WesWorld

Holidays in Q1/40

January 01 New Years Day, the citizens of the Empire celebrate the begining of the fourth decade of the twentieth century. Prince Regent Pedro came out and made a speech in which he hoped that this decade would be one of peace and prosperity in the various nations of South America."

Feb 18-22 Carnavel begins, the 4 day festival marking 40 days until Easter. The festival in Rio is the oldest in the world, being held for 298 years.

January 7th

The Chamber of Deputies rang loud today, with discussion over the proposed steelmill to be built in Brazil with German assistance. Various parties were concerned about a potential increase in German influence in Brazil, others were concerned about whether or not such a project really was required due to the costs involved. The Federalist Party, which controls both the Chamber and the Imperial Senate rallied round their leader, Prime Minister and President of the Council, Artur de Salazar, who came out in support of the project claiming it would assist the Brazilian economy and industry, and provide jobs for Brazilians.

January 21

The Marinha Imperial annouced today the purchase of 36 ENAER Alicanto dive-torpedo bombers from Chile. These aircraft are to equip one squadron (12) on the new aircraft carrier Brasil once it finishes its trials in October. The remaining 24 are to be used as spares. If the aircraft prove satisfactory, then more are likely to be ordered to replaced the Sienar V-19 currently in Brazilian service.

February 2nd
The Força Aérea Brasileira annouced a planned expansion of its airforce, from the 600 combat aircraft currently in service to around 900- 1000 by 1945. To attain this, the FAB is planning on issuing a general tender in the coming days for trainers to assist in this buildup of Brazilian air power. The tender will also include a relatively small order of bombers, as well the Brazilians are interested acquiring a third fighter type next year and would like to inquire what sort of types are currently available or will be available next year.

Quoted

Originally posted by TheCanadian
February 2nd
The Força Aérea Brasileira annouced a planned expansion of its airforce, from the 600 combat aircraft currently in service to around 900- 1000 by 1945. To attain this, the FAB is planning on issuing a general tender in the coming days for trainers to assist in this buildup of Brazilian air power. The tender will also include a relatively small order of bombers, as well the Brazilians are interested acquiring a third fighter type next year and would like to inquire what sort of types are currently available or will be available next year.

ENAER will dispatch a quartet of fresh-from-the-production lines ENAER Coati trainer aircraft to Brazil for evaluation.

The German Military and Air Attaches duly report the news of the forthcoming Brazilian RfP to the authorities in Berlin and requested updated information regarding the availability of aircraft by type and schedule.

March 4th

After much debate in the Chamber of Deputies, and the Imperial Senate over the proposed steelmill project, a motion passed which approved said project. Interestingly although the debate went on for nearly 2 months on the issue, the problem was not whether or not Brazil would build the steelmill, rather how much or if the Brazilian government would have a share in it. The Progressive Party, and the Christian Democratic Party both favoured as little government investment as possible, whereas the Labour Party favoured that up to 25% of the steelmill was to be owned by the Brazilian government. In the end a compromise was reached with some of the more moderates of both parties, and 10% of the steelmill will be owned by the government of Brazil.

May 10th

The Minister of Defence, Bonifacio de Barros annouced today the purchase of several different aircraft from various firms for the Força Aérea Brasileira.

150 Buckner Bu181 Bestmanns

150 ENAER Coatis

60 Blackburn B.28

60 Tucan T-18B NB-2

ENAER is pleased to do business with Brazil, and gets right to work on the Coati order.

Blackburn is fver pleased that its brand-new B.28 bomber has made its first export order. Work will begin on the test flight regime and the first parts have now entered the jigs for the first Brazilian production aircraft.

Tucan is likewise pleased that its T-18B NB-2 has found another buyer, now all three ABC powers are equipped with the type in one role or another. Work is now beginning to fulfill the Brazilian order.

Quoted

Originally posted by Hood
Blackburn is fver pleased that its brand-new B.28 bomber has made its first export order. Work will begin on the test flight regime and the first parts have now entered the jigs for the first Brazilian production aircraft.

I'd forgotten about that aircraft in BSP. A few question immediately spring to mind given the paucity of information in there; 400mph from something that looks like that? and where does the 4-gun turret fit? The turret especially is an interesting question given that most British designs had moved to featuring the 4x20mm turrets.

