The Argument

On forums relating to tanks there is often a big argument between which is the best MBT of the modern generation. There are also often polls and lists on webpages, but these are generally designed to cater to the home nation (Eg T-34, T14 or M1 as best tanks ever!). I have my views on the subject, like many others.

However, for this week, life has been a bit hectic, so instead of tackling the above question, I'll simply throw more fuel on the fire by referring to a 1989 issue of The Armour Magazine. This magazine is the US Army's armoured force periodical. In it there is a a copy of an article that was first published in the RAC journal, where some British tank crew went to visit, and play with US tanks, and their views.

 Note: These crews would have been using Challenger 1, not Challenger 2. And it really is only a two page article, although it looks like it should be three.

Fighting for Both Sides

Towards the end of the First World War heavy bombers began to get small amounts of armour to protect the vital components of the aircraft such as engines. When the Germans did this, they logically began to think about how to defeat the armour. They turned to a weapon that had been patented in 1914 by Reinhold Becker. This weapon was an extremely light weight cannon in 20mm. It was fed by a top loading magazine. Interestingly the ammunition that was used were solid shot, not explosive rounds. This was due to the Saint Petersburg Declaration of 1868. This had forbidden the use of explosives within projectiles of under 400 grams (some sources say 450g). It was the French, and their designer B Hotchkiss who calculated the minimum size of projectile that would be needed to carry a legal amount of explosive, which was 37mm. Which explains why there were so many 37mm weapons in the first half of the 20th century.
The Becker gun was fitted to several German aircraft during the war and was even planned to be fitted to armoured vehicles. Just after the gun was introduced the German aircraft carrying the gun was shot down and discovered by the Allies. At the time they had no ammunition for it though.

A Becker 20mm mounted aboard what looks suspiciously like a Hansa-Brandenburg W.12

 After the war there was a realisation that the St Petersburg treaty needed revision. A summit of lawyers was put in place, and modifications were agreed, stating that light cannon could be used against aircraft. This treaty was never signed, but it became an informal agreement. It should be noted that the British had been using incendiary projectiles against Zeppelins during the war, but would not allow the ammunition to go overseas in case the pilot was shot down and found to be carrying such ammunition in his plane.
A condition of the Treaty of Versailles was that Germany had to demilitarize, this of course included the Becker works, and a ban on the production of guns was in place. Becker had a connection to a small automotive company in Switzerland, called Seebach Maschinenbau Aktien Gesellschaft, better known by its initials SEMAG. The move to Zürich was backed by the German authorities, and thus the Becker gun entered production as the SEMAG aircraft gun. Later a modified form was produced called the SEMAG infantry gun in 1921. In this version the cartridges and barrel were both longer, giving a higher muzzle velocity. It appears there were several sub variants of both SEMAG weapons. In 1923 a heavier 25mm version was built and tested, however the company collapsed before any further work could be done.

SEMAG 20mm Aircraft gun

SEMAG 20mm infantry gun

Another German clandestinely controlled company then stepped forwards, Oerlikon. They took over the SEMAG-Becker cannon's development. There's a hazy period in this weapons history around this time. It seems that over the next decade the SEMAG style guns were widely sold, by Oerlikon, although some of the designs are slowly being refined. They appeared in The Chaco War, Spanish Civil War and The Abyssinian Invasion. They were used mostly in the role of light anti-aircraft gun. The British brought some for testing as an anti-tank weapon. They had a carriage consisting of a pair of light unpowered tracks, so that the weapon could be pulled by a Carden-Lloyd carrier, along with a gun limber. When limbered the gun was folded flat against its carriage, but to fire it, the weapon was erected while still on the carriage. Some sources say this was around 1935, which seems unlikely, as by 1935 the British were looking at the 2-pounder, equally the uniforms give the appearance of an earlier time frame.

As the Second World War neared suddenly the demand for both aircraft and AA cannon increased, and the later variants of the Oerlikon were widely sold around the world and was likely used by just about every nation except the Soviets. Often the cannon would be on both sides of the battle. Consider the Allies against the Japanese. The Oerlikon armed both sides fighters, equally both sides would be using the same gun on their ships as an AA weapon. In the US alone over 120,000 Oerlikon's were manufactured, and in US service they shot down some 617 aircraft during the war. Banks of 20mm's lined larger US ships ready to protect them against Japanese Kamikaze attacks. The guns simplicity (it had just five parts that could break, and all were on the bolt) and the ability to quickly change a barrel in just 30 seconds meant it was well liked. Indeed, the gun much updated is still in service today.

