What's on your workbench?

[RMD]

And then there's the whole thorny subject of troop numbers, tank hull/turret numbers, callsign markings...

I remember the information you gave me when I first stumbled down this path, mate. I still have the photos you gave me- including that 9 Troop, B Squadron tank. With the change to four troops per squadron you'd expect 9 Troop to be in C Squadron- but obviously not. But 11 and 12 Troop were definitely C Squadron, hence the decals. I think.

Probably.

Perhaps.

Ah yes... The British, Canadian & Polish Armoured Recce Regiments didn't receive a 17pdr tank until August 1944 at the very earliest*, so kept the five-troop squadron organisation until the end of Normandy and in some cases longer. Hence B Sqn had 6-10.

When they dropped a troop from each squadron mid-campaign, they seem to have picked a random troop to delete. So for example, you might have 1,2,3,4 - 6,7,8,9 - 11,12,13,14. Or perhaps something more random such as 1,2,3,5 - 6,8,9,10 - 12,13,14,15. So 9 Tp might still be within B Sqn, even after the move to a four-troop squadron organisation. The regiments that reorganised before the campaign started did things sensibly and re-numbered the whole lot 1-12.

Then you've got those regiments that gave every tank an individual number... And the ones that marked the seniority of the troop within each squadron (1-5, 1-5, 1-5)...

* The fact that the South Albertas only had 75mm-armed Shermans and no Fireflies makes Currie VC's achievement even more remarkable! The Welsh Guards got absolutely hammered by Weiss' Tigers during Operation Bluecoat for the lack of a 17pdr.

[Spanner]

PS Your message must have slipped in just before I posted mine. All good catches, mate- particularly the two tac plate errors- too many numbers and not enough brain cells, obviously. I've sorted the MG and AC tac plates on the masters. I'll talk to Bill about the VIII Corps plate. I'm not sure which AC REGT Bill's doing (11AD from landing to Bluecoat, from memory- 2HCR again?).

Tim's 7AD force is based on Normandy. Did they have the stag head then? I thought (more like guessed) it came in in August, but I'm happy to be corrected.

I'll sort the Poles tomorrow.

so kept the five-troop squadron organisation until the end of Normandy and in some cases longer. Hence B Sqn had 6-10.

Sometimes even Prussian and A-H flags seem simple compared to British army WWII heraldry.... but at least the sources are in English and not bloody Fraktur script and old (or middle or modern) German.

PS My GAD is based on the receipt of Challies until the end of '45. They've been bloody hard to research (picked up their regimental history 2nd hand on the net- bookshop in Edinburgh- a couple of years ago), which made your info quite valuable. At least my Firefly and Shermans got painted the same colour.

[RMD]

The assigned armoured car regiment tended to depend on which corps the armoured division was attached to for a given op. For BLUECOAT, 11th Armoured Division came under VIII Corps, so 2 HCR were there, but the Inns of Court Regt were also attached from XII Corps.

Later in 1944 the armoured car regiments became semi-permanently attached to an armoured division, mostly due to the ineffectiveness of armoured recce regiments in the role. 11th Hussars (XXX Corps) went back to their old partners in 7th Armoured Division, 2 HCR (VIII Corps) naturally went to Guards Armoured Division, the Inns of Court (XII Corps) went to 11th Armoured Division and the Manitoba Dragoons (II Canadian Corps) went to 4th Canadian Armoured Division. Only the 1st Polish Armoured Division didn't get one and only the Royal Dragoons (I Corps) remained fully independent. The Belgian Armoured Car Squadron was expanded to a full regiment by early 1945, though remained under command of the Belgian Brigade.

However, even though these pairings were semi-permanent, they didn't become official until after the war, so the armoured car regiments retained their corps markings with the exception of 11th Hussars, who apparently couldn't paint their old Desert Rats back on fast enough!

Re the 27th Armoured Brigade Stag's Head; It was painted immediately above (and touching) the slightly compressed AoS sign and was applied long before Normandy. It was painted in addition to the divisional Desert Rat sign on the opposite side. However, one notable feature of the Villers-Bocage photos, is that the majority of tanks, with a couple of exceptions, seem to have had their markings painted out as a camouflage measure. It's noticeable that a few units (especially 1 RTR and the newly-arrived 5 Skins) had better-marked tanks later in the war. Note that the non-brigade elements, such as RA and armoured recce, wouldn't have the stag's head badge, as they weren't part of the brigade.

