The Forge of Weyland

[Gannt the chartist]

They aren't going to add a section of SP guns to an Infantry Tank Brigade, because its assumed it will be supporting an Infantry Division with its own organic artillery. As they are tied to the infantry, the guns can keep up.

They are looking at possible attachments to an Independent Armoured Brigade to make it a stand-alone unit, but this is still being discussed. In any case, until they have the tanks for it its a moot point!

The Armoured Division is the base unit, its a full division with all the supporting knick-knaks. Splitting it in two is easy, and the support doesn't have to be even if you don't want that. If an Armoured Brigade is to go swanning around without an Infantry division, it will need some extras.

I think the last bit is key. By doctrine the British army does not swan- in the desert they do and lose but these are not the metropolitan army trained properly.

As far as I can tell the Independent Armoured Brigade is an accidental formation. Its supposed to be the Armoured Bde of an Armoured Division but is then retasked but not redesignated as an Army Tank Bde and keeps the motor and supporting units of an armd Bde mostly I suspect because they are in the Med and and its hard to find a place for a motor infantry bn and silly to leave them out of the OOB. The British tend to have a problem in providing enough infantry for all the tanks they have got.

And are likely to come about in the same way = Armoured Bde for a division never deployed because priority was tank bde for the ID because without the tanks the IDs get chewed up by any enemy armoured formation and without tanks the ID cannot defeat the unsuppressed machine gun or you have to break up the ID to provide enough infantry for the amd div, so you give the ID a tank Bde ( or each corps gets a tank bde then each division the each bde habitually operates with a specific bn and you start to wonder what an armoured division is supposed to do different from a standard Division.

By Alamein 8th army has 4 amd Div and 1 Army tank Bde. But of the armoured divs, 7th AD is 2 amd 1 inf bde, 1st AD is 1 amd 1 inf, 8th AD broken up and the armoured elements placed with inf divs, 10th AD actually has 3 amd and 1 inf bde. But one of the amd bde is detached to the ID and the other two have totally different TOE ( 24th having a lot of support units, some of which are then detached to ID. 10th is a oddity as its formed from 1st Cav Div and has all sorts of attachments as previously it had been guarding most of the middle east.

However this is all Middle East Command nonesense. Feb 42 the idea is fight as BDE and all the supporting arms are dispersed to two brigade groups. And lose the Crusader battles. Then the Grown ups take charge and make the Division the main formation and proceed to win every battle thereafter. The 44 organizations btw have two Maneuvre bde the Arty concentrated and later on strip the Amd inf from the Amd Bde, pair it with the Amd recon regiment and have 3 maneuver elements and a powerful artillery/engineer etc element shared.

 

[Astrodragon]

I'm not sure what went on in the desert in 41-42 has to do with proposed organisations in early 1939.
Especially given the changes in doctrine that have affected the makeup of the armoured force.

 

[Driftless]

I'm not sure what went on in the desert in 41-42 has to do with proposed organisations in early 1939.
Especially given the changes in doctrine that have affected the makeup of the armoured force.

I agree with that line of thought. You've diverged bit-by-bit from both OTL doctrine and equipment to the point where the path to this future is quite a bit different than our history. Maybe some/several events-to-be shake out the same as they did historically, but I expect significant changes ahead,. Even more so, the farther you get from the POD's.

 

[Atrophied]

Still think that battle of france will start the same and the most likely pod to do would be to have the 1st armored divison murder the 5th and 7th panzer divisons at the arras counterattack and the ss divison that was in the area aswell but get somewhat stuck by germans rushing stuff to stop the breaktrough somewhere south of arras . Then thanks to that the brits convince the local french commanders to try breaktrough the south and the french army commanders scream at high command at south of arras for gods sake please rescue us. It probably will involve sacrifices by a divison or two to keep the army group coming from belgium honest while the french ,belgian and british try to break trough and try to stream into france. Probably thanks to french and further bef forces grinding out a corridor from the arras bulge . It is also mainly possible cause the sickle cut wasnt very wide and the french and british are fully motorised so evacuating should be rather easy distance wise once a corridor is open. Altough extracting the belgian army wouldnt be fun if you somehow can stave off general surrender by them .

