The Shadow Scheme includes AFV production

[Cryhavoc101]

In 1935 the British government of the day instigated the Shadow Scheme which in 1936 became the Shadow Factory Scheme

This was intended to prepare the Motor and supporting industries of the UK to allow for a rapid increase in aircraft production in time of war.

The 'Shadow' part of the scheme was not so much as a secret increase in aircraft factory's but instead to build aircraft production facilities 'in the shadow of existing Motor Vehicle factory's' in order to leverage existing facilities and workforces.

At extremis factory's as large as Castle Bromwich (famous for the final assembly of over half the Spitfires made in WW2) where built as part of this initiative

Now this was because the British Government recognised how important aircraft had been in the Great war and how important they would be in any future war and this foresight served the nation well during WW2

However Tanks had been an important weapon of war in WW1 and yet.....very little was done to increase the capacity of AFV production in the UK.

Unlike aircraft production, where there was many companies in the UK making aircraft, there was only really one organisation making AFVs and that was Armstrong Vickers and so more would need to be done to improve the production capacity in the UK

So what would it take to have an 'AFV shadow scheme' and what would it look like had it been planned in parallel with the OTL Aircraft one?

 

[andys]

AFVs take much more material to build than an aircraft.

A Matilda is around 25 tons
A Wellington is around 8.5 tons (empty)
A Spitfire is around 3 tons

So whilst the AFV factory could be smaller, you'd need a massive increase in steel production to shadow build AFVs.
If you must shadow build ground vehicles, then lorries, armoured cars, universal carriers and artillery might be more cost effective - assuming you can also ensure adequate fuel supplies for them. You'd be able to field more mechanised divisions if not armoured ones.

Of course in 1935, shadow building AFVs would probably mean you'd end up with even more useless light tanks than was the case OTL.

 

[Riain]

Would the Shadow scheme get tanks into unit service in 1939-40 when they were most needed for the BEF in France, the Invasion Scare and Operation Compass/Sonnenblume? Or would they really start pumping out AFVs from 1941 when Britain became another cog in a giant global war machine?

 

[Cryhavoc101]

AFVs take much more material to build than an aircraft.

A Matilda is around 25 tons
A Wellington is around 8.5 tons (empty)
A Spitfire is around 3 tons

So whilst the AFV factory could be smaller, you'd need a massive increase in steel production to shadow build AFVs.
If you must shadow build ground vehicles, then lorries, armoured cars, universal carriers and artillery might be more cost effective - assuming you can also ensure adequate fuel supplies for them. You'd be able to field more mechanised divisions if not armoured ones.

Of course in 1935, shadow building AFVs would probably mean you'd end up with even more useless light tanks than was the case OTL.

Yes but from Sept 1939 the requirement was 9900 tanks in the first 30 months - I believe that they made about 7500 in that time sadly a lot of them were Covenanters and a sufficient number were A15 Crusaders, which were better but could have been a lot better

You could argue that a lot of the factory's building aircraft in the leadup to the war and the first 30 month were also 'useless' in many cases and could be considered the equivalent of 'light tanks' and until the 2nd half of 1940 didn't actually build that many planes!

And a better prepared industry might result in better design and quality control issues that plagued British tank production until 43 - so a better prepared industry can start building lots of Infantry and Cruiser designs when the British army decided that lights were useless - which was 1938 but there was no choice, production capacity or the funding to build more Infantry tanks / Cruiser.

And a light tank in 1938 if very valuable as it allows armoured units to train and Industry the experience in building them

 

[Cryhavoc101]

Would the Shadow scheme get tanks into unit service in 1939-40 when they were most needed for the BEF in France, the Invasion Scare and Operation Compass/Sonnenblume? Or would they really start pumping out AFVs from 1941 when Britain became another cog in a giant global war machine?

Possibly allow replacement of the 330 odd Lights with Crusiers and the 77 odd matilda Is with matilda II

So instead of the following being in the BEF and 2nd BEF

​	Light Light VI​	Matilda I​	Matilda II​	Cruiser​
Total​	331​	77​	23​	184​

They go to France with the following due to industry having the improved ability to build the better tanks of the day with perhaps some additional tank units equipped with light tanks

​	Light Light VI​	Matilda I​	Matilda II​	Cruiser​
Total​	?​	0​	100​	515​

Not going to change much in France (without a POD that significantly increases the size of the army earlier) but with far greater AFV production capacity the ability to provide tanks to the rest of the commonwealth forces and the Russians is significantly improved

 

[McPherson]

AFVs take much more material to build than an aircraft.

A Matilda is around 25 tons
A Wellington is around 8.5 tons (empty)
A Spitfire is around 3 tons

So whilst the AFV factory could be smaller, you'd need a massive increase in steel production to shadow build AFVs.
If you must shadow build ground vehicles, then lorries, armoured cars, universal carriers and artillery might be more cost effective - assuming you can also ensure adequate fuel supplies for them. You'd be able to field more mechanised divisions if not armoured ones.

