Logistics dominate desert campaigning: everything hinges on maintaining the supply of water, food, fuel, ammo, spares, and reinforcements. This is especially true of Libya, where the coast road runs 1,000 miles from west to east, most of it through desert. Losses mount, supply-lines lengthen, and vulnerability to counter-attack by an enemy falling back on his bases and probably being reinforced increases. The offensive loses momentum as it advances. The war had a distinct ‘see-saw’ character.
Rommel launched a successful counter-attack in March-May 1941, was pushed back in November-December 1941, but then mounted a second successful counter-attack in January-February 1942. And German engineer squads mined and booby-trapped everywhere.īritish generals came, tried, failed, and were replaced. The German tank repair-service (usually at night) was superb, and always had the bulk of their damaged battle-tanks in action the following morning. He used his tanks to neutralise Allied infantry and to terrorise all support services, not for tank-on-tank combat. Rommel’s panzer tactics were usually superior. The Allies had the advantage of troop numbers and of almost complete command of the air, but the German tanks were usually superior in gunnery performance and armour, whilst their huge, ungainly, but first-class 88mm dual-purpose AA/Anti-tank gun ruled the battlefield. Logistics dominate desert campaigning: everything hinges on maintaining supplies Without these formidable formations, Rommel and his panzers would have invaded and captured Egypt and the vital Suez Canal – severing key oil-supply routes.
#Desert rats vs afrika korps fix free
From February 1941 until May 1943, there were desperate battles between the Axis armies and the Allies, reinforced by sturdy Australians, South Africans, New Zealanders, Indians, and some Free French. Hitler could not allow his Italian allies to be humiliated and sent General Erwin Rommel – a brilliant armoured commander – with (eventually) three magnificent divisions, which became the Deutsche Afrika Korps (DAK). Later on, of course, the two great sieges of Tobruk by Axis forces were to be famous (the first) and infamous (the second). Along its 1,000 miles, the Italians had stationed garrisons, which had required set-piece attacks by Army, Navy, and RAF to eliminate. Moreover, they had captured all the key ports in eastern Libya – Bardia, Tobruk, Derna, and Benghazi.įrom Tripoli eastwards, the Italians had built a magnificent road through Tripolitania and Cyrenaica, up to the Egyptian border, linking up the coastal ports. By December 1940, in Operation Compass, the British had annihilated the Italian General Bergonzoli’s army. So, for nearly four years, an astonishing war took place in the North African desert. Shortly after the outbreak of the Second World War, when Winston Churchill had a seat in the War Cabinet, he wrote: ‘Should Italy become hostile, our first battlefield must be the Mediterranean … All her troops in Libya and in Abyssinia would be cut flowers in a vase …’ With a new war raging in Libya, Second World War veteran Patrick Delaforce teases out the lessons of the 1940-1943 campaign in the Western Desert. The author (standing on the right), when troop leader with 13th Royal Horse Artillery in Kiel, May 1945