Op Crusader observations and initial lessons learned

[Sheldrake]

Mark,


The problem with British doctrine was not resistance to change, but:-

1. The domination of the armoured theorists by individuals who believed that tanks could do anything and everything and needed little in the way of supporting arms.

2. The lack of any formal "British" all arms doctrine until the middle 1990s. There were field services regulations but by and large tactical doctrine was owned by individual arms. This the "Infantry Division in Battle" did not quiet mesh with the Armoured Division in Battle. As late as the 1980s the Armoured Corps Precis at Sandhurst trpotted oput the line that "the best anti tank weapon is another tank" as if Crusader had never happened!

3. A parsimonious government which sought to minimise defence spending by buying into the arguments of those that offered cheap innovative solutions including the deterrent value of bomber command and that Britain only needed a small armoured expeditionary force. This stymied serious thought about how to equip the army to fight a second world war.

Firstly, I do not know where you have drawn your information about the attitude to innovation within the armed forces but it does not fit with the organisation which I have served in and studied for the last 30+ years.

Allied victory in WW1 is a testament to the spirit of innovation in the British Army. After the first demonstration of the tank in march 1915 it took 18 months to develop and build production equipment, recruit and train specialists to man and maintain them. How long does it take from gestation to production for a new car or computer operating system? The tank is just one example of innovation in technology. tactics and techniques. It is true the army maintained rigid structures ranks and traditions, but arguably these provide the structure around which constant change threatens to become chaos.

Despite the chaotic approach to written doctrine, the British and commonwealth armed forces were a pragmatic organisation bunch who allowed commanders on the ground latitude to innovate. This did not always work - as in the Middle east, but as John Buckley and Terry Copp's works have demonstrated ire Normandy it worked.

It was the Germans whose doctrine was predictable in both wars. British tactics emerged that took advantage of their own doctrine, by anticipating the inevitable counter attacks and blunting them with dug in anti tank guns and Mike, Uniform and Victory Targets on TOT.

[Sheldrake]

Re 4. The MEF solution was to give each brigade its own artillery regiment under command. This meant that they always had three batteries whether they needed them nor not,. The Home Forces solution, developed by Parham and the school of artillery was to deploy artillery commanders with the right comms and procedures where they could ensure that artillery was concentrated at the critical point in a timely way. This way the supported arm commanders can be assured of a lot more than three batteries when they need it. This does not take long. We used to practice divisional fire missions and fire planning based on WW2 techniques in the 1980s and could bring down nine batteries within a few minutes

Indeed. No arguments from me. The point I'm trying to get across is that MEF in 1941 still didn't have the overall resources to allow for grouping of divarty assets and thus had to penny packet to give the coverage. Comms alone was not the solution to arty support of combined arms, C3 reform was. That lesson had still not been properly considered - let alone addressed past 1942....

Mark, sorry to appear to pick on you, but the shortage of artillery does not justify lunatic deployment.

Shelford Bidwell commented on this in his chapters on the western Desert in Gunners at War. in 1940 the british beat the itlains using sound all arms tactics. The rebuff of Rommel'#s first effort against Tobruck in April based on tanks and artillery used at close range and in co-op[eration showed how defence might work. but by July 1941 it was all about staging tank v tank fights between tank fleets, completely disregarding the tendency of the eney to meet tanks with anti tank weapons.

The Germans knew of the value of the obsolete British 3" 20 cwt AA guns. Many of those shipped to Russia were captured by the Germans and prized so highly that they were remounted and shipped to africa.
http://www.ww2f.com/topic/55101-russian-76cm/

[MarkN]

The problem with British doctrine was not resistance to change, but:-

1. The domination of the armoured theorists by individuals who believed that tanks could do anything and everything and needed little in the way of supporting arms.

2. The lack of any formal "British" all arms doctrine until the middle 1990s. There were field services regulations but by and large tactical doctrine was owned by individual arms. This the "Infantry Division in Battle" did not quiet mesh with the Armoured Division in Battle. As late as the 1980s the Armoured Corps Precis at Sandhurst trpotted oput the line that "the best anti tank weapon is another tank" as if Crusader had never happened!

3. A parsimonious government which sought to minimise defence spending by buying into the arguments of those that offered cheap innovative solutions including the deterrent value of bomber command and that Britain only needed a small armoured expeditionary force. This stymied serious thought about how to equip the army to fight a second world war.

