Another variant of Portugal doing better – POD in the early XX century

The surprise in the Headquarters of DGS is total. While they are responsible for the attacks on the contacted organizations, they have nothing to do with the bombing of CIA bases. They have identified and followed the american operatives almost from day one, but the federation plan has – let the american contact groups, and the ones that accept they propose have to be destroyed immediately. Never is planned to act against american forces other than spy on they and sabotage they efforts. They are also pretty confident that the attacks are not from the chinese operators – they are also under close surveillance – the advantages of operating in the area from a long time.
 
The analysis of the attacks on the CIA bases provide interesting results – the explosives and detonators are commercial grade and they are activated by burned phone units. Every piece have any identification professionally erased, so no clues of origin – except that the perpetrators are well funded and very capable.
The replacements – that are delayed about six months – are well defended, but that result in obvious locations and at same time any local organization possibly interested in working with the americans have comprehensibly lose interest.
CIA have a very difficult job in the area in the next years. So far, no one find the responsible – at least the federation can’t and as far as they know, nor USA or China.

The replacements for the Douro II and Congo II enter in service early than planned – the new focus in stealth ships is mostly responsible for that. While the Congo III is a very similar ship – even if more stealth, the new Douro III is another fish. For starters, is a big one – 16.000 tons+ – and nuclear powered. The reactor – an overgrow version of the ones powering the brand new SSBN’s – is initially for the Vasco Da Gama II, but that is – sanely – decided that is a too much expensive upgrade – and so the new destroyers / cruisers – get it. They get all the stealth improvements the Congo III receive, but they also get a lot of electronic / firepower upgrades.

Douro III class heavy destroyer / cruiser (?)
displacement – 16.300 tons (some say more)
speed 32 knots
1x 210mm gun (navalized, improved version of the G7) – with 120km + of range with advanced guided ammo
4x4 AShM Atum 3 or Exocet MM40 Block 3 (Atum 3 have better land capabilities)
4x 57mm CIWS (similar to Bofor’s 57mm mark 3) + 4x24 short range SAM (up to 25km) - like a beefed-up Pantsir-M
AEGIS type system - can network with Vasco da Gama carrier, others Douro II/III or Congo II/III for coordinated fleet defense
128x heavy VLS system – can launch Aster 30, 4xpacked medium range SAM’s, ASROC like ASW, cruise missiles or anti-ship missiles. Can also launch federation ABM (classified), even if rarely loaded.
16x VLS for federation variant of Bramhos (anti-ship / land attack) – programmed up to just before launch.
2x4 light torpedo (ASW) MU90 or federation variant
2x RPU-6000 (like) ASW system - similar, but highly upgraded / modified
2x heavy helicopters or 3 x medium helicopters
4x UAV’s
advanced towed sonar array
Up to 60 very heavily armed marines / special forces
Very advanced / powerful ECM / ESM / ECCM system – have (several) auxiliary generators on top of nuclear reactor for extra power.
Very expensive, only 2 ordered / constructed – served also as a test-bed for many of the systems and as a show ship for other countries.

The radar / detection / tracking system have a lot of improvements from the extensive tests against stealth UAV’s and is one of the most capable systems in that area in the world.
The electronic suit is capable of denying / fully jamming sat / GPS (and others) and almost any comms / electronics in the vicinity.
The federation variant of the Bramhos use a native version of control system, with different electronics and program capabilities.

Thanks to nuclear propulsion, extensive automation, comfortable accommodations and plenty of supplies / spare parts, these ships can stay on station for a very long time.
Is the sum / collection of all federation technology / military power – only possible to build because of the immense influence the Navy have in the shadow government – need to operate in several places at same time (North and South Atlantic, Indian oceans and Med).
 
Why is the federation capable of be for so many years beyond the radar of the super-powers ?
In part, because they don't look too much to Africa and in part because they define power by GDP - that is ultimately a faulty way.
GDP is heavily (very) directed to international trade - that is normally in dollars. If the power of one country is is internal economy or is external deals are by some way bypassing the 'standard' banking system - say, because they are based in bartering or in accords that don't deal in the usual banking system, they don't appear in the standard tables / GDP.

