British armoured formations of the Second World War

During the interwar period, the British Army examined the lessons of the First World War; a need was seen for experimentation with and development of theories of manoeuvre and armoured warfare, as well as the creation of the short-lived Experimental Mechanized Force.

[1] The long-term impact was for the army to move towards mechanisation, to enhance battlefield mobility.

[8] Tensions did not subside, and the British government debated how best to prepare the army for war.

In January 1939, the Secretary of State for War Leslie Hore-Belisha proposed splitting the Mobile Division into two smaller formations but found no support for this move.

The formation of a second division within the United Kingdom was complicated by the slow pace of British tank production.

[11] Several independent Army Tank Brigades were also raised prior to the outbreak of the war, to be commanded by corps.

In line with the established doctrine, they would be allocated to support infantry divisions as the need arose.

[3] British doctrine defined light tanks as reconnaissance vehicles armed only with machine guns.

The primary role of the cruiser tank was to engage and destroy opposing armoured forces.

This meant that cruiser tanks were ineffective against entrenched infantry, or in suppressing hostile artillery.

At the start of the Second World War, in September 1939, the British Army possessed two armoured divisions; one in Britain and a second in Egypt.

Early war tank production went to formations in France or in Egypt resulting in little availability at home.

With the British Army defeated in France and evacuated from Dunkirk, these units were equipped with a motley of armoured cars (improvised and factory built) and assigned to an armoured car brigade called a Motor Machine Gun brigade.

[16][17] Following the Allied defeat during the Battle of France, in 1940, new tank production orders were placed.

The Army recognised that German armoured success during the fighting had come about as a result of the concentration of tanks in divisions.

In this capacity, it did not act en masse, it maintained command and administrative control of its sub-units, they were assigned to other formations to provide specialised support as and when.

The division was supported by a Pivot Group of two motorised infantry battalions and two artillery regiments.

The next change (on paper) was made in April 1940; the tank strength of the division was reduced to 340 tanks by changes in the armoured regiments, the two armoured brigades now became homogeneous, dropping their prefixes and the division's engineers were removed from the Support Group, becoming divisional troops under their own headquarters.

[26] Following the Battle of France, the Army realised that mixing light and cruiser tanks in the same brigade had been a mistake and that there were insufficient infantry and support units within the division.

In Britain, an armoured car regiment was placed under the command of the division but not in the Middle East.

[33] Prior to the Battle of Alam el Halfa, in August–September 1942, the armoured divisions in North Africa were again authorised to change; the armoured division became the basic battle formation again and the brigade groups were reorganised as they had previously.

The artillery, anti-tank and anti-aircraft regiments would be put under the control of the Royal Artillery divisional headquarters and would be reinforced with additional batteries, the Royal Engineers would be reinforced and returned to the divisional engineer headquarters.

[40] The divisions operated from then on as two brigade groups; each of two combined arms teams, both made up of one tank regiment and one infantry battalion, the armoured reconnaissance regiment was matched with the armoured brigade's motor battalion to provide the fourth group.

[5] The historian David French wrote that the Army's intention had been to create balanced all-arms formations but following the formation of their first armoured divisions, they had instead created tank-heavy divisions with too few infantry or supporting arms.

[5] He wrote that the reforms that took place in 1940 forfeited an opportunity to transform the tank-heavy armoured divisions into a balanced all-arms force.

[51] The heavy armoured brigade, laid out the same as the light armoured brigade, had 157 tanks, with each regiment made up of 26 light cruisers, 15 heavy cruisers, 8 close support tanks, 30 officers and 573 other ranks.

[55] By June 1944, the sabre squadrons in North West Europe were operating four-tank troops.

[57] On 7 April 1941, the first change was made; the formations would drop army terminology and adopt cavalry terms.