Whats your favorite what-if wartime scenario?

93,719 Views | 367 Replies | Last: 9 hrs ago by Ghost of Andrew Eaton
MTAggie
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UncleJew15 said:

I'm going to go with Russian WWI/ Civil war questions

  • What Would of happened if Tsar Nicholas had not taken direct control of the military and instead gave control to Brusilov or another capable general.
  • If Lenin where not released would the Russian revolution still kicked off or would it have been a different party rising up?
  • What would have happened to Russia if the White Guard had won?

I would say if Brusilov had direct control of the military it would have been a different ball game. He was more experienced in leading than Tsar Nicholas and arguably Nicholas' handling of the military helped kick off the Revolution. So with a general who had success in Galecia and was tactically innovative I could see Brusilov taking overall command and having success at that level.

I think the revolution would have kicked off either way since Russia was at a tipping point already, however if you combined it with my first question then I think not.

With the White guard winning I think it would have led to another civil war, between the capitalist and the Tsarist. Mainly the White guard was united to kick commie @$$. Without a unifying goal, I think another civil was would have erupted with a capitalist victory.
A scernario I was waiting to see if someone drew up. I agree with youexcept-I do think a revolution would have occurred have been successful. Nicholas was hell-bent on being in control of all and hated the very existence of the Duma. I believe eventually, well before the 40s, the Czarist regime would have fallen. It was temporarily staved off only by the typical patriotic response most citizens experienced to "defend" Holy Russia.

What I do think is that the Alllies hadn't pushed the Kerensky Government into staying in the war and could have focused on reforms, there would have been a better a 50 percent chance, if not greater, that the Bolsheviks would not have come to power. Without the ability, the Bolsheviks ability to shout "Peace, Bread, Land" made the October Revolution and its success inevitable.
annie88
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Mine are more abstract...

What if the US involvement Vietnam war had never happened. An entire generation would've been different.

What if the Archduke had never been assasinated in 1914?

What if Hitler had been admitted to art school?
Hubert J. Farnsworth
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annie88 said:

Mine are more abstract...

What if the US involvement Vietnam war had never happened. An entire generation would've been different.

What if the Archduke had never been assasinated in 1914?

What if Hitler had been admitted to art school?


Regarding your second question. I dont think it would have made any difference if the Archduke was assassinated or not. Most of Europe had been preparing for war for over 10 years at that point. The assassination was just the spark needed to set off the series of terrible chain reactions. It may have kept things from blowing up a little longer, but war was going to happen one way or another. You should read "The Guns of August".
Wearer of the Ring
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What if some bleeping Nazi had shot my Pa?
Eliminatus
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How far do we go in N. Korea if the Chinese hadn't intervened? As in do we conquer the entire country or just quick strike and take the capital and force a political capitulation. Would this have led to a unified Korea?
CanyonAg77
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What would have happened in Korea if we stopped at the 38th after throwing the Norks back over the border?

Lots of lives saved, no Chinese intervention, at least at that time. Who knows what would happen later.
Eliminatus
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CanyonAg77 said:

What would have happened in Korea if we stopped at the 38th after throwing the Norks back over the border?

Lots of lives saved, no Chinese intervention, at least at that time. Who knows what would happen later.


Sorry, I see how I worded that weird now.

I meant, how far do we as a nation go in regards to how we deal with N. Korea if the Chinese hadn't entered the war and pushed us back out? We had Pyongyang captured and the Nork forces more or less routed. Victory is all but assured but for the Chinese. So if they didn't enter the war, do we straight conquer NK and occupy for years? Do we push for unification? How would it play out? The reason I ask is just the continued contention to this day with the Norks. Is China the only reason why there still is a North Korea today?
CanyonAg77
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I think that once we crossed the 38th, Chinese intervention was inevitable. That's why I wonder if it had been different had we not
AgBQ-00
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Yeah I agree with that. By the time we got to Chosin there were multiple divisions of Chinese regulars already in NK
You do not have a soul. You are a soul that has a body.

