Yes, that is what came up in my research.
Here, Barton's concern is informed by snippets of memory of Tet 1968 and Teheran 1979, with the former directly motivating the deployment of ~80 Gurkhas to the Saigon Embassy, plus a RMP contingent and other more discrete elements. No such attack occurs, at least not on the level of @ 1968.
The Zulus are an interim measure elsewhere (really confined to the Middle East, given that there are few independent states in Africa) until the Gurkha recruitment bottleneck is resolved in ~1968. The 'Gurkha increase' was also alluded to in Part 11 and will see two additional Gurkha brigades attached to BAOR, two to Home Forces/the Imperial Strategic Reserve and platoons deployed to appropriate countries in the Middle East and Orient, whilst other countries get a section. No units are assigned for the British High Commissions in the Commonwealth/Dominions, where it is the purview of the Imperial Police.
Dark Earth: A New Jerusalem
-
Simon Darkshade
- Posts: 1127
- Joined: Thu Nov 17, 2022 10:55 am
Re: Dark Earth: A New Jerusalem
A New Jerusalem Part 18
The War Office's heavy armaments and armoured fighting vehicles paper had been full of details, as Barton had requested. He was beginning to form an opinion that, rather than overwhelming him with information as had been the practice during his initial days in office, the defence establishment was being quite carefully selective in the style of the reports he received. This paper, like several other recent offerings, contained greater depth of both the background to past developmental choices and analysis of enemy threats. Perhaps they thought it would succeed in ticking his boxes, so to speak, and ensure his approval. As things stood, he found himself in general agreement with most of the proposed development and procurement programmes in any case, but he found the implicit presumption that he could be influenced almost bemusing. In any case, the general recommendations of the paper were uncontroversial to the point of being too restrained in their ambition, and he made a note to this effect on the introductory page. Business as usual could not continue, not for any of the three forces. There needed to be consistent plans for the sustainable and gradual increase in both production and research and development programmes; the Army would get the money, but needed to lay out how it would build more tanks, more guns, more rockets and more armoured vehicles in the most efficient manner possible.
First and foremost to that end, there was the matter of the Chieftain and its production. It was not quite the unquestioned king of the battlefield as it had been even three years ago, but the Russian T-64 was still outmatched by it and the T-62, which would equip the majority of the Red Army's forces for at least the next decade, was simply out of its class, at least until such time as their proposed upgunning to their new 125mm occured. There were progressive upgrades planned for more powerful engines to address the Chieftain's only real Achilles heel of its speed, but they were unlikely to bear fruit before 1967. For the immediate time being, there did not seem to be a requirement for a dramatic upgrade of the Chieftain, but he did find the Vickers proposal for the production of a specialised 'Sovietised' variant quite intriguing. This would consist of a Chieftain modified to to look and fight like a T-64 for the equipment of the dedicated training regiments at the British Army Training Units in Canada, Australia, South Africa and India. Conducting large scale exercises against dissimilar enemy vehicles would certainly increase the efficiency and relative combat experience of the armoured force, even if it was something of an interim measure. He indicated his approval of the proposal for production of reserve stocks of tanks for combat replacement, prepositioning in Germany and the Middle East and mobilisation cadre regiments.
The opening section on tanks demonstrated the inherent issue in this challenge very well indeed. On numbers alone, the Army would complete replacement of the Centurion with the Chieftain in the Regular Army by next year and the TA in another four years, but development of a successor main battle tank was only in its very embryonic stages. Total active and reserve requirements for the Royalist light tank were likely to be met by 1967 and refurbishment runs for various earlier marks of the Chieftain were not likely to require more than a portion of the nation's tank production capacity, leaving Vickers in particular underused. Building for export was only part of the answer, even if it was a vital and welcome one; the other part could be found in those armoured vehicles derived from the Chieftain and the Conqueror. Whilst they were supporting players, all of them would assist in the overall goal of armoured dominance.
The uncovering of the Soviet T-68 heavy tank back in 1961 had been the cause of considerable contention for the Army, throwing a spanner in its plans for the fielding of an all-Chieftain force and leading to four key decisions. In the first instance, the early retirement of the Conqueror was promptly cancelled and production lines reopened, so that an interim measure could counter any perceived armoured advantage that Moscow sought to engineer. A programme for a new and upgraded version of the capable design had been initiated, with the initial proposed specifications now in front of the Prime Minister seeming to be quite impressive. The new tank, or ‘Super Conqueror’ as some American inspired draftsman at Vickers had dubbed it, was almost eighteen tons heavier. Most of that was taken up in fully modern spaced composite armour augmented by appliqué plates that made it the most heavily protected tank in the world, but it also sported a new 6”/50 main armament. The new high powered gun had been specially forged by the dwarven smiths of Grymark in their dragon-fired forge deep beneath the mountains of Scotland and, in trials, had successfully blown the turret clean off a simulated T-64 from almost two miles away. Orders for an initial 1240 tanks had been placed for initial production in 1965, with an option for an extension to equip the T.A. and further dedicated regular heavy armoured regiments. In light of these measures, there did not seem to be any necessity for a superheavy successor to the remaining wartime Dreadnoughts, now all deep in reserve save for the trio in the Middle East.
Unlike the Germans and Soviets and in common with the United States, Britain had never embraced the notion of the assault gun as a distinct weapon of battle during the Second World War, preferring the deployment of their copious numbers of medium tanks. This had carried over into the postwar era and Korea, where tanks had been commonly employed for direct fire support of infantry offensive and defensive action. The urban fighting in Seoul and Pyongyang had highlighted a role for heavy self propelled guns; Barton remembered the similar lessons of the breaking of the Siegfried Line and the Battle of Berlin. The prevalence of urban terrain in the new fighting ground of Northern Germany had lead to a confluence of thinking on the matter and the second major decision - the development of a specialised heavy assault gun using the Chieftain hull. With a main armament of a converted 5.25" superheavy anti-aircraft gun mounted in a heavily defended fixed mount, the Champion assault gun combined lethal firepower with a low height and unsurpassed frontal armour protection. Adapting the Royal Navy's standard destroyer gun to use on land had been more difficult than first envisaged and a production vehicle was not expected until 1966, but the interest of other states, particularly Sweden, had managed to keep the project from cancellation.
The third decision had been to order the experimental Comet tank destroyer into full development. The Comet was an absolutely brutal vehicle that bore a strong general resemblance to the Conqueror, with the primary difference being the position of the hulking turret, which sat towards the rear of the vehicle. The main armament of a 7.2” gun had proved capable of blowing off the turret of entire tanks during the lengthy testing process, but its major attribute was the versatility granted by its long range firepower. The British Army had never truly embraced the tank destroyer concept during the last war, as its predominant focus had been on offensive and expeditionary capacities in the long effort to liberate Europe and Asia from the Axis, rather than the more extensive role played by armoured warfare on the Eastern Front. However, with the defence of Germany and Central Europe from aggression being the paramount mission of the 1960s and beyond, the utility of defensive firepower was distinctly increased; their success in testing in the deserts of the Middle East and North Africa was something of the icing in the cake.
In the final decision, a more oblique approach had been initiated, using the most powerful arm of the British Army - the Royal Artillery. New shells and rocket warheads were being developed for the deployment of anti-tank mines. A single regiment of 6” medium guns could lay a minefield of 240 mines at a distance of 25 miles, whilst the heavier artillery could do so at even greater ranges and concentrations. Even more ambitious was the project to develop an airburst shell filled with improved conventional munitions to attack the thin top armour of enemy tanks, but this was somewhat less advanced than the mines. Finally, new HEAT and HESH shells were to be issued to self propelled field and medium regiments in small quantities for the direct fire role. All three of those purposes would involve the FV-236, the Army’s new heavy mobile gun. Based on the Chieftain chassis with a powerful 1000hp engine, it was armed with a 6"/60 gun, fired a new 100lb shell and protected by a new lightweight alusteel covered with composite armour. Its fire control, laying system and loader were both heavily automated and it was capable of operating fully sealed within an MBRC environment. The FV-236 could cross rivers swiftly with its amphibious kit and operating in both day and night with integrated dark vision sights. The gun was specially cooled to allow for very high rate of fire of 8 rounds a minute, with considerably higher rates in bursts, and had a maximum range of 45 miles using current supercharges and rocket assisted projectiles; further developments in propellant, propulsion and design of the base of the shell conducted in concert with the Swedes offered further increases in range. Accompanying the self propelled howitzer was an armoured ammunition resupply vehicle that could rapidly reload the FV-236 whilst being capable of traversing rough terrain at the same top speed of 42 miles per hour. There was a planned capacity to replace the gun with a 155mm version should the Atlantic Alliance artillery standardisation talks come to fruition, but progress on the matter was viewed as less than likely in the short term due to the strong preferences by the Italians, Austrians Germans for their 149mm and 150mm weapons. In any event, the FV-236 represented the way forward for the British Army, providing the most powerful medium general support gun for its heavy divisions and corps artillery brigades.
The rest of the Army's artillery park was in a good state, with both the 8" and 9.2" guns being fully modern late 1950s designs, the 125mm Light Gun leading the Free World in light field artillery and the multiple rocket launchers lying at the cutting edge of technological development. The procurement of the US 175mm guns would provide a useful longer range counter-battery capacity against the worrisome Soviet 180mm as well as being a politically astute measure - it would hopefully allow for a more advantageous agreement to be reached over the licenced American production of the 125mm guns. There was perhaps more possibility for reciprocal orders of the 12” and 16” superheavy mobile guns, which offered quite an improvement in performance over their own M65s.
Ultimately, though, Barton saw the way ahead as one of the maximal standardisation possible for the field army, which would entail reducing the number of active calibres to the most efficient level. When such a time came, there were some very interesting uses for a long range, highly accurate gun in the home defence of the British Isles. Nothing could, should or would be wasted in this process of rearmament, of that he was quite determined. To that end, the thousands of surplus 25pdrs and their vast stocks of ammunition were not simply being scrapped, but kept in war emergency storage, at least for the time being. There were some staff officers in the Royal Artillery who had proposed their use as infantry support guns, but their arguments had been defeated by the plain obsolescence of the type in the face of rapidly advancing technology; outside of another positional war like Korea, it was as moribund as the conventional anti-tank gun, despite the Soviets still fielding both.
If there was a need for direct fire support, it was more than filled by tanks, infantry carriers, rockets and mortars, at each end of the continuum of mobility and portability. It was those older guns in that middle that were past their prime. It was very clear that the future for the defensive anti-tank role clearly lay in the guided missile. Even the best of the old anti-tank pieces of the 40s were only effective in that role out to two thousand yards or so, which was covered easily by the newer recoilless guns at substantially less weight and exceeded by the anti tank guided weapons. The earlier weapons, the Vickers Vigilant and the Bristol Silver Shield, were being replaced by the formidable Fairey Swingfire, a wire guided missile with a range of 2.5 miles that theoretically outranged most known Soviet and Chinese tank guns. It was to be joined by a lighter, man-portable weapon, but work on the Saunders-Roe Green Apple had only recently begun. Significantly, the FV438 vehicle would give the Swingfire excellent mobility on a heavily armoured battlefield and some measure of protection. whilst its companion FV440 Strongbow. The Hawker-Siddeley Maelstrom was the heaviest anti-tank missile in the world and certainly capable of destroying any prospective enemy tanks at long range, but it was having quite a few teething problems regarding its launch speed and terminal guidance.
