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War Plan Crimson

War Plan CrimsonWar Plan Crimson by Michael Cnudde
Published by Smashwords Edition on 21 June 2011
Genres: Type I - Hard
Format: eBook
Source: Purchased
Goodreads
four-stars

Premise - Point of Divergence (POD)

In November 1934 Major General Smedley Darlinton Butler USMC was to sit down in front of the House UnAmerican Activities Committee and expose those intending to overthrow the government. In 'War Plan Crimson' he never made it as the day before he was due to testify he was killed in an 'accident' that involved a very large truck.

The Story

We were lucky.

In our history, Franklin Roosevelt quietly and easily suppressed the 1933 Business Plot, a little-known attempt by a group of Wall Street barons and power brokers to overthrow and replace him with a homeland fascist government.

What if we weren't lucky?

What it the coup plotters had succeeded beyond their wildest dreams and placed a homegrown Hitler in the White House? By using hitherto top military secret documents and historical research, author Michael Cnudde tells the story of The War That Almost Was.

The Review

I enjoyed this book immensely. It comes across as being solidly grounded in the history of the time, and shows just how thin the veneer of civilisation can be.

The author’s mixing of historical and fictional characters is well balanced, something that he shares with Harry Turtledove. I particularly liked the portrayal of Erwin Rommel and the role he plays in the story (as well as Rommel’s eventual reward). While many of the characters don’t survive the chaos that follows the coup, the balance between those that don’t and those who do is nicely achieved. And importantly, given how nasty the baddies are, they all end up getting their come-uppances!

Michael is telling a big story from a large number of view points, fortunately he has the knack of being able to quickly introduce a character, and to successfully build a bond between that character and the reader. In some cases this is by reinforcing the views already formed about historical characters, but more often he is introducing someone who is simply in the wrong place in the wrong time. And in this respect, I believe Michael’s ability to create characters for whom the reader cares is superior to that Harry Turtledove. 

Along these lines the death of J Edgar Hoover gave me a totally different view of the man. Talk about going out with all guns blazing!

four-stars

1882: Custer in Chains

1882: Custer in Chains1882: Custer in Chains by Robert Conroy
Published by Baen on 2015
Genres: Type I - Hard
Pages: 377
Format: eBook
Buy on Amazon
four-stars

Premise – Point of Divergence (POD)

Following his unlikely but decisive (and immensely popular) 1876 victory over Sitting Bull and the Sioux at the Little Big Horn, George Armstrong Custer is propelled into the White House in 1880.

The Story

Two years after his election as President of the USA Custer finds himself bored and seeks new worlds to conquer. He and his wife Libbie fixate on Spain’s decaying empire as his source for immortality. What President Custer doesn’t quite comprehend is that the U.S. military isn’t up to such a venture. When a group of Americans on a ship headed for Cuba is massacred, war becomes inevitable—and unless calmer, patriotic citizens and soldiers can find a way to avoid debacle, this war may be America's last stand!

The Review

This is the first of Robert Conroy’s books that I have read, and I have to admit to being disappointed. However, given the success of other Robert Conroy’s books this is probably just an exception.

Well plotted, with an interesting and plausible scenario, I found the need to focus on the plot and moving it forward was at the cost of developing interesting and/or sympathetic characters. In addition there was perhaps too much focus on the gee-whiz aspect of the Cuban war, with the Texan, Lang (a fictitious character?) introducing both barbed wire and an improved version of the Gatling gun to the conflict. As a consequence this is not going to be a book I read again.

 

four-stars

Second Front: The Allied Invasion of Europe 1942-43

Second Front: The Allied Invasion of Europe 1942-43Second Front: The Allied Invasion of Europe 1942-43 by Alexander M. Grace
Published by Casemate Publishers on 2014
Genres: Type I - Hard
Pages: 288
Format: eBook
Buy on Amazon
four-stars

Premise – Point of Divergence (POD)

The Allies invade Europe via the coast of southern France in 1942

The Story

One of the great arguments of World War II took place among Allied military leaders over when and where to launch a second front against Germany in Europe. Stalin, holding on by his teeth in Russia, urged a major invasion from the west as soon as possible. The Americans, led by Marshall and Wedemeyer, argued likewise. It was Churchill who got his way, however, with his Mediterranean strategy, including a campaign on the Italian peninsula, which he mistakenly called the “soft underbelly of Europe.”

This realistic, fact-based work posits what would have happened had Churchill been overruled, and that rather than invading North Africa in the fall of 1942, then Sicily and Italy, the Allies had hit the coast of southern France instead. The key element that enables the alternative scenario is the cooperation of Vichy, which was negotiated at the time but refused. If the Allies had promised sufficient force to support the French, however, the entire southern coastline of France would have been undefended against a surprise invasion.

In this book, once the Allied armies are ashore, Germans stream toward the front, albeit through a gauntlet of Maquis, Allied paratroopers, and airpower. Meantime the Allied forces push up the Rhône Valley and titanic armored clashes take place near Lyons. Already in desperate straits at Stalingrad, where they had committed their air and armored reserves, the Germans had also yet to switch to a full total-war economy, with tanks like the Panther and Tiger not yet deployed.

The Review

The first two thirds of the book was definitely edging into a 5 but as the story moved further away from the initial landing it became increasingly difficult to suspend my sense of disbelief at where the author was pushing the story to. What I did enjoy was how the author used real persons doing the same sort of the same thing they were famous for but at a different time, or in different place. And the re-imagining of ‘the Battle of the Bulge’ was quite entertaining. This is definitely a book I’ll be reading again, although probably not for a couple of years.

four-stars

Sealion

SealionSealion by Richard Cox
Published by Futura on 1974
Genres: Type I - Hard
Pages: 188
Format: Paperback
four-half-stars

Premise - Point of Divergence (POD)

Hitler invades England Sep 22 1940

The Story

The German paratroops jumped at dawn as they had done in Holland, in Belgium, in Norway. But this time there were more of them ... the time was six o'clock on the morning of September 22, 1940 ... by breakfast time close on 90,000 troops were successfully ashore on the beaches between Folkestone and Seaford.

Operation Sealion: the German invasions of England. Minutely planned. What would have happened if the invasion had gone ahead as planned?

Hitler had intended to capture the whole of Southern England within only ten days. Sealion is a vivid, authentic documentary novel based on a War Game organised by the Royal Military Academy, Sandhurst, umpired by six top British and German officers in an effort to determine whether Hitler would have succeeded.

The Review

This is a professionally written book by a former Defence correspondent for the Daily Telegraph and it shows. It is also a book that I have reread on at least three occasions. Its research is exemplary, and the style is free flowing and easy to read. Don’t expect much in the way of characterisation though, it isn’t that sort of book. It will grab your attention though, and keep you interested until the end.

four-half-stars