1940: the Year of the Cat Armada (RAR!)

[Zor]

Our story begins in February 1938 about a thousand kilometers west of Capetown when a strange anomaly opens in the ocean, a gateway about 16 meters in diameter that is about half submerged. Through this gate a small fast ship with a small floatplane attached to it's back. It and the plane scout about the area for the next few months charting the South Atlantic, the coasts of Southwestern Africa and Southeastern South America before returning through the portal with a captured fishing boat in tow. The portal then closes down to about 2 centimeters across. They are spotted a few times but people don't think too much about it. A similar situation unfolds from portals 300 km southeast of Mauritius, 1000 km south of the Galapagos Islands and 1000km southwest of the Canary Islands in October of '38, May of '39 and October of '39 and as well as a couple more scouting missions afterwards. There are a few sightings of strange ships and aircraft, some radio signals which go unidentified and sound strange but mostly this gets dismissed as pressing human matters concern the people of the earth. Then in February 2nd, 1940 the portals open up to their full diameter and out from each of them pours a fleet of warships and transport craft. Said ships are manned by these guys...

...they call themselves Gazrallin (and for sake of simplicity i'll be translating the names), thought to humans they'll be known (for obvious reasons) as Felines and Cats. They've come with the intent on conquering this world.

Male cats are on average 2.2 to 2.5 meters tall and weigh 160-190 kilograms. Female cats are on average 1.7 to 2 meters tall and weigh between 70 and 90 kilograms. Both are stronger than an average human male (especially the males) and both have a set of retractable claws powerful jaws that makes any instance of hand to hand combat between them and a human horribly one sided. They can sprint at speeds of 30-35km/h but are incapable of sustained running for more than five hundred meters, though they can walk at a human pace long distances just as well as a human can. They are mostly carnivores and the bulk of their diet is meat, though they can eat plant products to pad things out. About 70% to 95% of their diet is either meat or fish. Their lifespan, maturation and reproductive rates are generally comparable to humans though births are much easier affairs and they have a fixed mating season.

The Cats are organized into the Ascendant Empire which occupies three planets, though they possess no spacecraft. The short version of the Empire's History is that 800 years prior a bunch of refugees fled by ship across the sea to escape destruction at a horde of barbarians on the main continent and arrived on an isolated continent. Their they established a new iron age civilization divided into several kingdoms and after exploration found the ruins from an ancient alien colony. By a combination of superior organization and control of the largest ruin site (which had an abundant supply of easily recyclable metal and some useful relics) one kingdom was able to conquer the other refugee kingdoms and create an Empire retook their ancestral homeland and gradually advanced scientifically and technologically. Eventually they figured out what some of the artifacts were and discovered that they could use them to link up to other habitable planets. Said wormhole generators only work when they're floating in water and only generate wormholes at fixed locations on both ends. They first discovered this about a hundred years ago. They've previously reached four planets. Two of them were Ocean Worlds entirely covered by stormy seas. One of them was a primitive world with no land life more advanced than some moss, swamp plants and primitive moss eating starfish things, which they turned into a mining and penal colony. The last was populated by kingdoms of 40 kilogram creatures that sort of look like Platypii at a medieval level of technological development that the cats conquered and enslaved. Wars with other nations on the Cat Homeworld have driven their technological advancement.

The name of their empire comes from the fact that they rose from the ashes of being refugee colonists and due to their nature of their religion, which stipulates that this mortal world was created to breed armies for the war in heaven. Soldiers who serve gallantly in battle (especially, but not limited to, those who die in battle) become angelic warriors in the service of their trinity of good gods to defeat the forces of their trinity of bad gods who've taken over paradise. Cats who are exceptional in their trades go on to serve as angelic scholars, craftsmen, engineers, farmers and so forth, though the main emphisis is to produce soldiers. Those that are not exceptional or have sinned too much get reincarnated for another shot (moving up or down depending), or if they sin too much are sent to Oblivion.

The Empire has a population of 600 million cats and 400 million Platapoids. The social order of the Ascendant Empire is divided into three classes...

• The Nobility: The Nobility makes up 7% of the cat population of the Empire and constitutes it's ruling class, but it is very formalized and bureaucratized. It has formal sub-divisions and stratification, but these are complex, multi-tiered and fluid. Regardless members of the Nobility are required to attend state run military or administrative schools, those that drop out (about 10%) are stripped of their noble status. After that they're expected to spend at least five years in a governmental position. Any job besides being a landlord or a government, military, scholarly or a religious career is considered to be unfit for a noble, though many nobles who can afford it quietly have their investments. Nobles make up the officer corps of the army and navy.
• The Subjects: The subjects make up 88% of the cat population and 30% of the Platypoid population. Subjects are the civilian classes, the farmers, most of the workers, the tradesmen, the merchants, the accountants and so forth. Subjects are not required to serve in the military save in times of total war, but many often do as military service is a good way of getting into the nobility. Even so Commoners mostly make up the ranks of the enlisted (in part because achieving the rank of captain automatically comes with induction into the lowest rank of nobility). Subjects can also be granted noble status other ways such as marrying into noble houses, exceptional service to the state buying themselves into the nobility. There is no tradition of democracy in the Empire: subjects are ruled over by nobles whom they serve.
• The Slaves: 5% of the Cat population and 70% of the platypoids are slaves. Slavery is a long standing institution and slaves become slaves either by getting too far into debt, criminals sentenced to enslavement or as a fate for conquered peoples who attempted to rebel against their overlords. Though slaves can serve in a wide range of functions, mostly they do menial tasks and act as personal servants. Both commoners and nobles can own slaves. In this society do not have the power of life and death over slaves in most cases, but they have considerable leeway towards other punishments. Slaves can buy their freedom, and otherwise achieve freedom through good behavior and several other paths.

