to the south, moving west from the Egyptian border at Sidi Omar, Mickl was placed in command of a battle group which was sent to stop the British. The force consisted of Mickl's regiment, along with the 361st Afrika Regiment and the 605th Panzerjäger Battalion. The Afrika Regiment had only just arrived in theatre, and had no heavy weapons, insufficient ammunition and almost no vehicles. By the following day, Mickl's group was deployed on the high ground on either side of the airfield at Sidi Rezegh. That afternoon, British armoured cars and tanks appeared, and Mickl's force was hard-pressed to hold its positions barring the British approach to Tobruk from the south and south-east, as little tank support was available. In the face of a superior force, Mickl's kampfgruppe fought hard in what became known as the Battle of Sidi Rezegh. Mickl and around 800 of his troops were captured by elements of the New Zealand Division on 26 November 1941, the captured troops being mainly from the Afrika Regiment. Mickl and the POWs and were freed by the advancing German troops. When the commander of the newly renamed 90th Light Afrika Division, Generalmajor Max Sümmermann, was killed in an Allied air raid on 10 December 1941, Mickl was appointed to temporarily command the division. During December, Mickl was wounded in the head and hand, but remained at his post. Rommel recommended Mickl for the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross, for his leadership at Sidi Rezegh, and it was awarded on 13 December 1941. At the end of December Mickl was sent home on convalescent leave. Eastern Front 12th Rifle Brigade On 25 March 1942, Mickl was appointed to command the 12th Rifle Brigade of Generalmajor Walter Wessel's 12th Panzer Division on the Eastern Front. The division was the main reserve formation of Army Group North, and when Mickl joined his brigade headquarters it was located on the coast near Narva west of Leningrad. The 12th Rifle Brigade consisted of the 5th and 25th Motorised Infantry Regiments. As a subordinate formation of General Georg Lindemann's 18th Army, during the Red Army's Winter Campaign of 1941–42 it had fought on the Volkhov Front, during which the Soviet Lyuban Offensive Operation had penetrated deep into its area of operations in an attempt to relieve Leningrad. When Mickl arrived to take command, elements of his command were fighting as part of a