AH Challenge: Tigers and other Wehrmacht equipment in Southeast Asian service

Using a POD after 1945, your mission, should you choose to accept, is to figure out a way to have Heer and Luftwaffe weapons, equipment and vehicles fall into the hands of Southeast Asian militaries. Bonus points if you manage to prussianise the military (complete with goose-stepping mooks in coal scuttle helmets, no less) of any random Southeast Asian state in the process. Good luck.
 

Clibanarius

Banned
The French capture a bunch of German equipment and send it over to Indochina to help deal with Viet Minh.

If the French lose like they do IOTL then they turn it over to South Vietnam and Diem would probably like having Wehrmacht style troops so. . .
 
The French capture a bunch of German equipment and send it over to Indochina to help deal with Viet Minh.

If the French lose like they do IOTL then they turn it over to South Vietnam and Diem would probably like having Wehrmacht style troops so. . .

France had a pretty fair number of Panzer IV's and Panthers laying about the country side for such a purpose
 

Clibanarius

Banned
I had just had a thought.

I know that the idea that Wehrmacht and SS Troops in the FFL during Indochina is a matter of some debate but what if the French sent most of their German prisoners over along with their equipment?

And what if they took over the South Vietnamese government? They probably wouldn't last long but a Germany in Exile sort of TL would be kind of neat.
 

NothingNow

Banned
Using a POD after 1945, your mission, should you choose to accept, is to figure out a way to have Heer and Luftwaffe weapons, equipment and vehicles fall into the hands of Southeast Asian militaries. Bonus points if you manage to prussianise the military (complete with goose-stepping mooks in coal scuttle helmets, no less) of any random Southeast Asian state in the process. Good luck.

Have the French, or someone sell on their panthers in the 1950s, or have some enterprising merchant sell used Jagdpanthers, Panthers, StuGs, and Panzer IVs on to let's say, the Thai military somewhere in 1946-1949. Maybe 1 or 2 get in the hands of the Viet-minh, so the french end up sending the 503e Régiment de Chars de Combat, armed with a mix of Panthers and ARL-44s to combat them, and to protect the lighter tanks then in use. After the French pull out, they leave the Panthers in country, and turn over remaining stocks of Panthers and Panzer IVs to the South Vietnamese.
 
Using a POD after 1945, your mission, should you choose to accept, is to figure out a way to have Heer and Luftwaffe weapons, equipment and vehicles fall into the hands of Southeast Asian militaries.

France wiould be a good source, but how about Czechloslovakia.....

-1947 The not quite communist Czechs agggresivley free market their excellence in precision weapons by offering clones of the best German equipment: Panthers, Stugs (for those with limited cash), German armoured cars , the 88mm gun and the full line of late war German small arms. The marketing campaign takes off, the Czech clones are well made, upgraded constantly and, given German military achievements... very sexy.

-1947: Independent and never colonized Thailand is the first customer and is soon a satisfied operator of the entire Czech clone line. The Thais then conclude that Wermacht veterans (desperate for work) would be ideal trainers on the cloned equipment. The German advisors introduce German unit orgainization, marching styles and tropical uniforms.

-1950: Attracted by the hyped quality appeal and dreams of Guderian, Pakistan buys, uses and loves upgraded Panthers, armoured cars, Stugs and 88mm guns.

-1951: The Czechs offer an upgraded Jagd Tiger as the ultimate cost effective (no complex turrent) stopper of post war armour. Pakistan snaps them up

Post 1952: As communism takes hold in Czechloslovakia, sales to western oriented coutnries become problamatic. But....

Bigs sales are scored with relativley anti western Indonesia As an island nation, they really like the German armoured cars, Stugs and the entire small arms line. Later, North Vietnam takes delivery of hunting tigers, Panthers and 88mm guns. Burma is a customer for a few stugs, armoured cars.

Sales are continued to Pakistan and other countries into early 1960s. The sex appeal as the czech cloned Panther "GC" (Guderian tribute model, Czech) with the Skoda high velocity precision 90mm gun and Skoda turbo engine, real German optics and german radios is just too much for the competition, even if they do have better products.
 
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Great ideas, chaps! Keep them coming. There isn't really much discussion where aircraft are concerned though. Also, there's a high chance that ODESSA might somehow sneak in a few SS war criminals into Southeast Asia under the guise of being technical advisers. So what next?
 
CCCP decide to use DDR as a manufacture plant instead of stripping it bare of tech and resources.
Most of the weapons are supplied to the east block partners in europe, but some go to Russia and from there to Korea.
 
The majority of German WW2 equipment was intended for (Western) European warfare and certainly not wet tropical conditions. Most of the problem will be the adjustment and refitting of this equipent for conditions, it was never thought to be used for.

For uniforms, helmets and boothing, the German equipage was mostly made of domestic German fabricated sources, mostly sheepwool and steel, besides thick leader and synitized rubber. All that is hardly useable in tropical conditions, as woll tends to soak up moisture and makes uniforms and cloathing very heavy. German Helmets were quite heavy and will likely cause the man carrying it in hot wet conditiond to experience fatigue rather quickly. German footware tends to cause problems with the feet, simmilar to the US footwere in the Vietnam War period, as it is not suited well for swampy conditions in warm climates.

As for weapons and military hardware, German quality will be difficult to maintain in areas far away from German manufacturers, as the complexity of this equipemnt cannot be expected to help the SE Asian side using it much in these conditions. By the way, German Armor was designed to be decisive in the open fields (mostly of Central and Eastern Europe, which was sollid grasland mostly) and certainly not the swamps and jungles of SE Asia. This specialisation ruled out us of this sort of German hardware in SE Asia.
 
Great ideas, chaps! Keep them coming. There isn't really much discussion where aircraft are concerned though.

Aircraft are going to be very difficult. The Spanish and possibly the Czechs produced ME 109 clones for a number of years. Jets, however, were the wave of the immediate future and German WWII jets were soon made obsolete by western and Soviet designs. Also, the final ME 109s, though excellent designs, were not not superior to advanced Mustangs and Spitfighters. This would cause sales problems. Meanwhile, Panthers (arguable with T-34s), 88mm guns, MG-42s, armoured cars (possilby?) were clearly the best in the world. Even Stugs offered alot of bang for their size and relative simplicity. These would be strong selling points.

By the way, German Armor was designed to be decisive in the open fields (mostly of Central and Eastern Europe, which was sollid grasland mostly) and certainly not the swamps and jungles of SE Asia. This specialisation ruled out us of this sort of German hardware in SE Asia.
I agree. That is why I think it needs to be select armour (swamps and jungles give all armour problems, not jsut German). I am thinking no to Tigers, no to Jagd Tigers (exept in Pakistan), but yes to the more mobile Panthers, Stugs and armoured cars.
 
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Talking about tanks, the Tigers and Panthers are out of the question for SE Asia; way too heavy, slow and cumbersome, but the Panzer III`s and Panzer VI`s might just do the trick.
 
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Sukarno becomes a Teutonophile?

He could buy tons of captured German gear from Soviet stockpiles and hire German instructors to train his army after independence.

Someone like Kurt Tank or one of the Horten brothers could be persuaded to live in Indonesia and design new aircraft.
 
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