The Great War Generals on the Western Front, 1914-1918 by Robin Neillands

Author:Robin Neillands [Neillands, Robin]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Lume Books
Published: 2020-03-30T00:00:00+00:00

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Before this battle is examined in detail, we must return to the matter of deployment, a factor that affects all weapons. Even if the original specification is excellent and the resulting weapon capable of its designated task, no such device will achieve its full potential unless those who use it are properly trained and those who command it have some idea of its employment in conjunction with other arms, and of its battlefield capabilities - this combination being covered by the term 'tactical deployment'.

With a new, even a revolutionary, weapon, its tactical use is a matter of heated debate. In the case of the tank this argument began with an attempt to define exactly what sort of weapon this machine was. Was it a mobile fort, fitted with machine-guns, which supported the infantry in the assault, or was it, if used in force, actually armoured cavalry, capable of thundering through the enemy lines into the open country beyond and so restoring mobility to the battlefield? In the event, the British tank experts, not surprisingly a small band in 1916, decided that the tank was an infantry support weapon, a decision that was to have far-reaching consequences

This argument was not academic. Depending on the view taken, so the tactics would vary, as would the specifications for new tank models or further marks of the existing AFV, specifications affecting their speed, armour, armament, range, manning, and tactical organisation. Tank tacticians also had to consider where tanks, in whatever role, could be successfully deployed, and what type of terrain best suited their employment. The last two points may seem blinding glimpses of the obvious, but this basic question of tank deployment, either in twos and threes to support the infantry, or en masse as an armoured spearhead to break the enemy front and restore mobility to the battle, went to the heart of the argument about this new and revolutionary weapon.

The conclusion that the tank was an 'infantry support' weapon affected British tank design until the middle years of the Second World War. When that war started Britain's main battle tank was the heavily armoured but lightly gunned Matilda; it had a top speed of around 8 miles an hour which, though very slow, was more than enough to stay with the infantry. The Germans, who did very little with tanks during the Great War, had adopted the other viewpoint and decided that tanks were actually 'armoured cavalry'; their panzers, fast, heavy-gun machines, were to spearhead the rapid German blitzkriegs in France and Russia in the first years of that struggle. The tanks employed at Flers-Courcelette in 1916 were undergunned, underpowered, inadequately armoured and unreliable, a chronic list of faults that Second World War tank crews in the Western Desert in 1941-2 would have found all too familiar.

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