2014 Group Build discussion

[NARSES2]

Finnish revolution to remove Tzarist/Bolshovik rule

I like the idea of a low intensity war among the African colonies.- not enough to have the high seas fleets pounding crap out of each other all over the globe, but gunboats and aircraft with the odd u-boot thrown in. Possible use of tanks in the open deserts of GWA??

Finnish revolution to remove Tzarist/Bolshovik rule

Could also still have the Alaskan based Tzarist forces slugging it out with the Bolshoviks in Siberia as well

Yes to all these

[NARSES2]

world war one ends november 1916 with a peace treaty leaving the world map as it is

what would the 20s and 30s have been with the old empires with post ww1 OR LATER technology?

count me in on this one

CBE

Yup if that's the way you want to go

[NARSES2]

So, No WW1.
Kaiser Bill & George V help their cousin (?) Czar Nicholas with his bolshy problem and Russia remains Imperial.
Britain, horrified at what nearly happened in Russia clamp down on lefty agitators in the colonies.
Australia rises up against the Imperial Yoke led by a young English immigrant going under the pseudonym Shaw but who became more famously known as Lawrence of Australia...

Camels and slouch hats.  Rolls Royce armoured cars with red desert camo.  Whippings by young Indigenous boys...

Alternatively no WW1.  No Galipolli.  No ANZAC spirit and close relationship.
NZ seizes Norfolk Island resulting in a series of naval battles that culminate in Kiwi Navy Dreadnoughts shelling Sydney.

You can have WWI if you want Nils. It's just plots happening after 1914 must use the 1914 World Map

[MaxHeadroom]

O yes!!!
I see a maritime diorama with the carrier-fleet of the "Kaiserliche Marine" in front of my inner eyes!
The until that moment ultra-secret "SMS Otto Lilienthal", the "SMS Albrecht Ludwig Berblinger" and the "SMS Friedrich Wilhelm Jungius", all equiped with monoplane- and biplane-fighters, -bombers and -torpedo-bombers driven by single or double Coanda-jet-engines, it's support group of battlecruisers, destroyers, U-boats and supply-ships (ammunition, fuel, spare-planes). And so the world's unique carrier-force.


WOW!

But this will be too monstrous!

Max


Edit:
Nevertheless; I will take part of the GB... but I must think over an interesting story and a kit/model, I will use for.

[Old Wombat]

I like the idea of a low intensity war among the African colonies.- not enough to have the high seas fleets pounding crap out of each other all over the globe, but gunboats and aircraft with the odd u-boot thrown in. Possible use of tanks in the open deserts of GWA??

This is something along the lines of what I was thinking, with a slow escalation, & then having this be the trigger for a European land war; say ca. 1916/1918, maybe even 1920-ish, which could be a way of evolving some military equipment & tactics before the outbreak of the Great War. Thus, the mindset of military commanders could have changed to thinking about mobile warfare, rather than static artillery-duel warfare, by the time the Europen war starts.

Without WW1 the Bolshevik Revolution would not have happened (certainly not in 1917), as it was the incompetence of the nobles of the Russian General Staff which triggered the overwhelming popular support for the revolution, while the war itself distracted said nobles from the threat posed by the Bolsheviks & allowed them to build a stronger revolutionary underground base. With the nobility able to focus on this internal threat the Bolsheviks may have been neutralised in Russia & forced to start elsewhere (Germany or France, perhaps?).

The Western armies were not immune to this communist influence, either, with many mutinees occurring because of the revolution in Russia. However, by 1914 most Western armies had ended the practice of "bought" commissions & most officers of the rank of colonel & below (& an increasing number of General Staff officers) were, in fact, from middle class backgrounds - & the middle classes were the powerhouse of the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia.



Guy

[NARSES2]

This is something along the lines of what I was thinking, with a slow escalation, & then having this be the trigger for a European land war; say ca. 1916/1918, maybe even 1920-ish, which could be a way of evolving some military equipment & tactics before the outbreak of the Great War. Thus, the mindset of military commanders could have changed to thinking about mobile warfare, rather than static artillery-duel warfare, by the time the Europen war starts.



Guy

I like your thinking Guy my only thought is that in 1914 all army commanders were thinking of a fast mobile war. It was the realities of the technology that changed it. I know come 1939 most were still in that static mind set but in 14 they wern't.

