Historical Hypotheticals and Alternate Histories

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Pseudo
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Historical Hypotheticals and Alternate Histories

Post by Pseudo »

I'm a fan of alternate histories. For those not familiar with the premise it essentially boils down to what might have happened if different decisions had been made in the past. I bring this up because there's a great series I've been reading that might be of interest to members of this forum.

The basic premise is that following the decision to end fixed-wing carrier aviation the Phantomisation of HMS Ark Royal was abandoned in favour of a cheaper Phantomisation of HMS Eagle, meaning that given its better material state and various other minor decisions HMS Eagle was available for the Falklands War.

So, here's a link to HMS Eagle in the Falklands.

I hope that you enjoy the story as much as I am.

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ArmChairCivvy
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Re: Historical Hypotheticals and Alternate Histories

Post by ArmChairCivvy »

Pseudo wrote:a link to HMS Eagle in the Falklands.
... and now you tell me; when the long wk end is already in the past :)
Ever-lasting truths: Multi-year budgets/ planning by necessity have to address the painful questions; more often than not the Either-Or prevails over Both-And.
If everyone is thinking the same, then someone is not thinking (attributed to Patton)

mr.fred
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Re: Historical Hypotheticals and Alternate Histories

Post by mr.fred »

An interesting premise, but wouldn’t the existence of a full-blown carrier like that in the RN rather preclude the Argentine invasion in the first place?

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ArmChairCivvy
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Re: Historical Hypotheticals and Alternate Histories

Post by ArmChairCivvy »

mr.fred wrote:rather preclude the Argentine invasion in the first place?
Will need to read the 'stuff' but:
The invasion was for in-country political reasons, and a job of the army+navy (which did have a small "FAA" of its own), i.e the folks on the Junta
- the AF was not deemed reliable, was not part of any assessments (of British assets) and was only called in when the Junta were surprised by the British response (resolve)
Ever-lasting truths: Multi-year budgets/ planning by necessity have to address the painful questions; more often than not the Either-Or prevails over Both-And.
If everyone is thinking the same, then someone is not thinking (attributed to Patton)

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Pseudo
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Re: Historical Hypotheticals and Alternate Histories

Post by Pseudo »

ArmChairCivvy wrote:... and now you tell me; when the long wk end is already in the past :)
Sorry. I do hope you enjoy it though. There's some proper "punch the air" moments in there for Buc fans.
mr.fred wrote:An interesting premise, but wouldn’t the existence of a full-blown carrier like that in the RN rather preclude the Argentine invasion in the first place?
That's unlikely since the original motivation for the war was quieting popular dissent against the Junta. They essentially had two options, reignite the Beagle conflict against a Chile who would definitely respond and likely lead to a border war along a very long border that they could not be sure of the outcome of. Or retaking the Falklands against an opponent who had recently enacted legislation to strip Falkland Islanders of their right to settle in the UK and enacted a defence review which would see the withdrawal of the UK naval presence in the South Atlantic and (in this alternate history) see the retirement of the UK's ability to provide air support to retake the islands.

Then the question becomes, why not wait until HMS Eagle has been retired in 1983? And the answer to that is the same as why didn't the Junta wait a few months in the real history until conditions in the South Atlantic would have made an operation to retake the islands far more difficult.
ArmChairCivvy wrote:
mr.fred wrote:rather preclude the Argentine invasion in the first place?
Will need to read the 'stuff' but:
The invasion was for in-country political reasons, and a job of the army+navy (which did have a small "FAA" of its own), i.e the folks on the Junta
- the AF was not deemed reliable, was not part of any assessments (of British assets) and was only called in when the Junta were surprised by the British response (resolve)
Indeed. As I've already mentioned, the 1981 British Nationality Act along with the Nott Review were significant considerations in Argentine thinking, along with the fact that Chile would definitely fight for the Beagle Islands and that could easily lead to war along their entire 3,000+ mile border.

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ArmChairCivvy
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Re: Historical Hypotheticals and Alternate Histories

Post by ArmChairCivvy »

p. 3 (post43) has excellent piccies of what a hangar on a 45 kt carrier allows for
- a link to the QEs of today, having been built "too big"
Pseudo wrote:the 1981 British Nationality Act
on the first reading I thought it was part of the fiction, not another Windrush'ques act.
Ever-lasting truths: Multi-year budgets/ planning by necessity have to address the painful questions; more often than not the Either-Or prevails over Both-And.
If everyone is thinking the same, then someone is not thinking (attributed to Patton)

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Pseudo
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Re: Historical Hypotheticals and Alternate Histories

Post by Pseudo »

ArmChairCivvy wrote:p. 3 (post43) has excellent piccies of what a hangar on a 45 kt carrier allows for
- a link to the QEs of today, having been built "too big"
IIRC, there are some lovely Phantom and Buccaneer photos later on. :)
ArmChairCivvy wrote:
Pseudo wrote:the 1981 British Nationality Act
on the first reading I thought it was part of the fiction, not another Windrush'ques act.
[/quote]
If it helps, it was done with the best of bad intentions. The motivation was to prevent a mass exodus of Hong Kong nationals to the UK prior to its likely unification with China. The impact on Falkland Islanders and its role in encouraging Argentine aggression were entirely coincidental.

