Hello everyone, I am looking for information about Regiment President Steyn. Among the questions I have is whether or not they were only deployed as machinegun troops, or both as regular infantry and machinegun troops, and how much it differed from one another. It seems to me that some of the Afrikaner regiments formed in 1934 were used mostly as machinegun troops, but I could be wrong. Many thanks in advance.
assume you have seen this S A Armour Corps The Regiment President Steyn (RPS) was established as an Infantry Regiment on 1 April 1934, it was later converted to a Machine Gun Battalion. After receiving six commendable Battle Honours in North Africa during the Second World War, the unit amalgamated with the Regiment Botha to become a tank regiment. Following demobilisation the RPS reverted to Infantry.
I think gatogato is more interested in getting others to do the research and serving up the answers on a silver platter.
I think you should shut your mouth if all you're going to do is come up with annoying and useless, non-relevant comments. You're a general annoyance rather than any help.
Hahaha! Deployed when? Where? Regiment President Steyn was a pre-war ACF infantry battalion. On the outbreak of war it was significantly undermanned to the lower (peacetime) establishment then extant. When volunteers were called for on the outbreak of war, to increase the manpower of the battalion, the response was poor. The Regiment PresIdent Steyn that formed part of the 1st Infantry Division was an machine gun battalion created from the personnel recruited by three regiments: Regiment President Steyn, Regiment de Wet & Regiment Louw Wepener. Reinforcement drafts into Regiment President Steyn whilst in North Africa were not necessarily from the orignal three pre-war ACF battalions thus the 'true' Regiment PresIdent Steyn element was diluted yet further. With the return of 1st Infantry Division to South Africa for conversion and retraining as an armoured division, the remnants of Regiment President Steyn were merged with remnants of Regiment Botha to form an armoured battalion. The latter had also gone through a significant 'dilution' process from its pre-war ACF state. In Italy, before it saw action, the RPS/RB battalion was broken up and the manpower was redistributed to backfill other units in particular Pretoria Regiment and Imperial Light Horse (but others too). Elements of the former Regiment PresIdent Steyn this served as both tank crews as well as infantry. In otherwords, different answer for different timeframe and context. Depends on the timeframe. Depends on whether you are are looking at specific individuals or broad brush. You really expect somebody else to do that for you? Three machine gun battalions were initially required. They had to come from somewhere. Since your questions here and elsewhere seem to be little more than fishing expeditions, I have no idea whether my words above have any relevance to what you seek. Your response/feedback to my answers to your previous fishing expeditions have been somewhat underwhelming.
Sorry, Gato. Aggressive rudeness not the form we usually hope for here when people ask entirely reasonable questions. Binned that user at it's happened one time too many now. Carry on. ~A
"I think gatogato is more interested in getting others to do the research and serving up the answers on a silver platter." is not a question.
Good show onwards and upwards if you find more info it might be worth adding to a thread for others to see and gives a good time line to the regiment
Perhaps be more clear about it next time then? I believe that as an admin, it is your job to be as clear as possible. Besides, telling somebody to shut their mouth is not an outstandingly great reason to ban somebody. Maybe if I insulted him, you'd have a point. Alas, I didn't do that.