More Efficient British Rearmament in the 1930s (Part Two)

Following on from Simon's 2013 thread: More Efficient British Rearmament in the 1930s

More Efficient British Rearmament in the 1930s (Part Two)

POD Churchill is not made Chancellor of the Exchequer. In a surprise move John Maynard Keynes's advice is taken by Neville Chamberlain instead.
The gold standard is restored at a level more acceptable to industry (at £1=$4). Industry being at the heart of Birmingham politics.
He argued that it had been a long time since the standard had been in place and that it was easier to correct a low estimate than recover the lost trade and industry of a high one.
Britain was having a back to gold 'sale'!

No recession, miner's strike, national strike. Cuts.
Although the WNT remains in effect, no hair shirt is required of the services.
JMK's advice is appreciated when the gold standard seems to be priced about right. Later bumped up to $4.19 to the pound, but nowhere near $4.86.
The experimental mechanised unit is expanded to a division.

<1930 stock market collapse due to credit crunch>

'Spend!'
'What on?'
'Anything you like.' (gulp, hope this works) JMK advises that government credit must sustain the circulation of money until the private sector recovers.
The more wages the better.

We can hire more teachers. Train for new work.
More community nurses.
Well we need to clear the slums
'Then you must build houses.'
'And finish Singapore?'
'That should wait, as spending at home works better.'
'Well we could build some new training and interception airbases along the south coast?'
'Good. Keep it coming.'
'How about new shipyards and merchant shipping?'
'Plenty of warships left within treaty limits too.'
'Super! Any more?'
'Could we electrify the railways?'
'And boost electricity generation and distribution for industry?'
'Build new larger production facilities for continuous line mass production'
'Larger steelworks?'
'Better dock facilities'
'Stockpile raw materials to avoid peak prices and strike shortages'
'Naughty, but I like it'
'Upgrade the telephone network'
'Farming good practice...

AH.commers, make it so...

Interesting list of priorities there, seems you've taken special pains to avoid the temptation of a Rule 34 based British Economic Miracle (tm).

I don't know much about industry or economics except Britain ran its factories into the ground during the war, so some some pre war modernisation would seem in order.

Specific military projects:
Continue the high pressure steam plant experiments like with HMS Acheron.
30 kt KVGs and 3x3 8" armoured heavy cruisers anyone?

Belt fed Vickers K.
RAF Vickers .5 (air cooled, disintegrating belt, not as powerful as the browning but maybe a good defensive armament for bombers and a good HMG for the army.)
Further adapting the Napier Lion for tanks (much more powerful than the Nuffield sponsored engines and was used on a racing car)
Buying the Vickers 6 ton tank and learning a thing or 2 about reliable tracks/suspension etc.
Sorting things out for a standard calibre Dual Purpose naval gun (preferrably smaller than the 5.25).
Actually spending the money that was set aside for developing and adapting the Hispano cannon.

However, seeing as this is about efficient rearmament rather than effective, money is not a primary concern, but rather how the money is spent (although more would be nice). Continuing on from improved funding as outlined in the initial post, maybe an earlier, cabinet level minister for the coordination of Defence. How this affects the policies and effective of the Committee on Imperial Defence is anyone's guess though ...

Ohhh open checque book!!!!


IIRC there was plans to give the Batch 3 Towns Quad 6" or Triple 8" (hence the reason they were much bigger than the earlier towns) - I would like to see a 4*3 8" Improved Town class from Belfast onwards (replacing the historical Crown Colony Class with more of this class)

A combined 45kt design of fast KGV / Lion Class of 9 vessels with 3 * 3 16"/45s

'Fatter' armoured deck carriers with twin hangers - combining better hanger height and Lifts - capable of carrying internally 60+ Single engined - folding wing AC

QEs and BCs to all be refiitted to 'Warspite/Renown' standard

An earlier 1942 (1938?) Light fleet carrier design - based on the Ark Royal Design to be built by Civilian yards during time of war

Folding wing Seafire developed from mid 1938 in parrelel with Spitfire with its own proprietory factory and supply chain

Fulmar Developed as a Fighter/Divebomber/Recon aircraft from 1938 and the design to mature into a multi perpose carrier plane (so Torpeado bomber/Dive bomber and secondary fighter)

Hawker Henley Developed as a Dive Bomber / Ground attack aircraft - and developed trhought the war

