The Forge of Weyland

This is the data I used to keep myself honest

Tank orders 1937-8

OTL 890 Mk VI, 70 A17, 130A9, 100A10, 200A11, 170A12, 65A13
465 medium tanks, 200A11, 960 Light tanks.

TTL, 70MkVI, 450A10*, 140A11, 140A12, 120A13
850 medium tanks, 70 light +30 birch guns

Assuming a MkVI = 0.35 mediums, A11 = 0.5, OTL equals 420+465(885) mediums + 70 lights

So, no extra tanks, just different ones
 
Yeah thats why im saying start setting up the big tank shadow factories you yourself have proposed in the near future since they will take atleast a year probably abit more to build especially the machine tools .
So for the topic , what about making the battle abit more useful rather than almost obsolete for the battle of france ? Cause that was what i got from a few updates ago that there is chance of influencing the design. If people are interested in that and can propose what to improve on it.

And as i have said before , the army can help the airforce by insisting on the 20mm cannon being vital for supporting land attacks and get the production of it sorted out earlier cause it wasnt a big priority in otl and was delayed like a year if i remember a previous timeline or discussion some time ago ?
Oh, I have plans for the Battle - you just haven't seen them yet! :D :D
And they are OTL plans too...
 
You could try getting rid of gamelin , reynauld(french pm) thought him unfit but he had political concerns on sacking him - maybe when he comes to power in 1940 he sacks him could be a change . If you want to write a bit diffrent battle of france this is a change that is doable and might change things. Would be open to suggestions who but the guy who replaced him in otl was meh also altough you could go with him and still get a diffrent campaign.

I imagine the germans might still win but it would be many times more costly ? And if fighting is serious enough and delayed enough you might get a french fights on scenario especially if you manage to stop the sickle cut.

edit: u could also have the eben emeal glider attack fail and have it hold out for awhile instead of its otl fate. If this happens then there might be a little bit of hope linking up with the dutch.

As i have read about complaints about the allies command structures compared to the germans . The BEF tended to report to the french high commander rather than the 1st army group they were part of for some reason is one of the complaints . Maybe here as another change have when the plans are done for the dyle line defense send liason teams to the 7th and 1st armies with whom they are fighting in belgium and have a detachment with the 1st army group . And dont have the 1st army group commander die in a freaking car accident during the most crucial time of the campaign (around the arras counterattack) and the army group be without a commander for 3 DAYS !!
 
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Will there be organic light AA in these all arms forces,? Maybe use the new carrier with a twin Vickers 50cal machine gun mount instead of the troop compartment? The gun is available and already used by the Navy in this role, could easily be swapped out for 20mm later.
 
Oh, I have plans for the Battle - you just haven't seen them yet! :D :D
And they are OTL plans too...
Assume that you've read Greg Baughens .? Reappraisal of the battle where he discusses how it could have been made into a decent CAS aircraft with armour and two crew like an early Sturmvonik
 
Will there be organic light AA in these all arms forces,? Maybe use the new carrier with a twin Vickers 50cal machine gun mount instead of the troop compartment? The gun is available and already used by the Navy in this role, could easily be swapped out for 20mm later.
They've already done a dragon set up as an AA platform. So there is precedent
 
You could try getting rid of gamelin , reynauld(french pm) thought him unfit but he had political concerns on sacking him - maybe when he comes to power in 1940 he sacks him could be a change . If you want to write a bit diffrent battle of france this is a change that is doable and might change things. Would be open to suggestions who but the guy who replaced him in otl was meh also altough you could go with him and still get a diffrent campaign.

I imagine the germans might still win but it would be many times more costly ? And if fighting is serious enough and delayed enough you might get a french fights on scenario especially if you manage to stop the sickle cut.

edit: u could also have the eben emeal glider attack fail and have it hold out for awhile instead of its otl fate. If this happens then there might be a little bit of hope linking up with the dutch.

