WI the gear was evacuated from Dunkirk.

I once read that 400 2pdr AT guns were abandoned in France, and so instead of switching to the 6pdr in 1940 the Brits kept the 2pdr in production despite being obsolete.

WI the Brits were able to evacuate their heavy weapons from France as well as their people? Perhaps 3/4 of their tanks, guns, AA & AT guns, but not things like mortars. Would the invasion scare of 1940 be so acute if from day 1 they had many more heavy weapons than OTL? Would the Brits be able to go on the offensive earlier by being able to release heavy forces sooner? Could they switch to the 6pdr AT gun and really give Rommel a hiding in 1941?
 
Considering the circumstances of Operation Dynamo evacuating gear means not evacuating people, which is not likely to go over well at all. Imagine how any of the other Allies would feel when being told that British equipment was worth more than the lives of their soldiers, or how the British public would feel about that principle applying to their own soldiers. The political fallout would probably hurt the British far more than the loss of equipment did ... not to mention that guns are a lot easier to replace than soldiers.
 
Maybe they can switch to the 6pdr earlier. Without proper combined-arms tactics, it's not enough to give Rommel a hiding.

Agree.
Having more 2-pounders and switching to 6-pounders earlier won't do that much good. The British tankgun procurement at that time needs more then that to be fixed afaik.

WI the Brits were able to evacuate their heavy weapons from France as well as their people? Perhaps 3/4 of their tanks, guns, AA & AT guns, but not things like mortars.
If you can take along the heavy gear, you're probably also capable of bringing the light manportable stuff like mortars.

I once read an anecdote of a Matilda tank crew who decided to bring both the barrel of their 2 pounder along and the Bren the tank had after it broke down on the retreat towards Dunkirk.

IIRC they were eventually ordered on the beach to ditch the cannonbarrel, but they managed to smuggle along the Bren.
They used it for AA but without a proper AA-carriage the gun was pretty much useless in this role.

The only way I see the Brits taking along their heavy gear while retreating from a beach will be if they have a bunch of LS(T).
IRL it was Dunkirk which spurred the British into conversing the first three ships into something looking like an LST.
Maybe you could have a more disastrous retreat from Norway, driving the British to convert these three ships 2 years earlier?
 
The only way I see the Brits taking along their heavy gear while retreating from a beach will be if they have a bunch of LS(T).
IRL it was Dunkirk which spurred the British into conversing the first three ships into something looking like an LST.
Maybe you could have a more disastrous retreat from Norway, driving the British to convert these three ships 2 years earlier?
There's no way the British would have had time to convert ships to LSTs or really do much of anything in Dunkirk as a result of the Norwegian campaign; there's less than a month between the withdrawal of troops from Norway (May 3rd, except for the force at Narvik which was not fully evacuated until June 10th) and the start of the evacuation from Dunkirk (May 26).
 
There's no way the British would have had time to convert ships to LSTs or really do much of anything in Dunkirk as a result of the Norwegian campaign; there's less than a month between the withdrawal of troops from Norway (May 3rd, except for the force at Narvik which was not fully evacuated until June 10th) and the start of the evacuation from Dunkirk (May 26).

I know I was grasping at straws...

Without any reason to, why would the Brits otherwise convert these ships?
 
IIRC the Brits did have some amphibious ships, conversions and prototypes but lost them at Norway.

I was think of a twist of events that let the Brits bring some gear, not trucks or supplies but just the heavy weapons.
 
I was think of a twist of events that let the Brits bring some gear, not trucks or supplies but just the heavy weapons.

Whatever that is, the knock-on effect for the desert campaign might be more British troops there. Yet I repeat, it's not the hardware that really made a difference there. The German 88s were very good hardware, yet they could be defeated with the old 25 pdrs, if only the British had had the software in place - i.e., good artillery support for their armored formations. This is just one example.
 
Maybe they can switch to the 6pdr earlier. Without proper combined-arms tactics, it's not enough to give Rommel a hiding.

the problem was that British needed to produce as many tanks as possible as fast as possible. switching to 6pdr would eman halting the production while machine tools are reconfigured which means that for that time nothing is produced. Better to have tanks with 2pdrs than no tanks and waiting for 6pdrs.

Soviets had similar problem in early stages of war. they identified several troubles with T-34 and made plans to correct them, however they realised that this would mean stopping od reducing the production so it was decided to postpone upgrades and keeep producing flawed T-34s
 
the problem was that British needed to produce as many tanks as possible as fast as possible. switching to 6pdr would eman halting the production while machine tools are reconfigured which means that for that time nothing is produced. Better to have tanks with 2pdrs than no tanks and waiting for 6pdrs.

Soviets had similar problem in early stages of war. they identified several troubles with T-34 and made plans to correct them, however they realised that this would mean stopping od reducing the production so it was decided to postpone upgrades and keeep producing flawed T-34s

All true, but we were talking about "2 pdr AT" here. Towed guns. Though less convenient from the POV of logistics, one could have towed AT batteries equipped with 6 pdrs, and tanks sporting 2 pdr. guns.
 
All true, but we were talking about "2 pdr AT" here. Towed guns. Though less convenient from the POV of logistics, one could have towed AT batteries equipped with 6 pdrs, and tanks sporting 2 pdr. guns.

ah, OK. What was situation production-wise in that depeartemnt? Did British face same troubles as with tank guns?
 
If the 6pdr went into production in 1940 becuase the Brits had enough 2pdrs to cover the invasion scare of 1940 then it's logical enough that tanks would be fitted with this gun sooner than OTL. However in a few tanks the 6pdr meant going to a 2 man turret, loosing the advantages of a 3 man turret.
 

Markus

Banned
Maybe they can switch to the 6pdr earlier. Without proper combined-arms tactics, it's not enough to give Rommel a hiding.

But didn´t they have to use the 25pdr artillery gun for AT defence because of the 2pdr´s uselessness? In this case the introduction of an effective AT-gun would free the 25pdrs for artillery support.
 
Exactly. In 1941 the 2pdrs effective range was something like 200 metres against German tanks, so 25pdrs were used in the AT role. I forget exactly how it worked but it was something like the Brits couldn't shoot many tanks because once the Germans got within a certain range the 25pdr guns would have to be moved to avoid being lost. The 2pdr couldn't cover this gap due to a lack of penetrating range but the 6pdr could, so this handicap was removed until the 6pdr was introduced in numbers.
 
But didn´t they have to use the 25pdr artillery gun for AT defence because of the 2pdr´s uselessness? In this case the introduction of an effective AT-gun would free the 25pdrs for artillery support.

The British artillerymen did fire 25 pounders in direct fire at tanks, in emergencies.
I'm not aware of 25 pounders being issued to AT batteries.
 
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