We sing Hallelujah! The Lamb has overcome!
cbr
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Knowing what we know today, its all about ww1. Its everything. It was the biggest disaster in human history - destroyed the only culture that gave mankind hope for a limitless future, and created the inevitable new dark ages instead.
CanyonAg77
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I give. What culture did WW1 destroy?
cbr
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Ww1 killed western europe and ultimately american values.

Hundreds of millions of western europeans killed
Disastrous attempts to weaponize colonial cultures
Created the conditions for uneducated mass population explosion and anti european sentiment in the third world
Created the opportunity/curse of an exploding middle eastern population mired in violence, anti-westernism, and regressive religion
Caused Spanish flu which killed millions more
Gave rise to idealogical movements fatal to the concept of a strong, free, educated, ethical responsible middle class, and concepts of personal honor
Created the modern military industrial complex, standing armies, total war, massive federal government in the us,

Fascism was bad
Socialism/communism is worse - this ideology destroyed freedom, responsibility, economic prosperity, education, personal ethics, etc. these concepts cant last in a socialist society

Though america temporarily thrived, the anti western, globalist, socialist environment and the conditions setting up the theft of superpower status by china all look back to ww1

Its the forgotten war, but in hinsight now, it was every bit as historiclaly significant as the fall of rome. Except the stakes are much higher.
expresswrittenconsent
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cbr said:

Ww1 killed western europe and ultimately american values.

Hundreds of millions of western europeans killed
Disastrous attempts to weaponize colonial cultures
Created the conditions for uneducated mass population explosion and anti european sentiment in the third world
Created the opportunity/curse of an exploding middle eastern population mired in violence, anti-westernism, and regressive religion
Caused Spanish flu which killed millions more
Gave rise to idealogical movements fatal to the concept of a strong, free, educated, ethical responsible middle class, and concepts of personal honor
Created the modern military industrial complex, standing armies, total war, massive federal government in the us,

Fascism was bad
Socialism/communism is worse - this ideology destroyed freedom, responsibility, economic prosperity, education, personal ethics, etc. these concepts cant last in a socialist society

Though america temporarily thrived, the anti western, globalist, socialist environment and the conditions setting up the theft of superpower status by china all look back to ww1

Its the forgotten war, but in hinsight now, it was every bit as historiclaly significant as the fall of rome. Except the stakes are much higher.

When your first "fact" is off by a factor of 10 that doesnt speak well for the rest of your list.
"Hundreds of millions of western Europeans killed"? A quick Google of "WW1 Casualty reports" show 20mil dead, 20mil wounded.
cbr
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expresswrittenconsent said:

cbr said:

Ww1 killed western europe and ultimately american values.

Hundreds of millions of western europeans killed
Disastrous attempts to weaponize colonial cultures
Created the conditions for uneducated mass population explosion and anti european sentiment in the third world
Created the opportunity/curse of an exploding middle eastern population mired in violence, anti-westernism, and regressive religion
Caused Spanish flu which killed millions more
Gave rise to idealogical movements fatal to the concept of a strong, free, educated, ethical responsible middle class, and concepts of personal honor
Created the modern military industrial complex, standing armies, total war, massive federal government in the us,

Fascism was bad
Socialism/communism is worse - this ideology destroyed freedom, responsibility, economic prosperity, education, personal ethics, etc. these concepts cant last in a socialist society

Though america temporarily thrived, the anti western, globalist, socialist environment and the conditions setting up the theft of superpower status by china all look back to ww1

Its the forgotten war, but in hinsight now, it was every bit as historiclaly significant as the fall of rome. Except the stakes are much higher.

When your first "fact" is off by a factor of 10 that doesnt speak well for the rest of your list.
"Hundreds of millions of western Europeans killed"? A quick Google of "WW1 Casualty reports" show 20mil dead, 20mil wounded.

