Protect and Survive: A Timeline

[Lemon flavoured]

Well they can copy the British governments policy, which seems to be to kill every man, woman and child that opposes there rule.

A few hundred people armed with rifles (at the very least, remember that in some places in the US grenades and even AA guns are legal (or at least least were before the war in this TL)) is quite different to a group of villagers with 5 shotguns and a .22 rifle between them.

 

[Macragge1]

A few hundred people armed with rifles (at the very least, remember that in some places in the US grenades and even AA guns are legal (or at least least were before the war in this TL)) is quite different to a group of villagers with 5 shotguns and a .22 rifle between them.

Well, to be fair to the Felton villagers they managed to steal some old .303s, a couple of Stens and a Bren from a convoy but yeah - your point is absolutely right.

 

[Wolf]

A few hundred people armed with rifles (at the very least, remember that in some places in the US grenades and even AA guns are legal (or at least least were before the war in this TL)) is quite different to a group of villagers with 5 shotguns and a .22 rifle between them.

A number of these survivalists are ex-military or veterans. Many of them will be heavily armed with everything from .22 rifles and the 30-06 to M-16s to M-1's from WWII vets.

At most there will be only a shell of the Regular Army left as a lot of them would have been deployed to Germany and the rest of NATO Europe during Reforger during the buildup to the conflict. And the ones that remained in the US would have been wiped out when their bases were destroyed. Most of the remaining members of the Army would be National Guardsmen, some of whom would not have combat experience.

 

[Lemon flavoured]

A number of these survivalists are ex-military or veterans. Many of them will be heavily armed with everything from .22 rifles and the 30-06 to M-16s to M-1's from WWII vets.

At most there will be only a shell of the Regular Army left as a lot of them would have been deployed to Germany and the rest of NATO Europe during Reforger during the buildup to the conflict. And the ones that remained in the US would have been wiped out when their bases were destroyed. Most of the remaining members of the Army would be National Guardsmen, some of whom would not have combat experience.

Exactly, and bear in mind a number of the survivalist groups like that have been around for years, so have had plenty of time to fortify / prepare the places they are using as a base.

 

[butch4343]

Macragge1 Ill start by saying this again this is the best time line I have ever read on this board, I am loving the prospero updates, I wanted to ask you a couple of questions surrounding that operation if I may?

Firstly your choice of aircraft in the victor, was it poetic liecence that led you to the type?

The reason I ask is I was thinking that the VC10 may have been a better choice in terms of range and payload , the VC10 having a range somewhere in the region of 5950 miles, this would have let you cross the pond in one hop and return, just, but given that the RAFs VC10 were hybrid tankers so they could have probably flown further , and carried a bigger team to the states.

My second question centres round this as well, did you consider using air to air refuelling to allow Caliban to fly further on its journey, or did you specifically want for the purposes want to land in Iceland?

I was also wondering if you are able to provide a run down on what assets the RN and the RAF have left and where they are on the globe?

I am absolutley loving the story line so these arent criticisms , just curious questions.

And please, please , please keep up the writing

 

[Macragge1]

Macragge1 Ill start by saying this again this is the best time line I have ever read on this board, I am loving the prospero updates, I wanted to ask you a couple of questions surrounding that operation if I may?

Firstly your choice of aircraft in the victor, was it poetic liecence that led you to the type?

The reason I ask is I was thinking that the VC10 may have been a better choice in terms of range and payload , the VC10 having a range somewhere in the region of 5950 miles, this would have let you cross the pond in one hop and return, just, but given that the RAFs VC10 were hybrid tankers so they could have probably flown further , and carried a bigger team to the states.

Part of the reason is poetic license - the Victor's a hell of a plane, and by sending it on a 'rescue mission' i thought it would be a nice 'swords into ploughshares' sort of thing that also allowed me to explore what the V-forces' pilots are feeling like right now (those that survived)

In-story, the reasoning is simply that Prospero was an extremely ad-hoc mission brought together very quickly - a lot of the RAF's VC10s were caught in or en route to Germany where they were ferrying troops in and civilians out of the BAOR zones. Those that remain are either in a poor state of maintenance (they naturally haven't been a resource priority after the attack) or dispersed too far away - Ascenscion, the Falklands etc.

My second question centres round this as well, did you consider using air to air refuelling to allow Caliban to fly further on its journey, or did you specifically want for the purposes want to land in Iceland?

