Where is 'Death Ray' Matthews when he's needed....Might I suggest taking the Z Batteries and turn them into something a little more offensive. (and effective)
Mattress (rocket) - Wikipedia
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1937-42, yet another alt British Army what-if
- Thread starter tomo pauk
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More resources and support, plus a lack of faffing around with .38 SAA cartridges.
I think it needs to just be for MPs and 2nd line guards, any real Regiment or paratroopers will get proper army weapons pre war? My thinking is that RAF could cheap out pre-war on a tube SMG for gate guards & MPs thinking it's not important and wanting to save cash and wanting something that allowed one sentry to defend themselves against a few people at close range?
A tube built for cost reduced Suomi 31 inspired for RAF to past army, after all the ARF had plenty of techs with good knowledge of working with tube build aircraft and Suomi 31 was available commercially & tested by army?
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Something I've suggested in other threads is to exempt payment for service in the Territorial Army (and other reserve forces) from the means test for Dole payments. Now it may not gain a huge number of extra men but every extra trained man helps.
Might I suggest taking the Z Batteries and turn them into something a little more offensive. (and effective)
Mattress (rocket) - Wikipedia
View attachment 792551
There was a good story on Changingthetimes.net - 'British Rocket Artillery -- if only' by David Shaw that did something like that....
I especially liked the part about inspecting MPs having involuntary bowel movements when the rockets are fired.
I know it says British Army, but what about the Indian army? What about removing the Gurkha regiments from Indian central funding in secret and therefore allowing the rasing of that many more Indian regiments, with the Gurkhas paid for directly from London?
I think Gurkhas deployed overseas long term to Malaya/Singapore and HK were already subsidized back to the Indian gov? And by moving them you would avoid the political issue of making Indians pay more taxes for rasing more troops for imperial service in say 36/37 but also gain several more regiments of effective pre-war troops by 39/40?
The quick answer is none of the above.
The 18lb is a non starter, ( as are WW1 4.5s) As an AT platform its 50% heavier than a 2lb, which is probably the best AT gun in the world at the time can be manhandled into small spaces easily and has a very wide arc of fire. As a howitzer it is not a howitzer, the method of construction is no longer used and the gun itself out of production and was designed for a rile the British do not think is necessary. The 4.5'' AA is 50 % heavier than the 3,7 and requires a concrete emplacement for firing.
All the Armies of the world spend the 1920s deciding what they wanted based on WW1 experience. The Brits wanted the FA equipped with a light mobile howitzer optimised for suppression fires that would be pulled by motor vehicles that could do gun things is needed. There is the same process in all armies reflecting slightly different experiences and solutions. The British do not use infantry guns or tank mounted artillery pieces for direct fire. They have reliable communications to the artillery who respond much more quickly and intend to have lots of tanks forward. HE rounds smaller than 75mm are useless against trench type fieldworks, and you need 150mm + or very high velocity 100+ to deal with concrete wars. When the British do feel the need its called an AVRE or Crocodile and works really well.
The basic issue though is the British sequence is build industrial capacity (factories shell filling plants etc and the British know how to do this from 1917 and how long it takes) defences including Civil Defence. decide on the force structure - bear in mind the decision makers are not looking at a hard coded war start in 1939/40 with Germany (who do not automatically beat France in 6 weeks). Equip it with the AVAILABLE kit on that date. Later things are nice but unless you can figure out how to prototype
You can do that but if the decision is made say 2 years earlier you are shifting everything technically possible back two years - so 1942 levels of armament with 1940 kit. There are some things that may sneak in. The Valentine is an evolution of the A10 heavy cruiser and earlier experience of that may lead to earlier adoption of the Val and probably would lead to the Covenanter and Crusader coming in earlier probably during 1940.
The main issue though is in 1940 instead of 9 Inf Div with 1 Amd arriving mid campaign and 3 Inf div used as pioneers for lack of kit there would be 20 -27 ID ( depending on whether the Canadians mobilise at the same rate) 7 Inf Bde, 4 Motorised Bde Group 5 Amd Div, 3 Army tank Bde ( for comparison an amd div had 201 cruisers, an army tank Bde 176 mainly I tanks) with another 5 tank Bde joining in the course of the year all in NW Europe plus the makings of 8, 10 and 14 army elsewhere.
