Simple way to make CIV more "real"

[Master Zen]

Originally posted by Yahweh Sabaoth

I totally agree with you... when currencies are allowed to "float" as they do, havok is wreaked.

I'm not so sure having fixed currencies is a good thing. All currencies float to a certain degree based on a myriad of economic factors. Floating currencies also allow central banks a wider margin of trade strategies. Usually after a major currency crisis, the weaker currency gives your country a larger trade advantage (your goods become cheaper) and this trade surplus alleviates the crisis to a certain degree. Imagine what would happen if currencies were fixed! Example: last year the Mexican peso went from 9 to almost 11 per dollar, coincidentaly we also had a pretty large trade surplus with the US.

[TomCB]

1) It was Richard Nixon that took the US off of the gold standard and it had nothing to do with France.
I doubt that France could have acculated enough dollars to "empty fort knox" although today there is wide speculation that there is in fact not much in fort knox at all.
Remember, the warring nations of WWII sent all the gold they could to the US for safety and to buy war supplies with. There was plenty there at the time.
2) The issues with Argentinia is that they can peg it to any thing they want, but if they don't keep whatever they are using in storage someplace, it does not mean squat. Argentinia did try ot peg it's currency to the dollar, but then proceeded to print up vast sums of their own money to spend on social programs.
They even went to far as to shut down all federal social programs and turn the responsibility over to the provinces. The catch was that the federal government promised to cover the depts of the provinces. Can any one guess what happened?
As far as a foreign country switching over to the dollar.
I guess they could without harming the US at all. No lessening of the US central bank (The Federal Reserve) would still have the same amount of power, unless it stated to act like the caretaker of foreign economies. If however, another country did this whole heartedly, a regional reserve bank could be set up there, and that country would be at the mercy of American Policy. Hell, I DON'T like being at the mercy of US policy and I live here.

As far as the increase in demand goes, whenever a group of politicians decide that they can buy votes with debt, that leads to trouble. The US long term debt is actually somewhere in the, ready for this, 17 TRILLION dollar range.
That is not as horrible as it sounds since the average US family carries a larger long term debt relative to income.
However, if the US was still on the gold standard, there would be far less debt and far more common sense in politics.

The Ottoman Empire had zero inflation for over 800 years. Inflation is a hidden tax upon the people.
Whatever that rate of inflation is, merely reduces that value of cash savings.
"Floating" currency allows a government to manipulate it's value. Lincoln had to do this in order to pay for the civil war. And it wreaked havoc on the economy and took several years to be repaired.

Call me old fashioned, by I firmly believe that fiat, or floating currency, is just plain evil. In the US for instance, our Congress, which is constitutional charged with setting the value of currency, has abandoned it's duty and given it to the largest banks in the US and the Western World. I don't like being at the mercy of such institutions.
They have blackmailed countries including my own and by use of the narcotic of money, have compelled countries to sacrifise long term good so that they can pay the short term interest.
They are no better than drug dealers, no, they are worse, drug dealers at least have the guts to be open abou the poison they sell, and they don't make money off of the banks, but international banks make money off of the drug dealers through money transfers.
3) The swiss did not produce war materials for the NAZIS so much as provided the means for the NAZIS to move money to other countries accounts in exchange for whatever they wanted to buy.
Had the Swiss not done that, the Germans would have been hard pressed to fund anything from outside Germany.

[Master Zen]

I never said it was during WW2.

Charles de Gaulle was president of france from 1959-1969 which means he was president while Nixon was too. Most countries hold far larger reserves of foreign currency than they do gold so it would come as no surprise that France's dollar reserves could've paid for a huge amount of gold, it is for that reason (as well as others) that the US stopped backing dollars with gold and stopped printing that "the US Government promises to pay the bearer... bla bla bla... in gold".

And of course, the US (wisely) did not keep its word and Ft. Knox is still there for Goldfinger to rob.

Debt isn't all that bad either. Has the US economy collapsed because of a 17 trillion dollar debt? No. Is it even remotely near collapse? No. To a certain degree it is actually beneficial that most americans owe somebody something: it keeps money circulating, it creates investment opportunities, easy and quick access to capital, etc. something that most americans TAKE FOR GRANTED when you consider that borrowing money or starting a business is so much more difficult in practically every other country, and not only third-world countries. Cry all you want but go to another country and see the difference.