SEMAG's/Oerlikon's in service during the Chinese civil war/Japanese invasions.

A rank of Oerlikon's on the USS Hornet

Thank you for reading. If you like what I do, and think it is worthy of a tiny donation, you can do so via Paypal (historylisty-general@yahoo.co.uk) or through Patreon. For which I can only offer my thanks.

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The White Ships

On the 27th of June 1942 Convoy PQ-17 left Iceland, where it had assembled, bound for Arkhangelsk. It consisted of thirty-five merchantmen and was extremely heavily escorted with both a close in escort, and larger squadrons ranging further afield to block any German surface units getting within range. As well as the full-blown escorts, such as destroyers, the convoy also included several auxiliary vessels such as HMS Palomares and HMS Pozarica. These latter two were sister ships. Both had been taken over from their peace time duties as banana boats. These were designed to transport banana's at high speeds (before they ripened) for sale. As the war broke out, they were fitted out to become AA ships, mounting a whopping eight 4in AA guns and a similar number of 2-pounder AA guns. In addition to these there were rescue ships, minesweepers, several other auxiliary vessels and even a pair of submarines. One of the ships was the Royal Navy Patrol Services' (RNPS) trawler, HMT Ayrshire.

HMT Ayrshire at Iceland.

The convoy's speed was just 7 knots and covered about twenty-five square miles. The Germans made contact with it on the 1st of July, and a series of German planes began to shadow the convoy. The planes would circle around the convoy outside of firing range. One exasperated captain ordered a signal sent by lamp to the German which read ' Please go round the other way!'. The plane promptly flashed back a signal 'Anything to oblige an Englishman' and promptly reversed course, to orbit the convoy in the other direction.

PQ-17 at Iceland.

Several U-boat attacks were foiled, and one large scale torpedo attack, where the Germans broke off their attack in the face of the weight of fire the convoy could throw up. One of the planes was caught out as it broke off and headed for home. It had not noticed that one of the destroyers from the screen was returning to refuel and the plane flew right by it, only to be swatted out of the sky.

By now the convoy was in the pack ice near the arctic circle. One eyewitness reported seeing an iceberg with a crashed German plane on it, shot down by a previous convoy. The pack ice damaged a couple of merchantmen who were forced to turn back. There were also two more air attacks. There are a variety of reasons for what happened next, a misunderstanding of signals and conflicting intelligence. These facts have been analysed and scrutinised by many historians, and even people who barely count as historians (e.g. David Irving). The situation was this, the Admiralty believed that a force of German capital ships was bearing down on the convoy. The messages they sent were miss-understood to the extent the commander of the convoy expected to see the upper-works of the German ships to break the horizon at any moment. Thus, he issued the fateful order for the convoy to scatter. He took his escort ships with him and headed south to reinforce the screening squadrons so as to delay the Germans. Several of the merchants hooked up with the auxiliary vessels. HMS Palomares and HMS Pozarica took charge of a few merchants apiece and were supported by some of the other auxiliary vessels such as a minesweeper.

HMS Palomares, one of the converted 'Banana Boats'

Three merchantmen, the SS Troubador, SS Ironclad and an American ship the SS Silver Sword linked up with HMT Ayrshire. The trawler was armed with a single 4" gun, and a pair of machine guns (we've covered RNPS trawlers before), she had been a fishing trawler before the war. In charge was the RNVR Lieutenant Leo Gradwell. Before the war Gradwell had done some private sailing as a hobby. Now with no charts, firepower or anything else he had three merchants to protect. He led them north deeper into the Arctic Circle. There, they became stuck in ice. Around them the rest of the convoy was being slaughtered by German aircraft and U-boats. Lt Gradwell took charge. First, he camouflaged the ships, this was done by using supplies carried on one of the ships, which included cloth and white paint. After disguising their ships as icebergs, they sat and watched German reconnaissance planes searching the area looking for more targets to pass on to their attack squadrons. The planes seemed to ignore them. Even so he had the crews ready for an attack. Some of the ships were carrying tanks on deck. He had the guns unlocked and traversed to face the most likely direction of attack and loaded. If nothing else, they would be able to give a single defiant salvo at whatever German hove into view.

