1937-42, yet another alt British Army what-if

The Royal Artillery needs someone to beat some sense into them. If it fires a HE shell it does not automatically belong to the Royal Artillery.

Then whoever makes policy for Armour Piercing Shells for the Army needs to be educated on the behind armour effects of even a small explosion. Heck even a 2lb shell instead of solid chunk would be good. Imagine a 2lb APHE with a base fuse and even 20 to 30 grams of HE to spread splinters. Then scale it up.
The rationale for solid shot was perfectly valid. Fuzes for APHE were very unreliable with 2/3rds of US APHE detonating prematurely or not at all, so they either penetrated less than solid shot or didn't do any greater post-pen damage. Moreover most of the post-pen damage for high velocity projectiles like the UK used was in the penetration spalling itself and not in the burst effect of an equivalent APHE round.
 
Solid shot becomes less iffective as the calibre increases. At the 17lb level the APHE is more effective. The idea of a 40 mm APHE is also that it will be marginally more effective at anti bunker roles. The other thing that needs working out is the provision of effective HE rounds for all calibres.

RA ideas on who control guns with HE also affected choice of calibre. As others have said an 18lb infantry gun with HE and AP capabilities would have been more useful for longer.
 
Solid shot becomes less iffective as the calibre increases. At the 17lb level the APHE is more effective. The idea of a 40 mm APHE is also that it will be marginally more effective at anti bunker roles. The other thing that needs working out is the provision of effective HE rounds for all calibres.

RA ideas on who control guns with HE also affected choice of calibre. As others have said an 18lb infantry gun with HE and AP capabilities would have been more useful for longer.
The Brits tested that for 17pdr, and found the benefits of the explosive filler irrelevant. And again, that's assuming you can get APHE to actually work which wasn't the case for the vast majority of WW2 belligerents. Hell, there's a US report on Soviet 85mm APHE showing that the "effectiveness of the explosive was generally lost".

The only country that really liked APHE a lot was Japan. Meanwhile the US had such a bad experience with APHE that it switched entirely to solid shot postwar.
 
Should not the Amy look more into the improvement of armor penetration 1st? APC, APCR and APCBC shots were absent from the Army ammo stocks until September of 1942/early 1943, at least for the 6pdr?
Considering that the UK actually contemplated cemented (aka high-hardness) and high tensile-strength armor for A14, Covenanter/Crusader and TOG, so in the 38-40 period, there would be a case for testing 2pdr AP on such armor and studying capped rounds just in case. Moreover the French massively used capped rounds as early as 1934-5 so there's an example. Germany did too. BC is also nice for the early war small caliber rounds since these are particularly affected by velocity loss.

Note that capped rounds also were also already in use in navies, so the know-how was there.

Tungsten-cored ammo was not prevalent, but hardened steel-tungsten alloy (1.5-2.5% tungsten content) was used in the French 25mm (and by Japan in late WW2), so once again there is a prewar precedent.
 
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Garrison

Donor
Basically, you need to nudge the British government to take the threat of war more seriously, not necessarily with Germany, but just some event after 1936 that creates a real sense of alarm. Could be an action by the Germans, Italians or Soviets, or maybe further afield such as Japan. In fact it would be ironic if it were something the USA did that pushed the British towards rearming quicker.
 
Then whoever makes policy for Armour Piercing Shells for the Army needs to be educated on the behind armour effects of even a small explosion. Heck even a 2lb shell instead of solid chunk would be good. Imagine a 2lb APHE with a base fuse and even 20 to 30 grams of HE to spread splinters. Then scale it up.
Do all modern MBT still not fire solid "shot" OK it's very fancy discarding sabot solid shot with material that probably sets fire at the temps involved but still?

The reality is that anything fast getting past the protection will do massive damage inside a small box, do you really only need the HE for disabling AT guns and infantry in the open?

So ideally, pre-war Super Valentine with a Kestrel engine 4 crew a 6pdr with heavy HE or light subcaliber AP and 303 Browning coax?
 

marathag

Banned
Do all modern MBT still not fire solid "shot" OK it's very fancy discarding sabot solid shot with material that probably sets fire at the temps involved but still?

The reality is that anything fast getting past the protection will do massive damage inside a small box, do you really only need the HE for disabling AT guns and infantry in the open?

So ideally, pre-war Super Valentine with a Kestrel engine 4 crew a 6pdr with heavy HE or light subcaliber AP and 303 Browning coax?
Against lightly armored IJA tanks, US APC with buster just punched hike in and out of those tin cans, without knockout effects.
Base fuzed HE could still penetrate, and then explode, making an obvious kill.
Otherwise, SOP was to fire rounds into a target till it started burning.
HEAT and HESH made things catch fire easily.
APDS, not so much. Hard to tell that the crew were knocked out.
Unless shooting at Soviet tanks with autoloader present.
Turret launching was very obvious
 
Against lightly armored IJA tanks, US APC with buster just punched hike in and out of those tin cans, without knockout effects.
I mean, if you do end up with fighting at such a disadvantage as having M4s tanks against Type 95 Ha-Go tanks too thinly protected to shop your guns properly.... then I think you can accept the trouble of having to hit them a few times and some of your shell going straight through both sides without too many complaints to your tank designers?
 
