Armor leading vs. Armor trailing

[Juardis]

Every book I've read (not too many), every movie I've seen (many), every story I've heard from vets (very few) all say that the infantry followed the tanks into battle. When I first got CM1, that is how I attacked. That is also how I lost. My armor would fall victim to AT guns, or AT teams, or even other armor just waiting. Leaving me with infantry to attack armor. Not a good situation.

It seems in CM that if I lead with my infantry that I stand a much better chance of winning. But I also believe that this is historically wrong (I'm a gamer, not a historical grog, but I still believe it to be historically wrong).

So, were the doctrines of WW2 flawed? Or is it possible that you should always lead with your tanks to protect your people since tanks can be replaced, people cannot? Even at the detriment of the battle at hand, perhaps putting the armor out front was more important for the war than it was for the battle?

I'm trying to figure out why real life tactics seem to suck in CM as far as this is concerned. Because, as it is now, I usually hide my armor in the rear for fear of losing it because once I lose it, it's very difficult to win. That is not historically accurate either, but it works in CM.

Any thoughts on this?

------------------

Jeff Abbott

[Terence]

I use tanks behind the infantry in overwatch positions, unless I have a compelling reason not to -- ie. a huge open expanse of ground with no enemy troops or mines in it. The Infantry advance under whatever cover is available or whatever smoke I can provide -- if necessary, and the tanks roll along behind them ready to shoot at whatever shoots at the infantry and vice versa.

And Ive always thought that this was kinda the way they did it IRL, as its hard to see things from inside a tank, and tanks without infantry around them often get nailed by zooks and so on.

Of course, I also freely admit to being an idiot, so this may be a bass ackwards way of running an advance.

[This message has been edited by Terence (edited 01-30-2001).]

[phil stanbridge]

This is something that is of interest to me too. I find the same thing. If I lead with my armour, more often than not (in CM's scale at least) I will loose the majority of it early on to the AT threats. I find that I have to support the armour on the flanks with infantry.

[jgdpzr]

Like so many things, I think it all depends on the terrain. That being said, I think it is never wise to leave your armor unprotected by infantry. That doesn't mean the infantry actually needs to be in front of the tanks in all cases, however. They simply need to be in position to protect the tanks from infantry AT weapons, close assaults, and (ideally) AT guns. For example, as Terence noted, in the case of a wide open expanse of several hundred meters, marching your infantry ahead of the tanks could be suicidal. However, if you are winding your way through gaps in trees, you better make sure you have infantry in front scouting and screening.

I think the point is to make sure that each unit type is used so that it can best support/protect the other unit type. METT analysis will determine how that support should actually take place.

[Juardis]

Originally posted by Terence:

I use tanks behind the infantry in overwatch positions, unless I have a compelling reason not to -- ie. a huge open expanse of ground with no enemy troops or mines in it. The Infantry advance under whatever cover is available or whatever smoke I can provide -- if necessary, and the tanks roll along behind them ready to shoot at whatever shoots at the infantry and vice versa.

And Ive always thought that this was kinda the way they did it IRL, as its hard to see things from inside a tank, and tanks without infantry around them often get nailed by

I understand Terence. We all seem to do that. But as for Tanks trailing infantry in real life, I'm not so sure. You may be right, but hell, all of France seemed to fall with armor leading the charge. Same with the initial attack into Russia. It seemed armor rolled over and through the defenses without any infantry support. I can't seem to duplicate that in CM1.

Look at it this way. When we played M1TP2, we (or I did anyways) always led with tank platoons. Infantry seemed only good at springing ambushes. I know we're talking two different periods, but the idea is the same. Get your tanks into hull down positions, take out enemy, repeat advance using bounding overwatch whenever possible. Move infantry up behind. Whenever we led with the Bradleys, they were as good as toast.

------------------

Jeff Abbott

[This message has been edited by Juardis (edited 01-30-2001).]

[tss]

Well, Soviet doctrine during the Winter War was to attack with tanks abreast and infantry following the tanks. They lost a little over 3500 tanks in that war, according to their own figures (the figure includes those that could be repaired).

