WesWorld

why should for example China attack the Dutch ???? They are far away ... Iberia is nearer

I have not said China has to be the one.... But it doesn´t matter. One has to throw the first stone and act as bad guy. The mechanism I used would also work the other way around - as long as the party involved is the one to trigger an alliance and there is no automatism. And if there is, automatically triggered partners could descide to play the "neutral" part like the Dutch did during ABS.

If you were looking for something like this, I suppose the place to look would actually be the Phillipines/NEI border regions. Say an unimportant island, ownership somewhat disputed, is suddenly discovered to be at the heart of a large oil field. Claim, counter-claim, someone fires a shot, and the war's on,. That might work.....

That would work but Swampy has being MIA of late.

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Originally posted by Kaiser Kirk

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Originally posted by Hrolf Hakonson
Germany's current standing army's authorized strength is 1 million troops. 42 infantry divisions, 6 mountain divisions, 9 panzer divisions, plus corps-level units of regimental and smaller size. The Luftwaffe also has 3 fallschirmjaeger regiments with a 4th forming, but they're not counted as part of the Heer so fall outside the 1 million total.

Well slighltly smaller overall than the Belgo-Dutch combined force, but with more mechanization, and with the armor more concentrated. The Belgian force is the roughly the historic size, and I based the Dutch home strength off of that. Both have considerably more armor, air and AT than historic, thanks to no Great Depression.

Yep, given the neighbors and the size of my population, I should probably increase the army some more. Ah, well, there are limits, though, apparently the historical draft class (during the pre-war period) was about 300,000 men, so that will serve as a cap on how much I can increase the army on a per-year basis. Good to know I didn't break that in the past, though.

I must be unusual for reducing the size of my forces... Irish Army decreasing in size, Bulgaria staying about the same, Chile reducing size...

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Originally posted by Hrolf Hakonson
If you were looking for something like this, I suppose the place to look would actually be the Phillipines/NEI border regions. Say an unimportant island, ownership somewhat disputed, is suddenly discovered to be at the heart of a large oil field. Claim, counter-claim, someone fires a shot, and the war's on,. That might work.....

Changing Filipino players has been a consistant problem for a time. I had considered once a storyline where Dutch forces chased a pirate into Filipino waters, leading to a little skirmish, but Alkili wandered off just then.

As I recall, I spent some time looking hard at the islands between us...and then fortified the ones with anchorages. I think the island nearest to the Filipino border currently has a seaplane base and light coast defenses, though there might be a spec beyond. However, there is no offshore oil in this time period, and that region is too deep to start. The shallows off of Sumatra are far more logical..as in OTL.

There is also the island chain that leads to the UK's Sarawak, but that would not involve the Dutch.

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Originally posted by Brockpaine
I must be unusual for reducing the size of my forces... Irish Army decreasing in size, Bulgaria staying about the same, Chile reducing size...

Heh, but consider the neighbors: the only country that can realistically threaten Ireland pulled out pretty recently so probably don't want to come back. Chile only has 3 neighbors, and mostly controls one of those, just defeated the second, and is allied to the third.

A Chinese invasion of Hainan would only activate AEGIS and SATSUMA (thought Mexico and the US might make use of the distraction...).

Also in a SATSUMA vs FAR war, Australia would not stand by its SEAR commitments.

SATSUMA vs FAR or AEGIS are viable scenarios, and could potentially lead to a breakdown of other alliances which would open the way for more wars. One other thing, the US is a big wild card and is more likely to fight with SATSUMA than against her.

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Originally posted by Hrolf Hakonson

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Originally posted by Brockpaine
I must be unusual for reducing the size of my forces... Irish Army decreasing in size, Bulgaria staying about the same, Chile reducing size...

Heh, but consider the neighbors: the only country that can realistically threaten Ireland pulled out pretty recently so probably don't want to come back. Chile only has 3 neighbors, and mostly controls one of those, just defeated the second, and is allied to the third.

Eh. Chile doesn't control Bolivia per se - the Republic of Bolivia's current government and population is probably very Anti-Chile - if Chile attempted to dictate the time of day to them, they'd probably get their nose in a knot. Chile does control the territory occupied during the Andean War, but I view that differently. Bolivia is under the limits of the surrender treaty, but Chile and Brazil loosened many of the restrictions and dropped the reparations so Bolivia could recover from the earthquake... which more than war or government is responsible for Bolivia's lack of threat.

