How Russia Makes War by Raymond L. Garthoff

Author:Raymond L. Garthoff [Garthoff, Raymond L.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Nonfiction, History, Asian, Russia, Military, Social & Cultural Studies, Political Science
ISBN: 9781000262988
Google: rKgrAAAAYAAJ
Publisher: Taylor and Francis
Published: 2021-01-26T05:00:00+00:00

The experience of war has clearly shown that the mass of infantry, armed with infantry weapons, is not able in its firepower to be compared with tanks, their fire might, and ability to maneuver on the field of battle.61

Rotmistrov’s account of the use of tanks in the assault is the most complete Soviet statement available. He stated:

Following a breakthrough of the defense, the tanks must go into the attack in waves, echeloned in depth. In the first two or three echelons heavy tanks and self-propelled guns attack, and in the last two or three echelons, medium tanks with mechanized infantry and motorized artillery, which consolidate and develop the successes of the first echelons. Naturally not always and not everywhere will it be necessary to have such a high concentration; in many sectors, obviously, the troops will carry out offensive operations while maintaining the previous norms of concentration of tanks in the battle units of the infantry, but where the command will attempt to obtain a decisive result, it is necessary to concentrate as many tanks as possible on the battlefield. All the experience of previous operations teaches us that where the tanks are used in mass and with regard to their battle capabilities, as a rule, greater successes were achieved and the tank forces suffered insignificant losses.62

He strongly insists that tanks have become the main means of defeating the enemy in his entire depth of defense, and that “the tank, without any doubt, has solved the problem of the most complete overwhelming of the defense”; and he reiterates confidently that “it must be admitted that the present decisive force of that attack is the tank.”63 Finally, Rotmistrov gives five reasons for the superiority of tanks over other types of troops:

(a) only the tank, during the attack, has the ability to advance to within a short distance from the enemy and to destroy him at close range by its fire;

(b) only the tank can carry out an uninterrupted attack, destroying in its advance (by fire and the use of its treads) the points of resistance of the enemy which have survived the artillery preparation;

(c) only the tank, which has cannon and machine guns, has the ability in the attack to destroy most effectively all the anti-infantry means of battle, to fight against tanks and the artillery defense;

(d) only the tank, thanks to its armor, can aggressively go into the attack without fear of machine guns, automatic and rifle fire, and also the fire of light artillery, and has the ability to fight these defensive weapons on its own and by skillful action can emerge as the victor in this struggle;

(e) only the tank, by having a motor and caterpillar tracks, can attack at great speed and destroy the enemy, before the latter can get ready to fight the tank.64

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.