Apologies if I've misunderstood your point

[Old Wombat]

Ah, yes, but armour (specifically armoured cars, rather than tanks - which were a product of the trenches) & aircraft had not really been tested or developed in combat. Perhaps I should have said "motorised mobile warfare".

I was thinking that the colonial wars would (could?) have seen these evolve into effective fighting machines before the start of the Big One, &, along with trucks, their use would lend itself to a more rapid form of mobile war which may have bypassed the static war brought about by the use of machineguns & artillery against slow-moving infantry on foot.

Actually, their use may have made horse-drawn artillery too vulnerable to field in battle. In which case SPG's may have evolved before tanks! While, if the war went on for any length of time, tanks may have evolved from armoured cars being constantly up-gunned to defeat more heavily armed enemy armoured cars. Heavier armoured cars would, eventually, become armoured trucks. Then the increased need for cross-country performance may have led to tracked trucks, which would have become tanks.

In the post-WW1 era aircraft were often used in the internal colonial conflicts as a surrogate for artillery, the same could have happened here. With bombers or fighter-bombers being developed once some enterprising young scout plane observer had tossed a few hand grenades out of the cockpit one day. Armoured cars would have been developed as mobile machinegun posts & evolved from there, while trucks would make moving troops faster & less tiring, so the troops arrived at the battle ground fresher & less tired from marching.



Guy

[NARSES2]

Right understand now sir  Also follow your thinking

[royabulgaf]

A few thoughts- The colonial war idea COULD be possible- Think along the proxy wars of the cold war era.  Imagine a LRDG type group equipped with Model Ts and the like.  I would expect a breakup of Austria-Hungary coming, but no velvet divorce.  Imagine the Yugoslavian wars of the 90s writ large.

[rickshaw]

A few thoughts- The colonial war idea COULD be possible- Think along the proxy wars of the cold war era.  Imagine a LRDG type group equipped with Model Ts and the like.  I would expect a breakup of Austria-Hungary coming, but no velvet divorce.  Imagine the Yugoslavian wars of the 90s writ large.

You mean like Lawrence in the Arabian Peninsular or Dunstable Force in Persia?

[aston]

So, it is 1914 World Map

- If WW1 was avoided, what did Germany accomplish by 1930s - 1940s?
- Was there a Russian Revolution? WW1 gave some opportunities, so the revolution might not have been in 1917. Whoever was in charge in Russia had a border with Sweden. A little tension there wouldn't come as a surprise.

Hi wiffers .... I'm an appreciative lurker trying to get into all this fantastic ingenuity and creative imagination .....

I'm a fan of architecture and fantasise about what London and other cities would look like if either or both of the world wars had never happened - so much built beauty lost, clever people killed - but also without the technological pushes of warfare. What if Hitler had not survived his wounds ..... or not been wounded and thus mentally affected ...... or been accepted by the art institute (I don't think he was so bad, just not posh enough) ...... so what would equipment of all kinds have looked like (and be thought necessary) without the wars? Radar? Satellites? Computers?. I imagine class arrangements, fashions, society in general, would be a lot different as well.

...... one of those parallel existences maybe.

[NARSES2]

Hi Aston

It's an interesting concept and definitely one you can't answer quickly.

However without the impetus of WWI and WWII we'd be lagging today's reality technologically in my view. Not in all fields but in many.

Architecturally then in my view Europe would be a more elegant place but alas might still have large slum areas that the area bombing cleared ?

As I said an interesting question

[Aircav]

Right lets be clear on one thing. The build is not restricted to WWI indeed given this scenario WWI as we know it probably wouldn't have happened.

So can I do a Handley Page 0/400 with a bouncing bomb then?    

[kitbasher]

However without the impetus of WWI and WWII we'd be lagging today's reality technologically in my view. Not in all fields but in many.

No tanks, aircraft development in the doldrums, the Government of Ireland Act 1914 actually implemented, Rupert Brooke becomes Poet Laureate, the Russian Revolution sooner or later (which?), the League of Nations never exists and Edmund Blackadder becomes Minister for War under Ramsay MacDonald.

[Geoff]

Russia a little later I think

Sweden invades Norway 10 years after independence?

Now who's going to invade Poland in the '20s - assuming we have a Poland that is.

Austro- Hungary v The Ottomans?

Sorry