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I have been reading your Drakafic universe (which is impressive), and i was wondering, what would happen after the fall of the Domination? Have you put any thought about what happened to Africa and the rest of the world once the Draka had finally been defeated?

Zor

Yeah we did. It's been a while, but let me dig out the stuff:

NOTE: This was very early on in the project; we really didn't discuss it that much later on.

1950-1958: Mass deportations and resettlements, Drakan society is atomized completely, and the last large Drakan bands destroyed. Surviving Drakan population is 18 million out of a pre-war high of 35 million. Two million disappear into the Soviet Kolyma; another four million die off for various reasons (starvation, executions, etc etc).

1960-1970: From time to time, Drakan exiles come out of the woodwork to do guerilla campaigns against the free states, attacks peak in the mid 1960s as the states gain independence and die out by the early 1970s as the Draka are simply dead.

1965: Ivan Krasnov retires from most of his posts, except for Ministry of Transportation. His successor as leader of the Soviet Union is the head of the MGB, N. N. Lapshov; The first free African nations in more than two hundred years are admitted to the United Nations.

1975: Ivan Krasnov dies. Is given massive state funeral.

1976: Senator Fidel Castro (D-Cuba) narrowly wins the 1976 presidential elections.

1980: Africa is declared completely free of Drakan influence, the first Allied troops begin to leave after 32 years spent in various roles in Africa

1995: Ethnic Drakan population in the four reservations reaches 17 million, majority of which are born after the Great Crusade

By the way, the universe isn't dead; it's just on low treble power; as I do things and develop things to fill out the universe.

Like this:



and



I recently ordered this - waiting for it to arrive from England:

Impressive project. Anyone still working on it? We haven't seen a story posted in awhile.

I like having Fidel Castro win the '76 election. Nice touch.

Imperial Overlord wrote:I like having Fidel Castro win the '76 election. Nice touch.

Yeah, that was one thing I added that I was proud of. To me, Castro epitomizes the popular dictator. He had the charisma and oratory powers of Lenin, the boundless energy of Trotsky, and the unlimited ambition of Stalin. He also apparently set himself on becoming the President of Cuba while he was still in short pants, and he did whatever it took to get there. Since Cuba's part of the USA in Drakafic, I figured somebody with his ambition and skill set might go even higher.

One change I'd probably make is change his name from Fidel Castro to probably something like Robert Castro, or James Castro, to reflect the "Anglicization" of Cuba that's been going on for quite a long while.

MKSheppard wrote:Yeah we did. It's been a while, but let me dig out the stuff:

NOTE: This was very early on in the project; we really didn't discuss it that much later on.

1950-1958: Mass deportations and resettlements, Drakan society is atomized completely, and the last large Drakan bands destroyed. Surviving Drakan population is 18 million out of a pre-war high of 35 million. Two million disappear into the Soviet Kolyma; another four million die off for various reasons (starvation, executions, etc etc).

Why so high, why did half of the Drakan population (innocent serfs likely included) get killed by the air bombing genocide? Millions of Germans and Japanese died, but even then their societies were not completely atomised, even after what they did and how much effort was expended in defeating them. As ruthless as the air bombing and invasion of the two Axis nations were, some of the infrastructure and administration was left alone due to need for rebuilding and leaving a forum for the Axis leaders to officially capitulate their surviving militaries.

Of course in the Draka verse, there would be a severe de-Drakavication where the Drakan political, military and police leadership goes through the equivalent of the Nuremberg trials, but typically you cannot lethally punish everybody but the ringleaders and you let most soldiers below the rank of colonel go free - private Drakan citizens with blood on their hands cannot be widely punished without going into genocide either.

But when the enemy troops march into Drakan territory, I imagine most of the mistreated serfs will violently turn on the Drakan citizens and loyal serfs, with the occupying American and British soldiers trying to protect these Drakans from reprisals while the Soviet troops typically turn a blind eye or often join in with the "fun".

1960-1970: From time to time, Drakan exiles come out of the woodwork to do guerilla campaigns against the free states, attacks peak in the mid 1960s as the states gain independence and die out by the early 1970s as the Draka are simply dead.