With dollarization, the dollarized country is the one whose central bank loses monetary independence, not the Fed.

[TomCB]

1) The US went off of the gold standard in 71.
So Charlie may have helped set things in motion, but he did not force the US's hand.
See, we send Europe some 17 billion in grants they try to stick it to us. THAT is what really pisses off so many Americans. That sort of behavior from around the world.
2) I believe I did say that the 17 Trillion was not a bad as it seems. However, if the debt did not have to be serviced, taxes could be lower...blah blah blah.
That is a whole other topic.
I for one am not grateful for my debts, however, I am grateful for the ability to go into debt to buy my house.
And unless you went through the full body cavity search that is an application for a home mortgage recently, you have no idea how difficult it can be.
You know, I could borrow more money on credit cards faster and easier than I could get a home mortgage. And at only 2.5 times the interest rate too.

I would have to say that the rule of law has more to do with the economy staying "solid" than the debt level.
Many countries don't even have titles for land available. Since they do not exist the current "owners" can't borrow money against it and improve it.

There is a growing believe that the 1st world nations may have to take over (by force if need be) a large area and drag it into the modern age and then move on to another area.
I don't know about that, our government has a hard time keeping track of petty cash expenses.

Here is an eduactional web site about the gold standard.
I picked up allot of details from it.

http://www.geocities.com/s011023/coldwar9.htm

I have not read the whole thing, just skimmed looking for dates.

PLEASE keep in mind that the authors appear to have an axe to grind and therfore you must be wary of any accusations they may make.
However, it appears to have a great deal of "untainted" facts listed.

[Master Zen]

Originally posted by TomCB

I would have to say that the rule of law has more to do with the economy staying "solid" than the debt level.

Exactly. Debt, inflation, exchange rates, it's all good or it's all bad depending on how sturdy the structure is. What I find sad is that many governments try to alleviate more "spectacular" or "newsworthy" factors than those which are less visible but more important in the long run. But that's just me.

Interesting article even though I just skimmed through it (must sleep...) . I do acknowledge that the de Gaulle thing was THE reason for getting off gold, sorry if I did not make myself clear, but it was a big deal in removing the promise to give a gold equivalent to any dollar to any individual (which of course I doubt the US treasury never thought it was going to have to pay the bearer when the bearer was an enitre country!).

Frankly I don't think it is in the first world's interests to haul the third world into modernity. No offense to first world folks (my deal is with their governments) but:

1) 1st world promotes neoliberal, deregularized 3rd world economies based of foreign investment etc. When these countries go bust (and they do since most IMF plans to not address the underlying causes of poverty) all that speculative money, much of the saving of the wealthy end up in 1st world banks. FREE MONEY.

2) 3rd world countries usually have a large uneducated mass with a small educated elite. Many of the privileged or lucky ones to receive college degrees end up working for multinationals or emigrating to the 1st world. FREE BRAINS.

3) Multinationals invest in 3rd world countries, especially newly opened-up economies, and quickly drive off much of local businesses and industry. FREE MARKETS.

Knowing this, why the hell would the 1st world want the 3rd world to be rich??? To compete economically, scientifcally, and eventually militarily? It would be the end of the western world as we know it, and I'D FEEL FINE.

[Master Zen]

Originally posted by raguil_79

I do acknowledge that the de Gaulle thing was THE reason for getting off gold, sorry if I did not make myself clear, but it was a big deal in removing the promise to give a gold equivalent to any dollar to any individual

oops, meant to say, the de Gaulle thing was **NOT** THE reason for getting off gold.

[TomCB]

We appear to agree on many points, however.

Although I don't see it as my countries job to pull the 3rd world out of the sewer I could see it if it were done along the following lines.

Take an area, say south of the sahara, starting on the south coast and go in as far as say the niger river. Just conquer it, don't ask, just take and give the area leaders the retire to kansas or die option.

