Now, balanced tank forces, backed with artillery, fought each other head on in what ultimately was to became a war of attrition. The objective was to knock out the other side’s tanks, deny the enemy the battlefield so he couldn’t recover and repair losses. At the same time it was necessary to attack his supply routes and bases, making difficult the maintenance of his mechanised forces.
Tanks of each side took a fearsome toll on each other and, contrary to popular belief, British tanks gave as good as they got. In the early months of the campaign the British in fact had the advantage in the ever-changing balance between armour and armament.
Initially the German Panzer III had only 30mm of frontal armour and the Panzer IV had even less, at 20mm; both of these machines could easily be pierced by British anti-tank weapons. In contrast the early Crusaders enjoyed 40mm whilst the redoubtable Matildas had 80mm of frontal armour. The 50mm gun of the Panzer III could not pierce the armour of the Crusader except on the side, while the Matilda could not be penetrated even at ranges as close as 500 yards.
Despite the limitations of his armour, Rommel’s conduct of battle was bold and resourceful. In Panzer attacks the tanks would be used as a wedge - the ‘Panzerkeil’ - closely supported by other services; artillery to soften the objective, pioneers to deal with obstacles, infantry to take and hold ground, and of course the Stukas to act as supplementary artillery. Rommel led from the front and specialised in the concentration of a superior force against a single point. As the other great exponent of German tank warfare, Heinz Guderian, was fond of saying: “Kotzen, nicht kleckern”. In other words “Spew, don’t dribble.” Rommel certainly took the message to heart.
The North Africa terrain was particularly harsh. Although one might tend to think of great swathes of sand dunes, in actual fact much of the terrain was very stony barren desert, and this look an enormous toll not just on the men, but on the vehicles too. Tank tracks were particularly susceptible to damage. The sand blown up by the constant movement of vehicles meant that the engine air filters suffered much greater wear and tear, and the quantity of lubricants needed to keep the engines running properly and the amount of maintenance was vastly increased.
Initially, the Panzers had arrived with normal European air filters fitted to the engines. Inevitably, the sand penetrated through these filters and the cylinder walls of the engines could be scoured to a standstill within 800 or 1,000 miles.
Together, the German and Italian forces in North Africa needed at least seventy thousand tons of supplies every month. All of it had to come by sea from ports in southern Italy, and all of it came under attack by the Royal Navy and the Royal Air Force. Minor amounts of supplies were flown in from time to time, but the unarmed Junkers 52 transport aircraft were rarely available in sufficient numbers and, in any case, they presented themselves as easy targets for any marauding RAF fighters.
The logistical difficulties faced by the Afrika Korps were enormous, and there is no question that they were usually chronically short of supplies. It is nonetheless interesting to look at the statistics for the amount of equipment which was shipped from Italy; the figures would appear to suggest that well over 90 per cent of the men, vehicles and supplies which were dispatched actually reached the Afrika Korps. Clearly there was a regular channel of supply, and it was not quite as bleak a picture as is often painted.
Rommel was eager to advance as far and as quickly as possible. He had his eyes focussed on the Suez Canal, his final objective. Frequently his supply lines were stretched to breaking point - but he was a man indifferent to such limitations. Despite the fact it was over eight hundred miles from his main supply port in Tripoli to the Egyptian frontier, Rommel viewed that as a logistical matter for the High Command to solve, whereas it was his job to fight the war on the ground.
Every German tank was fitted with wireless and had tremendous flexibility of response in a changing battle situation. The Germans were also far ahead in the techniques of anti-tank warfare. By 1941 the 37mm anti-tank gun had been replaced with the larger 50mm Pak 38. The Germans also frequently employed the famous 88mm anti-aircraft gun in the anti-tank role. This gun could even take out the sturdy Malilda at ranges of up to two thousand yards. Placed defensively, Rommel could use a screen of 88mm guns to knock out British tanks before the Panzers were even engaged. This innovative use of weapons substantially reduced the advantages which came from superior numbers of British tanks.
Rommel in Africa from the May 1941 issue of Signal magazine. At this time Rommel was enjoying the first fruits of success as an armoured leader and shows little sign of the enormous fatigue which would go on to characterise later pictures.
The harsh brilliance of the desert sun imposed its own rules on the conduct of the North African campaign, with the men suffering an almost daily form of desert blindness. It was soon established that between dawn and 9am and again between 4pm and dusk a man could accurately identify friend or enemy vehicle at anything between two and five thousand yards. In the shimmering heat of full sun that accurate range dropped to 1,500 yards.
Rommel was very much a hands-on commander who always wanted to know what was happening at the sharp end. He believed that he had to have what he called a finger-tip feel for the battlefield so that he could be there in person during the crisis of a battle. This meant that Rommel was often able to react much faster to events than his British counterparts who relied upon the standard chain of command. The downside meant that Rommel left his chief of staff and headquarters often miles behind as he toured the battlefield in his personal half-track.
Rommel did have a very good radio communication system, but this was often jammed by the British, and in consequence his commanders often did not know where their Korps Commander (and later their Army Commander) actually was.
In the featureless desert the art of camouflage was another skill quickly learned by the men of the Afrika Korps. When the first Panzer Mark IIs, IIIs and IVs arrived they were painted in the Wehrmacht colours of grey green - far too highly visible in the desert. In the absence of desert colour paint those first tanks were sprayed with oil and then hot sand thrown over them until they more or less blended in with the background. The crews quickly learned to make skilful use of netting and the camel thorn bush to break up the outline of their vehicles.
As the war progressed the calibre and power of anti-tank guns increased from the relatively weak 37mm gun to the awesome power of the high velocity 88mm. The ‘88’ was originally designed as an anti-aircraft gun, which needed to generate enormous power to fire a heavy shell 20,000 feet into the air.
When the German infantry discovered that this powerful gun could also be used to fire over a flat trajectory against tanks, a devastating new weapon was born. The massive velocity of its armour piercing shells spelt death for thousands of Russian and allied tanks during the years from 1939 to 1945
Throughout the war the ‘88’ was the most feared adversary for all of the tank men in the allied armies. The only drawback of this weapon was that it was very cumbersome and needed to be towed into action, but once it was deployed in concealed and camouflaged positions it was a deadly menace.
Mounted on towed trailers, the 88mm gun could be swiftly deployed and engage the enemy at 2,000 yards range - long before the allied tank guns were close enough to reply. The 88mm had one more advantage - besides the armour piercing range, it also fired high explosive shells. The Panzer Mark III and IV tanks could also fire high explosive shells which were devastating against infantry, but had little effect against the British tanks, such as the Crusader and Valentine.
Despite the fact that he personally had to cross large areas of featureless terrain, the restless energy of Rommel drove his men forward. When he was not at the helm of his command car, ‘Greiff, Rommel was to be found reconnoitring the ground from the cockpit of his Feisler Storch reconnaissance aircraft, from which he was constantly urging his troops forward. Encouraged and exhorted by the gadfly energy of their commanding officer, the tank crews surged forward.
Behind Rommel’s early successes in his advance eastwards was his firm belief that he could crush the allied forces and continue his advance all the way to Alexandria and the Suez canal. From there, he could set his sights on the Caucasus in the southern Soviet Union where he hoped to achieve a classic pincer movement - sinking a decisive blow in Germany’s war.