Revised Edition: 2016 ISBN 978-1-283-50038-8 © All rights reserved. Published by: University Publications 48 West 48 Street, Suite 1116, New York, NY 10036, United States Email: [email protected] Table of Contents Chapter 1 - Introduction to Armoured Warfare Chapter 2 - Tanks in World War I Chapter 3 - Second Battle of El Alamein Chapter 4 - Battle of Kursk WT ________________________WORLD TECHNOLOGIES________________________ Chapter- 1 Introduction to Armoured Warfare WT British tanks advancing under fire at the Second Battle of El Alamein during World War II. Armoured warfare or tank warfare is the use of armoured fighting vehicles in modern warfare. It is a major component of modern methods of war. The premise of armoured warfare rests on the ability of troops to penetrate conventional defensive lines through use of manoeuvre by armoured units. ________________________WORLD TECHNOLOGIES________________________ Much of the application of armoured warfare depends on the use of tanks and related vehicles used by other supporting arms such as infantry fighting vehicles and self- propelled artillery, as well as mounted combat engineers and other support units. The doctrine of armoured warfare was developed to break the static nature of World War I trench warfare on the western front, and return to the 19th century school of thought that advocated manoeuvre and "decisive battle" outcomes in military strategy. First World War Prior to World War I, horse-mounted cavalry performed what is now the role of tanks; manoeuvring and breaking through enemy infantry to attack army lines of communication in the rear. Strategic use of tanks was slow to develop during and immediately after World War I, partly due to technical limitations but also due to the prestige role traditionally accorded to horse-mounted cavalry. Modern armoured warfare began with the need to break the tactical, operational and strategic stalemates forced on commanders on the Western Front by the effectiveness of entrenched defensive infantry armed with machine guns - known as trench warfare. WT Under these conditions, any sort of advance was impossibly slow and occasioned massive casualties. The development of the tank was motivated by the need to return manoeuvre to warfare. Tanks were first developed in Britain, as a way of navigating the barbed wire and other obstacles of no-man's land while remaining protected from machine-gun fire. The manoeuvrability of the tank would at least in theory regain armies the ability to flank enemy lines. In practice, tank warfare during most of World War I was hampered by mechanical failure, limited numbers, and general underutilisation. British Mark I tanks first went to action at the Somme, on September 15, 1916, but did not manage to break the deadlock of trench warfare. In the Battle of Cambrai (1917) British tanks were more successful, and broke a German trenchline system, the Hindenburg Line. After the disastrous final German offensive, tanks were used at the Battle of Soissons and the Battle of Amiens, which ended the stalemate imposed by trench warfare on the Western Front, and thus effectively ended the war. Following the First World War, the technical and doctrinal aspects of armoured warfare became more sophisticated and diverged into multiple schools of doctrinal thought. Interwar period During the 1920s, various British and French commanders who had been associated with the development of the tank were involved in developing the new ideas. The significant split in philosophy can be said to be French and British in schools of thought. The French school proposed the armoured forces to be largely an infantry supporting arm, demanding heavily armoured tanks armed with infantry support guns, as well as ________________________WORLD TECHNOLOGIES________________________ 'cavalry' tanks operating en masse to break through the enemy defensive lines. Although seen as retrograding and reminiscent of WW1 tank use, it advocated a doctrine that included a desire to introduce an element of manoeuvre without expecting collapse of the enemy infantry's defence. The British school leaned more towards more mobile and lighter designs supported by equally mobile units of infantry, artillery and sappers to replace horse-mounted cavalry. These self-contained motorised detachments would depend on the tank only to provide a way to penetrate the main enemy defensive lines, and would seek to bring about defeat of the enemy by severing the lines of communication and supply as had been done during the previous century. Both doctrines were faced with the reality during the 1920s that the armoured vehicles (as early road transport in general) were extremely unreliable, and could not be used in sustained operations. In Britain Liddell Hart wrote extensively on tank warfare and the theories of Colonel Fuller. The British War Office sanctioned the creation of the Experimental Mechanised Force which was formed on May 1, 1927, under Colonel R. J. Collins. The units were WT entirely mobile and consisted of reconnaissance tankettes and armoured cars, a battalion of 48 Vickers medium tanks, a motorised machine gun battalion, a mechanised artillery regiment, which had one battery of fully tracked self-propelled guns capable of acting as conventional or anti-aircraft artillery (Birch guns), and a motorised company of field engineers. The unit carried out operations on Salisbury Plain and was observed by the other major nations, the United States, Germany, and the Soviet Union. Although its performance was recognised, it was disbanded in 1928. All European states (with the exception of Germany), the USA, and Japan, would create their own experimental mechanised forces during the late 1920s, many using