Malaya What If
- Thread starter Fatboy Coxy
- Start date
MWI 41110706 The 41st Indian Brigade Exercises
Fatboy Coxy
Monthly Donor
1941, Friday 07 November;
Dawn was half an hour or so away, and it was raining hard again, coming down in sheets. Brigadier Henry Dawson Moorhead was in a wooded hut in Camp Jementah, having arrived about an hour ago. Long enough to change out of his wet clothes and feel a little better in himself, as he sat down to a breakfast. He was tired and weary, having had poor sleep since they started the brigade exercises four days ago, on Monday. With him was his immediate brigade staff, the rest of the 41st Indian Brigade HQ were still arriving, parking vehicles, unloading and liaising with camp staff, after a night drive exercise from the Australian base in Malacca, through the small town of Jasin, and around Mount Ophir, just under 50 miles away.
Much of the brigade was still on the road, the 2nd Battalion, 10th Baluch had been in front and was already here in camp, while just up the road, behind the last of his staff vehicles, came one troop of the 63/81 RA battery, 5th Field Regt, of four 4.5-inch Hows. Following them would be the 2nd Bn, 12th Frontier Force Regt, the second troop of 63/81 RA, and lastly, still some distance off, bringing up the rear was the 2/2nd Gurkha Rifles. The 57th Madras S&M Indian Engineer Field Company was scattered all along the route, dealing with accidents, or assisting across streams of rainwater that chosen to use the road as a riverbed, along with fallen trees or rocks, and waving torches trying to direct on the difficult road sections, with everybody driving on dimmed, taped up headlights.
They had done this drive easily on Monday, in daylight, and dry conditions, at the beginning of the exercises, but tonight Col Ian Stewart’s trainers had declared certain parts of the road were no longer accessible, forcing several local diversions onto paths, and tracks, two bridges being declared dangerously unstable, forcing everybody to walk across hastily erected temporary footbridges and one vehicle at a time crossing the road bridge, had wreaked havoc with the journey times.
And it came on the back of three days exercises of fighting their way along the road, back to Malacca. This had involved a lot of company and platoon sized units operating in the jungle either side of the road, which exhausted both officers and men, and taxed communications and control. Thursday morning had been under the watchful eyes of Percival and Godwin-Austen, who hadn’t been impressed by the reports of the previous days, and even less so, when they had watched. The last exercise had finished at noon yesterday, this night drive was the last of the series, and on paper, appeared to be one of the simplest, but the men were bone weary, and then the rain came.
He knew the exercises had been useful, all the units had demonstrated a keenness to prove their worth, and, while the Gurkhas had been somewhat disappointing, that was understandable, as so many of her men were boys of 17/18 newly recruited in, still needing a lot of training, having arrived in Malaya just two months ago. Also, a lot of officers among the brigade’s various units, had been found wanting, mostly due to lack of training or experience, although for some it wouldn’t be that simple to explain their actions, while quite a few more had pleasantly surprised him, having risen to the occasion.
They were the seventh brigade to do this particular round of exercises, and from what he’d heard from some of the trainers, they hadn’t done too bad, they could be proud of themselves, but he was also worried about the forthcoming review of the exercises, what Buster, his Divisional CO, would think of him. He was very aware of his own mistakes, the biggest one was believing his units were better than they were, he hadn’t appreciated how un-prepared they were, they always looked impressive on the parade ground. The brigade would be returning back to Kelantan soon, where more small unit training would continue, as well as further work on beach defences. He didn’t know if he would be going back with them, he hoped he’d done enough since the brigade was formed back in May, and keep his job, and if he did, he’d make sure they’d raise their game!
Dawn was half an hour or so away, and it was raining hard again, coming down in sheets. Brigadier Henry Dawson Moorhead was in a wooded hut in Camp Jementah, having arrived about an hour ago. Long enough to change out of his wet clothes and feel a little better in himself, as he sat down to a breakfast. He was tired and weary, having had poor sleep since they started the brigade exercises four days ago, on Monday. With him was his immediate brigade staff, the rest of the 41st Indian Brigade HQ were still arriving, parking vehicles, unloading and liaising with camp staff, after a night drive exercise from the Australian base in Malacca, through the small town of Jasin, and around Mount Ophir, just under 50 miles away.