There was one exception to that issue of direct fire support - that of the airborne forces. This matter in particular was of considerable interest to Barton, as it offered a chance to square the circle of the Army's light forces. The airborne divisions were the Empire first reaction force, yet had not advanced in mobility or protection from their equivalents in the Second World War or Korea to any decisive extent once they had landed. The Soviets had made some alarming advances in this respect with their ASU-85s and the new armoured airborne fighting vehicles that were apparently under development. In the West, the Americans had lead the way with their M-92 Custer airborne light tanks and M-56 Scorpion self-propelled guns, but they were designed to support their paratroopers, who still fought as leg infantry. Project Prodigal, or the proposal for air mechanisation would combine elements of both approaches and extend them to suit the specific needs and capabilities of the British Empire. It consisted of the development of a family of 25 ton tracked airborne vehicles capable of parachute drops and air transport by the Armstong-Whitworth Atlas, Vickers Voyager, Hawker-Siddeley Skyblazer and Shorts Belfast jets of RAF Transport Command - a light tank armed with an autoloading high velocity 25pdr; an armoured carrier with the same 50mm autocannon as the MACV; a self propelled 125mm airborne artillery system; and a low profile assault gun/tank destroyer equipped with a 105mm gun. These four vehicles would be accompanied by other useful proposals, such as further developments of the the jumping jeep and a tracked belt-fed WOMBAT, and make use of the same design principles of advanced materials, compound armour and new lightweight engines.
Substantial amounts of the technology utilised in Prodigal could also be seen in the modernisation of the Army’s infantry vehicle fleet. There were some suggestions of aligning designation systems and terminology with the Americans, but Barton put an asterisk next to that; whilst cooperation with the allies was important, he did not want to see it supplant common sense naming conventions. An infantry carrier was once simply that - a carrier of troops, but was now an ‘armoured personnel carrier’, which seemed to be a sign of the times. On the other hand, he had a more sympathetic outlook for the US nomenclature of mechanized infantry, rather than introducing a new category of armoured infantry as some had mooted.
That last category had begun to emerge through the planned MACV, or Mechanised Armoured Combat Vehicle. This programme had its parallels in the US Army, other Free World forces and the Soviets. One could see the general family resemblance between the picture of the FV525 and the proposed airborne carrier, insofar as it looked like a callow boy standing next to his muscled and fully grown elder brother. At this stage of its development, it was a well armoured vehicle of a base 36 tons with both steel and composite armour and the capacity for further appliqué protection. The main armament of a 50mm automatic cannon, although a contentious choice, provided the capacity to take on any light armoured vehicle on the modern battlefield, whilst main battle tanks could even be successfully attacked from the flanks and low flying aircraft and helicopters menaced. It’s chief role was the transport of a full section of a dozen infantrymen under fire at a top road speed of 50mph and then provide direct support with its cannon, machine guns and other armament.
It would be accompanied into battle by the reliable FV432 Saxon, upgraded with additional armour, improved engines and internal modifications to provide better comfort for the carried infantry section. Full scale production of the Saxon was set to continue through the early 1970s in order to completely replace the old Knights and wartime carriers still used by some reserve units and to equip many support arms that employed soft-skin vehicles. To a large extent, the FV432 had also replaced the lighter FV401 Cambridge carriers, but the smaller vehicles still had a useful role, particularly for the Royal Machine Gun Corps and other combat support arms and they had slipped very comfortably into the niche filled by the Universal Carriers of wartime vintage in this respect. Whilst Barton felt that there was something of a role for an upgraded or modern vehicle in the 10 to 12 ton range, he did not see it as his role to foist a new vehicle upon the Army; should they determine they need it, then he would give his support.
The final section was on the new wheeled vehicles that the Army had set their hearts on. They offered one major capability that the more doughty tracked carriers could not - speed. Both the Centaur Infantry Mobility Vehicle (which sounded like some sort of motorised wheelchair) and the Challenger Medium Armoured Vehicle were to be equipped with a supercharged engine capable of driving them at a top road speed of 75 miles per hour. Their role was to facilitate swift movement behind the immediate combat zone, particularly in Germany, which would rightly remain the preserve of the more heavily armoured tracked vehicles. They did offer some interesting capabilities for employment in Africa, Canada and Australia, where the tyranny of distance was a key factor in military calculations.
It was somewhat fitting to conclude the paper on that note, thought Barton, as he put the annotated paper in his completed tray and rose from his desk, for now the meeting of the Committee of Imperial Defence was nigh. The concerns of the individual Commonwealth military forces did differ from those of Britain in some certain areas and strategic requirements, but through consistent consultation, those of the Empire as a whole could be best promoted and developed.
The War Office's heavy armaments and armoured fighting vehicles paper had been full of details, as Barton had requested. He was beginning to form an opinion that, rather than overwhelming him with information as had been the practice during his initial days in office, the defence establishment was being quite carefully selective in the style of the reports he received. This paper, like several other recent offerings, contained greater depth of both the background to past developmental choices and analysis of enemy threats. Perhaps they thought it would succeed in ticking his boxes, so to speak, and ensure his approval. As things stood, he found himself in general agreement with most of the proposed development and procurement programmes in any case, but he found the implicit presumption that he could be influenced almost bemusing. In any case, the general recommendations of the paper were uncontroversial to the point of being too restrained in their ambition, and he made a note to this effect on the introductory page. Business as usual could not continue, not for any of the three forces. There needed to be consistent plans for the sustainable and gradual increase in both production and research and development programmes; the Army would get the money, but needed to lay out how it would build more tanks, more guns, more rockets and more armoured vehicles in the most efficient manner possible.
First and foremost to that end, there was the matter of the Chieftain and its production. It was not quite the unquestioned king of the battlefield as it had been even three years ago, but the Russian T-64 was still outmatched by it and the T-62, which would equip the majority of the Red Army's forces for at least the next decade, was simply out of its class, at least until such time as their proposed upgunning to their new 125mm occured. There were progressive upgrades planned for more powerful engines to address the Chieftain's only real Achilles heel of its speed, but they were unlikely to bear fruit before 1967. For the immediate time being, there did not seem to be a requirement for a dramatic upgrade of the Chieftain, but he did find the Vickers proposal for the production of a specialised 'Sovietised' variant quite intriguing. This would consist of a Chieftain modified to to look and fight like a T-64 for the equipment of the dedicated training regiments at the British Army Training Units in Canada, Australia, South Africa and India. Conducting large scale exercises against dissimilar enemy vehicles would certainly increase the efficiency and relative combat experience of the armoured force, even if it was something of an interim measure. He indicated his approval of the proposal for production of reserve stocks of tanks for combat replacement, prepositioning in Germany and the Middle East and mobilisation cadre regiments.
The opening section on tanks demonstrated the inherent issue in this challenge very well indeed. On numbers alone, the Army would complete replacement of the Centurion with the Chieftain in the Regular Army by next year and the TA in another four years, but development of a successor main battle tank was only in its very embryonic stages. Total active and reserve requirements for the Royalist light tank were likely to be met by 1967 and refurbishment runs for various earlier marks of the Chieftain were not likely to require more than a portion of the nation's tank production capacity, leaving Vickers in particular underused. Building for export was only part of the answer, even if it was a vital and welcome one; the other part could be found in those armoured vehicles derived from the Chieftain and the Conqueror. Whilst they were supporting players, all of them would assist in the overall goal of armoured dominance.
The uncovering of the Soviet T-68 heavy tank back in 1961 had been the cause of considerable contention for the Army, throwing a spanner in its plans for the fielding of an all-Chieftain force and leading to four key decisions. In the first instance, the early retirement of the Conqueror was promptly cancelled and production lines reopened, so that an interim measure could counter any perceived armoured advantage that Moscow sought to engineer. A programme for a new and upgraded version of the capable design had been initiated, with the initial proposed specifications now in front of the Prime Minister seeming to be quite impressive. The new tank, or ‘Super Conqueror’ as some American inspired draftsman at Vickers had dubbed it, was almost eighteen tons heavier. Most of that was taken up in fully modern spaced composite armour augmented by appliqué plates that made it the most heavily protected tank in the world, but it also sported a new 6”/50 main armament. The new high powered gun had been specially forged by the dwarven smiths of Grymark in their dragon-fired forge deep beneath the mountains of Scotland and, in trials, had successfully blown the turret clean off a simulated T-64 from almost two miles away. Orders for an initial 1240 tanks had been placed for initial production in 1965, with an option for an extension to equip the T.A. and further dedicated regular heavy armoured regiments. In light of these measures, there did not seem to be any necessity for a superheavy successor to the remaining wartime Dreadnoughts, now all deep in reserve save for the trio in the Middle East.
Unlike the Germans and Soviets and in common with the United States, Britain had never embraced the notion of the assault gun as a distinct weapon of battle during the Second World War, preferring the deployment of their copious numbers of medium tanks. This had carried over into the postwar era and Korea, where tanks had been commonly employed for direct fire support of infantry offensive and defensive action. The urban fighting in Seoul and Pyongyang had highlighted a role for heavy self propelled guns; Barton remembered the similar lessons of the breaking of the Siegfried Line and the Battle of Berlin. The prevalence of urban terrain in the new fighting ground of Northern Germany had lead to a confluence of thinking on the matter and the second major decision - the development of a specialised heavy assault gun using the Chieftain hull. With a main armament of a converted 5.25" superheavy anti-aircraft gun mounted in a heavily defended fixed mount, the Champion assault gun combined lethal firepower with a low height and unsurpassed frontal armour protection. Adapting the Royal Navy's standard destroyer gun to use on land had been more difficult than first envisaged and a production vehicle was not expected until 1966, but the interest of other states, particularly Sweden, had managed to keep the project from cancellation.
The third decision had been to order the experimental Comet tank destroyer into full development. The Comet was an absolutely brutal vehicle that bore a strong general resemblance to the Conqueror, with the primary difference being the position of the hulking turret, which sat towards the rear of the vehicle. The main armament of a 7.2” gun had proved capable of blowing off the turret of entire tanks during the lengthy testing process, but its major attribute was the versatility granted by its long range firepower. The British Army had never truly embraced the tank destroyer concept during the last war, as its predominant focus had been on offensive and expeditionary capacities in the long effort to liberate Europe and Asia from the Axis, rather than the more extensive role played by armoured warfare on the Eastern Front. However, with the defence of Germany and Central Europe from aggression being the paramount mission of the 1960s and beyond, the utility of defensive firepower was distinctly increased; their success in testing in the deserts of the Middle East and North Africa was something of the icing in the cake.
In the final decision, a more oblique approach had been initiated, using the most powerful arm of the British Army - the Royal Artillery. New shells and rocket warheads were being developed for the deployment of anti-tank mines. A single regiment of 6” medium guns could lay a minefield of 240 mines at a distance of 25 miles, whilst the heavier artillery could do so at even greater ranges and concentrations. Even more ambitious was the project to develop an airburst shell filled with improved conventional munitions to attack the thin top armour of enemy tanks, but this was somewhat less advanced than the mines. Finally, new HEAT and HESH shells were to be issued to self propelled field and medium regiments in small quantities for the direct fire role. All three of those purposes would involve the FV-236, the Army’s new heavy mobile gun. Based on the Chieftain chassis with a powerful 1000hp engine, it was armed with a 6"/60 gun, fired a new 100lb shell and protected by a new lightweight alusteel covered with composite armour. Its fire control, laying system and loader were both heavily automated and it was capable of operating fully sealed within an MBRC environment. The FV-236 could cross rivers swiftly with its amphibious kit and operating in both day and night with integrated dark vision sights. The gun was specially cooled to allow for very high rate of fire of 8 rounds a minute, with considerably higher rates in bursts, and had a maximum range of 45 miles using current supercharges and rocket assisted projectiles; further developments in propellant, propulsion and design of the base of the shell conducted in concert with the Swedes offered further increases in range. Accompanying the self propelled howitzer was an armoured ammunition resupply vehicle that could rapidly reload the FV-236 whilst being capable of traversing rough terrain at the same top speed of 42 miles per hour. There was a planned capacity to replace the gun with a 155mm version should the Atlantic Alliance artillery standardisation talks come to fruition, but progress on the matter was viewed as less than likely in the short term due to the strong preferences by the Italians, Austrians Germans for their 149mm and 150mm weapons. In any event, the FV-236 represented the way forward for the British Army, providing the most powerful medium general support gun for its heavy divisions and corps artillery brigades.
