"6th South African Armoured Division " Topic

"The idea of a South African Armoured Division was born out of the chaos of the Western Desert Campaign, the Officers in the 1st and 2nd South African Infantry Divisions felt the need for their own armour instead of depending on other Commonwealth Armoured Units.

The formation of two strong Armoured Divisions was first discussed between Lt. Gen. G. E. Brink and Prime Minister (Field Marshal) J.C. Smuts in April 1941. At that point time, South Africa was struggling to maintain the manpower needed to sustain the 1st and 2nd Infantry Divisions in the field due to the political divisions in the Country. The 3rd South African Infantry Division was based in South Africa and provided the pool from which reinforcements were drawn to supplement the 1st and 2nd Infantry Divisions. A re-organisation committee met for the first time in May 1942 to discuss the armour option, it was decided to send three Infantry Battalions for armour training in August 1942, but the plan was rudely interrupted when Rommel launched his attack on the Gazala line in late May 1942.

Nine days after the final El Alamein offensive the South African Divisions were pulling back to regroup. The plan was for the 1st Infantry Division that was withdrawn to Quassasin and that its 1st Brigade would return to South Africa to regroup with the 7th Infantry Brigade in Madagascar to form the 1st South African Armoured Division and the 1st Infantry Divisions 2nd and 3rd Brigades would remain in Egypt to form the 6th South African Armoured Division, which would replace the 2nd Infantry Division that had been captured at Tobruk in June 1942. By late December 1942 the South African Chief of Staff was having doubts about the ability of South Africa fielding two Armoured Divisions…"
From here.
link

Amicalement
Armand

It's a very interesting unit for a bunch of reasons:

- Fought as part of both British 8th and US 5th armies.
- Equipment is a mix of UK, US, Canadian & SA kit.
- Kept its mud brown/grey camouflage into Mid 1944 before starting to change over to Olive Drab

As a result it doesn't quite look like other Commonwealth forces – for eg, it used Sherman 76mm & Firefly, Dodge 3/4 tonners (Beeps), SA made trucks and armoured cars.

Also had a wide variety of other nation's troops that served in it:

- UK Guards & Indian Motorised Infantry
- US Task Group (Tanks, Mech Infantry, Artillery)