Their science and technology are both comparable to that of earth at the time in most regards save for four areas. First of all their understanding of genetics is more advanced (having worked out dominant and recessive genes in their antiquity), they have RADAR systems more akin to that of late WWII, they've developed motorized gatling cannons and their understanding of nuclear theory is still in it's infancy. Now onto their military forces....

NAVY

Emperor class Dreadnought (DN): 248 meters long, 52,000 tonnes. 150 MW total engine power and a top speed of 50km/h. 61cm turret armor, 36cm hull armor, 21 cm deck armor. Armament: three main turrets each with three 419.2mm cannons, twenty 131mm anti aircraft cannons, twelve 26.2mm gatling turrets. Three float planes. Crew of 1,800.

The newest and most powerful ship in the Cat Navy generally used as flagships.

Hero class Battleship (BB): 215 meters long, 32,000 tonnes. 65MW total engine power and a top speed of 47km/h. 31.44cm turret armor, 26.2cm hull armor, 13.2cm deck armor. Armament: three main turrets with two 419.2mm cannons, twelve 131mm anti aircraft cannons, eight 26.2mm gatling turrets. Three Float Planes. Crew of 1,500.

An older class of battleship that's been in production for over two decades and has been periodically upgraded. Solid and dependable design which has seen service in several fleet engagements on the Cat Homeworld.

Archer class Fleet Carrier (CV): 230 meters long (including an extended landing platform), 24,000 tonnes. 65MW total engine power and a top speed of 50km/h. 26.2cm hull armor. Armament: eight 131mm AA cannons, eight 26.2 gatling turrets. Twenty fighters, thirty torpedo planes.

A modification of the Hero Class designed to serve as a carrier.

Hunter class Cruiser (CA): 172 meters long, 14,000 tonnes. 60MW total engine power and a top speed of 55km/h. 78.6mm hull armor, 131mm bulkhead and magazine armor, 26.2mm turret armor. Armament: three turrets with two 209.6mm cannons, four 131mm anti-aircraft guns, six 26.2mm gatling turrets, four 655mm torpedo tubes. Two float planes. Crew of 600.

Basic cruiser intended for commerce raiding, patrols, heavy escort and being there when a reasonably heavy hitting warship is needed but things don't quite warrent a battleship.

Sword class Destroyer (DD): 120 meters long, 2,000 tonnes. 35MW total engine power and a top speed of 65km/h. Standard armament of two turreted 131mm naval guns. Crew of 120.

A flexible destroyer platform of which three specialized variants exist. The first is escort, which has two additional 131mm naval guns, a pair of hedgehog style Antisubmarine Weapons and a single Gatling turret for AA defense. The second one is torpedo which has twelve turret mounted 655mm torpedo launchers and a single gatling turret. The third is Flak, which has two 131mm anti-aircraft guns and two gatling turrets. The ratio is one Flak destroyer and one Torpedo Destroyer for every two escort destroyers.

Sharkoid class Submarine (SM): Lenght 78 meters, weight 1,800 tonnes. 3MW total engine power (diesel electric) and a top speed of 23km/h (submerged). Armed with 2 655mm torpedo tubes and a single 104mm cannon. Crew of 60.

Diesel electric submarine used for scouting and raiding. Crewed by a mixture of platypoids and female cat officers.

From each wormhole pours forth two Emperor class Dreadnoughts, six Hero class Battleships, three Archer class carriers, twelve hunter class cruisers, forty Sword class Destroyers and twenty Sharkoid class Submarines. They're also escorting a number of cargo ships in the 10,000 to 20,000 tonne area ranging making about about 22km/h carrying supplies and (for each armada) some 400,000 soldiers to make the benchead and begin the conquest of the Earth.

Once the intial force has been deployed the cats will send through additional forces through so that they'll receive the same amount of tonnage in warships every 18 months for the next six years, though there will be more CVs and DNs and less BBs as that happens.

ARMY
The Standard infantrycat is a tough customer. He's armed with a 6.55x55mm battle rifle for his main armament and moreover has some pretty good armor (covering the head and torso) made of steel, nylon, fiberglass and fiber padding. It weighs about 25 kilos in total but it does give some protection even against rifle fire. Their idea of a Sniper Rifle would be considered an anti-tank weapon by human standards. Officers, as shown, carry Dao like cleaving swords. They also have grenades, mortars, belt fed machine guns, 131mm anti-tank rocker launchers and other such weapons, all scaled up to match their proportions. Logistics are mostly handled by six wheeled 4 tonne trucks with 76kw engines, a modified version of which has 13.1mm of steel plating and a twin mounted 13.1mm machine gun turret and serves as an APC that can deliver up to 8 infantrycats into battle and provide machine gun support. They have a wide range of tube artillery from 78.6mm field guns to 419.2mm railway guns as well as some experimental rocket artillery. They know about poison gas and have reserves of gas shells and NBC gear, but won't use it unless they use it first.

The basic cat tank is 26 tonnes, has 50mm of armor, a 422kw engine and carriers two 13.1mm machine guns and a 78.6mm cannon. The first wave of the invasion has 1,600 of these. They also have a variant on the chassis outfitted with a 26.2mm anti-aircraft gatling cannon to serve as mobile AA. Cat tanks are manned by female crews.