Stop all local food production because it is so damned harmful to the land how they do it.
Introduce a new currency.
Issue titles for land to people that live on the land.
Pay everyone for labor with food vouchers and a small amount of currency.
Establish schools and give food vouchers for attendence.
The labor would be used to lay down a complete rail network and concrete road system, as well as canals and the creation of massive reservoirs. I would mean to block water from going into the ocean in order to reclaim desert if need be.
Cities would have whole sections leveled and rebuilt from scratch, complete with sewers, power grid and communications system.
After say a dozen years of this, start local elections, say at the village level. Every couple of years go up to a higher level. Make the area one country, with former nations as states in that country.
In 30 years or so, you may be able to have national elections.
Give the US (for instance) port rights and airfield rights if the US builds modern ports and airports for civilian use as well.

I think the US can use it's massive food surplus as currency in much of the world.
However, without infrastructure and education, all we would have is even more starving people a generation later.

I also think that the first world and native "leaders" exploited the natural resources of the 3rd world and if those resources were harvested and locals received fair market price, they would be just fine.

I think that the first world does not need to exploit the 3rd world in order to thrive.
I would prefer to exploit the moon and maybe asteroids.

I am a very big believer in making the pie larger rather than just getting a bigger piece of the pie.

Although getting both would be nice too.............

As far as the IMF goes, I for one am sick of the US government being the "lender of last resort" on all those loans.
The bankers make the huge interest profits and then when thing go sour, Joe tax payer gets the bill.

[Austin]

Originally posted by TomCB
While I can appreciate the comments of Austin, I fear he is vastly over estimating the value of American aid to Russia.
Yes trucks, and even a great deal of planes, however, the US after Dec 41 had no way to get rail road cars to Russia, and the trucks slowed down a great deal as well.

It wasn't just trucks and rail stuff (although that alone was decisive). The US supplied Russia with virtually EVERYTHING except weapons. Boots, clothes, food, high octane gas (without which the Red Airforce would have been even more inept). This allowed the Russians to focus on producing weapons only.

If the Russians had had to make all their own stuff, obviously they would have produced far far less weaponry. A large part of their population not in the occupied zone would have starved as well (as it was they were under severe food pressure) lowering production even further. The Red Army would have been much smaller and far less mobile, think Tuckachevsky's Army of Clowns in the 1920's when POLAND severely kicked their asses with a bunch of Ford Model T's with armor plate welded on (I'm not kidding).

A Russian command style economy is only good at mass producing a very, very small number of different things in very large lots, so the effects of having to produce the full gamet of items would be even more pronounced. Look how pathetically mismanaged the Russian economy was after 1945.

And deliveries actually ACCELERATED after Dec 1941. WWII fun fact; most Lend Lease deliveries actually came through the Pacific to Vladivostock. The Americans reflagged their shipping with Russian flags and sailed right past the Japanese. The Japaneses permitted this because they knew that Russia would crush them like, well sushi if it came to a fight.

Germanys economy would not have allowed the war effort to go much further than 46, while Russias could have gone on forever.

Russia was totally exhausted by 1945. Barring the US bomber offensive the Germans had everything they needed to wipe the Soviets and (eventually) Britian from the picture.

Germany was running out of men by 45, Russia seemed to have unlimited, which was a good thing considering how wasteful Stalin was of them.

Russia was also totally out of men by 1945. They were conscripting men from the various Ukrainian, Polish, Baltic etc. etc. villages as they went past as well as conscripting Mongols and central Asiatic types (if you know anything about Russian racial attitudes, you know that this was a sign of extreme desperation). BTW, it was usually these types who were responsible for most of the 1945 atrocities that happened in Germany and East Prussia.

2% of the young Russian men alive in 1929 were still alive in 1945. That's how bad it was. Russia just barely outlasted Germany in WWII, largely thanks to the USA.

Germany's biggest blunder was resizing all the rail line they took to German specs rather than resizing their cars to Russian specs before the invasion.

This means that at the Russian German border you need to stop, unload, and reload every single train. You also have to try and perfectly time things so that there is always a "Russian" sized train waiting to meet a "German" sized one when it arrives or one or both trains waste a lot of time hanging around waiting for the other one to show up.

The Russians were for the most part ripping up the tracks as they retreated. You have to relay the tracks anyways, might as well avoid the problems I outlined in the previous paragraph.

That would have made supply a whole hell of a lot easier and removed any need to "live off the land".
Had Adolf actually done the math and figured out that his armies had no chance to reach the entire Volga before winter, he may have had winters items ready as well.

