Cryrian Defense Forces: Difference between revisions

Government-sponsored nuclear research in Cryria dates back to 1941 with the founding of the King Albert Materials Institute in Leidenstad. Early experiments with nuclear material were also conducted by civilian researchers at the University of Leidenstad. It was not until after Ethalrian nuclear tests in the 1950s that KAMI was directed by the Ministry of Defense to examine what was known about these new weapons. The Institute's final report would initiate discussions within the Cryrian Government regarding the peaceful and military uses of nuclear technology. Although the military interests in nuclear technology remained shrouded in secrecy, close connections soon formed between it and a civilian nuclear program run by the Ministry of Energy due to both a need to share limited resources and expertise, as well as a desire to conceal military nuclear activities beneath civilian ones. This unique Military-Civil relationship would come to define the Cryrian nuclear program throughout its history.

 

Beginning in 1955, KAMI was granted additional funding for nuclear weapons studies, which was granted under the cover of civil programs by the Energy Ministry. By 1956 KAMI had established a sophisticated research program that explored five designated axes - Research, materials acquisition, reactor, enrichment facility, and power plant construction, delivery system development, and weapons assembly. At this point KAMI had an estimated sixty researchers dedicated to these projects, and had sourced another sixty from other government agencies and universities. Materials acquisition became the highest initial priority. The rich Suhar uranium deposit in Tynam would not be discovered for another thirty years as mining exploration and later exploitation were both hampered by local opposition in the region. The Oteri Uranium Mine on the Oshombran Peninsula remained similarly unknown and undeveloped until the 2010s.

 

KAMI's projects were briefly disrupted by the White November Crisis towards the end of 1957, but subsequently enjoyed a transfer of funding and resources from the Tomorrow Ministry's soon-to-be defunct bioweapons program. By 1958 the Ministry for Defense had privately expressed its support for a more active and concerted nuclear weapons program in the absence of other forms of deterrence, and KAMI was effectively brought under the umbrella of Special Materials Division. Later internal Ministry reports circulated in 1964 emphasized the growing militarization of the Novaran Cold War and the Kingdom's own nonaligned status which prevented it from benefitting from Great Power conventional or nuclear defense guarantees. This opinion had been openly expressed as early as 1962 by Defense Minister Charles Söderholm, and would later appear in official public statements by the Defense Ministry as a whole.

 

KAMI planned to use heavy water reactors fueled by its low-grade uranium to produce plutonium, and to that end was able to take advantage of Cryria's position as an early producer of heavy water. The Langtrup and Arensla hydroelectric power plants reportedly furnished KAMI with several tons of heavy water in 1958. The first Cryrian reactor was known as A1 and was built in an underground cavern in the Highlands at the end of 1961. A1 was relatively small, and with a thermal power of 1 MW it existed primarily for further research purposes. That same year, uranium extraction in the Highlands finally reached its intended capacity. In 1965, the Special Materials Division reported to the General Staff that Cryria would be able to rapidly assemble a nuclear device once plutonium production began. A second, larger research reactor named A2 began operations in 1966.

[[File:Ulholm.jpg|thumb|The Ulholm Nuclear Power Plant]]

In 1967, the project accelerated when construction began on B1, also known as the Ulholm Nuclear Power Plant. This was a dual-use facility and the first Cryrian nuclear facility that would have a commercial use. Located underground in Ulholm County, south of Honningfjord, the plant provided limited amounts of power to the city. Ulholm was completed in 1972 and like much of the Cryrian nuclear energy program at this time is believed to have had a covert military purpose, namely the production of plutonium. However, as the first reactor of any significant size in Cryria, Ulholm suffered from a number of problems over its short lifespan. While the station's operations were mostly reliable, fuel failures caused a seven-month long shutdown in 1973. Ulholm remained in operation for civilian uses. In 1974 it suffered from flooding which resulted in short-circuits throughout the plant. This resulted in the decision to transfer plans for military production over to the still in construction Hallström or Verventis Power Plants. Ulholm returned to operationality it would ultimately be decommissioned in 1984. The incidents at the plant were not made public by the Cryrian government until 2010.

 

While Ulholm had represented the first Cryrian foray into commercial nuclear power, by 1974 the Kingdom had broken ground on the much larger Verventis Power Plant. Verventis was billed to the public as the first true example of Cryrian nuclear energy, and would provide power to Leidenstad itself. A second project, the Hallström Power Plant, was simultaneously ongoing but had stalled in the planning phases. Work on Verventis also began as the Kingdom both sought to shed the last legacies of the Tomorrow Ministry and simultaneously grappled with the aftermath of the highly controversial election of 1974, which had been marred by allegations of voter suppression and bomb threats in Lielsta. As such, Verventis was subject to a large-scale government publicity campaign that sought to bring focus to it as an example of Cryrian scientific achievement. Privately, Verventis was also expected to help produce an arsenal of a hundred nuclear devices.