Firstly, I do not know where you have drawn your information about the attitude to innovation within the armed forces but it does not fit with the organisation which I have served in and studied for the last 30+ years.

You have just provided a perfect example above - point 1 and 2. Each arm, each capbadge is, and always has been, inward looking at the expense of cooperation for mutually beneficial effect. The British Army was slow at developing 'all arms' at levels lower than the divisions for a combination of reasons, one of which was the determination of each arm to only talk with itself and no other.
Point 2 is a damning indictment of this lack of innovation. New technologies withing the capbadge are welcomed; innovations in how to weald them into a wider context are loathed.

Your point 3 has merit, but the Army shot itself in the foot long before political effects took root. It's no different today. Helmand has been an unmitigated disaster for the British Army. Iraq too before that. Yet, for almost a decade no senior British Army officer above LtCol would countenance a single word of criticism - it was all the governments fault for not resourcing them correctly... The truth is, the Army themselves got it wrong over and over again because they only learned the lesson that suits them, not the lesson that needs to be learned. They were, and remain, institutionally resistant to organisational change or reform. The officer corps is dedicated to individual professional development within at the expense of organisational development for military effect. But, I fear we are seriously heading off at a tangent. Oooops!

[MarkN]

Mark, sorry to appear to pick on you, but the shortage of artillery does not justify lunatic deployment.

I believe field artillery was penny-packeted out based upon the following imperatives:-
1) the anti-tank weopans were not up to the mark, the 2-pdr was way behind on the tactical usefulness curve,
2) the distances were so great that were fld arty concentrated it wouldn't cover enough ground,
3) the concentration of an (unwieldy) arty group ran counter to the need for movement and mobility.

The defence of Tobruk worked primarily because 2) and 3) were taken out of the equation and thus, with those two taken out, 1) was resolved too. The same fld arty with the same tanks using the same tactics could not achieve the same results over a larger AO with movement. Simple as that.

[Urmel]

The idea that the defeat of Rommel's initial attempt on Tobruk proves that combined arms was accepted and worked in the British army is laughable, I am afraid. This was the exception, it didn't prove the rule.

[Sheldrake]

Each arm, each capbadge is, and always has been, inward looking at the expense of cooperation for mutually beneficial effect. The British Army was slow at developing 'all arms' at levels lower than the divisions for a combination of reasons, one of which was the determination of each arm to only talk with itself and no other.
Point 2 is a damning indictment of this lack of innovation. New technologies withing the capbadge are welcomed; innovations in how to weald them into a wider context are loathed.

Your point 3 has merit, but the Army shot itself in the foot long before political effects took root. It's no different today. ................ The officer corps is dedicated to individual professional development within at the expense of organisational development for military effect. But, I fear we are seriously heading off at a tangent. Oooops!

Lets restrict this to the topic in hand

You are quite correct to point out that the British army lagged behind the German in developing consistent all arms doctrine. The lack of any formal army wide all arms doctrine as developed within the Reichswehr and Wehrmacht in Germany or by the Soviet Army. This was a lack of discipline rather than innovation. There was no shortage of innovative ideas, it was just that there was no common framework to agree, within as well as between cap badges. Jock Campbell, a distinguished horse gunner contributed to the penny packeting.

Of course practical soldiers came up with solutions to tactical problems. But these were ad hoc, which was a strength as well as a weakness. O'Connor's western desert force concentrated their forces to dismember the Italian army and Beresford Pierce undertook some model combined arms attacks on the itlaina forts. six months later and its all about setting up a big tank duel.

My researches into the RA in WW2 give me the impression of an organisation very keen to learn and improve, certainly in the mid and late war. Leadership does play a part. Brooke, a military thinker himself presided over an organisation that became progressively better. However there is no doubt that the Eighth Army had taken some serious wrong turns and ended up in shambles by mid 1942. .

[Urmel]

The Germans knew of the value of the obsolete British 3" 20 cwt AA guns. Many of those shipped to Russia were captured by the Germans and prized so highly that they were remounted and shipped to africa.
http://www.ww2f.com/topic/55101-russian-76cm/

Err, no. You are talking about the FK296(r) and FK297(r), which were captured F-22 and F-22USV anF-22 Red Army divisional guns.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/76_mm_div ... _%28USV%29

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/76_mm_div ... %28F-22%29

You are probably thinking of this topic:

http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?t=182193

[MarkN]

You are quite correct to point out that the British army lagged behind the German in developing consistent all arms doctrine. The lack of any formal army wide all arms doctrine as developed within the Reichswehr and Wehrmacht in Germany or by the Soviet Army. This was a lack of discipline rather than innovation.

