British Rearmament Before World War 2

I’m probably treading over old ground here so I apologise.

But I was curious how people here would go about British Rearmament, Planning and organisation before world war 2 for both the Army, Royal Navy and the Royal Air Force?

Assuming the POD is 1935 how much can get done? Will it be enough to prevent the fall of France assuming the follow the same operation, tactical and strategic focuses and deficiencies they had OTL. Also will this change who things kick off in the desert and the Far East?

edit: adding to this can there be anything done to enhance the British and Commonwealths intelligence efforts.
 
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From 1935 there's a lot of slack to improve things.

If you can get funding out of the Treasury or if you play smarter about how you do things. Playing smarter will change tactics and strategy.
 
There are three first-class TL's currently going that deal with this general topic (And a ton more out there as well), that are my personal favorites

Sir John Valentine Carden survives by AlanCameron
The Forge of Weyland by Astrodragon (on a hiatus, but returning shortly? - he also authored the splendid "The Whale has Wings")
AHC: Peerless Air Ministry - by SonofPegasus
I can vouch for all three of these suggestions! Excellent work by all of the writers and amazing conversation and debate by the rest of the community.

For my money, one of the biggest things to change is the railway in and around Sheffield. It became a major choke point for steel and vehicle production. Develop welding quickly, invest heavily in single use tooling, the increase in yield during war time will be imense. Focus these efforts on naval and tank production.

Prioritise defence of supply lines, the Channel, Suez, the Rock, India and Malaysia are all major suppliers for the UK, invest abroad to make canneries more prevalent in food producing regions, anything to increase the amount of food available to these regions for sale. Increase production for Coastal Command and the Fleet Air Arm, place great emphasis on scouting and reconnaissance operations to persuade the Old Guard to relax a little. Plan more for the 'Freak Navy' that became a reality. Germany cannot keep pace in production of Naval assets, so how exactly no one thought they might play the sneaky game is beyond me.

If at all possible, find a way for Lord Nuffield to perish early, preferably involving a tragic accident involving a nude parachuting excursion and a hornet nest. The guy will not play ball, and he will make every effort about 50% harder than it needed to be, even when cooperating.
The fall of France isn't something that the UK can effectively influence with an economic or industrial PoD. Simply put, France fell due to poor military cohesion, limited communications between arms, ignorance of their enemy, political machinations and massive luck on the part of the Axis forces.

If the UK were to perform well following the BoF, particularly in the Middle East, and builds up a naval presence even greater than OTL, Japan might be cowed into working over Russia instead. Maybe.

Honestly, Japan is kind of hard to predict, they just kind of... did things. They had a distinctly weird way of deciding what they would do. They attacked Pearl Harbour while simultaneously launching a number of difficult and costly amphibious assaults. It was quite off the wall, and if anyone had been even remotely prepared for such a thing, it would have fallen apart quicker than a rope bridge in a Disney movie.
 
If the UK started rearmament before WW2, you might well butterfly away WW2 entirely. A lot of decisions were made because of the perception that the UK was decadent and weak, that the French lacked the stomach for a real fight, and that the USSR was a rotten structure that would collapse with the first good kick. Change these perceptions and you probably see a change in behavior. In such an environment, Hitler would probably stop with the Sudetenland, and might not even get there, stopping with Austria.

Germany would have to replan its entire gambit if it didn't believe it could get 'ahead on the rearmament curve' versus the UK, especially if the French also increased their budget.

From an omniscient economic efficiency perspective, a 10-20% military budget increase might well rank for the UK as the best money they ever spent, although the people would probably see it as money they could ill afford (because they can't see the alternate history they avoided).
 
