WI/PC: What if USA built UK designs for military aid in WWII?

WILDGEESE

Gone Fishin'
Before and during WWII (lend - lease), the UK sent representatives to the USA to purchase aircraft and army equipment for both the British Army,RAF & RN.

As a consequence, P-40's, P-51's, B-24's, Hudson's, Boston's, Maryland's C-47's where procured for the RAF.

M2/3's, M4's tanks and 1,000's of CCKW's, Chevy & Jeeps where procured for the British Army.

What if, instead of building US designs, the UK signed agreements with US companies to build UK designs instead like they did for Commonwealth nations such as Australia and Canada?

For example, getting US manufacturers to build Hurricane's, Spitfire's, Wellington's & Blenheims at the start of the war then moving over to Lanc's, Halifax's, Beaufighters & Mozzies later.

Then for the Army, Bedford QL's, AEC Matadors trucks, Crusader, Comet, Churchill & Cromwell tanks.

Plus producing RN designed destroyers and CV's in US shipyards.

Would this be possible?

How would it effect supplies to the UK?

Regards filers
 
Back in 1971 a drafting instructor at my high school brought in some blueprints of the Allison conversion of the Merlin engine for manufactor in the US. He told us there were over 2000 changes in the engine between it the Brit drawings these were derived from. This illustrates the problems in direct manufactor. Nothing in the US matched British industry. However there were a number of other direct adaptations. The 6 pdr AT gun was adapted by the US as the 57mm AT gun. The 4.5" cannon tube was adapted to fit a US cannon carriage. The Liberty Ship was a direct adaptation of a British design.

A lot of the items named above were already state of the art or long established designs. Adaptation often would have delayed manufactor to the point the weapons would be obsolete. To get around that one needs to waive away the Nuetrality Acts two or three years early, so Britain can contract these items in the US in 1937, vs late 1939.
 
The other issue is that for most of the equipment sent to the UK, it was stuff already made for or planned to be made for US forces. For US factories producing items for the UK meant adding workers or lines for products already in production or planned - no new jigs, no special parts and so forth. Most (not all) of the UK specific items were not going to be adopted by US forces so once the UK run was finished it was over. A lot of the factories could add an extra shift to ramp up for lend-lease/contract production, adding extra lines as needed but this way they could start cranking stuff out pretty quickly - and economically. To set up a line for a British product will be much more time consuming and would be more expensive. The British wanted "stuff" fast, and if they were paying wanted it as inexpensively as possible, and if LL the USA wanted it economical.
 
Back in 1971 a drafting instructor at my high school brought in some blueprints of the Allison conversion of the Merlin engine for manufactor in the US. He told us there were over 2000 changes in the engine between it the Brit drawings these were derived from. This illustrates the problems in direct manufactor. Nothing in the US matched British industry. However there were a number of other direct adaptations. The 6 pdr AT gun was adapted by the US as the 57mm AT gun. The 4.5" cannon tube was adapted to fit a US cannon carriage. The Liberty Ship was a direct adaptation of a British design.

A lot of the items named above were already state of the art or long established designs. Adaptation often would have delayed manufactor to the point the weapons would be obsolete. To get around that one needs to waive away the Nuetrality Acts two or three years early, so Britain can contract these items in the US in 1937, vs late 1939.

A great example of that was the HS 404 20mm cannon - the British had just figured it out and got it working only for US production to repeat and magnify many of those errors and not getting it working properly till the end of the war.

One of the issues was that 20mm cannon are treated as artillery by the then US DOD and tolerances for Artillery were not as precise as they are in Machine guns which is effectively what the HS 404 was!

So I dont think that the US Arms industry was capable of building many UK designs without a great deal of jiggery pokery

What would have been better is for more foresight to have been made and for both nations and perhaps France to have picked common equipment!

M1 Garands, Bren Guns (both in a common calibre - .30-06 or even Pedernson .264), 81mm Mortars, 75mm and 105mm Artillery for example

But big ticket items such as 4 Engine Bombers etc would have freed up a great deal of production otherwise spent on Bomber command (I've seen figures like a Million workers and half the Military budget of the UK)

The US Building weapons like the 57mm / 6 pounder made sense because it was a good weapon system and the US pretty much had nothing so a good place to start.

