US Armored Units in the North Africa and Italian Campaigns 1942-45

97 Pages·2006·5.48 MB·English

by  Steven J. Zaloga

O
SPREY
Battle Orders
PUBLISHING
US Armored Units in the
North African and Italian
Campaigns 1942–45
Armor in the defense: Anzio beachhead, February 16, 1944 Osteriaccia 26
Campoleone 29
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Armored division, March 1, 1942
CCA
CCB
(attached)
Steven J Zaloga
• Consultant editor Dr Duncan Anderson
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Battle Orders • 21
US Armored Units in the
North African and Italian
Campaigns 1942–45
Steven J Zaloga
Consultant editor Dr Duncan Anderson • Series editors Marcus Cowper and Nikolai Bogdanovic
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Contents
Introduction 4
The mission 8
Preparations for war 17
The Armored Force in 1942 • The Tank Destroyer Force in 1942
Unit organization 23
Tank unit equipment • Tank destroyer reorganization • Tank destroyer equipment
Command and control 51
Tactics 54
Tanks in amphibious operations • Tank tactics in Tunisia • Tank destroyers in Tunisia
Operation Husky:Sicily July 1943 • Salerno • Armor on the Volturno
Armor at Anzio • The campaign in Northern Italy
Lessons learned 84
Unit status 86
1st Armored Division • 2nd Armored Division
Separate tank battalions • Tank destroyer battalions
Further reading 93
US Army studies • Published works
Index 95
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Introduction
The first major commitment of US tank units during World War II took place
in North Africa in November 1942. Two of the new armored divisions were
deployed along with several tank battalions and tank destroyer battalions. The
defeat of a combat command of the 1st Armored Division during the
Faid–Kasserine battles in February 1943 demonstrated significant flaws in US
armored organization, training, tactics and equipment. This led to extensive
reorganization in the summer of 1943 that largely shaped the tank arm for the
upcoming campaigns in Italy and France. US commitment of armored units in
subsequent campaigns in the Mediterranean Theater of Operations (MTO),
beginning with Operation Huskyon Sicily in July 1943, saw the significant use
of armored formations. But the US Army regarded Italy as a peripheral theater,
and less than 20 percent of the army’s tank strength was deployed in the
When Combat Command B subsequent campaigns in Italy in 1944–45. In spite of the relatively small
departed for North Africa in the commitment of armored forces in the MTO, the campaigns of 1943–44 were
autumn of 1942,the remainder of vital in maturing US army organization and tactics for the forthcoming
the 1st Armored Division remained
campaign in France and Germany in 1944–45.
in the United Kingdom for training.
The US Army’s attitudes to its tank force were in a state of considerable flux
Here,a battalion of M3 medium
from World War I through to the 1942 landings in North Africa. During these
tanks is seen on exercise near
Perham Downs on December 6, formative years, American tank policy was heavily dependent on trends in
1942.(NARA) Europe, and this would remain the case through the beginning of World War II.
4
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The US Army Tank Service, later called the Tank Corps, was formed in
January 1918 to support the American Expeditionary Force in France. There
had been little military-industrial preparation prior to America’s late entry into
World War I, so the Tank Corps was entirely dependent on France and Britain
for its first tanks. At first, US tank organization did not precisely follow either
French or British practices. The original plans in July 1917 were to deploy a
light tank company in each division for close support, plus a number of heavy
tank companies at army level for use on specific missions. This plan was
superseded in September 1917 by a decision to concentrate the tanks under
General Headquarters (GHQ) as a strategic asset that would be used as occasion
warranted. This change followed the lessons learned by the French and British
armies that the early tanks were not particularly robust and were complicated
to operate. It was much simpler to concentrate the tanks in larger formations,
such as battalions, with adequate technical support than in small, dispersed
companies, which, by their very nature, would have less extensive service
elements. Furthermore, early combat experiences with tanks suggested that
attacks by concentrated forces of tanks had greater tactical potential than
occasional, dispersed use. Under the new scheme, a tank brigade consisting of
two light tank battalions and a heavy tank battalion, along with associated
support elements, would support each field army.
As a first step, the US Army in 1918 began forming two tank brigades to
support the two field armies that were intended for deployment in France.
Brigadier General Samuel D. Rockenbach commanded the AEF Tank Corps in
France. Curiously enough, two young officers who would earn greater fame in
World War II were intimately involved in the early tank force. Capt. George S.
Patton was assigned to create and train the first US light tank troops and would
later lead the light tank battalions of the 1st Tank Brigade in their initial combat
foray in September 1918. The new US tank training center at Camp Colt in
Pennsylvania was commanded by Dwight Eisenhower. The AEF’s two light tank
battalions with French Renault FT light tanks and one heavy tank battalion with
British tanks saw extensive combat use in the concluding months of the war. In
addition, US divisions were often supported by French and British tank units,
further impressing US officers with the value of tanks on the modern battlefield.
