Infantry VS Armor

[parsifal]

Originally Posted by Soren

Juha,

Out in the open you guys wouldn't have stood a chance, you would've all been blown to smithereens within seconds. And based on the equipment you said you had available you guys wouldn't have lasted long against even 3 well commanded tanks in pretty much any place but very dense forests and urban areas.
If the Finns even possessed 75 mm artillery guns, they could have used them to disable the light and medium tanks ranged against them. This is a nonsense anyway. The Finns wre in cover, so the argument is spurious. But there are many situations where Infantry was confronted by armour, without the benefit of proper AT, in the open and lived to tell the tale. Infantry that is not dug in is a different story. All the comabatants, from the latter stages of the BOF onwards, employed variations to the Quadrillage defence system, to counter this effect precisely

Besides I'm sure most soldiers will scoot when then only have a single RPG and see two or three tanks coming their way. Just the sight of a tank is enough to make many panic.

Sorry, but no, as a general rule, you do not run from tanks. You find, or make cover, and use various means to hit back. This may, or may not, include dedicated AT defences. What Juha is describing is classic Infantry defences against armour. Its just that the Finns were masters at it

Now back to WW2 imagine a squad seeing a Tiger coming their way when they only have a PIAT at their disposal ! Sheer terror mate! Sheer terror! If Allied tankers suffered from Tigerphobia think about the poor infantry who bumped into one without any AT support! :shock:

Its scary, i am sure, but for the Infantry to survive, it has to resist that natural and understandable fear. Dig in, look for the flanks, and start to stalk the target. Standard tactics for nearly every army fielded during the war, I daresay

[parsifal]

Hi Juha

I did know that the Poles put up some pretty impressive defences against the Panzers, did not know it was quite that long.....but even 40 or 50 hours, in my opinion is not a totally successful defence. It is obviously a very heroic and stubborn defence, but it did not ultimately succeed.

My post was not intended to say that the Aussies were some kind of supermen, or that everything before that ws a complete unmitigated disaster. What i was trying mostly to say that this alleged invincibility of tanks to Infantry is a sham. What defeats pure Infantry is not pure tanks, its really an all arms effort, with the tanks keeping the enemy Infantry occupied and pinned down, whilst the supporting elements friendly to the tanks finish the job.

This is why the russians in 1939 could not defeat the finns...no co-operation between the various arms

[parsifal]

Now back to WW2 imagine a squad seeing a Tiger coming their way when they only have a PIAT at their disposal ! Sheer terror mate! Sheer terror! If Allied tankers suffered from Tigerphobia think about the poor infantry who bumped into one without any AT support! [/QUOTE]

Further to my last post, BTW, this is about the worst possible way of using Tigers, which were designed as heavy support tanks. They should not be used as in Infantry assault like that...they are not that good at it. Far better to send in your lighter, more manaouverable types, andd leave the tigers on the hill, to provide long range covering fire

[Soren]

Parsifal,

My comments take into consideration that the infantry in question has NO AT support what'so'ever, in which case they wouldn't have stood a chance at all out in the open, esp. not if they only had available ONE RPG.

Sorry, but no, as a general rule, you do not run from tanks. You find, or make cover, and use various means to hit back. This may, or may not, include dedicated AT defences.

They don't have any AT support, that's the whole point!! So how are they going to hit back exactly Parsifal ??

What Juha is describing is classic Infantry defences against armour.

In heavily vegetated and Urban areas yes, all of which is useless out in the open.

[Juha]

Soren
“Juha, The two worst places for a tank to be are urban & heavily vegetated areas such as dense forrests.”

I agree.

”Out in the open you guys wouldn't have stood a chance, you would've all been blown to smithereens within seconds. And based on the equipment you said you had available you guys wouldn't have lasted long against even 3 well commanded tanks in pretty much any place but very dense forests and urban areas.

Besides I'm sure most soldiers will scoot when then only have a single RPG and see two or three tanks coming their way. Just the sight of a tank is enough to make many panic.

Now back to WW2 imagine a squad seeing a Tiger coming their way when they only have a PIAT at their disposal ! Sheer terror mate! Sheer terror! If Allied tankers suffered from Tigerphobia think about the poor infantry who bumped into one without any AT support!”