I apologize for the mistake - 40 million dead and wounded during the war 50+ million in the flu, i conflated the numbers. Been a while since i have seen them. I also consider the various genocides of the 20's and 30's to have been directly caused by ww1, and frankly ww2 was literally just a continuation of ww1.

Armenian, greek, kurdish genocide 1918-23 almost 5 million, russian civil war 8 million, the pogroms/famines/purges that followed tens of millions more. Nearly 40 million europeans were unnaturally killed from the end of the spanish flu and russian civil war to the start of ww2 - mostly in russia.


Bottom line, in 1910 europe and america and european culture was strong and vital and made up over 20% of world population. Ww1 changed the world entirely, but certainly directly kicked off nearly three decades of european destruction - killing off two whole generations of men, way over 10% of european population, drasticlaly interrupting birth rates, and today european culture is largely a weak, self loathing, socialist population making up less than 10% of world population.

Therefore, the premise still stands imo. If you disagree it would be interesting to state why.

And by the way, when attacking someone for 'exaggerating a number' it may not lend you much credibility if you exaggerate your own number even worse in response. Even my mistaken number is not off by anywhere near a factor of ten, and my point still stands.

expresswrittenconsent
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I didnt exaggerate my numbers. I posted facts. Then you came back with emotions (not facts) about how your crackpot theory still made sense despite there being 20 mil deaths from ww1 total while you claimed there were "hundreds of millions" meaning you thought there were 200million ot 300 million or 500 million deaths. So maybe you weren't off by a factor of 10. Maybe you were off by a factor of 15 or 25.
cbr
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expresswrittenconsent said:

I didnt exaggerate my numbers. I posted facts. Then you came back with emotions (not facts) about how your crackpot theory still made sense despite there being 20 mil deaths from ww1 total while you claimed there were "hundreds of millions" meaning you thought there were 200million ot 300 million or 500 million deaths. So maybe you weren't off by a factor of 10. Maybe you were off by a factor of 15 or 25.


Wtf? Reading comprehension fail. Logic fail. Manners fail. Math fail. Debate fail.

What are you even here for? Rude illogical bull**** that avoids the point is no way to behave here.
Eliminatus
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So this thread does not derail into a tit for tat (It's been a very nice thread to date) I will answer from what I know, for I also believe in the premise of CBR's post. I don't care about magnitudes of numbers for the general makeup of this thread.

I do think that WW1 was the death of the decades old political systems of quite a few nations. How many empires fell during this time? Like 3 or 4? Not to mention drastic political changes in many other nations. I have been devouring everything I can on this subject last few months and from my understanding it is generally accepted as the death of the "Old World" as it were.

The nature of warfare was also changed forever. It was no longer glamorous and I agree wholeheartedly with the rise of the military money machine. I mean, War is a racket right?

There are several other salient point, like the Spanish flu, etc. It just furthers my thoughts of how incredibly powerful WW1 was as a world changing span of time comparatively speaking.
cbr
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My posts are on mobile - can't go real long. But bottom line you can't view ww1 in a vacuum, but even if you treat ww2 as a separate event, ww1 triggered something in the range of over 100 million 'unnatural' European deaths in less than 20 years. The total Western European population in the world in 1913 was slightly greater than it is today iirc, roughly 500 million people.

Triggered communism/fascism/socialism/military industrial total war complex/huge explosion of government in the us, total turmoil in third world, etc.

And I don't view ww1 and 2 as separate events at all. 4 year world war, 20 year deep breath, 7 years of continued world war.
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cbr
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JJMt said:

I've also been long taught that WWI resulted in the death of modernism, which was eventually replaced by post-modernism. In that sense, WWI also was responsible for a major change in western society and culture.
I guess i dont know what those mean, but my great grandfather was one hell of an american - he and his contemporaries believed in individual rights, responsibilities, personal honor, presonal relationships and valor, tiny, representative government, freedom above all, personal advancement and makng mankind better, charity, family, and common sense. He served in ww1.

