Well reasoned. I have to admit I did smile at the politicians debating whether Ireland was still a neutral country despite having been subjected to the most violent attack on it's territory in history. It defies common sense, but then again common sense isn't something I generally associate...
Good point about the paramils, and I'm old enough to remember the amount of coverage the possibility of nuclear war got in the media in the early to mid eighties - doom was in the air, and it's easy to imagine people feeling desperate enough to be pushed to extremes.
Fascinating post about the...
Whatever's been ailing you lately, I hope you're on the mend now. It'll be interesting to see what the long-term political effects of Ireland's drastically re-structured government will be. Hopefully not the end of liberal democratic institutions, but frankly I don't know enough about...
I think the biggest problem with the widespread introduction of assault rifles in WW2 is that any army doing that doesn't need to just issue new rifles - they need to arrange supplies of a completely different type of ammunition than they'd used previously, spare mags and spare parts for the...
I was a teenager, barely out of school, at the time. Still living at home in north Manchester - just a couple of miles or so from Heaton Park where the Post Office Tower is (the northern part of the Backbone network, and therefore presumably a target). Since Manchester was pretty thoroughly...
If it is the LVF. This is a very elaborate attack for those goons - doorstep combat is more their usual style. They have the wherewithal to fuel up a helicopter, and the ability to stage a complex, military-type attack and yet one of their guys just happens to have a loyalist symbol in his...
Even if they'd been available that early, the main effect of the V2/A4 would be to help the Nazis lose. They were an extremely inaccurate weapon, and not cost effective at all - one rocket cost about as much as a bomber and could only be used once. They were a great technological advance, but...
I like to think that these guys would have been doing their bit: http://www.kaleidoscopearchive.co.uk/
As far as the music scene goes, I reckon new post-war music would be generally of the folk variety - mostly acoustic instruments like guitars and drums because of the erratic to non-existent...
To be honest, this seems to me to be a bit too far-fetched even by alternate history standards. The hippies were a subculture that emphasised self-improvement, appreciation of nature, free love etc - not exactly compatible with zonking your brains out on hallucinogenic trash. Look how many of...
I don't see why not. Chaplin knows the layout of his own house better than any burglar. He just needs to get behind them and flash up the intertitle "Stop or I'll shoot!"
If the German plan is to launch a V2 from a U-Boat - which is a pretty dicey plan anyway - I wonder if von Braun could turn out to be the "villain who becomes a hero"? He'd have the knowhow to ensure a V2 falls short and he'd have a reasonable chance of getting away with it.
So there are likely to be outbreaks in places other than LA. That's only going to increase the paranoia and outrage. That update with the air raid warden reminded me of the first episode of the classic BBC series "Survivors", although I don't expect things to get that bad ;-) All the same -...
He certainly couldn't do a worse job than he did with Starship Troopers, but I'm not sure that Verhoeven has got what it takes to do justice to The Forever War. You need a director who's really good at characterisation, manipulating the audience's feelings, inducing increasing levels of...
Would the Sovs have had the capability to invade Japan though, assuming the Japs haven't surrendered in advance? Their military was mostly focussed on land combat close to their borders, would they have the ability to pull off an Operation Sealionski?