Malaya What If
- Thread starter Fatboy Coxy
- Start date
For sustained fire, a high ROF can be less a blessing and a more a curse. An MG42 or MAG zipping through a 200 round initial belt at cyclic rate is just the thing for an ambush, raid, or fleeting target as found in maneuver warfare. But, that 4-800 rounds per minute rate is perfect for prolonged suppression and enabling the crew to keep up with the gun’s demands. While the M60 didn’t age very gracefully (“peacetime” economics kept it around in the US Army), it was in some ways a better sustained fire weapon (off a tripod)than the all around better MAG, which required a recoil taming soft mount for optimum sustained fire use.
To bring this back to Malaya 1941-42, a well supplied vickers company with spotters, a good map and a set of ballistics tables could play all sorts of nasty tricks to the IJA, from counterfire to interdiction to protective fires. And still fire an awesome final protective line in the bargain.
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In Bergerud's book, AIF veteran Bill Crooks also states that the Vickers was a fantastic anti sniper weapon - "just blow the tops of the trees off". Crooks is my favourite interviewee of Bergerud's by a country mile. I would have loved to sit and chat with him, he was evidently quite the character.
Aye different horses for different courses, and in the defensive role, the Vickers, with as you said spotters and ballistics tables is a superb defensive weapon that'll be able to happily gnaw its way through belt after belt of ammo without a complaint.
no apologies needed, I hope you had a nice Christmas and wish you all the best for 2024!
Driftless
Donor
Might there be issues with how both leather and fabric gear was stored? Hung, folded, or rolled gear, if packed in tight, with no allowance for air movement are going to mildew in that constant humidity and eventually rot. I'd guess that it's a similar problem for leather gear too: boots, belts and the like. At least with leather, you can clean and apply water resistant dressing to slow that decay.
On that thought, what material were Commonwealth and KNIL forces using for their combat boots?
On that thought, what material were Commonwealth and KNIL forces using for their combat boots?
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The twin Vickers MG (The rarer 0.5" variant) tended to jam on edgeworthy senior's LCN. (The design came from early MTB's)
Just one of the belts would stick, either the fabric would twist or be degraded, or swell in the humidity, it was canvas and it behaves very differently when wet.
On one memorable occasion they almost sank a corvette because of this.
(One gun jammed, the mount swung around violently and ripped a hole in the bow)
Just one of the belts would stick, either the fabric would twist or be degraded, or swell in the humidity, it was canvas and it behaves very differently when wet.
On one memorable occasion they almost sank a corvette because of this.
(One gun jammed, the mount swung around violently and ripped a hole in the bow)
I don't know the social systems of India. I know what I do know is likely wrong!
The leatherwear, such as boots and belts might be prohibited, to brahmins. Then again,
are brahmins likely be found in the field?
My Dad's boots were a brown leather upper, with rubber soles. He was WASP in the
Medical Corp wearing para boots in the US (9th?) Army.
It depends on what you mean by humidity? Normal jungle humidity, as long as you keep them in the ammo cans or storage they are ok, if you take them out and just let them set around and "Soak up the Air you can wear" then you can have problems if you don't take care of them.
Sustained operations in the jungle is even more of an exercise in preventative maintenance than other environments.
Keeping metal oiled, ammo clean and wiped dry, and the crud wiped off of things goes a long way to keeping things working. Belted MG ammo packed in cloth or cardboard should be kept as dry as possible, whether you wrap it in a poncho, put it under cover, or pack it back dry in a dry tin. Metal linked ammo will corrode rapidly if kept in contact with wet cloth, leading to jams and potential misfires. Even the cardboard spacers will turn to a kind of nasty soup that will foul the feed tray of the gun.
Keeping yourself and your kit dry may not always be possible. At a minimum, getting the mud off cloth/canvas and re-blacking footwear will help prolong its life. The dirt will actually slowly cut into fabrics, causing it to tear quicker than wet alone. Ditto for reusing canvas belts. Even air drying is not possible sometimes because of the aforementioned humidity. Part of daily personal admin is cleaning, oiling, and blacking. Living in the jungle, a good practice is to keep a plastic bag or other dry container with a dry set of clothes and footwear for sleeping in then switching back into your (cold and) wet clothes and boots before moving off.
Reloading MG belts in such conditions needs some logistic prep. During the dry season, loose rounds can be rebelted once the belt is cleaned (this was a common break in action priority of work during the Defense of Bataan). During the wet, drying the belts probably won’t be practicable in a forward position. The logistics elements may have to devise a facility where belts could be cleaned, dried, reloaded, and repackaged. Fortunately the British should be able to keep pushing packaged belted ammo forward from Singapore and utilizing the facilities there to repack as needed.
