Sherman Vs. Panzer

I said the advance from Normandy, not in Normandy. Not everywhere in France is bocage country. In fact, very little of it is.

Which is what I said. Cheers.

Yes, the panzers got well ahead of the infantry, just as I said. In fact, the Germans had very few motorised infantry and relied on horses right through to the end of the war.

Armoured recon or air support tended to do all the scouting, not the infantry. The whole point of having armour is mobility, you don't put the infantry in front of the tanks, it would slow them down.

As has been noted already, wrong-o. The 2pdr was probably the best ATG in service at the time and every platoon had a Boyes rifle. The British troops were as well equipped for anti-tank warfare as any others.

Again, I have never disputed that properly equipped and supported infantry can hold off armour.

 

Operation Market garden then, when the allied armoured convies were told to hold and wait for the infantry.

Just because they had them in service does mean they were all available to the infantry units facing the panzers.


We could go on and on, the facts are you need infantry with the tanks they go hand in hand with each other.

 

You lot seem to have been busy in my absence!
On the WW1 tanks vs Germans, after the initial shock in 1916, the Germans imroved the AT defenses. As has already been mentioned, there was the SMK round, but with the later models of British and French tank this lost it's effectiveness.
They also had specialised AT rifles, but bear with me for any information as I am on the laptop.
The biggest killer was artillery. In a bit I will give you a little more on this. The tanks could have been superb, but the Allied commanders did not use them properly and so they suffered high casualties.
Minefields and Shellholes also played a part in diminishing the tank's successes.

Back on WW2.
How would a unsupported infantry unit hold of a tank attack? Couldn't they call in air or artillery support?

Infantry is very dangerous for tanks. I think it was Wittman who said he feared infantry and AT guns more than enemy tanks. And rightly so. People are naturally fearfull of things you can't see, e.g. Ghosts, and from inside a buttened up tank you can't see very much. And a small object like a man in a building or hedge is very hard to see.
Even if the infantryman can't kill the tank, he can just let it pass and fire on any "soft" object following it, in theory, anyway.

 

In Stalingrad most of the German veicles destroyed were destroyed by Russian infantry. A molotov cocktail or a AT rifle shot on the tracks and then gang up on the tank and just pour gasoline in it and let it ablaze or a hiden Zis-2 AT gun in the middle of two buildings were Russian favourites.
You can always read this book Amazon.co.uk: World War II Infantry Anti-tank Tactics (Elite): Gordon L. Rottman, Ramiro Bujeiro: Books
But it'll tell basically what any modern infantry book has to say about anti tank warfare.



Cheers...

 

So we have to believe the British Army units had no anti-tank support because you say so?

Speaking about the 1940 infantry organisation,

 

A/ It wasn't in 1940 B/ They were told to wait because they had successfully advanced well ahead of the infantry, what's your point? I've already noted that infantry support is required in certain circumstances and not in others.

Well, then they were poorly equipped and would be unable to hold off the attack, just as I've said already. But that goes for every army, not just the British. The Germans didn't have any mystical abilities that meant that they could resist tanks without the right support and equipment. Standard German AT weapons were the Pak 36 "doorknocker" and an Anti-tank rifle, just like the British.

No, the fact is that the tanks often went hand in hand, not always. And especially not in 1940.

 

I think they also had Bofors ATGs, which were something like 30-35mm. I'd need to check the calibre.

 

Altight mate this is going around and around, so thats it for me on this subject, it has now gotten boring.

 

Got a little tired of having your arse kicked?
I know how you feel!

 

No that never bothers me, it is the only way to learn but I am just typing the same thing over and over again.

 

This man v tank stuff is a bit of a myth. Yes, ATGs were inavaluable against tanks, but the idea that if you had nothing but a bottle of petrol, you could just run out and blow up a tank is just nonsense. Generally, you would either get yourself killed or the tank would be unscathed and you would have to give it another go, or withdraw. Even panzerschrecks and bazookas were difficult to aim and often ineffective. There's a case of a Churchill III being hit seven times by panzerfausts and surviving unharmed. Those things needed a lot of luck, bravery and skill to work and often one or more of those elements just wasn't available.

 

But in Stalingrad you had plenty of cover and ample ambush opportunities. Tanks would have a hard time dealing with ambushes and such due to the nature of urban warfare. I may be called crazy but a well trained infantryman with the right equipement could pose a serious threat to a tank.
Here are my reasons:
Tanks are restricted by roads so it's kinda easy to predict where they're going. Buildings provide ample cover and space maneuver thus making you hard to find (you could throw a molotov from a second floor window and 30secs later you could be in the 4th).
Also, you can hide quite easilly and wait for the tank to be near you before placing a magnetic mine on the bugger or something.
You can withdraw quite easily whereas the tank can't. Especialy if you for isntance with an explosive charge close the path behind the tank.

