in the
Battle of Muar tanks, victims of the Australian 2 pounder gun (see above image) The 2-pdr gun became a part of the
Royal Artillery in 1938, when five field brigades were converted to anti-tank regiments. In the early western campaigns, the 2-pdr was employed by two types of Royal Artillery formations: anti-tank
regiments of infantry
divisions (four
batteries with 12 pieces each), and light anti-aircraft/anti-tank regiments of armoured divisions (two 12-gun AT batteries). From October 1940, separate 48-gun anti-tank regiments were introduced to armoured divisions too. Infantry
brigades initially included an anti-tank
company, though it was typically equipped with
25 mm Hotchkiss anti-tank guns; these companies were disbanded later in the war. From 1942, infantry
battalions received their own six-gun anti-tank
platoons. The organization was different in the
Far East theatres. The exact internal structure of AT units was also subject to changes and variations. The gun first saw combat with the
British Expeditionary Force (World War II) during the German invasion of the
Low Countries and the subsequent
rear-guard actions at Dunkirk. Most of the British Army's 2-pdrs were left behind in France during the retreat, stripping most of the army's infantry anti-tank capability. Those guns captured at Dunkirk entered German service under the designation
4.0 cm Pak 192 (e) or
4.0 cm Pak 154 (b), the "e" and "b" referring to the origin (English or mistakenly attributed to the Belgian Army). Although Woolwich Arsenal had already designed a successor to the 2-pdr, the
6 pounder gun, it was decided in the face of a possible German invasion to re-equip the army with the 2-pdr, avoiding the period of adaptation to production, and also of re-training and acclimatization with the new weapon. Consequently, 6 pounder production was delayed until November 1941 and frontline availability until spring 1942. Thus, during most of the
North African Campaign, the army had to rely on the 2-pdr, augmented by the
25 pounder gun-howitzer functioning as an anti-tank gun—a role for which it was capable (at the expense of diverting it from its main artillery role). As
German tank design evolved, anti-armour performance of the 2-pdr gradually became insufficient; however, the gun owes a large part of the bad reputation it gained during the campaign to the open terrain, which made the high-silhouette piece hard to conceal, and to poor tactics. In North Africa, it was found that the 2-pdr was damaged by being towed long distances across rough, stony deserts. Starting in 1941, the British developed the "
en portee" method of mounting the 2-pdr, and later the 6-pounder, on a truck. Though only intended for transport, with the gun carried unloaded, crews tended to fire from their vehicles for more mobility, with consequent casualties. Hence the vehicles tended to reverse into action so that the gunshield of the 2-pdr would provide a measure of protection against enemy fire. An infantry battalion anti-tank platoon would have eight guns on 3-ton lorries On 21 November 1941, during
battle of Sidi Rezegh, Second lieutenant
George Ward Gunn of the
J Battery Royal Horse Artillery earned the
Victoria Cross for his action with a 2-pdr. The troop of four portee 2-pdrs under his command engaged a German counter-attack of about 60 tanks. Three of the guns were knocked out, and all bar one gunner killed or fatally wounded. Despite the truck being on fire, Gunn manned the gun himself with a sergeant as his loader, engaging the enemy at 800 yards, he fired 40-50 rounds knocking out two tanks and damaging others before he was killed. The battery commander then took over. From mid-1942, the 2-pdr was increasingly displaced to infantry anti-tank platoons, to
Home Guard units in Great Britain, and to the Far East, where it was still effective against the smaller and more lightly armoured Japanese tanks. It was finally removed from service entirely in December 1945. As a vehicle weapon, it remained in use throughout the war. Although most tanks equipped with it were withdrawn or upgraded to the 6-pdr, it remained in use with armoured cars. Its performance as an anti-armour weapon was improved later in the war with the development of more sophisticated ammunition and got an additional boost with the introduction of the
Littlejohn adaptor, which converted it to a
squeeze-bore design firing specially designed shells at much higher velocities. However, the Littlejohn adaptor prevented the use of
High Explosive rounds. These improvements, however, were constantly outpaced by improvements in tank design. As a tank gun, used stationary, the effective range was out to 1500 yds. ==Ammunition==