3 Second Battle of El Alamein

116 Pages·2011·12.04 MB·English

Revised Edition: 2016
ISBN 978-1-283-50038-8
© All rights reserved.
Published by:
University Publications
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Table of Contents

Chapter 1 - Introduction to Armoured Warfare
Chapter 2 - Tanks in World War I
Chapter 3 - Second Battle of El Alamein
Chapter 4 - Battle of Kursk
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Chapter- 1
Introduction to Armoured Warfare

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British tanks advancing under fire at the Second Battle of El Alamein during World War
II.
Armoured warfare or tank warfare is the use of armoured fighting vehicles in modern
warfare. It is a major component of modern methods of war. The premise of armoured
warfare rests on the ability of troops to penetrate conventional defensive lines through
use of manoeuvre by armoured units.
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Much of the application of armoured warfare depends on the use of tanks and related
vehicles used by other supporting arms such as infantry fighting vehicles and self-
propelled artillery, as well as mounted combat engineers and other support units.
The doctrine of armoured warfare was developed to break the static nature of World War
I trench warfare on the western front, and return to the 19th century school of thought
that advocated manoeuvre and "decisive battle" outcomes in military strategy.
First World War
Prior to World War I, horse-mounted cavalry performed what is now the role of tanks;
manoeuvring and breaking through enemy infantry to attack army lines of
communication in the rear. Strategic use of tanks was slow to develop during and
immediately after World War I, partly due to technical limitations but also due to the
prestige role traditionally accorded to horse-mounted cavalry.
Modern armoured warfare began with the need to break the tactical, operational and
strategic stalemates forced on commanders on the Western Front by the effectiveness of
entrenched defensive infantry armed with machine guns - known as trench warfare.
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Under these conditions, any sort of advance was impossibly slow and occasioned massive
casualties. The development of the tank was motivated by the need to return manoeuvre
to warfare.
Tanks were first developed in Britain, as a way of navigating the barbed wire and other
obstacles of no-man's land while remaining protected from machine-gun fire. The
manoeuvrability of the tank would at least in theory regain armies the ability to flank
enemy lines. In practice, tank warfare during most of World War I was hampered by
mechanical failure, limited numbers, and general underutilisation.
British Mark I tanks first went to action at the Somme, on September 15, 1916, but did
not manage to break the deadlock of trench warfare. In the Battle of Cambrai (1917)
British tanks were more successful, and broke a German trenchline system, the
Hindenburg Line. After the disastrous final German offensive, tanks were used at the
Battle of Soissons and the Battle of Amiens, which ended the stalemate imposed by
trench warfare on the Western Front, and thus effectively ended the war. Following the
First World War, the technical and doctrinal aspects of armoured warfare became more
sophisticated and diverged into multiple schools of doctrinal thought.
Interwar period
During the 1920s, various British and French commanders who had been associated with
the development of the tank were involved in developing the new ideas. The significant
split in philosophy can be said to be French and British in schools of thought.
The French school proposed the armoured forces to be largely an infantry supporting
arm, demanding heavily armoured tanks armed with infantry support guns, as well as
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'cavalry' tanks operating en masse to break through the enemy defensive lines. Although
seen as retrograding and reminiscent of WW1 tank use, it advocated a doctrine that
included a desire to introduce an element of manoeuvre without expecting collapse of the
enemy infantry's defence.
The British school leaned more towards more mobile and lighter designs supported by
equally mobile units of infantry, artillery and sappers to replace horse-mounted cavalry.
These self-contained motorised detachments would depend on the tank only to provide a
way to penetrate the main enemy defensive lines, and would seek to bring about defeat of
the enemy by severing the lines of communication and supply as had been done during
the previous century.
Both doctrines were faced with the reality during the 1920s that the armoured vehicles (as
early road transport in general) were extremely unreliable, and could not be used in
sustained operations.
In Britain Liddell Hart wrote extensively on tank warfare and the theories of Colonel
Fuller. The British War Office sanctioned the creation of the Experimental Mechanised
Force which was formed on May 1, 1927, under Colonel R. J. Collins. The units were
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entirely mobile and consisted of reconnaissance tankettes and armoured cars, a battalion
of 48 Vickers medium tanks, a motorised machine gun battalion, a mechanised artillery
regiment, which had one battery of fully tracked self-propelled guns capable of acting as
conventional or anti-aircraft artillery (Birch guns), and a motorised company of field
engineers. The unit carried out operations on Salisbury Plain and was observed by the
other major nations, the United States, Germany, and the Soviet Union. Although its
performance was recognised, it was disbanded in 1928.