Of course in 1935, shadow building AFVs would probably mean you'd end up with even more useless light tanks than was the case OTL.

C.A.N.A.D.A.

Canadian Ram Cruiser Tank Mark II - a photo on Flickriver

Stelco​

 

[Riain]

Possibly allow replacement of the 330 odd Lights with Crusiers and the 77 odd matilda Is with matilda II

So instead of the following being in the BEF and 2nd BEF

​	Light Light VI​	Matilda I​	Matilda II​	Cruiser​
Total​	331​	77​	23​	184​

They go to France with the following due to industry having the improved ability to build the better tanks of the day with perhaps some additional tank units equipped with light tanks

​	Light Light VI​	Matilda I​	Matilda II​	Cruiser​
Total​	?​	0​	100​	515​

Not going to change much in France (without a POD that significantly increases the size of the army earlier) but with far greater AFV production capacity the ability to provide tanks to the rest of the commonwealth forces and the Russians is significantly improved

With the production rates needed to get ~500+ Infantry and Cruiser tanks to France by early 1940 once France falls there might be at least an equivalent number of such tanks in Britain. This means the routed BEF comes home and jumps into freshly made tanks ready to repel the Invasion, which totally changes the perception of the threat. With such powerful armoured forces available there will be much less need for frantic makeshifts of OTL allowing a much better long term decisions to be made, for example production of AT guns might switch to the 6pdr in 1940, as planned.

Also with so many tanks available they can be pushed out to the Med once the immediate invasion threat has passed, maybe the 7th Armoured is joined by the 2nd Armoured, while a scratch AB is sent to Greece to be lost, keeping the 2nd AD intact to face Rommel in March 41. If this is the case Sonnenblume runs out of steam at or before Tobruk rather than well beyond it meaning Op Battleaxe starts much further forward and is launched with considerably greater strength.

So many tanks might mean some are pushed out to Malaya, perhaps the A9/10s the 7th AD used in Compass after being refitted. Not amazing by any means but far better than OTLs nothing.

 

[Cryhavoc101]

With the production rates needed to get ~500+ Infantry and Cruiser tanks to France by early 1940 once France falls there might be at least an equivalent number of such tanks in Britain. This means the routed BEF comes home and jumps into freshly made tanks ready to repel the Invasion, which totally changes the perception of the threat. With such powerful armoured forces available there will be much less need for frantic makeshifts of OTL allowing a much better long term decisions to be made, for example production of AT guns might switch to the 6pdr in 1940, as planned.

Also with so many tanks available they can be pushed out to the Med once the immediate invasion threat has passed, maybe the 7th Armoured is joined by the 2nd Armoured, while a scratch AB is sent to Greece to be lost, keeping the 2nd AD intact to face Rommel in March 41. If this is the case Sonnenblume runs out of steam at or before Tobruk rather than well beyond it meaning Op Battleaxe starts much further forward and is launched with considerably greater strength.

So many tanks might mean some are pushed out to Malaya, perhaps the A9/10s the 7th AD used in Compass after being refitted. Not amazing by any means but far better than OTLs nothing.

Might even get A13s to Malaya!

 

[Riain]

Might even get A13s to Malaya!

Almost 1,000 A13s were built IOTL, some early enough to deploy to France and Egypt from October 1940. With Shadow Factory production a lot more of these tanks would be available in this time period and in total, this alone makes Rommel's job harder and makes it more likely some will be shunted to Malaya as Crusaders come on line in numbers.

 

[NOMISYRRUC]

IIRC the Third Report of the Defence Requirements Committee, which was the basis of the 1936 Rearmament Programme, estimated the combined cost of the Army's, RAF's and RN's wish lists at £1,750 million over 5 years but HM Treasury said that they could only provide £1,500 million. The Army's regular field force was second from the bottom of the Government's list of defence priorities and the T.A.'s field force was at the very bottom. Therefore, there was only enough money left to modernise the regular field force and provide the T.A. with modern equipment on a "training scale" which in the event of war would be pooled to permit the mobilisation of 4 out of 14 T.A. infantry divisions.

Having written that the problem between 1936 and 1939 AIUI wasn't a shortage of money for tanks and neither was it insufficient factory capacity. The problem was that the only tank that was ready for production was the Light Tank Mk VI and that's why around 1,200 of them were built for the British Army 1936-39. This allowed the regular cavalry regiments to be mechanised and for the expansion of the UK's tank manufacturing capacity while better designs were developed.

Furthermore, some of the reliability problems that many of the cruiser and infantry tanks had was a consequence of rushing them into production because the powers that be couldn't wait for their "bugs" to be discovered and corrected at the prototype stage.

