British 1936-42 purchase options, logistics and export/import of military hardware (2 Viewers)

[Shortround6]

(my bold)
Is there a good source that confirms that the requirement for the Lysander included the COIN/low intensity conflicts?

I am not sure that COIN/low intensity was even a "thing" in 1920s-30s in 'terms'.

However the Americans were doing some low intensity work in the Bananas wars.
British tended to use the term "tribal policing".
The Lysander may have wound up replacing the Hawker Hind and cousins, siblings, nephews in the mid-east, Asia.

 

[tomo pauk]

I am not sure that COIN/low intensity was even a "thing" in 1920s-30s in 'terms'.

However the Americans were doing some low intensity work in the Bananas wars.
British tended to use the term "tribal policing".
The Lysander may have wound up replacing the Hawker Hind and cousins, siblings, nephews in the mid-east, Asia.

No argument there.
What I'm questioning is the notion that requirement for the Lysander included the 'tribal policing' and other low-intensity warfare, for that I cannot find a reference.

 

[GrauGeist]

Maybe if the Air Ministry allowed the Short Brothers to develop the S.29 as designed without interfering?

 

[yulzari]

Dual purpose or triple purpose?
French 37mm-47mm guns, German 37mm-50mm guns, Italian 47mm guns, Soviet 45mm guns are all "dual purpose" to some extent.
If you want smoke shells (triple purpose) you do need a 75mm shell to hold enough smoke compound. Granted a 75mm shell holds a lot more HE than the smaller HE shells.
The British kept the 2pdr a single purpose gun for about 5 years too long. Relying on the co-ax MG for ALL soft targets limited the British tank commanders choices/tactical flexibility.
Ordering 2pdr HE ammo was a simple solution. It wouldn't take out field fortifications but a single 40mm HE shell into a truck or small building/hut could be effective.
Again the 75-76mm tank guns don't show up in large numbers until 1941-42.

Do we want Ideal or just large improvement for small investment. Britain doesn't have enough money/resources to do everything the "ideal" way.

Dual purpose. You can repeat fire smoke when needed. British tanks went from 57mm to 47mm to 40mm from 1916 to 1938. Going the other way to 84mm was possible post Great War and skips the shoulder elevation which worked fine on the 40mm but forced the practice of an internal mantlet. A more useful armament for Imperial policing acting as ersatz SP artillery. ie the 18 Pounder with the 25 Pounder later in the war when production allowed. Yes it will impact upon tank design towards relying upon firepower and armour. at the expense of speed. The doctrinal impact would be major but one can only guess in what direction it might go. Look to Vickers for the tank as they are large enough and experienced in the engineering to keep a tank division in business the whole time. They also have a working suspension system. The Liberty is not perfect but works well enough to still be powering Crusader gun tugs etc. until the end of the war.

The start point that drives the rest is a true dual purpose gun. The permissive extra or limit is bridging weight.

 

[tomo pauk]

British tanks went from 57mm to 47mm to 40mm from 1916 to 1938. Going the other way to 84mm was possible post Great War and skips the shoulder elevation which worked fine on the 40mm but forced the practice of an internal mantlet. A more useful armament for Imperial policing acting as ersatz SP artillery. ie the 18 Pounder with the 25 Pounder later in the war when production allowed. Yes it will impact upon tank design towards relying upon firepower and armour. at the expense of speed

Excellent points.

at the expense of speed. The doctrinal impact would be major but one can only guess in what direction it might go. Look to Vickers for the tank as they are large enough and experienced in the engineering to keep a tank division in business the whole time.

Vickers can make the single-shot pom-pom for the small tanks and armored cars that can't handle the 57 or 75/76mm. Use the ww1 left-over barrels that are not conductive for automatic fire (due to the number of rounds they went through them) to kickstart the project.
Another option is the 20mm autocannon, as well as the 12.5-15mm heavy MGs. Especially if these are high elevation, like what the Germans had on the SdKfz 222.

 

[Shortround6]

Looking at the tries to reinvent the whell (ie. a small-calibre gun), they behaved like they actually had money and resources. Duplicating the 6pdr development with the Navy, introduction of the 2pdr - these were not just the ways of squandering the money, but also a way to waste time, the most precious commodity.