Blohm & Voss BV 138, likely the reconnaissance planes used by the Germans, and possibly one of the stupidest designs I've ever seen. The armament of this plane was a pair of 20mm's, one in a turret at on the nose (roughly where the bloke is in this picture, you can see the mount for it, but has been removed in this picture). The other is in a turret at the rear, about where the tarpaulin on this picture disappears under the tail boom. Thus most of your field of fire is blocked by the tail boom. It seems to counter this a single machine gun was placed at the back of the top engine.

The ships managed to free themselves from the ice, and there was no sign of attack. It appeared the disguises had worked. Using his sextant and a copy of the Times World Geographic Pocket Book that he had on him, Lt Gradwell led his ships to safety. One account suggests the crew of the US ship wanted to stop at the first land they encountered and off-load then declare themselves neutral. Lt Gradwell talked them out of it. There are similar accounts from another eyewitness who saw a US ship where the crew had disabled their guns, halted in a bay and were camping ashore. In the other case the eyewitness blames the inexperience of the crews, as many were landlubbers tempted by the pay, and the heavily unionised nature of the US merchant fleet.

The three ships escorted by HMT Ayrshire arrived safely. In total only eleven ships made it to port, most likely as part of the groups escorted by MS Palomares and HMS Pozarica.


Thank you for reading. If you like what I do, and think it is worthy of a tiny donation, you can do so via Paypal (historylisty-general@yahoo.co.uk) or through Patreon. For which I can only offer my thanks.

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Ramming speed

Today, I'm going to take one of my periodical voyages into the depths of history, or at least slightly outside the scope of the normal date range of subjects I cover on here. The catalyst for this was the bloody awful TV adaptation of War of the Worlds that the BBC aired at the start of last December. In that dire program they failed to include one of the iconic parts of the entire book, and several films (even the 2004 Tom Cruise film had something sort of like it, if you squinted hard enough). I am talking of course, about HMS Thunderchild.

Now those of you who know the book, will recall that Wells described the HMS Thunderchild as a torpedo ram, and to be fair that's possibly a better description of today's article. The second half of the 19th century was an odd time for Naval types. They were experiencing a period that us tank historians will instantly recognise. Ironclads were arriving, and the only way to penetrate an ironclad’s armour was by steadily bigger and bigger guns. In turn this meant that theoretically you could armour a small boat, and make it fast enough, that the size of gun needed to penetrate the armour was so big it would not be able to track the smaller craft well enough to hit it. However, such a concept was of no use as in return the small craft would lack the firepower to do damage to the bigger ship. Remember at this time the ironclads were armed with banks of guns down the side of each ship, no turrets were in sight. All that changed in 1866 when the Whitehead torpedo was unveiled by its Austro-Hungarian inventor, and suddenly the smaller ship has a potent weapon as well.

Whitehead torpedo with the Argentinian Navy

Another thing that happened in 1866, also involving Austrian Empire was the Battle of Lissa. It has been claimed that torpedo rams were strongly influenced by this battle. At this battle a smaller Austrian Empire force ran into an Italian force near the island of Lissa. The Italians were lined up in column astern, the Austrians formed a block and charged in from the flank, much like at the battle of Trafalgar. As luck would have it the Italian commander was transferring his flag as the Austrians approached, meaning that only one portion of the Italian fleet opened fire. As the action devolved into a messy brawl the Italian ship Affondatore tried to ram an Austrian ship but missed. Then the Erzherzog Ferdinand Max tried to ram two Italian ships, but both managed to dodge the attack. Then after a bitter gun duel with the first ship they had tried to ram, the Erzherzog Ferdinand Max found herself in position again and went for the ram. The Italian ship slowed and tried to reverse out of the way and suffered the inevitable consequences. She sunk some two minutes later with a 5ft hole below the water line. The Italians then attempted to counter-ram the Erzherzog Ferdinand Max, however they missed. The gun decks on the Italian let fly at the damaged Austrian ship with a full, point blank broadside. But in the excitement, they had forgotten to load any shot.

One of the Austrian Empire ships after the battle of Lissa

With all the ramming involved some have claimed that the torpedo ram class of ships from around the world were designed to sink by either torpedo or ramming attacks. It seems this is not the case, however. To explain I shall focus on the Royal Navy’s use of the Whitehead torpedo.

