AN, credits to perfect_shade, Nla Eid, Sunny and Caliburn0 for helping me revise this chapter.
1952, March 18th, Nanjing:
Kang glanced at his notes for a moment before speaking at the executive council meeting. "The NKVD reported having initial success with contacting people within Francois Republic's nuclear development program, and that that country has been aggressively pursuing nuclear weapons in response to Germania's nuclear program."
"What should we be doing to prepare to utilize the acquired knowledge as soon as we get it?" Chairman Zhang looked at everyone. "Even if the NKVD copied every single document, we would still need large teams of experts to make sense of the information, and the infrastructure to support them."
"I already had a team working on the basics of nuclear science." Li replied. "There is a lot of information that can be gained from open sources, which provides us with a small stepping stone. The Russy Confederation has been finishing constructing their uranium mines, which we will need a large stockpile to experiment extracting uranium from the ores."
"Good. I've always been disturbed by the inevitable blowback if we ever deploy biological weapons." Zhang sighed. "Kang Sheng, there was a proposal that you wanted to put forward."
"I propose establishing a Red Guard to consolidate the dozens of different youth organizations into a centralized organization."
"I support the plan." Luo spoke up. "We need an established pipeline to train the youths, especially children with magic potential from the mage eugenics program."
"I disagree." Li said, as Kang and Luo turned to look at Li in confusion. "There is no need for a centralized organization when they could trust the local leaders with preparing the youths for the future."
"Something isn't right." Zhang looked on as he watched the three men descend into a heated argument. "It's as if they had an agreement, and Li backed out on it."
Francois Indochina:
Adrien Navarre, the newly appointed commander of the Francois Republic's Indochina Expeditionary Army, had expected an uphill struggle. It turned out to be far worse than he had expected, when, during turnover with the departing commander, he had learned that the past commanders for more than 5 years never even had a coherent strategy to deal with the Vietnamese rebels. Everything was focused on avoiding a major defeat at any cost, allowing the rebels to slowly nibble away at the Frankish positions. Much of the area north of Vinh and Muang Pakxan had been written off as a complete loss by the departing commander's predecessor. Not that the departing commander made any attempts at undoing that. Simultaneously, south of Vinh and Muang Pakxan was a mess of counterinsurgency fighting, which was a constant threat to their shaky defensive line.
Publicly, he ensured that everyone, including the rebels, would perceive him as just another unimaginative aristocrat who was out of their league.
Privately among his subordinate commanders, they had been working on a plan to catch the rebels off guard.
He looked again at the reports of what personnel, equipment, vehicles and other material that were going to be arriving in the next few weeks. Including a few dozen Sikorsky heavy lift helicopters to transport field howitzers and light tanks, and a few that had been converted into experimental heavy gunships.
Of particular note was the large number of combat boats from the Bharatian War. South Bharat had sold much of their combat boat inventory to an Albish shell company, supposedly for one of the Albish counter-insurgency operations in their ongoing "Malayan Emergency" in Albish Malaya. Some of the boats were indeed shipped to Malaya to complete the ruse, while much of them were transferred to another ship in the middle of the ocean to instead sail for Francois Indochina.
And he had a large number of marines already in operation, including a few new marine battalions that were going to be arriving to make use of those boats.
He looked at the map drawing again. The forces in Vinh, who had been spending the past few years holding their positions and occasionally conducting limited counter offensives, would conduct a general offensive to pin the rebels in place.
Meanwhile, amphibious landings at Hai Phong and Ninh Binh in the Red River Delta are to be conducted, then an advance towards Hanoi and then to Yen Bai. If Hanoi is captured, a paradrop on Nà Sản to build a forward fire support base using Hanoi's airport was planned. All of this was to disrupt the rebels' supply lines with the CSR.
One of his subordinates, Colonel Jules Piroth, walked up with a report. "We have intel confirmation that Chinese and North Bharatian commanders are directly leading the Vietnamese rebels. Not just advising them."
"Then they would be expecting an amphibious landing and riverine assault, or at least know exactly what to do." Navarre rubbed his forehead in annoyance. "We still have a large number of airborne infantry, helicopters and transport planes to use. Perhaps we could go for an airdrop first, directly west of Thanh Hoa. It would cut off their supply line while we're attacking northward from Vinh. Then go for an amphibious assault when we have the rebels' full attention."
"Airdropping that far behind enemy lines. 140 kilometers." Piroth muttered. "If our offensive doesn't advance fast enough…"
"What about an airdrop at Hoàng Mai and the airborne infantry holding the river crossings?" Navarre pointed at the map. "It's only 75 kilometers from here. In fact, we could use the helicopters instead given how short of a distance, while keeping the transport planes on standby to reinforce Hoàng Mai, or if we do advance rapidly, then we reevaluate the airdrops at Thanh Hoa. We'll also have the rebels' supply routes bombed in the west at around Thai Hoa to complete the supply line cut offs."
"Might be doable." Piroth replied. "I'll have our staff determine what we can accomplish with the end goal of breaking the rebels' supply lines using our arriving reinforcements from home. I am concerned about the number of raw recruits we are receiving though, for such a complex operation."