Now, I recommend some good infantry training to you. In the open our chances would have been slim, I agree. But in the open terrain there are often some cover and one can use smoke, or could at the time when I was in the army, thermal image sights were not so common and so good as nowadays, etc. Yes, if the tankers in other side were good and had good situation awareness we could easily have been dead soldiers. But you never know that beforehand. And good solders do not bolt away when they saw 3 tanks. Heck, Finns in Karelia Isthmus saw many times 30 - 50 tanks coming with hundreds of infantry towards them after after very heavy artillery preparation. And they did not have even one RPG, only Molotov's Cocktails and bunched explosives, if lucky one 37mm A/T gun lurking somewhere and very meagre artillery support. And many their positions were in fields or in sparse wooded dry peaty forests. And that went on weeks. Of course Finns took heavy losses but Soviet losses were much heavier and they also lost many tanks. Finns tactic was the shoot the infantry down, let the tanks through, trying to destroy as many of them as possible with close combat A/T weapons. They knew that if they could keep the Soviet infantry away their positions the tanks will return from the rear before darkness because without infantry they would have in trouble with Finnish A/T teams in darkness.

Heh, in the example I wrote earlier, when the “A” Coy/DCLI saw Tigers and Panthers driving past a crossroad towards “B” Coy, what they did? They calculated that “B” can hold out, advanced to crossroads, laid down some mines, asked more PIATs and waited. After a while the Germans truly came back, end result was 5 destroyed German tanks, mostly Tigers but when I checked from photos, at least one seemed to be Panther. And that in the Holland. “Sheer terror mate! Sheer terror!” really.

Now that was only one case. Of course there are also examples where infantry, be it Finnish, British, German, Russian etc panicked but there are also many cases were they fought successfully against tanks.


Juha

[parsifal]

Originally Posted by Soren

Parsifal,

My comments take into consideration that the infantry in question has NO AT support what'so'ever, in which case they wouldn't have stood a chance at all out in the open, esp. not if they only had available ONE RPG.

If you have no AT capability, this means you are completely unarmed. you have no artillery, no bullets, no molotovs, no air support. under those conditions, are the people opposing you even soldiers????? The point is this, if you set up conditions where the Infantry has no defences of any kind, then of course there is no defence. but then the reverse is just as true. if you remove the tanks armament, how can it defend itself? You whole argument is nonsensical, and stupid, but then, why am i not surprised


They don't have any AT support, that's the whole point!! So how are they going to hit back exactly Parsifal ??

Go away, and do some real reaearch. i suggest you look at the way the Australians defeated Rommel at Tobruk in 1941. They had AT support, but it was held back for the most part. Most of the damage was done with 25pdrs over open sights. Later, in the darkness, and also under the cover of a heavy dust storm, (once the enemy Infantry had been forced back), the Tanks (who by then were trying to fight unsupported) were taken out by Infantry assault teams armed mostly with petrol, grenades and small arms. The Germans lost something like 40 tanks that day

In heavily vegetated and Urban areas yes, all of which is useless out in the open.

You really are a goose arent you!! This battle I am referring to was undertaken from Dug in Positions, but the terain was an open treeless desert. And it happened often

Contrary to the main thrust of what you are saying, unsupported tanks versus Infantry in nearly every situation are vulnerable. In an assualt on an Infantry position, they need to adopt an all arms approach. If they do that, and they can suppress the enemy infantry, then the enmy Infantry has a real problem. but this is not the supposition yuou are trying to pedal at the moment

[Juha]

Parsifal, I agree with you. One main reason for the effectiveness of German panzer units during early and middle war years was that PzDivs were well balanced all arms formations. Guderian and co. saw that need well. And after Polish Campaign also the conservatives in the Heer hierarchy gave in and allowed to convert Light Divs to PzDivs. And in the eve of Polish Campaign independent PzRgts were taken under command of more or less ad hoc PzDiv Kempf (later 10th PzD).

Yes, tanks without infantry and artillery support can be stalked by enemy infantry if there is some cover even if only low visibility. Even if tank is a formidable weapon it cannot fire all directions at the same time, its ability to change direction of fire is much slower than that of an infantry man. The movement of turret with its long barrel is easy to notice and it is much easier to see a tank than a man, not to mention hearing. Tank is a hard and difficult target but not an impossible one.

Juha

[parsifal]

Hi Juha

Sorry to get so annoyed, but anyone who knows even a little about Infantry tactics, knows that the Finns were among the very best Infantry in the world. They really knew their jobs, and werent scared into running away by tanks (I could not believe what i was reading). And, the AT Guns were just a part of the defensive measures that could be used....things like Mines, AT Ditches, even barbed wire, barricades, even blown bridges, can all be used to slow or disable an enemy tank formation. Infantry versus pure armour is a no brainer, for anyone with any Military experience.

Did you know that the germans actually used the French 75 as a significant AT Gun during the war. They produced an AP round for it. It was used in considerable numbers. Even without AP ammunition, artilery can be used against tanks, firing HE smoke and the like. I was taught to fire basically everything at the attacking tanks, and to also try and separate those tanks from any supporting Infantry. The enemy Infantry was the considered the biggest threat, but the tanks could make you keep your heads down, and that was a problem.

