Petraeus rising further wouldn't have taken much change, just avoiding the whole fiasco around his biographer AFAIK.
He had also already switched from the military to CIA director, which is a position Bush Sr. also had until three years before his first attempt at the presidency.
The British' most important sea was the Atlantic, which is not calm enough to routinely operate seaplanes, unlike f.ex the Baltic or the Pacific.
In addition the Walrus was designed as a spotter plane. Where is the artillery to spot for on a merchant hull?
In addition it's one thing to carry...
I'll have to conceive that point. IIRC they had some practical reasons for having the war end at the same moment (I thought they had already researched and written that part?) and f.ex. the fall of Singapore.
Some of the reasons they have for the war dragging on more are pretty good though...
I've always liked FFO, but during the years I've grown to like APOD more, as it's much more realistic.
As the creators of FFO once said, being realistic isn't it's goal; it's also seen as a therapeutic exercise considering how WWII went for France.
The captain of Béarn better have a crystal...
Thanks for taking the effort to write such an elaborate post. Unfortunately it's IMHO mostly baloney.
You're starting with facts which aren't correct. As a result your conclusions aren't correct either. For instance;
- a cruiser isn't exceptionally naval oriented (or for that matter...
IIRC one of Churchill's mad plans in summer of '40 was to keep a redoubt in France. I thought it was to be near a major naval base (which Dunkirk doens't have) and easily defendable (which Dunkirk isn't); i.e. Bretagne.
see here:
http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?f=47&t=100474...
Flying 20k light infantry (without vehicles/artillery and other supporting arms) with enough supplies for a few days would require 400ish flights? The mainstay of the German air transportfleet is the Ju-52, which could at max carry 16 (without packs). The Germans don't have 400 of these to...
What would help the Republicans a bucketload, would be not squandering the national Spanish goldreserves away by sending them to uncle Joe (USSR) who would only send weaponry when and if it would benefit Stalin.
If their goldreserves were in the hands of a neutral third party, they could...
There are some issues with the way you calculate combat radius from range. It's much too optimistic IIRC.
The Japanese only managed the nearly 650 miles from Rabaul to f.ex. Tulagi by resorting to extreme measures; parachutes, radios and everything not stricly necessary for flight was...
You're moving goalposts; you first specifically mentioned refueling, which is ironic, considering if the DEI have one thing in abundance, it's oil in combination with refineries.
Although the Dutch would have some aircraft capable of carrying an aerial torpedo- such as the T.VIII - aerial...
Some things wrong with this, such as;
- Already plenty of airbases in the DEI as a whole, which isn't very strange, considering it's size. If anything there are too many airfields, making defending them all an issue (see my earlier post), so why would availability of Dutch airbases be an issue...
The idea previously mentioned that actually building the Dutch battlecruiser (or any other major capital units) would help isn't going to fly IMHO. That is, unless the Dutch manage to build up a Kido Butai of their own in time for late '41.
Instead I'd look to building up unconventional...