Quote:
Originally Posted by aspqrz
Australia had an industrial base as well. Of course, our population in 1939 was, IIRC, around 7 million people.
We had an iron and steel industry and considerable engineering and production plant for a country of our size. We produced Corvettes, Fighter Bombers, Fighters, Tanks almost all of our small arms (Rifles, SMGs, Machineguns etc.) and ammunition.
No, we didn't have the same level of industrialisation as Canada, but that was mostly because of the small population.
The Kiwis, on the other hand, had virtually nothing, and that's still the case ... look at the
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charlton_Automatic_Rifle
for how hard up they were.
There was also a NZ movie some years ago about a loner in rural NZ during WW2 who refused to hand in his privately owned SMLE when the government confiscated all of them (I don't suppose there could have been more than several hundred all over NZ at the time, certainly not several thousand) because they were so short.
Phil |
Australia was essentially an agricultural and mining economy in the Second World War with some small scale engineering and metal processing in its cities in the southeast strip. It still is today to a large extent. Australia did produce war material (Sentinel tanks, scout cars, rifles, training aircraft, 16 escorts) but most if it never left Australia. Practically all of its combat aircraft, warships and tanks and artillery were supplied by Britain and America.