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PaperclipPerfector  11hr ago (text post)   580 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.

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.

A big part of the argument (its been fun) is that Africa doesn't even have bombers. It has jets that don't have the range to get to Greece much less the rest of europe.

Has everyone forgotten that Algeria exists?

Does anyone today other than the US, Russia, and China? Aerial refueling can extend multirole fighter ranges (Israel v. Iran for example), but it's not the most effective from what I can tell.

Airplanes from 1939 stand little chance today, except in quantities: I doubt even today's USAF could fully suppress a few thousand-bomber raids. Nobody has that number of missiles that I'm aware of.

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