I wouldn't say die hard Drakans would wage a guerrilla campaign except way out in the sticks (like a few Japanese soldiers were occasionally picked up from time to time in the 60s and 70s), but the vast majority of young Drakans and freed serfs would be re-educated by the Soviets in their model Communist satellite states in parts of the Middle East and Africa, while the former Domination territory under capitalist nations would be restructured as democratic republics with all the former, surviving Drakan Combines turned into conventional companies and the Drakan peoples, both citizen or serf, starting to live like modern day Western citizens.

1965: Ivan Krasnov retires from most of his posts, except for Ministry of Transportation. His successor as leader of the Soviet Union is the head of the MGB, N. N. Lapshov; The first free African nations in more than two hundred years are admitted to the United Nations.

It would be ironic and mildly humorous that alternative former-DotD Africa is far more politically stable, economically prosperous and with a content mixed race population - no pretentious warlords, no mass hunger, no ignorance, no small and mean civil wars. And the AIDS epidemic would be contained or even neutralized by the continents’ more developed infrastructure (successfully rebuilt after the Draka war as was Japan‘s).

There should be a fanfic that directly immitates the famous autobahn scene from Band of Brothers -"You! Hey you! Welcome to General Motors, V-fucking-W and Ford! You stupid Snake cunts, you have steam powered buggies for crying out loud! What the fuck were you thinking?!"

Big Orange wrote: Why so high, why did half of the Drakan population (innocent serfs likely included) get killed by the air bombing genocide? Millions of Germans and Japanese died, but even then their societies were not completely atomised, even after what they did and how much effort was expended in defeating them. As ruthless as the air bombing and invasion of the two Axis nations were, some of the infrastructure and administration was left alone due to need for rebuilding and leaving a forum for the Axis leaders to officially capitulate their surviving militaries.

Of course in the Draka verse, there would be a severe de-Drakavication where the Drakan political, military and police leadership goes through the equivalent of the Nuremberg trials, but typically you cannot lethally punish everybody but the ringleaders and you let most soldiers below the rank of colonel go free - private Drakan citizens with blood on their hands cannot be widely punished without going into genocide either.

But when the enemy troops march into Drakan territory, I imagine most of the mistreated serfs will violently turn on the Drakan citizens and loyal serfs, with the occupying American and British soldiers trying to protect these Drakans from reprisals while the Soviet troops typically turn a blind eye or often join in with the "fun".

I believe that something similiar to the Morgenthau Plan was implemented postwar. As for high numbers of casulties during the war, the Draka have relatively few urban areas compared to other countries(or at least, relatively few "Citizen" Urban areas) leading to a somewhat smaller list of targets.
(Note that in "Night of the Super Forts" the Draka Heartland was plastered, the rest of the continent was relatively spared. Now keep this up for years and years...)

MKSheppard wrote:One change I'd probably make is change his name from Fidel Castro to probably something like Robert Castro, or James Castro, to reflect the "Anglicization" of Cuba that's been going on for quite a long while.

In OTL Castro's father immigrated to Cuba from Spain, and his genealogy wouldn't necessarily change. It could still be "Fidel." Also I had a few ideas about how the race relations would play out, mainly that after the Civil War there would be a Latin diaspora of people moving out of the poorer regions of Mexico and the Caribbean for (literally) greener pastures in the North. Stuff like veterans of Sherman's Army of Mexico flooding into Oregon and the Pacific Northwest, and Cuban tenant farmers pouring into Northern cities to supply industrial manpower for the ever-expanding factories. They encounter discrimination from the local whites over religious and cultural hostility, which allows the Democratic Party to court them and catch its breath (the Republican party just freed millions of Black voters and enfranchised millions more Hispanics, which is a recipe for a permanent majority otherwise).

Over time these people become fully Anglicized to the same extent as other immigrants (German, Scandinavians, etc.) of the same period--they pretty much completely forget Spanish, for example.

Meanwhile back in the "homelands" (the Caribbean Islands and Central American from the Mexican Altiplano south) the people hang together more and so maintain their culture longer. These states are officially bilingual, and everybody speaks both English and Spanish. These people are also solid Republicans until Castro starts to hammer at them in the 1960s as a kingmaker for the Democratic party.

Lonestar wrote: I believe that something similiar to the Morgenthau Plan was implemented postwar. As for high numbers of casulties during the war, the Draka have relatively few urban areas compared to other countries(or at least, relatively few "Citizen" Urban areas) leading to a somewhat smaller list of targets.
(Note that in "Night of the Super Forts" the Draka Heartland was plastered, the rest of the continent was relatively spared. Now keep this up for years and years...)