As i have read about complaints about the allies command structures compared to the germans . The BEF tended to report to the french high commander rather than the 1st army group they were part of for some reason is one of the complaints . Maybe here as another change have when the plans are done for the dyle line defense send liason teams to the 7th and 1st armies with whom they are fighting in belgium and have a detachment with the 1st army group . And dont have the 1st army group commander die in a freaking car accident during the most crucial time of the campaign (around the arras counterattack) and the army group be without a commander for 3 DAYS !!
I dont want to do things like this because there aren't drivers for them. Just changing everything without a reason is cheating
 
summer 1938
9th June 1938

Colonel Campbell Clarke had replaced Major General Lewis as Director of Artillery a couple of months ago. One argument they'd had all the time they had worked together was the need for something larger to replace the two and three pounder anti-tank weapons. Clarke, while accepting than the larger HV3pdr was a good weapon against existing tanks, had always been worried about an enemy building well-protected infantry tanks that would really need something larger to stop. The two and three pound production lines were working steadily, so when he was appointed in charge, he'd contacted Vickers about the 6pdr he'd been waiting to build. His own department was heavily loaded with work, and he knew that Vickers had put a modified, lower-velocity version of a 6-pdr into their new infantry tank. He had asked them to see what would need to be done to basically replicate the performance of the HV3pdr in a 6pdr gun.

The report he'd just received was actually much more favourable than he'd been expecting. While the 6/18 pdr Vickers was producing had a much reduced muzzle velocity to the 3pdr, that had been a deliberate decision as it was intended to toss a large HE shell as a close-support weapon. The naval gun it had been modified from was a more capable, although heavier, weapon. The Vickers team had suggested that the take the best features from the naval 6pdr and the HV3pdr, to make a new high velocity 6pdr. This should be rather lighter than the naval gun - it was originally quite an old design, and they could do better now. That would make the gun somewhat lighter while emulating the HV3pdr performance, which would be useful for the anti-tank role. They estimated that if they could get a similar mv, the 6pdr should penetrate around 80-90mm of armour at 1,000 yards. This would be good enough to handle their own infantry tanks. As a lot of the basic work had already been done on the two existing guns, they estimated they could have a prototype available for testing early next year.

They pointed out that as they had designed the turret rings of their cruiser and infantry tanks to be the same 60" (to simplify mass production), and the infantry tank could handle the 6/18 pdr, it should be quite practical to fit the new 6pdr in either tank as required. As the existing gun used modified 18pdr shells, a new set of shells would need to be designed, but they could start out by upsizing the HV3pdr rounds. It would take longer to get the gun working in the anti-tank role, as a new carriage would have to be designed and tested, but they felt fitting it as a tank gun should be simpler.


August 1938 Summer Exercises Planning

Vivian Pope looked around at the RTC officers.

"Well, Gentlemen. The plans for this years' exercise.

General Brooke nodded. "I'd like to start with going through what we have available. There has been a lot of new kit arriving this year, and we want to try and get as much as possible into the exercises to see how it goes." He looked down at his papers.

"First, the First Armoured Brigade. While we haven't got everything in place yet, this will be the first equipped formation of our new Armoured Division. Including training, we have 160 of the new A10* available, as well as 30 of the new Birch gun. So we will be using 100 of the A10* to equip the 1st and 2nd RTR. We're adding a few extra to simulate some of the specialist vehicles we've been thinking about - for example, four tanks to the engineers to see if the heavy vehicle they've been asking for works, and some for the commanders. We've borrowed some of the Birch guns allocated to training for the duration, so we'll have the full complement of 24. We also have the heavy artillery that would be part of the division, moved by Dragon as before. The tanks have been showing well in training, and so far they are looking reasonably reliable - certainly they aren't breaking nearly as much as the old mediums! We have received a set of experimental tracks to try out - apparently they think they will be more durable than our existing ones - so we'll be putting them on one of the tank companies to see if they are right. We do have a shortage of spare engines - the factory still isn't up to full production, so they've been putting them in tanks as their first priority - but we'll just have to live without any.

Now, the Infantry. We have about 60 of the new Lloyd Carrier in our hands, but we've only had time to train about half the crews. So we'll be using a mix of them and the old Dragons we've used before, that will show us that, hopefully, the new vehicle is a lot better. They are fully up to strength in support weapons, so with a few little fixes we basically have our full-strength Brigade. The main thing we're missing is a mobile AA detachment - we have some ideas about that, but that won't happen this year.

We have the 9th Queens and the 10th Hussars as our Cavalry detachment. This is actually a bit more than we are thinking of, they would normally be the two regiments for the division, but we are going to see if we can live with one regiment per Brigade or if we should add more. Some of the paper exercises suggested three cavalry regiments for the division, but we'd like to try things out properly. We have just enough of the new Dingo's to allocate 20 to each regiment, but the heavy cars aren't ready yet. We have got five of the new Daimler from the factory, so we are giving some crews a very quick training and we'll be trying them out. It may well be too soon, but we'll see how they do. The other half of the regiments will be the Vickers MkVID, they are going out to Egypt afterwards, but we've borrowed them for the summer.