Keeping metal oiled, ammo clean and wiped dry, and the crud wiped off of things goes a long way to keeping things working. Belted MG ammo packed in cloth or cardboard should be kept as dry as possible, whether you wrap it in a poncho, put it under cover, or pack it back dry in a dry tin. Metal linked ammo will corrode rapidly if kept in contact with wet cloth, leading to jams and potential misfires. Even the cardboard spacers will turn to a kind of nasty soup that will foul the feed tray of the gun.
Keeping yourself and your kit dry may not always be possible. At a minimum, getting the mud off cloth/canvas and re-blacking footwear will help prolong its life. The dirt will actually slowly cut into fabrics, causing it to tear quicker than wet alone. Ditto for reusing canvas belts. Even air drying is not possible sometimes because of the aforementioned humidity. Part of daily personal admin is cleaning, oiling, and blacking. Living in the jungle, a good practice is to keep a plastic bag or other dry container with a dry set of clothes and footwear for sleeping in then switching back into your (cold and) wet clothes and boots before moving off.
Reloading MG belts in such conditions needs some logistic prep. During the dry season, loose rounds can be rebelted once the belt is cleaned (this was a common break in action priority of work during the Defense of Bataan). During the wet, drying the belts probably won’t be practicable in a forward position. The logistics elements may have to devise a facility where belts could be cleaned, dried, reloaded, and repackaged. Fortunately the British should be able to keep pushing packaged belted ammo forward from Singapore and utilizing the facilities there to repack as needed.
When I served in the Australian Army was just after our commitment to South Vietnam. We were always advised to well oil our weapons against rust in the tropics. We were advised never to drap ourselves with ammunition belts because it was obvious they would become contaminated with debris from the ground and because of the potential for accidents from being struck on the round's base as occurred to a Nasho (National Serviceman) during an exercise when another soldier flung another belt over his shoulder. We were advised to clean our boots daily to keep them in condition, and our webbing and backpack as well. Shame we had ended out commitment to South Vietnam a few years earlier and all the advice went out the window in the dry and arid conditions of the Australian Outback. We were advised basically the reverse as far as cleaning our weapons went.
Prior to the mid 1950s, there were no polyolefin (polyethylene and others) or PVC bags. The only commonly available flexible plastic film in the 1940s was Cellophane, i.e. cellulose acetate, and it was too fragile to make a good portable waterproof container. Something like a "dry bag" in earlier times, and particularly the early 1940s, might have been oiled leather, preferably with a microbe-toxic tanning, or soft-waxed cotton, or "mackintosh" rubberized cotton, or "oilcloth", i.e. cotton (usually) with a soft-formulated boiled-linseed-oil varnish applied to it. For any of these, special care had to be taken with the seams, involving optimal choices of sewn-seam type and wax or pitch seam-sealer. Raincoats, rain tarps and ground cloths all necessarily were made of one of these materials, too, (normally excluding leather due to cost) in order to be waterproof but still flexible.
Yep, plyofilm, tenite, resin impregnated/rubberized fabrics, rubber seals, or synthetic rubber were all used to make water proofed containers in WW2.
My maternal uncle (Infantryman, 41st Armored Infantry Regiment) carried a roll top waterproof satchel made from rubberized material from Fort Benning, Georgia in 1940 to home in 1946 by way of North Africa, Sicily, and NW Europe with 2nd Armored Division. They scrounged plyofilm packaging (like the rifle bags in Saving Private Ryan) to store valuables and cigarettes in and kept old ammo cans to keep things like locally procured food dry and safe from rodents or pests. The US Army started issuing waterproof bags (pack liners) for food and other items to units in the Pacific during late 1942 in large part due to the experiences of the early battles in PNG and Guadalcanal.
It was common practice in US Army infantry units stationed in the Panama Mobile Force pre-WW2 to use locally made waterproof wallets/bags made from tarpaulin or other material to carry personal effects during jungle maneuvers. Rolled and tied seems to be the way they were closed. These became the pattern for the later WW2 issue bags. Another practice used by Infantrymen in Vietnam and elsewhere was the use of an old ammo can to carry moisture sensitive effects.