"We can use the recruits to relieve the more experienced forces that are tied down elsewhere, and to support the push from Vinh. Maybe have it look like we're just rotating forces to send the older units back home. We have to break the status quo. We're too predictable right now for the rebels."
"What about the insurgents operating behind our rear areas?"
"We'll deal with them after we crush their conventional military." as Navarre glared at the map of all of the areas that were known to have heavy insurgent activities.
1952, April 2nd, north of Hanoi in communist-controlled area of Francois Indochina:
"The Service de Contre-Espionnage might be right about this one. How many VIPs have you identified?" Jacques Debizet, the Frankish mage company commander, looked on using his binoculars. "The communists had planned this well, with escape tunnels connecting to their underground conference spaces. Too bad we found one of them."
'This better be worth the multiple weeks of sneaking around to get here and no communications from higher command.' Debizet thought to himself. He had been on some wild missions where the SCE was completely wrong about something. But that's partially due to the SCE's habit of brutally killing off most people they come across or using equally brutal interrogation methods instead of actually trying to build an intel network.
"At least 5 prominent communist commanders or politicians. I think a North Bharatian 'advisor' is also in that group, so there's probably a Chinese one attending as well." Charles Mitterrand flipped through a photograph book to mark which ones they had seen. "Wait, the Red Napoleon is here? They must have some serious plans for their future operations."
"Just taking him out alone would probably count as a successful mission." Pierre Déat muttered. "Maybe we can finally go home before our sanity keeps slipping in this tropical hell."
"We just need to wait for Foccart's squad to neutralize the communist mages and Calvar's squad to destroy the radio antenna and anti-aircraft positions." Debizet hissed. "Then we go loud."
"Do you think we'll have time to verify the dead bodies' identities?" Mitterrand asked.
"I appreciate your desire to confirm the actual success or failure of our mission, but if they have this many VIPs all in one location, there are likely many more enemy forces nearby."
'When this is all over, I'll need to keep in mind to help him get into a university for some sort of statistical analysis field. His talents are being wasted here.'
Sometime after the last VIP entered the tunnel entrance, explosions and gunfire rocked the compound.
Mitterrand's squad quickly donned asbestos face masks with goggles as Mitterrand opened the concealed cover to the escape tunnel's exit for his squad to clamber in. Meanwhile, Déat directed his squad to provide overwatch on the main tunnel exit and throughout the compound.
Debizet could sense the significant amount of mana being poured into a shield spell from underground. He sent a comm spell to Déat to also fire an incendiary shot into the main tunnel exit.
A rumbling from the ground was soon felt, and Debizet saw flames erupt from another hidden escape tunnel exit. Déat's squad fired incendiary and explosive shots into the main tunnel before finishing off the remaining communist guards.
Mitterrand's squad piled out of the tunnel, mildly singed. The two point men that had sealed off their tunnel with the shields to protect the shooters took the brunt of the burning.
"Company, withdraw!" Debizet issued his comm spell.
Meanwhile in Londonium:
Prime Minister Richard William looked at the newspaper, and then up at Stewart Graham, head of the Secret Intelligence Service, and Stanley Morrison, Foreign Secretary.
"Do we have any further information on the Frankish ammunition ship that exploded in the Suez Canal, of all of the damn places?" Prime Minister Richard William asked. "Not to mention the oil tanker that was set ablaze because it was right next to the explosion."
"The frogs are blaming Aegyptus for the attack, and also for backing the Algerian rebels." Foreign Secretary Stanley Morrison sighed. "Meanwhile Aegyptus is denying both accusations, insisting that the ship's crew should have been careful with the ammunition storage, and counter accused the frogs and us of arming Aegyptus's neighbors while simultaneously refusing to sell any arms to them."
"Who's telling the truth?"
"I could see why Aegyptus would seek to undermine the Frankish control of Algeria as they're probably uncomfortable with the arms embargo that we put on them, while selling arms and sending advisors to their neighbors." Stewart Graham, head of the Secret Intelligence Service, rubbed his chin. "But blocking the Suez Canal with the wreckage of the two ships, that's extreme."
William set down the paper. "I've received a phone call from Prime Minister Gassier. He said he was willing to settle for a reparation instead of risk starting another conflict, at least until the situation with Algeria and Francois Indochina is dealt with."
"Even a payment would be problematic." Morrison replied. "Aegyptus's new president, Izz al-Arab Nasser, is an ultra-nationalist. It would be very difficult for him to accept any concessions to Europe, especially since he has painted himself into that corner with extensive propaganda."
"You're saying that he would be willing to risk a war?"
"If even half of his propaganda and public speeches are true, possibly. I wouldn't be surprised if he's just trying to copy everything that Degurechaff has done, minus actually having a military that can back up his words."
"We know he had requested a book publisher to translate Degurechaff's books into their local language." Graham said. "It was probably for his inner circle as he knows Albish."
