GERMAN ANTI-TANK TACTICS
From September 1916 onwards to the conclusion of the war, German
anti-tank tactics passed through three phases. Firstly, the enemy
had no anti-tank defence at all, or what he devised he based upon a
misconception of what the tank could accomplish. Secondly, having
learnt but little about tanks, he considered that only a small
expenditure of effort and matériel was required to deal with weapons of
so limited a scope. Thirdly, from August 1918 onwards, he took panic
and over-estimated their powers; his efforts at anti-tank defence
became feverish and he appeared to be willing to make any and every
sacrifice to combat this terrible weapon.
Captured documents clearly show that the introduction of tanks was
as great a surprise to the German General Staff as to their fighting
troops. It is true that certain vague rumours had been circulated
that the Allies might use some new weapon, but, as such rumours have
throughout the war been current on all sides, no particular importance
was attached to them. In spite of the fact that tanks were used on
several occasions between September 15 and November 13, 1916, and that
the enemy held in his possession near Gueudecourt a captured tank for
some fourteen days, he formed a most inaccurate idea of it.
During the winter of 1916 and 1917 instructions were issued on
anti-tank defence. These were based on the following entirely erroneous
ideas:
(i) That tanks were largely dependent on roads.
(ii) That tanks would approach the German lines in daylight.
(iii) That tanks were impervious to machine-gun fire.
These led to the Germans depending on road obstacles such as pits and
indirect artillery fire; as a matter of fact, at this time the most
potent weapon which could have been used against tanks was the machine
gun firing A.P. bullets. That the Mark I tank was not proof against
these bullets was not discovered until April 1917, after the British
failure at Bullecourt. This discovery was of little use, for by the
time the next battle was fought, Messines, a tank with thicker armour,
the Mark IV, had replaced the Mark I.
It is evident that throughout this period the German Higher Command
gave little thought to the tank question and quite failed to appreciate
the possibilities of the machine. Prisoners were questioned and rough
sketches, many grotesque in the extreme, were obtained from them
and published for information. What information they imparted was
misleading; in fact, the whole attitude of the German General Staff,
during this period, may be summed up as “stupidity tempered with
ridicule.”
During 1917 the German grew to realise that artillery formed the chief
defence against tanks. Great prominence was given to indirect fire by
all types of guns and howitzers, and in spite of several dawn attacks
the enemy laid great stress on what he called “Distant Defence.” As
actual operations proved, indirect artillery fire produced little
effect save on broken-down machines. Partially learning this, the
Germans resorted to special anti-tank guns, and on an average, two,
protected by concrete, were emplaced on each divisional front; these
were in certain sectors supplemented by captured Belgian and old German
guns. Fixed anti-tank guns proved, however, of little use, for though
a few tanks were knocked out by them, notably at Glencorse wood on the
first day of the Third Battle of Ypres, they generally were destroyed
by our terrific initial bombardments. Curiously enough, though both
indirect fire and fixed guns proved a failure, little consideration
was, at this time, given to the simplest form of artillery action
against tanks, namely--direct fire by field guns.
Infantry anti-tank defence, during 1917, was negligible and chiefly
consisted in instructions how to “keep its head” and to leave the rest
to the artillery; the use of bundles of stick bombs was recommended,
and though A.P. bullets received no great support, the effect of the
splash of ordinary S.A.A. was not realised in the least degree.
Prior to the battle of Cambrai (November 1917) the true anti-tank
defence had been mud, mud produced by gun fire and rain. At this battle
the enemy was caught completely unawares, his anti-tank defence was
slight; but a feature of the operation was the improvised defence put
up by a few of the enemy’s field guns, which inflicted heavy casualties
on tanks, especially at Flesquières. In general, however, the enemy
realised the ineffectiveness of his anti-tank defence, yet curiously
enough he at present showed no decided inclination to adopt direct
field-gun fire as its backbone. In spite of the fact that the incident
of a German battery, served by an officer, putting a considerable
number of tanks out of action had received mention in the British
dispatches, still the enemy remained oblivious to the utility of direct
fire, and in place of praising his gunners, as we did, he praised
troops from Posen who had put up a determined resistance against tanks
in Fontaine Notre Dame.
The German counter-attack on November 30, 1917, which resulted in the
capture of a considerable number of tanks, seems to have entirely
allayed any anxiety created by the attack on the 20th; for though the
question of anti-tank defence was given rather more prominence than
heretofore, no greater practical attention was paid to it during the
winter of 1917-1918 than during the one previous to it.
