctrine on it. But in general cavalry was used for its mobility then dismounted to fight, the Russian Civil War is a good example of both uses of cavalry. Early Deep Battle works a lot like what you describe- hit a few spots hard with artillery and infantry then punch through what's left with massed cavalry who go on to exploit the breakthrough, which is a good base to build a mechanized army on. But, as the Germans found out, that sort of formation needs infantry and artillery support.

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There's no question Shamash powers are going to be using cavalry in ways that makes them look more like dragoons most of the time. However, I am curious about the potential for massed cavalry charges.

Given the weight of sappenpanzer armor, I doubt it could have worked as barding. If you're trying to figure out how to make Shamash hit above its weight class have them be the first to implement Deep Battle/Bewegungskrieg/whatever it was Patton was doing due to their experiences in more mobile warfare.

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Your recommendation is a sound one from a historical and literary standpoint. I think that breakthrough-and-envelopment tactics with the motorcycle probably played a huge role in Shiloh's early successes in 1923, although much of it also owed to the complete absence of meaningful resistance in Dan and the decrepit condition of the national gendarmerie in Selah. I had a piece in my timeline about Shilohne troops arriving in the outer suburbs of the Gathi capital, Port Prosperity, before the Gathi Army had fully mobilized. Shiloh's complete operational dominance is attested to in their use of the city's cable car network to quickly mass troops at points of strategic interest, working inward from the most peripheral suburbs.

Bear in mind that, from a gameplay perspective, Axis & Allies doesn't model operational battle, only strategic, so we're abstracting conflict to the army or army group level. Players can a bonus for combined-arms attacks and pushing on multiple fronts, but the closest thing to a "Blitz" is a special ability that lets certain units move through unoccupied territories to make attacks in a second, adjacent territory.

 

[Sterr]

I'm trying to find reasons a navy would build a very large vessel with many smaller guns rather than many larger.

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The problem is that you really wouldn't given any choice. Bigger guns do everything that's really important better. Better at defeating armor, longer range, etc. You still want a few so you can fire ranging shots, keep fighting when some guns aren't working, make it more likely at least something will hit, etc. 8-12 is pretty much the sweet spot. A battleship is essentially a floating artillery battery, all the artillery rules apply except for the fact that you're basically fighting in a giant flat field so conditions are about as perfect as they can ever be expected to be. Natch, the biggest guns in the battery possible the better.

A battleship covered in secondaries is going to be really hard to kill for anything that doesn't have battleship sized weapons, so you'd want to put some battleship sized guns on your own battleships anyway, and what you end up with is a slightly undergunned battleship even if the visibility is too poor to effectively take advantage of the range of heavy guns.

The only reasons I can think of to have many smaller guns instead of a few big ones are if you have schizo tech or are using converted freighter ships that can't handle the recoil of larger guns.

There's no question Shamash powers are going to be using cavalry in ways that makes them look more like dragoons most of the time. However, I am curious about the potential for massed cavalry charges.

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Historically, at this period effective cavalry charges generally involved managing to sneak around the enemy and attack from wherever their guns aren't pointed (which is also how infantry fought but horses have more trouble with things like terrain and stealth). It's also possible to use them the same way mass infantry charges were used (as the follow-up to a short but heavy artillery barrage to take the theoretically almost empty area), but that tactic was only really used out of necessity, and if possible it would always be better to use something like the 4 Fs. Frontal charges, even against a weakened enemy, mean pretty horrific casualties.

Cavalry charges continued to happen through the world wars, but they were the exception not the rule. They were not the reliable tactic that they were in older military systems and attempts to use them head-on against an entrenched enemy reliably failed (17 Nov). The question of how to beat an entrenched enemy was the biggest challenge for doctrine in this period, which is why I say a military build around the cavalry charge fighting in the 1940s will not do well. If you want to see what a military that focuses on mass frontal charges looks like look at the terrible performance of the Red Army during Barbarossa (5:1 casualties). A doctrine has to follow the situation on the ground, if you try to start with what the army should look like then explain how reality leads to that you're going to wind up with something that makes no sense because the reasoning is backwards. This is fiction, that's fine, but you should know that's what's happening.

