was a lull, apart from shelling which caused more casualties. Turner had been wounded unloading the jeep but visited the gun positions until the effects of his wounds became too serious; by most of the officers were casualties and the guns were commanded by wounded NCOs. Briggs ordered forward the 2nd Armoured Brigade artillery, the 11th RHA and they drove their M7 Priests up the east side of the ridge to bombard Axis positions but managed only to hit Snipe again with 105 mm howitzer fire. Rommel could see the fighting around Snipe from his headquarters and assembled the 90th Light Division and the 21st Panzer Division, which had been moved to the northern area of the battlefield overnight, with parts of the 15th Panzer Division, the 164th Light Afrika Division and a battlegroup of the 132nd Armoured Division "Ariete". About tanks and self-propelled guns in two waves, about west of Outpost Snipe, were to attack the British tanks beyond the ridge to the east, after a five-minute bombardment and a Junkers Ju 87 attack. As the formation of twenty , escorted by twenty Fiat CR.42s and twenty Bf 109s approached, it was intercepted by sixteen Curtiss P-40s of the 64th Fighter Squadron and the 65th Fighter Squadron, United States Army Air Forces (USAAF), which claimed six Axis fighters. The Axis formation was then attacked by of 33 Squadron and 213 Squadron RAF, which claimed two , four CR-42s and three Bf 109s for a loss of three Hurricanes. Part of the Axis tank force advanced against Australian positions near Point 29 to the north of Snipe; to the south about thirty German and ten Italian tanks advanced towards part of the 2nd Armoured Brigade. The force in the north was deluged by artillery-fire and then dispersed by bombing and the southern force passed by the 239th Battery, with seven of the tanks only away. The anti-tank gunners knocked out nine tanks, damaged several and a 6-pounder crew from A Company claimed four more, after which the tanks withdrew to low ground near Kidney Ridge. The second wave of tanks attacked and fifteen Panzer IIIs turned towards the north-west perimeter of Snipe, where only two guns were operational. A third gun was hauled round in time to join in but there were only thirty armour-piercing rounds left. The tanks advanced cautiously along routes with cover and machine-gunned the 6-pounders as