Empire of Fu Manchu

[The_Carbonater]

Does this mean that you got cores on California?

 

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The Shadow sighed deeply. ‘San Francisco has changed since you were stationed here. I’m sure you know how Siwan Khan brought in Mongolian troops here to put in practice his genocidal tactics; just about 99% of the city's population fled or were killed. It’s the same wherever the Mongols went by, but in the places were Chinese or Japanese troops came first, they weren’t nearly as diligent in the execution of “Kharash”. Still, the population of California has been gutted – there isn’t enough people left to work the factories, the mines, the oil-fields… so Siwan Khan has brought in Chinese workers to take over their places – hundreds of thousands of them. They outnumber Americans in San Francisco fifty to one or more.’

You know, when the Pan-Asians are beaten back the results are going to be bad for the Chinese-American and Japanese-American minorities in the US. Whatever happens will make the internment camps that historical Japanese-Americans were forced into for the duration of the war look like a mother's loving pat.

‘I commend you for your bravery, Captain Rogers, but that will not be necessary. I have planned for the safe return of both you and the Fu fighter to American held territory.’

Landing a Fu fighter...

OK, I see two possibilities. One is landing the fighter on a concealed airstrip. That would allow for a safe return of Buck, but a safe return of the Fu fighter would be practically impossible (or at least, just as hard as it would be to do it right now). Moreover, the airstrip would have to be very long, suitable for jet aircraft. There can't be a lot of good places to do that within striking range of San Francisco; the dry lake beds in the California desert are hundreds of miles away.

The other is to land it on the Wasp, as Mr. Pullen suggests. That's going to be hard. First of all, the area around San Francisco has got to be one of the most heavily patrolled regions in the Pacific, so Halsey would have a big problem getting close enough without risking his battlegroup. Second of all, Buck Rogers isn't trained for a carrier landing, and it's a totally different challenge from any kind of 'land' landing. Third of all, the Wasp isn't designed to launch and land jet or rocket fighters, which means I hope that the crew remembered to string up a lot of arrestor wires on the deck.

Either way, this is going to be good.

 

[Morpheus506]

I like it when I guess the plot correctly.

 

[cthulhu]

I love it. I guess it's too much to hope for to see the odious Siwan Khan blown to bits. But still, if he just get wounded it will be a suitable humiliation for the bastard.

 

[Darks63]

If those fu fighters are anything like the ME-163 Komet he better be careful landing that plane.

 

[dublish]

You know, when the Pan-Asians are beaten back the results are going to be bad for the Chinese-American and Japanese-American minorities in the US. Whatever happens will make the internment camps that historical Japanese-Americans were forced into for the duration of the war look like a mother's loving pat.

No kidding. Americans are probably as xenophobic towards Asians at this point as Germans were toward the ****. This won't end well for anyone involved.

Landing a Fu fighter...

OK, I see two possibilities. One is landing the fighter on a concealed airstrip. That would allow for a safe return of Buck, but a safe return of the Fu fighter would be practically impossible (or at least, just as hard as it would be to do it right now). Moreover, the airstrip would have to be very long, suitable for jet aircraft. There can't be a lot of good places to do that within striking range of San Francisco; the dry lake beds in the California desert are hundreds of miles away.

The other is to land it on the Wasp, as Mr. Pullen suggests. That's going to be hard. First of all, the area around San Francisco has got to be one of the most heavily patrolled regions in the Pacific, so Halsey would have a big problem getting close enough without risking his battlegroup. Second of all, Buck Rogers isn't trained for a carrier landing, and it's a totally different challenge from any kind of 'land' landing. Third of all, the Wasp isn't designed to launch and land jet or rocket fighters, which means I hope that the crew remembered to string up a lot of arrestor wires on the deck.

Either way, this is going to be good.

Concealed airstrip might work, but it won't fit the bold profile of Buck Rogers. I'd bet on the Wasp- it's just crazy enough to work. Remember, Yogi's stated that Halsey's had free reign from Alaska to Hong Kong. I think it's reasonable enough to assume that the CTF can sneak close enough to San Francisco to avoid major land based aircraft (which should all be on the front lines anyway).

 

[boehm]

Yogi, I finally managed to read through the first part ..."Masterplan of Fu Manchu" ...found it a bit easier after I found it in the PDF version.

I must say its a darn shame that for copyright reasons you cannot publish these two stories, together they really are GREAT ...every bit as good as any alternate history fiction I have ever read (and thats quite a bit).

Good job!! - hope to read much more in the future

(by the way, what ever happened to the continuation of the "Knights of the Westen Empire"?)

