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I'm fine with Corona declaring war near the end of the war as long as that fits with what everyone is doing.

The Romulan Republic wrote:I'm fine with Corona declaring war near the end of the war as long as that fits with what everyone is doing.

But that doesn't quite fit with your "my colonies were attacked", as near the end of the war the Axis were too weak to be on the offensive. If you want that element you'd need to be an early belligerent.

Good point. I'll think it over and see if I can come up with something good tomorrow.

I would suggest being an early belligerent, but in a state of sufficient unreadiness that Britonia's colonial forces in the South Atlantic were sufficient for the purpose of being a major threat to you, meaning you don't unduly balance the war.

Orion's entry into the war on your behalf could work from that point; equally unprepared, but being an island country easier to defend from the terrible air assault of the Britonian bomber forces.

Given how Thanas is setting things up with them, I can see the Britonians having become true believers of the Douhet-style theory of "the bomber will always get through" and building up the world's biggest bomber force as a means of fighting on multiple fronts to demoralize enemy countries. If you're willing, Corona itself would have seen some cities bombed by Britonian bombers flying from their imperial holdings south of Omnia, just as their South American imperial colonies were the home bases for bombers wreaking havoc on Orion. A desperate Corona thus spends years getting pounded and trying to rally the air units to thwart the bombings.

The Romulan Republic wrote:Good point. I'll think it over and see if I can come up with something good tomorrow.

Omnia!

Ok, posting from phone, so don't expect much from me until Wednesday as mentioned earlier. But I had some downtime so here goes.

Basically I'm looking to get involved with global history here. Few ideas:

1) Omnia vs Corona's colonies - So Corona is to small to deal with them...alone. But what if the Shinra Republic helped? Not because we're BFFs or anything. But you see, Omnia is a "Big Dog" (or was) and close to us. Now, as long as they stayed on their continent, we're mostly ambivalent. Off their continent is another matter. And we see their attacking Corona's islands as a threat' leaving their land, expanding naval power, etc. So we wanted to nip that one in the bud, thus decrying acts of aggression or whatever's convenient, we threaten and/or fight them. Well, I figure the SRN is pretty dangerous, to them at least. Facing that threat, the stronger elements of Omnia's navy are unavailable to take those 'puny' colonies, and secdond-line units were considered "good enough" for it. Also maybe some SRMC raids, to keep their Army guessing and so forth?

2) Adding to that mindset, we're not too concerned with Imperial Cascadia. Until they makes noises about subsumin Hawaii, maybe? We'd certainly take exception and issue statements and such, depending on how much credence Cascadia gave to those Imperial designs in an official capacity.

3) So another obvious nation we should care about is Nippon. But people have a lot there already and while I wouldn't mind involvement, I don't want to step on toes either.

4) Directly following from that, Rheinland's annexation. Obviously a done deal there, and I don't know that we fought in WW2 offhand. Still, we would have objected to that. Not militarily - Briton/Nippon were bastards, so we could hardly take military action that would be seen as supporting them. But diplomatic efforts to seek an alternative to annexation? Sure. Obviously they failed. Which probably was the catalyst for the whole Shinra President For Life thing...or at least an important step to that. Also might be source of modern annoyance/ tension between us? Thanas, by all means weigh in.

So there's some ideas, and holy crap that was a pain to type even with a slide-out keypad. So yeah, probably won't be able to reply in-depth until Wed but I at least wanted to get this out there before too much longer.

Steve wrote:I would suggest being an early belligerent, but in a state of sufficient unreadiness that Britonia's colonial forces in the South Atlantic were sufficient for the purpose of being a major threat to you, meaning you don't unduly balance the war.

Orion's entry into the war on your behalf could work from that point; equally unprepared, but being an island country easier to defend from the terrible air assault of the Britonian bomber forces.

Given how Thanas is setting things up with them, I can see the Britonians having become true believers of the Douhet-style theory of "the bomber will always get through" and building up the world's biggest bomber force as a means of fighting on multiple fronts to demoralize enemy countries. If you're willing, Corona itself would have seen some cities bombed by Britonian bombers flying from their imperial holdings south of Omnia, just as their South American imperial colonies were the home bases for bombers wreaking havoc on Orion. A desperate Corona thus spends years getting pounded and trying to rally the air units to thwart the bombings.

I am not so sure this is feasible. Considering the Britonians fell back on the bomber as a strategy when their Navy got defeated, I don't think they would divert any significant bomber resources to secondary theatres. After all, every bomber taken from pounding Rheinland is one less bomb that could delay or destroy their industrial potential.

