Shooting the War

The Germans concentrated their armour from the start in special armoured divisions comprising a balanced force of tanks, artillery, infantry, engineers, and administrative services. No consideration was given to the idea behind the French and British ‘infantry’ tanks and the doctrines associated with them. The tanks, supported by their own artillery and infantry, were to operate as a concentrated strategic force directed against the enemy’s weakest spots and well ahead of the main, slower, infantry army.
This tank army, trained as a team, consisting of ten armoured divisions by May 9, 1940, contained at all levels a wealth of experience. Many of its officers and men were members of tank units which fought on Franco’s side in the Spanish Civil War. Here they gained battle practice: they tested new techniques and the mechanical capabilities of their machines; and they saw the fate that befell tank forces that were put into battle dispersed in ‘penny packets’. Moreover, intensive peacetime exercises in Germany had been supplemented by the bloodless occupations of Austria in 1938 and Czechoslovakia in 1939. In rapid, long-distance thrusts through these countries, the armoured forces taught themselves essential administrative lessons without having actually to engage in combat.
In September 1939, when the fighting began, the administration worked well and the armoured divisions outfought the old-fashioned Polish army in a matter of days, showing that the quality of the highly specialised, mechanised forces was master of the quantity mustered by the larger, traditional conscript armies. It also confirmed what had been long understood: that the air arm, working in close cooperation with tanks, conferred a powerful element of heavy fire-support on forces operating deep in the enemy rear. The aircraft were in fact a substitute for heavy artillery.
Singers without song
Thus on May 9, 1940, the relative overall condition of the opposing armoured forces can be summarised as follows. The French, saddled with a technique that was 20 years out of date, and with machines operated by men who lacked experience of the pace and scope of modern battle conditions, were partnered by the British, whose techniques were far more up-to-date, but who were attempting to practise them with too few machines, and with a number of officers and men who had not yet had time to grasp the significance of their new role. Indeed, it was this lack of experience that most seriously bedevilled the fighting quality of the Allies. Their armoured formations, either through reasons of policy, doctrine, or lack of machines, had not practised together. Nor was there close co-operation with the air arm in the forefront of the land battle. So they were in fact singers without a song.
Fatally linked with their limited use of tanks was the failure of the Allied command to understand and make adequate strategic preparations to defeat the German attacks when they eventually came. There was a belief, sincerely held, despite warnings from men of practical experience, that some terrains were naturally tank-proof and others could be made secure by the erection of concrete and steel fortifications. It was thought that mechanised armies would not be able to pass through the narrow lanes, forests, and valleys of the Ardennes; that the Maginot Line would be impenetrable, and that the extensions of the Maginot Line along the Belgian frontier, certain inundations, and large built-up areas would also be serious obstacles to tank action.
Therefore the Allies made no elaborate plans for tank counterthrusts in the localities they had classified as tank-proof. The best, mobile armoured portions of the French army were not deployed in a manner permitting them to launch an immediate, concentrated counterstroke —even if their doctrine had envisaged such action. As we have seen, no such doctrine existed and as a result it was quite conceivable —even probable—that the light mechanised divisions and the new tank divisions could be flung in piecemeal (and therefore outnumbered) against superior enemy formations.
Their opponents, the Germans, lacked neither doctrine, equipment, training, nor experience. They were masters of a new war-winning technique that brought speed and mobility to the battlefield. By a combination of speed, thrust, and shock action they could bring a completely new momentum to the battle. The impact of the German armoured divisions could not be compared with that of the basically cavalry- and infantry-oriented methods of the Allies: they had in fact — with their range and striking power —introduced a new dimension to warfare.
Types of tank
Yet inevitably the balance of material was in favour of the Allies, who had more tanks than the Germans and many that were technically superior. In their ten armoured divisions the Germans had only 627 of the good Mark III and IV tanks, armed respectively with a 37-mm and a 75-mm gun, and protected by armour not more than 30-mm in thickness. The remaining 2,060 tanks were lightly armoured machines, mostly armed only with a 20-mm gun — although 381 of these were the sound Czech light T-38, equipped with a 37-mm gun. In addition to the 2,690 tanks with the armoured divisions, there were some 800 machines, mostly light ones, in reserve.
Against this array the French fielded about 3,000 machines, of which 500 were in units in the course of formation, plus older reserve machines. Of these 3,000 tanks, 1,292 were with the light mechanised divisions and the new tank divisions; the remainder were split up among the infantry armies. To this total should be added the British. On May 9 they had in France
210 light tanks in the light armoured regiments, and 100 ‘1′ tanks in the lst Army Tank Brigade. A further 174 light tanks and 156 of the new cruisers, belonging to the Armoured Division, were ready to cross the Channel as the battle started. Thus the Allies could oppose 3,000 German tanks with something like 3,600 of their own — if they chose.