RA,
Specs are;

Blackburn B.28; Dimensions; 54.9/ 39/ 15.6 ft; 2x 2,035hp RR Griffon I; max speed 396mph at 18,000ft; range 2,180 miles and service ceiling 35,000ft.

That might be a tad optimistic but the design is pretty sleek looking if not as svelte as a Mossie. The qaud MG turret can be fitted (Jason hasn't said whether he wants it fitted or not) but I don't know where it would be. My guess if behind the cockpit like the aborted Mossie turret. Speed would drop with the turret, probably going to loose 35-40mph easy with the extra drag even if it is a low-drag type. And that's without the guns trained outboard in combat.

I dont want the turret, James

No problem Jason. Probably the wisest choice (since the turret hasn't even been built yet!).

July 12th, 1940

The Brazilian government has decided to construct an aircraft facility for the assembling of the Buckner Bu 181 trainers it ordered from Germany. The company is to be named Sociedade Aeronautica Neiva, and it is to be partly owned and run by the Brazilian enterpreneur Jose de Carlos de Barres Neiva (1).

(1) Neiva is setting up his company abit earlier than he did historically, 5 years to be exact. However, up until 1945 I plan to have him producing pre-assembled trainers likely from Buckner, and in 1945 he will as historical develop the Neiva B Monitor, and the various range of Neiva aircraft that followed it.

September 2nd, 1940

Perhaps, Minister de Barros you could give us a general update on the state of Brazilian armed forces? what progress has been made since the unfortunate conflict, and how are our plans for the future?

"Certainly your highness," Minister de Barros said. We have completed the cruiser program started during the war, and now 8 modern cruisers are available for use. We have also purchased a modern destroyer design from Atlantis, which is both cheaper and more effective than the small cruisers we were building before. Regarding submarines, we have build 8 small coastal units, and purchased a larger design from Chile. The lead ship of that class will complete at the end of this year, and more are to be laid down."

"Regarding capital ships, we have sold the former Minas Gerais to Colombia along with the two 12in battlecruisers, and in exchange purchased a former Royal Sovereign class battleship as well as began construction on two larger but better designed battlecruisers. Although the sale of the two battlecruisers was necessary at the time both to give us a short term boost in funds, and to gain us some political gain with Atlantis in selling them to their close allies the Colombians, the Imperial Naval Staff now regrets the sale. Quite frankly, they would have made decent carrier conversions, and the Imperial Naval Staff believes rather that rather than trying to match the RSAN battleline, a hopeless task that in order to even the odds against us in a potential war we would be better suited in going the route of naval aviation. However, that is all water under the bridge so to speak. The former HMS Royal Sovereign is to be given a comprehensive modernization currently budgeted to begin in the 1942 fiscal year, and to end likely at the beginning of the 1944 fiscal year. Both the Sao Paulo Class battlecruisers are to complete and enter service in the 1942 fiscal year as well, and therefore we shall have by the end of 1944 3 modern capital to use against the RSAN's projected 18. The fate of the former Sao Paulo battleship is unclear, we were originally going to scrap her and use the turrets in two armoured cruisers. The Imperial Naval Staff instead decided to purchase two German designed battlecruisers, and therefore the funds would not be available for such a project. There have been numerous proposals, one to build the Armoured Cruisers at a later date, another to build a modernized version of the Rio de Janeiro battleship of 1911, still another to simply sell her or use the turrets in coastal defence vessels. In the meantime the ship has been laid up pending a decision on her fate."

"With regards to naval aviation, we have made a significant stride in gaining our first carrier, and have acquired a second. Plans are tentatively laid for a larger carrier in 1942, likely to be another purchase of an export design, Brazilian designers do not yet have the capability to design a carrier as such, and it is better in our opinion to continue to outsource such projects. However, even with the advances made by 1944 we expect to have 3 carriers in service, in comparison to a projected 12 RSAN carriers. We have also looked into gaining more modern aircraft for our carriers, with a tender going out this year for modern single seat carrier fighters, and the purchase of modern carrier borne bombers the MI can expect to at least match the RSAN in quality of aircraft if not so much in aircrew or pure numbers."

"An excellent analysis, Minister now tell me what are our chances of success in Operation Vingança?"

"Frankly your highness, unless we attain certain objectives that I will mention in a moment, the prospects of success are bleak, and the Ministry of Defence advises a non-confrontational posture in regards to the Afrikaaners for the forseeable future, no matter should the SAE invade Argentina, or Chile, or even ourselves."

