Alternate History Ideas and Discussion
- Thread starter AndrewJTalon
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@sillygoose What I find interesting is that the Germans managed to quickly overrun the fortified cities of Liege, Namur, and Mauberge at the start of World War I:
I know that a specific new cannon helped them conquer the Liege fortress really quickly. I'll have to check about the other two fortresses here, though.
But I would presume that Russia did not have such a cannon and would not have one for a very long time, right?
I know that a specific new cannon helped them conquer the Liege fortress really quickly. I'll have to check about the other two fortresses here, though.
But I would presume that Russia did not have such a cannon and would not have one for a very long time, right?
sillygoose
Well-known member
Russia had to adapt some naval guns to rail guns to have something similar. France also had some rail artillery, but not much and had to improvise until 1916. The Germans and Austrians both put a lot of work into superheavy siege guns and mortars that no one else really had, which was a big reason Przymsel fort held out so long.@sillygoose What I find interesting is that the Germans managed to quickly overrun the fortified cities of Liege, Namur, and Mauberge at the start of World War I:
I know that a specific new cannon helped them conquer the Liege fortress really quickly. I'll have to check about the other two fortresses here, though.
But I would presume that Russia did not have such a cannon and would not have one for a very long time, right?
Scots-Irish is a term generally used for the Scots who settled in Ireland, largely in Ulster and a number of those who later moved to areas such as the Appalachia area. This was probably accompanied by some forced deportment of Catholic Irish from the region.
In the 16thC there was a forced movement of Irish Catholic landowners to the Connaught region, although this was not complete by any means.
The main point at which the Scots highlands were depopulated was in the 19thC as the landowners, sometimes from England or southern Scotland but often local lairds realised they could make more money by driving the crofters off the owners lands and raising sheep instead.
There were some bloody clashes and actions against supporters of the early Stuarts when the latter tried to regain the throne in 1715 and again in 1745 similar to the way English opponents to them were killed or deported in large numbers after the Monmouth rebellion.
Buba
A total creep
The Lowland Scots enthusiastically supressing the savage primitives, thus protecting themselves from the atrocities these would inevitably commit against Civilised Folk.
There's a great fictional novel and TV series in large part about 1740s Scotland. It's called Outlander. It's well-worth a watch and it's on Netflix. Did either you or @stevep ever actually read and/or watch it? The novel itself was written by Diana Gabaldon.
What about Britain? And what was the specific value of naval guns?
BTW, I've concluded something about why successful revolutions were so rare in pre-WWI Europe: Specifically, a part of the reason for this might have been that dissatisfied dissidents could easily move abroad rather than having to stay at home up to the bitter end like they had to do during World War I. In turn, this gave them less of an incentive to risk their lives upending the existing status quo at home when they could simply move abroad in search of better opportunities instead. Does that make sense?
Britain developed large howitzers too. They sucked in comparison to naval guns. See below.
And naval guns can be bigger than mobile land based guns because it's easier to move heavy things by ship than by any form of land transportation. Ships float in water, distributing support forces across their entire hull as buoyancy. Rail cars sit on a few bogies that sit on narrow metal rails that sit on wood or concrete ties. Ships can be as wide as you build your drydocks. Railroads are narrow. The same issues also make ships better at distributing the recoil from large guns than anything on land other than fixed fortresses.
Land based guns have big numbers because they're measured in millimeters while naval guns are usually measured in inches.
6", the size of gun on a treaty light cruiser, are 152mm. 8", the size on a treaty heavy cruiser are 203mm. But the treaty limit was based on a light cruiser because there weren't any non-battlecruiser armored cruisers in production when it was written. Pre-treaty cruisers had larger guns. The Minotaurs had 9.2" (234mm) main guns. The battlecruisers that succeeded them started with 304mm guns with the Germans using mere 11" (280mm) guns. At the top end, HMS Furious had 18" (451mm) guns before conversion to an aircraft carrier and the Yamatos has 18.1" (460mm) guns.
And these are long guns, not howitzers. Long guns can use larger propellant charges to reach greater velocities with heavier shells (possibly longer, but I think steel is denser than explosives and large naval shells have proportionately more steel in them to penetrate armor). A BL-15 howitzer had to be transported in sections and could fire a 1450 lb shell a bit over 10,000 yards. A BL-15 mk I naval gun could fire a 1938 lb shell more than three times as far even though the howitzer fires at a 45 degree angle and the naval gun only elevates to 30 degrees. These are guns of the same bore diameter, same nation of origin, and similar vintage. And the naval gun is on a platform that can somewhat dodge counter-battery fire but is armored so it doesn't have to.
It is also on a platform that has range finders on masts and room filling fire control computers so it can hit near the target on the first salvo. That's a big deal too. You simply can't have the fire control on a mobile land based gun that you can on a ship until radar and electronic computers are first invented and then miniaturized to a massive degree.
Ships also have large magazines and ammo lifts. The former means they can fire longer. The latter means the shell is presented to the loader in the same place each time allowing more consistent ergonomics. Even down at the low end where you can mount the exact same gun on a tank or destroyer it will probably have better ergonomics and certainly be able to sustain fire for longer on the destroyer. It will also be more accurate at long range and probably be able to elevate higher for greater absolute range.
Buba
A total creep
Hence the craziest piece of ordnance ever made, the 80cm (yup, 800mm or 31,5 inches) cannon was set up on TWO PARALLEL RAILROAD TRACKS. And needed 1500 men as crew
TBH, the differences between land and naval artillery are linked with ease of ammunition supply. Those c.900kg shells for a 38cm naval rifle are delivered by train to the warf, then hoisted on board by crane. And - as mentioned - up they go! from magazine to battery by way of elevator.
