Commonwealth A Tk Gun tests and doctrine 1941

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Attrition
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Re: Commonwealth A Tk Gun tests and doctrine 1941

#16

Post by Attrition » 02 Jan 2017, 02:58

Gooner1 wrote:
Urmel wrote: You are both falling into the 'if one weapon were different all would have been different' fallacy.
Getting better results from better weaponry is rather the opposite of a fallacy.
What would have to be sacrificed in favour of quicker production of 6-pounders? As for Crusader, it was a success, unlike Battleaxe so the British must have done something right that time.

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Re: Commonwealth A Tk Gun tests and doctrine 1941

#17

Post by Sheldrake » 02 Jan 2017, 12:54

Tom from Cornwall wrote:Hi,

Not wanting to intrude on previous threads about 2 pdr HE, I thought I'd start another (apologies!) to record my research findings on the A Tk doctrine response to the operations in Greece and the Western Desert in early 1941.
AWM52/1/5/12 – G Branch 6 Aust Div July – August 1941

SECRET
Headquarters
6 Aust Div.
6 Jul 41.
S/2163/G

DEMONSTRATION – A. TK GUN 2 PDR.

On 1 July a demonstration of firing by A Tk Guns was arranged to bring out certain characteristics of the gun and its projectile.

The target used consisted of a light wooden frame covered with hessian; and mounted on a form of sledge under-carriage. The target was towed by a lorry at an average speed of 10 – 15 miles per hour.

The target crossed the front of the guns with the range varying from 600 yds max. to 400 yds min.

It was clearly observed that with most of the rounds fired, somewhere in the flight of the projectile the tracer illuminant of the projectile was deflected from its normal path. Usually this deflection was in an upward direction.

It was impossible to decide whether this illuminant was thrown off as the projectile passed through the hessian target or when the projectile hit the sand dunes at the rear of the range. Most probably the latter is the correct deduction.

For some time there have been rumours or statements circulating among officers and other ranks that the 2 pr A Tk projectile has been seen to “bounce off” German and French tanks. The rumours even included that the shells were seen to bounce off at ranges up to as much as 1100 yds.

This demonstration on 1 July was principally staged to kill such an untrue impression.

Firstly it is clear that no officer or man could see an object as small as the projectile of a 2 pr A Tk Gun at 1100 yds even with the projectile at rest. Even with the most efficient binoculars it is questionable whether this object would be visible at 300 yds.

Realising this factor, it is further evident that the chances of seeing the projectile moving, at the velocity with which it does move, are surely non-existent.

It is suggested that what observers have been seeing “bounce off” is not the projectile but the “tracer illuminant” of the projectile. This error in judgement then is most probably responsible for the erroneous impressions held by a proportion of officers and other ranks as to the efficiency of the A Tk Gun.

It is the teaching in this Division now that the most effective range to engage an enemy AFV by the 2 pr gun is at ranges of 400 yds and below.

The gun, when fought by determined and well trained crews, is a most efficient weapon if it is used at these close ranges.

PTO/…

- 2 -

Personnel of Inf Bns will then be taught that the 2 pr gun can kill tanks and will kill tanks penetrating into our defended localities. This killing will be done at short ranges; so the Inf personnel should not expect the A Tk Gun to engage enemy AFVs at long range and before these AFVs have advanced within effective range of the guns. The problem of engaging the tanks at long ranges is one for the Fd Arty.

It is requested, therefore, that commanding officers give the fullest publicity to the results of this A Tk gun demonstration with the principle object of destroying for all time the bogey that the 2 pr projectile “bounces off” enemy AFVs.

[sgd: RB Sunderland ??]
Colonel,
G.S. 6 Aust Div.
DISTRIBUTION.

List “B”
More to follow... :thumbsup:

Regards

Tom
That is the gist of the RA thinking in 1941. Anti tank guns work, but you need to let the enemy get close. That might have been fine in NW Europe among the hedgerows of Southern England, but it wasn't easy to find suitable terrain in the Western Desert. Occasionally it was possible to take advantage of depression or ridge offering a rear slope position with 400m to the crest. However engagements in the Desert were often initiated by encounter battles which did not always permit optimum deployment.

The post war judgement of the RA was that the 2 pdr had inadequate range and penetration and the situation would only be remedied by the introduction of the 6 Pdr. The portee arrangement was an expedient to improve mobility, which would not be addressed until the introduction of SP anti-tank guns. In the meantime, 25 Pounder field artillery was mis-employed in the anti tank role.

The decision to delay the introduction of the 6 pounder to avoid losing 2 pounder production while retooling factories needs to be considered in the light of my opening paragraph. The highest prority was to arm the Home army in the event of a German invasion in summer 1941. The 2 Pounder would have been good enough in the close countryside of Kent and Sussex.