As this predates the 2nd London Naval Treaty and as Japan renounced the WNT on 29/12/1934, it means Britain can say fuggit and get building warships. Proto-Vanguards would be my route to battleship construction. Order a good eight or ten of them, replace the R-class then the QEs, modify the armament as you retire the old ships and crane them onto the new ships. It should be cheaper than developing 2 new turrets and a new gun as the KGVs were. Also don't bother with the 5.25". Sling all the money saved from that into new cruisers and destroyers. Don't scrap any old cruisers or destroyers, turn them into AA ships (the former) or convoy escorts (the latter). Rebuild the Renowns and Hood, and get some carriers laid down so we don't go into WWII with our CV forces being 1 liner conversion, 1 superdreadnought conversion, 3 BC conversions and Ark Royal.
 
bomber command was almost useless till 43 , maybe late 42 if ur being generous . Considering how over hyped the airforce was and the BOMBER WILL ANNIHILATE ALL cause a freaking italian theorized it basicly .
 
I’m probably treading over old ground here so I apologise.

But I was curious how people here would go about British Rearmament, Planning and organisation before world war 2 for both the Army, Royal Navy and the Royal Air Force?

Assuming the POD is 1935 how much can get done? Will it be enough to prevent the fall of France assuming the follow the same operation, tactical and strategic focuses and deficiencies they had OTL. Also will this change who things kick off in the desert and the Far East?

edit: adding to this can there be anything done to enhance the British and Commonwealths intelligence efforts.
Dividing this up into industrial, army, navy, and airforce to keep things simple.

Industrial
IOTL Britain was a major industrial power, but much of their industry was not set up for mass production. There were alot of small shops and firms around the country and few really massive concerns. I would have subsidized major firms to build new larger factories and develop the tools and methods to churn out stuff in huge numbers. I also would have incentivized firms to establish branches in the Dominions, especially Canada and Australia to allow them to build stuff on their own. While also encouraging industry and agriculture in the colonies, especially India. By 1939 most of these efforts would have begun bearing fruit.

Army
The bones of the army were fairly good, Britain had a good rifle, solid training, and were the only fully mechanized army in the world in 1939. The main thing I would have done is set the army up to more readily expand once war did break out and a solid conscription plan. Then I would have tried to standardize on a few specific designs of tank, truck, armored car, machine gun, to streamline mass production. With a POD of 1935 I should be able to get some very good tank designs especially, and I would have pushed for more AT firepower across the board to start with and not been stuck with the 2 pounder. Also talk to the French more and try to come up with a solid plan and good understanding of what each force will do in the event of war.

Navy
Start building more sloops from 1935 onward, build more carriers like Ark Royal, Get either the 15 or 16 inch gun ready to go and start laying down battleships to use them. Refit Hood the twins and the other QEs not refit, start working on designs for a battleship to use spare 15 inch guns laying around, maybe scrap a Revenge or two to use their guns. Begin work on a post treaty 6 inch armed cruiser, something like the Dido and build more Tribals. Also work out a proper DP gun instead of the odd halfway house mess the RN was saddled with OTL in regards to small guns. Get the FAA back in RN control, and make a standard destroyer design you can build in numbers quickly and cheaply. Set up for welding. More subs as well.

Air Force
Can anyone who had anything to do with bombers more or less, give the FAA back to the RN, begin work on a new and improved line of bombers, build some decent fighters. Try and standardize on the Merlin engine and possibly develop a radial for use by some aircraft. The Hurricane and Spitefire are alright fighters, but try and make them longer ranged and improve the gun armament of everything across the board, dont use the OTL rifle caliber guns.
 
I'd humbly suggest that this very interesting (at least for me) topic is split into more threads, like separate for Army, Navy, RAF etc.
 
First thing - and possibly very difficult for any then government given the attitudes of the day - introduce some form of limited conscription.

The biggest issue the British Empire had was the relatively small size of its army's - an earlier increase in the number of trained soldiers and the ability to arm them is far more important than any given weapon system or wunderwaffe etc

Even if it was initially to provide enough reservists to fill out the 13 TA Divisions and the equipment to arm them.

Say 6 months training then 2 years as a reservist with 2 classes a year of 220,000 men aged 20 - 22

Once this has a few classes under it planning can be made to expand to 26 TA Divisions relatively quickly under threat of war and as the world situation gets worse a less limited conscription can be brought into force.