Obviously none of these methods lets you carry a lot of gear without a horrible weight penalty, but not a lot is really needed. During operations on Bougainville, for example, line infantrymen carried ammo and grenades, water and stripped down rations, small hygiene and weapons maintenance gear (toothbrush and powder/paste, foot powder, oil, rag, a cleaning rod split across several men), and a minimal clothing (spare socks and a sweater) along with tobacco for a three day patrol. They were able to return to a secure position where fires and resupply were possible to recover before the next operation.
Many of the current best practices for jungle warfare and sustainment stem from hard lessons learned during WW2 and the immediate postwar conflicts like the Malayan Emergency.
My maternal uncle (Infantryman, 41st Armored Infantry Regiment) carried a roll top waterproof satchel made from rubberized material from Fort Benning, Georgia in 1940 to home in 1946 by way of North Africa, Sicily, and NW Europe with 2nd Armored Division. They scrounged plyofilm packaging (like the rifle bags in Saving Private Ryan) to store valuables and cigarettes in and kept old ammo cans to keep things like locally procured food dry and safe from rodents or pests. The US Army started issuing waterproof bags (pack liners) for food and other items to units in the Pacific during late 1942 in large part due to the experiences of the early battles in PNG and Guadalcanal.
It was common practice in US Army infantry units stationed in the Panama Mobile Force pre-WW2 to use locally made waterproof wallets/bags made from tarpaulin or other material to carry personal effects during jungle maneuvers. Rolled and tied seems to be the way they were closed. These became the pattern for the later WW2 issue bags. Another practice used by Infantrymen in Vietnam and elsewhere was the use of an old ammo can to carry moisture sensitive effects.
Obviously none of these methods lets you carry a lot of gear without a horrible weight penalty, but not a lot is really needed. During operations on Bougainville, for example, line infantrymen carried ammo and grenades, water and stripped down rations, small hygiene and weapons maintenance gear (toothbrush and powder/paste, foot powder, oil, rag, a cleaning rod split across several men), and a minimal clothing (spare socks and a sweater) along with tobacco for a three day patrol. They were able to return to a secure position where fires and resupply were possible to recover before the next operation.
Many of the current best practices for jungle warfare and sustainment stem from hard lessons learned during WW2 and the immediate postwar conflicts like the Malayan Emergency.
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It's interesting to learn new things. I thought I knew pretty well the 1930s-to-50s history of flexible precursors for modern flexible plastic films, having worked in the medical device industry as a materials specialist for 25 years or so, but somehow I was unfamiliar with "pliofilm".
It's relevant to our story. It had limited OTL availability during 1941-42 due to the Japanese capture of most of the southeast Asian rubber tree plantations, with synthetic rubber variants and natural rubber versions from alternate rubber sources...US western-desert plant saps, South and Central American rubber plantations...allowing it to return to availability in 1943 or so. But, ITTL, maybe the Japanese won't capture all of the rubber plantations, or at last not for a longer time.
"Pliofilm" is a translucent elastomer-film made of (originally natural) rubber film, treated with chlorine. It's fairly strong and tough, at least by comparison to cellulose acetate and propionate films. It's somewhat expensive, mostly limiting its use to applications for which cost is secondary, at least once there were alternatives. It has the disadvantages (though not understood until much later) of contributing carcinogenic behavior to foods in contact with it due to the remnant benzene the pliofilm" contains, and...in the form of an "improved" toughened version developed later in WWII...causing chemical damage to many persons' skin that came in contact with it.
Here's a photo of...I think...British commandos carrying Pliofilm bags after D-Day:
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"Tenite" is Eastman's tradename for a family of cellulose acetate/propionate/butyrate plastics. Tenite compounds mostly were used starting in the 1930s for solid/stiff-object molding, not for making flexible films or coatings. Cellulosics mostly made low-strength films and coatings until, AFAIK, the late-WWII introduction of butyrate modifiers to cellulose acetates, resulting in cellulose-acetate-butyrate (CAB) which was much more impact resistant, though not especially long lived. But it still wasn't a very good starting point for strong, tough films such as might be wanted to make environmental-management products for rainy, humid jungle operations.
Not a waterproof bag, but an uncle by marriage (Infantry Mortarman, 327th GIR, 101st ABN) acquired a tenite scabbard for his knife (replacing a leather scabbard ruined in England) which he carried from England to France and the Netherlands, then through Belgium and Germany to home. Very cool piece of kit. The scabbard and knife survived to be later carried by other family members in Korea, Southeast Asia, Central America, Panama, Kuwait, Afghanistan, Iraq, Yemen, and Africa. Still going strong.
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