"Goddammit a Degurechaff wannabe. That devil is still causing us trouble even in her rather active retirement." William groaned. "Well, if he's going to be copying her moves, how would she handle the crisis if she was ruling Aegyptus?"
"Not start a direct war against the Francois Republic, Allied Kingdom and their allies that border Aegyptus. Maybe try to play us off of the frogs." Morrison chuckled. "Which is why I suggest that we back the frogs' demand for a reparation. It would also help earn us a favor with them, allowing us to delay that damn proposed deal with the Chinese or even drop it entirely."
Graham nodded as William poured a drink for the three of them. "I hope the Franks can make use of our financial and material support to turn around their situation in Indochina. That's the only reason I'm not going to sign that paper."
Back in Francois Indochina:
Debizet smiled to himself as his company carefully hiked through the mountainous jungle with no magic emissions. While he would have liked to verify which VIPs were killed, he didn't have time to stick around. Besides, he had zero casualties and the communist mages that had arrived on scene were flying around uselessly trying to find where the attackers had fled.
"Do you feel that?" Déat perked up.
"What?" Calvar asked.
"It's like someone is blasting in one direction with a powerful magic emission and we're just getting the dissipated magic off from the side."
Shortly afterward, Debizet felt the same thing.
"It happened again." Déat looked around nervously.
"What in the devil is that?..." Debizet asked no one in particular.
A few minutes passed, and two more of the magic dissipation was felt, with the company's mood quickly turning to concern.
Then Debizet felt the direct impact.
"I think they scanned us." Déat's eyes widened in horror. "Somehow. We need to change direction, fast."
"Yes they did, it's a roughly similar spell structure compared to what the Akinese mage pilot reported when they were dealing with the Chinese mages' scanning and missile tracking spells." Mitterrand responded. "Except for this one, they pumped a massive amount of power in this. I think they got augmented A-tier mages hunting for us in order to repeatedly scan like that, or a single super mage that might give the Devil of the Rhine a hard time."
"At least we know we did some serious damage to them to get this kind of a response. We're about to get some posthumous medals." Déat bitterly joked.
Time seemed to slow for Debizet. He had no interest in finding out if his company could take on even a single augmented A-tier mage. If they took off with their flight spells deep in the communist controlled territory, they would still be about 150 kilometers from the Gulf of Tonkin where the Frankish fleet was scheduled to be located to pick them up, and that would alert all of the communists along the way.
The second option was to use their reduced emissions flight spells. Which were noticeably slower, but had a far less chance of being detected. But flying was still risky.
He could keep walking or maybe have his company run through the jungle, but that carried the risk of the flying augmented Chinese mages narrowing down his company's location. And if they run on foot, that could alert any civilians or attentive regular communist patrols that are walking around.
"We're changing the direction of our march." Debizet turned to his men. "No magic emissions."
About half an hour passed and Debizet relaxed a bit.
'Maybe it was something else. Or they did lose us.'
As he crested over a hill, he mentally facepalmed at what he just ran into.
A family with fishing gear. Probably headed to a nearby lake. The father of the family barked something at his wife and kids, and they all put their hands in the air.
"What do we do?" Déat turned to Debizet.
"We let them go, and they might run to the closest communist patrol to tell them where we are. If we tie them up, they will either break free or die from exposure." Foccart grumbled. "But I'm not interested in butchering them. I have a family of my own."
Debizet's head spun as he tried to think of what he should do. Unnoticed by him, Déat and Calvar whispered to each other and they both started walking towards the family.
Déat opened up a can with candies in it and offered it to the kids, while Calvar struck up a conversation with the father and wife in their local language.
When Calvar hugged the father, without using magic, he pulled out a knife and stabbed it into the back of the father's head, then immediately used a second knife on the wife before she could scream. Simultaneously, Déat used his knife to dispatch both kids while they were still eating the candies.
Mitterrand vomited while Foccart pointed his rifle at Calvar and Déat.
"Why?" Debizet sputtered in shock and confusion.
"I will not die here because of being concerned about sparing a family." Déat spat.
"Look, we can just say that we got rid of future combatants." Calvar shrugged. "What's another few bodies in this war?"
"You're going to have to kill me to make me stop from reporting this war crime." Foccart sneered, which was met with a demented chuckle from Déat.
"I watched an entire village get massacred on suspicions of aiding a communist. And I was ordered to fire on them." Déat sighed. "Trust me, this is watered down wine compared to that. Your report would be at the bottom of the stack."
"There's no point in shooting each other over this." Mitterrand coughed. "We need to get out of here and then worry about this later."
Then Debizet sensed a side reflection from a powerful magic scan going off.
"Everyone to the ground!"
A few more of the magic scans happened, and suddenly he felt the direct scan pulsing through him.
"We're changing direction again. I don't know if they still detected us, but I don't want to find out."
"The scan is even more powerful this time." Déat looked to the sky nervously. "They're closing in on us. We need to get to the fleet."
"If they hit us with the direct scan again, we'll be using the reduced emissions flight to try to open the distance from them."