Europeans i have read of had all of those traits as well - just tempered by a bit of feudalism and greater structure within their nationalist and imperialist views. But in their minds, imperialism was natural and was betterment for the whole world, with few exceptions that turned out to have been true overall, even if 'unjust' by todays standards.

However, ww1 brought socialst ideas to the front of western culture in all of its forms, and socialism kills ALL of those qualities by definition. It can never be anything but corrupt and dishonorable and it punishes everything that was ever good about the west. Theyve taken over the entire world now - not because there is anything at all good about it, but because it has to be actively fought against or the corrupt will always take control and expand their power.
schmellba99
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Stasco said:

Going a little further on the what-if-the-Confederates-won theme, when would slavery have finally ended in North America?
Yes it would have.
Ciboag96
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Don't underestimate the growing resentment of colonial occupied countries. The late 1800s was the beginning of the fall of the British Empire but WW1 weakened Britain's hold on the world and then the end of WW2 saw the meteoric rise in independence away from Britain. Even if the world wars had gone "smoother", global British control was waning.
SWCBonfire
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dcbowers said:

What if Sam Houston and the Texians had gotten decimated by Santa Anna at San Jacinto?

We'd all be speaking Comanche for one.


FIFY. Santa Anna was extended and exposed. If we didn't win in San Jacinto, and he slaughtered the civilians leaving in the runaway scrape, the 3rd infantry regiment in Louisiana was already having a hard time keeping deserters from joining the Texian army already and may have acted to protect "Americans". If nothing happened, and the Centralists succeed in wiping out Texian resistance, Texas would be a wasteland when they left, filled with marauding Comanches doing what they pleased. Americans would come squat on claims in east Texas (like they had already), and maybe eventually you would see that Texas would be part of the US, but the more modest Mexican version of it being bounded by the Nueces instead of the Rio Grande.
huisachel
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what if Lincoln had given McDowell the extra time to properly train his troops and Bull Run was a few months later and the Union troops did not falter before Jackson? They push on to Richmond, capture the government and the war is over. McDowell almost pulled that off anyway.

Another example of Lincoln's incompetence as a war leader.
JABQ04
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I'm curious as to what other examples of his incompetence there are? He was re-elected in the middle of the ACW so enough people thought he was doing a good enough job. And 1st Bull Run was going to be a cluster **** whenever it was fought IMO. It took awhile for both sides to get their stuff together.
BQ78
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Some of Lincoln's failings as a commander-in-chief:

Made some abysmal appointments starting with Secretary of War Simon Cameron and including Don Buell, John Pope, Ambrose Burnside and Joe Hooker and then replaced some of them too quickly.
Tended to make many of his military decisions with a political component to it.
Appointed too many political generals, then gave them responsibilities beyond their capability.
Had no idea what was going on with the relief of Ft. Sumter and Pickens and gave conflicting orders to these two separate relief expeditions
Tended to react instead of plan for the conquest of the south.
Did not communicate or demand that generals communicate well enough with him to understand what their intentions were (think McClellan)
Did not force Henry Halleck to be a true general in chief versus just an administrative G-i-C.
Did not force McDowell to move quicker to help take Richmond during the Peninsular Campaign; then became too concerned about the safety of DC and held too many forces back to protect the capital.
Early on, tended to not trust his commanders

Once Lincoln had Grant who he finally trusted, two years into the war, he dropped some of these bad traits and turned over much of the war management to Grant. Even then, he vetoed many of Grant's ideas such as landing an army in North Carolina to work its way north to Richmond at the beginning of the Overland Campaign.
Rabid Cougar
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BQ78 said:

Some of Lincoln's failings as a commander-in-chief:

Made some abysmal appointments starting with Secretary of War Simon Cameron and including Don Buell, John Pope, Ambrose Burnside and Joe Hooker and then replaced some of them too quickly.
Tended to make many of his military decisions with a political component to it.
Appointed too many political generals, then gave them responsibilities beyond their capability.
Had no idea what was going on with the relief of Ft. Sumter and Pickens and gave conflicting orders to these two separate relief expeditions
Tended to react instead of plan for the conquest of the south.
Did not communicate or demand that generals communicate well enough with him to understand what their intentions were (think McClellan)
Did not force Henry Halleck to be a true general in chief versus just an administrative G-i-C.
Did not force McDowell to move quicker to help take Richmond during the Peninsular Campaign; then became too concerned about the safety of DC and held too many forces back to protect the capital.
Early on, tended to not trust his commanders

Once Lincoln had Grant who he finally trusted, two years into the war, he dropped some of these bad traits and turned over much of the war management to Grant. Even then, he vetoed many of Grant's ideas such as landing an army in North Carolina to work its way north to Richmond at the beginning of the Overland Campaign.
The Army of Northern Virginia held sway in a lot of his failings. His army was not operating in a vacuum.

He had to deal with a depleted officer corps. Not saying all of the good ones went south but enough that his political appointees had some impact on the outcomes of the early battles. And he did pull the plug too early on some of them. The good officers (appointee, volunteer or regular) eventually rose to the forefront. It was that way on both sides.

Defense of Washington was also paramount in every campaign in Northern Virginia, Maryland and Pennsylvania for the duration of the war. Made no difference who the commander of the army was.
huisachel
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he ordered Sherman to remove George Thomas right before the Battle of Nashville and Sherman refused. Grant advised against doing so but Lincoln ordered him to get on a train and go relieve him. By the time Grant could do so Thomas had destroyed Hood's army. He was maybe the best general in either army but he was from Virginia and so..........

Meade held a council of war to decide whether the army was fit to pursue Lee after Gettysburg and it was nearly unanimous that they were in no shape to do so. So Meade did not. Lincoln threw a hissy fit and put Grant over Meade. Thanks for nothing, George.

The war lasted several years longer than necessary because of Lincoln's blunders.

As for not having enough capable officers, keep in mind that most of the southern west pointers stayed in the US Army.

Lincoln did a great job getting the northern route of the railroad to the Pacific built for his clients the railroads

Getting shot was a good move reputation wise and it obviated the necessity of dealing with the southerners after the war. Of course if he had survived it would have been all kumbaya, with the southerners recognizing the errors of their ways and welcoming the freedmen with open arms and 40 acres and a mule and a nice new plow. With not a bank left in the south, their currency worthless and a tariff on imports that made it impossible for them to tap into their former markets in the same degree, all would have been perfect.
Smokedraw01
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huisachel said:

he ordered Sherman to remove George Thomas right before the Battle of Nashville and Sherman refused. Grant advised against doing so but Lincoln ordered him to get on a train and go relieve him. By the time Grant could do so Thomas had destroyed Hood's army. He was maybe the best general in either army but he was from Virginia and so..........

Meade held a council of war to decide whether the army was fit to pursue Lee after Gettysburg and it was nearly unanimous that they were in no shape to do so. So Meade did not. Lincoln threw a hissy fit and put Grant over Meade. Thanks for nothing, George.

The war lasted several years longer than necessary because of Lincoln's blunders.

As for not having enough capable officers, keep in mind that most of the southern west pointers stayed in the US Army.

Lincoln did a great job getting the northern route of the railroad to the Pacific built for his clients the railroads

Getting shot was a good move reputation wise and it obviated the necessity of dealing with the southerners after the war. Of course if he had survived it would have been all kumbaya, with the southerners recognizing the errors of their ways and welcoming the freedmen with open arms and 40 acres and a mule and a nice new plow. With not a bank left in the south, their currency worthless and a tariff on imports that made it impossible for them to tap into their former markets in the same degree, all would have been perfect.