In fact the British pre war ( and in 1944) regarded the Amd div as a pursuit force so an alt 1940 force structure would be 20 ID, 2 Amd div and probably 13 Army tank Bde with 5 more joining plus what the Dominions could field - mainly Canadian I expect in NW Europe. What they are equipped with depends on the rate of production of various types but the Cruisers have a more limited application in the Amd div until they are well enough armoured to do the assault role the I tanks need to do. With a civilian population protected from air attack including WMD an air force capable of launching WMD attacks without French permission from East Anglia and as a result 10 or so spare french divisions to reinforce weak sectors of the line like opposite the Ardennes and all of that starts to feed into the decision making pre war.
Also the RAF definitely and Navy likely bigger.
yea 6lb better than 2lb but both are good enough to deal with the panzer 1 and 2 the germans are fielding, half the total force (and the 2lb is good enough vs ALL german tanks up to late 41.
The 18lb is a non starter, ( as are WW1 4.5s) As an AT platform its 50% heavier than a 2lb, which is probably the best AT gun in the world at the time can be manhandled into small spaces easily and has a very wide arc of fire. As a howitzer it is not a howitzer, the method of construction is no longer used and the gun itself out of production and was designed for a rile the British do not think is necessary. The 4.5'' AA is 50 % heavier than the 3,7 and requires a concrete emplacement for firing.
All the Armies of the world spend the 1920s deciding what they wanted based on WW1 experience. The Brits wanted the FA equipped with a light mobile howitzer optimised for suppression fires that would be pulled by motor vehicles that could do gun things is needed. There is the same process in all armies reflecting slightly different experiences and solutions. The British do not use infantry guns or tank mounted artillery pieces for direct fire. They have reliable communications to the artillery who respond much more quickly and intend to have lots of tanks forward. HE rounds smaller than 75mm are useless against trench type fieldworks, and you need 150mm + or very high velocity 100+ to deal with concrete wars. When the British do feel the need its called an AVRE or Crocodile and works really well.
The basic issue though is the British sequence is build industrial capacity (factories shell filling plants etc and the British know how to do this from 1917 and how long it takes) defences including Civil Defence. decide on the force structure - bear in mind the decision makers are not looking at a hard coded war start in 1939/40 with Germany (who do not automatically beat France in 6 weeks). Equip it with the AVAILABLE kit on that date. Later things are nice but unless you can figure out how to prototype
You can do that but if the decision is made say 2 years earlier you are shifting everything technically possible back two years - so 1942 levels of armament with 1940 kit. There are some things that may sneak in. The Valentine is an evolution of the A10 heavy cruiser and earlier experience of that may lead to earlier adoption of the Val and probably would lead to the Covenanter and Crusader coming in earlier probably during 1940.
The main issue though is in 1940 instead of 9 Inf Div with 1 Amd arriving mid campaign and 3 Inf div used as pioneers for lack of kit there would be 20 -27 ID ( depending on whether the Canadians mobilise at the same rate) 7 Inf Bde, 4 Motorised Bde Group 5 Amd Div, 3 Army tank Bde ( for comparison an amd div had 201 cruisers, an army tank Bde 176 mainly I tanks) with another 5 tank Bde joining in the course of the year all in NW Europe plus the makings of 8, 10 and 14 army elsewhere.
In fact the British pre war ( and in 1944) regarded the Amd div as a pursuit force so an alt 1940 force structure would be 20 ID, 2 Amd div and probably 13 Army tank Bde with 5 more joining plus what the Dominions could field - mainly Canadian I expect in NW Europe. What they are equipped with depends on the rate of production of various types but the Cruisers have a more limited application in the Amd div until they are well enough armoured to do the assault role the I tanks need to do. With a civilian population protected from air attack including WMD an air force capable of launching WMD attacks without French permission from East Anglia and as a result 10 or so spare french divisions to reinforce weak sectors of the line like opposite the Ardennes and all of that starts to feed into the decision making pre war.
Also the RAF definitely and Navy likely bigger.
yea 6lb better than 2lb but both are good enough to deal with the panzer 1 and 2 the germans are fielding, half the total force (and the 2lb is good enough vs ALL german tanks up to late 41.