Once the initial landing is made the cat empire will send in an additional 1.6 million troops to earth every three months. Ground Forces will go to the nearest mainland.

AIR POWER
Cat aircraft are manned by female aviators to save on mass. The cats are experimenting with Jet Engine technology, but are still about two or three years from putting a Jet Fighter into production. Helicopter experimentation is a bit ahead of what it was on earth, but there are still some ways off from deploying helicopter.

Skyfish: 32 meter wingspan, 9,400 kilograms. Two 920kw radial engines, top speed of 320km/h. Has three 13.1mm machine guns (one forward, one back, one on a top mounted turret) and up to 1,200 kilograms of bombs. Crew of Six. Range 4,300 kilometers.

Naval recon floatplane. Can serve as a light bomber in a pinch.
200 of them are with the fleet.

Radiant: 12.5 meter wingspan, 2,000 kilogram weight. 1,200 kw radial engine (pusher configuration), top speed of 580km/h. Armed with one 13.1mm gatling gun (3,000 RPM) and can carry four wing mounted 16kg rockets. Range of 2,000 km, more with a drop tank.

General purpose fighter used by both the Navy and the Imperial Air Force.
2,400 of these come with the first wave of the invasion.

Ospreyoid: 13 meter wingspan, 4,000 kilogram weight. 1,200kw radial engine, top speed of 410km/h. Armed with a 13.1mm machine guns and a 800 kilogram torpedo. Crew of two. Range of 2,000 km.

Naval and coastal torpedo bomber.
400 of these are with the Invasion Force.

Dao: 15 meter wingspan, 6,000 kilogram weight. Two 1,200 kw radial engines, top speed of 500km/h. Armed with two 13.1mm gatling guns, a 26.2mm cannon and able to carry up to 2,000 kilograms of bombs or rockets. Crew of one. 2,500 kilomerers.

Ground attack plane and light bomber. A modified version of this is outfitted with a RADAR system to serve as a night fighter. Can carry torpedoes in a pinch.
800 are with the initial invasion force

Hammer: 30 meter wingspan, 17,000 kilogram weight. Four 1,200 kw radial engines (Pusher configuration), top speed of 300 kilometers per hour. Armed with two 13.1mm Gatling gun turrets (one nose one rear) and is able to carry 12,000 kilograms of bomb. Range of 2,800 kilometers.

Heavy long ranged bomber.
240 of these are with the initial invasion force.

Additional aircraft will come along with additional ground forces.

The cats have a belief that there is a sharp distinction between soldiers and civilians. Soldiers may fight soldiers who invade their lands and are to be fought, but when an army comes in civilians are to submit to their new rulers. Civilians that attempt to rebel against their invaders are cowards that need to be snuffed out. Continuously defiant rebel populations are to be enslaved.

What happens?

Zor

[Crossroads Inc.]

Ye gods Zor, you never cease to impress me with just how much detail you put into your RARs
(Tips hat)

[SpottedKitty]

The first few ideas that came to mind included the words "catnip bomb"...

[Simon_Jester]

Male cats are on average 2.2 to 2.5 meters tall and weigh 160-190 kilograms. Female cats are on average 1.7 to 2 meters tall and weigh between 70 and 90 kilograms. Both are stronger than an average human male (especially the males) and both have a set of retractable claws powerful jaws that makes any instance of hand to hand combat between them and a human horribly one sided. They can sprint at speeds of 30-35km/h but are incapable of sustained running for more than five hundred meters, though they can walk at a human pace long distances just as well as a human can. They are mostly carnivores and the bulk of their diet is meat, though they can eat plant products to pad things out. About 70% to 95% of their diet is either meat or fish.

Logistics is gonna be a bear; meat spoils. Although I suppose they could manage some kind of storeable meat-ish crapfood that would be, essentially, cat food.

Also, for purposes of being WWII infantry it makes a big difference whether their soldiers can march with heavy loads for extended periods. This is physically different than running, but in many ways as demanding.

The Empire has a population of 600 million cats and 400 million Platapoids. The social order of the Ascendant Empire is divided into three classes...

The total population of the cat empire isn't really enough to conquer the world- there are two billion people for them to try and dominate on 1940 Earth, and while the heavy industry is concentrated in a few specific locations, even those regions have aggregate population comparable to that of their entire empire.

• The Nobility: The Nobility makes up 7% of the cat population of the Empire and constitutes it's ruling class, but it is very formalized and bureaucratized. It has formal sub-divisions and stratification, but these are complex, multi-tiered and fluid. Regardless members of the Nobility are required to attend state run military or administrative schools, those that drop out (about 10%) are stripped of their noble status. After that they're expected to spend at least five years in a governmental position. Any job besides being a landlord or a government, military, scholarly or a religious career is considered to be unfit for a noble, though many nobles who can afford it quietly have their investments. Nobles make up the officer corps of the army and navy.[/quote]The feudal system is going to make cat society a lot less functional than it otherwise might be. Remember that feudalism isn't just a system of government, it's a way of life. The privileged aristocracy tends to set up all sorts of sweet little political and economic curlicues to keep themselves in power, resulting in a lot of inefficiency compared to what you'd see in a more modern nation-state.
  
