The Americans have a very basic problem, especially their Army, which is at war without being at war, unlike their Navy which is at present engaged in what appears to be a life or death struggle with the Japanese. The Navy has somewhat forgotten that in the end the productive capacity of America alone far exceeds that of Japan, and combined with the British Empire, they can eventually build ships and crew them faster than the Japanese could sink them. They are without doubt in for a very hard time over the next year, and it’s going to be at least two years before they are able to build and crew major vessels. Smaller vessels such as destroyers, frigates, gunboats and torpedo boats, along with the first Woolworth carriers, should start to appear in numbers inside of eighteen months. The American Navy much as the Royal Navy, has during the lean years of the inter war period, had the majority of the defence budget spent on it, and stands ready for the major expansion its going to go through. The American Army on the other hand had been staved off funding during the depression, and unlike the USMC who had been involved in a number of minor conflicts. Essentially only used to suppress internal conflicts, such as the Bonus Riots, other than in the Philippines, they were in comparison to the Armies of every other major power small. Even the British Army was pre war larger than the American Army, and had had more money spent on it proportionally, plus the extensive British Empire insured that the majority had seen some service, against more than civilian rioters.
The resent introduction in America of the Selective Service Act, has started the expansion of the American Army, into the major force it will become in time, making it one of the largest and best equipped, supplied Armies ever seen in the world. While the Soviet Army will be larger, it will not be as well equipped or supplied as the Americans. Nor will it be called upon to fight in as many different places or geographical areas as the Americans. Only the British Imperial forces will rival it for the different areas, equipment and supplies, that they bring to the table. However right now the Americans are seriously behind not only their potential enemies, but also their allies, in that they lack the experience and resources, to bring them into the premier league. They have a number of choices, they can split their present divisions in to two or three, using the existing troops to form the core of the new divisions. However this has a number of problems, any such divisions will have to remain in the Continental United States, until they have, been fully equipped, filled out with recruits and conducted the majority of their training. And this is going to take time, time to put the recruits through basic, advanced and trade training, along with fully integrating them into their units and run a number of increasingly complex exercises. The Army will be lucky if it can produce deployable divisions this way in under a year, and it’s going to take close to eighteen months for those divisions to have completed corps size exercises as well.
The American Army can by filling up Guard divisions with Selective Service Men, send a number of them overseas to complete their training, and receive their full complement of equipment. And thus relieve British divisions that are fully formed and equipped to take up active duties. And so I would expect ITTL just as IOTL, the first American division to be sent to the UK, will find itself landing in Belfast. This has two advantages, it relieves a British division of active service, while making cooperation between the Southern Irish military in the event of a German invasion, highly unlikely I know, much easier. As it would be Americans crossing the border to assist the Irish, and not the hated Brits, who even though the Irish high command mostly didn’t have a problem with, there was a large number of the civilians did. Unfortunately for the Americans there isn’t an active front at present where Americans can be sent to be blooded, or the possibility of an invasion against a second line army such as the Vichy French. That would allow them a gentle introduction to modern warfare, any invasion would mean very green Americans rapidly encountering first line Germans, and suffering some serious reversals. At the same time the Americans lack a tank that can go toe to toe with ether the panzer III, or IV, and their highly experienced crews, without getting seriously hurt. The M3 medium, is definitely not the tank to deploy to Europe, though it’s hull will be ideal to base the American SP field gun on. At present the American Army isn’t equipped or trained to fight in Europe, and the only region that it is equipped for, is one that the British would much rather it stayed away from, as it doesn’t need the complications of having American forces in what it regards as its own turf.
RR.