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PaperclipPerfector  3d ago (text post)   2234 thread views

Friday Fun Thread for October 16, 2026

Be advised: this thread is not for serious in-depth discussion of weighty topics (we have a link for that), this thread is not for anything Culture War related. This thread is for Fun. You got jokes? Share 'em. You got silly questions? Ask 'em.

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Africa is not realistically building postwar-capability strategic bombers on their own (and I've commented below on nuke capacity), but a Boeing 777 modified to drop barrels of chemical weapons from above the ceiling of early-war fighters is definitely within the realm of possibility. The European naval strategy would have to be "go where the enemy isn't" - U-boats were raiding Cape Town by 1941, so the African navy would be pinned to defending key ports.

Africa is not realistically building postwar-capability strategic bombers on their own

What makes you say this? Egypt and South Africa have both built jet engines. That's going to be the hardest part of, say, a 1960s-era bomber.

The European naval strategy would have to be "go where the enemy isn't" - U-boats were raiding Cape Town by 1941, so the African navy would be pinned to defending key ports.

U-boats in 1941 get easily pwned by even Cold War ASW destroyers with helicopters. "Who would win: a pre-war U-boat with limited underwater capacity, poor speed, and terrible quieting, or an ASW destroyer with active sonar, a helicopter, and a towed array meant to detected nuclear submarines with rafted machinery" is the "nuclear bomb versus coughing baby" question of this scenario. Very plausible for a single African destroyer to detect and destroy these submarines at 60 miles. The main risk is running out of ammunition (assuming basic technical competency and that the normal ASW equipment has been retained on these ships, which might not be the case.)

I think the only more uneven match-up is African strike aircraft against the European surface fleet.

I have some experience in African aviation. I may be underestimating the Egyptians, but Apartheid South Africa's jet engine work was building (sophisticated!) parts for foreign jet engines, and South Africa no longer has any capacity like that (they're still struggling to build their own drone). Team Africa does have a lot of civilian jet engines and airliners they can repurpose, but that would take a lot of time and testing. Scaling things is also much harder in Africa than in Europe, whether it's precision technology or building roads, for cultural and presumably HBD reasons.

60 miles seems like a long range but Africa is really big and the ocean is even bigger. A 60-mile radius of Cape Town barely even covers False Bay. But you don't even want to use U-boats in this scenario - they needed them back in WWII, but here you use surface commerce raiders as disposable assets and Africa is toast (their aircraft are too rangecucked to fight a Battle of the Atlantic). Willingness of the crews is an issue but OTL U-boat service was also largely a death sentence, and if we put that into the scenario we also have to ask how many African soldiers would be willing to charge machinegun nests. Note also that per Claude, Africa has ~17 ships capable of modern ASW, plus a comparable number of their own submarines. These would have to be put in a basically defensive posture imo to keep key ports safe and stop raiders from rounding the Cape.

I have some experience in African aviation. I may be underestimating the Egyptians, but Apartheid South Africa's jet engine work was building (sophisticated!) parts for foreign jet engines, and South Africa no longer has any capacity like that (they're still struggling to build their own drone).

My general priors are that North Africa is a whole different beast. And it's not what people think of when they think of Africa, which is what I think is throwing people off here.

60 miles seems like a long range but Africa is really big and the ocean is even bigger.

The 60 miles is not a stationary no-go zone, it's a moving area that you use the sweep the ocean with against enemy submarines that have to transit at low speeds (like 4 knots) to preserve their fuel and endurance. And that's just with a towed array, using your onboard helicopter gets you even better range, potentially. It also lets you detect their snorkels.

here you use surface commerce raiders as disposable assets and Africa is toast (their aircraft are too rangecucked to fight a Battle of the Atlantic).

It seems to me that in certain formulations of the scenario, Africa is toast anyway, precisely because of the food insecurity issue. But assuming that they have ships and food left to import, it's worth noting that Algeria has MPAs, Egypt has E-2s, and there are at least three flat-top amphibs in Africa that I am familiar with. So doing maritime patrol work close to shore and escorting convoys and projecting power further away from it is quite possible for Africa until they hit intractable operability issues.

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