Here is a crazy campaign idea for all of you alt history fans. Sometimes the real world can truly be stranger than fiction.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_Plan_Red

"Occupying Halifax following a poison gas first strike"

If you're interested in the "Color" plans, there are two very good books on the subject: War Plan Orange by Edward Miller and The Blue Sword by Michael Vlahos.  Both have all sorts of alternate history ideas.

Also, Avalanche Press published a series of wargames using the "Great War at Sea" system which cover some of the "Color" plans.  In fact, there is one on War Plan Red specifically.

Edit: Here's a copy on eBay.

I wonder if it would have left us better prepared for WWII. If we had a war int he 1920s that allowed a build up of war materials, would we then have enough to carry us better prepared to face the Germans? Hmm, problem being, a lot of technological advances would not have been available. If the US could have pulled off the occupation of Canada though, a lot of resources to be had there.

hmm, interesting read.

Thanks,
Bill

Quote from: CessnaEdit: Here's a copy on eBay.

Wow, an Avalanche product that doesn't have a cover with a half-naked woman. Shocking!  

Then again, one could argue they're engaging in warship porn... :haw:

In any case, how's the Great War at Sea system? Good, bad, average?

@HinterWelt

It would have made for rather icy relations with the Brits, even icier than they were with Stalin.

As well the United States was served very well to NOT be involved in a war of any sort of note touching it's own soil for about 75 years prior to WWII. It was just pulling ahead of Britian in wealth around that time, and without that extra couple of decades of growth not diverted to war came in very handy. Remember they had time for public opinion to support entering WWII and in the meantime they were busy bringing factories online at a profit!

Quote from: blakkie@HinterWelt

It would have made for rather icy relations with the Brits, even icier than they were with Stalin.

As well the United States was served very well to NOT be involved in a war of any sort of note touching it's own soil for about 75 years prior to WWII. It was just pulling ahead of Britian in wealth around that time, and without that extra couple of decades of growth not diverted to war came in very handy. Remember they had time for public opinion to support entering WWII and in the meantime they were busy bringing factories online at a profit!

I guess so but it just seemed the US was so short on war materials and more importantly, all their war technology was so outdated. A lot of catch up had to be done while the Germans had been building and testing weapons in events like the Spanish Civil War.

That said, a war with Canada would have been a mess and as you said, alienated Britain quite thoroughly.

Still, what an interesting setting either if Britain reconquered part of the Colonies or a US occupied Canada at the beginning of WWII.

Bill

True about the specific military tech. I'm pretty sure someone posted about the Brits giving Americans some tech to bring them up to speed. Although two of the most important techs for Germany in WWII weren't military specific at all. The first was diesel from coal and the second was large scale manufacturing of anhydrous ammonia fertilizer for agriculture. It was initially expected by the Allies that Germany was logistically incapable of fighting the war, being short of combustion fuel and food they would collaspe. That likely would have been true if not for those two inventions.

Quote from: JongWKIn any case, how's the Great War at Sea system? Good, bad, average?

Pretty decent.  It reminds me of the old VG "6th Fleet" games.

Another alternate history that I think could easily be turned into a decent rpg background is the one in the book "For Want of a Nail."  Britain wins Saratoga and the American Revolution collapses.  The Loyalists hold the Colonies, and the Rebels flee to set up their own state in the south.  Then things get interesting...

If you want to really mess with people's heads, an idea for a ww2 scenario might be to have the PC actually prevent the assassination of Adolf Hitler.

Now, please read the following carefully: I said the above for two good reasons. First off, a friend of mine, who is jewish, once said that past a certain point killing hitler would have been terrible because it meant someone with brains would have taken over the nazi government, and that person, be it goerring, himmler, whoever, may have been less insane and more cunning that hitler, and if that had happened the nazis may have taken over much of europe, and still be a valid politica power to this day.

That would be just about the ultimate VERY BAD THING.

Another person suggested that killing hitler may have in some ways made nazism more powerful today than it is. If hitler had been killed while nazi germany was at it's peak, it could have left a lot of people with the impression that nazism as an idea/government/social model actualy was valid, it just needed the right leader. If hitler had died while nazism was still a power in the world, then nazi germany had been crushed, people might have and continued to believe that nazism worked with the right leader, meaning a lot more people today would believe in it and keep trying to revive it with "the right leader".

As was, nazism was crushed with hitler in charge up to the end, and he comitted suicide in his bunker, effectively ending the possibility that nazism could ever really be a valid social model, at least to anyone but the most hopelessly insane or anti-social.

Killing hitler at a certain time may have been a great thing to do, but past a certain point him dying sooner than he did could have been a disaster worse than what played out in history as it could have resulted in a nazi european state remaining valid to the current day, or the nazi meme being much stronger in the world than it is now.

So an unusual alternate ww2 history could be having the players prevent hitler's assassination in order to make sure no one smarter than him took over and made things even worse.

I don't know if a lot of player groups would be mature enough to accept this idea, that'd be a call for the GM to make, but it would definitely be a twist on a ww2 scenario.

Play with it if you want.

Not bad sort of a Time Cop "Things were shitty, but they could have been worse attitude." scenario. Of course what group of players could resist capping the bastard for very long

Quote from: RockViperNot bad sort of a Time Cop "Things were shitty, but they could have been worse attitude." scenario. Of course what group of players could resist capping the bastard for very long

OK, good point. Now put it to the players like this: If you cap hum, he dies a martyr at the top of his game. Let the unspeakable abomination live out his destined life and he dies a broken, quivering, nearly mindless shell of a man in the collapsed and charred ruin of his 'dream" with the russians basically knocking on his bunker door.

