Draka vs TBO America

[K. A. Pital]

From what the pilots tell, there were closeup photos of the SR-71 made by intercepting planes.

And my people say that no such incident ever happened.

I think this is an official report, though I may be wrong and have to inquire on that. I don't know the details, but to have all the people in the PVO "embarassed" is just as good an excuse as having all SR pilots "boasting".

For the record, we have no evidence of a MiG-31 ever getting close to an SR-71.

I don't know the details, as I said. The best thing would be digging up a report from the SR pilots on the dates when MiG pilots reported intercepting the thing. If they changed course during those attempts, it speaks for itself - you don't get a plane to change it's course for nothing.

You have to defend everywhere, we can pick one place and blast a hole through.

That sounds just wrong. We have to defend major population centers, not "everywhere", and concentrating the whole attacking force in one place is another good call for the PVO. Look, the PVO's planes and their service costed less than the _scout_ fleet against which they were used. In case of a bomber fleet, I would assume that manned interceptors and missiles cost disparity versus the super-expensive infrastructure for M3 bomber planes would've been staggering.

I believe the historical evidence clearly shows that if you could have shot the SR-71s down, you would have done.

Not a single operator says you could shoot stuff outside USSR's PVO zone without special orders, and I don't think they just make it up. I can't understand _why_ the "untouchable" plane has freely crossed the airspace of DPRK, PRC and SRV, but did not enter the actual USSR airspace for more than a few seconds. If it feared nothing, it would be barraging over our airspace like the U-2s were prior to the downing. Flying around borders is not exactly an evidence of invulnerability.

Secondly, if we're penetrating, we wouldn't be playing games either. The bombers would have come in behind a wall of air-to surface missiles, all nuclear-tipped and anti-radar missiles, also nuclear tipped.

Taking missiles down is a task for the anti-missile systems. You "test" the bombers against the existing PVO (which is a sparse net of complexes and airfields created against _real_ bomber fleets, not perspective M3 bombers). I don't think the PVO that would exist in the TBO-verse would not take into account the abilities of the enemy. In fact, the whole defense would be centered around that, downing those machines.

An Air defense system is a lot more expensive than the bombers needed to penetrate it.

If you have a Mach 3 scout's flight costing into 8 million dollar, I may express a slight unbelief here. Launching a horde of missiles against the thing costed less than it's flight. This is not normal.

By building bombers we're forcing you to build that more expensive defense system and the cost will break you

You're more rich anyway. The question is why suddenly M3 bombers and the corresponding infrastructure became "cheaper" than the corresponding PVO measures and their infrastructure. The only argument that you can possibly make is that the bomber fleet requires a lot less airfields than the PVO, or that you would have to have expensive super-radars (they are already present, and one of the tasks of the SR-71 was to "tickle" a big radar complex that we were sort of reluctant to use, IIRC)

So, by combinging bombers for offense with an anti-missile system for defense, we've got the least expensive of all options.

If bombers are cheap, we would go for them. Something just tells me they are not. I can believe in Strange McNamara precluding their "rise to glory" in the US, but I can't believe everyone was dumb and never thought that this is the cheapest and most effective offense. Were it that, the USSR, PRC, some European countries would've clearly gotten that instead of the ubiquitous missile systems.

Most people who speak about alternative history try to avoid the problems of simultaneous development of similar weapons by saying it was a result of "wrong decisions" (I have heard this one yet before, when someone tried to argue with me that the age of "medium" tanks is not "past"). The fact is that if all countries shift to a certain type of weapon, this is most likely driven by experience.

You speak of the garroted B-70 as if it were a breakthrough into a new age of strategic aerial warfare, but you test it exclusively against the currently present systems, which are, frankly, not really designed for dealing with such targets (in the absense of such targets in practice). And _if_ those bombers were cheaper than the silos/SSBNs/tactical forces infrastructure, _why_ did even the USSR throw it's supersonic bomber down to Mach 2? Why isn't the PRC making supersonic M3 bombers or at least projecting to make them, if they're a far superior deterrent to the missiles they have?

Something about this whole "projected universe" makes me think that it's the same as Luft 46' tales or something. The fact that the bombers are supposedly used against a missile armed opponent in a universe where bombers are (as you say) cheaper, more effective, less vulnerable and all that... is just weird. If you say this is a rational decision, all should be able to make it and develop their military accordingly, at least in theory. Perhaps the problem is that this _is_ a theory-only rational decision.

Though, I must say we've really gone OT. I agree with the main idea, TBO would nuke the hell out of the Draka, that's all. TBO's realism is another topic alltogether I guess.

[PhoenixVTam]

Why isn't the PRC making supersonic M3 bombers or at least projecting to make them, if they're a far superior deterrent to the missiles they have?

Because both of the PRC's past strategic bomber projects were total failures.

[Norseman]

Why isn't the PRC making supersonic M3 bombers or at least projecting to make them, if they're a far superior deterrent to the missiles they have?

Because both of the PRC's past strategic bomber projects were total failures.

Didn't keep them from trying and that I think is key, if it really is so rational and obvious then wouldn't you at least try?

[Norseman]

you know I think we should export a link to this discussion over to Marina's web site.

Why? Stirling no longer pays attention there.

[The Yosemite Bear]

get too hot for him there?

[Norseman]

get too hot for him there?

No the DrakaFics stopped being made

[Stuart]

I think this is an official report, though I may be wrong and have to inquire on that. I don't know the details, but to have all the people in the PVO "embarassed" is just as good an excuse as having all SR pilots "boasting". (snip). I don't know the details, as I said. The best thing would be digging up a report from the SR pilots on the dates when MiG pilots reported intercepting the thing. If they changed course during those attempts, it speaks for itself - you don't get a plane to change it's course for nothing.

With reference to your last comment, that's untrue. Or, more to the point, the reason why the aircraft changed course may not be immediately obvious. The most likely reasons are that any change in course was pre-planned to cover specific areas or was to gain triangulation on an emitter detected by ESM. I have a hunch that all these supposed "intercepts" and "evasions" were actually pre-planned course changes that the Soviet ground controllers assumed were due to their defensive activities when, in fact, they were part of the mission profile. That's very common, its been a factor in a number of events, most notably the Liberty Incident.

That sounds just wrong. We have to defend major population centers, not "everywhere", and concentrating the whole attacking force in one place is another good call for the PVO.

On the contrary, its a standard strategic formulation. The defense has to defend everywhere, the attack can choose its point of assault. Therefore, unless the defense can channel the attack into a pre-known kill zone (which doesn't apply here but does apply to missile defense), defending against an attack is more expensive than launching an attack. What the targets are is irrelevent, given stand-off weapons etc, once the defensive systems have been cracked open, the individual targets can be picked off at leisure. Gospodin Stas, I've worked designing on three separate state-of-the-art national air defense systems, I know what's involved in their operation intimately.

Look, the PVO's planes and their service costed less than the _scout_ fleet against which they were used.

I'm sorry but this claim is simply not credible. In fact, knowing what the costs of operating the SR-71 fleet was and being able to estimate the costs of operating the PVO, I'd say that your statement is wildely wrong - by at leats one and possibly two orders of magnitude. I suspect it may come from the use of incorrect exchange rates and equivalent-value statements plus the severe lack of information on your end. An example, I was discussing the cost of aircraft with a couple of chief designers from the Sukhoi design bureau back in the late 1980s and asked them what the unit cost of their aircraft was. The answer we got was the same unit cost regardless of whether the aircraft was an Su-15, an Su-27 or a piston-engined trainer. All Soviet economi data was so severly distorted itw as hard to tell what anything cost. The way we can assess it was to calculate what setting up a PVO-strany would cost if we did it in the US. We did that calculation and the result was eye-watering.

In case of a bomber fleet, I would assume that manned interceptors and missiles cost disparity versus the super-expensive infrastructure for M3 bomber planes would've been staggering.

The infrastructure for a Mach 3 bomber fleet is not "super-expensive" it hardly differs from that of a B-52 fleet. In fact, once we're up to the sort of numbers we're talking about here, the cost of running the fleet is directly proportional to the number of aircraft in the fleet and is largely (not quite completely) independent of type. For example, teh cost of running a wing of B-52s is only about 20 percent greater than that of running a wing of F-100s. Thus, if you have three times as many Mach 3 interceptors as M3 bombers, the interceptor fleet is going to cost around three times as much money to run (plus or minus some percents). Now add in the cost of the air defense system (which dwrafs the cost of teh aircraft) and the missiles (ditto) and the defense force is probably at least an order of magnitude more expensive than the offensive force

The problem with the SR-71 was that only a handful were built and they were virtually hand-built prototypes. Every aircraft was slightly different and each had its own manual to allow for that. That is what made the fleet expensive to run.