  For example, you say that achieving the rank of captain automatically confers noble status. But being a military officer is one of the primary ways to attain social status among the nobility. As a consequence, nobles will view common-born officers as competition. They will do whatever they can to prevent commoners from being promoted to ranks that make this possible. They will create entire categories of positions which exist entirely so that promising commoner officers can be "kicked upstairs" into positions with high responsibility but few prospects for advancement. That way, the real (that is, noble) officers can benefit from their expertise without having to worry about getting their tails bitten off by ambitious social-climbers.
  
  How do I know this? Because that's how it happened under comparable conditions in many historical societies during the age of gunpowder on Earth.
  
  Likewise, you can buy rank for yourself. That means that one of the first things a very rich commoner does is buy noble rank. That means the government has an easy source of ready cash whenever it wants, so long as it can create new positions to sell to rich commoners. Conversely, this means much of the economy is controlled by (newly ennobled) rich commoners, who have every incentive to exploit the network of tax breaks and privileges that apply to aristocrats. As a result, the government's finances are going to be a complete hash, a pitiful nightmare of bad accounting and robbing Peter to pay Paul, by modern standards. And the monarchy papers over the cracks by selling offices and borrowing money, probably at unfavorable interest rates, whenever it has a war to fight.
  
  How do I know this? Because that's what happened in real life.
  
  Likewise, there are slaves, and they make up roughly thirty million of the dominant species and nearly 300 million of the subordinate species (and the platypoids are, by the way, too small and physically weak to be useful as manual labor, so I'm not even sure what they all DO as slaves). The owners of all those slaves represent an economic bloc (equivalent of hundreds of billions of dollars in 1940 money, or many trillions of dollars in today's money). A bloc that will resist social and technological change insofar as it threatens the value of their slaves. Anything slaves do, that becomes automated, presents a threat to the livelihood of those slaveowners.
  
  How do I know this? Because, again, that's what happened in real life.
  
  Giving these guys modern weapons and tools doesn't automatically confer the advantages of a modern social structure.
  

  Their science and technology are both comparable to that of earth at the time in most regards save for four areas. First of all their understanding of genetics is more advanced (having worked out dominant and recessive genes in their antiquity), they have RADAR systems more akin to that of late WWII, they've developed motorized gatling cannons and their understanding of nuclear theory is still in it's infancy. Now onto their military forces....

  I will note that motorized Gatling guns have some major disadvantages. They go through ammunition so quickly that they tend to run out in a hurry (a modern jet fighter's cannon only has enough ammunition to fire its guns for several seconds). Also, the multiple barrels give them exceptional weight and bulk, making it hard to manhandle them, and making each gun heavier than a gun of corresponding caliber would be.
  

  Emperor class Dreadnought (DN): 248 meters long, 52,000 tonnes. 150 MW total engine power and a top speed of 50km/h. 61cm turret armor, 36cm hull armor, 21 cm deck armor. Armament: three main turrets each with three 419.2mm cannons, twenty 131mm anti aircraft cannons, twelve 26.2mm gatling turrets. Three float planes. Crew of 1,800.
  
  The newest and most powerful ship in the Cat Navy generally used as flagships.

  Did you actually math out those weight distributions, by the way? I'm not sure a ship with the listed parameters has the stated performance, though it might; the figures are at least plausible. A sense of numbers would be nice, by the way.
  

  Hero class Battleship (BB): 215 meters long, 32,000 tonnes. 65MW total engine power and a top speed of 47km/h. 31.44cm turret armor, 26.2cm hull armor, 13.2cm deck armor. Armament: three main turrets with two 419.2mm cannons, twelve 131mm anti aircraft cannons, eight 26.2mm gatling turrets. Three Float Planes. Crew of 1,500.
  
  An older class of battleship that's been in production for over two decades and has been periodically upgraded. Solid and dependable design which has seen service in several fleet engagements on the Cat Homeworld.

  These have so few guns that it will impair their ability to fire effectively, because with six shells per salvo it's harder to accurately judge and correct if your shells are missing. Also, I'm not sure it's physically possible to get that kind of armor protection and that kind of speed out of that small a hull, although that may be how you wound up with three double 17" gun turrets instead of a more normal armament layout.
  
  Who were these fleet actions against? Do the cats have enemies that might be encouraged to fight them again? If it turns out that the cats need lots and lots of their military power to fight a bunch of comparably equipped aliens, will their homeworld enemies consider trying to hit them again out of revenge?
  

  Archer class Fleet Carrier[/b][/i] (CV): 230 meters long (including an extended landing platform), 24,000 tonnes. 65MW total engine power and a top speed of 50km/h. 26.2cm hull armor. Armament: eight 131mm AA cannons, eight 26.2 gatling turrets. Twenty fighters, thirty torpedo planes.
  
  A modification of the Hero Class designed to serve as a carrier.

  These are too slow to be good at carrier warfare. Twenty-six knot carriers can be caught by most contemporary navies' fast battleships, and outrun by nearly everyone's dedicated fleet carriers. All that belt armor won't do them a lot of good. So, conclusion: the cats punch below their weight in carrier aviation.
  

  Hunter class Cruiser (CA): 172 meters long, 14,000 tonnes. 60MW total engine power and a top speed of 55km/h. 78.6mm hull armor, 131mm bulkhead and magazine armor, 26.2mm turret armor. Armament: three turrets with two 209.6mm cannons, four 131mm anti-aircraft guns, six 26.2mm gatling turrets, four 655mm torpedo tubes. Two float planes. Crew of 600.
  