With the Drakans pushed from Southern and Eastern Europe by Soviets, with their strategic military projection annihilated beyond repair in the Middle East, then they have forever lost their chance to take over Eurasia - it is just a question of keeping them contained in Africa and then rolling four hundred armoured divisions across the Suez canal after a heavy conventional bombing campaign. Even though Shep always has a semen encrusted hard on for nuclear weapony, the heavy use of nuclear bombs would be pretty unnecessary against the Domination, when Super Fortresses with conventional bombs would do the job just as well and the Morgenthau Plan was dumped in real life for a reason.

It would perhaps be entertaining how the Drakan leadership would react to events past 1945, when the writing is on the wall for their brutal empire - you would have the fanatical Security Directorate increasing their political control and deploying their own forces in greater numbers on the frontline, including their own air force (like the SS did) while the War Directorate falls out in favour with the rest of the Drakan leaders, with some high ranking War Directorate officers defecting to the other side as spies, trying to negotiate with the Allies (like Himmler) and even assassinating Drakan rivals who want to stubbornly carry on with the failed war. I imagine most Janissaries who were initially taken as POWs would get drafted into the ranks of the Russians, Germans, British and Americans...

In addition to fanfiction, it would be cool to see a lot of Domination of the Draka fanart - I've already done a sketch of Hond III-C tank (which annoyingly I cannot show due to having no scanner), but it would cool what sort of rank insignia the War & Security Directorate officers have on their tunics, what the Drakan pilots and tank crews look like, your typical Janissary infantryman, Drakan autosteamer staff cars and artillary pieces.

Big Orange wrote:But when the enemy troops march into Drakan territory, I imagine most of the mistreated serfs will violently turn on the Drakan citizens and loyal serfs, with the occupying American and British soldiers trying to protect these Drakans from reprisals while the Soviet troops typically turn a blind eye or often join in with the "fun".

That's pretty much what happened, actually. As the pressure increases against the Draka with battlefield defeat and strategic bombing, control of the serfs erodes. All available manpower is headed to the front, so there's minimal forces available to suppress revolts, and the traditional deployment of chemical weapons to suppress the serfs is hobbled by strategic bombing. No plants to produce the gas, and no planes to deliver it. The battlefield defeats would also see a collapse in Janissary discipline, with whole units going over to the allies or even running off into the bush to join the revolt.

Immediately after liberation, serfs in most areas go on revenge campaigns, which are opposed with varying degrees of enthusiasm by allied troops. By this time of the campaign, the Soviets aren't supplying very many boots on the ground to the war effort, having taken grievous losses. IIRC after the Suez crossing it's mainly an American, British, and European show. But I wouldn't assume that the Europeans would be any keener to protect the Drakans from serf reprisals, considering how fucking evil the Drakans are.

At the end of the war you end up with rural areas expunged of Drakans, while the cities (swollen with refugees) were more defensible and remain armed camps long enough to surrender to the allies.

Pablo Sanchez wrote: Immediately after liberation, serfs in most areas go on revenge campaigns, which are opposed with varying degrees of enthusiasm by allied troops. By this time of the campaign, the Soviets aren't supplying very many boots on the ground to the war effort, having taken grievous losses. IIRC after the Suez crossing it's mainly an American, British, and European show. But I wouldn't assume that the Europeans would be any keener to protect the Drakans from serf reprisals, considering how fucking evil the Drakans are.

You mean how fucking evil the Drakan system is, not necessarily how evil every individual Drakan citizen is? Not every Allied soldier is going to be a Catholic and there is such a thing as Stockholm Syndrome - serfs would react to being liberated from Domination captivity with various degrees (ranging from passive aggressive indifference towards Drakan citizens up to genocidal rage). I would say the British would be, on average, the less hostile occupation troops, while Russians, Italians and Poles would be the worse.

At the end of the war you end up with rural areas expunged of Drakans, while the cities (swollen with refugees) were more defensible and remain armed camps long enough to surrender to the allies.

Or you could have the cream (or scum) of Drakan society fleeing to mountainside bunkers where they either have an orgy there, use them as a base of operations for their attempted resistance campaigns and maybe just pop a cyanide pill or 9mm bullet into their mouths.