Not a single operator says you could shoot stuff outside USSR's PVO zone without special orders, and I don't think they just make it up. I can't understand _why_ the "untouchable" plane has freely crossed the airspace of DPRK, PRC and SRV, but did not enter the actual USSR airspace for more than a few seconds. If it feared nothing, it would be barraging over our airspace like the U-2s were prior to the downing. Flying around borders is not exactly an evidence of invulnerability.

And there are a lot of shot-down RB-50s, RB-47s and EC-130s (plus Mercators and a few odd others including PB4Ys etc) well outside Soviet territorial limits that say otherwise. Give the choice of an anonymous opinion on the internet and the reality of a shot-down aircraft and a dead crew, I'll take the latter.

Taking missiles down is a task for the anti-missile systems. You "test" the bombers against the existing PVO (which is a sparse net of complexes and airfields created against _real_ bomber fleets, not perspective M3 bombers). I don't think the PVO that would exist in the TBO-verse would not take into account the abilities of the enemy. In fact, the whole defense would be centered around that, downing those machines.

You'd have a job., Shooting down defensive ballistic missiles is easy. Shooting down tactical air-to-surface weapons is not. Your systems could try and they may get lucky a few times but they are not going to have consistent or significant success. Your radar stations will go first, then the missile batteries, then the airfields. Of course, if the threat changes from its existing form and level, the defense will change, however the sort of change you're envisaging would be exceptionally expensive. The attempt would break you economcially which is the whole point. Say again, we spent you to death once, we could do it again.

If you have a Mach 3 scout's flight costing into 8 million dollar, I may express a slight unbelief here.

Once again, the cost of an SR-71 operation is a reflection of the peculiar costs of that type of aircraft, it is not reflective of the cost of an in-service bomber fleet.

You're more rich anyway.

Precisely.

The question is why suddenly M3 bombers and the corresponding infrastructure became "cheaper" than the corresponding PVO measures and their infrastructure.

We've already gone into that; it's inherent in the cost of defensive systems that have to cover wide areas. That's why the flexibility of manned bombers as compared to the inflexibility of ballistic misisles is so important

If bombers are cheap, we would go for them. Something just tells me they are not. I can believe in Strange McNamara precluding their "rise to glory" in the US, but I can't believe everyone was dumb and never thought that this is the cheapest and most effective offense. Were it that, the USSR, PRC, some European countries would've clearly gotten that instead of the ubiquitous missile systems.

You tried to. You ran out of cash. Ustinov was given an explicit choice, the Sukhoi bomber or the MiG-23/27. He chose the MiG-23/27. Note the choice was not "bombers or missiles" but "which aircraft". Significantly today, in Soviet defense funding, modernizing the bomber fleet ranks ahead of building ICBMs in priority. As we have already said, European countries were reluctant to go for bombers because the short warning times available meant they would either have to be constantly airborne or risk getting caught on the ground. Hence the preferred deployment was SLBMs.

Most people who speak about alternative history try to avoid the problems of simultaneous development of similar weapons by saying it was a result of "wrong decisions" (I have heard this one yet before, when someone tried to argue with me that the age of "medium" tanks is not "past"). The fact is that if all countries shift to a certain type of weapon, this is most likely driven by experience.

Not so. The decision to cancel the B-70 was the result of the policy decisions taken by the administrations responsible and the information available at the time. We know now that the information was wrong and the administrations were mistaken, that doens't mean the decisions were "wrong"., One of the effects of TBO is that the situation changed and the decisions changed with it.

You speak of the garroted B-70 as if it were a breakthrough into a new age of strategic aerial warfare,

It was.

but you test it exclusively against the currently present systems, which are, frankly, not really designed for dealing with such targets (in the absense of such targets in practice).

We can only work with the systems we know, BUT we can also work out what systems were actually practical given the level of technology available and we can extrapolate the performance of likely counter-weapons. What happened in the early 1960s was that the projections of likely anti-aircraft weapons were hopelessly overstated - remember, this was the era when it was confidently stated that all manned aircraft would be obsolete by the 1970s. Now, we know better, we know what levels of technology are available and can extrapolate those into new systems to meet changing threats. That pretty much describes what I do for a living.

And _if_ those bombers were cheaper than the silos/SSBNs/tactical forces infrastructure, _why_ did even the USSR throw it's supersonic bomber down to Mach 2?

Money. You couldn't afford it. By the time the Army had finished draining the treasury and Frontal Aviation finished looting what was left, there wasn't much money in the kitty for anything. The Army had the long range rockets so they got the money. That's why the Navy went to sea with ships lacking vital systems and sent out SSBNs with empty tubes. The money went elsewhere.

Why isn't the PRC making supersonic M3 bombers or at least projecting to make them, if they're a far superior deterrent to the missiles they have?/quote]

Because they don't have the technology needed. Look, the PRC can't even make a copy of the MiG-21 that's safe to fly. Their attempt to build a copy of the Ye-152 resulted in a flying death-trap. They have design technology that equates to the USSR in the mid-1950s. They can't build teh sort of bombers we are talking about; their technology base and industrial standards simply are not up to the job.

Something about this whole "projected universe" makes me think that it's the same as Luft 46' tales or something.

No need to be insulting Seriously, everything in the TBO stories up to 1986 actually existed either as prototypes or seriously done designs. There are no napkinwaffe. For example, one of the precepts of The High Frontier is that one of your designers, a guy called Tsybin, actually got the support he deserved. Tsybin's designs were brilliant, years ahead of their time (they never got built because Tupolev went out of his way to sabotage him at a politcal level; Tupolev was not a nice man, I can't help but feel that tossing him into the Gulag was one of Beria's better decisions). Luft'46 simply assumes every outline on a piece of paper could be built instantly.

The fact that the bombers are supposedly used against a missile armed opponent in a universe where bombers are (as you say) cheaper, more effective, less vulnerable and all that... is just weird.

Not so. The strategic background is that people use bombers where their available technology and strategic situation allow them to, missiles were those constraints determine that is the preferred solution. For example, the UK developed a missile deterrent when its circumstances meant that was the only practical option, then shifted to bombers when that became desirable. Russia did the same (only much earlier - in the TBOverse, Russia and America are stauch allies and provide eachother with valuable assistance - that dates back to how and why WW2 happened. As a result, the Russian Government is the only one the US whose opinions the US actually seeks out and values.

Though, I must say we've really gone OT. I agree with the main idea, TBO would nuke the hell out of the Draka, that's all. TBO's realism is another topic all together I guess.

TBO is realistic all right, I did an imemnse amount of research and costing exercises to make sure it was. However, it is not intended as an example of a "perfect system" or "the way it should have been done". It's intended as an exercise in "if thus and so happens, what would be the effects."

So, if Nazi Germany does much better in World War Two than historically, the effects are pretty horrible for everybody. Including Germany in the end. If there is no war in the Pacific, what are those effects (whicha re much nicer if you live in the Pacific that is. If Japan is able to conclude the China Incident. what are the results of that? If the US builds a bomber fleet and a misisle defense system instead of a missile fleet and lareg tactical forces, what are the implications of that?

If Al Qaeda gets its wish and sets up a major state based on the system introduced by the Taliban in Afghanistan, what is that state likely to look like and how will it behave?

If all of that is taken, the overall motto of the works might well be "be careful what you wish for, you might get it"

And, if Russia and America are staunch friends, not enemies, what are the strategic implications of that? That is an option I would most devoutly wish for.

[Norseman]

Something about this whole "projected universe" makes me think that it's the same as Luft 46' tales or something.

No need to be insulting

Indeed Luft 46' manages to make its napkinwaffe quite fascinating, even if it's just a website with tons of cool pictures, it is at least interesting.

Though, I must say we've really gone OT. I agree with the main idea, TBO would nuke the hell out of the Draka, that's all. TBO's realism is another topic all together I guess.

TBO is realistic all right, I did an imemnse amount of research and costing exercises to make sure it was.

Chipan and the Caliphate is realistic?

If Japan is able to conclude the China Incident. what are the results of that?

It would not be Chipan, but I'll let people who know more about Japan and China comment there, let me move on to the Caliphate.

If Al Qaeda gets its wish and sets up a major state based on the system introduced by the Taliban in Afghanistan, what is that state likely to look like and how will it behave?

It would not look anything like the Caliphate that's for sure, and really if you told Osama bin Laden about the Caliphate he'd blow a gasket, that thing is literally blasphemous to EVERY SINGLE Islamic sect! I mean you have invented a system that would be utterly intolerable to any Sunni madhab AND the Shia, AND even the Wahabbis!