One Finnish counter-attack in late June 1944 failed because the infantry units refused to advance in front of stugs, and started a slow advance after the AFVs had passed their startup line. The aftermath of the attack had a pretty infrequent case of a private 1st class (a messanger of the stug company) scolding a major (commander of the infantry batallion) for some five minutes, accusing him of total incompetence because he couldn't get his men to act as planned. The major listened the abuse silently and ashamed.

- Tommi

[CavScout]

Originally posted by Juardis:

I understand Terence. We all seem to do that. But as for Tanks trailing infantry in real life, I'm not so sure. You may be right, but hell, all of France seemed to fall with armor leading the charge. Same with the initial attack into Russia. It seemed armor rolled over and through the defenses without any infantry support. I can't seem to duplicate that in CM1.

The main reason is the time frame. In the campaigns of '40 and '41, infantry had little in the way of anti-tank weapons. Infantry [unless supported by other tanks, mines or AT-guns] were at a serious disadvantage against tanks. By the time frame of CM:BO, infantry are packing very effective AT weapons. For the early part of WWII, the tanks was king. Then technology gave it back to the infantry.

[Terence]

Originally posted by Juardis:

Look at it this way. When we played M1TP2, we (or I did anyways) always led with tank platoons. Infantry seemed only good at springing ambushes. I know we're talking two different periods, but the idea is the same. Get your tanks into hull down positions, take out enemy, repeat advance using bounding overwatch whenever possible. Move infantry up behind. Whenever we led with the Bradleys, they were as good as toast.

Yeah, but the modeling of infantry in M1TP2 was .. well, suboptimal.

I just find that the infantry sees better than the tanks, and that when I go grunt first, i have a better idea what is waiting for me, and Im able to react better. But ill tell you this - i feel a lot better when the tanks are nearby.

I realize that this does not answer your question about which is historically accurate, and I guess someone else will have to answer that question for you.

I think CavScout's post on the issue, while short, holds the key to the answer, which is that tactics changed rapidly with the situation, the terrain and the weapons being used.

[Warren Peace]

Actually infantry usually led if the ground was contested. I remeber showning my step-father Close Combat (he was in the infantry in WW2 in Normandy and later with Armored Infantry) and I asked him if the tanks of infantry should go first. He immediately responded that the infantry always went first in the hedgerows. Later on, during the breakout, armor led, but there was no resistance at that point. When they encountered the West Wall, then it was Infantry first again.

Warren

[Sirocco]

Originally posted by Juardis:

all of France seemed to fall with armor leading the charge.

In May 1940 the operation to cross the Meuse river by XIX Panzer Corps was lead by it's engineers and infantry, with it's armour following later. The commander of XIX Panzer Corps was Heinz Guderian.

In open terrain tanks lead, in restricted terrain, tanks follow.

------------------

"He belongs to a race which has coloured the map red, and all he wants are the green fields of England..."

- Joe Illingworth, Yorkshire Post War Correspondent

[Warmaker]

Agreed, by late WWII infantry had effective AT weaponry for the appropriate situations. Have you tried to find troops hiding in the local terrain while riding in a AFV? I've ridden on a Marine amtrack and had the chance to look out the hatch and catching every little detail on the move is problematic.

Of course I've heard of many accounts from WWII Marines that during landings, as tempting as it was to hide behind a Sherman as cover they avoided it since it attracted too much fire, even MG fire. Sure the bullets bounce off the tank but not off you and AT rounds impacting nearby or the tank were said to be unpleasant.

------------------

"Uncommon valor was a common virtue"-Adm.Chester Nimitz of the Marines on Iwo Jima

[Henri]

As CavScout and others have posted, it depends on the period and on circumstances.

During a breakout operation, clearly infantry cannot lead the fat-moving tanks, but the tanks' protection in such a case is their speed and lack of enemy AT capability behind the lines.

In the early years, since Blitzkrieg was a new phenomenon, the defenders were not equipped to deal with large armored breakthroughs by means of infantry, which was not widely equipped with AT weapons.

By 1944, the Allies and the Germans were quite familiar with German infantry AT capabilities, and generally did not lead with tanks except when they expected only light resistance such as during Patton's breakout.However there were exceptions, and on occasion many tanks were lost when tanks raced forward against unexpected AT defences.