It also allows for a bigger pool of reservists from which leaders and specialist can be identified and given extra training/mentoring.

Along side this improve wages to the armed forces making it a more attractive draw for volunteers.

All this would require an earlier increase in weapon and equipment production that would stand the supporting industries

Make the army and air force very aware that there would be a need for a return to the continent sooner rather than later

An understanding with the rest of the commonwealth earlier allowing them to do the same - again earlier with the same advantages

Basically abandon the 10 year rule ASAP.
 
I’m probably treading over old ground here so I apologise.

But I was curious how people here would go about British Rearmament, Planning and organisation before world war 2 for both the Army, Royal Navy and the Royal Air Force?

Assuming the POD is 1935 how much can get done? Will it be enough to prevent the fall of France assuming the follow the same operation, tactical and strategic focuses and deficiencies they had OTL. Also will this change who things kick off in the desert and the Far East?

edit: adding to this can there be anything done to enhance the British and Commonwealths intelligence efforts.
Getting Britain better is one thing , preventing the Fall of France is nigh on impossible. The French mindset and High Command is so bad that bar ASB intervention if Germany attacks them in 1940, they will go down quickly. A better BEF just is not enough, the French will be making up the vast majority of the defenders. You would need to overhaul the complete French Command and Control system as well as getting them to not move as far forward into Belgium ( which given the drivers is a very, very hard sell ).

Psychologically the French had not not recovered from WW1 , they were still wandering around with a form of PTSD which meant as soon as the lines got broken, the High Command got very defeatist. Add in a dysfunctional air force and a generally half completed upgrade of kit, they are just a paper tiger ( with Gallic pride stopping them easily taking advice ).
 
Industrial
IOTL Britain was a major industrial power, but much of their industry was not set up for mass production. There were alot of small shops and firms around the country and few really massive concerns. I would have subsidized major firms to build new larger factories and develop the tools and methods to churn out stuff in huge numbers. I also would have incentivized firms to establish branches in the Dominions, especially Canada and Australia to allow them to build stuff on their own. While also encouraging industry and agriculture in the colonies, especially India. By 1939 most of these efforts would have begun bearing fruit.
An excellent point regarding the nature of production in GB. A weird combination of highly competitive markets that encouraged small business, but stifled growth at the same time. Setting up methods for moderate sized businesses to build larger industrial facilities is vital to improving the overall war effort in Britain. Encouraging growth abroad might be less effective, in 1935 I would say focusing the money and efforts of private companies in GB is preferable to elsewhere due to the delays that will occur trying to operate across legal borders as well as physical ones, while also requiring an effort to convince corporate entities to branch further afield than they normally would may require greater financial incentives.

Army
The bones of the army were fairly good, Britain had a good rifle, solid training, and were the only fully mechanized army in the world in 1939. The main thing I would have done is set the army up to more readily expand once war did break out and a solid conscription plan. Then I would have tried to standardize on a few specific designs of tank, truck, armored car, machine gun, to streamline mass production. With a POD of 1935 I should be able to get some very good tank designs especially, and I would have pushed for more AT firepower across the board to start with and not been stuck with the 2 pounder. Also talk to the French more and try to come up with a solid plan and good understanding of what each force will do in the event of war.
Honestly couldn't agree more. The British tank design at the time was all over the place. Those guys must have had a very willing doctor to prescribe them whatever they were on.
Navy
Start building more sloops from 1935 onward, build more carriers like Ark Royal, Get either the 15 or 16 inch gun ready to go and start laying down battleships to use them. Refit Hood the twins and the other QEs not refit, start working on designs for a battleship to use spare 15 inch guns laying around, maybe scrap a Revenge or two to use their guns. Begin work on a post treaty 6 inch armed cruiser, something like the Dido and build more Tribals. Also work out a proper DP gun instead of the odd halfway house mess the RN was saddled with OTL in regards to small guns. Get the FAA back in RN control, and make a standard destroyer design you can build in numbers quickly and cheaply. Set up for welding. More subs as well.
Another excellent point. I would argue for increasing funding for sounding technology and sonar. Maybe later setting up a fund for supplying civilian vessels with the fruits of these labours. Maybe increase funding for buying new ships built in British shipyards? I think something was already available, but expanding that offer could improve uptake, and thus experience.
Air Force
Can anyone who had anything to do with bombers more or less, give the FAA back to the RN, begin work on a new and improved line of bombers, build some decent fighters. Try and standardize on the Merlin engine and possibly develop a radial for use by some aircraft. The Hurricane and Spitefire are alright fighters, but try and make them longer ranged and improve the gun armament of everything across the board, dont use the OTL rifle caliber guns.
Send in someone to review the list of companies that the RAF are willing to buy from. The RAF was seriously corrupt at this time. The rifle calibre is sufficient at this time, but more aggressive dealing with Oerlikon for their cannons and production rights is a must. Alternatively, begin work on a homegrown variety of ~20mm autocannon.
First thing - and possibly very difficult for any then government given the attitudes of the day - introduce some form of limited conscription.

