Armor leading vs. Armor trailing

[Skott Karlsson]

I think one of the reasons mechanized infantry units were organized was because the foot soldier simply couldn't keep up with a faster moving tank. The Germans knew this early I believe.

If you go back and watch the History Channel's(HC)episode of Tanks (Forget the actual title) they talk about the early developements and use of tanks. In WW1 the British sent in tanks in one battle. At first the Germans were taken completely off guard and didnt know what to do. Then, according to the HC the Germans managed to close the breach against the Allied infantry that got woefully behind the tanks and then went back and took out the tanks one by one. It was an interesting episode.

Anyway, the Germans learned from this, and the British I'm sure, that armour needs infantry support. The Germans developed this better than anyone during the 30's it seems. They learned Combined Arms Warfare. The use of armour, infantry, artillery, and aircraft in a combined use. The Allies finally caught onto this concept too.

As far as CM is concerned I would say it depends on what your opponent is throwing at you. I keep my infantry very close till I know the situation and then go from there as to what best to do. Most times I keep infantry constantly close by to my tanks whenever possible.

~Skott~

[jasoncawley@ameritech.net]

Others have mostly cover the question, but I will relate one more incident from the Americans in the Bulge fighting, late December '44. The moral is that it depended not just on the AT arms nor just the terrain, but the total situation and coordination with others as well.

An armored task force was supposed to break through the German lines to reach Bastonge. They made good progress, then ran into a good German roadblock with many felled trees and infantry defenders. To attack that position would mean stopping and sending the infantry first, but they were pushing fast to reach the Bastogne defenders, and did not expect the German defenders to be too ready for them overall (meaning, fewer forces in the area, infantry not armor, etc).

So they changed direction, took a longer route farther west (their left, they were heading north), and kept traveling. They hit another blocking position, this time a village occupied by plenty of German infantry. They paused and checked with higher ups about how to proceed - just going around was no longer an option - and those higher ups urged them to push as hard as possible. So they had to come up with something on the fly, and they did it like this.

They put a company of Shermans in the lead of a column, with a company of armored infantry in half-tracks right behind them. Then they called for the fire of at least an entire battalion of artillery, to open on the middle of the village as they ran towards it at 20 mph. They entire barrage lasted about 5 minutes, and they didn't give a cease-fire order until they were 200 yards from the village edge; some of the shells were still landing when the half-tracks entered the town. The (buttoned) tanks shot up everything they saw, short halts only, and basically kept right on going, and went clean through the village. The infantry dismounted inside the village and was instantly in a hot firefight with the German defenders, who were still coming out of the cellars they had taken shelter in during the bombardment.

The tanks pressed on and reach the defenders at Bastogne. The armored infantry found they were in a fight with most of a (somewhat depleted, it is true) German infantry *battalion*. But they rapidly got help from the rest of the division coming up the same road, and the Germans were not manning the outer defenses of the village, so those got in easily enough. After a hot fight, most of the Germans surrendered - the rest of the survivors had taken off into the woods earlier on.

The key to this particular episode is that the Germans did not know the Americans were coming when the shells started coming down. They took cover and had their heads down. In addition, the attackers knew they would be supported by reserve after reserve in depth if they failed or got into trouble. It was the overall situation that dictated that the tanks go first and bypass (exit in CM terms) if possible.

The tanks still did not try to "clear the way" for the infantry. Instead, the artillery substituted, suppressing the defender's AT weapons instead of waiting for infantry to identify them or clear them out. The artillery cleared the way for the tanks, in effect, while the infantry dismounted inside the objective, but still had to fight like the dickens for it.

I do not intend this to be taken as a "rule" or usual thing, only to show that combined arms teams were flexible, and they came up with methods based on the total situation. Incidentally, I believe that is true of the Germans across France and in the early Russian fighting too. Guderian, Rommel, and (in Russia) Manstein certainly were not "big fleet of tanks in front" generals, unlike (e.g.) the Brits in the desert or in front of Caen.

In fact, this misconception was one of the most common and dangerous in the whole war, for the Allies. It was easy to get the impression that all the blitzkrieg was based on was a technological fact, based on concentrated fleets of tanks operating "at their own speed". This was particularly the lesson likely to be (mis)learned by those who had previously made the error of parceling out tanks in penny-packets to support infantry all along the line (like pre-war French doctrine, and even the Russians in practice through 1941). They swung to an opposite extreme.

The truth is that armor did have to be concentrated, but it also had to work in combined arms teams with both infantry and artillery - which both had to be motorized and able to keep up with the tanks. The infantry-minded got the point about "working with other arms". The cavalry-minded or those who thought of the blitzkrieg as armor and tech only (among the Brits in particular, but also pre 1943 US, and 1942-3 Russians in many respects) got the point about massing the tanks, but missed the point about all-arms cooperation.

