D+16 The Canberra Strike

[drmarkbailey]

Another one from the old board which I had saved.

Canberra Strike Arc


D+14
April 2005 – Raider Nikolaevski Komsomolets

The AP-3C swooped down from 5,000 feet to 300, then roared past the nondescript little container ship not 250 feet from her. The co-pilot had the hand held camera and held the button down. The camera was one of the new and very expensive high-end Olympus electronic ones, and took continuous high quality stills. The 92 Wing Photographic unit had only moved from conventional to electronic imagery a few years beforehand, but they were normal now. The ship was a small, elderly looking container ship, and only partially loaded. The war had hit international trade hard. It was down 18%, enough to spell disaster for many firms. Oh, the bulk carrier trades were booming, longer routes to avoid war zones and submarine threats meant that: evasive routeing along meant a 10% longer trip, and that was a straight 10% loss in carrying capacity, so you needed 10% more ships to lift the same amount of ironstone, wheat or coal. Convoy cost you another 10-15% of carrying capacity. And demand for all of these products had increased. Same with oil tankers.

But car carriers? Container ships? Whole markets were just gone. Container traffic through the vast Rotterdam container terminals was already down a quarter and was still in free fall. It was a little difficult to maintain exports when Soviet and NATO tanks were exchanging fire in the factory grounds after their artillery had levelled the place. And everyone was converting car and heavy vehicle facilities to war production. The 2005 Dodge Ram was a very ugly pickup truck: but take the bling off it, strip out the sound deadening, beef up the suspension, dump the shiny rims and add light truck wheels, rip out the radio and speakers and all that stuff, paint it matt green and it became a very useful instant light utility truck for the US and other armies. And that was just the start of the process.

‘The box boat checks,’ said the Tacco into the circuit ten minutes later and twenty miles away. ‘MIC says that they have no ELINT track for her which seems right as her radar is not moving, and the IMO number and name seem OK. They have a departure for her from Ecuador, she’s enroute Kenya. Standard tramp by the available info.’

They were already commencing a rigging run on the next target.

oOo

Just like many other ships, MV Gunum Lashad was keeping to safer waters. For just this reason there was a new route now, Panama to the Cape south-about Australia. Even the Cape Horn route was back in fashion.

But this time, they were wrong. MV Gunum Lashad was a genuine Bangladesh registered container ship right enough. Her crew looked like the usual wild Third world mix, and she was scruffy and dirty. You just had to dig deeply indeed through innumerable layers of ownership before you’d ever find out who her real owners were. Only you wouldn’t as you’d be very surprised to wake up dead one sunny morning.

oOo

A month before the war, she’d taken a cargo of mixed goods in containers to Vladivostok. A routine run for the 1,800TEU tramp and one she’d done many times before. She’d had an engine breakdown there and needed work. Well, it was cheap. Many ships got work done in places where it was cheap.

And she’d left with the usual load of battered containers. The Japanese had seen her, she’d swung by Honolulu to deliver a large volume of milled timber and reefers full of frozen fish, then steamed off for Valparaiso.

No-one had checked the midships container stack. There was no need. They were not being offloaded in Honolulu. In fact they could not be. Her hand-picked crew were a mix of Navy and KGB Border guards originally. Nikolaevski Komsomolets was one of a handful of specialised raiders designed for just two purposes. The first was to make specific political points, the second was to attack specific but lightly or undefended military targets.

Today’s mission was political.

Inside the ‘container’ stack amidships were 24 missile tubes taken from store: they had been removed from everything from decommissioned submarines to obsolete cruisers over the years. Anyone watching – and it was broad daylight ninety miles from the Australian coast – would have seen two sides of the container stack change. On both sides, container sides blew off and fell into the sea. Seconds later, 24 massive five-ton missiles rode shrieking boosters into the sky. The ship vanished into the base of a gigantic arch of grey rocket-smoke.

The Shaddocks were on their way. Their target was well within range. The SS-N-3 was obsolescent and slow, it moved at barely nine miles a minute. This just did not matter when the target was both fixed, and undefended. And there was nothing obsolete about their GPS guidance and INS.

Aboard the ship, frantic work began. Heavy pins and bolts were removed. They had to dump the false stack and use the cranes to re-erect a similar stack of empty containers. Their CO looked calmly at the activity.

At least it will keep them busy until the missiles arrive, he thought, there’s no chance of getting away with this, her commander thought. Below, his XO was already burning the classified material.

oOo

The refurbished and now thoroughly modernised old E-1T Tracer was on a coastal patrol and exercise, she was the second last of the 11 purchased from UAC in Tucson to come through the S-2GT Tracker, C-1T Trader and E-1T Tracer rebuild facility in Avalon, and like her sisters she handled like a dream with the new 2000hp turboprops. The AN/APS-139(A) radar was a variant of that somewhat elderly radar cycle built for the E-2 Hawkeye. In this case it was a lighter, less capable and more austere version also modified to fit its aerial into the E-1 dome. It included much of the component fit made for the AN/APS-145 currently fitted to USN E-2 Hawkeyes. But for the much lower-end mission profile of the RAN Tracers it was far better than adequate.

Then a normal patrol sortie came to a screaming halt as the radar reported the Shaddocks.

oOo

‘I hate this drive,’ said the Deputy Chief of Navy to his Flag Lieutenant, ‘the politicians decided Bungendore was a great place to put JOC. Fabulous. Now we have to waste an hour each way between Russell Offices and a converted sheep paddock.’

‘With all respect due your august rank, sir, you say that every week,’ she replied with a grin.

‘Cheeky devil, you say that every week too.’

‘Guilty as charged, sir!’

His personal mobile rang. Hmm. The better half does not normally ring in work hours unless it’s an emergency. He pressed the button and answered.

‘Hi love, what’s up?’

‘Thank God! Where the fuck are you?’

‘Donna ...’

‘Shut up and listen. Pull the car over now and take cover. The city is under attack. I am at Kingston foreshore and Russell is gone. It’s all fire and huge explosions and smoke... shit!’ He heard a massive explosion then his wife was back on. ‘That was closer ... Parliament...’ The phone dropped out cold. No service at all. The system had gone. He stared at it for a second then yelled at the driver to turn around.

oOo

Two hours later Rear Admiral Russ Derek was at the Wardroom at HMAS Harman and was in radio comms with Maritime Commander. Harman was untouched and running on its own generators. The NAVCOMMSTA was all the comms there was.

The city burned.

‘Helicopter from Nowra will be here in an hour, sir. Get you and your wife to Sydney, MHQ’s picking up the operational load as best they can. Thank God we never moved the Maritime Intelligence Centre and still have the ops floor there.’

‘Thanks, CO. What’s the latest?’

‘Changing minute by minute still, sir. Losses are enormous, at least 20 big missiles, but less than 30. Tracer from Nowra detected them as they crossed the coast, got the warning out but it was too late, and we did not have defences or even an air raid alarm. Trackers from Nowra sank the raider after the Tracer backtracked to it. Converted merchie. About thirty survivors being rescued and ops are ongoing, she was called ‘Nikolaev Young Communists’. City’s isolated, sir. No comms and won’t be for days at least, more likely weeks. Big sections of the town have lost electricity, the Black Mountain tower, the whole communications complex, is just gone, the missile hits brought down the whole tower. It fell on what was left of the facility. The Russell complex is wrecked. R1, R2, DIO, DSD are basically piles of burning rubble. DSD works on three shifts so at least some of the workforce is still alive. The old A, E and F buildings are shattered and burning out. Half of Campbell Park has collapsed after a direct hit on the security organisation’s node and the rest is burning out. Foreign Affairs and Trade was pretty much obliterated by two hits. Maybe three. They hit Treasury and Finance, severe damage and many dead, again the buildings are burning out. The whole complex of government buildings in Barton is smashed. Parliament house took two direct hits and it was a sitting day, but some of them were not there yet. Good news, PM Howard’s alive as he was having a meeting at The Lodge with Treasurer Costello and a couple of the senior Ministers, Abbott, Ruddock, forgot who else. The foreign minister’s in the States. Rest are gone, pretty much the entire Opposition is gone. Might be five or ten percent of the Parliament left alive. Parliament house – there’s no sign that anyone got out alive as at least one missile detonated inside the building and it’s a concrete structure covered with earth so the pressure wave killed them all I hope. They burned to death otherwise. One giant oven after the fires started, and the whole thing has since collapsed, it’s sending flames 200 feet into the sky. There were maybe 20,000, 25,000 people in all those buildings. I’d be astonished if a quarter of them survived.’

He paused. ‘One fell into the city centre, hit the ACT Legislative buildings and complex and flattened it. Think it was a miss on Black Mountain. Most of the ACT government and public service is gone.’

‘You are Chief of Navy now, sir. There was a service chief’s meeting with CDF and VCDF in R1 and no-one seems to have gotten out of R1 alive apart from some who were running around the lake or absent on duty. Couple of hits each and the buildings collapsed, then burned. Two missile hits on JOC, it’s a hole in the ground now. Looks like Shaddocks with one ton warheads. Looks like at least half of them, maybe all of them, were thermobaric. Hard to explain the ridiculous amount of devastation and the lack of survivors otherwise.’

‘We’ve been almost completely decapitated. That was a mistake. We are a Federated Commonwealth. It’ll hurt badly, very badly, but it’s not even going to slow military operations down. And it is completely enraging the nation.’