The rest of the Army's artillery park was in a good state, with both the 8" and 9.2" guns being fully modern late 1950s designs, the 125mm Light Gun leading the Free World in light field artillery and the multiple rocket launchers lying at the cutting edge of technological development. The procurement of the US 175mm guns would provide a useful longer range counter-battery capacity against the worrisome Soviet 180mm as well as being a politically astute measure - it would hopefully allow for a more advantageous agreement to be reached over the licenced American production of the 125mm guns. There was perhaps more possibility for reciprocal orders of the 12” and 16” superheavy mobile guns, which offered quite an improvement in performance over their own M65s.
Ultimately, though, Barton saw the way ahead as one of the maximal standardisation possible for the field army, which would entail reducing the number of active calibres to the most efficient level. When such a time came, there were some very interesting uses for a long range, highly accurate gun in the home defence of the British Isles. Nothing could, should or would be wasted in this process of rearmament, of that he was quite determined. To that end, the thousands of surplus 25pdrs and their vast stocks of ammunition were not simply being scrapped, but kept in war emergency storage, at least for the time being. There were some staff officers in the Royal Artillery who had proposed their use as infantry support guns, but their arguments had been defeated by the plain obsolescence of the type in the face of rapidly advancing technology; outside of another positional war like Korea, it was as moribund as the conventional anti-tank gun, despite the Soviets still fielding both.
If there was a need for direct fire support, it was more than filled by tanks, infantry carriers, rockets and mortars, at each end of the continuum of mobility and portability. It was those older guns in that middle that were past their prime. It was very clear that the future for the defensive anti-tank role clearly lay in the guided missile. Even the best of the old anti-tank pieces of the 40s were only effective in that role out to two thousand yards or so, which was covered easily by the newer recoilless guns at substantially less weight and exceeded by the anti tank guided weapons. The earlier weapons, the Vickers Vigilant and the Bristol Silver Shield, were being replaced by the formidable Fairey Swingfire, a wire guided missile with a range of 2.5 miles that theoretically outranged most known Soviet and Chinese tank guns. It was to be joined by a lighter, man-portable weapon, but work on the Saunders-Roe Green Apple had only recently begun. Significantly, the FV438 vehicle would give the Swingfire excellent mobility on a heavily armoured battlefield and some measure of protection. whilst its companion FV440 Strongbow. The Hawker-Siddeley Maelstrom was the heaviest anti-tank missile in the world and certainly capable of destroying any prospective enemy tanks at long range, but it was having quite a few teething problems regarding its launch speed and terminal guidance.
There was one exception to that issue of direct fire support - that of the airborne forces. This matter in particular was of considerable interest to Barton, as it offered a chance to square the circle of the Army's light forces. The airborne divisions were the Empire first reaction force, yet had not advanced in mobility or protection from their equivalents in the Second World War or Korea to any decisive extent once they had landed. The Soviets had made some alarming advances in this respect with their ASU-85s and the new armoured airborne fighting vehicles that were apparently under development. In the West, the Americans had lead the way with their M-92 Custer airborne light tanks and M-56 Scorpion self-propelled guns, but they were designed to support their paratroopers, who still fought as leg infantry. Project Prodigal, or the proposal for air mechanisation would combine elements of both approaches and extend them to suit the specific needs and capabilities of the British Empire. It consisted of the development of a family of 25 ton tracked airborne vehicles capable of parachute drops and air transport by the Armstong-Whitworth Atlas, Vickers Voyager, Hawker-Siddeley Skyblazer and Shorts Belfast jets of RAF Transport Command - a light tank armed with an autoloading high velocity 25pdr; an armoured carrier with the same 50mm autocannon as the MACV; a self propelled 125mm airborne artillery system; and a low profile assault gun/tank destroyer equipped with a 105mm gun. These four vehicles would be accompanied by other useful proposals, such as further developments of the the jumping jeep and a tracked belt-fed WOMBAT, and make use of the same design principles of advanced materials, compound armour and new lightweight engines.
Substantial amounts of the technology utilised in Prodigal could also be seen in the modernisation of the Army’s infantry vehicle fleet. There were some suggestions of aligning designation systems and terminology with the Americans, but Barton put an asterisk next to that; whilst cooperation with the allies was important, he did not want to see it supplant common sense naming conventions. An infantry carrier was once simply that - a carrier of troops, but was now an ‘armoured personnel carrier’, which seemed to be a sign of the times. On the other hand, he had a more sympathetic outlook for the US nomenclature of mechanized infantry, rather than introducing a new category of armoured infantry as some had mooted.
That last category had begun to emerge through the planned MACV, or Mechanised Armoured Combat Vehicle. This programme had its parallels in the US Army, other Free World forces and the Soviets. One could see the general family resemblance between the picture of the FV525 and the proposed airborne carrier, insofar as it looked like a callow boy standing next to his muscled and fully grown elder brother. At this stage of its development, it was a well armoured vehicle of a base 36 tons with both steel and composite armour and the capacity for further appliqué protection. The main armament of a 50mm automatic cannon, although a contentious choice, provided the capacity to take on any light armoured vehicle on the modern battlefield, whilst main battle tanks could even be successfully attacked from the flanks and low flying aircraft and helicopters menaced. It’s chief role was the transport of a full section of a dozen infantrymen under fire at a top road speed of 50mph and then provide direct support with its cannon, machine guns and other armament.
It would be accompanied into battle by the reliable FV432 Saxon, upgraded with additional armour, improved engines and internal modifications to provide better comfort for the carried infantry section. Full scale production of the Saxon was set to continue through the early 1970s in order to completely replace the old Knights and wartime carriers still used by some reserve units and to equip many support arms that employed soft-skin vehicles. To a large extent, the FV432 had also replaced the lighter FV401 Cambridge carriers, but the smaller vehicles still had a useful role, particularly for the Royal Machine Gun Corps and other combat support arms and they had slipped very comfortably into the niche filled by the Universal Carriers of wartime vintage in this respect. Whilst Barton felt that there was something of a role for an upgraded or modern vehicle in the 10 to 12 ton range, he did not see it as his role to foist a new vehicle upon the Army; should they determine they need it, then he would give his support.
The final section was on the new wheeled vehicles that the Army had set their hearts on. They offered one major capability that the more doughty tracked carriers could not - speed. Both the Centaur Infantry Mobility Vehicle (which sounded like some sort of motorised wheelchair) and the Challenger Medium Armoured Vehicle were to be equipped with a supercharged engine capable of driving them at a top road speed of 75 miles per hour. Their role was to facilitate swift movement behind the immediate combat zone, particularly in Germany, which would rightly remain the preserve of the more heavily armoured tracked vehicles. They did offer some interesting capabilities for employment in Africa, Canada and Australia, where the tyranny of distance was a key factor in military calculations.
It was somewhat fitting to conclude the paper on that note, thought Barton, as he put the annotated paper in his completed tray and rose from his desk, for now the meeting of the Committee of Imperial Defence was nigh. The concerns of the individual Commonwealth military forces did differ from those of Britain in some certain areas and strategic requirements, but through consistent consultation, those of the Empire as a whole could be best promoted and developed.
Last edited by Simon Darkshade on Sat Feb 03, 2024 2:24 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Simon Darkshade
- Posts: 1127
- Joined: Thu Nov 17, 2022 10:55 am
Re: Dark Earth: A New Jerusalem
Notes to Part 17:
- Dragon Rouge occurs in a Congo even more complex and chaotic than in @. It does involve a larger force, but their success is simply tactical.
- The Turks did not set out to buzz the Pope, but their actions set off a series of events.
- Barton is thinking of offering aircraft in order to gain brownie points with various Catholic nations and leaders, as well as to gain advantage in the complex chess game that is Europe.
- Italy returning to space is a function of their improving economy and power. Germany isn’t too far behind, along with Japan.
- Haiti does have some worrying signs of future trouble which will brew up in the late 1960s.
- International terrorism is on the rise and Guevara and the IRA are heavily supported by the KGB, KAOS, MAD and SPECTRE
- British relations with Norway are seen as extremely important. This latest arms deal is for upgrading of it medium and heavy artillery park, 250 Thunderbird 2 SAMs, anti-tank missiles and over 450 APCs.
- HM Government’s share of EIC revenues (25%) in 1964/65 comes to just over 525 million pounds.
- The news from Mars won’t be revealed until the end of Space: The New Frontier.
- Barton’s concern over embassy security is driven by mention of the images of the 1979 US Embassy hostage crisis. The long term solution is going to be Gurkha detachments, with the Zulus only filling the gap temporarily.
- The Embassy in Saigon not only looks different, being a mix of Tyntesfield and Belvoir Castle, but is located in an area with at least three other major embassies. This leads to more cumulative security.
- Just to paint a picture: The British Embassy in Saigon, as well as a stone curtain wall around the compound, has a moat. With several nasty things in it. Further security improvements during the war including a number of gargoyles, an enchanted tree, some poisonous rose bushes and four rather smart tigers
- The meeting with the Queen is fairly straightforward, with only the various West African mergers being majorly different; the name for the Gold Coast-Ivory Coast federation is still being decided upon
- HM pushing freedom through choice comes into play down the line
- The key wording in the conversation is Barton’s use of “commands” as compared to “advises”. This represents the different balance of the powers of the constitutional monarchy, but also his particular idiolect
- Dragon Rouge occurs in a Congo even more complex and chaotic than in @. It does involve a larger force, but their success is simply tactical.
- The Turks did not set out to buzz the Pope, but their actions set off a series of events.
- Barton is thinking of offering aircraft in order to gain brownie points with various Catholic nations and leaders, as well as to gain advantage in the complex chess game that is Europe.
- Italy returning to space is a function of their improving economy and power. Germany isn’t too far behind, along with Japan.
- Haiti does have some worrying signs of future trouble which will brew up in the late 1960s.
- International terrorism is on the rise and Guevara and the IRA are heavily supported by the KGB, KAOS, MAD and SPECTRE
- British relations with Norway are seen as extremely important. This latest arms deal is for upgrading of it medium and heavy artillery park, 250 Thunderbird 2 SAMs, anti-tank missiles and over 450 APCs.
- HM Government’s share of EIC revenues (25%) in 1964/65 comes to just over 525 million pounds.
- The news from Mars won’t be revealed until the end of Space: The New Frontier.
- Barton’s concern over embassy security is driven by mention of the images of the 1979 US Embassy hostage crisis. The long term solution is going to be Gurkha detachments, with the Zulus only filling the gap temporarily.
- The Embassy in Saigon not only looks different, being a mix of Tyntesfield and Belvoir Castle, but is located in an area with at least three other major embassies. This leads to more cumulative security.
- Just to paint a picture: The British Embassy in Saigon, as well as a stone curtain wall around the compound, has a moat. With several nasty things in it. Further security improvements during the war including a number of gargoyles, an enchanted tree, some poisonous rose bushes and four rather smart tigers
- The meeting with the Queen is fairly straightforward, with only the various West African mergers being majorly different; the name for the Gold Coast-Ivory Coast federation is still being decided upon
- HM pushing freedom through choice comes into play down the line
- The key wording in the conversation is Barton’s use of “commands” as compared to “advises”. This represents the different balance of the powers of the constitutional monarchy, but also his particular idiolect
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jemhouston
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Re: Dark Earth: A New Jerusalem
Where did MAD come from?
