Rearm the ANZACs for the Pacific War.
- Thread starter Peg Leg Pom
- Start date
Yes, that's the history, what I was saying was that if conscription was introduced with conscripts able to opt out of deployment overseas - as was the case during the Vietnam War - then the Australian Army might be better balanced, trained, organised, and so on, so that there were more than the four 2nd AIF divisions and poorly trained, equipped militia as of December 8, 1941.
Ironically, it may have led to a slightly worse outcome early in the war against Japan because we could foresee that if there were, as I suggested, more active divisions then the 8th Division (or whatever formation took its place) may have been deployed in its entirety to Malaya / Singapore and would subsequently be lost. You could imagine another brigade would be based out of Darwin providing the garrisons for Ambon and Timor (as historical), again with the same results. You could also see - at the outbreak of war - up to a brigade rushed to Rabaul (where it would likely also be lost). On the plus side, Australia would still have four brigades in country able to deploy to Port Moresby and Milne Bay. The outcomes of the subsequent battles would not be different. What would be is somewhat less need for panic, and a stronger Australian Army able to make a greater contribution going forward. Indeed, like the Kiwis, Australia may have still maintained a division in the European Theatre.
The case for a conscript army is not far-fetched, with the "opt-out" idea (very few soldiers will) helping politicians to get it through, and it would align with the OP's premise. It could be introduced for all men aged 21 from a few years before the war, with an initial six-months of training. A year after war is declared you would have a stronger army. It's at least as plausible as any significant increase in defence spending over the historical. If one is possible, then so too is the other. Though, really, the biggest differences would come from greater investment in air and naval capabilities, along with economic, war and transport infrastructure, which others have said.
Must you give us your barely comprehensible political commentary? I mean, seriously, de Groot's stunt, for example, may be famous but it hardly can be said to be relevant to this thread.
McPherson
Banned
Part of 1930s "Rearm the ANZACS for the Pacific War" is economic and political reform.
I write about that problem using another nation of the same time period facing a similar set of circumstances.
Name five plausible things the US can do to better enter WWII?
I write about that problem using another nation of the same time period facing a similar set of circumstances.
Name five plausible things the US can do to better enter WWII?
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Notice also...
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Barry Bull
Donor
Was there an actual market for Australia in underdeveloped DEI? Also, would the Dutchs and Americans welcome Australian goods in their colonies in an era of protectionism?
How about you give some thought to engaging in conversation that actually relates to the topic at hand and/or doing so in a manner that makes your meaning readily understood?
Edit to add: And this comment illustrates my point. If one goes looking they'll discover a somewhat obscure book called Defending the National Tuckshop by Michael Cathcart. One imagines this is what you were referring to. Would read it but you know not even a review on the Amazon site. Not one. And, further, what does an alleged secret militia with a bent against socialism have to do with the topic?
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McPherson
Banned
Mister Ed?
Australian horse trade : Walers to the Dutch East Indies ...
Actually Empire Preference is a problem and there was another problem in the years leading up to the Pacific War.
Politics cannot be separated from the military problem posited. It IS the central military problem of the era when you dig down into the grit.
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Realistically, to start preparing for a war with Japan from the 30s, the building up of the smallarms, artillery and automotive plants seems like the most immediate and viable way to go, with the goal of having it feed into a doctrine that leads to early adoption of the jungle division system. Also, more resources into anti-aircraft weapons that can be deployed north. Getting to wartime aircraft and shipbuilding capabilities earlier is good, but I can't see this resulting in effective fighter planes and submarines being constructed here, which is really the strategic game changer IMO.
Everything else involves grand nation building and multilateral planning.
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When it comes to the subject of this Australian economic developmental autonomy people are raising here, my preferred solution is out of the scope of the thread's original what-if: it involves having Labo(u)r decisively losing the 1914 federal election, allowing the original Liberal Party to continue in office with majorities in both houses.
