Operation Tidespring Part.4
Cabinet Room, No.10 Downing Street, 4th April 1983, 18:00 Local Time (18:00 GMT)
“Prime Minister, we are ready.”
The man spoken to just nodded and ruffled through the papers again. The Right Honourable Malcom Foster[1], Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and the British Empire had written this speech himself, something special in this day and age. Some of his advisers had thought it to be too Churchillian, but the man whose bronze statue now adorned the square in front of the Imperial Parliament at Canary Wharf[2] would probably not have even bothered with the speech and simply let the navy loose. Foster chuckled at the thought, remembering how he had met Churchill shortly before his death in 1967, and how he had radiated confidence despite his age and the arthritis that had plagued him in his later years.
The rest of the Cabinet on the other hand had supported the PM. It was the first generation of politicians that had not experienced 'The War', but the Foreign Office and by extension most post-war politicians saw it as their raison d'etre to prevent the Empire from being caught with her pants down like it had happened in 1939.[3] Still, a War Cabinet wasn't formed, for officially the British Empire wasn't at war, and the Cabinet was going to debate how to proceed now that the modern-day Force Z was preparing to get underway. He knew that it's commander was using wartime procedures, and if he remembered correctly, this meant that the ASW escorts sortied first, so by now the Frigates and Destroyers would be out there already.
He watched as the rest of the Cabinet filed into the room and as usual he felt a faint stab of displeasure at the sight of his Secretary for the Home Departement, but even though he was an obnoxious twat who felt it was his holy duty to 'cut the military down to size' he was competent at his own ressort, knife crime in the UK had gone down considerably in the last three years and from what the PM had heard in the various reports from the Imperial Governments, he was adept at getting his colleagues to toe at least close to the line No.10 wished, no mean feat considering that there were dozens of different problems everywhere.
“Gentlemen, Ladies.” Foster said as everyone was seated. “The Fleet's on it's way, and for the moment the Americans are staying where they are. The question is now that we need to decide how far we press this thing considering what has already happened.”
Everyone in the room knew that the Vanguard had sunk an Argie Submarine, and even though the reason for the loss of the Nimrod a couple of days ago wasn't know, it was assumed that an Argentine snooper ship or Submarine had fired the offending AAM.
“Public opinion certainly supports the course of action so far, Prime Minister.” said Catherine McAllister, the Foreign Secretary. She wasn't the first woman on the Cabinet, but well aware that she was on the fast track to Party Leadership and most likely the challenger of whomever the Liberal Party put forward once the next election came around. She therefore had a fine nose for public opinion, and her lineage from one of Rhodesia's oldest settler families made her at well aware of things ran 'in the Colonies', overall the perfect choice for an office as prestigious as this one, even though some of the Middle Eastern countries had probably thrown a fit behind closed doors.
“I still believe that we should attempt a diplomatic solution.” came the voice of the much lamented Home Secretary, one William Brown.
The PM had spent the last three days trying to convince everyone else of the need for a firm response at a critical juncture, after all the Americans were still somewhat unstable and might get funny ideas if the Empire showed weakness now, but the biggest reason for it was that the American Government was trying to destabilize Brazil via funding the various Communist rebel groups that operated in the western Jungles. The Home Secretary hadn't been told this since he didn't need to know, but even if he had his response wouldn't have been different, he would only have been the first to decry any military reaction as a massively destabilizing move. The thing was though that he wasn't a sympathizer of the Communists, far from it, he simply hated the fact that Foster had beaten him into No.10 more than anything else. Foster had already decided to ask for his resignation, but a cabinet reshuffle in the middle of a crisis wasn't the best idea, so for the moment he had to try and ride it out, however what the Home Secretary was saying next let him loose his temper.
“These Islands are pointless, why should we risk...”
“Bloody hell William! We can't just trade away territory nilly-willy! The implications would be enormous!””
Foster cleared his throat to cover up the silence that followed his outburst.
“In any case, we will NOT back down. I'm expected at the Palace in an hour, and this is what I will tell Her Majesty.”
Constitutional Monarchy or not, the opinion of the Queen still counted for something, so Brown shut up and said nothing more, instead going back to plotting his revenge while the PM and the Minister of Defence went on to ignore him.
“In any case,” the PM said to the Minister of Defence/First Lord of the Admiralty. “James, I gather both your hats have their people under way as planned?” [4]
“Yes, Sir. Lusty is still on exercise in the Barents Sea with the Germans and the Danes, so as directed Force Z consists of Ark Royal and King George VI in Carriers, with the Dreaded[5] and Thunderchild making up the DN force.”
“And why are we sending the two of them down there in the first place?” the PM asked, more for the benefit of the others than anything else, having been Minister of Defence himself at one time.
“The aren't just impressive in the Gunfire Support role, but between them they carry more Broadswords and Storm Winds[6] in their Magazines than the rest of the escorts combined, and however this develops down there, it's a handy thing to have, even though we aren't planning any attacks on mainland targets at this time.”
