FREEDOM! (Turtledove's Alt WW2)

[MarkSheppard]

But you are right - he seems to use OTL kit, very thinly disguised, which probably saves him re-inventing the wheel.

Using OTL kit isn't that bad; because if you design an aircraft, weapon, or whatever to meet a specific set of requirements, you will end up with something very similar to OTL.

What I don't like is how he took the lazy route out and simply re-used the Stuka from OTL, right down to the fixed landing gear, and the cranked gull wings for the CSA "Asskicker".

The CSA wouldn't want such a short ranged aircraft for their dive bomber....this is North America, where range is far more important than in Europe...so it would look more like a SBD Dauntless Analogue, or a SB2C Helldiver analogue....since they'd need the extra range to drive deep into the USA, rather than just the border states....