Tank Destroyers: Well, it sounded like a cool idea
Steve Cole writes: I have known about tank destroyers for a long time, but recently happened to pick up a cheap leftover book at the local book store and had fun re-reading the subject.
For those who don't know, tank destroyers were a unique American invention, created at the dawn of WW2 and quietly forgotten very shortly after it was over.
In 1940 and 1941, the German panzer blitzkrieg was running crazy all over Europe. Nobody could stop the German tanks when they got moving. So, the US decided to create a new weapon, the tank destroyer. The basic idea was (conceptually) to take a tank design, remove half of the armor (to make it faster), give it a bigger gun, and have it kill the German tanks by virtue of the bigger gun and the ability to move around faster. It sounded like a good idea, but didn't work. What made the German tanks unstoppable was not the tank, but the trained crews and the combined arms team. By the time the US figured this out, it already had 60 battalions of tank destroyers. It would have been better off with another 60 battalions of tanks (hopefully better tanks than the Sherman, but that's another rant for another day).
When tank destroyers finally went into combat (in Tunisia) they were basically used as substitute-tanks, and the tank officers always used the tank destroyers as the lead element in an attack and the rear guard in a retreat (supposedly because they were more maneuverable, but I wonder if they did this to avoid getting their own units shot up until they saw which way the battle was going to go). The experience of Tunisia (a flat open desert) convinced the US Army to replace half of the armored mobile tank destroyers with towed anti-tank guns, which turned out to be pretty stupid for fighting in Italy, France, and Germany (which had these things called "trees").
The tank destroyers ended up being used more as mobile artillery (light artillery, as their 75mm guns were smaller than the standard 105mm guns used by real artillery units). This was ironic, since the German assault guns (tank chassis with bigger guns and extra armor but a non-rotating turret) were designed to support infantry attacks and ended up being used as mobile anti-tank guns. The Germans would have been better off with real tanks instead of assault guns.
This doesn't really apply to Federation Commander or Star Fleet Battles. The dynamic of space combat doesn't really accept translations from tank combat very well. (See the Qaris in Module C4.) But it is interesting to note that even the US Army (today, the best in the world) had a period of time when it had no clue what real war was about, and when they met it head on, learned the wrong lessons because they hadn't learned how to learn the lessons. In a general sense, that applies to any business, or anything else. What sounds like a good idea sometimes is and sometimes isn't, and you don't know until you try it for real. And even then, if you haven't learned how to learn and apply the lessons you get, you can make even bigger mistakes.
For those who don't know, tank destroyers were a unique American invention, created at the dawn of WW2 and quietly forgotten very shortly after it was over.
In 1940 and 1941, the German panzer blitzkrieg was running crazy all over Europe. Nobody could stop the German tanks when they got moving. So, the US decided to create a new weapon, the tank destroyer. The basic idea was (conceptually) to take a tank design, remove half of the armor (to make it faster), give it a bigger gun, and have it kill the German tanks by virtue of the bigger gun and the ability to move around faster. It sounded like a good idea, but didn't work. What made the German tanks unstoppable was not the tank, but the trained crews and the combined arms team. By the time the US figured this out, it already had 60 battalions of tank destroyers. It would have been better off with another 60 battalions of tanks (hopefully better tanks than the Sherman, but that's another rant for another day).
When tank destroyers finally went into combat (in Tunisia) they were basically used as substitute-tanks, and the tank officers always used the tank destroyers as the lead element in an attack and the rear guard in a retreat (supposedly because they were more maneuverable, but I wonder if they did this to avoid getting their own units shot up until they saw which way the battle was going to go). The experience of Tunisia (a flat open desert) convinced the US Army to replace half of the armored mobile tank destroyers with towed anti-tank guns, which turned out to be pretty stupid for fighting in Italy, France, and Germany (which had these things called "trees").
The tank destroyers ended up being used more as mobile artillery (light artillery, as their 75mm guns were smaller than the standard 105mm guns used by real artillery units). This was ironic, since the German assault guns (tank chassis with bigger guns and extra armor but a non-rotating turret) were designed to support infantry attacks and ended up being used as mobile anti-tank guns. The Germans would have been better off with real tanks instead of assault guns.
This doesn't really apply to Federation Commander or Star Fleet Battles. The dynamic of space combat doesn't really accept translations from tank combat very well. (See the Qaris in Module C4.) But it is interesting to note that even the US Army (today, the best in the world) had a period of time when it had no clue what real war was about, and when they met it head on, learned the wrong lessons because they hadn't learned how to learn the lessons. In a general sense, that applies to any business, or anything else. What sounds like a good idea sometimes is and sometimes isn't, and you don't know until you try it for real. And even then, if you haven't learned how to learn and apply the lessons you get, you can make even bigger mistakes.
posted by Federation Commander at 11:04 AM
<< Home