1940-43 Desert War

3000 cas in 3 months for Italian, for 150 from uk

1940 Dec, O’connor leads counter attack from sidi biarni and pushes all the way up to Tobruk

UK overwhelmingly defeat the Italians and look to drive them all the way out of N/Africa

One of the most daring ventures and breathless races in the annals of the bRIiths army

Cross 150 miles of uncharted desert in under 30 hrs

Italians blocked by the British force 7th RTR

Italians suffer absolutely crushing defeat

O’Connors successes come at a high cost and lose many tanks

Crosses 500mi taking 2k cas, whilst destroying 13 div

British method of outflanking is main casuse for success

Weavlil is unable to exploit success and move t otripoli

Forced to move onto grecce and leave only garrison force

Rommels force arrives in Tripoli in March 41 and 24th March to 15th June retakes all ground

Tobruk is inly place that doesn’t fall

Inf and Eng were to get in amongst it and break up defences

Arm and Mech in next, to smash up defenders,

All the rest are to follow on

Allied plan is to let the Armour roll in and then a=smash those that come through

400 men and 17/38 tanks lost (ger)

90 men and 2 tanks lost (UK)

Showed and effective way to counter tanks

Two ops to try and

Op Brevity and Op Battleaxe – both failures and manhy tanks lost

Time then needed to make replacement

8th Army receive many reincforcements, most notable valentines and matildas

Plan was needed to relieve tobrok

Op Crusader was launched

4 weeks of non-stop fighting

Crusader comes to a halt and Rommel is pushed back to his starting point
Rommel launches another attack in Jan 1942 after receiving many reinfocments

Plan was to attack before then planned op acrobat in Feb

7th Armoured Div was replaced by 1st who weren’t acclimatised

DAK make huge gains and UK fall back quite a distance

UK command fails and the outnumbered Germans are victorious

Tobruk is surrounded again, but this time falls

Monty isn’t a master of armoured warfare

He was very pragmatic and fought a very methodical battle based around logistics

Rommel would have had to retreat

13,500 cas

500 tanks

Lost by the British and was a massive hit

273 Ger vehicles down to 24 which allows the UK to oush through en masse

1,400 miles in 90 days to triploi, massive advance

Op Torch landings move focus to Tunisia

Successful debut of Chrichill

May 43 the West side and East side meet up and 12th May 43, DAK surrender and fighting is all but
over, some mopping up still to do

N/Africa was a great place to test out tanks

Fighting vs Italians was all but text book

UK tanks were all but unstoppable

Most UK tank cas were due to mechanical faults

259/453 tanks used broke down

Showed the Brits to be ambitious and masterful in manybways

But wasn’t vs an elite force – it was just some second rate Italians

Discovered that mechanics couldn’t keep up with the armour

Tobruk showed a great way to counter armour

Rommel learns that the Flak 36 and other bits of AA are great ways of fighting vs ground forces

UK love a breakout and smash across plains going at full speed, and often then hit AT screens

Desert campaign showed the issues with Brit tank design

Ben Coombs suggests this is unfair when Strategic Considerations are taken ito account
Main problems were unavoidable if the army wanted to have any tanks at all

The main priority was given to aircraft and not tank production

Many tanks were sent to soviet union which greatly depletend the capability of tank production

N/Afirca is basically done with USA tanks

1943 onwards see the focus on quality over quality come in

UK tanks weren’t great, but this a sacrifice that had to be made

Hence in 43 onwards, we see Chruchill, Cromwell then Comet

Ger bombing is also part of the great delay in the production of tanks, and was hugely influential in
terms of the convserion of tank production

Very few quality checks in order to make as many tanks of possible

The concept of ‘spare parts’ was just not a thing

Many imperfect tanks were sent out as a result of this, and as such breakdowns were common

Desert conditions (sand, distances, wind etc) absolutely smash up UK tanks and the rate of attrition
is through the roof

This was the case for both sides and was a huge factor in rommels defeat, as they really struggled to
deal with getting resupplied

UK purchasing commission in USA look at two kinds of tank, the M3 Grant and Stuart

11th March 1941 alloewd the military market to the British and allowed 284 M3 to be shipped to
Egypt arriving in June 41, first see action in Nov after issue to 3rd armoured brig

Grants were poorly shipped and needed refurrbing before they went into action

Very easy to maintain when up and running compared to compared to British tank

US start work on making a tank that could mount a 75mm gun

Actually a really goodtank comes in the form on the M3 Lee

Also had the advantage of being able to fire the HE shell

The 2pdr gun could fire HE, but they never god the ammo, which made engaging Lt Tanks and Inf
really hard to deal with’

The 37mm High Velocity and 5cm Low Velocity never fired solid shot which gave them a range
advantage over UK tanks

This made engagements difficultuntil American kit arrived

Germans get the idea that bigger gun means better tank, so start to go after heavily gunned tanks,
believing that firepower was most important hence introof tiger and king tiger

US kit allows the UK to engage the Inf etc effectively

The big drawback of the US tanks was that they had a really high profule, making them easy to
engage with AT guns, so often used in the hull down position
This meant that there were no great breakouts and as such, the British begin to operate a much
more methdicall style

UK start the fight thinking they could fight a sweeping cavalry war, and whilst initially effective, it is
against a poor Italian force. The moment they hit the DAK, they begin tostrugle. When this happens
there is a huge to and fro between the two side, characterised by several engagemtns, noably
Tobruk and El Alamein, where rommel learned the significace of AT guns and the importance of
material and support and habving short suppky lines respectively

Armoired warfare evolved little over the period bar possibly the use of AT guns. From a British
perspective, they learned about the importance of the weapons e.g the importance of heavy
armament and the ability to effectively engage non-armoured forces

Western desert can be seen as a testing ground for both sides, but especially the UK, where it was aa
baptism of fire t=for the tank production .. this is seen in siciilly and the invasion of Normandy the
year after.