Better prepared Australia in WW 2

[La Rouge Beret]

An Australian version of Unicorn seems like a good choice. Very interesting POD, perhaps a successor to Argus?

 

[Some Bloke]

My Unicorn idea would mean the RAN wouldn't get a carrier of its own until about mid war.

 

[La Rouge Beret]

Too true.

Although, I share Riain sentiment about prioritising a modern fighter bomber in the first instance. Left field choice license version of Machi 200... always had a soft spot for the aircraft.

In all seriousness, improving the CMF, increasing training standards and expanding small arms production would be a good start. If Australia is able to crash start their own electronics industry, but I admit it is an unlikely scenario.

 

[NOMISYRRUC]

Australia had between one seventh and one eighth of the UK population between the world wars, but its per capita defence spending never approached British levels. The defence spending between the 1924-25 and 1935-36 financial years never exceeded 3.0% of National Income. The figures I have which are from the Encyclopaedia Britannica Book of the Year 1939 say that for 1936-37 it was 3.8% of National Income, 5.0% in 1937-38 and an estimated 6.9% for 1938-39.

Therefore the starting point has to be that the Australian Government wants to increase per capita defence spending to British levels and the Australian electorate has to accept the increases in taxation and/or cuts to other forms of spending required to do that.

 

[La Rouge Beret]

Therefore the starting point has to be that the Australian Government wants to increase per capita defence spending to British levels and the Australian electorate has to accept the increases in taxation and/or cuts to other forms of spending required to do that.

Of course. Let us work under that assumption.

 

[NOMISYRRUC]

Of course. Let us work under that assumption.

I have already done some work on that.

 

[merlin]

Licence build the Gloster unnamed F5/34 - "a fighter using an air-cooled engine armed with eight machine guns suitable for hot climate use."

And licence build the Bristol Mercury to power it.
That gives a lever to build the Perseus, a Mercury re-designed for sleeve-valves.
Which leads to the Hercules, a 2-row engine based on Perseus cylinders.

If they are licence building Bristol engines, how about the Bristol aircraft to use them?
Blenheim, Beaufort, Beaufighter (especially the latter).

Also the Miles Master as a trainer, to soak up surplus Mercurys.
And the de Havilland Flamingo as a transport, also with Mercurys.

I agree with the first paragraph, but as Australia already have a relationship with P & W, I think they will power the fighter with the R1830 engine. Though, both for the RAF & Australia it will need an earlier prototype first flight.
Undecided, about the Beaufort, or whether the Aussies would prefer something with longer range, Bristol P.13/36 though timing may be tight.

 

[Cryhavoc101]

I cannot help but think that Australia's best bet at least initially is to push funding towards the UK shadow factory's with an understanding that a select number of modern AC will be delivered to Australia and then apply pressure as a stake holder where issues such as Castle Bromwich occur.

Regarding tanks and AFVs - Oz should make like Canada and develop a production line for the Valentine Tank as well as the Universal Carrier (as per OTL) - this instead of the Sentinel projects - again a POD where a dedicated Castle Bromwich like Tank/AFV factory was stood up in the UK to build tanks - initially Matilda II and Cruisers - I would then suggest that Oz do the same and become a stake holder with the same stipulations - a certain number of AFVs must go to Oz.

The only issue with this is that I can see a number of these AC and AFVs being diverted to the Home front and the Middle east/African Fronts - particularly at times of great need (Battle of Britain / threat of invasion) - but that being said the Oz gov would have improved leverage to have modern fighters and AFVs sent to them - instead of being horded in the UK.

Regarding Shipbuilding - Australia like today has not had a particularly good track record building larger warships (from Fleet DD up) - for example they were going to build I think it was 6 Tribal class Destroyers but for a variety of reason only built 2 - so scratch that idea have them made in the UK and build escort ships, corvettes and Spam out MTBs/MGBs which are more low risk type projects and therefore.