So, all in all, in urban combat, infantry is at quite an advantage against tanks I think.
Sure the tank has plenty of advantages but I think in close combat it loses most of them and gets in places where the infantry can really make a dent.


Cheers...

 

A tank commander who got himself in a predicament as the above on his own free will should have his corpse (yeah, he wouldn't last long) hanged and quartered for stupidity!

 

Well, not quite, one of the whole reasons for building tanks is that they can go anywhere. They would often crash through buildings if they could. Plus, when there's nothing left but ruins there's not much restricting tanks.

Any buildings thought to be harbouring enemy infantry were blown up. British Army policy was to destroy any church spire they encountered, for instance. They felt that the likelihood of observers using it made it worthwhile to shoot first and ask questions later. The same goes for tanks entering any built up area. Plus there's no guarantee that your molotov will actually do any damage. They carried fire extinguishers for a reason.

Well good luck with that. In reality, the commander/next tank/supporting infantry would very sensibly shoot at you until you thought better of it. Plus the patience required to sit and hide for hours on end with no guarantee that any tank would actually pass by is limited to only the most looney fanatics.

Again, the commander/next tank/supporting infantry would have something to say about that.

It's a leveller, that's for sure, especially in modern warfare, but it's not impossible to overcome.

Until 1942/3 the infantry had to rely on anti-tank guns, they had no personal anti-tank capability of any note.

 

Tha Abbey at Monte Cassino is a good example

Battle of Monte Cassino - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

Sure and that gave the Germans better defensive positions.
Crashing tanks into buildings is not a good idea. You may find your tanks unusable or, in the case of a war scenario the building could colapse on top of you and that is never good (there's so muh a tank can handle). Plus, Breaking a wall with a tank can easilly affect the more sensitive parts of the tank such as tracks, turret mechanisms,...

Ambushes did happen and in urban warfare, even today they're quite common.

And for anti tank ablility of infantry in 42-43, they had a lot of close range weapons. An AT rifle on the tracks would pin down a tank, a Panzerabwehrmin, RPG 1940 (it sucked but some did the job), the VPGS 1940 (slightly better but still sucked) the RPG 1943 (that did the trick) the molotov cocktail, the no. 76 Grenade (self igniting phosphorus grenade with a mix of phosphorus, water, benzine and ruber for the tick effect) boys AT rifle, Panzerwurfmine (veteran infantrymen caused havoc with these)...


So you see, they had plenty AT weapons at their disposal.



Cheers...

 

And yet they did it. Especially if they wanted to avoid being ambushed.

Of course they are, all I'm saying is that an ambush by unsupported or ill-equipped infantry is likely to fail with heavy losses.

I'm assuming you mean pre-1942/3. What you've got there is a list of weapons that suck. More AT rifles ended up being "lost" in ditches than being fired at tanks, early HEAT weapons like AT grenades were so unlikely to work or be effective that you'd have been better off trying to brain the commander with them. In particular, the panzerwurfmine couldn't be thrown very far and required (like most HEAT weapons) a 90 degree impact. Which was highly unlikely in a combat situation. I've already commented on the effectiveness of molotovs (i.e. they're not). Phosphorous grenades were also limited in range and effectiveness. At most you could hope that the tank crew started choking and would have to withdraw or abandon the tank. Which meant that the tank could be retrieved (as most disabled tanks were) and repaired.

And they were all crap. Until the invention of the rocket AT device, the infantryman had very little personal anti-tank capability and what he did have was either ineffective or too dangerous to use effectively. Even bazookas/PIATs/Panzerschrecks/Panzerfausts weren't that great, but they were a quantum leap to what had gone before.

 

Haven't we gone through this already?

 

I know and I'm not debating their AT weapons were great or not. The fact is, they had them. and they managed to get some degree of success with them.

The molotovs were effective enough for the Red army to issue an official "molotov bottle". It's supposed to make things burn and the fumes and heat would make life inside a tank "unconfortable". Look all I'm saying is that infantry stands a chance against tanks. That's how it all started I guess. We could be here discussing who is more right but, it probably wouldn't take us anywhere.

So, my final statement is: Well prepared and placed infantry stands a very good chance against a tank.
Even Guderian says so in Achtung Panzer


Cheers...

 

That's why Guderian also said "Screw the infantry, we'll go round them, that's what we have tracks for", or words to that effect.