British industrial sanity options between 1906-1914

Right in 1914, the earlier formation of the Ministry of Munition would help. IOTL, it was not created until the Shell Crisis. [Can't see the drivers for forming it earlier, it was after all, an emergency response]

Also, keep Richard Haldane in government at all cost. Kitchener as War Secretary was not efficient in managing war industries.
[Agree]

I think a R&D board that involves co-operation in research and development between the Admiralty and shipyards and armament firms could have been formed well before the war.
 
Simply organising and equipping the Territorial Army along the lines of the Regular Army would treble the size of the British military arms industry because there were 6 Regular Army infantry divisions and 14 Territorial Army infantry divisions.

Haldane wanted a Territorial Army of 28 divisions, but the Cabinet would only let him have 14. That's probably only what peacetime voluntary recruiting would produce anyway. But if Lloyd George can be persuaded to provide the money for 14 divisions worth of modern equipment for the TA plus a 100% reserve that would have helped mobilisation a lot. However, somewhere in the History of the Royal Engineers there is a statement that Haldane made to the Army Council which was along the lines of..
Don't ask for everything you need! If you do I won't be able to obtain everything I can get.
The Liberal Government wanted to spend more on its proto-welfare state not a better equipped army.

Also if you could find more money accelerate the development and production of the new medium and heavy artillery pieces. Double the scales from 8 per infantry division to 16 so that there is an establishment of 320 guns (108 Regular and 212 Territorial) plus a 100% reserve. While we are at it buy enough Holt or Hornsby Tractors before August 1914 to tow the medium and heavy artillery. Both measures will help expansion of this artillery branch and help with the development and production of tanks later on.
 
Last edited:
Kitchener as War Secretary was not efficient in managing war industries.
Kitchener made mistakes, but...
  1. He was one of the first to see that it was going to be a long war. He correctly predicted that the war would last at least 3 years when everyone else (including the Admiralty) while no longer saying that it would over by Christmas 1914 were expecting a war of much shorter duration. It was he that pushed for the creation of a mass army of 70 infantry divisions and placed the orders for munitions that Lloyd George got the credit for when he became Minister of Munitions.
  2. It wasn't Kitchener himself that was inefficient at managing war industries. It was the War Office because they had no experience of management on that scale. This was in turn because the peacetime army was small and the wartime army was massive. Had the Territorials been equipped to the same standard as the Regular Army the War Office and the Military Armaments industry would have coped better because they were effectively expanding from 20 to 70 divisions instead of 6 to 70. The arms industry would have been 3 times larger and the War Office would have had experience of procurement on a larger scale. It would only have effectively been from 40 to 70 divisions had the 100% materiel reserve been provided.
  3. When Kitchener read the report on the proposed war establishment of the Royal Flying Corps he sent it back with, "DOUBLE THIS!" written on it. They did.
 
Also, keep Richard Haldane in government at all cost. Kitchener as War Secretary was not efficient in managing war industries.
I have a lot of time for Richard Haldane. The work he did before the war to reform the army was excellent IMHO.

Haldane was a lawyer.

Kitchener was an engineer.

Barnettistas such as yourself say that the UK went down the tubes because it was run by men with degrees in the classics instead of management, science and engineering.

You want to keep a trained engineer out of the Cabinet.
 

Thomas1195

Banned
Without Kitchener who will tell them?
Actually, I want to keep both Haldane and Kitchener. While Kitchener raises armies and recruits new soldiers, as well as placing orders, Haldane (and Lloyd George) should take care of war industry management. It's hard for Kitchener, a general, to micro-manage factories. Lloyd George had proved IOTL that micro-management is the way to go.

Also, Walter Runciman should be sacked, since he pursued laissez-faire, replaced by either Geddes, Addison or Montagu.
 

Thomas1195

Banned
Kitchener made mistakes, but...
  1. He was one of the first to see that it was going to be a long war. He correctly predicted that the war would last at least 3 years when everyone else (including the Admiralty) while no longer saying that it would over by Christmas 1914 were expecting a war of much shorter duration. It was he that pushed for the creation of a mass army of 70 infantry divisions and placed the orders for munitions that Lloyd George got the credit for when he became Minister of Munitions.
  2. It wasn't Kitchener himself that was inefficient at managing war industries. It was the War Office because they had no experience of management on that scale. This was in turn because the peacetime army was small and the wartime army was massive. Had the Territorials been equipped to the same standard as the Regular Army the War Office and the Military Armaments industry would have coped better because they were effectively expanding from 20 to 70 divisions instead of 6 to 70. The arms industry would have been 3 times larger and the War Office would have had experience of procurement on a larger scale. It would only have effectively been from 40 to 70 divisions had the 100% materiel reserve been provided.
  3. When Kitchener read the report on the proposed war establishment of the Royal Flying Corps he sent it back with, "DOUBLE THIS!" written on it. They did.
During the Shell Crisis, it was revealed that Kitchener kept ordering shrapnels instead of HE shells despite the fact that shrapnels were useless in trench warfare. Not to mention that British factories lacked the necessary tools and skills to quickly switch to mass producing HE shells.