In real life, there were two armies at around this period that used a lot of cavalry- the Red Army in the Russian Civil War and Poland in WW2. It's telling that both these armies used cavalry very similarly to each other, to move to the battlefield faster then fight dismounted.

 

[waito_x]

But why? Battleships are big ships with artillery on them, their advantage is the ability to shoot farther than anything else and the fact that smaller ships have to get close and travel through that effective range to reliably do damage.

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I figured creating maritime conditions with lower visibility would tend to encourage that, relative to either all-big-gun ships that lacked the visibility to take advantage of their long range or fast-moving small craft, including torpedo-boat destroyers, which would need to get close to assure a good shot.

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The problem for battleships necessitating such an alternative was, at the very least, two-fold going into post-WW1 doctrine.

While it was still a decade and a half before all metal fixed wing dive bombing aircraft became a nuisance, there was still early successful trials of torpedo attack from scouting biplanes (plus the improved precision of enemy ships with modernized fire control gadgets, receiving updates about shell drops from that hero scout's almost untouchable altitude). The other big issue, submarine attack, unleashing even more deadly torpedo salvos into an anticipated ship course and submerging for up to an hour to wait out retaliatory depth charges.

Battleships this early on are by no means maneuverable, so perhaps closing in for using the 6" guns to mow down the enemy forecastle and other lightly armored, important bits is the best option.

As for the later bit about 1,000 feet being shallow, that is the ideal 'bottom' for these heavier, multi-purpose fleets to counter attacking submarines, as the usual ocean depth and sonar behavior is out the window, confusing submarine operators, bringing them into range of sea floor mines that otherwise don't even brush the surface fleets. Besides, the deeper they go to elude depth charge timers, the more fuel they use up, which creates a telltale oil slick for the surface ships to track, and the 1,000 feet to the bottom becomes all the more a net to catch these sturdier boats.

 

[Trenacker]

Historically, at this period effective cavalry charges generally involved managing to sneak around the enemy and attack from wherever their guns aren't pointed (which is also how infantry fought but horses have more trouble with things like terrain and stealth). It's also possible to use them the same way mass infantry charges were used (as the follow-up to a short but heavy artillery barrage to take the theoretically almost empty area), but that tactic was only really used out of necessity, and if possible it would always be better to use something like the 4 Fs. Frontal charges, even against a weakened enemy, mean pretty horrific casualties.

Cavalry charges continued to happen through the world wars, but they were the exception not the rule. They were not the reliable tactic that they were in older military systems and attempts to use them head-on against an entrenched enemy reliably failed (17 Nov). The question of how to beat an entrenched enemy was the biggest challenge for doctrine in this period, which is why I say a military build around the cavalry charge fighting in the 1940s will not do well. If you want to see what a military that focuses on mass frontal charges looks like look at the terrible performance of the Red Army during Barbarossa (5:1 casualties). A doctrine has to follow the situation on the ground, if you try to start with what the army should look like then explain how reality leads to that you're going to wind up with something that makes no sense because the reasoning is backwards. This is fiction, that's fine, but you should know that's what's happening.

In real life, there were two armies at around this period that used a lot of cavalry- the Red Army in the Russian Civil War and Poland in WW2. It's telling that both these armies used cavalry very similarly to each other, to move to the battlefield faster then fight dismounted.

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Part of the logic here would be that the fronts are very large compared to the size of the populations under arms and the quantity of machine guns and artillery pieces available to the combatants very low. On some fronts, depending upon the terrain, rapid excavation to build trenches would also be a practical impossibility much of the time.

The problem for battleships necessitating such an alternative was, at the very least, two-fold going into post-WW1 doctrine.