Neither the French, nor the Germans, not the Soviets received that memo. With caveat that French and German 75mm tank guns were really multipurpose - HE, AP, smoke.
British on their tanks could have had the gun similar to the 75mm the French or Germans had on their tanks before 1939, if not better.

A lot times calibers stayed in use in order to make use of existing tooling. Sometimes the tooling was just cutting the rifling and a lot of times it was used to make the ammunition.
There was a lot of differences over the years in propellents, and metallurgy. In the time before computers using existing calibers and shell designs as a bases for the new guns/ammo saved a lot of development time.
The British (and many others) 6pdrs date back to the 1880s and black powder. In the 1920s-40s there are some other things that come into play.
A 6pdr AA gun (or anti-torpedo boat gun) needs a faster rate of fire than an AT gun. Or at least the duration of the engagement of is expected to be longer.
Sometimes barrels were lighter or heavier for balance reasons for the mount/s.
The naval 6pdr and AA 6pdr also did not have to be moved by hand into and out of firing positions. Granted the amount of weight/effort might have somewhat arbitrary.

We are using a little bit of selective memory here for the 75mm guns.
French 75mm guns were fitted to around 400 tanks out of 3000 tanks?
Germans were using the 75mm tanks as support tanks and the sometimes ammo develops faster than the tanks and tank guns. German doctrine was that the 37mm armed tanks would be the armor punchers while the 75mm armed tanks did the HE and Smoke missions. The Shaped charges showed up in middle of this mess. The Germans stayed with the 50mm gun as the primary AT tank weapon until late 1941 (the L43 gun was fitted to the first production MK IV in March 1942).
Soviet early 76mm guns were only 16.5 caliber in length, basically they were also duel purpose weapons HE and smoke.
A reason that the the Soviets kept putting 45mm guns in those multi turret monsters.

I will agree that the British 3.7in and 3in bomb throwers were mistake. Yes they did carry a fair amount of HE/smoke but the hidden problem was the extreme low velocity which makes hitting at anything but extremely close range a problem. That and the scale of issue (about 2 tanks out of 14-16?) means that a couple of unlucky mechanical breakdowns either cuts the 'support' by 50% or 100%.

Just loading HE shells into the 2pdr guns would have pretty much brought the British up to world standards, low as that was, instead of being behind the pack.

 

[Shortround6]

No argument there.
What I'm questioning is the notion that requirement for the Lysander included the 'tribal policing' and other low-intensity warfare, for that I cannot find a reference.

Perhaps not but the requirement for carrying a pair of 250lb bombs or a rack for 4-5 light bombs per side was there from the beginning.
As was the .303 gun in each landing gear leg. Double the gun power of the HS 126 and equal gun power to the Ju-87B.
The Lysander was supposed to assigned at the rate of 12 planes per infantry division (?).

The Hawker Hind family was both complicated and simple. They changed names depending on 'role' and/or fit of equipment, like radios and/or desert survival equipment.
Had the world not gone to war in 1939 it is hard to say where Lysanders would have would up as the Hinds got older and needed repairs/new engines and replacement fabric.

Now the late 1930s replacement for the Hind family was either going to be the Lysander or the Battle/Blenheim. What else was there?

 

[tomo pauk]

The British (and many others) 6pdrs date back to the 1880s and black powder. In the 1920s-40s there are some other things that come into play.

That is awful lot of time to came with a really modern 6pdr gun in good quantity well before 1940, both as a tank gun and as an AT gun.
But, like many times, doctrine made sure that good stuff happens too late.

A 6pdr AA gun (or anti-torpedo boat gun) needs a faster rate of fire than an AT gun. Or at least the duration of the engagement of is expected to be longer.
Sometimes barrels were lighter or heavier for balance reasons for the mount/s.
The naval 6pdr and AA 6pdr also did not have to be moved by hand into and out of firing positions. Granted the amount of weight/effort might have somewhat arbitrary.

Let's not claim that naval 6 pdr would've been that hard to move when mounted on a field carriage. It is far easier to not take advantage of the ability for rapid fire, than to increase the sedate rate of fire, so the naval 6 pdr will be perfect.

