Superpower Empire: China

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Hendryk

Banned
tallwingedgoat said:
To be honest, not really. There's a lot of work to be done, not just fuel but nozzle design, stabilization (fin vs vectored nozzle spin), launch projector, fuze, warhead, a lot of experimentation. As simple as rockets sound, there just wasn't much research on the subject at the time.
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Okay, I'll take that into account. Perhaps I'll involve Goddard in one way or another. What I want is for the weapon to be operational by 1940 at the latest, though 1939 would be better.

Since you just mentioned the Austin K3 truck, here's something I'd prepared earlier but hadn't yet got around to posting:


Main Chinese automobile manufacturers​

Number One China Automobiles
Chinese name: 中國第一汽車 (Zhongguo Di Yi Qiche)
Location: Changsha, Hunan Province
Date Founded: 1915
History: As the rather self-evident name implies, Number One China Automobiles was China’s first car manufacturing company. Nominally a private venture, it was founded with government assistance and the technical expertise of advisers from French carmaker Renault. Its original location was Shanghai, but it was relocated to Changsha in 1934 following the Japanese invasion, and has remained there since then. Its factories produced the bulk of China’s armored vehicles during the war (not counting Lend-Lease US imports from 1942 to 1945), an activity that was transferred to a new company in 1947 to allow NOCA to focus once more on the civilian market. It became internationally famous for its inexpensive, compact cars from the 1960s onwards.


Wuhan Automobile Works
Chinese name: 武漢汽車工廠 (Wuhan Qiche Gongchang)
Location: Wuhan, Hubei Province
Date Founded: 1932
History: As tensions rose between China and Japan and war became a certainty, the Chinese government decided to set up strategic industries in less vulnerable locations. Wuhan was chosen as the site of a state-owned vehicle manufacturing company in order to cover the Army’s needs in trucks and other vehicles. After the war, WAW broadened its activities into the civilian sector. It is mostly notable for its Model 8 and 10 light trucks, respectively licence-produced versions of the Austin K3 and the Studebaker US 6. It remains a prominent manufacturer of heavy and utility vehicles to this day, though it started making inroads into the leisure vehicle market after its privatization in 1988.


Fortune Motor Corporation
Chinese name: 幸運汽車公司 (Yingxun Qiche Gongsi)
Location: Guangzhou, Guangdong Province
Date Founded: 1949
History: The post-war economic boom created many opportunities for enterprising individuals. One such man was Lü Xiaoqian, a self-made businessman from Guangzhou who had started out as a small-time smuggler between Hong Kong and Guangzhou in the early 1930s while still a teenager. By 1934 he had founded his own hardware workshop, using scavenged scrap metal to make cooking utensils and other everyday items. In 1942, having evacuated to Changsha to flee the Japanese occupation of southern Guangdong, he started a small factory producing spare parts for army vehicles. Upon returning to Guangzhou, he relocated and expanded his factory, and in 1949 moved into the manufacturing of vehicles proper. Anticipating the demand of China’s rising middle class for vehicles that would carry the same status symbol as Western models at a fraction of the price, he developed a range of leisure and sports cars that seeked to be both stylish and affordable.


Shenyang Automobiles
Chinese name: 瀋陽汽車 (Shenyang Qiche)
Location: Shenyang, Liaoning Province
Date Founded: 1963
History: Shenyang Automobiles started out as Shenyang Agricultural Machines Company, which was founded in the early post-war years to provide the large Manchurian farms with agricultural equipment such as tractors and combine harvesters. In 1961 the decision was made to diversify into road vehicles, and the first models rolled off the assembly lines two years later. SA soon began to compete with WAW for the utility vehicle market and with NOCA for downmarket family cars, prompting the latter to expand internationally. The company’s fortune began to decline in the early 1980s after falling behind on fuel efficiency research in the wake of the two oil crises of the 1970s, and it was taken over by WAW in 1991, though it keeps producing vehicles under its own brand name.