  [snip description of a cruiser]

  The 'cats enjoy a considerable advantage in cruisers not because of better technology but because they've never heard of the Washington Naval Treaty. Everyone and their cousin could have built such cruisers in real life, but almost no one did, because the Treaty limited cruisers to ships of ten thousand tons or less. I will note that the Hunters have confusingly light armament, which will probably interfere with their gunnery performance. Their armor is heavy but I'm not sure it's actually heavy enough to keep out 6" and 8" shell fire, so it may prove counterproductive. I'd have to look into that.
  

  Sword class Destroyer (DD): 120 meters long, 2,000 tonnes. 35MW total engine power and a top speed of 65km/h. Standard armament of two turreted 131mm naval guns. Crew of 120.
  
  A flexible destroyer platform of which three specialized variants exist. The first is escort, which has two additional 131mm naval guns, a pair of hedgehog style Antisubmarine Weapons and a single Gatling turret for AA defense. The second one is torpedo which has twelve turret mounted 655mm torpedo launchers and a single gatling turret. The third is Flak, which has two 131mm anti-aircraft guns and two gatling turrets. The ratio is one Flak destroyer and one Torpedo Destroyer for every two escort destroyers.

  This is too complicated. The cats will often suffer from having the wrong sort of destroyer for a particular mission. A Fletcher would beat any of these variants like a drum, in my opinion.
  

  Sharkoid class Submarine (SM): Lenght 78 meters, weight 1,800 tonnes. 3MW total engine power (diesel electric) and a top speed of 23km/h (submerged). Armed with 2 655mm torpedo tubes and a single 104mm cannon. Crew of 60.
  
  Diesel electric submarine used for scouting and raiding. Crewed by a mixture of platypoids and female cat officers.

  The submarines are under-armed. Firing two-torpedo spreads means their likelihood of actually sinking a target is decreased. On the other hand, they are implausibly fast underwater; NO WWII submarine was that fast submerged, nor anywhere close, except those peroxide-driven prototypes the Germans tried to use.
  

  From each wormhole pours forth two Emperor class Dreadnoughts, six Hero class Battleships, three Archer class carriers, twelve hunter class cruisers, forty Sword class Destroyers and twenty Sharkoid class Submarines. They're also escorting a number of cargo ships in the 10,000 to 20,000 tonne area ranging making about about 22km/h carrying supplies and (for each armada) some 400,000 soldiers to make the benchead and begin the conquest of the Earth.

  Where do they attack first?
  

  Once the intial force has been deployed the cats will send through additional forces through so that they'll receive the same amount of tonnage in warships every 18 months for the next six years, though there will be more CVs and DNs and less BBs as that happens.

  Can the wormhole be passed through between reinforcement waves?
  I'm not going to comment on the army and air forces; time forbids.

[Zor]

Their beach-heads will be Senegal, southern India/Sri Lanka, South Africa and Peru.

Zor

[Zor]

Can the wormhole be passed through between reinforcement waves?

Yes.

Zor

[Simon_Jester]

Their beach-heads will be Senegal, southern India/Sri Lanka, South Africa and Peru.

I will say it was prudent of them to select invasion beachheads that are several thousand miles from the nearest industrialized nations.

On the other hand, they've also picked areas with no native manufacturing industry, which means their logistics are still utterly dependent on travel through the portal(s). They can't manufacture usable amounts of weapons or ammunition in their destination areas. That means submarines harassing their supply lines are going to be an issue, and since literally all their supply convoys have to travel along a more or less fixed stretch of ocean from the portal...

Ow. If anyone can pry loose enough long range submarines to start seriously harassing them, it's going to get ugly.

Another thing I notice is that this is something of a boon for the Axis, because none of these invasion beachheads actually inconvenience them directly, while they cause very serious problems for the Allies, especially the British whose colonial empire is threatened at three points and in danger of being sliced into pieces by the alien invasions.

[NecronLord]

Solved.

[Simon_Jester]

Yeah, minefields would help a lot. On the other hand, the portals are in deep water. I'm not entirely certain, but that may make maintaining a minefield around them with WWII technology difficult. You might have to settle for "hazard to shipping" levels of mine density, not "suicide to sail through" levels. I still think submarines will be an important part of the process, especially if the cats prove willing to risk ships sailing through a minefield.

[KraytKing]

What exactly did the Cat Empire find out in the scouting missions? Do they know that we're about to unleash the most destructive war in history? Do they know which countries are the most heavily industrialized? Are their current beachheads picked by chance or part of a plan to destabilize the region, distract Great Britain, and strengthen the Nazis?

[Zor]

What exactly did the Cat Empire find out in the scouting missions? Do they know that we're about to unleash the most destructive war in history? Do they know which countries are the most heavily industrialized? Are their current beachheads picked by chance or part of a plan to destabilize the region, distract Great Britain, and strengthen the Nazis?

They've captured a few fishing boats and similar. With them they've managed to capture a fair number people and have extracted information of them such as human languages, gained atlases and worked out some information about human history (in part because they caught some guys with history books on board their boats). They do know what areas are industrial centers in rough terms and they have worked out translations of English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, Arabic, Hindi, Dutch, Afrikaans and Chinese. They also know that there are wars being fought in Eastern Asia and Europe. Even so they lack a lot of information in terms of fine details.

The main reason why they've targeted those specific locations was the simple expedient of getting boots on the ground as close to the wormholes as possible.

