The British Army in Heroes and Leaders mod

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Morale

"Tommy's" good morale factors appear to contradict the fact that the majority of troops had little enthusiasm for the war and did not feel the lust for revenge or blind hatred for the enemy that motivated other victims of Axis aggression. However, fighting the Japanese or the Waffen SS brought something of an exception to this rule, while Polish, Free French and other `refugee' contingents in the British army (including Austrian and German refugees) were understandably less philosophical or dis-passionate. There had been no rush to volunteer for war service in 1939 and in the early war years "Tommy's" confidence was severely dented by a succession of bitter defeats with a consequent deterioration in morale. In all theatres troops sometimes behaved less than heroically than the popular myths created during and after the war would have us believe. This was due to de-moralisation, a breakdown in discipline and the realisation that enemy fighting prowess had been woefully underestimated, and things were not helped by the shortages of equipment, the often harsh conditions encountered in overseas theatres (for which the temperate climate of the UK was no preparation) and the frequent displays of indifference or even outright hostility shown towards "Tommy" by local populations or even British civilians who were supposedly being protected from Axis aggression. Examples of this can be found not just in Burma, India and Malaya, but also in many parts of France in 1944. In the latter case, whereas the Germans had behaved correctly to safeguard the area as a valuable food source the liberating allies then knocked everything flat and, as a member of the French resistance put it, began "levelling everything in front of them... and distributing to the civilian population in the same breath chocolate and phosphorous shells" . Another factor that certainly affected non-white Commonwealth troops was the racial discrimination that many had to endure; some British writers dwell on the brutal treatment meted out to black American personnel stationed in the UK by white supremacist racists from the southern US states, while forgetting that the British army practised a more subtle and less violent racial discrimination too.

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Morale factors

While the behaviour of a minority of troops was bad, for the most part morale held up remarkably well, even in the dark days of Axis ascendancy in 1939-1942, and against the Germans, Italians and Japanese even inexperienced or outnumbered British or Commonwealth units gave, their foes many a bloody nose tactically, how-ever irrelevant strategically.
In theory "Tommy" could on average go for 400 combat days (680 calendar days) before breaking down psychologically, the American GI some 200-240 combat days (340-408 calendar days), according to separate wartime studies. There are various reasons for these differences in morale factors. Firstly, there was the environment. Due to geographical proximity the Axis was a more immediate and tangible threat to "Tommy" and his family than to the average GI, particularly when facing the Germans. Secondly, the two armies used different selection processes to fill their combat units with personnel. The British method lay somewhere in between the two extremes represented by the German (and also to some extent the Japanese) practice on the one hand and the US practice on the other. The Germans deliberately gave their combat units a fair proportion of the high quality personnel of all ranks available (i.e. not all were creamed off into technical, non-combat functions) whereas the US army consciously diverted the cream of the intake, in most cases, away from combat units—particularly infantry units—and into the more technically-orientated branches were rewards and promotion also often came easier with less risk to body and soul.

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manpower quality

Efforts were made not to compromise the quality of the British intake despite manpower shortages because experiments had demonstrated the cost-ineffective-ness of doing so. Although some sources state that the quality of the manpower available to the wartime British army suffered from the competition for recruits posed by the RAF, Royal Navy and "private armies" like the paratroopers and commandos, in the case of the RAF and navy this had been a problem even before the war. However, the British were far more reluctant to use specialist, elite, units like paratroopers and commandos for prolonged periods as normal infantry than. Germany, Italy or the Soviet Union (most of the latter's paratroopers were transferred to the Guards Divisions for more frequent and profitable employment), and British "private army" personnel might have been better used in ordinary infantry units to raise overall standards, especially as paratroop units used far more sergeants per rifle platoon than infantry units. Thirdly, when circumstances permitted the British rotated their combat formations more frequently than the US army did. Fourthly, Britain's social structure and military traditions made civilians more readily adaptable to military life and discipline than US personnel. But that is not to say that the British army was a model of restraint in meting out punishments. Unofficially, strictly illegal physical punishments were meted out in all theatres to enforce discipline, regardless of what military law prescribed.