‘And they did not need nukes to do it. Small mercies. With Navy sir, I think that a minimum of two thirds of our star rank officers are dead and I would not be surprised if it was four fifths. Governor-General has approved martial law in the ACT but it’s mostly to give legislative approval to seal off the Parliamentary Triangle and back up the Police if they need it. Air Commander is now CAF, Land Commander is now Chief of Army, you are CN and acting CDF after the PM’s phone call.’

‘Shit. And the political implications are endless. The Federal government has essentially been destroyed, and it was the critical functions they hit, defence and foreign affairs, the strategically vital intelligence agencies. We are going to have to collapse the other functions to find the people to even start rebuilding them. Perhaps a silver lining is that the draining of power from the states to the centre has to cease now.’

‘Yes sir, emergency powers act’s been declared by the Governor General.’

‘And we know why they hit us.’

‘Sir?’

‘Look at the message this gives to Bonn.’

oOo

D+15

Canberra Australia April 2005

The Prime Minister looked with haunted eyes at the fourteen surviving members of his government, the Governor-General, and the five surviving members of the Opposition. The Governor-General had been both insistent, and within his powers. They were sitting in what was to him a familiar place, old Parliament House. Many of the windows were blown out and the floor of the PM’s old office sparkled with tiny chips of glass: only the larger chunks had been swept up. The building was otherwise only lightly damaged.

It stank of the bitter stench of things not meant to burn and the air was hazy with the smoke still billowing from the ruins of Parliament House and the Russell complex.

‘We are all shocked, we are all shaken, and we are all exhausted. The ruins of Parliament House are still burning. But are we agreed on this?’

There were nods around the table, strewn with tea cups and the remains of a couple of sandwich platters a staffer had brought in from the Canberra Costco. They had their own diesel generators. The negotiations had been surprisingly straight forward.

It was not like there was any real choice. None of the political parties could possibly rebuild themselves within at least three or four years. More likely that was five or six.

‘So a Government of National Unity, we run the 2006 election on party lines but retain the government of national unity until the 2009 election.’

The interim leader of the opposition – a previously obscure back-bencher who had been cheerfully conspiring at a coffee shop with some others from the opposition’s right faction when the missiles hit – just nodded. ‘There’s nothing else we can do, PM. I will not pretend that I don’t have objections, but they are,’ he hunted for words, ‘remnants of a previous life, really. And I can only agree on the political changes we have thrashed out. To be blunt, they are essential to survival. I will not even pretend that reforming the senate and the other reforms do not appeal to me. They will cripple the extremists on both left and right, stop the atomisation which has led to increasingly poor governance and give people a say in policy matters at each election-referendum. Is it legal? Well, the High Court is gone and they are all dead so we fall back on Royal Prerogative and custom. The Governor-General is the final defender of the constitution in a way.’

The Governor-General rumbled his own comment. ‘That needs to be done, 76 senators, twelve from each of the six states and two from each of the mainland territories; fine when they were not supposed to be party members, but that stopped long ago. And the unequal representation was ridiculous. We have about 22,000,000 people. One senator for every 500,000 is better, that’s 14 for NSW, 9 for Queensland, 3 for South Australia, one for Tasmania, 12 for Victoria, 5 for Western Australia and one for all the territories combined. ACT to come back under a Minister. The other reforms make the states compete with each other economically, which inspires good governance, and gets the federal government out of what is really their business.’

The PM shook his head. ‘All well and good, but we are politicians, and discussing this means we are huddling in our own little puddle of expertise. That’s just human. But full national service for everyone with no exceptions, moving to permanent nation-in-arms, full war mobilisation, return of whole government functions entirely back to the states and locking them there, and paying for it by essentially dismantling most of the welfare state, to be blunt and no insult intended, I never thought to see such proposals supported by and some coming from the ALP.’

‘It’s not a new plan by any means, just a variation on what has been contingency-planned to death for decades.’

The PM nodded. ‘Of course, trying to swallow an elephant will cause one to choke. So don’t. Eat it one bite at a time.’

The current head of the opposition nodded wearily – they were all exhausted having been up all night. ‘Call up without exception and divert a percentage, which is call up numbers minus the maximum the training system can be expanded to deal with, into civil defence Companies, commanded by old ex-military. These are under the Defence Force Discipline Act so they are formally in the military. The peaceniks, conscientious objectors and such? Fine, they stay in the Army Civil defence unit permanently. No exceptions to call-up for anyone not crippled or insane. Zero. Male or female, no difference, and you cannot buy your way out. Those who refuse to use weapons get to stay as ditch-diggers or at best are trained as medics or stretcher bearers or whatever. Those units are actually army and they learn drill, fire and rescue, first aid, field fortifications the old fashioned way using a shovel and pickaxe, all the early 20th century military skills minus the combat stuff. We bite the bullet and make them locally-based. Suburb companies, town battalions. First thing they do is build locally any defences, shelters or local remediation for their own people in their own area. We will have to reactivate as many old defence facilities as we can, I am thinking of things like the old Army coast defence facilities, the big training camps, some of the old WWII airbases and disused industrial facilities like Cockatoo Island. We need a huge military expansion too, so they link, we already own lots of those and their first jobs can be rebuilding them. Above all else this gets them physically fit, far too many modern men are not. The plans described this as a pre-military-training structure to get all the simple but time consuming stuff out of the way.’

He paused. ‘And it’s the same for women, but into all-female units, but keep them on the civil defence side. The best will volunteer for better roles anyway. As the training facilities expand, simultaneously divert new entries aside from the top ten percent or so into the civil defence sausage machine and accelerate the numbers who have already done their civil defence time. These are people who can already say that they can march, look after their kit and they have the basic military skills training. From then it’s just the actual fighting skills they need to learn. The good part about this is that it leverages off all the existing non-military training infrastructure in the country. Every fire ground, every first aid facility and provider, every gym, every football oval, all of it. Any high-school track and field coach can spend a full week improving the fitness of recruits by teaching them to wolf trot until they can do it all day. The national survival advantage lies in making this permanent. Singapore has found that their NS scheme has drastically improved national health standards and drastically lowered public health costs. They have found that once they get used to being fit and eating right, most people are reluctant to again become fat unhealthy slobs.’

‘Best of all, a two-tier National Service system works for three years in the civil defence or two in the combat arms, with everyone in for the duration anyway. Civil Defence women who get married and have a child can be paused, hell, if they stay married and have three or four children why shouldn’t that count? That’s a genuine service to the country and something only a woman can do – but married. Not unweds with no idea who the Dads are. Something to think more about. And as the Civil Defence has no combat role, none of the excuses work. Some professional welfare types, and let there be no bullshit here, we know that there are many of them, who says that they are too unfit or diseased or drugged or just plain lazy just generates a response that ‘The National Service Civil Defence Army will fix that little problem for you, sport!’ And if it’s locally based, the peer pressure to stay and stick it out will be tremendous. Hmm. Do we need a big labour intensive national development project?’

The PM looked interested. ‘Like what?’

‘Dunno, another Snowy hydro scheme probably might not cut it. Maybe something as big as the old plans to link Lake Eyre to the sea and make a thirty foot deep inland sea. Maybe a whole new major city in the Kimberleys.’

‘More to think about, then,’ sighed the PM.

The interim opposition leader – soon to be Deputy PM – simply shrugged. ‘We’ll have to add some stick. No taxpayer assistance for education or other things if you fail at it and wind up in some sort of criminality or with a bad disciplinary rep.’

Again the PM said that he had not thought to hear such words in his life.

‘Well, if having the functions and mechanisms of the government in Canberra essentially destroyed does not say that the threat is existential, what does? This just became existential! We have to bloody well survive first. We are back to that, now, raw survival. I also stand by my proposal that we should also go nuclear, starting immediately with power stations and with nuclear weapons to follow as fast as we can. If we’d been a nuclear power, PM, they would not have dared to do this to us. If that ship had 24 nuclear tipped cruise missiles, Australia would have ceased to exist yesterday.’

He smiled, but it was just a weary stretching of the lips. ‘I am being radical, PM. What choice is there? If nothing else, I’ll cheerfully claim in a few years when we return to partisan politics that it was all the ALP’s idea. But we have to survive first. And we’ve just learned that our survival is not guaranteed. Fine. Lesson learned. Now we fucking well guarantee it. The rest is details at this stage.’

Prime Minister Howard nodded. ‘When you are right, you are right. And another thing. We need a new baseline for politicians. We have had, too many lawyers on our side and too many uni activist to union types on your side. No more. We need people with life experience outside of politics, and I think we need to limit politicians too. Maybe ten or twelve years only, that’s it. We were forming a disconnected governing class. That has to stop.’

The nods around the table were reluctant and rueful, but they did nod.

oOo

With its distressing tendency to actually try to make something like an effort to achieve fairness and balance in its reporting, the Fox network had been starting to eat everybody’s lunch before the current unpleasantness had started. The war had accelerated this trend to just under light speed. By at least trying to be balanced, the company had endeared itself to most western militaries over and above the rest of the media. So they received far more assistance than did their rival, referred to with poisonous seriousness as the ‘Communist News Network’ by those same militaries.

In the Kremlin and at the Lubyanka, they watched Fox. Why watch the other when it was just an incompetent knockoff of Pravda, only with better dentistry?

‘And in an update to the attack on Canberra, the Australian Prime Minister has announced the formation of a government of national unity, full national mobilisation, the introduction of universal national service to form a permanent nation-in-arms and a vast expansion of the military, as well as political reforms and the reduction of the welfare state to pay for it. Jim Alvarez is in our Sydney studio with more ...’