Chile also doesn't view Peru as being defeated: their Army is intact, the Navy still quite potent. The outcome of the Peruvian Civil War saw the rapid completion of FAR goals (Recover Leticia!) and only in two incidents did Chilean troops face Peruvians in ground combat (in both cases, fewer than 2,000 troops were engaged on both sides). If Peru wanted to fight again tomorrow, only their airforce would be significantly weaker than at the start of the Peruvian War. Hardly the hallmarks of defeat.

I also border Atlantis and France - though like Argentina, allied. If you count Chilean Bolivia, I also border Paraguay (and like Bolivia, is not a threat).

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Originally posted by Desertfox
A Chinese invasion of Hainan would only activate AEGIS and SATSUMA (thought Mexico and the US might make use of the distraction...).

Sorry, but no. As I indicated earlier, FAR has agreements to treat any SATSUMA invasion - including San Hainando - as cause to activate the alliance.

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Originally posted by Desertfox
A Chinese invasion of Hainan would only activate AEGIS and SATSUMA (thought Mexico and the US might make use of the distraction...).

Also in a SATSUMA vs FAR war, Australia would not stand by its SEAR commitments.

SATSUMA vs FAR or AEGIS are viable scenarios, and could potentially lead to a breakdown of other alliances which would open the way for more wars. One other thing, the US is a big wild card and is more likely to fight with SATSUMA than against her.

For once I agree with DF. A Chinese attack on Hainan will be a very localized war. (until either Mexico and/or US decide to take advantage of the situation.) The only problem was the deployment of troops by CG. Ten divisions in Hainan makes any amphibious attempt suicidal. But is a doable scenario.

Satsuma vs. Far IMO will be a Russian wankfest. This will be the kind of war the Russian Army have being training for close to a decade in a silver platter.

US for Satsuma that against them? That is a very interesting piece of news. But DF is right. Hrolf stated US have no interests in the Pacific but one of their possible enemies in their perceived "sphere' being occupied must be tempting for them. Not that will go for it but tempting nevertheless.

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Originally posted by Brockpaine
I must be unusual for reducing the size of my forces... Irish Army decreasing in size, Bulgaria staying about the same, Chile reducing size...

Well techincally Brazil is kinda reducing forces. We are halving the number of available divisions from 40 to 20, but doubling the size of the divisions. However, everyone IC knows the first part, no one IC is supposed to know the second part.

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Also in a SATSUMA vs FAR war, Australia would not stand by its SEAR commitments.

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Now this is interesting, however although Australia can technically go its own way, GB can do some nasty things to the Aussie's should they decide to uphold their SEAR commitments. As well, if you don't want to support the largest SEAR army, and second largest SEAR navy in theatre, why is Australia in SEAR?

Australia and Canada have made very clear before they don't have to abide to the British treaties and the British have indicated they are fine with that. Australia must be looking at some unknown reason for doing the SEAR thing but at the end IMO they are looking for their benefit first. I can relate to that.

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Australia and Canada have made very clear before they don't have to abide to the British treaties and the British have indicated they are fine with that.

Well, yes and no. Australia is technically still under the Crown, so yes the British, or more technically King Edward of Australia does still have some power over Australia, how much is up to the players in general to decide. At issue here, is whether or not the Aussies want to upset their largest ally, and trading partner, as well as their source for much of their navy too much. As well, in WW they do not have the Americans to fall back on, seeing as the US is not interested in the Pacific in general. It is true however, that the Aussies and Canadians are not Britains puppets, nor are they fully released from their ties from Britain, in general however should Britain get drawn into a shooting war in the Far East, I would presume that Australia would support the British, it is in their interest to do so, now a war in Europe? Perhaps not.

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Originally posted by perdedor99

For once I agree with DF. A Chinese attack on Hainan will be a very localized war. (until either Mexico and/or US decide to take advantage of the situation.) The only problem was the deployment of troops by CG. Ten divisions in Hainan makes any amphibious attempt suicidal. But is a doable scenario.