What both were doing was conflating "spreading out" with "working with infantry", because the infantry was in fact spread out. It was an easy mistake to make. The truth is both were needed, concentration and combined arms, and the techniques of the blitzkrieg depended as much on doctrine as on armor itself or technology itself. How one used the new weapons was as vital as their own revolutionary character, to put it another way.

And while late war, effective infantry AT weapons made the need for combined arms clearer than ever, the point was still true long before then. The Brits did not have much success in the desert before they learned to use combined arms, especially because their tanks didn't work well enough with their artillery, and thus didn't have their help e.g. to suppress German AT guns and 88mm FLAK.

El Alamein was the first time the British armor really had as much artillery support as it should have had all along, and even then that was a byproduct of the huge overall offensive rather than a result of tight integration of artillery into the British armor formations. By comparison, the German armor in the desert almost always had artillery support when tackling British AT and infantry positions.

The British were making the same mistake as late as Caen in 1944. Monty had learned to use giant artillery or air "prep fires" before unleashing the armor, but then sent the armor first with the infantry well behind, and lost.

Real time coordination between the armor and the other arms (as opposed to prep bombardments) was dismal in the British army. The Russians weren't much better until 1944 (mid-to-late '43 at the earliest), and they never really got the trick of including the artillery as well as the infantry.

Incidentally, in the second half of the war, the Germans were also tending toward the penny-packet mistake of tanks and TDs dispersed to stiffen the infantry, and putting the armor divisions right in the line and expecting them to hold longer fronts, etc. They didn't use their armor on the defense nearly as well as they could have, and as some of them knew how to, because the officers had surrealistic restrictions placed on them ("no retreats", "hold at all costs", "don't break out", attacks ok but mobile defenses not allowed because they involve "retreating", etc).

[Jasper]

Some reading recommendations I might suggest to people interested in this sort of thing:

Breakout at Anzio (just posted it). Highly recommended.

Employment of Tanks and Infantry in Normandy.

Combat Lessons #4 & #5. Combat Lesson #5 mentions a field manual FM 17-36. I think field manuals are available on-line, but I've been having fun doing other stuff and havn't looked for it yet.

It makes an interesting study to watch the development from the ad-hoc field modifications needed at Anzio to later becoming common practice. One trail I don't have documented is the 'infantry phone'. I was told it was invented by the USMC in the pacific backed up by referring to Official Marine Corp History. I never did. I believed him. In any case the earliest mentions of infantry phones are from the Pacific Theater.

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Check out http://www.geocities.com/funfacts2001/ or

http://hyperion.spaceports.com/~funfacts/ for military documents written during WWII.

[CombinedArms]

Excellent long post by Jason on American tactics in the Battle of the Bulge!

Another thing I remember reading about the Bulge, particularly relating to the major German armored attacks on the villages south of Elsenborn Ridge, was that the American had quickly assembled mucho artillery on the ridge--which they called freely in on those big German combined armor/infantry attacks. The main effect and purpose of this artillery was not to destroy the tanks as such but to "strip the tanks of their infantry." This then left the attacking tanks blind and open to fire, often flanking fire, from towed ATs, lurking TDs (when available) and bazookas. The net result was a stymied attack. The whole Bulge offensive basically died when these attacks failed.

The 101 Airborne surrounded at Bastogne also had strong artillery in place (plus a combat command--1/3--of an armored division, and used similar tactics with artillery--the ammo they most longed for in the airdrops around Xmas were artillery rounds. Some of the rounds they received, much to their chagrin, were for gun types they didn't have!

The implication of this is that tanks attacked in close cooperation with infantry at that late stage of the war--who actually led was dictated by circumstances--and generally relied on infantry for shielding from just the kinds of weapons so fatal to unsupported tanks in CM. CM is depicting the war from June '44 to May '45 and I think they got it pretty much right.

[Guest Michael emrys]

Originally posted by Mike the bike:

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.

No, much as I respect the Kiwis, I indeed meant the Ozzies, specifically the 9th. Australian Division in their defense of Tobruk for four months of 1941. I recently read a detailed account of this action and they put together a good and successful all-arms team.

Michael

[Mark IV]

Originally posted by BlueFalcon:

Maybe its cause Americans tend to be spoiled, in that we like to have as much of everything possible...

Can you picture:

"Comrade Infantry Officer, your unit will assault that German-occupied village on foot, of course. Here is a platoon of T-34s to provide fire supportski."

"Nyet! We are not spoiled like Amerikanskis. Let the tankers do some routine maintenance, we attack alone."

Or...

"Herr Leutnant, your platoon must retake that town from ze Amerikaners. Here is a fine Sturmhaubitzer to reduce their strongpoints to rubble."

