Ready for El Alamein: ideal British tanks

[DonL]

@ parsifal

I want to tell you some first hand information that I could get as very young man from Veterans, from the Desert and Russia.

My Grandfarther was at the "Aufklärungsabteilung" 20th mot. infantry Division and as young man I was every year with him to Veteran meetings.

I have confronted the Veterans with my havy criticism about the intoduction of the 3,7-cm-PaK 36 (1936) as main ATG for the Infantry Units of the Wehrmacht, although there was at that time many men, that warned it was a too weak ATG (especially as main ATG) and the 5-cm-PaK 38 should be introduced instead as main ATG.

All Veterans agreed with me that the 3,7-cm-PaK 36 was obselete as main ATG since the France campain, but they told me, that the 3,7-cm-PaK 36 was a very deadly and effective weapon to dug Infantry.
ATG positions, MG positions ansd small bunkers were attacked very effective with the 3,7-cm-PaK 36 with direct shooting. Also the 3,7-cm-PaK 36 could be easily moved with manpower.

All Veterans agreed that they wanted more 5-cm-PaK 38 as main ATG (1940/1941) against tanks, but they all sayed in union they don't want to miss the the 3,7-cm-PaK 36 as a very effective weapon against infantry, they all rated it much higher then the 7,5-cm-leichtes Infanteriegeschütz 18, because of the possibility of direct shooting and the possibility to move it in a near position to the enemy from manpower.

This wasn't told to me one or two times, but rather all spoken Veterans agreed with this statement.
They wanted more 5-cm-PaK 38 as main ATG, but also wanted a certain numbers of the 3,7-cm-PaK 36 as effective weapon against dug Infantry.

What is your opinion to this statements?

 

[yulzari]

DonL
This resonates with my being told by british veterans of 1945 that they asked for more Boys A/T rifles as they could be easily moved on foot to fire into protected german defensive positions but be able to stand off from return SA fire. These days the term is anti materiel rifles.

 

[Shortround6]

I will go out on a limb and speculate as to why this may be so.

We have 3 weapons in question, two are very similar in weight. The 3.7-cm-PaK 36 and the 7.5 cm le.IG 18. The 5 cm PaK 38 is about double the weight and while it can be man-handled it is obviously in a somewhat different category. This does not include ammo. For a given weight the 3.7-cm-PaK 36 will give many more shots even though each is less effective.

Going for the two light weight guns the 3.7-cm-PaK 36 is much easier to use. It is direct fire, it has a "point blank" range of about 835-840 meters ( distance over which the round will neither rise above or fall below a tank sized target) it has 60 degrees of traverse making initial placement a bit less critical. With a bit of elevation if could reach out several thousand yds (about the limit of observation for the crew near the gun) with no other "fiddling". Max listed range is pretty useless without forward observers and a radio/field phone net which over complicates things for this type gun.

The 7.5 cm le.IG 18 on the other hand fired a much more useful shell but at a much lower velocity which limited it's "point blank" range to about 230 meters. Trying to get a shell into a gun slit/window/embrasure is going to be much more difficult. It could use it's 'charge' system ( propelling charge was in 5 increments?) to lob shells into open topped pits much easier than the 3.7cm but this sort of thing needed trained artillery men/ range charts/ observers and so on. It was more of a breech loading mortar that could be fired direct. It's 12 degrees of traverse also meant that initial alignment with the target was more critical. It could provide a different sort of support to infantry than the 3.7cm gun. A bit slower in response, but faster than trying to get support from Division or Corp. It also had a practical rate of fire about 1/2-2/3 the AT guns.

The 5-cm-PaK 38 fired an HE round with a little over 6 times the HE of 3.7cm but that still left it at about 1/3 or less of the HE of the 7.5 cm le.IG 18. You were not going to destroy bunkers or field fortifications with either of the smaller guns unless you could get the projectile inside the position. The 7.5cm caliber was the smallest practical size for destroying field fortifications but that does not mean it was done with a single shot. The extra weight of the 5cm-PaK 38 and it's ammunition probably made it less than popular for infantry support work for parts of the war, it offered little more practical range for infantry support work than the 3.7cm.

My thoughts and they could be wrong.

