WI - Australia/NZ Assigned Malaya Defense

In this scenario, what happens if the Malayan campaign has a similar result to OTL? This scenario has a larger proportion of the Australian and NZ armies assigned to Malaya and Singapore than in OTL. (how much larger?) How would Australia and New Zealand be affected by this larger loss?
I imagine Major General Bennett's escape would be considered less praiseworthy back home, especially if he was the senior commander; akin to Friedrich Paulus getting on the last plane out of Gumrak.
 
I imagine Major General Bennett's escape would be considered less praiseworthy back home, especially if he was the senior commander; akin to Friedrich Paulus getting on the last plane out of Gumrak.

Bennett would have to get at least one promotion to LtGen and possibly 2 to Gen before he could be a senior commander, Blamey and I think others would be ahead of him.
 
Problem with a capital ship, of course, it that before the building holiday expires in 1936, it can't be done, and afterwards, the British yards and plants that provide the armor, weapons, and powerplant are pretty much going all out as it is...

Best,

The proposal was made after the First London Treaty expired. And although I agree that Britain didn't have the capacity to build more battleships in the second half of the 1930s the proposal wasn't carried out for that reason. It was because of the cost. Not just the £7 million that the battleship would cost, but the cost of the division of destroyers required to screen it and the expansion of the dockyard facilities that would be necessary.

I did some more skimming through the official history and it appears that the 6 RAN Tribal class that were planned (but only 3 were built) were intended to escort 2 RAN battleships that were to be built in the 1940s.
 
The air defence requirements for the Far East in 1934 (according to the First Report of the Defence Requirements Committee) were for a total of 100 aircraft in 11 squadrons in peace and 140 aircraft in 15 squadrons in war. That is:

Ceylon

12 landplanes (one squadron)

Penang

4 flying boats (one squadron)

Singapore

Peace: 44 aircraft (36 landplanes and 8 flying boats) in 5 squadrons (3 landplane and 2 flying boat)

War: 84 aircraft (72 landplanes and 12 flying boats) in 9 squadrons (6 landplane and 3 flying boat)

The balance of 40 aircraft in 3 landplane and one flying boat squadron would come from India, Iraq and the Persian Gulf.

Hong Kong

40 aircraft in 4 squadrons (36 landplanes in 3 squadrons and 4 flying boats in one squadron).

The Force That Actually Existed on 31st March 1934

28 aircraft in 3 squadrons (24 landplanes in 2 squadrons and 4 flying boats in one squadron) at Singapore. A second flying boat squadron was authorised in the 1934-35 Air Estimates.

Expansion Scheme A (which was approved by the Cabinet later in 1934 for completion on 31st March 1939) only provided one extra landplane squadron for Singapore, which increased the RAF's total strength in the Far East to 44 aircraft in 5 squadrons, all based in Singapore. That left a shortfall of 56 aircraft in 6 squadrons. ITTL the governments of Australia and New Zealand could be asked to provide some or all of those aircraft as a start to them taking over the air defence of the Far East.
 
If we can add Canadian tankers to the ANZAC party we can very easily get Valentines to Malaya in time, though it will be very tight.

Here's a pic from Nov. 1941 of the first batch of sixty-odd Canadian-made Valentine tanks to ship to Russia. Instead, let's get these produced in August and shipped via rail to Vancouver and then via merchant ship to Singapore, arriving end of October. According to http://www.sea-distances.org/ Vancouver to Singapore at 10 knots takes just under 30 days. If 12 knots can be done, the voyage is now less than 25 days.

Ship them also with Colonel Worthington and crews from the Canadian Armoured Corps (plus the two Canadian regiments sent to HK), https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F._F._Worthington.

industry1.jpg


industry2.jpg


Fifty or sixty Valentines won't guarantee a win, the IJA for example deployed over 200 of their tanks (albeit highly inferior to the Valentine). Also the Valentine's two man turret (see below pic, where commander has to load the gun) and lack of a HE shell and lack of hull mg would be frustrating to the anti-infantry actions, though the coaxial 7.92 Besa MG would be a true killer vs. bicycle or foot infantry.

461px-Loading_Valentine_tank_2_pdr_gun_IWM_E_9766.jpg


Some logistical challenges may be felt, as the Canadian Valentines used US-sourced diesel engines and unusual mg calibre, with supply of fuel, ammunition and more likely parts causing some difficulties. However one can imagine the good feelings timely arrival of Valentines and their crew would convey to the garrison.

large.jpg


However, all this is useless if the tanks don't arrive on time, as seen at http://1942malaya.blogspot.ca/2009/07/tank-squadron-that-came-too-late.html Maybe that's a good ATH discussion - have these tanks arrive two months earlier.

Great post

Like I mentioned last week - one of the most damaging things the Japanese did early war was their tactic of Infiltration and then setting up roadblocks (felling trees etc covered by MG and Mortars) - forcing a Given Brigade reliant on said road to abandon its wheeled transport and heavy weapons (Artillery and Battalion heavy weapons as well as its supply echelon and field hospital etc) when it retreated.

Once this had happened to a Brigade its combat effectiveness regardless of casualties was massively reduced as it was usually down to Bren guns and knee mortars.

You can imagine the loss in a units morale once this had happened!

In Burma during the battles after the Sittang River and then the retreat from Rangoon M3 Stuarts of the 7th Armoured Brigade in addition to totally dominating Japanese armor were capable of smashing these roadblocks and reopening the roads and the Japanese where hard pressed to deal with them.

So the inclusion of Valentines would be a pretty big deal


Here's the first Canadian-built Hurricane in Jan 1940.

P5170edited.jpg

While building Valentines was possible in Australia (basically if you can build a steam engine then you can build a Valentine - minus engine and guns of course)

However building aircraft is slightly more involved and I suspect that Australia would be better off ordering Aircraft from the US - perhaps P36s and P40s as well as Catalina and / or a twin engine land based Bomber such as the A22 (Martin Maryland) or the later A30 (Martin Baltimore) - rather than try to build up an aircraft industry.
 
Even if tanks were allocated they wouldn't be allowed to conduct training due to the political situation and Gov Shelton's unwillingness to overcome this.
 

TFSmith121

Banned
Of all the possible major possible defense procurements for Australia in the 1940s,

The proposal was made after the First London Treaty expired. And although I agree that Britain didn't have the capacity to build more battleships in the second half of the 1930s the proposal wasn't carried out for that reason. It was because of the cost. Not just the £7 million that the battleship would cost, but the cost of the division of destroyers required to screen it and the expansion of the dockyard facilities that would be necessary.

I did some more skimming through the official history and it appears that the 6 RAN Tribal class that were planned (but only 3 were built) were intended to escort 2 RAN battleships that were to be built in the 1940s.

Of all the possible major possible defense procurements for Australia in the 1940s, battleships seem like the most ridiculous imaginable...

Aircraft, submarines, escort vessels, etc.? Sure.

But battleships? For a continent-spanning nation with all of 7 million people in 1940?

Makes the Z Plan look rational.

Best,
 
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