In that scenario Billy Hughes has no impetus or, IMO, even possibility of 'ratting' to the centre-Right, as they would just never take him if they'd continued in government under Sir Joseph Cook as PM and Sir John Forrest as treasurer. They would've had their own mandate to introduce, or fail to introduce, any kind of WW1 conscription. Even if we throw 'principle' into the mix, I'm pretty certain an Opposition leader Hughes simply decides to ignore his pro-conscription tendencies in 1916, like Chifley deciding against following his own fiscal conservative tendencies in the Labor split of 1931.
My feeling is that the OTL cross-party friendship Hughes and EG Theodore had, which actually brought down the Stanley Bruce Nationalist government in 1929, would have dominated Australian politics if they'd both been working within a united Labor throughout the twenties. Fwiw, to allow for the party stability needed to have this work, I'd handwave a Canadian CCF or NDP style party constitution for Australian Labor, which is also how the state trades hall councils relate to the national ACTU in the union movement, i.e. a non-adversarial relationship, one where splits and schisms aren't utterly debilitating.
Long story short, have a Hughes federal Labor government be in office during the twenties, have it be the ones who create the loans council, have it lose office in 1928 or 29 (as happened to the conservatives IOTL), but not before its started railway construction to Darwin; have Theodore sweep back into power in 1932 or 33 as PM, with Hughes as his external affairs minister who doesn't like appeasement (as per his views in OTL) and so wants to direct some of a Theodore New Deal towards heavy industry and defence infrastructure... then maybe we get the capacity to ramp up to producing effective fighter aircraft and subs after war comes, with the AltBeauforts and minesweepers already being in production by '39. Plus a single gauge rail link to Darwin not only from Alice, but maybe also from Mt Isa. Captain Cook graving dock also, by '41?
But like I said, a PoD that's decades before the 1930s international crises.
Everything else involves grand nation building and multilateral planning.
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When it comes to the subject of this Australian economic developmental autonomy people are raising here, my preferred solution is out of the scope of the thread's original what-if: it involves having Labo(u)r decisively losing the 1914 federal election, allowing the original Liberal Party to continue in office with majorities in both houses.
In that scenario Billy Hughes has no impetus or, IMO, even possibility of 'ratting' to the centre-Right, as they would just never take him if they'd continued in government under Sir Joseph Cook as PM and Sir John Forrest as treasurer. They would've had their own mandate to introduce, or fail to introduce, any kind of WW1 conscription. Even if we throw 'principle' into the mix, I'm pretty certain an Opposition leader Hughes simply decides to ignore his pro-conscription tendencies in 1916, like Chifley deciding against following his own fiscal conservative tendencies in the Labor split of 1931.
My feeling is that the OTL cross-party friendship Hughes and EG Theodore had, which actually brought down the Stanley Bruce Nationalist government in 1929, would have dominated Australian politics if they'd both been working within a united Labor throughout the twenties. Fwiw, to allow for the party stability needed to have this work, I'd handwave a Canadian CCF or NDP style party constitution for Australian Labor, which is also how the state trades hall councils relate to the national ACTU in the union movement, i.e. a non-adversarial relationship, one where splits and schisms aren't utterly debilitating.
Long story short, have a Hughes federal Labor government be in office during the twenties, have it be the ones who create the loans council, have it lose office in 1928 or 29 (as happened to the conservatives IOTL), but not before its started railway construction to Darwin; have Theodore sweep back into power in 1932 or 33 as PM, with Hughes as his external affairs minister who doesn't like appeasement (as per his views in OTL) and so wants to direct some of a Theodore New Deal towards heavy industry and defence infrastructure... then maybe we get the capacity to ramp up to producing effective fighter aircraft and subs after war comes, with the AltBeauforts and minesweepers already being in production by '39. Plus a single gauge rail link to Darwin not only from Alice, but maybe also from Mt Isa. Captain Cook graving dock also, by '41?
But like I said, a PoD that's decades before the 1930s international crises.
It is far more efficient to load Walers on a ship in Sydney than to send them by rail through the red centre. While there is stock in the NT the numbers are down south.
