"Plan Red - US vs UK war Alternate History" Topic

The whole Britain vs U.S. thing could have been settled by a spelling competition – a certain victory to the mother coutry!

If you really want to take it back for alternate-historical roots, start reading Harry Turtledove's "What Few Remain" and then move on to the "Great War: The American Front" Series. UK involvement in the US Civil War and following conflicts would have easily eliminated any potential kinship feelings in the 20th Century. The series goes all the way to the 1940s and gets rather depressing towards the end. It ends up making you very thankful history played out the way it did:)

Dave G.

According to an article I read in "American Heritage" back in the mid-60s the US versus Canada war plans really stemmed from the fact that both the Canadian and US armies had war planners – majors- who mutually loathed their neighbors and used their positions to stir up some troubles on their pet hobbyhorses. In the American case things weren't helped when our major got a second looie to assist him with research. This looey furthermore disliked the US Navy and figured invading Canada would be a fool-proof way to fight the British Empire without any playing of "Anchors Aweigh." So he figured on marching the US Army north from a railhead in North Dakota and cutting Canada in half as a guaranteed way to conquer Canada without any help from from the USN.

Matters got to the point the lt actually wrote to the Royal Canadian Geographic Society requesting maps for an unspecified research project which the honorable secretary was pleased to send. By the way both the maps and the letter are two of the more embarassing holdings in the National Archives.

As I recall the Canadian counter was guerilla warfare,

Finally as the 30's rolled on diffeent and greater threats emerged to the point both countries felt the whole business was seeming more and more like something out of a realy bad episode of "Battlestar Gallactica 1980" or whatever it's title was. Both countries told their majors to stp with the silliness and meanwhile to cover it up.

Ohhh both majors weren't identified by "American Heritage."

As they say no names, no pack drill.

It would have been very much a railroad and waterway war. Roads that existed sucked totally and would not have been able to support much in the way of logistics moving north (for the Americans) or south for the Canadian/UK side. I'd suggest that the defense would have the advantage there.

That said, Canadian transportation would be limited to the railroads running east & west along the Great Lakes within reach of American attacks (think War of 1812). While the US Army was small, it was pretty good for its size and while the bulk of the US militia/National Guard was pretty bad, quantity has a quality of its own and it could concentrate large numbers by rail fairly quickly (think the 1916 events in Texas and the southwest).

The weather would have been brutal, both on land and at sea, and had a major impact on transportation and supply lines.

Who could control the Great Lakes I think would have had the advantage.

As to naval combat, I'd guess that the UK would have had the same issues that the US did when it proposed sailing its battleships to fight the Japanese navy. No navy of the time had any sort of decent LOG ability to refuel and resupply at sea. The US would have an advantage in oil (Texas), but no "Big Inch" pipeline at the time so totally dependent on coastal shipping, while the UK would have had a hard time to move its supply across the ocean to the ports and ships there (did not most of the UK's oil come from the US at the time?).

US coastal defenses were pretty good and land based aircraft, even in their 1930's guise, would have been a serious threat to the UK navy, so I'm not sure that there would have been much going on in that area.

If one thinks that the UK could have gotten Mexican involvement (with what?), how about the US messing about with the Irish (it was only a few years after the creation of the Republic) to seize the rest of the island?

I'd suggest that using it as a background for naval games might be of use, but the rest of it would be a bore and not all that interesting.

Dan

The Irish Republic hadn't the means to take Ulster, so not a problem. And De Valera wasn't stupid enough to try. Why would he want another civil war with a million or so heavily armed Orangemen? With Dublin within easy range of the RAF (and navy…) and Ireland having no worthwhile airforce it would have been suicide.

Mexican help would have been easy – hey, want Texas back?

If the UK thought it would have problems with the USA, then an alliance with Japan is a certainty. Oil was easy enough to get from the Middle East and the Dutch East Indies.

As for the Manhattan project – well it was a British project to start off with so not too far fetched. And had the USA started by gassing Halifax, all gloves would probably come off.