The biggest issue the British Empire had was the relatively small size of its army's - an earlier increase in the number of trained soldiers and the ability to arm them is far more important than any given weapon system or wunderwaffe etc
I would consider a law treating serving in the forces as community service or as a prison term for non-violent offenders as a start. Increase learning opportunities in the forces, such as lorry driving, cooking or some such, and it could well improve both the forces available as well as the work force. If at all possible, finding more money for job offers for long term service personnel as trainers could improve training time.
 
An excellent point regarding the nature of production in GB. A weird combination of highly competitive markets that encouraged small business, but stifled growth at the same time. Setting up methods for moderate sized businesses to build larger industrial facilities is vital to improving the overall war effort in Britain. Encouraging growth abroad might be less effective, in 1935 I would say focusing the money and efforts of private companies in GB is preferable to elsewhere due to the delays that will occur trying to operate across legal borders as well as physical ones, while also requiring an effort to convince corporate entities to branch further afield than they normally would may require greater financial incentives.
Yeah I included the foreign investement largely as something that would perhaps encourage the Dominions to buy more British stuff and build their own copies rather than go for American gear. May also set up a closer economic and business cooperation post war.
Honestly couldn't agree more. The British tank design at the time was all over the place. Those guys must have had a very willing doctor to prescribe them whatever they were on.
I think due to the small size of the army the British tended to buy a handful of prototypes at a time to see what they could do. The issue OTL was that by the time rearmament began the latest British tanks were oddballs that would have likely been abandoned otherwise in favor of a more sensible designs.
Another excellent point. I would argue for increasing funding for sounding technology and sonar. Maybe later setting up a fund for supplying civilian vessels with the fruits of these labours. Maybe increase funding for buying new ships built in British shipyards? I think something was already available, but expanding that offer could improve uptake, and thus experience.
Sonar was already about as developed as could be expected with the technology of the time, more money would help advance it further but the real issue was the British reliance on it. Some in the admiralty seemed to be of the opinion that it made submarines obsolete, a passing nightmare and discouraged the investment in suitable numbers of sloops and investigation of better ASW gear.
Send in someone to review the list of companies that the RAF are willing to buy from. The RAF was seriously corrupt at this time. The rifle calibre is sufficient at this time, but more aggressive dealing with Oerlikon for their cannons and production rights is a must. Alternatively, begin work on a homegrown variety of ~20mm autocannon.
I dont know about corrupt persee so much as laser focused on bombing to the point that companies knew exactly the right buttons to push to get contracts. And the rifle calibre is more a future proofing effort than anything else. Besides it doesnt take a genius to anticipate that with aircraft getting larger you need bigger bullets to shoot them down.
 
