November, the V Tank Battalion "M" (Lieutenant-Colonel Emilio Iezzi), arrived at Benghazi with thirty-seven M13/40s in two companies and on 25 November, Graziani ordered the establishment at Marsa Lucch of the Special Armoured Brigade/Babini Group () to be commanded by General Valentino Babini, with the III Tank Battalion "M" (less detachment) and the V Tank Battalion "M", combined with the L3/35s of the 4th Tank Infantry Regiment. The medium tank crews were inexperienced and lacked training, many of the officers having only recently come from very short courses at training schools. The Tank Battalion "L"s remained with the infantry divisions in Egypt, despite this interrupting training with the new M13/40s, which was complicated by the M13s coming from the first production batch with many mechanical defects. Only three of the III Tank Battalion "M" tanks had radios, which made the other crews reliant on flag signals limited to halt, forward, backwards, right, left, slow down and speed up. The Babini Group had an infantry regiment comprising three "" battalions, a motorcycle battalion, an artillery regiment, two anti-tank gun companies, an engineer company and supply units. On 11 December the under-trained III Tank Battalion "M" and the LI Tank Battalion "L" in L3/35 tankettes, was made available to the 10th Army. Next day, two companies of the III Battalion were sent to Sollum, several tanks to Sidi Aziz and the rest to Halfaya, before the battalion was ordered to retreat west of Gazala to cover the rear of Tobruk. The 1st Tank Company (Lieutenant Elio Castanello) was detached to reinforce Bardia and the drive from Sidi Aziz exposed many technical failings in the M13/40s, including defective fuel pumps, inconsistent fuel consumption between tanks, engine wear and brittle armour. In December, (supreme command of the Italian armed forces) in Rome, reinforced the Babini Group with the V Tank Battalion "M" of the 132nd Armored Division "Ariete" to join the III Tank Battalion "M". The V Tank Battalion "M" was sent Derna to join the Babini Group on 16 January 1941 but a lack of tank transporters meant that the M13/40 had to drive on their tracks, which caused many breakdowns and on 19 December, arranged to rush every available M13/40 to Tripoli. Operations Derna–Mechili The area east of the mountains around Derna, was garrisoned by XX Corps (Lieutenant-General Annibale Bergonzoli) with the 60th Infantry Division "Sabratha" and the Babini Group, which had