Jet Engine development given more resources

Universal 'destroyer gun' - a twin high angle 'automatic' 4.7" weapon based on the later MKXX Turret - add a handlng room below the mount where ever fitted - to be developed from the mid 30s

Weapon to be used on all QE/BC refits and new build BBs and ADCVs, Post Tribal DDs, CLs

Bofors - to replace two Pounder Pom Pom

Oerklion 20mm to replace Vickers .50 cal for ship board use

Vickers .50 to replace Vickers Brown .50 cal for air use

Hispanio 404 to have money thrown at it

Build an SLR for the army to replace the SMLE - ZH29 or Garand clone (using 5 round stripper clips and 10 round fixed mag) - handling and operation should be as similiar to SMLE as possible - develop a supply of x3.5 scopes for at least 1 per section to be made a marksman weapon.

Plan for enough Bren gun capacity for 2 per Section

Design a "gangster weapon" and start building it in the late 30s - suggest a well made MP28 clone in either 9mm x19 or .45. (both had already been designed!) using common SMLE arcitecture (earlier Lanchester)

Increase mortar construction to give battalions at least 6 each

As has been mentioned ditch the idea of limiting tank design to rail cars - build them for France/Belgium - the rest should follow.....

Give a financial boost to the Dominions to create heavier industry and build shadow factories

Right Im off to find a Time lord to help me make this happen

ZH29 sounds good, maybe modified to include the detachable mag for "cleaning purposes" a la SMLE, and then switch to given the men several spare magazines during wartime. Don't forget that the British experimented with the Pedersen SLR and the US Army experimented with the ZH29 in 276 Pedersen Calibre.

Maybe the Lanchester gets replaced/supplemented by a cheaper Grease Gun analogue similar to the Welgun.

Browning Hi Powered instead of the god awful Enfield no.2 Revolver.

Cryhavoc101 said:

Ohhh open checque book!!!!

Hawker Hendon Developed as a Dive Bomber / Ground attack aircraft - and developed trhought the war

Hispanio 404 to have money thrown at it

Click to expand...

The Hendon was a bomber developed by Fairey, and was indicative of all that extra money would probably buy. The HS404 needed testing and engineering more than money.

We haven't changed the people with the money. We'll end up with more Battles and Defiants, maybe Rocs.

Excellent points, hence my suggestion about an earlier, cabinet level Minister for the Coordination of Defence put a bit of stick about, maybe pop down to Bristol
to have words with the Board of Cousins.

Some Bloke said:

ZH29 sounds good, maybe modified to include the detachable mag for "cleaning purposes" a la SMLE, and then switch to given the men several spare magazines during wartime. Don't forget that the British experimented with the Pedersen SLR and the US Army experimented with the ZH29 in 276 Pedersen Calibre.

Maybe the Lanchester gets replaced/supplemented by a cheaper Grease Gun analogue similar to the Welgun.

Browning Hi Powered instead of the god awful Enfield no.2 Revolver.

Click to expand...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Farquhar-Hill_rifle
The Farquhar-Hill rifle, a British design by Moubray G. Farquhar and Arthur H. Hill, was one of the first automatic rifles designed in the early 20th century.

http://avaxhm.com/ebooks/history_military/the_beardmore_farquhar_machine_guns.html
The Beardmore-Farquhar light machine gun in 0.5" and 0.303"

......

Build an SLR for the army to replace the SMLE - ZH29 or Garand clone (using 5 round stripper clips and 10 round fixed mag) - handling and operation should be as similiar to SMLE as possible - develop a supply of x3.5 scopes for at least 1 per section to be made a marksman weapon.
.........
Give a financial boost to the Dominions to create heavier industry and build shadow factories.

..........................................

OTL During the 1930s, the British Army was considering adopting a rim-less cartridge than would feed simpler through automatic weapons. Unfortunately, WW2 arrived before they could do much serious testing.
OTL During WW2, British AFVs were mostly armed with American-designed or Czech-designed machine guns. American Browning machine guns fired .30-06 or .50 cal. ammo, while Besa machine gins fired 7.92 mmm Mauser ammo or a unique Besa 15 mm round. All 4 of these foreign cartridges were rimless. All these different calibre a complicated the supply chain and made it impossible for tankers to trade ammo with supporting infantry.


