BE UNPREPARED

 

The Motto of the British armoured forces from 1930 to 1945

 

What follows is a precis of the book “Death by Design” by Peter Beale; and published in 1998. The sub-title of the book is “The fate of British tank crews in World War II”, and the thrust of the book is that British tank crews were ill-equipped, managed by vacillating doctrine, plagued by indifferent leadership at the higher levels, and poorly prepared to fight with ferocity.

It was delivered as a talk to the Royal United Services Institution of New South Wales in 2002.

-         Peter Beale, copyright 2002

 

 

Britain ended World War I with the most effective and experienced tank force in theWorld. It entered World War II with a force very much less effective than the German, less effective than the Russian, and roughly on a par with the French. The really disgraceful thing, however, was that they were less effective than the Germans throughout WWII; even worse, the tank that would have given British forces the advantage over the Germans for the first time, the Centurion, was delivered in the form of six prototypes in May 1945, one week after the war in Europe ended.

 

That they were ill-prepared and ineffective was due to four main causes: uncertainty about tank doctrine; what should tanks do, and how should they do it best; poor tank design and manufacture; very few good leaders of armoured formations; lack of training for tank crews to be aggressive.

 

We will look at each of these in turn, but first: in all these comments we must remember that most tank units fought bravely, and tried to give of their best.

 

Tank Doctrine

 

WWI tanks were created to crush barbed wire, straddle trenches and move across rough ground to bring direct supporting fire for the infantry, particularly in the elimination of machine gun posts. In general they discharged this task well, especially during the last year of the war.

 

                  

 

Tank designers and tacticians had also developed a light tank called the Whippet, armed only with machine-guns but capable of quicker movement the battlefield. On 8  August 1918 Lt C.D.Arnold of the 13th Battalion in his Whippet MUSICAL BOX  created  havoc behind the German lines by destroying field batteries and transport, and threatening formation headquarters.

 

                  

 

After the war two questions had to be answered. Should the army continue to have a tank force, and what should be its role? In spite of the massive run down of the British Army in 1919, it was decided that a tank force should be maintained. But there were several differing views as to how the force should be used. One of the significant contributors to tank doctrine was Col. John  Fuller, generally known as Boney.

 

In a lecture to the Royal  United Service Institution in London on 11 Feb 1920 he gave his view on how tanks could be used, and part of his lecture ran thus: Let us now become clairvoyant as regards to the future. I see a fleet operating against a fleet, not at sea but on land: cruisers and battleships and destroyers. My astral form  follows one side and I notice that it is in difficulty; it cannot see; there appears an aeroplane and it gives it sight. It says by wireless telegraphy the enemy are yonder. The approach begins. I see a man in one of the aeroplanes, his head is swollen with the future. He is the Commander-in-Chief of the land fleet I am following.

 

Tank doctrine was developed, but the opportunities to try out the ideas in practice were very limited, mainly because of cash. Exercises with the Experimental Mechanical Force were carried out in 1927 and 1928, and in 1929 the Handbook on mechanised and armoured formations was issued (the purple primer). In 1931 a Tank Brigade was established, and its commander, Charles Broad, demonstrated very effectively the use of radio to control a tank formation.

 

In 1937 a mobile division – subsequently  the 1st Armoured Division – was established in England, and Maj-General Alan Brooke (a gunner) was appointed as commander. He spoke of one of the problems of his command:

 

There was on the one hand the necessity to evolve correct doctrine for the employment of armoured forces in the field of battle, and on the other hand some bridge must be found to span the large gap that existed in the relations between the extremists of the Tank Corps and the cavalry. There was no love lost between the two. The cavalry naturally resented deeply losing their horses, giving up their mounted role and becoming dungaree mechanics.

 

It appears that tank doctrine was not documented until Army Training Instruction No 3,  Handling of an Armoured Division (1941). This gave the establishment of the division as two armoured brigades and a support group. In which there was only one battalion of infantry. Initial armoured establishments were thus very tank-heavy. In July 1943 the War Office produced an updated instruction which changed the Establishment of an Armoured Division and specified its roles more precisely:

 

usually by envelopment or by deep penetration through his defences after a gap has been made in his

main position by other formations

 

In December 1944 Monty promulgated his views on the use of armoured forces, and stressed the need for flexibility.  This was borne out by the comments of  Maj-Gen Pip Roberts, commanding 11 Armoured Division in Normandy:

 

   “ Throughout the war the tactics used within an armoured division and its organization    were continually changing. It was not until our third battle in Normandy that we got it right, and that was an organization of complete flexibility. At the shortest notice the organization could be altered from an armoured brigade and an infantry brigade to two mixed brigades, each of two armoured regiments and two infantry battalions and artillery as required. All units were entirely interchangeable.”

