Yesterda's War 5 - Untimely Conflicts, page 28
“Colonel, this gun cannot serve on the front lines, can it?”
“I would not want to try to use it as a tank, especially since the turret and hull are both very lightly armored. But given the right circumstances, the vehicle’s gun can easily defeat an enemy tank regardless of range, Sir.
We have also taken the same wheeled, armored chassis and placed a 105mm howitzer on it. This will provide many of our artillery units with the ability to rapidly move, provide fire support to our troops and then move to another firing location before an enemy force can attempt to destroy our guns with counter-battery fire.”
“I am very impressed with these vehicles. They are very innovative without requiring us to purchase more foreign technology. The people who are responsible for this should be commended for their initiative.”
“I will be sure to pass your compliments to them. They are also responsible for our other wheeled armored scout, tank destroyer and armored personnel carrier designs. The armored scouts use a light automatic cannon. But, the wheeled tank destroyers use the same main gun as the medium tanks that the Australians leased to us to fight against the Russians.
But now you can see our newest acquisitions from Russia. They will make our army quite formidable.” Colonel Cho remarked as he pointed towards a newly arrived column of tanks. They were compact, powerful vehicles with five road wheels on either side of the low-slung hull. On top, was a highly sloped turret armed with a large, long-barreled cannon.”
“The Russians needed customers for their latest tanks in order to reduce the cost of the vehicles for their own army. Fortunately, we had resources that the Russians also needed to trade for the vehicles. They are among the most heavily armed main battle tanks in the world with their 10cm main cannons.”
“How many do we have in our forces, Colonel?”
“Only enough for two battalions. But we will be receiving another two battalions worth within the next few months. Obviously, our engineers are already examining the vehicles to see what we can learn from them to eventually make our own improved versions later on. They will supplement the tanks that we have been building that were based on Western vehicles that we had received before the end of the war.”
“I see. What areas do we have the greatest overall shortcomings though, Colonel?”
“We have been able to purchase a limited number of radar units, both for naval and ground use. But we do not have much expertise in the field of electronics so far. This has kept us from beginning to develop any kind of surface-to-air or air-to-air missiles. We have purchased a few surface-to-air missile batteries that we have stationed to assist in the air defense of key cities like Beijing and Shanghai. But we have none for use on our naval vessels or our army units.
This means that our ships and troops are highly vulnerable to aerial attacks by modern jet aircraft. We can try to mass large numbers of automatic cannons and heavy anti-aircraft guns like the 8.8cm cannon that you saw earlier to flood the air with shellfire if attacking aircraft fly in at low altitude. But this can be easily countered by high altitude attacks, I fear.”
“Do our neighbors suffer from the same shortcomings?”Tsu-Mung asked.
“I do not believe that either the Koreans or the Japanese have been able to develop their own guided missile technology or be able to field any purchased from other nations. The French have access to a variety of guided missiles. This includes land-based, naval and air-to-air missiles. Even if they do not have any currently deployed to Indochina, it would take only a matter of weeks before they would have such defense deployed there.
Missile-armed warships and aircraft could arrive even sooner if the French feel threatened by an adversary.”
“We still have the cruisers and destroyers that we purchased from the Japanese and refitted with the German anti-ship missiles, don’t we?”
“Yes, Sir. But one painful lesson that we learned when our ships faced Australian warships several years ago was that we are very vulnerable to advanced enemy aircraft because of our lack of naval surface-to-air missiles. Even if we were to be successful in hitting French warships with our anti-ship missiles, the French would destroy our warships with their aircraft shortly afterwards.”
“Then we must take great care in avoiding giving the French the impression that we wish to extend our control over their colony for the time being. We must be patient until either the French decide to leave Indochina on their own, or until our military is strong and sufficiently advanced that we can overwhelm any defenses that they bring in from their home territory.”
“So we will do nothing about the French presently?”
“Oh, we are going to make life quite uncomfortable for them with our aid to the insurgency there. Eventually, they will become weary of the caskets being sent home for burial. Then they will seek peace by leaving with their tails between their legs in shameful defeat.”
“What will we do about the Japanese, Sir?”
“Eventually, we will have our revenge upon the Japanese. We will then finally end them as a race, once and for all. Then we will claim for ourselves all of the reconstructed factories and shipyards. The Japanese have used the wealth that they gained from us from the sales of some of their surviving warships to us to rebuild from the war. They are using that funding to purchase Western technology to rebuild their factories. Then they are taking those factories to build products under license primarily for overseas customers. They now possess a handful of jet fighters and rockets to use in the defense of their pitiful little island. Even so, they are still far weaker than they had been before the war. They even finally scrapped that great white elephant of a battleship that they had retained in service after the war.”
“Yes, losing more than half of your pre-war population cannot be overcome very easily or quickly. We lost at least as many of our citizens from the war ourselves. But we had far more people to start with.”