either French or British vehicle designs or even directly purchased vehicles, but largely borrowing from both to develop their own doctrines. Early in the 1930s after the rise to power of the Nazi Party in Germany, German officers were sent to observe and participate in development of armoured doctrine in the USSR. In the 1930s the British Army began the conversion of its cavalry from horse to tanks. Although there were differences on where British military strength should be developed, with the Royal Air Force and Royal Navy being favoured by some in power, all but a few regiments were fully converted by 1939. In the Soviet Union during the early 1930s Red Army and German officers collaborated in developing use of tanks based on 2nd generation vehicles using turreted main weapons, and experimenting with different chassis configurations and drive trains. One important acquisition for the Red Army turned out to be the purchase of a T3 chassis from an inspired US designer J.W.Christie which served as the basis of the Soviet BT series of fast tanks. The Red Army in particular was much influenced by the theoretical works of Marshal Tukhachevsky that led to development of infantry support heavy tanks and fast 'cavalry' tanks for use in the theory of deep operations similar to the German ________________________WORLD TECHNOLOGIES________________________ blitzkrieg. This development led to the intent by the Red Army to form a massive tank force of thousands of vehicles. As Europe neared another conflict, doctrinal development of armoured warfare was still in development, opinion split between proponents of infantry as the primary combat arm, and those arguing that infantry was to become the supporting arm of the more mobile armoured forces. Use of armoured warfare was most prominently tested during the Soviet-Japanese Border Wars conflict in 1938. Second World War WT A German Tiger I tank in combat during the Battle of Kursk in 1943 Modern armour warfare doctrine developed during the years immediately preceding World War II, in most cases with the tank seen as an infantry support weapon in the breakthrough of defence lines role. A fundamental key to conventional warfare is the concentration of force at a particular point on the enemy's defence line seen as either weak or offering other tactical, operational or strategic advantages. Concentration of force increases the chance of victory in a particular engagement through application of one of the Principles of War - Mass. This point, if correctly chosen and exploited, assures a greater chance of success in a given tactical engagement or a small number of operational engagements which are often sufficient to win a strategically decisive battle. The German term that later came to define the building of such a concentration at a given ________________________WORLD TECHNOLOGIES________________________ point is Schwerpunktbildung, which can be translated as "development of a centre of effort". This can be visualised when looking at two opposing defensive lines, each composed of two infantry and two armoured divisions, distributed consistently along the length of a line. A numerically equivalent attacker can win by concentrating his two armoured divisions at one point of the line with his two infantry divisions holding the rest of the line, thus increasing the chance of breaching the enemy defences, then passing through, turning the flank of the severed two halves of the defensive line, and further exploiting the numerical superiority against the smaller number of defenders on the flank to force them to retreat onto the intact part of the line, therefore widening the breach. The defensive line could attempt to counterattack, but it is not strong at any point and although the combined infantry and armour attack of the defenders is stronger than an infantry only attack, it is not very much stronger (since the divisions are spread out along the entire line) and it is in general much easier to defend than attack due to the factor of field entrenchment and field engineering in preparation for such counterattacks. A major aspect of all warfare is the simple formula, known as the Lanchester's Square WT Law, that the relative combat power of a combat unit in contact with each other to the relative combat power of an enemy of a given size, all other factors being equal, is the square of the number of members of that unit: • One tank obviously has the combat power of one tank. (1² = 1) • Two tanks have four times the relative combat power of a single tank. (2² = 4) From this it is derived that twice as many tanks will quadruple the relative firepower — relative that is, to the amount of firepower the enemy has per member of the friendly unit; one could also express this by saying that their relative punishment from enemy action is reduced four times, which is the same thing — as not only their own absolute number is doubled, but the number of enemy tanks relative to each of their own, is thereby halved also. Thus, concentrating two divisions into one point and attacking generates a far greater force than is achieved by spreading two divisions into a line and pushing forward on a broad front. Concentration of force requires mobility to prevent the enemy detecting the point of attack in time to reinforce the section of the defence, and concentration of firepower to be effective in combat once concentrated. The tank embodies these two properties, and so constitutes the primary weapon in armoured warfare. Forces of all participating powers during WW2 were composed predominantly of the Infantry and other combat supporting Arms (artillery, reconnaissance troops, engineers and logistics and service troops). With the possible exceptions of the United