"Does that mean you advocate that we should not even attempt to defend our own borders, against a SAE incursion Minister"?

"Yes your highness for the reason that what is the point of fighting a war where there is not even the remotest possible chance of success?"

"I presume you have a reasonable explanation as to why you feel this way, Minister?"

"Certainly, your highness. Brazil is a second-rate Power, allied with two other second-rate Powers trying to match a Great Power. None of us alone can come close to matching the SAE in any way either in number of ships, number of men, or number of aircraft. Brazil can perhaps match the SAE in number of men available in Gran Uruguay, but as was shown in the last war there is nothing we can do to prevent the SAE from shipping reinforcements over from Africa to gain numerical superiority on both fronts simualtaneously, negating whatever initial advantage Argentina and Brazil had. Chile's land force contribution would be negilble in such a conflict, seeing as Brazilian intelligence estimates even the Argentines have a larger army than them, and the Brazilians have a larger army than the Argentines. Therefore, the Brazilians, like in the last war would be doing the majority of the dieing on land, and we simply do not have the numbers to match the RSAA. At full mobilization the IE can perhaps deploy 30 divisions around Brazil, and perhaps 14 on the southern front with the SAE, and only by stripping every other border bare. The Imperial Intelligence Office estimates due to the losses sustained by the Brazilian Army in the last war against the RSAA that the total numbers of the RSAA in peacetime equal the fully mobilized Brazilian Army. This estimate primarily comes from our estimates of the number of forces facing the Brazilian Army in the last offensive of the war had to be at least 12 divisions, and therefore another 8-12 divisions had to be facing the Argentines given that no general would be so foolhardy in a two-front war to weaken one front while simualtaneously going on the offensive in the other. At least no Brazilian general would do such a thing."

"Your highness, ABC cannot out-produce the SAE, we do not have any qualitative advantage over them, seeing as they have greater access to resources than do we. Should the SAE invade tomorrow our best hope would be to appeal to the League of Nations for an Army to repel the SAE aggressors because our Army simply does not have the ability to do so on its own."

"That's somewhat blunt, isn't it Minister?"

"Yes your highness, it is a realistic outlook though. Neither Brazil nor ABC alone can fight the SAE, the best we could reasonably do would be a stalemate, and the cost would be to high to contemplate. Should we wish to take on the SAE, we would have to wait until we can build a fleet that can successfully take control of the waves from the RSAN, and that is well never. Or we manage to ally with a Great Power which also raises another issue in that the SAE is not without allies of its own. All this being said, I do not feel that we should just roll over and die, at least publicly."
"Oh?"

"Yes your highness, we should continue our rearmament program in that we may be able to appear stronger than we really are, and dissuade the SAE from invading. And hope that the SAE gets in a war with a number of the Powers, and we can take advantage of it."

"So in other words we should spend my people's money despite the fact we really can't stop the SAE, and should Argentina get in a tussle with the SAE again that we will likely have to abandon them this time?"

"The alternative is being a puppet, your highness. Is that more appealing to you?"

Quoted

Originally posted by TheCanadian
Chile's land force contribution would be negilble in such a conflict, seeing as Brazilian intelligence estimates even the Argentines have a larger army than them, and the Brazilians have a larger army than the Argentines

In the case of the Chilean Army, there are a number of mitigating issues regarding their size. First, the numbers only represent active troops; the Chileans historically used a method similar to the Swiss, with universal conscription; the troops serve then return to civilian life, where they may be recalled in national emergencies. The Chileans can, in the short term, muster out twelve infantry, two cavalry, and one panzergrenadier brigade (between 6,400 to 8,000 men each), topping out at about 117,000 men - without undue short-term strain on their economy. In the case of a national emergency, the reserves would start coming into play, with over two million men fit for military service. [1]

Second, the Chilean Army, particularly in the short term, remains heavily-engaged in maintaining the peace in Chilean Bolivia. So far the Army has seen outstanding success in this mission, and they will be... shall we say, quite unhappy to throw away their work if the Allies call to fight the SAE.