Luoyun Aircraft and Automobile Corporation
Chinese name: 罗云飛机汽車公司 (Luoyun Feiji Qiche Gongsi)
Location: Luoyun, Guangxi Province
Date Founded: 1968
History: LAAC was initially Feng Aircraft Company, founded in Guangzhou by flight pioneer Feng Ru in 1912 soon after his return to China from the USA. At first little more than a workshop, it benefited handsomely from the new regime’s policy of military modernization, which after 1914 and the Battle of Qingdao put great (some have said excessive) emphasis on air power. While China’s first aircraft were direct imports from France and Britain, Feng Aircraft was first on the line when the decision was taken to favor domestic production under licence. Relocated in Guangxi Province for strategic reasons in 1936, it was extensively reorganized and formally renamed Luoyun Aircraft Corporation. In the 1960s, LAC, following the lead of other aircraft manufacturers, decided to apply its technical expertise to designing cars as well as planes, and became LAAC in 1968. Its primary markets are the Chinese and Western upper middle classes, and its cars tend to be carefully and stylishly designed, making them significantly more expensive than other Chinese-made cars. The Chinese simply refer to the company as Cloudcatcher, which is the literal meaning of Luoyun.
 
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CCA

Sargon

Sargon

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Monthly Donor
I have to say without doubt the level of research that has gone into this TL is really quite stunning, and the post TL tweaking is very welcome indeed.

Looking forward to the upcoming story on Kang Tung Pih.


Sargon
 

Hendryk

Banned
tallwingedgoat said:
Nice, military rocket fuel is usually Ballistite, a pretty simple compound that is well within the capability of developing countries of that era.
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I looked up Ballistite; having been patented back in 1887 by Nobel, its mass production would indeed be within Chinese capabilities in the 1930s. If I understand correctly, it's essentially what is commonly known as "smokeless powder" and used in firearms since the turn of the 20th century. So the issue of fuel should be dealt with in fairly short order. That leaves the other issues you've mentioned, nozzle design, stabilization, launch projector, fuze, warhead. Now, Goddard's research was available to other scientists (Von Braun used it to build his early rocket prototypes) and I suppose Liang could build on it as well. What if I give him two years instead of one to come up with a working model? If necessary I could involve Qian himself, who at the time was studying at CalTech under the direction of Theodore Von Karman and had joined the so-called "Suicide Squad" along with Frank Malina and others.

tallwingedgoat said:
And another thing, you can use ethanol to fuel your trucks. Ethanol cars used to be as common as gasoline ones in the 1920s. It's ideal for countries that are oil-poor but land and manpower rich. You can mix it with gas to stretch it. What's really cool is a 80:20 ethanol:gas mix makes 100 octane fuel. That's something even the Germans couldn't make because they did have sources for enough alkylates. Only the US and Britain had 100 octane fuel which gave 10-15% more power to fighter aircraft. You lose some range but that's not that big of a deal in intercept missions.
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Was that 80:20 ethanol:gas mix known in the 1930s? That would be a big help in making wartime China less dependent on fuel imports, considering Japan's tightening blockade.

Which brings me to a related question, which I'd asked in the Help and Feedback forum but had received no answer:

China at the time of the SSJW did have a potential domestic source of oil, as even in OTL some oil fields had been discovered in Xinjiang, though exploitation would remain marginal until the early 1950s because of tenuous central control over the region and lack of infrastructure. Those problems could be solved in TTL by 1935 or so, but extracting the oil isn't the whole story, it has to be refined as well. So how long would it take China, assuming no pre-existing petrochemical infrastructure, to build enough refineries to provide for the needs of its military apparatus, using the technology available in the 1930s? It could, of course, hire Western (presumably British or American) experts if necessary.
 

tallwingedgoat

Hendryk said:
I looked up Ballistite; having been patented back in 1887 by Nobel, its mass production would indeed be within Chinese capabilities in the 1930s. If I understand correctly, it's essentially what is commonly known as "smokeless powder" and used in firearms since the turn of the 20th century.
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There were several smokeless powders used for ammunition. Every major power had their own forumlation. Ballistite was one of them, but for some reason was prefered for short range rockets.

What if I give him two years instead of one to come up with a working model?
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The problem is you're trying to make China the first to develop such a weapon at a time when there just wasn't much rocket science to build on. The first generation of WWII battlefield rockets were fielded in 1941 after German and Soviet design teams worked on them for years. When the US entered the war it only took a couple of years to get a rocket industry going. Once someone else has done it, you know how to approach the problem and it's ALOT easier. To be a pioneer of a new weapons system requires a lot of trial and error. So at the mininum you'll need a design team of more than just two guys, and decent funding. I'm not saying it can't be done. But it will have to be a pretty serious program because you'll need to do everything from designing the rocket to designing the tools and process of making all the parts. As with any military equipment, it's designed by geniouses to be made by idiots, and it must work consistently everytime.