I thinking KAOS must be more dangerous than the Get Smart version.
I thinking KAOS must be more dangerous than the Get Smart version.
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Simon Darkshade
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- Joined: Thu Nov 17, 2022 10:55 am
Re: Dark Earth: A New Jerusalem
MAD comes from the original 1983 cartoon series of Inspector Gadget, where it was an evil criminal organisation lead by the faceless Dr. Claw. The abbreviation in that case stood for “Mean and Dirty”, but here stands for “Mayhem and Disorder”, reflecting a slightly darker and less child-friendly tone.
KAOS is a tad more dangerous than the Get Smart interpretation, whilst still retaining its essential character as a global evil group. They represent the ‘corporate’ edge of the forces of evil, with MAD being a bit more anarchistic and SPECTRE working from the organised crime angle.
KAOS is a tad more dangerous than the Get Smart interpretation, whilst still retaining its essential character as a global evil group. They represent the ‘corporate’ edge of the forces of evil, with MAD being a bit more anarchistic and SPECTRE working from the organised crime angle.
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Simon Darkshade
- Posts: 1127
- Joined: Thu Nov 17, 2022 10:55 am
Re: Dark Earth: A New Jerusalem
The context of Part 18 is a view of a briefing paper read prior to the CID meeting that expands on the “heavies” (tanks, artillery, missiles) in a bit of detail. It also shows that the British reaction to the T-68 in particular, Soviet arms programmes in general and quite compartmentalised secret intelligence regarding the *next* Soviet MBT is not always the best one, but errs on the side of a conventional response.
There are four parts to the reaction:
1.) ‘Super Conqueror’ = Heavy Tank
2.) Champion = Assault Gun/Jagdchieftain mixed with the fictitious FV 217 Badger from World of Tanks
3.) Comet = Heavy Tank Destroyer/FV 215b
4.) Equipping the medium 6" SPGH regiments with an anti-armour capacity in the form of anti-tank mines, airburst ICM and (as a very last resort) anti-tank shells
It is a complex response, but only really Decision 1 was directly driven by the T-68; the other two mentioned here were already in the pipeline, but this pushed them past the finish line. As outlined above, the Champion was desired for the close support role and the Comet for the overwatch/long range sniper role. The contents of the report are written in such a way to justify development and spending to the politicians.
All the heavy vehicles raise significant logistical issues, as you rightly point out, which will need a fair bit of spending on infrastructure by the Germans. The ammunition situation is also an issue, albeit one that the British Army is accustomed to; through the 1950s, there was the 6” of the Conqueror, 36pdr/105mm of the Centurion and 25pdr/90mm of the Royalist light tank. I did consider having the assault gun armed with the 64pdr/125mm of the Chieftain, but the 5.25” is noticeably more powerful and also outshoots the Soviet 130mm. I was trying to include a mixture of mistakes and suboptimal decisions by all players in this and other works.
If we think of the tanks and artillery in the first half of the chapter as the obvious right hand being waved about by the street conjurer to distract his audience whilst the left does the trick, the ATGMs and the MACV (the @ MCV 80 which lead to the FV510 Warrior) fill the latter, left-handed role. They provide a big upgrade to the anti-tank firepower of the infantry well beyond the previous AT guns and counter the masses of Soviet T-54/55s and T-62s qualitatively with their combo of 50mm autocannons and stonkingly effective ATGMs.
Effectively concluding with a brief mention of the new wheeled armoured vehicles, almost as an afterthought, is another bit of a writing technique of hiding something important in plain sight. They are the 'lo' AFVs that make a 'hi/lo' mix possible, as well as the practicality of fielding an entirely tracked force being quite unrealistic (and less than optimal in certain tactical circumstances). The Centaur IMV is in the same 'family' as the BTR70 or BTR80 (and Western equivalents, of course), with the Comet MAV being broadly equivalent to the Centauro or Rooikat; not mentioned here are the Sentinel Light Armoured Vehicle (a 6x6 armoured recce/scout car with some similarities to the Cadillac Gage LAV-300) and the Vickers Saracen Armoured Mobile Carrier ( "battle taxi" for supporting troops in Europe and the Empire as part of a general move away from less protected lorries to even minimal safety. It is essentially a combination of the @ GKN Saxon and the South African Ratel).
There are four parts to the reaction:
1.) ‘Super Conqueror’ = Heavy Tank
2.) Champion = Assault Gun/Jagdchieftain mixed with the fictitious FV 217 Badger from World of Tanks
3.) Comet = Heavy Tank Destroyer/FV 215b
4.) Equipping the medium 6" SPGH regiments with an anti-armour capacity in the form of anti-tank mines, airburst ICM and (as a very last resort) anti-tank shells
It is a complex response, but only really Decision 1 was directly driven by the T-68; the other two mentioned here were already in the pipeline, but this pushed them past the finish line. As outlined above, the Champion was desired for the close support role and the Comet for the overwatch/long range sniper role. The contents of the report are written in such a way to justify development and spending to the politicians.
All the heavy vehicles raise significant logistical issues, as you rightly point out, which will need a fair bit of spending on infrastructure by the Germans. The ammunition situation is also an issue, albeit one that the British Army is accustomed to; through the 1950s, there was the 6” of the Conqueror, 36pdr/105mm of the Centurion and 25pdr/90mm of the Royalist light tank. I did consider having the assault gun armed with the 64pdr/125mm of the Chieftain, but the 5.25” is noticeably more powerful and also outshoots the Soviet 130mm. I was trying to include a mixture of mistakes and suboptimal decisions by all players in this and other works.
If we think of the tanks and artillery in the first half of the chapter as the obvious right hand being waved about by the street conjurer to distract his audience whilst the left does the trick, the ATGMs and the MACV (the @ MCV 80 which lead to the FV510 Warrior) fill the latter, left-handed role. They provide a big upgrade to the anti-tank firepower of the infantry well beyond the previous AT guns and counter the masses of Soviet T-54/55s and T-62s qualitatively with their combo of 50mm autocannons and stonkingly effective ATGMs.
Effectively concluding with a brief mention of the new wheeled armoured vehicles, almost as an afterthought, is another bit of a writing technique of hiding something important in plain sight. They are the 'lo' AFVs that make a 'hi/lo' mix possible, as well as the practicality of fielding an entirely tracked force being quite unrealistic (and less than optimal in certain tactical circumstances). The Centaur IMV is in the same 'family' as the BTR70 or BTR80 (and Western equivalents, of course), with the Comet MAV being broadly equivalent to the Centauro or Rooikat; not mentioned here are the Sentinel Light Armoured Vehicle (a 6x6 armoured recce/scout car with some similarities to the Cadillac Gage LAV-300) and the Vickers Saracen Armoured Mobile Carrier ( "battle taxi" for supporting troops in Europe and the Empire as part of a general move away from less protected lorries to even minimal safety. It is essentially a combination of the @ GKN Saxon and the South African Ratel).
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Simon Darkshade
- Posts: 1127
- Joined: Thu Nov 17, 2022 10:55 am
Re: Dark Earth: A New Jerusalem
A New Jerusalem Part 19
The Colonial Office remained one of the most important ministries in the Cabinet, even as it was somewhat less powerful given the gradual process of evolution from Crown Colonies to internally self governing Commonwealth states that a number of key colonies had undergone in the last decade. Whilst India had always been the greatest jewel in the crown of the British Empire, as the Cullinan was to the Imperial State Crown, Malaya, the West Indies, Ceylon and Kenya were the equally priceless stones that bedecked the crown - the Black Prince’s Ruby, St. Edward’s Sapphire, Cleopatra’s Emerald and the Lionheart’s Amethyst, as it were. What remained under the direct rule of the Crown was still considerable, but a breeze of change was gently gathering.
That was the subject of the Imperial Development Report, an analysis of the scope of the political, economic and strategic path of the various colonies over the next ten years. Even though it had been ordered by the Conservatives almost two years ago, Stanley Barton saw no pressing necessity to decisively alter its terms of reference at this point. As he had said to Her Majesty two days ago, the general approach of “steady as she goes” was the order of the day in Africa, within the scope of working with whatever course of action the French may take. Britain’s position was not one set in stone, as even stone and earth could be worn down by the winds of time and change over time, but rather to be like water - formless, inexorable and able to change its shape to whatever container it filled. It seemed eminently fitting for an empire of the seas.
The general principle which had driven Colonial Office police over the last decade had been for gradual political, social, economic and civil development towards a set series of benchmarks. Once these had been reached, and subject to strategic and defence considerations, then colonies would be granted internal self government. This would be followed by a further road map for the next series of benchmarks towards full independence as a Dominion. It had been considered that such a graduated pathway would provide for sufficient time for the education, training and guidance of a generation of administrators, judges, engineers and civil servants, modelled on the successful process that India had followed. It was an exceedingly fine plan on paper, driven by a mixture of high minded principles gilding a harder nosed realism beneath, but as in any such circumstance, the best laid plans of mice and men gang aft agley, the Colonial Office’s employment of talking animals being what it was.
Progressing the colonies towards independence was one thing, but keeping them in the British orbit afterwards was another. He was in agreement with his Sovereign that they could not be kept through compulsion; indeed, the very prospect of doing so rankled within him. The essence of Empire Socialism was liberty and a desire to cooperate as equals for the betterment of all. At the same time, these were not days of peace, but of war, both hot and cold. As such, simply giving up countries and all their wealth, influence, position and power to an alien foe would be utterly self defeating and end up imposing a terrible cost in innocent lives. They could not be held by the stick, but many were the carrots that could and would be offered - the monies of the Churchill Plan as well as direct loans without interest, investment capital and aid, great projects of infrastructure and substantial military support, training and equipment. In the last instance, a standard package of arms had been produced and pre-emptively tailored for the individual circumstances of each putative new state, along with entry into the broader protective pact that linked the Dominions and the Motherland and maintained membership of the Imperial common market. Simple material advantage, though, was insufficient, really, and the greater point and purpose of the Commonwealth was not simply to be paid, but to be an equal and influential part of the largest and most powerful union in the world. Time would tell if it was enough.
Africa comprised the bulk of Britain’s remaining colonies and was really a tale of two parts, East and West. Since the war, there had always been a long term vision for the formation of two great federations in British Africa to permit their greater economic and political development, increase their strategic value and to balance the various needs and demands of local groups. Larger entities were less likely to be subject to the malign influence of communism and turned towards the path of Moscow, but were also rather more resistant to the equally enticing siren song of Washington, which offered dollars and freedom, on their terms of course. France had dallied with similar ideas, particularly in French West Africa, but indications since 1960 had been that they were moving gradually towards a path of least resistance towards nominal independence, whilst intending to remain as the power behind the thrones of whatever entities emerged. The general consensus of the Colonial Office, matched by that of the Foreign Office, was that whoever succeeded de Gaulle would move rapidly towards a shift in France’s position in Subsaharan Africa. No, the answer was definitely in federations, thought Barton.
East Africa was both further along the general path of development towards viability and faced with a significant potential problem. The latter was of course Kenya. It was a self-governing Dominion with a white government and a substantive white minority of over a quarter of its population, whereas Tanganyika had barely a fifth of that and Uganda half again that figure. As matters stood, Kenya was a sustainable state in its current arrangement for the foreseeable future, but the political shape of an East Africa where nine out of every ten men and women were black or Indian would have to be distinctly different; any East African federation without Kenya would not be worth its salt. It seemed more likely that a looser economic, fiscal and defence arrangement could be engineered to tie the three states together as a first step, giving the political leadership time to work out what, if anything, could be done.