HMS Vesuvius

The first ship designed for the Whitehead was HMS Vesuvius. She was in part an experimental ship, in part an actual warship. Her stated purpose was to sneak into French ports at night and start firing off torpedoes at moored ships. This sounds great at first glance, however, her slow speed of just 9 knots, single torpedo tube and only ten reloads make this seem dubious. Despite this several new ideas were included in her design, such as using coke to reduce the smoke given off, and that was vented underwater to reduce her visibility. However, before she was even laid down a new, improved class of ship, the true torpedo ram was designed.

HMS Polyphemus in her dry dock before launch, showing off the odd shape of the hull, the Ram and the bow torpedo door.

This new ship was named HMS Polyphemus. She was very low in the water, her hull resembling a submarine, and plated with 3 inches of armour. Ships of the line, like the ones at the Battle of Lissa usually had about 5in of plating, so she was extremely well protected. She was armed with five torpedo tubes, one in the bow inside the ships ram. The other tubes were pointing out the sides of the hull, with one each side on the 90-degree line, and two angled forward. In addition, she carried 18 spare torpedoes.

HMS Polyphemus afloat.

Like HMS Vesuvius her mission was to penetrate enemy harbours and sink ships with torpedoes. You might wonder why the targets were to be in harbour, well the Whitehead only had a top speed of 26 knots, which made hitting a moving target with a single torpedo extremely unlikely, especially as you are firing from fixed tubes.
So why the presence of the ram? Easy, it was to help the ship gain access to the enemy harbour. If the enemy placed a sturdy berm across the entrance to the harbour, then ships like HMS Vesuvius would be unable to gain access. But the torpedo ram could just cut through the barriers.

All this was tested out in 1885. In April the Russians orchestrated the Panjdeh incident. Fearing a possible attack into India the British began to prepare for war. One option was to attack Kronstadt harbour, or at least blockade it. The Russians when faced with the creation of a large Royal Navy fleet, and the British allocating some £11 million pounds for war, backed down and the crisis ended. However, it was decided to conduct trials of potential fleet actions of a type similar to the Kronsadt scenario. Thus, Berehaven on the south-west tip of Ireland was selected to stand in for the Russian base. It was defended by shore based torpedoes, command detonated mines and several berms and obstacles. The force playing the "Russian" ships inside the harbour, successfully managed to slip past the blockading "British" fleet and arrived off Glasgow.

To explain the caption, Berehaven is in Bantry bay.

However, before the exercise was completed, HMS Polyphemus was unleashed. One night, dodging torpedoes fired from shore installations, and bodily smashing through nets, steel hawsers and booms she ripped into the centre of the harbour at full steam, and would likely have had plenty of targets to launch her torpedoes at.

However, this class was to die out quite quickly, for the shortest lived of the class look at the US Navy's attempt, the USS Intrepid. She was commissioned on 31st of July 1874, and decommissioned on the 22nd of August, of the same year! The reason for the torpedo ram's short life was twofold. First, quick firing gun development meant that smaller lighter guns with sufficient punch that could be trained on a fast boat were coming into widespread service. Equally, a simple defence against torpedo attacks in harbour was devised, the anti-torpedo net suspended from booms. With the means of attack negated, and the chance of survival limited the torpedo ram was quietly retired with only a handful of her class having been built around the world.

The only picture I could find of USS Intrepid.

This is the USS Alarm, from 1873. As you can see she appears to be similar design to a Torpedo Ram as well, although less well protected. It is likely she was an experimental design similar to HMS Vesuvius.  Below is a sketch of her firing all her torpedo tubes.

HMS Polyphemus was sold for scrap on the 7th of July 1903, just a few short weeks after the 1903 opposition of Mars, and the class is now immortalised by HMS Thunderchild. From the description of HMS Thunderchild in the book, it almost certainly is HMS Polyphemus that Wells describes in action.

Thank you for reading. If you like what I do, and think it is worthy of a tiny donation, you can do so via Paypal (historylisty-general@yahoo.co.uk) or through Patreon. For which I can only offer my thanks.
Special thanks to Conrad for donating via Patreon.