While it was still a decade and a half before all metal fixed wing dive bombing aircraft became a nuisance, there was still early successful trials of torpedo attack from scouting biplanes (plus the improved precision of enemy ships with modernized fire control gadgets, receiving updates about shell drops from that hero scout's almost untouchable altitude). The other big issue, submarine attack, unleashing even more deadly torpedo salvos into an anticipated ship course and submerging for up to an hour to wait out retaliatory depth charges.

Battleships this early on are by no means maneuverable, so perhaps closing in for using the 6" guns to mow down the enemy forecastle and other lightly armored, important bits is the best option.

As for the later bit about 1,000 feet being shallow, that is the ideal 'bottom' for these heavier, multi-purpose fleets to counter attacking submarines, as the usual ocean depth and sonar behavior is out the window, confusing submarine operators, bringing them into range of sea floor mines that otherwise don't even brush the surface fleets. Besides, the deeper they go to elude depth charge timers, the more fuel they use up, which creates a telltale oil slick for the surface ships to track, and the 1,000 feet to the bottom becomes all the more a net to catch these sturdier boats.

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If the water depth is set at 60' or so, I'd think submarines and early-modern torpedoes would be much less useful. With cloud cover and bad weather most of the year, the value of aerial scouting would also be more limited.

And I have no problem with the idea that these lake battleships might have heavier guns of 8", 12", or even larger calibers for taking on their opposite numbers. I had assumed some would remove them because (A) by doing away with the big guns, I'd figured there would be cost savings on infrastructure, and (B) a smaller gun is going to be more useful more of the time, although there are probably plenty of them in sponsons and secondary, tertiary, or quadrinary turrets already.

 

[Sterr]

Part of the logic here would be that the fronts are very large compared to the size of the populations under arms and the quantity of machine guns and artillery pieces available to the combatants very low. On some fronts, depending upon the terrain, rapid excavation to build trenches would also be a practical impossibility much of the time.

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The Russian Civil War, especially in the East, is exactly what you describe. This is a pretty good book on it.

And I have no problem with the idea that these lake battleships might have heavier guns of 8", 12", or even larger calibers for taking on their opposite numbers. I had assumed some would remove them because (A) by doing away with the big guns, I'd figured there would be cost savings on infrastructure, and (B) a smaller gun is going to be more useful more of the time, although there are probably plenty of them in sponsons and secondary, tertiary, or quadrinary turrets already.

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Secondaries were meant to be used against battleships in the pre-Dreadnought era due to having large sections that couldn't feasibly be armored, but as armor evolved that idea became a lot less common. It stayed alive in the German navy and their focus on the North Sea, where foggy conditions like you describe would lead to closer range combat, but those ships still had a heavy main armament and that was what saw the most use.

With the benefit of hindsight we know that secondaries, even in those closer range conditions, were not very effective against enemy capital ships but were very useful against destroyers in the specific situations where a destroyer is close and closing very quickly (like the night withdrawal around Jutland). Generally if a few secondaries can hit an enemy capital ship so could a primary and it would be much more effective and reliable. If a move away from heavy guns happens in Shamash navies they probably wouldn't perform very well against heavier enemy ships without aircraft carriers.

I know nothing about this game's mechanics or how to translate any of this into it.

 

[waito_x]

If a move away from heavy guns happens in Shamash navies they probably wouldn't perform very well against heavier enemy ships without aircraft carriers.

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A good moment in naval warfare where this downgrade certainly applies was the ten years between the start of the Russo-Japanese War and World War 1. Looking at how major navies like the UK were already experimenting with fleet speed aircraft carriers, it was nevertheless easier from Japan's perspective to commit existing battle-hardened c. 1905 armored cruisers for patrols in the Pacific.

The two Ibuki-class armored cruisers (装甲巡洋艦, そうこう じゅにょうかん) known as Ibuki lead ship and Kurama second ship, managed very well. They had been laid, launched and fitted during the Russo-Japanese War a decade prior with four Elswick Ordnance 12" main guns and twice as many 8" secondary guns.

