Edifice: A History of the National Redoubt
- Thread starter JessAH
- Start date
Regarding China, if the Vietnam theater of operations is frozen, I wonder if the South Korean expeditionary force could be withdrawn from South Vietnam and sent to help Taiwan? Or would that pose too much of a problem with the mainland Chinese screaming about foreign invasion?
In Spain, the General Franco may request to upgrade the light fortifications of the Pyrenees
en.wikipedia.org
In Spain, the General Franco may request to upgrade the light fortifications of the Pyrenees
Línea P - Wikipedia
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This reminds me of the occasional Nazi- and Soviet-civil wars/division into rival branches of ideological government that appear in some maps
Also where are the Chinese fascists and anarchists coming from?
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And all vertical take-off aircraft projects like the French Mirage III V Balzac or the West German Dornier Do 31 will receive additional subsidies - even if the Dassault concept has no future... -. We can see the Harrier exported throughout NATO and no longer just for the Spanish and Italian naval aviation?
I point out this little Swiss article in German on the buried Yugoslav air bases; With the Albanian example, I think that all the Balkan countries will try to create such installations, and even Italy in the Alps:
www.truppendienst.com
I point out this little Swiss article in German on the buried Yugoslav air bases; With the Albanian example, I think that all the Balkan countries will try to create such installations, and even Italy in the Alps:
Geheime Stützpunkte | Truppendienst
Betonröhren im gleißenden Licht hunderter Neonröhren, Flugzeugtechniker, Piloten, Soldaten, (...) Die Flugzeugkavernen waren eines der am besten gehüteten Geheimnisse des ehemaligen Vielvölkerstaats Jugoslawien!
www.truppendienst.com
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And all vertical take-off aircraft projects like the French Mirage III V Balzac or the West German Dornier Do 31 will receive additional subsidies - even if the Dassault concept has no future... -. We can see the Harrier exported throughout NATO and no longer just for the Spanish and Italian naval aviation?
The Do-31 would need a lot more development before it would enter service, as it was at the time of cancellation it was a transport plane that couldn't carry a payload.
Or planes with very short takeoffs which would have become widespread? The Breguet 941 for example, thanks to its high-suspension systems and its engine, the take-off run distance was only 190 m, while it could land in 120 m. Only 4 examples in service with the French Air Force in 1967 to 1974. Only around ten tonnes of payload it is true.
Putting a 10 year old plane back in production is also fairly unlikely but I can certainly see this world pushing more resources into short take off planes of all types including transport planes. For example here the USAF's Advanced Medium STOL Transport will almost certainly be carried through to completion rather than getting cancelled in favour of a strategic airlifter (which became the C-17) so either the YC-14 or 15 will enter production and replace the C-130.
Chapter 12
12.
The USSR was not idle while China was in turmoil. Leonid Brezhnev had continued to consolidate power, and by 1970 his regime was effectively unchallenged. Soviet military spending did not relax after the Red War but increased dramatically. The Red Army had learned new lessons, and they needed to be used.
At the beginning of 1969, the Soviet Union was producing about 1000 nuclear warheads per year and had about 12,000 warheads in storage. By the end of that same year, the Union was producing more than 2500 warheads per year with further production increases planned.
Nuclear weapons had proven a highly effective tool. Now, Soviet planners wanted more of them, as well as more tactical warheads, and more research into “enhanced radiation weapons”. These nuclear devices, popularly known as “neutron bombs” emit most of their energy as radiation, instead of as an explosion. With the mild nuclear cooling noted as a serious problem for Soviet Agriculture, it was hoped that radiation weapons would avoid this, by preventing nuclear firestorms. In practice, this was not the case. Although the objective was to maximize the neutron radiation, which was less likely to start fires, other incident radiation remained in the device’s effects, and could start fires. The weapons also had other advantages, such as leaving infrastructure largely intact (another lesson of the Red War) and potentially causing enemy nuclear warheads to malfunction.