Although tanks had proven themselves to be an important ingredient in the
new tactics of European warfare, the US Army Tank Corps was short lived. In the
postwar demobilization, it was disbanded under the National Defense Act of 1920
and the tanks handed over to the infantry branch as a support weapon, much like
light machine guns and other innovations. The demise of the Tank Corps was part
of a larger shift in US Army policy forced on it by national priorities and a retreat
into isolationism. World War I was “the war to end all wars” and national leaders
were hopeful that the American-inspired League of Nations would make future
wars unthinkable. The Army budget was heavily cut, and its interwar orientation
shifted from the conduct of high-intensity combat in Europe to more traditional
missions such as policing the frontier and overseas possessions, where tanks were
a wasteful indulgence. There was little money spent on new tank design since the
army possessed over a thousand tanks left over from World War I, far in excess of
the needs of its actual order of battle. Through most of the 1920s, the US tank
units consisted of scattered companies of M.1917 light tanks, a US-built copy of
the Renault FT. The US Marine Corps deployed a few M.1917 tanks on missions in
China in the 1920s, but for the most part the tanks remained rusting away in
garrisons except for the occasional summer maneuver.
Again, it was Europe that enervated American developments. In 1927,
Secretary of War Dwight Davis witnessed the British Mechanized Force at
Aldershot. He was so impressed by the display that he ordered the creation of
a similar test force. The Experimental Mechanized Force was assembled at
Camp Meade, Maryland, in the summer of 1930 and conducted maneuvers
for three months. It consisted of two tank battalions, an infantry battalion, 5
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acavalry armored car troop, an artillery battalion and supporting troops. It was
temporary in nature and its component units returned to their garrisons in the
autumn. The army chief-of-staff, Gen. Charles Summerall, concluded that the
tank might someday be used to constitute a new offensive combat force but
that the maneuvers had not proven the maturity of the concept. Summerall
recognized that obsolete equipment was to blame for the shortcomings of the
experimental force and urged further funding for equipment modernization.
The more far-sighted army officers realized that the meager peacetime budget
precluded any extensive mechanization of the army, but they hoped that the
judicious expenditure of the limited funds could form a seed from which a
mass army would grow if the need arose.
Although senior infantry officers opposed efforts to take away their control
of the tanks, a Mechanization Board was formed in 1930 to study army needs.
In October 1930, Summerall ordered the creation of a new mechanized force
at Ft. Eustis, Virginia, as a permanent organization to study mechanization
needs. However, congressional funding for the force was pitifully small, about
$250,000 or roughly the cost of a platoon of tanks. The force was hardly in
place when the new chief-of-staff, Douglas MacArthur, disbanded it in late
1931. MacArthur preferred to let the existing combat arms choose their own
path to mechanization rather than to create a new organization. The important
consequence of the mechanization debate was that it opened up tactical and
technical competition between the infantry and cavalry branches. Although
the cavalry was forbidden from procuring tanks under the 1920 Defense Act,
MacArthur’s support for broader mechanization opened the door for the
cavalry to experiment with its own tanks under the linguistic subterfuge that
they were “combat cars.” The cavalry branch eventually showed enthusiasm
for tanks with the durability and speed suitable for their missions, overcoming
the infantry’s complacent acceptance of the poor technical performance of
existing tanks. The cavalry inherited the Mechanized Force mission from the
Ft. Eustis group, and the 1st Cavalry Regiment was moved to Ft. Knox to begin
the process of mechanization. Cavalry efforts were expanded in 1936 by
moving the 13th Cavalry Regiment to Ft. Knox due to the acquisition of
more combat cars, and these two regiments were used to create the mechanized
7th Cavalry Brigade, commanded by Col. Adna Chaffee.
The advent of the Great Depression undermined efforts to buy any
significant number of new tanks or cavalry cars in the early 1930s, but
MacArthur supported the allocation of funds to continue to develop more
modern designs until funding could support serial manufacture. Rather than
spend the little money available on the manufacture of obsolete tanks, the
army preferred to hoard as much as possible for tank development and the
construction of small numbers of pilot tanks. In the five years from 1930 to
1934, the US Army funded the production of only nine tanks.