My personal view is that the gunners missed a trick by seeign the potential of the obsolete 3" AA Guns as antio tank guns. There were about 1000 available from sprint 1941. But that is a separate issue.


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Re: Commonwealth A Tk Gun tests and doctrine 1941

#18

Post by Urmel » 02 Jan 2017, 15:18

Attrition wrote:
Gooner1 wrote:
Urmel wrote: You are both falling into the 'if one weapon were different all would have been different' fallacy.
Getting better results from better weaponry is rather the opposite of a fallacy.
What would have to be sacrificed in favour of quicker production of 6-pounders? As for Crusader, it was a success, unlike Battleaxe so the British must have done something right that time.
If CRUSADER fits your definition of 'success' can you let me know what failure looks like?
The enemy had superiority in numbers, his tanks were more heavily armoured, they had larger calibre guns with nearly twice the effective range of ours, and their telescopes were superior. 5 RTR 19/11/41

The CRUSADER Project - The Winter Battle 1941/42

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Re: Commonwealth A Tk Gun tests and doctrine 1941

#19

Post by Attrition » 02 Jan 2017, 18:40

The Axis retreat to El Agheila! Ask me another ;o))

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Re: Commonwealth A Tk Gun tests and doctrine 1941

#20

Post by Gooner1 » 03 Jan 2017, 16:09

Urmel wrote: If CRUSADER fits your definition of 'success' can you let me know what failure looks like?
Not relieving Tobruk, recapturing most of Cyrenaica and inflicting much greater casualties than incurring?

If it wasn't for those pesky Japanese, Eighth Army may have conquered North Africa in 1942.

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Re: Commonwealth A Tk Gun tests and doctrine 1941

#21

Post by Urmel » 03 Jan 2017, 19:35

I seriously doubt that. The incompetence in British command was too high for that. You're just trying to rewrite history in a more favourable manner. It's technology, it's the Japanese. A poor workman blames his tools comes to mind. I'm sure there's a witty saying about scapegoats as well but I can't remember it now.

8 Army was in no position to attack further after 22 Armoured Brigade got its rear handed to it (again) between Christmas and New Year. By mid-January it was inferior in tanks, and not just by a small margin. By end January, even without the counteroffensive the situation had gotten worse.

4 Armoured Brigade blew the last chance to end the war in North Africa in winter 41 when its envelopment of the Gazala position failed on 13 December.
The enemy had superiority in numbers, his tanks were more heavily armoured, they had larger calibre guns with nearly twice the effective range of ours, and their telescopes were superior. 5 RTR 19/11/41

The CRUSADER Project - The Winter Battle 1941/42

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Re: Commonwealth A Tk Gun tests and doctrine 1941

#22

Post by Sheldrake » 03 Jan 2017, 20:16

Urmel wrote:I seriously doubt that. The incompetence in British command was too high for that. You're just trying to rewrite history in a more favourable manner. It's technology, it's the Japanese. A poor workman blames his tools comes to mind. I'm sure there's a witty saying about scapegoats as well but I can't remember it now.

8 Army was in no position to attack further after 22 Armoured Brigade got its rear handed to it (again) between Christmas and New Year. By mid-January it was inferior in tanks, and not just by a small margin. By end January, even without the counteroffensive the situation had gotten worse.

4 Armoured Brigade blew the last chance to end the war in North Africa in winter 41 when its envelopment of the Gazala position failed on 13 December.
The diversion of resources from the Middle east to the Far east didn't help. The Middle East lost an experienced armoured Brigade 7th and good infantry 7th Australian and 18th British Divisions and a lot of aircraft and shipping.

Counter factuals cannot prove anygthing either way, but it is just as possible that there might have simply been too many British troops for even Rommel at huis luckiest.

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Re: Commonwealth A Tk Gun tests and doctrine 1941

#23

Post by Attrition » 03 Jan 2017, 21:29

There's no doubt that the British had their problems but the Axis did too, as demonstrated by their incompetence before Tobruk, their loss of the frontier garrisons and the scuttle from the battlefield. The poncing about between El Agheila and the Egyptian fronter from 1940 to 1942 is insignificant; the Axis advance to El Alamein was exceptional but the British advance to Tunisia was a greater achievement.

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Re: Commonwealth A Tk Gun tests and doctrine 1941

#24

Post by Tom from Cornwall » 03 Jan 2017, 21:57

4 Armoured Brigade blew the last chance to end the war in North Africa in winter 41 when its envelopment of the Gazala position failed on 13 December.
I'm not sure an advance to Tripoli was any more logistically supportable in early 1942 than it had been in early 1941.

