Starglider wrote: I'm curious what the projected casualties for those are. On top of the losses the US already suffered on the Russian front, they'd have to be pretty horrific, easily taking the TBOverse past the OTL WWII US casualty figures.
This might help. I'm sorry its a bit hard to read. @ = OTL
The casualty calculations for the invasion of Western Europe in the absence of the strategic nuclear bombardment were based on the assumption (in hindsight probably wrong) that it would result in a second "Russian Front" with equivalent casualty rates. While the US has very good intelligence on Nazi Germany, it isn't perfect and the idea of doubling the US death rate is profoundly horrifying.
So nuclear AAMs made the 'missile bus' argument valid, and TBO fighters really don't need to dogfight?
Not quite a missile bus, that idea was tried with the F6D Missileer and it didn't work too well. The TBO interceptors are very fast, high-flying fighters that are optimized for specific roles. The F-108 is a long-range escort fighter, its designed to locate enemy fighters and destroy them (and their airfields) before the bombers arrive. The F-112 is the long-range interceptor that's designed to break up inbound enemy bomber formations while they are still a long way from the US, the F-114 is basically a Tomcat analogue although its a whole Mech number faster and flies a lot higher. Its job is to take on the broken bomber formations and down them. The F-116 is a point-defense interceptor, its a fast reaction aircraft flown by the Air National Guard and is designed to pick off any bombers that leak through the air defense system. Note that they're all primarily bomber destroyers, the TBOverse in general isn't really in to tactical warfare.
I note you've still got the F-15 and F-16 in the OOB; as an interceptor in the TBOverse the F-116 in particular seems like a step backwards from the F-108 and F-112 - unless you've radically changed the specs from OTL.
The Viper in TBO is very different from the OTL F-16. It's a very fast-climbing, high-altitude interceptor that is armed witha single nuclear-tipped air-to-air missile, two conventional warhead AAMs and a cannon. It owes much more to the OTL F-104 that the OTL F-16
Imagine the F116 as a J-93 powered F-104 and you're in the ballpark
The TBOverse F-115 is sort of like the OTL F-15 but its got J-58s instead of its OTL engines, is a high-altitude fighter and its a whole mach number faster. It's a swing fighter, it can serve in both tactical and strategic roles. Again, its an ANG aircraft.
I like the fact you have the XF-123 at ~mach 3 - AFAIK superior supercruise performance on the YF-23 vs the YF-22 has never been confirmed by the USAF, but it's widely rumoured (though you've probably bumped it further over OTL).
Both the XF-122 and the XF-123 are analogues of the OTL F-22 and F-23 but by TBO standards the performance of the OTl aircraft is obsolete. Pretty much all the TBO front-line combat aircraft cruise at Mach 3 plus (one of the odd things about that flight regime is that once you're in it, your cruising speed is your maximum speed. Don't ask me why and I didn't believe it when I read it but I checked it out and its true). The XF-122 and XF-123 are TBO implementations of reduced signature technology but their life depends on the evaluation of the value of reduced signatures versus the high speed, enormous firepower and high operating ceilings of the existing aircraft. As of TBO 2007, that's still under examination but things don't look good for stealth.
Yes, but do the B-70s have interceptor missiles? Those long-range SAMs look pretty big and unmaneuverable, can they be realistically engaged by a bomber launched missile?
Yes in both cases. The bombers carry both self defense missiles (Pyewacket or "The Frisbee") and a complex and comprehensive defense suite called the Defensive Anti-Missile System (DAMS) that's described (sparingly, most of DAMS is highly classified still) in RotV. DAMS integrates with sensors on the strategic recon aircraft flying ahead of the bombers so that its able to counter attacks as they develop. Possible systemic counters to DAMS are also described in RotV.
I think we're using different definitions of 'wish fullfilment'. AFAIK nothing in the TBOverse is wish fulfillment in the 'couldn't have happened without writer fiat' sense other than the immortal humans, which are a dramatic device rather than an alt-history feature anyway.
I've tried to develop things as logically as I can. The long-lifers are a sort of personification of the faceless bureaucrats who have really run society since the time of the Pharoahs. I thought that instead of having apparently immortal bureaucrats, I'd have really immortal (actually they're not technically immortal, they can be killed or die, its just they don't get older once they've gone through Transition).
However you can't deny that when you sat down and decided to write the first story, you wanted SAC to feature prominently and go on to deploy all the weapons that should have been deployed historically.
Oddly, that's not how it all started. I wanted to do a story that was a counter to all the "Erwin Rommel and Nazi Uberweapons Conquer the World" tales that were doing the rounds. Also, at the time, there were lots of anti-ABM press stories about how wonderful the days of "Mutually Assured Destruction" were. So I wanted to try and remind people what assured destruction meant in nuclear terms.
Anyway, to get a better-than-historical result for teh Germans I had to knock the U.K. out of the war. Whichever way one looks at it, the resistance of the UK in 1940 was absolutely critical, it was the key turning point. Now, one way is to presume that Sealion worked but I wanted to keep things sensible and Sealion working is impossible. Then, I read about the Halifax-Butler telegram to Germany in June 1940 (t really existed) and the machinations that went on around it and it clicked. That was it. That gave me the date and the PoD.
At almost the same time, the US was in a critical defense strategy debate. Basically, it can be summarized as a "foreign bases" policy versus a "Continental US" strategy. This was critical for future planning because the "foreign bases" approach meant concentrating on the B-29 while the "Continental US" approach meant concentrating on the B-36. In OTL, Britain hung on, validating the Foreign bases policy and the B-29. In TBO, The Halifax-Butler coup (coup is the wrong word, everything was quite legal) worked, the "Continental US " option was validated and the US went full steam on the B-36. Debate was historically correct with regard to substance and timing, the British resistance in the Battle of Britain was critical as per history, only the result was changed as a result of Halifax's actions.