British West Africa lacked the geographic contiguity of the east and had its own issue in the sheer size and wealth of Nigeria compared to the other colonies. Some, like The Gambia and British Equatorial Africa were little postage stamps of countries without great prospects of individual independent development, whereas the Gold Coast and Ivory Coast were more advanced on the path towards self sufficiency. The Free Poles in Togoland threw a spanner in the works of the general plan, but they were being nudged towards an appropriate realisation that could engineer a union of sorts with French Dahomey. Further to the west, Sierra Leone was regarded as needing substantial further development before self government, similar to Cameroon. Nigeria itself was far from a monolithic entity, with plenty of references to the divisions between north and south and Christian and Moslem throughout its section of the report. Barton did not take the view of some that it was best to partition the colony, though, but rather to subsume its internal issues within a broader regional arrangement.
Only one other area lay outside of the bounds of these groupings in Africa, that of the Greater Sudan. Any self government for either Sudan or Equatoria was rendered difficult by the nebulous nature of the Anglo-Egyptian relationship in the aftermath of the 1956 War. It would happen in due course, but there was much to be done and many hundreds if not thousands of hours of quiet diplomacy with Cairo to be done to make it occur peacefully and seamlessly. The circumstance of the former Sultanate of Darfur in the west of the Sudan made for a further complication for which there were no easy solutions. The fate of the Sudan was ultimately tied to the waters of the Nile and the great railway that ran alongside it and the report before Barton kept this at the fore. His own view was that there was much to be said of drawing Egypt’s gaze and strategic interest south into Africa rather than east into the Levant.
There lay Britain’s most significant tract of the ‘invisible empire’ in the Arab kingdoms and Persia, with all their fabulous riches of black gold, and the most stridently independently minded state of the Commonwealth, Israel. Of all the Dominions, it was the most different in culture and language, lacking that same tie of blood as Australia or Canada might have, but this was merely the beginning. Unlike the New World settler colonies, it was in a well established neighbourhood with a long history and England and then Britain, whilst present increasingly over the years only became the dominant player in latter decades of the last century. Even before the issues of ethnicity and religion arose, there was enough difference to set it apart on its own. It was still a good and established member of the Commonwealth and an essential ally for its most strategic of positions, but it was a developed bond rather than a natural one. In light of her increasing links with the United States, the Commonwealth Office had recommended a range of economic and industrial incentives to be implemented, but Barton considered that some of them just seem to be trying a bit too hard.
It was a difficult conundrum, as in purely strategic terms, it made more sense to align with the states of the Arab Union. They were larger, more populous and had far, far more oil, after all. That such an approach had not been taken was mystifying to some on the face of it, but a more fulsome examination of all the factors at play - including the quite curious cautionary tales derived from Lapcat - indicated that the advantages of a full blown Arabist shift in British foreign policy would be ultimately fleeting. His goal in the Middle East was not to take sides, but to maintain a detached and fair hegemony as much as possible. After examination of the various options by CREED thanks to some creative programming, that had been supported as the least worst option, with the lowest chance of abject disaster. If certain developments came to pass, then the oil riches of the Levant would be comparatively less useful in coming decades; if others continued, then they would verily take a desert and make it a garden of peace.
At the extremes of the Arabian peninsula lay Britain’s actual colonial holdings in the Middle East - Aden in the South, Kuwait in the north and the Trucial States in the Persian Gulf - as well as the protectorate of Oman. Their scope for development was somewhat more limited than the larger African states, but they remained vital for strategic and economic reasons; their future would be a matter for his successor, who he hoped would not be in Number 10 for a few years to come yet! Persia had been starting to make noises about a change in the status of Abadan ever since the withdrawal of the permanent South Persian garrison three years ago and he was not averse to the idea in principle, unlike the author of this section of the report, but there would need to be a significant raft of conditions to any putative agreement to that effect.
The vast majority of the rest of the ‘Empire proper’ was made up of islands here, there and everywhere. The only really contentious one was Cyprus, which had seen an upsurge in unrest over the past decade, but nothing too egregious. The island colonies could really be split into three types: the regional clumps, the strategic bastions, entrepôts and the far flung postage stamps. The key example of the first category were the myriad idyllic islands of the British South Pacific, bereft as they were of substantive resources, were to be encouraged to group together in a model similar to the West Indies Federation, but they would ultimately need a great deal of support and development even after the point that they one day achieved self government. Similarly, the islands of the Indian Ocean were to be encouraged towards cooperation for much the same reason.
In the second case, there were islands too strategic to lose and these were to be dealt with in a similar fashion to Malta - full integration into Britain. The likes of Bermuda, Addu, the Galapagos, Hy Brasil, Socotra, Ascension and the Azure Islands were key bases even in this age of intercontinental rockets, atomic submarines and orbital battle stations. Their airfields made them the equal of aircraft carriers in their own right, but of the unsinkable variety. Related to that value were the few major entrepôts still under the Union Flag, namely Zanzibar, Singapore and Hong Kong. These were all
major city states of a distinctly international character and growing contributors to the wealth and economic power of the British Empire, yet were too large for any formal incorporation into the United Kingdom. For them, their status would necessarily continue, with appropriate internal self government of course. Hong Kong was the most complex of them all, lying next door to Imperial China and despite the heaviest layered defence in the world, that made it fundamentally difficult to defend in a conventional manner; the Dragon was just too big. Tying in the Americans to its defence had been one of the proud achievements of the last government, and rightly so, but Barton could see no surety of the colony’s defence beyond the Bomb.
Finally, there were the little anomalies scattered through the seven seas, such as Saint Helena, Pitcairn, Nimrod, Tristan da Cunha and Easter Island. Some of them barely had any population at all, whilst others, specifically the Falklands, stood out as comparative giants. For these, no change of status was seen as necessary, as they were well below the threshold of sustainability. By being beneath the notice of the world, they would serve their part in the destiny of the Empire very well indeed…
In any event, he regarded the concept of a war over the Falklands - of all places! - as one of the most baffling features of the ‘other place’. They were too far from anywhere to make much of a difference and lacked the resources to move the most voracious of nations in their direction. Nevertheless, he had ordered certain steps be taken for their long term defence; if there did turn out to be oil down there, then circumstances could change.
Long had the British Empire been one on which the sun never set. The general measures in the Imperial Development Report would not see that change in a literal sense, but there was change coming, nonetheless. If all went without strife, then this be the harbinger of a sunset of one sort, but only as a means to a new sunrise that would follow as inexorably as the eternal cycle of the heavens.
Barton looked at his watch. Hell’s teeth! The hour was late indeed. As he turned to leave his study, he glanced out of the window into the night sky. Out there, beyond the moons, were Mars and Venus, bare pinpricks of light twinkling in the vast black.
How fitting.
The Colonial Office remained one of the most important ministries in the Cabinet, even as it was somewhat less powerful given the gradual process of evolution from Crown Colonies to internally self governing Commonwealth states that a number of key colonies had undergone in the last decade. Whilst India had always been the greatest jewel in the crown of the British Empire, as the Cullinan was to the Imperial State Crown, Malaya, the West Indies, Ceylon and Kenya were the equally priceless stones that bedecked the crown - the Black Prince’s Ruby, St. Edward’s Sapphire, Cleopatra’s Emerald and the Lionheart’s Amethyst, as it were. What remained under the direct rule of the Crown was still considerable, but a breeze of change was gently gathering.
That was the subject of the Imperial Development Report, an analysis of the scope of the political, economic and strategic path of the various colonies over the next ten years. Even though it had been ordered by the Conservatives almost two years ago, Stanley Barton saw no pressing necessity to decisively alter its terms of reference at this point. As he had said to Her Majesty two days ago, the general approach of “steady as she goes” was the order of the day in Africa, within the scope of working with whatever course of action the French may take. Britain’s position was not one set in stone, as even stone and earth could be worn down by the winds of time and change over time, but rather to be like water - formless, inexorable and able to change its shape to whatever container it filled. It seemed eminently fitting for an empire of the seas.
The general principle which had driven Colonial Office police over the last decade had been for gradual political, social, economic and civil development towards a set series of benchmarks. Once these had been reached, and subject to strategic and defence considerations, then colonies would be granted internal self government. This would be followed by a further road map for the next series of benchmarks towards full independence as a Dominion. It had been considered that such a graduated pathway would provide for sufficient time for the education, training and guidance of a generation of administrators, judges, engineers and civil servants, modelled on the successful process that India had followed. It was an exceedingly fine plan on paper, driven by a mixture of high minded principles gilding a harder nosed realism beneath, but as in any such circumstance, the best laid plans of mice and men gang aft agley, the Colonial Office’s employment of talking animals being what it was.
Progressing the colonies towards independence was one thing, but keeping them in the British orbit afterwards was another. He was in agreement with his Sovereign that they could not be kept through compulsion; indeed, the very prospect of doing so rankled within him. The essence of Empire Socialism was liberty and a desire to cooperate as equals for the betterment of all. At the same time, these were not days of peace, but of war, both hot and cold. As such, simply giving up countries and all their wealth, influence, position and power to an alien foe would be utterly self defeating and end up imposing a terrible cost in innocent lives. They could not be held by the stick, but many were the carrots that could and would be offered - the monies of the Churchill Plan as well as direct loans without interest, investment capital and aid, great projects of infrastructure and substantial military support, training and equipment. In the last instance, a standard package of arms had been produced and pre-emptively tailored for the individual circumstances of each putative new state, along with entry into the broader protective pact that linked the Dominions and the Motherland and maintained membership of the Imperial common market. Simple material advantage, though, was insufficient, really, and the greater point and purpose of the Commonwealth was not simply to be paid, but to be an equal and influential part of the largest and most powerful union in the world. Time would tell if it was enough.
Africa comprised the bulk of Britain’s remaining colonies and was really a tale of two parts, East and West. Since the war, there had always been a long term vision for the formation of two great federations in British Africa to permit their greater economic and political development, increase their strategic value and to balance the various needs and demands of local groups. Larger entities were less likely to be subject to the malign influence of communism and turned towards the path of Moscow, but were also rather more resistant to the equally enticing siren song of Washington, which offered dollars and freedom, on their terms of course. France had dallied with similar ideas, particularly in French West Africa, but indications since 1960 had been that they were moving gradually towards a path of least resistance towards nominal independence, whilst intending to remain as the power behind the thrones of whatever entities emerged. The general consensus of the Colonial Office, matched by that of the Foreign Office, was that whoever succeeded de Gaulle would move rapidly towards a shift in France’s position in Subsaharan Africa. No, the answer was definitely in federations, thought Barton.
East Africa was both further along the general path of development towards viability and faced with a significant potential problem. The latter was of course Kenya. It was a self-governing Dominion with a white government and a substantive white minority of over a quarter of its population, whereas Tanganyika had barely a fifth of that and Uganda half again that figure. As matters stood, Kenya was a sustainable state in its current arrangement for the foreseeable future, but the political shape of an East Africa where nine out of every ten men and women were black or Indian would have to be distinctly different; any East African federation without Kenya would not be worth its salt. It seemed more likely that a looser economic, fiscal and defence arrangement could be engineered to tie the three states together as a first step, giving the political leadership time to work out what, if anything, could be done.
