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We discussed potential industrial-era Anglo-American Wars a little bit earlier in this thread, or maybe the last one. There was a war scare (the Trent Affair) during the American Civil War, and like everybody has been saying there was just-in-case planning up through WWI and the interwar period. We shouldn't forget that this was standard practice because nobody wanted to find themselves caught up in a war with no plan for how to fight it. The Canadians had their own (hilarious) counter to War Plan Red, which I think involved disrupting the expected US offensive by counter-attacking, invading places like Albany and Seattle, and then destroying infrastructure and retreating back to Canada. This would hopefully delay the American offensive sufficiently for British reinforcements to secure Canada from invasion. It is rather more likely that the participating Canadian troops would be completely annihilated without accomplishing anything useful. This is particularly the case because the British were planning not to reinforce Canada and instead to attempt a distant blockade and commerce raiding to bleed the American economy until they agreed to negotiation. Anyway, food is the key problem in an Anglo-American War during the mid-late 19th or early 20th century. As time goes on, the population increasingly exceeds the UK's ability to feed it with local production. The deficit is made up by imports from many places like Russia, Argentina, and Australia, but most importantly from Canada and the United States. By 1914 Britain is importing something like 60% of all foodstuffs and 80% of grain/flour, and over 40% of that grain/flour is coming from the USA and Canada (according to "The International Grain Trade" by Michael Atkin). War with the USA cuts off both, as Canada will not be able to hold out for long. If this happens when Britain is otherwise at peace, it works out as a race. Can the Royal Navy collapse American public support for the war before Britain starves or collapses into bread riots? If this happens during WWI, when Russian exports are cut off and shipments from the rest of the world are disrupted--even moreso after US entry stretches the RN thinner and the Americans attempt raiding of their own--defeat is a foregone conclusion, and in a fairly short time frame.
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Sep 22, 2016 18:12
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EvanSchenck posted:If this happens when Britain is otherwise at peace, it works out as a race. Can the Royal Navy collapse American public support for the war before Britain starves or collapses into bread riots? If this happens during WWI, when Russian exports are cut off and shipments from the rest of the world are disrupted--even moreso after US entry stretches the RN thinner and the Americans attempt raiding of their own--defeat is a foregone conclusion, and in a fairly short time frame. Or Britain, which in the 19th century is pretty much the richest country on earth, pays top dollar for grain and other foodstuffs from other sources such as India and Argentina (and gently caress anyone else who needs it including the locals), and America can't do a drat thing about it because Royal Navy. I agree that if this all happens in World War 1 Britain is superfucked, but in peacetime it's the rest of the grain importing world that comes off worst (not to mention American grain exporters - trade flows that big are a two-way street).
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Sep 22, 2016 18:22
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Yeah, food is fungible, so the UK can buy enough food there's enough on the market. The US selling will just make up other countries' shortfalls if they can actually get it to market.
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Sep 22, 2016 18:29
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Cythereal posted:Red was one of a large series of contingency plans the US military drew up after WW1:
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Sep 22, 2016 18:32
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feedmegin posted:Or Britain, which in the 19th century is pretty much the richest country on earth, pays top dollar for grain and other foodstuffs from other sources such as India and Argentina (and gently caress anyone else who needs it including the locals), and America can't do a drat thing about it because Royal Navy. And notably War Plan Red specified that the US shouldn't try to do anything about it, either. Just invade Canada and use the navy in a strictly defensive role to prevent raids and interdict supply/troop movements to Canada from the rest of the Empire.
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Sep 22, 2016 18:38
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Britain was rich as gently caress in that period but didn't have unlimited money. Ww1 bankrupted them and ducked their finances clear into ww2. It wouldn't be an overnight thing but a year of hemmoraging cash would probably make them consider a settlement. Doubly so when you consider that if it's just with the us there isn't the apocalyptic western front so they are t in a domestic situation where anything but victory is unacceptable.
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Sep 22, 2016 18:46
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Cyrano4747 posted:Britain was rich as gently caress in that period but didn't have unlimited money. Ww1 bankrupted them and ducked their finances clear into ww2. It wouldn't be an overnight thing but a year of hemmoraging cash would probably make them consider a settlement. Those calculations are also why the Canadian government was miffed when War Plan Red was declassified and revealed in the 70s - the Canadians were annoyed that the American plan in event of war with the UK was to conquer Canada then shift to a strictly defensive posture to bleed the Empire until Britain conceded. The US never seriously contemplated or planned for invading any other parts of the Empire on the reasonable basis that they didn't want to fight the Royal Navy head on.