The Germans calculated correctly that the Russians would defend forward as much as possible and thus allow them to destroy virtually the entire Red Army near the borders in the first few months of the war. After August it was all supposed to be largely clean up work. Germany's logistic situation was so tight there was no room for anything but what was needed for the immediate fighting, and if you wipe out the Red Army at the borders you won't need the winter kit anyways.

The Germans were right. They destroyed virtually the entire Red Army west of Moscow in the opening acts of Barbarossa. The big problem was that Foreign Armies East totally blew it and was completely unaware of the vast reserves that the Red Army had and could feed into the battle after August.

So after the Battle of Smolensk the Germans quickly realize that they had already destroyed the "entire" Red Army, and yet new Russian units kept showing up!

This led to the real fatal mistake, a two week pause as the Germans argued back and forth over what to do now. Guderian wanted to go straight for Moscow, Hitler wanted to swing south and go for the Ukraine, Leeb wanted permission to keep pushing for Leningrad (which was empty at the moment) and von Rundestedt maintained that "we are as doomed as doomed can be" and wanted to pull out of Russia altogether.

Hitler got his way and the Germans went for the Ukraine. By the time they swung back and were ready to try for Moscow it was November. November in Russia, DOH! And the Russian had had three months to prepare. DOH DOH!

If the Germans would have gone for Moscow right away instead of arguing for two weeks they would have taken it, it's just that simple. And from what we know now that probably would have caused a political collapse in the Soviet Union. As it was even with holding Moscow Stalin offered Hitler everything he had already taken in Russia in exchange for peace in the winter of 1941. Hitler decided to go all or nothing.

Britain. Yes, they would have been a starved piece of toast without the US, and they knew it.
Churchill wrote after the war that after he heard that Pearl Horbor had been bombed that he "slept the sleep of the saved."

He was right. Without the USA, Britian, and Russia actively fighting Germany the Germans would have eventually won. Remove any one of the three and it's very possible that Hitler's heirs would be running the European Union today.

I stand by my claim that Russia was the primary power that beat the Germans

The primary power was the USA. Remove Britian or Russia and the Germans have a very good shot at winning the war. Remove the USA and it's guarenteed. Even a cursory look at the production and logistics side of the war makes this obvious. I would start with Richard Overy's Why the Allies won, and then Ellis's Brute Force for a very good look at this.

and that the US army in 45 would have gotten creamed by the Russian army of 45 had war broken out between them.

The Russian Army in 1945 was at the end of it's tether both logistically and in terms of available manpower. Britian was also done in 1945. The Americans were severely strained, but unlike the other two powers they still had tremendous untapped potential they could mobilize back home.

So a "Patton's war" in 1945 between the Wallies and the Soviets probalbly would have seen the Soviets initially pushing to the Rhine. The Americans rally and mobilize, and the Soviets get destroyed (and probably nuked as well) as their economy falls apart and their army gets ground under.

Remember that eastern Europe from Smolensk to Berlin was totally trashed, the Russians would have been trying to supply their army across a tremendous distance. And all those US trucks would have quickly become unservicable without lend lease spare parts arriving.

Us bombers could not have reached Russian industry, but Russia had several rail lines to get material west.

Which the Americans total domination of the air would have turned into Falaise gap like "Highways of Death".

Of coarse, the A bombs may not have been used on Japan if things had gone differently. And that could have shaken things up a great deal on the Russia vs US front in France/Germany.

In such an eventuality I imagine that the war against Japan would be put on the back burner, as Japan in 1945 was totally helpless and toothless anyways. The Americans continue to firebomb the country to a heap of ash, while the sub blockade finishes off what's left of the Japanese merchant shipping. The Japanese that are'nt incinerated all starve.

A southern front, launched from Iran against Russia may have helped the US cause.

All the Americans need to do is redeploy some strategic bombing assets to Iraq. They then go mid-evil on Baku. A month later the Russians have no oil.

BUt even with all that, I think Russia would have won.

Not a chance.

Austin

[TomCB]

Well Austin
Remeber the saying
"Russia is never as powerful or as weak as she appears"

Her starting population was near that of the US. So I think she would have continued to "scrounge" up troops of varying quality.
She had oil supplies and this 100 oct. gas you seem to enjoy replaced the 87 oct gas. But both worked.
Vladivostok is frozen at least 5 months a year, so supplies going through there were not as great as you may imagine.
Russian pilots had to fly the planes to Russia, so as to not break the neutrality agreements of the day.
Here is a link to a "complete" list of goods sent to Russia.

http://www.geocities.com/Pentagon/6315/lend.html

Please read the bottom of the page carefully.

