"Monty's Desert Rats Released" Topic

No infantry? I always thought of a Desert Rat as a British infantryman holding his own in a dugout around Tobruk. This is all tanks and guns.

Errrr…..
Shermans? Where are they?

And why 17pdrs when the emphasis is on Alamein.

Something is out of whack here.
Unless it's "Let's give the kids a lot of toys to play with."
Some of us, even Flames of War players like a little bit of historical continuity.
Instead the 4th ed is looking more and more like a WRG Seleucid army lust that covers 3 centuries.
Relying on players to be historically accurate in a competition game has never been a good idea. Unless this is exactly what Battlefront is looking for.

I like Seleucids.

I'd also like some plastic Crusaders. Does anyone know when they will be available by themselves?

I think there is a box set of them coming out about the same time as this set is.

And why 17pdrs when the emphasis is on Alamein.

If I am reading the description correctly, the gun sprues can be built either as 25 or 17 pounders, as desired.

17pdrs are there to deal with german tigers

Bought a set at Cold Wars. You can model 25 or 17 pdrs with the two gun sprues.

African mid-war campaign the Brits used a 17lb gun on a 25 lb carriage.

link

Like the 2 Pounder the 17 Pounder was originally planned to be a tank gun, in April 1941 the question of a weapon to replace the 6 Pounder was debated at a meeting by the Design Department and the artillery and tank branches of both the War Office and the Ministry of Supply. A this meeting it was decided that the new gun design must aim to be one piece common to both tank and anti-tank mountings and penetration of between 120-150mm – this would require a 3" gun firing a 17lb shell at around 2700fps. It was agreed that the carriage to mount the gun was to be of split-trial type and have a transverse of 60 degrees.

The prototypes were created and trials were completed at the beginning of 1942 and orders were placed. The first production guns were completed in April 1942 and by the end of the year 670 of the guns had been completed. There seems to be a lot of confusion as to the 17 Pounder carriage, the first production 17pdr carriages were completed in May 1942 but production was extremely slow, when the War Office issued urgent demands for 17 Pounder guns to be sent to North Africa there was not enough carriages available to mount the guns required so guns were mounted on 25 Pounder carriages instead, these were known as 25/17pdr carriages, codename Pheasant. 150 of these carriages were ordered and this order was completed by December 1942. In October 1942, 59 17 Pounder and 27,000 rounds of ammunition were shipped to the Middle East, I have not yet found the exact date of the guns arrival but they were definitely present by the end of December. In November/December a further 40 guns were sent.

Even with your explanation, this is still a weird mix.

Jim

Well the guns could be used as 25lbers Art or 17lbers ATG. So that's a plus.

The Desert Rats were the 7th armoured division out there in North Africa long before Monty arrived.

El Alamein oob indicates they were only equipped with Grants and Crusaders (and Honeys) at that time with the Shermans deployed to other armoured divisions and no 17 pounders are there either. They may have been left off official documents but they were first in action in February 43 during the Tunisian campaign

Here's a 1943 video of some training with the pheasant carriage version.

YouTube link

One wonders if Enigma code work indicated that Tigers were going to deployed by the enemy in Tunisia.

You could take 17/25 pdr in Africa during 3rd edition as well.

Just don't take them if you want to play battles before they arrived. You can make 25 pdr with the same kit if you prefer.

Yes just a bit of future proofing of the sprues, nobody is going to standover you and force you to build the 17pdr – nothing to see here!

What prime mover would I need to add for the guns?
Thanks

Currently in 4th edition you don't need any. BF are apparently going to release a card pack which will include these and I assume there will be Quads for the 17/25 or 25 pdr.