In the context of late WW1, 12" was already obsolete, with Germans slugging away in the 13.5" size, British field testing 15" and, intriguingly, on one seaplane tender conversion, a shore bombardment 18" mount. But one way the IJN closed the gap was in torpedos. The two Ibuki-class had 18" launchers.

Article:

Then of course, there was protection.

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ibuki-class_armored_cruiser#Armor

 

[Trenacker]

The Russian Civil War, especially in the East, is exactly what you describe. This is a pretty good book on it.

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Yes, I think warfare in Shamash would be very similar. Use of horses for mobility. Armored trains, but otherwise very limited mechanization.

Secondaries were meant to be used against battleships in the pre-Dreadnought era due to having large sections that couldn't feasibly be armored, but as armor evolved that idea became a lot less common. It stayed alive in the German navy and their focus on the North Sea, where foggy conditions like you describe would lead to closer range combat, but those ships still had a heavy main armament and that was what saw the most use.

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I am beginning to see now why I encountered the new (to me) term "semi-dreadnought" in an article on the period roughly between 1870 and 1910.

With the benefit of hindsight we know that secondaries, even in those closer range conditions, were not very effective against enemy capital ships but were very useful against destroyers in the specific situations where a destroyer is close and closing very quickly (like the night withdrawal around Jutland). Generally if a few secondaries can hit an enemy capital ship so could a primary and it would be much more effective and reliable. If a move away from heavy guns happens in Shamash navies they probably wouldn't perform very well against heavier enemy ships without aircraft carriers.

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I could see juggernauts (my term for the huge, squat lake ships) mounting 2x12".

I know nothing about this game's mechanics or how to translate any of this into it.

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If you're interested, you can find the Axis & Allies Global 1940 rules online, but here's a very brief description:

1. The game map/board divides the globe into a number of land territories and sea zones, roughly equivalent to regions. For example, the Continental United States might be divided into three territories: Eastern U.S., Central U.S., Western U.S. The Mediterranean Sea might be divided into between six and eight sea zones.
2. Game pieces ("units") represent army corps, naval squadrons, and air wings, roughly speaking.
3. When I move a naval unit or group of units into a sea zone containing an enemy combatant, I can either declare that I am evading or seeking combat. I then roll a "Naval Combat Search" roll using a percentile die. Depending on the outcome, I will either succeed or fail in my attempt.
   • Various factors modify my roll up or down, including: the comparative size of the ships (speed), whether I have any aircraft in the space, and how many units are moving. Weather might also be a factor.
4. Assuming combat results, each ship type has attack and defense factors on a d12. So, for instance, a torpedo boat destroyer might attack at 2 and defend at 1 on a d12.
   • The defender typically chooses which of their ships suffers any hits. Casualties on defense always get to fire once before they leave the board.
   • Various characteristics apply to each unit. For example, some ships may have "target selection" so that they can assign hits to specific enemy unit types in preference to others.
   • After each round of naval combat, the attacker can choose to withdraw.
   • Submarines are only susceptible to detection and attack if an attacker has an aircraft or destroyer in the same space. If the submarine attacks on its own, the defender may roll in defense.
   • Capital ships have 2 "hit points" and may be damaged as an intermediate step to being destroyed. Capital ships are semi-dreadnoughts, battlecruisers, dreadnoughts, battleships, and juggernauts. Pre-dreadnoughts and coastal battleships are not capital ships.
   • Capital ships and heavy cruisers get a round of AAA fire against attacking aircraft.
   • Some units get a "combined arms" bonus. Their presence allows other units of a specific type to gain attack or defense bonuses.
5. Combat lasts up to three rounds if there are still units remaining.
6. After a naval encounter, a new naval combat search must be rolled next turn for either combatant to leave the sea zone.