The belgian divisons right now arent very useful but gearing them with better gear and some training you could have a formation atleast on BEF size probably even bigger is the attraction of them if you want a diffrent ww2 timeline.

And its benefit would be that those divison and army commanders were also the best french had wich could help with the 2nd part of the battle of france . The otl defenders would still be available but you would also have a rather beaten 3 army reserve to counterattack the german panzer spearheads hopefully .
And the bef probably would have its 2nd armored divison by then hopefully . ( basicly have the 2nd armored divison be like the 1st armored of otl who were deployed in may and were stuck south.)

 

[Astrodragon]

There are actually a lot of varied options for the Battle of France
(1) It all goes basically as OTL
(2) Better British Armoured formations either delay the completion of the Sickle Cut, or force it further south (or both), still leaving the BEF and French 1st Army in the bag, but with more time to evacuate
(3) British Armour counterattacks from the north (maybe at Arras, maybe not), and cuts through the advance. However French forces are still in chaos, and again it basically buys more time, but no major change
(4) The BEF and French Armour cut through the advance, and manage to hold an opening. Now it depends on how long they can hold it open (those German divisions on point will need supplies soon), and what the French armies do as a result. Also how the Germans respond, and where) against the opening, obviously, but maybe elsewhere as well. Might the whole plan collapse, and we end up with a salient rather than a cut?
(5) Depending on 1-4, is there a delay in Plan Red, making it take longer to roll up the rest of the French Armies? The Germans were on a roll, but the French were slowly improving, can they hold long enough to seriously impact the German advance?
(6) If the French do hold the German push south, are the forces in the north able to help in any way (assuming they didn't evacuate), or if they were withdrawn can they be of use if fed back in the South?
(7) If the French hold long enough, we could see their morale holding enough for a France Fights On scenario. Or a more acceptable armistice and peace negotiations on both sides.
(8) The longer Germany takes to defeat France, the less chance of an invasion. Too long, and its obviously not on in 1940, which has big effects on British planning.

And these are just the more obvious possibilities...

See what I mean, anything that screws up the OTL perfect Sickle Cut leads to a whole slew of possibilities, from nearly as OTL to France not falling at all. This is one of those battles where the outcome can vary drastically, and it not slide back into something more like OTL due to the inertia of subsequent strategy

 

[Atrophied]

yeah the otl sickle cut was almost alien space bat like and almost everything went the germans way , France had like 10 chances even with minor changes in otl to stop the bleeding atleast but they were also super duper unlucky outside their communication issues aswell.

The army group commander for the belgium defense with the two french armies and the BEF died around arras counterattack and it took 3 days to replace him . And he died and im not kidding in a freaking car accident .

 

[El Pip]

I'm not sure what went on in the desert in 41-42 has to do with proposed organisations in early 1939.
Especially given the changes in doctrine that have affected the makeup of the armoured force.

I believe the point is that there shouldn't be any Independent Armoured Brigades at all. They were created as a weird artefact of the Desert War and did not work especially well, so they shouldn't exist in any 1939 organisation at all as they have no role in doctrine.

Maybe there are some under-the-water changes in doctrine happening that haven't been shown, but that key point (the division is the basic unit) seems to still be correct in this timeline. The brigades are manoeuvrer units of the Division, but they don't go running around independently and so they can call on the support units of the Division.

The Division approach economises on support units (one set of sappers, one set of workshops, etc) and also means that each brigade gets to call on a full Division's worth of artillery. If you setup an independent armoured brigade then either you massively over-supply it with support and artillery (which sounds pricey and will hit bottlenecks) or you accept it will have less firepower, support and be less effective than if it's was operating as part of a Division.

