Ah, okay. Still, by this point Britain will likely be in Sirte, so I imagine Germany would struggle to make any use of it.
Sir John Valentine Carden survives.
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The blood on the floor of whichever agency was in charge of US signals security must have been ankle deep when the breach of security was exposed.
Finding out that your enemy has broken your codes is bad enough.
Finding out from your allies that they've done it is worse.
Finding out because your allies have broken the enemy codes and have been reading your own reports on their forces from intercepted enemy signals. Brown organic matter meets rotary cooling device.
Finding out that your enemy has broken your codes is bad enough.
Finding out from your allies that they've done it is worse.
Finding out because your allies have broken the enemy codes and have been reading your own reports on their forces from intercepted enemy signals. Brown organic matter meets rotary cooling device.
Especially after Col Fellers himself had told Washington he thought the black code was compromised earlier in the year and was told that it was fine
I wouldn't get too over-excited. Rommel isn't a fool and his information is quite good. With only two reliable divisions of his own, I doubt he'd make O'Connor's life easy by throwing them at prepared positions around El Agheila. More likely is a spoiling attack to remove the jumping-off points around Ras el Ali - if the British show signs of weakness he pushes on, otherwise he stops and gets ready to stick the anticipated counter-attack. And OTL Rommel proved quite capable of messing up British attacks even with significantly inferior forces.
IIRC, British doctrine TTL hasn't diverged much from OTL, which means that co-operation between the infantry and armoured units is likely to be poor. OTL, this really hurt them facing Afrika Korps combined arms.
Actually, a lot or British doctrine (including, to some degree, infantry cooperation) got sorted out either in France, or soon afterwards, due to experiences in France.
Yes the earlier issues in North Africa was the units not from the UK or already in region not having gone through that evolution
As more units from the UK arrived it got better - but until then we see 'jock columns' and other local Frankenstein combined arms creations to try and muddle through
There was also the local practice of fighting as Brigades and not divisions - something that Monty stamped out and made everyone use the established doctrine (not that they had something called doctrine - but it was the same thing) with Divisions fighting as a whole (and as part of a larger Corps) and not what 'the old desert hands had been doing' and he binned anyone who could not / would not conform.
Which filled London with lots of failed officers telling anyone who would listen what an odious little shit he was - well at least until El Alemain.
But again this is down to training and education of officers (both field and staff) along with the application of hard won wartime experience and in 1941 this process is not yet complete across the 'new army'.
He was short of supplies.
In sonnenblume at least twice one of his columns ran out of fuel, and sat like sitting ducks in the desert.
Fuel would be a lot less of a problem if defending - not only is less needed, but supplies of all types have less distance to travel from the docks, so need less fuel to get them to the troops.
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Did they also have major elements also break down at various points?
In 41 the Pz IV had the short 75, a low velocity howitzer, not the long 75s.
In OTL they were only fitted starting in 42, after encountering the T-34s and KVs.
So the Pz IVs in 41 will not be as much of a problem for the Victor & Valiant, unless they are different from OTL.
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I would imagine that is one of those things that has been overlooked because of everything else that has gone on. It would be something that wod be nice to have but not a priority.
From an author/reader perspective, sure. OTL it took until October to get it to Sidi Barrani, and while they might move a bit faster here, I suppose it won't make much of a difference for months yet.
Actually, by this point, none of the theatre commanders knew that we had broken the German Enigma. They were simply told that special intelligence assets had revealed certain things. Bletchley Park operations were NOT known to theatre commanders. Sorry, but this is absolutely ASB if they know about BP.
Huh that was more in the nature of a general question actually.
If I remember right wasn't quite a lot of bletchley parks intercepts changed to make it look like it came from spies in Germany and fed back to Generals initially? To avoid informing any German ears about Bletchley Park.
Ah ok then so not able to tell O'Connor what Rommels orders to his units are.
Not quite. Bletchley Park used special liason officers who hand carried what was known out to the commander. Depends of course that the commander believes what he is told and of course what he is told is accurate. In the case of Rommel it was pointless as he did what he wanted anyways.
Mark1878
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I think that there was a fixed rule re Enigma intercepts. They could not be acted on unless there was a possible way of making the Germans think that the information came from another source.
So for example when Bletchley Park incercepted details of an Italian convoy reconaissance planes took odd routes and 'accidentaly' found the convoy and only then would British submarines and aircraft attack it. There was one convoy that was found by Enigma and no other way of locating it could be invented so Churchill himself had to sign off the direct attack.
So yes O'Conneo would have a lot of information seemingly coming from a spy ostensibly in OKW or Rommel's HQ or more likely some Italian HQ.
However as Rommel OTL did not do as his superiors wanted or though there is a question of how much use this information will be.
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An early limit on the six pounder was the machine tools available to make the barrels were limited to L43.
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