8th Bat Rifle Brigade

Alister · #1 (**permalink**) December 7th, 2002, 03:59 PM

Hi does anyone know if the 8th Batallion of the Rifle brigade were issued with bren gun carriers as well as M3 halftracks as all the pictures i have seen have been of them with M3's. (I am mainly interested in their time in Normandy ) but any info appreciated.
Cheers.

charlie don't surf · #2 (**permalink**) December 7th, 2002, 05:00 PM

According to my books there were alltogether 19 Bren carriers within an infantry battallion, I'm not sure what the 8th bat was. Add to this 7 Mortar Brens and 12 Bren Loyds (anti- tank platoon). Alltogether this is 38 Brens, all were within the support Company. I hope this helps! [img]smile.gif[/img]

regards

[ 07. December 2002, 12:01 PM: Message edited by: charlie don't surf ]

Alister · #3 (**permalink**) December 7th, 2002, 05:39 PM

Thanks and yes i does help well sort of. When i wrote 8th bat i meant it as an abreviation of 8th Battalion the Rifle brigade who were attached to the 11th Armoured divsion as part of 29th armoured brigade during 44/45. Hopefully some one will have some more sepecific info regarding this unit and wether they used carriers and or halftracks.
Cheers

charlie don't surf · #4 (**permalink**) December 7th, 2002, 07:22 PM

An educated guess is that there were no or few Bren carriers in the 11th Armoured Division. I think the Division was made up of mostly american material as they used Shermans as well.

regards

sommecourt · #5 (**permalink**) December 8th, 2002, 12:24 PM

Like all British Motor battalions 8th Rifle Brigade had a Carrier Platoon in every company, which was infantry mounted in 11 Bren Carriers plus two 15 cwt trucks. In a normal platoon all the men travelled in M5 half-tracks. Company HQ vehicles were; 2 x White Scout Car, 3 x Bren, 1 x 15 cwt. There were also Anti-Tank platoons which had 6-pounders towed by Brens or Lloyd carriers. As a Lloyd couldn't carry all the crew for 1 gun, sometimes one gun would have a Lloyd and a Bren.

MG Platoons had Vickers MGs in Bren Carriers.

So, as you can see, they did use quite a few Bren carriers!

I have the unit history of 8th Rifle Brigade - if you want any more info contact me via my website.