Meanwhile in Hamburg:
I plopped myself onto the bed to try to take a nap. It's been slow progress with trying to stealth cast a sustained proper shield spell with the Type 100's triple cores, and that has left me with a throbbing headache. I might have to settle for something that can at least resist a stab from a regular person or a regular bullet until Dr. Schugel or someone else can design something to assist in the tri-core synchronization to reduce the mental workload. I also hope someone can make use of the ever cheaper and smaller solid state components soon coming to market. The Type 100 was just a bit too big to be practical.
Visha poked her head in the bedroom. "Tanya, we have a meeting with Heinz Oetker. He's already at our door."
"I'm not feeling too well." I turned my head. "Can we ask him to come back later?"
"Don't you remember the speech about the future of computers back when we were in Santa Clara City?"
"Yeah." I murmured.
"He's working with Allen Turing to build a transistor-based mainframe."
I shot out of bed. "Give me 3 minutes."
I washed my face and gave myself a small dose of magic adrenaline as Visha skipped away.
When I walked out of the bathroom, Oetker and Visha were seated at the kitchen table chatting with coffee cups on the table.
Oetker looked over and got up from his chair for a handshake. "Frau Degurechaff, it is good to meet you."
"The pleasure is mine, Herr Oetker," I said as I accepted the handshake, "Hm. Where's Herr Turing? I thought he was working with you?" I asked as we took our seats.
"He's a bit busy. He wrote a chess program for a computer that doesn't exist and is currently in the process of playing it, by running through the pages of algorithms and calculating the instructions by hand for each move, which takes about half an hour."
"A computer that doesn't exist… You're seeking resources to build such a computer?" Visha asked. "I thought the Germanian government would be interested in that?"
"We were both working in the Electronic Instruments Research and Development Department. The issue was a significant resistance to adopting solid state components for computation and non-paper storage devices. The department preferred to keep iterating on electromechanical components, vacuum tubes and punch cards for building a mainframe." Oetker sighed. "Not to mention people were generally uncooperative when working with Allen. They didn't trust an Albish homosexual."
I hummed. That's their loss. "How much do you think it would take to build a prototype?" I asked.
"I don't have a good estimate. While we have some general concepts for the hardware design, we can't make anything solid without knowing what components we can use. For the memory system alone, we had looked at the research papers on mercury delay lines, magnetic core memory and magnetic tapes. But we have no idea who to contact to purchase them other than American or Albish computer research organizations, who might be skeptical of selling those memory devices or charge a high price for them."
Ah, they need connections. Whoever is ordering components for Dr. Schugel's solid state electronic projects would know exactly where to find the needed components at a reasonable price or put in a bid for manufacturers to rise to the challenge.
Of course, there's also the matter of the money itself to buy the components.
"We don't have the money that would be needed for building an entire mainframe, solid state components or not." I shrugged, but then smiled. "But we could reach out to interested parties that have the money or know others that could help with such a project."
"Or you could run for Germanian office again to get government support for the mainframe project." Visha teased as she nudged me.
"That would be a conflict of interest, Darling."
"Not if we don't use our own money for it, and don't specifically specify FRD Semiconductors as the supplier."
"That's a possibility, but it would be best if we get started as soon as possible."
An idea hit me. I turned to Oetker.
"Are you or Turing good at speaking to the public? I could invite you to my talk show."
"Uh…" Oetker stared blankly at me.
"If we could get a running prototype, we could show it to the public for running the chess program." Visha suggested, understanding what I was getting at right away. "Although with the Presidential election in November, assuming you do get elected for office, the talk show would have to end or be handed to someone else."
"Well, that's a tight timeline." Oetker said. "But if you two can help us with sourcing the funding and the components, we might have something working by that time."
"What would be your wish list of components?" Visha asked.
"Give us a day or so and we'll have the list."
Back in Francois Indochina:
Another half an hour passed. And like clockwork, Debizet could sense the side reflections of the scans yet again. It seemed that there were more scans.
Everyone immediately dove to the ground again in response.
When two direct magic scans struck them from different directions, Debizet realized they couldn't walk their way out of this as the enemy mages likely achieved a position fix on them.
"Reduced emission flight everyone." he ordered.
For a few minutes, it seemed they might be able to make it to the Gulf of Tonkin without having to shoot their way there.
That was quickly proven wrong when he felt rapidly pulsating scans against him that were steadily rising in frequency and lowering in power. And high power encrypted comm spells that were used by Chinese mages.
"Full speed, now!"
His company pushed at the maximum allowable speed while he broadcasted a high power directional comm spell towards the Gulf of Tonkin area in hopes of the Frankish fleet picking up on his company's distress call, but now he could sense a few rapidly approaching enemy mages coming in from behind.
"They're gaining on us!" Mitterrand called out the obvious.
"Calvar, your squad will act as rear guard and perform a fighting retreat!" Debizet barked. "Foccart's squad will take over for rear guard actions after about a minute, then Mitterrand and then Déat. We can't allow them to pin us down!"
"Yes sir!" Calvar shouted in reply.