If the British Army had adopted .30-06 American ammo, Garand would have been the logical choice for an SLR.
OTOH if the British Army had adopted 7.92 mm Mauser ammo, they could have chosen from a dozen different SLRs, including the ZH29. At a minimum , the ZH29 would have needed a sheet-metal dust-cover added to the right side of the receiver.

OTL The last thing British factory-owners wanted was to "give a boost to the colonies" by building factories overseas. During the late 1930s British factories were still struggling to recover from the Depression and still struggling to find full employment for Brits.
British factory owners were still hoping for a slow war that would allow them to sell excess production (above British Army requirements) to the colonies for top-dollar.
OTL It was only after the British Army left most of their weapons in Dunkirk that the Canadian Government started pushing for Canadian factories to build weapons for the Canadian Army .... once it became clear that British factories would not be able to provide.

Some Bloke said:

Excellent points, hence my suggestion about an earlier, cabinet level Minister for the Coordination of Defence put a bit of stick about, maybe pop down to Bristol
to have words with the Board of Cousins.

Click to expand...

The Cousins refused an official government request to lend out Fedden, and later refused a request to not fire him. Some of the highest levels of government didn't seem to make a dent in the Board. You're also pre-supposing that this new Minister is quite prescient with regards to the situation wherein crap programs are fully backed and important ones are ignored.

Some Bloke said:

ZH29 sounds good, maybe modified to include the detachable mag for "cleaning purposes" a la SMLE, and then switch to given the men several spare magazines during wartime. Don't forget that the British experimented with the Pedersen SLR and the US Army experimented with the ZH29 in 276 Pedersen Calibre.

Maybe the Lanchester gets replaced/supplemented by a cheaper Grease Gun analogue similar to the Welgun.

Browning Hi Powered instead of the god awful Enfield no.2 Revolver.

Click to expand...

Sorry when I say 'Fixed mag' - I mean fixed as in the SMLE Magazine which would detach for cleaning purposes. Certainly I would expect a 15/20/30 round mag to be produced in time! But don't dismiss stripped clip reloading out of hand - its fairly fast and does not weigh as much as spare magazines.

If the Lanchester is in production in decent numbers then no need to panic produce Stens and Panic Buy Thompson's and let the Sterling get naturally invented (or switch production to Owen's if there is any justice in the world)

Just Leo said:

The Hendon was a bomber developed by Fairey, and was indicative of all that extra money would probably buy. The HS404 needed testing and engineering more than money.

We haven't changed the people with the money. We'll end up with more Battles and Defiants, maybe Rocs.

Click to expand...

Damn it I meant Henleys not Hendons

Sior said:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Farquhar-Hill_rifle
The Farquhar-Hill rifle, a British design by Moubray G. Farquhar and Arthur H. Hill, was one of the first automatic rifles designed in the early 20th century.

http://avaxhm.com/ebooks/history_military/the_beardmore_farquhar_machine_guns.html
The Beardmore-Farquhar light machine gun in 0.5" and 0.303"

Click to expand...

Both are a bit......Heath Robinson don't you think?

riggerrob said:

......

Build an SLR for the army to replace the SMLE - ZH29 or Garand clone (using 5 round stripper clips and 10 round fixed mag) - handling and operation should be as similiar to SMLE as possible - develop a supply of x3.5 scopes for at least 1 per section to be made a marksman weapon.
.........
Give a financial boost to the Dominions to create heavier industry and build shadow factories.

..........................................

OTL During the 1930s, the British Army was considering adopting a rim-less cartridge than would feed simpler through automatic weapons. Unfortunately, WW2 arrived before they could do much serious testing.
OTL During WW2, British AFVs were mostly armed with American-designed or Czech-designed machine guns. American Browning machine guns fired .30-06 or .50 cal. ammo, while Besa machine gins fired 7.92 mmm Mauser ammo or a unique Besa 15 mm round. All 4 of these foreign cartridges were rimless. All these different calibre a complicated the supply chain and made it impossible for tankers to trade ammo with supporting infantry.


If the British Army had adopted .30-06 American ammo, Garand would have been the logical choice for an SLR.
OTOH if the British Army had adopted 7.92 mm Mauser ammo, they could have chosen from a dozen different SLRs, including the ZH29. At a minimum , the ZH29 would have needed a sheet-metal dust-cover added to the right side of the receiver.

