Sherman Vs. Panzer

Stirred but not shaken?

 

The Hessa ladning has been used up to this day in our army. (lately used in the special courses) The same principle was used in ad-hoc linenar hollow charges to destroy bridges etc. in front of the advancing Red Army.

To create the bucket version a hole for the detonator was made in the bottom in the bucket and a lid of anoil drum was fashioned to make the 'hollow'. As Za points out the calibration of the hollow decide the range of the device. To flat a hollow and the device is almost useless.

The device would be put in place (dug in on the road) and detonated electrically.

The reason for using a bucket was the avalability and size. (even if it isn't perfect it will have a desired effect.)

 

Strictly speaking, AT guns are artillery. You wouldn't call someone firing a 150mm howitzer infantry, and it's the same with a 2pdr. They support the infantry but they aren't infantry, as it were. When you talk about infantry anti-tank weapons, you aren't talking about Pak 36s or 6 pdrs, you're talking about bazookas, PIATs, Haftholladung and the like.

Yes, under a certain set of circumstances, tanks need infantry support, but infantry needed anti-tank support all the time or they couldn't do a damn thing to them. Especially in 1940.

 

All the army works hand in hand, one is virtually useless without the other, the British during Operation Market Garden held there advance to "wait for the infantry" Because other wise "Jerry will pick us off like flies" and it goes vice versa as well.

No smart tank commander would put his tank near an uncleared building until the infantry have cleared it, the infantry, yes, need tank support to take on armour and waves of infantry, but again it is vice versa.

 

what about a/t mines.

 

Mines are essentially terrain denying passive weapons. Once they are identified (by previous reconnaissance or by the stumbling method) the minefield will be avoided or if time allows have lanes cleared. Minefield clearing takes an awful amount of time.

 

Drucius.

You cannot say one single infantryman. You need to look at the organisation of the infantry unit be it a coy or batallion.

Look, I'm a platoon commander in the RNA. In my battallion we have a variety of equipment, but the lads are all in the infantry. My Grandad was in AR 3 during the 1940 campaign he was in the artillery.

In lower formations such as a batallion we have support coy's but they are part of the infantry batallion.

During the war british infantry had AT guns as part of the batallion and other AT guns ar part of the AT regiment. (for example the 75 reg was part of the 11th Armd div.)

There is a distinction between the two.

(and the At guns at Kvam were French Hotchkiss all 5 of them)

 

Under certain circumstances (the Panzers in France 1940, the Allied advance from Normandy), the tanks can outstrip their infantry by a considerable distance. Yes, in an urban environment, tanks need close support, but out in the countryside, the tanks could and did operate without any infantry support whatsoever. Rommel often left a huge gap between his tanks and the infantry in 1940 simply because he was advancing at such a pace and his infantry were not mechanised sufficiently to keep up.

 

If you can agree that unsupported infantry didn't have a hope in hell of stopping an armoured unit in 1940, we'll get on just fine.

Well, I read 8, but either way a 25mm Hotchkiss would be an extremely handy thing to have if you were faced with a Pz I

 

Why would anyone want to agree to that?

 

Yes in 1917~8 the German infantry tactics against tanks proved awfully effective! The first time Tanks encountered their stormtroopers they got a nasty shock!



Cheers...

 

In Normandy the Allied armoured covoys of tanks were teared apart by well placed German ATguns in the French Hedgerows and were often stalled due to this, so a bad example.

Well organised infantry with the right AT support can hold a tank advance, such as the British and commonwealth troops at tobruk against Rommel.

In France 1940 the Germans used limited Mechanized and motororised infantry to keep up with the tanks such as the grenadiers, when the tanks over extended their supply lines and reinforcing units stil moving up, they would be forced to stop their advance and "wait for the infantry".

Tanks are just as vulnerable to infantry in teh countryside as they are the city, what happens when they hit a village, or a line of trees, or even a ditch where the infantry are hiding with AT weapons? What good is their country side there? You need the infantry to scout and support your tanks, again I say, you can not have one without the other. What good is your tank when it outstripps the infantry and advances to close to a city, what will they do?