1. The Caliphate is in itself a completely and utterly ridiculous idea, a Council of Caliphs?! This is complete heresy to ALL branches of Islam. In Islam there is to be a single solitary Caliph who is the Ruler of the Faithful, one leader, one nation, one religion. He might be advised by the Ulema, or a Diwan, perhaps even a Council of Emirs, but the idea of multiple Caliphs ruling seperate areas? Utterly ridiculous. I should also add that the Shia Muslims do not recognise ANY of the Caliphs except Ali, and that they are now waiting for the Mahdi/12th Imam, and will most assuredly not want to join a bunch of Sunnis!

2. The way the Caliphate expands is also ridiculous, do you have any idea the level of contempt that various branches of Islam have for one another? And for that matter the level of contempt various ethnic groups have? There's a saying that the first thing a Libyan does when he meets an African is to open the Africans mouth, inspect his teeth, and say "Ten dinars, no more!" Yet all of these groups are to work together in harmony under the Caliphate?

3. Speaking of Caliphs lets look at the Sultan of Morocco, who is a descendant of Mohammed, and claims the title "Amir al-Muminin" that is Ruler of the Faithful, in short he claims to be the Supreme Religious Ruler, a short step away from Caliph. Now then given that he has all the right religious credentials why on Earth would domestic Muslims try to overthrow him?

4. During the 1940s and 1950s even out into the early 1970s things like Pan-Arabism, Nationalism, and Socialism were far more important than Islamism in creating political pressure. Far from changing this a period of Nazi domination would enhance this! Arab Pride, the Pure Arab Race, the Warrior Race of Arabs, all things the Nazi's would admire, and did for that matter. In short the Arabs would try to emulate the Nationalist Socialists, and the Islamic Creed of choice would probably not be Wahabbism, but probably a Sufi/Hanafi mix used to justify the state.

5. Finally there is this... every time that the Caliphate shows up they behave like a pack of frothing lunatics utterly divorced from reality. You determined to ignore the fact that Osama bin Laden and Ayatollah Khomeini are/were very astute politicians, and skilled administrators. More to the point the Caliphate runs into a serious problem, similar to the one in "Stars and Stripes Forever," which is this: "How did these retards manage to take over a quarter of the world?"

There is one point that I reserved for last, and that is the idea that the Islamic world hates outsiders far more than they hate each other. Rubbish. If there is some advantage to co-operating with the infidels, especially if it would let you win a power struggle, then they are quite rational enough to do so; see the Crusades.

Once the power struggle is over there comes time to smash particularly obnoxious groups of heretics, but the non-Muslims are generally forced to pay the dhimma, subjected to humiliation and occasional random violence, but otherwise left alone. Even strict Muslim groups have not tended to go for outright killing or expelling them, with a few exceptions (anyone who organises armed resistance or co-operates with foreigners).

[K. A. Pital]

I have a hunch that all these supposed "intercepts" and "evasions" were actually pre-planned course changes that the Soviet ground controllers assumed were due to their defensive activities when, in fact, they were part of the mission profile.

I don't know. I wasn't personally there. However, the notion that those were pre-planned course changes doesn't cling with the facts of SR-71 reacting to false missile launches and the fact that the SR-71s had pre-determined "pathways" around the USSR which they followed (the PVO guys knew SR-71s flight schedule and thus I think they could map their common marsh-route). If the SR-71 deviated from the marsh-route (as the report states), it doesn't mean it got hit or whatnot, but it means it was evading, not just following the pre-planned course. What is "pre-planned" anyway? The SR-71, just like MiG-25/31, is always online, and corrects his flight according to warnings it received from it's systems.

On the contrary, its a standard strategic formulation.

For the PVO? I thought PVO is a point-defense structure. You don't just spam airfields and sparse S-200/300 complex uniformly through your countries territory!

In fact, knowing what the costs of operating the SR-71 fleet was and being able to estimate the costs of operating the PVO, I'd say that your statement is wildely wrong - by at leats one and possibly two orders of magnitude.

What would your proportion be?

An example, I was discussing the cost of aircraft with a couple of chief designers from the Sukhoi design bureau back in the late 1980s and asked them what the unit cost of their aircraft was. The answer we got was the same unit cost regardless of whether the aircraft was an Su-15, an Su-27 or a piston-engined trainer. All Soviet economi data was so severly distorted itw as hard to tell what anything cost.

Why would they tell you anything about their costs of units anyway?

The way we can assess it was to calculate what setting up a PVO-strany would cost if we did it in the US. We did that calculation and the result was eye-watering.

How much do you think an S-300 missile costs? It's around 200,000 USD IIRC. And is my estimate for the amount of money wasted on an SR-71s flight correct, with pre- and post-flight checks (8 million?). If it's not, could you tell me how much it costs (unless that's classified, of course). Because this way, I see you could run 40 launches against a single target (operative cost). The costs of construction can also be compared, although I lack data for it as of now. But it's the operative cost that bites in the end.

The problem with the SR-71 was that only a handful were built and they were virtually hand-built prototypes. Every aircraft was slightly different and each had its own manual to allow for that. That is what made the fleet expensive to run.

Yes, few SR-71 were built - however, the YFs and A-12s were also of the same family. That's not a large number anyway, but what boggles me, even if all of them were like hand-built and whatnot, _WHY_ they were not immediately fly-worthy? If your plane requires such a long time to get it running (all the pre-flight checks without which the SR-71 could not leave ground) and then hour-long checks post-flight... this isn't simply explained by the few numbers of the machine.
And this is also contributing to the cost (I heard you had to staff hundreds of highly qualified personnel per plane for the checks/maintenance).

And there are a lot of shot-down RB-50s, RB-47s and EC-130s (plus Mercators and a few odd others including PB4Ys etc) well outside Soviet territorial limits that say otherwise.

How many, per the number of operational flights? I doubt the USSR was blasting out of the sky everything that was skimming the border, and doing so every time. Besides, sometimes the PVO had "raznaryadka" to down some offender.

Shooting down tactical air-to-surface weapons is not.

What is the hard part - unfit systems or principal difficulties? If the difficulties are technical rather than principal, you could set up a system against that.

We've already gone into that; it's inherent in the cost of defensive systems that have to cover wide areas.

The existing PVO is structured in such a fashion to protect aerial space from penetration, because it _can_. In a world of speedy planes ubiquotous, why would you need such a wasteful and ineffective system would it not be more rational to concentrate your defenses and create "kill zone" arrangements around major population centers to protect them? Once again, the possible is being tested against the real.

You tried to. You ran out of cash.

Why no principal B-70 like designs were run into the production line? And the Tu-160 was damn expensive already, why not make it into a M3 machine if that gives a significan boost in performance?

Significantly today, in Soviet defense funding, modernizing the bomber fleet ranks ahead of building ICBMs in priority.

Modernizing? The fleet is rusting, most of the planes will be out of operation (the older generation is going out at a catastrophic rate already), while the ICBMs have an OOM longer operational durability. The RS-series missiles as they say can function well beyond their exploitation limits, while the bombers are falling off already.

As we have already said, European countries were reluctant to go for bombers because the short warning times available meant they would either have to be constantly airborne or risk getting caught on the ground

That's a point. If you had bombers, etc. the opponent would try to develop systems to take at least a major portion of the fleet down in case of a possible war.

We can only work with the systems we know

That's a weak starting point. Why would someone push SAMs to the brink performance if they were _already_ more than adequate to deal with the absolute majority of the enemy airforce? But if they could not, someone would do it.

What happened in the early 1960s was that the projections of likely anti-aircraft weapons were hopelessly overstated

It's true for 1960s, of course. In the 1960s, the B-70 would've been a superweapon. However, by now the abilities of this upper limit-plane can be questioned by upper limit-interceptors and upper limit-SAMs.

Money. You couldn't afford it.

So the bombers _were_ expensive. But then how the hell are they cheaper than the missile analogue? That just doesn't compute.

The Army had the long range rockets so they got the money.

Why did they get the money if there was a clearly superior and cheaper project?

Because they don't have the technology needed.

So, missiles _are_ cheaper. The ICBM/SLBM development is faster and more accessible. Which means faster running up the tech tree. Just as I thought - the bombers require technology investment of shitloads of money, much more complex than missiles. And that's a 1960 technology. The PRC already arrived to space and has functioning and reliable ICBMs, so, if it invested into stratobombers, why would it not have a 1960 level of technology by now? In all other areas it achieved 1960 Soviet/US level.

I'm just baffled by the fact _no_ nuclear power goes for super-fast bomber fleets, all go for missiles.

For example, one of the precepts of The High Frontier is that one of your designers, a guy called Tsybin, actually got the support he deserved.

In some fantasy tales you also have Bartini-class aircraft WIG carriers and KM-class rocket cruisers barraging the oceans at 500-700 kph. I like speculation, but I don't think too much of it. If something failed, most likely it required too much investment to make it run anyway.