I wonder what sort of steel helmet the Domination soldiers used? Nothing like the infamous German helmet, that would be trite, perhaps something like the British Army helmet that was standard issue in the 1960s and 1970s?

Big Orange wrote:With the Drakans pushed from Southern and Eastern Europe by Soviets, with their strategic military projection annihilated beyond repair in the Middle East, then they have forever lost their chance to take over Eurasia - it is just a question of keeping them contained in Africa and then rolling four hundred armoured divisions across the Suez canal after a heavy conventional bombing campaign. Even though Shep always has a semen encrusted hard on for nuclear weapony, the heavy use of nuclear bombs would be pretty unnecessary against the Domination, when Super Fortresses with conventional bombs would do the job just as well and the Morgenthau Plan was dumped in real life for a reason.

No, there's a very good and coherent reason for the DFic-verse's massed atomic bombing. Allow me to quote from the Writers' Bible.

Fall 1946: The Draka have lost their hold over all but Africa and the Palestinia province, where the old defensive lines along the Ottoman border have been upgraded in a mass effort, and the rugged, sparsely developed desert terrain to the east prevents the lines from being flanked, and the Allied forces have come to a halt after their blitzkriegs across Asia Minor in order to rest and refit for the next Grand Offensive, the seizing of Palestina and the forced crossing of the Suez Canal into Africa proper. The Draka have, by this time, finally come to accept that they can't actually win.

So one of their generals who has risen up through the ranks in the war and is realistic in the face of experience on the ground against the allied forces, is given command of all remaining armoured forces, which are concentrated in Palestina, and informed of a new weapon.

Immense and cumbersome, but powerful mines, of a type which they won't even tell the commander of the offensive of the exact nature of. Useless except when in prepared emplacements to be detonated in underground tunnels under the enemy lines. But capable of shattering whole divisions in a flash there.

By October 1946, the Draka have positioned 11 nuclear devices and the largest stockpiles of gas in the world, including their own hastily deployed nerve gas to finally counter the vast amounts the Germans have used, to support the full strength of their armoured forces in a breakout counterattack from Palestine.

The key to this last gamble by the Draka is their assessment that the allies are exhausted. For five years most of the world has fought against the Draka non-stop in a feast of blood. And there's no end in sight.

And in this, the Draka are completely correct, as their offensive successfully takes the Allies by surprise, and cuts the primary lines of supply for an army of 1.5 million+, and are more or less well on their way to turning it into an enormous pocket.

This gives the Draka an excellent bargaining position with the rest of the Allies, who after 5-6 years of war, have civilian populations who tire of it. The Draka are pushed back to Africa proper, they don't threaten anyone's homeland anymore, and have killed millions of soldiers, and are holding the Sword of Damocles over a million and a half more. If this state of affairs continues, it seems that the Draka can sue for peace and keep what they have - probably waiting another generation or so before making another grand attempt at world conquest.

Thus the Americans are forced to play their hand early, and launch the B-36 American Atomic Offensive early, and with less thoroughness than had been originally envisioned. It's enough, though, to smash the Drakian homeland, destroying their infrastructure to continue the war. This has the effect of giving the Allies the rallying force they need to reinvigorate their citizenry to carry the war on to a conclusion, as, for the first time, it appears possible to do so without spilling endless buckets of blood across an entire continent. And thus we eventually end up with Allied boots marching around the glassy crater that was Archona.

It would perhaps be entertaining how the Drakan leadership would react to events past 1945, when the writing is on the wall for their brutal empire - you would have the fanatical Security Directorate increasing their political control and deploying their own forces in greater numbers on the frontline, including their own air force (like the SS did) while the War Directorate falls out in favour with the rest of the Drakan leaders, with some high ranking War Directorate officers defecting to the other side as spies, trying to negotiate with the Allies (like Himmler) and even assassinating Drakan rivals who want to stubbornly carry on with the failed war.

*Cackle and grin* Imagine SecDir forces corsetting Citizen Legions...

I imagine most Janissaries who were initially taken as POWs would get drafted into the ranks of the Russians, Germans, British and Americans...

No, not 'most', in fact, it's a rather smallish fraction.