 

[dave_r_gilbert]

I agree with the first paragraph, but as Australia already have a relationship with P & W, I think they will power the fighter with the R1830 engine. Though, both for the RAF & Australia it will need an earlier prototype first flight.
Undecided, about the Beaufort, or whether the Aussies would prefer something with longer range, Bristol P.13/36 though timing may be tight.

About P&W, I found this:
The Twin Wasp was licence-built in Australia during World War Two by the Commonwealth Aircraft Corporation (CAC) at Lidcombe, NSW.The Lidcombe factory had to rapidly tool up for the Twin Wasp in 1940 after supply of Bristol Taurus engines from the UK intended for the Australian-built twin-engine Beaufort bomber failed to eventuate.

If the Twin Wasp was only licence built because Bristol engines didn't turn up, then licence building Bristol engines starting earlier than 1940 butterflies this away.
Unless the P&W story starts earlier still?
BTW it looks like Beauforts were licence built in Aus in OTL.
I agree something longer range would have been better, but they are better than nothing.

 

[Just Leo]

About P&W, I found this:
The Twin Wasp was licence-built in Australia during World War Two by the Commonwealth Aircraft Corporation (CAC) at Lidcombe, NSW.The Lidcombe factory had to rapidly tool up for the Twin Wasp in 1940 after supply of Bristol Taurus engines from the UK intended for the Australian-built twin-engine Beaufort bomber failed to eventuate.

If the Twin Wasp was only licence built because Bristol engines didn't turn up, then licence building Bristol engines starting earlier than 1940 butterflies this away.
Unless the P&W story starts earlier still?
BTW it looks like Beauforts were licence built in Aus in OTL.
I agree something longer range would have been better, but they are better than nothing.

CAC built P&W Wasp engines before they built the Twin Wasp. Also, CAC was a privately funded enterprise, so their decisions had to be thought out based on a business model of what they could actually do, and what they could afford, and what was the best way to do it, and so on. Building sleeve-valve engines for production was something that Bristol hadn't developed all that quickly, and, in fact, a decision had been made in England to substitute the Twin Wasp for the Taurus and DAP used actual Bristol drawings to produce their Beaufort/Twin Wasp aircraft.
The Beaufort had a fairly respectable range. Better than any unbuilt proposal ever achieved. The Boomerang also had much better range than your average fighter-bomber, and certainly better than the 68 gal Gloster nameless.

 

[Peg Leg Pom]

I agree with the first paragraph, but as Australia already have a relationship with P & W, I think they will power the fighter with the R1830 engine. Though, both for the RAF & Australia it will need an earlier prototype first flight.
Undecided, about the Beaufort, or whether the Aussies would prefer something with longer range, Bristol P.13/36 though timing may be tight.

A prototype Gloster isn't completely essential, it wouldn't be the first time an aircraft was ordered off the drawing board. Say mid 37 the RAAF talk to RAF about their requirements and are pointed in Glosters direction. During discussions Gloster say they are commited to Gladiator production with the Hurricane to follow but would licence production in Australia. After some discussion this is agreed but Gloster are asked to alter the design to take the American Twin Wasp which they are also looking to have produced locally. The prototype flies in Britain in mid 1938 and production starts in Australia a year later. An Australian squadron arrives in the desert in time for operation Battleaxe in June 1941 and is redeployed to Singapore in November where it swaps half it's pilots with those of a newly formed squadron arriving at the same time.

 

[NOMISYRRUC]

The Commonwealth Yearbooks that can be downloaded from the internet have a section called Military Defence. The interwar editions have a table in them called Arms of the Military Forces, but its actually only the combined strength of the Australian Army's Permanent Force and Citizen's Military Force. The table is too complicated to upload here, but the total personnel between 31/12/1919 and 31/12/1938 was as follows:

31/12/19 - 114,458
31/12/21 - 127,960
31/12/22 - 37,156
31/12/23 - 38,579
01/02/25 - 38,889
01/02/26 - 45,273
01/08/26 - 44,634
01/08/27 - 44,635
01/02/29 - 47,931
30/04/30 - 27,454
31/03/31 - 31,282
31/03/32 - 29,821
31/03/33 - 27,963
31/03/34 - 29,674
31/03/35 - 29,262
31/12/35 - 28,080
31/12/36 - 36,063
31/12/37 - 36,943
31/12/38 - 45,690