A good moment in naval warfare where this downgrade certainly applies was the ten years between the start of the Russo-Japanese War and World War 1. Looking at how major navies like the UK were already experimenting with fleet speed aircraft carriers, it was nevertheless easier from Japan's perspective to commit existing battle-hardened c. 1905 armored cruisers for patrols in the Pacific.

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Is there anything to the idea that Shamash powers might build ships with guns of smaller caliber because heavier guns are more difficult to cast?

In some Axis & Allies variants, players can begin with obsolete ships that they cannot build (e.g., coastal battleships and coastal submarines).

 

[waito_x]

of smaller caliber because heavier guns are more difficult to cast?

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It was also stated that the 12" guns were not top of the line, and therefore, eligible for export by the Brits in the first place.

 

[Trenacker]

It was also stated that the 12" guns were not top of the line, and therefore, eligible for export by the Brits in the first place.

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Ah, so, in theory, there could be export restrictions that prevent Shamash from acquiring the heaviest available calibers, and that would be realistic?

 

[waito_x]

We also might consider that the 8th continent, reached by long hauls over water, puts more priority on minelaying and submarine patrols. Usually it's the invaders that want the reach of cannons to hit land targets.

 

[Trenacker]

Would submarines be a good bet in 60' waters? Or are you thinking of the seas between Shamash and the rest of the world?

 

[Sterr]

Armored trains, but otherwise very limited mechanization.

Click to shrink...

Estonia used armored trains pretty effectively but I don't know sources for details.

Would submarines be a good bet in 60' waters? Or are you thinking of the seas between Shamash and the rest of the world?

Click to shrink...

It wouldn't, but 60' waters are also shallow enough to preclude the safe use of heavier ships outside well-mapped ports (sandbanks and such) so amphibious invasion isn't much of a worry unless they go all the way in barges.

 

[waito_x]

unless they go all the way in barges.

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Or wait for a high tide?
Mind, some research went in to subs that could crawl the ocean bottom (closer to shores, so up to 400 feet depth I think).

 

[Trenacker]

I love this discussion thread on armored trains, @Sterr. "Hairy Mary" the Fighting Locomotive is intriguing.

You're saying 60' depth wouldn't be sufficient for a capital ship? What about 100'? Trying to find something that just barely accomodates battleships while at the same time making submarine warfare rather unappealing.

 

[waito_x]

Well let's look at the Panama canal and northeast of there across the Gulf which saw lots of ship builds and ship moorings. Part of the route considered 'deep ocean' is Old Bahama Channel, and that has walls reaching back up to about 67 meter depth.

Sixty feet might be too shallow unless they emphasize it is not deep ocean rating, who knows.

 

[Sterr]

Or wait for a high tide?

Click to shrink...

Looking at the map this is an ocean about on par in size with the Mediterranean.

 

[Trenacker]

The 60' depth is a problem because, between chartings, the bottom can accumulate that much sediment and ships can then run aground, correct?

 

[waito_x]

So the main issue is this, if there isn't a 'hole' in the surrounding seabed for sediment, it will accumulate upwards of what regular lowtide reveals. So for the z-axis sixty feet proposed, you need some spots, crags or canyons, where it drops to 200 ft depth otherwise the whole thing becomes intraversible.

 

[Trenacker]

What about a lot of borehole equivalents that don't open up a meaningful bottom for sub work?

 

[Trenacker]

Still working on this. Got a bit of a timeline going, accessible on my Google Docs, here.

I'm starting The Great War series and listening through from 1914 forward.

Looking for feedback on the first major challenges:

• If the Germans swing wide through Belgium and the Netherlands unopposed (because Belgium did not gain independence early in the previous century), is there any way that France holds out? I could always say they rushed troops to the front from their expanded colonial holdings on the new map.
• What if the Germans don't find the Russian battle plan on the body of a dead officer after Gumbinnen? Is it reasonable to assume that the Russians and Germans could have fought a less conclusive Tannenburg, leading the Germans to rush even more of their troop strength east?