Wait for the infantry.

Not supporting you troops in any form is like going out in a thunderstorm with an umbrella, not a good idea.

You must remember that the Germans were prepared for war unlike their Allied enemies, the British were ill equipped to deal with panzers at this time in the war, this we are not disputing.

But if you look again at the example I posted earlier in this post about the siege of Tobruk and you get your answer as the whether infantry can hold an armoured advance.

 

Guderian states this in his Achtung Panzer. He says one can't ignore the defensive power of well placed infantry.


Cheers...

 

Torn apart

Tch, tch, tch, tch.

No sir, on the countryside the tanks are at a range, where they can only be engaged by AT Guns. In close terrain they are within range of smaller infantry weapons, such as AT waepons (AT Rifles, AT grenades, Sticky Bombs, etc., later on Panzerfäuste, bazookas, etc.) and other improvised weapons (Molotov Cocktails, demolition charges, etc). Also in close terrain tanks are under severe mobility limitations, run increased risk of accidents (barricades, ditches, debris), and also a tank in close terrain will be even blinder than usual, hence the need for infantry to 'scratch his back', that is, to keep the enemy from climbing aboard and dump a Molotov cocktail on the engine grilles.

And the Tobruk problem meant field defences - minefields, ditches, trenches, obstacles - plus of course the infantry to man them, that is, keep those pesky Sappers from dismantling them.

Not disputing? What was the difference? The Germans had Antitank weapons (Panzerbüchse and 37mm PaK), and so did the Brits (Boyes AT Rifle and 2pdr ATG). They were equally prepared for antitank warfare.

Why do you say that? A better explanation please?

 

At Cambrai for instance after the initial Break in the British made, the German response with Elite shock troops with good artillery support managed to regain the lost ground and they achieved a break in to recover lost ground more rapidly than the British had with the 600 tanks they employed.
Again, at the German 3 major offensives by Lundendorff in 1918 they used storm troopers to great effect being battle tiredness and ill-discipline that prevented them to go further (ok lack of a sizable tank force helped). That's why I say that well trained and prepared infantry isn't at such a disadvantage against tanks. Actually in urban fighting they can probably overcome a tank with ease (a couple of molotovs in the beasts abd it's cooking time!).



Cheers...

 

What else is new?

It must be me not seeing the logic. You had said "The first time Tanks encountered their stormtroopers they got a nasty shock!". Are you implying the Stosstruppen went against the tanks? Do you mean 4 battles of infantry attacking tanks??? Were the tanks still in place and hadn't been relieved by infantry? Please clarify.

Oh, and this is a WW2 forum, not WW1. Not-WW2 matters are in a different section of the forum.

 

Yup they did went against tanks. Sure it may not have been the full force but they did.
Oh and I just posted this here to show that well prepared and trained infantry was able to tackle tanks.


Cheers...

 

Maybe in a ww1 setting but as Za pointed out this is ww2 and therefore tactics or the ability of ww1 infantry has nothing to do with the ww2 infantry battles other then the lessons learned from ww1.

Ok off the subject of ww2, how were the infantry able to destroy the tanks, did they surround it and throw rocks at it? World war 1 infantry lacked an\y ability to deal with tanks of any kind, they had no AT guns to speal of, no AT grenades or infantry AT support weapons so could you please supply a reference for your information as to how they did this, other then the infantry simply spotting for the artillery.

Oh could you post this in the military History section so we don't get this thread off topic?

 

I'll just post a quick off-topic post
The Germans didn't threw rocks. Besides having light support artillery behind them in direct fire mode, they had grenades (that when properly placed were devastating in WWI) and the SMK rounds for their rifles who managed to pierce all but the heavy saint chamond irrc.
For sources see Bruce Gudmundsson: Storm troop tactics and a book from Fuller if I'm not mistaken (don't recal the name).
In WWII the equipement of infantry was much more adequate to deal with tanks so, again, properly prepared infantry can hold it's own against tanks (see Tobruck for a WW2 example).



Cheers...


Cheers...