When the communist mages did catch up to them, he counted a full company, and he could see that they were making half-hearted attempts at engaging Calvar's squad. Which was strange as they were all wearing large metal boxes with metal fins as heatsink, as if they were using oversized orbs that could handle the very high magic power.
"They seem exhausted. I already got a solid hit on one of them and it looked like they got injured." Calvar reported via comm spell. "We could wipe them out right here."
"No!" Debizet shot back. "I'm not going to fall for their deception. They wouldn't just send a company of tired mages to intercept us. We're less than 20 kilometers from the shoreline!"
"I'm not picking up any answers from the fleet!" Déat called out. "What's going on?!"
Now that Debizet thought about it, the fleet should have picked up on his comm spell. But there was just radio silence.
And then that was when the jungle below erupted in 14.5 mm KPVT and 12.7mm DShK heavy machine gun fire, with a number of smaller caliber magical bullets arcing and exploding in the air. It was then followed by a large number of Vietnamese mages emerging from the jungle from all directions, and the outnumbered Francoise mages barely had the time to shake off the shock as the enemy charged alongside the tracer fire from the ground.
Déat and Mitterrand were instantly killed or severely wounded to the point where they couldn't fly, along with several other mages in the company, before they were able to speed out of the trap and continue burning towards the shoreline. This time with a full battalion of Vietnamese mages right on their tail while the Chinese mages stopped their pursuit.
Debizet wouldn't have been concerned as long as they could make it to the shoreline where there should be the fleet waiting for them, and they would have the firepower to drive off the communist mages. The medical facilities on the ships would also help save his injured mages. Then maybe rally a counterattack to retrieve the fallen mages.
But there's just empty water in front of them. No ships to be seen. Nor any signs of a naval battle.
"Where's the fleet? They should be here!" Calvar cried out as the Vietnamese mages closed in to start opening fire. "Did they leave us for dead?!"
1952, April 6th, in Berun:
"Of all the places to brew into a conflict…" President Paul stared at the map of the Middle East, with a focus on Aegyptus, and a newspaper report of a local protest at the Suez Canal.
"Last year, the US became a net importer of oil." Dertinge sighed. "Based on the booming car sales and the continued highway constructions, their oil consumption will continue to outpace their production."
"We'll need to come up with solutions to reduce our dependence on oil from the Middle East. The oil prices have already gone up with the temporary blockage of the canal from the two wrecked ships. A full blown war would close the canal for weeks, months, or if the canal is caught up in a scorched earth policy, years. What are our options?"
"This was a joint proposal from the ministries of interior and energy." Adenaue said as he slid forward a packet, with the cover paper summarizing the suggestions.
"Expanding oil storage capacity, coal production and stockpile, wind turbine constructions, offshore drilling exploration, expand hydroelectric capacities through OZEV, and maybe partner with Legadonia Entente on building more hydroelectric dams… Nothing for nuclear?" Paul asked as he glanced through the paper.
"The constructions are still stalled and only a limited number of nuclear power plants are operating while the overhaul designs are being finalized for safe reactor operations."
"We need to do whatever it takes to accelerate the overhauls and restart the construction. Or even start up the nuclear power plants again. Ask Captain Rickover of what temporary measures he would need to take for us to safely maximize power production. If he needs firefighting trucks and extra pumps on standby or some other extreme measures to reduce risk, then I will authorize them. I will not have Germania strangled by an oil shortage."
"What about the other OZEV members?" Dertinge asked.
"We should advise them to also implement measures to prepare for oil shortages, and provide assistance as needed. Sell electricity as well. But I won't compromise Germania's energy supply, we have to come first."
"I don't know how they would feel about having to buy electricity from us unless we can assure them that we won't price gouge them." Adenaue said.
Paul glared at Adenaue, "We're not exactly an infinite money machine for the rest of OZEV to utilize. My two goals with our nuclear program was for national defense, and electricity generation, because we've spent quite a bit on nuclear development to act as an umbrella for OZEV. Not to mention we would have to build the electrical infrastructure for a significant amount of electricity exports, even if they also built the infrastructure on their side of the border."
"Regarding the proposal to help Legadonia Entente with building hydroelectric generation, I am concerned about exactly how much they would charge us for electricity even if we foot the majority of the construction bills." Adenaue tried to shift the topic, while Paul twitched at the mention of construction bills.
"I'll put out feelers to see if they're interested." Dertinge looked at his notes. "They had previously been soliciting for private investors for hydroelectric projects but that had limited progress."
"Assuming all of these measures are taken, how much would it cost to reduce Germania's foreign oil imports by half within a decade?" Paul asked. "Although hitting those numbers would be difficult if our economy continues to grow, which would naturally need more energy. That's assuming no major military conflicts either."
"It would require a significant amount of borrowing unless we make major budget cuts somewhere. We're already spending a lot due to the conflict in Caucasia and our nuclear development." Adenaue sighed. "But the alternative is to let a major oil shortage happen which would strangle Germania's and OZEV's economies."
"At this point, the only way I can see us balancing shifting from foreign oil while not drowning ourselves in debt would be to allow companies much greater control of the electrical grid." Paul remarked. "Shift some of the burden of costs to them."
