OOH, I’M ‘BOUT TO ACT A FOOL

[u/-FantasticFoxx-]

Twitter/X has recently been debating as to whether modern Africa could beat 1939 Germany in a war

…Found the hypothetical rather amusing

[u/TyrialFrost]

~	1939 Europe	2026 Africa
Non-mechanised - personnel (M)	11.9	1.5
Mechanised - personnel (M)	2.1	0.4
Mechanised - armoured combat vehicles	30,000	8,000
Mechanised - domestic production	57%	5%
Naval - active personnel (M)	1.2	0.2
Naval - combat ships	2,500	500
Naval - domestic production	80%	20%
Air - active personnel (M)	0.6	0.2
Air - combat aircraft	15,000	1,200
Air - domestic production	93%	4%
Reserves (incl paramilitary) (M)	20	1.5
Available manpower (M)	200	550
Remaining population (M)	315.2	1,028
Munitions production (K tonnes/day)	2.7	0.06
Sustained expeditionary cargo (K tonnes/day)	75	5
Locomotive fleet (K)	100	3
Political stability	45%	50%
PPP GDP - $2026 (T)	$12	$12.5

[u/joko2008 → u/TyrialFrost]

Those are war economies on the 1939 side. Africa isn't mobilised for a grand war

[u/TyrialFrost → u/joko2008]

In 2026 Africa there are 17/54 states that could be considered mobilised due to War/Junta/Insurgencies. Obviously not mobilised for total war, yet neither was 1939 Europe.

[u/AikaGranzchesta → u/TyrialFrost]

I don't have a very good understanding of economics, but I'm not sure that modern economies are very well geared towards war economies at all. Look at Russia and Ukraine for example, a war which certainly looks like a battle for Ukraine's survival, yet the numbers involved across the entire war are less than in individual WWII battles.

[u/TyrialFrost → u/AikaGranzchesta]

Russia has over a million casualties so far, I would say we are past individual WW2 battles.

[u/AikaGranzchesta → u/TyrialFrost]

They have suffered around 400,000-600,000 deaths, which is comparable to Stalingrad, but across an entire country instead of a city and some of its immediate surroundings, and over four years instead of 6 months. Also the troops numbers on both sides are smaller than Stalingrad.

[u/NCD_Lardum_AS → u/joko2008]

This is 1939 Europe not 1942. The ramp up hasn't truly happened yet.

[u/joko2008 → u/NCD_Lardum_AS]

Germany was ramping up for war since 1936. 1.5 million men invaded Poland and 3.5 france in 1940. That is a big deal and not something a civilian economy could just pull out of it's ass

[u/Efficient_Resident17 → u/joko2008]

This is true but Europe is a much bigger continent than Germany

[u/MrCockingFinally → u/joko2008]

Africa can't mobilize for a Grand war LMAO. And Europe still had a ton of runway to mobilize in 1939.

[u/joko2008 → u/MrCockingFinally]

Why can't Africa mobilize? Europe would be slaughtered

[u/MrCockingFinally → u/joko2008]

Bro, have you seen the state of most African countries? They could maybe mobilize a shitton of conscripts and give them assault rifles, but they can't mass produce tanks, IFVs, aircraft etc. 99% of what Africa operates is imported or reliant of foreign tech.

[u/joko2008 → u/MrCockingFinally]

But they would not need to produce that much as the technological difference is so insanely great. And I'm sure in war they'd have production of domestic tanks up and running in less than a year. It's total war after all

[u/MrCockingFinally → u/joko2008]

If you don't even have the capability to make a diesel engine from scratch it takes more than a year to spin that up,

[u/TyrialFrost → u/joko2008]

Im sure there would be A domestic tank in production after 1 year, but would it be better then a S35 / T34? and can they make 7500 of them like 1940 Europe can.

[u/joko2008 → u/TyrialFrost]

A T34 is not a good tank compared to even the least efficient African tanks. If an African nation can reverse engineer even a cold war tank like the T70 then the soviet T34 will be completely and utterly outmatched

[u/toe-schlooper → u/MrCockingFinally]

90% of nations involved in WW2 were at near total wartime mobilization. Meanwhile, Africa has nowhere to go but up.

[u/zekromNLR → u/TyrialFrost]

Re: Navy, how many torpedoes do the African navies have in total? Because a modern sub is going to be basically invisible to what passes for ASW in 1939, and you can probably take out anything afloat in 1939 with one, maybe at most two modern heavyweight torpedoes.