Much of the brigade was still on the road, the 2nd Battalion, 10th Baluch had been in front and was already here in camp, while just up the road, behind the last of his staff vehicles, came one troop of the 63/81 RA battery, 5th Field Regt, of four 4.5-inch Hows. Following them would be the 2nd Bn, 12th Frontier Force Regt, the second troop of 63/81 RA, and lastly, still some distance off, bringing up the rear was the 2/2nd Gurkha Rifles. The 57th Madras S&M Indian Engineer Field Company was scattered all along the route, dealing with accidents, or assisting across streams of rainwater that chosen to use the road as a riverbed, along with fallen trees or rocks, and waving torches trying to direct on the difficult road sections, with everybody driving on dimmed, taped up headlights.
They had done this drive easily on Monday, in daylight, and dry conditions, at the beginning of the exercises, but tonight Col Ian Stewart’s trainers had declared certain parts of the road were no longer accessible, forcing several local diversions onto paths, and tracks, two bridges being declared dangerously unstable, forcing everybody to walk across hastily erected temporary footbridges and one vehicle at a time crossing the road bridge, had wreaked havoc with the journey times.
And it came on the back of three days exercises of fighting their way along the road, back to Malacca. This had involved a lot of company and platoon sized units operating in the jungle either side of the road, which exhausted both officers and men, and taxed communications and control. Thursday morning had been under the watchful eyes of Percival and Godwin-Austen, who hadn’t been impressed by the reports of the previous days, and even less so, when they had watched. The last exercise had finished at noon yesterday, this night drive was the last of the series, and on paper, appeared to be one of the simplest, but the men were bone weary, and then the rain came.
He knew the exercises had been useful, all the units had demonstrated a keenness to prove their worth, and, while the Gurkhas had been somewhat disappointing, that was understandable, as so many of her men were boys of 17/18 newly recruited in, still needing a lot of training, having arrived in Malaya just two months ago. Also, a lot of officers among the brigade’s various units, had been found wanting, mostly due to lack of training or experience, although for some it wouldn’t be that simple to explain their actions, while quite a few more had pleasantly surprised him, having risen to the occasion.
They were the seventh brigade to do this particular round of exercises, and from what he’d heard from some of the trainers, they hadn’t done too bad, they could be proud of themselves, but he was also worried about the forthcoming review of the exercises, what Buster, his Divisional CO, would think of him. He was very aware of his own mistakes, the biggest one was believing his units were better than they were, he hadn’t appreciated how un-prepared they were, they always looked impressive on the parade ground. The brigade would be returning back to Kelantan soon, where more small unit training would continue, as well as further work on beach defences. He didn’t know if he would be going back with them, he hoped he’d done enough since the brigade was formed back in May, and keep his job, and if he did, he’d make sure they’d raise their game!
Remember with all maritime factors you need to account for bunkers as well as provisions and ammunition it effects how the hunt goes.
An aside but maybe interesting footnote to the Oerlikon.
When I was on HMS Pheobe in 1982, preparing to sail for the Falklands, one of the tasks I helped with, or rather helped hump around from A to B, was a double Oerlikon mounting that had been dragged out of some forgotten corner of a forgotten warehouse & was being welded onto the rear of the ship.
Apparently they had found some of the necessary spare parts in an antique car dealership. I seen to have vague, unpleasant memories of copious amounts of thick grease being smeared over everything.
Excuses for the diverging.
When I was on HMS Pheobe in 1982, preparing to sail for the Falklands, one of the tasks I helped with, or rather helped hump around from A to B, was a double Oerlikon mounting that had been dragged out of some forgotten corner of a forgotten warehouse & was being welded onto the rear of the ship.
Apparently they had found some of the necessary spare parts in an antique car dealership. I seen to have vague, unpleasant memories of copious amounts of thick grease being smeared over everything.
Excuses for the diverging.
Driftless
Donor
Self-awareness is always a good thing, but does he have the time to tune himself up to a better level before the real shooting starts?