The head of the GRU looked at the screen and shook his head. ‘I hope whatever geniuses in the KGB came up with that brilliant idea were watching that. I also hope that they got the message in Bonn.’

His deputy looked at the screen. ‘So do I. Because it does not look like they got the message in Canberra.’

oOo

D+16

‘Thank you, Mr President, we will cope as best we can. Please pass on my personal condolences to your Ambassador’s family. He was a good man, and I will miss him. I will be sending a personal letter, yet it must wait on other duties… thank you again for your nation’s assistance with the burns victims.’

The Prime Minister hung up the phone and went next door. Victoria Barracks in Sydney was the temporary seat of government, it was secure and had the comms. Canberra did not even have reliable electricity back yet, and would not for some time.

‘Well, that was the last of the follow-ups from the initial ‘oh crap’ calls, the US has offered to take as many burns victims as they can, and AME aircraft are being fitted as we speak. Lord knows we need help there, with every burns unit here and in New Zealand and Singapore full to overflowing, the Indian, Japanese and Chinese assistance is also a Godsend for those poor souls. He was shocked at the losses, and surprised that we have not resolved more than 15,000-18,000 killed, 16,000 to 35,000 injured.’

The Governor-General nodded. ‘It’s easier to list what was not destroyed in the Parliamentary Triangle. That’s the National Library, Old Parliament House, and Questacon. Everything else was blown to bits or badly damaged or burned out or both. The shock waves destroyed Telopea Park school, killing hundreds of kids when it collapsed. The country’s going nuts over that especially. Oh, all except the art types, who are more upset about the National Gallery having burned out.’

The former Minister for Health and Ageing, now the Minister of Defence, shook his head. ‘Their priorities are warped. Dead children are our failure. Ours. Oh, on the art front I might be glad that all the so-called non-fashionable holdings were moved to other storage and are intact. To be quite frank their focus on trendy modern and post-modern art is far less of a loss, but it’s appalling that people are more worried about that than a school full of dead kids.’

‘Well,’ said the PM, ‘no more frivolous funding now for arts or various causes so beloved of the wittering classes. We need all that sort of stuff to be stopped and now, I believe that the former PM and Treasurer Paul Keating and our current Treasurer have agreed to Keating being employed in that toe-cutting role.’

‘Yes’, said the Treasurer, ‘he may dislike you and I, PM, but give the devil his due, he’s intelligent, respected, hard working and loves the country. He’s also entirely behind us moving to a … strategic deterrence posture.’

The PM glanced at his Cabinet-of-National-Unity, what there was of it and included in the glance the official head of state, the Governor-General, acting as a constitutional advisor given that the High Court currently had 100% vacancies in all positions, and then continued; ‘the President was not surprised at our declaration of a National Unity Government, mobilisation declaration, by our understanding that the conflict just became existential for us, or by the bald acknowledgement that this knocks us on to our arse in terms of coordination. They will help with that via priority on C3I systems. He was a little surprised that our local priority is air defence of Sydney and Melbourne in that order, it was that which really told him how badly Canberra has been hit. Their cupboard is near-empty but he gave us a priority on what little they have to help with that task. Acting CDF?’

Rear-Admiral Derek was grey with exhaustion. In other words he was just like everyone else in the room. ‘They have no SAM systems to send us, nor any modern aircraft. The stocks of aircraft like F-14, F-16 and F-15 which are in reserve are frantically being returned to service to start to replace their heavy losses in Europe. All that’s available is a sop, really, to public opinion. That said I am not one to minimise that, we must be publicly seen to be acting. The country is horrified at the losses right now, and that’s already turning into rage. I have discussed this with Acting CAF, and he’s entirely unenthusiastic about it. That said he’ll pull the Mirages back from Darwin to Sydney for the interim and have them flying over the cities every day. He has, also very unenthusiastically I might add, said that the US has Phantoms, the old F-4, available, we operated these decades ago. If government insists, RAAF can try and set up a Squadron in Melbourne and one in Sydney, replacing them with something better later on. If they do nothing but air intercept, it will happen faster. We can’t accelerate the Greyfalcon program much at this stage and no, more money won’t help it.’

The PM interrupted. ‘Just do it. Cost is no issue now. Old aircraft in a city defence role are better than no aircraft, and the Federal Government cannot possibly be seen to be dropping the ball on national defence. Are pilots an issue? In 1937-38 the problem was that the services could not expand at a rate which allowed the available funding to be used. We’ve been at war for six years, hopefully we should not have that problem. What about missile defences?’

The new CDF responded. ‘On pilots, PM, not really. The training schools are producing enough pilots and the training schools will cope with the maintainers: that said we can almost certainly get some Israeli maintainers on contract, and US trainers on exchange. Even older US aircrew perhaps if we need them for conversion training.’

He paused.

‘On fixed SAM defences, I talked with both the service heads. They say it’s a Navy job which they can and will strongly support. Basically, we have equipment in store from the old DDG and the upgraded FFG to support the old unmodernised FFG we had in reserve. So we can scare up air defence radars to install and at Sydney and we have a frigate in refit, she can cover Sydney in the interim from Garden Island. So we have a number of stored Mk13 Standard launchers and Mk 92 fire control systems ex-DDG and the upgraded FFG and we have men trained to use and maintain them. The Americans have many more such systems and are happy to provide both them and some older Standard SAM quite quickly. We can install these as SAM batteries, but we will have to use North Head so that means resuming it...’

‘Not a problem,’ snapped the PM.

‘... ah, acknowledged, PM, and we can run all that through a RAAF CAOC. So such staff as I can boast have very roughly worked out a scheme for a mix of fixed Navy radars and SAM launchers with mixed manning, protected by Army and mostly on Army bases, with a RAAF CAOC running the battle and the fighters associated with it. The Tracers are now priceless as they provide both immediate and ongoing radar coverage. Even though their systems are austere they are still better than the first Hawkeyes, for example. Using them will leave a gap in ocean surveillance, though.’

‘Can we get more?’

‘No PM. No more physically exist aside from five in museums and they have refused to sell them.’

‘I do not want sea surveillance shorted at all. Options?’

‘We are still rebuilding S-2G Trackers into S-2T(A) Trackers, PM, and there’s still plenty of them in storage in the USA. Another option might lie in the P-3 line. Eight P-3B aircraft were converted into Airborne Early Warning and Control aircraft in the early 90s, the term ‘control’ was dropped from the official designation along with the corresponding ‘C’, renaming the model ‘P-3-AEW’. This made it more easily differentiated from the E-3-AWACS operated by the U.S. Air Force. The P-3-AEWs are used by U.S. Customs and Border Protection's Office of Air and Marine for drug interdiction and homeland security missions.’

He shrugged. ‘That would take time, more money and such, but we have the Tracker rebuild line up and running right now, there’s no risk. I’ll also add that the Tracers are going to be doing sea surveillance to a degree anyway as all our cities are coastal and Canberra’s already wrecked.’

‘Recommendation?’

‘Stick with Trackers, PM. Better than yet another type. We can do it starting right away and we’ll just make the Squadrons larger.’

His face took an even grimmer look. ‘And with the Tracker project being run out of Melbourne the project team is located at RAAF Point Cook, so unlike most of the other project teams they are both alive and intact. They even have their IT and data all intact. If we did go P3 conversion, it would take months just to get a team together.’

‘We don’t have months. OK. Get them ramped up and get all the Trackers you have to, and increase Squadron sizes or make new Squadrons if you have to, as well. I know that will be hard with the manpower losses the services have taken and the loss of all the project managers in Canberra, but make it happen. Also, Army has a role here if only in local AA defence. Do not forget that, and again equipment is needed.’

He looked around the room. ‘We are in emergency mode gentlemen. Life boat politics is all we have left. We do not want to waste money on junk gear or junk ideas but we will do some of that. It’s inevitable. It can be forgiven is the mistakes were honest. But make no mistake here, we have to move fast and far after this blow and after these losses. It will not be easy, we just have to make it happen.’

He looked at the clock.

‘CDF, anything else before I dismiss you to your duties?’

‘Only one thing, PM. I am bringing back a number of retired senior officers as defence civilians to start re-establishing some critical areas of the department. I do not want to re-establish a big fat target like Russell was...’

‘Approved, sack any who can’t adapt or who start empire-building. Dispersal is also approved. People can talk over video link or the bloody phone.’

The Acting CDF nodded and left. So did all but the new Deputy PM, Defence Minister and Treasurer.

The PM looked steadily at his soon-to-be new deputy, and former political opponent.

‘The tentative sounding out of initial US reactions yielded interesting results. Your nuclear concept echoes what the US President just told me. I informed him that from our perspective the Canberra Strike was a strategic decapitation action using weapons of mass destruction. He paused when I used those words, then asked me what our initial thinking was in regards to our future national response. I replied as we both discussed; that as a nation, we intended to move to a position where attacks upon us with weapons of mass destruction were effectively deterred, and that this would be a bipartisan political action. He responded that he personally understood our new position and would discuss it with his own strategic advisers. So the seed is firmly planted. No substantive response to it of course, he stressed the personal nature of his response so it is fully deniable. The Defence Minister has been instructed to go to Washington for negotiations and to organise a visit to Jerusalem. Aside from looking at the thickness of the salt crust there on issues relating to means of developing a deterrent, he’s also to look at the way they manage their nation in arms and any available and suitable equipment they may have available in reserve.’

