ClintHardware wrote:Hi Brevity
The DAK War Diary is anything but detailed and misses out many positive and negative parts of the events of the 31st March - it is not even a complete summary.
It's a Corps level diary. Look at Corps level diaries on the Commonwealth side, they are the same, and not meant to be detailed. How good they are depends on the diary keeper to a large extent. Also, the Germans had a habit of requesting sub-units to submit combat reports after the event. These would be appended and provide the detail.
ClintHardware wrote:Not only did the Regular 1st Royal Northumberland Fusiliers record the quantity of schutzen in the last attack on 'A' Company and 11 Platoon from 1st RNF as being from two battalions but MG8 who were behind MG2 and joined them in the last attack also recorded their presence.
War Diary 1st Tower Hamlets Rifles
1735 BEAM [Battalion HQ 1st THR]
HOVO [‘Y’ Company, 1st RNF] reports 2 Bn Infantry attack being mounted coast NORTH of DEVONPORT. TANKS reported IN Area. (WO 169/1159)
A German Account of Maschinengewehr Bataillon 8
“The enemy in front of us withdraws slowly at first, then flees back and by dusk we are 35km east of Mersa el Bregha on the track to Gtafia. Further we can not go as two British batteries pin us down (104th R.H.A.). Motorcycle patrols and Leutnant Wendland’s platoon, reinforced by an anti-tank gun recce out towards El Gtafia and Bir el Medfun, so we are very well informed about the positions and movements of the opposition.” (23)
ClintHardware wrote:Oberstleutnant Gustav Ponath, Maschinengewehr Bataillon 8
31 Mar. Order to attack. Panzerjäger Abteilung 605 at BREGA. Outflanking movement in the south by Aufklärungs Abteilung 3. (WO 201/353)
Where does it say MG 8 actually attacked anything? You maybe able to infer this from the first half sentence of the first quote, but that is not certain. I would expect your proof that they did attack would be in the sentences before your quote starts. As for the second quote, what were they to attack? Note also that they are pinned down at dusk 35km east of Brega, i.e. close to Ridotta Gtafia, and not by infantry but by guns.
ClintHardware wrote:The attack on Mersa Brega was a divisional attack with air support and they failed to capture anything of significance after 12 hours of fighting. They were facing sections and single platoons at any one time from just 3 Motor Companies, 12 Vickers MG detachments, 'J' Battery 3rd RHA (six 2-Pdrs and three 37mm Bofors) and the sixteen 25-Pdrs of the 104th RHA.
a) By dusk M.G.8 was 35km east of Brega. Which was presumably the point, rather than capturing ground at Mersa el Brega. I'd call that a success, and I am sure the German commanders weren't massively unhappy.
b) Furthermore, the defensive force you outline is quite strong, especially in a prepared position. The attacker's superiority (even if we accept MG8 participated in it) was really not that much. 2 battalions against one. 16 25-pdrs and 9 AT guns are a good artillery complement, and as the Germans found out at Sidi Omar in November, 25-pdrs could make short work of an attacking tank force. How much artillery support did the Germans have?
ClintHardware wrote:Had Mersa Brega been outflanked
Well it clearly was based on what MG8 wrote, so no need to make it a supposition.
ClintHardware wrote: and 3rd Armoured Brigade smashed attempting to halt the flanking move, and had 2nd Support Group then been cut off and forced to surrender you would have a German victory.
If you excuse the humour... So this was not a victory, and the Germans lost all the way to the gates of Tobruk? Is this the desert version of the Black Knight of Monty Python (let's call it a draw)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zKhEw7nD9C4
This kind of view reminds me of the German post-war assessment of the Eastern Front, where the Red Army lost every engagement, from Moscow up to the gates of Berlin.
Now to be serious again, I don't disagree at all that there has been far too much legend about North Africa, and that this gets repeated again and again, and Rommel continues to be highly overrated. I think he would have been an excellent division commander, but he never managed to shake off his platoon leader habits, and this made him unsuitable to higher command.
I also fully agree that Rommel's first offensive was a major strategic mistake, which in the end doomed the Axis to fight in an untenable position far to the east of their supply base, and sunk any hope they might have had to win the war in North Africa. But this is not news. The German official history outlined this in 1984 (
http://www.randomhouse.de/Buch/Das-Deut ... 226967.rhd), and Halder seems to have been able to see it while it was going on, which is why he sent Paulus to North Africa to try and get a grip, and then tried to more or less reign in Rommel by bringing in Gause. But this does not mean that the commanders in Cairo or London could, or had indeed planned for it, since they 1) did not know about the German plans to attack Russia, and 2) had no insight into the supply situation of the Axis forces in North Africa.
So yes, strategically the first offensive was not a victory. But there is no doubt whatsoever in my mind that operationally and tactically the Axis forces wiped the floor repeatedly with the Commonwealth forces until Rommel was stupid enough to try to take Tobruk on the run. What I find absolutely mystifying is that they managed this not once, but twice (Jan 42).