Commonwealth MMG Carriers

[McIvan]

Where did MMG carriers slot into the commonwealth OOB? Everything I search on them gets muddled into a general description of universal carriers in which MMG sections rode, so I am none the wiser as to their actual role.

As far as I know, they weren't just a portion of an MG battalion being toted around in a Universal Carrier, they were part of the motorised infantry component of an armoured division, being mobile MMG support. Is this correct?

Does anyone know how they operated in practice....mostly firing from the vehicle, or mostly dismounted...ie what was the doctrine?

[JonS]

Infantry divisions had an MMG Bn, which by 1944 was organised as 3 companies of MMGs (each of 3 pns of 4 guns. Each company had 12 MMGs, each bn had 36) and 1 company of 4.2-in mortars (of 4 pns of 4 mortars, total 16). Basically, on an even-stevens basis, each inf bde gp got an MMG company and a hvy mtr pn in support. Subdividing further, each inf bn got a pn of MMGs.

Armoured divs only had one inf bde, so they got a pro-rated amount of spt wpns - basically, they got an indep MMG coy, which had 3 MMG pns (12 MMGs total) and a hvy mtr pn (4 x 4.2-in mtr).

The kicker is the Motor Bn in the Armd Regt. These guys were sort of a super-inf-bn. Very heavy on spt weapons, very light on rifle strength. The basic org was based on threes, thus each tank bn (or armd regt, if you prefer) got a motor coy with an A-Tk pn (12 x 6-pr) and an MMG pn (4 x MMG).

Now, where do the MMG carriers come in? Well, they were the taxi for the MMGs themselves. Each MMG pn had seven carriers - one for each of the MMGs, one for each pair of MMGs (section commander and extra ammo) and one for the pn cmdr. In addition, there were various other vehicles - incl at least a pn truck and a motorcycle.

The high mount that you see for the MMG on the carriers in CMAK was primarily for transport, though in principle the MMG could be fired from there too, although it very rarely was. For scen purposes I'd recommend just using a basic, unarmed, carrier (not Bren or Boys).

Oh, BTW, a full strength Vickers gun crew was three pers, not the six that CM uses. I assume the extras are because BFC didn't know where all the apparently spare bods in the pn org went.

BTW2: 2(NZ)Div retained four companies of MMGs in it's MMG Bn until the Bn was disbanded in early 1945. At that point each inf bn within the div gained its own, permanent, MMG pn. Also, 2(NZ)Div never used carriers as taxis for the MMGs - they alwyas used trucks (3 Ton, I assume). The 4.2-in mortars went to the A-Tk Regt, where they were formed into an extra bty. While a seemingly odd allocation, it kind-of made sense from a use-of-available resources POV. The A-Tk regt KO'd exactly one (1) enemy tank during the entire campaign in Italy. By the time the 4.2-in mtrs arrived in early 1944, they were a unit in search of a role.

Jon

[ May 08, 2007, 02:36 PM: Message edited by: JonS ]

[McIvan]

Thanks Jon, much appreciated

So the 7 carriers per platoon is only for the Motor Bn? Or for all MMG battalions?

I've been thrown off track here, I think, by having played a lot of Campaign Series: West Front...where the MMG carrier is a separate little vehicle, rather than a carrier plus a dismountable vickers. Made me think of it as a Bren Carrier with a vickers poking out the front.

[JonS]

Originally posted by McIvan:

So the 7 carriers per platoon is only for the Motor Bn? Or for all MMG battalions?

It is certainly true for MMG Pns in the MMG Bn (Inf Divs).

It is probably true for MMG Pns in the Indep MMG Coys (Inf Bde of Armd Divs).

My guess is it's true for MMG Pns in the Motor Bns (Armd Bde of Armd Divs).

FWIW.

Oh, another BTW: A/B Divs had a reasonably sizeable allocation of MMGs, and I'm pretty sure they were in the Para and A/L Bns, but I haven't been able to find much in the way of definitive TOE for them. Apart from anything else, A/B TOE seems to have been utterly non-standard, varying not only between the two divisions, but also from one operation to the next.

[The_Enigma]

For scen purposes, I'd reccomend just using a basic carrier (Lloyd, not universal).

Out of intrest, the Lloyd is not in game is it, its just universals?

[JonS]

Well, whatever it's called, there is an unarmed carrier. Use that one.

[The_Enigma]

Originally posted by JonS:

Well, whatever it's called, there is an unarmed carrier. Use that one.

gotcha

[JonS]

Addendum:

8 carriers in an MMG pn, one truck (8cwt or 15cwt), and 1 motorcycle. 31 men all up.

