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sn0wball -> Alternate history stories (8/8/2019 8:08:23 PM)
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Of course, Strategic Command is a strategy game, not an alternate history game. Nonetheless, my last Axis game spawned some interesting occurences.
a) Regina Marina for Sea Lion
Sea Lion would not have been possible without the majority of the Italian Navy. All their capital ships left the Med before they even entered the war to prepare for Sea Lion Day. The combined fleets of Germany and Italy, backed by the German airforce, proved powerful enough to drive the Royal Navy from the channel and the North Sea, allowing the Wehrmachts new landing crafts to make landfall in East England and Scotland.
Of course, for the Italians, this meant to sacrifice Africa, so Mussolini had to be promised terriotory elsewhere and a return to Africa later in the war. He had to wait quite long for the fullfillment of that promise - indeed until 1945.
b) Italian Indochina
An Italian replacement colony turned up in unexpected places. When evacuating East Africa, the Italian colonial troops had nowhere to turn to - except the far east. They made it to Hong Kong and despite not getting any support, they aided the Japanese in the invasion of Indochina in late 1940. Whether by chance, by plot or by (German) design, it were Italian troops taking the capital. Some Italian general found himself suddenly in charge of the whole country. In retaliation for the lack of their support, they would not give any support to Japanese planes hunting allied ships.
c) Romanian Steamroller
It was to Romanians who, armed with the lastest German weapons, broke the Soviets back on the southern front. After Turkey joined the Axis, the Romanians helped the Sultans troops to push into the Caucasus. When the Turkish turned further east, the Romanians pushed north, through the Caucasus, eventually attacking Stalingrad from the east. They kept on being the avandgarde of Axis advance east, which finally culminated in them, together with the Persian expeditionary corps, meeting with the Japanese trying to besiege the Chineses houldout in Urumchi.
d) the Alaskan rouse
In 1941, a small Japanese landing force takes several Alaskan and Canadian coastal towns by surprise. Of course, the US cannot bear any Axis forces on their mainland. Not daring any maritime forces in these treacherous waters, they try to reach them by land. Inhospital terrain, arctic winter and poor planning lead to a huge US army group stuck on the Alaskan highway, for a long time to come. (Actually, for years to come. This AI blunder was one of the few really weird occurences in that game, probably impossible to rationalise into alternate history terms). Without these troops, there are less available to reinforce Australia against the Japanese.
e) Japanese Jamaica
In a similiar commando operation, an experienced Japanese corps takes Panama and the canal in 1943. The few US and British naval assets remaining in the Atlantic are needed to fight of the combined Italian and German fleet. The growing US pacific fleet is locked out of that theatre. This allows the highly mobile veterans of the Japanese landing forces to wreak havoc in the carribean - which, among others islands, turns Jamaica into a Japanese dependance. The Panama canal surprisingly stays in Japanese hands for the remainder of the war, despite a long and brutal US bombing campaign. The Panama garrison is a virtual death sentence for unfortunate Japanese soldiers. Still, US ground forces are prohibited from retaking the country by the enduring neutrality of Costa Rica and Nicaragua.
f) The Atlantic graveyard
Most US soldiers dying in WW2 found a watery grave in the middle of the Atlantic ocean. Poor planning and a lack of allied naval resources in the Atlantic, leads to a huge amount of highly sophisticated landing crafts trying to cross the ocean by force or by stealth. The majority are hunted down by the modern German Uboat force. The few crafts which get through find Cornwall thoroughly defended by Rommels forces. The most prominent American to die on this route was General Eisenhower.
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