British West Africa lacked the geographic contiguity of the east and had its own issue in the sheer size and wealth of Nigeria compared to the other colonies. Some, like The Gambia and British Equatorial Africa were little postage stamps of countries without great prospects of individual independent development, whereas the Gold Coast and Ivory Coast were more advanced on the path towards self sufficiency. The Free Poles in Togoland threw a spanner in the works of the general plan, but they were being nudged towards an appropriate realisation that could engineer a union of sorts with French Dahomey. Further to the west, Sierra Leone was regarded as needing substantial further development before self government, similar to Cameroon. Nigeria itself was far from a monolithic entity, with plenty of references to the divisions between north and south and Christian and Moslem throughout its section of the report. Barton did not take the view of some that it was best to partition the colony, though, but rather to subsume its internal issues within a broader regional arrangement.
Only one other area lay outside of the bounds of these groupings in Africa, that of the Greater Sudan. Any self government for either Sudan or Equatoria was rendered difficult by the nebulous nature of the Anglo-Egyptian relationship in the aftermath of the 1956 War. It would happen in due course, but there was much to be done and many hundreds if not thousands of hours of quiet diplomacy with Cairo to be done to make it occur peacefully and seamlessly. The circumstance of the former Sultanate of Darfur in the west of the Sudan made for a further complication for which there were no easy solutions. The fate of the Sudan was ultimately tied to the waters of the Nile and the great railway that ran alongside it and the report before Barton kept this at the fore. His own view was that there was much to be said of drawing Egypt’s gaze and strategic interest south into Africa rather than east into the Levant.
There lay Britain’s most significant tract of the ‘invisible empire’ in the Arab kingdoms and Persia, with all their fabulous riches of black gold, and the most stridently independently minded state of the Commonwealth, Israel. Of all the Dominions, it was the most different in culture and language, lacking that same tie of blood as Australia or Canada might have, but this was merely the beginning. Unlike the New World settler colonies, it was in a well established neighbourhood with a long history and England and then Britain, whilst present increasingly over the years only became the dominant player in latter decades of the last century. Even before the issues of ethnicity and religion arose, there was enough difference to set it apart on its own. It was still a good and established member of the Commonwealth and an essential ally for its most strategic of positions, but it was a developed bond rather than a natural one. In light of her increasing links with the United States, the Commonwealth Office had recommended a range of economic and industrial incentives to be implemented, but Barton considered that some of them just seem to be trying a bit too hard.
It was a difficult conundrum, as in purely strategic terms, it made more sense to align with the states of the Arab Union. They were larger, more populous and had far, far more oil, after all. That such an approach had not been taken was mystifying to some on the face of it, but a more fulsome examination of all the factors at play - including the quite curious cautionary tales derived from Lapcat - indicated that the advantages of a full blown Arabist shift in British foreign policy would be ultimately fleeting. His goal in the Middle East was not to take sides, but to maintain a detached and fair hegemony as much as possible. After examination of the various options by CREED thanks to some creative programming, that had been supported as the least worst option, with the lowest chance of abject disaster. If certain developments came to pass, then the oil riches of the Levant would be comparatively less useful in coming decades; if others continued, then they would verily take a desert and make it a garden of peace.
At the extremes of the Arabian peninsula lay Britain’s actual colonial holdings in the Middle East - Aden in the South, Kuwait in the north and the Trucial States in the Persian Gulf - as well as the protectorate of Oman. Their scope for development was somewhat more limited than the larger African states, but they remained vital for strategic and economic reasons; their future would be a matter for his successor, who he hoped would not be in Number 10 for a few years to come yet! Persia had been starting to make noises about a change in the status of Abadan ever since the withdrawal of the permanent South Persian garrison three years ago and he was not averse to the idea in principle, unlike the author of this section of the report, but there would need to be a significant raft of conditions to any putative agreement to that effect.
The vast majority of the rest of the ‘Empire proper’ was made up of islands here, there and everywhere. The only really contentious one was Cyprus, which had seen an upsurge in unrest over the past decade, but nothing too egregious. The island colonies could really be split into three types: the regional clumps, the strategic bastions, entrepôts and the far flung postage stamps. The key example of the first category were the myriad idyllic islands of the British South Pacific, bereft as they were of substantive resources, were to be encouraged to group together in a model similar to the West Indies Federation, but they would ultimately need a great deal of support and development even after the point that they one day achieved self government. Similarly, the islands of the Indian Ocean were to be encouraged towards cooperation for much the same reason.
In the second case, there were islands too strategic to lose and these were to be dealt with in a similar fashion to Malta - full integration into Britain. The likes of Bermuda, Addu, the Galapagos, Hy Brasil, Socotra, Ascension and the Azure Islands were key bases even in this age of intercontinental rockets, atomic submarines and orbital battle stations. Their airfields made them the equal of aircraft carriers in their own right, but of the unsinkable variety. Related to that value were the few major entrepôts still under the Union Flag, namely Zanzibar, Singapore and Hong Kong. These were all
major city states of a distinctly international character and growing contributors to the wealth and economic power of the British Empire, yet were too large for any formal incorporation into the United Kingdom. For them, their status would necessarily continue, with appropriate internal self government of course. Hong Kong was the most complex of them all, lying next door to Imperial China and despite the heaviest layered defence in the world, that made it fundamentally difficult to defend in a conventional manner; the Dragon was just too big. Tying in the Americans to its defence had been one of the proud achievements of the last government, and rightly so, but Barton could see no surety of the colony’s defence beyond the Bomb.
Finally, there were the little anomalies scattered through the seven seas, such as Saint Helena, Pitcairn, Nimrod, Tristan da Cunha and Easter Island. Some of them barely had any population at all, whilst others, specifically the Falklands, stood out as comparative giants. For these, no change of status was seen as necessary, as they were well below the threshold of sustainability. By being beneath the notice of the world, they would serve their part in the destiny of the Empire very well indeed…
In any event, he regarded the concept of a war over the Falklands - of all places! - as one of the most baffling features of the ‘other place’. They were too far from anywhere to make much of a difference and lacked the resources to move the most voracious of nations in their direction. Nevertheless, he had ordered certain steps be taken for their long term defence; if there did turn out to be oil down there, then circumstances could change.
Long had the British Empire been one on which the sun never set. The general measures in the Imperial Development Report would not see that change in a literal sense, but there was change coming, nonetheless. If all went without strife, then this be the harbinger of a sunset of one sort, but only as a means to a new sunrise that would follow as inexorably as the eternal cycle of the heavens.
Barton looked at his watch. Hell’s teeth! The hour was late indeed. As he turned to leave his study, he glanced out of the window into the night sky. Out there, beyond the moons, were Mars and Venus, bare pinpricks of light twinkling in the vast black.
How fitting.
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jemhouston
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Re: Dark Earth: A New Jerusalem
The plan sounds good, how well it works is the question.
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Bernard Woolley
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- Location: Earth
Re: Dark Earth: A New Jerusalem
The best laid schemes o' mice an' men / Gang aft a-gley.jemhouston wrote: ↑Sun Feb 04, 2024 5:38 pm The plan sounds good, how well it works is the question.
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jemhouston
- Posts: 4200
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Re: Dark Earth: A New Jerusalem
Man plans, God laughs.Bernard Woolley wrote: ↑Sun Feb 04, 2024 5:48 pmThe best laid schemes o' mice an' men / Gang aft a-gley.jemhouston wrote: ↑Sun Feb 04, 2024 5:38 pm The plan sounds good, how well it works is the question.
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Simon Darkshade
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Re: Dark Earth: A New Jerusalem
Close to the exact Burns quote is at the end of the third paragraph, along with discussion as to why it is chosen.
I hate to keep saying it, but repeating old sayings like “Man plans, God laughs” or previous permutations thereof isn’t quite as fitting or appropriate when this is already ‘in the past’ of DE and we know that, at least for the next 9 years, it does work.
The ‘how’ and the consequences are the interesting part.
I hate to keep saying it, but repeating old sayings like “Man plans, God laughs” or previous permutations thereof isn’t quite as fitting or appropriate when this is already ‘in the past’ of DE and we know that, at least for the next 9 years, it does work.
The ‘how’ and the consequences are the interesting part.
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Simon Darkshade
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Re: Dark Earth: A New Jerusalem
A New Jerusalem Part 20
Chequers
December 30th 1964
“And so that was Christmas. And what have we done? The first few months over and a new year almost begun.”
“Yes, Prime Minister?”
“Just a thought, Richard, just a thought. We’ve only just started, but it seems like we’ve made no headway whatsoever.”
“Even grand designs have humble beginnings, PM.”
“Aye. It will need a good year or more to really see the results of what we’re doing, but we’ll gather pace as we go. You’ve seen our rockets. They barely seem to be moving after they lift off, but within a minute or so, they’re blasting faster than a speeding bullet.” The third man in the room spoke gruffly as he swirled his scotch in its glass. David Seabridge was the closest thing to a friend that Stanley Barton had and even then the man was sometimes just unreadable.
Barton shook his head tersely and stood up from his chair, pacing across to the talk windows that looked out from the well appointed drawing room onto the nightscape of the estate. It was cold without, and there would be snow, but the fire kept them quite warm, along with that curious golden ring with the ruby that the strange old professor had insisted he keep in his pocket.
“I don’t mean that. Both defence and industry will take their time, as we’ve known. Setting the big changes in train will show results in due course. I’m not talking about what we can’t change in the short term. It is just that we hurled all the slings and arrows at the Tories for their inaction, their lack of dynamism and we don’t have a big win to show for the first stretch.”
“I see. Do we really need one, Prime Minister?”
“Well, no…and yes. Perception is the key, Richard, perception. If we can be perceived as being in the same rank as the Soviets and the Americans, it will help immeasurably. What we do in the quiet and behind closed doors is what counts, but we need to be seen to win. Even the Belgians are getting more notice than us at the moment!”
“True enough, although it is their former colony.”
“And our present and future interest.”
“Well, the German trip in the new year will make for a moment in the sun.”
Barton nodded at this. He would be the first British leader since Chamberlain to formally visit Germany, at least while it was a state in its own right again. Getting the old enemy, or the new old enemy more properly, onside with Britain’s European policy would be the type of sign of leadership that was so desirable. The Jerries were keen to come in from the cold, as it were, and they were both literally and figuratively at the heart of the conundrum of the Continent. Moscow’s very real threat provided some degree of unity of direction, but the next step was one of unity of policy and vision.
“You’re right. Germany could be handy, both in the outcome and the world perception of it.”
“You never seemed to be concerned about these things before, Stanley. Substance before polish, that was the watchword.”
“I wasn’t Prime Minister then, David. I am now. The role brings its own concerns and realisations with it.” Some of them beyond top secret…
“Point made. You think we can get them to bite?”
“Perhaps. We can offer then what they want - normalisation of trade and more importantly, normalisation of relations. They want to put the past behind them and it is time enough for that. It’s simpler than that, really. It is time for Europe to shrug off what is left of the war.”
It was a time for change, a time for a renewed Continent. Not the vainglorious Monnetist dreams of a unified Europe or other such nonsense. Those had died a lonely death in the ditch of intractable Franco-German and Italo-Spanish enmity, Austrian identity and bit of clever British work behind the scenes, to the disappointment of Washington, but there were other, better dreams closer to the confluence of their mutual interests. The bickering powers of Europe, once Great, may not like each other, but they could work towards some measure of amity and comity - a Europe of nations, as it were.
The key would be Germany, the central economic, industrial and political engine room of the Continent’s incipient power and potential. Helped to reach the right degree of rapprochement with the Low Countries and Scandinavia on the right terms, she could stand as the first piece in the puzzle and France would be drawn in by the logic of trade and strategic gravity. Left to her own designs, and with a sea change from Austria-Hungary, then a German dominated bloc in the fulcrum of power would be irresistible. Indeed, that particular Teutonic combination was seen as perhaps the only potential ‘superpower’ challenge to Britain on the Continent by virtue of its near three hundred millions, huge resources, military might and sheer industrial heft. No, it was safer to have Germany moving on a path parallel to British interests, far safer.