And there was a sort of shadow factory scheme for tanks IOTL. From the early 1920s to the middle of the 1930s the British Army's tanks were built at two factories, which were the Government's Woolwich Royal Arsenal and Vickers-Armstrong's factory at Elswick on Tyneside. But after that Woolwich stopped making tanks and the War Office purchased some of its AFVs from firms which included Vauxhall, Leyland Motors and the London Midland & Scottish Railway instead of buying all its AFV's from Vickers-Armstrong.

 

[PMN1]

Just started reading Dick Taylor's 'The Second World War Tank Crisis: The Fall and Rise of British Armour 1919-1945'

He suggests one of the problems is the lack of companies that could be used in the same way that the aircraft industry used their Shadows.

 

[Cryhavoc101]

Just started reading Dick Taylor's 'The Second World War Tank Crisis: The Fall and Rise of British Armour 1919-1945'

He suggests one of the problems is the lack of companies that could be used in the same way that the aircraft industry used their Shadows.

Yes that was my take on the underlying issue

It was pretty much Vickers-Armstrong and.............well that was it!

So we would be looking at boiler makers and Train makers for the most part and get Vickers-Armstrong to boot strap them from 1936 along with funding a purpose built AFV factory's along the lines of Castle Bromwich (i.e. Albert kahn derived factory's)

Obviously the unspoken issue here is that their was a very poor relationship between what was then the MOD and Vickers-Armstrong

 

[NOMISYRRUC]

Yes that was my take on the underlying issue

It was pretty much Vickers-Armstrong and.............well that was it!

So we would be looking at boiler makers and Train makers for the most part and get Vickers-Armstrong to boot strap them from 1936 along with funding a purpose built AFV factory's along the lines of Castle Bromwich (i.e. Albert kahn derived factory's)

Obviously the unspoken issue here is that their was a very poor relationship between what was then the MOD and Vickers-Armstrong

Quote from Page 18 of Jane's World War II Tanks and Armoured Fighting Vehicles by Leland Ness...

By 1937 there were two tank manufacturing plants in operation: Vickers at Elswick and ROF at Woolwich. The latter was being phased out of tank production in order to concentrate on weapons, but that same year Nuffield Mechanisation and Aero was established, with a modern production line for tanks. Money for the acquisition of cruiser and infantry tanks began to flow the following year. That money could have been used to expand the existing production lines and integrate the efforts of subcontractors, but instead it was used to place contracts for small number of tanks with a wide variety of commercial heavy industries in order to "familiarize" them with the production of tanks. These contracts, typically for 40-50 tanks, were not incentive to create a modern production facility, but simply persuaded the firms and their component suppliers to adapt their existing facilities to low-level production of tanks. An inefficient system was born, one that would not improve during the first half of the upcoming war, but actually get worse.

 

[allanpcameron]

There was, in a sense, a shadow factory system for tanks, it was called the "augment the war potential"
This is the way I explained in Sir John Valentine Cardin Survives:

The Cabinet had approved the deficiency programme of the Army over the next five years and the figure was agreed at £214 million. The Air Defence of Great Britain (ADGB) was a new requirement for the army and the Cabinet had approved an immediate £37 million to this role. The Regular Field Force would have £80 million for materials and ammunition. While the Territorial Army would receive £9 for training equipment, there was no increase in their budget for war equipment or reserve. The agreement by the Cabinet the previous month that the Territorial Army should be trained on the same equipment as the Regulars meant that the extra funding would have to be approved. The War Office hoped that the extra funding for training equipment would eventually work through to having the equivalent of two full regular division’s worth of equipment by April 1940. Much of the increased funding was not so much for immediate army requirements, but for what was described as measures to increase the industrial facilities for armament production or the technical phrase to “augment the war potential.”

The ordering of 107 Mark VIB light tanks from Vulcan Foundry during 1936 was part of that programme. The decision to award the contract for the A12 to Vulcan required that the company should have some knowledge and experience of building tanks. The light tanks would be a simple exercise in preparing them for the much more complex responsibility of designing and building an infantry tank. The Royal Ordnance Factory at Woolwich was the only other facility, besides Vickers-Armstrong who had any experience of producing tanks. Woolwich, however, was focussed primarily of orders for the Admiralty and Air Ministry, so their ability to build tanks was limited.

With Nuffield Mechanisation and Aero taking on the specification for the A13 that meant another company joining in the expansion of the ‘war potential’. Vickers, however, that was the only company currently capable of building and delivering tanks in any numbers. Within their own subsidiaries Vickers was looking at the possibility of outsourcing some of the work that was hopefully coming their way. The A11, with its thick armour, would probably have to be built in-house. The company were looking at Harland and Wolff in Belfast to take on some aspects of building the A9 if contracts were awarded. Likewise, they were also approaching the Birmingham Railway Carriage & Wagon Company and Metropolitan-Cammell Carriage & Wagon Company for work on the A10.

To illustrate this, the tank orders by company in 1934-36
and then from 37-38