He looked at his notes. ‘I think that the comments on the plan for the ambassadors are good ones. There are some we need to recall to form the senior department heads. There are a number of retired DFAT people we can also tap, but the middle management plan seems to be best served by pulling a lot of the deputy Ambassadors and some of their best administration staff plus the entire UN staff and using them to form the core of a new agency.’

oOo

Department of Veteran’s Affairs
Woden, Australian Capital Territory

Maximillian Gerrack looked around the table. Full Department Head meeting, all the executive is here, there’s the Secretary himself and the DepSec. What is that Army general doing here? Guess I’ll find out.

The Secretary spoke first, of course.

‘Right. No beating around the bush, you all know about the hit we’ve taken. No argument there, everyone had lost friends, associates and in many cases family. The Machinery of Government changes are enormous, you will come to use the acronym MoG as a curse. There’s no help for it. Basically, all that can go back to the states will go back to the states. The Federal Public Service is going to shrink and refocus on core Federal functions per the Constitution and the early days of the Federation.’

‘OK, bottom line time as we’ve no time to waste. The APS had about 133,000 people. Roughly speaking, we’ve lost 30,000 killed or so badly injured they can’t return and something like 10,000 are guesstimated to quit or are wounded and will choose not to return. So now we have very roughly 90,000 people. That won’t increase. As many functions as possible are going back to the states, especially education, agriculture, health, tourism, energy and stuff like that. Where a national coordination structure is demanded, we will provide that on a minimalist basis, as a small secretariat, minimum possible. And we’re transitioning to war footing. For a start, the individual departmental employment agreements are all going, we’ll all be paid the same on a median basis across the APS. All staff are now salaried, so you work as long as you have to work to do the job, no overtime. If people don’t like it, find another job. The jobs are still much more secure than in civil employment. Government employee’s right to strike is withdrawn but they retain the right to be in a union.’

He brought a slide up on the screen. ‘Very roughly, indicative only, here’s what we lost in Canberra in terms of killed. The 1% loss level means we’ve lost some from that department, but no idea how many yet, everyone lost people, that’s all it shows. Anything over 50% is essentially all gone, the rest are wounded or so traumatised they’re out of action. Any Department over 20% killed is to all intents and purposes out of action. So AG’s lost 20% of their people in Canberra killed, you can guess that means 20 to 30% more wounded, the rest pretty shaken up at best, so AG’s is out of action for a bit. The rest you can think of similarly.

Attorney-General's 20%
Agriculture and Water Resources 1%
Communications and the Arts 1%
Defence Central 75%
Education and Training 1%
Employment 1%
Finance 5%
Foreign Affairs and Trade 95%
Health 1%
Human Services 1%
Immigration and Customs 5%
Industry, Innovation and Science 1%
Infrastructure and Regional Development 30%
Social Services 1%
Environment and Energy 1%
Prime Minister and Cabinet 95%
Veterans' Affairs 1%
Treasury25%’

There was a bitter silence as they absorbed the overall picture.

‘There is no choice but to load shed. The historical transfer of tasking and responsibility from the States to the centre is over, they’re getting it all back. The PM has briefed the Premiers, they get it all back, they get back the GST paid in their state, if they want more revenue it’s on them to compete with other states to improve their economy and generate that revenue. State grants are over, that money goes to the war effort. Here’s a stab at the structure we are moving to, just early stage planning as I reckon this will shrink further, nine departments, two are super-departments though, the two Homelands:

Attorney-General's
Communications, Transport and Infrastructure
Foreign Affairs and Trade
Homeland Affairs (Conscription, Employment and Welfare)
Homeland Protection (Immigration, Customs, Border)
Munitions and Mobilisation (includes Energy)
Prime Minister and Cabinet
Treasury and Finance
War’

‘It gets better. In terms of savings right off the bat, $1.3 billion by defunding ABC and SBS and at least something from selling the assets. All but emergency foreign aid goes too, after all as we know much of it simply goes to consultants and corrupt politicians, saving $3 billion, except for mobilisation, mostly eliminate the agriculture and industry departments and their associated programs, none of them actually produce anything, and save a further $4 billion, drastically reduce Commonwealth spending on schools, environment, housing where they simply duplicate state functions, saving $12 billion. All the Commonwealth subsidies and spending on windfarms and such crap saves $2.5 billion. We will also save about $2 billion in terms of the damage to the APS, contraction and elimination of redundant departments will save about $4 billion.’

‘That’s about $28.8 billion. As much will come from welfare cuts and the nearly 200 federal agencies are being halved, that’s the initial order and it’s to be as many as possible so expect it to be more than half of the total. If it does not support the war effort, it’s gone. Some, like the Australian Broadcasting Corporation and Special Broadcasting Service, are being defunded and sold, some, like the Northern Land Council and Human Rights Commission are just being defunded and shut down, some, like Tourism Australia and the National Offshore Petroleum Safety and Environmental Management Authority are being broken up or transferred to the relevant States, NOPSEMA’s going to WA for example as it’s got most of the offshore industry, some like the National Measurement Institute are remaining, although all of those are being rationalised and all will take at least a 20% budget and staff cut.’

‘The Department of Veteran’s Affairs is about to be fundamentally changed and in large part re-purposed. So from the top. I am going to be the Secretary of Prime Minister and Cabinet, tasked with rebuilding that organisation from scratch as they all died. The DepSec and another 5% of staff is off to help rebuild DFAT, using whoever’s useful from Department of Education, which is abolished except for a national standards coordination secretariat of no more than 50 and which will be within PM&C. DVA becomes the Veteran’s Affairs section of the Department of War. You will work hand-in-glove through a part of Homeland Affairs called Conscription. Employment and Welfare will be greatly reduced. Basically, when Fred the perennially unemployed professional welfare recipient comes in to Centrelink one fine day he’ll be given his conscription papers. Bingo, no longer unemployed, needs no welfare: he gets registered on a single ID number for Conscription, War and you guys. If he’s on a medical pension, he’ll be assessed by a military medical board. Genuines will stay, we all know there are many non-genuines, they get charged with fraud, gaoled if guilty and are then conscripted after they serve time.’

‘Conscription for national service is universal for under 50’s. Early days yet. Looks like it’ll be tiered and mostly unpaid, all locally based, the lucky ones get two years military from high school, full time and a stipend even if it’s not much more than beer money. It ranges from there down to something like eight years on quarter time with, say, your local SES unit or Civil Defence Unit or Railway Security Unit or whatever all pretty much unpaid but all under military discipline. Army rank structure for simplicity. People can qualify as ‘already done it’, it’s crazy to say that a local volunteer bush fire brigade bloke with ten years under his belt has not done something for his country. He’ll get a national service rank and a national service completion certificate. They are looking at married women who’ve raised three or four kids in the same light too, nobody can say that a married woman who’s done that has not worked her backside off and given the country something extremely valuable.’

He paused and checked the time. ‘OK, veterans. We’re already getting veterans coming out of the woodwork. If a fit 80 year old WWII combat vet volunteers to help train national servicemen for a few half-days a week we can use him. Even if it’s only as Barère said in 1793: Henceforth, until the enemies have been driven from the territory of the republic, the French people are in permanent requisition for army service. The young men shall go to battle; the married men shall forge arms and transport provision; the women shall make tents and clothes, and shall serve in the hospitals; the children shall turn old linen into lint; the old men shall repair to the public places, to stimulate the courage of the warriors and preach the unity of the Republic and hatred of kings; and the veterans already count of course. It’s pretty much all going to be locally based, they’re still nutting that out but it looks like a sort of local regiment structure under the old military district structure. So the, oh I dunno, say the Woden Valley Regiment might be part of the Territories Division. It’ll have an army group who are its best, a SES group, bushfire fighting group, civil defence group, civil engineering group, road security group, medical support group and so on. It will link to all locally based ADF regular and reserve units. A conscript might be grabbed from the Woden Valley Regiment’s schools, we’ll do very basic training, and he gets picked to go to Navy. Ok, he’s still Woden Valley Regiment. He does his time in Navy and comes back. Becomes, oh, a plasterer say. He’s done his time, so he’s a Woden Valley Regiment military reserve, Navy. Now he has his active reserve stint. But he can also say ‘hey, I want to help out as a bushfire brigade bloke in the WVR’ and he can do that, decision’s up to the regiment. Only if he moves permanently out of the regimental catchment will he ever leave the regiment. If he lives in its catchment the ten years after his two years Navy time and marries and moves to Yamba to live and wants to continue as a bushfire bloke up there, he can transfer to that local regiment. That’s a general idea, it’s all very early days, you can see the local focus and that it’s universal. We are conscripting from the top down, not 18 up, and everybody’s in. Welcome to the nation in arms and yes, every school will have a fitness responsibility and a military training section. Everyone gets fit and learns drill and basic musketry in school. Going to be using a lot of 22 ammo real soon.’

He looked around. ‘You now know as much as anyone. That’s because you need to know. You are part of the Department of War, which does not count for your own conscription service. At the very upper end, some people will be sort of nationalised. The head of a big freight company, for example, might be told that he’s to hand over as he’s being grabbed to handle some vital logistics role. That might be his conscript time. Lots going on.’

He looked at his watch. “I have to go. Spread the word, the APS just got tougher and grew harder edges, touchy-feely is over, you work until the job is done. Jobs are secure but low performance won’t be tolerated, incompetence won’t be tolerated, work to old rules won’t be tolerated, and workplace abuse is cause for immediate dismissal and conscription into the next course at Kapooka so God help you if you are a workplace bully who exploits the new circumstances. Oh, General Dechaineaux here has been recalled from retirement and is your new boss, I’ll let him introduce himself as I must leave right now.’