“Our population is recovering very rapidly, especially since the end of the civil war. In fact, I worry that if we cannot substantially increase our food production that we will become overly dependent on foreign-produced food. That will create a vulnerability that our enemies and rivals can exploit.”
“I have the same concerns, Sir. But what shall we do about them?”
“We will have to monitor this situation. I’m sure that the Americans will sell us all of the food that we want. We will have to build mass amounts of products and sell far materials for their industries to use to the Americans to pay for the food that we buy from them. Of course, we can take advantage of our far lower labor costs. Naturally, the Americans will not dare impose tariffs upon the products that we sell to them for fear that we will stop buying food from their farmers. We can eliminate entire industries from American soil by building their products ourselves far less expensively than the Americans can with their high-paid workforce.
Eventually, the Americans will become dependent upon us, especially as we advance our own technology to match theirs. This outcome is inevitable.” The Generalissimo said with a confident smile as he continue to watch the various military vehicles rumble down the square in front of him.
Chapter Thirty-Nine:
Cavill Space System Headquarters
Derby, Western Australia
November 14, 1967
“This is the first time that we have launched three Sea Dragon rockets on the same day. This is a tremendous milestone for us.” Judith said as she stood there on the observation deck above the various flight controllers and their data consoles.
“We happened to have three of our rockets and their payloads ready for launch. This also made it a lot easier for the Australian Navy to provide us with the necessary escort. Finally, the weather was perfect today.” Sarah said as she sat there on a chair. She was pregnant again, this time with hers and her husband Grant’s child. Standing next to Sarah were Beatrice’s children, Peter and Mary as well as Sarah’s younger brother, James.
“Each one of these rockets is going to be sending two major components of the Mars colony’s initial facilities too. By the time that the Ares vehicle arrives there with our first colonists and explorers, we should have at least ten of these elements on site.” James noted
“They will have their hands full just getting everything put together. Hopefully, Beatrice will be up for the task.” Judith commented as she continued to watch the controllers as they prepared for the triple launch.
“Incidentally, where is Beatrice? I see her kids here.” James asked.
“Beatrice insisted on being out there onboard one of our support ships for the launch.” Sarah answered.
“If everything works alright, it will provide Beatrice and the others with enough materiel to survive their environment, do initial scientific experiments and eventually get back home safely.” James commented.
“It should. We are sending over one hundred and fifty tons of habitat modules, solar arrays, a nuclear generator, a methane fuel production plant, a small electric tracked front end loader for earthmoving and a variety of supplies.
But this is less than half of the amount of supplies that we will be sending to Mars before the launch of Ares. We are going to have complete redundancy with every major element in addition to the modules that Ares herself will be delivered to Mars in less than two years. That will be absolutely necessary with the amount of time that it will require to send replacement equipment or a rescue mission to Mars in the event of a problem.
Ares will be bringing personnel, foodstuffs, additional habitat modules and certain other sensitive equipment that we want to keep under tight control.” Judith explained.
“How is the construction of Ares going? I’ve been pretty busy with several other projects other than our space projects. Sarah asked.
“The interplanetary transit craft is about halfway complete. Of course, the core of the nuclear-thermal drive was launched ten months ago. It remains completely dormant with all of its control rods fully inserted. The primary radiation shielding, control mechanisms and other engine components were installed about four months ago.
That was the same time that we installed the primary structural truss for the craft, a set of solar panels and one of the craft’s life support modules. We were forced to have the workers live on the craft itself while they assembled it because the assembly of the second space station has fallen behind schedule.” Judith noted with a grimace.
“Well, between delays in the development of Doctor von Braun’s heavy-lift variant of his rocket design and problems with the design of the universal module interface, we are at least six months behind schedule. That interface is supposed to allow modules that we build to mate with modules built by other nations like America and the Europeans.
We can’t afford right now to divert additional Sea Dragon launches to launch and set up the core modules for the second space station.
At least, we can use the opportunity to test Are’s core habitat modules and its life support system and work out any bugs before her first mission to Mars.” James replied.
“The real tests are going to be the installation of the rotating module ring and the command module. I know that it is going to be a modified version of the habitat rings that we use on Cavill Space Station One. But it is still going to have to handle both the rotation, an interface with the non-rotating section of the ship and the lateral acceleration when the main engine is fired. The fuel tanks, cargo module interfaces and other systems will be far easier to set up.” Judith said.
“Thank you for the explanation. It’s just been a little hectic lately. I’ve had a lot of work lately regarding our ongoing relationship with Israel. We have been making preparations for the Israelis to construct two of our molten salt nuclear reactors. These reactors are going to provide for the growing needs of Israel including using waste heat to run several desalinization plants.
The Israelis have had a light-water nuclear reactor to provide power for several of their cities for nearly fifteen years. Father had sold the Israelis the reactor technology and nuclear fuel before he got sick.”
