Why would the Germans put a huge effort into Crete if the British don't? Remember, all of the ports are on the north side, so it would require a substantial effort to develop the place.
Sir John Valentine Carden Survives. Part 2.
- Thread starter allanpcameron
- Start date
More on the "Dutchman" tank mentioned above:
The Germans bombed Canterbury and King's Lynn in the original timeline because they were there and because the Germans could - and apparently because Hitler may have been annoyed at some of the Allied bombing of Germany.
A bit of Greek partisan activity on the mainland, and I could imagine Hitler ordering Crete to be bombed to 'teach the Greeks a lesson'.
Well yes, some retaliatory bombing, but not an extended campaign.
Getting Greek troops to Cyprus without help of the UK is kinda difficult. They have to depend on the British Navy to transport their troops, whether just transfering them or using them for an amphibious assault they cannot do it without the UK being cooperative. NO RN officer is just gonna decide because someone in the Greek army says to take them to Cyprus instead of where his orders state.
The Latvia-tanks gun, I think, must have been the QF two-pounder...the Army gun, not the Navy one...in one of the design-versions predating the Mark IX, the first version to be produced in large numbers. Note that the QF two-pounder is single-shell fed, not semiautomatic firing from belted ammo. Vickers did build pompoms with smaller dimensions than the Mark II, in the 1920s, but they were smaller caliber as well, not 40mm; and clearly the Latvia tanks could not have fitted the Mark II or any of the other versions of the two-pounder pompom in the turrets shown on the Latvia tanks.
A further indication that the Latvia tanks' guns were not a version of the naval pompom family is that they're neither water jacketed nor finned for air cooling. All versions of the two-pounder pompom were one or the other.
I earlier missed the fact that the photos of the Latvia tanks show a muzzle brake...an indication of the QF two-pounder...and not the flash hider shown in Claymore's illustration, which I erroneously assumed was an indication that the gun was supposed to be the Vickers pompom.
As far as I know, all the British marks of the QF two-pounder fired the same ammo, and therefore in OTL were subject to the no-HE problem. But, that's an easy problem to make go away ITTL, by simply having the ammo factories load HV pompom HE-T shells into QF cases with a reduced charge. Very small butterfly, problem solved.
Perhaps coincidentally before Carden's prewar trip to France, one of the sales department's Army contacts might have mentioned that the Army was having a new type of AT rifle grenade developed, assigned the identifier "Number 68", and how would weapons like that be resisted by Vickers' tanks if the Germans were to develop one too?
The salesperson, being eager to have an answer for his Army contact since it would provide an excuse to pitch him again on available products, would pass the question on to Carden.
Carden, not being familiar with the #68 and how it was a "new type", would have asked someone from the Vickers gun design group who was considered to have a good grasp of armor penetration and explosive effects. That person likely would have struggled through an explanation of shaped charge physics, but been unable to satisfactorily answer Carden's questions about how their tanks might fare. So, Carden would have asked that someone from the ordnance group working on #68 be brought in to provide a seminar for his engineers, and himself. And, in that seminar, someone might have mentioned that the original developer of the shaped charge effect, a Swissman named Mohaupt, was working in France at Edgar Brandt & Company...a manufacturer with whom Carden was not familiar. So Carden might have added Brandt to his itinerary for the France trip.
Edgar Brandt might have personally greeted Carden, and they might have hit it off well...both being particularly focused on technical performance of their products, and not especially the best people at sales efforts. Brandt, with Mohaupt's assistance, might have better explained the shaped charge effect to Carden, and shown him some of the penetration-test plates they had sitting around the office. Brandt could have told Carden that the Germans definitely were working on shaped charge effects, though they were well behind France and England. And, Brandt could have shown Carden their design drawings for a family of 50mm, 60mm and 80mm gun-projected grenades, to be fired using special cartridges from the infantry rifle, the infantry medium machine gun and the 13.2mm heavy machine gun respectively, that they hoped would be ordered soon by the French Army.
Brandt might have mentioned to Carden that Brandt had heard that the #68 was going to have a flat face, and Brandt and Mohaupt would have explained that the shaped charge effect was much more effective if the device detonated at least (as then understood) one and a half device-diameters away from the target surface to allow enough distance for the penetrating jet to form, and shown him how the Brandt rifle grenades would have a pointed front-cap to provide that jet-establishment distance.
