Rearm the ANZACs for the Pacific War.

I recall a story during the war when a plane had to make a forced landing on the coast up there and after 3 days of slowly dying having not found any fresh water the exhausted crew were approached by a very laid back First Peoples Australian who told them that he had waited for 3 days before approaching them in case they were Japanese. Upon being asked what he (and the other First Peoples with him) would have done had they been Japanese the response was 'finished you off'

You also fail to mention the greatest and most terrible threat to humans.

So terrible that I don't blame you for not mentioning it.

I of course refer to 'Drop Bears' <Shudders in horror>

Hence why Australia really only consists of a narrow strip along most of the coast. The rest of the country was ceded in treaty to the Drop Bears. The peace lasts as long as the Australians give their annual tribute of annoying Tourists.

God save those poor cork hat wearing bastards. I believe the general criteria chosen for the sacrifices boils down to those who say "Wanna throw another Shrimp on the Barbie?" more then once or insist of drinking Fosters.
 
Hence why Australia really only consists of a narrow strip along most of the coast. The rest of the country was ceded in treaty to the Drop Bears. The peace lasts as long as the Australians give their annual tribute of annoying Tourists.

God save those poor cork hat wearing bastards. I believe the general criteria chosen for the sacrifices boils down to those who say "Wanna throw another Shrimp on the Barbie?" more then once or insist of drinking Fosters.

My god how is the treaty holding up what with the Covid travel restrictions?

And this of course explains why it took so long to build the railway line into the Northern Territories and why it was not really viable in the 1930s as the workers had to spend most of their time standing on one leg with a spear pointing upwards in order to survive - makes it very hard to move about and dig stuff etc
 
My god how is the treaty holding up what with the Covid travel restrictions?

And this of course explains why it took so long to build the railway line into the Northern Territories and why it was not really viable in the 1930s as the workers had to spend most of their time standing on one leg with a spear pointing upwards in order to survive - makes it very hard to move about and dig stuff etc

It took the wide introduction of machinery with the operators protected in cabs for the line to be properly constructed. It wasn't completed until 2004. There were several previous attempts in the 1920s and 1930s but all ended up with the labourers calling a half because casualties from Drop Bears were too great.
 
Could a Oz-Emu alliance defeat the Drop Bears? After all the Emus alone defeated the OZ Army IOTL. If that brings the Drop Bears to the negotiating table then an Emu/Drop Bear/Oz Alliance Army could defeat any invader with ease.
 
And to me conscription for local service is the way to get around it. Define PNG and the Solomons as local service in the 30s. Then build low tech hard nut garrison forces that can go all Japanese and make islands like Truk not worth the effort. Yeah, sure they will get overwhelmed, but amphibious invasion is hard so they should give a good account of themselves and hopefully act as a deterrent. You still have to play Singapore as the main game but that is for regulars. Who would be silly enough to invade PNG?

I like the idea of forming a couple of rapidly mobilize equivalents to the USMC Base Defense Force equipped with integral AA, Arty, AT, signal, engineering, and a couple of older tanks (Vickers six tons or FT 17s picked up dirt cheap) less to act as tanks and more to act as slightly mobile pill boxes.

The idea is to be able to rapidly reinforce and fortify some of those small island possessions. Yes they can't really hope to actually win against the Japanese but they can buy time and chew the IJN Special Landing Force troops up. Hopefully fuck up the Japanese time table. A lot of those troops and ships had to be involved in multiple different operations in a short period of time. None of the gear has to be ultra modern. For the most part cheap as dirt WW1 surplus will do the job. I'm thinking purchasing some of those 37mm WW1 "Trench Guns" and improvising either a carry pole mounting or a wheeled carriage. They're dirt cheap in the 20's/30's and can be used to tear up Japanese landing craft. While their AP capability was extremely limited I think that they might actually be able to handle most Japanese tanks they would conceivably face.

My god how is the treaty holding up what with the Covid travel restrictions?

And this of course explains why it took so long to build the railway line into the Northern Territories and why it was not really viable in the 1930s as the workers had to spend most of their time standing on one leg with a spear pointing upwards in order to survive - makes it very hard to move about and dig stuff etc

They started giving out prizes awarding "One free all expense paid tour of wonderful scenic Australia" to random Americans in the mail. Those who accept are then whisked out to the "sacrifice grounds" in sealed planes and buses. Absolutely no risk of infection to any Australians and the Dark Pact gets maintained.
Could a Oz-Emu alliance defeat the Drop Bears? After all the Emus alone defeated the OZ Army IOTL. If that brings the Drop Bears to the negotiating table then an Emu/Drop Bear/Oz Alliance Army could defeat any invader with ease.

They've tried that a few times. The Emu's responded to the diplomatic overtures by simultaneously gutting and castrating the diplomatic envoys with their wicked sharp claws.

Emu's are just too psychopathic and sadistic to ever form any sort of alliance with anything ever. The best bet the Australians have is to just hide in their caves and just kind of hope the Emu's and the Drop bears wipe out each other. If the Aussies ever start their own nuclear program then we know they've become truly desperate and are acting on their final "Fuck it let's nuke those furry bastards" plan. Their last attempt at going with biological warfare somehow created something called "Super Duper Syphilis".
 
It took the wide introduction of machinery with the operators protected in cabs for the line to be properly constructed. It wasn't completed until 2004. There were several previous attempts in the 1920s and 1930s but all ended up with the labourers calling a half because casualties from Drop Bears were too great.