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ArmChairCivvy
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Re: Historical Hypotheticals and Alternate Histories

Post by ArmChairCivvy »

For a long time I believed in the pork barrelling stories about the UKnization of the first batch of Phantoms (the ones meant for the carriers), which were slower than the original article (but had more capable handling in low-level engagements). The contributor "Riain" has collected the facts, from several sources, as shown in the below:

"Although USN F4, A6 and A7 did cross deck on the Ark in in 70s they did so at light fuel states and without much or any ordnance due to the detail difference between the Ark and USN carriers, namely the short and less powerful catapults, the 29kt top speed and small lifts. These are why the RN specifically developed the Spey Phantom, not as commonly believed as a pork barrel project.

Riain [embedded self quote] said: ↑

From Wiki and http://www.f-4.nl/f4_22.html

The F-4K had a number of major modifications which were needed to permit its use aboard the smaller British carriers. Another important requirement was that it was to have 40 to 45 percent of its components produced in the United Kingdom.

The most important difference between the F-4K and the F-4J was the replacement of the J79 turbojets of the F-4J with a pair of 12,250 lb.s.t. dry and 20,515 lb.s.t. with afterburning Rolls Royce RB.168-15R Spey 201 turbofans. The additional power offered by the Spey was thought to be essential in order to provide sufficient power to operate the Phantom safely from smaller British aircraft carriers. In addition, the Spey was able to provide more bleed air for the boundary layer control system, It was also fitted with drooping ailerons, enlarged leading edge flaps and a slotted tailplane, and increased flap and leading edge blowing, all to improve the lift and handling characteristics of operation from the much smaller carriers of the Royal Navy. It had to have a significantly strengthened undercarriage to account for the higher landing weight (British policy was to bring back unused ordnance).

The Ferranti AN/AWG-11 fire control system was installed in the F-4K in place of the AN/AWG-10 of the F-4J. The British-manufactured AN/AWG-11 was a license-built version of the AN/AWG-10, and differed from the American-built version mainly in having a radar dish which could be swung sideways in order to reduce the aircraft's length to 54 feet so that it could fit on the small deck lifts of British carriers."
Ever-lasting truths: Multi-year budgets/ planning by necessity have to address the painful questions; more often than not the Either-Or prevails over Both-And.
If everyone is thinking the same, then someone is not thinking (attributed to Patton)

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ArmChairCivvy
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Re: Historical Hypotheticals and Alternate Histories

Post by ArmChairCivvy »

Reading 100+ pages would have been a doddle between meals, over the long wk end, but now the progress is slow.

The story is interspersed with factoids, to egg the story line on (which then is, of course, fiction)>
here's a factoid, injected, that is missing an important element: Namely "with the navy it was felt that the most potent weapons were the Exocet anti-ship missile and the new Type 209 SSK’s. Annoyingly France had suspended delivery of the missiles and recalled the technicians that had been working on integrating them with the navy’s Super Etendards leaving the Argentinian technicians to finish the job. While this was irritating it wasn’t catastrophic"
- because in reality "replacements" were sent from another source, harbouring an old ire:

https://en.mercopress.com/tags/menachem-begin
and in a historic conflict between two, now friendly states, better to err on the side f caution and quote from both:
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/articl ... flict.html
Ever-lasting truths: Multi-year budgets/ planning by necessity have to address the painful questions; more often than not the Either-Or prevails over Both-And.
If everyone is thinking the same, then someone is not thinking (attributed to Patton)

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Pseudo
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Re: Historical Hypotheticals and Alternate Histories

Post by Pseudo »

ArmChairCivvy wrote:Reading 100+ pages would have been a doddle between meals, over the long wk end, but now the progress is slow.
You can skip the comments and go directly to the next bit of the story. Above each story post there are back (<<) Index and next (>>) buttons that navigate directly between the episodes of the story.
- because in reality "replacements" were sent from another source, harbouring an old ire:

https://en.mercopress.com/tags/menachem-begin
and in a historic conflict between two, now friendly states, better to err on the side f caution and quote from both:
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/articl ... flict.html
Thanks, I didn't know about Israel supplying arms to the Junta.

lordroel
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Re: Historical Hypotheticals and Alternate Histories

Post by lordroel »

Is it allowed if i post some links to some great TLs that are on my forum, the first is:

http://alternate-timelines.proboards.co ... ll-britain
Image

Second would be:

http://alternate-timelines.proboards.co ... dawn-story
Image

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