“Well Roger, we shall see what we can do to change that dynamic.”
“Well Bill, it looks like we have confirmed reports of Soviet units joining the Bulgarians near the Greek border. We also have the Yugoslavs massing on the Italian border, and there are units of the Czechslovakian, Hungarian and Romanian armies being called up to participate in supporting roles as well.”
“Yeah, I heard that the Yugoslavians are more than willing to invade Italy. According to our ambassador present, their hatred for the Italians goes way back, and they are more than willing to seek revenge for past transgressions real or imagined. This Tito fellow seems pretty upset about something the most recent Italian government did to him. It had something to do with the Ustashe, and their reign of terror in Croatia. Anyway, he’s raring to go in order to show off for Stalin. He wants Italy to pay, big time.”
“From what I heard this could get real ugly for the Italians. They will have to fight the Soviets and Yugoslavians as well as their own Communist Party, who will constantly be asking for peace and trying to sabotage their war effort.”
“Our estimates are that the new Italian government will last only a matter of weeks before they surrender.”
“The same is true in Greece. The combination of Red Army training and equipment, coupled with Bulgarian hatred, will be hard to stop. Let’s hope that the Russians do something to piss off the Red Greeks, and they decide to fight for king and country, instead of for some economic system.”
“I was reading about this just the other day, and the article I read said that there is no love lost between the Greeks and Bulgarians, especially since the 1920’s. This historian was boring me with all sorts of stories about these ridiculous border disputes about stray dogs and a massacre… all the kind of normal ethnic crap that goes on in the Balkans. Anyway, they’re ready to impress Stalin as well and to take on their old enemy, Greece.”
“I worked on the estimates for the Major, on just this scenario. It doesn’t look very good for the Greeks, in a war against Soviet-backed troops. It could get really ugly in the Balkans, once again.”
“Hey! Is that pecan pie? Where’d you get that?
Somewhere in Washington, D.C.
July 30th, 1946
“Why is it that all these notes we get from Paul are all smudged and so hard to read? You’d think he could be a little more careful and neat with these things. He does know that they go directly to Comrade Fyodor, doesn’t he? I would never turn in such a mess to such a man as Fyodor.”
“It has something to do with the speed in which he has to gather his information, and from where he gets it.”
“Apparently time is of the essence and neatness doesn’t matter. He actually reads the used typewriter ribbons of the area in which he works. That I would suggest accounts for the smudges and the things he has to report being so accurate.”
“You must be right comrade, because he is still alive and sending us notes.”
Fort Meade, Maryland
July 30th, 1946
“Well Colonel, What do you think? That beast is the final complete test vehicle of the new T-50 prototype tank. If all goes well this tank will be standardized as the M-50 Patton medium tank, early next month.”
“My God, I thought they were kidding about naming it after Patton. This is the answer to the Russian Stalin tanks, huh? I’m not seeing anything much different from the M-26 tanks. Give me the run down on it.”
“Yes sir; we’ve made enormous strides with this project. Once the President made up his mind, we got straight to work. That turned out to be an immensely important, because the Centurion isn’t nearly as good as what Mr. Churchill and Mr. Brandt implied that it was. It’s a maintenance nightmare. Hell, it took us fifteen hours just to get the engine out of the first British tank we received. I thought we were doing something wrong, but the two British engineers that came over with the drawings said that it normally takes them twelve hours to pull an engine. And it’s a gas-hog. The very best range we got with the British test tank was forty-five miles. Once we took it off-road, the range dropped to around thirty miles. The turret is a real piece of work; fortunately, we never planned on using the original turret anyways.”
“Major, this isn’t making me feel any better. Give me the positives of switching tanks mid-war.”
“Well sir, I think the T-50 is going to make you happy. It’s an improved version of the original tank rather than just a copy. First, we kept the four-man crew. The turret is a new design made of cast armor, with an unusually narrow forward profile. The main armament is the 90-mm M3 gun, fitted with a muzzle break and a bore evacuator. The secondary armament is a coaxially-mounted .30-caliber Browning machine gun, with a .50-caliber Browning machine gun mounted before the tank commander’s hatch for use as an anti-aircraft weapon. We’ve replaced the original engine with a Ford V-12 GAC engine, from the T-29 heavy tank project. That engine is rated at about 770 horsepower. That gives the T-50 a bit more power than the Centurion. We had to do a major redesign of the hull in order to fit the Ford engine, which also allowed us to increase fuel capacity and make maintenance access much easier. The test hulls got around 160 miles, with the sheet-steel mock-up turrets installed. The range stabilized at around 100 to 110 miles once we put a full combat load in the completed test tanks.”
“Well it sure sounds impressive. What’s the planned production? When will we have some for the Armor School at Fort Knox?”
“Right now twenty tanks are ready. Ten of those are going straight to Fort Knox, with the other ten going to one of the new Armored Divisions. We have the Detroit and Fisher Tank Arsenals tooling up for full production, and they should be fully ready by the end of next month. Also, production contracts have already been awarded to four civilian companies. We hope to have close to 2,000 ready by March.”
“Alright, what’s next?”
“Yes sir; follow me please, the improved M-38 Wolfhound armored car is next.”
Number 10 Downing Street
Prime Minister Atlee’s private library
July 25th, 1946
“We can confirm that the Soviets are moving their air assets into position, sir. Despite our efforts they are bringing in all the supplies and fuel they will need to launch an all-out cross-channel air assault. The range of their frontline fighter aircraft puts all of southern Britain within their reach. That means their bombers will be escorted at all times, even possibly by their new jets.”
“How are our preparations coming along?”
“We’re manufacturing Meteors and the new Vampires as quickly as we can, and pulling all the Spits and Tempests that we are able to out of storage. As usual it will be the pilots that will determine if we survive or not. It is fairly well understood that the Russians have studied all the mistakes made by both sides during the Battle of Britain, and they are not going to repeat them. We have to do the same and figure out how to survive their overwhelming numbers, as we did against the Germans.”