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Desertion

In comparing western Allied practice with that of the Germans, rewards and punishments are also illuminating, for while the Germans were amongst the more fair and egalitarian in rewarding exceptional courage when combined with initiative (heroism alone was no qualification for a medal), they were also the most ruthless towards "cowards" and deserters. Moreover, thousands of men were also either sent to punishment battalions where most died trying to 'regain their honour' or received long prison sentences.
By contrast, the British and Americans were amongst the most humane; only one GI was executed for desertion (among much controversy during and since the event) and, despite Churchill's protests, the British army refused to reintroduce the death penalty after it had been abolished in 1930. The harshest prison sentences imposed for desertion were 3 years' jail, but a mere 6 months' was more usual. Sources state that on average the German desertion rate was much lower than the US army's, and that the British desertion rate was also lower than the US rate. Desertion rates were highest in the bloody and static "side-show" fought in Italy and for British soldiers at least this leniency allowed them to unofficially transfer from one unit to another by deserting and letting themselves be rounded up for random re-assignment to under-strength formations.

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Infantry shortages

The British Empire's land forces lost 188,241 men killed, 401,211 wounded and at least 353,941 missing/POW in World War Two. By 1945 most British infantry companies might have just one veteran left, while 45-year old men, previously deemed too old for active military service, were being inducted.
This state of affairs reflects the gradual exhaustion of Britain's finite infantry rather than manpower reserves. Earlier in the war the British high command had unwisely reduced the ratio of infantry to armoured and artillery formations so that there were not enough infantry units, and had also raised far more units than could be maintained in the long-term. Infantrymen also became scarce because the British (and US) armies had under-estimated the personnel losses that they would suffer in Normandy's bocage' , especially infantry-men, due to an over-reliance on casualty statistics compiled in North Africa and were therefore unable to rapidly replace their losses.
British infantry shortages actually began to bite as early as 1942, but that the UK (presumably for the sake of prestige) was reluctant to admit this so that the USA did not for a time understand the British difficulty. By August 1944 almost all the infantry fit for combat had been sent to NW Europe. Thereafter, replacements could only come from cannibalising units or hastily 're-training' non-Army or non-combat personnel.

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Homesickness

The British General Horrocks stated that of any ten men, two would lead, seven would follow and the tenth would do almost anything not to be there at all; the leaders would therefore take most of the risks and become casualties, while an infantry commander in Burma said that 25% of his men were potentially brave, 5% were potential cowards and the rest were neither but were prepared to nonetheless do their duty. On the available evidence, the most enthusiastic soldiers became homesick eventually and often felt that their cause and the country they were deployed in was not worth dying for. "Tommy" was no exception to this rule and the reluctance to become a casualty statistic grew as the war drew to a close.
There was much resentment among desert veterans over Montgomery's indiscreet and wholly unjustified statements before D-Day, which tended to ridicule the quality of the German troops likely to be encountered there. The veterans knew better, and with something of an inferiority complex towards the Germans anyway, even relatively light casualties would lead to British attacks, especially infantry operations, quickly grinding to a halt. British units suffering 40-50% losses would expect to be taken out of the line, whereas many if not most German units on average functioned well even after 75% losses.

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Britain's financial resources.