It's been said before in many other threads. The British Army needs a Sub Machine Gun in service before WWII starts. There really is no excuse that they didn't and no reason other than prejudice that they couldn't. They don't even need to develop one, just test ones in service with other nations and buy a licence for the one they want. (Preferably not the hideously expensive Thompson).
 
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It is that time of the year :)

Let's give the British Army, and help the Commonwealth Armies when possible, the better gear (tanks, guns - from pistols to AAA and siege artillery, other vehicles both armored and not), sprinkled with necessary changes in doctrine. Some more professional people will put the doctrine 1st, and I'm okay with that. The things need to be kept feasible and within the technology available back in the day, while avoiding over-spending of the limited budget as it was available. If the changes benefit other Commonwealth armies, even better.
I don't expect that BA will stop Germans cold in Belgium in 1940, for that to happen a lot of other off-topic things need to happen. Better performance in NA is expected, though, despite Churchill's meddling.
Not-reinventing the wheel is strongly encouraged since it saves a lot, especially it saves the commodity that can't be bought - time.

Thread is not about the air component of the BA, so Lysanders and Austers are here to stay :\
Quite simply the best thing the army could get was more trained men and educated officers

In Sept 1939 the British army was very small - it had 5 Regular infantry and 1 Regular Cavalry divisions (then partially motorised and later turned into the 1st Armoured Division which arrived piecemeal and fought separately in 3 parts during the battle of France) and 13 TA Divisions with over 50% of their Table of equipment and personnel not complete.

The only way this was going to be addressed was some form of limited conscription far earlier than March 1939 - this act had trained enough men to fully man the 13 TA Divisions - but by Sept 39 many of them had only completed their basic training so none of those divisions were fit for war (and each sub unit had been split into 2 units to double the TA divisions to 26)

An earlier limited conscription act would have added roughly 250,000 odd 'militiamen' every 6 months or so, so the earlier it was brought into action the more men would be in the reserves come war time.

Of course this would oblige the ramp up in certain equipment from Boots to Bren guns and likely more artillery etc increasing the number factory's producing military items and production capacity come war.

The biggest issue would of course be the political will - trying to introduce such an act that would be acceptable to the British people and therefore the House would be a very hot potato for the HMG of the day - but its what I would push for.

Another thing that has always confused me regarding this period - the lack of AFV production capacity and long term planning

The RAF got the Shadow Scheme to leverage the automobile and associated industry's in being able to rapidly increase the number of aircraft the country could produce.

But virtually nothing was done for tank production - and the biggest issue regarding this was a lack of trained quality control engineers and draughtsmen that seriously impacted the quality and quantity of British tanks into 1942 (tanks delivered to North Africa each required 100s if not over 1000 man hours at a field depot before they could be issued to units - Cromwell tank replacements being delivered to Normandy by comparison were effectively being driven of the boat/LST and given to the unit)

So perhaps as part of the Shadow scheme - increased tank production is included as part of this initiative massively increasing the production capacity and quality of the workforce.
 
It's been said before in many other threads. The British Army needs a Sub Machine Gun in service before WWII starts. There really is no excuse that they didn't and no reason other than prejudice that they didn't. They don't even need to develop one, just test ones in service with other nations and buy a licence for the one they want. (Preferably not the hideously expensive Thompson).
Really you need say a cheap RAF SMG for MPs guarding airfields, a tube none machined version based off the Lanchester/MP18 or Suomi KP/-31would work fine and both could be done by BSA or any good commercial gun maker in UK.
 
It's been said before in many other threads. The British Army needs a Sub Machine Gun in service before WWII starts. There really is no excuse that they didn't and no reason other than prejudice that they couldn't. They don't even need to develop one, just test ones in service with other nations and buy a licence for the one they want. (Preferably not the hideously expensive Thompson).
Maybe have the Owen Gun get noticed and adopted for service earlier? AFAIK the Owen was the best subgun made by the WAllies, excepting perhaps the early prototypes of the Sterling which I think were tested during Market Garden.
 