* Pn Cmdrs carrier (4 men; PnCmdr, 2 x sig-dvr, batman)(carries pn Bren)

* Pn Sgts carrier (3 men; Sgt, dvr-mechanic, medic)

* * 1 Sect Cmdrs carrier (3 men; Sgt, rangetaker, veh dvr)(carries extra MMG ammo)

* * * Gun 1 carrier (4 men; Cpl No.1 , No.2, No.3, veh dvr)

* * * Gun 2 carrier (4 men; Cpl No.1 , No.2, No.3, veh dvr)

* * 2 Sect Cmdrs carrier (3 men; Sgt, rangetaker, veh dvr)(carries extra MMG ammo)

* * * Gun 3 carrier (4 men; Cpl No.1 , No.2, No.3, veh dvr)

* * * Gun 4 carrier (4 men; Cpl No.1 , No.2, No.3, veh dvr)

* Truck (2 men; dvr, cook)

* Motorcycle (DR rider)

First-line ammo carried amounted to 144 belts per gun, distr between gun carriers and sect cmdrs veh.

Pn cmdr: pistol, flare pistol

Sgts & Nos.1: Sten

Others: No 4 Mk I .303 SMLE

Pn Wpns: 1 x Bren, 1 x PIAT

Other claggage: No.36 grenades, No.75 grenades, trip flares, barbed wire, smoke cannisters, picks, shovels, cam nets, spare parts for the MMGs, No.22 radio, No.18 radio, batteries, 4 field phones, D8 phone cable, director, aiming posts, night aiming lights, cooking eqpt, personal equipment, slide rule, shooting tables, protractors, generator, maps, blah blah blah.

More addendum: Some sources say the Hvy Mtr Coy had 3 pns of 4 guns for a total of 12, not 4 x 4 = 16.

[ May 08, 2007, 01:42 AM: Message edited by: JonS ]

[Bonxa]

Do the british infantry battalions have any other MGs organic to them? It sound like a lot less compared to the other nations. I've become used to one MG coy per infantry battalion. Here it sounds like one MG plt per infantry battalion?

[flamingknives]

The organic support weapons in a WW2 British Infantry battalion in '44 and '45 are the Brens, PIAT, 2" mortars, 6 x 3" mortars and 6 x 6pdr AT guns, plus a muddle of flamethrowers and universal carriers.

In an infantry division there is one MMG platoon per infantry battalion.

What you have to consider is that there is also one 8-gun battery of 25pdrs per infantry battalion in an infantry division, with an FOO(correct term?) attached to the battlion. Since the battlion rarely, if ever, attacks all up, that battery is really supporting the forward two companies, along with the battlion organic assets. Even more critical is that the FOO can call in fire from anything or, very rarely, everything in range. And it's an order, not a request.

The late WW2 British army uses artillery more than small-arms firepower.

Regarding the MMGs, it's worth noting that CMX1 cannot handle resupply, so you can abstract it by having the ammo carriers lumped in with the gun crew

[JonS]

Originally posted by flamingknives:

What you have to consider is that there is also one 8-gun battery of 25pdrs per infantry battalion in an infantry division, with an FOO(correct term?) attached to the battlion.

A bit more than that, actually. The BC would be at Bn HQ, and the btys two FO Parties would be with two of the four rifle coys, moving between them as the tactical situation demanded.

Also a bit less. Any FOO can order his own bty at any time. The BC can order the regiment his bty belongs to at any time (that 'order one-up' continues all the way up the food chain). Additionaly, one of the FOOs might be designated an 'authorised observer', which meant he could order more than normal (eg, the regt or div-arty instead of just the bty), and all observers could request more go juice for specific missions at any time.

Incidentally, I recently came across a fairly detailed description of the WILLIAM target the Canadians did in Italy. 32 minutes to rustle up nearly 700 guns for a TOT. The village, and the German bn it contained, ceased to be a problem after that. If I remember I'll post it here later today.

Jon

[flamingknives]

700 guns? Holy smoke! Any idea as to the proportions of field and medium regiments involved?

[JonS]

668 guns to be precise, at Aquino in 1943, ordered by 1 Can Div. Fired by 30 regts from Can, UK, and Poland. You could do a rough estimate based on 72x25pr/div. So, say 18 Fd regts from 6 divs, plus 12 mdm and hy regts (10 and 2 would be my very rough guess).

More later. In the meantime, it is referenced here and here:

http://tinyurl.com/2cef7a

http://tinyurl.com/2gsbkf

BTW, 33 mins, apparently, but that was using a 'slow' TOT process.

[Kingfish]

Originally posted by JonS:

The A-Tk regt KO'd exactly one (1) enemy tank during the entire campaign in Italy.

10 points each if you can name where, when, what tank type it killed, and what AT gun (Towed or SPAT) did the killing.

C'mon, Jon, I'm pitching you a softball here.

