The following are military questions asked by members of the Gearbox Software forums and answered by Col. John Antal (US Army, Ret).
Q7: Asked by NickNameless
Colonel, if you could go back in time and were placed in charge of the D Day invasion forces on the Normandy beaches, without knowledge of the success of the effort that is now history, what changes to the plan would you have implemented and why?ANSWER:
Intriguing question. Most of the problems with the D-Day landing s occurred at Omaha Beach. The changes that I think would have made the most dramatic effect on the D-Day operation would be to 1) Add more special armor; 2) Press for early delivery of the M26 Pershing Tank and; 3) Start the bombardment of the beaches earlier.
Add much more special armor - "Hobart's Funnies" as they were called - to the American effort. The special armor was primarily a British idea developed by General Sir Percy Hobart. Except for the DD "swimming" tanks, the American shad very few pieces of special armor at Omaha or Utah Beach. The photo above depicts a Crab Tank that is designed to flail its way through German beach defenses. This kind of special armor would have made a tremendous difference at Omaha Beach.
Push for the early deployment of the M26 Pershing tank - In January 1944, at a dozen sites in England, fields were filled with row upon row of American-made M-4 Sherman tanks waiting to be used in the fighting. The 32-ton Sherman had a very reliable engine and was easy to produce and load onto ships for transport overseas. It was a tribute to the industrial might of the United States.
General Maurice Rose, tasked with exploiting the breakthrough from the Normandy beaches, had misgivings about the Sherman. As commander of the 3d Armored Division, he knew had significant shortcomings when compared to German tanks -- its armor was relatively thin and its gun couldn't penetrate the frontal armor of the German Panther or Tiger tank, even at short range. The German tanks, however, could easily destroy the Sherman from long range. The Sherman had been designed to fill a specific role on the battlefield: to support the infantry in breaking through enemy defenses. Once the enemy line was breached, tank divisions would exploit the breakthrough and attack the enemy in his vulnerable rear areas. The job of killing other tanks was left to tank destroyers. The problem was that tanks had to be able to fight other tanks. General Rose knew this from firsthand combat experience, and he was not alone in his concerns.
With the D-Day assault looming near, most of the American tank commanders who had combat experience fighting German armor wanted a better tank -- they wanted the M-26 Pershing with its heavy armor and 90 mm gun. The Pershing was already built and tested. Experts informed General Dwight Eisenhower, the Supreme Allied Commander, that if American factories switched production to the Pershing, several hundred could be deployed to England by May -- in time for D-Day. General George Patton, the senior tank commander in the U.S. Army, disagreed with replacing the Sherman that late in the war. He believed that the Sherman was adequate and did not want his tanks engaging in tank-to-tank battles. With Patton's persistence, deployment of the Pershing was given low priority. The more heavily armored and up-gunned Pershings would not appear in Europe until late in the war, and even then only in small numbers.
That fateful decision cost the lives of many American Soldiers and very likely was responsible for prolonging World War II. As the Battle of Normandy developed, it became clear that the Sherman was outclassed by German armor. In one deadly instance, a single German Panther destroyed an entire company of 17 Shermans! The Army paid a staggering cost during World War II for its flawed tank choice. General Rose's 3d Armored Division started with 232 Shermans in June 1944; by May 1945 the division had lost 648 destroyed and another 700 knocked out but repaired and returned to service -- a loss rate of 580 percent! The human price paid for each destroyed tank was two to three crewmen killed or wounded.
Tank crews called their Shermans "purple heart boxes" or "Ronsons," after the popular cigarette lighter; like a reliable Ronson, the Sherman was sure to catch fire if hit. The Sherman tankers used courage and innovative tactics -- like the "mousetrap" -- to make up for inferior weaponry. After World War II, veteran tankers swore that this imbalance would never happen again. Through evolving tank designs, and by remembering the horrible lessons of World War II, the Army procured the M-1 Abrams tank. With its legendary survivability, maneuverability, firepower and shock effect, the Abrams is the best tank in the world.