“That region has always had to deal with shortages of clean water for personal use and agriculture. The water issue has been a source of conflict between Israel and her neighbors.” Sarah explained.
“The more clean water that the Israelis can produce from seawater, the less water that they have to pump out of either the Jordan River or the local underground aquifer. That could perhaps reduce tensions out there.
It is truly unfortunate that Israel has been virtually under siege by its neighbors ever since it was re-established at the end of the war.”
“We have been drawn into the controversy ourselves because of our relationship with Israel. Father committed himself and us years ago too. He helped supply many of the weapons that the Israelis have used to defend themselves against the attacks by the Arabs.”
“I know. Father’s first wife was Israeli. But she died in an Arab terrorist attack.” James quietly interjected. Anyone who would have overheard this would have been very confused since the former James Michaelson had originally traveled from a different future timeline so many years before assuming the identity of Harold Cavill in this timeline.
“We are still selling the Israelis at least some of their weapons, even now. The Israeli military builds thousands of small arms of our design under license. The Israeli air force flies Dragonfly-J jet fighter-bombers while the Israeli navy sails in second-hand warships that were refitted with guided missiles and other modern systems in our shipyard.
That makes our profile very visible in the Middle East among Israel’s enemies. There have been a continuing series of threats by the Arab oil-producing states of an oil boycott against Australia. It is possible that the Muslim oil producers here in Southeast Asia could decide to join in the boycott.” Sarah said.
“That is why it is so very important for us to develop our indigenous energy industry so that we can be energy independent. Then we won’t have to kowtow to people who want to commit genocide. This could very well start a conflict that would escalate far beyond the control of anyone.
We could end up facing the same future that Father did a long time ago.” Judith grimly replied before an announcement came in over the Launch Control intercom system.
The countdown for the first launch was running down to its final seconds before the Sea Dragon’s main engine ignition.
“We have ignition for Sea Dragon One.” Was announced over the intercom as an image from a television camera focused on the upper part of the rocket that protruded above the surface of the ocean. The water around the rocket immediately began to turn white with turbulence as the rocket began to slowly rise out of the ocean.
A couple of seconds later, a bright flare of white light erupted as the massive Sea Dragon rocket finally rose above the ocean surface. The rocket continued to accelerate skyward as cheers erupted in the control center. The controllers continued to announce over the intercom that the rocket was performing normally as it continued to race into orbit.
Judith and her siblings breathed a collective sigh of relief as the giant rocket flew perfectly to its target orbit.
Twice more, this scene was repeated as the second and third Sea Dragons were launched successfully into orbit for the first part of their long journey to Mars.
“Thank the Lord.” Sarah quietly said as she heard the confirmation of the third Sea Dragon reaching orbit.
“We’ve still got a lot to do. There is also still far too much that could go wrong. But today was a very good first step towards making humanity a multi-planetary species and ensuring its long term survival against calamity.” Judith replied.
“Hopefully, we can also prevent the nuclear war that destroyed Father’s old world too. That’s why we can’t just focus on our space program. We have a lot of work down here too.” James insisted.
“I know. But, we are already doing all that we can within the limits of our resources and influence without risking exposure of our most sensitive asset. We just have to continue doing what we have been doing. That’s all. If we see another opportunity to advance our goals and have the resources to accomplish that, we will consider it.
Chapter Forty:
Cavill Space System Headquarters
Derby, Western Australia
March 14, 1968
Over a dozen people sat at a group of data consoles that filled the Cavill Space Systems control room near Derby. They intently watched screens filled with lines of numbers and symbols that streamed back tens of millions of miles from near the surface of Mars. A stream of half a dozen large modules were nearing reentry into the Martian atmosphere. They had been launched months earlier in anticipation of the Ares manned mission.
With their successful landing, these craft would provide the basis for the first manned Martian outpost. Since they were unmanned, they did not require the nuclear transit drive stage to push them towards Mars. Instead, the Sea Dragon was able to push each module into a parking orbit around Earth. Then each module would be mated with their own individual chemical rocket to push the payload to Mars. With the large payload that each Sea Dragon launch vehicle could lift into orbit, these various modules carried robust reentry systems to safely land them on the Martian surface.
For this important event, all four of the Cavill siblings were there in the control center monitoring progress for the landing.
“We have the first habitat module beginning its entry into the Martian atmosphere now. So far, everything appears to be going well. Hopefully, the module’s heat shield will perform adequately and then jettison in another five minutes.” Judith said as she looked down upon the mission specialists and the consoles that they monitored.
“By the time that we learn that the heat shield worked, one way or another, the module will have landed on the surface. If the parachute deploys properly, the landing legs extend to landing configuration and the retro-rockets under the canopy fire when the leg sensors contact the surface, then we should have a good landing.” Beatrice noted.