There was a moment of silence as everyone took in what Paul said, before he continued.
"Speaking of nuclear, what's the new controversy between Captain Rickover and the Ministry of Energy?"
Adenaue cleared his throat. "For once, Rickover had no part in a controversy. All he did was suggest that the aircraft carrier's prototype water cooled reactor design could be scaled up to a land reactor. That kicked off a furious debate within the Ministry of Energy, which they're still arguing amongst themselves if that should be considered for electricity generation."
"What's so controversial about it?" Paul raised an eyebrow.
"You can't make weapon-grade plutonium with the water cooled reactor. But it also doesn't have the design drawback of reactor power rising with hotter coolant compared to the graphite moderated reactors. The water cooled reactor reduces power output on its own if the water is too hot."
"I know about the coolant temperature issue. But where else am I supposed to get material for nuclear weapons? We need plutonium production. The only reason I tolerated the water cooled reactors for submarines and aircraft carriers is because you can't surround the reactor with over 5 meters of reinforced concrete, and storing extracted plutonium on board while at sea would be dumb. Anyways, what's the status of those reactor designs?"
"They are still under construction for demonstration testing."
Paul nodded and then turned towards Elya, "That reminds me, how much do we know about the other countries' nuclear weapons development?"
"The Americans, Albish and Frankish are all aggressively pursuing their development." Elya spoke with a tone of concern. "There are also indications of the Francois Republic sharing nuclear information with the Allied Kingdom. What concerns me is that the Francois Republic's operational security is significantly more lax compared to the other two countries, potentially allowing communist infiltrators into the program. If we can get our agents and informants into the Frankish nuclear program, then so can the communists."
Paul then set his eyes on the map of Europe, with his eyes fixating on the North Sea.
"What's the progress on the offshore oil drilling experiments?"
"As of now, deep ocean drilling isn't feasible, which severely limits hydrocarbon exploration. Less than 50 meters is the current limit." Adenaue sighed.
"If we need to heavily fund research to be able to expand the areas that oil drilling can operate in, then so be it. Hopefully that isn't as expensive as building electrical grids, hydroelectric dams and more nuclear power plants everywhere. But if that's also an expensive endeavor, we need to shift the costs to the oil companies while still encouraging them to expand the oil drilling areas."
"Should we also seek a partnership with the Turkmen Empire?" Dertinge asked. "I've extended a feeler out to them and they seem receptive to some sort of a trade and security agreement. They are concerned about the instability in Caucasia spilling over the border, Afghanistan being aligned with the communists, and the brewing Aegyptian conflict to the south of them."
Dertinge then hesitated before finishing his report. "They also asked for assistance with a territorial dispute with Magna Rumeli."
"Oh, no…" Paul put his hands in his face. "Is it the Island of Rhode that the two of them have been verbally squabbling over for the past few decades?"
"Yes." Dertinge sighed. "Alternatively, they asked for assistance with their claim on Cyprus Island. Which is controlled by Aegyptus."
"I already stepped on the proverbial landmine with Caucasia. I am not going to get involved with either of those territorial disputes. Maintain the talks with them, but make it clear that Germania will not take sides on the territory issues."
"Speaking of Caucasia, we are almost at the point of no return if we proceed with the arrest of President Mzhavinidze." Elya added. "There are conflicts among the factions that oppose Mzhavinidze over who would be the new President, so I am concerned about a free-for-all grab for power in the aftermath."
"Can we delay the arrest of Mzhavinidze?" Paul asked. "At least until the damn fools can agree on a single person?"
"We can't." Elya looked with concern. "Our informant in Mzhavinidze's inner circle reported that the loyalists are starting to suspect that something is off. It's only a matter of time before they start to discover that there is a coup planned against them."
"Have President Mzhavinidze arrested then."
1952, April 8th, CSR, in Nanjing:
"Well, that escalated quickly." Zhang exclaimed as he glanced through the newspaper. "Not only did he publicly declare that he would not pay when the Francois Republic privately requested reparation, but also threatened to nationalize the Suez Canal if any retaliatory actions are conducted against Aegyptus. What's the strength of his military again?"
"I didn't expect Izz al-Arab Nasser to go down that route. And his military has been starved of weapons, equipment and vehicles while their neighbors have been modernizing their military forces using the Frankish and Albish arms sales." Kang shrugged his shoulders. "It seems he is bent on portraying himself as a strongman willing to stand up to 'imperialist Europeans'. I think he's gambling on conducting brinkmanship against the Francois Republic, but I have no idea what his plans are if the Europeans decide to open the paper window. Maybe I should have asked the NKVD to do something less provocative before they actually triggered the incident."
"The NKVD?"
"They blew up the ammunition ship and planted evidence that pointed at Aegyptus."
"Why wasn't I told about this earlier?" Zhang narrowed his eyes. "If Aegyptus's neighbors get involved, a full blown war in the Middle East could jeopardize our ability to get oil from that region."
