Shipbucket

Like Golly said, this is Shipbucket. Just like I said in the old forum IoT thread, frankly you can rationalize any damn AU, but the real problem was that people's ship designs sucked. This is specifically to what I was referring to.

Here is a gunboat version of the Minsiter strike craft (Sa'ar IV) I'm working on. The concept is a major modification of the strike craft to replace the missile capability with a modular one and enhanced gunfire support against shore targets. So the forward 76mm gun and the forward crew mess is repalced by a Rhodesian 105mm gun turret. Aft a deck house is built over the engine rooms to provide crew mess space displaced by the medium gun and additional space for modular capability. The aft deck can be used for carrying rigid raiders, a reinforced helo landing deck (for at sea refuelling and rearming) and mine countermeasures or ASW equipment. Typical raiding load is two 12m rigid raiders and 24 troopies carried in the deck house. Also attached is a WIP of the Selous class B Side.


Gun boat.

On the subject of the Rhodesian AU; so far its feasible, given the rationale of a more developed economy and a home-frown arms industry, and I particularly like the camo schemes. The only real problem is that Rhodesia would be an essentially land-locked nation, so the lions share of defence spending would go to the army and airforce.

I was interested to read the background to why the RSF stopped backing Rhodesia; but now history has shown that for most 'Rhodesians' black and white, a democratic multi racial society has been a failure, and maybe a better outcome would have been to allow concessions toward the Smith goverment to carry the country forward?

Even land locked nations have maritime issues. Especially land locked nations fighting for survival. I think the scenario presented provides plenty of good reasons why and how they could form a Navy. The resources going to the Navy are much lower than the Army and Air Force. The RhN would be a much smaller service. Only 5-6,000 sailors by 1991 compared to the air force’s 15,000 and the army’s 30,000. Also it has the river and lake security role which is quite important for the Zambezi valley.
If you want to read more about the reasons behind the internal settlement which lead to acceptance of the UK plan for ‘official’ recognition then Ian Smith’s book “Bitter Harvest” is the best source. Without South Africa’s influence there would be no internal settlement, no acceptance of the UK plan and Rhodesia would still be here today with Mugabe only murdering those poor fools stupid enough to join ZANU in Tanzania. It was only after the internal settlement which brought about an African government in the renamed “Zimbabwe-Rhodesia” (with Ian Smith as deputy PM) and the desire for official independence that the UK plan was accepted which allowed ZANLA free reign to terrorize the Shona rural peasant population to improve their voting support from 30% to 50%. Since these areas were meant to be secured by British troops the security forces were not able to save the lives of hundreds killed by ZANLA and the Shona were brought into line by Mugabe.

Rhodesia is one of the most misunderstood political entities in the world with it often being mistaken for Apartheid South Africa. Of course there was racism in Rhodesia but the essential nature of the government was not racist. It was based on the same premise as the USA: no taxation without representation. This works both ways. You can not expect a democratic society to survive in which 90% of the voters pay only 1-2% of the central taxation pool. It is just not feasible for the other 10% to pay all the bills and have no say in how it is spent. Especially when 33% of this number (the Europeans) are paying 75% of the revenue. Which is why after 1980 the taxation base of the country collapsed as the European population and the economy they had built, along with the systems of civil society, just got up and crossed the border. But of course people like Mugabe didn’t care about this they just wanted to control as much as possible no matter how poor it undeveloped it is.

That 105mm looks like quite the big gun for such a little ship.

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This basically sums up everything I've ever said in defense of Rhodesia. The way their war was spun in the United States and Britain was really disgusting.

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I did a quick weight check using the British 114mm gun turret and without the second 76mm and the heavy missiles it’s not a ship stability problem. The concept for the gun is based on the South African Leo 105mm developed from the G5 155mm technology in the 1990s*. This is a long range, but light weight 105mm gun with special attention to reducing recoil. If you look closely you can see a very big muzzle brake at the tip of the barrel and it uses modular charges. So this gun is more like an artillery gun than a naval gun so does not produce as much recoil as most naval guns. I think the Finnish navy also has light ships (around 500 tons) carrying heavier (120mm) guns as well.

* In my AU I have Rhodesia being the first customer for Gerald Bull's Space Research Company GC-45 artillery in the 1970s. Bull is later imprisoned by the USA for selling this technology and thousands of shells to South Africa. After he got out of prison the Rhodesians offer him the job of building a satellite launching gun so he moves to Rhodesia and runs their artillery development from 1981. Which means they are way ahead of everyone else with his technology including this 105mm gun which is developed for use on the heavy Rhino armoured car, airborne forces and naval turrets.

