The
Antitank Platoon
The anti-tank gun is perhaps the simplest of weapons to describe. As its name implies, it was regarded as the antidote to a particular battlefield menace, in this case the armoured fighting vehicle. There was an argument in some quarters that the infantry should not be encumbered by what were in effect artillery pieces. The startling successes of the Panzer arm in the opening period of the war quickly reversed this opinion.
The deployment of anti-tank guns to the infantry arm was extraordinarily varied during World War Two. Indeed, the German Army never fielded them as part of their normal Infantry Battalions, allocating them directly from Regimental level. British units fielded four or eight guns in North Africa, reduced to six in Europe, the US three guns and the Red Army just two in their respective Platoons. These latter two armies both kept further guns at Regiment to reinforce their Battalion assets.
Deployment considerations
The anti-tank gun was another weapon that relied wholly
upon line of sight to engage the enemy. Unlike
the mortar or machine gun though, which could target an area, the AT gun had to
hit a very specific object, namely an enemy armoured vehicle.
The fighting in the Western Desert had shown the terrible
vulnerability of anti-tank gun crews to enemy fire. With no appreciable cover, there was precious little
opportunity for an ambush. To a
certain extent, the fighting on the Eastern Front mirrored these conditions on
the rolling plains of the Steppe. Western
Europe provided a much more lucrative hunting ground, especially in the
claustrophobic setting of the Norman countryside.
The heavier AT guns of the Divisional artillery enjoyed a much longer reach than the weapons found in the infantry arm. Guns such as the 17 pdr or the 8.8 cm could effectively and accurately engage an enemy machine at well over 1000 metres. Models such as the 57 mm had a textbook range of 900 metres, but in reality effective range was much shorter. AT guns did not fair well deployed in a dispersed manner. Mutually supporting positions and overlapping fields of fire were essential to survival.
Fire characteristics
As mentioned, the AT gun was a purely line of sight weapon.
Its round flew on a flat trajectory so the gunner had to have a perfectly
uninterrupted view of the target.
Tank designers were always seeking to reduce the weight of
their vehicles. This was normally
done by thinning the armour on parts of the tank.
The thickest armour was always to be found at the front, around the
driver position and on the glacis plate which mounted the main armament.
A lesser level was fitted to the sides, with the weakest being reserved
for the rear, around the engine compartment.
As a result, tankers took great pains to present only their front to the
enemy during an assault. Opportunities
did arise though for AT crews to take flanking shots, thus bypassing the
strongest armour and incidentally presenting a larger target.
Crews were only too well aware of the need to make the first shot count. It had revealed their position and unless it stopped the target tank dead they were due for retaliation. There was some consolation in that a hit that did not penetrate the hull but did damage a track would usually cause the crew to abandon their machine, even though it may be recovered for repair at a later time.
Offensive fire
The typical AT gun was another item that did not lend
itself naturally to offensive action. There
was a simple problem in its status as a towed weapon, which meant that during
any movement its muzzle was pointing the wrong way.
A Rifle Company in the vanguard of a cautious advance would
normally expect a number of guns to support it.
The only way to ensure there was always one gun capable of delivering immediate
support was to advance them by bounds, one gun covering while another
moved to a new position.
During an assault, the gun crews could only offer over-watching fire. Their pieces were acutely vulnerable during transit, largely forcing the gunners to wait for the infantry to consolidate the ground before moving up. From there, they quickly moved into the defensive.
Defensive fire
It was in the defensive phase that the anti-tank gun was
more at home. They would be
deployed to cover likely avenues of approach by enemy armour, a job that
required a keen eye for ground and knowledge of tank tactics.
To be at their most effective, the first few rounds of AT
fire had to come as a complete surprise to the enemy. Concealment and camouflage were vital tasks for the gun
crews, perfectly attainable when operating from a well prepared defensive
position, less so when deployed to protect infantryman who had just seized their
objective.
In open country, the guns were particularly susceptible to
fire from the very tanks they sought to destroy, which could pitch high
explosive shells at them from longer range than the crews could respond to with
their armour piercing ammunition. In
close country, the threat came as much from enemy infantry accompanying the
tanks to deal with just such an obstacle. The
only defence was to site the guns within the localities defended by friendly
riflemen who could repulse the infantry with smallarms fire while the gunners
engaged the tanks.
Anti-tank guns could not hope to succeed in isolation, but
had to operate within a network of weapons, forming interlocking fields of fire.
Any attempt to ‘roll over’ a gun by an advancing tank must expose it
to flanking fire from another weapon. The
fewer guns the Platoon had to work with, the harder this ideal became to
achieve. Infantry anti-tank weapons
(discussed separately) could go some way to plugging the gaps, but they were
largely weapons of last resort.
During a forced withdrawal, the guns would have to fall back by bounds to prearranged reserve positions. Fire had to be maintained against the enemy during such movement, for if the pursuing tanks were allowed to advance unmolested they could devastate the retreating infantrymen.
Alternative uses
Outside of their primary role, the infantry often found
other employment for their anti-tank guns.
Chief among these was the reduction of strongpoints or fortified
buildings, armour piercing rounds proving effective even at their longer ranges.
Many guns could also fire high explosive ammunition against infantry targets. The USMC reportedly used lightweight 37 mm guns to decimate attacking Japanese troops in the Pacific on several occasions. In the absence of dedicated infantry guns, the AT gun was often pressed into such service, though in Europe the targets were more likely to be buildings and bunkers.
Summary
The issue of anti-tank guns to the Infantry Battalion
during World War Two raises some odd questions.
The British, Americans and Russians all persisted with weapons that
proved progressively incapable of doing their job against the monstrous German
Panzers. Some units actually
abandoned their guns altogether and redeployed the crews as riflemen.
There is an interesting mention of a Canadian experiment in Italy, which
discarded the 6 pdr guns in favour of a ‘tank hunting’ formation armed with
projectors and Hawkins mines.
The German Army largely replaced their towed Regimental
guns with infantry anti-tank weapons, even though their 5 cm guns remained
effective against the allied Sherman. The
overall trend was to rely on a smaller number of more powerful Divisional guns
which could halt a tank attack before they even neared the defences.
The medium calibre pieces were increasingly relegated to the types of
support role mentioned above.
For a considerable time though, the only thing that stood between the riflemen and enemy armour was the exertions of the AT crews hauling their often outgunned weapons into position, and engaging the distant silhouettes on the skyline.
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Infantry Tactics of World War Two