 

[Peg Leg Pom]

So the largest increase in in 1937, which would fit in with my suggestion of the Sino - Japanese war prompting an increase in defence spending. Perhaps an attack on the international quarter in Shanghai with a battle being fought with the garrison.
All a terrible mistake you understand, the officer responsible died in the fighting. Yes we're terribly sorry, we'll even provide ships to take everyone home as compensation. No the situations too dangerous for your people to return. The Emperor would be most distressed if any other westerners were harmed so we can't permit that.

 

[NOMISYRRUC]

So the largest increase in in 1937, which would fit in with my suggestion of the Sino - Japanese war prompting an increase in defence spending. Perhaps an attack on the international quarter in Shanghai with a battle being fought with the garrison.

All a terrible mistake you understand, the officer responsible died in the fighting. Yes we're terribly sorry, we'll even provide ships to take everyone home as compensation. No the situations too dangerous for your people to return. The Emperor would be most distressed if any other westerners were harmed so we can't permit that.

My plan wasn't very well developed, but the intention was to concentrate the extra money on expanding the pitifully small RAAF first, the RAN second and the Australian Army would be a poor third.

 

[Peg Leg Pom]

My plan wasn't very well developed, but the intention was to concentrate the extra money on expanding the pitifully small RAAF first, the RAN second and the Australian Army would be a poor third.

I think in 1937 the thing most people would say when the RAAF was brought up would be "What R.A.A.F?"

 

[NOMISYRRUC]

I think in 1937 the thing most people would say when the RAAF was brought up would be "What R.A.A.F?"

On the document from the AWM website that I am currently working on the personnel of HM Australian Forces in 1928 were:

1,748 Army Permanent Force plus 42,887 CMF
5,093 Royal Australian Navy plus 6,176 Reserves
970 RAAF plus 339 CAF

7,811 Total Regulars and 49,402 Reservists

At the time the establishment of the RAAF was:

HQ RAAF
One Flying Training School
One Stores Depot
Two Squadrons - each of 3 flights, one fighter, one bomber and one army co-operation. A third of the personnel were regulars and the rest were C.A.F.
One Naval Cooperation Flight
One Experimental Section, which was Australia's equivalent of the RAE
​

My intention is a six fold increase in the size of the RAAF between 1922 and 1934. I want the situation in 1928 to be:

Personnel: 5,820 Permanent Air Force and 2,034 Citizens Air Force

Establishment:

HQ RAAF plus some wing or group HQ between it and the squadrons, schools, depots and flights.
A six fold increase in the capacity of the training organisation, but not necessarily 6 FTS
A six fold increase in the capacity of the logistics organisation, but not necessarily 6 stores depots.
Six Squadrons - 2 PAF bomber squadrons, 2 CAF Fighter Squadrons and 2 CAF Army Co-operation squadrons.
Six Naval Cooperation Flights - some would have Supermarine Seagulls and the others Supermarine Southamptons
A six fold increase in the size of the Experimental Section​

 

[ramtank2]

Build Whirlwind in OZ with P&W Twin Wasp in place of Peregrine. extra fuel tanks replace Peregrine radiators.

 

[NOMISYRRUC]

This is Post 32 with some additions and quotes from Chapter 1 from Volume Oneof Australia in the War of 1939–1945. Series 1 – Army from the Australian War Memorial Website that I thought explained some of the increases and decreases.

