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.
- 181
- 1
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
I think the real question is what the UK decides to do. (The USSR really isn't "Europe"; if anything, they'd be on the side of Africa- how do they benefit from a strong Europe? Not that they're in any position to attack in '39.) If they intervene on the Continental side, Europe wins; if they intervene on the African side, Europe loses.
Europe has all the manufacturing power but no resources; Africa has all the resources but no manufacturing power.
Nuclear weapons make manpower irrelevant and they can be delivered ballistically into North Africa from European positions (and Germany is famous for this capability); in a world whose neutral countries do not know what they do, there's no taboo against their use (outside of the Africans, but they're at war, so their protests don't matter, not that they would to the average European in 1939).
Once European scientists figure out that it's not only possible, but relatively trivial, to build them (especially if they have colony resources to draw on) the war goes cold the minute Cairo and Tripoli are erased by atomic power. The Africans will have a harder time with it even though they straight up start with a reactor that has already been used to do this, but that has more to do with South Africa than anything else (and the defection of any remaining sympathetic South African scientists will be a huge problem for the Africans- a joint UK/NL expeditionary force securing modern scientific knowledge would be catastrophic for the African position- and European survival is also dependent on who else recognizes this, and by that I mostly mean the Americans).
Something people forget about modern Africa is that currently they have literally zero ability to actually invade Europe (currently their idea of an 'invasion' is a civilian vessel or a Castaway-tier raft; scary in the Bronze Age or maybe Europe ca. 2026). They have no naval forces, no heavy lift aircraft, and very little ability to build them. Sure, they could do an air war as a Pearl Harbor-style shock and awe campaign, but once they're out of ammunition (and more importantly than those things, jet/diesel fuel) they have zero ability to replace them.
By the time they've built that capacity, 1939 Europe is a nuclear state.
They do have naval forces, surprisingly, but very limited combat experience. British commandos operating from Gibraltar would probably be able to hijack a couple frigates from Morocco or Algeria.
You're not unloading troops or tanks from a frigate, though. You need lots of landing craft and a place to land at for that, and it's apparently geographically unfavorable to land in Europe on the Mediterranean coast (Spain doesn't really count, by the way; you're not driving through the mountain border to France).
If you want to conquer territory and impose your law, you have to get your men there so they can occupy it (and enforce that claim). If you can't get your men there, you don't control the territory, simple as, and that's as true in 1939 as it is in 2026.
No, you're not. The question is how long can Africa use whatever modern vessels they have to block European landings? If they had a capability to make naval drones, then practically indefinitely, but they do not, so they would have to use their limited pool of fighters to bomb European ships first, then use anti-ship missiles and torpedoes, then they would be screwed.
They might be able to do that indefinitely, but this seems to presuppose the framing of "they literally start a D-Day assault on day 1", and I don't think that's what would happen. Just because two 'nations' are at war doesn't require them to do the equivalent of immediately running full speed at each other with spears.
It turns out that it's really, really hard to invade by sea. The last time a state that could reasonably claim to be a European Union conquered North Africa you only needed 2 digits to write the year, and the
EUSPQR had pushed their territory so far east they could literally just walk from Rome to the [ruins of] Carthage without crossing any borders. It would take them a while, and you're better off by ship, but you could do it.I think the best Africa could hope for in the limited time (and with the limited number of modern weapons) they have is a quick conquest of Spain. Spain has been conquered [via Africa] before, and 1939 Spain has just been (quite literally) decimated by a civil war. Toppling Franco might be all that's needed to extend Africa's borders to the Pyrenees, and that's easy for the weapons modern Africa has.
Once they have that, theatre goes cold (and now Africa can disrupt shipping in the Mediterranean). Maybe Britain's crazy enough to try landing but I think they get Dieppe'd if they do.
Come to think of it, if there's any "run with spears out at each other lol" going on it's happening in the Near East, because invading through Macedonia doesn't require a navy Africa doesn't have. Though even being able to blockade at Gibraltar creates one more problem and requires answering "is the rest of the world in 2026 or 1939"? Because a 2026 Israel is nuclear, so game's over for the side they ally with, which is probably going to be 1939 Europe mainly because 1939 Europe would let them get away with conquering the entire Levant in a way 2026 America (or 2026 Africa) would not tolerate.
Or maybe that's moot because the other nuclear powers all agree to turn 1939 Europe into a wasteland for the exact same reasons they went to war with 1939 Europe back in 1939, so...
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link