22 November 1940. Sidi Haneish, Egypt
Major-General Creagh and his senior staff had spent the last few days getting to know the men and machines of the 2nd Royal Gloucestershire Hussars (RGH) and 3rd Sharpshooters, (County of London Yeomanry). The men were no longer quite so fresh out of England, their sunburn not quite so painful. While their tanks had gone through the process of preparing them for the harsh environment of North Africa, the men had been exercising in body and mind. A long sea voyage had wasted away some of their fitness and part of their acclimatisation to Egypt had been marches and runs at all times of the day and night. The men of the Regiments weren’t that keen on all the physical aspects, other than sports, but they were well disciplined and began to feel that ‘they’d caught their breath’ in their new surroundings.
The mental exercises had been much more challenging and enjoyable. A detachment of 7th Armoured Division’s men, especially some of the old hands, had been teaching, as far as practicable, some of the skills and abilities that would be needed in desert warfare: first and foremost, the importance of learning navigation skills without much in the way of landmarks on maps. The tank commanders were particularly focussed on this, but drivers, gunners and loaders were all taken through the skills to figuring out where they were and how to get where they should be. Their teachers had spent years in ‘the blue’ and knew that navigating in the desert could seem as much an art as a science.
There were lots of tricks that soldiers had learned to make life bearable in an inhospitable climate: How to make the most of the water ration; looking after yourself and your equipment; what to look out for; what to do in sand storms; all these survival techniques could be taught and shared, but only experience would drive the lessons home.
Now that the men and the tanks had had a month to prepare themselves Creagh was getting them ready for the first full Divisional training exercise that was due to take place in a couple of days. The two Yeomanry Regiments had a good working relationship as part of 22nd Armoured Brigade. Creagh had had to give a lot of thought, along with his Brigadiers John Caunter (4th Armd Bde) and Hugh Russell of (7th Armd Bde), to how best integrate them into the Division. Brigadier John Scott-Cockburn, whose 22nd Brigade HQ was now awaiting the arrival of the rest of 2nd Armoured Division, had suggested keeping the two regiments together in one Brigade, since they were used to working alongside one another. Creagh, however, on inspecting the tanks and the men, thought it would be better to have one regiment of these tanks in each Brigade.
4th Armoured Brigade would therefore consist of 6th Battalion RTR, 7th Hussars and 2nd RGH. 7th Armoured Brigade would comprise 1st Bn RTR, 8th Hussars and 3rd Sharpshooters. The mixture of light and cruiser tanks in the original four regiments had stabilised with the majority of being made up of A9 and A10s, but there was still up to a squadron of Light Tanks in each Regiment. This was in some part deliberate, going back to Hobart’s time in command of the Mobile Force (Egypt). In the days when there were few tanks capable of taking on other tanks, mixing some 2-pdr Cruisers in with the majority of Light Tanks made sense.
Creagh wanted some experienced desert men in with the new Regiments, just in case. The 2nd RGH and 3rd Sharpshooters HQs swapped out a couple of their Valiant I* for Light Tanks with experienced officers. Having the 22nd Brigade HQ tanks available was also really helpful. Their ten Valiant I*, along with those from the two Regimental HQs, gave each of the original four Regiments a troop of the new tanks.
The 7th Armoured Division's workshops nearer Marsa Matruh had been just as busy as those back at the Delta. The new air-filters had been fitted all the A9 and A10s, in addition, all the A10s had been fitted with the new extra external fuel tank. The A9s were due to get theirs once more became available. Every tank had been serviced as much as possible and as far as the leadership of 7th Armoured Division could see it was the strongest it had ever been. As always, the Workshops had a few non-runners to deal with, and the Depots had some spare tanks for replacements, but otherwise the Division was ready to go to war.
NB Text in italic differs from OTL. I can't find anything that actually talks about the merger of OTL 2 RTR (cruisers) and 8 Hussars (lights) into the two armoured Brigades, but obviously it happened, something like this (I hope). The mixing of cruisers and lights happened more then than it does this time. OTL 6 December 1940 4th Armoured Brigade looked like: 7 Hussars 4 cruisers/34 lights; 2 RTR 36/16; 6 RTR 16/17. 7th Armd Bde: 3 Hussars 16/36; 8 Hussars 4/34; 1 RTR 16/22, with 47 cruisers and 82 lights in workshops/depots. Obviously the fixing up of tanks was going on up to the last minute. The 11th Hussars, Western Desert Force's reconnaissance unit, are also floating around in Light Tanks and Armoured Cars, reinforced with an extra squadron from No.2 Armoured Car Company R.A.F. from Palestine. Here, roughly, 7th Armoured Division is at full strength (War Establishment 340): 4th Armd Bde: 7 Hussars 36 cruisers/16 lights; 2 RGH 50/2; 6 RTR 44/8. 7th Armd Bde: 3 Hussars 36/16; 3 Sharpshooter 50/2; 1 RTR 44/8. In addition, each Brigade HQ has 6 cruisers/ 4 Lights (OTL 2/8), plus Division has another 4/4 (OTL 1/5). The plan OTL, which I'm presuming also happened TTL, as A10s arrived they would go to the RTR regiments, who'd pass their A9s onto the Hussars. So RTR cruisers are mostly A10 (~80), the Hussars are mostly A9 (~70), plus RGH & Sharpshooters Valiant I*(100). The Italians are believed to have 144 mediums and 60 light tanks!
