It's a site where certain AH.net denizens do... I don't know. But they decided to troll this thread, for some reason.
Must admit I'm still confused here.
That's a good point. But my concern is that India and Australia both didn't raise that many troops prior to 1939. This was despite both Hitler and Japan.
Were troops withdrawn from East Asia after war broke out in Europe, or was it just a matter of them not being sent there? The distinction seems crucial, IMO.
Australia didn't have large peacetime land forces but India had substantial ones. A lot of those were in N Africa along with many of what ANZAC units had been raised. Not to mention that the British army was a lot more concentrated in Britain and N Africa than traditional in peace time. If it wasn't for Hitler the standard forces in the east, especially with Japan becoming more and more hostile, would have been larger.
Also, with no insult meant to the forces that did fight in Malaya, and sometimes did an amazing job despite all their problems, it was seen as very much a back-water during the crisis in Europe. As a result there was a trimming off of the 'best' troops and equipment. So there would be a substantial qualitative as well as quantitative improvement in the defence.
Where were they based before 39? But that's true. (Although the fall of the Philippines, with over a hundred thousand US & Filipino troops, seems an ominous analogy).
I don't know about armour as the 1st armoured division was only formed in ~1938 in Egypt but I think some would definitely be there for the west coast area where it could be very useful. Also would expect that a lot of the planes would be modern rather than obsolete. Don't forget that the presumption is the Japanese won't be attacking totally out of the blue as there has been growing tension and the establishment of embargoes on Japan. Hence some forces will have been sent out there as a precaution.
With the bulk of the RN sub force it was designed for operations in the Pacific region. They are actually thought to have lost some ships because the larger designs, with a slower dive speed were more vulnerable in the shallow and clearer Med waters.
I agree that Japan is absolutely fucked if it can't take Singapore; but if it can (and the people who came up with OTL's plans during this period are not individuals I'd automatically discount), it might be a different sort of beast.
Even if it can, which under the circumstances I think is a very long shot, unless it can take the entire Dutch archaeology, then it will still need to repair the oil facilities and then ship the oil back to Japan. This will not be easy and given the amount of thought Britain had put into strategic [as opposed to tactical] planning before the war I think they will fairly quickly realise that. Coupled with aid to China via Burma and help from France and the Netherlands there is simply too much going against Japan. This all presumes that neither America or Russia gets involved either.
Steve