Defence of Britain's Asia-Pacific possessions - at the cheapest possible cost of course

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Kevin J

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May 11, 2018
Portmeirion
As I see it, there are certain key harbours that we need to hold to keep our lines of communication open, so I'll list them. Some are more critical than others.
The Far East:
1. Port Blair, Andaman Islands.
2. Penang Island.
3. Malacca, maybe.
4. Singapore, definitely, although unsuccessfully.
5. Victoria, Labuan, off the coast of North Borneo.
6. Hong Kong, an outpost that may need to be abandoned.
The Pacific.
1. Rabual, Bismarck archipelago.
2. Manus Island anchorage, Admiralty Islands.
For those into the defence of strategic ports, there's none better to look at than Murmansk, Leningrad and Sevastopol in WW2. Murmansk was flattened but never taken, Leningrad was besieged but never taken and it took the Germans, one month of preparation followed by 9 months of fighting to take Sevastopol.
So how do you do defend them?
 
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Kevin J said:
I don't see why because my intention is to discuss integrated defence systems, so coastal guns, radar, air defence and coastal patrol.
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I agree. With much of the RN in the Atlantic and Med, most of these far flung places would need to rely on RAF and RAAF for any connection to the Empire.

Judging by its importance to the IJN and IJAF as a primary forward base and its ideal location for protecting ANZ (see below), I suggest Britain and ANZ fortify Rabaul and make it a major RAF/RAAF base with a RN submarine base as well, akin to a Pacific Coastal Command. Rabaul already had a working airport in 1939/40, built by the Australians at Lakunai Airfield with a single runway 4,700 ft (1432 m) in length. That's long enough for a fully laden Avro Lancaster to take off and land, so anything the 1939-41 RAAF/RAF is operating can use this air field.



Here are some pics of the Japanese air base at Rabaul. Let's make this a RAF/RAAF base instead, with primary leadership and responsibility being on the Australians. With the war in Europe on and many aircraft needed in Malaya we can't expect the best British/CW at Rabaul until after war commences, but prepared defences, fuel, ammunition, spares could be in place, and torpedo strike and flying boats could operate from Rabaul in the pre-war period. Once the fighting starts, the USN/RN/RAAN will want Rabaul as a forward base, same as the Japanese did.





But for this to work, we need Australia to take a greater interest in its own defence and RAAF. Australia needs to get CAC building fighters and strike aircraft in the late 1930s. Replace the Zeros and strike aircraft above at Rabaul with RAAF Boomerang fighters, and (improved) Woomera bombers, or licence-built Hawk 75s, Warhawks, Hurricanes, etc. Just get something in monoplane, retracting undercarriage layout into production at CAC in the 1930s, not 1940s.

The Complete History of the CAC CA-4 Wackett Bomber / CA-11 Woomera
 
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I'd like to see 1930s CAC build or the RAAF otherwise operate the Hampden or Wellington in the torpedo-strike role. And flying boats. How is it that a nation so surrounded by water, responsible for so many tiny islands and at such distances from friends didn't have a domestic flying boat builder?
 

For this to work, we also need the government in London to encourage industrial development in Australia, for one, but also in their other imperial possessions. How would WW2 have looked had the Commonwealth and imperial possessions had strong industrial bases, e.g., India can manufacture -- not just assemble -- hundreds of thousands of cars and commercial vehicles, ocean-going ships, and general armaments or Australia can produce modern, high-output aircraft engines?

A way to make the British possessions and dominions in Asia and the Pacific cheaply defensible is to make them sufficiently self-sustaining so they can, at least, maintain, fuel, and supply ammunition for the ships, aircraft, and land vehicles needed for the forces.
 
Canada was on the ball, with production of the Hawker Hurricane starting pre-war in March 1939 when the British Air Ministry shipped a manufacturing pattern aircraft along with complete plans on microfilm to CC&F. Why didn't CAC see this and think, hmmm..... why don't we get a set? That's where Commonwealth cooperation should have happened, independent of Britain if need be.

I mean Jesus mate, it's clear by the late 1930s that Japan is on the war path and that the UK isn't able or willing to come to your defence. Australia shouldn't have sent its army to North Africa and its navy and airmen to the ETO and Mediterranean. Instead it should have kept its arms at home, ready to provide the defence to Australia that Britain would not.
 
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The question that should have been asked is "what is critical to the defence of Australia"? My answer would be Christmas and Cocos Islands as they are en route to India; the Timor archipelago, because they are en route to Singapore; and finally, the most essential one, Rabaul along with the outlying Islands of Manus, Bourgaineville and Guadalcanal. The question is how do you defend them? They need 13.5-in coastal guns to defend against battleships, 12-in guns to fire inland towards overland attackers, mobile radars like the SCR-270 to detect incoming aircraft, fighters, torpedo bombers, mine layers, dive bombers, medium bombers and patrol aircraft. There's lots of spare heavy guns from all those scrapped WW1 era British battleships. The choice of aircraft is yours. My choice would be Vanguards for fighters as they are immediately available and superior in performance to the Boomerang, the Beaufort and Wirraway, the Hudson and the Catalina.
 
