Armored vehicles in Allied convoys to Suez?

[Dili]

What were the convoys that transported the biggest number of armored vehicles to North Africa. Tigre convoy tanks quantities are well know, but what about those that went around the Cape?

[Urmel]

WS10x in 1941, the whole of 22 Armoured Brigade, 166 cruisers.

https://rommelsriposte.com/2014/02/23/b ... uary-1942/

[Urmel]

Sorry, WS12 had even more, 236, a mix of M3, cruisers, and I-tanks.

[Dili]

Thanks Urmel, trying to get the bursts of replacements that Allied got. And from that the offensives it waged.

[Richard Anderson]

From my manuscript of For Purpose of Service Test.

"The story of the next shipment that included the first Sherman tanks destined to enter combat is illustrative of the Lend-Lease experience. After the disastrous British defeat in the Gazala Battles, its Eighth Army was pushed all the way to the Libyan-Egyptian border near the railroad stop at El Alamein. Winston Churchill desperately appealed to Roosevelt and the Americans for help, asking them to send a large shipment of the new Sherman tanks and 105mm M7 HMC to Egypt. Although the tank was just arriving with American armored units, Roosevelt immediately complied. An emergency shipment of 302 tanks (212 M4A1 and 90 M4A2) and 100 HMC was arranged by stripping the units newly issued them and they were hastily sent to New York, where they were loaded on six ships of Convoy AS-4 (SS Fairport, Empire Oriole, Exhibitor, Hawaiian Shipper, Tarn, and Zaandam), departing on 13 July 1942.

Three days later the Fairport was sunk by a German submarine, U-161. Unfortunately, while only 51 of the M4A1 tanks and 32 of the M7 HMC were on Fairport, all 402 of the vehicle’s engines were on board as well. With almost no experience in shipping armored vehicles by sea, Ordnance had decided to remove the vehicle’s engines and packed them in crates loaded in Fairport’s holds (most of the vehicles were loaded as deck cargo) in order to protect them from the elements. The loss of the engines meant the vehicles were all potentially useless unless more could be supplied.

Acting quickly, SS Seatrain Texas was loaded with 52 M4A1 and 25 M7 HMC along with 300 more engines and left New York on 20 July independently, without escort, catching up with the convoy at Port Said. Fourteen more Sherman tanks and one M7 HMC left later in a separate convoy. By 2 September, 197 Sherman tanks and 28 of the M7 HMC unloaded at Port Said. By 5 September, another 106 Sherman tanks and 65 M7 were unloaded for a grand total of 303 tanks and 93 HMC. Another 14 tanks and 1 HMC arrived sometime later. Including one Sherman tank already in Egypt, by the end of October 318 tanks and 94 HMC were there and by 10 October the first had arrived at the Royal Army Ordnance Corps workshops in the Nile Delta. They played a key role in the Second Battle of El Alamein."

[Dili]

Excellent, thanks Richard.