 

Alan Jolly commanded the 144 RAC in Normandy, and ended his army career as a General. In his autobiography he discusses the use of tanks:

 

    “There are two basic purposes for which tanks exist and for which at present (1952) there are no substitutes. The first of these is to provide direct fire support for infantry as opposed to the direct fire of artillery. Artillery provides a greater weight of fire but can only deal with an area target and must therefore cease during the last 150 yards of the infantry’s advance to their objectives. This is where they usually suffer the bulk of their casualties from small arms fire, and it is here that the tank must fill in the gap by shooting with weapons of pin-point accuracy up to the moment that the infantry close with their enemy.

The second basic purpose for which the tank exists is to provide the hard core of the mobile portion of an army. This faster portion which provides the decisive action in battle is composed of armoured divisions, the tanks of which provide a concentration of mobile fire power which can disrupt, disorganize and pursue an enemy whose front has been broken or cracked by the slower infantry divisions and their supporting armour and artillery. The tank has one other significant purpose and that is to fight other tanks. However, the two fundamental purposes are to provide direct fire support of a nature which cannot be produced by artillery and to form the hard core of the mobile portion of an army.”

 

Development of British tanks, 1919-1945

 

The discussion on tank doctrine demonstrates the difficulty for tank designers to provide tank users with what they needed. Added to this basic difficulty was shortage of money. The average yearly expenditure on tank development between 1931 and 1937 was ₤5 million pounds, or about 1% of army expenditure. This amount was greatly increased from 1938 on, but throughout the whole period enormous amounts were spent going up blind alleys, resulting in no tanks at all, or producing tanks that proved to be useless fighting vehicles.

 

                  

 

The categories of tanks required at different times before and during WWII included: light, medium, cruiser, infantry, assault, and ultra-heavy. The result of this large number of categories was a dispersion of design and manufacturing resources such that over the years 57 different designs were commenced, of which 38 were cancelled either at the paper stage or at the prototype stage. Of the 19 that became production models, eight were moderately battle-worthy. The rest were either useless or close to it, and included the Covenanter, Crusader, Centaur, Cavalier, Challenger, and Matilda Mark I. The problems with these tanks included mechanical unreliability, insufficient armour, and under-gunning. We will consider evaluations of these tanks shortly, but first we must turn to the tank gun.

 

The main gun in a tank has two principal and somewhat contradictory functions:

·        Destruction of enemy tanks; for this the tank gun must have a high muzzle velocity  with its accompanying low trajectory;

·        Destruction of enemy soft-skinned vehicles;: for this the gun must have a lobbing or howitzer action, and a significant weight of HE.

 

Two ways of dealing with this dual requirement are: to have a gun for each purpose(Grant, Churchill Mk I ); a dual purpose gun. Generally British designers favoured the multi-purpose gun. The guns used over the period were: 2-pdr, 6-pdr, 75mm MV,75mm HV (77mm), 17-pdr. Of these the 2, 6, and 17-pdr were the main British designs. The time from initial request to general use was:

 

·        2-pdr: 1932 to 1935; obsolete by 1941

·        6-pdr: 1937 to 1941; not mounted in tanks until Oct 1942

·        17-pdr: 1941 to 1943; mounting in tanks only by Firefly, A 30 Challenger (200  only)

and Centurion (too late)

 

75 mm MV was essentially an American design; moderate against tanks, good against ground targets.

 

In most cases the tank was designed first and then the gun was fitted to it. This almost always meant that the tank was unable to be up-gunned except with extreme difficulty, e.g. 6-pdr in Crusader, Valentine, Matilda. The two tanks, purpose-designed to take a particular gun were the A 34 Comet, to take a long-barrelled HV 75mm and the A41 Centurion, to take the 17-pdr; and all the time there was the A/A 3.7(94mm) which was very rarely used in a ground A/T role; and never in a tank.

 

                  

 

Evaluation of tanks and their preparedness

 

Comments from users were generally uncritical, on the basis that adverse criticism was not allowed in the army. However, some of the descriptions of what actually happened are damning enough. The 9th Lancers left England on 20 May 1940, ten days after the German attack. On reaching Cherbourg on 21 May, the second-in-command of A Squadron was mounted in a fine new tank, an A 9; this had a powerful 3in howitzer. Unfortunately there was not one round of ammunition for this useful weapon. There was plenty of ammunition for the secondary armament, a Vickers machine-gun. The method of aiming this machine-gun required a telescopic sight, but there was no such sight, and if there had been it would have been of little use because there was no hole pierced into the front of the turret into which it could be fitted. This supposedly powerful tank therefore set off to meet the Germans with a rifle as its only effective weapon.

