As Adam has noted, " there's sometimes a fine line between historical analysis and 'What-iffery'". Unless it goes to ridiculous extremes, the 'what if' scenario is really only the subjective reverse side to 'what did happen'. In some cases, that can be a fairly straightforward observation. For example, 'If' the Commonwealth troops had not used Funnies on D-Day they may have had their own Omaha. Quite plausible but it goes off the rails once you take that thought and ask more hypothetical questions. For most of us, it's hard not to go there to some degree and the mental exercise can be fun. What if Patton was a woman?
Having taken part in one extremely trashy what-if [to my biased mind the worst kind: an OMG what-if] and as a result of some very silly comments nearly quitting forum as soon as I had arrived, I am dead against such a format. What if Patton had survived the accident, and became UK's next PM?
I agree with Diane. It is difficult sometimes trying to reply to threads without introducing new elements that produce new questions etc going off subject. With "What if" type threads there are always new elements going off at Tangents and Cosines Plus they always appear to bring out the worst and the moderators have to put an end to it. Better to stay with normal format questions. Regards Tom
I think that 'What ifs' are only acceptable if they are in the context of realistic alternative courses of action that were available at the time. However, the dangers of the question on an open forum are such that I support the mods 100% in trying to keep them to a minimum and in punishing transgressors with public humiliation. What if...this forum allowed 'what ifs' ? It'd be called WW2 Chat