For example, the UK developed a missile deterrent when its circumstances meant that was the only practical option

But, why? Aren't bomber fleets cheaper? Why didn't hte UK make use of the 1960's US technology and have it's own equivalent of the B-70 terrify everyone?

TBO is realistic all right

Nazi Germany doing better in the war seems rather unrealistic in the first place, but, 'nyway, as I said this is OT
Islamic superkhalifates are also the idea that isnt' easily accepted as realistic. Something that broke down in the past and since then, islamists have been more and more sectarian and disunified, which seals any possibility for a khaliphate type of state. And lastly, there cannot be any other friendship but necessary between imperialist countries. Strategic alliances between imperialist countries are made out of necessity, and if states are both powerful, they cannot be strong allies without a common enemy or a common strategic goal.

America's strategic goals are rarely compatible with Russia's, which is why only point-action alliances are possible. Sad, but true.

[Ace Pace]

For example, the UK developed a missile deterrent when its circumstances meant that was the only practical option

But, why? Aren't bomber fleets cheaper? Why didn't hte UK make use of the 1960's US technology and have it's own equivalent of the B-70 terrify everyone?

Because the reaction time of bombers is significently longer(if I understand correctly) then missles, and when you are right next to the enemy, be it Soviet Russia in OTL, or the Caliphate in TBO you most likely do not have the time to launch most of your bombers before they are hit in some fashion. I imagine that up to a certain point of speed-of-deployment, it is more efficient to invest in ICBMs.

[Colonel Olrik]

Something about this whole "projected universe" makes me think that it's the same as Luft 46' tales or something.

No need to be insulting

Indeed Luft 46' manages to make its napkinwaffe quite fascinating, even if it's just a website with tons of cool pictures, it is at least interesting.

You can critize the technical aspects of his work as much as your heart desires, but be careful with this kind of comments, since many people here do find TBO interesting as it should be obvious to you. So you don't really want to start throwing around cheap insults, OK?

[Stuart]

Chipan and the Caliphate is realistic?

Pretty much; traditionally China when conquered has absorbed and Sinified its conquerors. The strategic and operational problems the Japanese face having occupied China are straight from any military text book. Peeling it down to a nutshell, China's too big to be properly occupied; everything else comes out of that. It's another case of "be careful what you want, you might get it.

It would not look anything like the Caliphate that's for sure, and really if you told Osama bin Laden about the Caliphate he'd blow a gasket, that thing is literally blasphemous to EVERY SINGLE Islamic sect! I mean you have invented a system that would be utterly intolerable to any Sunni madhab AND the Shia, AND even the Wahabbis!

Pity the details come direct from source than. "The Caliphate" as proposed in al qaeda is exactly as described in TBO. Oh,. I agree the nomenclature might change a bit, but nothing of any substance. I had somebody with a PhD in the history of the original Caliphate era. We just updated it a little.

The Caliphate is in itself a completely and utterly ridiculous idea, a Council of Caliphs?! This is complete heresy to ALL branches of Islam.

Then substitute a name for the various positions. I don't speak arabic so I couldn't come up with a name that would easily be recognized by western readers easily. I used a structure where there is one head Caliph and a lot of sub-caliphs with satraps underneath them. The names given to the various positions are a llterary device. However, the structure itself (a ruling council with a first-amongst equals) is exactly how the Taliban ran Afghanistan. It's a way of absorbing differences, it may not be perfect but by absorbing differences rather than fighting them out in the streets, it gave teh Taliban just enough of an edge to take Afghanistan from the previous set of warlords.,

The way the Caliphate expands is also ridiculous, do you have any idea the level of contempt that various branches of Islam have for one another? (snip) Yet all of these groups are to work together in harmony under the Caliphate?

Really Have you had a look at what is going on in the world? It is specifically stated in the novels that the only thing holding the Caliphate together is that the various components hate the rest of the world a little more than they hate eachother. It is also specifically stated that there is a level of fighting (extent unknown) between the various components. The "working in harmony" it is completely your invention. In fact its those internal tensions that drive expansion - one of the ways any individual faction gains power within the whole ramshackle ediface is to stage attacks and expand territory, Again, taken straight from teh Taliban in Afghanistan

Speaking of Caliphs lets look at the Sultan of Morocco, who is a descendant of Mohammed, and claims the title "Amir al-Muminin" that is Ruler of the Faithful, in short he claims to be the Supreme Religious Ruler, a short step away from Caliph. Now then given that he has all the right religious credentials why on Earth would domestic Muslims try to overthrow him.

Again, have a look at history. Reality check for you. There have been five attempts to assassinate him already.

During the 1940s and 1950s even out into the early 1970s things like Pan-Arabism, Nationalism, and Socialism were far more important than Islamism in creating political pressure. Far from changing this a period of Nazi domination would enhance this! Arab Pride, the Pure Arab Race, the Warrior Race of Arabs, all things the Nazi's would admire, and did for that matter. In short the Arabs would try to emulate the Nationalist Socialists, and the Islamic Creed of choice would probably not be Wahabbism, but probably a Sufi/Hanafi mix used to justify the state.

I disgree., That applies (to some extent) in our timeline. It does not apply in TBO where there have are dramatically different drivers. Your comments are irrelevent.

Finally there is this... every time that the Caliphate shows up they behave like a pack of frothing lunatics utterly divorced from reality. You determined to ignore the fact that Osama bin Laden and Ayatollah Khomeini are/were very astute politicians, and skilled administrators. More to the point the Caliphate runs into a serious problem, similar to the one in "Stars and Stripes Forever," which is this: "How did these retards manage to take over a quarter of the world?

Again, I disagree with your assessment. Osama bin laden and Khomeini were very far from being astute politicians and skilled administrators. Quite the reverse in fact. As to how they took over a quarter of the world, they picked off low-hanging fruit and highly unstable areas and there was no stabilizing forces to oopose them The firts time they ran into serious opposition (Algeria) they were stopped cold. I'd suggest you read the newspapers, see to what extent Islamic terrorism is destabilizing a pretty fair swatch of the world. Destroying things is quite easy and doesn't take much effort.

There is one point that I reserved for last, and that is the idea that the Islamic world hates outsiders far more than they hate each other. Rubbish. If there is some advantage to co-operating with the infidels, especially if it would let you win a power struggle, then they are quite rational enough to do so.

Then explain why Sunnis et al cooporate against others where necessary. Sorry, its you who are talking rubbish - as usual.

Once the power struggle is over there comes time to smash particularly obnoxious groups of heretics, but the non-Muslims are generally forced to pay the dhimma, subjected to humiliation and occasional random violence, but otherwise left alone. Even strict Muslim groups have not tended to go for outright killing or expelling them, with a few exceptions (anyone who organises armed resistance or co-operates with foreigners).

Again, take a look at the world around you. Take a look at the conduct of the Taliban in Afghanistan - they were the model for the Caliphate; the TBOverse Caliphate is simply the Taliban expanded to an international scale. The ruling system, behavior, internal logic and conduct are all taken direct form the Taliban.

[Stuart]

I don't know. I wasn't personally there. However, the notion that those were pre-planned course changes doesn't cling with the facts of SR-71 reacting to false missile launches and the fact that the SR-71s had pre-determined "pathways" around the USSR which they followed (the PVO guys knew SR-71s flight schedule and thus I think they could map their common marsh-route). If the SR-71 deviated from the marsh-route (as the report states), it doesn't mean it got hit or whatnot, but it means it was evading, not just following the pre-planned course. What is "pre-planned" anyway? The SR-71, just like MiG-25/31, is always online, and corrects his flight according to warnings it received from it's systems.

We called the pre-planned flight paths "route packs" and they were quite detailed. I don't rule out the possibility that some of the turns were evasions but I do know that the various route packs had twists and turns built into them. To work out which was which, we'd have to compare the original route pack with the tracked course form the PVO units. My guess is we'd find a mix of pre-planned turns that happened to coincide with PVO actions and some unplanned turns that were the results of threats (as I said, we had very few SR-71s so we didn't take chances.) There's a third category of turn, ones correcting the second and putting the plane back on course.

I thought PVO is a point-defense structure. You don't just spam airfields and sparse S-200/300 complex uniformly through your countries territory!

As a mater of fact, to make an air defense system work, that's what one has to do. If the various components are separated, they can be picked off, one at a time. If you'd like to dig out the design history of the Tu-128, there's a good description of the problem there. The Tu-128 and its ilk (along with the Tu-114 and Il-76 AWACs were specifically intended to cover those gaps between systems. Up north in the Arctic, that was a very serious problem indeed. Designing an air degense system is a very skilled art, one can't just defend key points, there's a larger picture to be evaluated.

What would your proportion be?