Kingdom and the United States (which both had fully mechanised by wars end), the infantry units ________________________WORLD TECHNOLOGIES________________________ were still highly dependent on horse-drawn vehicles, as was the artillery on horse-towed guns when operating in the field. Strategic movement was provided by the rail transport networks. British and French Pre-war In the UK and in France, armour was accepted into the Army, but using a division of labour: some as infantry support weapons, others as cavalry replacements. As such, the UK and French infantry tanks were heavily armoured, and as a consequence slow, whereas British cavalry ("cruiser") tanks were swift, and as a result poorly armoured. Only some of the German tanks were designed for independent mobile operations and as all-around tanks: lighter, considerably more mobile, but more weakly armed and armoured than the infantry tanks. Tanks were not yet seen to be a primary anti-tank weapon. When the German tanks actually had to fight the UK infantry tanks in 1940, they were severely discomfited—but recovered to drive the British army out of continental Europe. WT At the start of the German invasion, France possessed more tanks and, in one-to-one terms, better tanks, than the Germans. However, what mattered was how the tanks were used, and French command distributed half of its tanks among independent Bataillons de Chars de Combat (battle tank battalions) for infantry support, rendering them tied to decision-making of the local army commanders. In 1940 the German command concentrated its tanks into Panzer divisions and used them for strategic envelopment, smashing their way through the French defensive line, and driving towards The Channel, threatening to sever communications and supply lines with the national centres of logistic support. To counter such attacks, a mobile anti-tank force must be held in reserve and moved to meet the attack. The French had no strategic reserve at all; let alone a highly mobile reserve as their three Cavalry armoured divisions (Divisions Legeres Mécaniques or Mechanised Light Divisions), the only armoured units organised on the lines of the German armoured divisions, had already been committed in the Low Countries, which was crucial in the French failure to counteract the German penetration, as the four French Infantry armoured divisions lacked sufficient strategic mobility. However, later in the campaign a new tactic was applied which proved highly resistant against tank attacks. This was called the hedgehog. However, due to the losses already sustained, the French could never counterattack, and the hedgehogs were eventually by-passed by the German troops. North African theatre In the deserts of North Africa, the British developed the alternative approach of combining the armoured, infantry and artillery together to form a 'balanced, combined arms team'. The 10th Italian Army of Maresciallo (Marshal) Rodolfo Graziani, being ill- ________________________WORLD TECHNOLOGIES________________________ armed and inadequately led, soon gave way to this approach by the Commonwealth troops of the 8th Army. The arrival of the German Afrika Korps under command of General der Infanterie Erwin Rommel highlighted the weaknesses of the British approach: the small number of infantry and artillery in each armoured division was sufficient when attacking the immobile and uncoordinated Italian troops, but against the highly mobile, well- coordinated German units, the undermanned Commonwealth formations were proving inadequate. It was only towards the later years of the war, with the invasion of the European mainland, that the Allied Armies began to become more effective in armoured warfare. In 1942 and 1943, the Allies consistently lost armoured battles in the North African desert due to improper tactics; in particular, running armoured formations into opposing anti- tank positions. Red Army Pre-war WT Much of the Red Army development in tank use was based on the theoretical work carried out by such officers as Tukhachevsky and Triandafillov in the mid to late 1930s. This was as part of the two-directioned concepts, one being infantry-centred "broad front" and the other being a "shock army". While the infantry based part of the doctrine demanded "powerful tanks" (heavy tanks armed with infantry guns and machineguns) and "tankettes" (light, often amphibious tanks with machineguns), the shock Army demanded "manoeuvre tanks" (fast tanks with medium guns) used in conjunction with motorised forces and "mechanised cavalry" that would operate in depth as "strategic cavalry" combined with nascent airborne troops. These ideas culminated in the "PU-36" or the 1936 Field Service Regulations. Red Army wartime At the start of the Second World War much of the Red Army, including its armoured forces, were in transition and recovering following the 1937 repression of the officer corps and the consequences of the Soviet-Finnish War of 1939. The Red Army tank fleet was extremely large, consisting of some 24,000 vehicles, but many were obsolete or unfit for service due to difficulties with supplying spare parts and lack of qualified support staff. Almost half of the tank fleet was lost in the first month of the war. The Red Army's initial strategic withdrawal relegated the armoured forces to a secondary role, however one important development took place shortly before the war which was to influence Soviet armoured doctrine and tank design for a decade: the creation of the T- 34. Developed on the Christie suspension chassis and using for the first time sloped armour, the T-34 proved a shocking surprise to the German forces with its high velocity ________________________WORLD TECHNOLOGIES________________________