The late 1930s saw a continued deterioration in the international situation
with Japanese military operations in China, the German reoccupation of the
Rhineland under Hitler’s aggressive new Nazi government, the Italian invasion of
Ethiopia and a civil war in Spain aggravated by the thinly concealed involvement
of the Great Powers. The rise in tension was reflected in worldwide tank
production, especially in Europe. In 1934, the tank production of Britain, France
and Germany was only about 150 vehicles, but by 1937 this had climbed ten-fold
to about 1,535 tanks. With the US economy beginning to recover from the
Depression and with war brewing in Europe and the Pacific, the US Army began
a slow program to mechanize, funding 62 tanks and combat cars in the 1936
fiscal year budget and 186 in 1937. Between 1930 and 1939, the US Army
obtained 321 light tanks and 148 combat cars. But the US Army remained behind
by European standards. By way of comparison, in 1939 the Polish Army fielded
two mechanized cavalry brigades and three tank battalions while the US Army
6 had a single mechanized cavalry regiment and three operational tank battalions.
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In spite of its own meager resources, the US Army stayed abreast of developments
in Europe by a thorough reporting system undertaken by military attachés and
disseminated by the Military Intelligence Division; reports on German, French,
and British mechanization efforts were extremely detailed and timely.
The start of the war in Europe in September 1939 led to a substantial increase
in US defense spending but a consensus over the place of the tank on the
modern battlefield remained elusive. Even after the Polish campaign, US cavalry
advocates still claimed that the horse cavalry had a future on the modern
battlefield and many infantry officers still wanted the tank to remain subordinate
to the foot soldier. But the tide was turning in favor of more visionary officers
such as Gen. Adna Chaffee, the cavalry’s prime advocate of mechanization.
The infantry gathered together its scattered divisional tank companies into the
68th Infantry Regiment (Tank) at Ft. Benning and in the winter of 1939–40 began
to organize a Provisional Tank Brigade, which included nearly all its tank units.
By the spring of 1940, the US Army deployed two mechanized cavalry regiments,
five light tank battalions in the 67th and 68th Infantry (Tanks), one medium
tank company and 13 National Guard divisional tank companies.
Frustrated by the continuing bickering, the War Department ordered the
branches to cooperate in testing a provisional mechanized force in the May 1940
maneuvers, including the 6th Infantry (Motorized), the Provisional Tank Brigade
and 7th Cavalry Brigade. Various combinations of units were employed during
the course of the wargames. At one point, this embryonic armored division
trounced the 1st Cavalry Division. In a post-maneuver conference headed by the
War Department’s chief of operations, Brig. Gen. Frank Andrews, the conclusion
of the officers present was that the future of army mechanization should be taken
out of the recalcitrant hands of the infantry and cavalry branch chiefs and placed
under the control of a new “non-sectarian” organization.
The issue was conclusively settled by developments in Europe the same
month, the astonishing defeat of the French Army. From a contemporary
perspective, it is difficult to explain how great a shock the French defeat caused
among the leaders of the US Army. It is commonplace today to speak about a
“special relationship” between the United States and Britain. But in 1940, if any
such relationship existed, it was between the US and French armies. There had
been ties dating back to the American Revolution, and in World War I the
French Army had been instrumental in equipping the US Army and guiding
its training and doctrine. In the interwar years, many US officers attended
advanced courses in French military schools, including future tank
commanders like George S. Patton. The French Army was widely viewed in
Washington as one of the best in the world, and amongst the best equipped.
Its sudden defeat at the hands of the German panzer divisions ended the
debate about army mechanization in the United States.
With the lessons of the Louisiana maneuvers fresh in his mind and the
startling developments in France providing the rationale, Gen. Andrews pushed
the Army chief-of-staff, Gen. George Marshall, to create a new force to organize
and train the army’s new mechanized elements. The Armored Force was created
at Ft. Knox on July 10, 1940, hardly a month after the French defeat. The name
was chosen as a compromise—the infantry didn’t want the cavalry term
“mechanized” used and the cavalry felt the same way about the term “tank,”
which its officers associated with the infantry. The new force absorbed all of
the infantry’s tank units, and the cavalry’s various mechanized units as well.
The initial organization planned the formation of two armored divisions, the
1st based around the cavalry’s 1st and 13th Cavalry Regiments, and the
2nd based around the infantry’s 67th and 68th Infantry Regiments. A separate
70th GHQ Reserve Tank Battalion was created at Ft. George Meade, Maryland,
and an Armored Force Board was established to direct the development of new
equipment. Command of the Armored Force was handed over to Gen. Adna
Chaffee, long one of the most forceful advocates of army mechanization. 7
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The mission
World War I marked a stage in industrial-age warfare where innovations in
“The Green Hornet,” as George firepower favored the defense. The widespread introduction of light machine
S.Patton was nicknamed by his guns, the improved range and accuracy of modern rifles, and the long range
troops at the time,is seen here in and high rate of fire of artillery crushed attempts by the infantry and cavalry
Manchester,Tennessee,on June 19,
to advance across open ground. The tank emerged in 1917–18 as a tactical
1941,during the summer wargames.
