The Iron Eagle II - Days of Strife

Which style should be predominant?

  • "Point of View", following the lives of major characters and those affected by their decisions

    Votes: 73 17.3%

  • "Historical", the predominant format of the last chapter with an omniscient narrator

    Votes: 349 82.7%
  • Total voters
    422
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Pax_Nihil

Pax_Nihil

FinnD25 said:
I guess Mao was just a glass half full kinda guy
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Mao neglected to factor in the Soviet policy of making sure that if they were going down, they'd try to make it so that anyone left standing would be bleeding if not killed (ITTL that's not happening of course but Mao also has much less to work with from what I've been surmising).

What I'm referencing is the Soviet (also Russian now) policy to nuke essentially everyone on Earth to some extent once they had the capacity and when they'd be in such a slugfest that they knew it'd be strategically 'better' to bring as many nations (or rather people groups) down as many pegs as they surmise they'd be after a nuclear exchange.
 
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Judge Dredd34

holycookie said:
Neural deficiency kinda guy. I would say he must be among the worst Chinese emperors.
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Like most communists he was a skilled politician good at selling at his ideas, but was a terrible economist whose ideals blew up like a water balloon when it hit the ground. The reason why socialists like Thomas Sankara/Fidel Castro managed to attain such popularity with their people, is because they had a strong financial grasp on what they could do and they had no delusions of what they couldn’t. Stalin/Mao and even Ho Chi Minh all suffered blows to their popularity when they promised more of what they could economically deliver leading to horrific disasters in their wake.

Ultimately the best hope for China is if Mao dies during the Cultural Revolution, and someone more reasonable takes his place. @Kaiser of Brazil if Mao dies ITTL who would take his place?
 
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GrimmJow007

GrimmJow007

Judge Dredd34 said:
if Mao dies ITTL who would take his place?
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Only one man can replace Mao...

images - 2024-03-25T034509.358.jpeg
 

Judge Dredd34

Rajveer Naha said:
If India really wanted, India could have secured a nuke as early as the mid-60s. After the Sino-Indian war, for the first time both the political leadership led by Nehru and the scientific leader at the Atomic Energy Commission Homi Jehangir Bhaba agreed to develop nuclear weapons and it was stated that a weapon could be acquired within eighteen months to five years depending on the effort and resources put into the program. Then Nehru died and the Program lost support although Bhaba again vigorously advocated for nuclear weapons soon he also died and the next chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission Vikram Sarabhai did not want a bomb to be built at all. Then finally to decision to have a bomb was taken as the requirement of nuclear deterrence was realised in the 1971 Indo-Pak war when the US sent a carrier group to intimidate India. So I believe that if India wanted a bomb could have been ready by the mid-1960s.

I do not believe that Maoist Bureaucracy would be a problem when that is such a high-priority project. They would be given literally everything that they need. China has a large number of first-rate Physicists of its own and I believe that now they have been working towards a bomb for 15 years, they would have achieved success.

Why are we counting time in the sense of the date of the first nuclear weapon in 1945? If we look at the time from decision to a working nuclear weapon then the number is 14 years from the withdrawal from the NPT. If we look at the earliest activities suggesting a nuclear program even then the number is 20 years. China is a very different beast with everything needed to build a bomb and if you have the political will and good physicists, it is not too hard to get one. Even if they do not have a nuclear weapon at the moment, I am sure they will have one by the mid-70s. Believing that the Soviets gave away bomb technology to the Chinese is an overstatement. The Chinese were given very vague and general information about the bomb itself but the help was in the sphere of nuclear reactors (minor air), uranium mining (substantial aid) and processing engineering (moderate aid). They figured out most of the stuff themselves along the way but got some nice help on the way in the late 50s but from the Sino-Soviet Split to the first detonation, they figured out the last part on their own.