On balance, the quality of the machines possessed by the two sides was about equal. The best French tank, the Char B, mounted the excellent 47-mm gun in a fully rotating turret and had a 75-mm gun mounted in the hull. The 20-ton Somua had a 47-mm gun, too, and was fast. The armour of these tanks was from 40 to 60 mm thick, compared with the best German armour of 30 mm. There were 800 of these new machines and even the older ones compared well with the German lighter vehicles. The 384 light British tanks were certain to be severely outclassed in a stand-up fight, because their guns could not penetrate armour, although their high speed and small size might serve them well when engaged on reconnaissance. But the 100 infantry tanks, of which 23 were the new Matilda, were covered by immensely thick armour (up to 70 mm) and quite safe from the fire of the German tank guns. And the 2-pounder gun, mounted in the thinner cruisers of the Armoured Division and also on the Matilda, was a weapon capable of penetrating any of the German machines at battle ranges.
But while the German and British machines (with one exception) were designed with two- or three-man turrets, the French machines had a single man in the turret confronted with the difficult task of commanding the vehicle, loading and firing the gun, and sometimes controlling the tactics of sub-units. The single British exception was the Mark I infantry tank, and this too presented terrible problems of combat efficiency and command.
This technical factor meant that the German and most of the British crews would be able to fight as teams within the all-embracing organisation of the armoured formations to which they belonged—but would also give the Germans an important advantage when their tank formations clashed with the French. This would make up for the fact that the majority of their tanks were vulnerable to the enemy tank guns, while their own guns would not penetrate the armour of a large proportion of the Allied tanks.
Leadership
The importance of personal command and direction is far more apparent to the fighting man in a climate of military opinion that insists that the generals should remain in the fore-front of the battle, in close touch with the leading tanks both visually and by radio. The Germans practised this method more than the Allies. The French kept their command posts further to the rear in accordance with the practice of 1918, and in any case did not possess a control system suited to high-speed combat. This fact, when combined with the separation of the tank-crew commander from the rest of his crew, would be liable to foster a drop in morale among the French tank units (there is evidence to support this —noted by British tank crews working alongside the French later in the campaign). It was clear, they said, that when faced by German tanks the French crews became cautious and were almost paralysed; and this exaggerated respect for the enemy was a result of the drubbing they had received in their first encounters with the German tanks. Even if the balance of morale between the contestants was equal on May 9, a week later the defects in organisation, leadership, and tactics had swung the scales irrevocably in favour of the Germans.
The overriding superiority of the Germans over the Allies was inherent in their intention to make use of well co-ordinated, massed, all-arms formations, launched into battle at the critical points, commanded by inspired men of vision and determination. Men of the stamp of Guderian and Reinhardt led the armoured corps from the van of the battle (with Rommel leading one of the divisions) — and this wealth of talent could not fail to overwhelm lesser men with old-fashioned ideas. For on the Allied side, none of the generals of 1940 had
•    deep knowledge of armoured warfare; with
•    startling lack of foresight, those men who had made a study of the subject had been distributed to positions where their talents lay unused. Martel commanded an infantry division; Broad, Pile, and Lindsay had been sent—some say deliberately—to posts unconnected with armoured warfare; and Hobart had been removed from the Active List, though he was ultimately to be recalled. De Gaulle was only just in the process of assembling a brand new and totally inexperienced tank division.
Let it be admitted that men such as these were not easy to live with. They had learned to be ruthless in the face of long-established tradition, that out-dated rules must be broken whatever the personal and immediate consequences, and that these circumstances applied in all armies. Men insufficiently imbued with spirit failed in the face of military ‘vested interests’; those who stood up to them but were unblessed by fortune were removed—as Hobart was; those who fought, and were lucky, followed their stars to success in war in the forefront of the armoured battle.
In 1940, it was the Germans whose spirit and good fortune had combined — and so they dominated. Most of the French armoured commanders were ineffective, and the grossly outnumbered British tank men could not, except on one outstanding occasion, make a decisive contribution.
In numbers the Allies were superior to the Germans; in quality of equipment they were, on balance, about equal; in strategic and tactical application, they were markedly inferior.
The sheer superiority of German armoured technique ensured the certainty of their victory before the frontiers were crossed.

ARMOURED BALANCE IN 1939 BEFORE WWII

German, French, British, Americand and Russian Tanks and Weapons Before WWII in 1939

The tank was to be decisive in the coming campaign.
