Keynes' Cruisers

[fester]

March 31, 1939 London and Paris
A joint declaration by the British Empire and the Republic of France was issued this morning. Polish territorial integrity would be guaranteed by the two major western powers.

April 12, 1939 Fort Bliss, Texas

The 7th Cavalry Brigade had a good week exercising against a pair of horse cavalry regiments and an infantry regiment. The trip from Kansas to Texas was a challenge. The first leg was by train ending in San Antonio. The second trip was a road march from Fort Sam Houston to Fort Bliss. Almost every vehicle broke down at least twice, and thirty tanks and combat cars were still on the highway. However once the regiment arrived and had a week to repair its equipment, the exercises went well. The last scenario where an infantry company of the New Mexico National Guard was attached to the brigade’s lead regiment and they road in staff cars gave the regiment the capability to hold ground instead of just acting as raiders and disrupters.

The Brigade needed more mechanics and they also needed a more reliable tank.

 

[stubear1012]

I am enjoying this timeline and I am looking forward to see how it develops.

Stubear1012

 

[fester]

I am enjoying this timeline and I am looking forward to see how it develops.

Stubear1012

Thank you,
This is something that I've been working on for a while as a why the hell not when the kids are trying to fall asleep and I need to kill some time before I come back downstairs.

 

[r1ncewind]

I am not great about what actually happened with the US pre ww2 on the military front, but it seems like a higher training tempo and more restored ships and more new naval new builds..

 

[fester]

I am not great about what actually happened with the US pre ww2 on the military front, but it seems like a higher training tempo and more restored ships and more new naval new builds..

Yep, 9 more cruisers, 1 carrier, 24 modern destroyers plus the Reserve 4 stackers getting earlier and deeper refits.

On land an extra infantry division slice plus the admin release of tanks from infantry control. A bit more training but not too much.

The POD is a turn to limited austerity in 1937 but a shift in funds to the military as the jobs program not the WPA nor CCC etc etc

 

[fester]

April 15, 1939 Puget Sound Navy Yard
Amidst a steady hammering of rivets, and screeching of cranes straining to move turrets and armor into place on half a dozen warships, an unusual ceremony was being held today. Two destroyers were to be launched. USS Wilson (DD-408) and USS Wiedle (DD-417). Wiedle was one of the repeat Benhams ordered by Congress in the summer of 1937. Five of her sisters had already been launched and four more were due to be in the water by the end of June. The repeats were near replicas of the originals although the quad .50s had been landed and replaced with a pair of twin 1.1 inch guns. The aft pair of quad torpedo tubes were removed. Instead twin tubes were mounted after the first ships of the class had been tossed about a bit much as they were too top heavy.

April 18, 1939 Bethlehem Steel

The Polish Army's representative walked through the immense steel works satisfied. Bethlehem Steel had made hundreds of 75mm guns for the American Expeditionary Force in 1918. They had put in a bid to make another 200 artillery pieces in that caliber for the Polish Army. After the inspection tour, the major was confident that the bid was not overly ambitious for the firm and that the firm could supply 2,000 rounds per gun as well as the needed spare parts. He would recommend that a contract be signed as soon as funding could be made available with a target delivery date of December 1939.

 

[r1ncewind]

a bit late for poland..

 

[fester]

a bit late for poland..

Yep

 

[fester]

Poor EPA...not even created for another 30+ years and already the funding has been cut.

Autocorrect is a bastard... updated to WPA

 

[sloreck]

Those 75mm guns and ammo can either be sent to the French when the war starts, or they can be used in the pacific - the PI and the island garrisons that ar being beefed up could use those. While the gun has several issues, for the war in the Pacific especially early on they will be quite effective.

 

[fester]

Those 75mm guns and ammo can either be sent to the French when the war starts, or they can be used in the pacific - the PI and the island garrisons that ar being beefed up could use those. While the gun has several issues, for the war in the Pacific especially early on they will be quite effective.

Purely industrial capacity. In reality those guns or more likely older 75mm guns will be sent to Great Britain in the summer of 1940 as the new guns go to US units

 

[vl100butch]

Purely industrial capacity. In reality those guns or more likely older 75mm guns will be sent to Great Britain in the summer of 1940 as the new guns go to US units

Hopefully, production of the M-1/2 105 MM howitzers will be started a bit sooner....

