Indian Pattern Carriers

[BaronVonWreckedoften]

Mark - Fantastic info, my dear chap. I think I will stick with the two battalions of 11th Sikhs, to avoid confusing any audience (and my own ageing brain!); from that article, it appears that some of the Indian mountain gunners were re-trained on the 47/32, which would make the force more solidly Indian.

I'm also looking into what happened to 22nd Indian Infantry Brigade after it got cut off from the rest of 9th Division - am I right that the division commander was killed trying to get across a bridge to make contact with them?

And I'm considering a Marmon-Herrington armoured car, as I believe that the RAF had a few (you're now going to tell me these never left Singapore, aren't you.....).

[RMD]

As I understand it, the Boehler 47mm was designed to break down into mule-loads, so that would make perfect sense! To be honest, it would seem like the ideal weapon for the Commonwealth to have adopted as a mule-packed infantry support piece pre-war, but then the British Army was never a fan of 'infantry guns'.

Oh, incidentally, the 2 (Sikh) Bn/12th Frontier Force Regt in 22 Bde was also 100% Sikh. And 5 Field Regt RA was also directly assigned to 22 Bde - I missed those earlier.

Yeah, the 22nd Brigade was reduced to 350 men and surrendered on 1st February. The div cdr was killed on the morning of the 28th January.

[Etranger]

There's a very well known set of pictures showing the Australian 2 pounder ATGs in action in an ambush against Japanese armour. If you can find a copy, the Australian Official History of the Malayan campaign has a lot of very detailed (& reasonably honest..) accounts of their fighting, often alongside the Indians. They used to be on line, but got taken off a few years ago in a rejig of the AWM site. I'm not sure if they've been restored yet. There are also a number of 'Osprey like'' books on various battles in the campaign, put together by the Australian Army Historical Unit, & used as reference materials at RMC Duntroon. They're excellent value & should be in print.

The saga of light tanks in Malaya is convoluted & it still isn't definitively answered. The best that can be said is that there 'may' have been a few. One problem is that to some witnesses, any tracked vehicle was a tank & at least some reports are actually of the use of carriers.

[Norman D. Landings]

This thread is pure data porn.
I’m getting stirrings both as a wargamer and a researcher.
Stirling stuff, gentlemen.

[grizzlymc]

Malaya and Burma are somewhere on my to do list. The depressing part about the data is that they are doing it from memory.

[Etranger]

This is the (AFAIK only) photo of the IPC in Australian hands in Malaya. According to the accompanying AWM data the image was made on 9th March 1942, which is either wrong date (Singapore had surrendered a month before), or wrong location (& if so, where else??) or simply the date that the photograph was processed (most likely).



IPC (Mark ii I think) in original hands.The aerial means that it is radio equipped, unlike the one above where no aerial is visible, so that might have been without one.

And a thread on MLU forum, featuring RMD... http://www.mapleleafup.net/forums/showthread.php?t=202


Here's one for Mark to puzzle over...

[RMD]

Korean War? I understand some were used there.

[Etranger]

Korean War? I understand some were used there.

Yes, used by the kiwis as Artillery OP's. Apparently they built 70 odd IPC's of their own, of which a number survive.

[RMD]

Korean War? I understand some were used there.

Yes, used by the kiwis as Artillery OP's. Apparently they built 70 odd IPC's of their own, of which a number survive.

I'm getting serious deja-vu... Have we already had this discussion...?

I presume the 'X' on the side of the vehicle is the RA tactical marking for a battery commander (on the RA red-over-blue flash)?

[Etranger]

Korean War? I understand some were used there.

Yes, used by the kiwis as Artillery OP's. Apparently they built 70 odd IPC's of their own, of which a number survive.

I'm getting serious deja-vu... Have we already had this discussion...?

I presume the 'X' on the side of the vehicle is the RA tactical marking for a battery commander (on the RA red-over-blue flash)?

we've nattered about it on various threads. i think you told me about the Kiwi carriers in the first place! http://www.mapleleafup.net/forums/showthread.php?t=1672