Anglo-French Nuclear Exchange in the 1970's - What Would've Happened?

[Baron Bizarre]

I'm sure there's a million reasons this is almost surely ASB, but this is an idea that's been floating around in my tiny little brain since I was a kid. When I was kid, my father had a couple of different books that described scenarios where a fascist government took over in Britain. This seemed to be a concern at the time - I didn't know how likely it ever was, but it obviously was a popular fictional scenario, at least.

The scenario that I formed was - what if Britain did go fascist back then, and say, a radical revolutionary government took power in France around the same time - some outgrowth of May 1968, perhaps - and the two governments revived the old Anglo-French rivalry, and ended up going to war with one another - perhaps over a French attempt to occupy the Channel Islands, and the war ended up going nuclear.

Anyway, setting aisde how silly my scenario might be, what I'm asking is this - Given the size of the two country's nuclear arsenals, what would the outcome of such a battle be?

We'll posit for the moment that the US and Soviets are not involved in the war - the Soviets were content to sit back and watch NATO collapse, as they perceived it, and the British fascists threw the Americans out of the UK (I could imagine a British fascism having an anti-American element to it).

Anyway, setting aside how likely it was that such a thing would happen, what would've been the result if it did happen?

Thank you, drive, through.

 

[basileus]

Result: extermination for both on grand scale, obviously. Each part would likely use dozens of weapons, mostly by subs for the British, and mostly from silos/mobile land launchers for the French. Plus chemicals, and biowarfare agents.
All in all, up to a quarter of each population would get killed in a matter of hours, and more than half in a few years, assuming other countries help the survivors and refugees with assistance and reconstruction.

 

[CalBear]

The problem here is that the background is critical to the question and the answer. Since OTL's countries woul not have done it, that means the countries have to be radically different. That means a wholly different military set-up in at least one, probably both countries. Fascist states tend to be VERY willing to not just put their military 1st, but to completely break the economy to ensure the military is over developed (the best current example is the DPRK, which isn't fully fascist, but is close enough for sake of example).

Since the UK of OTL gutted its military as a cost cutting tool, it is difficult to say what a fascist (or even just aggressively expansionist) state would have as a nuclear inventory. The same is true for a UK that was goverened under the same basic principals as IOTL but was faced by a fascist or agressively expansionist France.

There is also the reality of the two superpowers hat has to be tken into account. Are either of the states in this scenario allied to the U.S. or USSR? The answer to that question will radically alter the nuclear inventory of the state(s).

As I have noted with a different thread, unless you have POD that explain the circumstances and have provided answers to the basic questions, there is no way to give any sort of reasonable response in a non ASB setting.

 

[Baron Bizarre]

Aye, you're right. Realistically, the US and the Soviets would get involved. It's difficult to come up with a rational scenario where it wouldn't turn into World War Three, which was what I was trying to avoid.

 

[SlickWilly]

Oui, Premier!

Super fictional British civil servant Humphrey on the true to life 'Yes Minister/Prime Minister' tv sitcom suggested to PM Jim Hacker that the only reason the Brits had nuclear weapons was because the French had them too. Hacker later repeated the notion accidently in company.

 

[Bernard Woolley]

Super fictional British civil servant Humphrey on the true to life 'Yes Minister/Prime Minister' tv sitcom suggested to PM Jim Hacker that the only reason the Brits had nuclear weapons was because the French had them too. Hacker later repeated the notion accidently in company.

Actually that's not a million miles away from the truth, but not because we felt that we needed to deter the French. At times in the '70s when it was suggested that Polaris not be replaced when it was life expired, or that the UK should abandon its nuclear deterrent it was suggested that it would be inappropriate to have France as the only Western European nation with a nuclear capability.

You just have to look at some of the Cabinet papers that are now available to see this mentioned on several occasions. Plus Lynn and Jay had good inside sources; a lot of YM/YPM is based on exaggerated truth.

 

[anw_rev]

Instead of Britain, why not France who gone fascist? And the POD doesn't need to be pre-WW2, I think. De Gaulle and the Algerian situation had given us the threat of their military splinter group.

 

[Tovarich]

Result: extermination for both on grand scale, obviously. Each part would likely use dozens of weapons, mostly by subs for the British, and mostly from silos/mobile land launchers for the French....

Is it not the case that British submarine-launched nukes only work if allowed access to US satellites? (The OP having said the US were forced out of UK bases, and thus unlikely to be co-operative.) Or is that only Trident and wasn't the case with Polaris?
In which case, it could be a massacre by the French, having a fully-usable strategic nukes, whereas Britain only has a few tactical bombs for the RAF.

 

[Dunois]

Frankly this is ASB unless history follows a VERY different path from the 19th century onwards.