"Nein, danke, we prefer to root out machine-gun nests by hand."

Americans had a lot of fire support available, and tended to substitute it for human lives when possible. So did everyone else, when they had it available.

Rather sensible if you think about it.

[Guest Michael emrys]

Originally posted by jasoncawley@ameritech.net:

Real time coordination between the armor and the other arms (as opposed to prep bombardments) was dismal in the British army. The Russians weren't much better until 1944 (mid-to-late '43 at the earliest), and they never really got the trick of including the artillery as well as the infantry.

If by "artillery" you mean exclusively indirect fire artillery, I would have to agree with you. But the Soviets also employed lots of direct fire artillery in the form of 76mm, 122mm, and 152mm assault guns. [i confess that I don't yet know as much as I would like about how much they had to play with or exactly how they employed it. If somebody knows of some good books they could point me towards, I would appreciate it.] I do believe that the SU-76s were used primarily in direct support of infantry formations with the larger stuff used in the mech units, but I suspect that varied a lot. The Soviets could be pragmatic in practice.

In any event, I'd like to nail this down by the time CM2 is released.

Michael

[jasoncawley@ameritech.net]

Yep, the Russians pushed forward a lot of assault guns as a substitute for close artillery cooperation with their forward units. The gain was it was much easier for the men in the assault gun units to keep track of what was happening in the battle and to get tactical priorities straight. But other than against infantry machinegun nests and the like, there really is no substituting assault guns firing direct, for on-call indirect fire. The Russians did not really figure this out during the war, at all.

There is a huge difference, in that indirect fire weapons allow defenders to be engaged with safety, and especially concentrated defenders to be tackled without being exposed to their concentrated return fire, or before becoming exposed to it.

Suppose you've got a Russian armored column and you are going up against a German PAK front, ATGs and heavy FLAK supported enough infantry to keep your own infantry at a distance. Do assault guns help you? No, not really. I mean, they are a few extra gun tubes to add to the fire of your tanks, and they have somewhat bigger HE rounds. But they are getting dinged by the 88 FLAK and 75 PAK whenever they can engage effectively themselves.

In contrast, suppose German (or American) armor is up against an Allied ATG position. They dump tons of arty on it, wiping out some guns and suppressing the defenders while those still see no targets they can engage. Then the tanks creep up and nibble on the immobile gun positions from long range. The guns that are in range to reply don't inflict even losses on the attacking tanks - if they did it would be too expensive and have to be called off - because the gunners are eating dirt in a barrage already.

10 more "tanks" in the column with bigger HE shells does not turn that trick. Their ammo supply is what fits in the racks. They have no FO. Their effectiveness for indirect fire is very low, and used direct they are just glorified CS tanks. A tank column does not have a shortage of tanks. What it wants artillery support for is not direct fire HE, but to reach out and touch AT capable defenders *without* exposing vehicles.

A fine comment by the way...

[Guest Michael emrys]

Originally posted by jasoncawley@ameritech.net:

There is a huge difference, in that indirect fire weapons allow defenders to be engaged with safety, and especially concentrated defenders to be tackled without being exposed to their concentrated return fire, or before becoming exposed to it.

I agree with just about all the points you made, although I demur on the ISU's vulnerability to AT fire; they were pretty heavily armored and likely would not have been at the forefront of an attack (I am conjecturing).

Furthermore, I will go you one more, if I may. Another advantage of indirect fire, at least as practiced by the Americans, is that you could at need call on the combined firepower of every battery within range. This amounted to a lot of firepower at times, and saved the Americans' bacon more than once.

Michael

[Leonidas]

Originally posted by jasoncawley@ameritech.net:

In contrast, suppose German (or American) armor is up against an Allied ATG position. They dump tons of arty on it, wiping out some guns and suppressing the defenders while those still see no targets they can engage.

I'm confused. How do they know where the AT guns are? Do they have FOs looking at the guns, or are they just blanketing the area with artillery?

[danielh]

Sure CM enforces you to use tactics rendered wrong by history. The french and also the british followed the rule: The tanks have to support the infantry (although the British also had specialized tank regiments, but didn't know how to use them effectively), they failed. (El-Alamein victory by the British was a classic old style by overwhelming forces and brute force)

The germans for the first time put into practice armor leads, infantry follows consequently with their building of highly mobile Panzerdivisions which included artillery, infantry, antitank, tanks, reconnaissance and sophisticated (for that time) communications. The master of this was Rommel, which btw. always tried to fight with movement even back in WWI. Why did it work ?

Surprise, Speed, Firepower, Concentration, Coordination, Courage and a sense for opportunities (operations without secured flanks always bring a high amount of risk...)

