Seek, Strike, and Destroy
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This article refers to U.S. tank destroyer doctrine during World War Two, which is often summarized with the phrase, "Seek, Strike, And Destroy."
U.S. doctrine was based on the perceived need to defeat German blitzkrieg tactics, and U.S. units expected to be faced with large numbers of German tanks attacking on relatively narrow fronts. In actual practice, such attacks rarely happened; indeed, throughout the war only one battalion ever fought in an engagement quite like that which had originally been envisaged.
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Development
In the opening offensives of the Second World War, the German doctrine of blitzkrieg — armored forces concentrated and used in a fast-moving offensive — shocked military observers. Even to armies which had previously experimented with large-scale mechanized warfare, the effects were remarkable; the collapse of Poland in 1939, followed by the defeat of the French Army and the British Army in France in 1940, gave rise to an impression that massed tank forces were effectively invincible when used against unprepared defenders.
Contemporary study of the Battle of France showed that infantry without sufficient anti-tank weaponry were exceedingly vulnerable to armored forces; even if tank support was available, the Allied tanks of the day were mostly designed as infantry support weapons, and were incapable of fighting effectively against enemy tanks. The American armed forces, aware of the possibility of war against Germany, began to reorganize to meet this threat.
The new tank destroyer doctrine was formally stated in Field Manual 18-5, Tactical Employment, Tank Destroyer Unit, in June 1942. It laid down a focused doctrine — "There is but one objective of tank destroyer units… the destruction of hostile tanks" — and repeatedly emphasized an offensive, vigorous spirit. Tank destroyer units were expected to be employed as complete battalions, held in reserve and committed at critical points, rather than parceled out as small defensive strong points. The emphasis was heavily on mobility, and the ability to outmaneuver the attacking armor; this would feed into vehicle design, and cause the speed and power of a vehicle to be prioritized over survivability or — to a degree — firepower.
Thus the U.S. tank destroyer battalion was created. The battalion was organized in one of two different forms a towed battalion equipped with anti-tank guns, or a self-propelled battalion equipped with armored tank destroyers. U.S. Army doctrine held that tanks did not fight other tanks but supported infantry. The tank destroyers were formed as a counter force to massed formations of enemy armored units, acting as independent battalions attached to divisions or corps. In practice they were usually parceled out in smaller units and used to support infantry units. Over a hundred battalions were formed, of which more than half saw combat service, but the force was disbanded shortly after the end of the war.
Combat Experience
North Africa
During the North African Campaign of 1942-1943, the US forces would employ seven tank destroyer battalions. However, contrary to doctrine they were invariably broken up down to the platoon level to support infantry companies. On the one occasion where a tank destroyer battalion was employed as an organized unit — the 601st, at the Battle of El Guettar — it proved highly potent, breaking up an attack by strong elements of the 10th Panzer Division, including some 57 tanks. This engagement had the interesting distinction of being the only time a battalion would fight in the way envisaged by the original "tank destroyer" concept, as an organized independent unit opposing an armored force in open terrain.
Three major changes to the overall doctrine emerged from the North African campaign. Firstly, the planned number of tank destroyer battalions was concluded to be excessive; the plan for 222 battalions was scaled down eventually to 78. Secondly, flaws had emerged in the M3 and M10 tank destroyers. They were not fast enough, and had an overly high silhouette which made them vulnerable to direct enemy fire. General Omar Bradley, suggested that towed anti-tank guns could be reintroduced to infantry units. While it was feared this would lead to a lack of offensive spirit his intent was to put the anti-tank assets in the hands of infantry units. The fact that the British Army had had success with in antitank guns supported his proposal. However this was not done in the manner Bradley envisioned with Tank Destroyer battalions remaining independent and simply acquiring more towed guns. Thirdly, the expected employment of the battalions shifted. While the formal doctrine still called for the employment of complete battalions, the force began to emphasize a new focus on combined arms training and small-unit actions. New field manuals were prepared to discuss the independent operation of tank-destroyer platoons, and crews began to have specialized training in their secondary roles, such as indirect gunnery or anti-fortification work.
Italy
The second theater of operations for tank destroyer units was the Italian campaign, beginning with the landings in Sicily in July 1943 and continuing into mainland Italy that September. While German armor was present in the theater, it was rarely committed to battle in large groups; this was partly a result of the broken, heavily cultivated, terrain, but also due to a growing conservatism and defensive ethos on the German side. As a result, the tank destroyers found themselves used for a variety of other tasks, most commonly local artillery support.
A report in late 1944, reviewing the use of tank destroyer units in combat, found that in practice they were often expected to fulfill the roles of armor support. During the planning stage for an attack it was found that practically without exception the infantry commanders were reasonable in their requirements and expectations of support by the tank destroyers. But once the battle was joined, the original plans with few exceptions were often discarded and the destroyers were ordered to go forward as tanks ahead of the infantry.
When operating with armored forces, it was common to attach a company or a platoon to a tank battalion or company, and use them in an over watch role. When operating in defense, tanks and tank destroyers were pooled as a rear-area reserve and brought into the line to blunt tank-led attacks against infantry positions.
A major lesson learned from the Italian campaign was that the conversion to towed guns was not as advantageous as had been previously thought. The mobility and protection of the tank destroyer was found to outweigh the towed anti-tank gun's low profile. At Anzio, a number of British towed anti-tank gun units were overrun and knocked out simply because they were unable to redeploy on short notice, while self-propelled guns were able to fall back and continue fighting.