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www.bevs.org and www.stolenhistory.org

Tank Hell

On the 16th of January 1991 the Coalition began operation Desert Storm, which resulted in one of the most comprehensive defeats in modern times. It was later said that as most of the forces and firepower were from NATO, they simply took the plan they had for fighting the Russians in Europe and applied it to the Russian equipped Iraqis. A key part of the air war were precision guided weapons. The effectiveness, and ability to stand-off from targets and reduce the threats from enemy air defences increased interest in many countries. Operation Desert Storm was often considered the first media war, and towards the end of the war the second Highway of Death (the first was in 1941) received massive coverage when the Iraqi's contributed to the cessation of hostilities. This media influence of wars also promoted the importance of precision guided weapons, as they potentially allowed a significant reduction in collateral damage, and thus not give negative press.

The Highway of death, or a repeat of the lesson on what happens if you try to manoeuvre an army in the open under hostile skies.

Before Desert Storm, since about 1978, the British had been researching and developing a new generation of standoff weapons. Two had been selected, one was called SWAARM, the other Brimstone. The latter was originally meant to be based off the US Hellfire missile, but over the course of the project the entire missile had eventually been redesigned, and so only bore a passing resemblance. However, in the 1990 the defence spending cuts... err... "review" (I've never seen a Defence review from the UK government that didn't cut the MOD's budget!), called Options for Change, the standoff missile project was terminated. It's interesting to note that this was published around the 25th of July in 1990, and the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait, which was the catalyst for Operation Desert Storm, happened on the 2nd of August 1990. After Desert Storm ended the MOD conducted the usual reviews and processes to determine what it needed in a future a war, and the idea of the stand-off precision missile reappeared. The MOD then began working on what the weapon would look like, and the project was dusted off and revived in 1992. By 1994 requirements had been issued for the weapon. Some five competitor entries were submitted, two of which were the SWAARM and the Brimstone. SWAARM is a really curious weapon made by Hunting Engineering Ltd. It seems to have drawn on the companies experience in submunition dispensing containers (Hunting Engineering was responsible for the JP233 airfield denial weapon). The weapon was lobbed into the area using a toss bombing technique. The cannister was unpowered, and would then glide to its target area, where it would start dispensing self-targeting submunitions. In the end Brimstone got the development contract in 1996. First launch, from a static ground mount was in 1999, and an air launch from a Tornado was in 2000.

The new wonder weapon, Brimstone in all its glory.

Brimstone entered service in 2005 and has been involved in several operations. A key point about the missile is that it is designed to limit collateral damage. If the missile fails to find a target, it will fly itself off to somewhere safe and self-destruct. Even if it does find a target, its extreme accuracy and specially designed warhead means that it prevents collateral damage. In 2011 the British were taking part in air strikes against Libyan forces, this was named Operation Ellamy. In July a Libyan tank decided to shelter inside an alley way between two houses, assuming it would be safe from Allied air attacks as any attempt to destroy it would cause significant damage to the houses. A single Brimstone destroyed the tank and caused no damage to either property.

A RAF Tornado showing off its payload of Brimstone.

 Later on, in September, the Libyans moved a large concentration of their tanks to the south of the country. They surrounded them with air defence units, meaning any attack would have to face significant fire. Two Tornadoes were despatched, each carrying twelve Brimstones. At a range of twenty-five miles two Tornado's ripple fired their missiles, one of the two planes only launched ten, the other all twelve. At the Libyan tank concentration, there was extremely bad weather, so the Brimstones arrived, locked on and began their attacks. Twenty-two tanks were destroyed, utterly without warning or even a defence being offered.

MBDA's tracked Brimstone launcher. I suspect someone had played 40K as a child.

Brimstone has recently been undergoing some developments, and the parent company MDBA has been pushing ground-based solutions. These would give ground forces the ability to break up enemy tank formations before they could normally engage. Most recently they have shown a small tracked remote-control vehicle with a box of six Brimstones on the back. This seems aimed at light infantry formations giving them some serious firepower. At the same time, they showed a fully tracked chassis mounting three box launchers, each containing eight missiles. Being able to annihilate twenty-four enemy tanks, per friendly vehicle, before the battle is joined certainly tips the balance of power back towards quality over quantity. There is, of course a downside. In this particular case a full load of ammunition for one vehicle would cost £2,520,000, or about half an MBT.

The fully blown AFV that MBDA pushed for sales. 1x Platoon of these = 1 destroyed enemy battalion.

