Dragoona at Halfaya 9/10/41

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Halfaya Egypt
September 10 1941
0800 Hours

Once again we are to advance on Halfaya. Only thing this month it will be the Gerrmans we are to face and not the Italians. Dont think today will be as easy as it was last month. The Germans im sure will throw every piece of armor they have to stop us. And as we all know the German armor is so much better then the Italin.

CO A has been given the task of taking and securing the objecive at the lower edge of the map. They will move out at 0800 in the cool of the morning hours. They will have to travel some 1000 yards to reach there objective across some low hills then thru maybe 500 yards of open ground.

C CO will have the middle some 1200 yards north of A. Moving at least 900 yards across all open ground. I figure they will meet the most resistence. They are to take there time as we have most of the day to reach our objectives and I dont want them getting careless trying to hurry.

B will be 300 yards north of them on our left flank. They will have some low hills for the first 400 yards of there advance to cover there movements. Then will have to move over about 600 yards of open ground to reach there objectives.

The men are pumped and all are fairly rested from our battle here last month. I look for a great fight here today and for our men to really tear into the Germans today. I have given the order no quarter is to be given and to show no mercy on the German pigs.

HQ: II Royal Dragoons
Col: Sir Nigel Kingsly Commanding

[robot]

Halfaya Egypt
September 10 1941
0850 Hours

Fifty minutes into the battle and we are moving well. A Co in the south has taken there objectives with very little loss of life or equipment. Have not run into much in the way of German armor. At least a company of german troops have been found just 200 yards east and north of the objectives. Are in the process of forcing them back as I type this. They have loss almost all of there recon cars due too running into at least four german tanks as we neared the objectives. The tanks have been blown apart and we are continuing to force our advance to the rear.

We continue to run into our same problem as always. Our puny guns just will not do much in the way of damage to there stugs and PZ IIIH tanks. Our shells continue to shatter or bounce off the tough skins of there heavy tanks. It is very frustrating for our tank gunners to continue to pour shot after shot into there tanks with little or no damage. Our puny 47 mm ATG and 2 pounders are next to usless against the behemoths they bring at us.

Our IG are also next to usless as supply did not send us any trucks to move them forward and they have not even begun to enter the fight. Our men struggle like crazy to move them forward to get into the fight but it has begun to get to be a usless attempt on there part. Our line continues to move forward too fast for them to even try and catch up.

CO C continues to advance if only slowly in the middle. they are now within 300 yards of the center objectives and will have it in there grasp within the next 10 minutes as well.

B in the north has been held up by at least a company of tanks and have at least 500 yards before they reach there objectives. All in all the three companys have been performing as expected and things are going well for our side. The germans are being pushed back slowly but surely. They are not giving up easily by any means but we are still having our way today.

Our losses are not to bad so far maybe 8 pieces of armor has been lost this includes the poor recon cars who leads our way. Have noticed today that they dont stand up very well to the german heavy machine guns. Our losses in men has to be getting near to 100 I assume not too bad. At least the germans have not been pounding us that much with artty. Our biggest losses in men was when they sent over at least 4 stukas and bombed us about 25 minutes ago. Lost at least two whole squads at that time.

HQ: II Royal Dragoons
Col: Sir Nigel Kingsly Commanding

[robot]

Halfaya Egypt
September 10 1941
0940 Hours

This has turned into one very tough fight. The Germans has sent at least 4 companys of infantry plus at least that amount in tanks at us. A Co in the south has been hard put to just hold there own. At least 2/3 of there co has been decimated. I dont know how much longer they can hold on let alone try and advance at all. More then a company of infantry has been pounding them for the last 1/2 hour and at least a Co of tanks has been pounding them as well. I have released 2 platoons of tanks from B and C in the north and they are steaming towards the southern map edge to lend there help to A. Just hope they can make it there and rescue the remaining portion of the CO. I hope I just have not held off too long before releasing the tanks.

Mean while B in the north has moved to within 400 yards of the northern rear objective and can expect to take it within the hour. They are fairly close to having full strength as they have had not to much in the way of opposition there. A few tanks they took out over an hour ago and very little in the way of infantry to fight there way thru.

C in the middle has not faired as well although not as bad as A Co in the south. They were hit hard about 30 minutes ago with several stukas that came in and really hurt them. They took out at least 2 full squads and a couple of ATGs along with several of the HMG and morters they had.

Have found that the Northover AT rifles are not too good. For one thing they are hard and slow to move and there hitting power is almost nil against the heavy German tanks. Think I will try and trade them after this fight for the other AT rifle we have.

We are progressing towards taking all the objectives but our losses are not going to be satisfying today. Lucky if we come out with a draw today as our losses in men and equipment is terrible.

HQ: II Royal Dragoons
Col: Sir Nigel Kingsly Commanding

[robot]

Halfaya Egypt
September 10 1941
1005 Hours

We managed to eeke out a marginal victory over the Germans some how today. Lost a lot of good men today 374 and 46 units of armor as well. The German tanks were very hard to take out with our 2 pounders. The Germans were hurt today and I thought we did very well with what we have to fight with. Took down 2398 of there troops along with 38 of there artty and 57 of there tough tanks.

We managed to capture and secure all of our objectives. Which in it self was a major accomplishment. Our men fought well against tremendous odds. I am proud to have these men as my fighting force.

We are to stay here at Halfaya and meet the German once again next month. We are to begin construction of defensive barricades and to stop there advance.

In the mean time we have managed to get repairs and replacements. I have replaced all the northover ATR with Boys ATR as i believe they are much better at being moved around. The Northovers did not seem to be much of an improvment anyways. They were very slow to move and hard to keep up with any kind of movement we attempted.

We had lost several Matildas in this last fight. Have had them replaced with the Matilda III. With the 3 inch guns they have they will be better against the German armor and much more effective against the German infantry as well. At least that is the theory I have we will see next month wont we.

HQ: II Royal Dragoons
Col: Sir Nigel Kingsly Commanding