I'll give you a link to a WWII rocket to give you more ideas on what's involved.

http://www.eugeneleeslover.com/USNAVY/CHAPTER-11-A.html

Was that 80:20 ethanol:gas mix known in the 1930s? That would be a big help in making wartime China less dependent on fuel imports, considering Japan's tightening blockade.
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Ethanol by itself has higher than 100 octane. The more you cut it down with gas the lower the octane and the better the mileage. I'm pretty sure this basic concept was well known. Something like 80:20 or 85:15 will get it down to 100 octane. The reason I mentioned this mix is because the best fighter aircraft engines were designed for this type of fuel. Export engines were often de-tuned to accept lower octane gas because 100 octane was not available. Now you can use straight ethanol, but the engines may not be able to deal with the knocking problems and use the extra energy.

Ethanol can substitute for gas. However this means you'll have less food to eat and more people will have to be put to work in the ethanol industry rather than doing other useful stuff. The Chinese have the manpower, substituting food crop for surgarcane however will increase famine.

So how long would it take China, assuming no pre-existing petrochemical infrastructure, to build enough refineries to provide for the needs of its military apparatus, using the technology available in the 1930s? It could, of course, hire Western (presumably British or American) experts if necessary.
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The main problem is oil infrastructure require a huge investment. At least a decade for significant output levels I'd say.
 
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tallwingedgoat

The more I think about it, why not have the your guys do a joint rocket artillery program with another country. For example design and make it in the US to a Chinese government requirement, and have it in the service of both countries.
 

Hendryk

Banned
tallwingedgoat said:
To be a pioneer of a new weapons system requires a lot of trial and error. So at the mininum you'll need a design team of more than just two guys, and decent funding. I'm not saying it can't be done. But it will have to be a pretty serious program because you'll need to do everything from designing the rocket to designing the tools and process of making all the parts.
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I see what you mean. The funding could be arranged, with the Chinese leadership seeking alternatives to steel-intensive conventional artillery. As the Soviets demonstrated after Barbarossa, being invaded by a hostile power works wonders for spurring military R&D. As for the research team itself, I could mobilize various figures from OTL such as Shen Hong, Wu Youxun, Wang Ganchang and Wu Dayou (all four were physicists whose fields of expertise I could tweak so they can involve themselves in rocket science), as well as Zhao Jiuzhang, a rocketry engineer born in 1907. I'd rather keep Qian in the US as his biography has interesting enough elements as it is.

tallwingedgoat said:
The main problem is oil infrastructure require a huge investment. At least a decade for significant output levels I'd say.
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Okay, not a problem. I'd actually factored in chronic fuel shortages for China throughout the SSJW in my TL--one of the main reasons, in fact, why it didn't use combined-arms tactics even when it knew about them.

tallwingedgoat said:
The more I think about it, why not have the your guys do a joint rocket artillery program with another country. For example design and make it in the US to a Chinese government requirement, and have it in the service of both countries.
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Could be an idea.
 

Hendryk

Banned
Since Psychomeltdown's story "One Small Step" has recently been bumped in the Writers' Forum, here is the biographical entry of He Sheng, the first Chinese man on the Moon:

He Sheng 佫勝 (born 1925) was a pioneer of the Chinese space program and the first non-American to walk on the Moon.

He Sheng was born in a peasant family in rural Liaoning. He lost his parents as a child when the Japanese invasion began in 1934 and was taken in by a relative who had joined a local resistance cell. He was at first put to use as a lookout and errand boy, but by the time he was a teenager he had become an insurgent fighter in his own right. Having become his cell’s contact with the underground military leadership in charge of the Manchurian region, he got to meet General Zhang Xueliang, the son of Marshal Zhang Zuolin. Zhang took a liking of the energetic, capable boy and, on one occasion in 1941, took him along for a secret trip across the Japanese lines to Chongqing, the capital of free China.

While in Chongqing he discovered a passion for aircraft, and requested to be affected in the Air Force. With Zhang sponsoring his application, he enlisted at the Chongqing Air Force Academy in August 1942 and flew his first combat mission the following year. He rapidly rose to the status of ace fighter but was downed by a Japanese pilot in March 1944, and his wounds required him to sit out the last few months of the war.

