alternate history

the sale of the Gorshkov was, and still is one of India's most controversial naval acquisitions. I recalled that it was close to not going through due to changes in pricing and schedule. Lets assume that India decided NOT to go with the Gorshkov - How would this happen? - What would India's...

A knotty design conundrum! Using some 'imagineering', what if the Curtis XP55 'Ascender' and the Kyushu J7W 'Shinden' went into production and both spawned navalised variants for carrier deployment. The thorny issue of deck landing arises; 3-point tricycle landing gear means the awkward...

Surprisingly we have not had a thread devoted to how the RAF should have replaced its Canberras? The Canberra was such a success that it was even bought by the USAF as the Martin B57. With the benefit of hindsight it ought to have been simple. The Buccaneer S2 did the job for a while with 2 RAF...

G'day folks, consider this. The TSR2 goes into service and later requires a SLEP, what engines are avaulable and could a big wing be fitted/would it be an improvement?

The year 1968 will always be remembered for its upheavels. But it also saw Nixon elected in the USA and the Breshnev doctrine crush new thinking in Eastern Europe. Alternative departures from real history in 1968 could go either way. The toymaker Marx went so far as to make a President Hubert...

What if the Sino-Soviet split did not occur? Basically there were ideological differences between Mao and Khruschev, which led to the split. Lets say in this scenario, both sides were a bit more flexible about the interpretation of Communism and agreed to some how respect each others...

Germany was experimenting with various VTOL aircraft during the cold war in the end they didn't go for any of them. in this alternate scenario.. what if Germany did order some into production? 1. Which design would be the most likely to lead to operation? they had the VAK 191, DO 31 (this...

During WWII the US Navy received 22 of 32 Essex Class Carriers; 4 of 6 Iowa Class Battleships and two of six Alaska Class Large Cruisers plus dozens of other cruisers, hundreds of destroyers and submarines, and thousands of smaller and auxiliary ships. Nearing completion were the three Midway...

The thread about the V Force has shown how brilliant some of the researchers here are at providing us with material unique to this site. So as we are still a bit limited in where and what we can do this Summer, I am adding the subject which has cropped up in many other threads: RAF Fighter...

I am delighted that others are already making good use of the Alt 60s US Navy thread. It probably needs a balancing thread to cover the Soviet Navy, which for both the USN and the RN was "the enemy fleet in being". After the fifties scare surrounding the Swerdlow class cruisers, the nuclear...

The Royal Navy in the 1960s has been the place for many alternative history threads helped by the excellent books on the subject and the enthusiasm of Brits like me for CVA01 and co. The US Navy offers even more scope for programmes that could have been. Some thoughts to kick things off...

Vought took General Dynamics design and offered the V-1600, 1601 and 1602 McDonnel Douglas took Northrops design and transformed the YF-17 to what would become the F-18 and won However in this scenario, lets say one of Vought's design won. At that time Sec Def, Schlesinger was heavily pushing...

What if the Iranian revolution never succeeded.. either changes were made that prevented it from occurring, or that it occurred but failed. How would it affect US relations with Iran? Would they still continue to import US weapons? Iran relations with other Mid-East countries? would there...

What if the northern, industrialized part of Italy remained under communist control after World War 2? What if Italian trade unionists developed a unique, ITALIAN form of communism? ... more like Yugoslavia? ... with few Moscow trained communists?

The Triang company produced a range of waterline model ships in 1/200 scale in the early 1960s and briefly again in the 1970s. Star of the Royal Navy models in the range was HMS Vanguard. Rather like Vanguard there were also models of the other recently scrapped big ships, the cruisers HMS...

I don't usually post what-if scenarios but we've had a few what-ifs for smaller nations like Italy etc. So I was thinking the other day, what if Japan had been able to constitutionally export weapons in the post-war period? General Hackett in his The Third World War has Japan by the 1970s...

In 1918, German Empire actually considered the possibility of zeppelin's raid against United States. Technically, it was possible. The L-59 (LZ-104) )Africa expedition demonstrated the impressive endurance of big airships; zeppelin stayed in air for 95 hours, traveling about 6800 km, and after...

So we know some time in the early 80s, France split with the UK, West Germany, Italy and Spain, and developed the ACX into the Rafale, and the others made the Typhoon. the disagreement stemmed from a carrier variant. What if in this scenario, France never left and somehow the five of them...

Back in the 1960s it was feared that by the 1970s up to 30 States would acquire nuclear weapons. The 1968 Non Proliferation Treaty (NPT) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_on_the_Non-Proliferation_of_Nuclear_Weapons is rightly regarded as having helped avoid this happening. Britain and...

In the 70s, India worked hard to acquire the Viggen, which was ultimately blocked by the US, due to distrust of India's relations with the USSR. In the end India went with the UK-French SPACECAT Jaguar. Lets say in this alternative history, the US did not block the sale, and it went through...