January 1936: British army, you run the show (1 Viewer)

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I think in general terms, the appeasement of Hitler was a lost cause from the gate, except of course I have the benefit of 20/20 hindsight, but the premise of this thread is "what if" based and honestly it would certainly have changed things if Europe as a whole had stood up to Hitler's early moves. He himself was initially amazed that no one did, and then labelled the British and French governments rightly as fools when they continued the appeasement. Pretty good exchange if you ask me, off one or 10 idiots and save literally millions.

The problem with that argument is that, even in 1938, Britain probably was probably relatively weaker than Germany. France had a whole host of internal problems, including politicians from the left and right who were so antagonistic to their political opposition they'd prefer invasion to actually working across the aisle ("better Hitler than Blum")

Trying to scramble back onto the thread, when the British picked a 40 mm for their tanks they were very much in the main stream of tank development. They could have made an alternative choice, and they had used larger guns in the past -- their WW1 tanks carried 6 pounders -- so it seems to me that they could use historical precedent as a selling point.

The other issue I would look at would be improvements in logistics and in some sort of formal alliance with France. It would be interesting had the French and British armies worked together to improve their mutual distrust and command and control problems.
 
Part of the tank armament problem was that the 75mm/3in gun was about the smallest weapon that could fire a worthwhile smoke projectile. This was seen as more important than even HE by some people. So if a 57mm/6pdr can't fire smoke and a 40mm/2pdr can't fire smoke then that is one area where there is zero difference in the weapons.
For tanks there are two types of smoke.
The defensive smoke provided by smoke grenades, smoke candles, grenade projectors and even small mortars that shield the tank from view when take by surprise, they are taking fire but exact location of attacking guns is unknown. Smoke is either right by the tank or only a short distance away 50-200yds? and allows the tank/s being fired at to withdraw or get behind local cover.
Offensive smoke is fired by 75mm or above tank guns (or artillery support) an known or identified enemy positions to allow the the tanks-accompanying forces to advance across otherwise open ground to get very close to the enemy positions without taking large casualties.
No 45/47mm-50/57mm guns fired smoke. Which is why the British still built CS tanks to accompany the 6pdr tanks. It is why the Germans built MK IV with short 75s instead of standardizing on the long 50mm or building their own 57mm gun. The Short 75 being roughly equal to the short 50mm in penetration. Or roughly equal to the British 2pdr :)
The existing High velocity 47mm (3pdr) and 57mm (6 pdr) guns were old naval cannon from before WW I and were heavy and often lacked recoil systems. Recoil was absorbed by heavy mounting bolted to a thick steel deck. They provide a starting point and some minor tooling.
Trying to use muscles to control the elevation of heavy guns doesn't work so you need to switch tactics/doctrine from the fire on the move. Yes the British did use the Shoulder control on some tank mounted 6pdrs.

Now just for comparisons sake these are the muzzle energies of some of the guns we are talking about.

German 37mm AT/tank gun.............................200,000 joules
American 37mm AT/tank gun...........................340,000 joules
British 2pdr AP shot..........................................392,000 joules
Russian 45mm AT/tank gun..............................404,000 joules
German 50mm L42 tank gun............................566,000 joules
German 50mm L60 AT/tank gun.......................652,000 joules
British 6pdr AT/tank gun....................................989,000 joules

Now, since armor penetration is somewhat proportional to the amount of energy applied per unit of area of the armor the British 2pdr actually holds up fairly well as it delivers more energy per sq cm or sq in than the German 50mm L42. This assumes equal projectiles and equal quality armor.
While it would have been nice for the British to enter WW II with 1000 Cromwells armed with high velocity 75mm cannon it wasn't going to happen. Just cutting back on the Number of Light tank MK VIs and Maltida Is and building a few hundred more A 13s might be about all you could do.
But give them good ammo, good vision and change some of the operating doctrine.
Do something about closer cooperation between the tanks and artillery.
Get 6pdr into production quicker, even a trickle.
 
Appease Hitler? or appease Stalin to curb Hitler? We chose, in the end, to do the latter. Ten years later we were totally committed to an alliance with a productive prosperous partner "whose goals were racially-based slavery, bloody vengeance on the victors of the Great War, and killing off Jews and Gypsies."

Communism has too-often received a get-out-of-jail card free ... IMO.

Putin still wants 'the buffer' in eastern Europe and the Baltics that we appeased Stalin with at Yalta/Potsdam. He wanted it in 1939 and he got it then ... with Hitler's blessing.
 
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Weird how that all worked out, it was a circle jerk of delaying actions in the form of appeasement. Hitler hated communism, he knew he would have to fight them, but bought time by allowing Stalin the buffer and a non-aggression pact. In turn the allied powers apparently tried to buy time by appeasing Hitler. In the end it all fell apart and millions died.
 
An interesting question is if either side/coalition was really strong enough to knock the other out in 1937/38 or wither the long war would have just started a year or two early?