Follow the Russian lead. Bring in Albert Kahn/Albert Kahn Associates to look at building up-to-date factories. (And equip them with modern plant)
Albert Kahn (architect) - Wikipedia
Sadly much of British Industry was craftsman based rather than what we would call an industrial approach. This is not meant to be a derogatory observation it is instead accepting that the master tradesmen had incredible skills but it took too long to train them.
As an example and yes this is a made up rhetorical style example.
Rolls Royce is making engines and every engine is put together by one master tradesman and as he builds the engine he hones and shapes the parts to get a perfect fit. The engine is reliable, high performing but has little direct parts commonality with the engines Fred next door makes. Also each engine takes a week to make.
60 tradesmen making 60 engines per week in total.
Ford gets the schematics for the same engine. They realise the drawings allow for finishing and is not replicatable or able to use stock parts. While rolls is making 60 engines a week the Ford Engineers spend three months getting every part to work perfectly every time with no final finishing required. A month later the plant opens and 60 workers get trained to do a single task each. No worker knows the entire engine just the parts they have to fit. By now Rolls has made 960 engines and Ford has made zero. Next month Rolls makes another 240 engines and Ford makes 120. Every worker has been triple trained and all parts are now fully interchangeable. The next month Ford makes 60 engines a day.
Rolls is still making 60 per week. Ford is now making 7 times the output and every single part will work in any engine without extra work. The main workers are now better than the tradesmen at the task they do 60 times a day.
This is exagerated and sounds fake......only they did this over and over again. British equipment was as good as American equipment, in some ways superior, in others far worse. The Bofors gun is the perfect example. The Packard Merlin was as good if not better than the equivallant mark of engine.
For the British Army to have superior equipment it needs to drive the cost of that equipment down through industrialisation of the PROCESS used to make the equipment. For example if the AT gun production line was setup to be a Ford style factory, the new 6 lb gun is easily placed into production with maybe a week of downtime while the process changes. In fact the line does not need to stop just reduced output for a week while training happens. Then you do extra shifts or OT to catchup.
The 2lb gun was very good, it was however inadequate for infantry support and had a dismal HE shell and no Canister round. A 47mm for example would have been marginally bigger but offer a significantly better ammunition selection and usefulness.
As an example and yes this is a made up rhetorical style example.
Rolls Royce is making engines and every engine is put together by one master tradesman and as he builds the engine he hones and shapes the parts to get a perfect fit. The engine is reliable, high performing but has little direct parts commonality with the engines Fred next door makes. Also each engine takes a week to make.
60 tradesmen making 60 engines per week in total.
Ford gets the schematics for the same engine. They realise the drawings allow for finishing and is not replicatable or able to use stock parts. While rolls is making 60 engines a week the Ford Engineers spend three months getting every part to work perfectly every time with no final finishing required. A month later the plant opens and 60 workers get trained to do a single task each. No worker knows the entire engine just the parts they have to fit. By now Rolls has made 960 engines and Ford has made zero. Next month Rolls makes another 240 engines and Ford makes 120. Every worker has been triple trained and all parts are now fully interchangeable. The next month Ford makes 60 engines a day.
Rolls is still making 60 per week. Ford is now making 7 times the output and every single part will work in any engine without extra work. The main workers are now better than the tradesmen at the task they do 60 times a day.
This is exagerated and sounds fake......only they did this over and over again. British equipment was as good as American equipment, in some ways superior, in others far worse. The Bofors gun is the perfect example. The Packard Merlin was as good if not better than the equivallant mark of engine.
For the British Army to have superior equipment it needs to drive the cost of that equipment down through industrialisation of the PROCESS used to make the equipment. For example if the AT gun production line was setup to be a Ford style factory, the new 6 lb gun is easily placed into production with maybe a week of downtime while the process changes. In fact the line does not need to stop just reduced output for a week while training happens. Then you do extra shifts or OT to catchup.
The 2lb gun was very good, it was however inadequate for infantry support and had a dismal HE shell and no Canister round. A 47mm for example would have been marginally bigger but offer a significantly better ammunition selection and usefulness.
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I have seen that idea put up before and generally shot down by those who know more than I do. More Merlin’s were produced than any other inline aero engine of the war. More than any other aero engine period except for the R-1830. They did not do that with “craftsman methods”. The Merlin was mass produced just like the P&W engine was. And every factory set up for their production was overseen (and often run) by RR. So it is not a case of the auto manufacturers telling them how it was done.
