to advance on a front to the Oxalic Line, an objective beyond the forward Axis outposts. Engineers would then clear and mark the two lanes through the minefields and the armoured divisions of X Corps would pass through to gain the Pierson Line. The tanks would consolidate just west of the infantry positions, to intercept an armoured counter-attack against the infantry. The tanks would then advance to the next objective, Skinflint, deep inside the Axis defences and astride the Rahman track, to confront the Axis tanks. The Eighth Army infantry would continue to "crumble" the three lines of Axis fortifications and destroy any tanks that attacked them. Prelude 2nd Rifle Brigade The 2nd Rifle Brigade (Lieutenant-Colonel Victor Turner) was one of two battalions in the 7th Motor Brigade of the 1st Armoured Division. The motor battalions did not have four rifle companies and various support platoons, like normal infantry battalions. The 2nd Rifle Brigade had an establishment of an anti-tank company of sixteen 6-pounder anti-tank guns, three rifle companies, a scout platoon riding in eleven Universal Carriers, a platoon of 3-inch mortars and a machine-gun platoon with Vickers medium machine-guns, a scale of equipment which could generate much more fire power than a normal infantry battalion. Losses during Operation Lightfoot had reduced the battalion to and who had been reinforced by two troops of the 239th Battery, 76th (Royal Welch Fusiliers) Anti-Tank Regiment, Royal Artillery, with six more 6-pounders and from the 7th Field Squadron, which brought the battalion up to about Operation Supercharge The course of Operation Lightfoot led Rommel to commit the 90th Light Division from reserve to the north of the front. The move of the division in the coastal sector suggested that Rommel expected the next Eighth Army attack there. Montgomery planned Operation Supercharge, an attack on a front south of Point 29, for the night of as soon as the Eighth Army had completed a reorganisation to create reserves for the attack. To keep Axis attention on the coastal sector, Montgomery ordered the renewal of the 9th Australian Division attacks on the night of as the rest of the infantry of XXX Corps consolidated the new line and tanks covered the Australian left flank. The Australian positions were taken over by a brigade of the 51st (Highland) Division and to the south, the 2nd New Zealand Division was withdrawn and replaced with the 1st South