WesWorld

First let me appoligize for the lack of news out of Brazil. School and life just got a bit bigger then I needed to keep up here. Im going to do a short summary of what happens in early 1942 and get back into the swing of things from there.

Excerpts from A Brief History of Brazil, 1941-1950

The year of 1942 began on a much more promising note then 1941. The government was making a full recovery from the bombing of a year prior, and the new King was settling into his role in the government nicely. Three major military developments took place, one to each branch of the Brazilian military.

The Army, having been wishing to for some time, was finally allowed to presue the acquisition of modern mechanized and armored equipment. Given the treaty signed with the United States the year prior, the decision to make American manufacturers the first and only visits conducted by Brazilian procurement officers was quite a sound move. From small amphibious DUKWs to the latest formidable model of the M4 Medium Tank, the Brazilian procurers set the Army on the path for mechanization. Showing just how far the Army was willing to go to improve its then feeble mechanized aspects, the M10 Motor Gun Carriage was ordered off the drawing board, with only prototype units seen in testing. Delivery would not begin until later in the year, and would not pick up pace to the satisfaction of the Army until almost 1943.

The Navy stole most of the public spotlight from the beginning of the year with the completion of the battlecruiser Rio de Janeiro. Her sister Sao Paulo having drawn great attention on her arrival, the Rio gave the Navy greater leverage in continuing to slowly erase the bitter memories of the South American War from the public eye. While not capturing the public glory of the Amazon Twins, the aircraft carriers purchased from Greece gave the fleet some much needed power projection abilities, tho refits would be needed to two of them before they reached maximum effectiveness. The construction programs focused on light units, as there were few modern ones that could be held next to contemporary types. The shortage of forces on the Amazon was also addressed, with design work for new gunboats undertaken.

The Air Force, still growing from the expantions of years prior, continued to improve its native fighter aircraft. The EMB-F41 Tornado had debuted last year, and ranked among the top fighters of the world, but EMBRAER had been dissatisfied with aspects of the design and had been working on remedying them since the first few flights of the original prototypes. The EMB-F42 Tornado II prototype made its debut flight in the first half of the year. While not showing massive performance increases, the aircraft was much better liked by test pilots for its characteristics. The design continued to hold EMBRAER near the top of world fighter design. Ongoing projects continued, including the Proto light transport plane and other long term projects such as improved Tornado variants.