Battle of Gazala

[enigma]

The Western Desert Campaign has always fasinated me, to i rented out Pendulum of War and Alamien:War with out hate ... to go along with An Army at Dawn which i bought yesterday (also bought Stirlings Men ... SAS during ww2)

Anyhoo reading through the Pendulum of War, the author is currently writing about the Battle of Gazala, Rommels Afrika Korp crashed into the 8th Army ... and well unterly defeated it during May-June 42 and followed this up with the capture of Tobruck.

He then goes on to say after the 8th Army pulled back into Egypt, British intellegince - picked up and decode German transmissions coming from the 'Good Source'. They realised this isnt a mole but infact Col.Fellers of the US army sending messages back to Washington (the italians where intercepting his messages as they had the chipher codes).

This isnt the shocking thing, his report is.

He states that the 8th army ... now he had officers in the field reporting on units and there progress and toured the army etc ... had lost 50% of its arty during the battle ... which comes to something like 370 pieces of arty!

That as of May 26th the Army had 742 tanks, it then misses something out and states that as of the 15th June 300+ had been repaired. He then reports that 1142 tanks (doesnt say which but they would be a mix its safe to assume of Crusaders, Valentines, Grants (possibly Lees), Stuarts and possible older Crusiers and Matildas) where thrown into battle and that around 1000 where lost :eek:

He then states that as of the 10th June the British only have 133 tanks in the whole Middle East! :eek:


During his report and latter ones where he gives positions and stregnths of units to Washington he fails to mention the 7th Armour thus the tanks remaining are most likly to be off .... but with this knowledge of the army via Liason officers etc etc the losses have to be a somewhat reliable and shocking figure!
:eek:

[DarkCanuck]

Cool stuff. read em all tell me whats good please. saves me from having to go through garbage :p also 'an army at dawn" is the first in a trilogy. havnt read it though.

"An Army At Dawn is the first installment of a three-volume history of the Allied liberation of Europe in World War II. The second volume, a history of the war in Italy, and the third volume, a history of the war in Western Europe, will be published in the coming years."

[enigma]

will post anything else i found really intresting as i find them :)

The bits ive read so far from An army at Dawn its good :) (Although it annoys me cause it does speak the truth when it talks about the British slowly but surly being made into the 'junior partner' with the americans coming more nad more into the war.)

[DarkCanuck]

aint nothing wrong with being a junior partner in war. if they are eager to let their sons die let em. the brits sacrificed enough prior to u.s. involvement.

[enigma]

the shocking thing i saw in An Army at Dawn was the americans where willing to establish a beacheah in france ASAP

link (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Sledgehammer)


a suicde mission using mostly british troops :eek: :( glady it didnt go ahead.

[biggles]

A little off topic now, but about loosing tanks, when Rommel arrived at El Alamein (With that I mean that the battle could commence) he only had 3 working tanks, the rest was either somewhere in the Mediterranean or blown to pieces by the R.A.F....( he sent for more of course, but still.....)

[enigma]

ive never heard the figure been that low ... ive read after Gazala that his force had taken server tank losses also but still had dozens of tanks left ... whats your source for this?

[biggles]

I don't remember....It was in one of my WW2 history books, but I think it's correct. But you know, it's an old one (1970, something like that) but still.....I have heard (and noticed) that some books tells you one thing about a fact and some tells you a completely different story about it. I'll try to dig it out of the pile of rubbish in my bookshelf....;)

[enigma]

ill see what figures i can dig up to out of the books am reading, should be intresting to see the different stats shown by different authors.

[enigma]

some other stats which ive came upon, after the battle of Gazala, the 8th Army stood and tried to make a fighting withdrawal to Alamien.

However that didnt really work out and our boys high tailed it basically. During the retreat what couldnt be packed up and taken with em was destroyed.

In this area was alot of supply dumo which had been prepared to help the 8th during there planned offensive, giving them enough ammo and fuel etc to carry them all the way to final victory.

However it was not to be, thus
nearly 13 million round of ammunitiion was destoyed and nearly 800 000 arty shells.

