Malaya What If
- Thread starter Fatboy Coxy
- Start date
I recalled that as well - and actually did 10 minutes of google fu but could find nothing before posting - however just spent another 10 and found a comment on Wiki
"Although the Mk I had .50-inch guns, many aircraft were equipped with .303 Browning mounts and electric firing solenoids, which tended to fail in service"
The MK 2 Browning was a 3rd the weight of the AN/M2 (10kgs vs 28 kgs) and its ammunition about 1/5th the weight - so given the porcine performance of the F2As provided to the British commonwealth (with their crap underpowered 1000 hp versions of the engine that should have been 1200 hp) forces it strikes me as a desperate attempt to reduce the overall weight of the aircraft
The Dutch also removed guns and halved the fuel carried on their F2As in the face of the KI27s and KI43s (apparently this improved performance to the point where they became competitive).
The versions sent to Singapore had '12 x .303 Machine guns' - this was at a time where they were trying to get the 20mm cannon to work reliably and a number of MK II Hurricanes were made with additional .303 in case the HS404 cannon did not work (early Typhoons also had 12 machine guns)
The extra weight of the guns made the aircraft performance worse than the earlier MK1s despite the more powerful engines and improved props etc
1 gun and 350 rounds is 20 odd kilos so its the difference of 80 Kilos (I wonder therefore if that was 12 guns down to 8 guns or 8 guns to 4 guns?)
And it's not just the absolute weight: it's weight quite far out in the wings so the effect on roll rate could be dramatic.
And given the lack of armour plate or self sealing tanks on Japanese aircraft the reason for having 8 or even 12 guns in the face of 'protected' German and Italian aircraft no longer applies.
I thought the reasoning behind the 8 guns was that at 300mph a fighter would have the target in its sights for under a second, and they needed to ensure at least some hits from a short burst at 500 yards? it was the move to the 20mm cannon that came when they realised that modern aircraft weren't that bothered by a few .303 hits.
MWI 41040212 The Hong Kong Minefields
Fatboy Coxy
Monthly Donor
1941, Wednesday 02 April;
It was turning into a very busy day for HMS Barlight, just past midday, and she’d already opened the boom four times today. A small fleet of fishing junks at dawn, then the big British cargo ship Glenapp, leaving for Singapore, later the arrival of the Norwegian cargo ship Siljestad from Osaka, Japan, and then there had been the return of HMS Regulus from another patrol. Surfacing at dawn, at a pre designated point, she’d been met by the patrol craft HMS Indira, and escorted into harbour, her replacement, HMS Rover, had left two days earlier, and was now no doubt on the first leg of her patrol.
The gate and anti-submarine boom across the Tathong Channel had been in operation since November 1939, when the Admiralty put the harbour on a war footing. This was now the only official way into Hong Kong and the protected waters of Victoria Harbour, any other route used, did so in peril of mines and coastal guns.
Considerable expense had been made to provide for a state-of-the-art seaward defence in the mid to late 1930’s, to supplement the coastal guns. Firstly, a series of Indicator Loops had been laid to detect any submerged submarines, laid on the sea bed in shallow waters, not deeper that 16 fathoms at low tide. These were three single core copper, waterproof, armoured cables laid about 200 yards apart in parallel lines, running on average about 5,000 yards, but could be longer. At the far end the two outer cables looped in and were connected to the middle cable in a waterproof junction box, the same was repeated at the other end, except the three legs were each connected to one core of a four-core cable, known as the ‘tail’. This cable ran back to shore, in Tai Tam Bay, terminating in the Loop Control Hut, which was located below Stanley Fort.
Any passing ship or submarine inducted a small current in the cables below due to its magnetism, which despite degassing, would still be present. This could be detected by a
galvanometer, which can measure small amounts of current, and thus provided a warning. Honk Kong had eight of these loops deployed, overlapping, running from Lantau Island in the west, curving down south of Lamma Island, Po Toi Island and then sweeping up to Basalt Island, providing a warning of any submerged submarine approaching Hong Kong.
Inside of these were the minefields, both contact and controlled. Laid contact minefields were Mk XIV mines laid between four and sixteen feet deep, in such numbers that effectively closed those waters to any passage. The North Lantau channel minefield was laid across a similar line to how the Tuen Mun-Chek Lap Kok Link (TM – CLKL) road tunnel takes now. The West Lamma channel minefield ran from the northwest corner of Lamma Island across to Hei Ling Chau Island, and then again onto Lantau Island.