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Sep 22, 2016 19:03
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Cyrano4747 posted:Britain was rich as gently caress in that period but didn't have unlimited money. Ww1 bankrupted them and ducked their finances clear into ww2. It wouldn't be an overnight thing but a year of hemmoraging cash would probably make them consider a settlement. Well, obviously much depends on why this hypothetical war began in the first place. My point is that neither side is able to defeat the other totally by military means - the US is way too big and distant to conquer (assuming Canada is toast), but it doesn't have the ability to cut off UK trade. Plus, the haemorrhaging cash thing is a two way street - US grain exporters go bankrupt. US exports in general are at best massively disrupted. UK investment in the US (massive at the time - see the railroad boom) suddenly dries up. Both sides would be in a world of pain, which is why both countries backed away when hostilities seemed a possibility - see the Trent affair in the US civil war for example. feedmegin fucked around with this message at 19:30 on Sep 22, 2016 |
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Sep 22, 2016 19:12
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In the event that the US invaded Canada, they would be mightily aided by the fact that most of Canada's population/industrial infrastructure/etc is in a thick 100 KM or so belt across the US/Canada border. In the Prairies west of Winnipeg Saskatoon and Edmonton are much further north, but that is an outlier. That said, there are some really nasty places in Canada to prosecute a war. Northern Ontario is nothing but black flies and trees; once you get away from a easily navigable lake, logistics would be a bitch. The black flies are so bad that in World War 2 POW camps established there didn't bother with fences. To this day there is a prison north of Thunder Bay that has this arrangement; nobody has walked into the trees and managed to escape. They surrender when they can't take the insects anymore. British Columbia is mostly mountains, so good luck hacking your way through defenders there. I guess you could have eastern-front style tank battles on the prairies?
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Sep 22, 2016 19:39
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Nebakenezzer posted:In the event that the US invaded Canada, they would be mightily aided by the fact that most of Canada's population/industrial infrastructure/etc is in a thick 100 KM or so belt across the US/Canada border. In the Prairies west of Winnipeg Saskatoon and Edmonton are much further north, but that is an outlier. Now imagine being one of the unlucky American Infantry in the militia they sent over the border at the start of the 1812 war. Yaaaay.
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Sep 22, 2016 19:43
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The ability of the US to mobilise quickly in the event of such a war is also untested, though.
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Sep 22, 2016 19:43
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Fangz posted:The ability of the US to mobilise quickly in the event of such a war is also untested, though. We've got rednecks with pickup trucks in pretty much every state.
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Sep 22, 2016 19:56
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Grand Prize Winner posted:We've got rednecks with pickup trucks in pretty much every state. This is talking about the 1910s through around the 1930s, though. As anyone who's played Hearts of Iron can attest, if you're going to get into a land war with the United States the 20s or 30s are the time to do it.
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Sep 22, 2016 19:58
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SeanBeansShako posted:Now imagine being one of the unlucky American Infantry in the militia they sent over the border at the start of the 1812 war. Yaaaay. In 1812 most of the American militia reached the border, promptly sat down and refused to go further, as their obligations did not include foreign service. 
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Sep 22, 2016 20:15
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Yes, it's like a lava lamp.
PittTheElder posted:In 1812 most of the American militia reached the border, promptly sat down and refused to go further, as their obligations did not include foreign service. Good old fencible clause.
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Sep 22, 2016 20:18
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Cyrano4747 posted:Britain was rich as gently caress in that period but didn't have unlimited money. Ww1 bankrupted them and ducked their finances clear into ww2. It wouldn't be an overnight thing but a year of hemmoraging cash would probably make them consider a settlement. It'd happen faster than that because, again, Canada and the U.S.A. were where most of Britain's wheat imports came from and the Brits couldn't grow nearly enough to make up the deficit. Avner Offer's The First World War: An Agrarian Interpretation is required reading on the subject.
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Sep 22, 2016 20:40
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Nebakenezzer posted:In the event that the US invaded Canada, they would be mightily aided by the fact that most of Canada's population/industrial infrastructure/etc is in a thick 100 KM or so belt across the US/Canada border. In the Prairies west of Winnipeg Saskatoon and Edmonton are much further north, but that is an outlier. Why would you need to go into those places? Seize Vancouver in the west, shut down the St. Lawrence seaway, and Canada can no longer export wheat to Britain. The rest you just acquire in the peace treaties.
