Patton's theory about Tank Mgs

[weapon2010]

I heard somewhere recently on one of the many military channel's documentarys that Patton said the most important weapon on the tank was the machinegun and not the main gun.Can anyone confirm this or explain the theory?

[MikeyD]

Yep, Patton said it. Admittedly, he said it prewar when he was a colonel conducting desert maneuvers. An early Stuart had one coax mg, one bow mg, two rigidly mounted sponson mgs and a 37mm cannon. You can imagine how the 37mm pop-gun wouldn't exactly shine compared to four mgs all firing at once.

[flamingknives]

The surface impression one gets of Patton is that his operational style was very much of the decisive cavalry-style thrust through the enemy's lines into his rear areas, where you then proceed to rampage around the lightly-defended rear areas. For this you need the machine gun. If you refer to the pre and early war British Cruiser tanks then you see the same philosophy.

[JasonC]

Considering that the main armaments involved were 37mm and 40mm popguns firing one pound solid shot, the statement was entirely accurate. The guns on pre war and early war tanks were for hitting other tanks. But the main target of tank formations was enemy infantry or to a lesser extent artillery, and the MG was the main weapon against them. In this era, most armies fielded a modest portion of the tank fleet with 75mm howitzers, with short barrels and limited range or accuracy, as HE chuckers. Their primary targets were enemy guns or field fortifications, and for that subset of tanks the gun was the main armament. But they were small portions of the tank fleets.

75mm main armament capable of AP or HE fire was one of the revolutionary features of the T-34. By mid war, everyone had upgunned to that standard, and at that point the statement was no longer accurate. But that isn't when it was made...

[PaulMG]

Didn't Char B1 bis have AP for its 75mm gun?

[MikeyD]

Remember, one of the criticisms of the Abrams during the 'bad times' in Iraq was that it was badly armed for infantry war. 70 tons, a single coax 7.62, a commander's .50 cal that (in later models) he couldn't fire while buttoned, and a monster smooth bore cannon optimized for tank fighting. Deciding which weapons are most important all depends on what type of war you're fighting. It doesn't help you to be festooned with MGs if you're fighting other tanks from 1000m+.

[LongLeftFlank]

It seems to me that MBTs came in handy enough in Iraq as fire support to other forces. The losses of several to IEDs never resulted in the withdrawal of tank battalions from the regular force mix in Ramadi or elsewhere.

That 120mm HEAT can pretty much take apart any building and any flesh inside once you've isolated the target. I'm skeptical whether tanks would have been more handy or less vulnerable had they had MG cupolas or some other Israeli type of thing.

[MikeyD]

The losses of several to IEDs never resulted in the withdrawal

Its been a long time since I saw the number but I think the number of Abrams in need of extensive rebuilding (KO'd in all but name) due to combat damage passed 800, might've even passed 1000. The rush fielding of the Abrams upgrade with reactive armor skirts, a belly plate and more MGs shows they were struggling. Stryker brigades were getting so badly hit at one point that they turned their Mosul partols over to Iraqi forces, because Iraqi Humvees weren't considered a 'trophy kills' like Strykers.

[ChrisND]

Its been a long time since I saw the number but I think the number of Abrams in need of extensive rebuilding (KO'd in all but name) due to combat damage passed 800, might've even passed 1000..

I find those numbers a bit hard to believe. That would mean about 1/6 of the US Abrams inventory.

[MikeyD]

That would mean about 1/6 of the US Abrams inventory.

Yup, its been a very long, very debilitating war. Marine corps LAV-25 force was on the verge of outright collapse, they had to restart the production line for new vehicles and entirely rebuilt their LAV fleet to keep it going.

[ChrisND]

Yup, its been a very long, very debilitating war. Marine corps LAV-25 force was on the verge of outright collapse, they had to restart the production line for new vehicles and entirely rebuilt their LAV fleet to keep it going.

From wear and tear, yeah. But effectively KO'd?

[LongLeftFlank]

Yes, but I'd expect that's overwhelmingly severe IED or RPG damage to the wheels and running gear requiring flatbedding followed by "extensive rebuilding" in the shop. This vulnerability wouldn't be remedied by any uparmouring program presently known to man.

I would be fairly flabbergasted to learn that 800-1000 M1s suffered hull penetrations (underbelly or other) in Iraq, although I'm not denying they did occur. My belief is that the TUSK kit was a prophylactic measure as much as urgently driven by some kind of glaring weakness in the existing design. Remember, Rumsfeld was badly stung by bipartisan criticism surrounding the "failure" to get uparmoured Humvees into the hands of the infantry fast enough. Since then, the DoD has basically erred ever since on the side of more armour sooner.

The Stryker of course is a completely different vehicle and as you say, badly vulnerable.

[Destraex1]

hmmm CMSF can simulate all this. Lets turn to it for advice and live testing.