Britain's financial, industrial and human resources became much more rapidly depleted than her major allies (and some enemies) and her capabilities in fighting the three major Axis powers simultaneously were dangerously over-stretched. Britain failed to keep up with her emerging overseas economic rivals, investing money abroad (especially in the Americas) rather than in her own increasingly outclassed industries. Whereas Britain had been the world's lead creditor in 1939, in the post-war period it took almost 40 years for the UK economy to recover. For example, , whereas the production of the Rolls Royce Meteor tank engine needed 300 machine tools, the US Ford V8 tank engine derived from it needed just 18. Despite frantic rearmament after the Munich crisis, the war found Britain unprepared.
Not surprisingly, Britain was slowly bled dry industrially as well as financially; as an example, even railway lines in India were torn up for re-use in North Africa to enhance logistical capabilities there, because they could not be supplied from the UK, or the British paratroops carried no second, reserve, parachute until 1950 or, in Normandy, the American GI needed 30 lbs of supplies per day, while 'Tommy' managed on 20 lbs, and the German quota sometimes fell to as little as 4 lbs.
Up to the Great War, this underlying weak-ness did not surface for the Empire paid for all wars and also propped up the British economy, but the spiralling cost of twentieth century additional warfare finally caught Britain out. Small wonder then that she was financially bankrupt long before Pearl Harbour. The conflict cost Britain 25% of her national wealth.
The Empire produced 80% of its weapons requirements—including supplies to the USA. The British Empire mobilised about 9 million men, a figure never reached by the USA, and to equal the Australian contribution alone on a per capita basis the USA would have need to mobilise 16 million men.
In the Pacific 80% of the allied land forces were actually Australian. In Burma, the British and Commonwealth proportion of the ground troops (roughly 16.98% African, 64.15% Indian and 18.86% British) was 91.2% in April 1944 compared to 7.8% Chinese and 0.9% US, and in April 1945 was still 87.72%, compared to 10.52% Chinese and 1.75% US.

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Boys anti-tank rifle

It has become fashionable to dismiss all British equipment as second-rate, impractical or obsolete, but this is another sweeping generalisation and all armies used weapons that should have been discarded sooner or, better yet, never built.
Certainly the British had to rely on rifles for far too long and this was because pre-war specifications for something like the M1 Garand were too stringent, because the emphasis on marksmanship and ammunition conservation was not to be usurped by "gangster weapons" in the eyes of the conservative military minds, and because there were millions of unused rimmed cartridges unsuitable for such a new weapon.
The Boys anti-tank rifle was "ludicrously inadequate" against even the more thinly-armoured of the German tanks, having been designed for the defence of the Egyptian border after the Italian-Abyssinian war. It reflected a General Staff obsession with infantry-held ATW from 1927 onwards (the year that the lance was officially declared obsolete) and was rushed into service despite its shortcomings. Apart from the violent recoil, the noise made the wearing of ear-plugs prudent and the original steel-cored bullet had to be replaced by one of the harder tungsten-carbide to render it even remotely effective. The 1937 training leaflet recommended practice against targets moving at 15-25 mph at up to 500 yards range—extremely unrealistic advice. After Dunkirk troops were taught to hold their fire until the target was just 30 yards away, or aim at the suspension. Its effectiveness in France with the BEF was undermined both by a shortage of ammunition, the general availability of only half-charge practice ammunition and insufficient training. But the more enterprising Australians found it useful against the Italians at Tobruk in early 1941 by firing at stone sangars to produce rock fragments, and one Aussie, anchored by two of his mates, even fired it at aircraft attacking his troopship. British troops entering the steep and mountainous Ethiopian terrain were quick to dump them, but nonetheless by 1943 nearly 69,000 had been made, even though "... a good crossbow would have been just as useful and far cheaper".

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British mortars

The main British technical weakness in infantry weapons lay in mortars, as there had been no inter-war research into mortar design or the effects of rain on ignition efficiency. The little 2" mortar was of 1918 vintage, lacked punch like all mortars of so small a calibre, and had rudimentary sights in the form of a white line painted on the barrel. With a theoretical rate of fire of 20-30 rpm, great skill was needed by the user if ammunition was not to be wasted; although it could in theory be fired point-blank horizontally (an unwise procedure occasionally practised against Japanese bunkers), it had a poor range compared to its foreign equivalents.
It was the same story with the British 3-inch mortar; initially it could reach to only 1600 yards, while the German and Italian 81mm mortars could manage 2625 and 4429 yards, respectively. The fact that the British weapon threw a larger bomb and could deliver 200 lb of projectiles in 60 seconds compared to the 25-pdr gun's 125 lb at intensive fire rates was little consolation. However, its range was later increased to 2790-2800 yards, though some crews improved on this through the unorthodox use of captured ammunition, or to over 3000 yards (in Burma) by the addition of extra propellant. Only in 1945 was the range officially increased to 3500 yards by means of a stronger base-plate and barrel to cope with yet more propellant. When the 4.2" mortar was introduced only 4100 yards range could be obtained, by which time the Germans already had copies of the Soviet 120mm mortar in service with a range of 6500 yards, a heavier bomb and a lower overall weight.