All European states (with the exception of Germany), the USA, and Japan, would create
their own experimental mechanised forces during the late 1920s, many using either
French or British vehicle designs or even directly purchased vehicles, but largely
borrowing from both to develop their own doctrines. Early in the 1930s after the rise to
power of the Nazi Party in Germany, German officers were sent to observe and
participate in development of armoured doctrine in the USSR.
In the 1930s the British Army began the conversion of its cavalry from horse to tanks.
Although there were differences on where British military strength should be developed,
with the Royal Air Force and Royal Navy being favoured by some in power, all but a few
regiments were fully converted by 1939.
In the Soviet Union during the early 1930s Red Army and German officers collaborated
in developing use of tanks based on 2nd generation vehicles using turreted main
weapons, and experimenting with different chassis configurations and drive trains. One
important acquisition for the Red Army turned out to be the purchase of a T3 chassis
from an inspired US designer J.W.Christie which served as the basis of the Soviet BT
series of fast tanks. The Red Army in particular was much influenced by the theoretical
works of Marshal Tukhachevsky that led to development of infantry support heavy tanks
and fast 'cavalry' tanks for use in the theory of deep operations similar to the German
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blitzkrieg. This development led to the intent by the Red Army to form a massive tank
force of thousands of vehicles.
As Europe neared another conflict, doctrinal development of armoured warfare was still
in development, opinion split between proponents of infantry as the primary combat arm,
and those arguing that infantry was to become the supporting arm of the more mobile
armoured forces. Use of armoured warfare was most prominently tested during the
Soviet-Japanese Border Wars conflict in 1938.
Second World War
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A German Tiger I tank in combat during the Battle of Kursk in 1943
Modern armour warfare doctrine developed during the years immediately preceding
World War II, in most cases with the tank seen as an infantry support weapon in the
breakthrough of defence lines role. A fundamental key to conventional warfare is the
concentration of force at a particular point on the enemy's defence line seen as either
weak or offering other tactical, operational or strategic advantages.
Concentration of force increases the chance of victory in a particular engagement through
application of one of the Principles of War - Mass. This point, if correctly chosen and
exploited, assures a greater chance of success in a given tactical engagement or a small
number of operational engagements which are often sufficient to win a strategically
decisive battle.
The German term that later came to define the building of such a concentration at a given
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point is Schwerpunktbildung, which can be translated as "development of a centre of
effort".
This can be visualised when looking at two opposing defensive lines, each composed of
two infantry and two armoured divisions, distributed consistently along the length of a
line. A numerically equivalent attacker can win by concentrating his two armoured
divisions at one point of the line with his two infantry divisions holding the rest of the
line, thus increasing the chance of breaching the enemy defences, then passing through,
turning the flank of the severed two halves of the defensive line, and further exploiting
the numerical superiority against the smaller number of defenders on the flank to force
them to retreat onto the intact part of the line, therefore widening the breach.
The defensive line could attempt to counterattack, but it is not strong at any point and
although the combined infantry and armour attack of the defenders is stronger than an
infantry only attack, it is not very much stronger (since the divisions are spread out along
the entire line) and it is in general much easier to defend than attack due to the factor of
field entrenchment and field engineering in preparation for such counterattacks.
A major aspect of all warfare is the simple formula, known as the Lanchester's Square
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Law, that the relative combat power of a combat unit in contact with each other to the
relative combat power of an enemy of a given size, all other factors being equal, is the
square of the number of members of that unit:
• One tank obviously has the combat power of one tank. (1² = 1)
• Two tanks have four times the relative combat power of a single tank. (2² = 4)
From this it is derived that twice as many tanks will quadruple the relative firepower —
relative that is, to the amount of firepower the enemy has per member of the friendly unit;
one could also express this by saying that their relative punishment from enemy action is
reduced four times, which is the same thing — as not only their own absolute number is
doubled, but the number of enemy tanks relative to each of their own, is thereby halved
also.
Thus, concentrating two divisions into one point and attacking generates a far greater
force than is achieved by spreading two divisions into a line and pushing forward on a
broad front.
Concentration of force requires mobility to prevent the enemy detecting the point of
attack in time to reinforce the section of the defence, and concentration of firepower to be
effective in combat once concentrated. The tank embodies these two properties, and so
constitutes the primary weapon in armoured warfare.
Forces of all participating powers during WW2 were composed predominantly of the
Infantry and other combat supporting Arms (artillery, reconnaissance troops, engineers
and logistics and service troops). With the possible exceptions of the United Kingdom
and the United States (which both had fully mechanised by wars end), the infantry units
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were still highly dependent on horse-drawn vehicles, as was the artillery on horse-towed
guns when operating in the field. Strategic movement was provided by the rail transport
networks.
