And I have now finished the last few chapters of what is now basically the akternate history version of Encyclopedia Britannica and am fully caught up.
I am always impressed that anyone looks at 348 pages and just under 170 chapters and says "Yes, I will catch up with that". I'm also pleased that people seem to enjoy the experience when they do catchup.
One great thing about this AAR is that it's hiatus-friendly.
This is a much under-rated feature of AARs in my opinion.
Anotger great thing about it is that I'm certain if I linked it in my curriculum vitae as source for an online degree on economics, another on engineering and a masters in international relations (really fascinating stuff the chapter about the international coal cartels, never thought I'd write such a sentence.), I'm sure no prospective employer would begrudge or doubt me.
I would certainly back you up in such a claim. I'd also say "sentences I never thought I'd write" is one of my secret writer motivations.
Speaking of coal, I had no idea that the pit problem had been boiling for so long. I knew it blew up during thatcher's reign, but the fact that it was such a long time coming shines a rather harsh light on the competency of previous governments when dealing with that matter.
In fairness to the those governments even with hindsight it's not clear what the solution should be. The technocrat solution I think is managed decline - no more recruits/trainees, bare minimum investment in the mines for safety, spend the money on re-training and helping the miners+families relocate. I just don't think the unions would ever accept that and as noted the miners+families didn't really want to move either, or at least the ones who did had already left. The union solution of massive investment and modernisation doesn't work, it certainly changes the shape of the problem but it's costly and the end point (no more UK coal mining) doesn't change for environmental reasons alone.
So in my reread I got to my post where I say I just completed a reread, which I completely forgot. Then again the post is from 2018, maybe not that surprising.
Congratulations on your circular reading, I remain humbled by it.
I think I just passed my favorite chapters, new tank toys with cool names in Spain (autocannon Castanes light tank, Cervantes SPG), new planes with very cool names (Vickers/Spanish Venom! Gloster Griffon!). Great to see FAA get a monoplane fighter and Griffon/Venom engine/producer was very elegantly done.
I do love that one as well.
For some reason I love seeing autocannon used on light tanks/armoured vehicles, even though I have no idea what it is. I guess autocannon just sounds cool. And it seems a popular choice in alt hist fiction (like Matilda I with autocannon).
There is a narrow window where the autocannon is viable on a tank, earlier tanks weren't large enough (and autoloaders too bulkly), later on you needed more firepower and so bigger guns. But it is a populer alt-hist choice because for the first half of WW2 it is a great option.
I do have two questions:
1) You said you modded HoI to reflect German industry/economy being sort of a paper tiger. Can we know what it was, if you remember?
Rekcon it would have been severly limiting German stockpiles and probably some malus to money production. Germany was constantly on the verge of running out of all sorts of things, so I would have trired to replicate that. Maybe Past Pip also tried to dial down the armoured tech a bit, German Army success was radio/tactics/the French Army being led by a paranoid fossil with neurosyphilis/etc. Tank for tank the Allies generally had better machines, at least on the 'hard factors'.
2) We got ATL KGV, Ark Royal and BCs (still waiting on number ordered), but what about other ships? Any changes to cruisers, DDs, subs? Cruisers especially seems like a fun ground for alt history.
Nothing much yet, though there is a naval update coming which will cover those things. There will be no
Dido class cruisers as the hive mind has decided on the
Diadem class instead and that is not just a name change, big changes there. Destroyers and subs probably broadly similar, though some bits will change and be discussed.
Autocannon are very helpful for the light tank/infantry fighting vehicles level combat (and even sometimes in defending against armor). The M2/3 Bradley has a 25mm autocannon, and they're working on up gunning the Stryker with the Dragoon 30mm. Generally, these guns have fairly long reach, dual feeding mechanisms to choose between HE and AP, so it's very flexible in terms of engagements.
I defer to and agree with the expert.
I think this supports my view that an autocannon is a good tank weapon up to, say 1941, but rapidly falls away as big calibre autocannon aren't a thing (complex, massive recoil, do you really want to be automatically firing a 75mm/17pd projectile anyway?)
In any event, we have not seen the last of autocannons being put on vehicles in Butterfly.
You have remarkably consistent thought patterns, clearly.
It was and remains a valid question, one I have often pondered myself. I never moved house growing up, but after leaving university it seemd to happen every couple of years or less, I believe I am somewhat settled for the forseeable though I am reluctant to tempt fate.
