Operation Pike Goes Ahead? (1 Viewer)

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Dude, I wasn't serious. I know the US had big problems with Manifest Destiny, North. I'm really glad I didn't mention Quebec.
 
I remember when the Canadians declassified their old war plans for invading the US. Was quite indignant about the possibility of hordes of those pasty white Northerners streaming across the Land of 10,000 Lakes. I bet they're dusting those plans off though right about now. Probably making a secret deal for the partition with Mexico as we speak.
 
I remember when the Canadians declassified their old war plans for invading the US. Was quite indignant about the possibility of hordes of those pasty white Northerners streaming across the Land of 10,000 Lakes. I bet they're dusting those plans off though right about now. Probably making a secret deal for the partition with Mexico as we speak.
It's a good thing we put the kabosh on the Avro Arrow!
 
It's a good thing we put the kabosh on the Avro Arrow!
T'was the wrong aircraft for the wrong time. We were making a clone of the F-106 from two years earlier when the strategic threat was moving from Soviet bombers to ICBMs and the RCAF really needed a fighter-strike platform, like the F4 Phantom II (took flight two months after the Arrow). Avro Canada's head office at Hawker Siddeley UK understood this and thus was working on the multirole P.1121. That's what Hawker Siddeley's Canadian division should have been working on.
 
The RAF flew reconnaissance flights over the Soviet oil fields. That's a serious step.

It would be a good idea to have current information on a possible target. England has had a long history of intelligence gathering. I doubt there were diplomatic postings there. They couldn't have a diplomat just "drive by" the oil fields on his way to a social gathering. Many powers seemed to have covert and not quite overt reconnaissance of anything of strategic importance.
 
There is also the small matter of the Swedes taking a dim view of being invaded...
At that stage of the war (and probably whenever it suited them), Britain was disregarding pesky details like other peoples' neutrality. France and Britain prepared to occupy northern Norway in 1940, ostensibly so they could supply war materials to Finland (who had their troubles with Papa Stalin at the time). They were literally preempted by hours by the German invasion (cruisers in Scapa had French mountain troops on board ready to go).
 
Politics aside...
It would be interesting to compare the capabilities of Allied bombers vs Soviet PVO (air defence) in spring/summer 1940.
In real life, PVO failed miserably, except in places as Leningrad and Moscow. Luftwaffe continued to destroy the Soviet industry at will as long as the distances allowed (for example, Operation Carmen II). It is reasonable to assume that in 1940 the Soviets were even less prepared.
On the other hand, Allied bomber crews in 1940 were certainly less experienced than German crews later in the war. Forces and bomb load assigned were meagre. Some night bombers would probably miss the target completely.
 
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