France would NOT have gone fascist as a result of an Algerian War gone bad. A "strong hand" dictatorship à la Pinochet is possible but it would not be a fascist state.
The incentive to attack Britain would have been non existent as well since the Soviet Union was the common foe.

Having said that, an Anglo-French nuclear exchange almost happens in the mid fifties in For All Time, prevented in same when saner leaders take power in France.
Well sane for For All Time standards that is ...

 

[Dunois]

Actually that's not a million miles away from the truth, but not because we felt that we needed to deter the French. At times in the '70s when it was suggested that Polaris not be replaced when it was life expired, or that the UK should abandon its nuclear deterrent it was suggested that it would be inappropriate to have France as the only Western European nation with a nuclear capability.

You just have to look at some of the Cabinet papers that are now available to see this mentioned on several occasions. Plus Lynn and Jay had good inside sources; a lot of YM/YPM is based on exaggerated truth.

It would be inappropriate for Britain or France to give up their deterrent regardless!
I think that its actually a good thing for both of us to have a deterrent, this way we nicely complement each others and it gives us some clout of act more independently.

I have even once read rumors that SLBM patrols are actually "coordinated" to an extent between France and Britain but I am sure that you know more about this than I do. Regardless, its quite likely to happen in the future with last year treaty.

 

[stevep]

Guys

I think this is pretty much as ASB as they come, but in the extremely unlikely event of it happening then two points to consider:

a) How does things differ from OTL in terms of forces, preparation etc? Bound to be some factors different. [For instance the mention about Britain using US satellites. If there was a fall-out with the US I would expect that Britain could find some alternative method given a bit of time. Might be other secret factors since the US designs and supplies the missiles but hopefully if needed Britain would find ways around them, especially in the 70's when we still had a decent industrial base.

b) How much warning does both sides have? Makes a bit difference if one side tries a 1st strike as they might be able to take out a hell of a lot of the other's counter strike capacity. Especially for a French 1st strike as unlike them we didn't have any silo missiles as a back-up and by the 70's the V force had been largely retired moved to other duties.

Also related to that a sub on patrol could well survive such a strike but if it's missiles are largely targeted on Moscow and the USSR I'm not sure how practical it would be to re-target the before the enemy hunts you down. Not to mention if say Britain gets hit by numerous missiles and command and control is largely destroyed the sub commander may think it's the Russians anyway.

If we have a ASB situation of both sides launching everything simultaneously then it would be very bad for both sides but I suspect that France would come out better. Their population is far more spread out and they have more nukes when including their land based missiles.

Steve

 

[Blue cat]

I'm sure there's a million reasons this is almost surely ASB, but this is an idea that's been floating around in my tiny little brain since I was a kid. When I was kid, my father had a couple of different books that described scenarios where a fascist government took over in Britain. This seemed to be a concern at the time - I didn't know how likely it ever was, but it obviously was a popular fictional scenario, at least.

The scenario that I formed was - what if Britain did go fascist back then, and say, a radical revolutionary government took power in France around the same time - some outgrowth of May 1968, perhaps - and the two governments revived the old Anglo-French rivalry, and ended up going to war with one another - perhaps over a French attempt to occupy the Channel Islands, and the war ended up going nuclear.

Anyway, setting aisde how silly my scenario might be, what I'm asking is this - Given the size of the two country's nuclear arsenals, what would the outcome of such a battle be?

We'll posit for the moment that the US and Soviets are not involved in the war - the Soviets were content to sit back and watch NATO collapse, as they perceived it, and the British fascists threw the Americans out of the UK (I could imagine a British fascism having an anti-American element to it).

Anyway, setting aside how likely it was that such a thing would happen, what would've been the result if it did happen?

Thank you, drive, through.

I suppose it depends on when in the 1970's this takes place. ISTR the French SSBN and IRBM forces were not operational untill the early 1970's and the UK Polaris subs began to come online in 1968. A change in French UK relations would have likely accelerated both nations plans but assuming a POD in 1968 then the UK might have enjoyed a brief period when they had SSBN's and the French didn't have SSBN's or IRBM's.

 

[Baron Bizarre]

Interesting stuff, folks. I'm obviously going to have to read more history.

 

[Grey Wolf]

France is a lot bigger and its major cities more spaced out so it is in a better position to come out alive - in Britain if you nuke Leeds then you severely damage Bradford, and so on. Refugees are going to be a nightmare in Britain as they move one from blast hit zone to another, whereas in France there is more countryside space to set up camps in.

Best Regards
Grey Wolf

 

[Dunois]

France is a lot bigger and its major cities more spaced out so it is in a better position to come out alive - in Britain if you nuke Leeds then you severely damage Bradford, and so on. Refugees are going to be a nightmare in Britain as they move one from blast hit zone to another, whereas in France there is more countryside space to set up camps in.

