Early war British help.

[Ray Earle]

Esteemed members,

Can anyone point me towards a guide/book on the British early war formations before the evacuation at Dunkirk. Something about infantry badges and markings would be good too. Is there an Osprey to cover the infantry? A nice big painting guide when I don't actually have to think to hard would be brilliant. 

Starting a small force for Bolt Action and want to game a period I'm interested in without the standard wall to wall tigers... 

[Arlequín]

The best overview I have ever come across was the National Army Museum's "Against All Odds" by David Smurthwaite, Mark Nicholls, & Linda Washington. It covers just the army of 1939 to 1940. It's a great primer and often appears on E-Bay etc. I got mine from 'Works' a couple of years back.

http://www.bayonetstrength.150m.com/British/british_army.htm is still the best place to go for unit organisations imo and covers the early organisations in depth.

http://www.petergh.f2s.com/flashes.html is an exhaustive guide to divisional and other flashes and markings.

Vehicle Colours etc;

http://www.armouredacorn.com/Reference/CVM/NCVMs/NCVM%20023/A/NCVM%20Part%2023a%20(BEF%20in%20France).pdf
http://www.armouredacorn.com/Reference/CVM/NCVMs/NCVM%20023/B/NCVM%20Part%2023b%20(BEF%20in%20France).pdf
http://www.armouredacorn.com/Reference/CVM/NCVMs/NCVM%20031/NCVM%20Part%2031%20(BEF%20in%20France).pdf
http://www.armouredacorn.com/Reference/CVM/NCVMs/NCVM%20035/NCVM%20Part%2035%20(BEF).pdf

Hope that helps. 
 

[Ray Earle]

Aha, great stuff. Thanks. 

[Ray Earle]

Thanks to aircav I now have the British army osprey (and my copy turned up from Amazon today  ). Picked up 'against all odds' as well, just waiting for it to arrive.

Does anyone know if 2pdrs were part of the Royal artillery or were they manned by soldiers from the parent regiment they were attached too?

I know boyes rifles were part of the organisation of its parent regiment as were MG's, although they were possibly manned by a different regiment, as part of the divisions support allocation.

I'm planning to represent my 'home' regiment, the Northamptonshires, luckily they spent quite a bit of time all over the place so took part in the early period upto Dunkirk. Need to visit the regimental museum...  

[Arlequín]

2 pdrs were RA anti-tank regiments only. AT gun platoons within battalions came after 1942 iirc. However a lot of local yeomanry units were changed to artillery in the late 30s, so you might find a local AT unit (for local people  ).

Vickers MGs were withdrawn from the battalions right before the war and turned over to the Machine Gun Regiments (except in the Far and Near East). They anticipated a re-fight of WW1 in Europe initially and the weapons weren't returned to battalions until later.

[Ray Earle]

Ah, you are of course completely right. Machine gun companies were separate at the time before Dunkirk. Do you know if they were given different arm insignia/formation badges on the sleeve?

I'm assuming radios were reserved for higher ranking officers rather than one being included in each platoon? There's no mention of them in the organisation charts. I'm aiming for 1st platoon, so junior officer, batman (not THE batman  )and sergeant for command with 2" mortar attached and maybe a boyes. Then three squads/units of 8 men with a Bren gun. I want to add an Vickers and that'll bring me pretty close to 500pts in bolt action. I don't think I'll have enough points for the platoons attached lorry or an orderly. Maybe I'll add them anyway for a bit of flexibility. 

[aircav]

Of course it wouldn't be The Batman Ray, your doing British
It could be Union Jack though

[Arlequín]

Ah, you are of course completely right. Machine gun companies were separate at the time before Dunkirk. Do you know if they were given different arm insignia/formation badges on the sleeve?

I'm assuming radios were reserved for higher ranking officers rather than one being included in each platoon? There's no mention of them in the organisation charts. I'm aiming for 1st platoon, so junior officer, batman (not THE batman  )and sergeant for command with 2" mortar attached and maybe a boyes. Then three squads/units of 8 men with a Bren gun. I want to add an Vickers and that'll bring me pretty close to 500pts in bolt action. I don't think I'll have enough points for the platoons attached lorry or an orderly. Maybe I'll add them anyway for a bit of flexibility. 

I'm not actually certain about radios, but they were held by the signals platoon at battalion and deployed as required. I'm guessing Company HQ had one, but despatched orders to platoons by runner, or telephone.