Advances were also made in the miniaturization of nuclear warheads. One proposed and possibly implemented strategy included smuggling miniature weapons, the size of suitcases, into American cities, for remote detonation in the event of a war. It is unclear if this ever went through, but it is known that nuclear artillery shells, air-to-air missiles, landmines, demolition charges, and anti-tank rockets were produced by the Soviet Union in the 1970s and onward.
At home, the Soviets were experiencing a respectable level of economic growth and reasonable prosperity, especially after the climate disruptions from the Red War dissipated. Brezhnev remained popular, with his moderate and limited economic policies preventing chaos and uncertainty. Many Soviets- especially Russians- lauded Brezhnev’s steady hand.
All was not quiet in the new border regions. The East Turkestan SSR remained moderately stable, but the Soviet policy of religious repression remained a source of contention. Under Chinese rule, the Sunni Muslims living there had been more intensely persecuted, and the Soviet administration was a change for the better. The East Turkestani population (or, perhaps more accurately, Uyghurs) appreciated their newfound autonomy, even if it was autonomy under a new master. The Manchu and Chinese ethnic republics within the Russian SSR, on the other hand, were in open revolt. The Soviets had hoped to create artificial divisions between the two groups, which were both ethnically more than 90% Han Chinese. Instead, rebels tended to form a united front against both the Soviets and any Manchu collaborators recruited into the Russian administration.
The Soviets wasted no time in crushing rebels, an effort that intensified in 1970 as rail links were restored and enhanced across the Far East. Still, it was very difficult to control the population, especially with refugees and bandits crossing the border from China. Revolts tended to spread, and for every rebel killed, two more seemed to appear. Still, the troops mobilized for the Red War were able to crush most dissent, even if it seemed to go on forever.
Mongolia began to struggle with similar problems. The country had been spared the direct conflict of the Red War, but its large and porous border with China meant that the refugee and bandit problems experienced by the Soviets were much worse. The Mongolian People’s Army was already stretched thin, and the Mongolian government began to request support from the Soviet Union, which was eventually provided. Brezhnev hoped that containing the rebels in Mongolia would improve the situation in the USSR. These troops were also used to guard the construction of a new line of the growing Trans-Siberian railway network, the Omsk-Harbin Mainline. The Mongolian government also agreed for the Soviets to construct bunkerized military bases along the Sino-Mongolian border, in exchange for bunkers being provided for the Mongolian government.
…
China was lost. Zhi Yong knew it. He’d known it for months. He was a Captain now, and Lin Biao had given him a battalion to command. But what was the point?
And so, here he was. Deep in the Gobi Desert. He had planned his journey carefully. Or as carefully as one can, when running away from soldiering for a tyrant in a war-wracked country. He had a compass and a couple canteens of water, a little food. He’d started with his rifle, but he’d dropped it before too long. You can’t eat or drink a rifle, and it won’t keep you warm. Or out of the sun. So, he kept walking.
The dunes seemed to stretch on forever, and he could smell or hear nothing but the wind.
Maybe, if he’d waited longer, he could have stolen a truck. But there weren’t many left in China, and he hadn’t seen gasoline in months. The hike across the desert was only supposed to be fifty miles, assuming his compass worked, and his maps were right, and he wasn’t dead already. Zhi thought that he had marched fifty miles already. But in the shifting sand, he had no idea how far he was moving, his feet sinking into the ground with every step. His sunburned back itched and ached.
But he kept moving.
He tried taking a sip from his last canteen but found it empty. His mouth ached.
In the distance, he thought he saw a glimmer, or maybe a puff of smoke, but it disappeared behind a sand dune. He tried moving towards it, forgetting about his compass’s direction. The world was starting to swim and dance, and his head was pounding. Another glimmer.
Then, as he tried to climb over the top of the next dune, his legs buckled underneath him, and he fell to his knees. His vision dimmed, and he collapsed, face first into the hot sand. He thought, maybe, he heard a voice. Then, darkness.
…
In other parts of the Warsaw Pact, domestic situations remained largely stable, although young people everywhere outside the Soviet Union were frustrated with the Red War. Violence within the communist world was hard to stomach on a Cold War footing, even if the Chinese were revisionists and warmongers. With the Soviet Union, the predominant power in the Warsaw Pact responsible for the deaths of millions of fellow communists, the youth chafed under the Soviet yoke.
