Eighty years ago the British can finally field decent (American made) tanks in North Africa

 

 The British Eight Army under the recently appointed General Montgomery launched a full-scale attack on Axis forces in Egypt in the second battle of El Alamein. The British led forces enjoyed a near two to one superiority in almost all respects. After years of fighting with mediocre or inferior quality tanks, they also had 300 of the new Sherman M-4 tanks that President Roosevelt had diverted from the US Army and which were reliable and more than the equal of most German or Italian tanks.

The fight for Guadalcanal reached its most intense point with battles on both land and sea. The Japanese massed the troops for a major assault on the Americans, triggering three days of intense fighting. Their attacks came close to threatening the American perimeter but none succeeded. The desperation of the Japanese assault is obvious from the 2,000 to 3,000 killed compared to fewer than one hundred Americans. Each side had some 20,000 troops in the field: a small number compared to the forces at Stalingrad, with which Guadalcanal bears strategic comparison, but the the battlefield was far smaller. This was the last major Japanese land attack of the campaign and, as with the Germans at Stalingrad, it marked the point of operational over-reach: they simply did not have the resources to achieve anything more..

At sea the Imperial Japanese Navy sent a carrier task force to try to win air superiority to support the ground offensive. The US Navy attempted to block this but lost the carrier Hornet and had to withdraw. The Japanese losses, though, were so severe that they were unable to join the land battle. The IJN lost 150 aircrew who were practically impossible to replace against fewer than thirty American. Moreover, the US could make good losses in both ships and men comparatively easily.