As to the 2-lber, it is meant to support infantry by giving them a defence against tanks. And it did that well. A 40 mm HE shell is kind of useless to carry if you can call on 84 mm 25 lbers for HE support. The extra 7 mm is not going to change that fact, nor is it going to appreciably increase the explosive power of the shell if it was HE. Even the US 47 mm did not have a canister until 1943 IIRC, so there is really no driver for one now. And if there was, it is just as possible to create one in 40 mm as 47 mm.
Modestly level 9000.
The 4in guns from navy stocks are not the 4.5in AA gun.
The Czech and French 47mm are even better hole punchers than the 2prd. Czech 47mm is also much lighter.
British neglected the need for the HE-throwing tank, leaving German field, AA and AT guns to hit them many times, including NW Europe in 1940 and N. Africa in 1941-42. British were very good in making things happen, but snapping the fingers so the AVRE or Crocodile materialize will not work.
Going from 57mm tank gun from ww1 down to 47mm was a mistake, that was repeated when they went from 47 to 40mm.
Job of the tanks is to deal with infantry in open and behind light fortifications, artillery (any kind) and tanks. Saddling themselves with 2pdr as a tank gun was a mistake.
The myth of RR making hand made engines was dispelled long time ago. RR made far more engines than Ford.
Because it is.
Rolls Royce built 82,000 Merlins in their three UK factories, which was more than Packard and Ford combined. They did not do that by hand fettling each bolt and they did not produce engines where the parts were not interchangeable as the RAF would quite rightly have screamed and refused to pay them, because if nothing else that would mean no spare part would ever fit.
It is true the Derby works did have a lot of craftsman, but that was entirely deliberate choice of Rolls and the Air Ministry to give them flexibility. Because that is the drawback of unskilled mass production, it is not very flexible and any change is a disruption. Hence Derby did the development work, the specials and small volume work, because they could quickly adapt to produce a small volume of a new variant for the Welkin or a Seafire LF or whatever. Crewe and especially Glasgow made changes less frequently and so could just churn out the more standard Merlins. Because sure on a line you can just swap the jigs and tools over and the workforce can start on the new item fairly quickly, but the work required to design and produce those jigs and tools is very much not quick and far longer than getting craftsman to swap to a new item. I think it was 18 months Ford spent redrawing the Merlin plans to suit their methods, so this is not something to be done lightly or quickly. On a related point look at Packard who refused to consider an order of less than 5,000 engines, because they knew their methods required that sort of volume to be worthwhile.
For another example look at Bristol, the first round of shadow factories was to make Mercury engines. To get maximum efficiency the various different parts were all made by different factories ran by different firms, yet the resulting engines ran perfectly when assembled and were fully inter-changeable with engines built by the 'craftsman' in the Bristol main works.
US mass production did amazing things and the contribution of Packard, Ford UK and others was considerable. But you can acknowledge that without repeating clearly untrue myths about UK industry.
All this talk of a large tank factory or whatever is only any good if you have fixed the design of tank you want and know you will be producing thousands of them, if not then the costs (in time and money) of setting up massed production may not be worth it as you will be tied into the wrong tank. What happens if they end up picking the Covenator for their mass production line?
marathag
Banned
US moved from the old M1897 'French 75' and domestic M1916 to the M2 and M3 tank guns, based of I believe was the intermediate 75mm design that was upscaled to what became the 90mm 'Triple Threat' in 1939.
All new mounts and tubes from the 'new' 75mm but using the same ammunition specs as the ore WWI piece.
18 pdr the same way.
Old tube get modernized mounts in the 20-30s, for higher angle fire, better recoil and steel wheels with pneumatic tires while the late '30s are new lighter tubes and proper split trail.
So by 1938, the only thing in common between the 1915 gun and 1938 issue, is the color of paint and common ammunition. 18 pdr AP and HE are still very effective thru 1942
The 360 mount adds unnecessary weight and complexity for little tactical benefits.
That showed with the 2pdr QF being far heavier than the Pak 36 or the US M3 it was based off- a few grunts could wheel the latter two around without a 1/4 ton Kübelwagen or Jeep nearby.
The 2 pdr was near 1800 pounds, the Pak 36 just over 700 pounds and M3 a shade heavier than that
Please understand guys that I used the RR engines as an example...............NOT AS A FACT.