Third, the Chilean Army - much like the Brazilian Army - is a force built for war on their home terrain - the Andes, the Atacama desert, the central valleys of Chile, and - increasingly - the upland jungles of Bolivia. While they could mix and match experience to better adapt to different terrain, I've designed the order of battle to be most suitable for their home ground. In the theoretical event of an ABC-SAE war - which Chile is quite uninterested in seeing occur - the Chilean Army would probably be the most useful if deployed as a mobile reserve force - rapidly responding to assaults and making rapid spoiling and counterattacks.

Of course, I completely ignore the political issues involved in such a scenario.

Note [1]: Last I calculated the number was 2,434,375 men; "fit for military service" is defined as the men aged 16-49 who are deemed physically suited, are not conscientious objectors, etc.

With regards to the Brazilian Army size, I must note that the Brazilian peacetime army is 22 divisions, and I do believe we estimated that the Brazilians could muster another 20 in wartime, without due strain. Brazil does have roughly has roughly the same size population in this time period as France, which I believe has been brought up before, so on paper should be able to raise an army at least in manpower numbers of being equivalent to the OTL French Army including reserves. The reality is different in that Brazil does not have the capability to pay for such an army and equip them to a modernized standard. The fact remains though, the Brazil can put in the field nearly an equivalent amount of men that Chile and Argentina can combined, even without resorting to building an impossible army, and has a larger reserve of men to fall back on. Therefore the Brazilians feel perhaps not without justification that they would have to do most of the work in the land war, while the Chilean and Argentine navies did the lesser manpower intensive but equally important task of attempting to wrest control of the sea from the Afrikanners. To put it bluntly, until the Chileans and Argentines figure out how to make babies like the Brazilians apparently can, the Brazilians don't really want a war with SAE either.

So sorry Hoo, no conflict with the Brazilians at least for the forseeable future. Go find someone else to be the boogeyman.

Argentina sees any future war with the SAE as a lost cuase. Without a serious concerted land offensive on both sides and a series of naval victories winning is almost impossible.

Besides, Argentina sees the Brazil as unreliable as a war ally. The Brazilian Navy gave little account of itself and was either sunk in port or made little impact. The Army was unreliable too, it mutinied and split apart just as the war entered the critical phase and Brazil sought terms leaving Argentina alone and forced to accept peace terms. In Argentina's view the Brazilian Army is too big and its not a professional army and lacks modern weapons and leadership. At the moment most of the soldiers must be uneducated peasant stock in uniform (I'm thinking along the lines of Red Army) which might be easy to lead but they lack imagination and they require good leadership.
The fact the Argentine Army has shrunk is indicitve of personnel shortages and lack of good qauilty soldiers.

Brazil would point out to the Argentines that the Brazilian Army did in fact shrink post-SA War in comparison to what it was before, at least on paper (1). Brazil quite frankly is disappointed with the Argentine Army as well, the Brazilian Army did make an effort to do some offensives, yet the Argentine Army just twiddled their thumbs behind their fortifications while the Brazilians had to take on the Afrikaaners by themselves. The Brazilian Navy wishes it had the luxury of having an additional 10 years like the Argentine Navy had to build up, and feels it gave the best account of itself considering it was right in the middle of a its buildup when the Argentines decided to go start a war with the Afrikaaners.

To be honest, the Brazilians wish the Afrikaaners would just leave South America so that they can go back to hating the Spainsh-speakers instead of being in an uphappy alliance for no other reason that they would rather keep their potential enemies closer than their current ones.

(1) I am going under the assumption that the Brazilian Army numbered 30 divisions throughout the SA War.

Argentina's prime focus was driving the RSAA forces out of Southern Paraguay, a job that was quite successfully undertaken.
Further south some territory was lost and certainly it was under constant RSAA pressure and probing attacks. Argentine analysis indicates the RSAA saw the bigger Brazilian Army as a threat and so they countered that Army first. They had much great success towards the end of the conflict, the RSAF aerial attacks never having been too severe to crumble Argentine defences and allow an RSAA armour spearhead and general offensive to break through.

The war's origins were largely by accident, if those naval engagements hadn't of been made (or that first shot not hit the RSAN patrol boat but rather go across the bows as planned) then perhaps a war would never have started. At least not in Jan 35 anyway...

Argentina too wishes SAE would leave but its obvious than Grand Uruguay even as an independent nation would be socially and culturally alien to the rest of South America and would look to her old motherland as a source of economic and military support forevermore. History is history and we must learn to get along with it. Today relations with Chile and SAE (both of which were distant before the war) are perhaps the warmest they have ever been.