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PeZook wrote:

KlavoHunter wrote: WHAT? No, ABSOLUTELY not!

What if they couldn't tell?

Then she'd better keep quiet about it eh? Might also want to kill her lover, men brag...

Norseman wrote: Then she'd better keep quiet about it eh? Might also want to kill her lover, men brag...

If the lover was a serf, then it shouldn't be a problem. I sense a story in this

PeZook wrote:What if they couldn't tell?

True enough, there ARE Caucasian serfs around... And the story of "Well, nine months ago, well, we were drunk, and he left in the morning, but GOSH was he handsome..." would probably hold up.

KlavoHunter wrote:

PeZook wrote:What if they couldn't tell?

True enough, there ARE Caucasian serfs around... And the story of "Well, nine months ago, well, we were drunk, and he left in the morning, but GOSH was he handsome..." would probably hold up.

Obviously most Caucasians would come from North Africa, the Anatolian region, and the Middle East, but many Sub-Saharan serfs would gain European Caucasian features as well after many generations of Drakan males doing the nasty with their household serfs.

And racism is motivated mainly by overweening arrogance and abysmal ignorance - some Drakians may rant about racial purity and Nordic mysticism like a certain deranged former Chicken farmer, but I doubt many of them would really be "ideal" specimens themselves, with swarthy people of Southern European extraction being among the original Dominate founders, illegitimate half-serfs with few obvious non-white features allowed to be free citizens through legal fluke and Ashkenazi Jews or Berber Christians allowed free citizenship too etc.

How is the Drakian military on the use of radios? I can see every Drakan aircraft, tank and Janissary Corps infantry platoon having a bulky radio set, but in one story you had Citizen Force paratroopers equipped with radio sets that are more like the mid to late WWII walky talkies used by Western Allied soldiers.

In this timeline are Soviet communications equally rum, with many radio-less tanks and aircraft, in addition to most army units dependent on telegraph lines or dispatch riders?

Big Orange wrote:How is the Drakian military on the use of radios? I can see every Drakan aircraft, tank and Janissary Corps infantry platoon having a bulky radio set, but in one story you had Citizen Force paratroopers equipped with radio sets that are more like the mid to late WWII walky talkies used by Western Allied soldiers.

Technology is in general 2-3 years ahead of OTL, with some areas leaping 4-5 years ahead.

Big Orange wrote:In this timeline are Soviet communications equally rum, with many radio-less tanks and aircraft, in addition to most army units dependent on telegraph lines or dispatch riders?

They're better off by far, though I'm not too clear on the details yet. However they're more advanced, they got better officers, and they've been planning long term for this.

Norseman wrote: Technology is in general 2-3 years ahead of OTL, with some areas leaping 4-5 years ahead.

There would be a faster arms race between the Soviet Union and Dominate, with technological innovations introduced three to five years quicker in some fields, but most of the nations would progress at a more or less similar rate (they would see little need to advance their armaments and tactics significantly until after direct contact with the Drakans - the Sino-Japanese war being relatively more sophisticated than in the OTL is mainly due to the direct Drakan-Russo link with the Empire of Japan and Taiping Republic).

They're better off by far, though I'm not too clear on the details yet. However they're more advanced, they got better officers, and they've been planning long term for this.

In the OTL the early military disasters for the Soviets was mainly due to a major military shake up after modernising too early in the 1930s (like Japan and Italy), being focused on attack rather than defense, bad co-ordination and wobbly logistics.

How did the Soviet Union slip up in this scenario? Maybe being far too defensive, with static defensive lines easily encircled and rank overconfidence after the recent victories of 1937?

The Soviets actually went on the offensive here. That's where they screwed up. If they had stayed on the defensive the Draka would have never taken Kiev.

The Duchess of Zeon wrote:The Soviets actually went on the offensive here. That's where they screwed up. If they had stayed on the defensive the Draka would have never taken Kiev.

The Dominate must have vastly superior motorized logistics to the Axis or Soviets in either timeline, if the Drakians have launched a deep invasion of Russia from a high and mountanous bottleneck over the Armenia/Georgia border. And that region was heavily guarded by many Red Army infanty units, partisans, and even piano wire(!), in addition to large armoured regiments of LT/KS heavy tanks and defensive casemates.

Big Orange wrote:The Dominate must have vastly superior motorized logistics to the Axis or Soviets in either timeline, if the Drakians have launched a deep invasion of Russia from a high and mountanous bottleneck over the Armenia/Georgia border. And that region was heavily guarded by many Red Army infanty units, partisans, and even piano wire(!), in addition to large armoured regiments of LT/KS heavy tanks and defensive casemates.