That is always going to be the problem doing anything with Darwin. Even today there are less than 150000 people there. It is the very definition of a backwater.
That is always going to be the problem doing anything with Darwin. Even today there are less than 150000 people there. It is the very definition of a backwater.
Ref: Alice Springs to Darwin railroad
The rail link was originally proposed in 1911 but was not fully finished until 2003 - 87 years!
The problem is I imagine the question being asked at the time would be "Yes its very impressive but...what's it for?"
There is very little up in Darwin and the area - even today there are only 150,000 odd people in the City (47,000 in 1974 when it got 'Tracy'd) and the Entire Northern Territory including Darwin has less than 1/4 million people today after 45 years of rapid growth.
Back then the population was but a fraction of that - so there must be a very compelling argument to enable the funding to be generated for such an enterprise verses using existing coastal shipping.
Maybe have a naval base be stood up there in the 30s?
The rail link was originally proposed in 1911 but was not fully finished until 2003 - 87 years!
The problem is I imagine the question being asked at the time would be "Yes its very impressive but...what's it for?"
There is very little up in Darwin and the area - even today there are only 150,000 odd people in the City (47,000 in 1974 when it got 'Tracy'd) and the Entire Northern Territory including Darwin has less than 1/4 million people today after 45 years of rapid growth.
Back then the population was but a fraction of that - so there must be a very compelling argument to enable the funding to be generated for such an enterprise verses using existing coastal shipping.
Maybe have a naval base be stood up there in the 30s?
There was also the situation where Militia units were able to convert en masse to becoming AIF units, which has always struck me as being a strange 19th century style policy.
Generally, if we ignore the fact that before the USN strategic victories the Pacific campaign was the wrong war at the wrong time for us, I don't think we had a structural ground combat manpower problem in WW2; and would go as far as to say we'd only have had such a problem if AIF divisions were sent into multiple Pacific campaigns like Peleliu, or were sent back to Europe in the event of the Western Allies having to defeat Germany after a 1942/3 Soviet collapse.
I don't even think Churchill diverting our division (the 7th AIF) to be captured in Rangoon in 1942 is an actual manpower catastrophe, assuming the 6th AIF can eventually handle more of Buna-Gona itself, with additional US, AMF and possibly NZ units attached. In the longer term 1st Armoured division would simply be turned into an infantry division or brigade group to replace a 7th lost in Burma.
As it was, the number of Oz and Kiwi POWs taken in the Med and during the Japanese advance south was pretty staggering.
I admitted earlier on I wasn't big on WW1 history of pretty much any type. I was aware that Australians were very heavily involved in the Middle Eastern campaigns (and I was pretty sure they were involved earlier on in the Western Front. But for some reason I thought that later on they ended up being focused on the Ottoman campaigns for some reason.). I admitted I didn't know.
Frankly are you well informed about every other nation's military history during every war they've ever been involved in?
I do think that an interwar Darwin rail scheme that kickstarted a single national gauge standard would be worth it, plus the postwar economic development bonuses, but, yes, that railroad all by itself has no great strategic value for the war that transpired.
I agree to an extent. The problem was that there was a pronounced panic that grew out of Japan's early successes and the absence in Australia of well trained and equipped troops. There wasn't a manpower shortage as such, and in fact many soldiers were sent home after the 6th and 7th divisions returned and didn't return to active service. 1st Armoured Division was broken up with a number of its regiments seeing action separately, so yeah that happened anyway.
If, in December 1941, Australia had a couple of divisions at home that were on a par with those it sent overseas, then there would be less need for a panicked demand for the return of those divisions in the Middle East. They would still have returned, albeit maybe not all of them, but there would have been more confidence that the cupboard wasn't bare.
The single most important aspect of any Australian preparedness for conflict is the creation of an industry that can make machine tools.
Machine Tools determine everything else. If your country can make the machines that are needed to build the weapons of war then it is well served.
The entire Commonwealth suffered from an overreliance on the mother country for finished goods.