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British machine guns

More successful weaponry included the venerable, reliable but slow-firing and heavy Vickers MMG and the BREN LMG. The latter was a modified Czech design already in service when the war began and more plentiful than is sometimes suggested. Produced by a single factory that was never bombed by the Luftwaffe, over 30,000 existed by mid-1940 with production increased from 300 weekly in 1938 to over 1,000 per week by 1943. Canadian factories made them too, eventually accounting for 60% of output. Australia also produced BRENs, while most Indian troops used the comparable and visually similar Vickers-Berthier LMG, an Anglo-French design both slightly lighter and slower-firing than the BREN (though some BRENs were later issued too) so that supply kept pace with demand and losses, save just after Dunkirk. US forces would have done well to adopt either in place of the old and ghastly BAR or the flimsy and unreliable Johnson LMG and the BREN was both lighter and more accurate than the German MG 34 and MG 42, though it must be admitted inferior in weight of fire-power.
A lost opportunity to redress the German superiority in LMGs was the Vickers "K" gun (aka VGO) used by RAF observers in aircraft before being issued to the SAS for use as a vehicle-mounted weapon; weighing about the same as the other British LMGs its cyclic rate of fire of 950-1050 rpm would have given British squads something akin to the very fast-firing German MG 42. "K" guns did however eventually find their way onto a number of British scout and armoured cars by D-Day.

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British PIAT

Another reasonably good if unpopular weapon was the PIAT; heavy and awkward to carry but safer to use if not as powerful as the German Panzerfaust, it could also be fired by one man and was safe to use from inside hard cover, unlike other SCAW. It also doubled as an improvised HE and smoke mortar out to 750 yards, or to 350 yards for what was described as 'house-breaking' albeit not very accurately. Given the choice of no back-blast or the ability to fire to lower elevations, the former was a more useful feature in tank hunting since the operator could stay inside buildings or other confined spaces. That said, having to try and re-cock the thing manually if the recoil from a previous shot failed to do this risked a hernia or strained back, since the operator had to use his feet in the way that the less powerful medieval crossbows were re-cocked, but by either standing or by lying horizontal. In Burma, PIAT gunner and Victoria Cross winner Ganju Lama actually managed to do this twice in succession, standing up, despite wounds to three of his limbs, and so destroying two Japanese light tanks. Although one source observed that an essential ingredient to using the PIAT was that a man "should have suicidal tendencies", analysis showed that PIATs destroyed 7% of German armour lost to the British in Normandy, compared to 6% lost to the much over-rated aircraft rockets. A skilled man could hit a target over 60% of the time at 100 yards.

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British Ordnance

British ordnance was the same mixture of the Good, the Bad and the Ugly found in all armies, but pre-war development of artillery had suffered from financial stringency, large stocks of 1918-vintage equipment, and the excessive influence of those officers responsible for colonial defence. From the early 1920s there was a growing emphasis on anti-tank artillery and even new field or medium-calibre guns had to be capable of 'self-protection' from hostile armour, at the expense of inter-war research in heavy artillery, since it was deemed to be surplus to requirements thanks to (empty) promises of air support. The 25-pdr field gun, for instance, was first mooted in 1925 but no detailed specification emerged until 1936 and production only began in February 1940.
When war seemed inevitable this process became more frantic, to the extent that the 5.5" gun/howitzer (based on a January 1939 General Staff requirement) was ready for trials the same year but the first carriages were too light to take the weapon and production of a stronger, welded, version was not cleared until April 1941. Some safety tolerances were, however, relaxed during the war to speed production, conserve scarce materials and boost ballistic performance, but balanced against this was the need to use inferior metals in British shells for strategic reasons, necessitating thicker shell walls at the expense of the explosive filling; the resultant weight increase also partly explains the poor range of British mortars.