And after the discussion with Henry Mohaupt was completed, and Carden thought he was ready to leave, Brandt might have mentioned that while it likely wasn't of much interest to the British since they primarily used high velocity two pounder / 40mm AT guns, the Brandt company also had a lot of activity related to a new type of subcaliber ballistic penetrator called a "discarding sabot" round, and they had received a contract from the French Army for 37mm shells to obtain better AT performance from French tanks with low velocity guns of that caliber. But, Brandt was especially hopeful of a contract for what they considered to be their best design yet, a 57mm tungsten carbide penetrator in a 75mm shell, able when fired from the ubiquitous Mle 1897 medium-low velocity 75mm artillery piece to achieve penetration results better than any other existing French gun.
At which point Carden knew that this visit was of great importance, because this might be the way for a low velocity cannon such as the 3 inch howitzer in the Valiant to be a universal gun, with both a highly effective HE round and a high-performance AT capability.
The salesperson, being eager to have an answer for his Army contact since it would provide an excuse to pitch him again on available products, would pass the question on to Carden.
Carden, not being familiar with the #68 and how it was a "new type", would have asked someone from the Vickers gun design group who was considered to have a good grasp of armor penetration and explosive effects. That person likely would have struggled through an explanation of shaped charge physics, but been unable to satisfactorily answer Carden's questions about how their tanks might fare. So, Carden would have asked that someone from the ordnance group working on #68 be brought in to provide a seminar for his engineers, and himself. And, in that seminar, someone might have mentioned that the original developer of the shaped charge effect, a Swissman named Mohaupt, was working in France at Edgar Brandt & Company...a manufacturer with whom Carden was not familiar. So Carden might have added Brandt to his itinerary for the France trip.
Edgar Brandt might have personally greeted Carden, and they might have hit it off well...both being particularly focused on technical performance of their products, and not especially the best people at sales efforts. Brandt, with Mohaupt's assistance, might have better explained the shaped charge effect to Carden, and shown him some of the penetration-test plates they had sitting around the office. Brandt could have told Carden that the Germans definitely were working on shaped charge effects, though they were well behind France and England. And, Brandt could have shown Carden their design drawings for a family of 50mm, 60mm and 80mm gun-projected grenades, to be fired using special cartridges from the infantry rifle, the infantry medium machine gun and the 13.2mm heavy machine gun respectively, that they hoped would be ordered soon by the French Army.
Brandt might have mentioned to Carden that Brandt had heard that the #68 was going to have a flat face, and Brandt and Mohaupt would have explained that the shaped charge effect was much more effective if the device detonated at least (as then understood) one and a half device-diameters away from the target surface to allow enough distance for the penetrating jet to form, and shown him how the Brandt rifle grenades would have a pointed front-cap to provide that jet-establishment distance.
And after the discussion with Henry Mohaupt was completed, and Carden thought he was ready to leave, Brandt might have mentioned that while it likely wasn't of much interest to the British since they primarily used high velocity two pounder / 40mm AT guns, the Brandt company also had a lot of activity related to a new type of subcaliber ballistic penetrator called a "discarding sabot" round, and they had received a contract from the French Army for 37mm shells to obtain better AT performance from French tanks with low velocity guns of that caliber. But, Brandt was especially hopeful of a contract for what they considered to be their best design yet, a 57mm tungsten carbide penetrator in a 75mm shell, able when fired from the ubiquitous Mle 1897 medium-low velocity 75mm artillery piece to achieve penetration results better than any other existing French gun.
At which point Carden knew that this visit was of great importance, because this might be the way for a low velocity cannon such as the 3 inch howitzer in the Valiant to be a universal gun, with both a highly effective HE round and a high-performance AT capability.
An interesting connection of ifs, perhaps write it up on a separate thread given its way in the past of this one?Perhaps coincidentally before Carden's prewar trip to France, one of the sales department's Army contacts might have mentioned that the Army was having a new type of AT rifle grenade developed, assigned the identifier "Number 68", and how would weapons like that be resisted by Vickers' tanks if the Germans were to develop one too?
The salesperson, being eager to have an answer for his Army contact since it would provide an excuse to pitch him again on available products, would pass the question on to Carden.
Carden, not being familiar with the #68 and how it was a "new type", would have asked someone from the Vickers gun design group who was considered to have a good grasp of armor penetration and explosive effects. That person likely would have struggled through an explanation of shaped charge physics, but been unable to satisfactorily answer Carden's questions about how their tanks might fare. So, Carden would have asked that someone from the ordnance group working on #68 be brought in to provide a seminar for his engineers, and himself. And, in that seminar, someone might have mentioned that the original developer of the shaped charge effect, a Swissman named Mohaupt, was working in France at Edgar Brandt & Company...a manufacturer with whom Carden was not familiar. So Carden might have added Brandt to his itinerary for the France trip.