In addition to fanfiction, it would be cool to see a lot of Domination of the Draka fanart - I've already done a sketch of Hond III-C tank (which annoyingly I cannot show due to having no scanner), but it would cool what sort of rank insignia the War & Security Directorate officers have on their tunics, what the Drakan pilots and tank crews look like, your typical Janissary infantryman, Drakan autosteamer staff cars and artillary pieces.

Absolutely delightful, though be warned that Shep and I are changing, tweaking, and adding stuff fairly steadily. As for images, Shep has been pulling some fairly neat stuff out from seemingly nowhere. For instance, he has some images floating around somewhere of Janissaries in uniform.



Anyways, as for progress on DF, we were ramping up work on it until the recent fatal crash of Divine Salamis, which really took the wind out of our sails until recently, when we re-hosted the WB here on SD. We're still working on data recovery from the forums at DS, to try and salvage what we can.

In the meantime, I have everything I need to continue writing my (Still nameless!) fic

Big Orange wrote:Why so high, why did half of the Drakan population (innocent serfs likely included) get killed by the air bombing genocide?

When I said "atomization", I didn't mean it in the term of "disappeared under mushroom cloud", but rather as in the near complete destruction of the Drakian culture, etc; in much the same way the various practices done during the Slave Trade in Africa led to the complete destruction of Tribal practices and culture in the Slaves by the time they had arrived in America. Oh sure, the original generation would remember their tribes, but their kids wouldn't.

As for the extremely high count; you gotta remember that the death toll for the Citizen population is high due to them essentially being MADNESS? THIS IS DRAKIA!!!!! when it comes to military service; a couple million will have been KIA in Italy, Russia, The Balkans, and the initial battles in North Africa/Middle East. There's going to be tons more who get killed in futile resistance; imagine the local Drakian VFW posts and a couple of Drakian Boy Scouts banding together and going off to die in futile battles against a US Armored Combat Command.

There's also the fact that the Allies in this TL are going to be much meaner and ruthless when it comes to dealing with POWs, etc. Since the Draka don't even follow the basic Geneva Conventions and work their own POWs to death in mines, there's not going to be a huge outcry for more humane treatment for Drakian POWs. I wouldn't be surprised if a couple million or so die in Allied captivity through the war.

Of course in the Draka verse, there would be a severe de-Drakavication where the Drakan political, military and police leadership goes through the equivalent of the Nuremberg trials, but typically you cannot lethally punish everybody but the ringleaders and you let most soldiers below the rank of colonel go free - private Drakan citizens with blood on their hands cannot be widely punished without going into genocide either.

That's just the problem; everyone in the society is essentially implicit in the entire sordid business that is the Dominate of Drakia. The only people who would be safe from the Allied de-Drakavication processes would be those Citizens who were *relatively* poor, and only had one or two serfs, and lived in a small apartment/house. Of course, the different Allied nations have their own idea of what constitutes "de-Drakavication".

The Americans, British, etc would most likely decide that it consists of burning down your family plantation, punching you in the gut, and then walking away, leaving you to sob as your family history goes up in smoke. The Italians and Irish most likely would force you to castrate yourself and enter a monastery, devoting the rest of your life to God as the price for living.

The Soviets, on the other hand, will appropriate your plantation for a new "State Farm", and since you are a decadent Drakian slavocrat, you get an all expenses paid trip to the Kolyma...aka GULAG, or you just simply get taken out on the back forty and shot as an enemy of the State.

But when the enemy troops march into Drakan territory, I imagine most of the mistreated serfs will violently turn on the Drakan citizens and loyal serfs, with the occupying American and British soldiers trying to protect these Drakans from reprisals while the Soviet troops typically turn a blind eye or often join in with the "fun".

Serf revolts -- the most dreaded thing to a Draka.

It all depends though on *where* it is. If it's in North Africa, and other "recently" conquered areas by the Dominate; it's going to be bad; very bad (to the Draka, that is).

However, once you get to the "heartland" of the Dominate; You'd literally have to be on the Plantation and putting your feet on the master's antique 124 year old desk while your men use fine china as skeet practice, before the Serfs come to you and offer their help in finding the "massa". They've been under the yoke for so long, and there have been so many serf revolts that have been ruthlessly suppressed by the SecDir before with gas, etc; that they're all a bit leery of revolting.