[u/TyrialFrost → u/zekromNLR]

17 submarines, from Egypt, Algeria, South Africa.

Type 209: 7x (8+6) = 98 torpedoes

Kilo(P877):  2x (6+12) = 36 torpedos

i-Kilo(P636): 4x (6+12) = 72 torpedos

u-Romeo(T033): 4x (8+6) = 56 torpedoes

Total: 262

Estimated reserve: 395

It's possible that none of the Romeo's are seaworthy and the torpedoes are not interchangeable. The rest of the fleet is probably 1/3 in deep maintenance, which would likely just be canibalised to keep the rest active.

[u/zekromNLR → u/TyrialFrost]

So counting out the Romeos and assuming 2/3 combat capable for the others, we have about 140 torpedoes deployed at once, with probably two full reloads and a partial one available on shore, assuming the reserves are distributed in the same way as the deployed ones.

Not counting torpedo boats, small escorts, transports etc, but counting submarines, Royal Navy plus French navy plus Kriegsmarine ships in European waters in 1939 was 285. Minor European powers will add some more, but not enough to fully tip the balance.

South Africa's subs will also have to travel a long way to get into the theater, SA to Gibraltar is already pretty much half of the Type 209's 11000 nmi surfaced range (at 10 knots)

[u/TyrialFrost → u/zekromNLR]

Let's say roughly 500 submarine shots + 500 uptime combat ships against 2500 combat ships plus the 250 ships/year that are being produced.

[u/iskandar- → u/TyrialFrost]

I love how this is just raw numbers and shows absolutely none of the qualitative and industrial advantages a modern African military would have. Like could you imagine the absolute field day a single Hind or Apache helicopter would have when it comes across a mechanised divisions of 1940s tanks? The biggest question would be what on the ground would even be worth a rocket or missile vs just eviscerating them with the chain gun.

Edit holy fuck I forgot about south Africa... south, while it doesn’t current have nukes, still has the capability and infrastructure to make nukes. Is this a fucking joke?

[u/irgendeineriwo → u/TyrialFrost]

Europe has more ships than Africa has SSMs (which they can't build domestically)

[u/Youutternincompoop → u/irgendeineriwo]

I doubt that considering Algeria alone has several hundred anti-ship missiles.

[u/Rivetmuncher → u/irgendeineriwo]

Cool. Is Europe gonna lobotomise its power projection by exposing them to the ones that are there?

Pretty sure the modern African continent, even if crippled, can still spool up a workable anti-ship missile ^{or even just drone} production line faster than 40s Europe could crank out a naval platform that holds up even against 60s-level threats

[u/bobbymoonshine → u/TyrialFrost]

Counterpoint: Africa has access to oil

[u/Anderopolis → u/bobbymoonshine]

As does europe in russia and romania. 

[u/Slobberinho → u/Anderopolis]

And Norway.

[u/Anderopolis → u/Slobberinho]

Not in 1939

[u/TyrialFrost → u/bobbymoonshine]

~	1939 Europe	2026 Africa
Oil production (M barrels/day)	0.9	9.5

This does beg the queston of how quickly the 2026 Africa production would fall if they lost access to external expertise and equipment. If it was similar to Venezuela, it would be roughly -16%/year. Europe itself would face severe rationing with a 2M+ barrels/day shortfall until European oil fields are found and developed. There is also the issue that 3M barrels/day are on African front line in North Africa.

Worse then all this though is the refining situation. Africa would be in shortfall for a lot of fuel types.

[u/jimbo80008 → u/TyrialFrost]

Does this account for Baku? Depending on the definition Europe, Azerbaijan just barely gets counted as European

[u/Weelildragon → u/jimbo80008]

It was part of the USSR, so I would count it.

[u/AikaGranzchesta → u/Weelildragon]

Would you count all of Soviet Central Asia too? For this scenario it would probably be simpler to say yes, but then you run into the issue of how Britain and France's economies would preform without their colonial empires.

[u/jimbo80008 → u/AikaGranzchesta]

That is also my issue with this scenario, what is the rest of the world doing? Because otherwise the 1939 Europe is going to run out of rubber fast, which would cause them to lose their logistical advantage. And they definitely don't have the tech yet for cost effective synthetic rubber

[u/Vandirac → u/bobbymoonshine]

With these stats, Germany will also gave access to oil.... Africa's.

[u/serpenta → u/Vandirac]

I'm confused... are we completely setting aside tech or are we betting on Pz III / IV, T-28 / 70 / 80, Somuas against Leopard 2 and T-55 / 62 / 72?

