The 2/7th Field Regiment was an artillery regiment with distinguished service at Tobruk, El Alamein, and Mersa Matruh before returning to Australia to take part in the Tarakan landing.

An artillery crew from 2/7th Field Artillery Regiment moves their gun in battle for Tarakan island.

The first phase of the Borneo operation was an amphibious landing on Tarakan Island by the 26th Brigade and the 2/7th. Coming ashore in landing craft, following the infantry, the regiment landed on Tarakan on the first day of the invasion on 1 May. Preceding the invasion, five guns from the regiment’s 57th Battery landed on Sadau Island to help cover the landing. The regiment was frequently called upon to give artillery support, shelling heavily defended Japanese positions. The regiment fired more than 37,000 shells during the campaign.

BOUGAINVILLE. 1945-05-25. A JEEP TOWING A 25-POUNDER ALONG BUIN ROAD TO A NEW BATTERY POSITION AT THE HONGORAI RIVER. AWM.

The Australian commander on Tarakan, Brigadier D.A. Whitehead, later wrote it was “good to know” that he had a whole artillery regiment to support his operations on the island. “It was certainly good to know,” he wrote, “that the Regiment was the 2/7th.”

The 25-pounder Short Mark I, or Baby 25-pr, was the Australian pack gun version of the 25-pounder, first produced in 1943. This was a shortened version of the standard 25-pounder, mounted on the Carriage 25-pr Light, Mark 1. Weighing 1,315 kilograms, it was around 315 kg lighter than the 25-pounder Mark II.

The “Baby” was intended for jungle warfare and was only used in the South West Pacific Theatre. The gun could be towed by a jeep or broken down into 13 sections and transported by air.

From a gaming perspective I would like to be able to use this in Bolt Action games. There is a list for a Mid/Late-War Royal Artillery Gun Troop in the D-Day: British & Canadian Sectors Campaign Book. I will need to make a few adjustments such as removing the +1 save for the gun shield which was removed in the Australian shortened version.

The other change, as noted above, was they were towed by Jeeps and not the British Quad gun Tractor. The Jeep is no more effective as a tow, and I will just cop the extra six points or just use a “count as” option. If opponents are upset by this then they are probably not the people I want to play against anyway (Grumpy Guru rears his ugly head again!).

The other two options I will not use are the ability for Observers to be transported in a Universal Carrier as the jungle prevented this, and access to a Free Observer as the Australians are not allowed to add this bonus.

Over the next few days I will add the rest of the “troops” guns to make a total of four. At the moment I am busy painting Jeeps for the guns tows.