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PaperclipPerfector  4hr ago (text post)   145 thread views

Friday Fun Thread for October 16, 2026

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The new nerd-sniping question is circulating on Twitter. Who would win in a war: 1939 Europe or 2026 Africa? As usual, both camps are 100% their side would win.

My bet is on 1939 Europe. As the Russo-Ukrainian and the US-Iran wars show, ammunition stockpiles run out in a couple of weeks. Africans won't have missiles for their fighter jets and shells for their MBTs, while Europeans will be cranking out bombs and strategic bombers to turn Cairo into Dresden. When German subs destroy whatever boats Africans have, French and British navies will perform naval landings, their troops armed with reverse-engineered AKs.

According to some quick Gemini / ChatGPT, the economy of Africa today is $2.5T-$3.5T. And the economy of Europe 1939 is about 4.5T-$5.5T.

The first-level pass on Twitter was that Europe trivially wins. The second-level pass was that Africa 80 years is a huge technological gap and only racism would explain a belief that Europe could win. But I think the third-level pass is that any serious examination of the fundamentals benefits Europe.

What's the goal state for the war exactly? I have a hard time believing that the Africans get their shit together to a sufficient degree so as to cross the Mediterranean, dominate the air and systematically decimate the cities through bombing campaigns, let alone land and conquer in Europe. But at the same time, the insanely lopsided area and population size differences, together with often extremely difficult terrain, make it hard to believe that Europe stands a chance at conquering the whole of Africa in a meaningful way. Even if such a war somehow came to begin, and one side tried to conquer the other, my guess would be a quick stall somewhere early. Maybe the Europeans conquer parts of North Africa, but then struggle to advance past the Sahara. But most likely not even that.

Edit: Also, what's the international help situation supposed to be like? Africa is utterly dependent on outside help to survive, and large parts of that come from (modern) Europe.

1939 Europe was peak. Who do you think would win now, 1939 Europe or 2026 Europe, assuming nukes were off the table?

2026 Europe has Russia, Ukraine, Finland and Poland to hold the line and enough cruise missiles to launch decapitating strikes against 1939 Europe.

I’ve been thinking about posting this one but haven’t because yes it’s kind of racists so too much for main thread but too cultural war for fun thread. To clarify the question is Europe without US but with Russia. Assumption wise is its win or die. So Europe would get all the Jews who left who ended up inventing nuclear bombs. But Africa gets S Africa which I’m fairly certain in an Africa versus Europe war S Africa and there ability to build the bomb people all side with Europe.

In conventional war I am going with Europe but it would mostly be a Cold War for a long time. I’ve seen two things to convince me of this:

  1. The high tech planes Africa has mostly don’t have range to bomb prime Europe
  2. There are like 6 landing crafts in Africa so the early tank advantages means they can’t land the US tanks they have in Europe

Other issues are like Africa only supplies 2/3 of their food supply I’ve seen so internal riots on food are an issue.

So either it’s a race to nukes or neither side has the ability to invade the other early. And eventually Europe catches up on tech and crushes Africa.

Maybe Europe can win quicker with meat assaults against modern tech if they are willing to take massive casualties. Or 30 special ops guys can cause internal coups once food supplies run out.

The initial rounds I think are mostly both sides being better at defense.

That’s my logic.

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