The Desert War - Preview and development thread

[Case]

Originally posted by fairline
Eivind, The Germans didn't arrive until 41, after a single British and single Australian division under Wavell and O'Conner had inflicted a massive defeat on the Italians, knocked out 150-200 000 troops and captured Cyrenaica.

Just to be pedantic, but an Indian division was also involved - it was withdrawn and replaced by the Australian 6th Division after the first phase of the campaign. The general verdict seems to be that the Indian division was somewhat better than the Australians (who were as green as grass).

[Eivind IV]

Ok, I'm running this scenario with units representing battalions. I'm having some trouble finding order of battles for the allied side during the campaign. I found all the info I needed on the Axis forces on www.axishistory.com. Every division and every regiment , company etc from the war were listed there.

If I can't find any accurate descriptions of what the various Allies brigades consists of I'll just have to improvise.

The divisions I need info on is:

* 9th Australian Division (20th+24th+26th Australian Brigade)
* 2nd Armoured Division (2 Support Group, 3rd Armoured Brigade)
* 3rd Indian Motor Brigade
* 6th Infantry Division (16th Infatry Brigade, 22nd (Guards) Infantry Brigade)
* 18th Australian Infantry Brigade
* 7th Armoured Division (4th+7th Armoured Brigade, 7th Support Group)
* Polish Brigade (Independent Carpathian Rifle)
* Middle East GHQ (4th+7th Royal Tank Regiment

Anyone know of any good resource pages I can dig into? The scenario starts, as mentioned a few times already, in march 1941

[Broken_Erika]

http://www.worldwar-2.net/timelines/war-in-the-desert/war-in-the-desert-index-1941.htm

[fairline]

Eivind: sadly I've got all the info you need, and I'm willing to bet Case has an equally geeky OOB and TO&E for the forces involved. PM me and I'll get something together for you if you want the full gory detail, as my resources are books rather than websites.

It's worth noting that British divisions TO&E changed quite dramatically during the 1940-43 period. As a case in point, take the 7th Armoured Division. It was the 'Mobile Division' in 1940, consisting of a Light armoured brigade of 3 'cavalry' regiments and a Heavy armoured brigade of 2 RTR regiments (the former should have been equiped with cruiser tanks, but was mainly LTVII, while the latter had 1 Matilda regt and a cruiser regiment); support was provided by the 'Pivot Group' of 2 RHA Regts and a KRRC motorised rifle battalion. The armoured brigades became the 4th and 7th, and their constituent regiments chopped and changed many times, as did their equipment. As with other British divisions, Brigades weren't permanent members either; by '42 the 7th was an independant Armoured Brigade fighting in the Far East and had been replaced by 22 ABde. The division had also acquired an infantry Brigade by the time of Alamein (131 Bde). By the end of the campaign, Brit armd divs had become fixed at 1 armoured bde (3 armd regts + 1 mot inf btn), 1 infantry bde (3 inf btns) with support from a recce regt, 2 arty regts, an ATR and a Lt AAR. In the case of 7th Armd, the armoured Bde was the 22nd and the inf Bde was the 131st.

Generally speaking, Brit infantry divisions were simpler (although their TO&E changed also) - 3 Brigades (each 3 Btns), a recce regiment, 3 arty Regiments and other supporting elements was fairly typical.

[Case]

British infantry divisions are easy: they all had 9 infantry battalions (3 per brigade), 3 artillery battalions armed with 25 pounders, an anti-tank battalion and a recon battalion with armoured cars and/or Bren Carriers.

Independant brigades were typically exactly one third of a division (ie, 3 infantry battalions, an artillery battalion, a recon company, etc).

While there were no shortage of oddities (hello 2nd NZ Division!), at the level civ models things, sticking to a basic triangular model should do the job for Commonwealth infantry units.

As Gareth points out, British armoured outfits are a lot more complex. As they make my head hurt, I know nothing about them (Gareth seems to be blissfully unaware of the 7th Armoured Division's brief, and unhappy, conversion to a 'light' armoured division in 1942 equipped only with scout cars and light tanks).

www.britwar.co.uk does a good job of discussing the British WW2 TO&E (when it's working!). http://orbat.com/site/ww2/drleo/000_admin/000oob.htm and www.orbat.com/site/history/1939-45/index.html should also be useful (the first site has the complete OOB for both sides at El Alemain and Operation Torch which should be helpful)

[Eivind IV]

You guys are the best!

Only one question concerning the Italians; how many battalions per division there?

The Italian divisions I work with is the 55th Savona, the 27th Bressia, the 25th Bologna, the 17a Paria and the 132a Corazzata.

[jim panse]

It would be >>Brescia<< and >>Pavia<<

(these two are named after two cities)

[Eivind IV]

Who was it that mentioned the word pedantic?

[jim panse]

Pedantic? How did you guess my second name

[Boco]

Fairline, Case, any chance you can email your research my way, too? In the scant chance you have any holes, I may be able to dig up something.

[Exile]

IIRC, there were 2 South African armored car regiments, a Polish brigade, a Greek brigade, No less than 4 different Indian infantry divisions at various times, 2 "army tank" brigades (equipped with matildas and valentines), at least 2 French brigade-sized units, one called "free French" and the other called "Fighting French"), and don't forget the 51st (Highlander) division.

Lots of color in the western desert.

(I have now fulfilled my tank/military geek requirement. carry on)

[Boco]

Don't forget Count Almasy, the English Patient!

[Gagliaudo]

I know only ONE REAL English Patient... : John Ellis !!!

[Case]

Originally posted by Boco
Fairline, Case, any chance you can email your research my way, too? In the scant chance you have any holes, I may be able to dig up something.

Sorry Dave, but I'm not doing any research on this topic - the war in North Africa isn't obscure enough for me

I can, however, sumarise the development of the Allied OOB:

In short, the British started off the period the scenario covers with a small but well equiped and very well trained and lead force. To the best of my knowledge, this force steadily grew in numbers throughout the war, with elite units occasionally being replaced with green units and being shipped off to other theatres, ususually with terrible consequences for all the units involved (the Germans tended to go on the offensive after the good units left the line and the good units tended to be sent to meat grinders such as Greece).

While the Germans had a habit of destroying entire British brigades, and even divisions, the British were always able to quickly make good their losses and reconstitute these units, generally faster than the Axis could make good their loses. The overall quality of British units deteriorated over time, however, as green units were thrust straight into combat without training and acclimitisation.

This strategy was ultimately sucessful though, with the combination of a few good units and a massive bulk of poor units delivering Britain victory at El Alemain. It didn't result in cheap or pretty victories however.

In Civ terms, this could be modeled by giving the British a trickle of good quality units and a steady stream of poor units, with the Brits recieving poor quality replacements the first time a good quality unit gets destroyed.

[fairline]

That's a pretty good summary from Case. The fact that the veteran pre-War regular army 7th Armoured Division had been pulled out of the line and replaced with the extremely green 2nd Armoured Division immediately prior to Rommel launching his first offensive was a disaster for the British. The entire 2nd Armoured was destroyed and it's HQ captured, but it didn't stop the British from reinforcing the theatre with the returned 7th and subsequently 1st and 10th Armoured divisions.

Not all of the replacement units were hopeless from the outset though: the 50th TT and 51st Highland Divisions performed well from the outset, despite being Territorial divisions, as did the regular Army 1st Armoured.