Broken down into:
.303 rounds (lee enfields and brens) 3 808 000
7.92mm (BESA machine guns i would presume) 5 283 000
.450 (not sure what these are for) 3 736 000

6 pounder rounds (57mm) 41 631
75mm 81 578
25 pounders (88mm) ) 512 752
37mm 146 442


as for the tanks :

British losses through 17 days of fighting at Gazala, estimated at 1 118

The Royal Army Ordnance Corp tank recovery squadrons and tank repair workshops,
recovered 581 tanks, of which 278 had been repaired and 222 evaced to the railhead.

July 1st, 8th Army had 137 tanks in the field at Alamein, 42 in transit from bas workshops to the front.
However on the same day there was 902 tank sitting in workshops, of which only 34 were servicable.
Many were beyong repair due to lost parts thanks to the retreat or coz they had taken such a beating however most could be but they had no way of doing so at the time.


June 30th
Afrika Korp reports it has 55 battle worthy tanks
Italian XX Corp states it has only 15


Thus
8th Army - 179 tanks
Panzerarmee Afrika - 70 (of which 15 are of crappy italian design)

Source for all stats in this post
Pages 38, 39 and 40
The Pendulum of War
Niall Barr

[biggles]

Hm....sounds advanced. I'm sure it's right.

[jcoquillon]

No Advertising


The fact that you tried to sneak it in the middle of a thread is even more annoying. I dont mind people posting this stuff in the Off-Topic section, but landing it in the middle of a thread is just down-right rude. Why should we tolerate this when other mods remove all traces of 1944 threads from their forums even when placed in the correct forum...

Ronan

[OliverMarshall]

Axis troops at El Alamain totalled about 104,000 men. of whom 50,000 were German and the rest Italian. They had approximetly 500 tanks, of which nearly 280 were the inferior Italian tanks. There were some 1,200 artillery pieces, just over half of them German, and about 350 serviceable aircraft, of which 150 belonged to the Luftwaffe. This did not include those availabe in Crete Greece and Sicily


By now, Montgomery had recieved enough reinforcments to enjoy a considerable advantage in men and equipment, although nowhere did he have the three-to-one ascendancy staff colleges usually insist on as the proper ratio for an attacking force. Eigth Army had just over 1,000 tanks, of which 300 were the heavily gunned Shermans and Grants able to match the Panzers with the exception of thirty or so Mark IV Specials with thir long 75-mm guns. At Alam el Halfa the Specials had demonstrated that, in the right circumstances, they could pick off Grants with impunity; it was hoped the untested Shermans would fare better.

The British had almost twice as much artillery as the Axis-2,311 pieces-and their Desert Air Force had 530 serviceable aircraft, almost 200 more than their opponents. The USAAF presence was now up to 80 aircraft, with the arrival of mosr twin-engined Mitchel bombers and Warhawk fighter-bombers. In all, the Derser Air Force now consisted of 19 RAF, 9 SAAF, 7USAAF and two RAAF squadrons. More importently than numerical supiriority was that some squadrons had the latest Spitfires. The days were over when the Luftwaffe's Me-109's and the Regia Aeronautica's excellent, if rare, Macch-202's could fly rings arround anything the British could put into the field. Also, by the beginning of October the Luftwaffe had lost three of its top desert aces.


hope that helps

quick summary

Axis:
tanks-500(280 Italian, 220 German)
artillery-1,200(1/2+ German, rest Italian)
aircraft-350(150 Luftwaffe, 200 RA)

Commonwealth:
tanks-1,000
artillery-2,311
aircraft-530(80 American, 450 Commonwealth)

[enigma]

thanks for the info :)

Got that book sitting under Pendulum of War ... rented both out ... most likly havnt got time to read both so am glad to see it is as informative as i hoped.

(will have to get my own copies someday)

[2ltben]

An Army at Dawn is good, but its been about 4 years since its release and 2 years since the release estimates for the next book in the trilogy. I'm not too hopeful on a second book.

[OliverMarshall]

No Advertising


The fact that you tried to sneak it in the middle of a thread is even more annoying. I dont mind people posting this stuff in the Off-Topic section, but landing it in the middle of a thread is just down-right rude. Why should we tolerate this when other mods remove all traces of 1944 threads from their forums even when placed in the correct forum...

Ronan






What are you talking about? What advertising? As far as I can see we are recommending books on the Desert War and listing statistics.

