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DZ Season 061 Part 17. Rommel’s Unwinnable Desert War – El Alamein – Cairo – Alexandria – Suez Canal.
The big question now was, could Panzerarmée Afrika take Tobruk, that was something they had failed to do in 1941, and then, given its perilous petrol supplies and the distances that had to be covered to reach the Nile delta, how was it going to be possible to seize Cairo, Alexandria and the Suez Canal?
From May 1942 things changed dramatically, and irreversibly, for the Italian armoured divisions in supporting Rommel. Their M13, and the slightly improved M14 tanks, had been OK up till then, but after May 1942 the British started to be equipped at first by the weird and ungainly looking American Lee/Grant tanks, and a few months later with the much superior Sherman tanks that would serve the Allies through to the end of the war in Europe. These Italian tanks were no match for those new tanks with armour that couldn’t be penetrated by the Italian 47mm guns and carrying a gun that could easily destroy the Italian tanks. The Italians had complete the designs for their new Carro Armato P40, carrying a 75mm gun that stood comparison with the latest German and Allied tanks and armour that was equally as good, but that tank never went into production.
So let’s look at the last hurrah for the Italian armoured divisions as they bravely fought on in what the tanks, that they nicknamed “iron coffins”.
Tag words: Panzerarmee Afrika; Tobruk; M14/41 tanks; Lee/Grant tanks; Sherman tanks; Carro Armato P40; Winston Churchill; Field Marshall Erwin Rommel; Ariete; Treiste; Littorio; Ian Walker; Iron Hulls, Iron Hearts; El Alamein; Deutsche Afrika Korp; General Giuseppe De Stefanis; General Ettore Baldassarre; 2nd New Zealand Division; 90th Light Division; Italian XX Corps; 4th Armoured Brigade; Bersaglieri; General Francesco Arena; Mersa Matruh; General De Stefanis; Colonel Fellers;
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By Paul FordyceThe big question now was, could Panzerarmée Afrika take Tobruk, that was something they had failed to do in 1941, and then, given its perilous petrol supplies and the distances that had to be covered to reach the Nile delta, how was it going to be possible to seize Cairo, Alexandria and the Suez Canal?
From May 1942 things changed dramatically, and irreversibly, for the Italian armoured divisions in supporting Rommel. Their M13, and the slightly improved M14 tanks, had been OK up till then, but after May 1942 the British started to be equipped at first by the weird and ungainly looking American Lee/Grant tanks, and a few months later with the much superior Sherman tanks that would serve the Allies through to the end of the war in Europe. These Italian tanks were no match for those new tanks with armour that couldn’t be penetrated by the Italian 47mm guns and carrying a gun that could easily destroy the Italian tanks. The Italians had complete the designs for their new Carro Armato P40, carrying a 75mm gun that stood comparison with the latest German and Allied tanks and armour that was equally as good, but that tank never went into production.
So let’s look at the last hurrah for the Italian armoured divisions as they bravely fought on in what the tanks, that they nicknamed “iron coffins”.
Tag words: Panzerarmee Afrika; Tobruk; M14/41 tanks; Lee/Grant tanks; Sherman tanks; Carro Armato P40; Winston Churchill; Field Marshall Erwin Rommel; Ariete; Treiste; Littorio; Ian Walker; Iron Hulls, Iron Hearts; El Alamein; Deutsche Afrika Korp; General Giuseppe De Stefanis; General Ettore Baldassarre; 2nd New Zealand Division; 90th Light Division; Italian XX Corps; 4th Armoured Brigade; Bersaglieri; General Francesco Arena; Mersa Matruh; General De Stefanis; Colonel Fellers;