Jump 408: Hearts of Iron

Jump #408: Hearts of Iron
>Ten of Wands (Oppression): The crushing weight of ultimate responsibility.
>Location: London (-50)
>Allegiance: Allies (-50)
>Role: Air Commander
Well I'm going to be assuming total control of the war in short order, but sure, we'll start in charge of the RAF.
>Drawbacks: (+600) Import Save Game, Irredentist, Outgunned and Outmanned
You know what I REALLY do not need while dealing with Nazi Germany? The People's Democratic Union of Africa going in full blown revolt and aiding them.
>All Men And Their Talents (Free, Allies)
Every intelligent being has value. It may not be immediately obvious, it may require societal change or special accomodation for some, but everyone can bring something useful to the table if they choose.
>True Teamwork (1400, Allies)
At least this will help keep the rest of the British colonies in line. We don't need people deciding they want to be free too, especially if it's at the cost of becoming a nazi.
>Personal Radio (Free, Allies)
This is World War II. Making epic speeches is OBLIGATORY.
>The Manhattan Project (1000, Allies)
After this jump, these guys are going to be working for CruxCorp and I'm going to give them all of my tech just to see what they can make out of it in the intervening time. For now? They're not working on atom bombs. No, I've got something better for them to puzzle over:
>Wunderwaffen (200, Allies)
Miracle weapons! We've got siege cannons, megatanks, cruise missiles, submarines, turbojets, flying wings... we might be outnumbered and limited on resources since we're still recovering from the Great War, or rather World War One, but this will help make up the difference. It's nice to be on the other side of the tech gap for a change. Oh, how the boys back in New York will enjoy studying them. I wonder what they can come up with, studying these?
>Jet Fighters (0, Allies)
Speaking of the tech gap, we've got jets. Screw Germany's prop-driven craft, we're going to deal with them more effectively.

Much of the same that occurred in the normal line of history happened in this world, when it comes to the second World War. Germany made allies with other fascist nations where it could, subverted whomever it could, and started the groundwork in 1936.

In 1938... the Blitzkrieg began. Germany didn't have its industrial capacity reduced, and it was able to effectively hide its pogroms and weapon production from the outside world until it rolled through Belgium, bypassed the Maginot Line and rolled into France... and kept rolling until it hit the Atlantic Ocean to put them under martial law, as France encompassed what would have been Spain and Portugal. Vichy France was a horrifying reality, and Germany began to prepare to assault Britain even as their war machine changed gears and began surging back east, overthrowing their supposed fellow Axis members in Europe.

Of course, they weren't alone. In another world they might have tried to ally with Mexico, but in this world they allied with factions that sought leadership over the African Colonies. The African Union was born in fire and blood, purging foreigners and driving them out to the ocean. Rumors of a project to send war materiel back to 1836 were heard, but... well, we're already living in that timeline, and the second time they tried to use the project, something went wrong and the resulting crater was five miles wide.

British colonies, too, were under attack - Japan had swept through the Pacific ocean to seize everything from Hawaii to the Phillipine islands before setting their sights on Korea and China. Their military was truly a horror to behold and they thought nothing of throwing away lives when it could serve a purpose.

Britain and its allies had been sick to death of war, after the the Great War, or rather the First World War when a bootstrapped Africa had waged war against the rest of the outside world. A hundred years and a hundred million deaths. As a result, the British military machine was vastly undermanned. The best way to negate this shortcoming was in the hands of the boys in the back room, as they were colloquially called - Germany had quick tanks, and the Allies responded with war machines three stories tall that could target the horizon. Africa had propeller-driven craft, and the Allies countered with jet-propelled aircraft that could travel nearly at the speed of sound. Japan had dreadnoughts and battleships, and the Allies sank them with submarines.

When the battles weren't of the Allies' chosen battlefields things went poorly, but a little tactical genius seems to go a long way, and there was a LOT of tacticians to go around, none of whom were bad at their job.

The Axis powers were confident enough to attack Russia and China, planning to split Asia between Japan and Germany. Russia stopped Germany with a mountain of their dead soldiers, then pushed that mountain into Europe even as the Allies' tactical genius and the French resistance pushed Germany east, even as assassins decapitated the leadership of the African Union and sowed confusion enough to turn the tides of war on that continent. Horrifying bombs were used by the Germans to try to punch holes in the war front at the end of 1944, but it was remarkably ineffective when the Allies' chief power was in the air, and the Soviets simply marched through certain death with nary a care.

In April of 1945, as the Soviet Union and the Allies rolled into Berlin, Germany's last device was triggered by the Fuhrer in his bunker... and for reasons unknown, the plutonium did not properly detonate. When the first troops investigated, they could not stay long as they discovered that everyone inside was dead of radiation poisoning and they themselves suffered from the same. Scientists gave their lives to disarm the deadly bomb, but even at that, the deaths of thirty men would surely be much preferable to the whole of the city going up in atomic fire.

Japan was pushed into surrendering in September of 1945, as well; when cruise missiles took out the military command, the Emperor claimed to have been visited by old King Arthur himself, and agreed to a conditional surrender as dictated to him. Of course, this put the Allies' armies in the right position to quell the war in China, which they were rapidly able to do, causing the country to become partitioned.

And this left the world in the unenviable position of the USSR and its conquered territories looking across the Iron Curtain at the Allies under the aegis of Great Britain. Peace, perhaps, but an uneasy one at best.