There was a complete lack of, due to unswerving resistance to, organisational change. Maintaining inward looking single-arm regiments for the sake of tradition was more important than tactical military success.

My researches into the RA in WW2 give me the impression of an organisation very keen to learn and improve, certainly in the mid and late war. Leadership does play a part. Brooke, a military thinker himself presided over an organisation that became progressively better. However there is no doubt that the Eighth Army had taken some serious wrong turns and ended up in shambles by mid 1942.

I do not question the logic behind the concept of concentration of div arty to provide far greater effective and efficiant fire support.

However, that effectiveness and efficiency is entirely predicated upon the entire division being concentrated into a narrow front with minimal manouver.

Imagine you are the CRA of 9 Aus Div in March 1941. There are 2 brigades of the division holding a 40 mile long ridge line (north/south) from Tocra to south of er Regima and the 3rd brigade in the rear in Tobruk. You have about 150 miles of open left flank between your forward brigades and Tobruk. Where do you site your 3 field artillery regiments? What's your advice to your division commander?
Do you:-
(a) advise GOC to repositional his division into a much more compact area so that your concentrated artillery group can support the whole division,
(b) select a location to concentrate your 3 regiments and leave the majority of the division with no artillery support at all,
(c) break down your regiments into batteries and allocate them to various locations throughout the divisional AO.

In effect, does the artillery support the division, or does the division (and higher command structures) subordinate its effort to what the CRA says is the artillery DS answer as to where he should place his guns?

[Sheldrake]

The Germans knew of the value of the obsolete British 3" 20 cwt AA guns. Many of those shipped to Russia were captured by the Germans and prized so highly that they were remounted and shipped to africa.
http://www.ww2f.com/topic/55101-russian-76cm/

Err, no. You are talking about the FK296(r) and FK297(r), which were captured F-22 and F-22USV anF-22 Red Army divisional guns.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/76_mm_div ... _%28USV%29

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/76_mm_div ... %28F-22%29

You are probably thinking of this topic:

http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?t=182193

Yes . I read this in a military journal decades ago concerning the capture of 76mm guns at El Alemein, in 1942 not 1941. IIRC these were mounted on tank chassis as the original Marder II.

100 of the 3" 20 cwt (76mm) guns were retained as ATk guns for dealing with the any heavy (Tiger) tanks. 50 were mounted on Churchill chassis and the remainder on the 17 Pdr carriage. 25 of the were assigned for the ME on but none were deployed. (The Development of Artillery Tactics and Equipment. A. L. Pemberton. Published by The War Office, London, 1950,) IMHO this was not given a high enough priority by the British and was a poor show given the critical lack of good anti-tank weapons in 8th army.

[Sheldrake]

You are quite correct to point out that the British army lagged behind the German.......This was a lack of discipline rather than innovation.

(1) There was a complete lack of, due to unswerving resistance to, organisational change. Maintaining inward looking single-arm regiments for the sake of tradition was more important than tactical military success.

My researches into the RA in WW2 give me the impression of an organisation very keen to learn and improve, certainly in the mid and late war. Leadership does play a part. Brooke, a military thinker himself presided over an organisation that became progressively better. However there is no doubt that the Eighth Army had taken some serious wrong turns and ended up in shambles by mid 1942.

I do not question the logic behind the concept of concentration of div arty to provide far greater effective and efficiant fire support.

However, that effectiveness and efficiency is entirely predicated upon the entire division being concentrated into a narrow front with minimal manouver.

Imagine you are the CRA of 9 Aus Div in March 1941. There are 2 brigades of the division holding a 40 mile long ridge line (north/south) from Tocra to south of er Regima and the 3rd brigade in the rear in Tobruk. You have about 150 miles of open left flank between your forward brigades and Tobruk. Where do you site your 3 field artillery regiments? What's your advice to your division commander?
Do you:-
(a) advise GOC to repositional his division into a much more compact area so that your concentrated artillery group can support the whole division,
(b) select a location to concentrate your 3 regiments and leave the majority of the division with no artillery support at all,
(c) break down your regiments into batteries and allocate them to various locations throughout the divisional AO.

In effect, does the artillery support the division, or does the division (and higher command structures) subordinate its effort to what the CRA says is the artillery DS answer as to where he should place his guns? (2)

MarkN, It has been interesting debating with you, but I cant spare the time to continue this much longer for now.