CM teaches us the old style of WWI warfare, with slowly advancing forces, which somewhere clash on each other with heavy ari shelling and bloody close quarter fighting.

Why does it not work in CM ?

The answer is easy the maps and forces are much to small ! Both sides are more or even equaul in equipment with almost no room for manouver. In manouvering the battle is decided by the placement of forces mainly PRIOR or AFTER the contacting of the main elements of the enemy, respectively prevent the enemy to form a "main body" of resitance, and at best denying him to counter and fight at all (Or at stupidly high losses). Dirsupting his lines of supply or command, impose confusion, strike from surprising directions or positions with irresistible force.

The reflection of a (succesful) manouver battle in CM would be, that of superior forces opposed by either a bad positioned or weak enemy (Catch him with pants down), but the essence of it can not be showed, that what happened before...

Greets

Daniel

[jasoncawley@ameritech.net]

How do they know the AT guns are there?

Fair question - their recon guys found them, perhaps losing a number of armored cars in the process, perhaps not. Then dismounts maintain sighting. But the main body of tanks does not approach an identified "PAK front" until it has been suppressed by artillery fire.

In the desert it is even easier to state - recon cars, halftracks, or light tanks plain see them, while the main tank force is still over the horizon or lost in heat shimmer and dust.

As for the other fellow's comment about ISUs and their heavy armor, that shows exactly how they were expected to be used. They were expected to reduce pillbox style defenses (or fortified villages, etc) from the front by direct fire HE. But a PAK front has heavier AT weapons than an infantry battalion block, e.g. 88s that could hole any Russian vehicle at several miles range, aka anything in LOS practically.

The point is simply that the Russians did not have the suppress-first then engage with tank fire option, that the Germans and Americans had against towed ATs. Your point about the easier concentration of indirect fire is well taken.

[jasoncawley@ameritech.net]

...

[This message has been edited by jasoncawley@ameritech.net (edited 02-02-2001).]

[Vanir]

Originally posted by danielh:

Why does it not work in CM ?

The answer is easy the maps and forces are much to small ! Both sides are more or even equaul in equipment with almost no room for manouver.

Gee, Daniel. Correcting your misconceptions is keeping me busy tonight.

CM works just fine for what it is: a company to battalion level tactical game. You seem to be wanting a regimental or division level game. If you don't like tacical level games then you're in the wrong place and playing the wrong game. You could not have forces that large in CM without completely redesigning the game. It was never intended to simulate operational level maneuver. Also, the size of the maps for such a game would bring a 1 Ghz computer to its knees.

There is plenty of room for tactical level maneuver in CM if you play on a "large" map. If you say otherwise you obviously haven't tried it.

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You've never heard music until you've heard the bleating of a gut-shot cesspooler. -Mark IV

[This message has been edited by Vanir (edited 02-03-2001).]

[Boozer]

second Vanir

[Tris]

I would suppose Daniel understands that, Vanir, and I believe he has based his comments on the vast majority of CMBO scenarios in which 1) the forces come "equal" and 2) the maps restrict (channel) movement (play) into avenues which run rigidly in one direction with no recourse in the offing other than a straight fight. True, it's possible to design a huge map over which to fight a small battle and thus have a chance to exercise reasonable tactics of maneuver (if you have the horsepower to move all the graphics), but I've only found a precious few of these types of scenarios--I could just about count them on one of my hands, and two of these I've designed myself. The truth is that the common battle in CMBO is pitched and attritional. (How could it be otherwise with such vague command considerations? Or to put it another way, without command integrity to disrupt or knock out, what's left to go after except troops and material?) Also, in my experience at least, casualties absorbed on both sides in this game are considerably heavier than what was historically considered acceptable for the reason that this is the only practical remedy open to either side except in the very rare case.

CMBO is a very entertaining game, I think, and a decent simulation in some respects of what warfare was about from the period; it still has a long way to go before it reflects even the reality you describe as its intent, though, much less WWII combat in general and of every description. With what we have to work with model-wise at present the latter isn't on the cards.

That isn't a knock on the title, just a sober check of everyone's reality.

[This message has been edited by Tris (edited 02-03-2001).]

[danielh]

Tris, Vanir

Right CM is a tactical level game, but even there the core elements of manouver could be employed theoretically. I've read Rommels book "Infantry attacks" about his WWI-time.

There one already can clearly see the concept of manouver. To achieve that kind of fighting in CM is almost impossible. And you will never come even close to it. (In WWI Rommel commanded between a platoon and up to 1-2 companies as a Leutnant), in the fights against the italians he displayed the essence of manouver and achieved an overwhelming victory with almost no losses to either side. The Panzerdivision concept then was only a natural expansion of what he was always doing.

Read the book and you would know what i mean.

Greets

Daniel