A series of assumptions: a Britwank on a budget?

[Riain]

IIRC hydrogas was an addition by the Brits when modding the FV 4030/3 to the FV 4030/4 (CR1) standard that better met British Army requirements.

The Shir 2 had Horstmann or an obscure Super Horstmann suspension and as such weighed 63 metric tonnes instead of between 59.4 and 62 metric tonnes for CR1 depending on the sources. Shir 2 also lacked TOGS and its barbette, had a different smoke discharger arrangement but might have got a different FCS, an ESR barrel and a panoramic sight like the Shir 1/Khalid.

Sure, but they're details on top of the big stuff like powertrain and Chobham armour. I'd guess that if Britain was involved with the 4030/3 from the start it would have hydrogas suspension.

Also I'd think if the Chieftain 24L RR V8 had 800+hp it's replacement would be bigger than 26L and 1200hp.

 

[Stark]

Before I bang out for the night and get into the ciders I'd also like to point something else out. This TL gets easily 100 likes a day but so far the only challenges I've received are on the finer details of peripheral things.

Nobody has had a problem with the RAF getting~250 Lightning Mk3 fighter bombers, the TSR2 getting into production, CVA01 being ordered in 1971 or anything else central to the TL.

Why is this?
Is it because this all makes sense? (the ideal solution) Or because nobody could be bothered?(the worst scenario) Or because nobody knows enough to argue?(I'm happy to extol at length on this pet subject)

A bit late response (just got to this part of timeline) - I'm mostly learning this stuff in this thread (I know basic outline of British policy/military but nothing nearly in depth like this) so I'm really not capable of nitpicking.

Regarding plausability, since this is described as "wank" I'm expecting everything to end up best way possible for UK, while staying in the realm of "possible". Of course everything going the best possible way is very unlikely but I see this as a thought exercise for best outcome UK military, not as a realistic prediction, and I'm really loving it.

Since you didn't gave UK continuous 10% GDP and military budget growth and other poster had no qualms with alternate designs, I'm assuming everything described could have happened is some dreamland scenario. You definitely describe it in a very plausible way.

 

[Riain]

A bit late response (just got to this part of timeline) - I'm mostly learning this stuff in this thread (I know basic outline of British policy/military but nothing nearly in depth like this) so I'm really not capable of nitpicking.

Regarding plausability, since this is described as "wank" I'm expecting everything to end up best way possible for UK, while staying in the realm of "possible". Of course everything going the best possible way is very unlikely but I see this as a thought exercise for best outcome UK military, not as a realistic prediction, and I'm really loving it.

Since you didn't gave UK continuous 10% GDP and military budget growth and other poster had no qualms with alternate designs, I'm assuming everything described could have happened is some dreamland scenario. You definitely describe it in a very plausible way.

The TL is basically a 'decision wank' because Britain made a few massive crippling decisions and numerous smaller ones, and good results flow from good decisions. My primary goal was to avoid the whole RAF tactical fighter/strike aircraft debacle of the 60s. Despite the Lightning being on the shorter end of the tactical fighter range spectrum and the TSR2 costing an absolute bomb going this way creates great efficiencies and gets hundreds of state of the art aircraft built which I judged to be a better result than the debacles of OTL. I didn't go into great depth on the budgets, but I did lay TTL things against OTL things for the most part. For example going all the way with the Lightning removes the Hunter FGA-FR/P1154-HS681/F4M/Jaguar, the TSR2 removes the F111K/V bombers lasting to the 80s/Buccaneer/UKVG and CVA01-02 removes the 3 Invincible class and 30 Sea Harriers.

 

[Stark]

The TL is basically a 'decision wank' because Britain made a few massive crippling decisions and numerous smaller ones, and good results flow from good decisions. My primary goal was to avoid the whole RAF tactical fighter/strike aircraft debacle of the 60s. Despite the Lightning being on the shorter end of the tactical fighter range spectrum and the TSR2 costing an absolute bomb going this way creates great efficiencies and gets hundreds of state of the art aircraft built which I judged to be a better result than the debacles of OTL. I didn't go into great depth on the budgets, but I did lay TTL things against OTL things for the most part. For example going all the way with the Lightning removes the Hunter FGA-FR/P1154-HS681/F4M/Jaguar, the TSR2 removes the F111K/V bombers lasting to the 80s/Buccaneer/UKVG and CVA01-02 removes the 3 Invincible class and 30 Sea Harriers.

Yeah, yeah, I understand. But it's not ASB or completely unrealistic wank (unless you're simply lying in updates ). They way it is presented it all seems possible to an unknowledgeable person like me (for example you said which project got canceled and it freed up money for other more useful stuff).

So as an anglophile I'm enjoying the timeline.

 

[Riain]

Yeah, yeah, I understand. But it's not ASB or completely unrealistic wank (unless you're simply lying in updates ). They way it is presented it all seems possible to an unknowledgeable person like me (for example you said which project got canceled and it freed up money for other more useful stuff).

So as an anglophile I'm enjoying the timeline.

No it's not ASB or unrealistic at all, well not to me and I think most people didn't have many issues with how things played out.

I'm glad you're enjoying it, maybe should get myself into gear and incorporate the updates I've already written.