 Despite that there have been other ground uses suggested. Recently a British tank unit has been involved with experimenting with technology. The soldiers of the unit have had a small budget and have been trying out ideas on tanks. Their most recent submission has included a pair of Brimstone missiles attached to the back of the turret. Interestingly this idea was muted for Swingfire and Chieftain. However, in that case it was found to overwork the commander, expose four very expensive missiles to enemy action and the 120mm main gun could do everything Swingfire could. So, it remains to be seen how useful (and cheap) this option would be.

Brimstone is also currently under development as a naval missile, with a larger warhead.

Thank you for reading. If you like what I do, and think it is worthy of a tiny donation, you can do so via Paypal (historylisty-general@yahoo.co.uk) or through Patreon. For which I can only offer my thanks.

Image credits:
www.overtdefense.com and www.militaryimages.net

Deaths Halifax

Close to midnight on the night of the 5th/6th of September 1943 a young German girl in the village of Waldsee borrowed the key to the Church steeple from her mother. She climbed the stairs to the top, and peered north across the darkened countryside looking towards the town of Mannheim. The city could be seen, despite the darkness and the blackout, because it was receiving the attention of a bomber command mission and was blazing. A stream of some 600 bombers were hammering the city. The girl had family in Mannheim. To the south of Waldsee beams of light from a searchlight unit were criss-crossing the sky, and would have given her some light to dimly perceive her surroundings. Then just after 0100 a blazing roaring fireball approached from the north west. It hurtled directly towards the young girl, was this some new English weapon? Transfixed with terror the girl watched the monstrosity approach, it only took a few heartbeats. The blazing apparition skimmed past the church steeple, missing by only a few yards. In these moments the young girl was able to see it was a night-black, four-engined plane, its wings ablaze. With a loud rending crash it smashed into the ground beyond Waldsee.

P/o D'Eath

The plane in question was a Halifax bomber, registration JD322, from 10 Squadron, based at RAF Melbourne in Derbyshire. It was flown by Pilot Officer D D'Eath, who I recently found out was a distant relative to my wife. JD322 had taken off at around 1930 the previous day. It had formed into the bomber stream and proceeded to bomb Mannheim. Then it had turned north to head home. At 0057 a BF110 night fighter flown by Oberfeldwebel Richard Launer, from I Gruppe Nachtjagdgeschwader 6 (which had only been formed in August) had spotted JD322, and moved in for the kill, setting the Halifax on fire, which had spiralled downwards and ended up in the field near Waldsee.

Many locals approached the burning JD322, in an attempt to rescue the crew. However, the craft was fully on fire and nothing was to be done, as all seven of the crew were dead. Shortly afterwards the soldiers from the searchlight position arrived and secured the site moving the locals away from the danger. Machine gun rounds had been cooking off in the heat of the fire.

After the fire died down the bodies were recovered, as they were carted to a nearby road fragments of bone, uniform and personnel possessions fell off, these would be discovered many years later. The  wreck was continuously guarded. However, one night some local children approached, and like the Robert Westall book The Machine Gunners, stole one of the Browning machine guns from the front turret, along with some of the surviving ammunition. After hiding the haul in a bush, they took the gun home. Whereupon they decided to see if they could fire it. Realising it needed bracing they decided a tap in the garden would do for their experiment and used this as a mount. They had even chosen a strong stone backstop of a wall, which promptly received several .303 bullet holes, until the police were called, and the gun confiscated.

The garden tap, still remains today, as does the backstop.

In 2015 a Dutchman living in the area heard of the bomber crash and began the task of setting out to find it. He conducted a lot of research and leg work, which lasted until last year. This work allowed him to find the site. His website can be found here, detailing all the evidence he collected. In August last year a memorial stone was erected, and a small ceremony held.  He also talks about another aircraft crash nearby later in the war, of a P-47.

Thank you for reading. If you like what I do, and think it is worthy of a tiny donation, you can do so via Paypal (historylisty-general@yahoo.co.uk) or through Patreon. For which I can only offer my thanks.

Making Makin

The day after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbour (remember the date line, so this event happened on the 9th of December), the Japanese took control of Butaritari Island. The Japanese troops would leave again in short order, only to return on Christmas Eve. Almost immediately they began construction of a seaplane base in the lagoon of the island.