Russia created huge amounts of material, even if at the expense of VAST sums of slave labor.
However, by very late 44 the US was gearing down already. The US navy would have been all but useless against the Russians. It would have been a bloody ground war. Granted, the US would have dominated the air, unless airbases were overrun. I still think that the mindless way that Stalin used his troops would have been enough to get to the Atlantic.
Spain may have joined the allies at some point, knowing that an American dominate Europe would be far better for him than a Russian dominated one.
Russia would have been confined to the black sea by American subs that would have been based in Egypt and maybe Crete.
British were spent and would have only been able to help in support, maybe a few airwings and non combat positions, but they truely were out of men.

VAST stretches of Russia rail were resized. I am not saying that they should have stayed the Russian gadge, I am saying that through the first winter, the Germans would have been wiser to transfere supplies onto different cars (safely in Poland) and just get the stuff where it had to go.
Lets not forget the 8 weeks Hitler spent screwing around in the Balkens bailing out Italy in early 41. And lets not forget the 40 some divisions that were wasted there for a year keeping it.
Germany did not invade Russia until late Jun of 41, far too late to get a real good head start against Russia.
Germany lost the war, as opposed to the allies winning it.
Germany could have played nice with conquered people, including the 6 million jews they killed.
They could have promised homelands for all of them, and decide later to what degree those promises would be kept, if at all.

Was the US instrumental in victory, sure, but not the end all be all. Without Britain, the US never would have bothered with Germany. And Japan would have regretted that big time.
Only 20% of the American output went against Japan, and that output was 3 times Japans output.
That would have been an ugly nightmare for Japan if they had gotten the US's total undivided attention.

There were plenty of forests to hide in and one could move at night, so no "highways of death".

And lets not forget that, in the event of am American advace in say 46 into Russia would have severly strained US logistics. The US had a hard time getting supplies 500 miles. Even with the use if every port in Northern Europe, without the rail system rebuilt, it would have been impossible.

And all this ignores the simple fact that the American soldier was told that he had to destroy the Nazis.
He did much of that, then he would have been told that now he has to march to Moscow.
Despair would have set in.
"Will this never end"
"To hell with Europe"
"I Barely lived through Africa, Italy, France and Germany, now I have to go through Poland, and RUSSIA, forget it"


THAT is something CIV should consider.
SUPPLY
Hmmm, Constantly weakening troops the further they are from supply or a railroad?
How about automatically destroying irrigation improvments from "living off the land"?

[Master Zen]

TomCB:

noble idea, but 1) it would take HUGE amounts of money to remake even the smallest country. 2) there would always be resistance because it is being done by force, not by will, even if the end is good I doubt people would accept it (and there is ample historical evidence to make them doubt - throughout history there has never been a noble conquest). Anyway, I honestly think it is the 3rd world country's duty to get developed, some have done it, like Korea and Taiwan which were dirt poor 50 years ago so there is no reason to think that others can do it also. The problem IMO is bad government. Look at Argentina. In 1900 it was more prosperous than most european countries, it was on par with Australia in most respects economically, and with many of the same natural resources, land size, population, etc. Today Australia is like 4 times more prosperous. Bad government. Just look at those african countries who are begging for aid yet spend huge amounts of $$ on arms.

It is the responsibility of the poor country to catch up, I think it is possible that most can make it on their own, aid should be given only to the poorest or smallest who have no way of standing up on their own. 1st world nations should simply stop doing imperialist practices through the IMF and WB, stop acting like leeches and act like responsible leaders.

Austin:

I think you should reread Overy's book, he clearly mentions that the Allies could not have done it without the Soviets, in fact one of the first chapters is on how the soviets won the battles of Stalingrad and Kurst, THE turning points of the war, way before lend-lease began to show its full effect. I also recommend you read Albert Seaton (The Russo-German War) who convincingly argues that the soviets still could have won without lend-lease. David Glantz also mentions this (When Titan Clashed)

[TomCB]

raguil_79
OH I agree, it would be very costly.
My thinking is along the line of total military domination and pretty much writing off the current adults and hoping that the children can be "saved"

I am not in favor of any aid going to these countries as it is doing no good anyway.
As cruel as it may sound, it is natures way. A type of animal outgrows its food sources, it is parred down through starvation.