Re Point 1. I think you need to think about your own assumptions and preconceptions about the British Army.

I agree that institutional self interest hampered collaboration between cap badges. The sorry tale of the SP mountings for the 3" 20 cwt guns hides a turf war between the RA and RAC. This affected other armies too. Guderian's objections to the StuG were as much about the rivalry between the panzerwaffe and artillery as on solid grounds.

There are sound administrative, logistic and training reasons for organising infantry and armour separately. Mixing armour and infantry within units was a non starter. It was hard enough for unit commanders in an expanding army to train conscripts in one arm of service and a mixture ot tanks light armour and infantry would have taxed any CO and his QM staff. Even adding motor battalions to armoured brigades ate up infantry manpower as drivers. Nor did the Germans train or operate in small mixed battle groups as a matter of course. The German preference was to use Panzers en mass and not penny packet them. Panzer and Panzer grenadier units were single arm at Regimental (British brigade) level. The Germans had longer and a series of successful campaigns to practice all arms co-operation. All too often barely trained British armour and infantry were introduced on the eve of battle.

If anything the British were extremely receptive to organisational change. During WW2 the British formed:
- A complete fourth service "Combined Operations" with a mix of the three services,
- Army Commandos
- Royal Marine commandos
- Brigades of Chindits - LRRP infantry for jungle warfare
- 79 Armoured Division. This unique armoured engineer formation with a mix of RAC and RE soldiers operating a wide range of specialised vehicles.
- The Royal Marine Armoured Support Group; a disposable close support assault gun brigade manned by RM, RA and RAC soldiers.
- The Army Air Corps of parachutists and glider pilots with dedicated support from the RAF
- RAF Air OP squadrons of mixed RA and RAF personnel with soldiers as pilots
- Mixed male and female RA & ATS AA units.
- New corps including: Electrical and Mechanical Engineers; Army Catering Corps, Intelligence Corps, Army Educational Corps and Infantry Reconnaissance
- The RAF Regiment
- A whole range of forces raised from European refugee, international volunteers as well as imperial forces raised on a colonial model from across the British Empire and Italian co-belligerent forces.
- Maritime Regiments supplying detachments of soldiers, marines and RN Sailors manning the AA defences of merchant ships
- The third largest carrier force in world history was the MAC fleet of merchant navy ships, operating embarked FAA air groups of ASW aircraft.
- An alphabet soup of special forces, (LRDG, SAS, SBS, No 30 assault group, Popskis Private Army, SSRS, SOE, etc)

Between 1939 and 1945 manpower was transferred to and from different arms as the German threat of tanks and aircraft was perceived and then receded. At various points, infantry battalions were converted to RAC units, field, and AA artillery - and sometimes back again. Cavalry were converted to gunners and by 1945 the anti tank gunners of 21 Atk Regiment in the Guards Armoured Division operated as a mixed infantry SP antitank/assault gun battle group. By 1944 the wooden topped Guardsmen operated single cap badge two battalion armour/ infantry battle-groups pioneering the uniquely squadron/ company battle-group led by a committee/syndicate!

The British were far more receptive to organisational innovation than the Americans or even the Germans. Neither suffered the plethora of private armies tolerated, if not encouraged by the War Office.

Re Point 2. You need to read Gunners at War. http://www.amazon.co.uk/Gunners-war-tac ... 863&sr=1-3

This action is well described in the chapter on "£Opening Moves in the desert". Moreshead opts for an active mobile defence as the only way to cover the frontage. The CRA (British) Brigadier Thomas deployed the field artillery with a regiment in direct support of each brigade and a regiment superimposed on the most threatened area and field artillery with positions selected on likely tank approaches. Infantry and field artillery fire from 1 & 107 RHA separates the German infantry from the tanks and 5th Pz regt are caught in the concentrated fire of A/O battery RHA, the 2 Pdr guns of 3 RHA and 2/3 RAA Atk Regt and the tanks of 3(?) RTR. An example of well handed combined arms action by a division in defence.

[Urmel]

The Germans knew of the value of the obsolete British 3" 20 cwt AA guns. Many of those shipped to Russia were captured by the Germans and prized so highly that they were remounted and shipped to africa.
http://www.ww2f.com/topic/55101-russian-76cm/

Err, no. You are talking about the FK296(r) and FK297(r), which were captured F-22 and F-22USV anF-22 Red Army divisional guns.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/76_mm_div ... _%28USV%29

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/76_mm_div ... %28F-22%29

You are probably thinking of this topic:

http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?t=182193

Yes . I read this in a military journal decades ago concerning the capture of 76mm guns at El Alemein, in 1942 not 1941. IIRC these were mounted on tank chassis as the original Marder II.