Explain?:confused:

[enigma]

he was advertising a mod for some game, RO i think.

[woolly]

Back on topic;

It sounds like those battle losses also included the 8th Army counterattacks (including the "Battleaxe" fiasco). The 8th army really hadn't gotten it's act together yet and the whole Cruiser/ Infantry tank doctrine cost them many, many times over.

Also remember that NA was he lowest priority for the British Armed forces, so as one author put it, "When Rommel went to kick the door in, he found it already off it's hinges"

[jcoquillon]

I apologise, I was simply mentioning it as it seemed there were a group of people who would be interested in the subject matter and would be interested in a mod actually recreating this battle at least in part. I Wasn't aware it was against the rules.

I also think you'll find that other mods and games are freely discussed in Red Orchestra forums and not removed and deleted as you seem to believe.

in fact... http://www.redorchestragame.com/forum/showthread.php?t=6452

[enigma]

Back on topic;

It sounds like those battle losses also included the 8th Army counterattacks (including the "Battleaxe" fiasco). The 8th army really hadn't gotten it's act together yet and the whole Cruiser/ Infantry tank doctrine cost them many, many times over.

Also remember that NA was he lowest priority for the British Armed forces, so as one author put it, "When Rommel went to kick the door in, he found it already off it's hinges"
Believe you would find Burma/India was most likly the lowest piroity.

I dont see how it could be suggested like that with the enourmous ammount of men, supplies and tanks being sent there.


Btw Operation Battleaxe was a year before hand, the losses above have nothing to do with them ones ;)
according to what ive read the 7th Armour was basicaly wiped out during that operation, very few tanks left. But still under 200 tanks is no where near 1000 :)

[OliverMarshall]

I apologise, I was simply mentioning it as it seemed there were a group of people who would be interested in the subject matter and would be interested in a mod actually recreating this battle at least in part. I Wasn't aware it was against the rules.

I also think you'll find that other mods and games are freely discussed in Red Orchestra forums and not removed and deleted as you seem to believe.

in fact... http://www.redorchestragame.com/forum/showthread.php?t=6452

right, yea the post got deleted so i couldn't see it :o

If you want to discuss a game or mod don't, as Ronan said, do it in the middle of a thread. Start a new one in the Off Topic section if you like.


Back to topic:

Well in Burma there was a whole Army 7th Army and remember that India was the 'jewel in the crown' of the British Empire, so it definetly wasn't lowest priority maybe :
1.UK
2.Atlantic(convoys)
3.NW Europe
4.Meditteranian
5.India/Burma/Pacific
6.Iraq(rebellion)

You also have to remebr that the British had much lower technology than the Germans, though superior to the Italians. Also they were fighting an enemy(Italy) whose focus was on one theater of war(aside from a couple of divisions in Russia) whilst Britian was juggling between 6+.

At Gazala Britain still had Matilda's and Valentines whilst the Germans had Mk.III's. This allowed them to pick off British tanks well before they could even get in range, so numbers wern't that helpful to the British if they could not bring superior technology into the field. But the British were not the only ones to suffer from this problem, at the start of the war Italy launched an attack into Egypt with 100,000 men against 30,000 British, most of them were taken prisoner once they came into contact cause they were badly equiped compared to the British who would face this problem a few years later when Rommel entered.

[enigma]

The army in Burma was the 14th ;) We didnt field a 7th :)

Well Middle East command, had ... starting the war that is:
The Western Desert Force:
4th Indian Division
7th Armour Division - far less tanks then a division should have.

A hell load of British, Indian, South African and local colonial troops in east africa.

There was also troops in the middle east itself, not sure whom atm.
It was using these troops i think that the quelled the Iraq rebellion, then invaded Syria followed off with the invasion of Persia (OOB is available in another tropic)
After the invasion of Persia troops were sent to watch and defend the northern border, and then with the attack by the japanese the 7th armour was stripped of the 7th armour brigade which went to burma (armed with stuarts)

along with that the forces in africa where stripped of troops, possibly within sight of victory to defend Greece and Crete.

So Middle East command wasnt some backwater for our forces it was the centre of thousands of troops defending millions of miles.