After the Japanese surrender in January 1945, he became a test pilot on the new generation of jet-powered aircraft. For the next 14 years he would get to fly a number of experimental planes such as the LAC-23 Xianghe « Soaring Crane », China’s first supersonic fighter. His friend Jiang Hui’s accidental death at the commands of a defective prototype in 1959, and concerns for the welfare of his wife and prospective child, almost caused him to return to civilian life, but General Yang Xianyi instead talked him into joining China’s nascent space program.

He trained with other pioneers of China’s space age such as Zou Xiaolong, who would become known as the « Chinese Gagarin » when he became the first Chinese to reach orbital altitude in 1963, and Han Mao. He was supposed to take part in the Kun III mission in 1965, but a bad case of influenza kept him grounded ; Han, who was kept as back-up, ended up going instead. This apparent stroke of ill luck paradoxically saved He Sheng’s life, as a mechanical glitch during launch caused a catastrophic malfunction of the Shenzhou-2 rocket, which exploded, killing Han instantly. The accident proved a serious setback for the Chinese space program, which for the rest of the decade was left behind by both the American and Soviet programs.

However, China took the lead again after the failure of the Apollo XIII mission in 1970, which caused the US space module to crash on the Moon. He Sheng, who at 47 was nearing the end of his career as a taikonaut, was chosen in 1972 to lead the Chang’e Moon mission (thus named after the Chinese Moon goddess), with Lin Wenfu and Cheng Yifei as crewmates. Cheng was doubly a pioneer, as she was China’s first female taikonaut. On June 17, 1972, the Houyi module landed on the Moon, and He walked out.

The historical achievement of the Chang’e mission was to be his swan song. He remained until 1976 as an instructor and technical advisor, then retired in earnest. However, he took one last trip into space in 1998, when he joined fellow veteran John Glenn onboard the Discovery space shuttle to study the effects of a zero gravity environment on an aged body, a mission that inspired filmmaker Clint Eastwood to direct the movie « Space Cowboys » (with Chinese actor Jia Ming in the role of a He Sheng analog alongside Tommy Lee Jones, Donald Sutherland and Eastwood himself). He now lives in Dalian with his wife.
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Hendryk

Banned
Bishop said:
Very interesting to see how these program's names are taken after current projects in China.
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Yeah, it tells you something about how good these names are if even the Communist regime uses them despite their less-than-ideologically correct connotations. After all, while it makes sense of the PRC in OTL to give rockets names like Long March and Red East, it's rather more unexpected to see one named Ship of the Gods...

Further, much of the similitude is due to the same man as in OTL being in charge of the program. With Qian at hand, I hardly needed to make someone up.
 

tallwingedgoat

I wonder if you could do a 1930s naval war story. I notice you have a lot of research into aircraft, but not much on tanks and ships.

After the Washington Naval Treaty of 1922 a huge number of ships were decomissioned by the Royal Navy and US Navy. With a fair amount of money you could build a small and potent fleet. Perhaps not world class navy, but certainly a strategically useful one.

One of the more useful vessles to buy were submarines. This is because a relatively small number of them could do a lot of damage against vulnerable transport ships, and traditional capitol ships could do little about it. It's no accident the Chinese navy of the Mao era avoided capitol ships altogether and concentrated on subs.

Have a look at this list of US submarines. In particular the O, R, S class boats which were decomissioned in large numbers in the 20s and especially early 30s after the stockmarket crashed.

The reason I like the idea is this would pretty much be the last hurrah of the pre-aircraft carrier naval age.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_submarines_of_the_United_States_Navy
 

Hendryk

Banned
tallwingedgoat said:
I wonder if you could do a 1930s naval war story. I notice you have a lot of research into aircraft, but not much on tanks and ships.
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I've given some thought about it, but being a complete layman on naval matters, I have to rely entirely on input provided by those members with actual expertise. The general idea is that, for various reasons (strategic short-sightedness, weakness of the naval lobby, poor performance of the Navy at the Battle of Qingdao in 1914, etc.), the new regime doesn't invest as much into upgrading its war fleet as it ought to. In the late 1920s and early 1930s, there is a widely-shared by largely mistaken consensus among the Chinese military leadership that a modern air force can make up for a small navy.

