U.S. Armor-Cavalry, 1917-1967: A Short History

67 Pages·1973·32.83 MB·English

by  Duncan Crow

u.s.
Armor-Cavalry (1917-1967)
A Short History
by Duncan Crow
Editor AFV/Weapons series
~ Profile Publications Limited
~ Windsor, Berkshire, England
• -L
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© Duncan Crow and Profile Publications Limited

1973

1 SBN 0 85383 084 3

First published in 1973, by
PROFILE PUBLICATIONS LIMITED
Windsor, Berkshire, England
Printed in England by Edwin Snell printers, Yeovil, Somerset
Contents
Page
To 1918
The United States Tank Corps 5
II 191 9-1 940 8
The Mechanized Force 10
III 1940-1 945 1 6
The Armored Divisions 16
The Armored Corps 22
Separate (Non-Divisional) Tank Battalions 22
Cavalry 27
Tank Destroyers 35
U.S. Marine Corps Armor 38
IV 1945-1950 42
The U.S. Constabulary 42
Armor, Cavalry, and Armored Cavalry 45
V Since 1950 48
The Armored Divisions 48
Army Reserve and National Guard 54
The Combat Arms Regimental System 55
Appendix 59
Index 62
Colour illustrations: 29, 32, 33, 36
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,J ;[In'' of Ihe lSI (laler 3041h) u.s. Tank Brigade dW';l1g an allack 0" October 7. 1918;17 the Meuse,Argo"ne offensive.
, and (U.S. Signal Corps Photo No. 111-SC-27424 in the National Archives)
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Armored Organization
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can Crow
I Illinois National Guard in 1898 it was a Colt automatic
gun with a steel shield, mounted on a three-wheeled
(TO 1918) Duryea passenger runabout. This was followed by two
steam-driven cars built by cadets at the Northwestern
Military and Naval Academy of which Davidson was
::.::::::c :::7 L' nited States of America became a commandant. The performance of these two cars on a
-=
r -ed gt'f nt in April 191 7, tanks had already road run from Chicago to Washington sufficiently
.....".,.,.-- -:n--':::-~ -e on the battlefield. The British had impressed Lieutenant-General Nelson A. Miles on the
~ :_ ::-.;: Somme on September 15, 1916, eve of his retirement as Commanding General of the
~ - . c--:!:ional tank companies organized Army in 1903 for him to recommend to the Secretary of
"-'-_.~-~~. -: ~ French had ten tank companies War that five of the fifteen cavalry regiments be con,
_ ~::-, :heir first tank action on Aplil verted to an automobile corps. Nothing, however, came
of this first suggestion for cavalry mechanization, and
- --~ ::'; ming vehicles already existed indeed it was not until 19 16 that motorization arrived
:"::''0' L'n'ted States before 1917­ initially in the United States Army.
= =.::::
ry circles. As in several Colonel Davidson continued his development of
:..>: :::ltative AFVs had been armored cars and in 1915 produced the first true armored
car in the United States. The following year the first
.:..-=~~;:d car was only partially American armored units appeared. Two Regular Army
C ,\.-:-" C: R. P. Davidson of the units were formed for duty on the Mexican border. One
was equipped with armored Jeffery Quad trucks known AFV-the tank. There was an idea once current- and
as Armored Cars No. I, the other with armored White perhaps still is in some places--that inventions come
trucks known as Armored Cars No.2 ; both units also from what has been called "the hermit genius, spinning
had motor-cycle machine-guns. inventions out of his intellectual and psychic innards. "
The New York National Guard also formed an There is little truth in this. Inventions, like scientific
armored unit, the 1s t Armored Motor Battery, which research, are in fact a social phenomenon. The social
served on the Mexican border equipped with three climate and social institutions have to be sympathetic
armored cars, staff cars, trucks and motor-cycle machine­ for them to flOUlish; and indeed so much are research and
guns; and the Michigan National Guard, another of the invention a social phenomenon that there are fashions in
great number of National Guard units that were called them just as there are fashions in clothes. Trench war­
into Federal service for patrol duty along the Mexican fare, on the scale that solidified the Western Front from
border, took an improvized Reo armored car with them. September 1914, created a fashion for armed and
Although the Punitive Expedition into Mexico that armored tracklayers--vehicles that, for security reasons
resulted from Pancho Villa's raid was principally a in the first place, were given the non-commital cover
horsed cavalry action, "the last such in American name of "tanks".
history," as the official history of Armor-Cavalry Early tank operations on the Westel11 Front were far
relates·, this force, under Major-General John J. from wholly successful. One result of this was that the
Pershing, was an important harbinger, for it introduced American Military Mission in Paris, which had been
motor trucks as part of the supply system. Although directed to examine the use of tanks by the British and
these trucks caused concern among their protagonists, the French, drew more attention to the tanks' defects
and quiet jubilation among their opponents, because of than to the new opportunities they offered for breaking
frequent lnechanical breakdown- reactions that were the stalemate on the Western Front and declared them a
standard in all armies throughout the world whenever failure. The Military Mission's report, dated May 21 ,
and wherever the horse was threatened by the internal 1917, reflected an attitude very similar to that of the
combustion engine- lheir appearance on the military German High Command. Both regarded the failure of
scene began the inexorable domination of the machine the tank to make a decisive impact as something that
as a means of military transport and as a fighting vehicle was attributable to an inherent fault in the weapon
in the U.S. Anny. itself, instead of recognizing- as its supporters did- that
By this time the inventors were busy in the United the failure was the result of the weapon's misuse.
States as elsewhere in developing the tracklaying type of But the lukewarm report of the Military Mission had
no ultimate effect on policy. Soon after General
* p. 34 Armor-Cavalry Part I: Regular Army and Army Pershing's arrival in France on June 13, 1917, as Com­
Reserve, by Mary Lee Stu bbs and Stanley Russell Connor. mander-in-Chief, American Expeditionary Forces
Office Chief of Military History, 1969. (Army Lineage Series.) (AEF), the tank and its possibilities were studied in
In 1916 lhe New York National Guard 1st Armored MOlor Batlery used lhis Locomobile Armored Car, one of three similar cars of differelJl makes.
(Courtesy C. w. Sutton)
2