“In the way of escorts we have as Escort Flag HMS Devonshire, senior Air Defence Ship. In Destroyers there are HMSs Bristol and Cardiff of the Type 82 Class, HMSs Coventry, Glasgow, Sheffield, Birmingham, Southampton, Liverpool, Sailsbury, Nairobi, New Dheli and Singapore of the Type 42 Class[7]. In Frigates there are HMSs, Broadsword, Battleaxe, Brazen and Brilliant, all Type 22s, and ten more Type 21s and Type 12.”
“Wasn't Exeter supposed to be part too? When the IGS gamed this last year we had two Cruisers, and Exeter was on the short list for the Standby Squadron if I am not mistaken.” came the unexpected voice of the Minister for Transport, a former Naval Officer from Nairobi.[8]
“That is true Minister,” replied Defence, “but she's still laid up at Walvisbay thanks to that plant failure and the damaged missile magazines, and right now we can't afford to pull Ajax from shadowing the South African Navy.”
As had been the case ever since the dawn of time, the Royal Navy was short of Cruisers, but luckily this wasn't as bad an issue as it had been during the early days of World War Two.
“On the flying side of things, the Air Force is sending another Squadron of Lightnings to Ascension Island and in case the Reds get frisky, we also have a Squadron of Mossies present.”
[9]
“Also Space Command is adjusting the orbit of one of our recce Sats, so we should have recent pictures of the Falklands in two-three hours.”
HMS Coventry, off the coast of Scotland, 19:01 local (19:01 GMT)
The new gunnery Officer of Her Majesty's Destroyer Coventry had been very surprised when he had been plucked from his shore assignment, stuck into a Carrier Supply Flight Rotodyne going out to KG6 on the tail of her returning airgroup with orders in his pocket to report aboard HMS Coventry. On approach he had noted the Sea Dart Mod 5 Missile system and the Type 1022/mod 5 RDF that were part of the upgrade to Batch 2 standard, which put Coventry on the same standards in terms of ASW and Area Air Defence as the rest of the ships of the Force. The Helicopter landed on the platform and even before the rotors had fully stopped turning a figure came running in after the ground crew to the door and when he stepped out he could see that the other wore the shoulder stripes of a full Commander. Introductions would have to wait, the Lynx was already being refuelled and fitted with the racks for depth charges so that it could get out and carry out it's primary mission within minutes. Once they were inside the hangar, introductions were exchanged.
“Lieutenant William Yoxall reporting, Sir.” he said, throwing a smart salute.
“Commander Michael Currie, First Officer.” salutes were returned and hands shaken. “The Captain is on the Battlebridge, apparently there's some Gremlin in the RDF control Computer.”
“I'll better get down there then. These Turner Microsystems computers have a bit of a temperament when they are faced with new hardware.”
When Yoxall saw Currie's puzzled look he supplied an explanation. “Before I was sent to shore, I served aboard the Liverpool, and they got the same problem when they tried to get the Computer to talk to the set during workup.”
Currie grinned and said. “Old Jonnie Mainwaring probably wasn't too pleased.”
“That he wasn't indeed Sir.” Yoxall said. Had he been of equal rank with the Commander, he might have mentoined that last year this had led to the ship's RDF set being out of action at a critical point during an exercise and that this had allowed a German Force centred around one of their two Light Carriers[10] to 'wipe out' the small British Force and the simulated convoy they had defended. Being new to the whole Carrier game the Germans had been filled with considerable pride but the Royal Navy had been less than pleased, but Yoxall still didn't believe the rumours that the crew of the Carrier Baden-Würtemberg had been heard singing the Englandlied when they had passed the British formation close by.
With this they reached the Battlebridge of the Destroyer and could immediately hear the Captain discussing the Computers with his Electronic Warfare Officer. Currie approached the Captain from behind and when he turned, Yoxall could see that he definitely was his father's son, in spite of the blonde hair that he had inherited from his mother. The same boyish grin and the wit behind the eyes on the other hand had clearly come from his father.
“Lieutenant William Yoxall reporting for Duty, Captain.” he said with a salute thrown in.
The salute was returned with “Captain Sean Fleming at your service, Guns.”
For a second Yoxall could see the the fight Fleming had had when he tried to step out of the shadow of his father, an admittedly superb Intelligence Officer when he had been in the Andrew, and his post-war activities didn't help either in that regard. Now however he was known as a superb small Craft and Destroyer Officer who sometimes let his temper get the better of himself.
“If you don't mind my asking, but what seems to be the problem here, Sir?” Yoxall asked.
“The bloody Computers won't talk to the RDF set again.”
The Electronics Officer, at the end of his wits, then decided to fall back to the oldest of repair methods. He took out a rubber hammer and smashed it against the casing of the Computer. Sure enough the dark RDF displaces in the cramped CIC flickered back into life and showed the rest of Force Z in the distance. The Landing ships with the 1st Marine Rifles Regiment were still missing, but the remainder of The Royal Marines Division was already in place, with Force Z going in circles in the North Sea.
“Let me see what I can do then, Sir.”