I was also wondering if you are able to provide a run down on what assets the RN and the RAF have left and where they are on the globe?

I am absolutley loving the story line so these arent criticisms , just curious questions.

And please, please , please keep up the writing

Same justification for where all the air-to-air refuellers are. From a story point of view, the fact that a small team is crammed into this plane makes it easier to have a few more interesting characters rather than say, a whole platoon of more faceless soldiers.

There'll be a rundown on assets at some point.

Thanks for the compliments and thanks for letting me address these points.

 

[Wolf]

Exactly, and bear in mind a number of the survivalist groups like that have been around for years, so have had plenty of time to fortify / prepare the places they are using as a base.

And if the NG et al is not expecting it casualties could be bad. And besides fortifications could easily be beefed up using refugee slave labour if they are promised a meal and shelter. When the alternative is certain death work with a gun to your back doesn't look so bad by comparison.

 

[Jukra]

Of the 'western' countries I'd expect Canada, Australia and NZ to be in the best state, as far as the survivors are concerned. Large, so while cities and military bases get nuked, the fallout covers a relatively small percentage of the land, able to feed themselves.

Finland would be quite "well" off, given that most damage would come from fallout and in 1980's Finland had extremely large reserve stocks of fuel and food combined with the fact that urban population had fallout shelters available. In 1988 the reserve stocks for all products were sufficient to guarantee normal state of living - without any imports or restrictions - for a six months. In case of coal, the reserve stocks were for 15 months with full level of use, in case of medical products 16 months of full use.

In addition, plans for alternate poroduction were fairly advanced. In case of energy the Finnish forestry industries would be more than able to replace all imports of coal for an indefinite period of time and probably could start (economically inefficient) production of biofuels enough for most critical military and logistics use before oil stocks would run out. For nuclear fuel (4 reactors) there was sufficient reserve fuel for couple of years at stock.

In case of feeding the population there were reserve stocks of food for a period of more than a year. After one year the the lack of potassium would cut the harvests for 15%. This effect could be canceled by cultivating more fields than during peacetime (approximately 10% of field area was kept as crisis time reserve and could be taken into use immediately) and by decreasing amount of meat and poultry production. Finland during 1980's, like rest of the industrial world, suffered rather from a overweight than malnutrition which should be also taken into account. Fisheries, berries, mushroom picking etc. would also significantly add into nutrition of Finnish population thanks for large scale land area available per population and the tendency of population to use all of these as a popular form of recreation.

The period of attack - February - is the best possible time of year for the attack from Finnish perspective. Fallout ash will be falling in over a layer of snow, meaning it will decay for a few months before melting down. In case of nuclear weapons destined for Finnish targets (which would include, I'd guess, refineries in Naantali and Loviisa) the snow cover will eliminate flash damage, reduce heat damage and prevent any large scale fires spreading outside refinery areas.

So, to cut it short, it might be that Finland would be best off of all the countries in Northern Hemisphere. A nuclear attack on Helsinki, the capital city, would change this somewhat but would be manageable thanks to ample reserve housing available, sturdy construction of Finnish housing and well spread infrastructure and finally by time of the year.

Only threat of British nuclear deterrence would keep Finns from dominating the Western Europe

 

[Tovarich]

The Today Programme: http://news.bbc.co.uk/today/hi/default.stm and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Today_(BBC_Radio_4). Some people are sceptical about the claim that the programme has a place in the nuclear deterrent.

Heh, having been a scared-crapless-of-nukes teenager in East Anglia at the time of this TL, I cannot help by now finding the idea of the Today Programme as a nuclear-alert rather amusing

"....and now it's 8.45 and time for Thought For The Day, with Rabbi Lionel Blue.

Thank you Brian, Thank you Sue......OH MY GOD! WE'RE ALL GONNA DIE!! Help us, Invisible Magic Friend!!!"


(Erm, none of the above probably make any referential sense to people who aren't both British and at least as old as I am (very old)

 

[Douglas]

The key reason for my postulation that there's no communications coming out of America is, in honesty, as much out of poetic license as anything. If, in the narrative, there were communications between the two powers, I'd have an excuse to simply type out a telex-style list of city names and casualty figures - the idea of the Prospero storyline was to inject a sort of darker Boys' Own style adventure to counteract the main narrative which is fairly centred upon the North East Region of England. The vagueness also allowed for a bit of stalling on my part which let me keep the momentum up whilst brushing up on American defense plans etc which hopefully will make that part of the story more exciting.