This is very well done, and very well researched, but I do have a few questions, and a few things I find implausible.

1) The Rhodesians supporting the Portuguese and then RENAMO is going to make very, very unpopular in Western Capitals, and it may well cause the Soviets to give more guns to ZIPRA and ZANLA, or worse make either of those two groups accept help from Cuba. Castro's troops in Angola forced the SADF to get into the act and virtually wrecked the country. If the Cubans show up, so will the South Africans, regardless of what Salisbury thinks about it, and that'll be doubly true as Cuban communists in Angola can't really harm South Africa itself. Cuban forces in Rhodesia definitely can - from there, they could bomb Pretoria.

2) RENAMO NEVER had the ability to overthrow the government of Mozambique, and I highly doubt Salisbury's forces could completely change that. They were primarily used by Pretoria to make sure South Africa's neighbors could only move goods to the outside world through them. (They supported UNITA for this reason, too.) If you are desperate to keep the Beira corridor open, you'd be better advised to have Salisbury do that job themselves, or pay off FRELIMO to look the other way. (Given enough money, FRELIMO probably wouldn't have too much difficulty allowing Rhodesian naval units and/or transport corridors.

3) The Rhodesian Air Force attacking a Russian naval group is asking for a major response, and Soviet SAMs are pretty good. I don't think the RhAF could strike at that group, especially considering the fact that their air force would be a worn-out, crumbling mess by 1984. Against a Russian carrier group, even with having lost their planes (Which is easy - Yak-38s suck. A Hunter with a good pilot could blast it with little difficulty) would still easily shoot down any RhAF aircraft attempting to attack them. I can't see many options for new aircraft open to them - the South Africans will need everything they have for the Cubans in Angola, nobody in the West would consider selling to Rhodesia, the Communist bloc won't for all the obvious reasons. Israel, maybe, and perhaps the Rhodesians buy Canberras and Hunters from some places not using them (Peru, Chile, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia). The Israelis would be the only option open to them for new planes, unless you can get Taiwan advanced forward to the point where the Rhodesians could buy the Taiwanese indigenous fighter.

4) Does this Rhodesian Armed Forces have the ability to make more sophisticated gear? You've mentioned ammunition plants and Rhodesia had plenty of ability to make raw materials, but sophisticated stuff would be more of a problem, particularly with regards to missiles and more sophisticated weapons. Having guys like Gerald Bull around helps with this, but Rhodesia still does not have the economic strength or technical sophistication to do much of what it would need to be totally independent. South Africa does, but as you rightly point out, the apartheid state had little love for Salisbury.

5) Even with many more educated, employed black Africans, how does the economy take all of this? Rhodesia's Bush War racked up a half-billion-dollar debt between 1965 and 1980, a big sum for a nation of seven million people. Unless you can (substantially) increase the white population, you won't be able to get the economic strength to handle all of this.

6) The chances of Major recognizing its existence border between zero and nada. Heck, I'd say its even less likely in the 1990s, with apartheid crumbling and the Cold War over, why recognize this mostly-insignificant place which will soon be the only place in Africa to not have gotten its independence through free elections? Major never held the strongest of political hands, and the Commonwealth, particularly Canada, India and Australia, would be very pissed about Whitehall giving Rhodesia official recognition, especially after all three ripped Pretoria over apartheid so many times. If you want to get recognition, you're best bet is to have Thatcher do it in late 1982 or early 1983, after kicking the asses of the Argentines and having the ability to claim its recognition of Rhodesia is meant as a contain-communism move. Thatcher had a good political hand at that point, too, as the Michael Foot era Labour Party couldn't find an electable position with both hands and a map.

For all my minor beefs, I still commend you sir for a well thought-out, well written TL.

You know, a thought did occur to me suddenly, since I'm (perhaps unsurprisingly) reminded of South Africa - they were low on strike craft so whatever they had was previous (and upgraded endlessly) but also concentrated on long-range, precision strike artillery (enter Gerard Bull). That seems to be the idea of your gunboat but I'm sure the Rhodesians would've developed it even further.

Thanks. But please note that what I’ve written in this thread to date is a very small snap shot of what I’ve done for this scenario. There is a lot more and when I have more time and am less sick I hope to present it all in various Shipbucket formats. But I will try and address each of your points and provide a bit more background as well.