At a guess, I'd say the total systems cost of running PVO when expressed in equivalent spending power (in other words what it would cost us to do it) would be something in the order of a hundred times greater than the running cost of the SR-71 unit. That depends a lot, of course, on excatly how many interceptors we were talking about. According to my records, back in 2001, the PVO had around 340 MiG-31s plus other types. There were less than a dozen operational SR-71s at any given time. The problem is the data comes from a decade earlier than 2001 so I'd have to do some research there. I have exact flying and maintenance per-hour costs for every type of aircraft in the US inventory (and eye-opening they are too) but the problem is getting equivalent Russian data.

Why would they tell you anything about their costs of units anyway?

Because they were trying to sell the aircraft and couldn't work out why they weren't doing very well. The problem quickly became apparent that they had no idea how to construct a sales pitch orientated towards western-style customers. We ended up doing a seminar on how to do that. For example, they always quoted the same price regardless of the type of aircraft, they never quoted for spares and support, didn;t know how to negotiate off-sets and buy-backs. Sukhoi sat down, listened and learned, Mikoyan did not. You'll note who sells better.

How much do you think an S-300 missile costs? It's around 200,000 USD IIRC. And is my estimate for the amount of money wasted on an SR-71s flight correct, with pre- and post-flight checks (8 million?). If it's not, could you tell me how much it costs (unless that's classified, of course). Because this way, I see you could run 40 launches against a single target (operative cost). The costs of construction can also be compared, although I lack data for it as of now. But it's the operative cost that bites in the end./quote]

Its US$200,000 if the price is converted direct to dollars but we can't do that. We have to convert in terms of equivalent purchasing power. Done that way, the price of an S-300 comes out to US$1.2 million. Working with your US$8 million figure for an SR-71 flight, that means you can buy 7 S-300 missiles for each SR-71 flight. To get a true-cost comparison, we'd have to work with the total strength of the SR-71 fleet and the number of missions flown by that fleet (classified). Lets make a guess and say that roughly 72 operational missions were flown each year by the SR-71 fleet (six per aircraft, one every other month) THAT"S A GUESS, PLEASE DON'T QUOTE IT AS FACT (is there an emoticon for begging?)

SO, the annual operating cost of the SR-71 fleet is roughly equivalent to 7 x 72 = 504 S-300 missiles. According to my data, the Soviet Union had 4,300 heavy SAMs so the investment in them was roughly 8.5 times the annual operating cost of the PVO missile fleet. That does not include the cost of the air defense network that went with them (and is vital for them to work) or the fighters and AEWC to back them up.

Yes, few SR-71 were built - however, the YFs and A-12s were also of the same family. That's not a large number anyway, but what boggles me, even if all of them were like hand-built and whatnot, _WHY_ they were not immediately fly-worthy? If your plane requires such a long time to get it running (all the pre-flight checks without which the SR-71 could not leave ground) and then hour-long checks post-flight... this isn't simply explained by the few numbers of the machine.

.

There were only two YFs and 12 A-12s so even with the full production run of 29 SR-71s, that's stilla very small number of aircraft. Why were they not all fly-worthy - because they were hand built. Parts from one would not fit parts form another. Try it and there were no end of problems.

There were indeed hundreds of maintenance staff but the number wouldn't change reagrdless of whether we had 50 aircraft or 5,000. That's why its so uneconomic to have an air force consisting of a large number of different types.

And there are a lot of shot-down RB-50s, RB-47s and EC-130s (plus Mercators and a few odd others including PB4Ys etc) well outside Soviet territorial limits that say otherwise.

I've got a list of all the recon birds that were shot down plus the ones that got away (including an RB-50 that nailed a MiG-17 in the process ). The point is, where the aircraft were intercepted, there was a determined effort to shoot them down, regardless of whether they were within Soviet territorial air space or not.

What is the hard part - unfit systems or principal difficulties? If the difficulties are technical rather than principal, you could set up a system against that.

Principle difficulties - very short reaction time and unpredictable flight path. It's posisble, for example to shoot a bomb down in mid-air but the chances of pulling it off are pretty low. So shooting down tactical misisles is possible but there;s a lot of sheer luck involved.

The existing PVO is structured in such a fashion to protect aerial space from penetration, because it _can_. In a world of speedy planes ubiquotous, why would you need such a wasteful and ineffective system would it not be more rational to concentrate your defenses and create "kill zone" arrangements around major population centers to protect them?

I fear not. The system just doesn't work that way. The targets have to be tracked in or the ground defense has insufficient time to respond. That's why air defense systems have to cover the whole country, If they are just spots of defense (around population centers for example) , they get hit before they have a chance to react. In fact, increasing the speed of the bombers means that the defenses have to be more spread out, not less.

Why no principal B-70 like designs were run into the production line? And the Tu-160 was damn expensive already, why not make it into a M3 machine if that gives a significan boost in performance?

Because a Mach 3 aircraft isn't a Mach 2 aircraft. They're different animals. If you argue that teh Sukhoi bomber should have been put into production I agree with you, but teh prevailing culture and staretgic circumstances prevailed against it.

Modernizing? The fleet is rusting, most of the planes will be out of operation (the older generation is going out at a catastrophic rate already), while the ICBMs have an OOM longer operational durability. The RS-series missiles as they say can function well beyond their exploitation limits, while the bombers are falling off already.

Nevertheless, the Tu-160s are being brought in and refurbished and a feasibility study was done to see if production could be resumed. That's very illuminating, as you say, those aircraft are being refurbished while the rest of the air force is rusting on its airfields, Note also, the first new combat aircraft received by the Russian Air Force were bombers.

That's a point. If you had bombers, etc. the opponent would try to develop systems to take at least a major portion of the fleet down in case of a possible war.

Of course. And there is a constant effort to deveop new ways to get teh aircraft off the ground safely.

That's a weak starting point. Why would someone push SAMs to the brink performance if they were _already_ more than adequate to deal with the absolute majority of the enemy airforce? But if they could not, someone would do it.

I agree, but its the best we've got. It does tell us how far a given technology can be pushed though. For example, the effects of altitude on agility don't change so we can work out what the effects of new technology insertions are.

It's true for 1960s, of course. In the 1960s, the B-70 would've been a superweapon. However, by now the abilities of this upper limit-plane can be questioned by upper limit-interceptors and upper limit-SAMs.

I agree - but this is thirty/forty years later. We wouldn't be flying the B-70 now, we'd be flying something else (the TBO equivalent is the B-103 Aurora - a scramjet -powered Super-Valkyrie with 200,000 plus feet altitude and Mach 10 to 12 speed. Also, fighters are beingd eveloped as well with similar performance.

So the bombers _were_ expensive. But then how the hell are they cheaper than the missile analogue? That just doesn't compute.

You couldn't afford it, we could. Your money was going on the Army.

Why did they get the money if there was a clearly superior and cheaper project?

Because the Army held the whip hand in financing matters. Justa s teh Air Force and Navy held it in ours

So, missiles _are_ cheaper. The ICBM/SLBM development is faster and more accessible. Which means faster running up the tech tree. Just as I thought - the bombers require technology investment of shitloads of money, much more complex than missiles.

Nobody said that. And missile technology has been virtually static since the 1970s, the developments there have been are pretty marginal.

The PRC already arrived to space and has functioning and reliable ICBMs, so, if it invested into stratobombers, why would it not have a 1960 level of technology by now? In all other areas it achieved 1960 Soviet/US level.

Functioning and reliable...... I would question that. (meaning they're not). And, as we can see by their latest products, their still stuck in the 1950s, If they built a bomber, the best they could do would be a B-52 clone (in fact the best they can do is a Tu-16 clone). For another example, take a look at subs. Their submarines are either license-built Russian deisgns from the 1970s or derivatives of your Project 633 design - a 1940s product. The Chinese have serious, serious problems across the board, engines, airframes, electronics, the lot.

I

In some fantasy tales you also have Bartini-class aircraft WIG carriers and KM-class rocket cruisers barraging the oceans at 500-700 kph. I like speculation, but I don't think too much of it. If something failed, most likely it required too much investment to make it run anyway.

I agree absolutely; there was usually a good reason whty various things were abandoned. That's why I'm very discriminating about which ones I pick up. The Tsybin designs were pretty sound though and construction work on them was started before Tupolev stuck his nose in.

circumstances meant that was the only practical option

But, why? Aren't bomber fleets cheaper? Why didn't hte UK make use of the 1960's US technology and have it's own equivalent of the B-70 terrify everyone?

Ww've already covered that. Too little warning time.

Nazi Germany doing better in the war seems rather unrealistic in the first place, but, 'nyway, as I said this is OT

I agree, the most likely course of history is the one that happened. The real purpose of TBO is to counter the "Nazi uberweapons and Erwin Rommel conquer the world" version of OT. It shows what would have happened if Nazi Germany had done better. Not surprisingly, most of teh atatcks on TBO have come from the Neo-Nazi extreme right with their "our uberweapons were coming - just six months more" nonsense.