Maybe have the Owen Gun get noticed and adopted for service earlier? AFAIK the Owen was the best subgun made by the WAllies, excepting perhaps the early prototypes of the Sterling which I think were tested during Market Garden.
The early own was a bit 'heath Robinson' and was not mature enough for trials until 1941 (when it was excellent) - while it evolved pretty rapidly between 1939 to 1941 the people making the decision pre war would quite rightly have not looked at it twice

I have a soft spot for the Owens - but it was not a mature weapon system in 1939

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Owen was hampered by official "cultural subservience" in Australia - the officials didn't think anything home grown was as good as that made in the UK or the US. The problem was the only alternatives were the Sten and the Thompson, neither which really measured up to Australian needs. The Sten because it was unsafe and easily jammed by sand and mud and the Thompson because it was too heavy and a calibre which wasn't manufactured downunder. The result was that the Owen was ignored by the "powers that be" until the Minister for the Army, Frank Ford heard about it and ordered trials be conducted into it. The Owen passed with flying colours.
 
Considering that the UK actually contemplated cemented (aka high-hardness) and high tensile-strength armor for A14, Covenanter/Crusader and TOG, so in the 38-40 period, there would be a case for testing 2pdr AP on such armor and studying capped rounds just in case. Moreover the French massively used capped rounds as early as 1934-5 so there's an example. Germany did too. BC is also nice for the early war small caliber rounds since these are particularly affected by velocity loss.

Note that capped rounds also were also already in use in navies, so the know-how was there.

Tungsten-cored ammo was not prevalent, but hardened steel-tungsten alloy (1.5-2.5% tungsten content) was used in the French 25mm (and by Japan in late WW2), so once again there is a prewar precedent.
I think the problem with 2 pounder capped shot OTL was that there was only one manufacturer for 2 pounder shot. Since this was the main AT weapon available, interrupting production to develop capped rounds wasn't acceptable, even though uncapped rounds were sometimes ineffective.
Here, if the 6 pounder development isn't delayed, the 6pounder should become available about the same time as capped 2 pounder rounds start to become desirable.
My pet hindsight hat project is to develop the rather feeble 3 pounder into something more like the French SA35 47mm for tanks. The AT performance was very similar to the 2 pounder but the bigger round would have avoided the worst of the face hardened issues the 2 pounder faced and the HE round would have been moderately useful.
Add in a towed 47mm AT gun with similar performance to the Czech, French or Belgian ones in place of the infantry 2 pounder and Rommel may run out of tanks a bit faster even if Lord Horsehead is still in charge of British tank tactics. Given how few tanks he had at times, 3 or 4 more losses each encounter could leave him completely wiped out.
If I can't have that, I'll accept a good enough 20mm cannon for the Hurricanes in time for the Battle of Britain so the Luftwaffe runs out of bombers in 1940.
Third choice is for anyone who mentions turrets on fighters to mysteriously disappear for a year and a day.

Edit. OK I accept that fighters aren't actually part of the army.
 
Here, if the 6 pounder development isn't delayed, the 6pounder should become available about the same time as capped 2 pounder rounds start to become desirable.
Navy's 6 pdr 10 cwt was in production 5 (five) years before the ww2. Fairly light a gun, too. It was in production before the 2pdr AT/tank gun entered the production, so we can have Army chip in in order that production is quickly ramped up.
5 years is also a lot of time to design, test and manufacture more modern hole-punching ammo.

My pet hindsight hat project is to develop the rather feeble 3 pounder into something more like the French SA35 47mm for tanks. The AT performance was very similar to the 2 pounder but the bigger round would have avoided the worst of the face hardened issues the 2 pounder faced and the HE round would have been moderately useful.
Add in a towed 47mm AT gun with similar performance to the Czech, French or Belgian ones in place of the infantry 2 pounder and Rommel may run out of tanks a bit faster even if Lord Horsehead is still in charge of British tank tactics. Given how few tanks he had at times, 3 or 4 more losses each encounter could leave him completely wiped out.

Navy stocks warrant a look again.
Their 3pdr Vickers was much more powerful cannon than the Army's 3pdr on the tanks. And again there is a lot of time to come out with better ammo. RN have had probably zero desire to use this cannon type after 1930, so here is the chance for Army to much improve their AT and tank cannons' armament very quickly and on a dime.

If I can't have that, I'll accept a good enough 20mm cannon for the Hurricanes in time for the Battle of Britain so the Luftwaffe runs out of bombers in 1940.
Third choice is for anyone who mentions turrets on fighters to mysteriously disappear for a year and a day.

We all want that :)
 
But virtually nothing was done for tank production - and the biggest issue regarding this was a lack of trained quality control engineers and draughtsmen that seriously impacted the quality and quantity of British tanks into 1942 (tanks delivered to North Africa each required 100s if not over 1000 man hours at a field depot before they could be issued to units - Cromwell tank replacements being delivered to Normandy by comparison were effectively being driven of the boat/LST and given to the unit)

So perhaps as part of the Shadow scheme - increased tank production is included as part of this initiative massively increasing the production capacity and quality of the workforce.
Tanks are the one area where the British Army was behind in quality of weapons.

Moving deployment of models a year earlier makes a huge difference - eg Valentines at Arras, Comets in Normandy.
 
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