 

[Dinglehoff]

I hope for Buck's sake the Shadow bought an owners manual to go with the fighter. Trying to operate a fighter that none of the allies have ever flown at all and in combat conditions sounds like a great way to get your best man killed.

 

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I hope for Buck's sake the Shadow bought an owners manual to go with the fighter. Trying to operate a fighter that none of the allies have ever flown at all and in combat conditions sounds like a great way to get your best man killed.

Absolutely.

Of course, Buck Rogers is test-pilot material, so if anyone can fly the beast he can. Secondly, it does fly; presumably all the major bugs in the design were already worked out while it was still under testing in China.

Also, it isn't quite 'combat conditions' in the traditional sense. By now, San Francisco is effectively out of range of American air raids, so there isn't going to be much of an air defense net in place. The resources to build one are needed at the front.

All Buck has time for is to take off, make one or two high-speed strafing runs over the celebration, and then (presumably) land. He doesn't need to maneuver the Fu fighter at high altitudes; gaining altitude would be a waste of power, fuel, and time. He doesn't need to know how it performs in a dogfight; he doesn't have time to get into a dogfight. This is a pure zoom-and-boom mission.

It's about as simple an operation as could be asked for. But even so, he will definitely need to study the technical literature, and there's a very good chance that things will blow up in his face even if he does, not least because even the Shadow will have trouble supplying a competent ground crew for this mission.

 

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Presumably hanzi/kanji for instrumentation... but metric or traditional units? e.g. kilometres or lĭ?

 

[unmerged(65036)]

Presumably hanzi/kanji for instrumentation... but metric or traditional units? e.g. kilometres or li<breve>?

Almost certainly metric.

First of all, the Fu figher pilots are probably drawn from the Japanese Imperial Army and Navy, which had a much larger corps of experienced fighter pilots before the unification of Pan-Asia.

Second of all, Fu wants to modernize China. He probably likes the metric system and would like to put China on it, rather than try to force Japan to adopt Chinese traditional units. One of the biggest challenges of statecraft Fu faces is coaxing the Japanese into Pan-Asia so that they can ultimately be brought under the full control of Fu's essentially Chinese power structure. To do that, he has to make the transition as seamless as possible, which means that the Pan-Asian military will have to look a lot like the former Japanese military. In short, the Japanese have to be able to pretend that they've enlisted the Chinese into their own army, rather than forcing their own military into an inferior position to the Chinese.

 

[Dinglehoff]

Absolutely.

Of course, Buck Rogers is test-pilot material, so if anyone can fly the beast he can. Secondly, it does fly; presumably all the major bugs in the design were already worked out while it was still under testing in China.

Also, it isn't quite 'combat conditions' in the traditional sense. By now, San Francisco is effectively out of range of American air raids, so there isn't going to be much of an air defense net in place. The resources to build one are needed at the front.

All Buck has time for is to take off, make one or two high-speed strafing runs over the celebration, and then (presumably) land. He doesn't need to maneuver the Fu fighter at high altitudes; gaining altitude would be a waste of power, fuel, and time. He doesn't need to know how it performs in a dogfight; he doesn't have time to get into a dogfight. This is a pure zoom-and-boom mission.

It's about as simple an operation as could be asked for. But even so, he will definitely need to study the technical literature, and there's a very good chance that things will blow up in his face even if he does, not least because even the Shadow will have trouble supplying a competent ground crew for this mission.

I wouldn't be so quick to dismiss the potential combat difficulties. For such a high profile event I would bet that the Imperial forces would have some fighter patrols or triple A guns brought in for a temporary increase in security or at least just for a good show.

If there are any fighters, Buck would have to ditch them before attempting any landing and fast since those Fu fighters can't stay in the air for long and trying to land would make Buck a sitting duck.

 

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I wouldn't be so quick to dismiss the potential combat difficulties. For such a high profile event I would bet that the Imperial forces would have some fighter patrols or triple A guns brought in for a temporary increase in security or at least just for a good show.

If there are any fighters, Buck would have to ditch them before attempting any landing and fast since those Fu fighters can't stay in the air for long and trying to land would make Buck a sitting duck.

I was going to say the Fu Fighter could easily bypass patrols of regular propeller interceptors but there's the obvious possiblity of Pan-Asian Fus being called in to handle Buck's assassination attempt.

I dont see why they dont just enlist the Rocketeer to do the hit

 

[dublish]

I dont see why they dont just enlist the Rocketeer to do the hit

Genius!

Too bad Yogi didn't include him in the story...

 

[unmerged(65036)]

I was going to say the Fu Fighter could easily bypass patrols of regular propeller interceptors but there's the obvious possiblity of Pan-Asian Fus being called in to handle Buck's assassination attempt.