The federation ITTL is the first power to bypass / use alternative ways to the - american /western controlled - banking system, and, because of that, takes a lot of time for the rest of the world to perceive they real economic / industrial capabilities.
In OTL, that is the cause that some say Russia have an economy smaller than Italy, but if you use numbers that take the real trade (and internal operations) in consideration you see that Russia have an economy in the same league of Germany.
A big part of the reason that the 'standard' talkers / operators can't explain why Russia have not yet collapsed - because they models are faulty in a very big way.
 
In 2012 the CV Vasco da Gama II finally enters in service. In that year Madagascar start negotiations to enter – or a least turn in a special partner – of the federation.

Thanks to two new very big and state-of-the-art foundries / electronic factories and the much expanded older one, the federation get a six times bigger production capability of many electronic components – and also an expansion in the versatility of what can locally produce.

Quietly, many NATO bases don’t get they contracts renewed, turning then in federation only bases post 2012.

Also by mid 2012 the objective of all gov / military informatic systems to be fully native as achieved.
 
The federation participation in Libya is minimal – they send some tankers to support other countries operations, but stay away otherwise. In contrast, when the conflict risked to expand to Mali later, they fully support the french forces in the area, with attack and support planes and forces on the ground.

Note..: The federation have the second biggest – only US have more – tanker / support planes fleet of NATO. Is a mix of Airbus and home-made turboprops / propfans.

In late 2012 the first commercial Thorium powered central (2xreactors) enter in service near Luanda.
The search for rare earths in the federation territory lead to founding some small mines that while most are not commercial viable to explore, still give then options in case of difficulty in obtaining these materials in the world market.
 
The federation his the biggest user of the old A-300 and the more modern A-330 MRTT (cargo /tanker) and they also have a lot of turboprop (older) and propfan Albatroz tankers.
In the Mali operation, they also use several of the new long range, out of MANPADS range recon / strike drones (they how equivalent of the MQ-9x Predator).
The new Ogre MTB also get they fire baptism there, performing admirably.
They are also one of the partners in Airbus, and one of the biggest buyers of the civilian (passenger and cargo) models. The only serious condition that Airbus / EU posed is that any factory related is to be in europe, so they are all in the european territories (traditional Portugal).
 
During the second turn of Obama the silent campaign of NSA and other intelligence organizations from the The Five Eyes (Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the United Kingdom and the United States) against the federation increased substantially. The biggest advantage the federation has is that they communication network / almost all of they computers and OS’s are native made, and so much more difficult for foreign to penetrate.
While they have good relation with Israel (principally in the research, commercial and military) the way of doing things is very different. Israel is in a perpetual state of war / low level conflict / very tense relation with neighbors, while the federation prefers the good relation and pacific ways. That is almost impossible to Israel to change don’t modify the different postures and the friction that this sometimes create between both countries.
They also have (again) very good relation with France. France started to plan to replace they older nuclear reactors with the more modern and safe thorium ones developed by the federation, and plenty of research in civilian and military projects between both sides exist. Also, many of they weapons / ammo are produced by MBDA, and both countries have factories and active research in new and improved systems.

In early 2013 for the first time – and with great displeasure of USA – China is invited to common naval exercises in the Indian ocean, near federation territory.
Already a partner in the Brahmos group of weapons (developed by Russia and India, a 300km+ Mach 3 heavy missile that can be launched from land, air, surface and submarine), the federation enters in the PAK-FA program with Russia.
They can’t develop one alone in the desired time, the russian system is already well developed and they need cash. The India part is a flop at best, so Russia is very interested in the resources the new partner can deliver. This is also before the Ukraine crisis in 2014.
That USA is not happy is putting it mildly.
 