German doctrine was that the 37mm armed tanks would be the armor punchers while the 75mm armed tanks did the HE and Smoke missions.

Again, Germans did not get the memo that the short 75mm is not a hole puncher, and insisted on outfitting the tanks carrying these guns with AP ammo, that paid handsome dividends already in 1940.

French 75mm guns were fitted to around 400 tanks out of 3000 tanks?

Yes indeed.
OTOH, French were also outfitting their tanks with 37 and 47mm HE shells. The British didn't for their 2pdr, and not even for the 3 pdr.

 

[Shortround6]

The 18pdr was a big gun for a late 30s tank.
Weight of the MK 4 gun barrel and breech was 952lbs.
that does not include recoil mechanism/system.
You also need a new breech mechanism.

 

[tomo pauk]

Now the late 1930s replacement for the Hind family was either going to be the Lysander or the Battle/Blenheim. What else was there?

In the role of light bomber/strafer? Something with fighter genes - ideally the Hurricane, but even a Ki-27 equivalent with 4-6 LMGs is still good (like that Gloster fighter). The MB.2, too, with the 1000 HP Dagger (not mandatory; a low-gear S/C Mercury will do).
In the role of artillery spotter? A high-wing 2-seater with <250 HP engine in the nose.

Either of these aircraft is well within the scope of both the UK design offices and industry so many can be made.

 

[Shortround6]

Let's not claim that naval 6 pdr would've been that hard to move when mounted on a field carriage. It is far easier to not take advantage of the ability for rapid fire, than to increase the sedate rate of fire, so the naval 6 pdr will be perfect.

well, the naval 6pdr you linked to had a barrel and breech that weighed 1060lbs compared to the 768lbs (?) of the early 6pdr AT gun.
The actual gun performance was worse. 2386fps vs about 2700 and since penetration goes up with the square of the velocity. This is not looking good.
You can't just drop a 300lb heavier barrel into same carriage/wheels/brakes. You are going to break the carriage while towing so you need to beef up the carriage bit or resort to carrying the gun in the bed of a truck, which was bad enough when the gun weighed 2500-2600lbs.

Again, Germans did not get the memo that the short 75mm is not a hole puncher, and insisted on outfitting the tanks carrying these guns with AP ammo, that paid handsome dividends already in 1940.

German doctrine was that just about every gun had AT ammo available, How useful it was is sometimes questionable. The 75mm gun tanks did make up for the 37mm guns in the MK III tanks which was not really a success. It was a near fatal mistake by the Germans keeping the 37mm gun for too long.
The German 37mm At and tank gun was one of the lowest power 37mm guns there was if we rule out the French 37mm guns.

Yes indeed.
OTOH, French were also outfitting their tanks with 37 and 47mm HE shells. The British didn't for their 2pdr, and not even for the 3 pdr.

Well, this gets back to what I have been saying. Give the 2pdr a HE shell in 1938 and the 2pdr is pretty much on same level as everybody else in 1939/40/41.

 

[tomo pauk]

well, the naval 6pdr you linked to had a barrel and breech that weighed 1060lbs compared to the 768lbs (?) of the early 6pdr AT gun.
The actual gun performance was worse. 2386fps vs about 2700 and since penetration goes up with the square of the velocity. This is not looking good.

The RN's 6pdr is not a direct replacement for the Army's 6pdr, but a gun that should've been manufactured instead of the 2pdr. Thus, it looks splendid.
Instead of the Army's 6pdr, they need to start designing the tank-going 3in gun.

You can't just drop a 300lb heavier barrel into same carriage/wheels/brakes. You are going to break the carriage while towing so you need to beef up the carriage bit or resort to carrying the gun in the bed of a truck, which was bad enough when the gun weighed 2500-2600lbs.

Is it that hard to imagine this: the Army's 6 pdr as a separate design will not exist. Ever.
Navy's 6 pdr get's it's own carriage.

German doctrine was that just about every gun had AT ammo available, How useful it was is sometimes questionable.

You mean the short 75mm? Not questionable at all.
Although the books from the 1960s might disagree.
added: It were the 10.5cm howitzers that contributed to the defeat of the British armored thrust towards around Arrass, together with 8.8cm and other assets.