 

[parsifal]

Hmm, we do have a bit of a dilemma here. i do accept the accounts that you cite, but the people I have spoken to that fought on our side at tobruk were untroubled by the AFV mounted 3.7 and 50mm fire at their positions. And from phoitgraphic evidence, many of the "dug in" Infantry positions were not that well prepreed....sometimes just a gully, a depression in the ground, a slit trench, or even just a few rocks or sand bags thrown up in great haste. Of course the tobruk position did also have some parts of its line very well fortified. But the attacks in April '41 were against relatively unfortified positions. German direct fire support in those battles was considered very inneffective, and not because of crew failures or anything. It was a failure of the guns. Infantry positions that came under direct fire from tank mounted ATGS and MGs were pinned until nightfal usually, but then again, they could keep the German tanks pinned in return from 2pdr fire, and fire over open "sights" from the captured artillery positions (actually the captured guns did not have any ranging or sighting equipment, but the approach routes had been marked prior to the batle and this fire by the "bush artillery as it was called separated the panzergrenadiers from their tanks). The Australians then used the night and incessant artillery barrage to mask the repositioning of their armour (some of which was simply truck mounted 2 pdrs) to knock quite a few of the Germans AFVs the next morning and forced them to withdraw, leaviung the lead elements of motorised Infantry unsupported and outflanked. I forget how many tanks, but the prisoner haul was several thousand.

I know that is in direcdt contradiction to what you are saying. I dont doubt that there were experiences that ran completely different to our own.

Perhaps there is no universal rule that we can apply to every situation

 

[stug3]

A Valentine tank crew relax after an action near Bou Arada, 13 January 1943.

A Valentine tank towing a trailer leads a column of lorries on the El Aroussa-Bou Arada road, 18 January 1943.

Tanks and vehicles advance toward Tripoli for the final battle of the campaign, 21 January 1943. In the foreground is a lorry-mounted 6pdr anti-tank gun.

A Chevrolet FAT (Field Artillery Tractor) towing a 25-pdr leads a column of other vehicles on a road during the 8th Army's approach to Azizia, south of Tripoli, 27 January 1943.

 

[stug3]

Anti-aircraft fire over Algiers during a night raid.

 

[fastmongrel]

Hi stug3 great pics keep them coming. I think you might have labelled the picture of the gun tractor wrong in post #185 it looks to me more like a Morris C8 Quad. Its very hard to tell because there is so much kit strapped to it but the Morris had a flush side with an angle form the front of the cab to the bodythe Chevrolet had a step in the side with the cab being narrower than the body and no angle. Mind there were so many variants that its very hard to distinguish, the main difference between the two is the windscreen which is angled back on the Morris and forward on the Chevrolet.

I really like the Canadian Military Pattern trucks. People talk about a particular war winning weapon but forget that without a supply train your army is going nowhere and your fancy tank turns into a metal road block. Canada's truck building efforts (nearly a million vehicles iirc) did more than anything else Canada did to win the war.

Morris C8 Quad FAT

Chevrolet 8440 CMP FAT

 

[stug3]

I dont know about the trucks fm, I usually post the captions along with the pics as I find them on the interwebs.

 

[stug3]

A Matilda in the Western Desert, recaptured in Bardia, 3 January 1942.

I see at least 4 balkenkreuz on that sucker, they were probably more worried about 88s looking at them the wrong way than anything else.

 

[vinnye]

I believe the German Army often used captured Allied Tanks for training purposes etc.
If they had sufficient numbers of them, they would use them in combat.
The Matilda was quite well thought of by some German crews because it was very resilient to their usual anti tank guns and rounds. At Dunkirk a counter attackby Matildas in the German flank caused great concern as they advanced with German shells bouncing off them. They were finally stopped by 88mm anti aircraft guns being depressed to shoot at them. Even a Matilda was no match for an 88!

 

[tomo pauk]

IIRC the Arras was the place, the other British tanks playing the role there, too, eg. Matilda I (the MG armed predecessor).

 

[parsifal]

It was a litle more complex than just the 88s stopping the British, and British tend not to acknowledge that the french, though late for the initial attack, saved the british in the latter stages of the battle.

The broad progress of the battle was as follows

During the afternoon of 21 May, the attack by the 50th Division and the 1st Tank Brigade was undetaken by a small detachment known as "Frankforce" and was progressing progressing south from Arras. This was to be the only large scale attack mounted by the BEF during the campaign. The attack was supposed to be mounted by two infantry divisions, comprising about 15,000 men. It was ultimately executed by just two infantry battalions, the 6th and 8th Battalions Durham Light Infantry supporting the 4th and 7th Royal Tank Regiment, totalling around 2,000 men, and reinforced by 74 tanks (some Matilda IIs). The infantry battalions were split into two columns for the attack. The right column initially made rapid progress, taking a number of German prisoners, but they soon ran into German infantry and SS, backed by air support, and took heavy losses.

