Leaner British war industry post-Great Depression?

There is usually much discussion about the capabilities of the German economy during 1933-45 if it wasn't run by people who were, generally speaking, rather insane and incompetent, to the extent that the Soviet Union, while 1/3 occupied and generally with less money and steel production than Germany (I'll need to back that up, hopefully I can get some kind of good source on that), was able to produce many times the number of, say, tanks per month as Germany could.

However, what could Britain have done after 1929 in order to have brought it closer to the United States and Soviet Union in terms of produced goods for the war effort. What were the factors that lead to it being more of a Germany-tier producer rather than the US and USSR?



Organisational inefficiency? Size? Proximity to German bombing?

Or did Britain reach the greatest amount of performance that was manageable?

Can we have the equivalent graphs for say, 4 Engined Bomber, ASW Escort, Aircraft Carrier and merchant shipping production.

Gannt the chartist said:

Can we have the equivalent graphs for say, 4 Engined Bomber, ASW Escort, Aircraft Carrier and merchant shipping production.

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Sorry about that, tank production struck me as being the best general measure of a nations ability in wartime to turn raw materials into complex heavy machinery, which should translate roughly towards its ability in other areas. There are exceptions that make it less than perfect (looking at Japans tank production with no context gives you no idea how they could've survived four years against America and Britain, aside from suggesting that maybe tank production wasn't a large focus for them), but at least for the countries we're concerned about, Britain, Germany, USSR and US, tanks were something that they all needed in large numbers.

British tank production, to me, seems like a halfway between Germany and US/USSR, with some level of mass production, but far too many makes and changes in design, and nowhere near the same scale as production of Shermans or T-34s. The standout is the Universal Carrier at over 100,000 made, though that isn't a tank.

Drunkrobot said:

Sorry about that, tank production struck me as being the best general measure of a nations ability in wartime to turn raw materials into complex heavy machinery, which should translate roughly towards its ability in other areas.

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Well the thing with this is, because the US was producing tanks a-plenty, Britain focussed on other areas. So your initial premise is flawed.

Ingsoc said:

Well the thing with this is, because the US was producing tanks a-plenty, Britain focussed on other areas. So your initial premise is flawed.

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I did say it wasn't perfect, although the differing scales of results between the first two years of war for Britain and first two years for USA would hopefully give some kind of clue to the capabilities of both.

I just wanted to hear peoples thoughts on if the British wartime economy was as effective as it could've been, or if there was some kind of weakness or series of weaknesses that forced bottlenecks in production similar to those suffered by Germany.

Britain receiving 17,287 Shermans of various models in WWII might have something to do with it ?

That and for large parts of WWII GB was not really fighting a land dominated war, BofA and the air war over the channel being more important ?

(Also do you have the numbers ? Why does it show 0 tanks in 45 ? Are you also adding Canadian production in as well ?)

jsb said:

Britain receiving 17,287 Shermans of various models in WWII might have something to do with it ?

That and for large parts of WWII GB was not really fighting a land dominated war, BofA and the air war over the channel being more important ?

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That, and before the Sherman's started rolling in Britain was out producing Germany in tanks and aircraft.

jsb said:

Britain receiving 17,287 Shermans of various models in WWII might have something to do with it ?

That and for large parts of WWII GB was not really fighting a land dominated war, BofA and the air war over the channel being more important ?

(Also do you have the numbers ? Why does it show 0 tanks in 45 ?)

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Alright, I'm sorry to use tanks, I just wanted to use a quick analogy for a complex, heavy piece of machinery that everybody (except Japan) wants to make/have in large numbers.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milit...roduction_overview:_service.2C_power_and_type

Notes that those figures could denote the British Empire, not Britain itself.

Again, I started this discussin in the interest in analysing potential weaknesses in the British economy. What exactly was it that made it the 3rd industrial power?

Ingsoc said:

That, and before the Sherman's started rolling in Britain was out producing Germany in tanks and aircraft.