The problem of course is that US production was not yet stood up in 1941-42 to the levels of 1943+ that we know and love
 
Before and during WWII (lend - lease), the UK sent representatives to the USA to purchase aircraft and army equipment for both the British Army,RAF & RN.
As a consequence, P-40's, P-51's, B-24's, Hudson's, Boston's, Maryland's C-47's where procured for the RAF.
M2/3's, M4's tanks and 1,000's of CCKW's, Chevy & Jeeps where procured for the British Army.
What if, instead of building US designs, the UK signed agreements with US companies to build UK designs instead like they did for Commonwealth nations such as Australia and Canada?
For example, getting US manufacturers to build Hurricane's, Spitfire's, Wellington's & Blenheims at the start of the war then moving over to Lanc's, Halifax's, Beaufighters & Mozzies later.
Then for the Army, Bedford QL's, AEC Matadors trucks, Crusader, Comet, Churchill & Cromwell tanks.
Plus producing RN designed destroyers and CV's in US shipyards.
Would this be possible?
How would it effect supplies to the UK?
Regards filers

The best piece of British gear, the RR Merlin, was produced in the USA, a major Allied success.
Blenheim and Hurricane are non-starters, the US industry has far better stuff either in production or in design phases by 1939. How well versed were the US manufaturers in the 'geodetic' structures, required for Wellington? The Lancaster and Beaufighter make sense, especially since Packard was to be producing the Merlins. Beaufighter - not such a good bomber, too slow as a fighter. Spitfire - okay, if there is enough of Packard Merlins that won't be used by Mosquito, Lanc and Mustang; too short range for the US/RAAF/RNZAF needs.
Crusader tank was a bucket of troubles. Comet - good, but can't carry the 17pdr, unlike the Sherman. Churchill - an useful tank once woken up from 2pdr sleep. Cromwell - another useful tank, but a year or two too after the curve.

Back in 1971 a drafting instructor at my high school brought in some blueprints of the Allison conversion of the Merlin engine for manufactor in the US. He told us there were over 2000 changes in the engine between it the Brit drawings these were derived from. This illustrates the problems in direct manufactor. Nothing in the US matched British industry. However there were a number of other direct adaptations. The 6 pdr AT gun was adapted by the US as the 57mm AT gun. The 4.5" cannon tube was adapted to fit a US cannon carriage. The Liberty Ship was a direct adaptation of a British design.

A lot of the items named above were already state of the art or long established designs. Adaptation often would have delayed manufactor to the point the weapons would be obsolete. To get around that one needs to waive away the Nuetrality Acts two or three years early, so Britain can contract these items in the US in 1937, vs late 1939.

Bolded part is wrong, badly wrong. US artillery was no worse than British, tanks were far more reliable, everyone in the world used airfoils designed in the USA, British machineguns/autocannons were predominantly foreign designs. No 2-stage supercharged radial in the UK production unlike with the USA; no turbocharged engines either.
The Merlin was converted to the different projection vs. what British used, Packard doing the conversion, not Allison. The 20mm fell under Artillery branch, that was with looser tollerances than required for the Hispano, that was, surprisingly, the French product. As it was the 2-speed drive for the supercharger used on such Merlins (bar Packard Merlin, that used Wright design). The plain bearings, that RR licensed from Allison, were used on Merlins.
 
I don't think it was meant in the sense of superiority, but rather in terms of manufacturing and design similarities.

That would be correct. The post had nothing to do with what I wrote about. Thread spacing and pitch differed on bolts and nuts, bearings were seldom the same size, metal grading was often different. Graphic symbols on the drawings were different, measurements described differently, tolerances for fit described differently on the drawings or specifications text. Even the English measurement systems for industrial applications diverged. All that had to be transposed from one sides standards to another so the engineers & machinists could lay out the production correctly. In my early industrial graphics training circa 1970 we had to learn the differences between the many industrial measurement systems of the 20th Century US old standard, the current standard, a wartime emplaced system to bridge between British & Canadian measurement systems.
 
Top