Post by simon darkshade on Jun 6, 2024 14:56:51 GMT
To expand upon what is actually meant by war reserves:
- There is the frontline equipment of various countries, which is fairly clear. On top of those, there are usually some extra operational extras, with some countries having replacements with their units or in separate formations, such as Royal Army Ordnance Corps Armoured Vehicle Parks in the case of the British Army
- Reserve armoured vehicles go beyond that, being dedicated to round out units (those that reinforce existing regular formations) or entire reserve formations. In the recent cases of Norway and Denmark, their cupboards are fairly bare in 1960, consisting of ~ 150 M4E8 Shermans, Jumbo Shermans or Crusaders (and a few M24s and M41s) ; whilst these are better than nothing at all, they aren't really suited for a 1960s or 1970s combat environment where they might face T-55s, T-62s or T-64s, even if they were potentially upgunned a la the Israeli M51s from their 90mm guns. The path taken by the Norwegians and Danish is to 'filter down' the Centurions to their infantry and reserve units
- Only the larger powers go an extra level further, in that they hold third line reserve: the Soviets (as in @) and the Americans are the largest practitioners of this, followed by the British and to a lesser extent, the French. The British classify this as 'Active Reserves' As of 1960, this means T-34-100s and 85s for the USSR, M26s and M4E8s for the US Army, Crusaders/Super Crusaders for the British and Shermans for the French. In the Western cases, these will be replaced by the initial postwar generation of M48s, Centurions and Char G2s in the 1960s 'changeover'. These are intended to be used as literal casualty/battlefield replacements, for the basis of new units in a protracted war, and for various home defence duties
We then get into 'war reserve stocks', or 'inactive reserves'. These are the WW2 tanks laid up for WW3.
The British have a lot of storage depots, both above ground and underground, as part of the Imperial Strategic War Reserve. This is built up through the 1950s and 1960s, with replacement/rotation of some types of ammunition and supplies with shorter shelf lives occuring along the way, along with stocks being drawn out for 1956 and Vietnam. As discussed in General Discussion, in 1960s, there were 8000 Crusaders and ~9000 Centurions, which builds up further through the 1960s, to the point where Chieftain production allows for a shift.
In addition to 19,000 tanks as of 1973, the British also hold ~10,000 FV310 Knight APCs (first postwar generation vehicles) and early model FV432s; thousands of lorries, Land Rovers and Austin Champion jeeps; thousands of field, medium and heavy artillery pieces ranging from the 25pdr through to 8" howitzers; and virtually all of the heavier artillery built from the mid 1930s onwards, including railway guns; all the 36pdr and 25pdr anti-tank guns and several thousand of the older 17pdrs; and over 10,000 Bofors 40mm AA guns.
Larger than the vehicle stockpile is the munitions stockpile, which consists of several tens of millions of tank and artillery shells, mines and bombs, and just a little bit of small arms ammunition in 1960. Over the course of the 1960s, this is built up towards the goal of having sufficient suplies for "maximal munitions and equipment requirements of the mobilised armed forces for a year of full scale conventional conflict." This is in comparison to the 30 days aimed at by @ NATO. Crunching the numbers of exactly how much would be needed for a full sized army, plus RAF and RN requirements, gives some rather large figures.
In artillery alone, it would be 3200 towed 125mm and 2500 SP Abbots; 1600 SP FV236 and 640 x towed 6"; 1200 FV254 8" SP; and 600 FV287 "9.2"/240mm SP, with planned allowances of 100, 75, 50 and 25 rounds per day respectively for and 208.05, 61.32, 21.9 and 5.475 million, or really gargantuan figures requiring multi-decade production programmes. One 'good thing' is that there are still very, very large stocks of 25pdr, 6" and 8" ammunition from WW2 and Korea. The other good thing is that artillery shells have an indefinite 'shelf life', whereas tank rounds are a bit more 'mortal', at ~20-25 years in DE.
