Author Topic: Australia adopts Jellicoes Plan for the defence of Dominion.  (Read 24731 times)

Offline Volkodav

  • Counts rivits with his abacus...
  • Much older now...but procrastinating about it
Re: Australia adopts Jellicoes Plan for the defence of Dominion.
« Reply #50 on: May 18, 2015, 10:07:02 AM »
Thanks for that, reading it now.  Very interesting so far especially seeing the exact make up of a fleet unit and the calculations of what a suitable size force for Australia should be, in terms of population, budget, trade.  Objects of having a fleet, i.e. ensuring that any attacking force required to over power the RAN would have to be large enough and take long enough to assemble as to attract the attention of the RN. 

A fleet unit an Armoured Cruiser (later Battle Cruiser), three cruisers, six destroyers and three submarines is not actually that larger or daunting a force to imagine Australia being able to maintain two or more of them long term.  In fact, from what I have read so far it sounds as if the RAN operating multiple Fleet units was seen as inevitable.

Wow! Ok just got to chapter 1 and proposed fleet size, 8 armoured cruisers, 8 cruisers, wow!  Basically two fleets, one east and one west, each with three fully manned fleet units and a reserve fleet unit.  All of this calculated pre-war and assessed as affordable based on the size of Australia's population and economy, as well as wise considering the critical importance of sea trade to the economy and the truth that any invader must come by sea.

This document is amazing, thankyou.
« Last Edit: May 18, 2015, 10:17:17 AM by Volkodav »

Offline Volkodav

  • Counts rivits with his abacus...
  • Much older now...but procrastinating about it
Re: Australia adopts Jellicoes Plan for the defence of Dominion.
« Reply #51 on: May 22, 2015, 10:29:26 PM »
Reading through the document it becomes apparent that Jellicoe's plan, far from being a dramatic increase in the proposed size and capability of the RAN was actually a severe reduction to the tune of approximately 75% of what had been planned to be in service by the 1930s, i.e. two fleet units instead of the planned fleet with two large independent squadrons, each with 4 battle cruisers, four cruisers, a flotilla of destroyers and a squadron of submarines plus support vessels and multiple naval bases and naval dock yards.  The force structure that evolved instead was actually more akin to unilateral disarmament.

This changes all my assumptions and has me reading Browns "The Grand Fleet" to get a handle on the thinking of the time and possibilities for the RAN in light of this new information.

Offline M.A.D

  • Also likes a bit of arse...
  • Wrote a great story about a Christmas Air Battle
Re: Australia adopts Jellicoes Plan for the defence of Dominion.
« Reply #52 on: August 08, 2020, 07:50:40 PM »
This usually worst for the Indigenous population - there were plans in early 1942 to massacre all Aborigines in Arnhem land, at one point, to prevent them being used by any potential Japanese invasion force as labourers and bearers

Any chance you can give me the source of this Rickshaw??😞

MAD

Offline Rickshaw

  • "Of course, I could be talking out of my hat"
Re: Australia adopts Jellicoes Plan for the defence of Dominion.
« Reply #53 on: August 23, 2020, 11:28:54 AM »
This usually worst for the Indigenous population - there were plans in early 1942 to massacre all Aborigines in Arnhem land, at one point, to prevent them being used by any potential Japanese invasion force as labourers and bearers

Any chance you can give me the source of this Rickshaw??😞

MAD

It was mentioned in a book about defending the north against the Japanese.  It was just as quickly apparently canned because the Indigenous population was thought to be too great an asset.

Offline Volkodav

  • Counts rivits with his abacus...
  • Much older now...but procrastinating about it
Re: Australia adopts Jellicoes Plan for the defence of Dominion.
« Reply #54 on: August 23, 2020, 07:58:41 PM »
Prewar the difficulty was convincing the people in northern Australia not to kill Japanese fishermen on sight due to their record of abducting local women to use as sex slaves during their long fishing expeditions, then throwing them overboard to drown before returning to port in Japan.  There were quite literally Aboriginal men in gaol for killing Japanese in the 30s who were quite confused when armed and told to kill Japanese in 1942.