Earlier Widespread Use of Littlejohn Adaptors in WWII

Littlejohn adapter

I was reading about this the other night in an old book of my grandfathers. In OTL it took the British a long time to adopt this idea of a squeezebore adapter. The idea itself wasn't new by any stretch of the imagination and Janecek had been in the country since 1938.

I know it's a bit of a stretch but bear with me. Let's say in TTL Janecek's idea gets some political traction pre-war and tests are done in late 38/early 39. These tests go quite well and convince the British of the value of the squeezebore principle especially in regards to the 2pdr anti-tank gun. The decision is made to produce the adapters and make the requisite changes to the ammunition being produced.

I'd imagine that tanks and AT units equipped with these adapters would acquit themselves fairly well in France, though I don't see it being enough to change the outcome of the campaign. My basic idea is that following Dunkirk, the British have a much better Anti-tank weapon in the squeeze bore 2pdr than they did in OTL leading perhaps to better performance in Africa later on?

Then again I suppose a better POD is to have he 6pdr anti-tank gun's development go faster than OTL...
 
Littlejohn adapter

I was reading about this the other night in an old book of my grandfathers. In OTL it took the British a long time to adopt this idea of a squeezebore adapter. The idea itself wasn't new by any stretch of the imagination and Janecek had been in the country since 1938.

I know it's a bit of a stretch but bear with me. Let's say in TTL Janecek's idea gets some political traction pre-war and tests are done in late 38/early 39. These tests go quite well and convince the British of the value of the squeezebore principle especially in regards to the 2pdr anti-tank gun. The decision is made to produce the adapters and make the requisite changes to the ammunition being produced.

I'd imagine that tanks and AT units equipped with these adapters would acquit themselves fairly well in France, though I don't see it being enough to change the outcome of the campaign. My basic idea is that following Dunkirk, the British have a much better Anti-tank weapon in the squeeze bore 2pdr than they did in OTL leading perhaps to better performance in Africa later on?

Then again I suppose a better POD is to have he 6pdr anti-tank gun's development go faster than OTL...


A better, simpler, cheaper and less service prone answer is for the British to build the French 47mm at gun that was in the B1 under license... it could fire solid shot and HE and could knock out any German tank in service (up until the end of 1941) from 500 meters +
 
Honestly, it'll make bugger all difference. IIRC in OTL the 2pdr was adequate for dealing with most German armour deployed during the Battle of France... and by the time you get into the western desert campaign something capable of flinging HE is needed (and the Littlejohn is going to shift the 2Pdrs capability in that from minimal to non-existant) for the tank while the 6Pdr AT gun isn't that far off...
 
I would suggest it would be a disastrous outcome for the British Army. It would have stymied efforts to adopt any better AT gun and would have stranded the Armoured Corps with tanks which couldn't fire HE (whereas the standard 2 Pdr could but wasn't used to for doctrinal reasons). The British would have found themselves even worse off trying to play catch up when the Germans introduced superior armour. Whereas they had the 6 Pdr waiting in the wings and had in fact just started production when that happened, with the 2 Pdr in use, even with the Little John, it would have meant that the 6 Pdr would have been further down in production priorities, while the 17 Pdr would have even have started development.
 
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