27th armoured brigade Stuart tank.

World War II British Military
#1

Hi, I’m here to bother you with yet another question :smiley:

What type of M3 Stuart tank was used by 27th armoured brigade?
I know 8th, 33th and 34th had the Stuart III (M3A1), 6th Guards had the Stuart VI (M5A1), but more I do not know.

If you might know what Stuart tanks were used by 4th and 31st armoured brigades, please let me know, but I’m specialy interested by the 27th armoured brigade.

Thanks for the help!

Cheers,
Joppe

#2

I’ve got two photos of Stuart Vs belonging to 27th Armoured Brigade (one 13/18th Hussars at Ranville and another one of an unidentified regiment on Sword Beach). I don’t have the strength return numbers to hand, but as I recall, the only formation to use Stuart III in significant numbers were the 31st Tank Brigade. The rest mainly had Stuart V, with around one-third Stuart VI.

#3

Thank you very much for the reply. Can you post the photo’s?

Cheers,
Joppe

#4

Not my copyright, sorry. I’ll try to find the books they were in and let you know the titles.

Regards,

Mark

#5

Hmmm, I’ve just dug out my strength returns for 21st Army Group (1st June 1944) and officially the 27th Armoured Brigade (along with most of the independent brigades in Normandy) had Stuart III. However, the Ranville and Sword photos were clearly Stuart Vs.

There are three possibilities here:

  1. The strength returns are wrong (they have been shown to be wrong in a few cases - most notably in the case of 1st Polsih Div and 1st Czech Brigade).

  2. The photos are wrongly-captioned (again, not unknown).

  3. Stuart Vs had replaced at least some of the Stuart IIIs (again not unknown).

Nevertheless, it would seem that the majority Stuart type in 27th Armoured Brigade was the Mk III and not the Mk V or VI.

#6

Very interesting… Very interesting…
Thank you very much.

Cheers,
Joppe