Once that was done, the course of the story was set. We had an invasion of Russia that worked better than in OTL (more troops, more resources, no bombing of Germany), the development of the B-36 as top priority (as demanded by the continental based strategy) and the atomic bomb added in as the last ingredient. That was largely unaffected by the changes. So, the end of the War was set by the political and strategic circumstances. It would be a massive nuclear strike using high-altitude bombing by B-36s. After TBO was written, it was clear to me that the story raised a lot of issues that needed addressing and the rest, as they say, is history.
It's wish fullfilment in the sense that you personally would presumably have like to have seen it happen, though hopefully not via the horrific mass nuclear attacks in TBO.
I must admit, I don't see blowing up Nazi Germany (or other fascists as determined by the Government of the United States) as being a bad idea. Also, to me, nuclear weapons are a part of the enviornment I work in; I suspect I view them much more clinically than most people.
That said, the one thing I do find a little contrived is your conversion of the USSR from a mass murdering totalitarian state arguably worse than the Nazis, and the bitter enemies of the US and the West in general, to a free and reasonably pleasant country that's /extremely/ US-friendly.
Well, there's two factors to this. One is that Zhukov et al really did stage what amounted to a coup in 1942. They went to Stalin, told him that his actions and interference were severely damaging Russian defense and if he wanted to continue, he could do it without them. They gave him a list of demands, he complied with them and that's when the war changed. Details are in Ericssen's "The Road To Stalingrad". In TBO, same coup but the war being that much worse, the action is that much more decisive. Same group of people, more or less the same motivations, just a different result.
In OTL 1942, Stalin really did ask - almost beg - for American and British troops for the Russian Front. He really did offer to have them as independent units under US and British national control fighting on German territory. The US and Brits hummed and debated, then by the time they got around to making the decision, Sixth Army was besieged, the German frontw as crumbling so Stalin back-pedalled. In TBO, Moscow has fallen, Stalingrad is falling, circumstances mean a different decision, the request is accepted and the US Army arrives in Russia. Those troops are vital; the front can't be held without them.
Post war, Russia needs America. The country has lost so much manpower that it can't fight another war (note it takes them ten years to mop up the residue of the German Army in Russia). They need the Americans to survive both militarily and economically. So, the government is smart enough to understand that they need to present a face to the Americans that the US can live with. Hence the change in attitude. Not a matter of choice, driven by circumstance - the Anvil of Necessity. Having started down that line, things carry on that way by force of momentum. Russia isn't necessarily a free country, politically they are most certainly not - there's no elections or anything like that and the President rules (in capital letters). Its a free-er economy. It's pro-US because it has to be to survive (still got a manpower problem) and because the benefits far outweigh the costs. If I had to define Russia in the post-war TBO era, its an intensely pragmatic country. It does what it has to do to make itself work. Later, it finds out that by being such a close ally of the US it shares the shadow of American power and has a position and influence it couldn't possibly have by itself. Also, by being such a close ally, it can bend and shape American policy to suit its own ends.
It isn't /unreasonable/, but I do get a very strong 'author wishes things could've been that way' vibe, and unlike the SAC ascendant it is a genuine suspension-of-disbelief stretcher.
It's probably influenced by the fact that I've always got on well with the Russians I've worked with and found them to be pleasant and congenial company.
In particular I agree with Sea Skimmer in that it seems very unlikely Russia would make any compromises in nuclear security, particularly with the larger number of deployed warheads in TBO.
They haven't really, they've just disguised, concealed and hidden their nuclear capability. Nobody quite knows what the Russian nuclear deterrent is, how much of it is American, how much is Russian, who delivers what etc. Very much the Israeli policy in OTL.
But I suppose I will have to keep guessing on this front.
I'm afraid so.
Sorry. But if you come up with the answers, be warned, keep them to yourself.
When I read Sceptered Isle I will be checking carefully for 'why haven't they got X yet' technology, but for 'Interstellar Highway' presumably you can just say 'horrible nightmares from the dark age, can't explain'. Though that's kinda frustrating, for things like Redleader's space elevators particularly.
Most technology development is going on in space and is space orientated. So, the Moon, Mars and Lagrange point colonies are all well in advance of present day technology (although extrapolatable - I'm trying hard to avoid the use of Handwavium and Unobtanium). Earthly technology isn't that much more developed than OTL, advanced but extrapolated from what we have now. Of course from 2040 to the Interstellar Highway era there's virtually no technology advance at all. Humanity has all it can do to save what they've got. The really big change (structurally) is the development of metal-ceramic composites that can only be made in zero-gravity. I've seen some initial reports on their potential and its truly remarkable.
I really don't know whether a space elevator is practical. I'm now going to make a terrible confession. Sometimes I toss ideas out in the discussion of stories and feed off people's reactions as to whether they are practical or not - and if so, how they can be done. The Space Elevator is a good example. I don't have the technical or metallurgical knowledge to determine whether the idea is practical or not, so I consult people who do. If somebody can come up with a practical, plausible way of doing it, I'll write it in. It has to be detailed though (for example when discussing rifle development in the TBOverse, we went down to the level of considering what kind of machine tooling was available and the economic impact of existing ammunition stocks). So, for example, if the way of building the space elevator is to use carbon molecular level monofilament, we have to know how to make it, what the processing costs are likely to be, what alternative uses for the material there might be and what the priority of those other uses will be compared with the Space Elevator.
Incidentally, I'm putting together a short story that sets the stage for a full novel set in occupied Britain.