As mentioned above a 4 x FFS 20mm cannon armed Hurricane/2 x FFS 20mm cannon and 4 x Browning Mk2 machine gun armed Spitfire would be an excellent bomber destroyer in the early part of the war - the system is already far more mature than the HS 404 'motor kannon' as a wing gun.

While the Mk2 Browning .303 was a good gun and adequate for the task it was clear from trails taken during this pre war period that a more powerful armament was needed and OTL the answer taken was to double to 4 then quadruple to 8 MGs (and later increase armament to 12 MGs in some aircraft during the early period when the HS404 was experiencing 'teething problems')
 
Getting Britain better is one thing , preventing the Fall of France is nigh on impossible. The French mindset and High Command is so bad that bar ASB intervention if Germany attacks them in 1940, they will go down quickly. A better BEF just is not enough, the French will be making up the vast majority of the defenders. You would need to overhaul the complete French Command and Control system as well as getting them to not move as far forward into Belgium ( which given the drivers is a very, very hard sell ).
I dont really agree, if you have an actual effective BEF with 20-30 first class Divisions (including say 5+ armoured with say Comets) and RAF support the same number of German divs will have great difficulty achieving any real break that GB forces can't counter-attack and bog down into a stalemate that gives the French army time to improve? It had anyway shown significant improvement, be even the end of the short OTL BoF?

And thats without a massive early attack thats completely changes the balance pre 1940?
 
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CalBear

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It all comes down to a willingness to spend the money (and to find the money to spend). The British economy never really recovered from WWI, with better than 40% of the annual budget going solely to Debt Service throughout most of the 20s-30s (exceeding, comfortably, the Defense budget during the same period), creating a serious limiting factor for any rearmament effort.

The next, and possibly more critical issue is that a earlier rearmament is likely to be by and large a waste of precious funding. As some examples:

RN: One of the almost reflexive ideas that comes up whenever this is discussed (including in this thread) is a major battleship building program. That allows a glorious shiny line of White Elephants to have absorbed massive amounts of funding to the detriment of actually useful tonnage. The KGV class was more than adequate, especially if the construction had begun a couple years earlier. Some money spent on upgrading Hood would also have been well spent providing a sixth "fast battleship" (albeit one with less protection than the robust KGV design).

It is almost impossible to envision the Admiralty doing what it should have done, namely build a large number of "Article 8" "Algerine class" like sloops (600-2,000 ton, 20 knot, blue water escorts) with a lesser number but still noteworthy program of 2,000 ton DD with 4-6 4.5" QF guns. The failure of the Admiralty to plan to defend the sea lanes against submarines (especially after the signing of the Anglo-Germany Naval Agreement and its allowance for the Reich to beuid up to 35% of the RN's submarine tonnage) was almost a literal crime. Same can be said for the failure to produce any sort of escort carrier design, even with a minimal airwing of 6-8 aircraft to act as sea control ships.

RAF: An early start results in a swarm of Beinheim and Wellesley filling out slots in Bomber Command. The heavy four engine bomber was, at the time, a purely American brainstorm (and that was solely due to the need for a long range anti-shipping platfom, where the type proved to be largely a failure). There is also no real way to lead the RAF to investing into open water patrol bombers and flying boats (the same blind spot that afflicted the RN), despite the glaring need to defend the lifelines of an Island Nation.

Army: Unloved stepchild of the Government. Even thinking hard about it brought visions of Flanders and blood by the barrel, and not just in the Halls of Power. As noted the only real way to improve here is to increase force size via conscription in peacetime. Rather a hard sell.
 