Major protests occurred in East Germany, Czechoslovakia, Poland, and Romania. The Romanian protests were especially intense, and were, to some extent, encouraged by the Ceausescu government, which took any opportunity to separate itself from the Soviets. Ceausescu delivered several fiery speeches before the Romanian Communist Party, calling for support for China, Albania, and North Korea in response to Soviet aggression. Normally, the Soviets would not have tolerated this deviation, but many forces were tied down in Eastern Europe, and Brezhnev was wary of appearing like the aggressor so soon after the Red War.
By July of 1970, Romania was no longer a member of the Warsaw Pact. Almost immediately after, an alliance between Romania and Albania was announced, with both being “anti-revisionist” (i.e., Stalinist) communists and in a precarious regional situation. For Yugoslavia, this was a dangerous situation. With two potentially hostile countries on the border, Yugoslavia needed allies.
Since the Stalin era, Yugoslavia had been distant from the Soviet Union. Tito was still distrustful of the Soviets, but his alternatives were limited. Yugoslavia was a member of the non-aligned movement but lacked neighbors in the group. The group was also not designed for mutual defense. NATO was one possible option, but it seemed dubious to Tito. Despite his unique version of communism, Tito was still too far left for most NATO members to accept, and he was concerned about foreign entanglements. He had considered aligning Yugoslavia with NATO once before and began to seriously consider it once again. American military planners, for their part, jumped at the chance to make inroads in the Balkans.
Inviting Yugoslavia to NATO would not be simple. Italy and Yugoslavia had an ongoing border dispute over Trieste, a territory nestled in the crook of the Adriatic Sea. This small region was de-facto divided between Italy and the Croatian and Slovenian republics of Yugoslavia, but both sides had significant disputes on the true ownership of the territory. The United States would have none of this, and pressured Italy into signing a treaty ceding the territory to Yugoslavia. This decision was extremely unpopular with nationalists in Italy, who found their numbers bolstered by this diplomatic development.
Yugoslavia acceded to NATO on August 12th, 1970, to the dismay of communist hardliners within the country, and over the quashed objections of many Italians. While the Italian government went along with everything, the various treaties were seen as an example of America imposing its will on the smaller countries of NATO.
After Yugoslavia’s admission to NATO, Italy was a nation in chaos. Left- and right-wing militias were springing up everywhere, kicked off in earnest with the 1969 bombing of the Piazza Fontina and continuing with a series of protests, riots, and escalating acts of violence into 1970. Fears of food insecurity in the wake of the Red War appeared to push this into overdrive, and by October of 1970, something would have to give.
Junio Valerio Borghese, a one-time commander in Mussolini’s navy, had gathered a group of approximately 5000 right-wing militia members and soldiers, organized under the auspices of the National Front Party, with assistance of the National Vanguard (generally held responsible for the bombing of the Piazza Fontina). These groups had aligned neo-fascist goals, and both opposed the left-wing government that was in power. Some elements of the CIA were purportedly involved as well, although the truth of this claim is unclear.
On October 13th, 1970, around 200 militia, accompanied by 60-80 police officers and soldiers, stormed the headquarters of the major Italian public broadcaster, RAI, and occupied the building. At the same time, a group of 500 fighters entered the building of the Italian Ministry of Interior and seized weapons. Half of these would move to reinforce and supply the forces in the broadcast station, while the other half would hold the building. These two opening moves went largely as planned.
Unfortunately for Borghese, the follow-up went rather differently. The Italian president, Giuseppe Saragat, was moving in a motorcade through Rome at this time, and what could have been a masterful trap was tripped. Fascist-associated police set up a roadblock, which would redirect the motorcade down a narrow street, where an ambush would take place. The Carabinieri accompanying the president would be killed, and the President- along with any other officials- would be abducted, and moved into the broadcast station, where Junio Borghese would arrive. The president would have then been held hostage, and the coup would have been announced, while occupations and assassinations took place in major government offices.