Another two, smaller ones were laid, one between Round Island, in the East Lamma channel, and Chung Hom Kok peninsula on Hong Kong Island, and the other sealing off the mouth of Tai Tam Bay. Further contact minefields were laid sealing Port Shelter and Mirs Bays, designed to stop any amphibious assault on the New Territories from the east. Pre-war incursions into the minefields were infrequent but deadly, and like all minefields, there was always the danger of a mine breaking free of its anchor and becoming a hazard, especially after Hong Kong had been visited by a typhoon, the one on the 30th June 1941 being a bad case in point.
The other type of minefield was the controlled one, these mines didn’t have any contact horns, were detonated remotely from shore. Each mine was anchored off the sea bed, with an electrical cable running from it to a waterproof junction box, on the sea bed, each box having a number of mines radiating away from it. From the junction box another cable ran back onshore to the mine control stations, two of them, one on the small Chung Hom Kok peninsula, controlling the East Lamma Channel mines, the other at Shek-O, on the D’Aguilar peninsula, controlling the Tathong Channel mines. Attached to each mine was a coloured float, which provided a visual whereabouts, enabling the Control Station to detonate the correct mine, if a ship sailed close by.
But they had to be maintained, drifting mines recovered or destroyed, while both the indicator loops and controlled minefield cables could become faulty necessitating repair. And that was what was happening now, as HMS Redstart, a purpose-built Linnet class "Indicator Loop Mine Layer" was about to do, as she waited, while Barlight opened the boom gate yet again. An indicator loop had gone down, the cable damaged, when a tug towing a target for the coastal guns had inadvertently fouled a cable.
It was turning into a very busy day for HMS Barlight, just past midday, and she’d already opened the boom four times today. A small fleet of fishing junks at dawn, then the big British cargo ship Glenapp, leaving for Singapore, later the arrival of the Norwegian cargo ship Siljestad from Osaka, Japan, and then there had been the return of HMS Regulus from another patrol. Surfacing at dawn, at a pre designated point, she’d been met by the patrol craft HMS Indira, and escorted into harbour, her replacement, HMS Rover, had left two days earlier, and was now no doubt on the first leg of her patrol.
The gate and anti-submarine boom across the Tathong Channel had been in operation since November 1939, when the Admiralty put the harbour on a war footing. This was now the only official way into Hong Kong and the protected waters of Victoria Harbour, any other route used, did so in peril of mines and coastal guns.
Considerable expense had been made to provide for a state-of-the-art seaward defence in the mid to late 1930’s, to supplement the coastal guns. Firstly, a series of Indicator Loops had been laid to detect any submerged submarines, laid on the sea bed in shallow waters, not deeper that 16 fathoms at low tide. These were three single core copper, waterproof, armoured cables laid about 200 yards apart in parallel lines, running on average about 5,000 yards, but could be longer. At the far end the two outer cables looped in and were connected to the middle cable in a waterproof junction box, the same was repeated at the other end, except the three legs were each connected to one core of a four-core cable, known as the ‘tail’. This cable ran back to shore, in Tai Tam Bay, terminating in the Loop Control Hut, which was located below Stanley Fort.
Any passing ship or submarine inducted a small current in the cables below due to its magnetism, which despite degassing, would still be present. This could be detected by a
galvanometer, which can measure small amounts of current, and thus provided a warning. Honk Kong had eight of these loops deployed, overlapping, running from Lantau Island in the west, curving down south of Lamma Island, Po Toi Island and then sweeping up to Basalt Island, providing a warning of any submerged submarine approaching Hong Kong.
Inside of these were the minefields, both contact and controlled. Laid contact minefields were Mk XIV mines laid between four and sixteen feet deep, in such numbers that effectively closed those waters to any passage. The North Lantau channel minefield was laid across a similar line to how the Tuen Mun-Chek Lap Kok Link (TM – CLKL) road tunnel takes now. The West Lamma channel minefield ran from the northwest corner of Lamma Island across to Hei Ling Chau Island, and then again onto Lantau Island.
Another two, smaller ones were laid, one between Round Island, in the East Lamma channel, and Chung Hom Kok peninsula on Hong Kong Island, and the other sealing off the mouth of Tai Tam Bay. Further contact minefields were laid sealing Port Shelter and Mirs Bays, designed to stop any amphibious assault on the New Territories from the east. Pre-war incursions into the minefields were infrequent but deadly, and like all minefields, there was always the danger of a mine breaking free of its anchor and becoming a hazard, especially after Hong Kong had been visited by a typhoon, the one on the 30th June 1941 being a bad case in point.