Ramp-Rat
Monthly Donor
And so another Brigade has been put through the difficult task of a realistic excise, and been found wanting. Despite his fears I doubt that Brigadier H D Moorhead, is going to find himself out of a job, though he is going to be subjected to a serious detailed post excise debriefing. His troops have suffered and learnt a lot at one and the same time. And once they return to their respective bases, they are going to find themselves subjected to some serious training.To reinforce the lessons of their recent excise, and to drive into them the basics of being a good soldier. Given how little time there is before the Japanese onslaught, I doubt that they are going to get another chance to repeat such an experience. But they will however, be able to carry out far more realistic training, and a little less square bashing, not that square bashing doesn’t have some use. By the time of the Japanese offensive, they will be far better prepared to deal with the ensuing confusion that is inevitable, until they have become fully adjusted to being in action. He will be taken a serious look at his officers, and a few are going to find that they have been found totally inadequate and thus replaced. While others are going to find themselves being promoted, and given more responsibility. Despite appearances the Brigade has done well, given how green it is, and the strain it has placed under, it has managed to retain its basic structure, and doesn’t appear to have suffered serious casualties. The Japanese are going to find themselves facing a much tougher foe than it has up until now, and one that doesn’t collapse at the first shock of combat.
RR.
RR.
The Ludendorff Bridge (aka The Bridge at Remagen) was built with this in mind.
And we know how that turned out. The US Engineer units were able to get it back in use pretty darn quick because they had plans for what to do to any bridges they encountered.
It may be surprising how important it is just to get units to the right place on time, and continue operating when tired, wet and stressed. It's easy going to the firing range and doing platoon exercises in camp when you know you can knock off at 5 for a shower and a beer later; it's much harder on an open-ended field exercise, but the troops will start to understand their limits (and that they are much wider than they expect).
Dead Carl sums it up- “Everything is very simple in war, but the simplest thing is difficult.”
Or-
A “simple” night march after 96 hours of continuous ops is when those “well rested, well fed” staff officers everyone loves to hate should be building a plan to keep things simple, timely, and well regulated so the troopers are put in the best position possible to use their natural aggressiveness and taxpayer funded skills to win the last 300m of foreign policy.
Or, as one of my mentors used to say: ”My staff officers will have plenty of family time when the mission is accomplished and my troopers are back with their families.”
Also “Row well and live”.
Or, as one of my mentors used to say: ”My staff officers will have plenty of family time when the mission is accomplished and my troopers are back with their families.”
Also “Row well and live”.
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Nice thing about the Navy, if the ship sinks, we all go down together 😂😳😭
Very true. Riding to work on a boat, steel box, or aircraft tends to be a leveler.
“There’s a fine line between hard and stupid.”, and “There’s no need to train misery, there’ll be plenty to go around when the time comes.” live in a constant struggle with “The best form of troop welfare is hard and realistic training.”
Shouldn't join up if you can't take a joke... oh, hang on, conscripted 😬
All kidding aside, Josephus’s adage about bloodless battles and bloody drills about sums it up. Robert Turner’s quote, ”I woke up in a cold sweat,…I had a nightmare that I was still in Ranger School. Thank God that I was in Vietnam. Compared to Ranger School, combat was easy.”; and the post-Desert Storm remark ”After NTC the Republican Guard was easy.” may contain a touch of hyperbole but aren’t too far off the mark of “just right“ for individual and collective training.
Live-fire maneuver training under realistic conditions, physically and mentally stressful training, and free-play training against a non-cooperative opponent have been repetitively proven to underpin most successful military units. There is no substitute for the initial emotional shock of actual combat and there will always be disruption associated with war. But, individuals and organizations exposed to “just shy of war” conditions before actual war recover quicker and are more rapidly able to reach peak combat efficiency than those that are not.
Live-fire maneuver training under realistic conditions, physically and mentally stressful training, and free-play training against a non-cooperative opponent have been repetitively proven to underpin most successful military units. There is no substitute for the initial emotional shock of actual combat and there will always be disruption associated with war. But, individuals and organizations exposed to “just shy of war” conditions before actual war recover quicker and are more rapidly able to reach peak combat efficiency than those that are not.