Now if the British have completely changed doctrine and are now obsessing with manoeuvre and are so less bothered about artillery and firepower then it's a different conversation, you would sacrifice a lot if you want to move faster and more independently. But that is a hell of a chance and the exercises so far don't seem to support the British reaching that conclusion, they certainly never did in OTL.

 

[Deleted member 94680]

An interesting (and not necessarily the most realistic) way the TL to go could be:
The Armoured Force arrives late to the continent and doesn’t materially affect the course of the campaign but has massive effects later in the War in part due to a lack of awareness of their capability
or
The Armoured Force smashes into the flank of the Sickle Cut and pockets the German armour, causing all kinds of problems for the Wehrmacht. An ATL early Kursk or Hainaut with nothing but sixes for the WAllies, if you will.

 

[diestormlie]

I believe the point is that there shouldn't be any Independent Armoured Brigades at all. They were created as a weird artefact of the Desert War and did not work especially well, so they shouldn't exist in any 1939 organisation at all as they have no role in doctrine.

Maybe there are some under-the-water changes in doctrine happening that haven't been shown, but that key point (the division is the basic unit) seems to still be correct in this timeline. The brigades are manoeuvrer units of the Division, but they don't go running around independently and so they can call on the support units of the Division.

The Division approach economises on support units (one set of sappers, one set of workshops, etc) and also means that each brigade gets to call on a full Division's worth of artillery. If you setup an independent armoured brigade then either you massively over-supply it with support and artillery (which sounds pricey and will hit bottlenecks) or you accept it will have less firepower, support and be less effective than if it's was operating as part of a Division.

Now if the British have completely changed doctrine and are now obsessing with manoeuvre and are so less bothered about artillery and firepower then it's a different conversation, you would sacrifice a lot if you want to move faster and more independently. But that is a hell of a chance and the exercises so far don't seem to support the British reaching that conclusion, they certainly never did in OTL.

Independent Armoured Brigades would, I suppose, also put more of a strain on Corps level commands? Because they have their component divisions and then also these IABs that are meant to report to them.

 

[Astrodragon]

The original idea of the Independent Armoured Brigade was pre-war. The name is probably misleading; it really should have been called the Independent Support Armoured Brigade. The idea was that it wouldn't operate as an Independent unit (despite the name!) but would be attached to an infantry formation to give it a temporary stiffening (remember the whole concept of the infantry tank).
There are obvious problems with this (and TTL will be showing a few of them). The full Armoured Division is clearly better, and if necessary can break into two Brigades (in 1944 they actually fixed it, 4 battle groups per division that could be ad hoc combined, but they aren't getting that yet!).
There is actually one thing driving them as a temporary arrangement TTL - despite the lack of tanks, they are still likely to be able to form them faster than Divisions. Which was sort of what they had in 1940, it wasn't that they didn't want the Division, just that it took a lot longer than they expected to get it ready.

Remember, something sorta-ready now tends to be more useful than the perfect solution 6 months too late.

 

[Astrodragon]

Independent Armoured Brigades would, I suppose, also put more of a strain on Corps level commands? Because they have their component divisions and then also these IABs that are meant to report to them.

It would, but I suspect they'd rather have a hundred odd tanks and some extra work than not have the tanks at all!

 

[Astrodragon]

Now if the British have completely changed doctrine and are now obsessing with manoeuvre and are so less bothered about artillery and firepower then it's a different conversation, you would sacrifice a lot if you want to move faster and more independently. But that is a hell of a chance and the exercises so far don't seem to support the British reaching that conclusion, they certainly never did in OTL.