Uhh... I suggest you re-read Marina's fic, "The Prut Campaign", which details the '41-'42 invasion of the Ukraine.

There's TWO separate fronts the Dominate is fighting the USSR - the Caucasus Front, which was invaded in 1940, the events thereof documented in Shep's "Great Patriotic War". But the Soviets managed to establish a defensive line there, blocking the Paratroopers' attempts to secure the passes.

When that attempt was foiled, the Draka then attacked through the Balkans in 1941, first bashing through Romania before fighting into the Ukraine.

Every citizen plane would have a two way radio, and it’s likely every tank would as well, though they might economize on APC and self propelled guns; fitting them only with a radio receiver. Its not well know, but the Germans in OTL, who famously had a radio in every tank to provide superior coordination, actually only had radio receivers on each vehicle. The lowest level of transmitter was in the company commander’s tank. This was only changed in Panther and Tiger series tanks because they already cost a fortune.

The heavier Janissary vehicles would probably all also have radio receivers, but the radio transmitters would be found only at relatively high levels with a citizen monitoring every single one to ensure they aren’t used for subversive action. The Draka probably use radio broadcasts extensively for propaganda and control of the Janissary corps, and you can be certain they design special radios for the Janissary’s which can only tune to a very narrow frequency range.


As for the Soviets, in OTL the standard was no radios of any kind below the battalion level, though the battalion HQ might have several sets. Most Soviet tank models have radio equipped variants, but radio production just wasn’t sufficient to make widespread use of them.

Given tech acceleration, and the slightly superior functionality if the basic Soviet state, I would expect they have a receiver/transmitted for every company commander but no a radio in every tank. That would slowly change as the war goes on, since the US and other western allied nations can tool up to produce vast numbers of radios. The late model Soviet tanks are all probably design with space for radios, but not all would be so fitted.

KlavoHunter wrote: Uhh... I suggest you re-read Marina's fic, "The Prut Campaign", which details the '41-'42 invasion of the Ukraine.

I cannot find that story, I'm afraid, but I've just read through this timeline again. Reading that timeline and Shep's fanfic, the invading Drakans went as far as Georgia's regional capital even though the Citizen Force's airborne operation was a complete fiasco.

By the way I'm doing a painting of Janissary trooper in a summer khaki uniform, in a Central Asia desert landscape with a pillbox and 90 mm armed Hond III tank behind him - I'm also doing many sketches of Janissary Corps' personnel and Citizen Force AFVs, which I may post here in the relatively near future. So far I'm doing Drakan soldiers in summer and autum uniforms - I'm thinking up of winter gear later and I doubt the Drakans are strangers to snowy wasteland if they have had a military presence in Central Asia for two decades (it is also a semi-myth that the Axis were stopped by bad weather, since the Luftwaffe, Waffen-SS and Panzer units had decent winter gear, with the regular Ostheer and Axis vassels being under equipped for deep cold, while awful logistics were doing the real damage).

Big Orange wrote:I cannot find that story, I'm afraid, but I've just read through this timeline again. Reading that timeline and Shep's fanfic, the invading Drakans went as far as Georgia's regional capital even though the Citizen Force's airborne operation was a complete fiasco.

http://www.stardestroyer.net/Armour/She ... mpaign.htm

The Draka got to Tblisi and Baku because those cities were on the wrong side of the main Caucasus range. The Airborne Legions' drops were to secure the passes so the Draka could invade the rest of Russia through the Caucasus, which failed.

By the way I'm doing a painting of Janissary trooper in a summer khaki uniform, in a Central Asia desert landscape with a pillbox and 90 mm armed Hond III tank behind him - I'm also doing many sketches of Janissary Corps' personnel and Citizen Force AFVs, which I may post here in the relatively near future. So far I'm doing Drakan soldiers in summer and autum uniforms - I'm thinking up of winter gear later and I doubt the Drakans are strangers to snowy wasteland if they have had a military presence in Central Asia for two decades (it is also a semi-myth that the Axis were stopped by bad weather, since the Luftwaffe, Waffen-SS and Panzer units had decent winter gear, with the regular Ostheer and Axis vassels being under equipped for deep cold, while awful logistics were doing the real damage).

Awesome.

KlavoHunter wrote: Awesome.

I'm also painting/drawing a Citizen Force paratrooper, tank crewmember, Janissary armoured car driver, CF pilot (early war), serf military sapper, citizen Orpo officer (city/combine policeman), serf Orpo officer (directing army traffic) and Security Directorate general. What uniform details, insignia or colours do you suggest?