Gospodin Stas, I think that, whatever else we disagree on, we both agree that killing Nazis is a very good idea yes?

Islamic superkhalifates are also the idea that isnt' easily accepted as realistic. Something that broke down in the past and since then, islamists have been more and more sectarian and disunified, which seals any possibility for a khaliphate type of state.

As I explained to Norseman, "The Caliphate" is actually the Taliban in Afghanistan operating on an international scale. Their system of government, their attitudes, beliefs and outlook are all straight Taliban. In Afghanistan and Iraq, we've captured a lot of data that showed us what their plans were and that is the basis fo Teh Caliphate. It;s another example of "be careful what you wish for, you might get it."

And lastly, there cannot be any other friendship but necessary between imperialist countries. Strategic alliances between imperialist countries are made out of necessity, and if states are both powerful, they cannot be strong allies without a common enemy or a common strategic goal.

I agree. In fact in one of the TBO novels a Russian President says "Strong alliances are not made on the soft mattress of love but on the hard Anvil of Necessity." The strong Russian-American alliance in TBO is a direct result of the anvil of necessity, the two countries need each other very badly.

America's strategic goals are rarely compatible with Russia's, which is why only point-action alliances are possible. Sad, but true.

In our timeline, that is, sadly, true. One of the smaller pleasures of writing the TBO novels is that they create a timeline where that is not true and where American and Russian strategic goals are closely aligned enough to allow a durable strategic alliance.

[Stuart]

Because the reaction time of bombers is significently longer(if I understand correctly) then missles, and when you are right next to the enemy, be it Soviet Russia in OTL, or the Caliphate in TBO you most likely do not have the time to launch most of your bombers before they are hit in some fashion. I imagine that up to a certain point of speed-of-deployment, it is more efficient to invest in ICBMs.

That's quite correct - the flight time taken to get to the USA is a priceless advantage

***By the way, an apology to Gospodin Stas. Like many old Cold War Warriors, I sometimes type "Soviet" when I mean "Russian". This is just a mental bleep on my part, no offense is meant, I hope none has been taken.****

[Ace Pace]

Because the reaction time of bombers is significently longer(if I understand correctly) then missles, and when you are right next to the enemy, be it Soviet Russia in OTL, or the Caliphate in TBO you most likely do not have the time to launch most of your bombers before they are hit in some fashion. I imagine that up to a certain point of speed-of-deployment, it is more efficient to invest in ICBMs.

That's quite correct - the flight time taken to get to the USA is a priceless advantage

If I recall correctly, flight time to the U.S was nearly an hour(ICBMs) while europe was in the quarter minute range?

[Norseman]

It would not look anything like the Caliphate that's for sure, and really if you told Osama bin Laden about the Caliphate he'd blow a gasket, that thing is literally blasphemous to EVERY SINGLE Islamic sect! I mean you have invented a system that would be utterly intolerable to any Sunni madhab AND the Shia, AND even the Wahabbis!

Pity the details come direct from source than. "The Caliphate" as proposed in al qaeda is exactly as described in TBO. Oh,. I agree the nomenclature might change a bit, but nothing of any substance. I had somebody with a PhD in the history of the original Caliphate era. We just updated it a little.

Also no... the idea for Al-Qaeda is to restore THE Caliphate that means the Caliph with an Ulama, now if you had appointed a Caliph with an advisory Ulama then I'd be fine with it.

If you had made an Ulama that ruled in lieu of a Caliph I'd be sceptical, since the idea is that there should be one Caliph that would rule the Umma.

That of course is what you go on about below so lets see that then...

But then you have your PhD, well I assume by original Caliphate you meant the Rashidun Caliphate? Or the Umayyids? Or the Abbasids? Or the Fatimids? Or the Almohads? Or the Ottoman one? Then again for convenience we could say Arab Caliphate, Andalusian Caliphate, and Ottoman Caliphate. Which one is it though? Which one does he have his PhD in?

Quite frankly your Caliphate acts unlike any historical Caliphate, which is kind of understandable since the Taliban are rather extreme in their views. However the original Caliphates depended on the Dhimmis to pay taxes and do the work they didn't want to, none of them had the policies you describe towards non-Muslims.

The Caliphate is in itself a completely and utterly ridiculous idea, a Council of Caliphs?! This is complete heresy to ALL branches of Islam.

Then substitute a name for the various positions. I don't speak arabic so I couldn't come up with a name that would easily be recognized by western readers easily. I used a structure where there is one head Caliph and a lot of sub-caliphs with satraps underneath them. The names given to the various positions are a llterary device. However, the structure itself (a ruling council with a first-amongst equals) is exactly how the Taliban ran Afghanistan. It's a way of absorbing differences, it may not be perfect but by absorbing differences rather than fighting them out in the streets, it gave teh Taliban just enough of an edge to take Afghanistan from the previous set of warlords.

See above, note that if you can't find an Arabic name your readers would recognise then explain the terms briefly in the text, or don't use an Arabic term at all.

However my point is that having a Taliban equivalent take power is ludicrous in the first place, because the Taliban is inspired and partially funded by the Wahabbis, and the Wahabbis only became important because... well because of all that Saudi oil money.

Prior to the rise of Wahabbism, the four madhabs that is schools of Islam, even the Hanbalis, were much more moderate, or rather they were far more traditional. One of the things Wahabbism supports is opposing taqlig which is the idea that you should follow a madhabs (all four of which are considered legitimate).

To elaborate in traditional Sunni Islam there are four schools of interpretation, all of them view each other as legitimate, the Hanbali is seen as the sternest (Saudi school), and the Hanafi as the most lenient (Ottomans liked this one). According to taqlig it is imperative that you follow the teachings of one of these schools, and that you don't change it. In short the Religious Establishment, even the screaming fanatic part, has a vested interest in maintaining taqlig.

So needless to say the Wahabbist/Taliban interpretation of Islam has not generally been a popular one, and here's the important part: IT's generally been opposed by the Ulama as a whole!

If you read T.E. Lawrences "Seven Pillars of Wisdom" you will notice the remarkable absence of Wahabbist sentiments, indeed they are only mentioned as the fruitjobs that the Al-sauds are supporting.

This idea that these extremists were fringe elements remained true for most of the 1940s and 1950s, until of course the Saudi's struck oil, but even now most traditionalists don't like it... As far as I can tell there is no reason why it would be different in TBO.

The way the Caliphate expands is also ridiculous, do you have any idea the level of contempt that various branches of Islam have for one another? (snip) Yet all of these groups are to work together in harmony under the Caliphate?

Really Have you had a look at what is going on in the world? It is specifically stated in the novels that the only thing holding the Caliphate together is that the various components hate the rest of the world a little more than they hate each other.

You still haven't explained WHY radical Islam managed to rise in the first place when several of the factors that led to its rise in OTL are no longer present. WHY do they hate the world so much that they're all willing to work together (a ridiculous idea mind you), they don't in OTL.

It is also specifically stated that there is a level of fighting (extent unknown) between the various components. The "working in harmony" it is completely your invention.

Let me put it this way, the idea that they can work together enough that there is a "caliphate council" that can give orders to any part of the realm, and that these orders that would most likely be followed; or people would pretend to follow them; that is enough to constitute relative harmony.

In fact its those internal tensions that drive expansion - one of the ways any individual faction gains power within the whole ramshackle ediface is to stage attacks and expand territory, Again, taken straight from teh Taliban in Afghanistan

The Taliban seemed to bring relative peace and harmony in an era of competing warlords, for many they seemed like a good deal, and of course they had a degree of outside support (Saudis, ISS).

Now then if my country had been invaded, bombed to pieces, and then endured a decade long civil war where young boys are regularly raped... well I might view the Taliban as a passable alternative. However notice that when people began to resist the Taliban couldn't even finish off the Northern Alliance.

Finally there is this... every time that the Caliphate shows up they behave like a pack of frothing lunatics utterly divorced from reality. You determined to ignore the fact that Osama bin Laden and Ayatollah Khomeini are/were very astute politicians, and skilled administrators. More to the point the Caliphate runs into a serious problem, similar to the one in "Stars and Stripes Forever," which is this: "How did these retards manage to take over a quarter of the world?

Again, I disagree with your assessment. Osama bin laden and Khomeini were very far from being astute politicians and skilled administrators. Quite the reverse in fact.

Are you serious?

The man who, while he is in exile mind, manages to make alliances with secular and religious groups, a united front mind you, helps bring about the downfall of a US ally, and then outmanoeuvres his old partners smashing their power and establishing himself as the head of state. The man who manages to dramatically reform the Ayatollah system, and crushes several sects that oppose him. The man who takes American hostages (but avoids the Soviet Embassy), does not release them until a short while before Reagan gains power, and only then because you bribed him with weaponry?