The major tank destroyer used in Italy was the M10; though its gun was incapable of dealing with Panther tanks and Tiger tanks, it was more than efficient against most enemy armor encountered in Italy. The M18 was first deployed in the summer of 1944, and was not seen as a great success in the Italian theater; its high speed was only of limited use in the restricted terrain, and as a result it was effectively a slightly up gunned but substantially less survivable M10.
Northwest Europe
By far the largest employment of tank destroyer units was in the north-western Europe campaign through France, the Low Countries and Germany. They were employed from the very beginning of the campaign, with one battalion being landed on Utah Beach in a follow-up wave on D-Day.
A revised version of Field Manual 18-5, introduced in June 1944, broadened the doctrine of tank destroyer operations. It allowed for a more dispersed deployment of the battalions throughout a force, and recommended that when enemy armor was only expected to be deployed in small groups, tank destroyers were to be distributed among forward units. It became general practice to attach a tank destroyer battalion semi-permanently to a division; this meant that it was locally available for emergencies, and that it would be able to train alongside "its" division when out of the line.
The most significant employment of tank destroyers in Normandy was in early August, at the battle of Mortain, where the 823rd Tank Destroyer Battalion (towed 3-inch guns) was on the defensive alongside the 30th Infantry Division. The division, which was in temporary positions and not prepared for a defensive engagement, was attacked by elements of four panzer divisions on August 6, under heavy fog. The 823rd put up a strong defense — knocking out fourteen tanks — but took heavy losses, being mostly overrun and losing eleven guns. This served to reinforce misgivings about the effectiveness of the towed units, and a report delivered to the Pentagon in December recommended they be phased out in favor of self-propelled units.
In December 1944 and January 1945, the Battle of the Bulge put American ground forces on the strategic defensive for the first time in Europe, as a German army group of 24 divisions (including ten panzer divisions with 1,500 armored vehicles) launched a major offensive in the Ardennes forest. The main thrust fell on two overstretched infantry divisions, both with attached towed tank destroyer battalions. Once contact was made, the towed guns were unable to reposition themselves or withdraw, and were often overrun by the enemy advance, or simply outflanked by infantry. The gun crews, unlike their self-propelled counterparts, had no protection against small-arms fire, and could easily be driven back by a squad of infantry. This lack of mobility was aggravated by the cold wet weather, and the rough conditions, which tended to bog down wheeled vehicles and immobilize fixed guns. Throughout the 1st Army as a whole, three-quarters of the tank destroyers lost were towed rather than self-propelled. One battalion, the 801st, lost 17 towed guns in just two days, while the M10 equipped 644th, which fought alongside it, found ideal opportunities for close-range ambushes and claimed 17 tanks in the same time period. It was clear that the towed guns had proved ineffective, and on January 11, 1945, the War Office approved Eisenhower's request to convert all remaining towed units in the theatre to self-propelled guns.
Tank destroyers were to be found throughout the fighting in the Ardennes, fighting at close range in broken terrain much as they had done in Italy. The 705th, equipped with M18s, fought alongside the 101st Airborne at the siege of Bastogne, and played a key role in the defense of the town. The battle was also the first major engagement of the M36, with its 90 mm gun; the three battalions employed[9] proved highly effective.
While the tank destroyers were broadly used in their intended role in the Ardennes — being used as a reserve to counter a massed armored attack[citation needed] — there were two significant differences between their use and the original doctrine. Firstly, there was no central strategic reserve — most tank destroyer battalions were assigned to divisions and kept near the front line, rather than massed in the rear. Secondly, the battalions were rarely committed as a whole; as had become common, they were effectively used as local anti-tank assets, with a platoon or a company assigned to an infantry battalion to bolster its defensive strength.
After losses in the Ardennes, German armored capability in the West had effectively collapsed, both through combat losses and through logistical limitations. As such, the tank destroyer battalions spent the closing months of the war as mobile support units, parceled out into secondary roles.
Disbandment
The US Army finished the war with 63 active tank destroyer battalions, mostly self-propelled.
While tank destroyers had proven their versatility and efficiency in combat, especially in secondary roles, their long-term utility was becoming doubtful by 1945 in light of changes to Army doctrine. Their primary role was to destroy enemy armor, but this role was being usurped by tanks, as had already happened in many other armies. The most powerful tank destroyer to be fielded, the M36, mounted a 90 mm gun; the same armament was carried by the M26 Pershing heavy tank, which was beginning to reach front-line units by the end of hostilities. The M26 was redesignated as a medium tank shortly after the end of the war, becoming the standard vehicle of armored units, and further reducing the need for any specialist anti-tank capacity. In effect, tank destroyers were used just like tanks in many cases. Study of ammunition expenditures shows that tank destroyers in Europe fired about 11 rounds of high-explosive (HE) ammunition for every round of armor-piercing (AP) ammunition, showing conclusively that they were used for general support duties far more often than as anti-tank assets.
In addition, the Army was reducing fast after the end of hostilities; the tank destroyer branch cost the equivalent of three or four full divisions, a definite luxury for a non-essential service. On November 10, 1945, the Tank Destroyer Center was closed, effectively ending the long-term prospects of the force, and the last battalion was inactivated by 1946.