Zor

[Simon_Jester]

Wait, aren't these wormholes all hundreds or thousands of miles out to sea? If they were trying to get landings close to shore, wouldn't they have picked at least one portal location just off the coast of some place with nice, inviting invasion beach potential?

I will also note that the cats probably don't have fully accurate and detailed charts of all the coasts and ports they might want to exploit, at least not initially. Though they're attacking very demilitarized areas so it probably doesn't matter.

[KraytKing]

It's stated above that the cats can't choose where the portals open.

[Simon_Jester]

Huh. Missed that in the huge wall of text.

[Simon_Jester]

I will note that with the alien invasion taking place in February 1940...

France hasn't fallen yet. Japan is fighting in China but they're a long, long time from starting the Pacific War.

It is at least plausible that Japan will offer to lend its full resources (especially naval assets, which are largely un-engaged) to the fight against the aliens, in exchange for a free hand in China.

It is alarmingly possible that the Allied powers will accept.

The US will start its war mobilization immediately, probably with much more of a naval focus than in real life- but that won't result in any new hulls hitting the water for a year or two, as historically.

[LadyTevar]

The US will start its war mobilization immediately, probably with much more of a naval focus than in real life- but that won't result in any new hulls hitting the water for a year or two, as historically.

Since one of the landing sites is Peru, there is a possibility that the US Fleet will leave Pearl Harbor in order take up positions within striking range of the Cats. This would mean that Pearl Harbor is no longer a Japanese Military Target, and there will be no trigger for the US to go to war.
However, this also means that the entire US military (as it is) would be available to focus purely on the Cats, while other nations are going to have to split their efforts between WWII objectives and the Cat threat. This may result in a "Let the US handle it" mentality among the Allies as they try to repel Axis offenses.

[Simon_Jester]

The Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor because they were trying to neutralize the US fleet as a threat to their own operations in the Pacific. If they still deemed the US a threat to their plans, they would almost certainly try to find another way to put the US fleet out of action... but it might be impossible to do so if the US was basing out of California or some port in South America.

On the other hand, the US would also be relatively unlikely to interfere if Japan seized the Dutch East Indies or whatever.

The real question is, do the Japanese deem the Cats to be enough of a threat that they are willing to assist the Allied powers in dealing with the problem, and are the Allies willing to make concessions regarding China in order to accomplish that goal?

[KraytKing]

Seeing as the Cats are attacking mostly Allied territories, I can't see the Axis fighting back all that much. If I were in charge of Japan, I'd try and make friends with the cats, possibly go for a combined strike on the US fleet at Peru. Such an attack would achieve the objectives of the Pearl Harbor attack, while also making overland invasion of the US a distinct possibility.

[Honorius]

Seeing as the Cats are attacking mostly Allied territories, I can't see the Axis fighting back all that much. If I were in charge of Japan, I'd try and make friends with the cats, possibly go for a combined strike on the US fleet at Peru. Such an attack would achieve the objectives of the Pearl Harbor attack, while also making overland invasion of the US a distinct possibility.

Japan would basically stay out of it and just concentrate on China. The Allies would not want to antagonize Japan in this scenario and the escalating tensions that led to Pearl Harbor no longer exist as FDR has bigger problems than appeasing the China Lobby for votes or Saving the British Empire. Namely keeping a Cat Empire from gaining a foothold in South America where the United Fruit Company and other Large Corporations have substantial assets and a history of getting the US Government to enforce those interests with US Forces and later with having the CIA do Coup de etats.

On the German side, Hitler basically ignores Africa and Britain, thus in turn ignoring what the US does and by the time things start getting serious in May, Hitler is already moving forward on France. Mussolini may actually side with France and Britain against the Cats and stay neutral towards Hitler and try to wring concessions out of both France and Britain for helping against the Cats. There is substantial Italian Forces in Africa at this time too.

The Allies and the US don't really have the overwhelming might in Sea Carriers at this time to really do more than harassment raids and by the time they do, the Cats will have substantial air and naval assets to challenge the CVE and Essex spam and prevent mining of the portals to a substantial enough degree to where they have to shut down portal travel.

What we might see is several years of indecisive carrier warfare before the Allies decide fuck it and start slinging nukes as fast as they can be built and resorting to chemical weaponry and even biological warfare to just break the deadlock.

[KraytKing]

What we might see is several years of indecisive carrier warfare before the Allies decide fuck it and start slinging nukes as fast as they can be built and resorting to chemical weaponry and even biological warfare to just break the deadlock.

So you're suggesting that everything Hitler and Japan tried to do just wouldn't happen? Hitler would never attack Britain, nor Russia? The Japanese attacks on China would go unpunished? I simply cannot see this happening. Most likely, the Cats will realize they are woefully underprepared and try to make some friends here on Earth. In the interest of planet-conquering, those allies will probably be the Axis powers, and possibly the US (most likely just a non-aggression pact-but we all know how THOSE work out).

[Simon_Jester]

Seeing as the Cats are attacking mostly Allied territories, I can't see the Axis fighting back all that much. If I were in charge of Japan, I'd try and make friends with the cats, possibly go for a combined strike on the US fleet at Peru. Such an attack would achieve the objectives of the Pearl Harbor attack, while also making overland invasion of the US a distinct possibility.

...Under no plausible circumstances would Japan have wanted to invade the US overland. The US had a larger population and greater industrial capacity, and the infrastructure for launching an invasion into US territory from the West Coast or the southern border is terrible. You have to cross something like a thousand miles of howling empty wilderness (inhospitable wilderness) before you reach the really strategically critical targets.

