Argus

I think it helps to look at this on three heads. Politics Imperial defence policy in terms of the Asia - Pacific region was based around the Singapore strategy. We're talking about Australia, NZ, India, the Pacific Islands and yes Canada to a point. Note at this point Canada, Aust and NZ are Dominions, we're not under any duress here, our Imperial engagement is voluntary and cooperative, so in settling this strategy we've set national adgenda around this, its not something London can unilaterally play with. Once that ball got rolling, it had a lot of momentum and any change needed to provide a real alternative to address all the stake holders. Strategic Geography Things to keep in mind here are distances and levels of development. China had a lot more industrialisation than most people realise, and there were things happening all over the place. But regionally, for a full service industrial economy Japan was it. This is about more than just stuff its people too, local literacy rates in useful languages high enough you're not trying to hire the middle class to be storemen and account clerks were not common. So north of the DEI's there's just nodes, Singapore, Subic, Hong Kong, Saigon to a point, Shanghai, Canton, Wei-Hai-Wei, Dalian, Vladivostok. These are essentially islands of modern industrial society in a great big sea of 'not modern industrial society,' and circa 1939 most of them are under the geo-strategic thumb of the Japanese whoever else might 'own' them. So its not quite as bad as the Central Pacific after PH when the US had to bring EVERYTHING with them, but any military campaign towards Japan from any direction involved a lot of BYO infrastructure development for the aggressor. Which makes these existing nodes extra specially precious. Singapore Strategy a/ Britain had been a satisfied power in regional terms since 1900 odd, as an Empire we'd actually gone a bit over London's preferred limits with Aust and NZ snaffling odd bits of German stuff London would have happily traded to the Japanese. Yes there was power projection into China and grabbing Wei-Hai-Wei, but the Chinese trading concessions were about influence not territorial gain, and Wei-Hai-Wei was about stopping other people getting it more than wanting it for its own sake, Britain did not need another naval base in China. b/ Britain held little actual territory north of Singapore/Borneo, Wei-Hai-Wei and Hong Kong were not Indo China or the Philippians. Lots of exposure in terms of outposts and communities of ex-pats, but nothing to actually defend with any depth. c/ So given a lack of ground to stand on, any defensive counter strategy against Japan was obviously going to be fundamentally naval, but was going to be played out at long range in strategic terms. The first tool out of the box was blockade and the global destruction of Japanese maritime commerce, which was was no great problem 6-8 months and any Japanese trade with most of the world would have been by carrier Pidgeon - it sounds arrogant, but the RN had the same degree of global maritime dominance the US holds today, and practically more so given the UK's dominance of the merchant fleet and marine finance, they had the triple whammy. But from then on, any way would not be quick or easy. The British would have to base build up the South China Sea, likely having to take Taiwan than start island hopping, fighting naval skirmishes the whole way. Again it sounds a little over the top, but without the historical WWII it wasn't beyond the resources of the Empire, an Empire that was still trading globally - and a total loss. Such a war would have been hellishly expensive with no real payoff, like the War of 1812, the only thing the British would have wanted out of this war, was for it not to have happened. Although Taiwan as Hong Kong Mk.II is an interesting idea. d/ But to do all this, obviously a base is needed and Singapore is/was the node that best fit the job. Nothing further forward was as defensible, noting further back covered enough geography - Ceylon doesn't cover Australia, Darwin doesn't cover Burma. The flip side to this being that if the Japanese could take Singapore, everything gets massively harder even if they don't take another step, and if they do... better stop them north of Singapore. e/ So Singapore was both an offensive and defensive key to a door no one in the empire wanted to see open. Other than declaring the Asian/Pacific side of the Empire indefensible, the only alternative to Singapore was signing a treaty with Japan or forming an alliance with the US against Japan predicated on Washington building up their node at Subic in place of Singapore, and even then they'd still have to invest in Singapore.

Oh where to start... the Austro Daimler Armoured Car of 1905 was 4WD, Porsche did a few all wheel drive and articulated rigs prior to WWI too. As for between the wars, Straussler's stuff that lead towards the Daimler Dingo and Armoured Car was pretty notable for being much closer to modern 'All wheel drive' than mere 4WD. Conventional 4WD was available to more or less everyone by WW2, with economics usually making or breaking its actual provision.

Its in the link somewhere but IIRC its 2x 10ml cans so yeah the little lipstick sized one by the sound of it. Might not sound that impressive but in the context of carrying a 3" folding knife being highly conditional, in a culture that's been de-militarising/zed since the 70's, this is bloody amazing. it's also not speaking to well for the law and order situation in the NT, but that's another story.

On Shane's long list of 'things I'll never see happen in Australia' up the top there, just about where 'Buying nuclear submarines' used to be, was 'Concealed Carry on a right to carry basis' - note the past tense. https://pfes.nt.gov.au/police/firearmsweapons/oc-spray-trial As of yesterday, up in the Northern Territory, non-prohibited persons can apply for and buy 2x cans of OC spray at their nearest gun shop and carry them concealed. The application is electronic on the spot in the shop. I am pretty stunned frankly - I'm kind of checking the calendar to make sure its not April.