[Jotun]

Good to see this again. The only thing I do not really agree with is that the message is for Bonn.

Bonn at D+13 is a collection of bombed-out shells of former government buildings, and West Germany has already been preparing for a war of national survival for fifty years and fought it for thirteen days, with 1.3 million people, mostly men, under arms. Which is going to change in TLW soon, by the way.

The recipients of the Soviet "message" are more likely countries like NZ, Chile, Brazil, the Caribbean and Central American countries not on the USSR's payroll, South Africa etc. As with most of Soviet "messages", this will have backfired spectacurlarly.

[drmarkbailey]

Thanks Jotun - that's a good point.

That said, I think that an operation like this would be 'sold' internally as broadly as possible. it would indeed be sold as 'a message for Bonn', (and as you rightly point out)' for NZ, Chile, Brazil, the Caribbean and Central American countries not on the USSR's payroll'.

I won't claim that the Soviet plans and intents actually work (or are even valid), and certainly doubt their competence! I agree that this action would blow up in their faces and they'd never see it coming.

I'm yet to meet a competent communist, and present as my evidence the Chinese Communist Party.

Cheers: Mark

[Jotun]

Thanks Jotun - that's a good point.

That said, I think that an operation like this would be 'sold' internally as broadly as possible. it would indeed be sold as 'a message for Bonn', (and as you rightly point out)' for NZ, Chile, Brazil, the Caribbean and Central American countries not on the USSR's payroll'.

I won't claim that the Soviet plans and intents actually work (or are even valid), and certainly doubt their competence! I agree that this action would blow up in their faces and they'd never see it coming.

I'm yet to meet a competent communist, and present as my evidence the Chinese Communist Party.

Cheers: Mark

The problem is when military matters are treated as politically expedient "science", and not an art thanks to the largely unpredictable nature of warfare. The Party says this message is going to be heard, because Lenin once wrote it on a piece of toilet paper while sitting on the crapper in Switzerland, so by Lenin, the message HAS to be heard...that's not how things work in the real world.

[jemhouston]

The Kremlin needs to get a return call. I lost track was this before after Moscow Mule(?)?

[James1978]

The Kremlin needs to get a return call. I lost track was this before after Moscow Mule(?)?

Moscow Mule was on D+6 and D+7.

[jemhouston]

The Kremlin needs to get a return call. I lost track was this before after Moscow Mule(?)?

Moscow Mule was on D+6 and D+7.

Thank you

[James1978]

Nikolaevski Komsomolets was one of a handful of specialised raiders designed for just two purposes. The first was to make specific political points, the second was to attack specific but lightly or undefended military targets.

Which begs the question, are others still lurking out there or were they killed before Moscow gave them launch orders? Because there are more than a few allied / allied leaning countries that are just as vulnerable.

[Jotun]

Nikolaevski Komsomolets was one of a handful of specialised raiders designed for just two purposes. The first was to make specific political points, the second was to attack specific but lightly or undefended military targets.

Which begs the question, are others still lurking out there or were they killed before Moscow gave them launch orders? Because there are more than a few allied / allied leaning countries that are just as vulnerable.

If the Soviets want Brazil, Chile and other bigger, technically non-aligned nations to send troops to Europe or Korea or Saudi-Arabia...

[jemhouston]

I think everyone who can, has spread out the government offices.

[Jotun]

The KGB defector could have information about the Soviet raiders somewhere in his assortment of data. The damn things are partly KGB manned, and they are potential terror weapons.

[Bernard Woolley]

The Kiwis would be similarly vulnerable. However, they evacuated the Beehive the moment the news about Canberra reached Wellington. Their government is now operating on a dispersed basis.

The raiders are a diminishing return, IMVHO. They can only stay at sea so long and Allied nations are now more alert.

[Matt Wiser]

Those kinds of raiders, certainly. But a "Classic" raider, or two, or four, say.... More along the lines of Atlantis, Pinguin, Michel, Kormoran, etc.. No doubt the idea occurred to the Soviet Naval Staff at some point.

[Simon Darkshade]

This contains some excellent detail. When you wax lyrical about military matters, you are in your oeuvre and it shows. The discussion of air defence at the Cabinet meeting and the action sequences are well written and work absolutely seamlessly.

But, there are enough bees in bonnets to fill a hive in this.

Put simply, it is one man's reworking of huge swathes of the Australian political system, federal and state, rather than a reasonably accurate rendering of what would be done at the time. Now, I don't necessarily disagree with quite a bit of what is being done, but that is more a matter of being one of the other two semi-active Aussie posters here and having the general leanings of we board Antipodeans.

1.) The first issue is projection.

- Even with the dashed smell of burning bodies still wafting heavily, you have G-G Michael Jeffrey mooting changing the entire set up of the Senate by fiat. That isn't the first thing, second thing or the 87th thing that would be on his mind, or that of any member of the remnant of Parliament. It sticks out like certain bits of a dog. Is there a place for a reexamination of that part of Federal Parliament? Absolutely. But not when bodies are still unrecovered. We have some degree of historical precedents as to how Mr. Howard and others reacted to terrible events with only a portion of the loss of life here, such as Bali, and there wasn't a skerrick of off-base remodeling, but rather addressing the real issues that are faced

- Full national service: as said in 3 below, is already a sine qua non; the tap should already be running, so it will just be turned up further

- Permanent nation at arms: This doesn't come across as John Howard speaking, but Mark Bailey, in terms of the idiolect and turn of phrase. The concept is also fundamentally unnecessary. Full mobilisation for the duration of the war and then some? Absolutely. Permanent? Silly

- Return of whole government functions to the states: To some extent and in some areas, this could be done, but in the main, it is the type of handwaving stuff that simply couldn't work. The states have no expertise in a whole range of areas, wildly varying manpower, experience and expertise and no desire to run the whole of some areas. Fobbing everything off on them is just silly fantasy, not what would be among the very first things to come to the mind of John Winston Howard after the biggest atrocity ever suffered by our nation

- Ripping up large parts of the Constitution: Canberra has been blasted. The Constitution hasn't. The High Court is dead; the law has not disappeared. Proposing to tear up huge swathes of extremely entrenched aspects of the Australian federal settlement, such as state taxation rights/lack thereof, is something that seems good when getting giddy with the progress of a fantasy but actually executing is like stage diving into a thorn bush

- Dismantling the welfare state: To use an Australianism, yeah nah. This doesn't read as John Howard's natural reaction to a human and national catastrophe, but a little something that has come up in other projects/writing you've been involved with before (APOD). With the greatest of respect, and that is absolutely meant, this is a classic example of overreaching where the story drivers should be taking us and shifting into the realm of pet hobbyhorses. It is also bloody unnecessary. See 2 and 3 below

- Universal conscription: Not the worst principle idea, but when the extent of it is outlined, it becomes counterproductive. Calling up everyone under 50 tanks the economy, which is already getting screwed by the small matter of WW3 and now the Canberra Event, and it also overloads the military with too many extra bodies that can't be put to good use. I would suggest that digging bloody field fortifications with shovel and pickaxe all around southern WA, SA, Victoria and NSW is just pointless make work, made even more pointless with the vast array of tools and excavators around the place. No one is coming and they're not needed. Atavism for its own sake isn't a virtue

- "Singapore has found that their NS scheme has drastically improved national health standards and drastically lowered public health costs. They have found that once they get used to being fit and eating right, most people are reluctant to again become fat unhealthy slobs" : What type of human being talks like this after 15,000 to 20,000 people have been horribly killed? No normal ones. This comes across as a factoid you're slipping in as an approving nod at Singers, which has come up in different discussions back ~13 years ago as well; I don't disagree with this, but there is absolutely a time and a place for such discussions and it isn't while Canberra is burning or from Random Labor Backbencher

- "Some professional welfare types, and let there be no bullshit here, we know that there are many of them, who says that they are too unfit or diseased or drugged or just plain lazy": Again, time and place is wrong, but putting this into the mouth of a Labor pollie is just silly. It also comes out very much as the author's voice, not anything that should have a role in a story about the aftermath of a missile attack

- The segue into mooning over the potential glories of National Service and what can be done: As said a few times, this sounds very forced and artificial; it simply isn't necessary in a country that is already conscripting its men left, right and centre; and stylistically is out of place with real priorities

- An ALP backbencher of 2005: 'I also stand by my proposal that we should also go nuclear, starting immediately with power stations and with nuclear weapons to follow as fast as we can.'

