A Blunted Sickle - Thread II

[pdf27]

Thank God he did. If Britain didn't want to test nukes in their own backyard, why the hell should New Zealand agree to them (or anyone) testing them in ours. (Note: We were really annoyed by the French government for the whole Moruroa thing, plus their bombing of the Rainbow Warrior in the 1980s)

Different times, different rules. New Zealand was much closer to the UK at the time, and the US were using the fact that they had thermonuclear weapons and nobody else in NATO did to ensure they controlled the alliance at the time. Given that the expectation was that New Zealand would be under the UK thermonuclear umbrella (such as it was) after the testing - and also the US policy would have to become more accommodating - then it wasn't an especially unreasonable request. The British seem to have been a little put out at the refusal, but seem to have got over their disappointment very quickly.
In any case, the mainland UK doesn't have any suitably remote sites - Kermadec is ~500 miles downwind of New Zealand itself, applying the same thing to the UK means adopting a test site in the USSR. The test site eventually adopted is a lot further from New Zealand, but that's mostly a pain in the backside for logistics - the chances of New Zealand being affected by the Grapple tests being conducted in the Kermadec islands instead is essentially zero, and it's worth noting that there were actually people living on Christmas Island before the testing, which isn't true for Kermadec.

I wonder when they last thought there was volcanic activity there. A Dept of Conservation worker was killed by a small eruption in 2006.

Not mentioned in Britain and the H-bomb (Lorna Arnold), which is probably the best reference out there. The selection seems to have come from Selwyn Lloyd (the British Foreign Secretary) in May 1955, "after consulting departments" - this suggests that the people making the approach may not even have been aware that the islands were volcanic at the time.
The sequence seems to have been that they were identified as suitable by the Foreign Office, an approach was made to the New Zealand government and rejected. Some time after this (17th September 1955) three Shackletons were sent out from Northern Ireland to carry out a photographic reconnaissance of the favoured locations, which had changed to Malden & Christmas islands in the interim after a report had come back from the Acting High Commissioner in the West Pacific.

I mean, one can imagine worse places.
Like, say, the Piton de la Fournaise. Or the Anak Krakatau.

The original plan was that the testing would be ~500 miles out to sea, and a number of really obscure bases were suggested like the Antipodes Islands to support this plan. I suspect this may have been a reaction to the fallout from Castle Bravo landing on Daigo Fukuryū Maru the year before - figure the most remote islands you can think of, then carry out the test a long way from them where no shipping at all will be about.

But I don't think the numbers work out, especially since these early devices are going to be rather small (in the kiloton range). They're going to be good at producing an atmospheric blast wave but not nearly as effective at at shattering or vaporizing rock. Not good enough to breach the hundreds or even thousands of meters of cap-rock over the magma chamber.

Interest in the Kermadec islands only started in OTL for the Grapple test series - the first (Short Granite) was 300kT, rising to 3MT for Grapple Y.

A month after discovering this timeline, I finally got to the last page of it. I've never read anything which goes into such granular depth to explore the effects of a point of divergence in so many ways. Saying this is par for the course for alternate history as a genre, but it's truly fascinating how different things would be if events played out even slightly differently. The timeline itself is the main course, but as much as I wanted to skip ahead I just couldn't stop myself from perusing the buffet of information other commenters have provided on a variety of subjects, from politics to international trade to military R&D. My knowledge of many of these topics is quite limited by comparison, so it has been incredibly educational to view the discussions which have spawned from this thread. I eagerly look forward to more and applaud the author for putting so much effort into an excellent piece of work!

Thanks. It's worth noting that a lot of the effects come from the community commenting on the timeline - I could never have written anything like this without their support.

 

[Salamander]

Different times, different rules. New Zealand was much closer to the UK at the time, and the US were using the fact that they had thermonuclear weapons and nobody else in NATO did to ensure they controlled the alliance at the time. Given that the expectation was that New Zealand would be under the UK thermonuclear umbrella (such as it was) after the testing - and also the US policy would have to become more accommodating - then it wasn't an especially unreasonable request. The British seem to have been a little put out at the refusal, but seem to have got over their disappointment very quickly

Not mentioned in Britain and the H-bomb (Lorna Arnold), which is probably the best reference out there. The selection seems to have come from Selwyn Lloyd (the British Foreign Secretary) in May 1955, "after consulting departments" - this suggests that the people making the approach may not even have been aware that the islands were volcanic at the time.
The sequence seems to have been that they were identified as suitable by the Foreign Office, an approach was made to the New Zealand government and rejected.