Start the bombardment of the beaches one hour earlier - Although the bombing of Utah, Gold, Juno and Sword Beaches was effective, the bombardment of Omaha Beach completely missed the German Beach defenses. When the first wave of infantry hit Omaha Beach they expected to see smoking shell craters and dazed Germans ready to surrender. Instead, they found the Germans waiting for them and not a single Allied shell had hit the German defenses. The bombers and the big guns of the Allied Navy overshot their targets as they were worried about hitting the advancing American landing craft.
...But, having been in military operations, and knowing how hard they are to accomplish effectively, I will tell you that the answers I have provided above are only possible because "hindsight is 20-20." Everything looks much clearer 60 years later. When you think about all that could have gone wrong, and study all that went right, my hat is off to General Eisenhower, his planners, and the heroic men who led the way on D-Day to crack the Atlantic Wall.
Q8: Asked by Truman:
Tank Tactics. Fix em and flank em work on infantry. What is the plan when a squad or platoon comes across a tank? Where is the weakest spot on a tank's armor?ANSWER:
Good question Truman. Actually, the FIND, FIX, FLANK, and FINISH tactical concept works for tanks as well as infantry - and also for tank-infantry teams. One of the most important concepts in tank-to-tank combat is to understand the strengths and weaknesses of the enemy tank you are fighting. All tanks are more heavily armored in the front, less on the flanks and much less in the rear. You always want to avoid attacking a tank head-on. Flank and rear attacks bring the most success as you can avoid the tanks main weapons and can attack the areas of the tank that have less armor protection.
During WWII, German tanks were better armor and had better guns than most American tanks. The American main battle tank that fought in Normandy on D-Day, the M4A1 Sherman, had a weak 75mm gun that could only penetrate the frontal armor of most German tanks at very close range. The best way for a Sherman tank to destroy German tanks, therefore, was to find the German tank first (FIND), for either tanks or infantry to engage the German tank and keep it busy (FIX), while another tank, antitank gun or bazooka team moved to the left or right (FLANK), to shoot the panzer in the flank or rear (FINISH). Of course, every tank gunner looks for that dream shot where he sees the grill doors of an enemy tank engine compartment in his sights! HOOAH!
Q9: Asked by erotic_hamster
How many OST troops where there fighting for the Germans in Normandy? And did they do anything to help the Germans? Because I have only heard that they surrendered without trying to fight when they encountered allied soldiers.ANSWER:
The German Army was stretched to the limit in June 1944. They needed every man they could muster to defend the Atlantic Wall defenses against the expected Allied invasion. Since there were not enough German troops, the Germans recruited - often at gunpoint - non-Germans into service. The Ost battalions - from the German word "Ost" for East - were third-class troops designed to fight inside concrete pillboxes and hold the Allies back while the better trained and equipped regular German Army could move forces to counterattack the Allied beachheads. There were ten "Ost" battalions in Normandy. These soldiers were primarily "recruited" from former Soviet prisoners of war. The Ost units depicted in Brothers in Arms are from the 709th German Infantry Division which consisted of the 729th, 739th (both with 4 battalions, although the 4th battlion in each formation were Ost), and 919th Infantry Regiments. This coastal defense division protected the the Utah beach landing zone area as well as the eastern, and northern coast of the Normandy Cotentin Peninsula. The soldiers in Ost units were in a tough situation as 'foreign soldiers" in the German Army. Many did not speak German, and had little love for Nazi cause, but they fought as well as might be expected for such soldiers. They had little hope of surviving if they were captured by the Allies and if they were eventually sent back to Russia they knew that they would face life in the Gulag or immediate execution. If they ran away from the fighting, their German sergeants and officers would shoot them. They were no match for the elite airborne troops of the U.S. 101st and 82d Airborne Divisions that they met in battle on D-Day and, as a result, were mostly combat ineffective a week after the invasion.
The End
- Colonel John Antal, U.S. Army (Ret.), Gearbox Software