"I didn't know the NKVD was going to do that until I saw the newspaper headline of the explosion. All I knew was that they had been planning operations to undermine Albish and Frankish control of the Middle East, which you had previously approved years ago, probably during the Bharatian War."
"What is done is done." Zhang sighed. "Just make sure that the NKVD's operation remains a secret. Also, whatever happened to your deputy? I haven't seen him in a while."
"I have no idea where he might have gone." Kang feigned ignorance. "I had been investigating for a while and there was some evidence that suggested he may have been working a foreign entity without my approval, and had also been plotting some sort of a scheme."
"Let me know when you have additional information or if you need assistance." Zhang then held up another report. "Anyways, what should we do with Aegyptus wanting to buy weapons from North Bharat? North Bharat's leadership asked us what to do. This is what I am thinking of."
Zhang then started marking up a chalkboard. "We could deny any military materiel to Aegyptus, while secretly informing the Allied Kingdom of what Aegyptus has attempted to do. They will potentially overreact and conduct direct military actions, while we can provide humanitarian aid to the region, which will push the Middle East away from the Europeans and potentially towards us. We can further escalate the situation by claiming that Aegpytus was requesting 'advisors' from our Sibyrian Army to train their military for the insurgency stage of a war in the event that they are invaded by 'colonial powers'. This would also show the Albish that we are willing to help them with the Aegyptus situation, which we can later exploit."
Kang thought to himself while thinking of a response, 'Betraying the Aegyptians like what you had previously proposed to the Albish of betraying our allies, and all of the intel networks I had carefully cultivated in those allies. Years of hard work all to be undone. Typical. But I need to maintain the illusion, for now. Hopefully Luo is going along with the plan of having him be the one who calls out Zhang's insane ideas, while I pretend to be the yes man to gain Zhang's trust."
"That could work." Kang said. "Should we provide anything to Aegyptus or the Middle East should the Europeans launch direct military actions, other than humanitarian aid? They would be clamoring for weapon deals in which we could extract favorable concessions from them, such as oil."
Zhang paused for a moment as if he was deep in thought. "I want you to come up with two plans. One is where we refuse to help Aegyptus but deceive the Ablish into thinking that Aegyptus is fully in the communist side so the Albish overreacts. The other is that we do help Aegyptus to earn their favor, while concealing our actions from the rest of the world. This will be discussed at the executive council meeting in three days."
"It will be done." Kang smiled.
1952, April 24th, in Londonium:
Prime Minister Richard William looked at the reports from the Frankish Foriegn Minister and Albish Secret Intelligence Service, and then up at Stewart Graham, head of the Secret Intelligence Service, and Stanley Morrison, Foreign Secretary.
"What a messy pyrrhic victory that the frogs achieved against the rebels in Francois Indochina." William muttered.
"Indeed, but now we know two new things." Graham replied.
"What do you mean?"
Graham flipped through one of the reports and pointed at a section. "A battalion of Frankish mage infiltrators hit a Vietnamese military strategy meeting. The overall commander of the Vietnamese military forces, the "Red Napoleon", as named by the Frankish military, was among those that were wounded. They escaped on foot through the mountainous jungle without using any magic. They still got detected anyway. Only a few survivors made it out of there."
Graham paused for a moment. "I think the communist mages found a way to track concealed people over long distances. But it gets more interesting."
Graham pointed to the next section. "The Frankish mages used reduced emission flight spells to get out of there quickly. Then they sensed a different scanning spell was being used against them."
"The communists have a counter to stealth mages." Morrison frowned. "So much for trying to copy the Germanian stealth mage technology and tactics."
Morrison then narrowed his eyes to one paragraph. "It says that they're investigating the conduct of those survivors for drawing a full communist mage battalion down south towards the Frankish fleet, exposing their amphibious landing operation prematurely. They seem to think that the mage infiltrators were careless with avoiding detection."
"Regardless, how much magic power do you think those scanning spells use?" William asked.
"Well beyond the known high power output of a mage using a Type 97 orb, except for what Degurechaff has accomplished as a combat mage." Graham tapped on his chin. "That tells me they have a new orb design to handle very high mana usage for those select few mages. Hopefully they didn't get their hands on the Type 95 orb design."
"Should we warn the Germanians?" William asked.
"If Degurechaff was still in power, I would say no just to cut her down a size." Morrison chucked, then frowned. "But a massacre of Germanian mages in Caucasia would be a political disaster for President Paul, the one man that is standing in the way of Degurechaff's return to power. So we have to help him to stop the Devil."
"What about the rest of the battles?"
"Other than the significant losses of the Frankish infiltrator mages and their own situation being chaotic with multiple aggressive operations running simultaneously, the Frankish forces are establishing a forward operating base at Nà Sản after encircling Hanoi and winning in other engagements against the Vietnamese rebels. While the original Frankish forces had been battered, they had been reinforced with a fourth wave of new recruits and materiel to give chase, and have a fifth wave being prepared. At this point, it looks like they are heavily utilizing their helicopters, transport planes and riverine boats for supply transportation to keep the offensive going. They have been purchasing a significant amount of supplies from South Bharat and Akitsushima Dominion, and trying to place more rush orders for helicopters and transport planes."
