That is adorable
It looks like a children's toy of what an APC would look like
I am sure its perfectly useful but still....
gb, I get where you're coming from...but something is always better than nothing...
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gb, I get where you're coming from...but something is always better than nothing...
It's about the same size as a Dingo and was generally used in much the same sort of roles.
These are actually pretty good little vehicles if used properly, as scout cars or for infantry support against infantry without much in the way of AT weapons. Four wheel drive, the armored hull is very well sloped at all angles, the front has thicker armor and a nice deflector to keep rounds from ricocheting upwards, and they were inexpensive to manufacture. You can't fight tanks in them, at all, or many armored cars but then they aren't designed to do that. I'd also note that Bren Carriers were frequently modified to accommodate different weapons, so no reason you have to stick to Brens and Boys with these.
http://www.tanks-encyclopedia.com/ww2/India/ACV-IP.php
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armoured_Carrier_Wheeled_Indian_Pattern
That is adorable
It looks like a children's toy of what an APC would look like
I am sure its perfectly useful but still....
They worked fine, they didn't need heavy armour as Japanese infantry didn't normally have anything heavy enough to damage even light armour. Any armoured car is useful and is a better idea than using a light truck for reconnaissance.
Equip it with a Boys and you have Tank Destroyer or dare I say even a Hispano rig ?
After reading all the latest writing in this thread, I did a little investigation and came up with some candidates for the armoured vehicles that were sent to Singapore in this TL, maybe one of these vehicles could be what @fester wants:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guy_Armoured_Car
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humber_Armoured_Car
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marmon-Herrington_Armoured_Car (South Africa)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morris_CS9 (this one particular)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rolls-Royce_Armoured_Car (this one also)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_Beaverette
Also what have been mention by everyone the Indian Pattern.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guy_Armoured_Car
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humber_Armoured_Car
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marmon-Herrington_Armoured_Car (South Africa)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morris_CS9 (this one particular)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rolls-Royce_Armoured_Car (this one also)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_Beaverette
Also what have been mention by everyone the Indian Pattern.
They normally carried a boys. The HS would be about as much as it could handle, but man, if you did, you could certainly play hell with soft skins, infantry and other very light AFV! As small as it is, it could hide well and ambush, then run.
Story 1112
February 2, 1942 New Orleans
Two small ships headed down the river. Both banana boats had been bareboat chartered by the US Army. Their refits had been completed a week earlier, but the time had been spent loading the ships. Bataan would need .50 caliber ammunition so there was 75 tons on-board. Bataan would need artillery shells, so there were 300 tons of 75 millimeter shells and one hundred tons apiece of 105 and 155 millimeter shells. Bataan would need mosquito nets so there were enough to cover 80,000 men. Bataan would need spare parts and medicine and range finders and radar valves. As much as possible was shipped aboard in the past week.
As Teapa and Masaya exited the Mississippi River and entered the Gulf of Mexico, their engineers were given the order that they wished to hear. All Ahead Full. The diesels roared and soon both ships accelerated to just under 20 knots. Teapa was slightly faster than Masaya but not by much. The half dozen 20 millimeter anti-aircraft cannons mounted on each ship were tested, one hundred rounds fired by each gun. As the sun was coming down, the ships slowed to a steady sixteen knots and headed to Panama and the eventually onto Manila. The third old destroyer converted to banana boat converted to blockade runner had already passed through the Canal the night before.
Story 1113
February 3, 1942 Samoa
Enterprise turned into the wind. The Marine Wildcats flew off without incident. The twenty four stubby fighters had served as emergency reinforcements for the carrier group as the rest of the Samoa force unloaded. An airfield had been prepared for the fighters and that dirt strip would become their home for the next several months.
As the escorts turned to the north, plans to raid Rabaul were being made. Signal intelligence had indicated that the Japanese carriers that supported the capture of the strategic port had turned away and were refuellng at Truk. The intelligence folks could not discern where they were going next; the East Indies or Wake or the Eastern Pacific supply chain were all seen as equally likely. Enterprise and Saratoga could nip in and out of the northern Solomons, hit the base and retreat before the Japanese carriers could respond fast enough.
Thread 1114
February 4, 1942 HMS Sealion near Brest
Her periscope retracted. The moonlit night was dangerous for a submarine surfacing as she was more visible for the next couple of minutes to German patrol craft that may have been about than they were to her.
The moment of danger passed as look-outs scrambled to their stations and they searched the dark seas for blobs and movements that were not natural. They saw nothing as the powerful diesel engines started to propel the Sealion further out to sea. Fresh air was drawn into the boat and batteries recharged.
Overhead, a Coastal Command Hudson noticed the surfaced submarine on the ASV radar. If that crew was anywhere else, they would have attacked but the waters around Brest were a no-fire zone without positive visual identification as there were too many friendly submarines around keeping an eye on the port.
Six hours later, Sealion closed her hatches and descended deep enough that the surface turbulence was barely notable. She had seen nothing coming out of the port, so tonight was just another night. Her captain drank his tea and looked at his Jimmy and they both shrugged their shoulders as tonight was when they would have been getting some extra traffic if the carrier raid on Brest had gone forward.
