July 1941 devoted to patrolling at Tobruk

While there were no major operations planned at Tobruk during July 1941, the month was spent on active patrolling and battalion-sized raids. Artillery was very involved with the activities. You had the southern artillery group that included the 1st RHA and the 107th RHA. In one case, 14 guns fired on an enemy position that included trenches. Fourteen guns fired, although six of them broke down during the barrage. They fired as many as 1,220 rounds during a two hour period. Six of the guns were 149mm howitzers. This particular operation occurred on the night of 16 July. The next night saw the 2/28th Battalion and the 18th Cavalry, along with some British commandos, attacking in the Wadi Sehel. The attack had support from the 2/12th Field Regiment. They fired about 1,200 rounds during the operations. This attack provoked artillery fire over a four hour period from the enemy. The response from Italian and German radio stations described the attacks as attempting to "break out of an unsupportable position" or at least as "lively reconnaissance activity".

The patrol activities were finally better equipped than earlier in the siege. Battalions now were issued a number of Thompson sub-machine guns. The enemy response to active patrolling now included using search lights to illuminate patrols. The first time this was seen was on 15 June. The Australians discovered that the search lights were mounted on trucks. They also saw cables that seemed to be supplying power. Now, when they discovered cables, they cut them and sometimes removed pieces. The enemy started using colored filters for search lights.

Another development in July was the use of Alsatian dogs by Italian units. They seemed to be only used to sound an alarm when patrols were approaching.

From late May 1941, a large gun started firing at the Tobruk harbor. The men of Tobruk named the gun "Bardia Bill". The counter-battery group did not believe that the gun was firing from Bardia, but the troops always thought that the fun was located at Bardia. One thought was that when the British evacuated Bardia, they had left a large gun there, undestroyed. One time, they found pieces of a 21cm shell, probably from a Skoda gun. In another case, they had what they thought were shell fragments from a Schneider gun. This is based on the account in Vol.III of the Australian Official history.