One example of leading with tanks was Rommel's successful tactic in France and Africa of attacking with his whole motorized assets moving forward as fast as possible while firing, with the idea of disrupting the enemy's formations before they could organize them into a cohesive defence.On occasion he did this with a whole division. Of course against a prepared defence in depth such as the Russians' at Kursk, this would be suicide.

In CM, I would say that if you are fairly sure that there is no AT capability nearby , there are circumstances where moving the tanks forward ahead of the infantry can pay off.But if you guess wrong -scratch one tank.

Another exception is where a MG pillbox is spotted: approaching infantry would be cut to pieces, so it is often necessary to bring up a tank to kill the pillbox, with the infantry overwatching in case enemy infantry shows up to threaten the tanks. The further away from the pillbox, the better.

Henri

[Guest Space Thing]

Originally posted by Warren Peace:

Actually infantry usually led if the ground was contested. I remeber showning my step-father Close Combat (he was in the infantry in WW2 in Normandy and later with Armored Infantry) and I asked him if the tanks of infantry should go first. He immediately responded that the infantry always went first in the hedgerows. Later on, during the breakout, armor led, but there was no resistance at that point. When they encountered the West Wall, then it was Infantry first again.

Warren

Warren's WW II vet step-father summed it up real well, AND since CM represents the scale where all ground is basically contested ground...infantry should go first. Juardis, you are doing it right. You learned by trial and error to use real life tactics. Good work.

[Michael Dorosh]

The answer has been given in several threads so I will sum up.

In France 1940, Russia 1941, and the breakout from France in 1944, armour could lead because there was no serious opposition to them.

In Normandy, infantry had to lead because the terrain allowed German infantry (well armed with AT devices) posed a serious threat to the armour.

As has been stated, it depends on the situation. Tanks and infantry really learned to co-operate by 1944. US tanks started having telephones on the back so infantry could talk directly to them. This was relatively new; Brit tanks acted as cavalry in the desert and it took a while for them to learn how to act in concert with infantry.

[Head Mahone]

Originally posted by Juardis:

Every book I've read (not too many), every movie I've seen (many), every story I've heard from vets (very few) all say that the infantry followed the tanks into battle. When I first got CM1, that is how I attacked. That is also how I lost. My armor would fall victim to AT guns, or AT teams, or even other armor just waiting. Leaving me with infantry to attack armor. Not a good situation.

I'm trying to figure out why real life tactics seem to suck in CM as far as this is concerned.

Any thoughts on this?

To answer your question Juardis, your real life tactics were not real life WWII tactics. The infantry lead tanks into the "battlefield" 90% of the time. I have only read one account where this did not happen. Here it is from the mouth of TC Dale Albee during an interview.

Aaron Elson: Now, what happened when you got into trouble with the second platoon?

Dale Albee: Oh, that little ****. His favorite words, you see, I would be attached to the recon, so I had to take orders from them. This one town, that’s the time I got bounced up with a panzerfaust. The little guy says, "You have to lead."

I said, "No. You guys always lead into town.

"And he said, "No, you’ll have to go in."

I said, "I don’t have any infantry support. We cant lead into a town."

And he said, "Kelly said so."

I said, "I’ve got to know that."

He said, "Just a minute, I’ll go back and check."

Like a damn fool I didn’t follow him, and he came back and said, "Kelly says that you’re supposed to lead in, and we’ll stand up here and guard, and then we’ll come on in."

Well, fine. We headed off and went into the town, and as soon as we got in – I always carried a bunch of guns in the back of the tank; I had an M-1, a bazooka, and a B.A.R. So I jumped out and grabbed the M-1 and I started leading my tank through there."

Aaron Elson: You were acting as infantry?

Dale Albee: Yeah. That’s all we could do. I did that several times, dismount and lead your tank. Because that way you could spot mines, and at least you find out what in the hell is going ahead, sneak up to a corner and look around. But we came up, and its hard to explain, we came around this corner, and this is a corner of the house right here, and my tank came right up here like this. There was a railroad station here, and a big ditch that ran across right here. And why this German ever ran, but he came out the door and started running towards the ditch. I’m standing right here with the M-1. So I shot him.