They were also used as field guns, later as remounted AT guns, as SP guns on Sdkfz. 6 'Diana'. They had more of the Russian 76s than they could throw a stick at. None arrived in 1941 though.

[Sheldrake]

You are quite correct to point out that the British army lagged behind the German.......This was a lack of discipline rather than innovation.

(1) There was a complete lack of, due to unswerving resistance to, organisational change. Maintaining inward looking single-arm regiments for the sake of tradition was more important than tactical military success.

My researches into the RA in WW2 give me the impression of an organisation very keen to learn and improve, certainly in the mid and late war. Leadership does play a part. Brooke, a military thinker himself presided over an organisation that became progressively better. However there is no doubt that the Eighth Army had taken some serious wrong turns and ended up in shambles by mid 1942.

I do not question the logic behind the concept of concentration of div arty to provide far greater effective and efficiant fire support.

However, that effectiveness and efficiency is entirely predicated upon the entire division being concentrated into a narrow front with minimal manouver.

Imagine you are the CRA of 9 Aus Div in March 1941. There are 2 brigades of the division holding a 40 mile long ridge line (north/south) from Tocra to south of er Regima and the 3rd brigade in the rear in Tobruk. You have about 150 miles of open left flank between your forward brigades and Tobruk. Where do you site your 3 field artillery regiments? What's your advice to your division commander?
Do you:-
(a) advise GOC to repositional his division into a much more compact area so that your concentrated artillery group can support the whole division,
(b) select a location to concentrate your 3 regiments and leave the majority of the division with no artillery support at all,
(c) break down your regiments into batteries and allocate them to various locations throughout the divisional AO.

In effect, does the artillery support the division, or does the division (and higher command structures) subordinate its effort to what the CRA says is the artillery DS answer as to where he should place his guns? (2)

MarkN, It has been interesting debating with you, but I cant spare the time to continue this much longer for now.

Re Point 1. I think you need to think about your own assumptions and preconceptions about the British Army.

I agree that institutional self interest hampered collaboration between cap badges. The sorry tale of the SP mountings for the 3" 20 cwt guns hides a turf war between the RA and RAC. This affected other armies too. Guderian's objections to the StuG were as much about the rivalry between the panzerwaffe and artillery as on solid grounds.

but....

There are sound administrative, logistic and training reasons for organising infantry and armour separately. Mixing armour and infantry within units was a non starter. It was hard enough for unit commanders in an expanding army to train conscripts in one arm of service and a mixture ot tanks light armour and infantry would have taxed any CO and his QM staff. Even adding motor battalions to armoured brigades ate up infantry manpower as drivers. Nor did the Germans train or operate in small mixed battle groups as a matter of course. The German preference was to use Panzers en mass and not penny packet them. Panzer and Panzer grenadier units were single arm at Regimental (British brigade) level. The Germans had longer and a series of successful campaigns to practice all arms co-operation. All too often barely trained British armour and infantry were introduced on the eve of battle.

If anything the British were extremely receptive to organisational change. During WW2 the British formed:
- A complete fourth service "Combined Operations" with a mix of the three services
- Army Commandos
- Royal Marine commandos
- Brigades of Chindits - LRRP infantry for jungle warfare
- 79 Armoured Division. This unique armoured engineer formation with a mix of RAC and RE soldiers operating a wide range of specialised vehicles.
- The Royal Marine Armoured Support Group; a disposable close support assault gun brigade manned by RM, RA and RAC soldiers.
- The Army Air Corps of parachutists and glider pilots with dedicated support from the RAF
- RAF Air OP squadrons of mixed RA and RAF personnel with soldiers as pilots
- Mixed male and female RA & ATS AA units.
- New corps including: Electrical and Mechanical Engineers; Army Catering Corps, Intelligence Corps, Army Educational Corps and Infantry Reconnaissance
- The RAF Regiment
- A whole range of forces raised from European refugee, international volunteers as well as imperial forces raised on a colonial model from across the British Empire and Italian co-belligerent forces.
- Maritime Regiments supplying detachments of soldiers, marines and RN Sailors manning the AA defences of merchant ships
- The third largest carrier force in world history was the MAC fleet of merchant navy ships, operating embarked FAA air groups of ASW aircraft.
- An alphabet soup of special forces, (LRDG, SAS, SBS, No 30 assault group, Popskis Private Army, SSRS, SOE, etc)