Not really. Manoeuvre was always a big part of the early EAF doctrine, but exercises showed it wasn't all you had to think about. Once the awkward buggers in the infantry started getting decent AT guns, you needed the artillery and armour. The EAF was a far more balanced force that anything the British had OTL until around 1944, that's why it was such a shame they discarded it. Which is why ITTL they haven't.
Whether their current balance is right, will have to wait until combat. Basically its the EAF composition with a few tweaks - mainly some more AT guns for the infantry, and ideally some heavy support thanks for them, to aid them in attack and defence. Plus a starting to look at the AA problem (to be fair, this wasn't a big thing in 1933, for anyone). These seemed very logical modifications, based on what was happening to the tech.
One other things exercises showed is you cant always find a convenient flank to go around. Looking at the likely battleground in Europe, its obvious that, initially at least, the force density is such its going to be a rare occurrence. Its only likely once something has happened to break up the defensive lines, and even then exploiting the opportunity isn't easy. So at least they looked at the problems, and thought maybe they'd have to make their own hole, then surge through and cause havoc. The Panzers got away with this against poor French formations, when they ran into more serious opposition they had problems, but luckily the slow French response and general confusion let them get away with it.

 

[Merrick]

29th March

Chamberlain announces the decision to bring the Territorial Army up to its war establishment, and once that was done, to double its numbers. This would give Britain 26 Territorial divisions as well as the 6 Regular divisions. No public decision had been made as to how many of these divisions would be armoured, but provisional thoughts inside the Army was that they would need 6-8, though it was likely some of these would be split into two Armoured Brigades.. The number or armoured vehicles that Britain needed to build was increasing far faster than the capability to build them. Given the need to equip so many armoured formations, including the reserves and the need of the training organisation, they were looking at an estimate of around 5,000 tanks. It would be necessary to consult urgently with the manufacturers as to how quickly they could increase production, and how much could be built by non-specialist firms.

Chamberlain has reaped the whirlwind, and excitement levels in the Army, at least the the Procurement and Supply departments must be rising rapidly towards Defcon Panic as everyone realises just how much all these new units will require in the way of equipment, supplies, transport, trained manpower and so on and on, just how little of all of it they currently have and just how many things they won't be able to get in the time Hitler is likely to give them.

At current production rates (40-50 tanks/month from all sources), those proposed armoured units will still be equipping in 1950. Plus once the Treasury recovers consciousness, I would expect them to start insisting loudly that they cannot possibly find funding for Territorial Armoured units, even if there were tanks to buy, and the RAF has production priority anyway. In the short-medium run, I'd expect organizational discussions in the RTC to focus less on Armoured Division vs Armoured Brigade vs Independent Brigade and more on how to get any armoured units in the field before about mid-1940, even if it means breaking the armoured units down into battalions and assigning them to infantry divisions as they become available.

 

[Astrodragon]

Chamberlain has reaped the whirlwind, and excitement levels in the Army, at least the the Procurement and Supply departments must be rising rapidly towards Defcon Panic as everyone realises just how much all these new units will require in the way of equipment, supplies, transport, trained manpower and so on and on, just how little of all of it they currently have and just how many things they won't be able to get in the time Hitler is likely to give them.

At current production rates (40-50 tanks/month from all sources), those proposed armoured units will still be equipping in 1950. Plus once the Treasury recovers consciousness, I would expect them to start insisting loudly that they cannot possibly find funding for Territorial Armoured units, even if there were tanks to buy, and the RAF has production priority anyway. In the short-medium run, I'd expect organizational discussions in the RTC to focus less on Armoured Division vs Armoured Brigade vs Independent Brigade and more on how to get any armoured units in the field before about mid-1940, even if it means breaking the armoured units down into battalions and assigning them to infantry divisions as they become available.

Not too far off
The RTC is just starting to realise what 'be careful what you wish for, you might get it!' implies.
But where's the fun in making it easy for them

 

[Schlock]

Plus once the Treasury recovers consciousness, I would expect them to start insisting loudly that they cannot possibly find funding for Territorial Armoured units, even if there were tanks to buy, and the RAF has production priority anyway.

The correct answer to anybody in Treasury making those kinds of waves is: 'Your job is to find the money. If you don't want to do that, you're no longer in a reserved occupation category. Enjoy your time working in a coal mine.'

 

[Rickshaw]

I believe the point is that there shouldn't be any Independent Armoured Brigades at all. They were created as a weird artefact of the Desert War and did not work especially well, so they shouldn't exist in any 1939 organisation at all as they have no role in doctrine.