RENAMO was established by the Rhodesian CIO in the late 70s after Rhodesian forces realized how unpopular the FRELIMO regime was in Mozambique. After the fall of Zimbabw-Rhodesia under the Lancaster House agreement support of RENAMO was transferred with Rhodesian expats to South Africa. In my scenario RENAMO (then called MNR) was established during the ‘go it alone’ period by Rhodesia after South Africa closed its borders in a failed – and misguided – attempt to enforce détente on Rhodesia. In this period 1978-80 the counter insurgency battle in Rhodesia is totally different to that in the real world due to the success of sensor fuzed minefield CORSAN surrounding Rhodesia’s borders. So Rhodesia is putting a lot more effort into external operations and has little or no need to be politically and economically restrained by western, Soviet and Afro-Asian bloc world opinion. So the combination of RENAMO auxiliaries and Rhodesian forces sees them roll back FRELIMO control across most of Mozambique from their Maputo heartland.

The Soviets and Tanzania do try and respond to prop up ZANLA and FRELIMO in Mozambique leading to the big battles in 1983. But this is very different to Angola where Cuban troops had been flooded into the country since 1975 to prop up the MPLA regime. There is no direct air link from Cuba to Mozambique and Cuba is already overstretched in Angola. So the same kind of reinforcement is not possible. Also the geographic nature of Mozambique is very different to Angola and holding Maputo is not the key to the rest of Mozambique. Maputo is the key to Joh-Berg and the South African high veld but that’s another issue.

The Rhodesian air force is a very different beast in my scenario thanks to a domestic aircraft industry. Started in 1960 building what in our world was called the Malmö Flygindustri MFI-9 Junior it develops over the next 30 years into a company to rival IAI and one of the best aircraft companies outside of Europe and North America. Also without the RRhAF aircraft sell of at the end of the federal government era and additional aircraft acqusitions they have a total of 40 Canberras (including 24 B-57Bs) and 48 Hunters at UDI. Both of which are rebuilt during the 1970s to provide better capability and zero hour airframes.

The details of the strike on the Soviet carrier battle group I’ll keep to myself for now (for dramatic effect) but the Soviets reliance on SAMs leaves them open to a coordinated strike package using precision guided weapons.

The whole concept of the scenario is that Rhodesia’s war economy is completely turned around by having a domestic defence industry before UDI. Domestic production of armoured cars, small arms, aircraft and ammunition means that the huge expenditure on acquiring like externally through an international embargo is just not needed. All that money that Rhodesia had to spend outside Rhodesia in the real world can be spent inside Rhodesia on much cheaper domestic weapons resulting in more tax base and reinvestment in the country. External acquisitions can be focused on production investment like new tooling and engineering equipment to generate more income inside Rhodesia rather than to be wasted (in economic terms) on non production weaponry.

As to the recognition of Rhodesian independence on Rhodesian terms by the UK in 1991 this comes about for a range of important reasons. For one the South African Government is not crumbling, if anything it is much stronger, especially as Rhodesia has installed a friendly government in Mozambique and joint efforts in Angola result in the fall of MPLA and Cuban forces in 1989. Hopefully the South African government is winding back the racist policies of Apartheid and restoring the Cape qualified franchise system to South Africa as in Rhodesia to provide for a non racial political system that recognises the immense economic and social disparity within these mixed countries of Southern Africa that promotes gradual political enfranchisement in keeping with gradual economic and social evolution so as to avoid the terrible malaise that has inflicted itself upon the rest of decolonised Africa. While there is a lot of cultural and political isolation of South Africa and Rhodesia in the western world in the late 1980s there is equally a lot more economic integration (as with South Africa in the real world).

But the UK the reason to recognise Rhodesian independence is based a lot more on real politic rather than wishful thinking and concern for the interests of the African one party regimes in the Commonwealth. That is Rhodesian support for the IRA that has seen the British Army driven from South Armagh and a massive wave of Irish bombing in Great Britain. Rhodesia without an insurgency war to fight in the 1980s has a lot of surplus military power to expend chasing down its enemies in Tanzania, central Africa and Libya. The Rhodesian Navy and their increasing control over the western Indian Ocean is a symptom of this. After 25 years of failed policies to destroy Rhodesia since UDI and facing direct threats from the Rhodesians its time for the UK to cut their losses. Legal status for Rhodesia won’t change things too much, as there is no way the corrupt regimes of the UN would allow their membership but it does go a long towards normalising life in southern Africa.