Edgar Brandt might have personally greeted Carden, and they might have hit it off well...both being particularly focused on technical performance of their products, and not especially the best people at sales efforts. Brandt, with Mohaupt's assistance, might have better explained the shaped charge effect to Carden, and shown him some of the penetration-test plates they had sitting around the office. Brandt could have told Carden that the Germans definitely were working on shaped charge effects, though they were well behind France and England. And, Brandt could have shown Carden their design drawings for a family of 50mm, 60mm and 80mm gun-projected grenades, to be fired using special cartridges from the infantry rifle, the infantry medium machine gun and the 13.2mm heavy machine gun respectively, that they hoped would be ordered soon by the French Army.
Brandt might have mentioned to Carden that Brandt had heard that the #68 was going to have a flat face, and Brandt and Mohaupt would have explained that the shaped charge effect was much more effective if the device detonated at least (as then understood) one and a half device-diameters away from the target surface to allow enough distance for the penetrating jet to form, and shown him how the Brandt rifle grenades would have a pointed front-cap to provide that jet-establishment distance.
And after the discussion with Henry Mohaupt was completed, and Carden thought he was ready to leave, Brandt might have mentioned that while it likely wasn't of much interest to the British since they primarily used high velocity two pounder / 40mm AT guns, the Brandt company also had a lot of activity related to a new type of subcaliber ballistic penetrator called a "discarding sabot" round, and they had received a contract from the French Army for 37mm shells to obtain better AT performance from French tanks with low velocity guns of that caliber. But, Brandt was especially hopeful of a contract for what they considered to be their best design yet, a 57mm tungsten carbide penetrator in a 75mm shell, able when fired from the ubiquitous Mle 1897 medium-low velocity 75mm artillery piece to achieve penetration results better than any other existing French gun.
At which point Carden knew that this visit was of great importance, because this might be the way for a low velocity cannon such as the 3 inch howitzer in the Valiant to be a universal gun, with both a highly effective HE round and a high-performance AT capability.
Derek Pullem
Donor
I think Brandt is a great "what if" but his impact was somewhat overtaken by events as the better performance of the BEF led to some German tanks being captured (including some Pz. Gr.39 HEAT IIRC) in this timeline
It would be easier to simply send a large number of Officers and specialists to the UK as observers and then report back which is pretty much what happened OTL with regards to taking learnings from the North Africa Campaign etc
OTL they had a group called NATO - which was North African Technical Oversight or something like that
Observations by this group helped drive the development of tactics and equipment for the US Army
Reading some more P.M. Knight's books on the technical history of some British tanks (esp the Harry Hopkins) and getting some more info elsewhere made me reassess the design of the ITTL Valiant once again. It seems very clear to me that the Valentine was designed to obtain an infantry tank with the heaviest armor possible while using the existing automotive parts and tooling of the Vickers Cruisers (hence the reduction in turret crew from 3 to 2 to allocate more weight for armor, the 60-65mm likely being Vickers' target). This is further evidenced by the fact that the Harry Hopkins itself stemmed from a study for a light infantry tank derivative of the Tetrarch, and it is likely that Vickers was using the same rationale for the Valentine.
Of course, this path was taken with Carden out of the picture, but Leslie Little was his 2nd in command and the two men likely shared similar ideas, and obviously there is more to it than just these two men, there was an institutional practice of engineering and management at Vickers which probably motivated their doctrine of exploiting existing parts or vehicles in new ways, even when it didn't fit existing War Office requirements. I feel it is relatively likely that Carden would have understood and followed the OTL path for Vickers in WW2 even if he survived.
That said, the OTL path for Vickers does make many of the features of the ITTL Valiant plausible even if I doubt the idea of a more universal tank coming from them this early: neither the Valentine nor subsequent evolutions (Vanguard, Vampire, Valiant), nor the Tetrarch/Harry Hopkins family employed a hull machinegun and the post-Valentine and Tetrarch designs would all feature welded AND sloped armor, with Leslie Little being a staunch proponent and early adopter of both methods. Little was also a suporter of diesel powerplants, if only for the Valentine series. These features thus make sense for the ITTL Valiant.
