The first of over 700 M13/40s were delivered following a rate of production of about 60–70 a month, before the fall of 1940. They were sent to North Africa to fight the British; however, most units were hastily formed (and thus lacked cohesion), the tanks had not been fitted with radios (giving them a serious tactical disadvantage even against inferior enemies) and their crews had almost no training (in 1940 the crews were given 25 days of actual tank training and then sent to the front). The baptism of fire came with a special unit, the Babini Group. Arriving too late to fight in the September offensive, this unit was ready the next December, for Operation Compass, a British offensive. Tanks of III battalion were present at the Battle of Bardia, where in two days of fighting (January 3–4, 1941) the Australians suffered 456 casualties while the Italians lost 40,000 men (2,000 killed, 3,000 wounded and 36,000 captured). Further action took place in Derna, where the V battalion had just arrived. On February 6–7, the British offensive penetrated so far that the Babini Group sought to open a breach in the British lines at the Battle of Beda Fomm in an effort to allow cut-off Italian troops to retreat along the Libyan coast. The attacks failed and all of their tanks were lost. The last six surviving tanks entered a field near the local British command post. They were destroyed one after another by a single two-pounder (40 mm) anti-tank gun. Many tanks were lost in this campaign to artillery fire rather than other tanks. A number of captured M11 and M13 tanks were re-used by the Australian &lt;a href="2/6th%20Cavalry%20Commando%20Regiment%20%28Australia%29"&gt;2/6th Cavalry Regiment&lt;/a&gt; and the 6th Royal Tank Regiment, until the spring of 1941, when their fuel ran out and they were destroyed.