The other type of minefield was the controlled one, these mines didn’t have any contact horns, were detonated remotely from shore. Each mine was anchored off the sea bed, with an electrical cable running from it to a waterproof junction box, on the sea bed, each box having a number of mines radiating away from it. From the junction box another cable ran back onshore to the mine control stations, two of them, one on the small Chung Hom Kok peninsula, controlling the East Lamma Channel mines, the other at Shek-O, on the D’Aguilar peninsula, controlling the Tathong Channel mines. Attached to each mine was a coloured float, which provided a visual whereabouts, enabling the Control Station to detonate the correct mine, if a ship sailed close by.
But they had to be maintained, drifting mines recovered or destroyed, while both the indicator loops and controlled minefield cables could become faulty necessitating repair. And that was what was happening now, as HMS Redstart, a purpose-built Linnet class "Indicator Loop Mine Layer" was about to do, as she waited, while Barlight opened the boom gate yet again. An indicator loop had gone down, the cable damaged, when a tug towing a target for the coastal guns had inadvertently fouled a cable.
Fatboy Coxy
Monthly Donor
If you want to know more about the Indicator Loops at Hong Kong, or in general, I highly recommend this site, http://indicatorloops.com/hongkong.htm
🍻Wolf of Badenoch
Donor
Forgive the question if it's already been answered but was tere no attenpt to purchase P39 Aircobras from Bell given their reasinable performce by Clare Chennault's Flying Tigers?
Mark1878
Donor
I thought that the RAF did test some P39s but came to th conclusion that they were not good.
In otl only the Russianshad them in quantity as no one else wanted them.
I can find no record of the Flying Tigers ever flying P-39. Their aircraft were P-40s.
Driftless
Donor
Were the RAF tests at higher fighting altitudes? I believe that's where the P-39's performance dropped off, but on the Eastern Front, the air battles were at notably lower altitudes, so the Russians found the P-39 very useful.
following this , i doubt you have done enough to save singapore but atleast delaying things seems possible. Please atleast make the british do the isthmus plan atleast to start with i guess. Maybe something like wings translation of france fights on story , the japanese get thrown back from singapore at first but the 2nd time they succeed maybe is my prediction according to facts.
Unless you get very serious support for some reason . I guess you are forshadowing that the 4th indian is going to be deployed there or maybe burma?
Also any changes to burma , im not sure about the burma situation before the campaign tough.
And honestly greece was a truly horrible part of ww2 for the british the more i have learned about it and alot of the reason it was done at all was that british were alone in the war and churchills soft underbelly theories mainly . Asfar i can tell all it did was trigger the german intervention. Cause otherwise i think the germans werent thrilled with the idea of kicking greece out of albania since they were already propping them up in north africa already at this time i think but i might be wrong.
Hell british supplying greece in their fight against italians wich they were winning by the way could be a interesting pod for other authors and instead keep the troops and the gear they lost in the campaign for faster north africa resolution and more extensive far east support . Honestly this was what i was hoping would happen here to make sense for enough changes to otl to promise a brighter future for the far east and the north africa campaign before i started reading the topic earlier today.
And even if the greece campaign is a disaster , the positive thing about it that it would free up alot of officers and nco-s to transfers i guess to flesh out the units better in malaya and for the indian army i guess .
Altough sending hurricanes to north africa and far east is their ideal use and you can also stumble on the hurribomber idea. And when was the hurricane conclusion reached in otl btw ?
Unless you get very serious support for some reason . I guess you are forshadowing that the 4th indian is going to be deployed there or maybe burma?
Also any changes to burma , im not sure about the burma situation before the campaign tough.
And honestly greece was a truly horrible part of ww2 for the british the more i have learned about it and alot of the reason it was done at all was that british were alone in the war and churchills soft underbelly theories mainly . Asfar i can tell all it did was trigger the german intervention. Cause otherwise i think the germans werent thrilled with the idea of kicking greece out of albania since they were already propping them up in north africa already at this time i think but i might be wrong.
Hell british supplying greece in their fight against italians wich they were winning by the way could be a interesting pod for other authors and instead keep the troops and the gear they lost in the campaign for faster north africa resolution and more extensive far east support . Honestly this was what i was hoping would happen here to make sense for enough changes to otl to promise a brighter future for the far east and the north africa campaign before i started reading the topic earlier today.
And even if the greece campaign is a disaster , the positive thing about it that it would free up alot of officers and nco-s to transfers i guess to flesh out the units better in malaya and for the indian army i guess .