Best Regards
Grey Wolf

That's true indeed but as I have said on the Protect and Survive threa,d if Paris and the French government are destroyed then command and control is going to be a massive issue as France is a very centralised country.

 

[modelcitizen]

Instead of Britain, why not France who gone fascist? And the POD doesn't need to be pre-WW2, I think. De Gaulle and the Algerian situation had given us the threat of their military splinter group.

how about France goes Communist? that was considered a potential concern post-ww2.

or it could be UK as Communist, France as fascist.

 

[Gregg]

I don't think there are any circumstances in which an Anglo-French conflict would go nuclear, because the outcome would remain too terrifying for both sides. But in terms of how the two sides could end up on the brink of war...

In France in 1968, the Communist Party backs the revolutionaries rather than De Gaulle. This boosts them to come second in the first round of the 1969 Presidential election, and though Jacques Duclos is easily beaten by Pompidou, the Communists now stand as the main opposition to Gaullism. For the next five years, they concentrate on fighting the Gaullists rather than themselves (this is obviously ASB territory), and grow steadily during the early 1970s.

At the start of January 1974, Ted Heath decides to show once and for all, who rules Britain! The police having failed to counter the striking miners, he sends in the troops, with predictably disastrous results. After some bloodshed on the picket lines and in the Cabinet, the Conservatives split and Heath loses a motion of no confidence. Labour wins a landslide in the ensuing April general election and Wilson actually begins to implement the Alternative Economic Strategy.

A self-fulfilling prophecy occurs in France in May 1974. With Communist leader Georges Marchais as the left's nominee (instead of the Socialist, Mitterand), the Gaullists use the threat of a Communist victory to pressure the liberal Jacques Chaban-Delmas into dropping out and the politicos of the ruling majority unite behind the deeply conservative Pierre Messmer (running instead of the more moderately conservative Giscard-d'Estaing). Leading a united party and a united left, and having supported the 1968 revolution and kept its spirit alive, Marchais defeats Messmer by just 1% of the vote.

There's a Labour government with a mandate for a more radical programme than even Attlee's. Over the Channel, the French have elected a Communist President. It's no surprise when the plots against Harold Wilson turn from dinner-party fantasy to barrack-room reality. With US backing along lines typical in South America, a coup takes place in October. As tanks roll into Whitehall, Wilson escapes to Canada in the company of Louis Mountbatten. An emergency government is installed under Keith Joseph and by Christmas Britains trade unionists, opposition MPs, student activists and media dissidents are being interned or mysteriously disappearing.

Obviously, Marchais is a tool of the Soviets and Joseph leads a quasi-fascist regime a la Chile and Argentina. The Channel becomes the main front in the Cold War and the US and USSR use Britain and France as their proxy armies. I still don't think things go nuclear though.

 

[Atlantic Friend]

A nuclear exchange over the Channel in 1970 ?

If we are talking all-out war, let's empty the silos and the subs, both countries cease to exist as functioning nations. Exit Paris, exit London, exit most major cities, exit oil refineries and major ports (this is going to hit Britain pretty hard), exit arable land (this will hurt both nations and add famine to radiation on the list of "hot topics"). The power grid is out, the ability to import/export severely limited, and the ability to run a modern country are gone for a long time. The only non-affected areas (overseas territories) don't have the capacity to run the country from three thousand miles away IMHO, and they might go fully independent.

Now if we are talking about a very limited exchange, things won't be so bad.

 

[Thande]

A nuclear exchange over the Channel in 1970 ?

If we are talking all-out war, let's empty the silos and the subs, both countries cease to exist as functioning nations. Exit Paris, exit London, exit most major cities, exit oil refineries and major ports (this is going to hit Britain pretty hard), exit arable land (this will hurt both nations and add famine to radiation on the list of "hot topics"). The power grid is out, the ability to import/export severely limited, and the ability to run a modern country are gone for a long time. The only non-affected areas (overseas territories) don't have the capacity to run the country from three thousand miles away IMHO, and they might go fully independent.

Now if we are talking about a very limited exchange, things won't be so bad.

Yeah, it's pretty hard to imagine a situation where full MAD would happen. Perhaps one nuclear exchange that destroys London and Paris before there's some kind of revolution or military coup on one or both sides to force an insane government to back down, maybe.

 

[Atlantic Friend]

Super fictional British civil servant Humphrey on the true to life 'Yes Minister/Prime Minister' tv sitcom suggested to PM Jim Hacker that the only reason the Brits had nuclear weapons was because the French had them too. Hacker later repeated the notion accidently in company.

Both countries had independent reasons to develop them - reasons that were hammered home at Suez, notably.