Tank shell production in Britain runs at 500,000 per month during the 1960s in four separate ROFs and 360,000/month from the Royal Arsenal, with a further 250,000 shells/month facilities (350 shells an hour) coming online in 1969 and 1972 and two more in November 1973 and 1975; the latter four new factories are of a capacity with the @ new Rheinmetall Unterlüß site in the Lüneburg Heath. Royal Ordnance capacity in this respect is augmented by private plants operated by Vickers and Armstrong-Whitworth; ICI, Hawker-Siddeley and English Electric (through their BMARC subsidiary) are being approached for similar expansions.
The introduction of missiles into widespread use is a very expensive endeavour, as they also have comparatively limited operational lifespans.
In terms of smaller/infantry equipment, there are at least 2.5 million SMLE Rifle Number 5 Mk. II Semi-Automatic Battle Rifles, 1.5 million SMLE Rifle Number 6 Mk. II Semi-Automatic Carbines, 1.5 million SLRs,750,000 assault rifles 250,000 converted Brens, 150,000 GPMGs, 600,000 SMGs, 50,000 SBML 2.5-inch mortars, 25,000 ML 3.45-inch mortars, 5000 ML 4.5" heavy mortars, 100,000 Gauntlet 6.5" rocket propelled grenade launchers, 50,000 3.7" Carl Gustavs, 25,000 Boys AT rifles and 25,000 PIATs/'Arbalests'. This combines WW2 surplus, Korean War era rearmament production and the small amount of leftovers of 1955-1960 production; this explains, to some degree, the numbers of small arms produced in the 1960s.
On top of that, there are thousands of bayonets and swords; several million uniforms, pairs of boots, helmets, packs and webbing sets; thousands of noddy suits, gas capes, gas masks, canteens, jerrycans, tents and sleeping bags and more; thousands of wireless sets and walkie talkies and hundreds of radar sets; thousands of miles of barbed wire; tens of millions of sandbags; and literal shedloads of rations, sets of tools, pencils, biros, notebooks and all sorts of miscellaneous paraphernalia to boggle the mind.
The sheer scale comes from both bloodyminded hoarding and the desire for redundancy. If there were only several sites, then losing them could mess up the whole timetable of mobilisation. The big sites are matched with the smaller ones in military bases and Ministry of Munitions warehouses all over the country. This is reflected by the addition of 10 further large underground depots in March 1973.
- There is the frontline equipment of various countries, which is fairly clear. On top of those, there are usually some extra operational extras, with some countries having replacements with their units or in separate formations, such as Royal Army Ordnance Corps Armoured Vehicle Parks in the case of the British Army
- Reserve armoured vehicles go beyond that, being dedicated to round out units (those that reinforce existing regular formations) or entire reserve formations. In the recent cases of Norway and Denmark, their cupboards are fairly bare in 1960, consisting of ~ 150 M4E8 Shermans, Jumbo Shermans or Crusaders (and a few M24s and M41s) ; whilst these are better than nothing at all, they aren't really suited for a 1960s or 1970s combat environment where they might face T-55s, T-62s or T-64s, even if they were potentially upgunned a la the Israeli M51s from their 90mm guns. The path taken by the Norwegians and Danish is to 'filter down' the Centurions to their infantry and reserve units
- Only the larger powers go an extra level further, in that they hold third line reserve: the Soviets (as in @) and the Americans are the largest practitioners of this, followed by the British and to a lesser extent, the French. The British classify this as 'Active Reserves' As of 1960, this means T-34-100s and 85s for the USSR, M26s and M4E8s for the US Army, Crusaders/Super Crusaders for the British and Shermans for the French. In the Western cases, these will be replaced by the initial postwar generation of M48s, Centurions and Char G2s in the 1960s 'changeover'. These are intended to be used as literal casualty/battlefield replacements, for the basis of new units in a protracted war, and for various home defence duties
We then get into 'war reserve stocks', or 'inactive reserves'. These are the WW2 tanks laid up for WW3.
The British have a lot of storage depots, both above ground and underground, as part of the Imperial Strategic War Reserve. This is built up through the 1950s and 1960s, with replacement/rotation of some types of ammunition and supplies with shorter shelf lives occuring along the way, along with stocks being drawn out for 1956 and Vietnam. As discussed in General Discussion, in 1960s, there were 8000 Crusaders and ~9000 Centurions, which builds up further through the 1960s, to the point where Chieftain production allows for a shift.