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Sep 22, 2016 23:08
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LOL did Ensign Expendable get on the Hearts of Iron 4 team somehow? I just bought it and the first loading window I got was a message about how the Tiger and Panther break down and are poo poo. God I hope the wheraboo contingent of this game reads that and twitches.
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Sep 22, 2016 23:35
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sullat posted:Why would you need to go into those places? Seize Vancouver in the west, shut down the St. Lawrence seaway, and Canada can no longer export wheat to Britain. The rest you just acquire in the peace treaties. We cannot underestimate the Canadians, for they are men of the mountains and forests, and have lived in such conditions for such eons, that we men of civilization could not withstand for more than a fortnight. However, the Canuck will not be swayed by treaties and agreements, but will savagely and barbarously betray our trust and goodwilld, permitted they have free access to retreat back into the wastes within the interior country. To conquer that Canada, we cannot expect to simply arrest a mere handful of empees, for their leaders are many, fractitious and wild, they must be utterly and completely defeated in the field, or else our dominion will never extend past the muzzles of our guns. Grand Prize Winner posted:We've got rednecks with pickup trucks in pretty much every state. I wonder what a general mobilization looks like when 2/3rds of your population is overweight/obese
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Sep 22, 2016 23:38
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Cyrano4747 posted:LOL did Ensign Expendable get on the Hearts of Iron 4 team somehow? I just bought it and the first loading window I got was a message about how the Tiger and Panther break down and are poo poo. I pump reliability points in to panzer variants when I play Germany just for shits and giggles.
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Sep 22, 2016 23:54
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Slim Jim Pickens posted:I wonder what a general mobilization looks like when 2/3rds of your population is overweight/obese 
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Sep 22, 2016 23:56
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quit doxxing me
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Sep 23, 2016 00:05
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Cyrano4747 posted:LOL did Ensign Expendable get on the Hearts of Iron 4 team somehow? I just bought it and the first loading window I got was a message about how the Tiger and Panther break down and are poo poo. Apparently at least one lurked the section WoT forums where Ensign, a decent number of other cool dudes (and also I) did a bunch of posting about tanks, I saw one dev mention it. I also got a bit of iconoclastic vibe from it in a few other places.
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Sep 23, 2016 00:19
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another successful goon project
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Sep 23, 2016 00:22
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xthetenth posted:Apparently at least one lurked the section WoT forums where Ensign, a decent number of other cool dudes (and also I) did a bunch of posting about tanks, I saw one dev mention it. I also got a bit of iconoclastic vibe from it in a few other places. the lead dev also posts on this very forum. i wouldn't be totally surprised if they read this thread from time to time
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Sep 23, 2016 00:28
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HEY GAL posted:another successful goon project I'll say, games and the like are really important to pop-cultural historiography. Part of the reason I'm so pissy about what CoH 2 does to history. Koramei posted:the lead dev also posts on this very forum. i wouldn't be totally surprised if they read this thread from time to time Huh, neat, didn't know that. If they do, keep up the good work guys, HoI 4 is super cool.
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Sep 23, 2016 00:30
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A bunch of the devs post on the forums too, mostly in the paradox General thread or in the thread for whatever game they worked on
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Sep 23, 2016 00:37
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Disinterested posted:I pump reliability points in to panzer variants when I play Germany just for shits and giggles. I'm building T-44s in 1940.  xthetenth posted:I'll say, games and the like are really important to pop-cultural historiography. Part of the reason I'm so pissy about what CoH 2 does to history. If you're reading, if you could fix the way all the fascist minors have like half their entire population deployed in the field at any one point and drown you in bodies that'd be great.