Whereas supplying ordnance in the field involves moving things around by road. A single truck - depending on size - can carry 2-5 shells - this also depending on road quality and condition ...
Even if the gun itself is an ingenious land train - read up on the Skoda M12 30,5cm mortar by Porsche, fascinating! - you may end up having the ammo being moved by ox-drawn wagons over goat tracks ...
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sillygoose
Well-known member
Don't remember, but their heavy guns only came in 1916 IIRC. Rail artillery was pretty good, everyone developed a lot of it during the war.
Gotcha. And it's interesting that it was possible to take out naval guns and put them on trains to function as rail guns, if I'm understanding you correctly?
Also, off-topic, but I find it interesting that Hitler was so lax with security that he allowed a bomb to get so close to him on July 20, 1944. There certainly was a desire to stab Germany in the back, but among the German officer corps rather than the Jews! And Stauffenberg made a huge mistake in not placing both of his bombs in his briefcase since even if only one of the bombs would have actually detonated, the spark/explosion from it might have very well been enough in itself to spark/detonate the other bomb as well, thus ensuring that everyone in the room, including Hitler, would have been killed.
I'm also pissed off at the July 20 plotters for waiting so long to act; had they acted slightly over two months earlier, they could have saved several hundred thousand additional Hungarian Jews, after all. By July 20, only the Jews of Budapest (a majority of whom ultimately managed to survive the war in any case) and the 67,000 surviving Jews of the Lodz Ghetto were left among Europe's large Jewish communities, excluding those Jews in both the Soviet Union's unoccupied territories, Bulgaria, and Romania, that is.
Sorry no. I'm limited to terrestrial TV and freeview. Hence I miss out on a lot of stuff nowadays. Mind you some sport aside I don't have much time for TV nowadays.
One rider I would say is that IIRC howitzers have less stress on the shell so they can have a higher proportion of their weight in explosives so for soft area targets they can be quite effective. Otherwise as you say only relatively small guns - in most cases - can be used on land as compared to at sea.
I think the difference in terms of inches and metric was more than the US and at that time the British empire still used imperial and just about everybody else used metric. For instance while it was said that say Bismarck had 15" guns they were actually the metric equivalent, 38cm. Its just that this would be referred to by its imperial equivalent in UK/US literature.
Buba
A total creep
Sassanids?
Or, if you mean central and western Mediterranean Basin - no hegemon?
Skallagrim
Well-known member
As you know, I think Philippos V was a real contender. Being wedged in-between the rival powers of Rome and the Seleukids screwed over his ambitions in OTL. (And as I never neglect to mention, one might compare this situation to the way Germany was wedged in-between the Atlantic Powers and the USSR.)
But let us imagine a world in which Rome is screwed. I've once suggested a scenario where Pyrrhos decisively defeats the Romans, only to then die later on anyway. This leaves a Rome-shaped power vacuüm in the West, and gives the alliance of Philippos with Carthage broad operating powers in the region. I don't think the Seleukids can really win this contest in the long term: their power projection in the Med is really quite limited. Without Rome to provide a lot of troops on the ground, the Seleukids funding the Hellenistic rivals of Philippos won't win the day. (It didn't in OTL.)
Ptolemaic Egypt is still going into major decline, and I think Philippos will be the one to gain hegemony. It's in the East that he finds his true rivals at first, but I think that it would be difficult for the other Hellenistic powers to resist Macedonian supremacy for too long. A power like the Mithridatic realm would be a serious rival, of course, and one might argue that Macedon (even despite the considerable efforts of Philippos V) wasn't militarily on par with Rome. On the other hand, their supply chains would be shorter, and Macedon would be in a position to take swifter action against ascendant rivals in the immediate vicinity.
I think the eventual Seleukid decline will provide an opportunity for Macedon to consolidate control over the Eastern Med. And then, just as Rome eventually found itself in a rivalry with Persia (whereas the Seleukid realm had initially been an ally against Macedon), I think Macedon will find itself in a rivalry with its erstwhile ally, Carthage.
My strong suspicion is that Macedon would be satisfied with control over the Hellenic world, and that in spite of (essentially) trade wars, no conquest of the West or defeat of Carthage would necessarily ensue. Carthage would remain a regional power, dominating its own back-yard (the Western Med), and wouldn't be able to really threaten the Macedonian-built "Hellenic Empire."
Said Empire would be more East-oriented, so it may well control more of South-Eastern Europe and/or North-East Africa and/or Arabia than Rome ever did.
(Comparing this, again, to more recent history: consider a world in which the USA decides upon small-government non-interventionism, and Germany handily wins the Great War. This leaves the USA in control of its own region, and certainly prosperous enough, but not global superpower. Whereas in OTL, America made itself a new Rome, in this ATL, it would be a new Carthage, of sorts. A mercantile power, rather than a military one. Meanwhile, the Central Powers would dominate Europe, presumably drawing the whole Ottoman region into their sphere as well. If you imagine how this scenario relates to OTL, then you can also grasp how a "Macedonian hegemony" TL relates to OTL. It's essentially the same type of alteration.)
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Zyobot
Just a time-traveling robot stranded on Earth.
Ah, I suspected you'd say something like this!
(Of course, assuming your OTL outline holds water, I still suspect that despite being akin to Rome role-wise, Imperial America will retain strong economic parallels with Carthage that wouldn't go unnoticed by Punic observers, in the sense of being highly mercantile and prone to "privatized imperialism" abroad by PMCs, business interests, and enterprising homesteaders alike. We also have the "Build a blue-water navy to make the British Empire cry!" shtick down pat, too, so there's that.)
Skallagrim
Well-known member
Naturally, Rome had its own mercantile colonies and whatnot, even as it was empire-building. The USA, since embarking on a more (de facto) imperialist course, has similarly only increased its trade empire at the same time.