Note: as during this period the crucial decisions having decades of importance are made, this part 7 will continue in additional posts...
7. Labour rearms - the British Korean War build-up of 1950
The Korean conflict shook the Western world and started a gargantuous military build-up. For Britain, the rearming was particularly painful due to her vulnerable economic status. Furthermore, the policymakers of the era were strongly influenced by coming of the Second World War. It seemed that a world war would be merely some years away. The year of maximum danger, which previously had been thought to be in 1957, would already arrive in 1954.
7.1. The NATO dimension
Britain was not alone in this new era. The new North Atlantic Treaty Organization, with USA as it's back bone, was the framework under which largest part of British defence efforts were being made. The strategic concept of NATO was to destroy by strategic offensive the will and capabilities of USSR and her satellities to wage war.
Royal Navy's primary task in this conflict would be to secure the sea lines of communications against Soviet efforts to cut them. As the leadership of Royal Navy saw it, the most effective way to secure sea lines would be vigorous attacks on the source of the offensive, ie. ports. The threat of fast submarines simply could not be contained otherwise, as the new type of escorts required could not be purchased in large enough numbers.
One way devised both to diminish the escort shortage and to create room for new construction was the active British Military Assistance Program. Under it's auspices the transfer of older British warships to allied navies was accelerated. An intended consequence was that the allied navies were now introduced to British tactics, techniques and equipment which would hopefully show up in future purchases.
Additionally, Royal Navy stressed the importance of carriers as offensive bases. The air attacks on United Kingdom would be of vast more massive scale than during the Second World War. With the offensive power based on carriers, the RAF and allied air forces operating in United Kingdom could concentrate upon air defense of United Kingdom. Lack of offensive forces in UK would also reduce the amount of air attacks to be expected against UK. Particularly during the initial part of the operations the carrier task forces could direct their efforts to a theater mostly in need.
(the OTL document is available in: )
http://www.nato.int/docu/stratdoc/eng/a500328d.pdf
7.2. The atomic dimension
The primary military program of the United Kingdom was the development of British nuclear weapons by AWRE. The staff plans of the era stated requirement of a very large number (800) of fairly small yield atomic bombs (Blue Danube, of 10-12kT yield) as the so called "Super", or hydrogen bomb, was not yet in sight. The Air Ministry had placed an operational requirement to which prototypes of no less than four bombers (Sperrin, Valiant, Victor and Vulcan) were already placed. The bomber prototypes were scheduled to fly in 1951-1952 for operational introduction in 1955-1957. However, the bomb itself was scheduled to be tested in 1952 and introduced in 1953 and the year of maximum danger was to be in 1954.
There were also other problems with the atomic bomb scenarios. The Korean War had displayed that there was yet a problem of strategic surprises and the nuclear weapons of the era required an elaborate assembly scheme, they were not yet "push-button weapons" ready from the first moment. Thus the bomber bases would have to be well protected. In view of possible Soviet rocket development based on V-2's and alarming reports of new jet bombers it might well be that British nuclear bombers could be crippled at their bases.
The Royal Navy had some answers to these problems. It had developed a carrier based bomber, EE Canberra, which could be introduced in 1951-1952 to give a robust operational capability in 1953 when the Blue Danube weapons would arrive. Canberras taking off with RATO and assisted by aerial refuelling could reach strategic targets deep inside Soviet Union. Their mobile bases would be far less threatened than fixed bases of RAF. Furthermore, the nuclear elements could be either stored on board the carriers or could be flown in very quickly by special transportation scheme in similar way to what USN planned to do at the time.
While Royal Navy lobbying did not mean the end of RAF's V-bomber force it meant a shift of priorities. Instead of atomic bombs being under sole RAF control the Royal Navy would be trusted with a significant portion of British atomic firepower.