The Butterfly Effect: A British AAR

[El Pip]

Nathan Madien - No-one could or no-one would want to? It's a thin line.

Damn right you will know everything that is interesting about the Empire Air Mail Scheme once I'm done. You may also learn much that isn't interesting, but it's a risk I'm prepared to take.

Jape - The worst part is I'm still only up to mid ish 1937...

Davout - The Australian end will play an important part in EAMS, probably more than OTL. There may also be a few butterflies from CAC having British not American partners, but that may be an obscure detail too far.

Duritz - Good to see the Australian men in tanks back, it wouldn't be the same without you

H.Appleby - You timed that very well and thanks for the kind words and wishes.

---
While fixing the pictures on old updates I may have got carried away. Basically Chapter VII is now about five times longer, with new pictures, expanded notes and lots of unmissable detail on Naval Treaties, retired Field Marshals and RAF politics - Chapter VII - Butterfly Redux.

I'm fairly sure that almost nobody would read such a thing, so I'm going to try and just do the picture fixing and not get distracted. However if I'm wrong and there is massive passion for hugely expanding old chapters, then I'll declare Butterfly Redux a proper project and carry out the same treatment for all the old short chapters.

 

[Nathan Madien]

I'm fairly sure that almost nobody would read such a thing, so I'm going to try and just do the picture fixing and not get distracted. However if I'm wrong and there is massive passion for hugely expanding old chapters, then I'll declare Butterfly Redux a proper project and carry out the same treatment for all the old short chapters.

Considering I rewrote my first Presidents AAR, I can understand why you would want to go back and rework past chapters. Sometimes chapters you thought were fine when you first wrote them can make you think later, "Eh, I can make this better."

 

[El Pip]

Nathan Madien - When I started Butterfly I thought it might take a few months and that I didn't need to be that bothered about the minor details. It is impossible to overstate how wrong I was on both those things.

Judging by the lack of response I'm going to assume no-one is that fussed about old chapters being fixed, so I will focus on new chapters. On which note, any particular requests for what will happen after the Empire Air Mail Scheme update? If there are enough people left who have strong views, or indeed any views, I'll run a vote. I'm assuming that (a) the permission I got from the mods to run votes is still valid and that (b) with only 4 AARs left alive in this sub-forum I doubt anyone is that bothered what we do around here.

 

[Nathan Madien]

Judging by the lack of response I'm going to assume no-one is that fussed about old chapters being fixed, so I will focus on new chapters. On which note, any particular requests for what will happen after the Empire Air Mail Scheme update? If there are enough people left who have strong views, or indeed any views, I'll run a vote. I'm assuming that (a) the permission I got from the mods to run votes is still valid and that (b) with only 4 AARs left alive in this sub-forum I doubt anyone is that bothered what we do around here.

Isn't there a war going on in Spain or somewhere? Since this is the 1930s, I'm sure there's a battlefield somewhere we could visit.

 

[Kurt_Steiner]

Well, moving a bit ahead the arrow of time would be nice...

 

[jeeshadow]

Personally I want to learn more about the trials and tribulations of Alf Landon. I wonder how effectively he would be at dealing with the Great Depression.

 

[TheExecuter]

I had started to go back and reread old chapters, both for new content and to remind myself what all had happened.

I'll leave new material for you to decide, though naval pron is always a pleasure...

 

[Nathan Madien]

Personally I want to learn more about the trials and tribulations of Alf Landon. I wonder how effectively he would be at dealing with the Great Depression.

Probably as effectively as other Republican Presidents when it comes to dealing with the economy.

 

[Davout]

Well, tanks for starters obviously but also curious how Spain has (failed to) progressed.

 

[El Pip]

Well Kurtie definitely isn't going to get his wish, Slower than Real Time is one of the hallmarks of this AAR. I'm not going to start changing it now. I'm see this as;

Spain 1
US 1
Naval pron 1
Spanish Tanks 1

Which makes it a narrow win for Spain, provided it's an update on the tanks in Spain, which sounds doable. I'm only about half way through the second half of the EAMS update so if anyone has some strong views then it's not too late to change.

 

[jeeshadow]

I will change my vote from US to a general Spain update. Must know how that war is! As Landon decided to intervene if I remember correctly, that will also give insight into his governance .

 

[Nathan Madien]

I will change my vote from US to a general Spain update. Must know how that war is! As Landon decided to intervene if I remember correctly, that will also give insight into his governance .

Welcome to the Spain Update Club (SUC)! You will get a SUC membership card in the mail...maybe.

 

[TheButterflyComposer]

This one is in danger of becoming an institution, much like the monarchy and David Attenborough. In the time it's taken for us to get to the 1938 world cup, several readers have started families, everyone has aged ten years and I've learnt how to use a computer, how to play Paradox games with even a bit of skill and entered my second year of university. Surely in fifty years when we do reach 1945 we shall all be fat, old and comfortable ensconced in wingback chairs whilst the news comes over BBC 4 radio that the great work is finally completed. And in case new reader think I'm jesting, may I remind you that the chapter where the football was last discussed occurred in 2014...

Give me some more Iberian stuff. Watching the Nazis and the British work through both their fascination and utter revulsion of each other is hilarious. Do the Spanish have any gold left or is that all in London now?

 

[TheButterflyComposer]

Could you perhaps upload some images showing the state of the planet as of the date we are on? I've been rereading earlier chapters and most of the images are gone, so new readers have no visual aid in telling them who owns what and where everyone is.
Ideally someone could go and fix every single image but I fear that is far too much tedium for any man to take...