[Spanner]

Definitely more complicated than researching flags, mate. Thanks for the detail on the stags head. I'll ask Tim what he wants done but with your info I'll bet he'll go for the brigade distinction. To paraphrase what someone once said to me, Mark- "You should write a book about this subject".

All this started with the thought we'd get a few decals done to mark up a few models, now that Dom's no longer trading (and alternatives don't fit the bill and contain a lot of waste). I should have remembered wargamers and "mission creep"- or in this case, mission eruption.

PS- platoon numbering in 1GG (MOT)- B COY would have been 6 (carriers) to 9 platoons, with 7, 8 and 9 in half tracks, correct?

[FreddBloggs]

FreddBloggs » 01 Mar 2023 23:19
Excellent, yes a copy and then finding a printer would be good.

Sorry, I didn't explain properly. I can scale up the images, not the whole A4 sheet. It's a 168% scale up, so the upscaled sheet would be A3 size. I don't know any decal printer that does A3 sheets. What I can do is like the attached (it's been scaled down to 30% size so the forum would accept it, so looks a bit ragged). You let me know what you want and we should be able to sort it, mate.

Didn't see the Guards one s in that corner and I can add Poles and Canucks to it.

My omission has been fixed.

Cheers.

Dal

that my friend would be perfect.

[BaronVonWreckedoften]

Disclaimer: WW2 is NOT my period.

With that out of the way, could I, if not actually hijack the thread, then perhaps nudge it - gently, mind - into a ditch? What determined which tanks the armoured battalions of Guards Armoured were issued? I seem to recall that the Grenadier and Irish Guards got Shermans, so why did the Welsh Guards get Cromwells? (I guess giving those to the 'Micks' would have been tempting fate a wee bit!)

[FreddBloggs]

recce, so got cromwells as faster I believe.

[RMD]

Disclaimer: WW2 is NOT my period.

With that out of the way, could I, if not actually hijack the thread, then perhaps nudge it - gently, mind - into a ditch? What determined which tanks the armoured battalions of Guards Armoured were issued? I seem to recall that the Grenadier and Irish Guards got Shermans, so why did the Welsh Guards get Cromwells? (I guess giving those to the 'Micks' would have been tempting fate a wee bit!)

Wot Fred said.

From roughly 1943 onward the armoured division recce doctrine changed from 'Sneak'n'Peek' to 'German-style 'Fight For Information' (albeit far heavier than the German idea, which had also been adopted as US doctrine). Each armoured division's armoured car regiment was then swapped for an armoured recce regiment. In NW Europe, the British and Poles used Cromwell in that role, while the Canadians used Sherman and in Italy everyone used a 50/50 split of Sherman & Stuart. The armoured car regiments were elevated to corps troops.

It didn't take long in the reality of Normandy for everyone to realise that the concept was bollocks and eventually the armoured cars went back to the armoured divisions; informally from late 1944 and formally after the war. The armoured recce regiments remained, but as a de facto fourth armoured regiment in the division.

After the war, British Army recce doctrine was based firmly upon the infantry division recce regiment concept of 'combined arms sneak&peek', with a balanced mixture of armoured cars and dismounted troops, with some anti-tank capability mixed in. That would lead directly to Medium Recce regiments equipped with CVR(T). Most other NATO nations (USA, NL, FRG, DK, FR, IT, etc) went in the opposite direction, settling on 'Recce By Tank' (the notable exceptions being Plucky Little Belgium, who went for a carbon-copy of the British organisation and Canada, who settled for 'Recce By Death').

[RMD]

Ideally, all British armoured divisions would be equipped with a British cruiser tank (i.e. Cromwell), but there were nowhere near enough to go around and Shermans were cheap and plentiful. Shermans also largely supplanted infantry tanks (i.e. Churchill) in the infantry support 'Tank Brigade' role. Only the 7th Armoured Division had a full armoured brigade of Cromwells, though for reasons I can't quite fathom, the Independent Czechoslovak Armoured Brigade was also equipped with them.

That left enough Cromwells to kit out the armoured recce regiments of the 7th, 11th, Guards and 1st Polish Armoured Divisions, as well as a few for the 6th Airborne Division's Recce Regiment and again for reasons I can't quite fathom, the Divisional Tactical HQs of those divisions.

[FreddBloggs]

a lot of the cross tank issues was also who listened to Hobart/Roberts (and to a lesser extent O'Connor) on the universal tank doctrine they trained their units to fight under. 11th use of its recce units (Northants Yeomanry I remember right) was also exemplary onece Roberts was given his head for bluecoat onwards.