My previous examples was merely the extreme of what I think would be required in order to straighten out a given area.
I think most of the costs would be food, which the US spends billion growing less of anyway.

Practical? I don't know, just thinking out loud.

And I would have to agree that bad government is why so many countries are screwed up.
The issue is do we change them or ignore them until and only if they become a threat.

The pro-active stance is never popular and the reaction stance is usually more costly in the long run.

I don't think that Austin was saying that the US could have won all by it's lonesome.
The debate started when I put forth my belief that in the event of a Russia-US war in 45, I think that Russia would have won.

This came up because someone claimed that the US only had to fight the cold war because the US dropped the ball and did not go after Russia in 45.
You know, the same type that is getting upset that the US is being pro-active and going after Iraq now, but are upset that the US was not more pro-active in 45.

Before that was........I don't remember, some anti American rant I thnk.

Allot of that on here.

[Master Zen]

I've been giving some though on the 1945 scenario, it would be a really even contest, much more so than WW2 itself.

From my WW2 knowledge it would be an issue of (and this sounds like pre-Super Bowl debate with the russians being Oakland and the allies TB):

1) Would Russian armor superiority, in both quantity AND quality be the decisive factor in the ground war? (considering US and British infantry qualitative superiority). YES. Soviet armor was miles ahead of the allies by 1945.

2) Would the Red Air Force be good enough and large enough to stand a bomber offensive by the US and RAF? NO. Russian fighters were availiable in huge numbers and were of a higher quality than most realize but I think were still slightly inferior to P-51Ds and Spitfire XIVs. The allies also had the Meteor jet and soon the P-80. Also, even though the fighter force might put a check on any daytime bombings, they had nothing to counter the nighttime bombings that the RAF could have put up.

Air power vs. ground power. Intersting matchup. Back then the edge would go to ground power. Still, I wouldn't forget the huge amphibous options available to the allies, the possibilty for example, of a landing somewhere in the middle east or central asia where bombers could pound the Urals and the Cacasus oilfields.

I would give victory to the Allies if they managed to survive the initial Soviet onslaught, say, the first 6 months or even less which would give them time to implement the amphibious options mentioned. The possibility of a Soviet rout in central europe, however, was very real, just like Ganon could have routed the TB defense...

With the development debate, I still think it is each country's responsibility, aid should only be given (if at all) to responsible governments but with no strings attached or hidden conditions even if the country's development plan is not what the IMF or WB wants, who cares, the important thing is that it WORK.

BTW, wouldn't the takeover plan be a sort of neo-colonialism? And as far as I recall the US was a major supporter of dismantling of the British and French empires...

[Master Zen]

off-subject (as if this thread is not already),

has anyone noticed how versatile this thread has been? from civ3 to politics to monetary and devolpment economics, to hypothetical ww3 scenarios.

Civ3 fans are definitely not your average brainless game addicts!

[TomCB]

I have used the supperiority of russian armor as my reason that the Russians would have pushed the Americans back to Britain.
Only the Germans had tank for tank better armor, the problem was that it was too complicated for the average soldier to use and it tended to break down.
I do believe that the allied air powers was as far ahead of Russia as the Russian armor was ahead of the American.
Sherman tanks just plain sucked, blew chuncks and were only pretty good for target practice.
The argument was that if german designs replaced the American ones (planes like the ME 262 too), and if the vast numbers of axis troops in POW camps in the US were sent back to help fight the Russians, that may have been enough to tip the scales.
Perhaps, but there was some bad blood in eastern Europe against the Germans, gee, I wonder why?
I also believe that the American soldiers and public would either be fed up with the war, or maybe, and a big maybe, REALLY PISSED.
I think that would have been the deciding factor more than anything else.
Would the American public have found out about the concentration camps?
If pissed, then the allies would have gotton those 6 months to regroup and start new fronts.
If fed up, then the war would have been over and France would have turned socialist faster than it did anyway.
I wonder if Churchill would have pushed for another landing "into the soft underbelly of Europe".....LOL