Well, this gets back to what I have been saying. Give the 2pdr a HE shell in 1938 and the 2pdr is pretty much on same level as everybody else in 1939/40/41.

So instead going through the doors, we opt to smash the window, enter there and tend to the wounds because we have cuts from glass?

 

[Shortround6]

In the role of light bomber/strafer? Something with fighter genes - ideally the Hurricane, but even a Ki-27 equivalent with 4-6 LMGs is still good (like that Gloster fighter). The MB.2, too, with the 1000 HP Dagger (not mandatory; a low-gear S/C Mercury will do).
In the role of artillery spotter? A high-wing 2-seater with <250 HP engine in the nose.

Either of these aircraft is well within the scope of both the UK design offices and industry so many can be made.

I think we are going by each other on this one.

The colonial policing aircraft needed to do a number of things as there weren't going to be very many of them covering a large area.
They needed to do recon, they sometimes needed to land in remote areas to evacuate men (even if they just fell off a horse), or land an officer.
The bombing was often last resort. But it could take several weeks to get actual bombers moved in.

The Hawker Biplanes replaced the old Brisfit's. The Tribesmen had very few machine guns so the AA was almost entirely rifles.
For combat in France supporting the BEF the Lysanders was a mistake. It was trying to do too many different things so it wasn't good at any of them.
The actual requirement was faulty and separating the roles out into different types of planes would have been much more efficient.

The Problem wasn't the lack of British design capability, it was doctrine coupled with empire building.
The Army wanted some sort of local air support, even if only for artillery spotting and transporting officers quickly rather than using staff cars.
The Bomber Boys didn't want to spend a single coin on army aircraft. That would hurt the bomber campaign that was the ONLY way to win the war.
Every 100 army co-operation planes were 20-50 fewer bombers and for every 100 Army pilots that was 100 RAF pilots not trained and wearing RAF patches.

Ideally the Army wanted their own tactical bombers and their own fighters but this was wrong. What was needed was better communications so that instead of each division having a 1-2 fighter squadrons and 1-2 light bomber squadrons a fewer number of aircraft could be concentrated over the most important parts of the land battle. It took a while in NA for the Army generals to understand this and for the RAF guys in NA to gain the trust of the Army generals that support would be available when needed instead of flying off to targets hundreds of miles away.

Getting the communications between the headquarters down was almost as important as the types of planes used.

Now the problem with British supply is, as shown by an earlier poster, actual manufacturing capability was in the hands of only a few firms. You had De Havilland and then you had everybody else put together. But 130-250hp wooden aircraft don't require the tooling/industry that all metal aircraft need. You also don't need hundreds of such planes in 1939-40.
A few score will do the trick and scale up from there.

 

[EwenS]

Perhaps not but the requirement for carrying a pair of 250lb bombs or a rack for 4-5 light bombs per side was there from the beginning.
As was the .303 gun in each landing gear leg. Double the gun power of the HS 126 and equal gun power to the Ju-87B.
The Lysander was supposed to assigned at the rate of 12 planes per infantry division (?).

The Hawker Hind family was both complicated and simple. They changed names depending on 'role' and/or fit of equipment, like radios and/or desert survival equipment.
Had the world not gone to war in 1939 it is hard to say where Lysanders would have would up as the Hinds got older and needed repairs/new engines and replacement fabric.

Now the late 1930s replacement for the Hind family was either going to be the Lysander or the Battle/Blenheim. What else was there?

A number of Indian Air Force squadrons used the Lysander in 1941/42 as replacements for the Wapiti, Audax & Hart biplanes that had been used in the pre/early war period. One of the early duties assigned to them was patrolling the NW Frontier of India, including the pretty lawless border with Afghanistan.

 

[MikeMeech]

(my bold)
Is there a good source that confirms that the requirement for the Lysander included the COIN/low intensity conflicts?

Hi
The specification has the Lysander to replace the Hawker Hector (home based) and Audax (overseas based), army co-operation types. The Audax was being used in 'low intensity' warfare, as mentioned, places like the North-West Frontier of India, where the second prototype (K6128) was sent during 1936 for tests on active service. So yes it was supposed to be used for those roles.