 

[fester]

Hopefully, production of the M-1/2 105 MM howitzers will be started a bit sooner....

By a couple of months... part of the summer of 1940 crisis is a massive army appropriation and like CalBear's Pacific Redux thinking, this timeline will try to spend some money faster... but the gains will be marginal...

using this as one of my major sources for US artillery

http://www.history.army.mil/html/books/OH_of_FA/CMH_60-16-1.pdf

 

[fester]

April 28, 1939 Berlin
Adolf Hitler tore up the Anglo-German naval pact and the German-Polish non-aggression pact.

The Royal Navy could not respond as their dockyards were already approaching full capacity and hitting hard critical path constraints.

April 29, 1939 Charleston Navy Yard
USCGC Bibb and USS Erie were kissing cousins. They both were tied up a couple hundred feet from USS Constitution where a work crew was busy replacing some of her live oak planking. The two light patrol ships were due to go to sea for several days worth of anti-submarine excercises near the Isle of Shoals. Engineers and naval architects would be onboard both ships as there was a whisper of a demand for an austere escort design. These ships were a good starting point as they were big enough to actually stay with a convoy for a while and tough enough to do so in rough seas. Smaller and cheaper cutters were available like the Lake class, but the northern seas would be rougher on those ships, limiting their efficiency.

 

[fester]

May 22, 1939 Honolulu **

More than a hundred men were out on the town for one more night of fun. Some were trying to find agreeable female companship, while more were taking their wives out for dinner, dancing and a night in a fine hotel. They would be boarding the transport Raymond in the morning for a six month contract on Wake Island. Their primary goal was to dredge a channel into the lagoon and then clear enough space in the coral to allow a dozen large ships to anchor. A pier and a loading dock would also be be built.

The contingent was lightly armed with half a dozen rifles for shark shooting during swim breaks and a dozen shotguns for rail hunting.

June 14, 1939 Chester, Pennsylvania

A new cargo ship to the Maritime Commission C-3 design was laid down. She would be ready for sea by early winter.

July 20, 1939 Fort Devens, Massachusetts

The Massachusetts National Guard was at summer camp. Private Patrick Donohue shuffled in the sun as the weight of a M-1903 Springfield rifle bore on his shoulder Devans was not far from Lowell but this was as far west as he had ever travelled. The National Guard had accepted him when the Marines would not. The pay was not as good as he still had to go back to the mill next week, but it was better than nothing.

Fourteen thousand men had mustered throughout Massachusetts for field training this week. That sounded impressive, but the division should have been able to put over 20,000 men in the field. Two-thirds of the gap had official excuses or were medically unable to drill while the remaining 2,000 men had not been recruited. The division had relied on recent recruits like Patrick with bad teeth, bad backs, weak hearts to fill out the numbers. He had been on the rolls for three months and had just gotten to a point where he would not stab himself with the butt much less the bayonet of his rifle.

** Stealing shamelessly from A True and Better Alamo Redux https://www.alternatehistory.com/discussion/showpost.php?p=9643846&postcount=1

 

[fester]

July 17, 1939 New York Navy Ship Yard

USS Helena (CL-50) slid into the water of the East River for the first time. She was launched ahead of schedule as general overtime for Saturday shifts had been authorized by the Government in January. Her slip would be cleared and a new fast transport would be laid down in her place at the start of the next month. The crew and the yard dogs would spend the next two months fitting out and bringing her up to standard for commissioning.

July 24, 1939 near Wake Island

USS Enterprise, along with three heavy cruisers and five destroyers, were operating in a forty mile by thirty mile box centered ninety miles north of Wake Island. The past week had seen some easy flying as the Devastator, Vindicator and Buffalo squadrons acclimated to operating as a unit. The task force was on its own although a fast oiler with a pair of older destroyers was a day behind. Another day of exercises in the mid-Pacific and then a fly-over of Wake Island with the full air group to relieve the boredom of the civilian contractors before the task force refuelled and headed back to Pearl and then home to San Diego.