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Derek Pullem
Donor
4-6 weeks I think. And with the situation in the Philippines a little less desperate the first two boats should arrive around the first week of April.
Story 1115
February 5, 1942, south of Ras Lanuf, Libya
The Commonwealth armies had a simple plan that had worked for them three times. Hold the Italians and Germans attention to the well watered and well supported coastal roads and then slip a force through the desert and into the rear. There were variations upon that play which had moved the front from Mersa Matruh to Ras Lanuf but they were variations only.
A string of strong points and outposts stretched deep into the desert. And at one of them an artillery battery resumed firing at the notch between two dunes even as the battalion’s mortars fired over the dune and attempted to walk shells in on the reverse slope. Machine guns sent brightly colored tracer bullets towards a cluster of enemy infantrymen who had been probing the lines and looking for prisoners.
Artillery could not range in on a small outpost. Friendly soldiers were defending themselves with grenades, bayonets and rifle butts even as the raiders were attacking likewise. A few men crumpled as they were isolated from their mates and overwhlemed by the enemy and a tiny counter-attack of two or three men moving forward from a position of momentary safety failed. Elsewhere in that oupost, those counter-attacks cleared trenches, section by section.
An hour later, wounded men were being brought back to the hospitals in ambulances that were burning precious fuel. The war diaries of Panzer Armee Afrika and the 8th Army both noted that patrolling was active in the southern desert.
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Story 1116
February 5, 1942 15 miles west of Corregidor
The old destroyer minelayer USS Sprosten was twisting and turning wildly. She had delivered 200 tons of food, 484 barrels of gasoline, 2,500 75mm shells and 6,200 pounds of medical supplies to the besieged at Bataan. Smoke came from both the funnels and a small fire on the fantail.
A pair of Japanese destroyers had spotted her twenty minutes ago and had opened fire three minutes later. A single shell had struck the old converted destroyer. A few more minutes might save her as a line of squalls was rapidly advancing from the west. She could disappear there.
Ramp-Rat
Monthly Donor
It’s early in 42, and the British are slowly grinding down the German/Italian Forces. Yes it’s the same play with only slight variations every time, but given the ground, it’s hard to do anything else. About the only major variation could be an amphibious hook, which the British don’t as yet have the specialist shipping for right now. The important thing is that the British are west of Benghazi, which makes resupplying both the troops in the field and Malta much easier. The British advance might be pedantic, and lack the dash and flair, that was the signature of the Germans in OTL. But given the lack of ambition on the German/Italian side, bite and hold is doing the job, and that is what counts. The British are expending the minimum of resources to best effect, and achieving maximum gains.
The question is what are the French going to do once the British capture Tripoli, will they switch sides and declare FNA for the Allies. Will there be an Operation Torch type invasion, one that is far more successful than the one in OTL. Given that the British should be in Tripoli, when the troops hit the beach in FNA, and far better able to interdict German/Italian reinforcements. I would expect that the campaign would be quickly over, and not the dragged out slog it was IOTL. On to Italy in early 43, and Rome liberated by mid summer? The wings of the butterfly are from now going to seriously change the course of the war.
RR.
The question is what are the French going to do once the British capture Tripoli, will they switch sides and declare FNA for the Allies. Will there be an Operation Torch type invasion, one that is far more successful than the one in OTL. Given that the British should be in Tripoli, when the troops hit the beach in FNA, and far better able to interdict German/Italian reinforcements. I would expect that the campaign would be quickly over, and not the dragged out slog it was IOTL. On to Italy in early 43, and Rome liberated by mid summer? The wings of the butterfly are from now going to seriously change the course of the war.
RR.
I don't think Ansons were used in this area IOTL. IOTL 19 Group covered this area: from Wiki -
Squadron/ Aircraft/ Station
No. 22 Squadron RAF/ Bristol Beaufort/ RAF St Eval
No. 86 Squadron RAF/ Bristol Beaufort/ RAF St Eval
No. 209 Squadron RAF/ Consolidated Catalina/ RAF Pembroke Dock
No. 217 Squadron RAF/ Bristol Beaufort/ RAF St Eval
No. 224 Squadron RAF/ Lockheed Hudson/ RAF St Eval
No. 254 Squadron RAF/ Bristol Blenheim/ RAF Carew Cheriton
No. 502 (Ulster) Squadron/ RAFArmstrong Whitworth Whitley/ RAF St Eval
No. 10 Squadron RAAF/ Short Sunderland/ RAF Mount Batten
No. 1404 (Meteorological) Flight RAF/Lockheed Hudson/ RAF St Eval
No. 1417 (Leigh Light Trials) Flight RAF/ Vickers Wellington/ RAF Chivenor
No. 1 Photographic Reconnaissance Unit RAF/ Bristol Blenheim/ RAF St Eval (B Flight)
Why not a 15mm BESA - less recoil than a 20mm and it was already in service with armoured forces.
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