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My knowledge on it is murky, but IIRC the German economy wasn't even put onto what we might call a 'war footing' until Stalingrad/El Alamein (Note the spike in German production in the graph continuing until 1945). Whether the spike was because of Speer or not is a point of contention. Britain was, by comparison, firing on all cylinders since 1940. Naturally, the Germans had the benefit of looting the rest of Europe for industry and resources, but exactly to what extent could this be taken?

Drunkrobot said:

Alright, I'm sorry to use tanks, I just wanted to use a quick analogy for a complex, heavy piece of machinery that everybody (except Japan) wants to make/have in large numbers.

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Unfortunately there really isn't any one piece of machinery that would serve as a good proxy. Heavy bombers? Only the US and UK produced them in any number. Carriers? Again, the Germans and Soviets didn't play. Tanks? The British were swimming in tanks, their ground forces actually had more tanks per soldier at the end of the war than anybody else, and this includes the US. Food? The UK population were better fed than everybody else except the US.

I'd strongly suggest getting hold of a copy of Britain's War Machine - there are some issues with it, but it's a great overview of just how strong the UK economy was during the war.

I've seen graphs use engines (aircraft mostly) as the proxy. Maybe that would be a better fit.

Mr.brightside said:

I've seen graphs use engines (aircraft mostly) as the proxy. Maybe that would be a better fit.

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Might do, it would certainly give a better idea of production than simple numbers of aircraft would. Total tonnage output for aircraft would do as well.

Drunkrobot said:

There is usually much discussion about the capabilities of the German economy during 1933-45 if it wasn't run by people who were, generally speaking, rather insane and incompetent, to the extent that the Soviet Union, while 1/3 occupied and generally with less money and steel production than Germany (I'll need to back that up, hopefully I can get some kind of good source on that), was able to produce many times the number of, say, tanks per month as Germany could.

However, what could Britain have done after 1929 in order to have brought it closer to the United States and Soviet Union in terms of produced goods for the war effort. What were the factors that lead to it being more of a Germany-tier producer rather than the US and USSR?

Organisational inefficiency? Size? Proximity to German bombing?

Or did Britain reach the greatest amount of performance that was manageable?

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To not go over the same ground as others - I don't think that there was an issue with numbers - granted maybe getting the Valentine design and some of the heavier armoured cars in to mass production a year or so earlier would have solved a lot of issues regarding a shortage of armour suffered by the British forces in that period 1940 to early 42

But recall that Britain had a massive and very necessary ship building industry as well as pouring a staggering amount of treasure into building bomber command - this makes sense when you consider that apart from a few months in 1940 Britain was only directly engaged in a mass continental style land war with Germany for 11 months (June 44 - May 45) - and had brought along a big Friend

Its other campaigns were more limited in scope and in the great scheme of things - of lower importance.

Germany on the other hand was in a mass continental battle (the largest in history), again aside from the Polish and France/Lowlands campaigns for nearly 4 years mostly against the Russians

So both the Russians and the Germans needed to build lots of tanks - while Britain did not need to build so many and was able to get a load from the US.

Had say for example - France not been defeated in 1940 and the Land war dragged on - I would expect to see more resources and manpower directed at supporting and building up the army - more divisions more tanks etc as well as more losses

Conversely less escorts and replacement freighters would be required in light of a reduced U-boat threat - Italy might have decided not to play and this too frees up megatonnes of effective shipping via the Med that does not have to be replaced etc.

So if a large part of the effort that OTL went into say Bomber Command and increased shipbuilding was instead focused on tanks etc then you could expect to see that Red Column for 1941 and 1942 to spike massively (as well as adding an additional Colour for France - the 2nd biggest producer of tanks in 1940).

