The Anglo/American - Nazi War

alternate-timelines.proboards.com/post/140808

"The Anglo-American Nazi War

It really is the American-Cartoon Nazi War, with the only “Anglo” component to be as a bumbling side kick. It is well written on a micro level, or perhaps tactical is the better term. For it falls down in strategy, whether it be the internal strategy of stupid Allied strategy or the external matter of choosing to tell the tale through a pseudo academic work. It is probably closer to the type of mass consumer/popular history works of Stephen Ambrose, who turned out the same book several times without really getting into the key matter of the topic.

It unabashedly wears the author’s opinions and politics on its sleeve, but projects them through the agency of real people who had well established exactly opposite to those in the story. It also bases a lot of its credo around the notion of being based on the real horrific plans of the Nazis in Eastern Europe… when actually, it doesn’t really get into that much; when it was written, the author was not yet a mod, but was a bit of an audience darling so that no one was willing to point out that the emperor had no clothes.

As history, it is as said extremely superficial and comes from an internally biased source, but doesn’t do anything daring with it. As fiction, there is no suspense, but rather a succession of vignettes of American equipment. There are no personalities, no humanity and no real impact, despite the attempts to constantly one-up himself with new atrocities. The Americans are all competent, humane and perfectly lefty in a manner that would be familiar to a WW2 picture like the “narrators” of Desert Victory; the British are a curious combination of bumbling, puppets and extremely emotive in a manner that conforms more to the old stereotypes of Americans; and the Germans are either fanatic moustache curling Nazis or the other stereotype of purely professional clean Wehrmacht types. It could be a clever pastiche, but the OOC discussion by the author at the time indicated that no, it wasn’t that deep.

It was popular because it showed WW2 being fought with 1950s and even 1960s weapons! How novel! The only problem, never acknowledged or answered, is that those weapons were designed and built for a nuclear world, not a conventional world war. They were much more expensive, but are used in frankly stupid ways.

The big, ‘elephant in the room’ issue: The Americans have nuclear weapons, but don’t use them against the Nazis because they are upset that a lot of Japanese starved to death in the Pacific War. They aren’t used at the start after a German surprise attack, nor afterwards. They take on Jerry with conventional weapons, costing hundreds of billions and millions of lives. They are finally used in a bit of a spasm attack to a German nerve gas attack on Britain; the main purpose of this sequence, as well as showing the British to be frothing at the mouth with emotion, is to show off the “cool gear”. Even then, Germany isn’t taken off the map. After the war, when this comes out, there aren’t recriminations as natural, but nothing.

Economics, industry and logistics don’t get a look in.

The timeline is replete with these little and big flaws that together create an extremely cringeworthy piece that has never been critiqued for various reasons. It is an example of something revered by many that actually has feet of clay."

Several years later, my opinion hasn't changed much, apart from it trending more to 'This much vaunted story was really not that good at all.

- It purports to 'show what Hitler's plans for Eastern Europe would have looked like' but doesn't really do it
- The USA and Britain develop nuclear weapons before the travesty of a war, then don't use them. They build nuclear delivery platforms, then used them for conventional war because of the author's desire to write 'WW2 with late 50s weapons'
- It wasn't truly poorly written, but in retrospect doesn't rise above that pseudo Stephen Ambrose pop history style
- As a technothriller, it doesn't delve into a great deal of technical detail at all, nor are there any thrills. The action is derivative, predictable and very much based on a transposition of the @ 1944/45 Western campaign. Superficial doesn't really do it justice
- It really hasn't aged well, although a member here loves to keep commenting in its zombie aftermath thread

My unease was encapsulated by the exchange here:
www.alternatehistory.com/forum/threads/the-anglo-american-nazi-war.140356/page-106#post-4049918 (Original post pointing out that the British role was to serve as the comic relief/slapstick element)
www.alternatehistory.com/forum/threads/the-anglo-american-nazi-war.140356/page-106#post-4049964 (The response, which has nothing to do with the lengthy points made and quoted)
www.alternatehistory.com/forum/threads/the-anglo-american-nazi-war.140356/page-106#post-4049964 (My resigned response)

But he is now a mod and still answers and writes material related to it.

Seems that being a German in aanw timeline is not good, heck in the TBO after being nuked, given some time the Germans mange to crawl back up again, but not in this timeline as far as i can read.

Where is the "Anglo" in the war?

