alternate history Archives - Page 3 of 5

The Man in the High Castle

Having “splashed” out on the free trial of Amazon Prime to get some Christmas gifts delivered quickly I took the opportunity to watch the Amazon series The Man in the High Castle.

This series based on the book of the same name, is set in a universe where Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan defeated the allies and occupied the United States of America dividing it in to two, the Greater Nazi Reich covers the Eastern half of the United States, the Japanese Pacific States is on the Western seaboard. In between these two occupied areas is a neutral zone, which acts as a buffer between the two superpowers.

In many ways very little has changed in this neutral zone, there are still US propaganda posters on the walls of buildings.

It also a place where those wanted and on the run can hide. However it is also a lawless place where anyone can pretend to be a lawmaker.

The series is set in 1962, however feels much more like the 1950s, suggesting a cultural stagnation that would have occurred under totalitarian occupation.

The series has a range of opportunities for gaming, in the main skirmish gaming between small forces of regular and irregular squads.

As the American resistance tries to attack a convoy of occupying soldiers in an ambush, the regular forces fight back and try to escape the ambush.

A smuggling operation by the Mafia in New York (or the Yakuza in San Francisco) is busted by the local police supported by regular troops.

There is a cold war between the Germans and the Japanese and there could be border skirmishes between regular forces in the rocky mountains of the neutral zone.

A self-proclaimed sheriff and his deputies in the neutral zone attempt to raid a fortified farm.

Very little information is provided on the military forces, we see light vehicles, but no armour. The Germans have “rocket” planes and supersonic airliners, but not much else is seen in terms of hardware.

We can assume that there ballistic rockets and it is mentioned that Germany has the atomic bomb, characters in the series talk about how Washington DC was destroyed by a nuclear weapon. One potential scenario could be a skirmish between different forces in the radioactive ruins of Washington DC.

If you have Amazon Prime then I would suggest you check out the series. Having said that the first episode is available for free, so you can see that without any commitment.

There is even a 30 day free trial and you could use them to check out the ten episodes. I am certainly looking forward to the second series, which is due to be released in 2016 (this may mean that I actually take out an Amazon Prime subscription).

Variations on a Whippet

Whippet

As part of their releases for Flames of War The Great War, Battlefront have released a 15mm scale Whippet tank.

Though originally envisioned with a rotating turret, the production model had an armoured housing for three to four 303 Hotchkiss machine guns, which could be relocated between four gun ports. Approved in June 1917, roughly 200 vehicles were produced starting in October 1917.

Unlike the large crew of the Mark IV, the Whippet managed with a standard crew of three: a commander, driver and gunner. Given the gunner was responsible for manning both machineguns (which could point forward, left, right and rear), sometimes a second gunner was squeezed in.

It looks like a very nice model and well sculptured. Lots of detail and a good casting.

I do think that this model would make for a great base for vehicles for an alternative Great War. It could be converted into a turreted tank, or a self propelled gun. One other idea is to use the models for A Very British Civil War background. There are quite a few models in the Flames of War range that could be used for a 1920s or 1930s civil war within the United Kingdom.

Dominion – Book Choice

I saw this book in my local branch of WHSmiths.

1952. Twelve years have passed since Churchill lost to the appeasers and Britain surrendered to Nazi Germany after Dunkirk. As the long German war against Russia rages on in the east, the British people find themselves under dark authoritarian rule: the press, radio and television are controlled; the streets patrolled by violent auxiliary police and British Jews face ever greater constraints. There are terrible rumours too about what is happening in the basement of the German Embassy at Senate House. Defiance, though, is growing. In Britain, Winston Churchill’s Resistance organization is increasingly a thorn in the government’s side. And in a Birmingham mental hospital an incarcerated scientist, Frank Muncaster, may hold a secret that could change the balance of the world struggle for ever. Civil Servant David Fitzgerald, secretly acting as a spy for the Resistance, is given the mission by them to rescue his old friend Frank and get him out of the country. Before long he, together with a disparate group of Resistance activists, will find themselves fugitives in the midst of London’s Great Smog; as David’s wife Sarah finds herself drawn into a world more terrifying than she ever could have imagined. And hard on their heels is Gestapo Sturmbannfuhrer Gunther Hoth, brilliant, implacable hunter of men . . . At once a vivid, haunting reimagining of 1950s Britain, a gripping, humane spy thriller and a poignant love story, with DOMINION C. J. Sansom once again asserts himself as the master of the historical novel.

I’ve always had a soft spot for this kind of alternate history novel. I’ve not yet had a chance to read it, but the blurb sounds good.

Buy Dominion from Amazon.co.uk

Basecoating the Flames of War TOG2 Mid-War Monster

The Tank, Heavy, TOG 2 was a prototype British super-heavy tank design produced in the early part of the Second World War in case the battlefields of northern France turned into a morass of mud, trenches and craters as had happened during the First World War. In the end it never went into production, but as part of the Flames of War Mid-War Monsters range you can buy it and use it in alternate history games.