Remember, Russia had troops in Iran during the war, requested by the British as a matter of fact.
Truman also had to demand they were removed and even implied that the A bomb was an option to remove them.
Russia could have invaded south easier than the allies could have invaded north.
Of coarse, all this is moot if the war lasted until early 46, when the US would have had a steady stream of A bombs to use.
Can you imagine a world where there are a couple of dozen places where nucs had been used?
I am a real fan of historic places, and I shudder to think of a world where Rome was destroyed, or Athens, or Cairo.
And what if the bio weapons the US was working on, but did not understand were used?
BRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR

It used to be called colonialism, now the PC name is "nation building".

India for instance, is far better off because of British occupation than they will ever admit.
And Africa has railroads they never would have had.

The IMF and WB are EVIL, EVIL, EVIL.

[Austin]

Originally posted by TomCB
Well Austin
Remeber the saying
"Russia is never as powerful or as weak as she appears"

Her starting population was near that of the US. So I think she would have continued to "scrounge" up troops of varying quality.

Manpowerwise Russia was done by 1945, it's just that simple. They were conscripting men out of eastern European villages as they rolled west. They were also mass conscripting Asiatics. Russia suffered ENORMOUS casualties in the last weeks of the war in Germany. Look at the battles of Kustrin, Breslau and Berlin. The Germans lost of course, but they took a big chunk of the Red Army down with them.

She had oil supplies and this 100 oct. gas you seem to enjoy replaced the 87 oct gas. But both worked.

Virtually all of Russia's oil came from Baku at that time. Look at a map. Look where Baku is. It would be easily leveled. Then the Russians are soon in the same boat Germany was from 1944 onwards.

Vladivostok is frozen at least 5 months a year, so supplies going through there were not as great as you may imagine.

It still amounted to the majority of equipment sent.

Russian pilots had to fly the planes to Russia, so as to not break the neutrality agreements of the day.
Here is a link to a "complete" list of goods sent to Russia.

http://www.geocities.com/Pentagon/6315/lend.html

Please read the bottom of the page carefully.

You are making my point for me. A LOT of that stuff was things that Russia could not produce for itself that was critical for warfare.

According to Overy

"...American supplied over half a million vehicles...the backbone of the Soviet motorized supply system...American aid also made possible the revolution in radio communications by supplying 956,000 miles of telephone cable, 35,000 radio stations and 380,000 field telephones..."

In the areas of motor transport AND communications the Soviets were utterly dependant upon western aid. These are two areas that are absolutely vital to modern warfare. Without this the Soviets would have been trying to fight the masters of modern mobile warfare at the height of their powers with 1905 methods like they did in 1941. And looked how THAT worked!

Russia created huge amounts of material, even if at the expense of VAST sums of slave labor.

Only because they had the luxury of focusing entirely on producing munitions, since the USA supplied them with everything else. If they would have had to have build their own trucks they would have produced far far less tanks. And without food shipments they would have lost a big chunk of their civilian labour anyways. I mean they set up new factories in the Urals, not exactly a breadbasket region.

However, by very late 44 the US was gearing down already.

Even gearing down they STILL were outproducing the WORLD. And they could very easily gear back up again. Look how quickly the USA went from "17th in the world, after Portugal" to the world's dominant military power in less than two years after Pearl Harbour.

The US navy would have been all but useless against the Russians. It would have been a bloody ground war.

With the US still had untapped resources for, and the Soviets did not.

When the USA entered WWII in late 1941 they were expecting the Soviets to go down hard, so they made plans to build an army of almost 9 million men including 61 armored divisions, backed by 120 fully motorized infantry divisions. This is in addition to all the aircraft and ships built historically. When the Soviets survived into 1942 the plan was changed to 90 divisions and sending that war material to the Soviets to let THEM do the mass dieing against Hitler.

This gives you some idea of the vast untapped potential the USA could mobilize if it needed it.

Granted, the US would have dominated the air, unless airbases were overrun. I still think that the mindless way that Stalin used his troops would have been enough to get to the Atlantic.

It would have been enough to reach the Rhine, where the Russians must pause while their logistics try to catch up. The front gels there, and it's all downhill at that point since the American advantages start to come into play.

Spain may have joined the allies at some point, knowing that an American dominate Europe would be far better for him than a Russian dominated one.