He viewed the policy as sensible and worth pursuing, at least to secure and make safe that strategic space across the Channel. If other matters proceeded well, then a Western European sphere of influence could be added to their others in India, Africa, Australasia, the Middle East and South America. That would make the other tasks easier in their course, should they come. Divide and conquer was the old siren call from last century and before; now was a different age.
And if it didn’t work, then there was the sea, always the sea, and beyond it, the Empire. The French and Americans also had their designs, but like the latter, Britain was not quite limited to the Continent alone. In any case, even if the gambit of Europe failed, then they would have the sea. On it and over it and under it and through it, they would drive trade, trade, trade, that lifeblood of Britannia’s reign o’er the waves. That trade would make England a sceptred isle again and not just in the flourishes of verse. That was the first step in the long march towards…
“Penny for them, PM?”
“Keep your coins, Richard. I was thinking. Just thinking, that’s all. The time is coming when we’ll be done with thinking and can move to the doing. We’ll get the first impact on growth within a year, then comes the time for action.”
“Within reason, Stanley. Memento minoritas - remember, Prime Minister, that thou hast a minority government and have to keep the Liberals onside.”
“Not very likely that I’ll forget. Their right wing is our succour and support in the worst case for now and also one of the Big Four targets for the next election.” Barton grimaced at that particular task. To win a true majority, they’d need to cut into the Liberal heartlands in the Midlands, take the key southern cities from the Tories, rip out the Socialists from the East End and turn over two dozen seats in Ireland; a hefty task, but one that would be necessary for Labour to truly govern.
“Lucky for us that they support the very means we’ll use to beat them, as necessary. Growth and Security made for the right mix this time around.” Seabridge, as Party Chairman, had been just as responsible for the manifesto and overall direction that had bought them this far, so felt more than a smidgeon of justified pride in it.
“It’s up to us to keep the country working and heading up. That’s the way we’ll beat the other side.”
“The Tories?”
“No, Richard. The Reds.”
“We’ve got our work cut out for us there, PM, even though I know we can do it. All of our economic intel points towards them pulling away for the foreseeable future and that gives their forces a big boost.”
“But we can catch the devils, no matter their advantage! I saw Eric Liddell run once, back in the 20s.” Seabridge leaned forward, warming to his own story. “It was at a meet against the Frogs in a 400. He fell early in the piece and it looked all gone, but not for him, by God! He made up a good twenty metre gap and beat the all. It was never over with him, you see -“
“-Until his head was back, yes. You’ve mentioned that just a few times before, David. I like the comparison between our country and a man like that; I’ll let him know next time I speak to him.”
“David is right, PM. With the right momentum, we can do it. We’ve just got to make it through the next ten years of this war first, is all. It is as dangerous as the last two, all things considered.
“You’re right, chaps. Now, I think it is almost time to call it a night; I don’t fancy keeping Mary waiting ‘til all hours yet again.”
Pendragon and Seabridge made their farewells and left the Prime Minister alone to contemplate the dying embers of the fireplace.
Richard had been wrong, he thought.
The current war, regardless of any momentary flaws, was far more dangerous than the first two world wars. Then, threats had been measured in weeks and months and most of the battles had been fought far from home. Now, the enemy could attack every heartland of the Empire within the first hours and deal such dreadful damage as to break the back of its warmaking capacity. The efforts currently underway to counter that offensive threat with a new shield would take much time and much treasure, but that was infinitely better than much blood and much ruin. Until such time, Britain's aegis was the sure and certain knowledge of her response, distributed as it was around the world beyond the reach of one single fell blow. Yet at the same time, this inherently dangerous and unstable world was in itself a perversely stabilising one, with the presence of the Sword of Damocles above every nation, East and West. The shadow of the atom provided for decidedly more circumspection when it came to international adventures, risk and aggression, as did the knowledge that few secrets could be kept from the ever-present and ever-watchful eyes high above.
For all of the threat of sudden Armageddon, there was a profound sense of being able to recognise the steps that would lead mankind towards a last fateful midnight. No longer would nations be blind to a sudden blow without all warning, as the very nature of the complex steps that would take a modern superpower towards war were unmistakable. It would take a dereliction of duty bordering on catastrophic willful blindness to ignore the signs and Barton was sure that neither he nor any honourable, sound leader would do so. No, what it came down to was time, but an unclear notion of it. So they must dwell as they did in this strange greyness, this cold half-life between peace and destruction where armies and fleets must stand ever ready should tomorrow be another 1956, another 1939 or even another 1914. So much of the Empire's wealth was sunk into the dark engines of war and the preparations for the unthinkable, yet this was an insurance against the worst of all cases. By standing armed and ready, war was not only less and less likely, but the path of preparation should the alarum ring out much, much clearer. Such was the calculus of destruction in these last days of this year of our Lord 1964 - as rational as an unthinking machine and as obscene as cancer.
How long did they have? There seemed to be no war likely in the immediate future, but there also seemed to be no likelihood of peace. Ten years. A decade. That is what the generals and admirals, the spies and the wizards and all the terrible thinkers had agreed upon. The Ten Year Rule, they called it - the principle that the British Empire was at most ten years away from a great war. This had driven British strategic planning since the last war, even as it had been proved wrong in Korea and right in Egypt. It was an awesome and terrible thought that the youngest of his sons would not see his twelfth summer come in happiness and innocence before the dark powers of destruction unleashed by science, unleashed by ignorance, unleashed by mistrust engulfed all of humanity, black and white, East and West, in that final planned or accidental end.
Both awesome and terrible, yea, but not certain.
For there was another option and another hope.
Victory.
Not the victory of rolling tanks into Red Square as they had come into Berlin, back at the beginning of his journey, although that could not be ruled out. Not the victory of the last smouldering remnant standing from a world gone mad, although they had to prepare to be that should the day come. This victory he sought was far greater and far better. They would bury the enemy not in fire and death, not in blood and iron, but in freedom and in science, in faith and in progress. Britain could be comfortable for a brief flickering time and fade away into decline and fall, into the ignominious irrelevancy of those who once were warriors and adventurers and were now mere echoes of a long forgotten music of hope and glory, into a time when even the largesse of self-satisfaction was long-lost, or it could choose another path.
It could set aside the ease of green pastures and still waters to tread the steep and rugged pathway of destiny, of trial and of greatness. The cost was far, far greater, but it was a challenge and a crusade that Stanley Barton believed could not and should not be shirked. His Grand Design was the first step towards that goal of a renewed and proud Great Britain at the head of an ever greater Empire, both here on Earth and beyond, in the stars. Dominion would give power and they could use it, beating down that bastion of wickedness, the Iron Wall, and the empire of evil that lay enslaved beyond it. Simple was his plan, yet even simplicity conceals endless layers of inner complexity. He planned to do what his counterpart across the Atlantic spoke of - end disease, end poverty and end war itself. This would take great wealth and great power, with both driving the march of unity towards great change. It was a grand and difficult journey, but he was determined, utterly determined, to persuade, inspire and lead the people, the nation and the Empire towards their rendezvous with destiny, the reason for the rise of the last five centuries. Defeat the foe without fighting now, and not just the Empire alone could look towards the broad, sunlit uplands of peace and prosperity, but the entire world.
In this, all men would have the equal chance to share in the common wealth, to truly share in the peace, prosperity and freedom of a better world. It was not just for England that he fought, but for all mankind.
Stanley Barton looked out of his window upon the silent blackness of the night sky. Nary a sound broke through the thick glass and it seemed as if they were for a moment adrift in the timeless expanse of space. Yet even as it seemed such, a single light broke into being, sparkling alone yet hopeful in the distance, against the immensity of the darkness. A light on the hill. Fitting it seemed, for the beginnings of this New Jerusalem.
He turned to the table and picked up the telephone.
"Jenkins? Get onto the Ministry of Space. Tell them it is a go. Launch the Dreadnought."
Chequers
December 30th 1964
“And so that was Christmas. And what have we done? The first few months over and a new year almost begun.”
“Yes, Prime Minister?”
“Just a thought, Richard, just a thought. We’ve only just started, but it seems like we’ve made no headway whatsoever.”
“Even grand designs have humble beginnings, PM.”
“Aye. It will need a good year or more to really see the results of what we’re doing, but we’ll gather pace as we go. You’ve seen our rockets. They barely seem to be moving after they lift off, but within a minute or so, they’re blasting faster than a speeding bullet.” The third man in the room spoke gruffly as he swirled his scotch in its glass. David Seabridge was the closest thing to a friend that Stanley Barton had and even then the man was sometimes just unreadable.
Barton shook his head tersely and stood up from his chair, pacing across to the talk windows that looked out from the well appointed drawing room onto the nightscape of the estate. It was cold without, and there would be snow, but the fire kept them quite warm, along with that curious golden ring with the ruby that the strange old professor had insisted he keep in his pocket.
“I don’t mean that. Both defence and industry will take their time, as we’ve known. Setting the big changes in train will show results in due course. I’m not talking about what we can’t change in the short term. It is just that we hurled all the slings and arrows at the Tories for their inaction, their lack of dynamism and we don’t have a big win to show for the first stretch.”
“I see. Do we really need one, Prime Minister?”
“Well, no…and yes. Perception is the key, Richard, perception. If we can be perceived as being in the same rank as the Soviets and the Americans, it will help immeasurably. What we do in the quiet and behind closed doors is what counts, but we need to be seen to win. Even the Belgians are getting more notice than us at the moment!”
“True enough, although it is their former colony.”
“And our present and future interest.”
“Well, the German trip in the new year will make for a moment in the sun.”
Barton nodded at this. He would be the first British leader since Chamberlain to formally visit Germany, at least while it was a state in its own right again. Getting the old enemy, or the new old enemy more properly, onside with Britain’s European policy would be the type of sign of leadership that was so desirable. The Jerries were keen to come in from the cold, as it were, and they were both literally and figuratively at the heart of the conundrum of the Continent. Moscow’s very real threat provided some degree of unity of direction, but the next step was one of unity of policy and vision.
“You’re right. Germany could be handy, both in the outcome and the world perception of it.”
“You never seemed to be concerned about these things before, Stanley. Substance before polish, that was the watchword.”
“I wasn’t Prime Minister then, David. I am now. The role brings its own concerns and realisations with it.” Some of them beyond top secret…
“Point made. You think we can get them to bite?”
“Perhaps. We can offer then what they want - normalisation of trade and more importantly, normalisation of relations. They want to put the past behind them and it is time enough for that. It’s simpler than that, really. It is time for Europe to shrug off what is left of the war.”
It was a time for change, a time for a renewed Continent. Not the vainglorious Monnetist dreams of a unified Europe or other such nonsense. Those had died a lonely death in the ditch of intractable Franco-German and Italo-Spanish enmity, Austrian identity and bit of clever British work behind the scenes, to the disappointment of Washington, but there were other, better dreams closer to the confluence of their mutual interests. The bickering powers of Europe, once Great, may not like each other, but they could work towards some measure of amity and comity - a Europe of nations, as it were.
The key would be Germany, the central economic, industrial and political engine room of the Continent’s incipient power and potential. Helped to reach the right degree of rapprochement with the Low Countries and Scandinavia on the right terms, she could stand as the first piece in the puzzle and France would be drawn in by the logic of trade and strategic gravity. Left to her own designs, and with a sea change from Austria-Hungary, then a German dominated bloc in the fulcrum of power would be irresistible. Indeed, that particular Teutonic combination was seen as perhaps the only potential ‘superpower’ challenge to Britain on the Continent by virtue of its near three hundred millions, huge resources, military might and sheer industrial heft. No, it was safer to have Germany moving on a path parallel to British interests, far safer.