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Sep 23, 2016 00:46
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feedmegin posted:Or Britain, which in the 19th century is pretty much the richest country on earth, pays top dollar for grain and other foodstuffs from other sources such as India and Argentina (and gently caress anyone else who needs it including the locals), and America can't do a drat thing about it because Royal Navy. You're missing many important issues. Here's a screengrab of the relevant table (2.2, page 18) from "The International Grain Trade." I will also be using a .pdf paper from 1970 about global grain supplies located here if you want to follow along. First, if we're talking about the 19th century, different areas become productive in foodstuffs, and feasible sources for grain shipments, at different times. With respect to India and Australia, the Suez Canal opens in 1873. Before that point, it isn't efficient to import grain all the way round Africa, and they aren't doing it. Table 2.2 in "The International Grain Trade" (page 18) shows 0 wheat to the UK from those sources until the 1873-1877 period. Moreover, imports from India are a very small proportion of the total until production increased during the period 1883-1887. This has mostly to do with infrastructure expansion in India, specifically railroads to bring grain from agricultural regions to major ports for export. Argentina is not a major player until the 1890s; on page 9 of the pdf you will see that it was actually an importer] of grain until the 1880s. Australia is similarly a negligible source until 1903-1904. So, depending on when during the 19th century you are talking about, the sources you name may be unavailable or insufficient. This leads into the second issue with your reasoning, your apparent assumption that the global food supply is effectively unlimited and North America can be easily replaced by other sources. This is incorrect. In reality, there is a given amount of wheat produced worldwide in a given year, which fluctuates but tends to increase over time. With the exception of India, under British rulers who historically had few qualms about letting the inhabitants starve, grain-producing countries will see to the needs of their population first, and export second. Whereas to some extent grain merchants may be tempted to sell abroad if British buyers are making high offers, other governments do not want their populations to become hungry and rebellious. Consequently, fluctuations in production will affect available global supply. You can compare the above chart to global production figures on page 5 of the pdf. British imports from Canada and the United States are atypically low in the period 1903-1904, which is explained by atypically poor harvests in those countries during those years, combined with very good harvest in Russia. They had less grain available for export, Russia had more. Further to this, the reason that the USA and Canada become the primary sources of food for Britain by 1914 is the characteristics of agriculture in those countries. They both have large areas of fertile farmland and technically advanced methods of agricultural production, and small populations relative to how much food they're producing. Even in bad years like 1903-1904 they have a substantial surplus to export to Britain, meaning that although the British had to resort to massive expansions in their grain imports from Russia and India, they did not have to completely replace the USA. This is fortunate, because as explained above there is a maximum amount of grain that can feasibly be bought on the open market at any given time. If the largest source is altogether cut off, that is a bad thing. In the later part of the historical period we're discussing, competing bidders (France and Germany, mainly) are becoming more significant, and Indian and Russian surpluses are smaller due to population growth and comparatively primitive means of production. We're speaking counterfactually so we can't say for sure, but it is possible that in a given year, there will not be sufficient excess production outside North America to meet Britain's needs--that is, enough to stop Britons starving. Finally, except during WWI the issue is not so much that Britain will immediately run out of food. Like I said, there's a period of time during which the USA and Britain will have to see who is having more trouble. The immediate problem is social and political disruption due to sudden severe shortages and spikes in food prices. British merchants may be able to make up the shortfall by purchasing more from their other partners, Russia being the most viable option for the most of the period 1860-1914. This will be expensive, as you say, but the fact that Britain generally is a very wealthy country does not mean that all Britons are wealthy. In fact, much of the population is poor enough, and spends a large enough proportion of their income on subsistence, that an abrupt major increase in food prices represents a serious problem for social stability. This would most likely require massive government intervention in the form of price controls, subsidies, and rationing. Over a longer time frame Britain may begin to run into calorie shortages, and shortcuts like demanding excessive exports from India become an issue for overall imperial stability.
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Sep 23, 2016 01:12
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Cyrano4747 posted:LOL did Ensign Expendable get on the Hearts of Iron 4 team somehow? I just bought it and the first loading window I got was a message about how the Tiger and Panther break down and are poo poo. No, but I was a part of a consulting team that was pitched (unsuccessfully) to do WoT Modern.
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Sep 23, 2016 02:28
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How would that even work? "T90/M1A1 spots your Sheridan from across the map with FLIR, shoots you with APFSDS round, you die."
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Sep 23, 2016 02:33
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OwlFancier posted:How would that even work? "T90/M1A1 spots your Sheridan from across the map with FLIR, shoots you with APFSDS round, you die." Armoured Warfare made it work by giving everyone except scout class vehicles hilariously poor view range.
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Sep 23, 2016 02:41
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Also tanks all have HP in those kinds of games so getting penetrated by a 152mm bunker-buster shell just mildly annoys your crew.
