|
|
We start with a look at British armoured warfare before El Alamein, a period where they often had numerial superiority but were massively tactically inferior to the Germans, so often suffered very heavy losses when isolated tank units were caught by the concentrated force of the Panzer divisions or lured onto anti-tank guns. When Montgomery took over as commander of the Eighth Army he recognised some of the problems, and ended the practice of splitting divisions up to form ‘Jock Columns’ or armoured brigade groups. Instead he wanted to concentrate his armour in a heavy hitting armoured corps.
We look at how Montgomery organised his armour, with three armoured divisions fighting as units and a fourth that had its brigades detached. This gave him over 1,000 tanks in front line units.
We then move on to the tanks themselves. By the 2nd battle of El Alamain the Eighth Army had a roughly equal mix of American and British designs, and of these the M4 Sherman was the best, being the only one to carry a 75mm gun in a fully rotating turret. The table of comparative data gets the Sherman’s height wrong, having it the same height as the much lower Crusader II, but is otherwise accurate and shows how superior it was in just about every way to the other tanks available. This includes the most numerous German tank at the time, the 5cm armed Panzer III. Only the handful of 75mm Panzer IVs were at least its equal. The biggest improvement compared to British tanks was the three man turret, armed with a gun that could fire both a powerful AT shell and a good HE shell.
When we look at the start of the fighting we see a somewhat unrealistic plan for an advance through the massive Axis minefields on the first night failing, but we also see that the Germans suffered heavy tank losses – the attack started on the evening of 23 October and by the morning of 25 October 15th Panzer only had 31 of its original 119 tanks left operational. We see the long range HE shell of the Shermans catching the Germans out, allowing British tanks to finally hit back against German anti-tank guns. What we generally see is that whichever side was attacking suffered high tank losses – during the second phase of the battle, Operation Supercharge, the British suffered heavy losses during their attack, and the Axis suffered heavy losses when they counterattacked to try and prevent a breakthrough.
The general image of El Alamein is of a costly victory that was slower than expected. However after several years of combat, Montgomery had finally landed a knockout blow against Rommel. We get a good analysis of the key elements of the battle, showing how although the British attempts at armoured breakthroughs didn’t achieve their objectives, they did end with the tanks in position to support the infantry, and to inflict heavy losses on the counterattacking Axis forces. Many accounts of the battle focus on the 500 or so Allied tanks lost in the battle, but fail to mention that 350 of them were repaired and returned to service, while all of the 450 Axis losses were total.
Chapters
Introduction
- Armoured force evolution, organization and doctrine
- October 1942: The Eighth Army order of battle
Technical Factors
- Cruisers and Crusaders
- Stuarts, Grants and Shermans
- Infantry support tanks
The Campaign
- The assault: 23 October 1942
- Reset and ‘dog fight’
- Operation Supercharge
Author: William E. Hiestand
Edition: Paperback
Pages: 48
Publisher: Osprey
Year: 2023