RogueIce wrote:4) Directly following from that, Rheinland's annexation. Obviously a done deal there, and I don't know that we fought in WW2 offhand. Still, we would have objected to that. Not militarily - Briton/Nippon were bastards, so we could hardly take military action that would be seen as supporting them. But diplomatic efforts to seek an alternative to annexation? Sure. Obviously they failed. Which probably was the catalyst for the whole Shinra President For Life thing...or at least an important step to that. Also might be source of modern annoyance/ tension between us? Thanas, by all means weigh in.

So there's some ideas, and holy crap that was a pain to type even with a slide-out keypad. So yeah, probably won't be able to reply in-depth until Wed but I at least wanted to get this out there before too much longer.

Sure, no worries. Could work as a source of tension but I don't know how much - considering the distances involved here...and based on your ORBAT I'd rather wait for that to be finalized so I could see the threat level.

Well, if nothing else it could be 'historical issue brought up when politically convenient' on the low end. Beyond that, yeah, we'll wait and see.

Unrelated to most of the above:

During the relevant time period (1930-1950, with the present day being 2014, right?) Umeria was preoccupied with its own internal chaos, so I probably shouldn't throw in on either side. Besides, like historical China, Umeria of the mid-20th century would have been little more than a battleground for the other combatants.

I'd kind of like to have something to plug into the place of the historical First Sino-Japanese War, if that's okay... Rogue, is Shinra up for that?

Whilst Orion is involved in the war I imagined it to be more like the conflict in Africa in WW1, with the different Empire's colonies attacking each other, with the Britonian colonies receiving some limited aid (a small cruiser squadron, a similar force from Nippon) to supplement their existing garrisons and naval forces (older, second-line vessels sold to them by Britonia itself).

Thus we can be involved in the war, have our own adventures without drastically altering the balance of power. For us it was a strictly local war, even if we did join in out of a moral issue: "no bomber offensive" etc.

I was saying otherwise, Thanas, because I thought E_F had said something about Orion being bombed and that spurred the later ethinc cleansing on the mainland.

It actually would make some sense if the first bombing campaigns were in peripheral theaters, before naval defeat made Britonia turn to them as a weapon to use on Rheinland. The lessons learned from bombing Corona and Orion went into making the bombing campaign against Rheinland truly devastating.

Cascadia gets bombed as well, but by the Klavostani utilizing Britonian-licensed designs, so that doesn't detract.

Wait, what is this about Omnian colonies? That makes no sense. The Omnians never had much of a fleet and they can't even properly defend their own territories, they have zero ability to engange in colonialist adventures.

Wait, what? Omnia has no colonies, her territory was always limited to her continent, and by 1910 she's the Sick Man of Europe, so to speak, and only survives because the rest of the world is battering itself too much to finish Omnia off. Omnia was directly stated to be neutral in the WWII analogue, in fact, and was even slightly pro-Allied since Britonia was the main source of repeated Omnian humiliations.

Granadia's goals in the WWII analogue were to reconquer the territories (metropolitan and colonial) taken by Britonia and Nippon after the WWI analogue, which might create post-war tensions.

Force Lord, how do you feel about #7 on the map being a Granadian colony to this day?

You mean the one down south? Yeah, we could have independence guerrillas there trying to kick out the Granadians, and the Granadians responding by doing what the Spanish did in Cuba.

Wow, that is a long sealane to have to defend in case of war.

Oh, you know how it is. Spain, Philippines, et cetera.

Steve wrote:I was saying otherwise, Thanas, because I thought E_F had said something about Orion being bombed and that spurred the later ethinc cleansing on the mainland.

It actually would make some sense if the first bombing campaigns were in peripheral theaters, before naval defeat made Britonia turn to them as a weapon to use on Rheinland. The lessons learned from bombing Corona and Orion went into making the bombing campaign against Rheinland truly devastating.

Cascadia gets bombed as well, but by the Klavostani utilizing Britonian-licensed designs, so that doesn't detract.

No, Britonia turned to them as a weapon after the defeat of their army in southern Rheinland. So they used them pretty much since the start of the war, as I wrote in my history.

How long did the ground campaign last?

Steve wrote:How long did the ground campaign last?