I suspect we're thinking of different parameters for any blockade. London would have no issue with blockade in general, they were the greatest supporters of it. It's what belligerents do, they might argue the details with individual nations, but US Civil War, or as recently as the Russo-Japanese War, the right of a belligerent to impose a blockade was not in question. Now I agree, a French Sqn cruising in the North Sea is NOT going to be any more popular in London than a German one hovering south of Fastnet. This is where Britannia is going to be tapping her trident on the strand and start drawing some unofficial rules around the situation. Again, nothing that hasn't happened before in outline if not as in this case at such a scale. But we end up with a situation that looks sort of the same as the historical WWI blockade, only bi-lateral. Historically Close Blockade was impossible because parking a fleet off the German coast wasn't too smart in the presence of minefields, submarines and torpedo boats. In this situation, that would also hold true, but its also rather moot if the RN are not going to let it happen anyway. However a global war on trade by the two belligerents is more than possible, I'd say its inevitable, and so the rules are going to change to allow distant blockade. I'd see it more as a blockade at the point of departure, again largely as the UK ran in both World Wars, only far less effectual as neither France nor Germany have the same reach or depth. I'd see any HSF expedition more as a raid than anything requiring much endurance. Sail down, bombard a port or two, take some prizes and sail home - East Coast raids writ large.

I have suggested elsewhere that annexing Canada would be the most effective way to get icebreakers for the US, but everyone thinks I'm joking.

👋 Hay man

It's an interesting scenario. We've got a sort of 1812/1942 question here, can Germany actually take down Russia at that stage? Clearly in the field there's no question, I think we can assume the Russians lose the battles back to Moscow, but then... this is not Russia in 1917, national morale is good, the communist are still drinking coffee in Switzerland. The at the same time what's happening in the West? If the Germans want to stand on the defensive then not invading Belgium saves them a heap of front +/- the British. On mobilisation the French marched straight into Alsace so its never going to be all quiet on that front. But they're not idiots, those first few weeks were the bloodiest of whole war, and recent scholarship suggests Alsace wasn't such a national obsession as some histories have suggested. On one hand the French are going to want to be aggressive but having learned the price of offensive and no Germans on French soil, they might be a bit hard up for justification. I think a lot is going to boil down to the KM. We've got a bit of an issue here, as Germany didn't really have a naval strategy. They had the 'Steal underpants - ? - Profit' problem. Having built such an expensive fleet naval command is going to want to use it to justify themselves, and there's good work to be done in the Baltic. But... its not very sexy and while there IS a global fight at sea and for colonies, again its not the sort of thing to bring masses of glory to the Kaisers Navy. The temptation I see for them is the Atlantic Coast of France, its weakly defended, and even the French shifted their whole fleet up from the Med I'd put my money of the HSF. Plus the blockade factor, if Germany had managed to keep the British out of the war, then neither side are really in a position to mount an effective blockade, but I'd see the French as making a better of fist of it in distant waters. Germany is certainly going to do what she can locally and likely do so with decreasing levels of discretion as things heat up - So what? If there's no invasion of Belgium/Luxemburg and the Germans more or less stand on the Rhine, its becomes hard for Britain to join France. Even the hawks are going to struggle in justifying 'going to France's aid' when France isn't under pressure and the the only trouble that they face is self inflicted. There is however one other tripwire for London, they're not going to let anyone go fighting naval battles in the English Channel. They made that point very firmly to both sides in 1870, and maintained it since - its the basis on which France de-emphasised her Atlantic Fleet once détente was established. I think we can assume Paris would be pretty careful in this sort of thing, but history suggests the Germans are less circumspect. Added to this we've got the general war risk, if Britain isn't at war, the French are going to re-flag their merchant ships in about 2.78 picoseconds, or failing that there's still going to be a mass of war materiel moving on British ships possibly for French and German customers, but I'd imagine mostly French. It's only going to take one frustrated U-Boat skipper to generate a Lusitania moment. So how do we feel about the British Empire going to war in Russia? A million odd men say, with good logistics, reasonably competent leadership and all the transport in the world, rocking up in Odessa? The Russian Navy owned the Black Sea, Turkey's likely not joined the war or if she has the Gallipoli campaign suddenly got serious.

WWI rough rule of thumb; horse drawn radius from a rial head was 7-10 miles, motor transport 30ish miles. It's basically how far can you get as a round trip in a day with a full load. Youtube for ' Rob Thompson WWI ' and you'll get a good slug of WWI logistics

Keep in mind they tried the M3 Stuart first, well technically the Universal carrier was the first AFV we sent up to PNG, but only the US Army mistook them for tanks. Unfortunately the Stuart was too light, the Japanese had infantry weapons that could perforate it at range, there's one in the AWM full of 20mm ATR holes. Matilda had two things going for it over the M3 Lee/Grant, size and layout. The 75 was the better gun, but really only the 37 was much use most of the time, and the hull gun was a real snag in close country.

Being told by some remote authority is all very well, but sometimes lessons need to be learned the hard way I suppose.

I'm not sure such a creature actually exists. The French seem to have the same sort of issue with the 40-45 period that the Spanish have the Franco years, only more so plus its extra embarrassing. I don't know if anything has changed, but many moons ago I was involved in writing an alternative history based on France fighting on after the fall of metropolitan France. This was actually a semi-serious exercise, written in English, to let the French talk about and explore this period with running afoul of the all the conventional cultural hang-ups. Anyway, I was told at the time France did not have an official history of WWII, it was simply too difficult to write. Patriots, Pragmatists and Putains ended up making the same choices, choices which look very different depending on which end of history your seeing them from.

There's an M3 in the AWM that looks like a colander with all the 20mm holes punched though it from a Type 97. The Japanese gunner even had enough time and skill to group his shots neatly in the crew locations. I'd be the first to agree that any tank is better than no tank, but I'd have rather been in a Matilda

Have you seen Russian demographics - I recon they'd welcome any sort of population explosion and worry about dealing with the fallout later.

Sorry mate, been a long stormy weekend. Look, if your telling me that you've got a beef with Stuart and this thread is an extension of that, well no sweat off my nose, and thank you for your honesty. I does kind of undercut any assumption of objectivity you'd otherwise be entitled too though. Appeals to authority don't work very well if you're trying to claim your cake and partake of it too.