I dont see why they dont just enlist the Rocketeer to do the hit

Flak will have big problems hitting a Fu figher unless it's radar-controlled and the Fu fighter is at high altitude; nothing Yogi's written indicates that the Pan-Asians have radar fire control suites, and Buck will almost certainly be flying low.

As for Pan-Asian Fus, remember that it's a waste of time to scramble a Fu fighter unless it's within, say, 100 miles. There can't be all that many Fu fighters, so most of them would be at the front. Most likely, any Fu fighters in or around San Francisco have either been shipped back to the rear for maintanence or are currently packed in several separate crates for shipment to the front.

 

[Jape]

Genius!

Too bad Yogi didn't include him in the story...

Damn, the Rocketeer would have made a great addition to the band of American pulp heroes battling the Pan-Asian hordes... ah well


PS- Subtle hint for Yogi to cram him in at this late junction

 

[Dinglehoff]

Even non-Fu fighters could make trouble for Buck if they deny him use of his intended landing site or vessel. The other fighter types wouldn't have to catch him, just wait for him to show up at any landing sites within range. Buck goes to his landing site, Imperial planes either find and cover it or not. If so, they engage Buck until he shoots them down or runs out of fuel. If Buck tries to land with fighters in the area, he gets shot down like a Mig north of the Yalu.

 

[unmerged(65036)]

And that goes double for rocket fighters.

This isn't an exact copy of the Japanese J8M 'Autumn Water' rocket fighter that Yogi used in the one picture of it we've seen, but it's got to be based on essentially the same technology. The Fu fighter's fuel will last only a few minutes, possibly as little as five, and certainly no more than ten. Even at rocket speeds its range is extremely short.

Historically, the one place where rocket fighters saw action was in Europe (the German Me 163 Komets attacking Allied bomber formations). There, Allied fighter pilots learned very quickly that it was impossible to dogfight with rocket fighters, but not difficult to evade them for a few minutes until they had to land and then come in for the kill as they glided to the landing strip.

I'm surprised if the USAAC hasn't already figured that out.

 

[Morpheus506]

Well, I'm sure that the USAAC might have been trying to do that, but by all accounts it seems as if the Pan-Asian air forces have been holding their own or better against US and German planes. By the time the Me-163s were in heavy use, didn't the Allies have pretty fair air superiority over the Luftwaffe? It's a lot easier to wait out a rocket fighter to chase it to its landing fields when you don't have as much harassment as the Pan-Asian air force is offering. They've probably tried to wait and shoot down the Fu Fighters, but haven't had all that fun of a time of it.

 

[The Yogi]

NOTE: Had to disable smilies to be able to post this.

Now THAT is a daring plan! Though it seems every plan in this story is daring!

Well, no – the plans of Fu Manchu and Fah Lo Suee are more the “coldly and evilly calculating” than “daring” type. But if you’re referring to the plans of our heroes, then you’re right. But to quote Steward Denethor, “much must be risked in war”.

Is it too early to say "I love it when a plan comes together" ?

Strafing a ground target will be very hard from a rocket interceptor, but then again it's Buck Rogers, so nothing can go wrong, right?

Perhaps there'll be a Marine Corps landing somewhere within range of the Fu fighter?

Strafing under powered flight will be nigh near impossible, even for Buck Rogers. Flying at around 900 kph (or 560 mph) means travelling some 250 mps – which means that from when your man-sized target is 500 m away until you swoop past it you have exactly two seconds to spot, aim and fire. That’s impossible, even for a computer! (Trust the Force, Buck…)

Or maybe a jury rigged landing system on board the USS Wasp?

Your guess is as good as mine.

Hmmm.... I await the outcome of this plan in anticipation, until then I can't say I can comment, this is gonig to be very "by-the-skin-of-his-teeth"

I await

Well, await a little longer. I’m making damn sure that I don’t skip answering your many comments this time by doing it BEFORE I’ve finished the next update, even if it’s being worked. But soon, it’s coming soon.

Does this mean that you got cores on California?

Nope. Just artistic embellishment. I did reduce revolt-risk by event though (to simulate Kharash) and since the rationale for that is that the population has been driven out, then the imported labour force is the rationale for the IC and resource production still working (at normal occupation levels).

You know, when the Pan-Asians are beaten back the results are going to be bad for the Chinese-American and Japanese-American minorities in the US. Whatever happens will make the internment camps that historical Japanese-Americans were forced into for the duration of the war look like a mother's loving pat. .

