36 Regiment Royal Artillery​

171 ( The Broken Wheel) Battery became part of 37th Field Regiment in April 1947,

in June 1955 the Regiment amalgamated with 63rd HAA Regiment as 37th HAA Regiment.

The Battery remained with the Regiment whilst the Regiment served in Malta. When the

Regiment returned to the UK in September 1959 it was re-titled as 37th Guided Weapon Regiment

 (Anti-Aircraft) in November 1959.

The Battery was placed into Suspended Animation in October 1959.

 

Here is the story of how this Battery received its Honour Title "The Broken Wheel".

 

This battery was raised as the 2nd Battery Reserve Battalion of the Bombay Artillery in the year

of the Indian Mutiny of 1857, and was shortly afterwards plunged into service which tested it

as no peace-time soldiering could have done.

 

The rebel held City of Delhi had been recaptured and the siege of Lucknow was about to be

completed when General Sir Hugh Rose was given the task of clearing a vast area in Central India

which was still infested with large forces of mutinous sepoys, disaffected irregular troops, and evilly

disposed persons seeking plunder whereever they could find it. They were inspired, and to a great

extent physically led, by a most re-doubtable Indian princess the Rani of Jhansi, and an equally

formidable rebel leader, one Tantia Topi. The Rani's implacable hatred of British rule was

accompanied by fiendish cruelty towards any Europeans who fell into her hands, but she was

at the same time a lady of dauntless courage and great resource.

 

These two leaders used the great fortresses which dominated Central India as the pivots

on which they manoeuvred and brought into the field forces which far outnumbered those

with which Sir Hugh could counter them. The short campaign in which he cleared the whole

area and signally defeated the rebel armies is a model of bold offensive action. Armed primarily

only with light guns and howitzers Sir Hugh's 2nd Brigade, supported by 2/Res Bn., Bombay

Artillery, was first flung against the hill fortress of Rahatgarh which it took after beating off a

relieving force. Joined by Sir Hugh's 1st Brigade, the whole force swept on to the fortress of

Jhansi which was held by 10,000 Native levies and 1,500 rebel sepoys under command of the Rani.

 

The City's fortified perimeter was 4 and a half miles in circumference with granite walls 20-30

 feet high and 6-12 feet thick, and with the usual bastions covering the approaches. In one corner

was the Citadel, towering high above the city on a huge rock with inner defences of daunting strength.

To stand today on the plain south of the city, alongside the fine memorial to the Rani, and to look

up at this great fortress dominating the surrounding country makes it seem incredible that it could

have been taken by a force of a total strength of less than 2,000 men.

 

There were two small hills a few hundred yards from the city walls and on them the

breaching batteries were established, one of them manned by 2/Res Bn. By nightfall of the first

day of action practicable breaches had been made, but, before the assault could be made,

news came of the approach of a relieving force, 22,000 strong with 25 guns, under Tantia Topi.

Without the slightest hesitation Sir Hugh recalled the columns that were poised for the storm,

brought his guns out of action, and, with no more than 1,500 men, launched that tiny force in a head

on action attack on the rebel army. The audacity of this move, and the excellent support provided

 by his guns, utterly routed Tantia Topi's army which was dispersed to the winds. Sir Hugh then

 returned to his siege, the storming columns flung themselves through the breaches and the

fortress was captured. The Rani however, who had often been seen with her ladies in royal

apparel on the ramparts during the siege, was let down a precipice below the walls and

escaped with her adopted son.

 

And so the campaign continued. The fortresses of Kunch and Kalpi were taken, and finally Gwalior -

another gigantic hill fort which had been the Capital of the Mahratta prince Sindhia - fell to this

invincible army and peace was restored to Central India. Having started its life in this stirring way,

under a commander to whom nothing was impossible, 2/3 Bombay Artillery (as the unit became in 1859)

was absorbed, with the other European units of the Indian Artilleries, into the Royal Artillery after

the Mutiny. It then led a quiet life until it went to war again to win its Honour Title in the

Egyptian campaign of 1882.

 

This war followed an armed rising in which Europeans in Alexandria were massacred and to

 counter which an expedition was launced underSir Garnet Wolseley's command. With it went N/2 RA

 armed with 16 pounder RML guns, and, throughout the operations the loose sand of the desert

was to prove a serious obstruction to the movement of all wheeled vehicles and often prevented

the ammunition wagons from keeping up with the guns.

 

Landing at Ismailia the British force advanced towards the Nile delta, met and defeated the

Egyptian army at Kassassin, and finally confronted it in a well prepared and entrenched position

at Tel-el-Kebir. It was essential if the war was to be won quickly not merly to manoeuvre the

enemy out of that position but actually to crush him there for good.

 

It was decided to attack at dawn after an approach march by night. The latter difficult

operation was to be carried out by the two infantry and one cavalry divisions moving in line,

 in an echelon from the left with all the seven field batteries, also in line, in an interval between

 the two infantry divisions.The left hand infantry division arrived first at the enemy's entrenchments in

the half light and was met by a blaze of fire. Their attack was not at first completely successful but

with the aid of their supports they and the other division forced their way into the entrenchments

where hand to hand fighting continued.

 

Meanwhile the guns had been halted until there was enough light to see what was going on;

but, as dawn broke, they were ordered forward to come into action inside the entrenchments in

 positions from which they could engage the defences in enfilade. N/2 galloped forward with the

 rest and, in the words of an officer of the battery writing just after the battle, "All of a sudden the

 smoke lifted like a curtain and we found ourselves close to a long line of entrenchments....

We at once went on and Major Branker found an angle in the line just in front where the ditch was

not so deep, so the right gun galloped straight at it. It went with a bump into the ditch, and stuck fast

on the face of the parapet, with most of the horses over; but a lot of 42nd rushed to our help,

and we lifted and shoved the gun over; but found one of the wheels smashed to pieces".

 

 Though one of its guns had thus come to grief, since a gun with a broken wheel is a gun out of

action for the time being, N/2 brought its remaining guns into action inside the entrenchments and

engaged the rearward parts of the defences with effective shrapnel fire in enfilade at 1,000 yeard range.

 The enemy, flaided both from the front and in flank, were broken up, the victory was complete,

and N/2 obtained its Honour Title of The Broken Wheel.