Hi Byron,
I had a look to a few references I have. More or less they match what you wrote. I am providing here some further details that hopefully could be of some interest to you. I put in parenthesis the references I got the info from, the list is at the end of this text.
First of all, please notice that in Italian texts the place name is referred as “Bir el-Gobi” instead of “Bir el Gubi”. This may turn helpful if you plan further research.
As for Bersaglieri, I noticed that a 8th regiment is mentioned as part of the Ariete division, but I did not find any mention to a 7th battalion.
The 8th Bersaglieri Regiment had about 30 47/32 AT guns and a unclear number of 81mm mortars (1).
The 132nd Artillery Regiment was equipped with about 30 75/27 guns (1) and a unclear number of 20mm automatic cannons. Just few weeks before the battle, a batch of at least 200 new type “EP” A/T rounds was provided to the division (2), likely for the 75/27. (EP=effetto pronto, i.e. quick/ready effect as Italians named their first generation of hollow-charge grenades.)
Ariete had 3 battalions of “carri M” (M13 tanks) as well as 3 battalions of “carri L” (L3 tanks), the latter being relegated to minor or second-line duties (2). No L tanks are mentioned in any report of this fighting I happened to read. All Italian tanks involved should be M13/40, a few of them in the “Carro comando” version.
A section of 7 self-propelled 102/35 naval guns from MILMART (MILizia MARittima Territoriale, i.e. coastal artillery) was aggregated to the CAM (Corpo d’Armata di Manovra – Maneuvering Army Corps), which the Ariete belonged to. Of these guns 5 were assigned to the Ariete (2) and were present at Bir el-Gobi, all of them mounted on FIAT 634 trucks.
A reference (3) states that in the fighting some of these weapons started fire at 1000mt distance from targets with effective results.
Another reference (4) mentions a battalion of 105mm guns of the 4th Artillery group from the CAM, but this does not result in other publications.
Regards,
Mauro
References:
(1) Storia Militare n. 83 (August 2000), “Carri M in Africa settentrionale, parte II” by L. Landi and D. Guglielmi
(2) Storia Militare n. 136 (January 2005), “L’Ariete a Bir el-Gobi” by A. Maraziti
(3) “Le artiglierie del Regio Esercito” by F. Cappellano
(4) Iron Hulls, Iron Hearts by Ian W. Walker