I was going to (as I have done with other models) give the TOG2 tanks a spray from underneath of a Humbrol Dark Green, however I ran out of paint after doing one. So in the end I gave all three models a basecoat of Warpaint British Armour.

The command tank has the commander sticking himself out of the turret…

The three TOGs.

See the workbench feature on these huge tanks.

Undercoating the Flames of War TOG2 Mid-War Monster

After constructing these big tanks I gave the models a white undercoat.

The command tank has the commander sticking himself out of the turret…

The three TOG2 together

See the workbench feature on these huge tanks.

Track problems with the Flames of War TOG2

Having constructed the models I have noticed that despite careful filing there are gaps with the back track part. Both where the track meets the front track and where the track enters the hull.

I used some putty (green stuff) to fill these gaps.

The next stage will be a white undercoat.

See the workbench feature on these huge tanks.

Building the Flames of War TOG2 Mid-War Monster

The Flames of War boxed set contains three of these monsters. The hulls are quite plain in comparison to other tanks in the FoW range, however that is much more down to the actual design of the tank.

The tracks are two metal castings for each side. The turret is the same one that was eventually used on the Challenger A30, it was from a design perspective easier to use what was developed for the TOG2 then design a completely new turret for the Challenger in the time they had available and with limited resources.

Having cleaned up the castings I glued the models together. There aren’t too many parts so they went together quite easily.

There is very little extra stuff on these models, and unlike other Flames of War boxed sets these are three identical castings and not individual ones as say you find with the Panther boxed set.

One of the models I built with the commander out of his hatch.

Here are the three models built.

These are very BIG tanks and will look very impressive on the battlefield.

I do hope that we see future “monsters” for Flames of War, there are some nice concepts and ideas out there for both Early-War and Late-War, though I have a hunch that these did not sell as well as expected.

See the workbench feature on these huge tanks.

Flames of War TOG2 Mid-War Monster

In the end it never went into production, but as part of the Flames of War Mid-War Monsters range you can buy it and use it in alternate history games. I liked the concept and the model on the Flames of War website is quite inspiring.

The Flames of War boxed set contains three of these monsters.

The hulls are quite plain in comparison to other tanks in the FoW range, however that is much more down to the actual design of the tank.

However this is a different casting to the one found on the Challenger model. It looks like it should be pretty simple to put together, but first to clean up the metal and resin castings.

See the workbench feature on these huge tanks.

Flames of War TOG2 Mid-War Monster

The Flames of War boxed set contains three of these monsters.

See the workbench feature on these huge tanks.

The War That Came Early: West and East

One of my Christmas presents was the next in the alternate World War Two series, by Harry Turtledove in which the war starts early, The War That Came Early: West and East.

westandeast

In 1938, two men held history in their hands. One was Adolf Hitler. The other was British prime minister Neville Chamberlain, who, determined to avoid war at any cost, came to be known as “the great appeaser.” But Harry Turtledove, the unrivaled master of alternate history, has launched a gripping saga that springboards from a different fateful act: What if Chamberlain had stood up to Hitler? What would the Nazis’ next move have been? And how would the war—which Hitler had always regretted waiting eleven months to start—have unfolded and changed our world?

Here, Turtledove takes us across a panorama of conflict fueled by ideology and demagoguery. Nations are pitted against nations, alliances are forged between old enemies, ordinary men and women are hurled into extraordinary life-and-death situations. In Japanese-controlled Singapore, an American marine falls in love with a Russian dance hall hostess, while around him are heard the first explosions of Chinese guerilla resistance. On the frontlines of war-ravaged rural France, a weary soldier perfects the art of using an enormous anti-tank gun as a sniper’s tool—while from Germany a killer is sent to hunt him down. And in the icy North Atlantic, a U-boat bearing an experimental device wreaks havoc on British shipping, setting the stage for a Nazi ground invasion of Denmark.

From an American woman trapped in Germany who receives safe passage from Hitler himself to a Jewish family steeped in German culture and facing the hatred rising around them, from Japanese soldiers on the remote edge of Siberia to American volunteers in Spain, West and East is the story of a world held hostage by tyrants—Stalin, Hitler, Sanjuro—each holding on to power through lies and terror even in the face of treacherous plots from within.

As armies clash, and as the brave, foolish, and true believers choose sides, new weapons are added to already deadly arsenals and new strategies are plotted to break a growing stalemate. But one question looms over the conflict from West to East: What will it take to bring America into this war?

I did buy and read the first book in this new alternate history series, Hitler’s War. Though I liked the premise, the book was well written; I did not enjoy it as much as other Turtledove novels. I think the main reasons was that there was no satisfying ending, always an issue with a series of books, and a usual trait of Turtledove a wealth of characters that can at times get confusing.

Now we have the Early War period for Flames of War, there are plenty of miniatures that could be used to recreate battles from both books. You could quite easily create a 1938 era Czechoslovakian army to fight an Early War German force. Likewise there are plenty of French and British tanks too.

I have read the first couple of chapters of this book and I am really quite enjoying it. I think having read the Blitzkrieg Flames of War sourcebook I am more intrigued by this era and the story in the book.