[JonS]

Pz IV (although other reports say it was a Tiger), la Romola south of Florence (more specifically, "halfway between Pian dei Cerri and La Poggiona"), gun M2 of 33 Battery, a towed 17-pr, first thing in the morning, 2 Aug 1944.

[ May 08, 2007, 09:34 PM: Message edited by: JonS ]

[Kanonier Reichmann]

What was the weather like on the morning of the kill?

Regards

Jim R.

[Bonxa]

Thanks for the quick and enlightened answer!

[Kingfish]

Originally posted by JonS:

Pz IV (although other reports say it was a Tiger), la Romola south of Florence (more specifically, "halfway between Pian dei Cerri and La Poggiona"), gun M2 of 33 Battery, a towed 17-pr, first thing in the morning, 2 Aug 1944.

...and he hits it out of the park...

For an additional 10 points can you name the other unit that was with gun M2 during this engagement?

[JonS]

10 Pn, B Coy, 25th Bn, 6 Bde.

[ May 09, 2007, 02:45 PM: Message edited by: JonS ]

[Kingfish]

Actually, it was an M10, at least according to After the battle mag. I'm sure your answer is also correct.

[JonS]

Div Arty says:

The 6th Field had an FOO forward with each 6 Brigade battalion and they reported good progress. While the infantry consolidated their positions on their final objective the guns fired smoke to screen the flanks. Reports of Tiger tanks had created a lively demand for 17-pounder support, and the gun M2 of 33 Battery was well forward with C Company of 25 Battalion halfway between Pian dei Cerri and La Poggiona. When machine-gun and mortar fire in the area became intense the crew of M2 took shelter in a house, with their gun sited beside a wall and not dug in. What looked like a Tiger tank appeared on the road ahead and drove to within 400 yards. Then it stopped and began to back away. Two of the gun crew then dashed out of the house and fired one shot at the tank, striking it just below the turret. The result was spectacular.

– 631 –

The turret went six feet into the air, the tank burst into flames, and ammunition soon began to explode. None of the tank crew survived. This tank turned out on closer inspection to be a Pzkw IV altered to look like a Tiger. It was the one and only tank destroyed by the 7th Anti-Tank in Italy. The enemy soon avenged its loss by putting M2 out of action with mortar fire. The New Zealand field guns then brought down a curtain of fire in front of 25 Battalion and discouraged all further menacing enemy movements.

25 Bn says:

An hour or so later a 17-pounder anti-tank gun, which had been placed behind a stone wall on the forward slope of Point 337, had a signal success when it knocked out with a single shot an enemy Mark IV tank which a few minutes earlier had

– 468 –

been reported by B Company to be approaching its forward positions. Lance-Corporal Gordon19 of 10 Platoon reports:

"On 1–2 August the attack on Pt 382 near Cerbaia, B Coy 25 Bn occupied the left flank, with 10 Pl over the ridge on a forward slope guarding the road. The ground was too rocky to dig-in before daylight and the platoon was caught at first light in the open in view of the enemy and was subjected to fire from rifle grenades, Spandaus, and mortars from a house across the wadi, 300 yards away. With two men killed and three wounded and the fire increasing, the position became untenable, and I was sent back across the ridge to get a stretcher. Here I found a tank officer who was eventually persuaded to send a tank up the road over the ridge to shoot up the enemy strongpoints. This was done and nine shots completely silenced the enemy house. I returned to the platoon but found that they had returned over the ridge to positions above the road, leaving only the dead and wounded. I got an assistant and we brought three back to our casa. While there we saw a Mk IV German tank come up the road over the ridge and round the bend heading for the casa and looking for our tanks which were hidden below the bank of the road. One in a hull-down position opened fire and fired four shots which had no effect but my impression was that they missed altogether.

"The German tank, however, stopped and began to back along the road. We were watching all this from our casa, in which was also the crew of a 17-pr A Tk gun which was in the yard behind a stone wall about a chain in front but not dug in. As soon as the tank began to back out, two of this crew ran out, slapped a round into the breech, and let her go at only 300 yards range. It required only one shot which was most spectacular. The shot hit just below the turret which was thrown about 6 feet in the air and the tank split open, then a sheet of flame enveloped the lot, followed by the explosion of ammunition.

"Later in the afternoon I had to go round the road to help evacuate some wounded and was caught by a mortar stonk and took cover in a hollow in the shelter of the burnt-out tank. When it died down I went on but later in the day the Padre and a party went to bury the German crew and one man picked up a German wallet containing 26,000 lire from the same hollow where I had been sheltering for some 20 minutes."

19) L-Cpl H. C. G. Gordon; born Invercargill, 24 Jan 1909; shepherd; wounded 16 Mar 1944.

