REFORGER for World War II Philippines?

CalBear

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Were there worries about a rebellion or something if the local population was armed or materials were stockpiled there? Couldn't they have just paid for warehouses and sent World War I surplus and other older equipment to the Philippines?

Not really.

The problem is that the Philippines are in the tropics. The heat and humidity played hell with everything. You could do okay with rifles, as long as they weren't used (cosmoline is great at that, but you can't use a weapon that is literally packed in grease, even then the wooden cases would get eaten by the bugs).

Ammo would deteriorate, as would other explosives. Cans would rust. Wing fabric covering would rot or be consumed, wooden wing spars would warp, the weather destroyed everything. Clothes would rot in the wrappings. You need climate controlled spaces in the tropics to store almost anything. That didn't exist, at least not a reasonable cost, in the 1930s.
 

Delta Force

Banned
Not really.

The problem is that the Philippines are in the tropics. The heat and humidity played hell with everything. You could do okay with rifles, as long as they weren't used (cosmoline is great at that, but you can't use a weapon that is literally packed in grease, even then the wooden cases would get eaten by the bugs).

Ammo would deteriorate, as would other explosives. Cans would rust. Wing fabric covering would rot or be consumed, wooden wing spars would warp, the weather destroyed everything. Clothes would rot in the wrappings. You need climate controlled spaces in the tropics to store almost anything. That didn't exist, at least not a reasonable cost, in the 1930s.

So it wouldn't take long for munitions to corrode like the bombs that contributed to Forrestal fire and explosions? Some of the bombs during that incident had been stored at Subic Bay since the 1940s before being issued to compensate for a shortage of newer munitions.
 
Probably not.

Wouldn't matter in any case. The Commonwealth didn't have the money needed to bring in a couple hundred bF-109 or Spitfires (the official U.S. Army histories describe the budget as "minscule"). It didn't have the money to buy a couple hundred SPADs (assuming there were that many in flyable condition). It didn't have the money to support a large standing army, even a highly trained ready reserve with modern equipment. It didn't even have the money to by WW I surplus M-1903 and M-1917 bolt action rifles that the U.S. was selling to U.S. CMP members for a couple dollars. It always comes down to dollars

Allocated for defense P16,449,100.00 minus P3,250,000 for the Philippine Constabulary.

http://www.gov.ph/1939/02/07/messag...cal-year-ending-june-30-1940-february-7-1939/

Philippine peso was pegged to 2 pesos to 1 dollar since 1903 when the US passed the Philippine Coinaged Act until after OTL independence. So roughly around $6,599,550 USD.

I dont have the actual further division of that budget. But, if I use US Defense budgeting for 2014 % of procurement (97.57B out of 610.096B), that would give 16% for procurement, or $1M from the $6.59M if I use that in the Philippine 1940 budget. $1M per year procurement is sufficient for the equipment you mentioned from 1936 until 1941. However, you are correct it is still miniscule compared to the US.

However, there was this:

"The fund for weapons could be accumulated until 1946 so the country could buy more modern weapons."

http://www.gov.ph/history-the-department-of-national-defense/

If I understood that correctly, what made the Philippine commonwealth equipment even more lacking was Quezons decision to hold procurement until 1946. Making budget for procurement around 0.
 

Ian_W

Banned
In a lot of ways, this is an ideal plan for the IJN - you have big stockpiles of weapons in the Phillipines, and the US needing to get the men there to use them.

If the men can be stopped in a main fleet action, then not only the islands, but also the weapon stockpiles are there to be captured.
 

GarethC

Donor
Were there worries about a rebellion or something if the local population was armed or materials were stockpiled there? Couldn't they have just paid for warehouses and sent World War I surplus and other older equipment to the Philippines?

There were worries about a rebellion, but the issue remains - those materials might as well be giftwrapped for the IJA if the Filipinos aren't trained to use them, and taking the able-bodied out of the workforce to go yomping around for a couple of weeks and every other weekend just costs a lot of money that the Philippines cannot afford, even if the equipment is donated gratis.