Soviet Union and to be fair the Americans did not necessarily need them after the mid-50s. Sergei Korolev and his men were doing a stellar job, so there was no need for Germans. They were a nice thing to have but hardly required.

Nuclear reactors? Sure. the two early reactors, APSARA and CIRUS were foreign reactors but after that India kept on building all the necessary infrastructure to have a full-fledged domestic nuclear industry and the Bomb was only a matter of time. Uranium fuel supply from the west was important so that can be considered to be a help. With a four-country effort, frankly, I expected the Bomb to be ready sooner than ITTL.

The Muslim League has been Crushed in this TL and the universal Franchise, devasted them as they were an elitist organisation, same is the case for the Hindu Nationalist organisations that were founded as a response to the Muslim League. These movements really took hold in places where the religion they claimed to represent was in the minority, but the States Reorganisation Act, both ITTL and OTL removed religion from the equation and created a regional identity. So the likely challengers to the Big Tent Congress would be a more potent version of the Swatantrata Party which was ideologically opposed to the Congress and was an inclusive party. and some socialists from the other end of the aisle.

With a one-child policy, Mao's brilliant plan of losing 400 million in a nuclear war and having 400 million left to finish the enemy will fall apart.
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@Rajveer Naha As the resident India expert here, do you think it’s possible for India to annex Mauritius the small Indian majority state near Africa (67% OTL)? It would help in a logistical sense to give India a greater military access route to Madagascar. On top of being a trade boost to client states in Africa.

@Kaiser of Brazil Would India annex Mauritius the small island next to Madagascar if given the chance ITTL?

For reference here’s the Island Location:
IMG_6171.jpeg
 
BigBoy88

BigBoy88

Rajveer Naha said:
Soviet Union and to be fair the Americans did not necessarily need them after the mid-50s. Sergei Korolev and his men were doing a stellar job, so there was no need for Germans. They were a nice thing to have but hardly required.
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Well, unless you see the space race slowing down and America getting on the moon far later than they did irl, then sure, they didn't need the German scientists. The German rocket scientists were an important start for the Soviet program in the late 40s and early 50s but were essentially removed from the programme for the most part like you said.

But I do believe that had America not utilised it's own German scientists to the extent that it ended up doing, then getting men on the moon, by far the most complicated project ever concieved up until that point, would've taken far far longer, if at all even. The whole team who designed and engineered the Saturn and Redstone line of Rockets, with the former under Von Braun's experienced Peenemünde associates, being sidelined, would've certainly slowed development to a similar level like that of the USSR later on in the space race. I'm mostly basing this on the sheer contributions made by German scientists from the 50s into the late 60s during the US's space efforts.
 
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Pax_Nihil

Pax_Nihil

BigBoy88 said:
Well, unless you see the space race slowing down and America getting on the moon far later than they did irl, then sure, they didn't need the German scientists. The German rocket scientists were an important start for the Soviet program in the late 40s and early 50s but were essentially removed from the programme for the most part like you said.

But I do believe that had America not utilised it's own German scientists to the extent that it ended up doing, then getting men on the moon, by far the most complicated project ever concieved up until that point, would've taken far far longer, if at all even. The whole team who designed and engineered the Saturn and Redstone line of Rockets, with the former under Von Braun's experienced Peenemünde associates, being sidelined, would've certainly slowed development to a similar level like that of the USSR later on in the space race. I'm mostly basing this on the sheer contributions made by German scientists from the 50s into the late 60s during the US's space efforts.
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Going to the moon was a PR stunt first and foremost, it was never a necessity to do it. Now, making ICBM's is another matter entirely......
 
Kaiser of Brazil

Kaiser of Brazil

Pax_Nihil said:
Alright and can you verify my memory on what was the year Goebbels took absolute power?
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1951 was when Hitler died and Hess took over, the coup on the 20th of April was when Himmler disappeared and Bormann died.

1959 was when Hess died and Goebbels took over, also when Heydrich was killed and Wegener also disappeared.
 
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