Now, let's stop and think for more than two seconds, using more history knowledge than we can learn from a chewing gum wrapper.

The Germans unambiguously benefit from the situation just by letting the Cats do whatever they want, because the main effect of the Cat invasion is to weaken the British Empire. The invasion of Peru doesn't affect them at all, and while invading Senegal 'hurts' the French it doesn't make a significant dent in their armed forces because all meaningful French forces are already concentrated in Europe. But Cat operations in South Africa and southern India will weaken the British. Not so much by destroying British military forces, as by interfering with international trade and sea traffic. The attack on Senegal will have a similar effect, but Cat operations in the South Atlantic and Indian Ocean will seriously hamper British maritime commerce on the world ocean, as long as the Cats can keep their ships fueled which is admittedly going to be a serious problem.

The Japanese are in a different position. AS OF FEBRUARY 1940, they are not strongly aligned with the Germans. France is still in the war, and as far as Japan can tell, World War Two is going to be a replay of World War One- a big messy indecisive brawl in Europe. Nobody at that time, including the Germans, seriously expected the French to collapse as fast as they did; it was perhaps the greatest strategic surprise of the modern age, and one of the greatest surprises in history.

Japan did not sign the Tripartite Pact and join the Rome-Berlin Axis until September of 1940, after Germany had defeated France. They did so in large part because it fit with their decision to snap up French colonies in the Pacific (which were now defenseless), and positioned them for attacks on British and Dutch colonies if necessary (British colonies were almost defenseless, Dutch colonies even more so).

However, as of February, the Japanese priorities were still very, very firmly fixed on conquering China. For Japan, the sequence of events went as follows:
___________________________________________

1) Invade China in 1937. Continue fighting land war in China straight up through 1945.

2) In mid-1939, Japan attacked Russia in the Far East, which was a complete military disaster, resulting in Japan signing a cease-fire. Japan did not even consider attacking the Soviets even after Hitler attacked them from the other direction, because of how horribly that attack went (90% of the attacking army was killed, and it was a big army). Not even the Japanese were crazy enough to stick their hands back into THAT buzzsaw.

3) In mid-1940, Britain and the US start cutting off shipments of raw materials, because they perceive Japan as being pro-German and are concerned about atrocities committed in China. They also start shipping various kinds of goods to China that are useful in war.

4) In September 1940, Japan seized parts of French Indochina (Vietnam and nearby places) to reduce the flow of British and US support to China. They also signed the Tripartite Pact, formally aligning themselves with Germany and Italy, in particular as an attempt to 'warn' the US to stay out of conflicts in the Pacific and in Europe.

5) In late 1940 and early 1941, the British and US started more blatantly supporting China, and continued cutting down on raw material supplies to Japan. The Japanese, convinced that Britain would eventually fall to Germany, began to think that maybe the answer to their problems was an attack on the British, French, and Dutch colonies in the South Pacific. There, they could get materials like oil and rubber, and there was little chance of any of those militaries fighting back effectively. The alternative was to fight the Russians again, and that was NOT something they wanted to risk.

6) Preparatory to the "attack south" plan, the Japanese finish taking over French Indochina. Simultaneously, the Germans invaded the USSR, which turned the entire world strategic order upside down. Among other things, it meant that the Germans weren't going to be able to concentrate on knocking Britain out of the war... but the Japanese had already aligned with the Axis and were already planning their attack to the south. And even with Russia fighting Germany, Japan STILL didn't want to risk war with Russia, and stuck to their nonaggression pact with Russia.

7) The biggest problem for Japan with this whole "southern strategy" was that all their forces would have to pass the US-held Philippines, all their supply lines would pass it, and the US was very likely to jump into a war against the British and other Allied nations in the South Pacific sooner or later, probably not at a time of Japan's choosing. It was for this reason, and this reason alone, that Japan concluded it must fight the Americans, and for this reason the Pearl Harbor attack was planned. The attack was not decided upon until some time in mid- to late 1941.
___________________________________

Now, the Cat invasion happens while Japan is still on Step 2.

They are not yet committed to a policy of antagonism with Britain and the US. In the normal course of things, their insistence on continuing to try to conquer China would be a huge issue. It meant they had little chance of avoiding that antagonism.

But now, with a literal alien invasion attacking, with a combined fleet strength greater than that of any single navy in the world, a lot of calculations have changed. Japan has NO IDEA how to react to this, it is not even remotely something they had ever imagined happening. All the Japanese know is:

1) Boy oh boy do they love beating up Chinese people; the Japanese Army never met a dead Chinese person it didn't like. Also,
2) They never, EVER want to fight Russians again. Because tankskis. And flamethrowers. And General Zhukov. And OW.

Those are Japan's only real strategic priorities. Everything else they did in the years afterward was calculated based on those two main ideas.

There is nothing in those two ideas that tells them what to do when a bunch of alien lion-people randomly attack Peru, Senegal, Sri Lanka, and South Africa. They don't even have a clue how to deal with that.

Therefore, their reaction is very much in the air. They might try to communicate with the Cats to determine their intentions. If the Cats are arrogant (as seems likely) they may very well convince the Japanese that the Cats are a long term threat to Japan, NOT just to the Allied powers being directly attacked. In which case, they will probably still be willing to throw in with the Allies against the Cats, as long as:

1) The Allies let them keep beating up Chinese people, and
2) Fighting the Cats does not involve fighting any Russians.