He viewed the policy as sensible and worth pursuing, at least to secure and make safe that strategic space across the Channel. If other matters proceeded well, then a Western European sphere of influence could be added to their others in India, Africa, Australasia, the Middle East and South America. That would make the other tasks easier in their course, should they come. Divide and conquer was the old siren call from last century and before; now was a different age.
And if it didn’t work, then there was the sea, always the sea, and beyond it, the Empire. The French and Americans also had their designs, but like the latter, Britain was not quite limited to the Continent alone. In any case, even if the gambit of Europe failed, then they would have the sea. On it and over it and under it and through it, they would drive trade, trade, trade, that lifeblood of Britannia’s reign o’er the waves. That trade would make England a sceptred isle again and not just in the flourishes of verse. That was the first step in the long march towards…
“Penny for them, PM?”
“Keep your coins, Richard. I was thinking. Just thinking, that’s all. The time is coming when we’ll be done with thinking and can move to the doing. We’ll get the first impact on growth within a year, then comes the time for action.”
“Within reason, Stanley. Memento minoritas - remember, Prime Minister, that thou hast a minority government and have to keep the Liberals onside.”
“Not very likely that I’ll forget. Their right wing is our succour and support in the worst case for now and also one of the Big Four targets for the next election.” Barton grimaced at that particular task. To win a true majority, they’d need to cut into the Liberal heartlands in the Midlands, take the key southern cities from the Tories, rip out the Socialists from the East End and turn over two dozen seats in Ireland; a hefty task, but one that would be necessary for Labour to truly govern.
“Lucky for us that they support the very means we’ll use to beat them, as necessary. Growth and Security made for the right mix this time around.” Seabridge, as Party Chairman, had been just as responsible for the manifesto and overall direction that had bought them this far, so felt more than a smidgeon of justified pride in it.
“It’s up to us to keep the country working and heading up. That’s the way we’ll beat the other side.”
“The Tories?”
“No, Richard. The Reds.”
“We’ve got our work cut out for us there, PM, even though I know we can do it. All of our economic intel points towards them pulling away for the foreseeable future and that gives their forces a big boost.”
“But we can catch the devils, no matter their advantage! I saw Eric Liddell run once, back in the 20s.” Seabridge leaned forward, warming to his own story. “It was at a meet against the Frogs in a 400. He fell early in the piece and it looked all gone, but not for him, by God! He made up a good twenty metre gap and beat the all. It was never over with him, you see -“
“-Until his head was back, yes. You’ve mentioned that just a few times before, David. I like the comparison between our country and a man like that; I’ll let him know next time I speak to him.”
“David is right, PM. With the right momentum, we can do it. We’ve just got to make it through the next ten years of this war first, is all. It is as dangerous as the last two, all things considered.
“You’re right, chaps. Now, I think it is almost time to call it a night; I don’t fancy keeping Mary waiting ‘til all hours yet again.”
Pendragon and Seabridge made their farewells and left the Prime Minister alone to contemplate the dying embers of the fireplace.
Richard had been wrong, he thought.
The current war, regardless of any momentary flaws, was far more dangerous than the first two world wars. Then, threats had been measured in weeks and months and most of the battles had been fought far from home. Now, the enemy could attack every heartland of the Empire within the first hours and deal such dreadful damage as to break the back of its warmaking capacity. The efforts currently underway to counter that offensive threat with a new shield would take much time and much treasure, but that was infinitely better than much blood and much ruin. Until such time, Britain's aegis was the sure and certain knowledge of her response, distributed as it was around the world beyond the reach of one single fell blow. Yet at the same time, this inherently dangerous and unstable world was in itself a perversely stabilising one, with the presence of the Sword of Damocles above every nation, East and West. The shadow of the atom provided for decidedly more circumspection when it came to international adventures, risk and aggression, as did the knowledge that few secrets could be kept from the ever-present and ever-watchful eyes high above.
For all of the threat of sudden Armageddon, there was a profound sense of being able to recognise the steps that would lead mankind towards a last fateful midnight. No longer would nations be blind to a sudden blow without all warning, as the very nature of the complex steps that would take a modern superpower towards war were unmistakable. It would take a dereliction of duty bordering on catastrophic willful blindness to ignore the signs and Barton was sure that neither he nor any honourable, sound leader would do so. No, what it came down to was time, but an unclear notion of it. So they must dwell as they did in this strange greyness, this cold half-life between peace and destruction where armies and fleets must stand ever ready should tomorrow be another 1956, another 1939 or even another 1914. So much of the Empire's wealth was sunk into the dark engines of war and the preparations for the unthinkable, yet this was an insurance against the worst of all cases. By standing armed and ready, war was not only less and less likely, but the path of preparation should the alarum ring out much, much clearer. Such was the calculus of destruction in these last days of this year of our Lord 1964 - as rational as an unthinking machine and as obscene as cancer.
How long did they have? There seemed to be no war likely in the immediate future, but there also seemed to be no likelihood of peace. Ten years. A decade. That is what the generals and admirals, the spies and the wizards and all the terrible thinkers had agreed upon. The Ten Year Rule, they called it - the principle that the British Empire was at most ten years away from a great war. This had driven British strategic planning since the last war, even as it had been proved wrong in Korea and right in Egypt. It was an awesome and terrible thought that the youngest of his sons would not see his twelfth summer come in happiness and innocence before the dark powers of destruction unleashed by science, unleashed by ignorance, unleashed by mistrust engulfed all of humanity, black and white, East and West, in that final planned or accidental end.
Both awesome and terrible, yea, but not certain.
For there was another option and another hope.
Victory.
Not the victory of rolling tanks into Red Square as they had come into Berlin, back at the beginning of his journey, although that could not be ruled out. Not the victory of the last smouldering remnant standing from a world gone mad, although they had to prepare to be that should the day come. This victory he sought was far greater and far better. They would bury the enemy not in fire and death, not in blood and iron, but in freedom and in science, in faith and in progress. Britain could be comfortable for a brief flickering time and fade away into decline and fall, into the ignominious irrelevancy of those who once were warriors and adventurers and were now mere echoes of a long forgotten music of hope and glory, into a time when even the largesse of self-satisfaction was long-lost, or it could choose another path.
It could set aside the ease of green pastures and still waters to tread the steep and rugged pathway of destiny, of trial and of greatness. The cost was far, far greater, but it was a challenge and a crusade that Stanley Barton believed could not and should not be shirked. His Grand Design was the first step towards that goal of a renewed and proud Great Britain at the head of an ever greater Empire, both here on Earth and beyond, in the stars. Dominion would give power and they could use it, beating down that bastion of wickedness, the Iron Wall, and the empire of evil that lay enslaved beyond it. Simple was his plan, yet even simplicity conceals endless layers of inner complexity. He planned to do what his counterpart across the Atlantic spoke of - end disease, end poverty and end war itself. This would take great wealth and great power, with both driving the march of unity towards great change. It was a grand and difficult journey, but he was determined, utterly determined, to persuade, inspire and lead the people, the nation and the Empire towards their rendezvous with destiny, the reason for the rise of the last five centuries. Defeat the foe without fighting now, and not just the Empire alone could look towards the broad, sunlit uplands of peace and prosperity, but the entire world.
In this, all men would have the equal chance to share in the common wealth, to truly share in the peace, prosperity and freedom of a better world. It was not just for England that he fought, but for all mankind.
Stanley Barton looked out of his window upon the silent blackness of the night sky. Nary a sound broke through the thick glass and it seemed as if they were for a moment adrift in the timeless expanse of space. Yet even as it seemed such, a single light broke into being, sparkling alone yet hopeful in the distance, against the immensity of the darkness. A light on the hill. Fitting it seemed, for the beginnings of this New Jerusalem.
He turned to the table and picked up the telephone.
"Jenkins? Get onto the Ministry of Space. Tell them it is a go. Launch the Dreadnought."
Last edited by Simon Darkshade on Mon Feb 05, 2024 2:58 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Simon Darkshade
- Posts: 1127
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Re: Dark Earth: A New Jerusalem
And that, as they say, is that.
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jemhouston
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Re: Dark Earth: A New Jerusalem
Avalanche start small then get mighty when they pick up steam.
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Simon Darkshade
- Posts: 1127
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Re: Dark Earth: A New Jerusalem
Indeed. That is the imagery I wished to conjure in the first part with reference to rockets.
Broadly speaking, here we see the reality of getting into power - realising that things can’t change overnight (not that there was ever a belief that they could), but by the same token it is sometimes important to be seen to be winning. Barton puzzles on this until ordering the launch of the Dreadnought on its trip to the outer solar system, joining the Soviets and Americans, albeit with a bit of a headstart from Mars.
The long term plan is to really rework the nation’s finances and not just grow in the short term, but lay the foundations for the next stage of the ‘economic rocket’ from there.
Other notes:
- Barton inadvertently comes close to quoting a John Lennon song from @ due to weird cosmic coincidence
- There is a suggestion that the PM has Narya in his pocket
- The Belgians are in the news over Dragon Rouge. When Barton says that the Congo is Britain’s present and future interest…in the business, we call this foreshadowing
- Anglo-German links are going to be a significant factor in the future of the Europe of Nations. Barton’s address to the Reichstag is way back in Part 1 or so, and, with his initial idea for a better world coming to him in Berlin ‘45, the talk of Germany brings the story full circle
- Those in favour of European unity have the label of ‘Monnetists’ here, after Jean Monnet, whose ideas ran into Charles de Gaulle
- Britain’s European policy is not to ‘join Europe’, but to have it as one of many spheres of influence. The scope of this aim speaks volumes
- The goal for the next election is a majority, which Barton gets
- Catching up to the USSR economically is a very ambitious long term goal
- Eric Liddell is still alive and well in 1964
- The Ten Year Rule here is flipped on its head
- Barton sees the choice as temporary comfort and long term decline vs victory
Broadly speaking, here we see the reality of getting into power - realising that things can’t change overnight (not that there was ever a belief that they could), but by the same token it is sometimes important to be seen to be winning. Barton puzzles on this until ordering the launch of the Dreadnought on its trip to the outer solar system, joining the Soviets and Americans, albeit with a bit of a headstart from Mars.
The long term plan is to really rework the nation’s finances and not just grow in the short term, but lay the foundations for the next stage of the ‘economic rocket’ from there.
Other notes:
- Barton inadvertently comes close to quoting a John Lennon song from @ due to weird cosmic coincidence
- There is a suggestion that the PM has Narya in his pocket
- The Belgians are in the news over Dragon Rouge. When Barton says that the Congo is Britain’s present and future interest…in the business, we call this foreshadowing
- Anglo-German links are going to be a significant factor in the future of the Europe of Nations. Barton’s address to the Reichstag is way back in Part 1 or so, and, with his initial idea for a better world coming to him in Berlin ‘45, the talk of Germany brings the story full circle
- Those in favour of European unity have the label of ‘Monnetists’ here, after Jean Monnet, whose ideas ran into Charles de Gaulle
- Britain’s European policy is not to ‘join Europe’, but to have it as one of many spheres of influence. The scope of this aim speaks volumes
- The goal for the next election is a majority, which Barton gets
- Catching up to the USSR economically is a very ambitious long term goal
- Eric Liddell is still alive and well in 1964
- The Ten Year Rule here is flipped on its head
- Barton sees the choice as temporary comfort and long term decline vs victory