There is room for a change. Quezon, President of the Philippine Commonwealth from its creation in 1935, travelled unofficially to Japan in 1938 to seek a guarantee - if he could break away from the US and declare neutrality, would Japan guarantee it? Japan did not provide such a guarantee formally, but afterwards Quezon reduced the military budget, impacting training and arms procruement, restricted MacArthur's role with the armed forces and his access to Quezon and his staff, and sought to bring forward independence to 1940, six years ahead of the prior schedule.

If the impression gained by Quezon was more prescient, then a Commonwealth that saw conflict with Japan as inevitable - and winnable - would have a significant impact on the course of the war, with over two years of increased preparation, rather than a reduction in the defence effort. It's still probably not about a REFORPHI approach though, more about getting more rifles, trained riflemen, and concrete poured than putting stores of pre-war US armor in warehouses.
 
There were worries about a rebellion, but the issue remains - those materials might as well be giftwrapped for the IJA if the Filipinos aren't trained to use them, and taking the able-bodied out of the workforce to go yomping around for a couple of weeks and every other weekend just costs a lot of money that the Philippines cannot afford, even if the equipment is donated gratis.

There is room for a change. Quezon, President of the Philippine Commonwealth from its creation in 1935, travelled unofficially to Japan in 1938 to seek a guarantee - if he could break away from the US and declare neutrality, would Japan guarantee it? Japan did not provide such a guarantee formally, but afterwards Quezon reduced the military budget, impacting training and arms procruement, restricted MacArthur's role with the armed forces and his access to Quezon and his staff, and sought to bring forward independence to 1940, six years ahead of the prior schedule.

If the impression gained by Quezon was more prescient, then a Commonwealth that saw conflict with Japan as inevitable - and winnable - would have a significant impact on the course of the war, with over two years of increased preparation, rather than a reduction in the defence effort. It's still probably not about a REFORPHI approach though, more about getting more rifles, trained riflemen, and concrete poured than putting stores of pre-war US armor in warehouses.

That sounds like a great POD for an ATL. Quezon comes away from his 1938 meeting with the Japanese convinced that war in the future is not only likely but that the Japanese view his country as a speed bump. Now he has three years to get something done. While you are at it, have MacArthur get violently ill from some tropical malady and get sent home on medical retirement and get replaced by somebody less imperious.
 
That sounds like a great POD for an ATL. Quezon comes away from his 1938 meeting with the Japanese convinced that war in the future is not only likely but that the Japanese view his country as a speed bump. Now he has three years to get something done. While you are at it, have MacArthur get violently ill from some tropical malady and get sent home on medical retirement and get replaced by somebody less imperious.

Quezon going to Japan actually happened in OTL. Neutrality has more benefits to the Japanese than US since neutrality meant the withdrawal of US troops including the bases.

By August of 1941, Japan accepted the offer by Quezon but US didnt.

*Pearl Harbor Myth by George Victor

Now had Quezon had a crystal ball and had known that the US would reject such an offer, he would have gone the other way, by increasing the budget of the military and finding more budget for the military, which includes not cutting MacArthurs budget.

About MacArthur, it would have been easier that Quezon didnt hire him which would have resulted MacArthur going back stateside
 
Let me add that there was one successful element to the woefully lacking preparation for pre-WWII Philippine defense. REFORGER today includes the evacuation of military and governmental dependents. This did occur for the Philippines in 1941, unfortunately it did not address the vast number of Americans (non-military and governmental) living in the Philippines. Let me also echo the words of those who address the logistics of theater level support for the entire SW Pacific. The US Army in 1939-40 was the 17th largest in the world (right behind Portugal), they did not have the materials, the transport or the planning needed to ensure the safety of anything outside of the continental US.

Amateurs talk tactics, professionals talk logistics.
 
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