But the Germans did not have more or even markedly
better tanks than the Allies. They just used
them more imaginatively
Although the end of the First World War in November 1918 seemed outwardly to symbolise an Allied victory and total defeat for the German army, it did not in fact reflect the real balance of fighting power at the front nor illustrate the state which the revolution in warfare had reached. For in the last months of that war the Germans were still retiring in good order towards their homeland. Indeed they were beginning to stabilise the front as the offensive power of the Allied armies declined as a result of their losses and of the difficulties they were experiencing in maintaining men and material at increasing distances from their bases. Indeed, it was becoming progressively harder to drive the war-winning weapons –artillery and tanks –to the front, and there maintain them to fight in mass. And without their presence a relatively thin screen of machine-gunners could delay and hold up infantry and cavalry for sufficiently long to enable successive lines of defence to be prepared in the rear. By the beginning of November 1918, the Allied progress was getting slower and more feeble.
Yet the turning point had come in August and September when the defeats inflicted on the Germans signalised the failure of their own offensive, and underlined the war-weariness of the nation and army. The most decisive of these defeats occurred at Amiens on August 8, 1918, when 430 British tanks –in conjunction with cavalry and infantry –broke through the German lines, and thus convinced General Ludendorff, the controller of the German military machine, that the war had to be ended. The British tanks, fighting in close co-operation with the cavalry and infantry, did not penetrate much deeper than the forward German defences, but their employment in such numbers, carrying them forward 5 miles in one day, administered a shock to the German soldiers and their leader from which they did not fully recover.
The tanks of 1918 were neither fast enough nor sufficiently reliable to break through the enemy lines and then penetrate
deep into his rearmost tactical areas. But the tanks under construction for use in 1919 were meant to be capable of doing this very thing, and the Allied plans for that year were based on this kind of strategy. Against these new, faster, and more reliable machines, the Germans would have only been able to deploy conventional artillery, a number of inefficient light anti-tank rifles, and a few clumsy tanks of their own.
For Ludendorff had rejected tanks, thinking it unlikely that the early, slow, clumsy vehicles would ever become viable weapons of war. Anyway, when given new machines, armies take a long time to acquire the techniques necessary to keep them running and to use them to their best effect, so the lead which the Allies had built in two years could not be overtaken in a few months.
Atrophy
Thus the First World War ended at a moment when victory in the field was not clear-cut and its causes not sharply delineated. Many Germans were in no doubt that the surprise use of tanks, in large numbers in the least-expected sectors, had been a paramount factor in their defeat. General von Kuhl, who had been a staff officer in the army group attacked and defeated at Amiens, wrote ten years after the event that, in achieving surprise, the most important and decisive factor had been the tanks.
But the Allies were not similarly convinced and, gripped by inertia linked to their own war-weariness, were content to allow their military thinking to atrophy after 1918. As for the French, for over 20 years they persisted in a policy that compelled tanks to act merely as an adjunct to infantry on the one hand, and as a substitute for cavalry in the scouting role on the other. They envisaged all offensive operations taking place in a manner similar to those of 1918, and so locked themselves behind the fortifications of the Maginot Line, developing a purely defensive mentality. They could not believe that a war of manoeuvre fought by tank
armies would take place on their soil. Their tanks were therefore organised into battalions, the bulk of them (33 of between 45 and 60 tanks each) ordained to work in small groups in conjunction with infantry divisions.
The experiments carried out by the French army, starting in 1932, were based on their existing cavalry divisions. There evolved from these experiments three light mechanised divisions –with a fourth being formed in May 1940–each with 220 tanks, armoured cars, and a brigade of infantry. But this well-balanced force the French threatened to squander because the old cavalry doctrine dictated that it should be employed as a dispersed screen, or advance guard, ahead of the Allied armies when these advanced beyond the frontier to meet the Germans in Belgium.
After the destruction of the Polish army in September 1939, largely as the result of action by German tanks in conjunction with aircraft, the French hastily began to form four new tank divisions in which the machines were heavy ones and the infantry few in proportion to tanks. These were still not proper armoured divisions: their envisaged role was to breach a front through which other conventional formations could pass. They were thus merely an extension of the policy which tied tanks to infantry, and were not conceived as a balanced formation capable of driving deep into the enemy rear to strike at his nerve centres and his supplies–the very heart of his war-making capacity.
The British did not suffer from the same stagnation as the French, but in 1918 the nation that told itself that it had won the war, also persuaded itself that it could rest on its laurels. The heavy losses of tanks in the last few months of the First World War made a case for those who argued that the machine could not replace the horse as the agent of the decisive, mobile arm; the sentiment generated by a lifetime’s comradeship with the horse was strong–and so rejected change. Moreover, the formidable bills incurred in the manufacture and running of tanks, when presented to taxpayers who had had enough of war, were striking deterrents to new construction and expansion.