The left column also enjoyed early success before running into opposition from the infantry units of Generalmajor Erwin Rommel's 7th Panzer Division. The defending forces—elements of motorized SS regiment "Totenkopf" (later to be expanded into SS-Division Totenkopf)—panicked after seeing their AT fire was inneffectivem nd they were overrun, their standard 37 mm (1.46 in) PaK 36/37 anti-tank guns proving ineffective against the heavily-armoured British Matilda tank. Rommel committed some of his armour to local counterattacks, only to find the guns of the Panzer II and Panzer 38(t) tanks could not penetrate the Matildas' armour. Desperate to prevent a British breakthrough, Rommel ordered the division's 88 mm (3.46 in) FlaK 18 anti-aircraft guns and 105 mm (4.1 in) field guns be formed into a defensive line and fire anti-tank and HE rounds in a last-ditch effort to stop the Matildas. The BEF's advance was halted with heavy losses. Then, with Luftwaffe support, Rommel launched a counter-attack, driving the British back. Frankforce had been repulsed.

The Germans pursued the British but were halted by French armour from the 3rd Light Mechanised Division (3rd DLM). The Somuas of the French formation saw the German forces stopped cold. French cover enabled British troops to withdraw to their former positions that night. Frankforce took around 400 German prisoners and inflicted a similar number of casualties, as well as destroying a number of tanks. Later on 23 May the 3rd DLM launched its own attack to try to exploit British success. The Luftwaffe and German reinforcements defeated the attack.

The operation had punched far beyond its weight; the attack was so fierce that 7. Panzerdivision after action reports state that it was believed it had been attacked by five infantry divisions. The attack made the German commanders nervous, and it appears to have been one of the factors for the surprise German halt on 24 May that gave the BEF the slimmest of opportunities to begin evacuation from Dunkirk.

The battle is historically credited with shaking the confidence of the German High Command (OKW). Rommel is noted to have written a report of an attack by hundreds of Allied tanks, which was likely a contributing factor to the halt of the German offensive for 24 hours (though Hermann Göring's promises that the Luftwaffe could finish off Dunkirk was also a major factor). The main British force consisted of only 58 machine gun armed Matilda Is and 16 QF 2-pounder gun armed Matilda IIs supported by a few lighter armoured vehicles. All but 1 of the tank losses were in Matilda Is I believe (according to the batallion histories at least). The delay by the OKW is one of the main reasons for the success of Operation Dynamo. For this reason, Frankforce, in spite of being repulsed, could be considered one of the few allied successes of the 1940 French campaign. In total, more than 40 British and 20 French tanks were lost in the battle, compared to roughly 12 lost by the Germans. Rommel noted in his diary that his division had lost 89 men killed, 116 wounded and 173 missing and captured.

While the British lost around 100 men killed or wounded in the attack, it is unknown how many French soldiers became casualties in the engagement,and how many casulaties they inflicted or prisoners they took. . The Germans lost 700 men, of which 400 were captured, all these were to British forces. The French successes are not included. These successes were mainly in the initial stages of the battle before the 88 mm FlaK 18s were brought about to engage the British forces.

Despite common misconception, the FlaK 18 was not used for the first time as an anti-tank gun at Arras. Several years earlier, during the Spanish Civil War, the German volunteer unit Condor Legion had used FlaK 18s against armour and other ground targets. Rommel realised the defensive power of the FlaK 18 and used it to great effect during his time commanding the Afrika Korps. Flak 18s would have been inneffective if they had not been issued with AT ammo before the battle. The Germans certainly already knew of its great AT potential, and had taken steps to exploit it.

On the British side, both Tank regiments that had participated were immediately reconstituted as Matilda II regiments.

•The 4th under their new Commanding Officer, W A O'Carroll DSO, and a new RSM Short, were re-organised and equipped at Twesledown near Aldershot before moving to East Grinstead to prepare for home defence.