Huisache,

Can you point me into the direction of material I can look at for this? I'd like to create some sort of lesson for my students analyzing Lincoln's leadership during the war, if possible. I teach G/T students and I think they'll eat this up. Maybe a comparative study between him and Jeff Davis. I'm open to ideas as well for anything similar to this.
huisachel
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Accounts of the Nashville campaign usually discuss Lincoln's attempts to remove Thomas, same as to Gettysburg. My argument re Bull Run and McDowell is speculative but most accounts say the Union appeared on the verge of a win until Jackson did his magic. And Lincoln, by all accounts ordered McDowell to attack when the general did not believe his army was trained.

Any general history of the conflict will contain the seeds for these arguments

Any life of Lincoln will point out that his principal clients were railroads. Some will mention that he owned lots in Council Bluffs, which is where the transcontinental railroad kicked off. He was a great man and great orator but was a political war president
bearamedic99
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AG
How were WWI and The Spanish Influenza related?
BrazosBendHorn
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Quote:

The American military experience in World War I and the influenza pandemic were closely intertwined. The war fostered influenza in the crowded conditions of military camps in the United States and in the trenches of the Western Front in Europe. The virus traveled with military personnel from camp to camp and across the Atlantic, and at the height of the American military involvement in the war, September through November 1918, influenza and pneumonia sickened 20% to 40% of U.S. Army and Navy personnel. These high morbidity rates interfered with induction and training schedules in the United States and rendered hundreds of thousands of military personnel non-effective. During the American Expeditionary Forces' campaign at Meuse-Argonne, the epidemic diverted urgently needed resources from combat support to transporting and caring for the sick and the dead. Influenza and pneumonia killed more American soldiers and sailors during the war than did enemy weapons.
The U.S. Military and the Influenza Pandemic of 1918-1919

And BTW, "Spanish Flu" is a misnomer based on wartime censorship by the Allied and Central Powers nations ...

Quote:

As the pandemic reached epic proportions in the fall of 1918, it became commonly known as the "Spanish Flu" or the "Spanish Lady" in the United States and Europe. Many assumed this was because the sickness had originated on the Iberian Peninsula, but the nickname was actually the result of a widespread misunderstanding. Spain was one of only a few major European countries to remain neutral during World War I. Unlike in the Allied and Central Powers nations, where wartime censors suppressed news of the flu to avoid affecting morale, the Spanish media was free to report on it in gory detail. News of the sickness first made headlines in Madrid in late-May 1918, and coverage only increased after the Spanish King Alfonso XIII came down with a nasty case a week later. Since nations undergoing a media blackout could only read in depth accounts from Spanish news sources, they naturally assumed that the country was the pandemic's ground zero. The Spanish, meanwhile, believed the virus had spread to them from France, so they took to calling it the "French Flu."
https://www.history.com/news/why-was-it-called-the-spanish-flu


Smokedraw01
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huisachel said:

Accounts of the Nashville campaign usually discuss Lincoln's attempts to remove Thomas, same as to Gettysburg. My argument re Bull Run and McDowell is speculative but most accounts say the Union appeared on the verge of a win until Jackson did his magic. And Lincoln, by all accounts ordered McDowell to attack when the general did not believe his army was trained.

Any general history of the conflict will contain the seeds for these arguments

Any life of Lincoln will point out that his principal clients were railroads. Some will mention that he owned lots in Council Bluffs, which is where the transcontinental railroad kicked off. He was a great man and great orator but was a political war president

Thanks, I appreciate it.
BQ_90
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AG
Was thinking more about this thread. Why Hitler doesn't cross the Maginot Line? France and England didn't have any notion in attacking. So what if Hitler parked some troops there to counter then focus all,his attention eastward. Then he wouldn't have wasted all the energy and man power with Atlantic wall.

I think there wouldn't be a Europe first attitude in the US if Hitler didn't occupy Western Europe.

Then would Hitler had enough to beat the Soviets?
Guitarsoup
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Germany never declares.

US puts 100% of the machine into Japan, defeating them before the bomb is ready. Somewhere along the lines, we enter the European theater and use the bomb on Germany.

Would we have used it in Europe?
 
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