KG Krafft, 5 December, 1941 - Afrika Korps
Reorganization, repair, and resupply: Rommel's cupboard was bare, indeed some said he had overextended his resources. KG Krafft shared in the shortages despite being an elite unit. There were no available panzers available to replace losses. While damaged vehicles were repaired for the most part, replacements were sometimes not of the same type, instead of receiving a replacement SdKfz 251/1, an armoured truck was substituted. The panzergrenadier company that had been accompanying KG Krafft was reassigned to prepare defenses near Gazala.
Situation: While the British had seemed to withdraw at first after the failure of Crusader and Rommel's initial counterattack, for some reason they reversed and not only made a stand but in some cases seemed to be mounting a renewed offensive. Radio intercepts place a British armor unit advancing towards Gazala. The area is generally clear, flat, and open terrain with numerous, sometimes impassably rocky, depressions. [Meeting engagement, visibility 47, length 47, scattered victory hexes, map size 100x100]
Orders: Intercept and destroy the British force before they reach Gazala. Support consists of an adhoc company with a kraftrad commander, a 4.7cm PaK 36(t) platoon, a MG34 MMG section, a transport platoon of four captured bren carriers, a kradshutzen platoon, a 7.5cm leIG 18 section towed by schlepper UEs, a towed 2cm FlaK 30 section, a Kuebelwagen VB, and an (off-board) 8.76cm battery (captured 25pdr).
Battle Plan: Platoon F and the security element (platoons I and O) will be held in reserve. The support company will advance in the center together with platoons D, H, K, and the command vehicles. This group will deploy into the central and adjacent depressions. Platoons E and G will advance ahead on the flanks, engage the lead enemy units, and then fall back until under cover of the support group.
Execution: Four British 25pdr troops welcome KG Krafft to the area, some shells falling uncomfortably close to the deployment areas. KG Krafft races ahead, trying to gain as much ground as possible so the heavy weapons can be deployed far enough forward to be effective. At the fifteen minute mark, contact is made. A troop of cruiser tanks is spotted in the far north, another troop preceded by one or more scout cars in the center, and at least two troops in the south. The heavy weapons are moved as close as possible to firing positions and unloaded.
Interdiction fire missions are called in to the 8.76cm battery and the sIG Ib's along the likely route of the central advance. As the picture clarifies, the central advance turns out to be two columns, the northern one having a troop each of armored cars and scout cars as well as two troops of cruiser tanks, the southern one consisting of two troops of cruiser tanks. The far northern movement seems to consist only of one troop of cruisers while the far southern has at least two troops of cruisers. Orders go out to the flank groups to reduce speed to one half and prepare to fire.
About twenty minutes into the battle, KG Krafft draws first blood, knocking out one Crusader tank and one Marrming/Harrington armored car while suffering no damage. In the north, platoon E unloads on the cruiser troop to the far north destroying all three tanks and then begins maneuvering to support the center. In the south, platoon G knocks out the remaining two tanks in the lead troop of the southcentral column and the lead tank of the far southern column. In the center, platoon D destroys one armored car and damages another, the two tanks of platoon D that were deployed north of center race south to join in the fight against the remaining armored cars. Another armored car is destroyed by Oberstlt Krafft's tank taking extreme range potshots against protocol.
Two more armored cars and four more tanks are destroyed as the British continue to advance. Trucks and carriers are spotted in the north and south of center. More armored cars and cruiser tanks fall to the guns of the panzers but British 25pdr troops strike the ATG positions before they even have a chance to fire. Fortunately the ATGs survived largely intact as did the nearby MG34s. Platoons D and G engaged and destroyed so many targets that main gun ammo became a factor, forcing early commitment of platoon F, a total withdraw of platoon D, and a gradual withdraw of platoon G. Platoon E, having traveled down from its northern position at full speed, arrived in the vicinity just as platoon D withdrew.
Artillery, infantry guns, FlaK guns, and machinegun fire as well as HE rounds from panzers destroyed nearly every truck in the British follow-on force, throwing the infantry into dissarray. As the first hour of battle drew to a close, the landscape was littered with dozens of destroyed British vehicles, less than a half dozen British tanks remained operational and a similar number of trucks and carriers. To this point, KG Krafft had suffered no significant damage to any of its vehicles.
The ATG positions took quite a pounding from British 25pdr troops but the shelling slowed some as counterbattery fire knocked out, at least temporarily, one of the troops. Less than an hour after the first shots were exchanged, the last known British armored vehicle, a Crusader tank, was destroyed by the only undamaged ATG. All known infantry units, except for one, were in retreat or rout status. Oberstlt Krafft ordered the commitment of the security element and ordered the kradshutzen platoon to begin preparing to move. The infantry would lead the advance in the final phase of the operation.
Two hours after entering the site of battle, KG Krafft found itself well into the final stage of securing the area. The British HQ had been found and destroyed, along with an FOO team, marksmen, ATR teams, patrols, and scattered infantry squads in various forms of despair and sometimes panic. Still the going was slow, not only because of the terrain but as the forward sweep elements entered the British rear areas they had to be on the lookout for ATG and AAA positions. British artillery continued to periodically bombard the ATG positions, long past the time when they had any influence on the battle. Unfortunately, the bombardment never ceased long enough for the ATGs to be recrewed and towed out of the area.
British reinforcements, a troop of Crusaders carrying an infantry platoon, arrived on the battlefield. If there was ever a quintessential example of 'too little too late' this was it. While the reinforcements weren't much of a factor, the 40mm Bofors AA-guns were. Two panzers from platoon E were so badly damaged they had to withdraw from the field. Oberstlt Krafft was heard to remark, "These British fight harder after their commanders are gone!"
In the north, a Bofors AA-gun was subjected to direct fire from a sIG Ib, three shots and the gun, the crew, and much of the surrounding terrain, vanished. Elsewhere, the last of the reinforcements, a Crusader tank, drove out of a gully into the gunsights of three awaiting panzers. Finally three hours after the first shots rang out, the guns fell silent and the battlefield was declared secure.
Decisive victory, KG Krafft.
Last turn file attached, thanks for reading
