Britain and its commonwealth was not ready for a large scale war in the mid nineteen thirties.  Land, Sea and Air doctrines were still based on the hard learned lessons of WW1.  Even with homegrown innovations such as Mills Looms for webbing, newer kit was hard to justify and execute.  The BEF entering France in 1939 looked very different the Commonwealth combined arms in North Africa and Italy and different again entering Normandy via D-Day - the inertia of the sudden end of the forecast protracted war in the specific gained even more technology and kit advances - Pattern 44 webbing components would go on to serve al the way to the early 1990's and Gulf War.