(2) is a given. (1) is an open question, which we haven't really discussed yet.

[Simon_Jester]

GHETTO EDIT:

Meant for this to go on top of my post to Krayt.

...

Since Germany is already at war with France and Britain, the Germans will probably still invade France on schedule and defeat its armed forces as historically.

At that point, Italy will have to choose between letting the Cats go on the rampage (threatening only their positions in Ethiopia, which were already threatened by the British) and allying with Germany, or remaining neutral and fighting the Cats, and angering Hitler who shares a land border with him. Oh yeah, and Hitler just went through what was supposedly the strongest army on the European continent like it was made out of wet tissue paper.

I don't think this is a hard choice for Il Duce. Mussolini is almost certainly going to decide to side with Germany against France, securing a Mediterranean empire (one of Italy's long term goals), even while the Cats are causing all sorts of chaos in the Atlantic and the Indian oceans. After all, the Cats can't really project force past Gibraltar or through the Suez Canal if the forces already in the Mediterranean don't let them get away with it.

One side effect of this is that the British position in Egypt (and elsewhere in the Mediterranean) probably collapses, because the British can't really resupply their forces. They can send ships to Gibraltar, but they can't reliably get anything to Egypt by going around Africa because there are like three Cat invasion forces in the way.

So the Axis go on a rampage in the Mediterranean even more than historically, taking out a significant fraction of the Royal Navy with it, UNLESS those Royal Navy assets have already been redeployed to fight the Cats. Which seems rather likely, since officially there wasn't really a war going on in the Med in February 1940, and the only hope the British have of stopping the Cats from conquering much of India is if they combine the Mediterranean Fleet and East Indies Station forces and get lucky fighting the Cat fleet in the Indian Ocean.

[KraytKing]

Seeing as the Cats are attacking mostly Allied territories, I can't see the Axis fighting back all that much. If I were in charge of Japan, I'd try and make friends with the cats, possibly go for a combined strike on the US fleet at Peru. Such an attack would achieve the objectives of the Pearl Harbor attack, while also making overland invasion of the US a distinct possibility.

...Under no plausible circumstances would Japan have wanted to invade the US overland. The US had a larger population and greater industrial capacity, and the infrastructure for launching an invasion into US territory from the West Coast or the southern border is terrible. You have to cross something like a thousand miles of howling empty wilderness (inhospitable wilderness) before you reach the really strategically critical targets.

I meant that the Cats would invade the US, since ground warfare seems to be a priority for them and they have no industrial base (as in capturing one would be good). However, I'm more than happy to take a thrashing if it gets a real response to the question.

The rest of what you said makes sense, except for the part on Germany leaving the Cats alone. If freaking ALIENS show up with the most powerful fleet of warships on the planet, you don't just go "Well, they aren't attacking US, so no problem." Whether the Germans respond with treaties or bullets is not something I could accurately predict. Probably both, if Russia is anything to go by.

[Simon_Jester]

The Cats invading the US might be... ill-advised. Their initial army is already committed to attacking Peru, and by the time they can organize for a second assault on, well, anywhere... the US will have begun mobilizing soldiers on an emergency basis. At this point there are a lot of rifles and so on, surplus from World War One or starting to be manufactured as the early phase of war mobilization. Given how disadvantageous the terrain is for invading the US from the west, and given that the US Pacific Fleet is significantly stronger than the Cat battlegroup in the Pacific (their ONLY battlegroup)... I wouldn't bet on that ending well for the Cats.

[Honorius]

2) In mid-1939, Japan attacked Russia in the Far East, which was a complete military disaster, resulting in Japan signing a cease-fire. Japan did not even consider attacking the Soviets even after Hitler attacked them from the other direction, because of how horribly that attack went (90% of the attacking army was killed, and it was a big army). Not even the Japanese were crazy enough to stick their hands back into THAT buzzsaw.

The Japanese sent a single green Infantry Division, reinforced by an Artillery Regiment, two Independent Brigades, plus a Tank Regiment and some air support for roughly 30,000 men, 73 Tanks, 64 Tankettes used as artillery tractors, 400 Aircraft, and 300 artillery pieces 100mm or higher in caliber, not counting smaller Regimental and Battalion guns in this. They did not reinforce this group beyond this as the Japanese Government was using it as an excuse to reign in the Kwangtung Army Leadership.

The Soviets sent an Armored Corps consisting of 80,000 men, 550 Tanks, 450 Armored Cars, 900 Aircraft, and 634 Artillery pieces of 100mm or greater caliber.

The Japanese inflicted more losses in manpower as they took (27,880 Soviet Causalities to 17,000 Japanese Causalities), destroyed six Soviet Tanks for every tank they lost, inflicted 133 to 0 losses in armored cars, lost 72 Regimental and Battalion Guns to the Soviets 96 Divisional Guns, aircraft losses were more even at 1.2 losses in the Japanese Favor but that was due to roughly half their plane losses being Write-offs due to combat damage while the Soviet losses were 83% combat losses.

Had the Japanese reinforced their forces, the battle would have easily been a Japanese Victory and nearly was after 5 months of combat that was largely a stalemate due to Zhukov's unimaginative tactics and poor logistical planning though in his defense he did learn from his mistakes and improved throughout the Battle and actually asked himself what he was doing wrong and working to fix it. In the end Zhukov had Stalin's backing and the Kwangtung Army did not have the Japanese Government's backing and in fact were undermined by the rival Southern Thrust Faction in the Army.