Granted the Germans had 2 or maybe 3 Panzer divisions in 1938 but the British only started taking delivery of A9 Cruiser in Jan of 1939. Matilda Is were either a handful or non-existent. British armored forces would have consisted of the old Medium MK IIIs and few hundred (if lucky) Vickers light tanks. The Boys anti-tank rifle was only approved in Nov of 1937 so quantities available in 1938 would have been small even near the end of 1938.

Most other European nations were in a similar situation. Lots of drawings and plans, very little in the way of new hardware instead of WW I leftovers in the hands of the troops.
 
If the war starts after Hitler has seized Czechoslovakia than he gets his hands on an experienced , innovative tank industry which is a huge asset.
I cannot, given the politics of the times, see France performing any better in 1938 than in 1940, can you? And the collapse of the French military was indeed a surprise to Stalin, Churchill, Roosevelt and Hitler.
It's going to be a long war no matter what, IMO.
 
The speed with which France collapsed is one of those oh my moments in history. It gave rise to a lot of jokes about the French Military.

French Tanks - 1 forward speed 10 reverse.
French Rifles - Only dropped once.

Most of which was undeserved. They had placed a lot of confidence in fixed fortifications and were not really mobile enough to react to the German advance. I am sure there are other factors as well. But honestly other than a real coordinated policy to contain and stop Hitler early, impossible given the political climate and will of the time, I doubt much of anything could have prevented the war.
 
"....I doubt much of anything could have prevented the war."

USA stays out in 1917 and France, Britain, Germany fight to an exhausted, negotiated draw early in 1919.

All three of these nations were traumatized ..... and display that behavior in the interwar years
 
If the war starts after Hitler has seized Czechoslovakia than he gets his hands on an experienced , innovative tank industry which is a huge asset.
I cannot, given the politics of the times, see France performing any better in 1938 than in 1940, can you? And the collapse of the French military was indeed a surprise to Stalin, Churchill, Roosevelt and Hitler.
It's going to be a long war no matter what, IMO.

Not just tanks but small arms, artillery and even a small but vibrant aero industry.
 
"....I doubt much of anything could have prevented the war."

USA stays out in 1917 and France, Britain, Germany fight to an exhausted, negotiated draw early in 1919.

All three of these nations were traumatized ..... and display that behavior in the interwar years
That may have worked, the way WW1 ended set the stage for WW2
 
Appease Hitler? or appease Stalin to curb Hitler? We chose, in the end, to do the latter. Ten years later we were totally committed to an alliance with a productive prosperous partner "whose goals were racially-based slavery, bloody vengeance on the victors of the Great War, and killing off Jews and Gypsies."

Communism has too-often received a get-out-of-jail card free ... IMO.

Putin still wants 'the buffer' in eastern Europe and the Baltics that we appeased Stalin with at Yalta/Potsdam. He wanted it in 1939 and he got it then ... with Hitler's blessing.

It's also the boogeyman. For Britain and France, it was an internal, not external security matter that could be defused by the sort of social welfare programs granted by Bismarck in the 19th Century.

The elites like Chamberlain were so fearful of conceding anything to the unwashed masses that they didn't consider Hitler a threat until too late.
 
".... It's also the boogeyman. "
Sure ... just a political invention ... harmless ... as Tartars, Ukrainians, ethnic Germans, Lats, Estos, Poles and millions of others will testify.
 
".... It's also the boogeyman. "
Sure ... just a political invention ... harmless ... as Tartars, Ukrainians, ethnic Germans, Lats, Estos, Poles and millions of others will testify.

For Britain and France, in the 1930s, the USSR was not a military threat -- it was unable to defeat either Poland or Finland without German assistance. Bolshevism was not an external threat; it was an internal security issue that was probably worsened by the existence of fascists: extremists love having each other to use on fearful polities.
 
Appease Hitler? or appease Stalin to curb Hitler? We chose, in the end, to do the latter. Ten years later we were totally committed to an alliance with a productive prosperous partner "whose goals were racially-based slavery, bloody vengeance on the victors of the Great War, and killing off Jews and Gypsies."

Communism has too-often received a get-out-of-jail card free ... IMO.

Putin still wants 'the buffer' in eastern Europe and the Baltics that we appeased Stalin with at Yalta/Potsdam. He wanted it in 1939 and he got it then ... with Hitler's blessing.


Both regimes were about as distasteful as the other, but the USSR was not seen as the same level of threat as Germany. There were a number of reasons for that assessment. Germany was centrally located in the cockpit of Europe, able to threaten the European order from that position. Secondly, it was a question of potential. Germany in 1938 was second only to the US in terms of its industrial outputs, whilst the USSR lanquished somewhere above Italy and japan, but below France. Militarily the Soviets were seen as inept, having struggled to defeat such an inferior machine as the Japanese army. The VMF 9Soviet navy) was viewed as a joke. Her air force obsolete and largely grounded, her economic potential extremely limited and backward. In 1938, the allies rightly saw the Soviets as a sleeping giant….distasteful, obnoxious, much as they are now, but no threat to the world order (much as they are now).