Further, two types of vessels are favored over classic cruisers and other heavy battleships (which are regarded as too expensive and unwieldy), the light aicraft carrier and the submarine; while this may seem like a good idea, the problem is that those are acquired mostly for their novelty value, without a coherent doctrine being developed to use them in wartime--in essence, China's aircraft carriers and subs in the 1930s are much like French tanks in 1940, good weapons in the absolute, but not used as they should be. The predictable result is that the IJN wipes the proverbial floor with the Chinese Navy once combat operations begin in earnest in 1934. However, with the lesson painfully learned, once China has reconstituted a war fleet--mostly by placing orders on foreign shipyards, including brand new ones built for the occasion in Perth, since China's own shipyards are either in Japanese hands or within striking range of the IJN--it starts using it much more efficiently.

tallwingedgoat said:
After the Washington Naval Treaty of 1922 a huge number of ships were decomissioned by the Royal Navy and US Navy. With a fair amount of money you could build a small and potent fleet. Perhaps not world class navy, but certainly a strategically useful one.

One of the more useful vessles to buy were submarines. This is because a relatively small number of them could do a lot of damage against vulnerable transport ships, and traditional capitol ships could do little about it. It's no accident the Chinese navy of the Mao era avoided capitol ships altogether and concentrated on subs.
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Good point, that's pretty much what I have in mind. Since China would need to develop the requisite domestic know-how before it could build its own submarines, I figure it would buy its first ones from Western countries in the 1920s. So you're saying it could get them at a good price from Britain and the US? (Incidentally, since in TTL, China isn't buying nearly as much stuff from Germany, and also insists on remaining allied with France and Britain for its own ulterior motives, this will lead Germany to draw closer to Japan earlier than in OTL).

Here's, in TTL, a Chinese medium aircraft carrier circa 1931.

Copie de Medium aicraft carrier 1931.jpg
 

tallwingedgoat

If you look at the Chinese navy of the People's Republic, there are no carriers and few major surface combatants. Pretty much from the 50's to 90's the navy was a brown water fleet with lots of submarines and fast torpedo boats. On paper this was a huge fleet but the average tonnage was tiny. The power projection was negligable but it was cheap and simple to operate.

The intention behind this fleet was to use a low budget fleet to deter a seaborn invasion. It's an assymetric defensive posture developed out of China's experience in WWII.

This could work in a 1930s scenario. Buy a fleet of small torpedo boats and a some bigger patrol vessels to protect your coast and ports. From these ports you can launch submarine attacks on enemy supply ships. Avoid direct confrontation with enemy capitol ships and avoid investment in vulnerable and expensive projects like the carrier. The submarine warfare doctrine would already have been a proven winner since WWI. Japan is just like Britain, it couldn't survive without merchant shipping. It would be crazy for an enemy navy not seize upon this if funds were available. Japan's great vulnerability in WWII was their inability to stop USN submarines from sinking the oil transports making their way from the East Indies to Japan. Arguably the USN subs did more to win the war than anything else.

A small fleet can be bought at a decent price. If you look at that list of US submarines. Most of them were broken up for scrap in the 20s and early 30s. It wont be enough to win the war, but it would be a heck of a headache.
 
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Hendryk

Banned
tallwingedgoat said:
This could work in a 1930s scenario. Buy a fleet of small torpedo boats and a some bigger patrol vessels to protect your coast and ports. From these ports you can launch submarine attacks on enemy supply ships. Avoid direct confrontation with enemy capitol ships and avoid investment in vulnerable and expensive projects like the carrier. The submarine warfare doctrine would already have been a proven winner since WWI. Japan is just like Britain, it couldn't survive without merchant shipping. It would be crazy for an enemy navy not seize upon this if funds were available. Japan's great vulnerability in WWII was their inability to stop USN submarines from sinking the oil transports making their way from the East Indies to Japan. Arguably the USN subs did more to win the war than anything else.

A small fleet can be bought at a decent price. If you look at that list of US submarines. Most of them were broken up for scrap in the 20s and early 30s. It wont be enough to win the war, but it would be a heck of a headache.
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I think I'll go along with your idea of China buying WW1-vintage decommissioned US and British submarines at bargain prices. I'll also scale down what I had in mind about aircraft carriers, though I think a few will still be built in the late 1920s and early 1930s--by converting freighter hulls to save on costs--because of the regime's fascination with aircraft as the next revolutionary weapon.

Chinese subs are indeed going to be a huge pain for Japanese shipping as the war progresses.

And just because it's been a while since I last mentioned the fact that traditional clothing (and modern reinterpretations thereof) are more prevalent in TTL's China, here's a qipao-clad girl :)

Qipao 135.jpg
 
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