This man is not an astute politician and skilled administrator?

Sheeeeeze! I don't admire the old son of a bitch, but he was not a fool. Sure he screwed up from time to time, but he was no fool.

Then we have the man who manages to earn several million dollars on his own, creates a worldwide terrorist organisation, gains huge influence in several countries (Afghanistan), who organises massive transfers of funds...

To say that any of the founders of Al Qaeda lack political acumen is... well...

As to how they took over a quarter of the world, they picked off low-hanging fruit and highly unstable areas and there was no stabilizing forces to oopose them

That's the POINT! There shouldn't be any low hanging fruit for them to take over! The circumstances that let the Taliban take over shouldn't exist!

I mean the Germans... why would they support the biggest pile of fruitcakes around when there would be far more reasonable groups they could back?

The firts time they ran into serious opposition (Algeria) they were stopped cold. I'd suggest you read the newspapers, see to what extent Islamic terrorism is destabilizing a pretty fair swatch of the world. Destroying things is quite easy and doesn't take much effort.

But I do read the newspapers... and what do you know... Algeria is not a Taliban style dictatorship; Morocco is not a Taliban style dictatorship; Egypt is not a Taliban style dictatorship; I could go on but it doesn't seem like these terrorists are very SUCCESSFUL in their destabilizations.

Now why could that be?

Syria gives one reason, namely the Hama Solution, Turkey has the Turkish army as a guarantor of secularism. Egypt our fine ally has a rather nice secret police. Looks like they're not too effective unless the state is already seriously, seriously fucked up (see Afghanistan, Sudan, Somalia).

There is one point that I reserved for last, and that is the idea that the Islamic world hates outsiders far more than they hate each other. Rubbish. If there is some advantage to co-operating with the infidels, especially if it would let you win a power struggle, then they are quite rational enough to do so.

Then explain why Sunnis et al cooporate against others where necessary. Sorry, its you who are talking rubbish - as usual.

I'm not sure what you're getting at what I said was that the various Islamic sects would co-operate with anyone who could give them an edge in local power plays.

Lets look at Iraq, where there's evidence that the Iranians are funding Sunni extremists; lets look at Syria and Lebanon where a group of frigging Alevites are backing Shia insurgent groups!

On the flip side lets look at Saudi Arabia who are seriously in bed with the USA, lets look at Ayatollah Sistani who has backed the US on occasion, or for that matter look at the Mujaheddin in Afghanistan during the Afghan War. Go further back and look at the T.E. Lawrence who managed to get the Arabs to support the British war effort against the Caliph! Look at the Kurds in Iraq.

Muslims are people, even extremist Muslims are not blind to self-interest, even during the height of Islamic power they were never adverse to allying with outsiders if it were to be necessary.

By the way how about the Iranians and the Taliban, the Iranians were constantly fighting the Taliban, who killed several of their ambassadors, and Iranians on the ground in 2001 and note that a former leader of the Revolutionary Guard and a Presidential Candidate has no problem admitting (or rather claiming) that Iran helped the USA against the Taliban.

At the very least it looks like though both Taliban and Iran hated the USA the Iranians hated the Taliban a lot more...

Once the power struggle is over there comes time to smash particularly obnoxious groups of heretics, but the non-Muslims are generally forced to pay the dhimma, subjected to humiliation and occasional random violence, but otherwise left alone. Even strict Muslim groups have not tended to go for outright killing or expelling them, with a few exceptions (anyone who organises armed resistance or co-operates with foreigners).

Again, take a look at the world around you. Take a look at the conduct of the Taliban in Afghanistan - they were the model for the Caliphate; the TBOverse Caliphate is simply the Taliban expanded to an international scale. The ruling system, behavior, internal logic and conduct are all taken direct form the Taliban.

Okay I'll take a look... I see a lot of power struggles going on in the Muslim world, in Palestine and Iraq and elsewhere, and I see all kinds of bizarre alliances being forged with and against other Muslims.

I see Copts in Egypt being beaten and exploited unless they pay protection money (the dhimma) to the local Muslim gangs.

I also see that even strict Muslim groups specifically state that three options of the infidel remains as solid today as it did when Islam was created:

1. Accept Islam.
2. Accept inferior status and pay the Dhimma.
3. Die.

Sure if you apply the Taliban to a world wide scale then sure you might get something like the Caliphate, but my point is that something like this is just not going to happen no matter which way you look at it.

Even if Radical Islam was to win out the result would not be something like the Caliphate, or the Taliban, because most Muslims are not Wahabbis, and that goes even for the extremist ones.

[K. A. Pital]

Stuart
Hmm... I agree on most of what you said. Thanks for the discussion, was interesting.

And I actually liked your work, I mean TBO-verse (that's why I criticize it - that's the common VIF modus operandi. We tend to have military fiction authors come out and have their books pre-screened by the forum).

On a side note, do you know other alt-history works? What would you recommend? The VIF authors have so far produced two major alt-history works, with a collision between USSR and the West in 45 and the alternative Korean war in 53, which are both IMHO very good, if not exactly superb (the "Variant-Bis" series) and they have collected quite a fame among Russian military history folks.

I'm writing a story like that myself, so, thanks for a qualified opinion from "the other side of the fence".

[Stuart]

If I recall correctly, flight time to the U.S was nearly an hour(ICBMs) while europe was in the quarter minute range?

(I'll try to get the HTML coding right this time!)

Not quite that bad, descending on the exact time period, we had about a 25 - 35 minute warning of missiles coming in. After 20 minutes we'd know exactly where they would land and that would allow us to sell short on the city bonds for the target (Targeteer gallows humor). Allowing for the time to make decisions and so on, we would have ten minutes to get the birds off the ground. In fact, we'd probably start launching as soon as word came in, we can always call the bombers back. That was why the design stipulation was to get the B-70 airborne in 5 minutes. Later, warning time went up.

With missiles, because they were unrecallable, we had to be absolutely certain what was happening before we launched. That meant we had to have nuclear initiations over our territory with all the consequences that meant. Also, that unrecallability slowed the reaction time right down

In europe, warning time was anywhere form 15 seconds to four minutes. Effectively that meant the decison time exceeded the time available. As a little historical aside, the British never put nuclear warheads on their Bloodhound missiles for that reason; the extra decision-making steps were such that if they did, the missiles would never be launched. Note that nobody in Europe had ICBMs pointing at the USSR (The French had IRBMs built into the Plateau d'Albion which seems a little strange since they would never have been launched but rumor has it they were aimed at the Germans. Given 20th century history, one could understand that)

The British abandoned Blue Streak for the reaction time reason.

[Stuart]

Hmm... I agree on most of what you said. Thanks for the discussion, was interesting.

Thank you Gospodin Spas, I also found your comments interesting and very informative. I've taken the liberty of placing them on file for use later and will be using them in due course. So don't be surprised if you see one of the characters producing some very familiar-sounding arguments. Seriously, thank you very much, its good of you to have taken the time to comment so comprehensively.

And I actually liked your work, I mean TBO-verse (that's why I criticize it - that's the common VIF modus operandi. We tend to have military fiction authors come out and have their books pre-screened by the forum).

Thank you, I hope you'll like the next story. It's Winter Warriors set on the Kola Peninsula in late 1945. I may come and ask for some technical background on Russian fighter operations in that era. I have Dmitry Lorza's book on the use of the Airacobra that has some good data

What would you recommend? The VIF authors have so far produced two major alt-history works, with a collision between USSR and the West in 45 and the alternative Korean war in 53, which are both IMHO very good, if not exactly superb (the "Variant-Bis" series) and they have collected quite a fame among Russian military history folks.[/b]

Mike Kozlowski's For Those In Peril On The Sea (TIPOTS) stories are very good., In other published work, I like Eric Flint's 1632 although I think the later stories went downhill badly. The first was an epic tale of how average, ordinary people dealt with a dreadful. unimaginable catastrophe. The erst just got to be standard adventure yarns.

I like Dravid Drake's material as well. He writes very thought-provoking stories.

I'm writing a story like that myself, so, thanks for a qualified opinion from "the other side of the fence".

[CaptainChewbacca]

So much for not screwing up HTML

[Norseman]

No need to be insulting

Indeed Luft 46' manages to make its napkinwaffe quite fascinating, even if it's just a website with tons of cool pictures, it is at least interesting.

You can critize the technical aspects of his work as much as your heart desires, but be careful with this kind of gratuit insults, since many people here do find TBO interesting as it should be obvious to you. So you don't really want to start throwing around cheap insults, OK?

The writing is part of the technical aspect of his work, and criticizing the writing for being uninteresting is not a cheap insult but a legitimate criticism of any piece of writing.