It's entirely the fault of my vagueness that I've led you to believe that there's no governmental authority in the USA - I can assure you now that that isn't the case - the country has been very, very badly damaged, as has Britain, but its status is closer to Britain's in Protect and Survive than Planet of the Apes. The differences will come mostly thanks to the vast, vast size of the USA compared to our tiny island and how planners over there planned to deal with such a crisis.

Again, thanks for bringing those issues up and letting me try and explain a bit about how my TL's panning out as it is.

Thanks for the clarifications. Poetic license is fine to me, and I was mostly concerned about, as you succinctly put it, a Planet of the Apes United States when we still had a Protect and Survive Britain.

 

[Philadelphus]

Heh, having been a scared-crapless-of-nukes teenager in East Anglia at the time of this TL, I cannot help by now finding the idea of the Today Programme as a nuclear-alert rather amusing

"....and now it's 8.45 and time for Thought For The Day, with Rabbi Lionel Blue.

Thank you Brian, Thank you Sue......OH MY GOD! WE'RE ALL GONNA DIE!! Help us, Invisible Magic Friend!!!"


(Erm, none of the above probably any referential sense to people who aren't both British and at least as old as I am (very old)

"Very old"? I turned 20 during this time line, so I'm older than you. And I do not consider myself "old," let alone "very," thank you!
Hmph.
Although perhaps by the standards of this forum....

 

[Tovarich]

"Very old"? I turned 20 during this time line, so I'm older than you. And I do not consider myself "old," let alone "very," thank you!
Hmph.
Although perhaps by the standards of this forum....

Heh, that's exactly what I meant, Phil

I never cease to be amazed/disturbed at how many of the top writers and most perceptive posters on here are still in their teens or early twenties!

 

[Tovarich]

Nice to see that John Peel survived, he does seem like the kind of person who would have volunteered for such a thing. Not really sure what else to add, except I perhaps shouldn't read this TL at gone midnight on a Friday night.

Who says he volunteered?

Though if this TL had been R/L, John Peel would probaby be glowing dust, along with the rest of us in East Anglia, and the post-appocalyptic 1980s UK would more likely have just continual 'Wake Up To Wogan' as a morale builder....never would the cliche of "the living shall envy the dead" have been so true.....although 'Wish You Were Dead With Wogan' is pretty good for an alliterative programme title.

 

[Lemon flavoured]

'Wish You Were Dead With Wogan' is pretty good for an alliterative programme title.

And to continue the Peel theme, it sounds like the title of an album by The Fall...

 

[Mario Rossi]

Finland would be quite "well" off, given that most damage would come from fallout and in 1980's Finland had extremely large reserve stocks of fuel and food combined with the fact that urban population had fallout shelters available. In 1988 the reserve stocks for all products were sufficient to guarantee normal state of living - without any imports or restrictions - for a six months. In case of coal, the reserve stocks were for 15 months with full level of use, in case of medical products 16 months of full use.

In addition, plans for alternate poroduction were fairly advanced. In case of energy the Finnish forestry industries would be more than able to replace all imports of coal for an indefinite period of time and probably could start (economically inefficient) production of biofuels enough for most critical military and logistics use before oil stocks would run out. For nuclear fuel (4 reactors) there was sufficient reserve fuel for couple of years at stock.

In case of feeding the population there were reserve stocks of food for a period of more than a year. After one year the the lack of potassium would cut the harvests for 15%. This effect could be canceled by cultivating more fields than during peacetime (approximately 10% of field area was kept as crisis time reserve and could be taken into use immediately) and by decreasing amount of meat and poultry production. Finland during 1980's, like rest of the industrial world, suffered rather from a overweight than malnutrition which should be also taken into account. Fisheries, berries, mushroom picking etc. would also significantly add into nutrition of Finnish population thanks for large scale land area available per population and the tendency of population to use all of these as a popular form of recreation.

The period of attack - February - is the best possible time of year for the attack from Finnish perspective. Fallout ash will be falling in over a layer of snow, meaning it will decay for a few months before melting down. In case of nuclear weapons destined for Finnish targets (which would include, I'd guess, refineries in Naantali and Loviisa) the snow cover will eliminate flash damage, reduce heat damage and prevent any large scale fires spreading outside refinery areas.

