What if the Americans licensed some British technology in 1939 to jumpstart their own pre-war prepar

[miletus12]

I have some suggestions for 1939 upstream development.




It would come with a continental radial engine, a 3.7cm gun and Browning 0.30 inch machine guns.



Ford version of the universal gun carrier.



Bristol Beaufort torpedo and light level bomber.

and my favorite...



The Bren gun.

Any other British kit that might be interesting?

And we certainly can include French, or Czech items that might prove interesting. Even German items can be fudged into the TOE; as in the case of the German 3.7 cm antitank gun the Americans "borrowed" through third parties. Just assume the Americans figure out ammunition or engine substitutions and get over their Not Invented Here, bias. 
   

[lordroel]

Dec 10, 2021 18:40:33 GMT miletus12 said:

I have some suggestions for 1939 upstream development.




It would come with a continental radial engine, a 3.7cm gun and Browning 0.30 inch machine guns.



Ford version of the universal gun carrier.



Bristol Beaufort torpedo and light level bomber.

and my favorite...



The Bren gun.

Any other British kit that might be interesting?

And we certainly can include French, or Czech items that might prove interesting. Even German items can be fudged into the TOE; as in the case of the German 3.7 cm antitank gun the Americans "borrowed" through third parties. Just assume the Americans figure out ammunition or engine substitutions and get over their Not Invented Here, bias. 
   

Did the Americans not have their own designs they could field. 

[miletus12]

1. Sir Henry Carden was a decent tank designer who had a line of development. It is true that Gladeon Barnes was a genius and he did eventually oversea the M4 Sherman and its derivatives, but in 1939 this is what passed for a US tank and it was garbage.



One would prefer a more balanced and practical design, right away which would / could be made to fit in with US motorized warfare doctrine. The A10 cruiser or an evolved Valentine would do well until something like a fast US cruiser tank (T-27) could develop and be deployed. The M4 was a very compromised design that had many design faults which were not resolved until 1944... late 1944. The post-war Shermans which served so well and upon which WWII Sherman reputations are built, was the result of 145 separate iterations of that piece of garbage (M2 Medium) that one sees above. Part of those many steps was the Coffin for Seven Brothers...



2. The equivalent to a Beaufort was the Lockheed PV-2 Harpoon or B-34 Lexington. It could do everything the Beaufort could do, but was not developed out of the Ventura until 1943. By then the P-38 was also in service able to scout, recon photo and drop torpedoes. But again; that is 1943.

3. The White half track might be a substitute.

4. The Americans never had a squad machine gun worthy of the name. They tried...



It is called the T23E1 and is a practical part for part predecessor of the M240 machine gun. Not ready until 1944. By then, it was too late and was shelved for the FG42 / MG 42 bodge that would become the M60. Fabrique National duplicated Ruger's work and built their own version in 1950. Guess what the Americans adopted in the late 1970s?

[miletus12]

More British ideas that could have helped the American war effort.





Never mind that the British botched it up and never got it to work properly.: the idea of a surface to air barrage rocket designed to stop incoming enemy torpedo bombers and dive bombers was something the Americans "could" get to work if they had adopted the idea soon enough.

Cavity magnetron; not just a British invention.

Maybe the British should have asked for help sooner, or the Americans paid more attention to their own work?

Most of the work related to the magnetron applications was aimed at directive radio-link applications. However, some
early attempts to use them as RF sources for radar can be found as early as 1933, when Rudolf Kühnhold in Germany used a
Posthumus 40W/48 cm magnetron in his fi rst trials for naval radar (which led later to the famous Freya [7, 8, 29]). In the
same year in the US, William D. Hershberger, an engineer at the Signal Corps Laboratories, built a continuous-wave detection
device using a 9 cm RCA magnetron, which he tested in August 1934 on ships entering the New York Bay. In 1936 in Holland,
C. H. Staal also used a Philips 10 W/30 cm magnetron for detection trials ordered by the Royal Nether lands Navy [31].
None of these attempts was succeeded by further developments. However, they were indeed on the way to heralding a major
innovation coming up.

Maybe the Tizard Mission should have come a year sooner?



Frank Whittle should have talked to this guy: Nathan Price.