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If that's the case, my vote is for lots more MTB and MTGBs from their introduction in 1937. Include Building them in India and Australia for work around Malaya, Burma, PNG and ANZ.The was no limitation on ships under 600 tons.
For those made in India and ANZ, the RAN, RIN and RNZN will crew them.It is all very well to ask how to build more ships. But how do you crew them?
Ok, now you need engines. In 1937/38 you have two choices.If that's the case, my vote is for lots more MTB and MTGBs from their introduction in 1937. Include Building them in India and Australia for work around Malaya, Burma, PNG and ANZ.
For those made in India and ANZ, the RAN, RIN and RNZN will crew them.
Now I'm confused. Just what role are you looking to fill? MTB/MGB were not referred to as Coastal Craft for nothing. Generally unable to to travel far from the coast (some of the larger types did however make ocean transit voyages later in the war). Crews of the smaller types generally lived ashore. Only able to carry generally light weapons. But they could be built quickly so you don't need to start in 1935 producing vast numbers. They would have been no good as ocean convoy escorts for example.If that's the case, my vote is for lots more MTB and MTGBs from their introduction in 1937. Include Building them in India and Australia for work around Malaya, Burma, PNG and ANZ.
For those made in India and ANZ, the RAN, RIN and RNZN will crew them.
Situations change, Hawkers were given permission to export the Hurricane because at one stage they were making them faster than the RAF could accept them. To me that is mismanagement by the RAF not the government.The British learned about it too, but they were able to recover. Barely.
The British were adding a number of squadrons per year to the RAF, (and ships and some army equipment) but that means they needed something for the new squadrons to fly as they were adding squadrons faster than the "new" aircraft could be built and the older aircraft passed down to the new squadrons.
So they ordered new production of old designs with the idea that they could build the old designs faster (at least they knew the old designs worked).
Hit reply by accident.Situations change, Hawkers were given permission to export the Hurricane because at one stage they were making them faster than the RAF could accept them. To me that is mismanagement by the RAF not the government.
The first squadron received Spitfires in Aug 1938. By the outbreak of war that had increased to 11.In his book With Wings Like Eagles: The Untold Story of the Battle of Britain, Michael Korda is kind to Baldwin and Chamberlain. As he puts it, the appeasers funded the Hurricane, the Spitfire, Radar and the Integrated Command, Control and Communications System. When the Battle of Britain started, Britain had the weapon system to fight.
HiI recall reading that some company in the UK was talking to Isotta-Fraschini about license production of their engine pre-war. Maybe if they had arranged license for the ASM-180/-181 (900 HP) earlier (say in the mid-1930s) they could have had a very good engine available by the start of WWII in an equivalent to the ASM-183 (1150 HP) of 1937.
Thorneycroft(?) used the ASM-183 (or similar variant) in some of their 1938 boats.
HiYes, but it was developed and mostly funded under previous governments.
But we're not letting Baldwin off the hook. For starters, Baldwin's government could have followed Australia's example and taken a smarter approach with Japan. Australian Prime Minister Joseph Lyons and External Affairs Minister John Latham's below Jan 1935 proposal to the Empire was rejected by Baldwin's predecessor, the sickly Ramsay MacDonald, but Baldwin should have seen sense, especially as his government was now responsible for moving ahead with the Singapore naval base construction, until then on the backburner since 1923.
The Manchurian crisis and the genesis of Australian foreign policy | The Strategist
September 2021 marked 90 years since the Manchurian crisis, when the Imperial Japanese Army attacked and proceeded to occupy the Chinese province of Manchuria. This action precipitated the establishment of the puppet state of Manchukuo ...www.aspistrategist.org.au
"Latham's position no doubt informed Lyons's efforts at the 1935 British Empire leaders' meeting. In a plea to stabilise relations with Japan, Lyons proposed a Pacific security pact. This proposal included recognition of Manchukuo. Lyons stressed his fear that Japan might turn its attention south—and towards Australia—if it wasn't allowed to expand in its immediate region. Much to Lyons's dismay, Manchuria was deemed a matter for the League of Nations and the pact was quickly set aside. Lyons would again raise the possibility of a Pacific security pact at the 1937 Imperial Conference, where it was again set aside."
I think Japan would have leapt at the opportunity to renew a security pact that included the Baldwin government's recognition of Manchukuo. Japan would have a face-saving exit from the financially ruinous war with China, and the British Empire can breath easier in the Pacific while they sort out a plan to deal with Italian aggression in the MTO and a fascist, rearming Germany.
HiNeville Chamberlain (PM May 1937 to Oct 1940) is unfairly blamed IMO for Britain not being sufficient armed for WW2. Where I think Britain could have done better is under PM Stanley Baldwin, who was PM from June 1935 to May 1937. Baldwin was certainly busy during the last months of his government, having ordered all three Illustrious class carriers and the final two KGV class battleships between Jan and April 1937, but could he have done more? The Great Depression was rapidly losing its hold on Britain and Hitler has been in power since 1933.