Yeah, this looks a lot like the Brits totally failing to understand the New Zealand psyche, overestimating our sense of gratitude re: WW2 and completely ignoring that we were an independent democracy, not to mention the whole NIMBY thing. Rocking up to the NZ parliament with a mostly worked out plan for a nuclear testing program that the Brits weren't willing to conduct at home and saying "This is what we're going to do" is just going get our backs up. And lead to awkward questions such as "if these tests are perfectly safe, why aren't they being done in Britain?" and "you did know that these islands are active volcanoes, right?"

The original plan was that the testing would be ~500 miles out to sea, and a number of really obscure bases were suggested like the Antipodes Islands to support this plan.

500 miles out to sea. In the Southern Ocean? I don't see how anything could have possibly gone wrong down there...

 

[pdf27]

Yeah, this looks a lot like the Brits totally failing to understand the New Zealand psyche, overestimating our sense of gratitude re: WW2 and completely ignoring that we were an independent democracy, not to mention the whole NIMBY thing. Rocking up to the NZ parliament with a mostly worked out plan for a nuclear testing program that the Brits weren't willing to conduct at home and saying "This is what we're going to do" is just going get our backs up. And lead to awkward questions such as "if these tests are perfectly safe, why aren't they being done in Britain?" and "you did know that these islands are active volcanoes, right?"

Not what happened. FO got asked for somewhere really remote to test it, suggested Kermadec, asked NZ PM who said no. Mildly irked, they looked for somewhere else the locals couldn't say no. Aldermaston and the RAF didn't start working out at test programme until after this had happened - they were too busy trying to figure out the physics of a bomb.

500 miles out to sea. In the Southern Ocean? I don't see how anything could have possibly gone wrong down there...

One of the suggestions was to launch it from an oversized V-2 and detonate at altitude. What could go wrong with that?
Doing it that far out in the Roaring Forties at least guarantees little or no risk to passing mariners from fallout, which appear to have been a significant concern at the time...

 

[Julius Vogel]

IIRC the strong NZ stance on being anti nuclear testing in S Pacific did take a while to develop. That being said, I could see a NZ PM just saying no because it sounded like it could be more trouble than it is work.

The Kermadecs are an interesting issue in NZ too, in that everyone seems to forget they're there most of the time. They made the news a bit last year due to the election over fishing, Treaty Settlements and such. Then before that, drug smuggling.

Usually they come up for earthquakes or weather events.

I suspect you could stop ten Kiwis on the streets of any city or town outside of Northland and most would not recognise the name.

 

[naraht]

I know that the war affected French ship building plans considerably. (is the MN still stronger 1 on 1 than the Italian RM?) How much has the war affected British ship building? I can't imagine the shipyards have been damaged much by the Germans, the questions are funding, ship building employees being pulled into the Army and possibly competition for specialized Raw Materials.

 

[Salamander]

New Zealand's sub-antarctic islands are mostly in the Furious Fifties, the Antipodes being ever so slightly north of Latitude 50. The winds and sea states there make the Roaring Fourties look relatively pleasant in comparison. An atmospheric detonation down there would very rapidly spread fallout to Chile and Argentina. Which would upset them. Climatically, the Kermadecs would have the better option, but then the trade routes to our Pacific neighbours pass through there, not to mention that the French are nearby. So I'm not surprised our PM said no.

Politically & logistically, Australia was always going to be the better option for a British Nuke program than New Zealand; more available land for testing, domestic uranium deposits, and a more pliable agreeable government.

 

[pdf27]

IIRC the strong NZ stance on being anti nuclear testing in S Pacific did take a while to develop. That being said, I could see a NZ PM just saying no because it sounded like it could be more trouble than it is work.

