Desert Rats Scenario No.44

Trigh El-Abd : 27th May 1942

Scenario played 14th April 2009

Immediately upon receiving word of the Axis offensive, 1st Armoured Division ordered its Brigades to head southward and meet the enemy head-on. No word had come from her sister Division, the 7th Desert Rats and many feared the worst. The British Generals decided they needed to ride to the sound of the guns, in case the 7th had to be rescued. At 1100 hours, along the Trigh El-Abd (Road of Slaves) the 22nd Armoured Brigade crashed into the 21st Panzer within an hour of setting out.

The opposing forces came within speckled sight of each other in the flat featureless desert when some 6km-8km apart. The German forces advanced up the Trigh El-Abd whilst the British busied themselves setting up an interlocking defensive position to the north-east of the Germans. However, despite this seemingly good distribution, there were still ‘cavalry’ minded officers in the British hierarchy that demanded their advantage in numbers of tanks be used to attack the Panzers to their front. As a result, the newly acquired Grants and Stuarts rolled forward to engage the collection of enemy Pz III’s & IV’s

At 1100 hours the first casualties of the meeting were accounted for. Six Grant tanks were eliminated by the longer ranged guns of the 50mm cannon aboard the PzKwIII’s at a range of around a kilometer or more. This came as a shock to the British tank commanders who had placed a great faith in these new machines. Taking the biggest gamble that could have been taken in this situation, the Empire tanks trundled forward to engage the enemy head on. Some 24 Stuarts with around 8-12 Grants advanced on the line of 30+ Panzers facing them.

It was the German nerve that held best. Waiting till a range of between 50m-200m, the 50mm guns spewed forward their AP shells and within 15 minutes it was soon apparent that the Stuart would just not be a match. Twenty-two of the twenty-four Stuart class tanks were left in flames along with two more Grants. In return, German casualties amounted to some 6 tanks? British Infantry that had been sent forward to support also suffered some losses to German artillery.

From this point on, firing and attacking at an enemy in complete disarray, the 21st Panzer Division Afrika Korps were able to pick off their targets with almost a sickening impunity. Despite some half-hearted forward movement from the infantry resulting in another 50 losses, this had minimal effect. Two platoons of British AT Guns, a total of 90 infantrymen, 38 tanks and 10 bren carriers were lost in the 2 hour engagement with just 8 tanks destroyed on the German side. A truly disastrous day in the Allied desert campaign