This fails the pub test - it isn't what would be a priority; it isn't how any of the 60 ALP types elected in 2004 would talk, think or operate; and it isn't his call. Further, the nuclear issue should already have started to change for Australia at this time given the dramatic shift of ~1999 and a continuing Cold War

- John Howard talking about term limits for politicians: This never came up in Australian politics in ordinary times, and in the face of the biggest disruption to Australian politics ever experienced, it doesn't come across as the conservative approach that Mr. Howard was well known and trusted for

- Having a vituperative go at CNN in favour of Fox: Whilst CNN still sucked back in the day, it wasn't nearly as pronounced or entrenched as now. Further, without the particular circumstances of a Bush presidency to get them to ruffle their tailfeathers and cluck disapprovingly, there wouldn't be much basis for the same 'Commie News Network' reputation. Again, this sticks out like dog's parts

- Having a go at the 'trendy modern and post-modern art': This isn't what Tony Abbott would prioritise 2 days after such a horror. Projecting that sheer pettiness onto him is just silly. Yes, it would be appalling if people did mourn art more than kids, but they aren't people, just strawmen

- Getting Paul Keating (!) to come in a a toe cutter of the arts et al: This isn't what Paul Keating showed when he was in office or when he has left and become a sycophant of Communist China par excellence. This just doesn't work, nor does it enhance or advance the story

- Shrinking the Public Service: It is necessary after the hit taken to adjust, but to hack at it in a permanent fashion comes across as authorial opportunism, and without a real driver. Abolishing the Ministry of Education and returning things to the states sounds well and good, but plenty of said states couldn't organise a session for the excessive consumption of human alcohol beer in a facility devoted to its manufacture, and not just in education. The result of that is chaotically screwing up education for the better part of a generation - not a wise nor conservative policy, nor, I would argue, a priority to pursue in the middle of World War Three

- Handwaving everything back to the States: "If they want more revenue it’s on them to compete with other states to improve their economy and generate that revenue"...This really hits the contradictory third rail (excuse the Yankism) at the heart of Australian federalism, whereby bloody no one east of the Nullarbor can compete with NSW and Vic. You've already killed the Senate off in an earlier thought bubble by the G-G whilst bodies were still barbecuing, but with that thinking, there is nothing stopping full on economic collapse of states such as SA and Tasmania, and with that, the crumbling of any sense of Federation

- By the by, in 2004/05, grants from the Cth to the States was $4 billion. GST revenue returned to the states was $35 billion, which was all the revenue it raised (see the budget link below on Page 50)


- Defunding the ABC: Real projection for 2005
- Foreign Aid: There wouldn't be any beyond stuff to the Pacific Islands in light of the 1999 PoD

- Windfarms and Such Crap: In 2005, I would suggest that there wasn't expenditure on that. Budget expenditure is on p 88-90.

- Quoting Barère: Again, with respect, no one talks like this, no one quotes French Revolutionaries at length, and this sticks out as highly artificial

2.) The second issue is related to that directing anger at Australia today back onto the canvas of a 2005 Australia that is markedly different from that of the @ 2005 Australia.

- What atomisation that had lead to increasingly poor governance as of 2005? Howard had been returned with a majority the previous year.
- Australia in 2005 had quite low unemployment, hovering around the high 4% range for most of the year; that would already be absolutely lower due to the circumstances discussed in #3 below (already running conscription)
- The welfare state, never really an extensive Australian political phrase as much as in Britain, was already staked by this time in @, what with Mutual Obligation. Cutting pensions would be right out, as would taking an axe to some degree of Howard's popular middle class welfare
- There wasn't the mid 2020s issue with fat buggers at the time, with 35% of the population being overweight or obese, which was broken down into 17% overweight and 18% obese. This wouldn't be an issue that would come readily to the mind of Labour Opposition Leader X in 2005, let alone after what has happened
- https://www.populationpyramid.net/australia/2005/ That is Australia in 2005. It behooves us to drill down into that and really interrogate the data on what age groups can provide useful military service and which ones are frankly better off in civvy street at work

3.) The third issue is the inconsistency with the other bits of world building. This is an Australia that has already partially mobilised since the 1998/1999 crisis came to a head, so that fulsome discussion of national service isn't necessary. Indeed, the whole set up of the @ early 2000s has been sent flying like the stumps of some of the Poms when Mitchell Johnson got all snarly in 2011 or so.

- Where historically, Costello delivered surplus after surplus and built the basis for what would be a mining boom, here, we have an Australia already mobilising militarily and thus on a completely different budgetary footing
- https://archive.budget.gov.au/2004-05/f ... 004-05.pdf What's printed there on Page 5 and later expanded upon has very, very little relevance to TLW Australia 2005.
- Where the big issues of the 2004 poll were domestic, after the rare foreign policy election of 2001, this will again be a major factor
- The Army is going to be bigger, the RAAF bigger and the RAN bigger, all pre WW3, and this will likely be paid for through a combination of no surplus and less spending on discretionary areas such as the welfare budget (and specifically family payments


4.) Way, way back are the little errors and miscellany
- There was no Costco anywhere on the continent in 2005, with the first one opening up in 2009
- Bugger all Australian high schools have any sense of 'track and field coaches' even now and certainly didn't back in 2005 - that is an Americanism that has somehow drifted in
- Did anyone in Australia use the word 'peacenik' in 2005?
- Why would a DVA Secretary wax lyrical about the many joys of conscription, or display general government stats? That isn't just going off topic, but doing so in a sports car

5.) A fair bit of this could be avoided by tightening up the story, focusing on what is really important, working it to reflect TLW 2005 rather than either @ or a particular version of it, and playing to strengths
- Rather than painting changes as a radical riposte to modernity or other such stuff, and putting them down as permanent features, have them as Emergency Measures
- Don't have unnamed SI characters rage against peaceniks, postmodern art, the SBS and what not, but have Mr. Howard address the nation, laying out the challenge, mourning the dead and displaying the type of decent, sensible conservative leadership that got him to The Lodge
- Rather than order people to do this or that, have a scene of hundreds of regular Australians volunteering for the Armed Forces and Civil Defence, and perhaps consider something involving volunteer country firies going over to help with the recovery; there is plenty of precedent for it in the bushfires over the last 20 years
- Rather than whacking at an Australia that wasn't around at this point with a stick, show how the intent of the Soviet atrocity has already failed
- Remember that Australia already has National Service, so that a proper response could be extension of that to Universal National Service for young men and women (doesn't tank the already wobbly economy); or that plus a Home Guard/Civil Defence Force that is a bit more measured;
- Lose the more egregious political flourishes (and this is coming from someone who wouldn't be unhappy to see many of them) in favour of more Big Picture painting
- Homeland this and Homeland that is very American post 9/11. The more fitting Australian nomenclature would be 'Home Affairs'; Immigration shouldn't be a big issue in the middle of WW3, but if there were a need for a more robust name, then go for 'Border Protection' or 'Border Security'
- Splitting up Mobilisation and Conscription doesn't seem to be the wisest move; rather, the remit of Home Affairs should be Labour, Employment and Welfare
- Getting rid of Health and Education in the middle of a war is most probably going to be counterproductive. I would suggest focusing on what would be the real priorities and actions driven by these events, rather than what someone might like to be prioritised
- You miss a bit of an opportunity to have Kim Beazley survive as Labor Leader and work with him as a Deputy PM in a National Unity Government. He has the experience, the defence chops, the gravitas and the general respect of the men and women on the street as well as the Labour movement that will need to be coopted into The Big Shift/Mobilisation

[drmarkbailey]

From memory, Simon, this 'archive salvage+post' was not even partly finalised before the loss of the old board and like everything was/is not canon until Bernard says so. I certainly can't remember everyone who had inputs into this piece before the loss of the old board. I think I wrote most of the naval bits, Shane and others including Jan and Cye had all sorts of inputs but it certainly was never put into finished form. I think it dates back about eight or more years??? I do recall kicking a lot of these points around and Jan talking about the way the UK might have done it.

I am digging stuff out and just putting it up to help out as best possible. If anyone has a better version and can post it, that's great!

You've raised a bunch of solid editing points here for this old and incomplete piece. May I suggest that you have a go at re-editing this piece to improve it and see how that goes and what Jan thinks of it? I don't have time to do more than repost what I am finding, I can't even reformat them.

Absolutely no reason it can't be collegially reworked into something better! IIRC much of this material has multiple inputs by varying people.

Cheers: mark

[Simon Darkshade]

Mark,

I can have a look at it tomorrow, elide a few bits here and there, try and add in a Howard address and in general, tack it towards where our understanding of TLW Australia has shifted.

It is my only day off until next Saturday, so I can't guarantee I'll be able to do it spurs and all, but in between my own writing, pacifying a demented Labrador and working on the truly atavistic joy of a 35,000 word battalion level orbat, I should have enough time to put something up for offer.

Simon

[drmarkbailey]

No rush, Simon. There's no deadlines here and we are all just having a bit of fun.

Now, back to marking some papers.....

Oh, it's after midnight, papers can damned well wait.

Cheers: mark

[Bernard Woolley]

There is a version of this in the original narrative. I’ll see if I can find it. I wonder, since National Service is canon as being pre-TWW, does reference to conscription need changing?

[James1978]

There is a version of this in the original narrative. I’ll see if I can find it. I wonder, since National Service is canon as being pre-TWW, does reference to conscription need changing?

Chapter 284, I believe.

[Bernard Woolley]

This is the current canon version:

0551 hours GMT. Raider Nikolaevski Komsomolets, the Tasman Sea.
The AP-3C swooped down from 5,000 feet to 300, then roared past the nondescript little container ship not 250 feet from her. The co-pilot had the hand held camera and held the button down. The camera was one of the new and very expensive high-end Olympus electronic ones, and took continuous high quality stills. The 92 Wing Photographic unit had only moved from conventional to electronic imagery a few years beforehand, but they were normal now. The ship was a small, elderly looking container ship, and only partially loaded. The war had hit international trade hard. It was down 18%, enough to spell disaster for many firms. Oh, the bulk carrier trades were booming, longer routes to avoid war zones and submarine threats meant that: evasive routeing alone meant a 10% longer trip, and that was a straight 10% loss in carrying capacity, so you needed 10% more ships to lift the same amount of ironstone, wheat or coal. Convoy cost you another 10-15% of carrying capacity. And demand for all of these products had increased. Same with oil tankers.

