the open terrain, which made the high-silhouette piece hard to conceal, and to poor tactics. In North Africa, it was found that the 2-pdr was damaged by being towed long distances across rough, stony deserts. Starting in 1941, the British developed the "en portee" method of mounting the 2-pdr, and later the 6-pounder, on a truck. Though only intended for transport, with the gun carried unloaded, crews tended to fire from their vehicles for more mobility, with consequent casualties. Hence the vehicles tended to reverse into action so that the gunshield of the 2-pdr would provide a measure of protection against enemy fire. An infantry battalion anti-tank platoon would have eight guns on 3-ton lorries On 21 November 1941 during battle of Sidi Rezegh Second lieutenant George Ward Gunn J Battery Royal Horse Artillery was earned the Victoria Cross for his action with a 2-pdr. The troop of four portee 2-pdrs under his command engaged a German counter-attack of about 60 tanks. Three of the guns were knocked out, and all bar one gunner killed or fatally wounded. Despite the truck being on fire, Gunn manned the gun himself with a sergeant as his loader, engaging the enemy at 800 yards, he fired 40-50 rounds knocking out two tanks and damaging others before he was killed. The battery commander then took over. From mid-1942, the 2-pdr was increasingly displaced to infantry anti-tank platoons, to Home Guard units in Great Britain, and to the Far East, where it was still effective against the smaller and more lightly armoured Japanese tanks. It was finally removed from service entirely in December 1945. As a vehicle weapon, it remained in use throughout the war. Although most tanks equipped with it were withdrawn or upgraded to the 6-pdr, it remained in use with armoured cars. Its performance as an anti-armour weapon was improved later in the war with the development of more sophisticated ammunition and got an additional boost with the introduction of the Littlejohn adaptor, which converted it to a squeeze-bore design firing specially-designed shells at much higher velocities. However, the Littlejohn adaptor prevented the use of High Explosive rounds. These improvements, however, were constantly outpaced by improvements in tank design. As a tank gun, used stationary the effective range was out to 1500 yds. Ammunition Variants Gun variants: Mk IX - main pre-war production version, with barrel of autofrettage construction. Mk IX-A -