It all comes down to a willingness to spend the money (and to find the money to spend). The British economy never really recovered from WWI, with better than 40% of the annual budget going solely to Debt Service throughout most of the 20s-30s (exceeding, comfortably, the Defense budget during the same period), creating a serious limiting factor for any rearmament effort.
I dont think that really shows that the British economy was in any trouble, more that various governments placed priority in getting rid foreign debt over military expenditures in a time when they felt war was unlikely. Britain had an image to protect, an image that did not mesh well with major debt.
The next, and possibly more critical issue is that a earlier rearmament is likely to be by and large a waste of precious funding. As some examples:

RN: One of the almost reflexive ideas that comes up whenever this is discussed (including in this thread) is a major battleship building program. That allows a glorious shiny line of White Elephants to have absorbed massive amounts of funding to the detriment of actually useful tonnage. The KGV class was more than adequate, especially if the construction had begun a couple years earlier. Some money spent on upgrading Hood would also have been well spent providing a sixth "fast battleship" (albeit one with less protection than the robust KGV design).
Finally a fellow KGV fan.
It is almost impossible to envision the Admiralty doing what it should have done, namely build a large number of "Article 8" "Algerine class" like sloops (600-2,000 ton, 20 knot, blue water escorts) with a lesser number but still noteworthy program of 2,000 ton DD with 4-6 4.5" QF guns. The failure of the Admiralty to plan to defend the sea lanes against submarines (especially after the signing of the Anglo-Germany Naval Agreement and its allowance for the Reich to beuid up to 35% of the RN's submarine tonnage) was almost a literal crime. Same can be said for the failure to produce any sort of escort carrier design, even with a minimal airwing of 6-8 aircraft to act as sea control ships.
I agree more sloops should have been built and I have never understood the reasons why they did not do so.
RAF: An early start results in a swarm of Beinheim and Wellesley filling out slots in Bomber Command. The heavy four engine bomber was, at the time, a purely American brainstorm (and that was solely due to the need for a long range anti-shipping platfom, where the type proved to be largely a failure). There is also no real way to lead the RAF to investing into open water patrol bombers and flying boats (the same blind spot that afflicted the RN), despite the glaring need to defend the lifelines of an Island Nation.
All good points. I often think it would have been for the best if RAF leadership took a ride on an experimental bomber and met a fiery end.
Army: Unloved stepchild of the Government. Even thinking hard about it brought visions of Flanders and blood by the barrel, and not just in the Halls of Power. As noted the only real way to improve here is to increase force size via conscription in peacetime. Rather a hard sell.
To be fair Britain was not a land power so I can partially understand the rationale behind keeping a small army. Given what they had I think the generals did quite well. Just could have had better equipment when it came to tanks and AT weaponry, plans for mass production of said equipment, and some plans for mass conscription and rapid army expansion.
 
Send in someone to review the list of companies that the RAF are willing to buy from. The RAF was seriously corrupt at this time. The rifle calibre is sufficient at this time, but more aggressive dealing with Oerlikon for their cannons and production rights is a must. Alternatively, begin work on a homegrown variety of ~20mm autocannon.
It is not RAF, but Air Ministry.

None of the auto-cannon are mature enough for wing mounting. Add spitfire's thin wing and lower power of earlier Merlin's, both for spit and hurricane, you can quickly forget it.

It took two years before HE was available to the RAF, and relied on Ball 20mm and AP till mid war.


By mid-30s, the .50" browning was mature and in mass production. USAAF were fitting it to new designs at this time. The British were producing this ammo.


8 MGs concept was based on the rate and punch to hit fleeting targets in high speed (monoplane) dogfights. And Britain had a huge stockpile of .303" ball.

A more realistic proposal is replacing the four inner Browning .303", with 2 .50". Just like the Browning .303", change it to light barrel, and lighten the bolt and carrier, to increase the RoF.

This can be done with standard type A spitfire wings, and near neutral weight cost. RoF is still good.

images (75).jpeg


With mass production pilots, most are very green. There is still a large high density .303" cone for hit probability, and a narrow core cone of .50".

.50 would be AP and incendiary, with no need for .303 AP or incendiary, just ball.

#US designed M1 ball etc, were replaced with British designs by 41. If .50 entered service 30s, this likely fixed earlier. IE Mkiiz#

.50 API will defeat any Aero armour , and .50 more likely to defeat early self sealing tanks.

Hopefully with .50, it would allow engines and cannon to mature first, and no whirlwinds.
 
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