The Kermadecs are an interesting issue in NZ too, in that everyone seems to forget they're there most of the time. They made the news a bit last year due to the election over fishing, Treaty Settlements and such. Then before that, drug smuggling.

Usually they come up for earthquakes or weather events.

I suspect you could stop ten Kiwis on the streets of any city or town outside of Northland and most would not recognise the name.

I think the fundamental issue was that New Zealand wasn't offered anything in exchange. "The British government are investing NZ£### million" is a very different story right before an election to "The British government are going to use us as guinea pigs for a new and terrifying weapon". With no sellable upside in an election year, I doubt anybody would have agreed to it.

I know that the war affected French ship building plans considerably. (is the MN still stronger 1 on 1 than the Italian RM?) How much has the war affected British ship building? I can't imagine the shipyards have been damaged much by the Germans, the questions are funding, ship building employees being pulled into the Army and possibly competition for specialized Raw Materials.

• Right now the strength of the MN relative to the RM is irrelevant - the British and French combined can squash Italy flat for the foreseeable future, and are strongly committed to working together. The French are in a position where they need a major rethink on shipbuilding after the war due to the ways the world has changed, and they have a window of opportunity to think about it.
• The key difference from OTL is the Atlantic Convoys. In OTL, they were the only lifeline and had to run up past Greenland in dreadful weather - quite apart from battle damage, vast tonnages needed repair due to weather damage, and the shipyards were up to their eyeballs dealing with this. Here, the U-boats are vastly less of a threat, and the threat axis is from Norway rather than France. That means the shipping is taking a southerly route, further helped by the fact that the Mediterranean and particularly Suez are still open - allowing prewar trade patterns to be largely maintained (incidentally this is why I think Italy's contribution to the Axis is grossly underrated - blocking the Mediterranean was a severe blow to the UK).
• So we're in a world where the shipyards are better supplied (closer to prewar trade patterns and more total tonnage available), less damage from the Germans and much less ultra-high-priority damage repair to merchantmen required. That means the KGVs and carriers are finished much earlier, and we get qualitatively better escorts (Black Swan and River rather than Hunt and Flower class - although not spammed out in the same numbers as OTL) - also affected by the increased air threat faced by the Norwegian and Dutch convoys.
• Competition with the army isn't that great - most of the skilled labour is too old to be of interest, and thanks to iron ore from Sweden and French North Africa being still accessible the UK iron and steel production is in a good place rather than having to import steel/steel products from the US. Given that the Japanese are still seen to be a major threat, you can expect UK capital ship production to continue more or less as planned for the rest of the war. Postwar, there are a series of major technological changes coming down the pike and the UK has got relatively modern capital ships so the shipyards are likely to switch to doing something else relatively soon. I'm expecting the two Lion class battleships (16" KGVs essentially - not the later monsters) to be finished to allow for the retirement of the QEs, but that's about it.

New Zealand's sub-antarctic islands are mostly in the Furious Fifties, the Antipodes being ever so slightly north of Latitude 50. The winds and sea states there make the Roaring Fourties look relatively pleasant in comparison. An atmospheric detonation down there would very rapidly spread fallout to Chile and Argentina. Which would upset them. Climatically, the Kermadecs would have the better option, but then the trade routes to our Pacific neighbours pass through there, not to mention that the French are nearby. So I'm not surprised our PM said no.

Politically & logistically, Australia was always going to be the better option for a British Nuke program than New Zealand; more available land for testing, domestic uranium deposits, and a more pliable agreeable government.

For fission weapons that makes sense, and is essentially what happened until the US test site in Nevada became available coupled with the shift to US-designed weapons. The problem is that thermonuclear weapons are just too big for this - at least for atmospheric tests. Ground/Low Air bursts produce a LOT of fallout, and you need a moderately large exclusion zone as a result: at sea this can be temporary, on land it's a long-term problem.
It's worth noting here that a detonation out at sea isn't going to produce very much fallout, and anything blown over to South America is going to be massively diluted by the time it gets there. Everyone on earth got a dose of fallout from the atmospheric nuclear tests (mostly the H-bomb ones), but there isn't any particular reason to think it would be worse in South America if a test was done that far south. Perhaps more relevantly, given the attitudes of the time (which would be stronger ITTL I suspect), I doubt their concerns would be listened to in any case.

