The "lost" battle of Mersa el Brega, Libyan desert, 31 March

[Urmel]

Those plates did not appear before the arrival of 15.PD I believe though, and in numbers it may not have been until CRUSADER (we had discussions on this in another thread here). So it depends on when Gen. Sarracino compiled the information for his report. Until early May there would have been no experience in how FH armour performs against the 2-pdr.

[ClintHardware]

Not re-equipping and re-fielding 2nd Armoured Division was a choice made in terms of available resources and also a realisation that the OOB of Armoured Divisions needed updating away from 2 Armoured Brigades and a Support Group.

Just noted that. Yet in Crusader 7 Armoured went into battle with 2 armoured brigades (7&22) and 1 support group, and 1 Armoured was structured as a 2 armoured (1 & 22) and 1 support group division as well when it was slated for service in the ME, it is just that sending of 22 Armoured Brigade was expedited.

The disbandment of 2nd Support Group in mid-May 1941 in Egypt was the very first war time Armd Division OOB change made by the British Army according to Lieutenant-Colonel Joslen. Its units were re-employed in other formations (no fighting unit had been captured wholesale). Rather than the reduction of numbers of armoured brigades it was the number of tanks ready to be issued that caused the redundancy of the 2nd Armd Div along with the realisation that 1st Armd Div would arrive with their tanks in the months to come of which 22nd Armd Bde arrived in October 1941. As you know, the change from two down to one Armoured Brigades would not occur until much later. Joslen's highly detailed 500 A4 pages for his book OOB British Army (HMSO) gives a very good explanation of armoured divisions and brigades and changes were introduced for brigades/support groups/motor brigades as battle and equipment and units present allowed. The UK based armoured divisions tended to implement the changes ahead of those in North Africa.

On another point Joslen's book has helped me find "missing" units such as the 4th Royal Northumberland Fusiliers and the 1st Rangers. On first site Joslen's book looks really dull but I have referred to it a lot over the last five years to look up details.

[ClintHardware]

Hi Mechili

Along with your penetration data do you have data on the armour plate and angles of impact used in the tests? The penetration data I have for each type of round and gun you quote is less than yours at most ranges and angles. Your data looks like 0 degrees of impact in each case. The data I have began with Jentz's data from TCinNA and then got added to with other data found in 1941 War Diaries and reports. Also are your 2-Pdr rounds APCBC issued from September 1942 rather than 1941 2-Pdr AP Shot and the earlier 1940-41 APHE?

[Urmel]

Not re-equipping and re-fielding 2nd Armoured Division was a choice made in terms of available resources and also a realisation that the OOB of Armoured Divisions needed updating away from 2 Armoured Brigades and a Support Group.

Rather than the reduction of numbers of armoured brigades it was the number of tanks ready to be issued that caused the redundancy of the 2nd Armd Div[...]

That's my point exactly. I don't see any evidence that it had anything to do with 'updating the OOB of armoured divisions', as you stated.

[Don Juan]

Hi Mechili

Along with your penetration data do you have data on the armour plate and angles of impact used in the tests? The penetration data I have for each type of round and gun you quote is less than yours at most ranges and angles. Your data looks like 0 degrees of impact in each case. The data I have began with Jentz's data from TCinNA and then got added to with other data found in 1941 War Diaries and reports. Also are your 2-Pdr rounds APCBC issued from September 1942 rather than 1941 2-Pdr AP Shot and the earlier 1940-41 APHE?

There was no 2 pdr APCBC available in September 1942, and I doubt there was any available in ME even by May 1943, unless in very small quantities. GHQ MEF were certainly complaining about its unavailability in April 1943.

The first definite evidence I have of its availability is that there were 55,000 rounds recorded in War Office Depots by the end of June 1943 - I suspect most, and possibly all, of these were in the UK.

They'd managed to create a proper HE shell for the 2 pdr by this time as well, with 30,000 in WO Depots.

[ClintHardware]

Hi Urmel

It is Lieutenant-Colonel Joslen who stated that 2nd Sp Gp's disbandment was the first change in the series of the changes of the OOB of British Armd Divs.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Orders-Battle-S ... +of+battle

That change was the first of a series made from combat experience that later included the armoured brigade reductions and are also noted in Joslen's book. The later reductions were not based on the availability of tanks but on mobility, control and balance of firepower. Sorry if I confused my explanation.

[ClintHardware]

Hi Mechili

Was the May 1943 complaint about the lack of APCBC due to not having enough or that they had never received it? Do you have a date when it was first issued in the ME?

[Urmel]

Hi Urmel

It is Lieutenant-Colonel Joslen who stated that 2nd Sp Gp's disbandment was the first change in the series of the changes of the OOB of British Armd Divs.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Orders-Battle-S ... +of+battle

That change was the first of a series made from combat experience that later included the armoured brigade reductions and are also noted in Joslen's book. The later reductions were not based on the availability of tanks but on mobility, control and balance of firepower. Sorry if I confused my explanation.

Sorry, where does he say that? I have the edition you linked, on p. 216 it says simply 'On 17 April HQ returned to Egypt and was disbanded on 18 May'.

[Urmel]

Further to this, on p.213 it says that in Feb.42 the Spt. Grps. were abolished in the ME. This is almost certainly based on CRUSADER experience. Can you explain how disbandment on 18 May 41 is undertaken as the first series of that change?

[ClintHardware]

Hi Urmel

Apologies it is not in Joslen but it is in the 2nd Support Group War Diary which makes it even stronger as evidence:

The 2nd Support Group War Diary (WO 169/1159) contains these entries: -

2nd Support Group H.Q. Tahag Camp, Egypt

May
12 [th] Message from GHQ received stating that 2 RHA, 1 Rangers and NH were to come under comd 1st Armd Bde.