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Ammunition

The 2-pdr anti-tank gun and its tank-mounted equivalent are often singled out for odium because they failed to penetrate German face-hardened armour at certain ranges (between 300 and 1200 yards, and sometimes over 1800 yards) but this was due to the uncapped AP ammunition rather than due to any inherent weakness in the gun itself. By the time that APCBC ammunition (which did not shatter on impact like AP had) was available, February 1943 for the 2-pdr (April 1943 for the 6-pdr, and August 1943 for the 17-pdr), German armour thickness had increased to the extent that the 2-pdr was fit only for recce vehicles or for use against Japan. Due to production problems even uncapped 2-pdr AP shot was scarce during the 1940 French campaign. In fairness to the British, the USA had similar problems until 75mm M61 APCBC became available, because the older M72 AP 75mm shot supplied for the M3 Lee/Grant in the desert also shattered against German armour, and was rarely effective above 500 yards. Even worse, no AFV (Technical) Branch to examine captured vehicles was set up by GHQ Middle East until November 1941, so that when the British captured a German PzKfw IV as early as April 1941, nobody bothered to inspect it until March 1942—when its face-hardened armour was finally discovered. The US 37mm had, theoretically, less penetration than the 2-pdr but at least had an APC projectile that coped better with the impact of a hit. However, some British Lee/Grant crews apparently did not use the 37mm at all, considering it a waste of money, and relied entirely on the 75mm gun.

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2-pdr anti-tank gun

With so much pre-war doctrine in the hands of military theorists with little practical experience of tactical or technical problems, it appears that MGs alone were expected to suffice in dealing with enemy anti-tank guns and other 'soft' targets. This unfounded optimism and the obsession with countering the threat of the tank conspired to give the 2-pdr only AP shot (to defeat as much armour as possible) even though an HE round had been developed as early as 1935; it was also more than mere co-incidence that this emphasis on anti-tank capability came at the very time that the guns themselves, together with the responsibility for anti-tank defence in the British army, passed from the infantry to the artillery between 1938 and 1940. Even when HE was finally issued there were still problems because the small explosive filling gave such poor lethality, and this probably also explains why the British did not issue 37mm HE in the desert campaign.
To complete the picture of the 2-pdr, the anti-tank gun was harder to conceal than its nearest equivalent—the 37mm PaK 35/36—although it had 360° traverse, and it was complicated and difficult to mass-produce (taking 2,682 man-hours to produce compared to the 6-pdr's 1293 and 17-pdr's 2726). Its weight also impaired man-handling, but then anti-tank guns survive by concealment, not mobility, and in the hands of resolute crews its small size enabled it to destroy enemy AFVs with daring close-range flank or rear shots (provided it could be deployed in suitable terrain). This was how the 2-pdr was supposed to have been used, and the ANZACS were especially good at these tactics. The 2-pdr saw out the Pacific battles as an anti-tank gun because it could deal with any Japanese AFV frontally, and was easier to man-handle in difficult terrain than its larger successor, though 'officially' it should have been phased-out to ease the logistical burden.

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6-pdr anti-tank gun

The story of the 6-pdr is one of delay caused by the urgent need to replace the 509 2-pdrs lost in France, rather than disrupt existing production and introduce a new gun at a critical time. Moreover the first versions had barrels 16" shorter than intended because British lathes were old and small. It eventually arrived in the desert not a moment too soon to counter then new German AFVs but, again, HE ammunition only came later and its lethality was poor compared to the 75mm HE round as well as being scarcer. There were also problems with HE premature recorded in British documents dated as late as April 1944—due mainly to the incompatibility of certain HE fuses with 6-pdr tubes fitted with muzzle-brakes.
That said, the 6-pdr proved more useful in destroying Japanese bunkers than its smaller and otherwise more popular 40mm calibre stable-mate, and in the PTO the 6-pdr was fitted with castor-wheels to ease man-handling in rough terrain. Against Japanese bunkers it was found that the gun was effective at 75-300 yards using AP to first enlarge the embrasure, and then 10-50 HE rounds to neutralise the enemy inside.
With APDS ammunition this gun had at least a chance against the frontal armour of some of the later German AFVs at close range, though core separation from the sabot made it less accurate than APCBC, and British reports indicated that it tended to hit a target 2 to 3 feet higher up than predicted.