Hitler could not be viewed in the same light. He had broken treaties, lied, bullied and was a real threat to the security of the Franco British alliance. There was no room to compromise with hitler. Lord knows they had tried at munich. Hitler had thumbed his nose at that prospect and wanted nothing short of war. There was nothing the allies could do other than resist him, or become the plaything of the Nazis. The Soviets never enjoyed that kind of respect. They were treated with disdain and almost outright contempt by the west, but deep down they feared the SU.


The SU is not a communist system, never has been. Id suggest your fears are driven by pure xenophobia, fear of the unknown

Facts are we don't exactly know what Putin is after. He is a wylie customer that has outmanouvered our own poor excuses for politicians at every turn. We would do well to watch and learn I daresay.
 
I have a hypothesis that, had the Whites won after the revolution and ensuing civil war, the independence of Ukraine, Georgia, and the Baltics would last just about as long as they did after the Reds won, and Poland and Finland would have been invaded just as quickly: the White Russian political and military leaders did not come from a political philosophy that endorsed national self-determination of subject peoples.
 
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Stalin only eliminated his commitment to the COMINTERN in 1941 after the invasion, prior to that and afterwards he was still plotting for world revolution.
The Whites may have won the Civil War and they were certainly Russian 'exceptionalists' but they were Christians, believed in business, property and the family unit.
Communist Russia wasn't a threat .... haha, Stalin had a huge army in 1939, massive air force and lots of tanks. He lost to Finland but soundly crushed Japan and humiliated Romania months before, seizing large amounts of territory and proximity to Hitler's oil. Had Germany, France and Britain pounded each other into exhaustion again, Stalin was poised with troops massed to sweep west and complete the revolution.
Churchill told Stalin in 1941 during his visit to Moscow that Britain and Russia didn't have conflicting interests and in a very close interpretation that was true but ... and it's a huge but ... Churchill was putting diplomacy in his tea because he needed Russia. Churchill did NOT say Communism and Capitalism have no conflicting interests. He did NOT say Democracy and Totalitarianism have no conflicting interests.
If Communism was not a threat in 1929 or in 1939 ..... why was it a threat in 1949?

"...Facts are we don't exactly know what Putin is after."
He wants respect. Freedom to maneuver. Unrestricted access to the Mediterranean. Control of the Black Sea. And a return to "The Good Old Days" when communists were real men and women were double-breasted.
 
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As has been said, Communism and Russia/Soviet Union were not the same thing. And both changed over time. In 1929 the Soviet could barely run itself without outside help. Several hundred Non-russians being hired just to keep the national telegraph system working in the late 20's. Western companies hired to build/rebuild industries wrecked in the civil war. Or hired to build new factories to try to bring the Soviet Union to with 10-20 years of the west in regards to technology. Russia was NOT a military threat to anybody not on their immediate border. The idea of communism/socialism was a threat to western nations (or at least to the existing power structure) with wide spread labor unrest in the world during the 20s and 30s. The Miners, farm workers, dock hands, factory workers were no longer willing to work for barely sustenance wages. In many capitalist minds (owners) labor unions and communism either weren't very far apart or were identical.
Much of the early atrocities of the Soviet union were either hidden or covered up as part of the final sorting out of the civil war.
By the late 30s the Soviet Union was gaining strength as an industrial power.(compared to where they were in 1922) Communism as a world wide idea was fading although the Spanish civil war(s) {trouble dates back to 1931 at least} had many people in France and other countries worried about similar uprisings and the French general strikes of 1936 while not communist lead did nothing to quell the fears of conservatives.
In 1949 the Soviet Union WAS a world power and it appeared that the only way to spread "communism" was with a gun as it had failed to actually take hold in the previous 30 years anywhere else but the Soviet Union.
 
".... the only way to spread "communism" was with a gun as it had failed to actually take hold in the previous 30 years anywhere else but the Soviet Union."

And that is exactly what Stalin's blue-print strategy was. Not in 1945, not in 1949, but way, way back in the mid-30's when industrialization was taking place. The Red Army was equipped, structured and indoctrinated exclusively in offensive
warfare. The massive forces over run in the centre-south in the summer of '41 were deployed in offensive depositions. The Soviets had more paratroops than any other nation. Their Christie-suspension tanks were designed for roads, not cross-country. They had eyes-on-the-ground, everywhere. Watching. Waiting. Reporting, Following orders.

I do believe, however, that Stalin was no Communist .... he was a cunning, clever Georgian bank robber who became a Tsar. Communism simply provided an ideology, a discipline, a language, a network that Stalin could turn to his own ends. (Remember that Stalin was supposed to be a priest) Many Russians accepted/justified the excesses of Stalin because they believed in the virtue of "world communism".

Lenin referred to these folks are "useful idiots" .... and we can see them on display in all western democracies today .... doing their bit to undermine the system, to weaken from within, to tweak the data, to hasten the fall of accountable government.

No threat. No worry.
 

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