OTL The last thing British factory-owners wanted was to "give a boost to the colonies" by building factories overseas. During the late 1930s British factories were still struggling to recover from the Depression and still struggling to find full employment for Brits.
British factory owners were still hoping for a slow war that would allow them to sell excess production (above British Army requirements) to the colonies for top-dollar.
OTL It was only after the British Army left most of their weapons in Dunkirk that the Canadian Government started pushing for Canadian factories to build weapons for the Canadian Army .... once it became clear that British factories would not be able to provide.

Click to expand...

Yes - I was going to suggest that the British switch to 7.92 - but apparently it was too difficult unless you are in the Tank Corps.......in which case you just designed a different gun (BESA)

Bren gun and ZH29 (I'm calling it a SLEN - Self Loading Enfield) - in 7.92mm rimless and the select fire Lanchester Machine Carbine in 9mm x 25 Mauser Export would be the pre-war way I would go

The ZH29 was also produced in pedersen for the original SLR trials in the states but it had a major flaw - it wasn't an American Design

FN designed an SLR but it was still being perfected in 1939 - so too late - it would late become the SAFN-49 (Which really really looks like a SLR Lee Enfield hybrid)

Pistol - don't really care - pointless weapons - a revolver is fine - just make it as safe as possible or buy US Colt (in 9mm Mauser Export?)

Yeah there was a policy of keeping the heavy and advanced industry in Britain.

Kind of Backfired when we wanted Canada and Australia to start building Aircraft, Tribal Destroyers and weapons.

Canada did okay despite this - making lots of Escorts, Small arms and Aircraft but Oz really struggled!

Still they managed to produce the Best SMG of the war

I don't want to be a heretic but do you need better weapons ?

Just spend more cash and you will be able to get a much bigger army/etc.

The main problems are that they where not sufficiently big to be decisive in the early years (33)-39-41. Just having double of the obsolescent kit would be perfectly good to be stop the early defeats and lead to a much better position.

Also many of the bad weapons are really coursed by long term cost cutting rather than due to deliberate design decisions IMO.

JSB

.......
Design a "gangster weapon" and start building it in the late 30s - suggest a well made MP28 clone in either 9mm x19 or .45. (both had already been designed!) using common SMLE arcitecture (earlier Lanchester)
..................

We debated a better sub machine gun in a similar thread about the "best possible STEN gun."

Manchester had lots of room for improvement and cost reduction.

Pre-war only the Royal Navy seemed interested in SMGs and that was limited to boarding parties. RN Lanchesters were only a minor improvement over the 1918 Bergman. Their precision construction lasted for decades in a peace-time navy, but was too heavy for infantry.
It was only after the British Army abandoned most of their weapons at Dunkirk that they seriously considered foreign-made SMG. By 1940 the British Purchasing Committee was grabbing Thompson SMGs as fast as they came off the production line! But again the Thompson was too expensive to build in sufficient numbers.
Converting to 9 mm was a wartime expedient decision after Brits captured a few million rounds of Italian (?) ammo.
STEN was just a Bergman/Lanchester simplified to reduce production cost. Sadly, STEN copied the unreliable German magazine. STEN never had a reliable safety. Canadian factories even further simplified STEN until STEN Mark III cost only $8 (was it $11?).
Australia tried building an "Austen" version, but again found it too expensive.

Eventually, an independent Australian independently developed the Owen which proved to be the most reliable Commonwealth SMG of WW2.

WI if the best Commonwealth SMG combined the low cost of STEN Mark III with the more reliable selector switch and magazine from the Owen?

Lee-Enfield architecture did not provide the best ergonomics to copy. We also discussed moving an SMG's trigger closer to the centre of balance.

Cryhavoc101 said:

Damn it I meant Henleys
Yeah there was a policy of keeping the heavy and advanced industry in Britain.

Kind of Backfired when we wanted Canada and Australia to start building Aircraft, Tribal Destroyers and weapons.

Canada did okay despite this - making lots of Escorts, Small arms and Aircraft but Oz really struggled!

Click to expand...

Aren't I such a pest!

