Recent content by Simon

Find a way for the USSR to do much worse in World War II so that the Western Allies are able to get to most of Central Europe, Eastern Europe and the Balkans before them. Any European Community is still likely to start with a smaller core group in North Western Europe but it gives it more...

I'm going to rain on the parade and argue that the idea of a Commonwealth programme, at least in terms of joint development, isn't really likely. IIRC until modern times the UK outstripped the other members in terms of GDP so any contributions wouldn't be great, and not provide the sort of...

There's also the factors such as it meaning more teams during international competitions and it allowing them to form a blocking majority in the IFAB.

One of the problems with the English regions is that the South East really reaches up too far north around London and the East comes too far west. Martin23230 has in past threads made a good argument, based on general geography and current local organisational set-ups, for the creation of a new...

I know I've suggested RATOG in the past as an alternative to the catapults envisioned in Air Ministry Specification P.13/36 here and over on Secret Projects, not sure if it might have been me or someone else. Funnily enough I ran across something in a back-issue of Aeromilitaria related to this...

Difficult as very few countries would be willing to see defence spending being sent abroad negatively affecting the balance of payments, plus running down domestic manufacturing capacity with memories of WWII still fresh and the Korean conflict ongoing. Best I can think of is picking a model and...

That's difficult. It was run hard during WWII, then post-war was nationalised before being returned to former owners a short time later. Even once it was privatised governments still maintained a massive amount of control over the industry e.g. how much steel could be sold for, who could buy how...

Considering privatisation Thatcher never touched the railways and IIRC Major seemed to be thinking back to memories of the Big Four when he started it, but we ended up instead with Railtrack, the ROSCOs and the franchises. Large directly state-owned businesses weren't exactly in vogue during the...

How much earlier could we potentially drag the introduction of the InterCity 125? As I understand things it was the in-house design favoured by the 'traditionalists', largely packaging together already existing technology. The main question seems to be the engine. That… sounds like a real...

Yeah that's pretty much what I go for as well. It's a nice looking aircraft. English Electric P.8 Proposal The RB.106, as I understand things Thames being an Internet invented name, is an interesting one. The aim was for a drop-in Avon replacement generating thrust of 15,000 lbf dry and...

Or more successful before then such as the Fifth Encirclement Campaign, a victory there would see the communists largely crushed and unable to be much of a major future threat. Depending on how relations between China and the USSR are you could see the latter supporting the formation of a...

Depends on what Sino-American relations are like, even were the KMT to win the civil war there's no guarantee that China would be friendly or pro-West. Japan also has the advantage of the US being able to station occupying troops there, it being an island, and local politics being generally...

In the same region one idea I had previously was an earlier independent Danubian Principalities. In the latter part of the Crimean War the Austrian Empire is able to successfully float the idea of turning Moldavia, Wallachia and Northern Dobruja into a neutral state similar to Belgium. The...

Well deep is a subjective term, and railheads can be various distances from the borders and starting front lines. That's why I was curious about whether any actual distances had been considered, without even a rough specification of being able to carry X armament Y distance we're left guessing...

Development of the Tornado started at the end of the 1960s, some of the earlier BAe designs that eventually led to Eurofighter date to the mid-1970s. It's tricky but perhaps government releases some R&D funds to help smooth things over? When you write interdiction what sort of range are you...