Most technologically advanced British Armed Forces possible in 1939

perfectgeneral

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Mechanized Force

On Doctrine, Fuller and Liddell Hart

For the most part, the British Army
took the advent of mechanization
seriously, especially during the period just
following the end of World War One and
the period just before the outbreak of
World War Two. Even during the
worldwide depression of the 1930s, the
British Army continued to develop its
mechanized doctrine. In short, this essay
will examine Britain’s mechanization
doctrine during the inter-war period; and
in doing so, it will compare their
doctrinal developments to those of their
Allies and Germany during this period.
Most informative it is too.
At the end of 1928 the finances of
most nations were at a breaking
point. By the time the worldwide effects
of the “Wall Street Crash” were being
felt by developed nations, the world had
begun to enter the era of the Great
Depression. As the depression hit, most
nations began making massive cuts to
their defence budgets. The relative
peace of the last ten years had deluded
nations into believing that they would
never again have to fight a war on the
scale of the Great War.
This is the first stumbling block to an arms and technology build up. A Neo-Keynesian approach that targeted the money pumped into the economy is hard to justify when the Keynesian approach itself was new and slow to catch on.

wiki/Birch_Gun
wiki/Experimental_Mechanised_Force
The (August 1927) force was composed of:
If the old boys on their hunting and polo horses were silenced by reform then this early work would have progressed a long way by 1939.

For a single POD to change all this and more (all those other advances) a political and social revolution would be required. A revolution of merit and ability over wealth and class. What candidates for revolutionary change are open to us in this time frame?
 
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perfectgeneral

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A Techno-Mercratic Republic?

Lloyd-Georgism?
Disestablishment - Republic?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/People%27s_Budget

Towards Merit and Ability

Scrapping aristocracy and royalty might be seen as a first step towards a technocracy by a power crazed Lloyd-George sitting on a huge majority or as the benign dictator of a coup.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meritocracy
In writing the United States Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson relied heavily on Chapter Five of John Locke's Second Treatise on Government, which conceives of a society where the foundation of all property is solely the labour exerted by men. Locke argued that the acquisition of property is not morally wrong, provided it be acquired through the exertion of labour and if this be done in order to meet one's own immediate needs. So, Locke said, society is necessarily stratified, but by merit, not by birth. This doctrine of industry and merit, as opposed to idleness and inheritance, as the determining factors in a just society argued strongly against kings and governments by nobles and their lackeys, and in favor instead of representative republicanism...
....These governing principles comprise meritocracies: 1) Job placement is not awarded due to experience or expertise, but instead it is awarded on the basis of merit (although experience, expertise and seniority tend to result in greater merit), 2) on the conditions of the opportunity under the application of the job principle and 3) one that specifies the rewards for job attainment. These principles however, do not account for injustices but disregard them. Not all meritocrats operate in this manner. Most evaluate the structure of job equalities and inequalities through human abilities and personalities that allow them to perform job tasks to the best of their abilities.

Grand Duchy of Finland
An example is 19th-century Finland, which was formally ruled by an autocrat, though in practice governing was exercised by the educated class. Although ancestry and inherited wealth did influence one's educational opportunities, education and not ancestry was the principal requirement for admittance to, and promotion within, the civil service and government. Well into the mid-20th century, academic degrees remained important factors for politicians asking for the electorate's confidence. Likewise, one's military rank in reserves has been a decisive factor on selecting leaders and managers both in the public and the private sector. Even today, most Finnish managers are amongst those who have attained either an NCO (non-commissioned officer) or a reserve officer rank during their conscript tour of duty.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technocracy_(bureaucratic)
Technocracy is a form of government in which engineers, scientists, and other technical experts are in control of decision making in their respective fields. Technocracy is a governmental or organizational system where decision makers are selected based upon how highly knowledgeable they are, rather than how much political capital they hold. Technocrats are individuals with technical training and occupations who perceive many important societal problems as being solvable, often while proposing technology-focused solutions. The administrative scientist Gunnar K. A. Njalsson theorizes that technocrats are primarily driven by their cognitive "problem-solution mindsets" and only in part by particular occupational group interests. Their activities and the increasing success of their ideas are thought to be a crucial factor behind the modern spread of technology and the largely ideological concept of the "Information Society."

Technocrats may be distinguished from "econocrats" and "bureaucrats" whose problem-solution mindsets differ from those of the technocrats.[1]

In all cases technical and leadership skills are selected through bureaucratic processes on the basis of specialized knowledge and performance, rather than democratic elections. Some forms of technocracy are a form of meritocracy, a system where the "most qualified" and those who decide the validity of qualifications are the same people. Other forms have been described as not being an oligarchic human group of controllers, but rather an administration by science without the influence of special interest groups.
wiki/Political_and_Economic_Planning

This is loosely inspired by my favourite Simpsons episode. They Saved Lisa's Brain
 
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Advances in Code breaking and Code security would have been possible. The RAF and the army used Typex which was based on the German Enigma machine. The Typex codes were never broken during the war by the germans.

Two things come from this,

using their knowldege the german enigma code could have been broken earlier, how would this have affected operations in 1940?

The RN did not use machine cyphers, but book cyphers which are much easier to break, indeed the germans broke them as early as 1935/36 during the abbyssian crisis. the same goes for the Merchant fleets code (known as BAMS) which was also regularly broken.

The navy could easily had a version of typex in service by 1939 giving them complete security at the medium to high level (as for the air force and the army), at the least this would have led to far lower shipping losses in the Atlantic between 1939 - 1943.
 
Air independent Subs, were possible by 1939, True it would help Germany more than Britain, But it would have been possible for either side.
 
The lead gyro gunsight that came into service in 1944 would be awesome in 1939 Spitfires, especially when combined with the Spitfires .50cal Vickers HMG armament. Decimetric radar and multi channel radio control would allow to the RAF to slaughter the Luftwaffe in the BoB. Assuming of course that the BEFs powerful armoured Corps of 3 armoured divisions an armoured cavalry brigade and mobile infrantry division in France, and the worlds first multi-carrier strike force in Norway, didn't butterfly the BoB away.
 
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