[u/Slobberinho → u/serpenta]

Nobody said it was easy. The Africans are going to butcher the Europeans in the beginning. But you could lose 20 to 1. And only one side can replace those 20 with 20 new ones.

[u/serpenta → u/Slobberinho]

I don't see this coming out well for Europe in this scenario. This is first of all political fiction, so if we suppose that Europe of that time could work in concert, we have to assume the same for Africa. You have to account for how massive Africa is, to the detriment of both sides, but I actually believe it's worse for Europe. Lybia and Algeria will already be a logistical nightmare and then there's the rest of Sahara, that the Europeans will have to traverse, fighting nobody but sand. At which point the African front should be established somewhere aroud Niger, with exhausted Europeans against solidified defense (I'm assuming Europe is the aggressor, maybe hastily) with superior tech. So at this point the logical issues are mostly equalized, until Europe can get hold of south-west, central African ports. It's not enough to build the stuff, you have to actually deploy it. With no roads or railroads it would be rather difficult. And if you go out to build it up, a single successful strike will put a hold on it, while you have no effective air defense, that's reduced to infantry HMG's and field guns. And your tanks are all IFVs with no composites against infantry with RPG-9.

[u/Slobberinho → u/serpenta]

I don't think the European tactic would be to conquer all of Africa from the North and march South. From the North, they'd want to take the oil fields in Lybia and Algeria. Use the Sahara as a natural barrier. Use submarines to patrol the Mediterranean and Atlantic Ocean. You want to stop the transport of oil from Nigeria and Angola to the front up North, which will go by ship.

From the African point of view: you want to strike the military industrial complex with your air force. I imagine they have the satellite imaging and radar to do that. Secure the Canaries and Madeira Islands, it's basically an aircraft carrier. And then grind away their at their production. South Africa has the knowhow to produce a nuclear bomb, they did it before, they should be able to do it again. Hold the line until you have those, one on Lyon, one on Munich, one on Manchester. Done deal.

[u/TyrialFrost → u/Slobberinho]

Having a su-57 in inventory is great, being able to meet and supply the 30 hours of maintenance per hour of flight is even better.

[u/serpenta → u/TyrialFrost]

Yeah, but Su-57 is an overkill. Think more MiG-29 or T-62. They are mid, and were mid when they were built, but they can run on sugar water and are still out of reach for anything that the 1939 Europe can muster.

[u/TyrialFrost → u/serpenta]

MIG-29 is much better, but you are still looking at 11 hours of work for 1 hour of flight. If you are dropping planes every mission that's going stack up quickly several months into the war. Even worse if Europe is willing to direct bomber streams at your airfields.

[u/TyrialFrost → u/serpenta]

Tech is by no means set aside. But its looking further then 1:1 battles to the sheer volume of equipment and what it would take to maintain it and get it to the battle without external support.

[u/Angry-Sek-man → u/[deleted]]

Because Europe as the whole have almost everything i need, only think it do not have is rubber. You all the ores in Nordics, Oil in Romania and Russia, Coal in England, Germany, food is also secured.. They have capability to produce more of what they have. Each euopean contry needed imports from colonies becase they were fighting each other

Africa need to import, electronics, engines, weapons, ammunitions and food. They have all raw materiels but they do not posses industral power to turn it into usefull stuff

[u/EncabulatorTurbo → u/TyrialFrost]

Look if Europe is magically unified so is Africa and suddenly they become dramatically more capable of this

Africa has a domestic drone production capability of ~80,000 a year (military drones). In a full unified african continent, thats what they would focus on. Not the things they can't replace.

Europe would be rat fucked

[u/TyrialFrost → u/EncabulatorTurbo]

Africa has a domestic drone production capability of ~80,000 a year (military drones)

the scenario does not have electronic, engine or munition imports. Globilisation of parts is gone.

[u/EncabulatorTurbo → u/TyrialFrost]

Well if that's the case this is easy: 800 million Africans starve to death and millions more die of disease and civil war because they lost 82% of their food supply lol

[u/TyrialFrost → u/EncabulatorTurbo]

Yep. As WW2 showed total war has more to do with setting their economies against each other and just grinding the other to death, with troops and weapons just variables in the equation.

The African advantage burns out within six months. The 1939 advantage is they have not Globalized their supply chains.