I wouldn't say die hard Drakans would wage a guerrilla campaign except way out in the sticks (like a few Japanese soldiers were occasionally picked up from time to time in the 60s and 70s)

It's going to be virtually impossible to clean out every single square mile of Africa. It's a big place; and by the time the Allies have essentially conquered the place; they're going to be hastily demobilizing their armies; they've been at war for virtually a decade -- so there is going to be enormous pressure -- even in the Soviet Union -- to "bring the boys home".

but the vast majority of young Drakans and freed serfs would be re-educated by the Soviets in their model Communist satellite states in parts of the Middle East and Africa, while the former Domination territory under capitalist nations would be restructured as democratic republics with all the former, surviving Drakan Combines turned into conventional companies and the Drakan peoples, both citizen or serf, starting to live like modern day Western citizens.

You've pretty much got the post war reconstruction of the former Drakian lands down right.

It would be ironic and mildly humorous that alternative former-DotD Africa is far more politically stable, economically prosperous and with a content mixed race population - no pretentious warlords, no mass hunger, no ignorance, no small and mean civil wars. And the AIDS epidemic would be contained or even neutralized by the continents’ more developed infrastructure (successfully rebuilt after the Draka war as was Japan‘s).

It's because of the one GOOD thing the Domination of Drakia did -- they BROKE the tribes of Africa.

KlavoHunter wrote: And in this, the Draka are completely correct, as their offensive successfully takes the Allies by surprise, and cuts the primary lines of supply for an army of 1.5 million+, and are more or less well on their way to turning it into an enormous pocket.

I see, so the Americans launched a hasty counter attack with their A-bombs because the Drakans launched a much bigger, much nastier version of the Battle of Bulge, assisted with the underground detonation of A-bombs of their own? Did the Allies also attempt massive seabourn landings around the African coast at the same time as well? I read in one of Shep's better fanfictions, Operation Noah's Hammer, that the RAF effectively knocked out one of the Domination's heavy water plants (although they have more resources and industry than the more precarious Third Reich did in the OTL).

Absolutely delightful, though be warned that Shep and I are changing, tweaking, and adding stuff fairly steadily. As for images, Shep has been pulling some fairly neat stuff out from seemingly nowhere. For instance, he has some images floating around somewhere of Janissaries in uniform.

In my mind I have images of Drakan officers from all the military/police branches wearing uniforms that are essentially an amalgamation of British/German uniforms from WWII - the War Directorate uniforms are often a greenish mustard brown and the Security Directorate uniforms, like SS uniforms, either come in either dark olive green (frontline) or black(admin/police). I don't know why, but I always imagine Drakan citizens in the military to have the colour, royal purple, incorporated into their uniforms and unit flags.

I'd say the Security Directorate has it's own "exotic" rank insignia, while War Directorate insignia is closely related to contemporary British Army insignia (but with dragons instead of lions). Janissaries and other military/police serf auxiliaries would have the Egyptian fez as their standard uniform cap, while Citizen soldiers would have either high officer caps, black berets and Boer ranger hats (the Boer ranger hat would be popular among SD and WD special forces units). Tank crew uniforms, both Citizen and Janissary, would be pretty similar to Russian tank crew uniforms in my mind due to them being direct rivals in Eurasia for twenty years straight.

One thing that is missing from the Drakafics, however, is that the Drakan leadership has no iconic personalities - who was in charge of the airforce, was he/she an oaf like Goering was in OTL (who is somewhat better in this setting)? Who was the Archon, did he/she end up like morphine addicted fruitcake like Hitler and did he/she survive WWII? Who was the Security Directorate's chief? Was the SD chief a occult obsessed nerd like Himmler?

Lonestar wrote: As for high numbers of casulties during the war, the Draka have relatively few urban areas compared to other countries(or at least, relatively few "Citizen" Urban areas) leading to a somewhat smaller list of targets.

The big problem is that while we can easily smash the peripheral urban areas with conventional bombs; most of the Dominate is going to remain untouched, and cranking out weapons like crazy.

To wit:



Red Circle is the range of Luftwaffle Ju-88s based in Spain, and Northern Italy.

Green Circles are the range of Lancasters/B-24s based in:
Spain
Southern France
Greece (maximum effort one shot missions)
Caucasus.

Yellow Circles are the ranges of B-29s based in Southern France and the Caucasus.

You can see that the Navy's going to have it's work cut out around @ South Africa bombing and strafing the place, since the USAF can't hit it.

