It amazes me that so many people still believe this old chestnut.MarkN wrote: Tank design was primarily limited by the requirement that tanks could be transported by rail through/under standard British guage tunnels and bridges. Is that a design parameter dictated by the need to maximise military effect (on the continent or elsewhere) or to 'fit' peacetime soldiering in the UK? Or was it assumed mechanised warfare wuld only be practised on, and for the defense of, the British mainland?
Feinians, zionists and Indian civilians?MarkN wrote:Nothing to do with British commanders not being mentally prepared for a major war against a major competitor...Attrition wrote:There was no rival industrial power to arm against after 1918, so no need for big tanks. Massacring civilians is a low-tech activity.
Quote from the book you mentionned (my bold and underline)...The system was, at best, designed for peacetime soldiering and colonial policing, at worst, simply broken.Added to problems involving the interpretation of doctrine were the myriad of practical obstacles that hindered realistic training both before and during the war. They were made much worse because too much responsibility for training was left in the hands of individual commanders. Some were energetic and committed trainers who tried to make training realistic and interesting for their troops. But many others did not share their enthusiasm or commitment and the preparation of their troops for battle suffered accordingly. Senior British officers did not lack professional ambition. Those who rose to command formations after 1939 had worked hard to pass the necessary examinations to enter the Staff College, for possession of a coveted psc certificate became almost the sine qua non of high command. But, what they did all too often lack was adequate training at the tactical and operational level of war. Although most divisional commanders and their seniors had received the best professional training that the army had to offer by passing through the Staff College, the training they received there was defective. The Staff College devoted too much time to preparing officers to be strategists, rather than to training them to be divisional and corps commanders. At a lower level, the battalion and brigade commanders of the expanded wartime army were supposed to be provided from the ranks of the ‘middle piece officers’ of the pre-war regular army. That some of them did not function successfully was not the result of the fact that they were without professional ambition, or because they looked upon soldiering as a pleasant pastime, or because they saw the army as a refuge from the modern world. They failed because the inter-war army had not created a system to ensure that they received the appropriate training for their new role. Critics of the regimental system have exaggerated the ways in which it inhibited combined arms co-operation in the same way that its supporters have exaggerated the extent to which it sustained morale in the wartime army. It was the lack of opportunity given to the different arms to train together, not inter-arm or interregimental jealousy, which inhibited combined arms co-operation. When units did have the chance to train together, co-operation was usually good. When combined arms co-operation failed, the regimental system served as a convenient excuse to hide more intractable problems.
It's not really that it's not true, but it is something of a cart before the horse argument. All heavy equipment in all nations was restricted by loading gauge of the country's railway in some way or another...after all, the railway was there long before the tank was and was the preferred method of moving tanks long distances from factories to wherever. The restriction was formally removed by the War Office in March 1942 under the presumption that motorized tank transporters would be able to take up the slack. Of course, if you want the extreme of the argument, the U.S. Army restricted the size of American light tank designs to under 7 tons until the mid 1930s, since that was the maximum size it was presumed could be hauled about in the bed of a truck. And two major U.S. Ordnance Depots at Letterkenny and Tobyhanna Pennsylvania, were selected precisely because there no railroad tunnel or bridge restrictions between them and the ports of Philadelphia and Baltimore.MarkN wrote:So it's not true? Where, and how, did the myth originate?
5th Leichte, Ariete and Brescia versus about half of 2nd Armoured.MarkN wrote: Was it "a 3-1 force inferiority?" I don't think it was.
That's marginally more informative than 11 5RTR tanks taking on 140 German panzers.Gooner1 wrote: 5th Leichte, Ariete and Brescia versus about half of 2nd Armoured.
Raugh p. 185 letter from Wavell to O'Connor 27 June 1945never realised until [he] went out [to Cyrenaica] in the middle of March the deplorable state of the tanks of the 2nd [Armoured] Division. Only 50% of them were runners, and the organisation of the Italian M.13 tanks was still quite incomplete. Both in Cyrenaica and in Greece, the 2nd Division tanks broke down immediately they were asked to move under active service conditions; they were in fact completely worn out before they ever left England.
Well waddaya want, a detailed OB?MarkN wrote:That's marginally more informative than 11 5RTR tanks taking on 140 German panzers.Gooner1 wrote: 5th Leichte, Ariete and Brescia versus about half of 2nd Armoured.
Nope. An honest and undistorted analysis of the opposing forces would be appreciated.Gooner1 wrote: Well waddaya want, a detailed OB?
From the D.A.K. war diary entry of 31 March:Gooner1 wrote: German 5th Light Division
5th Panzer Regiment
I Battalion
II Battalion
Regiment z.b.V. 200
2nd Machinegun Battalion
8th Machinegun Battalion
Division Troops
3rd Reconnaissance Battalion
39th Anti-tank Battalion (3 companies, each with 8 x 37L45, 3 x 50L60 AT guns)
200th Engineer Battalion
II Battalion, 75th Artillery Regiment (3 batteries, each with 4 x 105L28 howitzers)
Corps Troops
605th Anti-Tank Battalion (SP) (3 companies, each with 9 x Panzerjaeger Ib)
606th Light Antiaircraft Battalion (SP) (2 batteries, each with 12 x SdKfz 10/4)
II Battalion, 33rd Antiaircraft (Flak) Regiment (Luftwaffe) (3 heavy batteries, each
with 4 x 88L56; 2 light batteries, each with 8 x 20L113)