Port Stanley Airport, Las Malvinas/The Falklands 17:20 local (19:20 GMT)
The Argentine Air Force and Naval Aviation were at last established on the Islands, and the Carriers were no longer pinned in place now that their shore-based comrades had taken over air Defence. Thanks to the recently lengthened runway the Navy had been able to send the two most elite Squadrons of F-4s and A-6 Intruders, and the Air Force had sent not only the 1st Squadron on F-4s and trained in the anti-shipping role, but 5th flying the ageing A-4 Skyhawks that were just now being replaced by the F-4 in Argentine Service. On the ground two Special Forces Brigades were in place, with more troops waiting on shoreside airports, acting as a reserve if it was needed.
The civilians knew little if anything of this. When they had woken up to suddenly being 'occupiers of Rightful Argentine Territory' instead of subjects of the Crown, and they had done what their ancestors had done on the Channel Islands, hunkered down and tried to be invisible. The commander of the Argentine Garrison was a political Appointee, but he had passed the military Academy of the old regime before the Revolution, which made him something rare within the Army, someone who was trusted with a major Command even though the Army Academy had fought for the old Regime almost to a man. This was less of an issue with the Navy and the Air Force, but the Army had struggled to regain it's proper place in the order of things. The fact that the Republic's northern Neighbours were at least British leaning had helped and now Major General Julio Lizardo commanded what would most likely become one of the Army's most sought after command for at least several years. The Navy had seized the Islands, and if the Army was going to do it's part, then this outpost would in less then a week be the most lavishly equipped one outside the mainland.
Lizardo also knew that sooner or later the British would try to take the Islands back again, but he was confident that with the best material that Argentinia had he would be able to defeat any serious British attempt. All of the planes he had were able to carry the American-made Harpoon Sea Attack Missiles of which more than a hundred, 75% of the stock in the country, were currently being flown in in constant shuttle flights by anything large enough to take the pallets they were stored on, and that didn't include those on the two Navy Aircraft Carriers that were deployed to the south-west. By Thursday, three days from now a two full batteries of Air Guard mobile Anti-Air Missiles would begin to arrive. At least that was the plan. The Argentine Air Force had only a limited number of aircraft that could take the equipment and even though the British had apparently been starting to rebuild the formerly small field into a massive airbase, there was only so much space and most of that was already cramped full with the aircraft of the four Squadrons, in fact the brand-new Hardened Aircraft shelters along the northern side of the Airport were full already and the Skyhawks were parked in the open with only sand bags around them since they were considered the least-valuable aircraft, something that their crews didn't like much. By the looks of it, most of the peninsula on which the airport was located seemed to have been earmarked for conversion into a massive airbase.
When the General who had briefed him on his Mission had said that the window for retaking the Islands would have closed within at most a year or two he had not really believed him and at first the evidence of the almost non-existent defences that were visible on the surface had reinforced this belief, but now... His Intelligence Staff hadn't yet gone through all the captured papers that the British Defenders of Government House hadn't managed to burn, the few unfinished aircraft shelters were sitting there and how the Air Traffic control tower was far too large for the RDF system in it, and yet nothing he had heard from any of the Interrogation protocols of the Prisoners indicated anything about British Intentions versus Argentina, expect for the “We'll be back, mate.”
Something didn't add up.
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I think I have to explain one my my basic principles before anyone complains that too many things have their OTL names. I am doing this because far too often when reading other AH I spend too much of the time looking up just what particular technology something is again, and far too often I totally loose track of that.
[1] With certain exceptions, all new political figures that arrive on the scene are fictional from the mid 70s onwards.
[2] I couldn't help myself. When I looked at a couple of pictures of London, I decided that the location is perfect.
[3] What they can't know of course is that they were a far better prepared for the war than the brits were OTL.
[4] For political reasons the Admiralty is not part of the Ministry of Defence, but in the late 60s the post of First Lord of the Admiralty was merged with that of the Minister of Defence who now wears either title as needed. Far from perfect, but that's politics for you.
[5]Nickname for HMS Dreadnought, and with good reason. 9x16''.
[6] Very, very similar to the Tomahawk, slightly faster but with slightly reduced range. What became Raytheon OTL fled to Canada during the Civil War and mostly made Radar and Sonar equipment during WW2, later became one of the contractors in Canada and the Empire to build the Storm Winds.
[7] As OTL, but can fire Storm Winds, even though not that many reloads are carried. The Argentine Destroyers are equivalents of the Spruance class in general Characteristics. No Type 42 for the evil Commiez!
[8] He's the first Black member of the Cabinet, and it was quite a fight to get the Party to accept him.
[9] TTLs TSR2 is just that. A Tactical Strike Aircraft. This means that it never wore that good-looking Anti-Flash white coat, but instead the internal Bomb Bay can now carry an additional fuel tank, and the modern day Mosquito is the primary Tactical Bomber for the RAF and quite a few other Allied Air Forces. The Buccaneer on the other hand still serves with the FAA, while TSR2s recce role was relegated to a secondary role when it was found out that the Canberra was still unsurpassed in the Strategic recce role.
[10] TTL the Invincible Class was offered to the Admiralty as a cheap replacement for the ageing WW2 vintage Implacables, but not accepted by the British, so instead some countries, Germany included, bought them instead to give their own fleets more of a punch.
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