But car carriers? Container ships? Whole markets were just gone. Container traffic through the vast Rotterdam container terminals was already down a quarter and was still in free fall. It was a little difficult to maintain exports when Soviet and NATO tanks were exchanging fire in the factory grounds after their artillery had levelled the place. And everyone was converting car and heavy vehicle facilities to war production. The 2005 Dodge Ram was a very ugly pickup truck: but take the bling off it, strip out the sound deadening, beef up the suspension, dump the shiny rims and add light truck wheels, rip out the radio and speakers and all that stuff, paint it matt green and it became a very useful instant light utility truck for the US and other Armies. And that was just the start of the process.

“The box boat checks.” Said the Tacco into the circuit ten minutes later and twenty miles away. “MIC says that they have no ELINT track for her which seems right as her radar is not moving, and the IMO number and name seem OK. They have a departure for her from Ecuador, she’s en-route Kenya. Standard tramp by the available info.”

They were already commencing a rigging run on the next target.

*

Just like many other ships, MV Gunum Lashad was keeping to safer waters. For just this reason there was a new route now, Panama to the Cape south-about Australia. Even the Cape Horn route was back in fashion.

But this time, they were wrong. MV Gunum Lashad was a genuine Bangladesh registered container ship right enough. Her crew looked like the usual wild Third World mix, and she was scruffy and dirty. You just had to dig deeply indeed through innumerable layers of ownership before you’d ever find out who her real owners were. Only you wouldn’t as you’d be very surprised to wake up dead one sunny morning.

*

A month before the war, she’d taken a cargo of mixed goods in containers to Vladivostok. A routine run for the 1,800TEU tramp and one she’d done many times before. She’d had an engine breakdown there and needed work. Well, it was cheap. Many ships got work done in places where it was cheap.

And she’d left with the usual load of battered containers. The Japanese had seen her, she’d swung by Honolulu to deliver a large volume of milled timber and reefers full of frozen fish, then steamed off for Valparaiso.

No-one had checked the midships container stack. There was no need. They were not being offloaded in Honolulu. In fact they could not be. Her hand-picked crew were a mix of Navy and KGB Border guards originally. Nikolaevski Konsomolets was one of a handful of specialised raiders designed for just two purposes. The first was to make specific political points, the second was to attack specific but lightly or undefended military targets.

Today’s mission was political.

Inside the ‘container’ stack amidships were 24 missile tubes taken from store: they had been removed from everything from submarines to cruisers over the years. Anyone watching – and it was broad daylight ninety miles from the Australian coast – would have seen two sides of the container stack change. On both sides, container sides blew off and fell into the sea. Seconds later, 24 massive five ton missiles rode shrieking boosters into the sky. The ship vanished into the base of a gigantic arch of grey rocket-smoke.

The Shaddocks were on their way. Their target was well within range. The SS-N-3 was obsolescent and slow, it moved at barely nine miles a minute. This just did not matter when the target was both fixed, and undefended. And there was nothing obsolete about their GLONASS guidance and INS.

Aboard the ship, frantic work began. Heavy pins and bolts were removed. They had to dump the false stack and use the cranes to re-erect a similar stack of empty containers. Their CO looked calmly at the activity.

At least it will keep them busy until the missiles arrive, he thought, there’s no chance of getting away with this. Below, his XO was already burning the classified material.

*

The refurbished and now thoroughly modern old E-1T Tracer was on a coastal patrol and exercise, she was the second last of the 11 purchased from UAC in Tucson to come through the S-2GT Tracker, C-1T Trader and E-1T Tracer rebuild facility in Avalon, and like her sisters she handled like a dream with the new 2000hp turboprops. The AN/APS-139(A) radar was a variant of that somewhat elderly radar cycle built for the E-2 Hawkeye. In this case it was a lighter, less capable and more austere version also modified to fit its aerial into the E-1 dome. It included much of the component fit made for the AN/APS-145 currently fitted to USN E-2 Hawkeyes. But for the much lower-end mission profile of the RAN Tracers it was far better than adequate.

Then a normal patrol sortie came to a screaming halt as the radar reported the Shaddocks.

*

“I hate this drive.” Said the Deputy Chief of Navy to his Flag Lieutenant. “The politicians decided Bungendore was a great place to put JOC. Fabulous. Now we have to waste an hour each way between Russell Offices and a converted sheep paddock.”
“With all respect due your august rank, Sir, you say that every week.” She replied with a grin.
“Cheeky sod, you say that every week too.”
“Guilty as charged, Sir!”

His personal mobile rang. Hmm. The better half does not normally ring in work hours unless it’s an emergency. He pressed the button and answered.

“Hi, Love, what’s up?”
“Thank God! Where the f*ck are you?”
“Donna ...”
“Shut up and listen. Pull the car over now and take cover. The city is under attack. I am at Kingston foreshore and Russell is gone. It’s all fire and huge explosions and smoke... sh*t!” He heard a massive explosion then his wife was back on. “That was closer ... Parliament...” The phone dropped out cold. No service at all. The system had gone. He stared at it for a second then yelled at the driver to turn around.

*

Two hours later Rear Admiral Russ Derek was at the Wardroom at HMAS Harman and was in radio comms with Maritime Commander. Harman was untouched and running on its own generators. The NAVCOMMSTA was all the comms there was.

The city burned.

“Helicopter from Nowra will be here in an hour, Sir. Get you and your wife to Sydney, MHQ’s picking up the operational load as best they can. Thank God we never moved the Maritime Intelligence Centre and still have the ops floor there.”
“Thanks, CO. What’s the latest?”
“Changing minute by minute still, Sir. Losses are enormous, at least 20 big missiles, but less than 30. Tracer from Nowra detected them as they crossed the coast, got the warning out but it was too late, and we did not have defences or even an air raid alarm. Trackers from Nowra sank the raider after the Tracer backtracked to it. Converted merchie. About thirty survivors being rescued and ops are on-going, she was called ‘Nikolaev Young Communists'. City’s isolated, Sir. No comms and won’t be for days at least, more likely weeks. Big sections of the town have lost electricity, the Black Mountain tower, the whole communications complex, is just gone, the missile hits brought down the whole tower. It fell on what was left of the facility. The Russell complex is wrecked. R1, R2, DIO, DSD are basically piles of burning rubble. DSD works on three shifts so at least some of the workforce is still alive. The old A, E and F buildings are shattered and burning out. Half of Campbell Park has collapsed after a direct hit on the security organisation’s node and the rest is burning out. Foreign Affairs and Trade was pretty much obliterated by two hits. Maybe three. They hit Treasury and Finance, severe damage and many dead, again the buildings are burning out. The whole complex of government buildings in Barton is smashed. Parliament house took two direct hits and it was a sitting day, but some of them were not there yet. Good news, PM Howard’s alive as he was having a meeting at The Lodge with Treasurer Costello and a couple of the senior Ministers, Abbott, Ruddock, forgot who else. The foreign minister’s in the States. Rest are gone, pretty much the entire Opposition is gone. Might be five or ten per cent of the Parliament left alive. Parliament house – there’s no sign that anyone got out alive as at least one missile detonated inside the building and it’s a concrete structure covered with earth so the pressure wave killed them all I hope. They burned to death otherwise. One giant oven after the fires started, and the whole thing has since collapsed, it’s sending flames 200 feet into the sky. There were maybe 20,000, 25,000 people in all those buildings. I’d be astonished if a quarter of them survived.”

He paused.

“One fell into the city centre, hit the ACT Legislative buildings and complex and flattened it. Think it was a miss on Black Mountain. Most of the ACT government and public service is gone.
“You are Chief of Navy now, Sir. There was a service chief’s meeting in R1 and no-one seems to have gotten out of R1 alive apart from some who were running around the lake or absent on duty. Couple of hits each and the buildings collapsed, then burned. Two missile hits JOC, it’s a hole in the ground now. Looks like Shaddocks with one ton warheads. Looks like at least half of them, maybe all of them, were thermobaric. Hard to explain the ridiculous amount of devastation and the lack of survivors otherwise.
“We’ve been almost completely decapitated. That was a mistake. We are a Federated Commonwealth. It’ll hurt badly, but it’s not even going to slow military operations down.
“And they did not need nukes to do it. Small mercies. With Navy, Sir, I think that a minimum of two thirds of our star rank officers are dead and I would not be surprised if it was four fifths. Governor-General has approved martial law in the ACT but it’s mostly to give legislative approval to seal off the Parliamentary Triangle and back up the Police if they need it. Air Commander is now CAF, Land Commander is now Chief of Army, you are CN and acting CDF after the PM’s phone call.”

The admiral took all of this in before replying.

“Sh*t. And the political implications are endless. The Federal government has essentially been destroyed, and it was the critical functions they hit, defence and foreign affairs, the strategically vital intelligence agencies. We are going to have to collapse the other functions to find the people to even start rebuilding them. Perhaps a silver lining is that the draining of power from the states to the centre has to cease now.” Rear-Admiral Derek replied.
“Yes, Sir, emergency powers act’s been declared by the Governor General.”
“And we know why they hit us.”
“Sir?”
“Look at the message this gives to Bonn, or to London or Paris, or any of the European NATO members for that matter. What they have just done to us they can do to them too.”