- US forces have to come to the rescue of British troops "The recapture of Guernsey Island, along with the smaller Herm and Sark Islands and several of the nearby islets from German forces, while providing a morale boost for the British public, was hardly worth the better part of a British parachute division in the failed assault on Jersey or the loss of HMS Sheffield and three destroyers, along with the crippling of the cruiser USS Savannah in the Force Jersey rescue effort"
- "While regular daylight precision bombing began by the USAAF 8th Air Force, RAF fighter squadrons received reinforcements in the form of American P-38 night fighter squadrons. Soon Luftwaffe bomber pilots learned to dread the silhouette of the “fork tailed devil” in the night sky as the heavily armed and exceptionally fast Lightning took to the skies against their missions."
- "The destruction of the A-4 sites by USMC Corsairs carrying Tiny Tim unguided rockets on September 22, 1945 was one of the few true successes of the air war despite the heavy losses experienced by the attacking squadrons"
- "Operation Bulldog also featured the first jet v. jet combat when USAAF Shooting Star fighters operating out of Scotland in support of the operation tangled with Luftwaffe Me-262 fighters attacking the withdrawing Marine F4U"
- Armoured deck carriers get no praise, only a very miserly assessment that dwells upon the positives of the US approach
- "The July 1943 decision to have the Royal Navy and Commonwealth forces concentrate on the Dutch East Indies and former British possessions of Burma and Malaya also reduced the amount of friction with Admiral King, although the decision did place the Commonwealth forces partially under the command of General Douglas MacArthur depending on their exact deployment. The troops who suffered this misfortune, along with their commanders, would long rue the day"
- "the wholesale destruction of the A-4 missile launch sites by American fighter bombers" vs "the hellishly costly but markedly successful strike by Bomber Command against the German missile facilities"
(Even the extremely rare British successes are qualified with losses or other downgrading, whereas the US successes are unequivocal)
- "This remarkable transfer of personnel was only possible due to the use of Allied, primarily USN, amphibious landing vessels that had been transferred from the Pacific Theater for the express purpose of making the exchange both possible and rapid." (Unlike @, British amphibious landing craft production is apparently absent)
- The Germans manage to build a fleet of "three large carriers, two light carriers, seven 45,000 ton battleships, two Bismarck class BB, two BC, 6 armored cruisers (a unique German design, also known as panzershciffs), 16 CA, 14 CL, 58 DD and 38 frigates"
- A German "fleet in the Black Sea consisting of 2 45,000 BB, 2 CVL, 5 CA, 5 CL, 15 DD, and 21 FF...While the construction of the Black Sea force made sense in many ways, it, along with the Italian Agean Sea fleet, tied down nearly half of the RN and was a serious enough threat that the USN maintained TF 68 (centered on USS Saratoga, USS Enterprise, USS Essex, and all four South Dakota class BB in 1952)"
(Half of the entire Royal Navy is apparently tied down to counter a force in the Aegean and another in the Black Sea, despite extensive bottlenecks, land based air and submarines all existing. The lack of strategic thought makes your head hurt)
- "The Luftwaffe had nothing to equal the American B-47, much less the newly accepted B-52"


"My contention is that not only is it not realistic, but not a good story. There is no tension, no characterisation beyond character assassination of the British, no real examination of the central conceit of the story and a huge authorial thumb on the scales at every point.

As said before, the aircraft and ships of 1943 predominate for the RN and RAF. With a genuine enemy next door, they don’t do anything different from @ peacetime developments and generally bumble around as the ‘butt monkey’ of this travesty. Ongoing German Third Reich with thousands of tanks? Better stick with the 17pdr through to the late 50s, old sport! Nazi air threat? Meteors and a few Sabres!

There aren’t any silver linings, particularly for Britain, nor are there any extra units capable of easy redeployment. India is completely and fully independent along with the former White Commonwealth and every single source of manpower or benefit.

Britain cannot support major ground forces in Europe in the best situation and it faces the opposite of that. Once demobbed, they can maybe support a global force of 6-8 divisions, including Home Forces, but at a dreadful cost.

Where do you see the basis for a recovery? What industries? What export markets haven’t been totally taken over by the Americans or destroyed? Domestic demand is fundamentally limited and doesn’t get hard currency.

The “A4” really…isn’t. Australia and Canada have economies too small to support genuine nuclear forces or any significant military capacity; they are American satellites, as he makes clear. Britain couldn’t use its nuclear weapons to defend itself or her interests or even retaliate properly in an actual WW3 scenario because of U.S. restrictions put in place because of his external opinions. This is not any equal alliance, but a complete takeover.

He has the US and particularly the high command of SAC, men who had a historical belief and record of opinion in favour of massive retaliation, become wobbly 1990s bleeding hearts. The entire war was a colossal waste when the bombs and bombers were there to take Nazi Germany off the map in a day. That would have interfered with a perverse “fight the @ WW2 with the weapons designed for a completely different atomic war” conceit, though.

Characteristic of every one of his pieces was a huge tendency to accentuate and advantage the USA and this was no exception. He proved disinterested in any criticism or alteration of his particular vision. The result was a poor story, a very poor alternate history and a veritable minefield for any who sought or seek to play in that world."

I could go on, but I genuinely don't want to waste anymore of my day off on that poorly rendered nonsense.