Shoot and scoot in the Archer was a good Idea as the armour was paper thin. Slight problem with making a quick getaway was that the breach of the 17pdr at full recoil would crush the driver if he stayed in his seat!
No sensible British soldier given even half a choice is going to want anything to do with the Crusader, unless it's to use them as range targets. (preferably with Nuffield locked inside).
The Argentine Army must have either been really desperate or gotten them dirt cheap. Does any one know how often they broke down?
The pieces are slotting into place, at least there won't be a feeble surrender this time.
But.....!!!
I though you _wanted_ the Japanese to surrender feebly???
The British 148th Brigade and the French 5th Chesseurs Alpines are landed at Narvik. The original plan had been to land them at Andalsnes and Namsos, but the paucity of port facilities and the possession of the rail lines south has changed their destination,
HMS Warspite, HMAS Australia and HMAS Sydney arrive at Singapore to join Force Z.
For all the good the Bombers did, remember their objective was to break civilian morale which did not materialize, you slash them to a fifth.
With less Tank production ?Is there a chance of a British type "Jeep"?
Only throwing it out here because basically I am facing a similar problem.
(In fact I'm having them continue production of the Crusader chassis for conversion into APCs, though with a Meteor Engine, as all other British Armoured Vehicles of any note use it by 1943...)
Lord Louis Mountbatten has been appointed director of Combined Operations.
With a reliable engine and less wieght on the suspention it could work. The trouble is Rolls Royce is already running at full production capacity so getting the engines might be a problem, and the US will want you to use an American tank engine so getting packard to build them might be a problem.
numbered only ~ 100 out of ~ 3000 (~2500 being UK Nationals)
FYI only ~ 20 Australians were flew with the Few despite a much larger population
so the Kiwis were indeed present in proportionally exceptional numbers
however not quite the ratios you suggest
As the Jeep was origionaly designed by Bantam who started out as American Austen building under license the Austen 7 it's possible but the British Army already had a ehicle that did most of what the Jeep did for the americans. Its name? The Universal Carrier. That with an off the shelf small estate car (I think it was a Humber) pretty much filled the role, so it's a case of nice to have but we can get along without it.[/QUOTE]
Just checked and I was part right it was a Humber but not an estate. It was an off the shelf Humber Super Snipe Saloon 2 x 4.
The same chassis was used to produce the 4x4 Humber Light Reconnaissance Car so if it was felt a jeep type vehicle was needed all the parts were there to produce it.
How long does it take to modify them for operation in tropical conditions? Assuming that kick off if still the 7th of December as in our timeline that only gives them six and a bit weeks, and you said that they were waiting for more of the division to arrive as well which will take up part of it. Depending on the timeframe could this decision possibly come back to bite people on the arse?The first part of 1st Armoured Division arrives in Singapore; the most urgent job they will have on arrival is to show the Malay and Indian divisions how to work with tanks - the Australians already know, but these divisions have never worked with tanks. It is not expected there will be time to make them expert, but at least a basic familiarity will be useful. To save time, the tanks are not tropicalised; this will be done once more of the division has arrived.