 

Bob Crisp was a distinguished South African cricketer who had fought with great gallantry in North Africa, Greece, and North West Europe in a great variety of tanks. He wrote to the MP Richard Stokes:

 

“For four years now I have been watching shells fired from mine, and other tanks, bouncing off the front of German panzers. I mean actually watching and actually bouncing; and that after we have wriggled, and crept, and rushed our tanks to within effective range for our weapons. This has meant always; for at least 1000 yards, we had been within the enemy’s effective range before we could fire a shot(at him) that had any hope of success.”

 

Montgomery’s views on tanks were somewhat contradictory, and depended on his situation. In August 1943 he wrote to the Vice-Chief of the Imperial General Staff about tanks:

 

“We are badly behind the Germans in this respect, and I’m anxious as to whether  we are thinking far enough ahead. History relates that in the struggle between gun and armour, the gun had always come out on top. The penetrating power of the German tank armament is infinitely superior to the gun at present fitted to the Sherman V or the Cromwell. At 1000 yards the Panther gun will penetrate 130 mm of armour. At this range the 75 mm in the Sherman will penetrate 62 mm and the six-pounder in the Cromwell will penetrate 72 mm.

This a very serious situation. The enemy can engage our tanks at ranges at which it is hopeless to reply with any hope of success. Being outgunned in this manner permits the enemy to reduce his armour thickness if he wishes, and to engage us at any range he desires.

 

                  

 

To overcome this serious defect it is necessary for our tanks to make the fullest use of ground in order to bring effective fire to bear on enemy tanks. This is a definite handicap when we are the attacker. In pushing for ward in a search for good fire positions, tanks often have to expose themselves and casualties follow rapidly.”

 

In less than a year Monty’s views had changed radically. On June 24 1944 his Chief of Staff, Freddie de Guingand, wrote to him:

 “If we are not careful there will be a danger of our troops developing a Tiger and Panther complex. P.J. (Sir James Grigg, Secretary of State for War ) rang me up last night and said he thought there might be trouble in the Guards Armoured Division as regards the inadequacy  of our tanks compared with the Germans. Naturally the reports are not being circulated.”

 

On 25 June Monty wrote to Grigg as follows:

 

“It has come to my notice that reports are circulating about the value of British tanks etc. compared to the Germans. We cannot have anything of that sort at this time. We have got a good lodgement area; we have built up our strength and tomorrow we leap on the enemy. Anything that undermines confidence and morale must be stamped on ruthlessly.”

 

In a memo of February 1945 Monty made some very strange statements about British tanks.

 

“British armour has come through the campaign in western Europe with flying colours, and has proved  itself superior in battle to German armour. If Rundstedt had been equipped with British armour when he attacked in the Ardennes on 16 December 1944 he would have reached the River Meuse in thirty-six hours. This would have placed the Allies in a very awkward position. If  21st Army Group had been equipped with German armour it could not have crossed the Seine on 8 August 1944 and reached Brussels on 3 September and Antwerp on 4 September, thus cutting off the whole Pas de Calais area in eight days: a very remarkable achievement which had far-reaching results.

The credit for all this must go to the War Office. The British armies in June 1944 were splendidly equipped for the job that had to be done.”

 

The problem with this memo is that it made the War Office complacent with what Monty said they had done, whether they had done it or not. Perhaps even more perniciously, this type of statement could be quoted in the House of Commons as coming from the great commanding general who was omniscient and all-seeing in these matters. Once again, one can only say that this statement was not correct.

 

These comments, both from on high; and from the coal-face, emphasize the difficulty – and the necessity – to obtain objective feedback from all parties. This lack of feedback and more particularly, action on the feedback, was a major and endemic failure in British military systems and one that remained firmly in place at least until the end of WWII.

 

Leadership of armoured forces

 

In the Peninsular War the Duke of Wellington frequently visited his troops in the front line to make a personal reconnaissance of the ground and the enemy forces. On one such occasion he came upon a lonely sentry. Seeing the Duke in such a dangerous position he blurted out emotionally:

 

 “God bless your crooked nose; I would sooner see it than ten thousand men.”

 

That sentry had confidence in his leader, knew that he would be well led and no soldier’s life would be unnecessarily wasted.

 

The effectiveness of any force depends in large part on the ability of its leader. This in turn depends on the leader: knowing what is to be achieved by his force and what are the capabilities of the force; having some natural aptitude for leading that type of force; being trained to lead that type of force.

 

                  

 

The British attitude to the training of tank commanders is well described in the recollections of Nigel Duncan, a tank officer who served with distinction in WWII and became a Major-General. In 1978, he was asked by an interviewer about his time as a cadet at Sandhurst in the 1920s and whether the instructors had anything to say regarding the use of tanks.