The Commonwealth Yearbooks that can be downloaded from the internet have a section called Military Defence. The interwar editions have a table in them called Arms of the Military Forces, but it's actually only the combined strength of the Australian Army's Permanent Force and Citizen's Military Force. The table is too complicated to upload here, but the total personnel between 31/12/1919 and 31/12/1938 was as follows:

31/12/19 - 114,458
31/12/21 - 127,960 - which seems to be 3,150 P.F and 124,000 C.M.F. according to the first quote from the AWN source.
31/12/22 - 37,156 - The AWM source says 3,179 P.F. and 124,489 C.M.F for a total of 127,668.
31/12/23 - 38,579
01/02/25 - 38,889
01/02/26 - 45,273
01/08/26 - 44,634
01/08/27 - 44,635
00/00/28 - 00,000 - The AWM source says 1,748 P.F. and 42,887 C.M.F. for a total of 44,635.
01/02/29 - 47,931
30/04/30 - 27,454 - The AWM source says 1,669 P.F. and 25,785 C.M.F. for a total of 27,454 in June 1930.
31/03/31 - 31,282
31/03/32 - 29,821 - The AWM source says 1,536 P.F. and 28,285 C.M.F. for a total of 29,821.
31/03/33 - 27,963
31/03/34 - 29,674
31/03/35 - 29,262
31/12/35 - 28,080
31/12/36 - 36,063
31/12/37 - 36,943
31/12/38 - 45,690 - The AWM source says 2,795 P.F. and 42,895 C.M.F. for a total of 45,690.

In 1920-21, the first year after demobilisation, the Hughes Government reduced the navy to a strength of about 4,500, 1,000 more than in 1914, but with twenty more vessels than it possessed in that year. The militia numbered 100,000 compulsorily enlisted men of the 1899, 1900 and 1901 classes, practically untrained, and was equipped with the weapons which the A.I.F. had brought home. Under the Defence Act these men could be obliged to fight only within Australia. There was a cadre of 3,150 permanent officers and men, which was about 150 more than in 1914. Hughes pointed out that such forces would cost each Australian 12s 4d for the army and 12s 6d for the navy, compared with £2 13s 9d and £1 16s 3d in the United Kingdom.

While the Washington Conference was still in session Hughes had promised Parliament that, if the naval reductions were agreed upon, the defence vote would be substantially reduced. Consequently, in the following year, nearly half of the ships of the Australian Navy were put out of commission, and it was decided to reduce the permanent staff of the arm to 1,600, to maintain the seven militia divisions (five of infantry and two of cavalry) at a strength of about 31,000 men—only 25 per cent of their war strength—and to reduce training to six days in camp and four days at the local centres a year. Seventy-two regular officers out of a meagre total of some 300 would be retired, and compensated at a cost of £300,000.

In 1925-26 (as Mr Bruce pointed out) each British citizen was paying 51s 1d for defence, each Australian only 27s 2d. But the per capita cost of defence in Canada (which could rely on the protection of the United States) was only 5s 10d, in New Zealand 12s l1d and in South Africa 2s 6d. Of the Australian's 27s 2d the navy received 17s 2d, the army 5s 2d, the air force 2s 8d and munitions supply 2s 2d.

Gains in equipment were microscopic: in 1926 the army obtained its first motor vehicles—five 30-cwt lorries, one for each military district except the Sixth (Tasmania), and eight tractors for the artillery; in 1927 four light tanks arrived.

In 1901, when the population of Australia was 3,824,000, the permanent forces aggregated 1,544, the partly-paid militia and unpaid volunteers 27,400. In June 1930, when the population was 6,500,000, the permanent forces totalled 1,669, the militia 25,785.

For the army the three-year plan (for the years 1934-35 to 1936-37) included the purchase of motor vehicles on a limited scale, increased stocks of ammunition, and "an instalment of modern technical equipment" a phrase whose modesty was justified, because the £127,743 that was allotted to the army for its development program in the first year and the £ 1,005,792 for the second was merely a token in view of the fact that the army was and always had been incompletely equipped by 1918 standards. It could not mobilise even a brigade without commandeering civil vehicles, and now had to base its plans on the assumption that it would be engaged, if war came, against armies (such as the German ) whose weapons belonged to a new epoch.