Now, which hurts worse?

(BTW, congrats on being smart enough not to misinterpret my suggestion in the worse way possible, I appreciate it.)

Quote from: Dominus NoxOK, good point. Now put it to the players like this: If you cap hum, he dies a martyr at the top of his game. Let the unspeakable abomination live out his destined life and he dies a broken, quivering, nearly mindless shell of a man in the collapsed and charred ruin of his 'dream" with the russians basically knocking on his bunker door.

Now, which hurts worse?

(BTW, congrats on being smart enough not to misinterpret my suggestion in the worse way possible, I appreciate it.)

That's a very fragile plot, and unless the players agree not to gank him, its pretty much a given that the PC's are going to screw the world (at least in my experience). I think you would have to give them a more hated foe to focus their attention on, so they are not so much defending Hitler as saving their own future from Baron Evil and company who are planning on saving the Third Reich and running it themselves (humm nazis from the future, traveling to the past, wasn't that a Sci-Fi original movie?).

Don't worry I'm sure the threadcappers will be along soon to throw poo and derail a perfectly good thread.

Quote from: RockViperThat's a very fragile plot, and unless the players agree not to gank him, its pretty much a given that the PC's are going to screw the world (at least in my experience). I think you would have to give them a more hated foe to focus their attention on, so they are not so much defending Hitler as saving their own future from Baron Evil and company who are planning on saving the Third Reich and running it themselves (humm nazis from the future, traveling to the past, wasn't that a Sci-Fi original movie?).

Don't worry I'm sure the threadcappers will be along soon to throw poo and derail a perfectly good thread.

You're right, then again the whole thing could be a way of teaching players that the most imeadiately desirable thing to do (capping hitler with a flamethrower) isn't always the right, best or smart thing to do.

Quote from: RockViperHere is a crazy campaign idea for all of you alt history fans. Sometimes the real world can truly be stranger than fiction.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_Plan_Red

"Occupying Halifax following a poison gas first strike"

And there was a very aggressive Canadian counter plan:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defence_Scheme_No._1

Interestingly, the Canadian military even sent over officers in plain clothes on "holiday" to scout out invasion routes.  That might be fodder for a period RPG adventure, even if it was just the appearance of a quirky NPC in your next CoC game...

I enjoy the alt history stuff myself.  I am currently building the US Navy as is was in 1930 for Mongoose's new Victory at Sea miniatures wargame.  I am trying to convince some friends to build the other powers' navies of the same period (which is not that hard, as most the ships were the backbone of the forces that fought in the battles of the early years of the war anyways), and I am planning to do some War Plan goodness with them.

What is particularly interesting to me is the assumption that we have, removed by 80 years or so, that the United States and Britain had a great relationship between the wars.  America had been Britain's ally in WW1 and would be again in WW2, but there were some tensions between them in the meantime.  The Royal Navy, for example, didn't particularly like the fact that the US Navy expanded itself greatly in WW1 by building large numbers of modern battleships (the RN would have preferred more smaller convoy escort and anti-submarine capable ships), and saw this as a direct challenge to their naval supremacy, which in fairness it was.  On the American side there was an active debate within the Navy about the potential of overtaking the British role of dominant global naval power.

Frankly, even so, the chance of a war with Britain and Canada was pretty remote.  Much more likely was an early war with Japan, which had been pushing American buttons in Asia for quite some time:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_Plan_Orange


TGA

Up until the two parties merged in the late 20s the Nazi's biggest competitor on the right was Goring's party. But what if...

Sergeant Adolf Hitler is assigned to infiltrate and report back on a small time operation. But, the day he is to go to his first meeting a co-worker in intelligence falls ill and Hitler has to cover for him. By the time that worker has returned to duty Hitler is caught up in the work. As a result another man is assigned to infiltrate and report on the nascent Nazi party, while Sergeant (eventually Colonel) Adolf Hitler is encouraged to keep following up the leads he's getting concerning anti-government activity in the German/Polish border area. Which will eventually lead to contacts in Poland that later proved most useful to U. S. Intelligence in the post war era. Adolf retires from U. S. Army Intelligence in 1962 at the rank of Brigadier General, having provided the evidence showing that the People's Republic of China was in dire economic and military straits in 1958, which would lead to the strategy that would led to the collapse of the P. R. C. in 1968, some 3 years after Adolf's death from a massive stroke.

Meanwhile, back in 1930's Germany, Hermann Goring's political party comes to dominate the political scene, and takes power in a constitutional crises in 1933. However Heinrich Himmler, Goring's right hand man, maneuvers Goring out of effective power -- though Goring remains titular head of government until his death from a heroin overdose in 1942. Long before then the nature of the Goring government has changed drastically, and Himmler (with Goring's forged signature) has established death camps across Germany and the occupied territories.

As commander of the 4th Armor Divsion, General Creighton Abrams, would later put it, "Our forward elements crossed over the Hungarian/Russian border on April 9th, 1946. Up until then we had been used to seeing people. Not many, for the war had been hard on the Hungarians, but some. Now, on the approach to the ancient city of Kiev we saw no one. not a soul. And no sign of habitation other than scattered ruins.

"Then we came within a day's travel of Kiev. Even after 4 years the stench of that charnel house could still make you gag. I saw men who'd worked for weeks in the death camps of Paris and Vienna puke their very guts out. In Kiev alone it is conservatively estimated that the Germans were responsible for no less than 10 million deaths."