I'm also rather baffled as to how this threat got so far away from my original post... :welcome: :roll:

Regards and happy new year to you all,

Tom

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Re: Commonwealth A Tk Gun tests and doctrine 1941

#25

Post by Tom from Cornwall » 03 Jan 2017, 22:09

Sheldrake,
That is the gist of the RA thinking in 1941. Anti tank guns work, but you need to let the enemy get close. That might have been fine in NW Europe among the hedgerows of Southern England, but it wasn't easy to find suitable terrain in the Western Desert. Occasionally it was possible to take advantage of depression or ridge offering a rear slope position with 400m to the crest. However engagements in the Desert were often initiated by encounter battles which did not always permit optimum deployment.
Niall Barr has suggested in his book 'Pendulum of War' that the Australians and New Zealanders took the basic British A/Tk doctrine and modified it in the light of their experience and also, I would suggest, due to the different tasks they were set on the battlefield. The Australian's never really got involved in the sort of 'engagement in the desert' that you refer to above and seem essentially to have seen the A/Tk gun as a 'tank-killer', while even in Greece there was much debate within the NZ division between at least one infantry brigadier and the CRA and A/Tk CO about siting the A/Tk guns to 'protect the infantry'. Brigadier Barrowclough was later to write that:
... I considered that the primary role of the anti-tank guns was to protect the forward infantry who had no anti-tank weapons but the ridiculous A/Tk rifle.
This was obviously true at the time...

Regards

Tom

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Re: Commonwealth A Tk Gun tests and doctrine 1941

#26

Post by Urmel » 03 Jan 2017, 22:11

Sheldrake wrote:[The diversion of resources from the Middle east to the Far East
The diversions only had an effect after the Commonwealth hadveffectiv squandered the success of CRUSADER.

That's really all that matters in this context. By early January in front of Agedabia it was a logistics problem, not a force availability problem.
The enemy had superiority in numbers, his tanks were more heavily armoured, they had larger calibre guns with nearly twice the effective range of ours, and their telescopes were superior. 5 RTR 19/11/41

The CRUSADER Project - The Winter Battle 1941/42

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Re: Commonwealth A Tk Gun tests and doctrine 1941

#27

Post by Urmel » 03 Jan 2017, 22:23

Tom from Cornwall wrote:
4 Armoured Brigade blew the last chance to end the war in North Africa in winter 41 when its envelopment of the Gazala position failed on 13 December.
I'm not sure an advance to Tripoli was any more logistically supportable in early 1942 than it had been in early 1941.

I'm also rather baffled as to how this threat got so far away from my original post... :welcome: :roll:

Regards and happy new year to you all,

Tom
Hey. It's AHF. At least it's the adults talking in this thread. Enjoy it while that lasts.

The advance would only have been possible practically unopposed, which was the chance squandered in the Gazala position in mid-December.
The enemy had superiority in numbers, his tanks were more heavily armoured, they had larger calibre guns with nearly twice the effective range of ours, and their telescopes were superior. 5 RTR 19/11/41

The CRUSADER Project - The Winter Battle 1941/42

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Re: Commonwealth A Tk Gun tests and doctrine 1941

#28

Post by Urmel » 03 Jan 2017, 22:31

Attrition wrote:There's no doubt that the British had their problems but the Axis did too, as demonstrated by their incompetence before Tobruk, their loss of the frontier garrisons and the scuttle from the battlefield. The poncing about between El Agheila and the Egyptian fronter from 1940 to 1942 is insignificant; the Axis advance to El Alamein was exceptional but the British advance to Tunisia was a greater achievement.
Err, no.

The first ponce was what destroyed the Italians as a fighting force. The second set up the Axis in a logistical impossible position. The third emasculated German rear area services, and I doubt they ever recovered from that. The fourth provided the springboard for El Alamein.
The enemy had superiority in numbers, his tanks were more heavily armoured, they had larger calibre guns with nearly twice the effective range of ours, and their telescopes were superior. 5 RTR 19/11/41

The CRUSADER Project - The Winter Battle 1941/42

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Re: Commonwealth A Tk Gun tests and doctrine 1941

#29

Post by Attrition » 03 Jan 2017, 23:36

Er yes, ground held between El Agheila and El Alamein was insignificant (except for the navies). The real war was in the USSR, hence the British attempt to get back into Europe, rather than add to the ponce to El Agheila in early 1941.

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Re: Commonwealth A Tk Gun tests and doctrine 1941

#30

Post by Urmel » 04 Jan 2017, 09:25

Attrition wrote:The Axis retreat to El Agheila! Ask me another ;o))
So the successful extrication of a combat capable force in the face of a major logistics challenge and under enemy pressure is a 'failure'? :milwink:

I don't think I'm going to ask you another one...

The decision to retreat and the actual retreat were the one thing Rommel got completely right during CRUSADER.
The enemy had superiority in numbers, his tanks were more heavily armoured, they had larger calibre guns with nearly twice the effective range of ours, and their telescopes were superior. 5 RTR 19/11/41

The CRUSADER Project - The Winter Battle 1941/42

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