Damn right. The really interesting question is what do the Allies do with all those German POW's?

VAST stretches of Russia rail were resized. I am not saying that they should have stayed the Russian gadge, I am saying that through the first winter, the Germans would have been wiser to transfere supplies onto different cars (safely in Poland) and just get the stuff where it had to go.

Nope. Remember the train shuffle paragraph I posted earlier? And the tracks are wrecked anyways, you have to redo them anyways, so you might as well make them European guage and skip the train shuffle.

Lets not forget the 8 weeks Hitler spent screwing around in the Balkens bailing out Italy in early 41.

Even if Italy had acted sensibly, the weather that year would not have let the Germans invade any earlier.

And lets not forget the 40 some divisions that were wasted there for a year keeping it.

With the exception of that SS mountain unit the units the Germans had in garrison in the Balkans was all low quality crud that was of no use in Russia. German logistics in Russia wouldn't have been able to supply them anyways.

The Balkans are important to Germany because that's where Germany gets it's oil and it's non-ferrous metals. In Civ III terms the Balkans has Germany's only source of Oil and Iron.

Germany did not invade Russia until late Jun of 41, far too late to get a real good head start against Russia.
Germany lost the war, as opposed to the allies winning it.

The weather precluded an earlier start. And if the Germans had waited a year the Russians would have totally kicked their asses.

Germany could have played nice with conquered people, including the 6 million jews they killed.

Ah, but then they wouldn't have been Nazis. Without the Nazi ideology you don't have a war in the first place.

They could have promised homelands for all of them, and decide later to what degree those promises would be kept, if at all.

All this gets you is a bunch of absolutely useless puppet states. Far more efficient to exploit them in good old colonial fashion. In Civ III terms the Germans had the choice between having a big bunch of terminally corrupt one shield cities, or razing those cities, collecting the workers, and adding them as slave labour in non-corrupt German core cities to boost their production.

Was the US instrumental in victory, sure, but not the end all be all. Without Britain, the US never would have bothered with Germany. And Japan would have regretted that big time.

The only way Britain wouldn't be in WWII is if Germany had succesfully invaded it. And that wasn't going to happen.

Only 20% of the American output went against Japan, and that output was 3 times Japans output.
That would have been an ugly nightmare for Japan if they had gotten the US's total undivided attention.

I'm not sure it would have made much difference. It would have been the difference between shooting somebody a dozen times, and shooting them three dozen times. You are just making the corpse bounce at that point!

There were plenty of forests to hide in and one could move at night, so no "highways of death".

There is no continous belt of forests between Moscow and the Rhine. There are a lot of rivers and bridges that the USAAF could smash. Look at what happened to the Germans in Normandy due to overwhelming allied airpower. It took the 9th and 10th SS divisions longer to go from the German border to Normandy than it did for them to travel from Russia all the way to France. The operational mobility of their mobile units was totally inhibited. The only reason the Normandy front lasted as long as it did was because of the Bocage and the narrow length of the front. A "Patton's War" in 1945 would not have this.

The Allies could easily trash ALL the transport infrastructure as far as their aircraft could reach. Then the Russian armies start coming apart.

[QUOTE]
And lets not forget that, in the event of am American advace in say 46 into Russia would have severly strained US logistics.
[QUOTE]

The Americans wouldn't need to drive to Moscow. The Red Army charges to the Rhine, where it stalls. The Russians are mercilessly pummelled from the air, and their armies destroyed. The Americans advance to the Russian border, and Stalin cuts a deal. Eastern Europe is freed.

And all this ignores the simple fact that the American soldier was told that he had to destroy the Nazis.
He did much of that, then he would have been told that now he has to march to Moscow.
Despair would have set in.
"Will this never end"
"To hell with Europe"
"I Barely lived through Africa, Italy, France and Germany, now I have to go through Poland, and RUSSIA, forget it"

This would depend upon how the 1945 war starts. And the Americans wouldn't need to march all the way to Moscow (well they would be riding not marching).

THAT is something CIV should consider.
SUPPLY
Hmmm, Constantly weakening troops the further they are from supply or a railroad?
How about automatically destroying irrigation improvments from "living off the land"?

This deserves it's own post ("Coming soon to a folder near you!")

Austin