Quote:
Originally Posted by Targan
There is no way that Australia would suddenly triple or quadruple the size of its army in the space of a couple of years and then send the bulk of it to the Middle East. Pure fantasy.
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Yet we did more than that in both WW1 and WW2.
The issue then, as it would have been in the TW: 2000 timeline(s) (and would still be, now) is in the area of 'Major Equipment' ...
Forex, in WW2, early 1940, my Dad was (illegally, as it turned out) called up for service in a Militia Artillery Regiment. They had uniforms (late WW1 issue), no Rifles initially, except for a small cadre, and they did rifle evolutions with Broomsticks for a while. Worse, they didn't have a single piece of Artillery ... they 'trained' on painted outlines on the parade ground. When they eventually got some guns they didn't get 25 pdrs, they got something similar to 18/25 pdrs (18 pdr late WW1 tubes on a 25 pdr chassis ... but, as someone pointed out to me some time ago, they couldn't have been exactly that for a variety of technical reasons) just before his callup was actually found to have been illegal (reserved occupation at the time, small business owner) and he went back to civvie street.
Later in the war one of my Uncles served with an Artillery unit in New Guinea, and they did have Australian produced air portable 25 pdrs (basically the standard gun on a lightened chassis, designed to be broken down for easy air transport) ... but that was probably at least 2 years later.
And, believe me, if you read the history of the Militia/Citizen Military Forces, they were in worse condition in 1939 than they would have been in the Twilight (or present day) universe, yet they managed a huge buildup in 'a couple of years.'
Phil