Go North, Young Man: The Great Canada
- Thread starter TheMann
- Start date
I was thinking that the blue steel or something similar to it would be pretty good. Obviously, as SAM systems get better that is going to need to be replaced but it could probably be used until the early 70s at which point they will have to build one a bit longer ranged.
By modern day, I would expect them to use something similar to the agm 86 for strategic purposes and some free fall or something similar to JASSM for tactical purposes.
By modern day, I would expect them to use something similar to the agm 86 for strategic purposes and some free fall or something similar to JASSM for tactical purposes.
I did have the bomber idea in mind (The RCAF in this world will have a VERY long reach), but I hadn't considered the idea of a standoff missile being developed in Canada. It does make sense, though, particularly if Canada and Britain are working together on strategic weapons. A Blue Steel III with a turbojet engine, perhaps? Orenda could certainly make a suitable engine and Canada's electronics industries ITTL could certainly make a guidance system good enough, so this might actually work.
As far as bombers go, my initial thought was that Britain would develop the V-bombers, but commit to the Avro Vulcan, thus shunting the Handley-Page Victor down (as the British government of the time wasn't on particularly good terms with Sir Handley Page, this is easy to imagine), but as the RCAF wants the Victor, Handley Page commits to the project in Canada, and they alone buy the B.3 version of the Victor, fitted with Orenda-built (and improved) Rolls-Royce Conway turbofans, improved ECM suites, thicker wings (giving both better lift and greater durability in low-altitude flight), the use of the big panniers on the wings as bomb bays and larger fuel tanks, giving a Anglo-Canadian bomb truck capable of delivering either a pair of said nuclear-armed standoff missiles or fifty-three 1000-pound conventional bombs. The tougher-built Victors of the RCAF in this TL would be invaluable tools from the time they enter service (about 1964-65) until the 1990s. I was originally thinking Avro Vulcan, but looking at the Victor, the politics behind its being the second player to the Vulcan and the fact that it was a very good aircraft to fly, I'm thinking going that route.
That's an idea, too. Maybe Australia makes something like the AGM-123 Skipper II (which is effectively a laser-guided bomb with a rocket motor) in the 1960s and sells it to the other NATO countries, and then develops a smaller anti-surface missile that takes the place of the OTL AGM-119 Penguin anti-ship missile, while Canada builds the standoff missiles as well as improved versions of the Sparrow (giving Canada something comparable to the Skyflash fifteen years or so early) and ever-better versions of the Sidewinder, as well as developing with France and the ANZUS countries an anti-ship missile program that eventually becomes the Exocet.
Indeed so, but that's not beyond the Commonwealth here, is it?
Very soon. Apartheid is going to draw a line that Ottawa is not gonna condone.
I'm also torn on a subject - Korea. I've been researching it, and I've found that while keeping the Chinese out of the war is a tall order, having them lose early on isn't that hard, as their forces are rather primitive at first. Should I try to keep Korea united, or let the war goes as OTL and have a divided Korea I have to fix later?
I say that if you can prevent half of the Korean peninsula from being poverty-stricken under a feudal monarchy disguised as a socialist dictatorship then you should do it.
My advise is to keep the natural flow of the story/ATL. If Canada get's involved, then it's more likely for the Chinese to lose.
I say keep the outcome close to OTL, but get there in a slightly different way. It is always entertaining to have a rogue actor on the international stage.
One thing I have thought about is the effect that a successful market garden is going to have on strategy in the post war era. Here, the idea of an airborne assault on a broad front has not been disproven so someone is probably going to try it and it could end up being a disaster. That would actually be interesting to see happen in Korea.
One thing I have thought about is the effect that a successful market garden is going to have on strategy in the post war era. Here, the idea of an airborne assault on a broad front has not been disproven so someone is probably going to try it and it could end up being a disaster. That would actually be interesting to see happen in Korea.
If Canada builds an improved Victor how does this affect the V Bomber Force in Britain?
With less money spent on developing the Valiant, are its design flaws corrected?
Do they sell the design to another country e.g. France, leaving Britain with an all Vulcan bomber force?
With less money spent on developing the Valiant, are its design flaws corrected?
Do they sell the design to another country e.g. France, leaving Britain with an all Vulcan bomber force?
Perhaps Canadian and Australian missile/bomb research will give the TSR2 more flexible armament options, meaning the project isn't cancelled.
