The North African campaign did not teach Britain how to deal with tanks from scratch. British forces had conducted armoured exercises and developed relevant ideas throughout the 1920s and 1930s. Some of those concepts were already being applied during the fighting in northern France. North Africa mattered because wartime conditions forced broader implementation and built confidence, illustrating the difference between inventing doctrine and making an existing doctrine work in operations.
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British armoured doctrine before the North African campaign
North Africa gave British armoured forces confidence and forced implementation, but many of the ideas had already been exercised during the 1920s and 1930s.