If I had not been so tired I would have used the Bofors gun as the example because it is fact. US Industry used less skilled workers initially and yet still produced laods of stuff. By wars end the workers knew their jobs as well as any trademan but did not have the full breadth of knowledge. IE could not do all tasks.
If I had not been so tired I would have used the Bofors gun as the example because it is fact. US Industry used less skilled workers initially and yet still produced laods of stuff. By wars end the workers knew their jobs as well as any trademan but did not have the full breadth of knowledge. IE could not do all tasks.
Yes and no. WW1 showed that tank MGs were better anti infantry weapons than HE guns. In the 1930s there was a general expectation that mg armed light tanks would be able to deal with AT guns. And the artillery could deal with anything that needed properly blowing up.
So if the artillery blows things up, and infantry and soft targets are dealt with by mgs then you need an AT gun on tanks to counter enemy tanks and smoke shells to provide cover either while advancing or retreating and the odd HE round to clear out the odd inconvenient hold out.
We know that the world had moved on and that having a dual purpose gun (57mm or better) or a better [1] CS gun (3" or so) would have solved a lot of problems, but what they had looked like they should have worked [2]. As did the Matilda 2 when used as intended in Arras, in Libya against the Italians, and later with the Australians in the Pacific.
[1] I suspect all the CS tanks needed was a direct fire range and accuracy roughly comparable to the KwK 75 L24. That and a HESH round (did I mention that I like HESH rounds?)
[2] If the Germans had played fair without all this fancy blitzkrieg the OTL British tanks probably would have done quite well - even the rubbish Matilda 1 worked quite well at Arras where it was used in a role reasonably close to what it was designed for.
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Do you have some source handy that can confirm this?
Tankers have had no artillery units on speed dial.
Especially a problem for the cruiser tanks that were expected to exploit the breech and to wreck enemy well away from the staging points. It does not take a crystal ball to realize that a big gun is more capable to deal with the tanks enemies might deploy.
Mgs worked better than guns?
British WW1 tanks during the war swapped to hermaphrodite tanks with only one 57mm. The whippet only had mgs, the A1E1 - and a lot of other tanks [1] - had multiple mg turrets, light tanks (and even the Matilda 1) typically only had MGs. True the Renault had either MG or 37mm, but needed to carry canister to deal with infantry because it didn't have an mg. Post war they were fitted with mgs. See also US tank designs for mg love gone wild.
As for artillery. That's a fair point, but the British tanks were radio-equipped so at least in principle could get artillery support. And if planning for a less mobile form of warfare, the attacks would have been tied in with field artillery support.
As for cruiser tanks with no meaningful HE throwers, that was some poor thinking. They really needed something more like the 75/L24 for the CS cruisers which - if doing the job they were designed for - would be nowhere near artillery support.
[1] The Russians, British, Poles, Germans and French all had at least one model of multi-turreted tank that was available for service, though the French Char 2C never got used as such. I think Japan also had at least one multi turret tank. Only the T35 as far as I can find were designed with anything other than MGs in the turrets. However the twin turret Vickers 6E and derivatives sometimes had heavier weapons in one of the turrets.
British WW1 tanks during the war swapped to hermaphrodite tanks with only one 57mm. The whippet only had mgs, the A1E1 - and a lot of other tanks [1] - had multiple mg turrets, light tanks (and even the Matilda 1) typically only had MGs. True the Renault had either MG or 37mm, but needed to carry canister to deal with infantry because it didn't have an mg. Post war they were fitted with mgs. See also US tank designs for mg love gone wild.
As for artillery. That's a fair point, but the British tanks were radio-equipped so at least in principle could get artillery support. And if planning for a less mobile form of warfare, the attacks would have been tied in with field artillery support.
As for cruiser tanks with no meaningful HE throwers, that was some poor thinking. They really needed something more like the 75/L24 for the CS cruisers which - if doing the job they were designed for - would be nowhere near artillery support.
[1] The Russians, British, Poles, Germans and French all had at least one model of multi-turreted tank that was available for service, though the French Char 2C never got used as such. I think Japan also had at least one multi turret tank. Only the T35 as far as I can find were designed with anything other than MGs in the turrets. However the twin turret Vickers 6E and derivatives sometimes had heavier weapons in one of the turrets.