The ‘Tank Idea’
Nevertheless, real progress was made in Britain. The discovery that tanks and armoured cars offered a cheaper and better way of policing the more turbulent parts of the Empire encouraged experiment. And the persistence of a few enthusiasts projected the ‘Tank Idea’ as an element in warfare that intruded beyond the tactical battle into the realms of strategic decision. The names of Captain Liddell Hart, Generals Fuller, Lindsay, Broad, Pile, Hobart, and Martel appear at the head of the short list of pioneers who envisaged armoured forces becoming the decisive element in war, as well as being a straightforward economy of force when compared with the old horse and foot armies.
These men designed and trained tank units and formations that were unique both in their concept and technical proficiency. By the end of 1934, Hobart, as commander of the 1st Tank Brigade, had conclusively underlined what Broad and Pile had demonstrated in earlier years, namely that a mobile tank force could out-manoeuvre conventional forces by advances of prodigious length. And they showed that tanks could dominate the infantry of the day. These men were not dreamers. They were practical soldiers who based their judgements on the bitter experience gained by witnessing four years of slaughter during the First World War. They were often impatient with those who could not or would not understand, and who, by their slowness of mind, could not keep up with the pace demanded by mechanised forces.
Hobart, above all, with a ruthless driving force that he used to push his ideas ahead, would not permit the speed demanded by tank action to be slowed down by artillery, cavalry, and infantry units that were unable to keep up with his machines and their tempo of operation. By his requests for outstanding efficiency and speed, he frightened his more conventionally minded colleagues.
Eventually, there came about a reaction, accusing Hobart of demanding an all-tank army to the exclusion of the traditional arms. This was not entirely justified, since Hobart and his staff are clearly on record as having said they wanted infantry and artillery suitably mounted in armoured vehicles to go with their tanks; but the impression had been given they wanted an army based on armour, and the forces of reaction were quick to seize on this for use as a brake on the progress of the tank enthusiasts.
The traditionalists were also successful in acquiring political support; the Financial Secretary to the War Office, Duff Cooper,
stated in Parliament in 1934: ‘The more I study them [military affairs] the more I become impressed by the importance of [horsed] cavalry in modern warfare.’ In 1935 Duff Cooper became Secretary of State for War.
The traditionalists also insisted that some tanks should be designed and set aside for work in conjunction with the infantry, rather in the manner of the French. Thus Britain began to develop armoured forces of two kinds: the fast moving, all-arms groups, that were the genesis of future armoured divisions; and tank battalions designed for infantry work, equipped with so-called `I’ tanks.
But by investigating the entirely new problems inherent in mechanised forces, the British did train a small cadre of experts whose knowledge and experience were to be invaluable when war, and the need to expand, came. On the other hand, when at last, and too late, it was decided in 1937 to give tanks to a large number of cavalry regiments —instead of expanding the existing Tank Corps — another temporary brake was placed on improvements in quantity and quality at a moment when time was short in the race to catch up with German rearmament. Thus only a small proportion of the British tank units that went to war in May 1940 were experienced and imbued with an insight into mechanised warfare.
Of the British armoured forces ready for action in Europe in May 1940, there was only one armoured division and this was still training in England. In France there was a formation known as the 1st Army Tank Brigade comprising two battalions of the new ‘1′ tanks designed for close co-operation with the infantry. Of these units —the 4th and 7th Battalions, Royal Tank Regiment—the latter arrived in France on May 1 and was not as well-trained as the 4th. In addition there were with the BEF seven cavalry light armoured regiments mounted in light tanks: Their tasks of reconnaissance and co-operation with the infantry divisions were akin to the traditional cavalry role.
German enthusiasm
The restraints imposed on the French and British after 1918 were totally different from those imposed on the Germans. Because the Treaty of Versailles forbade Germany to have her own tanks, she was reduced to carrying out a few sporadic and subversive experiments, mostly under cover in Russia. But because the Germans had been defeated, as they thought, by the tank as much as any other weapon, they were more anxious than anything else to acquire knowledge of mechanised armoured forces. The same traditional reactions that beset the British innovators held back the progressive German soldiers too, but with the advent of Hitler the political atmosphere became the reverse of Britain’s.
As he cast aside the restrictions of Versailles, Hitler gave his enthusiastic backing to the soldiers whose ideas and experience were devoted to tanks. Those generals who had been associated with the early tank investigations — Guderian, Thoma, Lutz, Brauchitsch, Blomberg, and Reichenauwere now brought to the fore.
These men possessed imagination and insight, the appreciation of the strategic and psychological effect of deep thrusts, and the zest for speed and decision demanded by the nature of armoured operations. They were unanimous and generous in their acknowledgement of the profit they gained after studying, and often copying, the British experiments (Guderian is said to have toasted Hobart’s name in champagne after a successful German tank exercise before the war). They paid little attention to the French—not even to de Gaulle, who had published a short work on the ‘Army of the Future’. As a result, by 1936 the Germans were catching up fast in numbers and quality of machines, and had taken a clear lead in organisation and application over the British and the French, who two years before had been ahead in every department of armoured warfare.