In addition to 19,000 tanks as of 1973, the British also hold ~10,000 FV310 Knight APCs (first postwar generation vehicles) and early model FV432s; thousands of lorries, Land Rovers and Austin Champion jeeps; thousands of field, medium and heavy artillery pieces ranging from the 25pdr through to 8" howitzers; and virtually all of the heavier artillery built from the mid 1930s onwards, including railway guns; all the 36pdr and 25pdr anti-tank guns and several thousand of the older 17pdrs; and over 10,000 Bofors 40mm AA guns.
Larger than the vehicle stockpile is the munitions stockpile, which consists of several tens of millions of tank and artillery shells, mines and bombs, and just a little bit of small arms ammunition in 1960. Over the course of the 1960s, this is built up towards the goal of having sufficient suplies for "maximal munitions and equipment requirements of the mobilised armed forces for a year of full scale conventional conflict." This is in comparison to the 30 days aimed at by @ NATO. Crunching the numbers of exactly how much would be needed for a full sized army, plus RAF and RN requirements, gives some rather large figures.
In artillery alone, it would be 3200 towed 125mm and 2500 SP Abbots; 1600 SP FV236 and 640 x towed 6"; 1200 FV254 8" SP; and 600 FV287 "9.2"/240mm SP, with planned allowances of 100, 75, 50 and 25 rounds per day respectively for and 208.05, 61.32, 21.9 and 5.475 million, or really gargantuan figures requiring multi-decade production programmes. One 'good thing' is that there are still very, very large stocks of 25pdr, 6" and 8" ammunition from WW2 and Korea. The other good thing is that artillery shells have an indefinite 'shelf life', whereas tank rounds are a bit more 'mortal', at ~20-25 years in DE.
Tank shell production in Britain runs at 500,000 per month during the 1960s in four separate ROFs and 360,000/month from the Royal Arsenal, with a further 250,000 shells/month facilities (350 shells an hour) coming online in 1969 and 1972 and two more in November 1973 and 1975; the latter four new factories are of a capacity with the @ new Rheinmetall Unterlüß site in the Lüneburg Heath. Royal Ordnance capacity in this respect is augmented by private plants operated by Vickers and Armstrong-Whitworth; ICI, Hawker-Siddeley and English Electric (through their BMARC subsidiary) are being approached for similar expansions.
The introduction of missiles into widespread use is a very expensive endeavour, as they also have comparatively limited operational lifespans.
In terms of smaller/infantry equipment, there are at least 2.5 million SMLE Rifle Number 5 Mk. II Semi-Automatic Battle Rifles, 1.5 million SMLE Rifle Number 6 Mk. II Semi-Automatic Carbines, 1.5 million SLRs,750,000 assault rifles 250,000 converted Brens, 150,000 GPMGs, 600,000 SMGs, 50,000 SBML 2.5-inch mortars, 25,000 ML 3.45-inch mortars, 5000 ML 4.5" heavy mortars, 100,000 Gauntlet 6.5" rocket propelled grenade launchers, 50,000 3.7" Carl Gustavs, 25,000 Boys AT rifles and 25,000 PIATs/'Arbalests'. This combines WW2 surplus, Korean War era rearmament production and the small amount of leftovers of 1955-1960 production; this explains, to some degree, the numbers of small arms produced in the 1960s.
On top of that, there are thousands of bayonets and swords; several million uniforms, pairs of boots, helmets, packs and webbing sets; thousands of noddy suits, gas capes, gas masks, canteens, jerrycans, tents and sleeping bags and more; thousands of wireless sets and walkie talkies and hundreds of radar sets; thousands of miles of barbed wire; tens of millions of sandbags; and literal shedloads of rations, sets of tools, pencils, biros, notebooks and all sorts of miscellaneous paraphernalia to boggle the mind.
The sheer scale comes from both bloodyminded hoarding and the desire for redundancy. If there were only several sites, then losing them could mess up the whole timetable of mobilisation. The big sites are matched with the smaller ones in military bases and Ministry of Munitions warehouses all over the country. This is reflected by the addition of 10 further large underground depots in March 1973.