16 [th] Private and official mail received from England dated Nov 1940.

18 [th] Communication received from GHQ, Tps Mob. Centre, that HQ 2nd Support Group was to be disbanded in the scheme for R.A.C. re-organisation and 1 THR to come under comd 1st Armd Bde. (WO 169/1159)

The reference "scheme for R.A.C. re-organisation " indicates this was not just a local re-allocation of units but part of the R.A.C's re-thinking of the Armd Div OOB. However, changes could only take place out of battle as time and units present and their equipment allowed.

7th Armd Div was already re-committed in battle with 7th Support Group until Feb 1942 when it too was disbanded 9 months after 2nd Support Group.

I was sure it was in Joslen - sorry for wasting your time.

[Urmel]

No. Look into Joslen.
1) There is no re-organisation that I can see that affects Support Groups between October 1940 and February 1942.
2) You cannot compare 2 and 7 Support Groups the way you do. 2 Support Group was disbanded. The HQ was no longer used to command anything. 7 Support Group was not disbanded, it's HQ became the HQ 7 Motor Brigade (which was organised as a Group) on 9 Feb 42 with no hiatus, it wasn't even re-organised until August 1942, and it then continued to serve as Command HQ until 18 Dec 1944 (as HQ 18 Infantry Brigade from 20 July 1943).

There is zero evidence that the disbanding of 2 Support Group had anything to do with a scheme of reorganisation cooked up in England. There is on the other hand substantial evidence that the HQ was surplus to requirements following events in Greece and North Africa, and therefore was disbanded (and I am sure the rout in Cyrenaica didn't help it).

See also what happened to 1 Support Group, when they were pulled out in Feb 42. They were actually disbanded, after returning to the Delta without any troops under command. Note that they were pulled straight out of battle on 11 February, and that 7 Support Group that had already been pulled out of battle on 17 January, i.e. almost a month before was not disbanded, even though according to your logic it should have been the other way round. Again, the reason may well be that 1 Support Group simply failed to perform.

[ClintHardware]

I can agree with you because I have not found any contributing explanation from another source. So I am going to accept that this is a question not yet fully answered.

Because the 2nd and 7th are in the same theatre and because the 7th was already in action with BREVITY etc I can compare them. The fact that 7th became a Motor Brigade does not resolve the question. The question remains unanswered about what exactly the 2nd Sp Gp's War Diary entry for the 18th May really intended to convey. The wording is not just simply the attachment of units as you see with the 12th May sentence. The 18th May sentence may refer to Army wide OOB changes that Joslen later reports as being executed from later dates - or it may refer to immediate changes in the Middle East beginning with 2nd Sp Gp.

When I return to Kew I will see if there are any RAC documents that might refer to this issue as early as May 1941.

As I have said before the War Diaries give no evidence of a rout. It was a planned withdrawal with short term panics that looked rout-like for some hours. Those who were there (Gunner Tutt etc) thought they were in a rout but did not go on to explain what happened next. The withdrawal was worked out with Morshead a week before Mersa Brega. Had it been a rout then no complete units would have reached Tobruk in fighting order (104th RHA, 1st RHA, 51st Field Regiment, 60% of the 1st THR, 3rd Armd Bde (no tanks all but ten lost to the desert not combat), 2nd Sp Gp, 20th Brigade, 26th Brigade to list but eight). The gruppen encountered several times along the way could not stop that withdrawal with their limited firepower (7th April Derna) and Tobruk's artillery in conjunction with the infantry held and damaged each attempt to take it beginning on the 9th April with Brescia's feint evening attack shelled by the 51st Fd Rgt and 1st RHA. In addition 50% of those at Mechili broke out and reached Tobruk. 40% of the 1st THR remained fighting outside the perimeter with the 1st KRRC and 2nd Sp Gp according to the War Diaries.

A proper and continuing rout would have seen Tobruk taken and a retreat of fragments towards the border or rounded up near Tobruk. 5. leichte Division on reaching Tobruk was in a poor state for many days not helped by actions on the 10th and 11th April and certainly not by those on the 14th.

But we won't agree. 74 years of media accounts of routs are formidable obstacles for data to overcome.

[Urmel]

Sorry mate, you making it too easy for yourself. We are looking at the same data, and coming to different conclusions. That's a rather different matter than you looking at data and me reading boy's own magazine of the war and coming to different conclusions.

[ClintHardware]

I understand from your previous posts in various topics that you have not studied or put together the battle of Mersa Brega and subsequent fire-fights and battles so we have not been studying the same information to the same depth. No author has ever written an account of Mersa Brega and no one has ever quoted Brigadier Latham. They have quoted Leutnant Schorm but not the negative bits. Why is that?

On pages 139 and 213 of Joslen in October 1940 Support Groups transferred Motor Battalions to one each of the Armd Bdes - this indicates that as early as mid 1940 the composition and role of the Support Groups was under review - so the question of the intention and meaning of the 18th May entry in the War Diary for 2nd Support Group stands unanswered.

I don't have Boys Own to hand but it probably has insufficient detail. I have never seen it in listed in a Bibliography.

It is better to raise questions and state that they could not be answered at the time of going to print than avoid them by saying there is no question and thus obscure history with definite statements.

[Urmel]

I don't have a problem with questions being raised, but I don't think that argument from authority is going to help you in making your case. When I am talking about a 'rout', I am not restricting this to the rather small battle of Mersa el Brega, but rather the series of events that commenced at the end of March and within a three weeks saw Cyrenaica and Marmarica except Tobruk being lost.

You don't need to study individual battles in detail to assess that. It rather distracts from the issue. Tactically the Empire troops did well in places. Operationally, they were routed. Unless you have by now found evidence that all of this was in fact part of a cunning plan. In which case I would love to see that.