 

“Oh no, it wasn’t even mentioned. And when I suggested joining a tank unit I was told not to be stupid. It was an extremely odd arm, which had had a limited effect in France and was unlikely to continue for long. I was to give up all idea of serving in anything so stupid and, in any case, tank officers were not very nice people.”

 

Nigel Duncan progressed in the Army and in 1935 went to the Staff College. His 1978 interviewer asked him about the Staff College instructors’ attitude to armour:

 

“Armour teaching was disgraceful. The handling of armour was virtually ignored.”

 

 

The students of 1935 were those who would have to command or employ armoured formations between 1939 and 1945. No wonder there were so few who could do it competently.

 

Two commanders who stand out are Richard O’Connor and Pip Roberts. They performed very effectively with divisional-sized forces. But there were no notable British armoured commanders at higher levels; even Monty had few successes in his use of tanks.

 

There is obviously a problem in training people for command at this level. What is the doctrine, and who are the teachers? Doctrine changed frequently, as we have seen. One of the few to give training, essentially by feedback on performance, was Monty. After the battle of Alam Halfa he congratulated Brian Horrocks, one of his corps commanders, but at the same time told him a number of things he had done wrong – much to Horrocks’ chagrin.

 

Motivation to kill

 

The most successful fighting units have been those whose members were ruthless in killing their opponents, and were not afraid to die themselves. Such units included Australian and NZ formations, the Polish divisions, and many German divisions, of which 12 SS Panzer was a particularly good example. Many of the British infantry and armoured divisions were solid in defence, but not very aggressive in attack.

 

Brigadier James Hargest was a very distinguished New Zealand soldier who was attached to the British army in Normandy as an observer. He saw this lack of aggression in the British infantry, and he had this to say about tanks:

 

“On12 June I came across a whole squadron of tanks in a field supported by SP guns. They told me there was a Tiger tank in Verriere about 1000 yards to the left front, and in reply to my query why they did not attack they said it was very powerful. On 17 June a tank of the 8th Armoured Brigade sat passively at a British roadblock while several German scout cars and an SP gun moved down a straight road. The tank did not fire although the target was a perfect one. Neither did it call on the tanks in its troop nearby for support. The infantry Brigade Commander sent down a message asking that the gun and cars be taken on. The reply was: “If I do he will reply to my fire.” After a delay of twenty minutes and only after an infantry anti-tank gun had come into action beside it did the tank fire. Its third round got what looked like a direct hit on one vehicle – after a few shots it relapsed into silence and was only persuaded to fire again later.”

 

What can be done to inculcate fighting spirit? Sometimes it occurs naturally, and there have been many brave soldiers in the British Army. But the great majority of wartime soldiers need specific training in aggression. The dilemma for trainers is that on the one hand soldiers must be given the greatest chance of survival, and on the other hand we do not want to create a population of post-war psychopaths. It has to be a part of military policy that aggression is needed, and this has been well stated in the current UK Army Doctrine, which says:

 

“War must never be seen as a fair fight between two equals. Guile and ruthlessness are needed to ensure that by the selective application of violence appropriate to the ends, the enemy is left dead, wounded, captured, marginalised, frozen by fear and uncertainty, confused and isolated. He must be overwhelmed with a sense of hopelessness, a feeling of paralysis born of the realisation that his aims are not achievable. If defeating the enemy by destruction alone has limitations, the complimentary approach is to attack the enemy’s will to resist. He must be made to feel constantly off balance as a result of his actions being pre-empted, dislocated and disrupted.”

 

Summary

 

Britain’s military forces in general, and its armoured forces in particular, were extremely ill-prepared for war in 1939, and became better prepared only very slowly during the course of WWII.

 

We have looked at some of the results of ill-preparedness, but what were the causes? They included: indeterminate tank doctrine, imprecise specifications for equipment, untrained senior leaders, lack of aggression, lack of feedback, and no one person to drive design and manufacture.

 

Politicians believed until 1933 that war was not going to happen again, and spent small sums only on national defense. The army was the Cinderella service in this regard, and tanks were a very low card in the pack within the army. There were of course good and sensible reasons for re-developing the economy after the crash of 1929, and the Government had to balance the competing claims of national recovery and national defense.

 

In hindsight the British people can blame the government for the state of their troops in 1939 and from there on; But a government is elected by the people of its country and they only get the politicians they deserve. The British electorate of 1935 can blame only themselves for the slaughter of thousands of their own soldiers. Regrettably, we must always be prepared to fight in our nation’s defense. Let us therefore do all we can to ensure; if we have to use our forces in our defense, that they are properly trained and well-equipped.