I wrote about it in my history, but here is a timeline:

1936 - start of the war
1936 - Rheinland Blitzkrieg towards the south
Late 1936 - Battle of the mouth of the River Rhein, 500 ships meet in the largest naval battle to date. 52 Rheinland and 67 Allied dreadnoughts clashed, with 32 dreadnoughts (14 Rheinland, 18 allied) and over 100 smaller craft being sent to the bottom. Though the battle was inconclusive, it foiled the evacuation attempt and thus the Britonian Army was annihilated. The division of Rheinland imposed after 1914 is ended.
1937-1940 - Naval blockades on both sides, mainly surface units by Britonia and indiscriminate sub campaigns by Rheinland
1941 - strategic bomber attacks on Rheinland cities for the first time, industry starts being relocated to the north
June 1941 - attempted attack by the Daedalean Empire on Rheinland, failure due to miscommunication
Late 1941 - after annihilating the attacking Imperial Forces, Rheinland mechanized forces counterattack, Daedalean war effort collapses amid massive public unrest, white peace between the Empire and Rheinland is concluded.
1942 - Rheinland starts to leave the Southern cities undefended to bombing, concentrates the defence on the north
Early 1943 - Rheinland forces occupy Devil's Atoll, start making makeshift aircraft, to allow purchased San Doradoan fightercraft to make the journey to Rheinland, over 5000 are transferred by April
April 1943 - Britonia conquers Devil's Atoll, savages San Doradoan fleet coming to deliver more planes and puts the entire garrison of the Island to the sword
10th July 1943 - The reformed Rheinland fighters destroy three bomber swarms. Though bombing continues until 1945, the most valuable industries could now be defended with the advantage gradually shifiting to the defenders.
6th July 1944 - Rheinland's reformed carrier fleet sorties, defeats the Allied Navy decisively, with a last charge by the Nippon dreadnoughts being stopped by Rheinland dreadnoughts. Rheinland institutes blockade of Britonia.
1945 - rescue fleet sent by Nippon defeated.
1946 - after two years of blockade, Britonia surrenders unconditionally. Rheinland demand for Nippon to do the same refused.
1947 - Great Armada is launched by Rheinland. 4200 of 5000 ships manage to reach the Island chain next to Nippon and conquer one of the Islands.
1948 - Year of Buildup. Rheinland ferries more and more supplies and men to Nippon, though buildup is slowed by the fact that Britonia needs to be occupied and resupplied. In a series of bitter battles, Rheinland conquers the two other islands of the Island chain.
February 1949 - Rheinland launches invasion of mainland Nippon. Death charge by the Nipponese fleet defeated by the Rheinland fleet, including IRNS Delphin and IRNS Elisabeth.
1952 - Conquest of Nippon finalized.

My issue with that is... why would Nippon send a sizable "rescue fleet" when, by that point, the Cascadian Navy is on the prowl in the Central Pacific and bombers are starting to hit Nippon proper with the recovery of parts of Western Fuso?

Steve wrote:I would suggest being an early belligerent, but in a state of sufficient unreadiness that Britonia's colonial forces in the South Atlantic were sufficient for the purpose of being a major threat to you, meaning you don't unduly balance the war.

Orion's entry into the war on your behalf could work from that point; equally unprepared, but being an island country easier to defend from the terrible air assault of the Britonian bomber forces.

Given how Thanas is setting things up with them, I can see the Britonians having become true believers of the Douhet-style theory of "the bomber will always get through" and building up the world's biggest bomber force as a means of fighting on multiple fronts to demoralize enemy countries. If you're willing, Corona itself would have seen some cities bombed by Britonian bombers flying from their imperial holdings south of Omnia, just as their South American imperial colonies were the home bases for bombers wreaking havoc on Orion. A desperate Corona thus spends years getting pounded and trying to rally the air units to thwart the bombings.

I would rather that Corona have a pretty small military because of its size and its culture. And its military is likely to have been mostly defending its own territory. So I doubt Corona would have had a big impact on the war.

Edit: Some bombing of Corona could happen, but I don't want to have a situation where the air force would become the main part of Corona's military. I was thinking of giving the navy that role.

I don't need to have been involved in the war if it would overly complicate things, I just figured I'd offer in case it could help to better tell the story. If there isn't any chance for me to get into a war over there, I could be a major player in a different war around my own continent and "South America". Would anybody else be interested in being part of this potential war?

Hawai'i was stuck, and declared armed neutrality.

Steve wrote:My issue with that is... why would Nippon send a sizable "rescue fleet" when, by that point, the Cascadian Navy is on the prowl in the Central Pacific and bombers are starting to hit Nippon proper with the recovery of parts of Western Fuso?

It may also include the last sally of the Klavostani fleet. I figure 1945 or so is when we'd get knocked out of the war if we started it in 1940 or 41 against Cascadia.