Right until the 2000's any Australian construction project that had less then 90% casualties from Koala related STDs, Drop Bears, Emu Emasculation, or giant Baby Eating Spiders was considered a rousing success.
 
Right until the 2000's any Australian construction project that had less then 90% casualties from Koala related STDs, Drop Bears, Emu Emasculation, or giant Baby Eating Spiders was considered a rousing success.

"Koala related STDs"

Nope.....nope nope nope.....no desire to know more at all

Move along.....
 
You mean you don't want to know more about the Koala Chlamydia ward.

(Its actually a real thing, honest)

The problem is knowing something about Australian Flora and Fauna - it would not surprise me at all if it was not a case of the 'Koala's' committing the 'burglary' in this case and not the other way around.
 
"Koala related STDs"

Nope.....nope nope nope.....no desire to know more at all

Move along.....

It was mostly a joke. But for some reason apparently nearly all Koala's carry a form of Chlymidia. God knows why.

And catching Chlymidia from a Koala has got to be by a margin the single most embarassing reason for visiting an ER ever.
You mean you don't want to know more about The John Oliver Koala Chlamydia Ward.

(Its actually a real thing, honest)

You figure if you'd done something so incredibly awful the court made you pay for an entire Koala Chlamydia ward that you really wouldn't want to put you're name on it.

But whatever floats John Olivers boat I suppose.
 
More seriously Australia is an ugly urban strip. And we do plenty of urban horror as Lantana or Blue Murder or Chopper can attest. I guess what I’m suggesting is that if you gave the Japanese the entire intact Dutch merchant fleet that things would get Philippinx or Chinese in its ugliness down under.
 
It was mostly a joke. But for some reason apparently nearly all Koala's carry a form of Chlymidia. God knows why.

And catching Chlymidia from a Koala has got to be by a margin the single most embarassing reason for visiting an ER ever.


You figure if you'd done something so incredibly awful the court made you pay for an entire Koala Chlamydia ward that you really wouldn't want to put you're name on it.

But whatever floats John Olivers boat I suppose.
My Father worked with a WW2 vet who was dishonourably returned to Australia after being bitten by a camel in Egypt and contracting Syphilis . Apparently they can carry it as a bacteria in their mouth so it is plausible. Now that's an embarrassing way of being sent home in disgrace. Of even more annoyance was that he had not even visited the legendary brothels of Cairo or for that matter any Egyptian women. He got penicillin in late war period and returned to service from what I heard.
 

Coulsdon Eagle

Monthly Donor
What is POL?
Perhaps a better question is "Do we want to know how Syphilis spread to camels?"

I was carrying out research on the old boys of my school who fell in the Great War.

One of them - later recognised as suffering from dementia praecox, what we today recognise as the condition of schizophrenia - whilst in Egypt while was shuffled around units as each CO sought to offload him...

"2nd/10th Middlesex were part of 160 Infantry Brigade, 53rd (Welsh) Division in the Egyptian Expeditionary Force., and were involved in the defence of the Suez Canal Zone. However once again George did not stay with his new unit for long, as on 25 May 1916 he was one of a number of infantrymen in 53rd (Welsh) Division who were used to form the 5th Company of the Imperial Camel Corps and sent to a camp at Warda to undertake training with camels. The Imperial Camel Corps had been created in January 1916 to patrol the Libyan Desert against incursions from the Senussi tribes, and their success had lead to the creation of new companies, and eventually they would include troops from Britain, Australia, New Zealand and India. On 8 June George was then attached to the Yeomanry Reserve Company, Imperial Camel Corps, at Abbassia. Here George’s lengthy disciplinary record begins: on 10 June he was deprived of 5 days pay for irregular conduct on grooming parade (smoking) and insolence to an NCO; on 12 June he was sentenced to 14 days Field Punishment [FP] No.2 for the offences of insolence to an NCO, disobeying an order and committing an action described as “cruelty to a camel”. FP No.2 entailed being handcuffed or fettered while remaining with his unit in addition to hard labour and loss of pay."

He was returned to 2nd/10th Middlesex on 27 June. How cruel was he to that camel?
 
And to me conscription for local service is the way to get around it. Define PNG and the Solomons as local service in the 30s. Then build low tech hard nut garrison forces that can go all Japanese and make islands like Truk not worth the effort. Yeah, sure they will get overwhelmed, but amphibious invasion is hard so they should give a good account of themselves and hopefully act as a deterrent. You still have to play Singapore as the main game but that is for regulars. Who would be silly enough to invade PNG?

I like the idea of forming a couple of rapidly mobilizable equivalents to the USMC Base Defense Force equipped with integral AA, Arty, AT, signal, engineering, and a couple of older tanks (Vickers six tons or FT 17s picked up dirt cheap) less to act as tanks and more to act as slightly mobile pill boxes.

The idea is to be able to rapidly reinforce and fortify some of those small island possessions. Yes they can't really hope to actually win against the Japanese but they can buy time and chew the IJN Special Landing Force troops up. Hopefully fuck up the Japanese time table. A lot of those troops and ships had to be involved in multiple different operations in a short period of time. None of the gear has to be ultra modern. For the most part cheap as dirt WW1 surplus will do the job. I'm thinking purchasing some of those 37mm WW1 "Trench Guns" and improvising either a carry pole mounting or a wheeled carriage. They're dirt cheap in the 20's/30's and can be used to tear up Japanese landing craft. While their AP capability was extremely limited I think that they might actually be able to handle most Japanese tanks they would conceivably face.
 
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