 

[Paulo the Limey]

I'm expecting the two Lion class battleships (16" KGVs essentially - not the later monsters) to be finished to allow for the retirement of the QEs, but that's about it.

Wouldn't they be replacing the final Revenge class ships instead? I've lost track of what ships are where, but can see how the modernised QEs would be kept on for a good while yet.

 

[pdf27]

Wouldn't they be replacing the final Revenge class ships instead? I've lost track of what ships are where, but can see how the modernised QEs would be kept on for a good while yet.

RN wouldn't have the manpower in peacetime unless they laid up all the carriers. I haven't decided about the NelRods yet, but everything else is going to be rapidly heading for scrap after the war as soon as the Hostilities Only ratings are demobilised. The modernised ones might stay in reserve for a few years, but that's about it.

 

[Bernard Woolley]

I would think that even the modernised QEs and the NelRods may be a bit old within a few years. I would also speculate that the RN will want rid of any capital ships that can't keep up with modern aircraft carriers..

 

[Finbarr the Fair]

I would think that even the modernised QEs and the NelRods may be a bit old within a few years. I would also speculate that the RN will want rid of any capital ships that can't keep up with modern aircraft carriers..

yes - all the capital ships the RN needs will be the KGVs and Lions. Are Refit and Repair still around?. Fast enough to be carrier escorts in areas where all you might meet are cruisers or the Kongos. Maybe the Nelrods in reserve for a few years but that's not a necessity.

 

[Komnenos002]

This talk about manpower requirements has me interested in the evolution of Entente armies post-war. You've created a situation in which they have global commitments on a relatively shoe-string budget.

 

[Xgentis]

This talk about manpower requirements has me interested in the evolution of Entente armies post-war. You've created a situation in which they have global commitments on a relatively shoe-string budget.

They'll have to get a strong economy and I am effray they can't do it alone without some others european partner. Some say no EU but the ideas were already in the air. And to resist the soviet influence some kind of European unity will be needed.

 

[pdf27]

This talk about manpower requirements has me interested in the evolution of Entente armies post-war. You've created a situation in which they have global commitments on a relatively shoe-string budget.

There's a very simple answer to that - rapid mobility. In OTL, this was one of the driving forces behind Sandystorm - the UK couldn't afford the big conventional forces needed by the existing strategy. To his eternal credit, Mountbatten realised this - he offered Marines and Carriers for East of Suez duties, a "cheaper" alternative to the V-force, and to scrap the rest. The other two services went in trying to do business as usual, and got cut off at the knees.

ITTL, things are slightly different - they've got a lot more money, but the manpower constraints are if anything tighter (bigger economy and full employment hitting earlier) and they've got an even more widespread set of commitments. I think that means an earlier move to air mobility instead of sea mobility, and the V.1000 was also intended to do double-duty as a tanker for the V-force which would be a critical requirement ITTL since the Soviets aren't the only peer threat. So I think we'll end up with something like this in significant numbers, a relatively small professional army and lots of nuclear weapons to make up for the size of the army if they ever have to fight a peer competitor.

 

[diestormlie]

I'm expecting big Entente interest in Helicopters and Transport Aircraft post-war, with efforts to establish Airmobile/quick reaction forces.

 

[Astrodragon]

Will the RAF be moving Australia again?

 

[diestormlie]

Will the RAF be moving Australia again?

Airstrip Two will go where its needed!

 

[What if]

On Mountbatten, I'm wondering if he will avoid assassination TTL. While his OTL fate will be butterflied away, his holidays in Mullaghmore from a (retrospective) security perspective do seem risky during the troubles, which I assume are still happening.

 

[pdf27]

Will the RAF be moving Australia again?

They want bigger aircraft and more tankers ITTL, so probably further south and east!

 

[Questerr]

At this point has the Pacific War been entirely butterflied? Does this mean going into the post-war period, Britain is going to see the USA as a rival power rather than an ally?

Also, what’s the likelihood of this timeline‘s Franco-British Union morphing into a British dominated European Union once they are done rearranging Post-Nazi Europe?