So, to cut it short, it might be that Finland would be best off of all the countries in Northern Hemisphere. A nuclear attack on Helsinki, the capital city, would change this somewhat but would be manageable thanks to ample reserve housing available, sturdy construction of Finnish housing and well spread infrastructure and finally by time of the year.

Only threat of British nuclear deterrence would keep Finns from dominating the Western Europe

Impressive, really.

This leads me to wonder, therefore, if the Soviets have not decided to set aside more "attention" to its neighbors, knowing that such a careful preparation for war had been put in place by the Finns.

 

[Tovarich]

.....This is a fabulously evocative TL and irrelevant talk of our favourite voice can only detract from the atmosphere that has been created.

Don't worry, NOTHING any of us post, however cheery or trivial, will have the slightest effect on the atmosphere of Mac's thread.....not after the "babies don't work" line regarding food-allocation (I feel I speak for all parents here!)....I salute the author for his ability!

 

[Bernard Woolley]

No doubt about it, Jan...BTW and OT when we will see an update in TLW?

I'm working on it now. It may be a while yet, though.

The Soviets probably used Finland as a short cut to reach Norway. The Finns will have resisted and the Soviets will in likelihood launched an invasion of the south of the country.
When tac nukes started to fly in Germany the Soviets probably used them in Finland.

 

[Macragge1]

Finland would be quite "well" off.....

Great info - thanks a lot for it; it'll help me tons as I work out what everyone's deal is around the world.

And to continue the Peel theme, it sounds like the title of an album by The Fall...

Fifty points.

Impressive, really.

This leads me to wonder, therefore, if the Soviets have not decided to set aside more "attention" to its neighbors, knowing that such a careful preparation for war had been put in place by the Finns.

That was always one of the real fuckers about the Cold War - the major powers were often worried to implement Civil Defence policies for fear of convincing the other that they were preparing for a war and convincing them to launch a first strike. MAD indeed.

I'm working on it now. It may be a while yet, though.

The Soviets probably used Finland as a short cut to reach Norway. The Finns will have resisted and the Soviets will in likelihood launched an invasion of the south of the country.
When tac nukes started to fly in Germany the Soviets probably used them in Finland.

Looking forward to it.

I agree that a) the Soviets would go for Finland, both to access Norway (there's been limited skirmishing on the Kola peninsula but it's impractical) and because Finland's been a thorn in the Soviets' side since '45 (hell, since the Winter War); b) the Finns would definitely fight damn hard, even in the face of tactical weapons, if their performance in the forties was anything to go by.

 

[Bernard Woolley]

I remember one of the posters on Navweaps was a Finn who had done his military service. He once remarked that in all exercises the enemy were explicitly the Soviets.
None of this Blue Vs Red stuff that we in NATO did!

I don't think that the Finnish air force and navy would last all that long, but the army would keep fighting until they were all dead. Even if they had to resort to guerrilla warfare.

If there was anywhere perfect for the Soviets to use NBC weapons it would be against Finland. After all the Finns have no way to retaliate. In Germany as soon as either side starts to use them the other side will hit back.
Interestingly if the Soviets moved against Sweden there was a secret treaty with the US in which the Americans would attack the Soviet staging areas with nuclear weapons.

 

[Tovarich]

I can imagine that the surviving bomber pilots and submariners would be looked upon in a rather... dark light after this whole "WW3" thing.

Absolutely - these men are now some of history's worst mass murderers - whether they were following orders or not, there's going to be a huge stigma - worse is how these normal, generally good men will see themselves.

I don't know if this is of any help to you, but I can tell you that one of the residents of the care-home I work in who died last year was a chronic alcoholic as a result of both inwardly-targeted personal guilt over his role in bombings over Germany ("Target for tonight: Women and children!" was almost his catchphrase when he came to seek company of us night-staff during the bleak small hours) and also by how unfairly judged he felt as revisionist historians increasingly wrote of his generation of airmen (he was almost the stereotypical 'Irish intellectual'*) from the 1980s onward, his last 'working' decade before retirement.

Does your TL allow for a 'flashforward' to when any surviving nuclear-aircrew are elderly and in the care of a (hopefully) reconstructed society, perhaps?


*(I think the fact that he, as an Irishman, volunteered for RAF duty rather than being conscripted added to his guilt. Although, conversely, he also felt ill of himself for not volunteering for the pre-WW2 fighting in Spain....such is the masochistic way of the human mind, when given too much time to think, I guess)