July 29, 1939 Hub Hosiery Manufacturing, Lowell Massachusetts

A thousand looms shuttled back and forth, each machine slamming its shuttle into the stop once a second as the weft and the warp threads formed patterns and cloth. Patrick Donohue was on the fourth floor of the mill, trying to keep the sweat out of his eyes as he focused on Loom 761 that broke down this morning. Mr Papadopolous had told him to go upstairs and fix it on his own two hours ago and he thought he had finally isolated the problem, a steel clasp had failed and had allowed a bit of wiggle in the run. Eleven minutes later the loom was working again as the young mechanic cursed at the mundane nature of his task. He would rather be marching, he would rather be at a rifle range, he would rather be doing almost anything other than fixing looms. The only upside was that most of the operators were young women. A mechanic, even a junior mechanic, instead of a mere laborer, was prestigious enough to get them to smile at him instead of ignoring him.

 

[fester]

August 13, 1939 Baltimore, Maryland SS Martti Ragnar

The relatively new Finnish freighter was preparing to go back to sea again. She had delivered eight thousand tons of wood pulp to America as well as seven hundred tons of copper and six hundred pounds of gold. The gold was heading to a vault in New York as the Finnish government was sending some of its reserves overseas as tensions with the Soviets built up. Finnish bonds had been sold on Wall Street, and the proceeds had already been spent. Sixty eight Brewster fighters had been ordered. Thirty six US Navy fighters were declared surplus so they now were in dockside warehouse, broken down and ready for transport. They would be loaded into Martti Ragnar’s holds over the next four days. Twelve 155 mm guns along with 20,000 shells were also being loaded. Other ships had brought back hundreds of naval mines, thousands of land mines, and dozens of 37 mm guns with numerous crates full of shells.

Most of the Finnish purchases were coming from Europe, but they saw the war clouds rising so diversifying supply made sense. The US Navy had made it known that they wanted to see their new fighter in combat so they had smoothed the orders by creative lawyering where another batch of Buffaloes would be built for the Navy but paid for by Finland. A trio of Upper Peninsula natives would soon join the company of the Martti Ragnar to cross the Atlantic to act as observers and technical advisers.


** http://www.winterwar.com/forces/FinArmy/ArtDevelopment.htm

 

[stubear1012]

I am enjoying this timeline. I am assuming the the Finnish freighter will be back in Finland in a few weeks. Will the Winter War still start on November 30, 1939? Also will the US sell more supplies to the Finns in exchange for gold?

Stubear1012

 

[fester]

I am enjoying this timeline. I am assuming the the Finnish freighter will be back in Finland in a few weeks. Will the Winter War still start on November 30, 1939? Also will the US sell more supplies to the Finns in exchange for gold?

Stubear1012

First, thank you, I am enjoying writing this timeline. US policy at this time was arms could not be sent to belligerents in a declared war. However, the US was willing to supply arms and credit before and after a war. Finland was able to get a loan for hard currency/gold as well as use some of its own gold reserves in this timeline. They are using hard currency to buy US arms in order to keep as many people as possible happy.

Mid-September 1939 has the US move to a Cash and Carry regime where belligerents that can pay in hard currency and ship things in their own hulls can buy basically whatever they want in the US. At that time, the Finnish freighter (and a few of her sisters) will make at least one more round trip to the US East Coast. The Winter War will start at roughly the same time (I don't see any significant reason for the Soviets to change their plans, Poland will be the same situation, not much else will be different, so maybe a day or two if the butterflies are busy, but realistically 11/30/39 will see another European war break out, the Finns are just better equipped as more US equipment is available as US factories have been working longer and have ironed out some production kinks). The US Navy would really like to see their new monoplane fighter in action, so they're pulling the same tricks to get the Buffalo to Finland in this timeline as they did in OTL but are sending a few tech reps/observers/advisors over as well.

 

[stubear1012]

Thank you, hopefully the Finns can hold out longer. Also, the American navy will get some real data on how their planes work in combat.

I remember reading that France had ordered a lot of planes in the spring of 1939 but they did not make it to France before it fell. The planes went to Britain instead. With the US factories being more productive do you see some of those planes making it to France before it fell?

Stubear1012