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17-pdr anti-tank gun

The 17-pdr is a success story—almost. Available in good time (for a change) to deal with the later German AFVs, it has come to be regarded by some historians as some sort of wonder-weapon in the British and Common-wealth arsenal. Yet combat experience and various Anglo-US firing trials showed that with 'conventional' ammunition (i.e. APCBC) it "frequently" failed to penetrate the Panther's glacis plate armour even at 300 yards, while the desert veteran and South African cricket celebrity Robert Crisp (author of the engrossing Brazen Chariots, in which he recounted his brief and eventful time commanding Stuart tanks) noted that the 17-pdr needed three good hits on a Panther's hull front to ensure penetration as most rounds merely scuffed the surface. A British study of German tanks destroyed up to 31" August 1944 in Normandy concluded that only 12.5% of hits by the 17-pdr on the Panther's glacis plate penetrated, compared to 50% of hits on the mantlet or turret front. This was very sobering, given that something between 30% and 70% of all Panthers built from about mid-1944 had poorer-quality, more brittle, armour.
HE ammunition was, as with the 6-pdr, over-looked for over a year and, as with all high-velocity weapons, its explosive effect was inferior to low-velocity weapons of identical calibre since the shell walls had to be stronger (i.e. thicker) to resist the greater forces imposed at the expense of the explosive filling.
The towed anti-tank gun was also a beast of a gun to conceal and man-handle, to the extent that a prototype motorised version, (similar to the post-war Soviet 85mm gun) was made albeit not put into production.

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25-pdr gun

Other British guns of excellent quality included the celebrated 25-pdr, which made a passable anti-tank gun in the desert for want of anything better. Its special turntable, an ingenious feature, permitted rapid traverse by a single crewman and greatly enhanced its anti-tank capabilities as did the fitting of a modified open (as opposed to dial) sight for use in poor light in January 1942. But the 60-second set up and 3-minute limber-up times and low rate of fire (due to two-piece ammunition) were all inferior to 'pure' anti-tank guns, however creditable for a field gun. The AP allocation was, however, officially low; 8 (later 12) rounds for the towed gun in 1941 and 11 for the Bishop and 18 for the Sexton. This anti-tank capability owes its origins to a decision made in 1938 that all 25-pdrs of the divisional artillery were to be primarily responsible for their own anti-tank defence, and experience in France showed that one field regiment's 18/25-pdrs "was consistently successful" against German tanks "so long as it withheld its fire until the enemy was within 600 yards and conserved its AP shot". This was asking a lot with just 8 rounds per gun, as the gun's curved trajectory rendered it less accurate in the anti-tank role, while the high silhouette usually denied it sufficient cover in the desert to remain undetected long enough for close ranges shots where hits were more likely to be obtained. It also lacked killing power against fortifications when firing indirect compared to 105mm artillery, primarily because its good range as a field gun came at the expense of shell weight.