By this I mean raw materials get shipped to Great Britain for conversion to useful items.
If and i mean If prior to WW2 any of the manufacturers had built an aircraft engine factory or any engine factory it would have helped.
As far as defending Australia well our population was tiny and mainly on the Eastern seaboard. Our ability to defend was miniscule but the tyranny of distance worked and would have made an invasion a local problem mainly.
As far as Production goes only the government can explain why we never made the tools and factories needed.
The Captain Cook Graving dock and the large Hammerhead crane could have been built a decade earlier.
In a similar vein the ship building industry could well have been pushed earlier. The fact that South Australia had massive deposits of iron and even a shipyard was built in Whyalla to take advantage of this.
Pretty much Australia had the ability at any time to become an economic and military power with a decade of governmental support.
If in say 1932 the Australian Government decides the depression is a wakeup call and that we can no longer rely on Great Britain.
They turn to British manufacturers and offer tax breaks and outright zero tax for x years to get factories built and working.
These factories turn a profit and are joined by others.
5 years in and the tax on a population earning more pays for Captain Cook Graving Dock and associated military construction capabilities.
Factories able to make up to 8 inch guns are sponsored ostensibly to help repairs.
Factories for Trains and Trucks or Tractors are built and can make AFV when needed.
Australia is a big country and long range aircraft are a must.
Accordingly Short Brothers build an factory for the Short Empire in 1937, of course Bristol builds an engine factory as well.
This gives engines and airframe construction ability.
The Pegasus was not exactly a Merlin but it could be used in attack aircraft.
None of this build-up would be seen as military threat. All of it makes the production of weapons easier.
Also worth noting immigration would increase allowing for more production and a bigger armed forces.
If Australian ship building is up to it they would likely build the Destroyers and Frigates our navy needed.
Machine Tools determine everything else. If your country can make the machines that are needed to build the weapons of war then it is well served.
The entire Commonwealth suffered from an overreliance on the mother country for finished goods.
By this I mean raw materials get shipped to Great Britain for conversion to useful items.
If and i mean If prior to WW2 any of the manufacturers had built an aircraft engine factory or any engine factory it would have helped.
As far as defending Australia well our population was tiny and mainly on the Eastern seaboard. Our ability to defend was miniscule but the tyranny of distance worked and would have made an invasion a local problem mainly.
As far as Production goes only the government can explain why we never made the tools and factories needed.
The Captain Cook Graving dock and the large Hammerhead crane could have been built a decade earlier.
In a similar vein the ship building industry could well have been pushed earlier. The fact that South Australia had massive deposits of iron and even a shipyard was built in Whyalla to take advantage of this.
Pretty much Australia had the ability at any time to become an economic and military power with a decade of governmental support.
If in say 1932 the Australian Government decides the depression is a wakeup call and that we can no longer rely on Great Britain.
They turn to British manufacturers and offer tax breaks and outright zero tax for x years to get factories built and working.
These factories turn a profit and are joined by others.
5 years in and the tax on a population earning more pays for Captain Cook Graving Dock and associated military construction capabilities.
Factories able to make up to 8 inch guns are sponsored ostensibly to help repairs.
Factories for Trains and Trucks or Tractors are built and can make AFV when needed.
Australia is a big country and long range aircraft are a must.
Accordingly Short Brothers build an factory for the Short Empire in 1937, of course Bristol builds an engine factory as well.
This gives engines and airframe construction ability.
The Pegasus was not exactly a Merlin but it could be used in attack aircraft.
None of this build-up would be seen as military threat. All of it makes the production of weapons easier.
Also worth noting immigration would increase allowing for more production and a bigger armed forces.
If Australian ship building is up to it they would likely build the Destroyers and Frigates our navy needed.
More or less, yes. I have a fair knowledge of the key points. I also don't sound off on subjects I know little about. You are doing fairly well, just the occasional hiccup.
He meant no offence. Not everyone has a Masters in Military History from ADFA (no one actually lol).