Just about the time I shot him and was starting to turn around and look, from somewhere over here they shot a panzerfaust, and it hit right in front of my light tank. It bounced me up against this brick building and put gravel – the panzerfaust, you know, those little pieces of tin – from my waist down it was just like I’d been a pin cushion. It just splattered me. And I couldn’t hear. They say that I just dropped my M-1 down and I turned around and I started walking back. I couldn’t hear. I didn’t know what was going on.

---------------------------------------------

Later Dale found out that Kelly (his CO) did not really issue that order for his tanks to lead. Boy was Dale pissed! And that was not just for towns, but as a whole. This is just the only account I could find because infantry always lead in WWII. When they don’t on rare BS cases like this, the panzerfausts start flying much like on CM.

-Head

------------------

"No man ever won a war by dieing for his country. He won it by making the other poor dumb bastard die for his country."

-General George S. Patton, Jr.

[Guest Michael emrys]

Some good answers to your question here, Jeff. To recapitulate, they boil down to time frame and terrain.

Just in case you are interested, the classic Blitzkrieg technique (as practised in, say, the summer of '41) was to bypass whenever possible likely centers of resistance, leaving them for the follow-up leg infantry. They rolled with tanks up front, which makes sense because they are more heavily armored and armed and can more easily survive enemy fire and quickly concentrate heavy return fire. They were followed after a short interval by armored infantry, and then further back by artillery, preferably of the self-propelled variety whenever available.

When this formation approached an obstacle it couldn't bypass, the tanks would halt some distance out and begin recce by fire/suppressive fire while the APCs closed with the target and disgorged the infantry which then cleared the ground of enemy troops with the help of the artillery.

Obviously this works best in open terrain, but then it was uncommon to commit Panzer divisions in terrain for which those tactics were unsuited.

The Americans only occasionally got to play that game, during the post-Normandy pursuit and after the Ruhr had been surrounded. Most of the time they were fighting in closer terrain, whether the bocage or the Solomon Islands. In thick terrain, sending the tanks in first, especially after 1943, is akin to suicide.

I've seen many photographs of American attacks where tanks and infantry are intermingled. Judging by the stance of the infantry, the resistance in most cases appears to be light. Once serious shooting starts, the tanks seem to halt in order to do their best shooting while the infantry continues to infiltrate forward, seeking and identifying targets for the tanks.

The British, on the other hand, in North Africa often tended to attack with pure tank formations with infantry somewhere in the area to consolidate and hold the ground the tanks had (supposedly) won. But these weren't truly integrated tank-infantry teams at that point.

Since the Germans usually had well-integrated tank-AT gun battlegroups, they tended to hand the British their heads. But the better British (and Australian!) commanders were capable of putting together a good all-arms attack or defense and when they did, they nearly always won.

Michael

[Juardis]

OK, good to know I'm not being cowardly with my tanks . Thanks for the insigtful responses.

[Jasper]

[i give up. See ya'll tomorrow.]

[This message has been edited by Jasper (edited 01-30-2001).]

[Jasper]

Well thanks to my crappy connection today I started writing this before I read Michael emrys post. He and I are in substanital agreement. But since I already wrote this I'm going to post it anyway

- - - - - - - - - - - -

Actually, I think that it changed over time. While I'll defer to the experts, I think that the original idea of 'Blitzkrieg' was for armor to roll unsupported by infantry until they hit the ocean. I base this on trying running from the Ardennes to Dunkirk in the time it took the Germans to get there. So I suspect that it worked in 1939.

Common pratice then seemed to be for an infantry and armor commander to move to an objective - stop - then talk about the next objective. I suspect adgenda item one was always "Who goes first."

As far as I can tell - no one could touch the American infantry-armor integration in say 1944. With infantry radio's in tanks, tank radio's in infantry CP's, telephones on the backs of tanks etc etc. In that case "who goes first" isn't *that* much of a critical issue, because of course each side could call on the other to bail each other out of a jam.