British and French
Pre-war
In the UK and in France, armour was accepted into the Army, but using a division of
labour: some as infantry support weapons, others as cavalry replacements. As such, the
UK and French infantry tanks were heavily armoured, and as a consequence slow,
whereas British cavalry ("cruiser") tanks were swift, and as a result poorly armoured.
Only some of the German tanks were designed for independent mobile operations and as
all-around tanks: lighter, considerably more mobile, but more weakly armed and
armoured than the infantry tanks. Tanks were not yet seen to be a primary anti-tank
weapon.
When the German tanks actually had to fight the UK infantry tanks in 1940, they were
severely discomfited—but recovered to drive the British army out of continental Europe.
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At the start of the German invasion, France possessed more tanks and, in one-to-one
terms, better tanks, than the Germans. However, what mattered was how the tanks were
used, and French command distributed half of its tanks among independent Bataillons de
Chars de Combat (battle tank battalions) for infantry support, rendering them tied to
decision-making of the local army commanders. In 1940 the German command
concentrated its tanks into Panzer divisions and used them for strategic envelopment,
smashing their way through the French defensive line, and driving towards The Channel,
threatening to sever communications and supply lines with the national centres of logistic
support.
To counter such attacks, a mobile anti-tank force must be held in reserve and moved to
meet the attack. The French had no strategic reserve at all; let alone a highly mobile
reserve as their three Cavalry armoured divisions (Divisions Legeres Mécaniques or
Mechanised Light Divisions), the only armoured units organised on the lines of the
German armoured divisions, had already been committed in the Low Countries, which
was crucial in the French failure to counteract the German penetration, as the four French
Infantry armoured divisions lacked sufficient strategic mobility. However, later in the
campaign a new tactic was applied which proved highly resistant against tank attacks.
This was called the hedgehog. However, due to the losses already sustained, the French
could never counterattack, and the hedgehogs were eventually by-passed by the German
troops.
North African theatre
In the deserts of North Africa, the British developed the alternative approach of
combining the armoured, infantry and artillery together to form a 'balanced, combined
arms team'. The 10th Italian Army of Maresciallo (Marshal) Rodolfo Graziani, being ill-
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armed and inadequately led, soon gave way to this approach by the Commonwealth
troops of the 8th Army.
The arrival of the German Afrika Korps under command of General der Infanterie Erwin
Rommel highlighted the weaknesses of the British approach: the small number of
infantry and artillery in each armoured division was sufficient when attacking the
immobile and uncoordinated Italian troops, but against the highly mobile, well-
coordinated German units, the undermanned Commonwealth formations were proving
inadequate.
It was only towards the later years of the war, with the invasion of the European
mainland, that the Allied Armies began to become more effective in armoured warfare. In
1942 and 1943, the Allies consistently lost armoured battles in the North African desert
due to improper tactics; in particular, running armoured formations into opposing anti-
tank positions.
Red Army
Pre-war
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Much of the Red Army development in tank use was based on the theoretical work
carried out by such officers as Tukhachevsky and Triandafillov in the mid to late 1930s.
This was as part of the two-directioned concepts, one being infantry-centred "broad front"
and the other being a "shock army".
While the infantry based part of the doctrine demanded "powerful tanks" (heavy tanks
armed with infantry guns and machineguns) and "tankettes" (light, often amphibious
tanks with machineguns), the shock Army demanded "manoeuvre tanks" (fast tanks with
medium guns) used in conjunction with motorised forces and "mechanised cavalry" that
would operate in depth as "strategic cavalry" combined with nascent airborne troops.
These ideas culminated in the "PU-36" or the 1936 Field Service Regulations.
Red Army wartime
At the start of the Second World War much of the Red Army, including its armoured
forces, were in transition and recovering following the 1937 repression of the officer
corps and the consequences of the Soviet-Finnish War of 1939. The Red Army tank fleet
was extremely large, consisting of some 24,000 vehicles, but many were obsolete or unfit
for service due to difficulties with supplying spare parts and lack of qualified support
staff. Almost half of the tank fleet was lost in the first month of the war.
The Red Army's initial strategic withdrawal relegated the armoured forces to a secondary
role, however one important development took place shortly before the war which was to
influence Soviet armoured doctrine and tank design for a decade: the creation of the T-
34. Developed on the Christie suspension chassis and using for the first time sloped
armour, the T-34 proved a shocking surprise to the German forces with its high velocity
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