The platoon transport was a small truck and was used to carry rations, ammo and kit, not the troops. The infantry didn't have their own transport, but were ferried about by the transport units held and deployed from Corps... if they were lucky! The only troops to have their own transport were the motorised units of the armoured division, who actually were never united with either their transport, or in fact their division, in 1940. 

The 2" Mortar's crew were drawn from within the platoon, as were the crew for the Boys, so *realistically* you should reduce the size of your sections if you field them. Both were in short supply in France, so don't feel that you must field them.

The Machine Gun Battalions were originally designed to be 'Divisional Troops', but they ended up as 'Corps Troops' as there weren't enough to go round. I presume that they would wear the 'Divisional' badges they were originally drawn from though. The 2nd Battalion, Royal Northumberland Fusiliers were originally deployed with 4th Infantry Division.

Just in case you plump for vehicles... 4th Division's Cavalry Regiment was the 5th Royal Inniskilling Dragoon Guards... and the Divisional AT Regiment was 14 AT Regiment, RA.

   

[Helen]

Thanks Jim for your help.

Helen

[Ray Earle]

Great info. Thanks Arlequín.

I'll hopefully stick some photos up once I've got something from the regimental museum.

Oh, and of course some painted figures. 

[Arlequín]

You're both welcome. I'm currently sifting through early and pre-war stuff in line with another related project, so the timing was quite apt.

[Ray Earle]

That was lucky then. 

Any other nuggets of information relating to the Northamptonshire's, if you come across any, will be gratefully received. 

[Ray Earle]

Right. After a bit more digging and searching about on t'net I've found the following. 2 Battalions of the Northamptonshires were attached to infantry divisions at the start of the war (and didn't end up going to some far flung end of the Empire). These were the 4th and 5th. The 5th was attached to the 48th Division and the 4th to a shadow division, the 61st. The 61st never made it out of England, but the 48th were deployed in France in January of 1940 (the first TA division to do so) and then came back pretty soon afterwards with everyone else!

More digging brought up this;

48th Division WWII

Infantry
 143rd Infantry Brigade
 1/7th Bn. The Royal Warwickshire Regiment
 8th Bn. The Royal Warwickshire Regiment
 5th (Huntingdonshire) Bn. The Northamptonshire Regiment
 
144th Infantry Brigade
 5th Bn. The Gloucestershire Regiment
 7th Bn. The Worcestershire Regiment
 8th Bn. The Worcestershire Regiment
 
145th Infantry Brigade
 4th Bn. The Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry
 1st Bn. Buckinghamshire Battalion, The Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry
 4 Bn. The Royal Berkshire Regiment
 

Support Units [edit]
 1st Lothian and Border Horse
 67th (South Midland) Field Regiment RA
 68th (South Midland) Field Regiment RA
 99th (Buckinghamshire and Berkshire Yeomanry) Army Field Regiment RA
 53rd (Worcestershire Yeomanry) Anti-Tank Regiment RA
 48th (South Midland) Division Royal Signals TA
 224th (South Midland) Field Company RE
 225th (South Midland) Field Company RE
 226th (South Midland) Field Company RE
 227th (South Midland) Field Park Company RE
 48th (South Midland) Divisional Royal Army Service Corps Territorial Army Headquarters - CRASC (Commander Royal Army Service Corps)
 515th Ammunition Company RASC TA
 517th Petrol Company RASC TA
 518th Supply Company RASC TA

Division badge appears to be this;



Borrowed from the IWM. The Northamptonshires list some battle honours from their time in France before Dunkirk, so this will be the next bit of digging. I'll see if I can find out which regiments were providing gunners for the Vickers and suchlike. 

[TheBlackCrane]

With regards to your query about radios - a lot of what I've read suggests a number of problems were caused in co-ordinating movement, defence etc because of a lack of radios below battalion level, this especially the case around the Dunkirk Perimeter, so I think you'd be right not to include them. Don't quote me on it though!

[Arlequín]

The 5th Battalion was sent to France and detached from the 48th Division, in January 1940, becoming part of 11th Infantry Brigade of Johnson's 4th Division, which was under Brooke's II Corps. Which is where the other units I mentioned ended up too.

Then Acting-Brigadier Gen. Kenneth Anderson was the Brigade Commander for a time, until immediately prior to the Dunkirk withdrawal, when he became the division commander.

They were involved in the defence of the Escaut, the Ypres-Comines Canal and the defence of Arras, in May 1940, for which they received honours, and no doubt a few more actions too.

The Northamptons and 11th Brigade returned to the UK where it stayed until 1942 (in Lincolnshire I think?), then was sent off to take part in the Torch landings as part of 78th Division.