The ambush went poorly, with heavy casualties being taken by the attackers. Most of the Carabinieri guard was killed, but the president was able to escape. The assassination plots had a mixed success rate, with the chief of police of Italy and the Minister of Defense being killed, but all other officials surviving. The occupations tended towards partial success, with the fascists establishing footholds but not seizing whole buildings.
When Borghese arrived at the broadcast station, he quickly realized that the president would not be joining him and moved to announce his coup quickly. The broadcast went out across Italy, with Borghese claiming total success in seizing control of government institutions, even though he had only managed to capture a handful of buildings. Borghese declared himself to be the new president and ended the broadcast with a promise to “cleanse Italy from the taint of socialism.” Italy was thrown into chaos as groups picked sides.
Right-wing militias moved in support of the coup, and left-wing groups rose up, some to support the legitimate government, and some to attempt to seize power themselves. The military was divided and confused and was largely paralyzed. The situation was unclear, and with the coup broadcast ending suddenly, many officers suspected that the coup was not successful. Unwilling to take sides, most commanders waited for more news. The Carabinieri came to the aid of the legitimate government but focused more on suppressing leftists than rightists.
The broadcast station was stormed by Carabinieri not too long after the broadcast, leading to the death of nearly everyone inside, including Borghese, and the destruction of a significant amount of broadcast equipment. With this news, the president rushed to the nearest alternative center, an hour away. Without Borghese, and after an hour, the situation had grown even more precarious. Groups of radicals roamed the streets, fighting with anyone and occasionally even winning against police and military forces sent to suppress them.
With information limited and the country in chaos, president Saragat decided to call for NATO aid in managing the chaos. French, West German, and, ironically, Yugoslav troops were dispatched, due to their proximity. In retrospect, NATO officials have recognized that sending in the Yugoslav armies was a mistake, but in their haste, all available units were dispatched. This made the situation worse.
With anti-Yugoslav sentiment on the rise, the appearance of YPA soldiers, still carrying communist gear and attitudes, on the streets of Italy was a cause for alarm, and right-wing militias started being joined by mainstream nationalists. Even many moderates were unsettled by this development. Still, the NATO forces made quick work of militias they encountered, often bringing armored units to bear on poorly armed militia, something that only intensified the controversy.
By the end of the year, the fighting was mostly over, but domestic discontent was running high, and the Social Movement party would record a record number of seats in the 1972 election. More relevant to the story of the National Redoubt, many Italian neo-fascists began to take on an esoteric and millenarian perspective, predicting a future communization of NATO and the rise of global communism.
In preparation for this possibility, many established fortified communities in the Italian Alps and Apennines. Wealthy industrialists affiliated with the right supported this process, as did the Masonic right-wing group Propaganda Due. The result was an impressive system of underground cities, complete with heavy defenses and even artillery batteries (most likely secured via military corruption).
These underground cities were laid out in the lines of fascist architecture, which with its rationalist bent lent itself well to underground construction. The wealt7hier groups even commissioned or imported statuary and other decorations, but most were constructed largely of unadorned concrete, fashioned into long galleries with roman arches and regular arrangements. Domed chambers were used as gathering spaces, with bright lamps to simulate sunlight and indoor gardens being provided. A few ambitious compounds even operated indoor farms, powered by geothermal energy, but most simply worked the land outside and maintained significant supplies of food in case of a siege or apocalypse. Ironically, many of these groups became organized into something like a commune, although with a militaristic bent instead of an anarchist one. A handful of these facilities survive to this day. The more successful communes were organized on family lines, which often lead to children staying in the facility, due to lack of experience with the outside world. Most, however, would eventually fall apart after legal trouble or political disagreements.
The Italian government tolerated these structures as a method of containing the most extreme fascist elements, and documents released in the early 90s revealed that Italian intelligence worked to promote this type of thinking, and that many of the largest survivalist compounds had dedicated surveillance stations assigned to them for most of the 70s and 80s. This does raise the question of whether these intelligence operations turned a blind eye or collaborated with these groups when heavy weapons were moved into the compounds, but the Italian government has refused to elaborate.
