Hi all, I have been a long time lurker, but have spenbt the last few months catching up on the various “Protect and Survive” and spinoff threads. Being of an age where I spent a lot of time at that time worrying about an “exchange” (I was 7 in february 1984), I’ve developed a now lifelong interest in the topic, and these threads are some of the best speculation I have seen about the thing a lot of us dreaded. Particular congrats in absentia to Macragge for coming up with, researching and persevering with the whole enterprise, and to the other authors such as Chipperback and JN1 for building on it so well. I also have a family connection to and interest in military aviation, and in particular the V-Force as my father was in the cold-war RAF (and serving on a V-bomber station at the time of the Cuban crisis).
With that in mind, after reading though the threads over the last few months, I have a couple of comments/questions about the depiction of the use of Vulcans and Victors and other aircraft in the P+S timeline. These also apply to and affect the Prospero and “Last flight of XM594” TL’s, but rather than post the same thing in multiple threads it might be just as convenient to note them here. Apologies if any of these have been noted or addressed before and I missed them. They are intended to be politely constructive observations rather than critical comments, but they cover things that upset the flow of otherwise excellent accounts
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Firstly P+S, Prospero and Last Flight all describe Victors being used in a strategic bombing role. This requires a PoD somewhere around 1968 or earlier, as the Victor B.2 was retired from the bombing role in that year. Some continued as SR.2s in the reconnaissance role up until 1974-75, but after that the Victor performed air-to-air refuelling after the conversion to K.2 tanker standard (the first K.2 entering service in 1974), and occasional reconnaissance, most notably in the Falklands conflict. The conversion to K.2 was effectively irreversible, so no Victor bombers can be had in the 1980’s without some much earlier counter factual decisions in play (including finding another platform for the RAF’s AAR needs, as the Victor originally became a tanker due to the premature forced retirement of the Valiant in the same role). The upshot of this is while Prospero gets denied a Victor pilot forever haunted by his mission, in K.2 form the Victor has more than enough range to cross the Atlantic with no problems if fuel can be found for it. Alternatively RAF Brize Norton doesn’t seem to have appeared on the “official” target list, so there could be a VC-10 C.1 or two kicking about that would just as ably meet the needs of the Prospero mission.
The other query I have is about the war missions described for the V-Force in these threads, as they seem to conflict with the role of the aircraft in OTL when other aspects of their description here don’t. The mission detailed in “Last Flight” and alluded to in P+S and Prospero is a strategic mission in conjunction with the SIOP. Everything I have read about the Vulcan force indicates they relinquished the strategic role from 1970 after the introduction of Polaris in 1969, and while remaining nuclear tasked were declared to NATO SACEUR as
tactical nuclear assets. The sortie XM594 flies fits with a 1960’s V-Force strategic tasking, but not a 1980’s tactical one unless they were acting as part of an independent UK response. As the SIOP has been enacted though (presumably with prior UK agreement and planning as the Vulcan crew refer to it during their sortie) the latter doesn’t seem to apply. This isn’t a criticism, I’m just curious to know the reasoning behind this in an otherwise true to references account.
The FB-111 delivering the weapon at Eschwege is odd, as the FB-111 was solely operated by SAC Bomb Wings as a strategic nuclear bomber, and not as a tactical asset or by Tactical Fighter Wings as described (they were later re-roled and redesignated as F-111G for non-nuclear tactical use, but that’s outside the P+S scope). As a strategic asset, even with serious attrition of the UK based TAC F-111 force (D, E and F models) I don't think it likely to be released into the tactical melee in Europe, even for a nuclear mission. The TAC F-111’s were also nuclear capable, as was practically every other tactical strike aircraft in the NATO inventory, so it is just as easy and more plausible to me to have one of those light the match - TAC F-111’s stood nuclear “victor alert” in the UK during the cold war along with RAF tactical strike aircraft on QRA in Germany, and as far as I am aware some would have been held in reserve during a conflict for nuclear missions if required.
Others have mentioned it but the work-around of the PAL and nuclear release by an individual also requires significant handwaving, as the kind of scenario described was one of the things the PAL and two-man rule systems were specifically designed to prevent (the RAF “Bicycle Lock Key” method of arming the WE.177 on the other hand is a potentially ripe source of hi-jinks. . . ). Chipperback alludes to this in the Flatwater thread, but just how the General Ripper scenario occurred is still a mystery.
Lastly, I’m not sure if anyone else has picked up on this but if the exchange beginning at close to 1700-1800 GMT is taken as canon, that means that the UK warhead impacts and initial effects in the UK and all points east take place during the hours of darkness at that time of year. I’m not sure if it affects P+S too much, but it does significantly affect the visual descriptions of what is seen in “Last Flight”.
Again apologies if these have all been explained elsewhere, and they are minor things. Thanks again to all contributors and authors for fleshing out the scenario and timeline so well