Butaritari seen from above during the later invasion in 1943

In 1942 the USMC were given the task of raiding the island, mainly to capture enemy POW's and intelligence material. The task was given to the 2nd raider battalion. Around 200 men of the battalion were loaded onto two submarines, which then sailed for the island. During the nine day journey the Marines on board were allowed one hour a day with the submarine surfaced for exercise. The submarines arrived off Butaritari on the 16th of August 1942. The following morning, at 0330 the submarines surfaced and began to land their troops. Things went wrong from the outset, the heavy swells meant that the boats were swept away before they could be manned, this included a large portion of the unit’s machine guns. The rubber boats then chugged through the dangerous surf, it took nearly 40 minutes to travel just 500 yards due to the conditions, even then it would not be until 0500 before everyone was ashore and the rubber boats stowed and camouflaged. Originally two landing beaches had been selected, but this idea was abandoned due to the difficulties at sea. One boat, however, did not get the message to divert and continued on its way to land at the original beach. At 0530 as the raiders advanced one of the BAR gunners had a negligent discharge, which alerted the Japanese garrison. Things continued to go wrong when one raider saw shapes moving ahead of him and fired on them with the shotgun he was carrying. Luckily the shot missed as these were USMC raiders as well, this was the first of several friendly fire incidents.

 Butaritari as seen through the periscope of one of the transport submarines.

There had still been no contact with the Japanese forces, however, local natives were soon contacted who informed the US troops that the Japanese were near the seaplane base, some 2,000 yards away.
Then a Japanese truck appeared, and soldiers began to disembark. The lead platoon of the raiders laid a very careful ambush, which the Japanese force walked right into and were mown down. The truck was destroyed by a weapon the raiders called the "Elephant gun". This was a Canadian manufactured Boys anti-tank rifle. They had been purchased specifically for the raiders and would continue to crop up in raider operations throughout 1942 and 1943.

Reported to be a Boys rifle team. The SMG pouches were apparently the right size to store a spare round or two.

From this initial contact a front-line began to establish itself, with the raiders pinned down by the Japanese riflemen’s high degree of marksmanship. Japanese training had three core areas of competency. Marksmanship, bayonet work and night fighting. This is why you will often hear about Japanese "snipers". In reality it is likely that the rifle fire from a lone Japanese soldier was often very accurately aimed but lacking in rate of fire.

This skirmishing lasted until about 1130, when several things happened at around the same time. First, the boat that had not diverted to the new landing beach had actually made it to the planned destination. The twelve men in it had pushed inland and became lost. They found themselves behind the Japanese line, as they advanced they bumped into a small group of Japanese at a building, whom they killed, one of which was the Japanese commander. At the main line, the Japanese troops tried to charge into contact with the raiders. However, they were outnumbered, and the US force had a large number of automatic weapons and the charge was annihilated.

The lost squad pushed towards the battlefield blowing up targets of opportunity including radios and supplies. These repeated blows lead to the Japanese forces more or less disintegrating and only being able to provide limited skirmishing for the rest of the time.

At around the same time two Japanese reconnaissance planes started to circle the island for about fifteen minutes before leaving.
At 1255 a mixed gaggle consisting of twelve assorted types of Japanese aircraft appeared overhead. These loitered overhead conducting strafing and sporadic bombing for over an hour. Then ten of them turned for home, while two seaplanes attempted to land. The first one to land, was met with a salvo from the Elephant guns, as well as some machine gun fire, and burst into flames before sinking. The second seaplane attempted to make a wide turn and take off again. It too was engaged by the Boys rifles. Panicked by the incoming fire the pilot attempted to lift before building enough speed, whereupon it stalled and crashed into lagoon.

A Japanese Seaplane destroyed in the later invasion.

The raiders began to withdraw at this point, however the Japanese skirmishing was still an irritation. By 1900 the men had reached the boat, despite being under sporadic, but prolonged air attacks. That evening they tried to reach the submarines by paddling their boats out. However, the strong waves battered them and very few would make it. To make matters worse constant air patrols disrupted the attempt to evacuate. Only the lack of organised large-scale Japanese forces prevented the raiders being wiped out. The next morning a few men managed to make it to the submarines before they had to dive for the day to avoid the air attacks.