Sadly, you’re right there. It’s probably too much to hope for that being so soundly trashed by the Pan-Asians will at least rid the Americans of the illusion of Asian inferiority. But knowing human nature, they’ll probably just insist on it even more, in order to justify their (very understandable) hatred of them..

Landing a Fu fighter...

OK, I see two possibilities. …

Either way, this is going to be good.

Again, your guess is as good as mine. I must say, I do appreciate this amount of feedback and second-guessing the plot. In many cases, it has helped me stay clear of logical or technical errors – even I am not infallible or all knowing, only nearly so.

I like it when I guess the plot correctly.

And I kind of hate it – but don’t let that stop you!

I love it. I guess it's too much to hope for to see the odious Siwan Khan blown to bits. But still, if he just get wounded it will be a suitable humiliation for the bastard.

Yep, he’s the kind of guy you just love to hate… I wonder, who’s the more hateful SOB, him or Ricimer from KOTWE?

If those fu fighters are anything like the ME-163 Komet he better be careful landing that plane.

Landing a Fu with fuel still in the tanks is a BAD IDEA!

No kidding. Americans are probably as xenophobic towards Asians at this point as Germans were toward the ****. This won't end well for anyone involved.

Concealed airstrip might work, but it won't fit the bold profile of Buck Rogers. I'd bet on the Wasp- it's just crazy enough to work. Remember, Yogi's stated that Halsey's had free reign from Alaska to Hong Kong. I think it's reasonable enough to assume that the CTF can sneak close enough to San Francisco to avoid major land based aircraft (which should all be on the front lines anyway).

Again, your guess is as good as mine.

Yogi, I finally managed to read through the first part ..."Masterplan of Fu Manchu" ...found it a bit easier after I found it in the PDF version.

I must say its a darn shame that for copyright reasons you cannot publish these two stories, together they really are GREAT ...every bit as good as any alternate history fiction I have ever read (and thats quite a bit).

Good job!! - hope to read much more in the future

(by the way, what ever happened to the continuation of the "Knights of the Westen Empire"?)

Actually… I have been toying with the idea of rewriting this story, replacing copyrighted characters with obvious clones of them or with historical characters; James Bond could be replaced with Ian Fleming while Indiana Jones could be Otto Rahn (who could perhaps also fill in for Duhrn, if cthulhu wants to retain exclusive rights for his original character) or John Bryan Warner. As for Fu himself, I could do an Alan Moore and just call him The Doctor. His daughter would have to be renamed, and so on. Nayland Smith shouldn’t be hard to find a replacement for either, and Buck Rogers could be substituted for some real life US ace.

As for KOTWE, I've never given up on finishing it one day, but for now, no updates are in the works, nor do I plan to pick it up in the near future.

I hope for Buck's sake the Shadow bought an owners manual to go with the fighter. Trying to operate a fighter that none of the allies have ever flown at all and in combat conditions sounds like a great way to get your best man killed.

Well, good thing The Shadows KNOWS!

Absolutely.
Of course, Buck Rogers is test-pilot material, so if anyone can fly the beast he can. Secondly, it does fly; presumably all the major bugs in the design were already worked out while it was still under testing in China.

Also, it isn't quite 'combat conditions' in the traditional sense. (...)

A good assessment of the situation. But also, let’s not forget that while the Me-163 Komet (and therefore also the Shusui) were designed by fallible german engineers with limited time and resources, the Fu fighter is the work of a man “endowed with the mind of any ten men of genius”. The basic design is bound to be superior to the Komet.

Presumably hanzi/kanji for instrumentation... but metric or traditional units? e.g. kilometres or lĭ?

Metric. The Japanese began converting to metric system in the 20s (presumably beginning with the military), and since the air force (and the navy) remain dominated by Japanese, Fu isn’t going to change that standard just prior to a major war.

Almost certainly metric.

First of all, the Fu figher pilots are probably drawn from the Japanese Imperial Army and Navy, which had a much larger corps of experienced fighter pilots before the unification of Pan-Asia.

Second of all, Fu wants to modernize China. He probably likes the metric system and would like to put China on it, rather than try to force Japan to adopt Chinese traditional units. One of the biggest challenges of statecraft Fu faces is coaxing the Japanese into Pan-Asia so that they can ultimately be brought under the full control of Fu's essentially Chinese power structure. To do that, he has to make the transition as seamless as possible, which means that the Pan-Asian military will have to look a lot like the former Japanese military. In short, the Japanese have to be able to pretend that they've enlisted the Chinese into their own army, rather than forcing their own military into an inferior position to the Chinese.