•The 7th under their new Commanding Officer, R M Jerram DSO MC, Adjutant Capt (later Maj Gen) "Jock" Holden, and their existing RSM Fowler, also moved first to Twesledown. They then trained for six months in Braco, Scotland being despatched midway through that training to in August 1940 to Egypt.
.
The 7th sailed from Liverpool on 21 August 1940 for Egypt, their new Matilda Mk 2s sailing at the same time in a fast merchant ship. The small convoy, escorted from Cape Town by the appropriately named Australian cruiser "Hobart", arrived at Port Said on 24 September
battle hardened veterans now, with a superior tank, they were dangerous opponents for the Italians.....

Pictured is an image of the one of 7 RTRs Matildas being unloaded at Port Said.

 

[vinnye]

Thankyou for the thorough reply Parsifal.
I was aware that the French were originally supposed to attack at the same time as the BEF units - but probably due to poor communication, that did not happen.
I was not aware that the French units had arrived to support the BEF units when they were forced to retreat by the LW and German Army units.
As you stated in your post the effect of this attack caused the OKW to delay their tanks progress whilst they re-evaluated the situation.
Not a bad result for such a little force!

 

[parsifal]

They are not all my words, pinched bits from various sources, including wiki, but the accounts are all cross referenced and cross checked, I can assure people.

I wouldnt state categorically that the attack at Arras caused the delay, but it at least gauned some time at a critical moment. I think Gorings bombastic claims were more the reason for the german eventual failure to bag the BEF

 

[Shortround6]

The Blitzkrieg was still in it's infancy. The leading units of the German army were pressing close to the British and French units but much of the infantry were miles behind. There were large gaps in the German "held/occupied" areas ( using the terms loosely) and some German generals (usually in the rear) feared the leading elements could be cut off. This would have required better co-ordination than the British and French had shown so far but war is full of the unexpected. There may also be a question of just how combat ready those lead elements were. How full were their fuel tanks and ammo racks and how many of their broken down tanks caught up during the halt?

After all Joachim Peiper would have won the Battle of the Bulge with just a few more drums of fuel, right

 

[parsifal]

The Battle of France was a battle of contrasts. Generally contrast between German excellence and Allied myopathy.

Arras was the exception to the rule. The Germans were there in considerable strength, and resisted strongly, but were caught off guard by the British, which on this one occasion (up to that point), got their act together and were able to deliver a (relatively) co-ordinated attack, albeit on a woefully inadequate scale. Britsh troops had shown themselves fairly equal to the task defensively, but were inneffective in an offensive role, as were the French.

Hitler , after the completion of the French campaign, in a conversation with Ciano described the British as good soldiers, very stubborn, but miserably led. I would accept that as a reasonable assessment.

Heree and there though there were glimmers of superior leadership in the British Army. It would take another three years of bitter experiences for those dim sparks of leadership to ignite into a full fires of initiative and effective combat performance.

 

[tomo pauk]

Fine posts, parsifal, many thanks.

 

[stug3]

The crew of a Humber Mk II armoured car open fire against enemy aircraft. Bombs can be seen exploding in the distance, 4 January 1943.

A lorry carrying infantry leaving the outskirts of Tarhuna during the advance towards Tripoli, 25 January 1943.

 

[stug3]

From The Rommel Papers
Rommel was about to be removed from his command. On the 28th January he wrote to his wife:

Dearest Lu

In a few days I shall be giving up command of the army to an Italian, for the sole reason that " my present state of health does not permit me to carry on." Of course it's really for quite other reasons, principally that of prestige. I have done all I can to maintain the theatre of war, in spite of the indescribable difficulties in all fields. I am deeply sorry for my men. They were very dear to me.

Physically, I am not too well. Severe headaches and overstrained nerves, on top of the circulation trouble, allow me no rest. Professor Horster is giving me sleeping draughts and helping as far as he can. Perhaps I'll have a few weeks to recover, though with the situation as it is in the East, what one would like is to be in the front line.


A piper of the Gordon Highlanders plays from a Valentine tank as it drives into Tripoli past crowds of cheering locals, 26 January 1943

Sherman tanks during the advance along the coast road towards Tripoli, 27 January 1943.

The crew of a 40mm Bofors anti-aircraft gun watch the sky after a Stuka raid during the 8th Army's advance on Tripoli, 29 January 1943

 

[stug3]

An American soldier advances cautiously at left with a sub-machine gun to cover any attempt of the German tank crew from escaping their fiery prison inside their tank following a duel with U.S. and British anti-tank units in Medjez al Bab area, Tunisia, on January 12, 1943.