Mike

 

[MikeMeech]

Hi
There are books on British AOP during WW2, for example:

The Royal Artillery started testing the idea of a gunner pilot in a light aircraft to direct artillery by R/T rather than W/T, experiments being carried out at the RAF School of Army Co-operation, Old Sarum, in conjunction with the School of Artillery, Larkhill. The first book is good on this as the author was one of the Army pilots (who was one of those already seconded to the RAF to fly AC aircraft). During 1939 they tried out a large number of different types of light aircraft, the Taylorcraft came nearest to the requirements, although it lacked some desirable characteristics. The US did not carry out similar trials until mid-1941, before that the US had their 'Lysander equivalent' the North American O-47:

Reference bomb equipped Hurricanes, as suggested in previous post, then Chapter 10 in 'Strategy for Victory' by Hall may be of interest (extract below):

Yes, its that man Leigh-Mallory again!

Mike

 

[z42]

The RN's 6pdr is not a direct replacement for the Army's 6pdr, but a gun that should've been manufactured instead of the 2pdr. Thus, it looks splendid.
Instead of the Army's 6pdr, they need to start designing the tank-going 3in gun.

This could be a good approach, I think. IF you can fit it in the puny pre war tanks. Which might be a pretty big if? Of course the "solution" is to give up on the idea of a small and cheap tank, and aim straight for something in the 20 ton range for an early war tank. But this was a period of very rapid advancement in tank technology, and the British weren't the only ones thinking they could get away with something cheap and lightweight.

You mean the short 75mm? Not questionable at all.

Might be good enough in terms of penetration against early war tanks. However, with a MV of 385m/s (for the German 75L24), hitting a moving target at somewhat uncertain range is much harder than with a high velocity gun with a flatter trajectory.

 

[z42]

since penetration goes up with the square of the velocity.

There's a number of empirical formulas floating around, a seemingly well done reliable regression analysis I've seen comes up with a formula where the penetration T is proportional to

T ~ D * V^1.1

where D is the diameter and V the velocity. This was for naval APCBC type shells.

But it does point out the basic tradeoff between AP and HE performance. Increasing penetration by increasing diameter will give a linear increase in penetration for a cubic cost in terms of weight of shell (and presumably for constant velocity, the weight of the gun probably scales roughly linearly with the weight of the shell). Increasing velocity is probably cheaper in terms of penetration per weight of gun. Assuming the weight of the gun is proportional to the kinetic energy(??), for an increase in penetration by V^1.1 you only pay an increase in the weight of the gun squared. Bad, maybe, but substantially better than the cubed scaling for increasing penetration via increasing the diameter of the shell while keeping velocity constant. But then at some point you get into issues with shells shattering on impact, barrel wear, and poor HE performance. So where is the sweet spot for a tank gun?

 

[tomo pauk]

This could be a good approach, I think. IF you can fit it in the puny pre war tanks. Which might be a pretty big if? Of course the "solution" is to give up on the idea of a small and cheap tank, and aim straight for something in the 20 ton range for an early war tank. But this was a period of very rapid advancement in tank technology, and the British weren't the only ones thinking they could get away with something cheap and lightweight.

British went to the 25 ton Matilda II by the late 1930s.
They also tried with the CS tanks as light as the 15 ton Mk.II, with the 3.7in howitzer as a weapon.

Might be good enough in terms of penetration against early war tanks. However, with a MV of 385m/s (for the German 75L24), hitting a moving target at somewhat uncertain range is much harder than with a high velocity gun with a flatter trajectory.

There is no need to go with the too sedate MV. A ~500 m/s 75mm gun would still be a modest weapon, while improving the chance to hit vs. the more difficult targets.

 

[tomo pauk]

Some French bits & pieces the British might find interesting between the realization that Germany is the likely enemy and before 1941:
- 25mm AT gun on the Bren carrier and on the scout/armored cars
- 47mm stuff - British have their own left-over guns mostly in the RN stocks - letting these for the Army use might allow for usage of the French tanker ammo once British Army is in the continent
- 75mm tank gun, as used on the Char B