I am not familiar with the S-55 weapon. We trained with Karl Gustav. Are they similar. i am not at all familiar with AT weapons, being ex-navy

[DBII]

I have talked to several older light Inf types and most have told me at first they were worried about tanks. Once they understood the weaknesses, they learned how to work around them. The appearance of tanks in the area with out AT does not mean that the Inf would break and run. A well train unit would stay in place as long as possible. Even with AT support, a green unit could break at the site of a tank formation. It all comes down to training and leadership.

The original question was could Inf units repulse Armor units without AT support? Without the AT weapons the Inf would have a difficult time replusing armor. There are other factors that come into play, terrian, weather, quality of troops etc. Tanks were designed to destory Inf. The Inf is in the same postion against tanks as tanks are against air power. Without the proper support, they will be killed.

DBII
clank, clank

[parsifal]

Hi DBII

Well, put in those terms, of course it would be more difficult to withstand tanks without proper AT. But you know, Juha is right, its not impossible. During the BOF, the French, (not my favourite army) using weygands checkerboard defence ideas, were able to resist far more effectively than they had done using their "continous front theories of the first half of the campaign. Unfortunately for the french it was allover by the time they realized even the elementary characteristics of AT defence. By the beginning of the June campaign they were usung such expedients as using their 75s over open sights. The british Infantry in the desert found the 25pdr to be their most effective AT defence.

The Russians in 1941 were conceptually, far ahead of everyone in terms of the use of artillery (their actual usage of artillery was, as we all know pretty poor however). their army regulations laid down the following principals.

1) All defence is primarily AT Defence and all artillery is also AT artillery.
2) In offensive operations direct fire from masses of guns should be encouraged and area fire weapons extensively

(my apologies in the translation of their army regulations...its the best i can do i am afraid)

So my opinion remains, although somewhat modified....whilst dedicated AT weaponary was an advantage, lack of AT weaponary did not render defence against tanks impossible, IMHO.

[parsifal]

Now, there will be more than a few of you saying to yourselves something like" well, if tanks are not able to easily beat Infantry how come the germans (and others) used them to spearhead all their offensives?" The answer is quite simple. its not just tanks that did it. nor was it just Infantry, or just artillery. it wsa the successful combination of all arms, in just the right blend, and using just the right technique to break the defending Infantry, or force. I am not saying tanks are not immensely powerful. What i am saying is thay cant do the job on their own. i am also adamantly saying that AT defence does not end with the AT Battalian in a division. I am even saying that the dedicated AT force is not even the mainstay of the AT defence

[Juha]

Hello Parsifal

“Did you know that the germans actually used the French 75 as a significant AT Gun during the war.”

Yes, that was 7,5cm Pak 97/38, also Finns had them during later part of Continuation War (1941-44).
We did not use artillery pieces as A/T weapons during Winter War because we had so few of them, only 420 pieces at the start of the Winter War, 306 of them old Russian 76,2mm Model 02 field cannon. 02 means that the gun began to serve in the Imperial Russian Army in 1902. All or almost all other guns were also models designed before WWI. One arty battalion had 150mm Japanese howitzer which were originally Russin war booty from Russian-Japanese War of 1904-05. Of the 10 division we had at the beginning of the war, only 9 had a weak arty rgt each, the 10th did not have any arty. But no problem the one without arty got soon better field guns than the others had, namely good new war-booty Soviet 76,2mm fieldcannon model 36s.

Yes, S55 was similar to early Carl Gustav but it was smooth bore firing fin stabilated rockets usually HEAT but we also had HE warhead, which was useful up to 300m against soft targets, of course at that range target must be stationary or slow moving if we hope to hit it.

Juha

[pbfoot]

Originally Posted by Soren

Juha,

Sheer terror mate! Sheer terror! If Allied tankers suffered from Tigerphobia think about the poor infantry who bumped into one without any AT support!

Yep they all scurried away because the German supermen with all there fabulous untouchable weapons were coming even as the approached they Reichstag

[Juha]

Hello
did some checking
"We did not use artillery pieces as A/T weapons during Winter War because we had so few of them"
That isn't entirely correct, some field cannons were used in A/T role during the Winter War.

"One arty battalion had 150mm Japanese howitzer which were originally Russin war booty from Russian-Japanese War of 1904-05. "

Now, in this my memory made a trick, the howitzers were in fact ex-Russian which had been participated in Russo-Japanese War.

Juha

[parsifal]

Hi Juha

Thanks for the correction.

Are you basing your statement about Finn artillery not being used in an AT role on the fact that there was no dedicated AT rounds for them. It does not necessarily follow that just because you have only HE that you cant be used for direct fire, or even indirect fire. Heck even howitzers and mortars have some use against tanks in a sense.... Russians would not hesitate to use these weapons...at least it gives any accompanying Infantry some discomfort, and you might throw a track or bog a tank, who knows?