7/25/2019 Outskirts of Vienna(1241)&Outskirts of Moscow(1941),What Have Been Said&Would Be Said - Alternate History Dis

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9/1/2016 Outskirts of Vienna(1241)&outskirts of Moscow(1941),what have been said&would be said - Alternate History Discussion Board

http://www.alternatehistory.com/discussion/showthread.php?t=368674

September 30th, 2015, 04:41 AM

Biden&Ceaser'12Eternal Vice Kaiser

Join Date: Mar 2014Location: MinnesotaPosts: 1000 or more

I see what you're going for here, but it just isn't working.

The Mongols had the most sophisticated, advanced, and deadly military of their time by a

longshot. They were like a modern army in terms of organization, and some of the greatestmilitary minds toever have existed. The only power of their time by the 1240s that could evenput up a decent fight was Song China, who had a military that in numbers, discipline, andorganization, could dwarf anything the Europeans put out. And yet the Song still lost.

Nazi Germany was a strong Great Power, perhaps even a potential budding superpower. It had agood army and was able to experiment with a lot of new tactics that made this army veryeffective. It was able to again and again catch its enemies off guard and be very efficient whengoing for the jugular. This military is nothing compared to the sheer domination the Mongols putout.

Meanwhile, Europe at this point is, if not a backwater, certainly not the center of power in the

world. This board likes to praise Rome/Byzantium and its superiority to the rest of Europe and attimes even the Arab World, but even Rome paled in comparison to the armies that the Chinesepowers were putting out in the 13th century. Armies that the Mongols crushed and learnedeverything they needed to know from fighting.

Europe stood no chance, none at all. It wasn't just being disunited they just couldn't match thetactics and discipline that the Mongols were using. If you want a real-life example of how theMongols fared against the Europeans, look no further than the invasion of Hungary, wheremultiple Western armies were defeated by numerically inferior but far superior in organizationand fighting ability Mongol armies. European knights are good warriors, and I suppose if youcompare the Knight and the average steppe warrior, they could match up pretty evenly. ButKnights couldn't coordinate in mass like the Mongols, with utter obedience and patience. No one

could, least of all Europeans. If the Europeans did unite against the Mongols, I'm sure they wouldhave enjoyed that- it just makes it easier to sweep all resistance aside.

People say that the Mongols were operating at the end of their supply lines, or that the forest andcastles of Central Europe would halt the Mongol advance. This logic is based off of a fantasydepiction of Hollywood Mongol Barbarians. In reality, the Mongols were masters of siege warfare,and even if they weren't they could bring in Chinese servants who were. And the Mongols didn'treally have a supply chain as we know of it, but yet managed to subsist in a dozen differentenvironments- in mountains, in deserts, in forests just like those in Western Europe that appearin Russia.

IOTL, the Mongols had already decided it would take about 15 years to conquer all of Europe up

to the Pacific. When Ogedei died, they were ahead of schedule.

There are so many other reasons a USSR=Europe comparison doesn't make sense, but I'm justfocusing on the fact that Europeans were completely outmatched.

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