Maybe there are some under-the-water changes in doctrine happening that haven't been shown, but that key point (the division is the basic unit) seems to still be correct in this timeline. The brigades are manoeuvrer units of the Division, but they don't go running around independently and so they can call on the support units of the Division.

The Division approach economises on support units (one set of sappers, one set of workshops, etc) and also means that each brigade gets to call on a full Division's worth of artillery. If you setup an independent armoured brigade then either you massively over-supply it with support and artillery (which sounds pricey and will hit bottlenecks) or you accept it will have less firepower, support and be less effective than if it's was operating as part of a Division.

Now if the British have completely changed doctrine and are now obsessing with manoeuvre and are so less bothered about artillery and firepower then it's a different conversation, you would sacrifice a lot if you want to move faster and more independently. But that is a hell of a chance and the exercises so far don't seem to support the British reaching that conclusion, they certainly never did in OTL.

I do wish people would stop talking about British Army "doctrine". The British Army did not have a doctrine until about 1986. Before that, it had what could be more called a "philosophy". The difference is that a doctrine has it all written down. What units are meant to do what in situation X or how it differs from what they are meant to do in situation Y. A philosophy is different because commanders are told they have units A, B, C and how they are meant to employ them is up to them, not some wally back in the War Office who hasn't seen a unit in action for 10-15 years.

WWI had shown that Infantry were the "Queen of the Battlefield" - all other arms and services where to support it. Artillery's role was to create a carpet that the infantry could walk behind to gain their objectives. Artillery was to provide support to protect the infantry. Armour was there to help the infantry obtain it's objective as well. Artillery's role was to suppress the enemy and prevent them from manning the parapets and repelling your own infantry from gaining any objective. They were also to prevent counter-attacks.

Now Armour was becoming more important but it was still artillery which dominated the battle. Armour was simply meant to be the spearhead that led the advance. There was no doctrine. There was no science of how the Army was meant to operate and war was seen very much as an "art" rather than a "science". That was changing albeit slowly. The British Army were still proudly amateurs and it usually took a couple years of war to shake out the real amateurs and allow the scientistis to get in charge.

Remember, the British Army had no doctrine and wouldn't have one until the 1980s. It developed one because their Allies demanded one, not because they did.

 

[Derwit]

I feel that the British did have doctorine pre 1980's they just didn't call it that or think of it in the same way as other armies. This is in part due to the nature of the wars Britain was potentially going to have to fight. Essentially lots of different ones across the globe against very different adversaries. It was the pre WW1 FSR's (which look suspiciously like doctrine albeit rather woolly) that enshrined the already established "Man on the spot" concept. The idea being that the local commander would be given resources to meet an objective and would then use these resources as he felt would best obtain his objectives. This was due to the limitations of communications at the time especially as the commander might be in complete isolation from higher command in some far flung imperial possession on the other side of the world. This system isn't that dissimilar to the German method/doctrine the difference is that German officers received more training in using their initiative in a similar ways. This meant that senior commanders would have a good idea of what their subordinates would do, so direct written orders where less necessary.

The big problem wih the British Army Officer in peacetime was not that he was amateurish, many officers took their trade very seriously, it was the tribal nature of the British Army that caused significant infighting for resources in peacetime. This hampered the various tribes working together, which led the Army at the beginning of major wars to have to relearn/remember how to place nice with other arms. In the interim period the one area where this didn't hold true was the EAF which is why this TL is so interesting as a what if the Army didn't forget the lessons of the 100 Days and applied those lessons with more modern equipment.

The change to a clearly defined doctrine in the 1980's was the threat of war with the USSR. This threat forced the army to play nice in peace time. This potential war would be fought in Germany by (fingers and toes crossed) conventional forces. The Army therefore had a clearly defined area of operations, enemy and type of war to prepair for. At the same time the end of Empire had reduced the need for less informal arrangements. These factors led to a specific doctrine being developed. I feel it likely that had the UK retained large areas of the Empire, the word doctrine would still not be used by the British Army.