Campaign history says:

C Company of 25 Battalion passed through A (which soon reported Points 281 and 282 clear), occupied the second objective (Point 337) and captured about 30 prisoners;2 D and B Companies, carrying on towards the third objective, met vigorous resistance from a house close by the road. The enemy withdrew under fire from the tanks, and the two companies moved on to the slopes of Poggio Valicaia, where they met little opposition. One post holding out in a building withdrew when the tanks approached. By 5.30 a.m. D Company on the right and B on the left were in possession of the final objective with a troop of tanks in support; C Company and another troop were at Point 337, A Company and a third troop at Point 282, and a reserve troop on the road south of Point 281 (which was occupied next night by A Company, 26 Battalion).

There had been a sharp earthquake during the advance, at 2.33 a.m. As the light improved on the morning of 2 August the men digging in on the objective came under fire, mostly from mortars; this was especially annoying on Poggio Valicaia, where it seemed to come from La Sughera and Poggio al Pino, to the north-west. When the artillery laid concentrations of smoke on these two hilltops, the accuracy and volume of the mortaring diminished, which permitted the anti-tank guns to be sited. An M10, a 17- pounder and four six-pounder guns were placed well forward, the Vickers guns and 4.2-inch mortars some distance to the rear.

Signs of enemy activity presaged a counter-attack. When a German tank approached, the 17-pounder sited to cover the road near Point 337 was quickly manned by two of its crew who had been sheltering from the mortar fire in a nearby building. Their first shot ‘hit just below the turret which was thrown about 6 feet in the air and the tank split open, then a sheet of flame enveloped the lot, followed by the explosion of the ammunition.’3 German infantry

– 174 –

observed near Santa Maria, farther west, were dispersed by small-arms and artillery fire.

2) Fourteenth Panzer Corps reported on 7 August that "during the heavy fighting on 2 Aug 6/15 Pz Gren Regt (35 men) was cut off by the enemy at Pian dei Cerri and has not returned since…."

3) H. C. G. Gordon, quoted in 25 Battalion, p. 468. This was the first and only German tank definitely known to have been knocked out by one of 7 A-Tk Regt's guns in Italy. German records say it was a Tiger, New Zealand records that it was a Mark IV camouflaged to resemble a Tiger.

Take your pick

[ May 09, 2007, 06:35 PM: Message edited by: JonS ]

[ropey]

Anyone like pics of the units involved? http://picasaweb.google.com/Italythenandnow/CMAK I visited the corner in '04 and helped with the AtB article that includes this action. None of the pics show anything that suggests the PzIV was made up like a Tiger. However, if a PzIV carried the Schurtzen (sp?) on its turret it was very often misreported as a Tiger because of the round turret shape and greater bulk.

The first shot ever fired in anger by a NZ 17-pdr and it made a hell of a mess of the tank. The crew couldn't have believed their eyes!

[ May 20, 2007, 05:56 AM: Message edited by: ropey ]

[JonS]

Originally posted by ropey:

The first shot ever fired in anger by a NZ 17-pdr and it made a hell of a mess of the tank. The crew couldn't have believed their eyes!

Ah, that would have been at Medinine, Lybia, back in March 1943. Not La Romola, Italy, in August 1944.

Neat pics though. Thanks

[McIvan]

Coming back somewhat on topic, I (via another forums post) ran across a description of MMGs being fired direct from the carriers...

Australian Armour in the Middle East

The Machine Gun Carriers appear to be generally Universal Carriers Mark 1, all mounting Vickers and Bren guns. The volume of fire that the carriers were able to produce, with their Vickers guns connected to the engine radiators of the carriers, was largely responsible for minimizing the infantry casualties

Where did carriers such as this, with Vickers mounted in the front where the Bren would normally have been, slot into Allied formations? The Vickers does not strike me as easily removable and, with the cooling jacket hooked up to the radiator, it seems set for sustained fire from the vehicle itself.

This is what I was thinking of when I made the original post btw, but I then kept coming up with all the pedestal jobbies when searching.

[PzKpfwIII]

Originally posted by McIvan:

Where did carriers such as this, with Vickers mounted in the front where the Bren would normally have been, slot into Allied formations? The Vickers does not strike me as easily removable and, with the cooling jacket hooked up to the radiator, it seems set for sustained fire from the vehicle itself.

Just reread your post. Never mind the below - I didn't answer your question, but did find some nice photos of pedestal mounts.

No idea where the front mounted Vickers gun vehicles fit in. Perhaps it was a prototype? It had to be fairly useless with a restricted field of fire and one man crew, even if safer for the operator.

Divisional Machine Gun Battalions. Photos of the Saskatoon Light Infantry of 1st Canadian Division show the same vehicle, though they mounted their MGs up higher, in the rear compartment.

[ May 28, 2007, 07:40 AM: Message edited by: PzKpfwIII ]