[u/EncabulatorTurbo → u/TyrialFrost]

Nobody wants to engage with the fact that Europe has lift capability but is so overmatched by air and armor that they can't land a single boat, and Africa has no real lift capability, let alone getting all of their forces to the right place

Like all of us right now for real in the world have watched Russia fight Ukraine for years, and I read these comments and I think they weren't paying attention, or think Russia was stupid for not just sending 3000 tanks at once on day one - because people are treating military forces like they teleport

Forces need to be trained for invasions, forces need to be staged, moved, fuel needs to be available, food needs to be availalbe, kit needs to be available. You need to be prepared to build fuel depots and place ammunition supplies all ong the way as you go too. All of that takes time. You can't just put every man with gun in Africa in Egypt and all go at once, war doesnt work like that

And "go" int his case means 2000km overland, over much difficult terrain if the Europeans blow up infrastructure.

Basically they stare angrily at each other across the sea and Africa blows some things up with strike fighters

[u/bobbymoonshine → u/Vandirac]

“We will simply use our initial mobilised advantage to capture and begin exploiting the critical oil, rubber and other natural resources required to keep our war machine going for longer than few months” is historically a foolproof plan for Germany yeah

Africa doesn’t have much industrial production but has all of the raw materials. Europe has factories but most of those factories stop doing anything and get taken off the board the day the scenario starts. (Assuming continental autarky on both counts.)

[u/FiveStanleyNickels → u/bobbymoonshine]

Counterpoint: abiotic oil. 

In World War 2, Germany was using synthetic oil created from coal when the oil supply was cut off. 

[u/Ilovekerosine → u/TyrialFrost]

the bigger numbers are nice, but don't you think indestructible tanks, and planes faster than some european weaponry are going to turn the tide? all the extra material in the world won't help you when the average Tiger loses to an IFV

[u/TyrialFrost → u/Ilovekerosine]

Nothing is indestructable, and the longer the war continues the inability to replace or maintain equipment would cripple operations.

At the moment I think the war would have several key phases.

immediate term - Mediterranean, precision weaponry and qualitative advantage put Europe in disarray.

+6 months - North Africa/The Maghreb, Europe starts making landings after they bring a quantitative advantage to the mediterranean as African Air/Naval forces face attritional damage, and magazines are emptied. Logistical issues stop Africa from bringing their full force to repel advances.

+3 years - The Sahel, Its a slow grinding advance for Europe as they push south and build transportation networks to the front. The sheer quantity of European munitions overcome a rapidly increasing African force as mobilisation continues.

+5 years - Below the transition zone - Line of contact has stalled as Africa has bootsrapped its industry to produce and transport the military goods it needs to equip its available manpower.

[u/Ilovekerosine → u/TyrialFrost]

You can logistics this all you want, but those first few months where Africa genuinely just bombs the crap out of Europe is going to wreck it so hard the rest doesn't matter. They CAN just roll into the capital of each nation, uncontested, because of the pure technology difference. Yes if the war drags on its going to get rough because of ammunition and food and whatever, but the war simply won't last long enough for that. Unless we say Africa's goal is completely annihilating Europe, which is far from the definition of 'winning'.

[u/Anderopolis → u/Ilovekerosine]

The US has expended more precision ammo than africas entire stock in Iran. 

[u/Ilovekerosine → u/Anderopolis]

Iran, which has a notably better air defence and general fighting capabilities than Europe. Its a lot easier to airstrike a country who's best bet at shooting down fighters is a barely supersonic unguided 20mm.

[u/Anderopolis → u/Ilovekerosine]

The US has complete aerial supremacy in Iran and has had for months. 

Yet half a year of precision bombing has not affected the.results they wanted.

[u/Ilovekerosine → u/Anderopolis]

Seriously, what is Europe's threat on Africa while Africa is somehow failing to win by their overwhelming air superiority and technology difference

[u/Anderopolis → u/Ilovekerosine]

I don't know how you aren't getting this. 

[u/Ilovekerosine → u/Anderopolis]

Getting what? I understand the idea that Africa might run out of bullets halfway through Europe, but I don’t get the bit where Europe hits back hard enough to win before Africa fixes its logistics

[u/Ilovekerosine → u/Anderopolis]

and what chance does Europe have against Africa?

[u/Youutternincompoop → u/Anderopolis]

difference being that Africa in this scenario would be landing actual troops instead of being afraid of putting boots on ground.

[u/Anderopolis → u/Youutternincompoop]

With what landing vessels? 