The one other tank we want to see in action is the A11. We've got 30 now, and they'd normally be with training, but we're going to use 16 both to support the Brigades offensive action, and then let them play with the Infantry in a defensive role. We've got 8 spares to cover breakdowns so we can try both roles."

Pope smiled. "Thank you, that's very comprehensive. If it all comes together, you're going to give the infantry a headache stopping you!"

"Well, Sir, that is our job, after all!" A ripple of laughter went around the room. ""But, more seriously, we do expect that with the new kit and all the work we've been doing on tactics over the year that we are going to win. After which, we'll be working both on improving our performance and helping the infantry get better at stopping us. The Germans seem to be building a rather large armoured force, and we can't be everywhere at once, our men need to be able to cope against tanks as well as knowing how to work with them."

"I see you haven't planned a tank on tank action?"

"Not as such, Sir, although we might end up with one when we face the infantry tanks. We really need a larger tank force, I hope in the spring we'll be able to face two Armoured Brigades off against each other, that will be interesting. But what we have planned is seeing how we do in counterattacking an infantry force that's broken through."

"And what about the observing team the French are sending?"

"Well, except for some stuff which is still secret, I'm going to let them see as much as they want. I want to get their opinions - they have a lot of tanks, but we feel ours are better, and allow us more tactical options. Hopefully we can both get something out of letting them see us in action. They are sending over a Colonel DeGaulle as an armour expert - he runs their 507th Tank Regiment, which seems to be used to try a lot of tactics and experiments. From what I've heard, he's good but the French consider a lot of his views controversial, so I suppose we'll have to see."
 
9th June 1938

Snipped

Thanks for the comprehensive rundown of tank orders earlier, and this instalment shows things are about to get more interesting with lessons to be learned about the new direction they're taking.

I'm curious about how the forces are being organised. Earlier, I believe an armoured brigade was said to have two tank regiments and two infantry battalions, and it seems a cavalry regiment, which is a strong force. Where do the infantry tanks fit in with the cruiser tanks though? Will there be a sub-unit within each tank regiment or will they be in the tank brigades rather than the armoured division? Sorry if I keep missing things - busy life, lots of great works to read.
 
The ideas is for an armoured brigade to be 2 regiments of cruisers (about 100 tanks), 24 SP guns, 2 infantry battalions (on carriers) and a regiment of cavalry.
The armoured division is 3 brigades, plus HQ troops, heavy artillery, and so on.
It will also have 2 regiments of infantry tanks attached. This is likely to end up as an attached brigade, as they also intend such a unit to be used to assist/reinforce an infantry division.
It's a big formation (too big, really) and the composition will be reassessed later. With everything there, its getting on for 500 tanks and 72 SPG
 
The ideas is for an armoured brigade to be 2 regiments of cruisers (about 100 tanks), 24 SP guns, 2 infantry battalions (on carriers) and a regiment of cavalry.
The armoured division is 3 brigades, plus HQ troops, heavy artillery, and so on.
It will also have 2 regiments of infantry tanks attached. This is likely to end up as an attached brigade, as they also intend such a unit to be used to assist/reinforce an infantry division.
It's a big formation (too big, really) and the composition will be reassessed later. With everything there, its getting on for 500 tanks and 72 SPG

Wow, yeah that is big. You could split that in two and they'd be more powerful than the average panzer division of May 1940.
 
Exactly - but if you are only allowed one division by the beancounters, better make sure it is a good one.
Well spotted, that's exactly what they are doing!
Actually this sort of large armoured division was a common idea in the 30's - presumably a copy of the 3-brigade infantry formation. But a fast mobile force doesn't work in the same way, and I think there were also issues of commanding such a large formation which again was moving at speed. So by 1940, they had moved to the 2-brigade Armoured Division.
Add some infantry, and the Armoured Brigade is nearly as strong as a Panzer division, in everything except light tanks. A 1940 Panzer Division running into 1st Armoured Division is going to have problems...
 
The new HV 6lb is interesting. Are they going to have an HE round firing a longer heavier shell at a lower muzzle velocity. Yes this takes more training and duel sights but it gives the little 57mm gun much more bang against non armoured targets and has the added benefit of increasing barrel life.
 
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