Canadian Industry did respond to calls to pour out hundreds of Hurricanes, Lysanders, Hampdens, Ansons, and special versions of Blenheim known as Bolingbroke. Efforts to re-engine Bolingbroke with a more powerful R-1820 engine failed. These aircraft constitute many of the aircraft that we could care less about. A point I might make is that even though the money was made available for production, these are the aircraft that were produced, until the Mossie and Lanc entered the picture well after the DoW.

On the bright side, Canada received over 700 Battles from Britain, probably as ballast.

The Welgun seemed like a good balance between cost, reliability and effectiveness, no reason for its rejection has survived.

.......

Jet Engine development given more resources
....................................................

The USAAF would simply have thrown more money at Frank Whittle.

Ideally Whittle would have had a dedicated team of experimental machinists, a dedicated team of a welders, a dedicated team of draftsmen, a dedicated team to run the test cell(s) to ease his personal workload.
More test cells would have allowed Whittle to test more iterations before the war.

Cryhavoc101 said:

Both are a bit......Heath Robinson don't you think?

Click to expand...

I expect the first models of most weapons look a bit Heath Robinson.

Sior said:

I expect the first models of most weapons look a bit Heath Robinson.

Click to expand...

What I mean is you have had 20 odd years of development between the weapons introduction where it was a pretty good gun and the POD where it has been superseded by such weapons as the Garand, ZH29 and SVT38 et all

The Machine gun is light - very light and this makes me very suspicious as to its suitability for life in the field.

Unless its better than a Bren gun in terms of fire-power, effective ROF, accuracy and robustness which I seriously doubt - its where it belongs - a foot note in history.

I suspect a light weight semi-automatic Anti - tank rifle version using the .55 Boys based on this might be decent use of it but again I am suspicious of its light weight.

jsb said:

I don't want to be a heretic but do you need better weapons ?

Just spend more cash and you will be able to get a much bigger army/etc.

The main problems are that they where not sufficiently big to be decisive in the early years (33)-39-41. Just having double of the obsolescent kit would be perfectly good to be stop the early defeats and lead to a much better position.

Also many of the bad weapons are really coursed by long term cost cutting rather than due to deliberate design decisions IMO.

JSB

Click to expand...

In many cases more factories had to be built just to keep up with demand

Bren gun was intended to be 2 per section but demand outstripped this idea until 1944 where it reached the desired rate of 1 for every 4 infantry men in Infantry platoons.

The Lee Enfield SMLE was being replaced by the Mk4 No1 so no reason why that could not have been an SLR with proper planning (the Russians and Americans certainly attempted to do this) instead and had the will been their there is no reason to not make a glorious copy of the MP28 (ie Lanchester) in the late 30s.

For the British Army it was not so much lack of kit but lack of trained soldiers .

This took time to rectify and an earlier start would make a serious change to the Battle of France.

Basically the British army from 1937 doubled in size year on year till 1942/43

for example Britain had 170 Cruiser tanks, 175 light tanks and 100 Infantry tanks for the battle of France.

Had rearmament occurred earlier this number would certainly be far higher and more likely to consist of the relatively better tanks (Matilda IIs and Cruiser Mk10s) and more of the proper 25 pounder guns, 2 pounder at guns and 40mm Bofors.

The French had lots of war stock from rifles to great coats and lots of good tanks

What it needed was a better trained army and officer corps.

I suspect that the original poster was trying to suggest that more modern weapons would have allowed the BEF to fight the German invaders to a standstill BEFORE Dunkirk.
In a perfect world, Hitler would have abandoned plans for invading a well-armed UK.
Most of the Canadian factories were built after the Canadian Army realized that could no longer depend upon British factories arming the rapidly-expanding Canadian Army.

Well that depends on the impact on procurements. Any corners cut for budget reasons. Projects cancelled? How about the impact of the improved manufacturing and training infrastucture? What would that look like? Could rearmament accelerate to a greater extent with a better established start?

The naval orders were certainly held back by finance even more than by treaty. Do the RAF get more hopeless aircraft to train in? A larger FAA when it arrives? How mechanised is the small regular army when the slow growth to 36-52 divisions starts?

Any hold ups? Shadow factory sites might be harder to find if civilian factories have claimed all the suitable large locations. Would a stronger Empire be more complacent about the impending threat? Closer to full employment makes it harder to redirect workers to military manufacture or call them up as raw recruits.

How about Austin as CoordDef and Neville can't refuse him funding? Duff Cooper?