[gaffertape]

Nice excerpt there, HEAD MAHONE.

GAFF

[BlueFalcon]

I also remember reading/ hearing that the reason you see tanks and infantry intermingled a lot in American formations was a a lot factor. While tactically in certain areas there was no major benefit, it sure made the troops feel good to have a huge lumbering armored vehicle sitting right next to you pumping out HE and automatic fire.

I think Patton (or someone else) even tried to stop this, but found his infantry did not advance as enthusiastically as they did with tank "support". But then again who wouldn't appreciate more fire power when going into combat.

Maybe its cause Americans tend to be spoiled, in that we like to have as much of everything possible, including personal amenities , when we go to war.

------------------

Stay Alert!! Stay Alive!!

[BlueFalcon]

I also remember reading/ hearing that the reason you see tanks and infantry intermingled a lot in American formations was a a lot factor.

Note that the above from my earlier post should read:

... in American formations was a psychological factor.

dang spell check!

[Guest Michael emrys]

Originally posted by Jasper:

With infantry radio's in tanks, tank radio's in infantry CP's...

Somebody better informed may correct me, but I believe the tanks and the infantry were on seperate radio nets. In larger formations they probably had liaison so that somebody on the armor net was in contact with infantry HQ and vice versa, but they were kept on seperate nets to avoid confusion.

Michael

[Harry Yeide]

You could write a book (in fact, I am) on the complexities of tank-infantry cooperation in the US Army in the ETO. The Army never really evolved a set answer to how the two arms should work together. Pre-invasion doctrine got tossed out the window under pressure from the pitiless crowbar of events. Infantry divisions and independent tank battalions tended to experiment on their own and come up with their own fixes. Some experiences were shared among units, often via the good offices of the Armored Group headquarters, and various corps distributed pamplets with the local variant of the answer. Tank Battalion commanders complained that if their outfit was shifted to support another division after working with one for a long time, battlefield performance went to hell because the two units had worked out different solutions to the same problems. Moreover, as new units entered the field or battle-wise commanders became casualties, old lessons had to be re-learned time and again. From D-day until the end of the war, one can safely say that sometimes cooperation was great and sometimes it sucked.

Whether infantry or armor led an attack varied based on a host of variables, including terrain, the nature of the foe, the experience and spine of the outfits in question, the weather, the amount of light, and the level of human folly, just to name a few. There is no rule that says in Normandy, the infantry led because... One tank battalion, for example, created the technique of the "sortie," in which a bunch of Rhino-equipped Shermans would line up and then charge the enemy under a barage of artillery air bursts. After raising hell for a few hundred yards, they would go back and collect the infantry to mop up the gibbering survivors of the sortie.

The two arms experimented a lot with comms. The field telephone wired into the tank's intercomm system was the first real fix, but the doughs still had to expose themselves under fire to use it. Moreover, the records show that there were shortages of the field telephones. Some battalions tried loaning 509 tank radios to the infantry, but the doughs didn't like lugging the things around under fire. Eventually, the Army settled on installing, beginning in November 1944, ANVRC-3 radios--which were interoperable with the SCR-300 walkie-talkie--in tanks. (The 191st, when it landed in southern France as part of ANVIL in August, had VRC-3's installed already; the battalion may have been a test-bed for the concept.) According to the records of the 3rd Armored Group, policy was to equip 28 tanks per battalion with the radios, but there were shortages. This solution was not perfect either because of interference generated by the tank's engine and the difficulty of hearing the thing in combat, but the fix seems to have been the main one for the rest of the war.

Cheers.

[Guest Mike the bike]

Originally posted by Michael emrys:

Since the Germans usually had well-integrated tank-AT gun battlegroups, they tended to hand the British their heads. But the better British (and Australian!) commanders were capable of putting together a good all-arms attack or defense and when they did, they nearly always won.

Errr....the Aussies weer out of het Desert fairly early, being withdrawn for defence against het yellow peril in 1942.

I suspect you mean the New Zealand Division, lead by Freyburg. But even he was guilty of overcaution at time - IIRC he failed to trap the Afrika Korps at a batle in 1943 - Trebouga gap (or something similar).