TANKS!

Armored Fighting Vehicles (tanks) would come to dominate ground warfare in the 20th Century, starting at the end of the 1930s. But the origin of the tank came back in the Teens, during The Great War when they were developed to address a particular tactical problem: How to overcome the stalemate that tended to develop along well defended lines.

The dominance of the defending force had been a commonplace of land warfare since the American Civil War in the 1860s. The development of machine guns and modern artillery only made this dominance more pronounced. The British military finally came up with the concept of mobile, armoured, pillboxes that could cross the trenches and obstructions of no man’s land, and drive the defenders from their well defended positions.

The earliest tanks were bulky, slow, mechanically unreliable, and had a very short range. On rare occasions, when used in mass, they could achieve their intended purpose, but these offensives usually ran out of steam quickly as it was so difficult for supporting forces (infantry, artillery, supply) to keep up with the tanks. Most often the advance came to a halt before it could penetrate the full depth of the defender’s positions so that it only served to move the trenches forward a bit, not break through into the undefended area behind.

At the end of the war, military planners knew they were onto something, but they hadn’t worked out the details. In fact, there were many different ideas about how tanks, once the mechanical kinks had been worked out, could and should be used. Through the 1920s and 1930s military thinkers wrote on the subject  and armies all over the globe developed new machines and new tactics, but it was all quite speculative as there had been so little actual battlefield experience. When the Second World War began in 1939 the theories and technology finally began to be tested in earnest and by 1945 most of the questions had been answered.

People assume that because the German army was so successful with it’s Blitzkrieg tactics  -- that combined armored forces with close air support -- in 1939-41 that they had the best tanks. This is far from the case. The French, British, and Soviet armies all fielded tanks the Germans found very difficult to defeat and that were arguably superior to any of the German tanks. What the Germans did have was superior doctrine and the support of the Luftwaffe -- the German air force.

Of the military thinkers pondering the question of armored warfare, the one who was probably closest to getting it right was Hans Guderian. He realized that modern armor -- Panzers, in German -- should be used in the same way horse cavalry had been used in the previous century. American doctrine was similar but the crucial difference was that, as a German, Guderian was familiar with the use of horse cavalry in its mature form from Napoleon through the Franco-Prussian War. Cavalry in Europe encompassed light (scouting and raiding) and heavy (shock)  units with dragoon (mounted infantry) and supporting horse-artillery. In the U.S., cavalry had always meant light horse units that could scout ahead, cover the flanks, and race through open, undefended territory to strike at soft targets like railroads and supply depots. This was the model for the armored cavalry that the Americans would employ later in the war.

Guderian’s vision of what armored warfare could be would turn out to be the most accurate, but even in the case of the German army, there simply had not been enough time by 1939 to implement all his ideas. The Panzer force Guderian lead into battle, attempted to act as both light and heavy cavalry but was only equipped with light equipment and also lacked the dragoon and artillery support capability Guderian wanted. Oddly, what the German's had was very close to what the Americans wanted. Fortunately for the Germans, what the Army lacked the Luftwaffe could make up for. Lacking sufficient mobile artillery, the Germans employed Stuka dive bombers to attack enemy strong points and concentrations. And when Rommel ran into British tanks that were immune to his tank guns, he was able to convince the supporting Luftwaffe anti-aircraft gunners to turn their high velocity, quick firing 88mm guns on the British tanks that were themselves unsupported by artillery.

Even so, the Panzer vanguard constantly found itself forced to wait for the remainder of the army to catch up as they were either on foot or pulled behind horses. The German Panzer forces were like a race car with a small fuel tank. It wasn’t until the campaigns in Russia and North Africa were well underway that the armies on both sides finally worked out the details of what they needed to do and slowly acquired the right equipment.

By the end of the war even the Americans were fielding a “heavy cavalry” tank with good protection and a gun that was effective against most anything it would run into, The dragoon role was taken over by half-track vehicles which, in later years, would be replaced by fully tracked Armored Personnel Carriers and finally by today’s Infantry Fighting Vehicles. Modern horse artillery took the form of a wide variety of mounted assault guns, howitzers, and anti-tank guns. Today’s descendants of these vehicles are sophisticated (usually 155mm) guns with protection against small arms and shrapnel and featuring computerized guidance and targeting systems.

The effectiveness of this doctrine and equipment was showcased in the U.S. and U.K. advance into Kuwait and Iraq in both Gulf Wars.