Why British and American Tank tactics were so bad

Discussions on every day life in the Weimar Republic, pre-anschluss Austria, Third Reich and the occupied territories. Hosted by Vikki.
Post Reply
RichTO90
Member
Posts: 4238
Joined: 22 Dec 2003, 19:03

Re: Why British and American Tank tactics were so bad

#136

Post by RichTO90 » 13 Oct 2008, 17:19

LWD wrote:The source for the digression on weather was this statement:
Chromeboomerang wrote:...Abysmal weather is very hard on ground troops, but unless fog or extreme wind occurs, flying is less affected.
Weather was one of the top causes identified for "ineffective sorties" flown in the ETO. For fighters in 2QTR44 it was 2,384 out of 10,400 (23%), 3QTR44 it was 3,079 out of 9,736 (32%), in 4QTR44 it was 2,198 out of 7,243 (30%), and in 1QTR45 it was 1,552 out of 6,211 (25%).

More importantly, in 2QTR44 113,224 sorties were airborne, in 3QTR44 it was 122,465, in 4QTR44 it was 95,488, and in 1QTR45 it was 125,486. In other words, although the number of sorties airborne that aborted due to weather did not vary much by quarter, the number of sorties airborne actually varied considerably due to weather.

Overall, it appears that the 1st quarter was consistantly the "best" flying weather, followed more or less by the 3rd, 2nd, and 4th quarter. If anyone is really interested I could check the Ninth TAF daily sorties records that we have compiled to confirm that, unfortunately I don't think I have the First TAF (P) records in our files? Or you can simply refer to the AAF Combat Chronology and note the number of times that the operations of First and Ninth TAF were affected by weather, which was suggested a half dozen or so rather silly posts ago. :D

User avatar
LWD
Member
Posts: 8618
Joined: 21 Sep 2005, 22:46
Location: Michigan

Re: Why British and American Tank tactics were so bad

#137

Post by LWD » 13 Oct 2008, 18:07

Michael Emrys wrote:
LWD wrote:I'd like to ask the proponents of this potion what is the case for US and British tank tactics being flawed and what was wrong with them?
I think you will have to specify what year we are talking about here.
The original poster didn't. I'd like a case for any time period.
My impression is that Allied tank tactics began the war in a fairly wretched state and improved only slowly until at least the beginning of 1944....
The question is how much of this is tactics and how much is organization, doctrine, and deployment?


User avatar
LWD
Member
Posts: 8618
Joined: 21 Sep 2005, 22:46
Location: Michigan

Re: Why British and American Tank tactics were so bad

#138

Post by LWD » 13 Oct 2008, 18:13

RichTO90 wrote:
LWD wrote:The source for the digression on weather was this statement:
Chromeboomerang wrote:...Abysmal weather is very hard on ground troops, but unless fog or extreme wind occurs, flying is less affected.
Weather was one of the top causes identified for "ineffective sorties" flown in the ETO. .... If anyone is really interested I could check the Ninth TAF daily sorties records that we have compiled to confirm that, unfortunately I don't think I have the First TAF (P) records in our files? Or you can simply refer to the AAF Combat Chronology and note the number of times that the operations of First and Ninth TAF were affected by weather, which was suggested a half dozen or so rather silly posts ago. :D
One of things that struck me when I looked earlier was that in cases where the bombers were grounded the fighters were often sent on "sweeps over Germany". IE far enough away from friendlies that miss identification isn't going to be a problem and/or where they might find a hole in the weather. I rather suspect that planned missions close to the FEBA were even more strongly affected than just sorties would indicate. That is a bit of speculation on my part.

User avatar
Michael Emrys
Member
Posts: 6002
Joined: 13 Jan 2005, 19:44
Location: USA

Re: Why British and American Tank tactics were so bad

#139

Post by Michael Emrys » 14 Oct 2008, 10:41

LWD wrote:
Michael Emrys wrote:My impression is that Allied tank tactics began the war in a fairly wretched state and improved only slowly until at least the beginning of 1944....
The question is how much of this is tactics and how much is organization, doctrine, and deployment?
Fair question. How would you categorize the tendency of British armoured formations to engage in "cavalry charges" in North Africa, most famously in the opening stages of CRUSADER? Bad doctrine, bad tactics, bad organization, or bad deployment?

Seems to me as well that tactics is an outgrowth of doctrine as expressed through organization influencing deployment (in the operational sense).

Machael
Incoming fire has the right of way.

Sid Guttridge
Member
Posts: 10158
Joined: 12 Jun 2008, 12:19

Re: Why British and American Tank tactics were so bad

#140

Post by Sid Guttridge » 14 Oct 2008, 13:19

Hi Michael,

The root cause of that tendency may well be that neither the British, nor their earlier Italian opponents, had high velocity anti-tanks weapons in the 75mm and 88mm class. The Germans, by contrast, had developed tank tactics specifically designed to draw enemy armour onto such anti-tank screens. In this case, German tactics were clearly ahead of the British.

Cheers,

Sid.

User avatar
The_Enigma
Member
Posts: 2270
Joined: 14 Oct 2007, 15:59
Location: Cheshire, England

Re: Why British and American Tank tactics were so bad

#141

Post by The_Enigma » 16 Oct 2008, 16:27

There are quite a number of examples from the German side in North Africa of them not using there armoured forces as doctrine demanded, iirc - pin the OPFOR tanks with a troop/squadron and then flank with the rest or another force.

Thomas Jentz in his book on the tank fighting in Africa (cant remember the name, am in work and its not with me) notes a few examples where they refused to engage British tanks and from the description of the war diaries he uses sounds like they also charged British tank formations on a couple of occasions - or just slugged it out with them.
An interesting example is of numerous panzers being engaged by 2 cruisers and retiring after losing one tank (disabled not knocked out iirc). He does mention that this force being more numerous then the British - it does make one ponder why they didn’t pin and flank on this occasion?
Fair question. How would you categorize the tendency of British armoured formations to engage in "cavalry charges" in North Africa, most famously in the opening stages of CRUSADER? Bad doctrine, bad tactics, bad organization, or bad deployment?
I do agree with the above assessment, it would seem that mostly they just charged on in there. I haven’t really studied Crusader or Battleaxe so i cant comment on what happened there but i know from the smaller engagements before and after that there are a few instances of this tactic actually working.

Again Jentz - he mentions Matilda tanks during the capture of Fort Capuzzo just charged in there against dug in AT guns and tanks in hull down positions. Losing a bunch of tanks, not knocked out however, they were able to force the German tankers to retire and Brit infantry, lagging behind, were able to capture the position.

Thus highlighting what he claims throughout the book that mostly the armour did not fight a combined arms battle (unless in some circumstances forced to and then he claims they did so admirably).

Post Reply

Return to “Life in the Third Reich & Weimar Republic”