[u/Youutternincompoop → u/Anderopolis]

the Amphibious transport dock Kalaat Béni Abbès and the two landing ships Kalaat Beni Hammed and Kalaat Beni Rached.

those 3 ships are enough to land a modern mechanised battalion anywhere in the Med with zero ability for Europe to stop them, and that's literally just the Algerian navy, all it takes is aquiring a large port with that battalion(that absolutely nothing Europe has can stand against) and then it's a simple job of shipping more troops into that port. nothing Europe has at the time can stop this, their only real hope is sending bombers against the ships, at which point those bomber formations are annihilated by SAMs and modern Jet Fighters with ease.

why do redditors assume African countries don't have navies?

[u/Anderopolis → u/Youutternincompoop]

This laughable lack of the sense scale is so funny to me. 

[u/Youutternincompoop → u/Anderopolis]

you don't need a d-day sized landing force when you have such an absurd technological gap you do realise that right? any coastal defences are going to be annihilated by missiles, bombs, and drones, trying to stretch an 'atlantic wall'(not that the actual atlantic wall was worth shit in the end) across the entire mediterannean coast is simply impossible.

[u/TyrialFrost → u/Ilovekerosine]

those first few months where Africa genuinely just bombs the crap out of Europe is going to wreck it so hard the rest doesn't matter. They CAN just roll into the capital of each nation, uncontested, because of the pure technology difference.

The magazine depth and force size is just not there for anything like that in the first 6 months. Even if they did land an expeditionary force it would be overwhelmed.

For context Europe used around 1,000,000 tonnes of explosives in 1940 (Shells/Bombs/Grenade/Torpedoes/Rockets/Mines), manufacturing that same amount of munitions in 1939. No one surrendered, and they were just getting started.

2026 Africa currently has about 700,000 tonnes of explosives, and produced 22,000 in 2026.

[u/FaudelCastro → u/TyrialFrost]

You think WW2 armies wouln't just disband in terror when getting sniped by tanks from 4km away, guided missiles, drones. Precision strikes on every refinery, bridge, factory and command center? Soldiers that fight at night like it is broad daylight. An army that can intercept every single one of your radio communications and even completely deny you access to the airwaves.

This is a conquistadorez against the Indian Americans. Only with even more technological gap.

[u/Anderopolis → u/FaudelCastro]

Where are these fantasy african stockpiles coming from? 

And no, armies would not disband in terror. 

[u/Youutternincompoop → u/Anderopolis]

fantasy african stockpiles

you know several African countries do genuinely have pretty substantial stockpiles right?

Egypt alone has an absurd amount of military equipment stocked up.

[u/Anderopolis → u/Youutternincompoop]

Egypt does not in fact have more precision ammo and missiles stocked up than the US used in Iran. 

[u/achilleasa → u/Anderopolis]

The incompetence of the current US admin is not an argument

[u/TyrialFrost → u/Youutternincompoop]

Africa has less stockpiles then Europe used on itself in 1940 (700K stockpiled to 1M actually used). All without disbanding in terror.

More importantly Africa initially could only manufacture 22K tonnes/year. While Europe restocked 1M tonnes.

[u/FaudelCastro → u/Anderopolis]

You are sailing with your fleet of top of the line British ships. Suddenly exocet missiles come from over the horizon, flying faster than any object you've ever seen, skimming the waves and perfectly explode on your capital ships.

In a matter of seconds, some of the finest British battleships have been neutralized by a threat that you never knew existed and that you have no way of countering. You haven't even seen what launched those missiles (you don't actually know the word missile). How can you know how many more there are? And you will keep charging forward? No fucking way.

Maybe if you are brave, you will send your submarines? And what happens? A flying aircraft that can hover appears, it looks like it knows exactly where you are, and drops a torpedoes on your subs. You think you will not call for every fucking ship to run to port?

Maybe you are even braver and lucky, your aircraft carrier wasn't hit in the initial strike. You launch aircraft towards the direction those missiles came from, suddenly other missiles come raining down on them from the sky picking your bombers one by one. You lose 36 bombers in a matter of minutes.

My dude, that admiral if yes was alive will be screaming in terror.

And for this scenario to happen, you need one single frigate (for example the Moroccan FREMM).

And you can have tens of such engagements within a week:

• an Italian fleet sunk by a single Algerian diesel electric sub
• a couple of Apaches completely destroying an armored push
• tens of CAS planes swatted out of the sky by a Tunguska
• a lucky plane spots infantry on the ground and pounces, gets destroyed by a man pads
• an armored push gets attacked by ATGMs, pushes through despite heavy losses and gets smoked by RPG7 fire when it gets close
• precision strikes on every HQ and bridge
• Your comms are completely transparent, your enemy deciphers enigma machine messages before your operators have setup the machine to decipher

You think European countries would be thinking about magazine depths? They would be asking for a cease fire within a month.

