Tanks in Battle

In 1936 a civilian wrote:

"The big new factor in the next war will be the motor. . . . Now, just as an airplane covers in an hour a distance which could be covered 25 years ago only by 20 days of marching, just so a mechanized army passing the frontier . . . can penetrate 40 leagues in the enemy country if it overcomes the obstacles it finds on the way. . . .

"What limits the power of a fleet is not the number of men, it is the number of ships. What limits the power of an air force is the number of planes. What will limit in the future the power of a land army will not be the number of men, it will be the number and power of its war engines. . . .

"It seems likely that the German Army, preceded by its powerful tanks, will roll in through Holland to Belgium where it is ardently to be hoped that the Albert Canal from Antwerp to Liege will . . . stop them. If not, it would move toward our northern frontier, 350 kilometers wide."

Last fortnight this prophecy came colossally true, and its author, Paul Reynaud occupied the unenviable post of Premier of France and Minister of Defense.

Land Fleets. When German mechanized columns plunged through Poland last September, the French Army, thanks partly to Paul Reynaud, had five mechanized divisions behind her Maginot Line, as well as many battalions of 11 to 15 ton tanks assigned to work with infantry divisions. During the long, dull winter the French sped up their tank production.

Lord Nuffield tried to do the same in England. Great Britain's Royal Tank Corps became the Royal Armoured Corps of two divisions, plus two Territorial divisions, totaling in all about 1,000 tanks, mostly light (6 ton), with some Packard-motored 12 tonners. The Allies considered their tanks superior to Germany's in armor and firepower, though slightly slower, less numerous.

Germany was known to have twelve divisions (400 each) of tanks of various sizes up to 20 tons, integrated into an Army of Attack organized by Lieut. General Heinz Guderian, 54, a general-staff officer in World War I, since 1938 Commanding General of Armored Forces, now Chief of Motorized Troops. For his juggernauts' work in Poland he received the Knight's Iron Cross and the panache,

"Liberator of His Fatherland" (because he was born in what became the Polish Corridor). His crossing of the Brahe in the Corridor caused the destruction of three Polish divisions and a cavalry brigade east of that river, but the Allies estimated him chiefly from his textbook Look Out, Tanks! (1939), which summarized his basic tactical principle with superb triteness: "It is important to penetrate swiftly and deeply into enemy positions with a great number of tanks."

So stood the tank situation last fortnight when one spearhead of the German Army of Attack darted across The Netherlands to Rotterdam. Three more lanced through above and below Liege, two more above and below Sedan. When General Guderian unleashed his Army, all Allied preconceptions of these columns' speed and power went overboard. As did their machines of the air, the Germans' land machines so overwhelmed the Allies that only courage and discipline saved "strategic retreat" from immediately becoming "rout."

Allied troops were stunned, consternation filled the Allied staffs at the ease with which these metal monsters passed through obstacles built specially to meet them; how they crossed rivers and canals as though these were paved boulevards; how they deployed and wheeled through com plex evolutions with the speed and assurance of mounted cavalry. How did they do it?

Barrage. In place of the artillery barrage which used to precede tank attacks on strongly held positions, the air arm led the way. Attack-bombers swooping low (to 300 feet) in endless triads blasted forts and weaker defense positions. They sprayed the defenders and their gun crews with machine-gun fire, turned and dumped their bomb loads. Other planes laid smoke screens for tanks to charge under. Allied gun crews had to resort to plotted area fire.

BreakThrough. When the way was prepared, 20-ton break-through tanks, each carrying eight to 16 men, charged in, regardless of losses two to a squadron, two squadrons to a battery, three batteries to a section, three sections to a 36 tank regiment, plus a reserve echelon. Where deep rivers or canals interposed, the bombing planes covered the break-through tanks while, according to other stories, water tight 30-ton amphibians wallowed in, to let bridges be built across their steel backs for the rest. Other tanks apparently carried pontoons for crossing water. Across tank asparagus, pits, ravines, special bridging tanks laid trusses. Pioneer troops slipped ahead with acetylene torches to cut away steel obstructions. Bridges reached intact they reinforced to bear the juggernauts' weight. Between planes overhead and the clanking mastodons on the ground, radio contact was kept up constantly. Timing was worked out to a matter of seconds. Fire-power of the break-through tanks was several heavy machine guns, plus light cannon. Their armor could resist any fire short of 75 mm. at all ordinary ranges-a fact which nullified the French defense plan of 25 mm. anti-tank guns arranged in depth. Once through, the break-through tanks sought only to smash up all anti-tank weapons in sight, then to plunge ahead as far as possible, never stopping.