It was seen that the accomplishment of even such a modest plan of military defence would take years to achieve despite the larger funds that the Government was then allotting. The sum of £1,811,000 was spent on the army in 1935-36, £2,232,000 in 1936-37, £2,182,000 in 1937-38; but one battery of 9.2-inch coast defence guns with its essential equipment cost £ 300,000, a battery of anti-aircraft guns with its gear and ammunition cost £150,000. In fact, until the crises of 1938, the army, which had been placed on short rations in 1930, received only enough nourishment to enable it to restore a little of the weight it had lost since the depression and to repair some of the deficiencies it had suffered since 1918. Nor can it be doubted that the army leaders, in whom the years of parsimony had produced a distrust of politicians, were resolved to spend such funds as they received on something that the politician could not take away from them if the crisis seemed to have passed and the army's income could be cut again. Thus there was this additional reason for giving priority to guns and concrete rather than men and training: that if the vote was again reduced, the guns and concrete would remain. In the early years of rearmament at any rate, while some leaders on the liberal side in Parliament favoured a return to compulsory training, the army staff was happy enough about the retention of voluntary service while it spent its limited funds chiefly on that equipment without which a larger army would be of small value.

As Squires' staff officer—an important post because the newcomer would inevitably be greatly dependent on his advice—was chosen Lieut-Colonel Rowell, a highly-qualified soldier twelve years Squires' junior who was considered one of the ablest of the early Duntroon graduates and had spent more than five of the previous thirteen years at British schools or with the British Army. Squires presented to the Government a report on the development of the army, and in March 1939 this report was presented to Parliament, although in an expurgated form. It confirmed the wisdom of the policy of giving priority to equipment and to measures intended to defend vital areas against attack, and made two radical proposals. The first was that the existing district bases (each coinciding more or less with one or other of the States) and the infantry and cavalry divisions be regrouped into four "commands"—Northern (Queensland), Eastern (New South Wales), Southern (Victoria, Tasmania and South Australia), and Western, with an independent garrison at Darwin—each of which would be responsible for the training and, in war, for the operations of the formations in its area. Under this system, which required an amendment of the Defence Act and was not brought into operation until October 1939, Army Headquarters would deal with these commands only, whereas hitherto it had controlled separately the various divisions and brigade groups of the militia and the six military districts. His second important proposal was that a regular force of two brigades with a peacetime establishment of 7,500 be formed. These, he pointed out, would be immediately available at all times, and "would also furnish a new and much-needed source of supply of permanent instructors for the militia, and afford the officers of the Staff Corps more opportunities for gaining experience in the command of troops than they can have at present". The fact that the Ministry at first "approved in principle" this proposal for the creation of a miniature regular army, a measure which would again demand a radical amendment of the Defence Act, was a sign of the times.

 

[La Rouge Beret]

Another point to consider would be the government drafting / preparing a paper to theoretically deal with another conflict, and how the nation as a whole would mobilise. A second paper would deal with the issue of how Australia would respond in the hypothetical scenario of Singapore falling, and Great Britain unable to respond to our needs. Perhaps an invasion scare novel that becomes widely popular could be the genesis of the debate, written by a Man in a large Queenslander - if you will.

One idea I have been considering is for the Navy to have a Marine Corps, mainly as it would provide a niche capability that would align with Australia's roles for each service. The Army has a small core of professional soldiers that is designed to form the nucleus of an citizen soldier force to be sent overseas, a Marine Corps enables Australia to quickly respond to other smaller crisis within the Empire without raising a far larger force. I still think the Army should have a fully manned Brigade of regulars during the interwar years as well, but even such a small force might be too much.

 

[Peg Leg Pom]

Things Australia could possibly do to prepare for war starting in 1937 in addition to otl.
MTB's and single engine torpedo bombers for home defence forces.
Radial engine Hurricanes and Henleys.
Licence production Wellesley and or Hampden?
Light tanks & armoured cars.
Real training for the Militia.
Resume submarine operations.
Offer to host large scale armoured corps exercises.
Switch to producing No.4 Mk1 rifle for both Anzac forces and British. (It's easier to build and having an outside source of supply would help with Britain's build up)
Build submachine gun.
Buy, lease, beg, borrow or steal (but they'd get caught) Argus, Hermes or as a long shot Langley.