 

[Astrodragon]

I'm going to call it doctrine because that's what it effectively was.
What complicated the British version far more than others was the huge range of wars and actions the British had to be able to cope with. It ranged from a tank war in Europe to a few men supporting a colonial police force in the arse-end of nowhere. They even had two separate organisations - the Indian Army wasn't the British Army, they even had different equipment. Much of this is why they let the man on the spot interpret things, because trying to write down every possibility just was too much and too confusing.
War has never been a science in the Army, too many individual soldiers and too much contact with the enemy. Even in the Navy, which has far more specific problems, leeway is given to the commander on the spot. The idea that war is a science is a modern myth that doesn't stand up to peer enemies.

 

[Rickshaw]

I feel that the British did have doctorine pre 1980's they just didn't call it that or think of it in the same way as other armies. This is in part due to the nature of the wars Britain was potentially going to have to fight. Essentially lots of different ones across the globe against very different adversaries. It was the pre WW1 FSR's (which look suspiciously like doctrine albeit rather woolly) that enshrined the already established "Man on the spot" concept. The idea being that the local commander would be given resources to meet an objective and would then use these resources as he felt would best obtain his objectives. This was due to the limitations of communications at the time especially as the commander might be in complete isolation from higher command in some far flung imperial possession on the other side of the world. This system isn't that dissimilar to the German method/doctrine the difference is that German officers received more training in using their initiative in a similar ways. This meant that senior commanders would have a good idea of what their subordinates would do, so direct written orders where less necessary.

The big problem wih the British Army Officer in peacetime was not that he was amateurish, many officers took their trade very seriously, it was the tribal nature of the British Army that caused significant infighting for resources in peacetime. This hampered the various tribes working together, which led the Army at the beginning of major wars to have to relearn/remember how to place nice with other arms. In the interim period the one area where this didn't hold true was the EAF which is why this TL is so interesting as a what if the Army didn't forget the lessons of the 100 Days and applied those lessons with more modern equipment.

The change to a clearly defined doctrine in the 1980's was the threat of war with the USSR. This threat forced the army to play nice in peace time. This potential war would be fought in Germany by (fingers and toes crossed) conventional forces. The Army therefore had a clearly defined area of operations, enemy and type of war to prepair for. At the same time the end of Empire had reduced the need for less informal arrangements. These factors led to a specific doctrine being developed. I feel it likely that had the UK retained large areas of the Empire, the word doctrine would still not be used by the British Army.

In part I agree with you. "Doctrine" however is not how the British Army approached the problem. "Doctrine" has clearly defined methods, methods that are how certain situations are meant to be reacted to. The British Army didn't have that, they had a "philosophy" which the commander was meant to understand and follow but wasn't required to, if he felt it didn't cover the situation he was in. Bill Slim is a good example of that. He learnt his lessons the hard way, from the officers around him and from the situations that he was in. He learnt that he could fight in the mountains, in the desert and in the jungle. His enemy taught him as well, as did his own men. He learnt what they were capable of and what they weren't. He was a soldier's soldier and it showed in how he addressed his men and how they felt about him. It was always said that the army in Burma served with, not under him. He perceived what the problem was and developed the means to overcome the obstacles. He was a perfect example of the dictum - "amateurs discuss strategy, professionals discuss logistics." The British army were amateurs when wars started but quickly became professionals by the time the wars ended.

 

[yulzari]

The correct answer to anybody in Treasury making those kinds of waves is: 'Your job is to find the money. If you don't want to do that, you're no longer in a reserved occupation category. Enjoy your time working in a coal mine.'

The task of the Treasury is to distribute the government's income according to the instructions of the government and it's Ministers' They have to interpret detail from that broad brush. They do not sit on a pile of gold and dish it out as they see fit. Ministers and Parliament turn the handle. The Treasury sits on the organ wearing the fez and holding the tin cup.