Finally, that night the raiders managed to link up with the submarines by using their rubber boats, some native canoes and tying each boat together. Despite this one boat was lost and the raiders in it were never seen again. Both submarines made it back to Pearl Harbour unscathed, and the first land based counter attack against the Japanese was completed.

Thank you for reading. If you like what I do, and think it is worthy of a tiny donation, you can do so via Paypal (historylisty-general@yahoo.co.uk) or through Patreon. For which I can only offer my thanks.

Image Credits:
www.worldwarphotos.info, www.j-hangarspace.jp, www.ibiblio.org and www.warhistoryonline.com

The Tiny Erinyes

Last week I posted a collection of plans I had found lurking on my hard drive. Well I didn't post them all, as I wanted to use the last ones to add to this week’s article. That's because the subject of this week’s piece is a bit of an enigma, and not a great deal of information exists upon it. I am talking about the Alecto (The name comes from the Greek Erinye of the same name). I hardly need tell you that it uses the same skid steering as the A.17 Tetrarch, however the rest of the vehicle was based upon the A.25 Harry Hopkins light tank. You can see that the claim of many sites that the A.25 is a modified form of the Tetrarch is dubious from the suspension drawings, when you can see that the sides of the hull are very different shapes. I would suggest the only thing that is shared between all three vehicles is the suspension style and the wheels.

The exact beginnings of the Alecto are a bit hazy to find, most sites claim it as 1942. That's the year the new 95mm close support howitzer appeared so it may be correct. Now, interestingly the 95mm came in two versions. One used split cases, the other used complete rounds. The version in most British tanks was the one firing whole rounds, while the version on the Alecto used the split rounds. This allowed the Alecto to vary its range by substituting different charge sizes, much like the Royal Artillery. This points to the role it seems to have been intended for.

As we go through this article, look at the pictures and note the differences between the Alecto's. The main area of variation are on the sides of the fighting compartment, on some vehicles they are bevelled inwards, on others they have a box or other structure placed there. Also look at the muzzle brakes. I have no idea on what the minor variations mean, nor does there seem to be a set pattern.

British armoured car regiments had a heavy troop in each squadron. This was a fire support element to give the squadron a bit more firepower. The first vehicle used in this role was the US halftrack with a M1897 75mm gun on the back. Later, AEC armoured cars armed with the same 75mm from a Cromwell would be used. These later vehicles were somewhat heavy and being only wheeled, unmaneuverable. A lightly armoured tracked vehicle would certainly fulfil the need, and as it was equipped with the 95mm howitzer it could certainly provide some serious fire support.

An Alecto with a longer gun than normal. From the shape of it I would think it is a 6-pounder.

Now the first version of the Alecto was armed with the 95mm, however there is a single picture, of one mounting what appears to be a 6-pounder. Due to the lack of crew, and the driver not wearing any head gear it seems likely that this was a prototype of some form.

An Alecto in the UK. It has been suggested this is from The Great Flood in 1953 taken at Shepperton.

There are assorted other claims on the Alecto, mounting a 25-pounder and even a 32-pounder! The latter of which I would have to question. How you are going to fit a gun weighing 3.27 tons into a vehicle that weighs just over 8 tons is a bit of a question. Equally it’s likely that the gun's length will provide issues for the Alecto. I have a suspicion that this is a miss identification of the 95mm. The 95mm's calibre was actually 94mm, which is exactly the same as the 32-pounder.

A pair of Alecto's in Berlin at the end of the War. Note the lead vehicle seems to have five crew!

We do know that two Alecto's served in the 11th Hussars just after the end of the war, as there is a picture of them in Berlin on the parade to mark the British forces arrival in the German capital. This can be identified from the markings on the Alecto, and when compared to other vehicles in the event, or that we know belong to the 11th Hussars, we can see a clear link.

A known 11th Hussars Daimler Dingo, with a very interesting twin machine gun mount (Possibly twin Vickers K's). Compare the markings to those on the Alecto.

The arrival Parade on 4/7/45 in Berlin for the 11th Hussars. Again almost identical markings on the vehicle.

A small handful of Alecto’s also served in the Kings Dragoon Guards in Libya in 1947.

Thank you for reading. If you like what I do you can donate via Paypal (historylisty-general@yahoo.co.uk) or through Patreon.

Image Credits:
www.arrse.co.uk
Plans from the National Archives, at Kew