Altough sending hurricanes to north africa and far east is their ideal use and you can also stumble on the hurribomber idea. And when was the hurricane conclusion reached in otl btw ?
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Greece was a political decision. It was undertaken because the UK had made a pledge to help the Greeks if attacked. And when the main aim in the end was to demonstrate to both the USA and the elephant in the room, Turkey, that the UK would stand by it's treaties, you could not step away and say " Nah, not going to do that!"
In fact the Italians attacked but the Germens weren't involved. The Greeks were scared of the Germans and thought that too much BritCom forces would trigger a German invasion. That is why from Oct 1940 right up to Feb 41, the BritCom forces were limited to a few squadrons of Aircraft, the ground crews to maintain them and I think a few AA batteries to protect them. And they only attacked Italian targets. I can find no record of Greek based RAF units attacking any German targets, not that there were many in range.
Metaxas wanted a minimum of 9 Divisions sent. That was more than the Allies had in the Middle East.
'There was 2nd Amd ( in name only really), 6th Aust, 7th Aust, part of 2nd NZ, 70th Div assembling in Palestine with 1st Cav Div. 7th Amd refitting and good for little else, 9th Aust undergoing training in Libya. All this time, at least two Division were closely engaging the Italians in Libya. The East African Campaign was in full swing and could not really be halted. The Red Sea needed to be clear of Italian interference so USA Shipping could sail right up to the Suez Canal instead of transhipping at Durban or Mombassa.
When Eden visited Athens in Jan (?) 41 to discuss things, Churchill told him to be careful to make sure it would not lead to another Dunkirk, After Metaxas died 26th Jan 41, the new Prime Minister agreed to a much reduced Britcom force.
And all that procrastinating by the Greeks meant nothing. Hitler had already in Nov or Dec 40 to invade Greece. Well before Britcom land forces started landing in greece.
In fact the Italians attacked but the Germens weren't involved. The Greeks were scared of the Germans and thought that too much BritCom forces would trigger a German invasion. That is why from Oct 1940 right up to Feb 41, the BritCom forces were limited to a few squadrons of Aircraft, the ground crews to maintain them and I think a few AA batteries to protect them. And they only attacked Italian targets. I can find no record of Greek based RAF units attacking any German targets, not that there were many in range.
Metaxas wanted a minimum of 9 Divisions sent. That was more than the Allies had in the Middle East.
'There was 2nd Amd ( in name only really), 6th Aust, 7th Aust, part of 2nd NZ, 70th Div assembling in Palestine with 1st Cav Div. 7th Amd refitting and good for little else, 9th Aust undergoing training in Libya. All this time, at least two Division were closely engaging the Italians in Libya. The East African Campaign was in full swing and could not really be halted. The Red Sea needed to be clear of Italian interference so USA Shipping could sail right up to the Suez Canal instead of transhipping at Durban or Mombassa.
When Eden visited Athens in Jan (?) 41 to discuss things, Churchill told him to be careful to make sure it would not lead to another Dunkirk, After Metaxas died 26th Jan 41, the new Prime Minister agreed to a much reduced Britcom force.
And all that procrastinating by the Greeks meant nothing. Hitler had already in Nov or Dec 40 to invade Greece. Well before Britcom land forces started landing in greece.
Wolf of Badenoch
Donor
Thanks and apologes - I mean the Tomahawk, I'm not into aeroplanes but do have family links with the US volunteers.
is that true about hitler deciding to invade that early? I do remember reading something about wanting to invade greece and asking yugoslavia to allow germans to use their railway to go to greece but i thought that might have been in reaction to british air presence maybe during the fall/winter ?
And as said even a greece disaster wich looses alot of gear would still be useful in providing the nco-s and officers i imagine wich the units are lacking and for the indian units aswell.
Also to the author , are you changing anything about burma ? Cause i have done very little research about anything pre invasion to be honest outside reading about the burma road a little. The fall of singapore was a epic disaster but the japanese invading very deep into burma didnt help . Hell retaking singapore before the end of the war would be massive for british prestige for example.
And as said even a greece disaster wich looses alot of gear would still be useful in providing the nco-s and officers i imagine wich the units are lacking and for the indian units aswell.
Also to the author , are you changing anything about burma ? Cause i have done very little research about anything pre invasion to be honest outside reading about the burma road a little. The fall of singapore was a epic disaster but the japanese invading very deep into burma didnt help . Hell retaking singapore before the end of the war would be massive for british prestige for example.