Between 1939 and 1945 manpower was transferred to and from different arms as the German threat of tanks and aircraft was perceived and then receded. At various points, infantry battalions were converted to RAC units, field, and AA artillery - and sometimes back again. Cavalry were converted to gunners and by 1945 the anti tank gunners of 21 Atk Regiment in the Guards Armoured Division operated as a mixed infantry SP antitank/assault gun battle group. By 1944 the wooden topped Guardsmen operated single cap badge two battalion armour/ infantry battle-groups pioneering the uniquely squadron/ company battle-group led by a committee/syndicate!

The British were far more receptive to organisational innovation than the Americans or even the Germans. Neither suffered the plethora of private armies tolerated, if not encouraged by the War Office.

Re Point 2. You need to read Gunners at War. http://www.amazon.co.uk/Gunners-war-tac ... 863&sr=1-3

This action is well described in the chapter on "£Opening Moves in the desert". Moreshead opted for an active mobile defence as the only way to cover the frontage. The CRA (British) Brigadier Thomas deployed the field artillery with a regiment in direct support of each brigade and a regiment superimposed on the most threatened area and field artillery with positions selected on likely tank approaches. Infantry and field artillery fire from 1 & 107 RHA separated the German infantry from the tanks and 5th Pz regt were caught in the concentrated fire of A/O battery RHA, the 2 Pdr guns of 3 RHA and 2/3 RAA Atk Regt and the tanks of 3(?) RTR. An example of well handed combined arms action by a division in defence.

[MarkN]

Hi Sheldrake

MarkN, It has been interesting debating with you, but I cant spare the time to continue this much longer for now.

Pity.

Our wee discussion flowed out of the 'doctrine' thread and your belief that Home Forces asked the right questions and came up with the right answers on how to do combined arms 'correctly'. Middle East Forces getting the wrong answer.

I disagree for a number of reasons.

Firstly, I don't believe the MEF decision to penny-packet fld arty had anything to do with an attempt to improve combined arms success. As I've written already, I believe the imperative was to (a) improve anti-tank capability, (b) provide a greater geographical area supported by fld arty, and (c) maintain manouver and mobility. In effect, this penny-packeting was a 'necessary evil' brought on by the very real context that combat operations were forcing upon them.

Secondly, I remain unconvinced that the efforts you describe in the Home Forces was an attempt to improve combined arms effectiveness either. No doubt it was an attempt by exponents of fld arty to improve their effectiveness - nothing wrong with that. But where are the reports from the other arms that took part in these trials and demonstrations? It's not a combined arms question/solution if it's only being conducted by a single section of a single arm.

Thirdly, the concentration of div arty was indeed successfully demonstrated during the siege of Tobruk. Did Brigadier Thomas organise his guns based upon the trials/demonstrations and DS solution cooked up in Home Forces, or did he just apply common sense?

And so on...

I guess the point(s) I'm making are that the concentration of fld arty was not an 'innovation' at all, was not part of learning process of doing combined arms better, and was quite inappropriate for the Middle East campaign until late 1942 at the earliest.

C3 is half of the story when it comes to understanding combined arms. The British outperformed the Italians because of the manner in which C3 was conducted. Even the Greeks did warfare better than the Italians. On the otherhand the German C3 was infinitely better than the British. When the Germans took Italian units under their C3 architecture, they performed as well as the British - and better in many instances.

Although improvements certainly did filter through by '44 and '45, all the Allies were still way behind the Germans in tactical effectiveness - primarily due to 'how' they did warfare. And that 'how' is largely a function of C3. The Allies won the war based upon numbers. However good you are tactically, you will always lose if the enemy has another formation to throw into the fray and yet more munitions to bring forward! Churchill had worked that out quite early in the war. The British Army itself, just seemed to trot along doing its level best to avoid having to make any structural or organisation reform that would impinge on their internal tribal structure. As you pointed out, the Guards managed greater and quicker leaps forward in tactical effectiveness because they kept it all in house.

[MarkN]

Lessons from Cyrenaica part 3...

[Don Juan]

Mark,

Do you have an archival reference number for these documents?

There are aspects of them that make me suspect that they are fake.