Individual- Yes I had to get some metalwork done some time back- and yes I rang quite a few places. 15 mm hole quite large- sounds like the drilling could be a job for a plasma torch- they used to do it using a oxy kit and a metal cone apparently. Many people might just drill many holes and bastard file it- but a fair bit of work for thick plate- and 5 holes.

Have you tried these guys (I expect they're the first ones you tried) they say they do custom lengths and holes and they have a presence in Cairns and Townsville.

http://www.sqsteel.com.au/contact/
http://www.sqsteel.com.au/steel-supplier-products/steel-plate/

Anyway looks like you are getting it from Sydney.

Ebay also sells odd sized mild steel plate but you've got the shipping.

I wasn't sure about the full dimensions

SR,

Now you are just lying. No one has claimed that "Australians were none the wiser about Hitler's intentions". You are the moron insisting that everyone else knew that war was inevitable. The final act of appeasement was the transfer of the majority of German Sudetenland to Germany from Czechoslovakia.

The reality is that Chamberlain and Menzies both knew that war was a likely outcome but believed that it would be negligent not to try as far as possible to avoid the conflict that killed between 35 and 50 million people.

Secondly, your claim that Menzies was a fascist apologist is an outright lie which the letter to his sister does not support.

SR demonstrates that he understands the period in the same way as my budgie understand nuclear fusion. It was well known at that time that the German war machine was being designed around a Blitzkrieg strategy. German generals had, after all, written books and articles on it as had the more farsighted British thinkers like Liddell-Hart and Fuller. So SR's newspaper quote is hardly unique.

But he claims that it shows that people knew of Germany's intent while in fact it doesn't mention intent at all.

Again, SR makes the rookie mistake of thinking the people of 1938 had knowledge of 1939. They didn't and most believed peace was still possible. Any even rudimentary understanding of the period would make that clear.

_____________________________________________________________

Whenever SR offers a quote without a link, you can be 100% sure its because he's hiding something in the quote. 100% sure.

Here's some other parts of the article he uses....

"The German army and the German people are not to-day in any condition to fight any major, war, “llghtnlng” or otherwise, without probability of defeat and collapse."

"So, for the time being, anyhow, the blitzkrieg is off, for the simple reason that the German army is not capable of executing it. "

So poor old SR, desperate to find something to back up his daffy notions, selectively quotes from an article that utterly refutes his daffy notions.

This, by the way, is the article SR hide....

http://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/236396694?searchTerm=Germany%20is%20in%20no%20shape

When your main aim is to try to cover your previous errors, inevitably you make more errors. When your main aim is to try to hide your previous foolishness, inevitably you end up looking more foolish.

Dear mhaze,

Well that got a laugh.

Firstly whenever anyone directly quotes as I do (and you don't) it is extremely simple exercise to look up the article or site, something you just illustrated. There was of course no attempt to hide anything.

I quoted the article as saying "Germany is in no shape at
all to wage a major, prolonged war."

Which was only repeated in the sentences you claim I had left out to confused the issue.

"The German army and the German people are not to-day in any condition to fight any major, war, “lightning” or otherwise, without probability of defeat and collapse." "So, for the time being, anyhow, the blitzkrieg is off, for the simple reason that the German army is not capable of executing it."

I culled some repetition and because your arguments have been shredded you are trying to make the case these refuted my argument. Absolute rot.

And all this coming from a bloke whose only offerings to substantiate his assertions was some dimly remembered National Times articles from decades ago and a book you can't provide a singe quote from.

You really are a piece of work aren't you. Grow up.

BTW even SM seems not to be buying what you are selling: "The reality is that Chamberlain and Menzies both knew that war was a likely outcome".

Well again SR, I'd point out that neither the article nor your selective quoting from it suggest anything about German intentions and most certainly nothing about their intentions in the then near future. Indeed when you look at the parts that you selectively skipped, it's clear that the author is saying the opposite of what you insinuated - ie that the Germans were unable to fight any type of war and had no intention of doing so. Whereas you insinuated through selective quoting that they were ready to fight a blitzkrieg war.

As I said, when you try to hide your foolishness, it just makes you look more foolish.

Funny that your defence for trying to distort the quote is that anyone prepared to investigate will easily be able to discover the distortion. "Yes, your honour, I did hide the knife. But that doesn't mean anything because anyone prepared to comb through the bush would have easily found it".

I'm not going to spend any more time of you on this issue since you've now painted yourself into a corner and aren't prepared to even think about admitting error. But the fact is that in Sept 38, the vast majority of western leadership were of the view that war had been averted for the foreseeable future and possibly for good. Your claim that war was inevitable in 1939 and that it was evident to all but a few, is hopelessly wrong and doesn't stand up to even a rudimentary understanding of history or that period. That the best you could come up with to support your argument is an article that also says that war was unlikely due to German unpreparedness, demonstrates just how wrong you are on this.