From mid 2012 to early 2014 the evolution of the situation is more or less this:
The federation is closing access to is bases to NATO (but not France), in Africa is creating a solid relation with China – both are interested in investing, stability and prefer to share the few areas / resources / countries that both have interest / influence. After all, they know / do business with each other fort a very long time – a thing that China appreciate and get a sense of security dealing with. And both have a history of be reliable partners.
While, nominally a NATO member – and still participating in the exercises, the federation is more and more distant of the much american dominated ‘direction / ideology' of the alliance.
The federation relations with Russia on the other hand is going very well. Not only they have resources and technology that the other want, they both share a profound distrust of USA.
In early 2014 with the Ukrainian crisis / ‘change’ of government and the sudden increase of active violent groups – well equipped and founded – in the territories that both the federation and China want in Africa, everything changed – to the worst.
 
The federation version of the Progress D-27 propfan is a success case. The original ukranian engine made is first run in 1992 and in mid 90’s the federation acquire production / development rights – and much of the tech / designer team. Twenty-something years later, with new, improved alloys and much better electronics including double-FADEC, they have variants from 8000 to 16000 hp with a dry weight of less than 2 tons in the most powerful version, also delivering reduced fuel consume and maintenance.
They use variants to replace all older turbo-props, and are busy selling many to Russia and China.
They even have one experimental A400PTx with four of these instead of the conventional but much less powerful TP400-D6 (11.000hp v 16.000hp with basically same weight).

Just before the Maiden / Ukranian Crisis the design of a new, very advanced nuclear carrier is in final stage by both the federation and french design teams. Is a mix of the QE2 design (two towers), everything France learned with the CdG and the Federation with the VdG and a new nuclear propulsion system – the first in the world using thorium – full power is classified by this time, but rumored to almost equal to the one used in the Ford class – even if the americans deny that possibility.

Many of the weapons used by the new insurgent groups are of Bulgarian manufacture – a tell-tale of delivered by CIA.

Note..: This is suspected time and again OTL, but AFAIK never proved. ITTL, is know by several nations, including the federation.
 
Because of the type of laws existing in the federation – no foreign companies can store data / info about federation nationals / interests and no foreign servers can store said data, under penalty of very heavy fees, companies like Google, Apple, Microsoft and Facebook don’t operate inside federation territory.
At first they tried to put pressure to change said laws, but they soon found that they don’t have any leverage – the federation do as little as possible business with US and is happy that way.
With the Ukrainian Crisis having the same embargo results than OTL the federation is more than happy to get as much as possible a slice of business that EU lost – food and high tech items, for example.
They are also negotiating with Russia to sell / produce many of the engines (turbines for warships, mostly) that until now are made in Ukraine – OTL Russia have several years of shortage until create new industries to replace that.

Note..: OTL in the food alone is estimated that EU lost about 10 billion euros / year because sanctions.

The result? Russia improved its internal production and buy from other countries. ITTL, the federation get a big part of that market.

From early as mid 30’s Portugal first and later the federation don’t want that american big companies operate inside they territory. Also, they have a big distrust of the american government and is tendency for regime change countries to better get (privileged) access to they resources / markets – always under the banner of ‘exporting’ freedom and democracy.
 
Unlike OTL, Opus Dei and Masonry have very little if any influence / penetration in the federation society / power circles. From the very beginning the shadow power that truly governs the federation identify both groups to be potential rivals and actions have been taken from reduce they influence and later complete eliminate it.

Factions that favor a better US relation, predominant EU or – the now in power – approximation to Russia and China, battle for control of the federation. Is a shadow war that is never reported in the media, even if generate several ‘accidents’.

South Africa and in a minor grade Israel are more and more perceived to be ‘a bit’ toxic because they troubled relation with some part of they population and the violence that generates.

By mid 2014, almost all public transportation services are electric, and a big pressure / fiscal benefits exist to help the private transaction in that direction. The surplus of electric energy produced by the numerous nuclear centrals help in that way.
 
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