If I were to describe "The Bear and the Dragon" as being very poorly written, which it is, is that an illegitimate criticism? If I were to suggest that the prose and writing in "Eragon" and "Eldest" was dull and uninspiring is that a cheap insult?

That said perhaps the remark was a tad gratuitous so I'll apologise for being crass and flip rather than giving a reasoned critique...

I can also understand perfectly well why the concept of TBO is immensely fascinating, my problem here is with execution.

However cards on the table when TBO was first written I started getting URLs sent to me, I started getting huge chunks of the stuff sent my way, and I was constantly pestered to read it. Finally I broke down and I began reading...

Obviously the alt history was bad, Britains behaviour was such that I raised an eyebrow and went "Uhm... oooookay," and the whole deal with Stalins and the Japanese... but I said to myself "Okay he wants to demonstrate that no matter how well Germany did they couldn't win," and that was fine I was willing to cut him some slack on that.

That said the idea of the nuclear destruction of Germany at the end of WWII was pretty much meh to me, there was nothing shocking or outrageous about it. Indeed I could accept that The Big One was the plan that won out, and it seemed perfectly feasible from a strictly technical point of view.

Understand that the idea "if Germany won the war they'd be nuked," is one that is pretty much taken for granted by most people in the Alternate History community. In short that part was old hat to me, the bomb was after all made for Germany. Whenever some guy pulls out the old "they only had two bombs," the real production figures are produced by some grognard on soc.history.what-if.

So this would in other words be some sort of a mixture between Tom Clancy and early Dale Brown with a bit of alternate history thrown in, and that sounded fine to me.

I just didn't like it though, to be honest, I wanted to, I tried reading it several times, a lot of people kept telling me to read it but... it felt very dry, the characters felt flat, and I never really wondered "Ooooh what will come next." It bored me, sorry to say but it really did.

I did get through "The Big One", sorry to I've never been able to finish any of the other Caliphate stories, in fact I've never gotten more than a few chapters in. It's always the same story, I just don't care what happens to any of these people, and I certainly don't care what happens next.

That said I'm not going to go to Lulu or Amazon (yes The Big One is there) to leave some scathing review because I'm a bit too close to the matter at hand, and I'm not prone to leaving reviews without refreshing my memory of the book.

If you like it then fine, go buy it, see the link above, leave a nice review, but remember it's not an insult to dislike or criticize an authors books.

[Stuart]

Also no... the idea for Al-Qaeda is to restore THE Caliphate that means the Caliph with an Ulama, now if you had appointed a Caliph with an advisory Ulama then I'd be fine with it.

But then you have your PhD, well I assume by original Caliphate you meant the Rashidun Caliphate? Or the Umayyids? Or the Abbasids? Or the Fatimids? Or the Almohads? Or the Ottoman one? Then again for convenience we could say Arab Caliphate, Andalusian Caliphate, and Ottoman Caliphate. Which one is it though? Which one does he have his PhD in?

As it happens, in nuclear weapons technology. I was able to consult people who have PhDs in the necessary historical periods. The background to TBO isn't just my creation, a lot of specialists in various areas added their opinions.

Quite frankly your Caliphate acts unlike any historical Caliphate, which is kind of understandable since the Taliban are rather extreme in their views. However the original Caliphates depended on the Dhimmis to pay taxes and do the work they didn't want to, none of them had the policies you describe towards non-Muslims.

But the TBO Caliphate is based upon the Afghanistan Taliban and they did (still do) carry out those actions.

See above, note that if you can't find an Arabic name your readers would recognise then explain the terms briefly in the text, or don't use an Arabic term at all.

I'm writing fiction, not a historical treatise. I'm not going to lumber down the action with a load of extraneous explanations about inconsequential details like the names of positions. If it really irks you, imagine "Caliph" is a Western translation of teh real term. IT DOESN"T MATTER.,

However my point is that having a Taliban equivalent take power is ludicrous in the first place, because the Taliban is inspired and partially funded by the Wahabbis, and the Wahabbis only became important because... well because of all that Saudi oil money.

And in TBO there are different mechanisms leading to the same result

P

You still haven't explained WHY radical Islam managed to rise in the first place when several of the factors that led to its rise in OTL are no longer present. WHY do they hate the world so much that they're all willing to work together (a ridiculous idea mind you), they don't in OTL.

It's happening, I'm slowly filling in the details by inference. Have I written a story dedicated to it? No, and probably won't. There's not that level of interest.

Let me put it this way, the idea that they can work together enough that there is a "caliphate council" that can give orders to any part of the realm, and that these orders that would most likely be followed; or people would pretend to follow them; that is enough to constitute relative harmony.

I suggest you re-read the appriate sections. Your description is imaginary. The various "Caliphs" are virtually independent (as are the Satraps under them, the Council is just a talking shop where differences get sorted out.

Are you serious?

Deadly serious. The "skills' of bin Laden and Khomeini are entirely in the minds of their admirers. In fact, when looked at dispassionately, discarding the hype and propaganda, they're narrow-perspective, proovincial thugs with very little knowledge of understanding of the world.

This man is not an astute politician and skilled administrator?

No, they arn't. They're charismatic, I'll give them that but skilled, Nope.

To say that any of the founders of Al Qaeda lack political acumen is... well...

Accurate.

The rest of your comments are so irrelevent they don't even begin to deserve an answer. Have you actually read the stories? It appears not beacuse you completely ignore the background that's been sketched in or the circumstances that prevail within them.

If you have any reasonable remarks, I'll be happy to listen to them but what you have produced so far tells me nothing other than you don't like the basic novels. If you want to contribute to the pool of data that I build the TBO novels on, I would suggest you do so in a more erudite manner. I would refer you to the way Gospodin Stas has presented his arguments and input. We disagree profoundly on many key issues but he is obviously an honorable and well-informed person and I take everything he says very seriously, He makes good arguments and supports them well. I would advise you emulate him.

I am always open to input and added information. I think anybody who has helped with the TBO series will confirm that. However, at the moment, you have said nothing that makes me change my mind on any of the issues addressed. You'll need to do a lot better if you want to achieve that.

[Stuart]

So much for not screwing up HTML

What can I say? My defense is that computers didn't even exist for the first 30 plus years of my life. I calculated my first death toll using a hand-cranked adding machine.

Oddly, before that, we didn't even have hand cranked adding machines. When we did flow calculations we took the data to a special room in the research association where there were large numbers of young ladies (called "computers" believe it or not) who did all the maths for us. It was notorious that they were working there because they were looking for civil servant husbands (civil servants having what amounted to a job for life and good pensions thus being secure bets as husband-material), It was widely rumored that any young, unmarried civil servant entered that room only at risk of being abducted and forcibly married. We only went in there in pairs........

True story, it might have changed now. You'll have to ask Jan that.

[CaptainChewbacca]

You poor, poor targeteers. "Tell you what, I'll go back in there and BEG for peril."

[aerius]

So, missiles _are_ cheaper. The ICBM/SLBM development is faster and more accessible. Which means faster running up the tech tree. Just as I thought - the bombers require technology investment of shitloads of money, much more complex than missiles. And that's a 1960 technology. The PRC already arrived to space and has functioning and reliable ICBMs, so, if it invested into stratobombers, why would it not have a 1960 level of technology by now? In all other areas it achieved 1960 Soviet/US level.

The PRC has a rather uneven technology base, in some areas they're not doing too bad at all while in others they're failing miserably. One of the areas where they're well behind is making the specialty metal alloys needed for high performance jet engines and aircraft.

For instance the jet engine turbines will require creep-resistant high temperature high strength steels or maybe even nickel or cobalt based alloys. The Chinese either can't make them, can't make consistent quality batches of them, don't have the QC procedures to sort out the bad batches, don't have the technologies to work with the materials, or a combination of the above. That's why their jet engines have a habit of exploding.

Another fun part is Chinese titanium tubing, it may say 3Al/2.5V but it's not anything like the 3/2.5 Ti made by US mills. This was illustrated rather dramatically about 10 years ago when a flood of titanium bicycles from China hit North American markets. The frames performed more like aluminum, they came apart at the welds, developed fatigue cracks, and failed in all sorts of ways which had never been seen before in Ti bikes. Samples were tested and it was found that the Chinese tubing had higher levels of contaminants along with poorer grain structure, plus the welding procedures were somewhat questionable (improper gas purge & some other fun stuff).

Now I don't know about Russia, but the US had a pretty advanced metals industry in the 60's. The US mills could and did make all kinds of specialty & high performance alloys to pretty good standards with the exception of titanium. Which Lockheed discovered the hard way while building the SR-71, costing them a bunch of time & money as they now had to come up with a QC & tracking method to sort out all the parts that came from the various mill pours.