EDIT: Have also noticed something else. No one's built any runways and airbases. In the UK at least, the reason the flying boats were so popular was that the country didn't have much besides water to land planes on. If you look today at most of England's airports, they're all former WWII RAF bases. Before then they had less than fifty, which wasn't enough for the OTL RAF, never mind TTL's one. I mean...I guess we can just assume that the Government had built some in the meantime to put all the aircraft they've built in but since everything including tractors is getting some article space in this AAR...
Same with Japan actually, that's one of the reasons they fell in love hard and fast with carriers, it fixed their deficiency with long flat stretches of land. I might be forgetting some chapter that mentioned this but I don't believe the UK thing has come up yet. Though it would be hilarious for the British to enter a war with Germany and only then realise they have thousands of planes and perhaps ten bases that have been built within the past decade for modern planes.

 

[Nathan Madien]

Though it would be hilarious for the British to enter a war with Germany and only then realise they have thousands of planes and perhaps ten bases that have been built within the past decade for modern planes.

Talk about "The Few".

 

[El Pip]

jeeshadow - Landon wants it known the US hasn't intervened in Spain. Sure he has publicly picked a side he wants to win and is not uniformly enforcing the neutrality laws on exports, but he hasn't intervened and the US remains neutral. Technically.

Nathan Madien - SUC need to work on their marketing I think. Though I conceded they have a tough product to try and sell.

TheButterflyComposer - I admire your optimism, 50 years to get to 1945 would imply a massive increase in the frequency of updates and an end to long meandering diversion on beef production, FIFA politics and the differences between asphalt and tarmacadam (hasn't happened yet, but it might).

The gold of Spain is safely sitting in London vaults right now and the distribution of the front line's will be shown in the next Spain update.

For the rest of the world, the big change is Italy no longer has any overseas possessions and Rhodesia is independent early, so Africa looks a lot like;

Not quite right, there should be a land corridor linking Ethiopia (UK puppet) to the Indian Ocean in Jubaland (that is the land between OTL Kenya and Somalia) but the HOI2 map doesn't lend itself well to such subtle details. Libya and Rhodesia both also UK puppets in game terms.​

The Butterfly Redux project is still sort of ongoing, I did say I was going to just change pictures which isn't that big a job. Sadly I got distracted by quite how bad a job I did originally on the London Naval Conference (Chapter VIII) so I never actually got around to fixing the pictures.

I'm forced to disagree with you on the airstrip point, there were plenty of airstrips, they just tended to be grass as planes of the time didn't require anything firmer (ish). The Four Engined heavy bombers would need a proper runway, and it was known that proper runways were the future and Air Ministry does have vague plans to do something about it, which doubtless Churchill will try to accelerate, but for the mid-1930s grass strips are good enough.

On the future airport plans, I've looked into it for the EAMS chapter and there really wasn't much cost difference between a new airport and a base for flying boats, so I don't think it was lack of airports that drove that decision towards flying boards. As to what I think it was, well you will have to read the chapter when it emerges, definitely this very year!

 

[TheButterflyComposer]

I'm forced to disagree with you on the airstrip point, there were plenty of airstrips, they just tended to be grass as planes of the time didn't require anything firmer (ish). The Four Engined heavy bombers would need a proper runway, and it was known that proper runways were the future and Air Ministry does have vague plans to do something about it, which doubtless Churchill will try to accelerate, but for the mid-1930s grass strips are good enough.

Regarding the changeover from grass to tarmac, I wonder how well it was handled. When once you could flatten and fill in damage done by bombing raids and saboteurs, now takes much longer and costs more in resources. Also all weather takeoffs became easier and more planes could take off on a runway before it was worn down. If Churchill's ministry can properly plan and map out where they want their main strips and where to expand later on, the air situation will be better both in war and peace.

As for the flying boats, perhaps it was merely wishful thinking on my part plus a possible explanation for some of the facts ("welcome to historiography 101: everyone does this, so don't trust anything") but I do like them as an idea and a craft. They were remarkably robust and oddly good at occasionally showing the Germans up (leading to situations where a German military plane built ostensibly as a 'mail plane' fought the aerial equivalent of a post van) even if they weren't that great at patrolling and submarine duty.

Thanks for the screenshot. I had forgotten this AAR was based on an older version of the game. What was it about HOI2 that delivered so many exceedingly long and sadly unfinished stories?

 

[Nathan Madien]

Thanks for the screenshot. I had forgotten this AAR was based on an older version of the game. What was it about HOI2 that delivered so many exceedingly long and sadly unfinished stories?

I think in my case, my computer is only good enough to support HOI2.

 

[volksmarschall]

Thanks for the screenshot. I had forgotten this AAR was based on an older version of the game. What was it about HOI2 that delivered so many exceedingly long and sadly unfinished stories?

I would figure that it was the era when HoI2 was popular/out in force was also around the time this forum swelled, and many many great forumites endeavored into the AAR project and produced fantastic work--even if unfinished.

Plus, there was a simple charm of the HoI2 mechanics too. I totally forgot that from 2009-2010 I tried to catch up with this AAR...there were just so many pages to get through!

 

[Cromwell]

A very long tern lurker here who on (finally) signing up for a paradox account had just reread your AAR from start to end over the last few days. All well worth reading although it's a shame about the pictures. I suppose I will now have to learn to wait for the updates with everybody else.

I'm hoping to see something from South America eventually as usually nothing tends to happen there in HOI 2 but I expect you would rather move the plot along in Spain.