ebook img

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

67 Pages·1973·32.83 MB·English
Save to my drive
Quick download
Download
Most books are stored in the elastic cloud where traffic is expensive. For this reason, we have a limit on daily download.

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

u.s. Armor-Cavalry (1917-1967) A Short History by Duncan Crow Editor AFV/Weapons series ~ Profile Publications Limited ~ Windsor, Berkshire, England • -L Other Profile Books AFV /Weapons Series Modern US Armored Support Vehicles 2 British and Commonwealth Armoured Formations (1919-46) 3 79th Armoured Division: Hobo's Funnies 4 In Trust for the Nation: HMS Belfast 1939-1971 Other Famous Profile Bound Volume Series AFVs of the World : Volume 1 World War I 1914-1919 Volume 2 British AFVs 1919-1940 Volume 3 British and Commonwealth AFVs 1940-1946 Volume 4 American AFVs of World War II Aircraft in Profile: Volumes 1-11 Locomotives in Profile: Volumes 1-2 Warships in Profile: Volumes 1 -2 © 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 ~,ce :-<ps, 'ted ::sen " of - to and :: nhs -:-ary , and :ow _ g h, the 39 , , en ; Jyal ",less _ ief t om _''O pe dian :- of . ' aki ,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) :, as orld Armored Organization ~s. -'9 a 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

Description:
US Armor-Cavalry: A short history 1917-1967
See more

The list of books you might like

Most books are stored in the elastic cloud where traffic is expensive. For this reason, we have a limit on daily download.