Eminently put. You’ve got a good understanding of Fu’s ideas on how to integrate the two halves of his heterogenous Empire. Only the Army is predominantly Chinese, and even there Japanese make up a significant share of the officers corps.

I wouldn't be so quick to dismiss the potential combat difficulties. For such a high profile event I would bet that the Imperial forces would have some fighter patrols or triple A guns brought in for a temporary increase in security or at least just for a good show.

If there are any fighters, Buck would have to ditch them before attempting any landing and fast since those Fu fighters can't stay in the air for long and trying to land would make Buck a sitting duck.

While there’s sure to be fighter units assigned to the defence of the Viceroy’s capital, they’ve got next to zero reaction time here – from Alamo Square to the Palace Hotel on Market Street, there’s not more than a few miles at most – Buck will be on top of Siwan Khan virtually before they even have time to sound the alarm, much less lift off and intercept him.

I was going to say the Fu Fighter could easily bypass patrols of regular propeller interceptors but there's the obvious possiblity of Pan-Asian Fus being called in to handle Buck's assassination attempt.

I dont see why they dont just enlist the Rocketeer to do the hit

Again, not even Fu’s will be able to intercept Buck before he attacks – but they could be a bitch to handle when trying to get away. About the Rocketeer; se below.

Genius!

Too bad Yogi didn't include him in the story...

The Rocketeer was created a homage to the 30s pulp stories, just like this whole saga is. Putting a homage in a homage, well, it seemed a bit meta. And before you point it out, I know Indiana Jones is too, but, well, he’s INDY, an icon in his own right far more than The Rocketeer could ever be. Plus it would create technological entaglements.

Flak will have big problems hitting a Fu figher unless it's radar-controlled and the Fu fighter is at high altitude; nothing Yogi's written indicates that the Pan-Asians have radar fire control suites, and Buck will almost certainly be flying low.

As for Pan-Asian Fus, remember that it's a waste of time to scramble a Fu fighter unless it's within, say, 100 miles. There can't be all that many Fu fighters, so most of them would be at the front. Most likely, any Fu fighters in or around San Francisco have either been shipped back to the rear for maintanence or are currently packed in several separate crates for shipment to the front.

The Fu fighter is very much a point interceptor, not an air superiority fighter as such. It would make sense to keep a few based close to valuable strategic targets, in order to intercept any long range US raids that manage to slip through the frontline defence network.

Damn, the Rocketeer would have made a great addition to the band of American pulp heroes battling the Pan-Asian hordes... ah well


PS- Subtle hint for Yogi to cram him in at this late junction

se my answer to dublish.

Even non-Fu fighters could make trouble for Buck if they deny him use of his intended landing site or vessel. The other fighter types wouldn't have to catch him, just wait for him to show up at any landing sites within range. Buck goes to his landing site, Imperial planes either find and cover it or not. If so, they engage Buck until he shoots them down or runs out of fuel. If Buck tries to land with fighters in the area, he gets shot down like a Mig north of the Yalu.

Good points.

And that goes double for rocket fighters.

This isn't an exact copy of the Japanese J8M 'Autumn Water' rocket fighter that Yogi used in the one picture of it we've seen, but it's got to be based on essentially the same technology. The Fu fighter's fuel will last only a few minutes, possibly as little as five, and certainly no more than ten. Even at rocket speeds its range is extremely short.

Historically, the one place where rocket fighters saw action was in Europe (the German Me 163 Komets attacking Allied bomber formations). There, Allied fighter pilots learned very quickly that it was impossible to dogfight with rocket fighters, but not difficult to evade them for a few minutes until they had to land and then come in for the kill as they glided to the landing strip.

I'm surprised if the USAAC hasn't already figured that out.

They haven’t been able to reach the Pan-Asian air bases where the Fu fighters land, because they’re too heavily defended by piston-engine fighters like the Oscar. The Fu’s have mostly been used to keep US bombers from launching deep raids, freeing up the standard fighters for frontline duty. Only in expected heavy engagements, essentially aerial set-piece battles like the battles of San Francisco or Grand Junction, have the Pan-Asians been able to bring in beforehand a handful of Fu Fighters to positions within striking range of the upcoming battle.

Well, I'm sure that the USAAC might have been trying to do that, but by all accounts it seems as if the Pan-Asian air forces have been holding their own or better against US and German planes. By the time the Me-163s were in heavy use, didn't the Allies have pretty fair air superiority over the Luftwaffe? It's a lot easier to wait out a rocket fighter to chase it to its landing fields when you don't have as much harassment as the Pan-Asian air force is offering. They've probably tried to wait and shoot down the Fu Fighters, but haven't had all that fun of a time of it.

Exactly.