Also consider if you will that a fairly large % of British and American Tanks built between 1941 and 1945 ended up in the Red Army (including nearly all of the Canadian built Valentines)

Cryhavoc101 said:

Also consider if you will that a fairly large % of British and American Tanks built between 1941 and 1945 ended up in the Red Army (including nearly all of the Canadian built Valentines)

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It looks like Lend-Lease sent a total of 5,000 tanks from Britain and 7,000 from America. That's a rather big chunk from Britain, I will admit, but
less than 10% to the total 140,000-ish number of Anglo-American tanks built 1939-1945. The bulk of support to the Soviets seems to be in the form of logistics, the trucks and trains and rail stock and so forth.

But recall that Britain had a massive and very necessary ship building industry as well as pouring a staggering amount of treasure into building bomber command

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I agree with you on Bomber Command, those were a lot of planes built during the war, and while the point still holds to an extent with shipbuilding, one has to admit that there is only so much that an infrastructure tooled for building ships will do for tanks anyway. My biggest focus was not on tanks to begin with, and I wouldn't have suggested to Chamberlain or Churchill to rip out extensive parts of the shipbuilding industry and start making as many tanks as possible. My concern is what mistakes the industrialists and civil servants may have done which might've cost Britain war production, what were the systematic weaknesses of the British economy, analogous to the German phobia of automotive-style assembly line tank production?

British factories would have been more productive if they invested in more automated production tooling (e.g. sheet metal stamping machines).
Compare the parts count of a CMP truck versus a Chevy truck.
... or compare the parts-count in a Sten Gun versus an M3 Grease Gun.

Canada did not produce a significant number of tanks (Ram, Grizzly, Valentine) because Montreal Locomotive Works was too busy building Sexton SP guns on M3 chassis.

Also consider that Lend Lease (to the USRR) included millions of tons of steel ingots, aluminium and other raw (semi-refined) materials.

Drunkrobot said:

I agree with you on Bomber Command, those were a lot of planes built during the war, and while the point still holds to an extent with shipbuilding, one has to admit that there is only so much that an infrastructure tooled for building ships will do for tanks anyway.

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Directly, no, but you do have to factor in issues like allocation of resources, allocation of manpower, replacement of machine tools etc, so over a period of a year, a lot of effort can shift from one to the other.

You need to convince the government to invest in advanced military technology, perhaps as a way of reducing the effects of the Great Depression. Fully mechanise the Army in the early 30s, that will lead to increased production of lorries. Buy the Vickers 6ton tank instead of the largely useless machinegun armed light tanks.

And get some heads of industry to accept that welded rather than riveted ships are the way of the future. Also, drop the godawful fascination with biplanes.

Actually, an early 30s fully mechanized army would result in a worse German army - all those British army horses sold off as surplus and picked up with the Germans simply wouldn't be there in 1940.

Peg Leg Pom said:

You need to convince the government to invest in advanced military technology, perhaps as a way of reducing the effects of the Great Depression. Fully mechanise the Army in the early 30s, that will lead to increased production of lorries. Buy the Vickers 6ton tank instead of the largely useless machinegun armed light tanks.

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If the British Government was going to try a Keynesian response to the Depression in the early 30's it would spend on infrastructure, housing and production resources for export, not the military.

What s required for the British Government of the day to increase military expenditure is a clear and credible threat. Then add 1 year for ignoring it and hoping it goes away. Add another for blaming everyone else for not doing anything in the first year, and then a third year arguing about what to do! Hence OTL not stating to rearm with any conviction until 1938. This time frame is only going to increase if there is a dir

To get more done sooner would require a more aggressive Italy and/or Japan in the late 20's and early 30's.

Derwit said:

To get more done sooner would require a more aggressive Italy and/or Japan in the late 20's and early 30's.

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A common trick is the hypothesis of "The Right Man at the Right Time" surviving the Great War and going into government, industry or the civil service. As such a person could have potentially any vision of what needed to be done, then the debate becomes less how to make the right people have the right decisions, and more about asking what those right decisions are.