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Sep 23, 2016 03:05
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Alright, I know this has probably been discussed in a previously in WWI Chat. One thing I have always been somewhat confused about is why in WWI when Germany was gambling everything on one last offensive in the Spring of 1918 did they consider rolling the dice on another Jutland style engagement with the Royal Navy. It seems like all the cards were on the table for one final decisive fight, but the navy stayed in port. I mean worst case scenario the Navy is destroyed, but they had the potential to maybe (just maybe) defeat or cripple the Royal Navy or at this point did they just not have enough Shells/Fuel Etc. to even attempt something like this.
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Sep 23, 2016 03:15
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Jack2142 posted:Alright, I know this has probably been discussed in a previously in WWI Chat. One thing I have always been somewhat confused about is why in WWI when Germany was gambling everything on one last offensive in the Spring of 1918 did they consider rolling the dice on another Jutland style engagement with the Royal Navy. It seems like all the cards were on the table for one final decisive fight, but the navy stayed in port. I mean worst case scenario the Navy is destroyed, but they had the potential to maybe (just maybe) defeat or cripple the Royal Navy or at this point did they just not have enough Shells/Fuel Etc. to even attempt something like this. They tried then the navy mutinied which helped to spark the wider revolution of 1918.
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Sep 23, 2016 03:18
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Jack2142 posted:Alright, I know this has probably been discussed in a previously in WWI Chat. One thing I have always been somewhat confused about is why in WWI when Germany was gambling everything on one last offensive in the Spring of 1918 did they consider rolling the dice on another Jutland style engagement with the Royal Navy. It seems like all the cards were on the table for one final decisive fight, but the navy stayed in port. I mean worst case scenario the Navy is destroyed, but they had the potential to maybe (just maybe) defeat or cripple the Royal Navy or at this point did they just not have enough Shells/Fuel Etc. to even attempt something like this. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naval_order_of_24_October_1918 As it turns out the worst case scenario is the Navy mutinies and sparks an insurrection that spreads across the entire country. Basically the High seas fleet was in no shape to fight anyone by 1918, sailors knew it, and they wanted no further part in the festivities.
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Sep 23, 2016 03:21
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bewbies posted:https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naval_order_of_24_October_1918 I know that actually happened, what I was wondering was why they didn't think of doing that say in April? The German situation wasn't great in early 1918, but it at that point the war was clearly far from over. When the Germans put everything together for the Spring Offensives, I was wondering why it doesn't seem from my limited knowledge why German High Command was content to let the fleet just sit in port while they threw everything else they had into a gamble to win the war. Jack2142 fucked around with this message at 03:37 on Sep 23, 2016 |
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Sep 23, 2016 03:33
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They actually did do a sortie in April as I recall, nothing came of it of course. You have to remember that they've been hiding in port for two years at that point with fairly minimal reinforcements, while the Royal Navy had received a bunch of new ships plus the American squadron . They had bigger ships, better ships, better crews, and pretty much all of the initiative by that point. A suicide mission in the spring might not have caused a fleetwide mutiny but it also wouldn't have accomplished much and risked quite a bit .
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Sep 23, 2016 03:44
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In real life it's not generally considered okay to throw away thousands of lives in an operation that has no real hope of success, and which might not be needed anyway. The logic of 'hey you have those ships just sitting around, might as well throw them into the fire' doesn't really work.
Fangz fucked around with this message at 03:48 on Sep 23, 2016 |
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Sep 23, 2016 03:46
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Fangz posted:In real life it's not generally considered okay to throw away thousands of lives in an operation that has no real hope of success, and which might not be needed anyway. The logic of 'hey you have those ships just sitting around, might as well throw them into the fire' doesn't really work. bewbies posted:They actually did do a sortie in April as I recall, nothing came of it of course. You have to remember that they've been hiding in port for two years at that point with fairly minimal reinforcements, while the Royal Navy had received a bunch of new ships plus the American squadron . They had bigger ships, better ships, better crews, and pretty much all of the initiative by that point. A suicide mission in the spring might not have caused a fleet wide mutiny but it also wouldn't have accomplished much and risked quite a bit . I mean I know it's a bad idea, however the throwing away lives in operations with slim chances of success seems pretty par for the course in WWI. I am not trying to say this would have been a good idea, it just seems like with how heavily the Germans were gambling in 1918 I just was wondering if there was any consideration of rolling the dice at sea like they were elsewhere. However why they didn't makes sense as well and its interesting they showed such restraint in regards to the navy. I guess that brings up my question when they finally did give the suicide attack order in October, I wonder if the Admirals were secretly hoping the sailors essentially would refuse, or if they really were sincere of making some stupid last stand.
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Sep 23, 2016 04:29
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