This is also why the B-36 actually enters service in WW2 (albeit in significantly smaller numbers than in TBO; only a couple hundred get built) -- in order to bomb Africa past the coastlines. This arithmetic also causes the other major air-minded powers to build their own quasi-B-36s projects independent of the US, like the German EF-100 and the British Barbazon.

(Note that in "Night of the Super Forts" the Draka Heartland was plastered, the rest of the continent was relatively spared. Now keep this up for years and years...)

NOTSF isn't one of my better attempts. I aim to re-write it one day, because it was my first crack, and it's full of holes and problems that I see now.

Big Orange wrote:With the Drakans pushed from Southern and Eastern Europe by Soviets, with their strategic military projection annihilated beyond repair in the Middle East, then they have forever lost their chance to take over Eurasia - it is just a question of keeping them contained in Africa and then rolling four hundred armoured divisions across the Suez canal after a heavy conventional bombing campaign.

Since there was no "Germany's back, we should have pressed for unconditional surrender in 1918!" feeling due to Germany being a Good Boy in this TL, unconditional surrender won't have as many adherents as it did in our timeline.

By 1946; the world will be divided into two camps:

Camp 1.) The Draka have been punished enough; millions of citizens (a not insignificant fraction of their prewar pop) is dead; they've lost all their early gains, and actually have begun to be pushed out of some long established holdings, like the middle east and the North African coast.

Any Drakian city in range of RAF and Luftwaffe bombers is getting the combined Arthur Harris / Wolfram von Richthofen treatment at night:

First drop 4,000 pound "cookies" to rip the roofs off of buildings; then drop tons of inciendary bombs mixed in with gas-filled bombs -- by 1944; German Nerve Agents will have been weaponized sufficiently to be used in bombs, but the majority (50%+) of all gas bombs will be Mustard filled due to Mustard's persistence in contaminating areas for a while. There will probably be a couple of light fragmentation bombs mixed in with the inciendaries; not to kill people, but to destroy their protective suits.

By day, USAAF bombers fly over the smoking pyres of Drakian cities, and drop their bombs (again, a HE/Gas mix) onto any industrial combines and railyards within range.

Camp 2.) The Draka are an abomination against God/Humanity/Whoever, and must be destroyed. This is heavily dominant in Catholic countries, and also in the Soviet Union.

However, even Camp 2 will be getting wobbly, as the Allied casualty lists grow.

Even though Shep always has a semen encrusted hard on for nuclear weapony

The big problem with planning a nuclear attack on the Domination is that it's so HUGE and spread out; it's not 1940s Germany, which is perfectly sized for destruction by 1940s nukes. You would need hundreds of 14-20 kt nukes to even make a decent dent in the Drakian economy/population, even accounting for the predeliction of Drakian urban planners for huge industrial complexes.

The US would probably be holding out for "The Medium One", or "Large Little One" -- Holding out for a Drakian sized "The Big One" would be too dangerous in two ways:

1.) Copyright issues, LOL

2.) The Draka are significantly larger, and more dangerous than Nazi Germany ever was. Even with all these casualties; and virtually all the big major coastal cities in Africa suffering from heavy amounts of damage; they still are cranking out tons of war materiel; and still have a quite large army still in the field, even after staggering losses, plus home field advantage. Plus, there is the even more dangerous threat that the Draka will get the Bomb, and use it against us first, so waiting for the nuclear arsenal to fill up is a dangerous and risky game.

So we want at minimum, a couple dozen (60+) nukes that we can hit the biggest remaining industrial complexes in the Dominate with, along with any other really vital targets, like say, the worlds biggest dam; waterproof a model 1561 and drop it into the reservoir; big railyards, etc; things that will do the maximum value for the initations.

We won't be able to deal a stunning "end the war in six hours" blow; but we'll be able to do the equivalent of kneecapping to the Draka.

They'll still be alive and dangerous, but will be without many of the options they had before.

I imagine most Janissaries who were initially taken as POWs would get drafted into the ranks of the Russians, Germans, British and Americans...

A couple of Allied Janissary Brigades, and later a division or two are raised, but they're never numerically that strong, more of a propaganda ploy than a practical one, and are really quite insignificant in the overall scheme of things.

What about the Draka's big industrial Cities like Archona and such in South Africa on the other side of the continent that are out of the range of Allied Bombers?