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3.7-in. AA gun

The 3.7-in. AA gun, first mooted in 1920 but not produced until 1938, was one of the best AA guns of its day and a lost opportunity to field a more powerful British version of the famous and deadly German 88mm Flak 18 or 36, albeit a less mobile one. On rare occasions it was used against Axis armour in France and the desert, and was issued with steel AP shot for self-defence against tanks, though lacking the correct sights and crew arrangement for a true dual-purpose role. Significantly, the official British War Office report on wartime artillery performance tends to mention only small-calibre AA guns used in the anti-tank role, though there is reference to the 3.7-in. gun being used successfully to harass Axis road traffic during the siege of Tobruk, and for counter-battery fire. This led to low-angle range tables being issued in May 1942. According to the official history of the Mediterranean campaign, 60 3.7-in. guns were fitted with sights for the ground role in April 1942, for the Battle of Gazala. The gun's air-burst capability cost Japanese troops dear at the hands of Heavy AA batteries in Burma, when it was re-deployed in the ground support role there, one unit being known as `The Twelve Mile Snipers'. In the ETO its air-burst capability was also very effective against German mortars and other ground tar-gets. The obsolete 3-in. 20 cwt AA gun of Great War vintage was also a potentially excellent anti-tank gun, but never used in anger. The larger British guns were not particularly good or new, save the Anglo-US 7.2-in. howitzer Mk VI, which arrived only late in the war.

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British SP artillery

The British were also poorly equipped in SP artillery because development had ceased in the early 1930s in favour of conventional towed weapons, thanks to poorly defined doc-trines and conservatism, The 18-pdr SP `Birch' gun, developed between 1925 and 1928, for example, was a potentially sound basis for later SP weapons but with funds lacking and a gulf emerging between the tank and artillery factions of the British army, the Royal Artillery refused to adopt it after arguments over ownership. Moreover, to artillery men it looked too much like a tank, and "if such a thing were taken on, Gunners would have to dress themselves in dungarees, cover themselves in grease and develop new smells", as well as give up their beloved horses. The tank faction, convinced that the tank would prevail on the battlefield without any outside help, rejected the very notion of artillery support, and so gave the project no backing. Although the un-armoured 2-pdr portee had been successful in Greece, where the terrain was suitable for hit-and-run tactics as at Proasterion Ridge, in the desert both the 2-pdr and 6-pdrportees, were found to be horribly vulnerable as crews tended to misuse them as tanks, with predictable results. Eventually firing en portee was discouraged, particularly in the case of the more conspicuous 6-pdr version, and when so used as many crewmen as possible would dismount, since the impact of a direct hit would throw the gun backwards and kill or injure everyone in its path.
The high-sided and ponderous Deacon and the crude Bishop were clumsy and inefficient improvisations; the latter was so cramped that the rear doors had to be kept open in hot weather to provide ventilation while firing. The Priest, while welcome as a useful and versatile addition to the British arsenal at Second Alamein, fired non-standard ammunition and suffered from a short barrel life and vulnerable recoil gear, which also wore out rapidly. This led directly to development of the Sexton. While more efficient, with a better firing range, more ammunition and superior internal layout than the Priest, the Sexton was under-gunned for its size and weight, while the Archer got a mixed reception.

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Artillery organisation and doctrine

The Germans had taught the British much about artillery doctrine in the Great War, and by the end of this conflict British artillery was very skilled at laying-down 'creeping' bar-rages to support the infantry and in executing counter-battery fire. Unfortunately amid the complacency of victory many of the lessons of the war were then forgotten and had to be re-learned. In 1944 British counter-mortar units, used so successfully in the desert and Italy, were disbanded for 'Overlord' to con-serve manpower and only reinstated in August 1944 after experience showed that German mortars had inflicted 70% of all British casualties. But the main flaw in British artillery practice was an organisational blunder imposed in 1938 whereby field artillery regiments were re-organised into two batteries of 12 guns apiece, instead of the traditional four batteries of 6 guns each. The idea came from an Indian army practice called 'linking' whereby the fire of two adjacent batteries could be con-trolled from one point. However, because the basic role of these regiments was to sup-port the infantry brigades containing three battalions there were problems dividing two batteries into three without disrupting administration and fire control. This defect of anonymous parenthood was only remedied. after Dunkirk by changing to three 8-gun batteries; it was felt that 12-gun batteries were too large a target for German dive-bombers even when divided into two 6-gun 'troops', so 8-gun batteries were split into two troops of 4 guns each. But this could not be done overnight; one source claims that the two-battery TO&E lingered on until 1942 in the desert.