At its high point it commanded 8th Army and 10th Army, possibly could argue that it aslo commanded 1st Army. As well as any attached units (like the Free French for example) in the theater, the 3 big cheses from 1 from each service iirc made up the command so in that case also had the Meditteranian fleet and all aircraft in the theater.
American units came under the overall command of Alexandra no?


As for tech, we had devleoped the 2 pounder AT gun, which at the time in the early 30s was the best AT gun in the world, however by the outbrake of the war it was becoming outdated.
With the loss of so many in France all factories where ordered to contuine production of them as they were tooled up to produce them other then switch to the 6 pounder.
2 2 pounders could be built for the cost and time of 1 6 pounder iirc.

It should be said that the western desert force was such a supieror force it only failed to carry on being so with the rush of infantry divisions into the theater instead of much more motorised ones. Even though the British infantry was very mobile due to basically an army pool of trucks which where allocated where needed.

the Matilda was an excellent tank and near enough unstopable, basically a Tiger of its day, however due to the small turret ring it could not be upgunned.
And with more 88 coming into the African theater they where completely outdated.

Our following tanks, the Valentine (using a 40mm gun) and the Crusaders (using a 2 pounder) where again outguned. As you said the Germans could sit back outside of our range and shell us.

However the main flaw of the British armour was the 'cavarly mentaility', believing in charging the enemy tanks ... which resulted in heavy losses and usally the Axis tanks falling behind there AA guns which had been brought up fornt and our boys being hammered by an unseeable defensive line.

But saying all that, we gave the Germans as good as we got, inflicting heavy tank and infantry losses upon them ... although not as heavy as ours most of the time.


But tech wise, The Val was eventually upgraded to a 6 pounder gun and more armour and was more then a match, other then speed, agaisnt the German tanks.
The Crusader after having all its problems sorted out was a decent tank too, good to replace all those Crusiers we had.

The M3 Lee which was sent to us, we upgraded. Adding a better turret onto it. It was more heavily armoured and had a radio iirc. We called these the Grant.
We also modified the crappy american 75mm AP shells by placing German 75mm AP shells over the american ones.
The tank was again more then a match for the Germans and was basically upstopable from the front.
Although the 75mm mounted in the hull and high profile (a turret on top with a 37mm gun) made putting it hull down a slight problem.

The 8th army, other then suffering Doctrine problems etc had little aircover. The Western Desert Airforce was outnumbered and outgunned. Only once backed up by new Spitfires etc was it able to effectivlly take control of the skies once again.
It was the lack of air cover which helped the Germans out, the doctrine had become to spread everything out.
The arty which had to be used in a duel role due to the lack of 6 pounders was spread out too much to be as effective as it could. the same with the men and the tanks (fighting in briagdes without there infantry support!)

Once these problems where sorted out, air cover, better doctrine, level headed thinking, tanks which were able to take on the germans better then we had been and the massing of our arty once again .... basically fighting war the way we had wanted was we able to strike back and hard!



But other tech wise, we had the 25 pounder, the mainstay of the arty and was used for decades after. There was even complaits when they where finally withdrawn. It was an excellent field piece.
(We were also using ww1 vintage 18 pounders for quite a while in the Western Desert campaign)
The 6 pounder was better then there At guns othe then the duel purpose 88

Tech wise our rifles iirc believe were better plus they could carry more ammo, i have heard our 2 inch mortars where supioer also.
The only draw back was the lack of a belt fed lmg but we used the Bren to great effect.


As for the Italians, they where never ready for war, and iirc historians base there humilting defeat during Compass due to ww1 mentailty with there defence (the Italians blame the massive ammounts of conscripts, but that doesnt explain there poor performance agaisnt the Greeks).
there tanks, although had a better gun - a 37mm and where slightly better armoured i have read where considered deathtraps ... even in 1940.

I did read some where that El Duce after having many tank plans summited to him, spent some time and then picked one which he thought looked better ... disregarding gun, amrour and speed.
lol dont know if its true.


As for prioritys, i think it would be more like (in 1941-43)
1.UK - home defence inc protection of Atlantic convoys and attempting to sink the German capital ships
2.Meditteranian/middle east (Western Desert, The gulf, East Africa, Cyprus, Malta, Greece and Crete, Gibralter)
3.India/Burma/Pacific
4. Commandos/SBS/SAS raids, SOE etc