Regarding the suspension, Vickers certainly had a lot of experience with it but only in an experimental sense, and indeed the Bright Idea Suspension was quite different. Horstmann had been rejected on the A7E2 in 1934-35, and it appears that the concept wasn't resurrected until 1943. Vickers instead started moving to a double wishbone type suspension with either airdraulic struts (proto Harry Hopkins) or coil springs as the spring element (Vanguard, Valiant, Harry Hopkins and Alecto). It worked well even in the weight class of the ITTL Valiant, so IMO is one of the most likely candidates for it rather than Horstmann or an hypothetically upscaled Bright Idea.
One last thing I would remark now is how this timeline neatly contrasts with the OTL fate of Vickers in WW2. In spite of being the biggest player in British tank building in the interwar, it progressively lost importance with the Valentine being the only major complete tank developped and mass produced by them. The lights were completely overtaken by the evolution of requirements and went nowhere, and the heavier evolutions of the Valentine also received little support. Ironically, it is the once newbie tank manufacturers like Leyland, Vauxhalls, BRC&W and Rolls Royce which would largely develop and build the final British designs of the war. Vickers of course helped develop turrets and mounts among other things, but it is clear that its capacity and role never really expanded.
What I noticed over time is that more than the engineers, the responsibility for the poor procurement/production choices of teh UK in WW2 lies in the chaotic governmental and military organisation of the country. The personal makeup of these organisations was very unstable, but also quite inexperienced with tank use or design and for a while the actual tank manufacturers were surprisingly absent/few in organisations like the Tank Board or the tank-related departments of the Ministry of Supply. It is only towards 1943 with the rise of men like Claude Gibb that the true potential of the engineers and manufacturers started being exploited.
In this regard, the biggest value of a surviving Carden may not be for Vickers itself, but for the British tank procurement institutions as a whole. There would be not just 1 (Little) but 2 major engineers/managers at Vickers now able to represent the company at the Department of Tank Design, or you could have one permanently representing the company while one keeps managing Vickers' engineering teams, something Little could not simultaneously (he instead came and went depending on the circumstances of the moment).
Note that no one...not Mohaupt, Thomanek or the Brits...yet understood in 1939-40 that rotating a HEAT device bollixes the jet formation. Both Brandt and German ammo makers sold their respective armies a 75mm HEAT round that, in a non-rotating test jig against proof-plates, delivered brilliant results, but mysteriously was very inconsistent and at its best much less effective in actual service.
Eventually the OTL Brits captured German HEAT cannon-ammo in Libya, and certainly it got their attention. But, the OTL Brits simultaneously were noting that the Germans sometimes seemed to be firing HE shells at them that would gouge away a small divot externally, but usually not penetrate. The OTL Brit ordnance engineers knew what a HEAT penetration looked like, from their own #68 development and testing, and few if any tanks were being battlefield-recovered with such damage. That was the first indication for the Brits that somehow the new German ammo-type wasn't working as intended. It took quite a while, though, for the Brits, and the Germans too, to independently realize what the real physics issue was.
So, in regard to the Brandt company's various advanced technologies being "overtaken by events"...yes, in OTL Brandt had far less impact than might have been the case, due to French procurement dithering and senior command fight-the-last-war-but-this-time-we'll-win idiocy, and due to Brandt's ineffective salesmanship resulting in the right Brits not knowing about Brandt's products. Brandt in OTL did sell significant numbers of their 37/25 APCR and APDS rounds to the French Army, along with either 75,000 or 150,000 rounds (sources differ) of their 50mm HEAT RG, and small numbers of their 75mm HEAT cannon round and the 75/57 APDS cannon round. But, the 37/25 rounds were not significant...those guns were just not powerful enough, and the tanks that carried them were too unreliable, to be relevant to the outcome. The 50mm RGs sat in metro-Paris warehouses because the Army hadn't yet developed the training program for them, and certainly no weapon could be issued without proper training. And, the 75mm stuff existed in tiny quantities relative to need.
In an alternate timeline, all the second line French divisions along the Meuse would have been amply provided with 75/57 APDS and updated direct-fire gunsights for their 75mm artillery pieces, and ordered to site and prepare them to engage attackers in direct fire. The 50mm HEAT RGs would have been broadly issued. The French still would lose, due to the multitude of other shortcomings of their actions and preparations. But, suppose Carden had met Edgar Brandt before the war began and Carden had convinced the Vickers Board of Directors to license Brandt's technologies, with Vickers joining with Brandt in trying to sell those technologies to the British Army, and Vickers de facto becoming a business partner of Brandt.
