Search the Community
Showing results for tags 'the deadly brotherhood'.
Found 1 result
-
In reading John C. McManus's generally splendid The Deadly Brotherhood: the American Combat Soldier in World War II, I came across a great piece of tactical info. On page 126, 6th AD (Super Sixth) tanker Charles Hogg lists the composition of the armored point: 5 x Light tank, 5 x Medium tank, 1 x Armored Infantry Platoon, 1 x Engineer Squad, 1 x FO in Light tank and 2 x M7 Priest. The basic concept is the spearhead keeps going, smashing through opposition until it can't, whereupon it hunkers down and calls for reinforcements. Though it's not stated, presumably the Engineer Squad is in a halftrack. Given the presence of the FO, it seems reasonable to posit the Priests are likely one terrain feature behind, if not more, ready to provide hasty support fires called in by the FO. George Blackburn, in Guns of Normandy, describes a clever technique in which the gunners in march column would keep running track of where they were and, on order, would swiftly pull of the road, set up shop, fire the mission, pack up and return to the column. This was for 25-pdr. Obviously, this drill is much easier to do with a Priest, where there are no tow vehicles, limbers and caissons to deal with. Seems to me this is a perfect CMFB (or maybe CMBN) level tactical all arms formation. Regards, John Kettler