MarkN wrote: ↑05 Dec 2018, 16:51
Nope. Not the sole source, and I'm not relying on it. It is one that I happen to have read through a few nights ago. Still, a single source is better than the non-sources and non-evidence you are producing.
Sources (already posted):
XXX Corp Report
"The enemy always tried to make use of his greater range. of fire, avoided close fighting when he could and retained his Block formation. The main problem to be faced was therefore how to fight the enemy with fire when our tank 2-pdr guns were so much outranged.
In the same report, Norrie refers to the British tanks as "[...]equipped with the more lightly armed tanks." and:
[...]the enemy, by skillful use of numbers of anti-tank guns on his front and flank and the superior effective range of his tank guns, usually managed to penetrate out tanks before they got within range of his.
and
[...]his superior armour enables his Mk. IIIs to carry out attacks akin to those of our "I" tanks; frontally they have little to fear from our tanks and A/Tk guns, and they protect their flanks with their own A/Tk guns.
and
The 2-pdr. penetrates, and often passes through the sides of any enemy tank at our effective range [800-1,000 yards I think] but does not set the enemy tank on fire. The GERMAN tank gun fires a projectile which penetrates our tanks similarly, but at greater ranges, and sets them on fire instantaneously. [...]
and
But these guns [the 2-pdr and 37mm M3 gun] are no match for the German tanks, and, as long as the Germans can penetrate us at 1500 or even 2000 yards, as they were doing, one cannot judge too harshly those tank commanders - and there were many - who opened fire at 1,500 yards, a range at which the 2-pdr shall has already lost more than half its initial velocity.
and
We need a much more powerful gun than the 2-pdr"
Stephen Kennedy, NCO, C Squadron 6 RTR
"They [Crusaders} were fast and they were lightly armoured but they only had a 2 pounder gun - it was really of little use against German tanks, but of course it was great against soft vehicles."
Trooper John Bolan, 1 Troop, B Squadron, 6 RTR
"They equipped us all with new tanks, the Crusader, that was the A15's. Just did a bit of manoeuvres with them, get used to them, then after that they started the push."
"What did I think of any British tank? They were under-armed, they had no gun. You had to move, you couldn't stay still, because they had 75's and bigger guns; they're just blasting you. I wondered right to the end of the war. They still never had a gun. They had a two pounder on every type of tank; two pounder on infantry tanks, cruisers, light tanks. I think that was the biggest mistake of the war as regards British tanks. Under-armed. Definitely."
Sergeant Adrian Charlton, 3 CLY
"Lovely tanks but hopeless in the desert because they overheated. They were beautiful tanks but they had one other snag - they had a two pounder gun, and when we fired the guns we could see them bouncing off the Mark VI (sic) tanks the Germans had. They had 75mm guns and ours were two pounder guns."
George Kidston-Montgomerie, Officer, 3 CLY
"The two pounder gun was absolutely useless, or not quite useless because one did knock them out sideways on. One had to be jolly careful, and the Germans knew the answers pretty well, and we didn't mind our tanks being penetrated, which they were of course, if we could have hit back. But I mean we just couldn't hit back in the front, <>
"It was appalling, the breakdowns and the two pounders. And of course we caught fire immediately when we hit - pfft - like that. But the thing I was always going on about was being under gunned."
John Miller, Officer Commander B Sqdn 6 RTR
"It was the first time the new Crusader tank had been used. It was a very poor tank. It had a very poor engine. It had a World War One engine, the Liberty engine, (an) aircraft engine, it was a very poor engine, and it had just a two pounder gun."
<>"Morale was high, one reckoned we had jolly good tanks though actually we saw more clearly we didn't."