Satsuma vs. Far IMO will be a Russian wankfest. This will be the kind of war the Russian Army have being training for close to a decade in a silver platter.

US for Satsuma that against them? That is a very interesting piece of news. But DF is right. Hrolf stated US have no interests in the Pacific but one of their possible enemies in their perceived "sphere' being occupied must be tempting for them. Not that will go for it but tempting nevertheless.

I have to agree also. An attack on Hainan Dao will sure be a localised war.
And I would say that even with the deployment of 10 divisions (in my view, far too high and unrealistic for this small island - but the deployment is fact and thus fix) is such Szenarion quite conceivable. Comparable to Operation Mercur in the WW2. Here too, hardly anyone believed that the Germans will attack and will win after a bloody fight. In this war, the clock would definitely ticking for China.

SATSUMA vs FAR ??? Why ??? A member of SATSUMA has to attack Russia or French Indochine to ignite this war. I doubt there is any reason for this !

I don't think US will be for or against SATSUMA. In my eyes they will stay neutral may be in favor FOR the SATSUMA alliance, but still neutral.

I can't imagine how an attack on Hainan Do could stay local.

Just to reinforce it's position, Iberia would be looking to the DEI to stage out of, and certainly for oil and repair facilities, in addition to aircraft ferrying. They would have no reason not to expect their AEGIS partners in Siam (& Denmark) and DEI to assist.

Now, that may be as far as it went, and thus stay "local" with only 3-4 nations.

As for 'small island'- it's slightly larger than Belgium, which fielded 22 divisions in this period. There is plenty of room for 10 divisions.

As for SATSUMA vs. FAR... reneging on the Indochina protocols, or a genuine disagreement on them. The paracels blowing into something bigger. Russia cutting off access to Sakahlin oil to Japan, or something like the 1960s battles China and Russia fought. The SAE/Angola resource strike works for a Mongolian oil field as well...just when was that boundary surveyed. Or perhaps "Tibet" turns out to have something on it's borders with the Afgahns and Russia / India no longer recognise it as part of China.

That is my for me a localized war, Southeast Asia and not the world. And indirect approaches could be used for the reduction of Hainan.

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Originally posted by Kaiser Kirk
As for 'small island'- it's slightly larger than Belgium, which fielded 22 divisions in this period. There is plenty of room for 10 divisions.

And a population to match the size. I have no figures for the populations in 1940, but modern-day Belgium has 10.8 million population; modern day Hainan province, 8.6 million. Presuming a population growth rate of 1.2% would give San Hainando a 1940 population of 3.8 million. That, IMHO, is a lowballed figure.

Estimating 20 soldiers per 1000 citizens - a not entirely unreasonable figure in 1940 [1] - you get 76,000 men under arms. This is of course using the "low" figure of 3.8 million population. The nominal total of Iberian troops on San Hainando is 85,000 men, which would fit a population of 4,243,400 persons.

This presumes San Hainando's troops are only raised locally from San Hainando, and addresses only active troops, not emergency troops which can be raised.

Note 1: 20 troops per 1000 seems to be in line with my research for active-duty WWII era armies during peacetime. In the modern day, western nations tend to use 5-10 troops per 1000 as a more appropriate figure, due to the relatively higher costs of equipping troops (as demanded by the technological revolution). The highest Western active military per capita is Israel, with 23 per 1000.

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Originally posted by perdedor99
Australia and Canada have made very clear before they don't have to abide to the British treaties and the British have indicated they are fine with that.

We've attempted making that abundantly clear lately, since some people assume that they can negotiate something with the British, and it becomes binding on Oz and Canuckistan. This is not the case; If our governments aren't involved in the negotiation, and do not sign the relevant documents, we are not bound by it.

That being said, The only major British treaties I'm aware of that don't have Australian and Canadian involvement are the agreement with India, and GNUK. Australia and Canada are full partners in NATO and SAER.

I would think that the Commonwealth would generally support the Crown in any hostilities (be it from simple continuance-of-supply to sending troops), but in certain cases it would definately depend on the details.

Alliances all depends on who is the aggressor. We always think that a member of the SATSUMA-alliance is the "evil", but perhaps it happened exactly the other way .
Then neither FAR nor AEGIS comes into force.

It's all hypothetical we will see, what the future will bring.