***

2113 hours GMT. Canberra, ACT, Australia.
The Prime Minister looked with haunted eyes at the fourteen surviving members of his government, the Governor-General, and the five surviving members of the Opposition. The Governor-General had been both insistent, and within his powers. They were sitting in what was to him a familiar place, old Parliament House. Many of the windows were blown out and the floor of the PM’s old office sparkled with tiny chips of glass: only the larger chunks had been swept up. The building was otherwise only lightly damaged.

It stank of the bitter stench of things not meant to burn.

“We are all shocked, we are all shaken, and we are all exhausted. The ruins of Parliament House are still burning. But are we agreed on this?”

There were nods around the table, strewn with tea cups and the remains of a couple of sandwich platters a staffer had brought in from the Canberra Costco. The negotiations had been surprisingly straight forward.
It was not like there was any real choice. None of the political parties could possibly rebuild themselves within at least three or four years. More likely that was five or six.

“So a Government of National Unity, we run the 2006 election on party lines but retain the government of national unity until the 2009 election.”

The interim leader of the opposition – a previously obscure back-bencher who had been cheerfully conspiring at a coffee shop with some others from the opposition’s right faction when the missiles hit – just nodded.

“There’s nothing else we can do, PM. I will not pretend that I don’t have objections, but they are.” He hunted for words. “Remnants of a previous life, really. And I can only agree on the political changes we have thrashed out. To be blunt, they are essential to survival. I will not even pretend that reforming the senate and the other reforms do not appeal to me. They will cripple the extremists on both left and right, stop the atomisation which has led to increasingly poor governance and give people a say in policy matters at each election-referendum. Is it legal? Well, the High Court is gone and they are all dead so we fall back on Royal Prerogative and custom. The Governor-General is the final defender of the constitution in a way.”

The Governor-General rumbled his own comment.

“That needs to be done, 76 senators, twelve from each of the six states and two from each of the mainland territories; fine when they were not supposed to be party members, but that stopped long ago. And the unequal representation was ridiculous. We have about 22,000,000 people. One senator for every 500,000 is better, that’s 14 for NSW, 9 for Queensland, 3 for South Australia, one for Tasmania, 12 for Victoria, 5 for Western Australia and one for all the territories combined. ACT to come back under a Minister. The other reforms make the states compete with each other economically, which inspires good governance, and gets the federal government out of what is really their business.”

The PM shook his head.

“All well and good, but we are politicians, and discussing this means we are huddling in our own little puddle of expertise, that’s just human. But full national service for everyone with no exceptions, moving to permanent nation-in-arms, full war mobilisation, return of whole government functions entirely back to the states and locking them there, and paying for it by essentially dismantling most of the welfare state, to be blunt and no insult intended, I never thought to see such proposals supported by and some coming from the ALP.”
“It’s not a new plan by any means, just a variation on what has been contingency-planned to death for decades.”

The PM nodded.

“Of course, trying to swallow an elephant will cause one to choke. So, don’t. Eat it one bite at a time.”

The current head of the opposition nodded wearily – they were all exhausted having been up all night.

“Call up without exception and divert a percentage, which is call up numbers minus the maximum the training system can be expanded to deal with, into civil defence Companies, commanded by old ex-military. These are under the Defence Force Discipline Act so they are formally in the military. The peaceniks, conscientious objectors and such? Fine, they stay in the Army Civil defence unit permanently. No exceptions to call-up for anyone not crippled or insane. Zero. Male or female, no difference, and you cannot buy your way out. Those who refuse to use weapons get to stay as ditch-diggers or at best are trained as medics or stretcher bearers or whatever. Those units are actually army and they learn drill, fire and rescue, first aid, field fortifications the old-fashioned way using a shovel and pickaxe, all the early 20th century military skills minus the combat stuff. We bite the bullet and make them locally-based. Suburb companies, town battalions. First thing they do is build locally any defences, shelters or local remediation for their own people in their own area. We will have to reactivate as many old defence facilities as we can, I am thinking of things like the old Army coast defence facilities, the big training camps, some of the old WWII airbases and disused industrial facilities like Cockatoo Island. We need a huge military expansion too, so they link, we already own lots of those and their first jobs can be rebuilding them. Above all else this gets them physically fit, far too many modern men are not. The plans described this as a pre-military-training structure to get all the simple but time-consuming stuff out of the way.”

He paused.

“And it’s the same for women, but into all-female units, but keep them on the civil defence side. The best will volunteer for better roles anyway. As the training facilities expand, simultaneously divert new entries aside from the top ten percent or so into the civil defence sausage machine and accelerate the numbers who have already done their civil defence time. These are people who can already say that they can march, look after their kit and they have the basic military skills training. From then it’s just the actual fighting skills they need to learn. The good part about this is that it leverages off all the existing non-military training infrastructure in the country. Every fire ground, every first aid facility and provider, every gym, every football oval, all of it. Any high-school track and field coach can spend a full week improving the fitness of recruits by teaching them to wolf trot until they can do it all day. The national survival advantage lies in making this permanent. Singapore has found that their NS scheme has drastically improved national health standards and drastically lowered public health costs. They have found that once they get used to being fit and eating right, most people are reluctant to again become fat unhealthy slobs.
“Best of all, a two-tier National Service system works for three years in the civil defence or two in the combat arms, with everyone in for the duration anyway. Civil Defence women who get married and have a child can be paused, hell, if they stay married and have three or four children why shouldn’t that count? That’s a genuine service to the country and something only a woman can do – but married. Not un-weds with no idea who the Dads are. Something to think more about. And as the Civil Defence has no combat role, none of the excuses work. Some professional welfare types, and let there be no bullsh*t here, we know that there are many of them, who says that they are too unfit or diseased or drugged or just plain lazy just generates a response that ‘The National Service Civil Defence Army will fix that little problem for you, sport!’ And if it’s locally based, the peer pressure to stay and stick it out will be tremendous. Hmm. Do we need a big labour-intensive national development project?”

The PM looked interested.

“Like what?”
“Dunno, another Snowy hydro scheme probably might not cut it. Maybe something as big as the old plans to link Lake Eyre to the sea and make a thirty foot deep inland sea. Maybe a whole new major city in the Kimberleys.”
“More to think about, then.’ Sighed the PM.

The interim opposition leader – soon to be Deputy PM – simply shrugged.

“We’ll have to add some stick. No taxpayer assistance for education or other things if you fail at it and wind up in some sort of criminality or with a bad disciplinary rep.”

Again the PM said that he had not thought to hear such words in his life.

“Well, if having the functions and mechanisms of the government in Canberra essentially destroyed does not say that the threat is existential, what does? This just became existential! We have to survive first. We are back to that, now, raw survival. I also stand by my proposal that we should also go nuclear, starting immediately with power stations and with nuclear weapons to follow as fast as we can. If we’d been a nuclear power, PM, they would not have dared to do this to us. If that ship had 24 nuclear tipped cruise missiles, Australia would have ceased to exist yesterday.”

He smiled, but it was just a weary stretching of the lips.

“I am being radical, PM. What choice is there? If nothing else, I’ll cheerfully claim in a few years when we return to partisan politics that it was all the ALP’s idea. But we have to survive first. And we’ve just learned that our survival is not guaranteed. Fine. Lesson learned. Now we f*cking well guarantee it. The rest is details at this stage.”

Prime Minister Howard nodded.

“When you are right, you are right. And another thing. We need a new baseline for politicians. We have had, too many lawyers on our side and too many uni activist to union types on your side. No more. We need people with life experience outside of politics, and I think we need to limit politicians too. Maybe ten or twelve years only, that’s it. We were forming a disconnected governing class. That has to stop.”

The nods around the table were reluctant and rueful, but they did nod.

*

By blatantly appealing to the biases of its audience Fox News had been increasing its audience share of the news networks for some years now. The war had accelerated this trend to just under light speed. By at least wearing their bias on their sleeves they had endeared themselves to many in Western militaries over and above the rest of the media; although to be fair it was mainly the US military who liked Fox, a lot of the European NATO militaries found them incomprehensible. So they received far more assistance than did their rival, referred to with poisonous seriousness as the ‘Communist News Network’ by those same militaries, something that always brought a wry smile to the faces of the Checkists, followed by a chuckle. Had nobody in Western militaries ever met real communists? To them CNN seemed as supportive of the Capitalist Imperialist system as the rest of the Western media.

In the Kremlin and at the Lubyanka, they watched Fox, although often largely for entertainment. One of the most amusing things about watching Fox was seeing what innocent person who happened to be slightly left of centre would be accused of being a Soviet spy. Those assigned to watch Fox within the KGB currently had a sweepstake running on how long it would take for the channel to eventually identify a real agent via the law of averages; so far nobody had collected the pot. Meanwhile they hoped that Fox would continue the ‘good work’, as they felt it helped their cause.

Within the GRU there was a school of thought that the ‘talking heads’ that had their own segments on the network must be some form of comedy or satire. After all they were so over the top that they could not really believe some of the stuff they were saying? Even Pravda liked to base its lies on some tiny kernel of truth.

‘And in an update to the attack on Canberra, the Australian Prime Minister has announced the formation of a government of national unity, full mobilisation, the introduction of universal national service to form a permanent nation-in-arms and a vast expansion of the military, as well as political reforms and the reduction of the welfare state to pay for it. Jim Alvarez is in our Sydney studio with more ...’

The head of the GRU looked at the screen and shook his head.

“I hope whatever geniuses in the KGB came up with that brilliant idea were watching that. I also hope that they got the message in Bonn.”

His deputy looked at the screen.

“So do I. Because it does not look like they got the message in Canberra.”

***