I've written the Korean War now, and without giving away too many of the details, Korea is unified when its over, but its a long, nasty process to get there, and it shifts the goalposts for the relationship in Asia between nations. I'm also going to have Japan go through a similar epiphany and repudiation of its past actions, so that the crimes of Japan in WWII are just as known to them as the Holocaust is to modern Germany, meaning that the Rape of Nanking, Hell Ships, Comfort Women, Unit 731, the Bataan Death March and countless other acts of heartless barbarity are going to known to Japan, not brushed under the rug as what largely happened IOTL. By the time this is firmly ingrained in Japan's psyche (mid-1960s), its such a shame to Japan that they start deeply investigating its past in 1963-64 and go to enormous efforts to make amends for the past to those who are willing to listen, particularly Korea, Taiwan and the Philippines.
And as people can probably tell, the Defense White Paper of 1957 isn't gonna happen in Britain, simply because while a withdraw East of Suez is for the most part an inevitability, the RAF and RN will have far more teeth, and the Commonwealth, which is now critically important to Britain's economic survival, is going to push Britain to maintain some projects and develop others with help.
And as people can probably tell, the Defense White Paper of 1957 isn't gonna happen in Britain, simply because while a withdraw East of Suez is for the most part an inevitability, the RAF and RN will have far more teeth, and the Commonwealth, which is now critically important to Britain's economic survival, is going to push Britain to maintain some projects and develop others with help.
So will more people be punished for what they did before and during the war than OTL? I'd love to see more of the bastards from unit 731 get punished for what they did.
Some certainly will - Shiro Ishii won't live long enough to face trial for Unit 731, but Masaji Kitano and Ryoichi Naito, among others, will end up in prison. More than a few former Imperial Army soldiers will be among those who testify about the crimes of Unit 731 in return for amnesty. Those who had been sent to prison in Russia for war crimes will be spared for the most part (except for Kiyoshi Kawashima, Ryuji Kajitsuka and Takaatsu Takahashi, who will be in prison in Japan after being released by the Russians), but the history of Unit 731 and its actions will be released to the Japanese public, and the results will not be pretty. Those involved in Unit 731 will all pretty much end up ostracized from Japanese society as a result.
The Yasukuni Shrine's leaders will attempt to enshrine the names of the war criminals in the late 1950s as the crimes come out in public, which is going to cause the mother of all uproars in Japan but will still see the names put there, causing Emperor Hirohito to very publicly condemn the action and vow never to visit the Shrine again until the names are removed, which effectively forces Japan's political leadership to do the same. As more and more of the horrible deeds come out, the names are removed in 1964, never to be put back, in the midst of what was by then a pretty nasty row. By the early 1960s, knowledge of the past will call for some to demand the abolishment of Japan's armed forces entirely, though this obviously doesn't happen. One result, however, is that Japan in 1964 creates its own tribunals and investigative service to go through every bit of information they can find to know the truth and publicly explain it, and it results in Hirohito making trips in 1966 to Korea, Taiwan, the Philippines, Malaysia and Singapore to make public apologies for the past actions of his country and his army, and does the same in the United States, Canada and Britain in 1967. Japan's industrialists get the point, too, and Japan's economic growth soon sees very large amounts of aid and investment sent all around the Pacific Rim, particularly Korea. The People's Republic of China never accepts the apologies, even after Mao's death in 1976 and the country's subsequent changes.
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OTL
I doubt if any Canadians cared about (South African) apartheid during the 1950s.
Canada would be hypocritical if they criticized South African racial practices.
Canada has long had its own form of apartheid: Indian reservations.
Canada only made token comments about apartheid to back Americans. The American agenda was driven by people like Harry Truman, Robert Kennedy, Dr. Martin Luther King, etc. Their goal was to convince poor and working class American blacks that they could live the "American Dream" if they stayed in school, worked hard, invested in houses, etc.
IOW Robert Kennedy wanted to nudge poor Americans off welfare and convert them into tax-payers, consumers, voters, etc.
Pushing South Africa to end apartheid was just a side-show.
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You mentioned Canadian investment in post war British industry, what other factors and events will there be to make the Commonwealth of such vital practical importance?
Food and energy supplies, raw materials, support for the pound, markets for British exports, professional support, tons of other areas.
Cool.
Yeah, I figured you'd like that.
Canada's relationship with America won't change too much, but Britain and France will be much closer to Canada (Australia too), and co-operation between them will make sure they all prosper.
It's gonna take more than a stronger Commonwealth to make UN peacekeeping more effective.
I'm thinking that it's probably more economic and military ties. In Canadian Power the Commonwealth gave a few countries some serious beat downs.