In general, there aren't super significant fascist or anarchist factions, but the power vacuum has led to a lot of uprisings from groups that are only nominally ideological or groups that were irrelevant and hoped to become relevant. These groups end up being crushed pretty quickly.
yeah, that makes sense given the failure of the Japanese to separate Chinese and Manchurian identities
Government sponsored fascist-cult compounds with families reminds me of a cross between the planned SS-settlements Himmler wanted to build and Jonestown
It's one of the decisions I sort of feel conflicted about, but I think it was a fair enough choice. The main purpose was that I wanted to create a lot of chaos in China for later plot developments. A two-way war might have made more sense, since it parallels the real-life conflict between Lin and Mao, but the third faction is one of the mistakes I think I made with this story.
Oh right Italian here and here we come
You are talking about the OTL Treaty of Osimo, well Italy had ceded nothing in the treaty even because it's a little against our constitution, it's simple accepted the status quo, Trieste italian and the rest of the Free Territory of Trieste to Jugoslavia as it has been for the last 15 years.
The controversy OTL was because it had not resolved some other dispute of economic and cultural nature, plus the return of the people expelled in the immediate postwar, plus all the secretive nature of the signing; basically for many Italy had not pressed enough and conceded too much but also better remember that relationsh with Jugoslavia at the time were much less complicated than during the Trieste crisis and there were a lot of economic and cultural exchange. We were not bestest friend but neither we were at risk of war or even bout of violence, sure we still look at each other with caution but that's all
Giving up Trieste to Jugoslavia is so out of the question that's beyond ridicolousness, both for unconstitutionally but even because any government...no sorry parlamentarian coalition that will even hint that will last a picosecond, we get immediate new election and the PCI wins by simply saying that we get out of NATO and use the supposed treaty as toilet paper; and there is no amount of pressure that the USA can use to achieve that, unless they want break NATO.
Second, Saragat will ask NATO help only if Borghese and co. are knocking at his door and the entire military and police force of Italy have been defeate or sided with the coupist and frankly all rest of the european nations will be not very eager to intervene unless things are much more clear. In poor words, no there is no possibility of any foreign intervention in Italy unless the state is collapsed, it will be more a period of violence with the right wing group untrained, without real popular support and with limited weapons aka what they have robbed but it's not endless, ammunition stock at limited and they are great outnumbered
Third far left milita at the moment are not a great thing, sure there some group but they are still on the embronyal stage and frankly and i say it as italian, the entire nuclear war between the URSS and the PRC not only will have cut the leg of any communist appeal for many but as usual many of the surviving group will be too occupied in fight each other than attack the state.
Yeah. I think out of everything the Italy part is the least realistic and I was a bit nervous about posting it because it doesn't really make that much sense. It gets better in terms of plausibility from here on out, but consider it goal driven. I wanted Yugoslavia in NATO as a supporting factor for spoiler stuff and didn't think too hard about how to get there.
If I ever return to this project for a rewrite, I'll definitely take all that information under advisement...
I was imagining something more like an air-to-ground missile or something fired from an MLRS or similar, but I left a lot of the technical details vague on purpose. There are a number of real-life missiles that fit that bill, like the AGM-65. An evolution of the Davy Crockett might lead to a thermonuclear enhanced-radiation MANPATS but I've never seen documentation on a nuclear warhead that weighed less than ~40 lbs, and putting one in a tank gun would probably be a little impractical (as far as I can find, the smallest diameter thermonuclear warheads ever designed IOTL were ~155mm). Both weapons might need to be used differently than their non-nuclear equivalents, since there would be some incentive to be out of line of sight, especially if these are enhanced-radiation warheads.
Italy will have not stopped Jugoslavia entering NATO, if the US pressure were also linked to some financial and military support and/or the Treaty of Osimo equivalent will have been less loopsided and more favorable to Italy in some terms. Sure the backlash will have still happened but it will have been more or less like OTL, maybe something a little more
Yeah my thoughts immediately were swamped with wondering how small of a warhead could be slipped by and end up pre-positioned in the US or elsewhere in a terrorist attack.