Hi all, Thought I would spin this off from the tanks thread. Don Juan wrote: I was under the impression that the portee came first as a way of just moving guns around. I know the Brits had some in France, not just 2-pounder but also smaller French guns - whatever they'd been able to buy in the period running up to the war. And the idea originated in the first world war. Anyway, I don't have any documents about early war anti-tank doctrine, but the impression I got was that the mobility of the portee was only supposed to be used to get the guns in place, whereupon they would be unloaded and set up. This got flipped around in the desert, with the units using the portees to fire from the bed and able to run off - but which also left them much larger targets. Anyone know more?
PS I just realized that the 1942 pamphlet may be relevant (Artillery Training, Volume 1 Pamphlet No 9, Employment and Tactical handling of the Anti-Tank Regiment). I don't actually see it address the point Don Juan raised. There is also no provision for firing from portees and withdrawing, and a great deal of emphasis on concealment (which would necessitate removing the gun from the vehicle.) It seems perhaps to be the product of Home Forces thought alone, even at that point in time.
Thanks to Tom I now have the 'Lessons from BATTLEAXE' document, and it appears that portee'd 2-pdr guns were not firing from the back of the truck then. So the pernicious habit of making the truck a bigger target was the result of introducing the ability to do so. But in fairness, there were no good options, it seems. All the best Andreas
The French gun alluded to above was the 25mm Hotchkiss Mle 34. Despite its small bore it was a fairly effective weapon for its period, especially against the Panzers I and II which made up such a large percentage of the German armor in 1940. It was not a terribly robust weapon and did not stand up well to motor towing. (The Puteaux 25mm was even worse in this respect.) This may have been part of the justification for carrying the 25s on trucks. These guns were allotted to the brigade anti-tank companies of the infantry divisions. I studied the 50th Div in 1940 but the press of time kept me from looking at the anti-tank company war diaries. From regimental histories and the war diaries I did see (inf battalion, brigade, division) I can't recall a single instance of anti-tank guns firing from portee mounts in 1940. The 106th RHA definitely fired from their trucks at Beda Fomm, so I suspect this was another early Western Desert Force practice which you could just get by with against the Italians. (Not by much, though, 106th RHA suffered heavily at Beda Fomm.)
I've seen no suggestion that the 2-pdr. was ever carried portee by the BEF and German accounts regularly refer to the British anti-tank guns being well dug in and well camouflaged. Most of that fast-moving campaign involved withdrawal so the anti-tank gunners were not unique in being called upon regularly to disengage. The 25mm Hotchkiss, carried on a Bedford 15cwt. was not intended to be fired from that position.
As I understand it, the Portee system of carrying small guns on trucks was to simplify the equipment and skills involved. Saving the wheels of the carriage for short tactical needs rather than the wear and tear of rigours of a road march ensured they were fresh and effective when needed. With the small size and weight of the 25mm Hotchkiss/37mm Bofors/2pdr the manhandling was not too much of an issue. Moving to the 6pdr and a 3ton truck meant the weights and sizes started to become challenging. Firing whilst 'en portee' was a tactic developed, I believe, in the Western Desert - where 'shoot and scoot' was a wise move.
There are some excellent early war photos in the IWM archive, at least two sequences, showing training getting anti-tank guns on and off their trucks. THE BRITISH ARMY IN FRANCE 1940
I have not been able to discover when the Hotchkiss 25mm guns were ordered (probably no later than July 1939) nor when delivery began (but clearly before September 1939). The formation of the Brigade Anti-tank Companies began sequentially with 1 (Guards) Brigade at the beginning of September 1939 by which time there had already been trials of the Morris Commercial 15 cwt portee. These trials were conducted 7-17 July 1939, receiving the ‘satisfactory’ MEE Report No. A147 and approval of the Mechanization Board in September, so it appears to me that, rather than being a response to field experience, the portee had been in contemplation from the outset. Note that these trials considered loading and unloading the gun but not firing it, which they surely would have done if that had been the intention. A production order followed shortly thereafter with Rich’s upload Infantry Brigade Anti-Tank Companies indicating that 2 Division received theirs in November. A further trial (A182) with a Bren carrier utilising the hitch from a 30 cwt lorry was conducted in December and also found to be satisfactory. I don’t know how that timing fits with Rich’s other upload. I agree with Rich (#6) – I don’t think that the 2-pdr portee made it to France.