In 1914, Kitchener ordered 2 million rifles from the US but only 400+ were delivered by 1916. It would be much wiser if he ordered machine tools.
 

Thomas1195

Banned
Nomisyrruc's idea was sound, but I still prefer measures that lead to the expansion of British industrial capacity as a whole. During the interwar, the answer is quite easy, but before ww1, politics was the greatest barrier.
 

Thomas1195

Banned
I am thinking about the use of assembly lines to produce tanks in ww1. If Britain actually did so, its tank output would have doubled.
 

Thomas1195

Banned
That's a big if.
Ford actually opened an assembly line in Manchester in 1914. His success in the US would surely have been well-known on the press. Maybe have some British directors, especially those from state-owned munition factories, visit the assembly line in Manchester.
 
In 1914, Kitchener ordered 2 million rifles from the US but only 400+ were delivered by 1916.
By 400+ I presume that you mean 400,000 or 20% of 2 million. I interpret that as American industry not being as good as the Barnetistas think was.
It would be much wiser if he ordered machine tools.
For all we know the Americans would only have delivered 20% of the machine tools ordered in 1914 by 1916.
 
Not to mention that British factories lacked the necessary tools and skills to quickly switch to mass producing HE shells.
Not to mention that it wasn't Kitchener's fault.

Before August 1914 everybody in Europe "knew" that win or loose the next war would be a short one so why waste limited resources on preparations for a long war.
 

Deleted member 94680

During the Shell Crisis, it was revealed that Kitchener kept ordering shrapnels instead of HE shells despite the fact that shrapnels were useless in trench warfare.

I think you mean useless at cutting wire and reducing parapets as opposed to useless in general.

Not to mention that British factories lacked the necessary tools and skills to quickly switch to mass producing HE shells.

The Munitions of War Act 1915 proved to be a strong, successful answer to the shell crisis and guaranteed a steady supply of munitions that the Germans were unable to match. No nation managed to switch to mass production quickly, but the British managed to do it better than the others.
 
During the Shell Crisis, it was revealed that Kitchener kept ordering shrapnels instead of HE shells despite the fact that shrapnels were useless in trench warfare.
I repeat
Kitchener made mistakes, but...
  1. He was one of the first to see that it was going to be a long war. He correctly predicted that the war would last at least 3 years when everyone else (including the Admiralty) while no longer saying that it would over by Christmas 1914 were expecting a war of much shorter duration. It was he that pushed for the creation of a mass army of 70 infantry divisions and placed the orders for munitions that Lloyd George got the credit for when he became Minister of Munitions.
  2. It wasn't Kitchener himself that was inefficient at managing war industries. It was the War Office because they had no experience of management on that scale. This was in turn because the peacetime army was small and the wartime army was massive. Had the Territorials been equipped to the same standard as the Regular Army the War Office and the Military Armaments industry would have coped better because they were effectively expanding from 20 to 70 divisions instead of 6 to 70. The arms industry would have been 3 times larger and the War Office would have had experience of procurement on a larger scale. It would only have effectively been from 40 to 70 divisions had the 100% materiel reserve been provided.
  3. When Kitchener read the report on the proposed war establishment of the Royal Flying Corps he sent it back with, "DOUBLE THIS!" written on it. They did.
 
Why haven't you mentioned that the British produced ships in pitiful quantities 1914-18 when compared to the Germans? The entire Board of Admiralty and Board of Trade deserved to be hanged for that!
 

Thomas1195

Banned
The Munitions of War Act 1915 proved to be a strong, successful answer to the shell crisis and guaranteed a steady supply of munitions that the Germans were unable to match. No nation managed to switch to mass production quickly, but the British managed to do it better than the others.
The Ministry of Munitions was formed as a move away from laissez faire approach. Well, no other nation ever tried to pursue laissez faire during wartime except for Britain before the Shell Crisis. Germany adopted command economy from day 1.
 

Deleted member 94680

The Ministry of Munitions was formed as a move away from laissez faire approach. Well, no other nation ever tried to pursue laissez faire during wartime except for Britain before the Shell Crisis. Germany adopted command economy from day 1.


"The Munitions of War Act 1915 proved to be a strong, successful answer to the shell crisis and guaranteed a steady supply of munitions that the Germans were unable to match."

So, what you're saying is, when the British ended up doing it, they did it far better than the Germans? The Germans that had near on a year's head start on command economy production methods? Interesting.
 
An insane thing that you haven't mentioned is the Admiralty and War Office competing against each other in the open marked for aircraft and aero engines in wartime, which is a lesser known reason for the eventual formation of the Royal Air Force.

What would usually happen is that the War Office would order aircraft and the Admiralty would outbid them. This would push up the price paid by the British taxpayer and it also led to an imbalance in deliveries with too many going to the RNAS and too few to the RFC. This led to the RNAS lending aircraft and later on complete squadrons to the RFC to serve on the Western Front which IMHO should have been delivered to the Army in the first place.
 
Top