Zor

Zor wrote:What about the Draka's big industrial Cities like Archona and such in South Africa on the other side of the continent that are out of the range of Allied Bombers?

I'm thinking TB2D SKYPIRATES from the large carriers.

MKSheppard wrote:

Zor wrote:What about the Draka's big industrial Cities like Archona and such in South Africa on the other side of the continent that are out of the range of Allied Bombers?

I'm thinking TB2D SKYPIRATES from the large carriers.

On the other hand, the Skypirate uses up precious R-4360 Wasp Majors, as are used on the B-36.


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On the other hand, in a 'verse where the United States has even MORE industrial production than TBO'verse, due to its greater size, and builds FEWER B-36s than in TBO'verse, there's a damn fine chance there are more Wasp Majors to go around...

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Which means we're liable to get the P-71 Stormbird! I'm sure the DF-verse version wouldn't have any problem in fitting 1, or even 2 23mm Vulcans, as the ultimate B-29 escort fighter.

I wonder if Shep could show his sketches of what he thinks a Janissary infantryman looks like...

Big Orange wrote:I wonder if Shep could show his sketches of what he thinks a Janissary infantryman looks like...

Hacked, and edited from a German uniform site where I found the original image from:



I'm not too sure on the jackboots; I'd imagine that some sort of high rise boots would be standard on the Drakian uniform due to conditions in Africa; all sorts of weird wildlife...

KlavoHunter wrote:

MKSheppard wrote: I'm thinking TB2D SKYPIRATES from the large carriers.

On the other hand, the Skypirate uses up precious R-4360 Wasp Majors, as are used on the B-36.

I don’t think Skypirate can work. Its 8,000 pound payload is sufficient if the bomb wasn’t extensively armored, but none of the individual hard points can support more then 2,000lb. I’m also pretty sure it can’t fly high enough to escape the blast, nor can many if any of the twin engine medium bombers which might be flown one way off a carrier deck.

On the other hand, in a 'verse where the United States has even MORE industrial production than TBO'verse, due to its greater size, and builds FEWER B-36s than in TBO'verse, there's a damn fine chance there are more Wasp Majors to go around...

TBO should just be kept out of consideration, the B-36 production numbers in that story require canceling and scaling back other programs which are known to go ahead in Draka Fic. It is a serious issue balancing out how many of the R-4360 powered aircraft get built. However since Draka Fic has about 18 months of tech acceleration, the engine may hit mass production earlier then historical, especially if development began independently of the B-36, for which the US has no requirement until its already at war with the Draka.

Sea Skimmer wrote:I don’t think Skypirate can work. Its 8,000 pound payload is sufficient if the bomb wasn’t extensively armored, but none of the individual hard points can support more then 2,000lb. I’m also pretty sure it can’t fly high enough to escape the blast, nor can many if any of the twin engine medium bombers which might be flown one way off a carrier deck.

You're saying that as though the Skypirate would be used to drop nukes, which is not the case. The Skypirate would be used to conventionally (And incendiary/chemical) bomb strategic targets in the deep Police Zone off of carriers, where B-29s just can't get to. For USN-based nuclear delivery, there *IS* the America-class Attack Carrier, which is designed to fly a wing of large, nuclear-capable bombers.

TBO should just be kept out of consideration, the B-36 production numbers in that story require canceling and scaling back other programs which are known to go ahead in Draka Fic. It is a serious issue balancing out how many of the R-4360 powered aircraft get built. However since Draka Fic has about 18 months of tech acceleration, the engine may hit mass production earlier then historical, especially if development began independently of the B-36, for which the US has no requirement until its already at war with the Draka.

Fair enough, that the TBO production of the Wasp Major is a different case than OTL. Still, as you said, with the general tech acceleration of DF-verse, and the United States' greater size and industrial oomph, it's possible to have mass-production of the R-4360 for use on that smaller-than-TBO number of B-36s, and then the other R-4360 using planes (Skypirate, F8B, P-71).

I'm not the one to ask to number-crunch on that one, though.

MKSheppard wrote:I'm not too sure on the jackboots; I'd imagine that some sort of high rise boots would be standard on the Drakian uniform due to conditions in Africa; all sorts of weird wildlife...

[20:51] JamesI Hunter: Somethin's gotta save the Snakes from the snakes
[20:51] MKSheppard: bad pun