Those are great photos! I think pretty clearly the gun was not intended to be fired from the portee. It doesn't look like the 25mm (?) could rotate. Compare that with the 2-pounder... I'm not actually sure how the mount folded(?) so that the wheels were in that position.
Following Unternehmen Sommernachtstraum on 14th September, 7th Armoured Brigade issued their Intelligence Summary No.11, which included the following description of the "defence" offered by 65th Anti-Tank Regiment: "NH" is a misidentification of the Norfolk Yeomanry. The reference to firing from "hull down posns" indicates to me that the guns were being fired from the backs of the portees, and not dismounted. The impression I get here is that 65 ATR were moving and firing to harass the Germans from long range, which is an utterly useless way of trying to hamper an enemy advance. This action occurred during the withdrawal from the Playground area, the money quote being in bold below: As the British were always in mobile operations in the desert, they almost never stood and fought unless there was no way out. MarkN posited that this is a hitherto unrecognised chronic weakness in British tactics, and I very much tend to agree with him, as it basically gave the Germans the free run of the desert.
As the 2-pdr wasn’t intended to be fired from its wheels, I’ve always assumed that the wheels were removed once loaded and safely secured out of the arc of fire.
The wheels of the 2 pdr in the photo have been removed and stowed in brackets at the rear of the chassis. For travelling the wheels were plugged in to the end of the axle. The three folding arms had a pad and spike at the end to form the tripod mount when the wheels were removed. To load the gun on the vehicle it was run up the ramps until 2 pairs of small castor wheels mounted under two of the arms engaged channels on the truck bed. The main wheels were then removed and the gun run along the channels until fully loaded. I'll try to find and upload some photos of a model I converted to illustrate the point. Derek I hope these make it clearer.
Thank you David. The scale is 1/35 and is based on the Tamiya LRDG command vehicle (short wheelbase). The wheels, chassis, cab and bonnet (hood for those of a transatlantic persuasion) are from the kit. The rest of the vehicle is scratchbuilt. The gun is the Sovereign 2K resin & white metal 2 pdr kit.
The defense in that sector was always meant to yield, and to leave an office truck with planted intelligence for the Germans to 'capture', with the intel convincing them that all was quiet on the Egyptian border. So not sure I would read doctrine into it. In any case, it was several months after BATTLEAXE, and it would be interesting to know what changed. All the best Andreas
Dear colleagues, I am part way through building a model of a CMP 2-pounder portee. A somewhat frustrating process as there appears to be no one major authority on the subject and the number and variety of conversions undertaken seems enormous. It is as if a general design was outlined and then issued to many workshops to interpret with what was at hand. In addition the French magazine Militaria (Hors-Serie #3 - La Guerre du Desert - Tobruk) makes the interesting claim that this particular methodology of getting the anti-tank guns more mobile in the Western Desert was the brainchild of a Rhodesian officer, one Lieutenant Gillson. I have drawn a blank on any other sources that might corroborate this. Does anyone have any information they would be prepared to share on the subject?
The date of that might be important. The 25mm Hotchkiss A/Tk guns of the BEF were carried en portee, though I don't believe the trucks were heavily modified. Gillson may not have conceived the concept, but he might have had a hand in the design of the more specialised vehicles, or the use of the guns from the portee?
Wheels and Tracks Magazine #33 has a little article on Canuck 2pdr Portee trucks. Only a few pages, but the blessed Vanderveen was usually careful with his sources. If you've not seen - happy to scan in. (Looks like little on guns. V much about the CMP mount.)