Graham pointed at another section. "This is the other new thing I was referring to. The heavy usage of helicopters for transporting infantry and light vehicles into the rebels' rear positions to outflank them early in the operation. Then using transport planes for another flanking operation to cut off the reinforcements that were sent to deal with the helicopter transported forces. And after that, the amphibious landings to cut off the additional reinforcements that were sent to attack the aircraft transported forces. Meanwhile, the main army is advancing aggressively to link up with the helicopter transported forces and has completely overrun the rebels' defensive positions. Combined with the decapitation strike against the rebel leadership, that caused a significant disruption to the rebels. I see a potential to use that same airborne strategy against Aegyptus in the event of a war."
"Remember that proposed deal from the CSR?" William laughed. "We can pretend we never heard of that thing."
"Well they did say that something big was going to happen in Francois Indochina." Morrison shrugged. "They didn't specify it would be the frogs who would come out ahead. I have to give them credit for trying to bluff us."
William's phone suddenly rang and he picked it up. His facial expression turned sour quickly before he hung up.
"What was that?" Morrison asked.
"One of your subordinates was trying to get a hold of you, and instead called me to report the information. The frogs had demanded Aegyptus to allow Frankish police to enter Aegyptian territory to conduct an investigation. Aegyptus is currently expelling the Frankish embassy staff as their answer."
Graham and Morrison looked at each other as William sighed and got up to open his liquor cabinet.
"It seems they are getting drunk off of their success…" Morrison trailed off.
"I would have preferred having celebratory drinks over the Frankish success against the Vietnamese rebels and us not having to make the deal with the communists, but I have a feeling we may need to bolster our spirits along with our existing garrisons at the Suez Canal." He set down the bottle on his table before retrieving some glasses from a drawer, "I'll need to discuss this with our military first."
"Nasser would throw a tantrum if he even suspected we were going to deploy additional forces into his country." Morrison warned as he accepted the offered glass.
"Let him! I won't just allow him to seize control of the canal!" William declared with a shake of his head as he opened up the bottle, "Anyways, gentlemen, care for a drink? It seems that we'll have a lot of work ahead of us."
AN:
wiki/Battle_of_Dien_Bien_Phu#Military_situation
On arrival, Navarre was shocked by what he found. There had been no long-range plan since de Lattre's departure. Everything was conducted on a day-to-day, reactive basis. Combat operations were undertaken only in response to enemy moves or threats. There was no comprehensive plan to develop the organization and build up the equipment of the Expeditionary force. Finally, Navarre, the intellectual, the cold and professional soldier, was shocked by the "school's out" attitude of Salan and his senior commanders and staff officers. They were going home, not as victors or heroes, but then, not as clear losers either. To them the important thing was that they were getting out of Indochina with their reputations frayed, but intact. They spared little thought or concern for the problems of their successors.[19]
A map of the real life First Indochina War:
References to the "heavy helicopter gunships": wiki/Boeing_CH-47_Chinook#ACH-47A
Real life US oil production vs consumption graph. 1950 was when the US started to become a net importer: figure/US-Petroleum-Consumption-Production-and-Net-Imports-1950-2009_fig1_305406515
Early mainframe history:
watch?v=EkTHDgYTh64
wiki/Alan_Turing#Early_computers_and_the_Turing_test
In 1948, Turing, working with his former undergraduate colleague, D.G. Champernowne, began writing a chess program for a computer that did not yet exist. By 1950, the program was completed and dubbed the Turochamp.[126] In 1952, he tried to implement it on a Ferranti Mark 1, but lacking enough power, the computer was unable to execute the program. Instead, Turing "ran" the program by flipping through the pages of the algorithm and carrying out its instructions on a chessboard, taking about half an hour per move. The game was recorded.[127] According to Garry Kasparov, Turing's program "played a recognizable game of chess."[128] The program lost to Turing's colleague Alick Glennie, although it is said that it won a game against Champernowne's wife, Isabel.[129]
wiki/Delay-line_memory
wiki/Magnetic-core_memory
One of the ultimatums that Austria-Hungary gave to Serbia was the demand to allow Austrian-Hungarian police to operate in Serbia, in the aftermath of the assassination of some archduke, before WW1 kicked off: wiki/July_Crisis
Confronted with the ultimatum and the lack of support from other European powers, the Serbian Cabinet worked out a compromise.[103] Historians disagree on the extent to which the Serbs genuinely compromised. Some historians argue Serbia accepted all of the terms of the ultimatum except for the demand in point 6 that Austrian police be allowed to operate in Serbia.[103] Others, notably Clark, argue the Serbs drafted their reply to the ultimatum in such a way as to give the impression of making significant concessions but: "In reality, then, this was a highly perfumed rejection on most points".[104] Baron Aleksandar von Musulin, author of the first draft of the Austrian ultimatum, famously described the Serbian reply as "the most brilliant specimen of diplomatic skill" that he had ever encountered".[105]