[u/Anderopolis → u/FaudelCastro]

Again, fantasy magazine depths. 

No, countries that would go through the blits would not be surrendering in a month, after minimal sporadic damage. 

[u/FaudelCastro → u/Anderopolis]

Why did the conquistadores win against armies much bigger and with no logistical lines back to Europe?

[u/achilleasa → u/Anderopolis]

Again, fantasy magazine depths. 

My guy I think you don't understand that a couple of modern ATGMs would sink a 1939 battleship and Algeria alone has thousands in stock, let alone the others, and let alone their airforces dropping thousands of guided bombs on anything that moves. It would be over so soon it's not even funny.

[u/Ilovekerosine → u/TyrialFrost]

Then just air dominance can buy them time to get their shit together. It won't be hard to completely stop Europe from being able to do anything while Africa learns how to build a train, or something. And even with all Europe's cargo, a single of any equivalent role fighter (infantry, tank, or plane) will be able to take on an entire European squadron of the like. Even if initially, they can't just beat Europe, the idea of them losing is absurd.

[u/ReDot75 → u/Ilovekerosine]

As if US miltary did not show its inability to deal with guerilla tactics with way more precision strikes than what could do Africa, on countries (Iran, Afganistan) that are way smaller than europe.

Plus doubt Algeria can project to most of german territories, no?

[u/Ilovekerosine → u/ReDot75]

I'm sure the full might of the British Empire will be very experienced with guerilla tactics and asymmetric warfare. Reminder that these people will be trying to 'fight' with weapons literally incapable of hurting the average African infantry, and with a complete surveillance network easily capable of spotting any of their equipment from a horizon away.

[u/TyrialFrost → u/Ilovekerosine]

Are these invulnerable average African infantry in the room with us now?

[u/Ilovekerosine → u/TyrialFrost]

how is a bolt action rifle getting through kevlar? if steel was enough to stop bullets back then, then a bulletproof vest and kevlar helmet these days is going to be like the armor of god

[u/Youutternincompoop → u/Ilovekerosine]

39 Europe doesn't even have Tigers lol.

[u/InnysRedditAlt → u/Ilovekerosine]

It depends on the actual munitions available. The kill ratio of a modern thing vs world war 2 could be literally 10-100x but thats limited by the amount of ammo you have. I also wonder how long it takes till the europeans capture an airfield or a few supply lines start reverse engineering the modern tech. They may even just start confiscating computers from civillians it wouldnt take that long for 40's europe to brute force their way to 80's tech. 

The only thing i worry about is nuclear capability. 39 europe doesnt yet have nukes and south africa has the capability (or at least the knowledge in some archive) to build them

[u/Ilovekerosine → u/InnysRedditAlt]

reverse engineering circuitry and computers with all their silicon processing capabilities?

[u/FaudelCastro → u/TyrialFrost]

Now do the conquistadores against the indians. And put a line at the end saying who won?

[u/TiredAndOutOfIdeas → u/FaudelCastro]

didnt the spanish receive tremendous military assisstance from native populations who all wanted to kill the aztecs in revenge? like, to the point the natives heavily outnumbered their spanish allies?

[u/Rivetmuncher → u/TiredAndOutOfIdeas]

Turns out, most imperial projects started out as a couple guys handing out guns and other shinies to the locals.

Funny how nature do that, eh?

[u/TyrialFrost → u/TyrialFrost]

Lets look at 4 years of mobilisation.

~	1943 Europe	4y change
Non-mechanised - personnel (M)	22	+85%
Mechanised - personnel (M)	4	+91%
Mechanised - armoured combat vehicles	80,000	+167%
Mechanised - domestic production	90%	+58%
Naval - active personnel (M)	2	+67%
Naval - combat ships	3,500	+40%
Naval - domestic production	95%	+19%
Air - active personnel (M)	4	+567%
Air - combat aircraft	40,000	+167%
Air - domestic production	98%	+5%
Reserves (incl. paramilitary) (M)	15	-25%
Available manpower (M)	160	-20%
Remaining population (M)	347	+5%
Munitions production (K tonnes/day)	8	+196%
Sustained expeditionary cargo (K tonnes/day)	100	+33%
Locomotive fleet (K)	95	-5%
Political stability	25%	-44%
PPP GDP - $2026 (T)	$13	+8%