means to restore balance on the battlefield by providing the infantry with a
Lt.Col.R.W.Grow from his staff
obtains a bit of impromptu means to overcome machine-gun positions and entrenchments. There was very
intelligence from a local resident. little controversy through the interwar years over the desirability of tanks for
Patton is wearing a tanker’s helmet this limited but important tactical mission. The controversy emerged over
of his own design based on a whether tank units, or a combination of tank and motorized infantry units,
football helmet.His nickname
might constitute a large mobile force capable of offensive operational action in
stemmed from his habit for
the face of contemporary firepower. For much of the interwar period, the issue
mounting sirens on his command
was muddied by the poor reliability of early tanks. But by the mid-1930s, the
car,an M3A1 scout car in this case,
and racing around with the sirens technical maturity of tanks was improving to the point that mechanized
wailing.(NARA) operations were beginning to seem more plausible. The German victories in
8
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Two of the early leaders of the
US mechanized forces,Maj.Gen.
Orlando “Pink” Ward,to the left,
commander of the 1st Armored
Division at the time of the
Kasserine Pass fighting,and Maj.
Gen.Andrew D.Bruce,head of
the Tank Destroyer Force.(MHI)
Poland in 1939 and in France in 1940 indicated that the new mechanization
doctrine constituted a revolution in military affairs and a fundamental shift in
modern battlefield tactics. Architect of the US Army in
World War II,Lt.Gen.Lesley
There had been considerable discussion in the US Army’s journals about
McNair was a dyed-in-the-wool
the mission and organization of a future mechanized force, but the sense of
artilleryman whose preconceptions
emergency in the summer of 1940 short-circuited the usual process of debate and
distorted the development of the
discussion and led to hasty decisions about the constitution of the new Armored tank destroyer command in an
Force. One of the central debates over mechanization was the issue unfortunate direction.(USMA)
of centralized versus decentralized mechanization. The
French Army had employed decentralized mechanization,
creating independent armored divisions, cavalry light
mechanized divisions, a variety of smaller mechanized
cavalry formations and a large number of infantry-
support tank battalions. The Wehrmacht had chosen an
opposite approach, not only tightly centralizing its
tank strength in the panzer divisions, but forming panzer
corps to control two or more panzer divisions for
key operations. The American assessment of the battle
of France led to the inescapable conclusion that
decentralized mechanization had proven to be a failure
while centralized mechanization created a vital mass
of mobility and firepower that restored the power of
the offensive on the modern battlefield. As a result,
the Wehrmacht served as the model for the initial
organization and mission of US Army Armored Force,
based in large measure on accurate and thorough reports
from the military attachés in Berlin since the mid-1930s.
While the German model provided a sound basis for US
developments, unfortunately the US Army was cut off
from the dynamic developments within the Wehrmacht
in the early war years. As a result, the US interpretation of
the German model was often an outdated conception
closer to the well-documented 1937 patterns than to the
wartime patterns that had been improved by hard combat
experience. The early German examples tended to be tank
heavy, but with experience the Wehrmacht was shifting 9
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Maj.Gen.Jacob Devers,the second
head of the Armored Force,
frequently locked horns with
McNair over the development of
the Armored Force and Tank
Destroyer Force.Their antagonistic
relationship continued even after
Devers was booted upstairs to
command forces in the European
Theater in the summer of 1943.
(NARA)
the focus from a pure panzer force to a combined-arms approach with panzers,
infantry and artillery used in coordinated tactics.
Based on these models, the US Armored Force consolidated all separate tank
and cavalry units into divisions with some very modest exceptions. The infantry
branch still wanted tank units to provide direct support and, as a token gesture,
the Armored Force acceded by creating a small number of separate tank
battalions. However, these were placed under GHQ command, not under the
direct command of the infantry divisions, so they could be used to reinforce the
new armored corps as well as the infantry. I Armored Corps was formed in 1940
and included the new 1st and 2nd Armored Divisions. Three more armored
corps were planned as more armored divisions were formed, and the Armored
Force also pressed for the creation of motorized infantry divisions, which would
provide a better balance in operations than armored divisions alone.
Mechanized cavalry officers, such as Adna Chaffee and the 2nd Armored
Division commander, Brig. Gen. Charles Scott, heavily dominated the early
leadership of the Armored Force. It was a magnet for ambitious young cavalry
officers who knew that the days of horse cavalry were over and that the
Armored Force was the only realistic path for a future career. In contrast, the
order of battle of US infantry divisions was quickly expanding due to the war
10 emergency, which tended to keep ambitious infantry officers in their own
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