In OTL, when France was attacked, Edgar Brandt directed his engineers to depart for Britain to try to help the British (they eventually were accepted for war work, and helped develop the APDS rounds for the 6 pounder and the 17 pounder); and sent a complete set of engineering drawings of his best products to USA (but those drawings didn't reach anyone that understood them, and most were lost); and OKed and funded Henry Mohaupt's departure for USA (where he would be denied permission to work on any ordnance projects, due to not being a US citizen, even though USA was using his patent description to train engineers on how to do the work he'd originated!)
In the alternate timeline, Edgar Brandt, his entire senior staff and their families, along with the company's technical documents, would have decamped for Britain, aided by British diplomatic and Army "facilitators" arranged through Carden's Vickers contacts, and been set up in suitable offices and labs in Newcastle, quite close to Vickers' own facilities.
Then Britain would have quickly arrived at an understanding of why the #68 HEAT RG underperformed...its lack of standoff distance and its non-optimal cavity shape and liner, not it being "too small"...in fact, it was larger and heavier than needed, so shorter ranged. Thus British soldiers would have had highly effective HEAT capabilities two years sooner. And, Britain might have beat Germany to a Puppchen-like light-smoothbore-gun design to fire a 90-to-100mm fin-stabilized rocket HEAT round out to 300 meters or so, replacing the Boyes AT rifle on Carriers and in other light applications, and effective against anything the Germans would field throughout the rest of the war. And most significantly, Britain would have understood how to make medium-velocity cannons effective against tank armor, at least through mid-war, thus helping to fix much sooner all the inefficiencies resulting from the Cruiser/Infantry design split, and greatly supporting Carden's efforts to create Main Battle Tanks in their place.
For completeness, another Vickers-made gun of the pre/early-war period in the two-pound-shell category was the S gun...a copy in 40mm caliber of the Coventry Ordnance Works (C.O.W.) cannon in 37mm caliber, after Vickers bought C.O.W. It was semi-automatic and relatively light weight, being used mostly on ground attack aircraft and defensively on bombers (unsuccessfully in both cases) and on patrol boats. But it was even bigger than the pompom family, at 117 inches long, though quite a bit lighter. In its favor, it had, I think, only a five or six inch recoil, as compared to the nine inches of the QF two-pounder.
It utilized a fifteen round drum magazine, normally loaded with only twelve rounds so that one (strong) man could pick it up, at about sixty pounds (four pounds per complete round, plus the magazine itself).
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The S Gun was found quite effective in ground attack with HE but the AP could not keep up with increasing German armour. Very accurate compared to rockets but carried the penalty of still carrying the gun about. The HE was much used in Burma by Hurricanes. Also I note that it was automatic not semi automatic. I have seen them mounted fixed under Hurricanes, Mustang, Wellington in a mid upper turret and nose mounted on Coastal Command Flyimg Fortress. The AP attacking Axis tanks in North Africa looks cool but I suspect attacking soft skin vehicles with accurate HE would have been more useful. For a tank mounting the issue might be the long recoil system may not fit into a small turret although it does reduce the peak recoil energy. I have often wondered if it would have been a useful automatic 40mm for armoured cars with HE rounds, say on a Daimler instead of a single shot QF 2 Pounder.
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Consider how you'd fit a 117 inch gun, plus room for recoil, into a turret that would fit on a Daimler chassis. The center of mass with the ammo drum attached wasn't that far back from the mid point.
Also, the reload process would be a problem, trying to handle a sixty pound drum inside the turret.
AFAIK, the underwing Hurricane mount was rejected for North Africa ground attack use because the flight profile necessary to hit targets resulted in such high losses of aircraft and pilots; for bomber-interceptor use, because one 40mm replaced two 20mm and there was insufficient effectiveness-gain to justify the changeover effort and speed loss; and the Wellington defensive-turret mount because it wasn't as effective against fast-moving interceptors as a faster-firing, smaller-caliber gun.
Also, the reload process would be a problem, trying to handle a sixty pound drum inside the turret.
AFAIK, the underwing Hurricane mount was rejected for North Africa ground attack use because the flight profile necessary to hit targets resulted in such high losses of aircraft and pilots; for bomber-interceptor use, because one 40mm replaced two 20mm and there was insufficient effectiveness-gain to justify the changeover effort and speed loss; and the Wellington defensive-turret mount because it wasn't as effective against fast-moving interceptors as a faster-firing, smaller-caliber gun.
Nice update. We may be examining this with the benefit of hindsight, but even at the time, it was clear that Britain wasn’t too popular in most Arab countries, and where they were with the government (the Hashemites), the government was unpopular with the people.