Behind the break-through tanks came assault tanks of six to ten tons, carrying light cannon and machine guns firing through ports guarded by revolving steel discs synchronized to the guns' tempo, each manned by one officer or non-com and one private. Of these, five made a squadron, three squadrons a company (plus the unit leader's car, radio car and reserve echelon), three companies a battalion, three battalions to a 135-tank regiment, plus reserves. Two regiments of breakthrough and two of assault tanks made a 400-tank armored division.

Lorries carried the assault tanks to their scene of action, unloading and readying them for action in five minutes. Their function, following the breakthrough, was to fan out and attack troops in trenches, nests, pillboxes. Some were said to spew flames 70 yards into blockhouse ventilators and machine-gun nests.

Motorized Infantry, shock troops in armored trucks attached to the Attack Army, machine-gunners on armored motorcycles, followed the assault tanks. Behind them followed motorized field artillery. The job of these forces was to widen and hold the breach made, turn it over to ordinary infantry brought up behind. Maximum speed of the whole armored column was that of the break-through tanks: 18 m.p.h. But with each column, for special demolition duty and advance work, went 170-h.p. Diesel-powered medium tanks capable of 85 m.p.h. on roads, 50 m.p.h. across country on their caterpillar tracks. And the Germans also revealed, according to reports, some unheralded 80-ton monsters, rolling fortresses mounting field guns and howitzers.

Attack Army's task was to push on & on never to retreat except to resume formation, never to worry about food, fuel, ammunition supply, which would be sent forward to them in due time. Should a Panzer column reach an impasse, its duty was to fan out in all directions, like an exploding projectile: to play havoc upon railroads, telegraph, telephone, power, gas and water lines.

Herd Combat. Not on the Allied program was engagement of the German armored herds by herds of Allied tanks. Defensive warfare of position called for artillery replies to tank offensives. But such was the Germans' speed that the French command was forced to admit a war of maneuver had begun. When German Panzertruppen crossed the Albert

Canal above Liege and the Meuse below it, slanting across north of Namur to reach the Flanders plain and drive for Louvain and Brussels, the French took action. They sent in their own tank regiments. Around the highway junction of St. Trond one fine May day, and around Gembloux, 100 miles northeast of the Somme where nine British tanks first surprised the Germans 25 years ago, it was reported that 1,500 to 2,000 tanks milled, in scenes which, from the air, looked like a giant's parking lot gone mad. Both sides claimed the best of it but the German drive continued up the Sambre Valley and northwest toward Louvain.

Spaniards and Finns learned how to repel light tanks extemporaneously with gasoline bottles. The French and British learned last week that the only sure way to stop Germany's durable tank corps of today is by massed field-gun fire at point-blank range. Batteries of the famed French 753 were trundled into position last week at Rethel, Guise, Landrecies and Le Cateau. French tanks tried to break up the advancing formations of the German tanks. Sometimes encounters became individual, each tank trying for a glancing blow to tip its opponent over. Dust, smoke and debris obscured the milling masses. Supporting airplanes had to refrain from dropping bombs lest they destroy their own machines. When the French artillerymen were set, the French tanks stayed back until French artillerymen had let go with shells. In one blasting, 20 out of 30 Nazi mastodons were shattered. The French tanks then charged through to clean up two armored columns of infantry. But still the German tank Army plowed on. With twelve divisions to the Allies' nine-a margin of 1,200 tanks -it had definite superiority. The worst enemy it faced was exhaustion of its men, its fuel, its much battered equipment.

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