British Ammunition in the Desert War

I have been reading about the tanks of the Desert War but due to the my inability to get good books there are couple of simple questions that members here might be able to answer easily.

Did the British 2 pdr. fired primarily APBC round or the AP round? The latter had considerablly inferior performance against German face-hardened armor in the form of large shatter gaps, but the former would not have much problem with a Mark III E/F/G.

Should be an easy question... what do you gents know?

 

The 2-Pr Shell, AP Mk 1 was withdrawn from service quite quickly as the fuze tended to detach from the shell on impact. The two shells used in the Desert were the Shot, AP Mk 10T ( solid steel with tracer in base ) and the Shot, APCBC Mk 9BT ( solid, with penetrative and ballistic caps plus tracer ).

We tend now to look on the 2-lb gun as 'rubbish' ( and certainly it couldn't be called 'state of the art' even in the late 30s ) but it could destroy the eralier German tanks and just about all Italian ones which were encountered. But the appearance of the German long 75s and 88s rendered the 2 pounder toyally obsolete.

 

There is also the problem with the early mark IV lobbing HE shells on 8th army positions from a distance where the 2pdr could not scratch the german armour.
25pdrs were detached for direct fire (a job which the 25pdr could cope due to the genious design) but that was a drawback on the indirect fire volume.

Source: Pendulum of War.

 

Thanks, great information. 2 pdr. was not an inadequate antitank gun or tank cannon at the 40s. Afrika Korps' Mark III/IVs were pretty vulernable and the balance of their Mark IIIs were armed with the inferior 37mm gun.

 

Slightly off topic but this home page contains some very useful information regarding the 2 pdr - even including number of guns and shells acquired

2 Pounder Anti-Tank Gun