Kevin J said:
They need 13.5-in coastal guns to defend against battleships, 12-in guns to fire inland towards overland attackers, mobile radars
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No way there's a budget for that. Singapore got some heavy guns because it's the primary naval base in the Far East, and no British or CW bases got radar. I like your thinking, but we'd better stick with the initial steps, and finding the funding and willing politicians.
Kevin J said:
The question that should have been asked is "what is critical to the defence of Australia"?
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IMO, it's stopping the IJA from entering FIC in Sept. 1940. Stop that and the entire Japanese strategy in the Pacific War must change. So, when France asks Chamberlain to send the BEF to France, Britain needs to make it a condition that Australia can send two divisions into FIC to protect FIC from Japan. Do that and Australia, Malaya and DEI is safe... at least until Japan is ready to go full bore.
 
Okay, an alternative solution to harbour defence. We have three Iron Duke class battleships due for scrapping in 1932, one to be retained. What we do is steam them out to the four most critical harbours, remove half the heavy guns so that under the Washington Treaty rules they are demilitarised. Remove three rear heavy guns, add facilities for refuelling seaplanes. Later add SCR-270 mobile radar unit. So long as they can move around harbours but limited maintenance only. Should last forever. So Penang, Rabaul, Labuan, Hong Kong stations. Battleships in harbours difficult to destroy if their in shallow water, they just sink a bit. Maybe some extra AA protection. Tiger retained in UK.
Perhaps FIC is a job for De Gaulle and his 100,000 troops from French Central Africa. We just need to hold South Vietnam to defend Malaya. Maybe a demilitarised zone in the centre.
 
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Kevin J said:
Perhaps FIC is a job for De Gaulle and his 100,000 troops from French Central Africa. We just need to hold South Vietnam to defend Malaya. Maybe a demilitarised zone in the centre.
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I don't trust the French to either keep their word or hold the line against either the IJN or the Việt Minh. I know they fought valiantly in the First World War, but they don't exactly have a reputation for military success.
 
Admiral Beez said:
I don't trust the French to either keep their word or hold the line against either the IJN or the Việt Minh. I know they fought valiantly in the First World War, but they don't exactly have a reputation for military success.
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Actually, Roosevelt offered shipping to Vichy to move some their troops to FIC, but nothing came of it.
 
Some of these defensive schemes require either no Washington Treaty of 1922 or a highly modified one.

I believe one of the provisions of this treaty was the prohibition of fortifying many of the Pacific Islands.
Different nations followed or flouted this part of the treaty to varying degrees. But building fortifications too early on some of these islands might have caused the Japanese to pull out of the treaty even sooner and start a naval arms race sooner.
 
Admiral Beez said:
Okay, I meant that dumb rating now.
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I'm simply trying to show you historically how late in the proceedings it was before Australia truly understood/appreciated the Japanese threat - without hindsight. Even as late as October 1941 we were being told the Japanese were more concerned with the 'north'...

 
I'm not talking about defensive fortifications just harbour defence ships.
 
Kevin J said:
I'm not talking about defensive fortifications just harbour defence ships.
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An otherwise dead ship, sat in the mud like HMS Canopus may be seen as a defensive fortification.

Anyway, we're in an aviation house here. Planes, not forts will slow the Japanese. Let's gets credible air power onto Rabaul, Penang, Malaya, etc. And there's no Washington Treaty on radar, so let's spend the fortifications' budget instead on getting chain stations set up where needed.

When completed in 1938 the Singapore naval base and fortifications cost £60 million, the equivalent to almost £3 billion today. Per Wikipedia in 1938 a single Spitfire cost £12,604. Singapore's quays and cannons cost the equal of over 4,700 Spitfires, or several times more than the entirety of Britain's renowned Chain Home radar system. Skip the forts and never-used graving docks, build proper radar-integrated air defence, based around sufficient quantities of competitive aircraft and well placed, army-protected air bases. The money for effective imperial defence in the Indo-Pacific was there, it was just blown on rubbish decisions.
 
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No, my Iron Dukes are seaplane tenders so not covered by the Washington Treaty. In any case, they're not sat in the mud until they get hit by bombs and or torpedoes.
The Italians reckoned that an aircraft carrier cost the same as 1000 single seat fighters. So Singapore cost us the 4 aircraft carriers and 1000 fighters we needed to defend the damned place.
Maybe we should have sent Tiger out to Singapore instead of spending that £60 million. That could have provided both the heavy anti shipping 13.5 in guns and smaller anti ground invasion 6 in guns that we needed. Stick a SCR-270 radar set and some seaplane handling gear on the back of it halving the armament to demilitarise it and hey presto we have another seaplane tender not covered by the Washington Treaty.
Now we have all 5 critical harbours in the Asia Pacific defended.
Now we have lots of spare cash to spend on all those lovely aircraft that we need.
 
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