As others have noticed, the war in Egypt being over is likely to hurt Anglo-Egyptian relations as there is little reason for the Brits to be there now in such large strength. The Iraqi attempt to join the Axis has been stifled easier than OTL, but still the writing is on the wall: an unpopular king and a the post-genocide remnants of hated ethno-religious minority (Assyrian Levies) cannot indefinitely guarantee British access to Iraqi oil or air bases.
So, looking to the post war Near East, it would likely occur to Winston & Whitehall to examine what the future should look like. Given this pre-dates the Stern Gang/Lehi, the likely potential candidates are Yugoslavia/Serbia, Greece & Mandatory Palestine/Judah (which was the initially proposed name for Der Judenstat).
Yugoslavia is a toss-up between the Chetniks & Partisans, neither of whom are entirely friendly with “Uncle Joe”, and can be split. As indeed Tito later was. I wonder if focusing on the Serbs to rebuild a stable Serbia would be a wiser move as opposed to forcibly including Bosnia & Croatia, both of whom were arguably eager co-belligerents of Nazi Germany. The Bosnians and Arabs, including a number of Arab Palestinians made up the 13th SS Mountain Division. (I say Arab Palestinians as at the time it seems some didn’t like being called Palestinians, they were Arabs who lived in Mandatory Palestine).
Focusing on the Greeks. I suspect each island garrison would surrender fairly quickly when a landing force of tankettes, supported by “HMS Warspite” on the horizon, arrived. So each landing would likely bring in more recruits and experience than casualties.
Also, if British & allied forces are on the ground, or close to, the Balkans, hopefully things might potentially be a bit easier when the minor axis nations try to swap sides.
As others have noticed, the war in Egypt being over is likely to hurt Anglo-Egyptian relations as there is little reason for the Brits to be there now in such large strength. The Iraqi attempt to join the Axis has been stifled easier than OTL, but still the writing is on the wall: an unpopular king and a the post-genocide remnants of hated ethno-religious minority (Assyrian Levies) cannot indefinitely guarantee British access to Iraqi oil or air bases.
So, looking to the post war Near East, it would likely occur to Winston & Whitehall to examine what the future should look like. Given this pre-dates the Stern Gang/Lehi, the likely potential candidates are Yugoslavia/Serbia, Greece & Mandatory Palestine/Judah (which was the initially proposed name for Der Judenstat).
Yugoslavia is a toss-up between the Chetniks & Partisans, neither of whom are entirely friendly with “Uncle Joe”, and can be split. As indeed Tito later was. I wonder if focusing on the Serbs to rebuild a stable Serbia would be a wiser move as opposed to forcibly including Bosnia & Croatia, both of whom were arguably eager co-belligerents of Nazi Germany. The Bosnians and Arabs, including a number of Arab Palestinians made up the 13th SS Mountain Division. (I say Arab Palestinians as at the time it seems some didn’t like being called Palestinians, they were Arabs who lived in Mandatory Palestine).
Focusing on the Greeks. I suspect each island garrison would surrender fairly quickly when a landing force of tankettes, supported by “HMS Warspite” on the horizon, arrived. So each landing would likely bring in more recruits and experience than casualties.
Also, if British & allied forces are on the ground, or close to, the Balkans, hopefully things might potentially be a bit easier when the minor axis nations try to swap sides.
Keep in mind that the British ended up being very heavy handed with the King of Egypt and his government as a direct consequence of the North African campaign.
The 1942 palace incident has no reason to happen now - https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abdeen_Palace_incident_of_1942
Britain isn’t going to be popular in Egypt it might not be as simple as relations being worse compared to OTL.
The 1942 palace incident has no reason to happen now - https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abdeen_Palace_incident_of_1942
Britain isn’t going to be popular in Egypt it might not be as simple as relations being worse compared to OTL.
I think it will depend on what Allan has in mind and shows us but it is a good point that Abdeen Palace will probably not happen. Given the British are in a much stronger postion compared to OTL.
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allanpcameron
Donor
The problem I have with this conversation is that it mirrors the conversation we had three years ago.
At this point in Spring 1942 of the story line, the A11 is no longer in production, and perhaps a few might be lying around, but generally is not in service. What kind of weapon it was armed with doesn't really matter. Probably a 20mm Oerlikon, equivalent to the Panzer II might have been sufficient at the time. But please, three years ago feels like a lifetime.
Allan
He mentions 'a Daimler chassis', so I think he's talking about armoured cars here, rather than out-of-service tanks. How much difference an Oerlikon would make vs a 2-pounder is up for debate of course.
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