The German offensive in the spring of 1918 put all defensive questions
into the background. This period, however, produced a new weapon, the
German anti-tank rifle.
This rifle was first captured during the battle of Hamel on July 4. It
had only just been issued to certain divisions; other divisions were
equipped with it later on.
This weapon was 5 ft. 6 in. in length, it weighed 36 lb. and fired
single shots, using A.P. ammunition of ·530 calibre. It was too
conspicuous and too slow a weapon to be really effective against
tanks, though it could easily penetrate them at several hundred yards
range. Its chief disadvantage was that the German soldier would not
use it; not only was he not trained to do so, but he was afraid of its
kick, and still more afraid of the tanks themselves. It is doubtful if
1 per cent. of the anti-tank rifles captured in our tank attacks had
ever been fired at all.
The French counter-attack between the Aisne and the Marne in July,
followed by the British victories of Amiens and Bapaume in August,
struck through the opacity of the German General Staff like a bolt from
out the blue, with a result that a complete _volte face_ was made as
regards tanks. The instructions now issued gave anti-tank defence the
first place in every project; the eyes of General Ludendorff were now
opened, and, realising the seriousness of the tank problem, on July 22
he wrote as follows:
“The utmost attention must be paid to combat tanks--our earlier
successes against tanks lead to a certain contempt for this weapon
of warfare. We must, however, now reckon with more dangerous tanks.”
This is a more human document than those subsequently issued by the
German Chief of the General Staff. Ludendorff now clearly realised that
anti-tank defence had been neglected; he probably realised also that
this neglect would be difficult to explain to the army and the public,
which, as a result of failures, were about to become far more critical
of their leaders than ever before.
It is not clear, however, whether Ludendorff realised a still more
serious aspect of the tank problem, namely, that it was now too late to
organise an efficient defence against the “more dangerous tanks.” Such
a defence might have been created before these tanks were available in
effective numbers; it could not be organised now unless the pressure
the Allies were now exerting could be relieved. This was impossible,
for the motive force of this pressure was the tank.
The steps which the German General Staff now took to combat the tank
are interesting. Special officers were appointed to the staffs of
Groups of Armies, Corps, Divisions, and Brigades, whose sole duty it
was to deal with anti-tank defence within these formations. The field
gun was at length recognised as the most efficient anti-tank weapon
available. These guns were organised as follows:
(i) A few forward and silent guns in each divisional sector--outpost
guns.
(ii) Sections from batteries in reserve were allotted definite sectors.
On a tank attack taking place, they would gallop forward and engage any
tank entering the sector allotted to the section. These sections of
guns proved the backbone of the German anti-tank defence.
(iii) All batteries (howitzers included) were ordered to take up
positions from which advancing tanks could be engaged by _direct fire_.
The most effective range for this purpose was first considered to be
over 1,000 yards; this was gradually reduced to about 500.
Batteries in (i) and (ii) were to be employed for anti-tank work only,
in (iii) they were available for other work, but in the event of a tank
attack the engagement of tanks was their chief task.
The duty still allotted to the infantry was “to keep their heads” or
“to keep calm,” actions which at this period were impossible to the
German Higher Command directly tanks were mentioned. Other orders laid
down that in the event of a tank attack “infantry should move to a
flank.” How this was to be done when tanks were attacking on frontages
of twenty to thirty miles was not explained. A.P. ammunition had to a
great extent fallen into discredit, and, curious to record, the effect
of “splash” as a means of blinding a tank was still hardly realised,
and this after two years of tank warfare.
As artificial obstacles had proved of little use from the end of July,
when the Germans withdrew behind the rivers Ancre and Avre, until the
signing of the armistice every effort was made to use river lines as a
defence against tanks. Road obstacles and stockades were still in use,
but though they proved a hindrance to the movement of armoured cars
they proved none to tanks.
A great deal of energy and explosive material was expended in laying
minefields. At first, special mines in the form of a shallow box were
used; later on these were replaced by shells. Lack of time, however,
prevented the enemy from developing sufficiently large minefields to
produce an important result.
The idea of combining the various forms of anti-tank defence under one
command in such a way as to form an anti-tank fort had been dealt with
on paper, but was only in a very few cases put into practice. The idea
was a sound one, and if well combined with natural obstacles it would
have formed the best defence against tanks that the enemy could have
created with the means at his disposal.
An anti-tank fort was to consist of:
Four field guns, 2 flat-trajectory minenwerfer, 4 anti-tank rifles, and
2 machine guns firing A.P. ammunition. The fort was to be sited several
thousand yards behind the outpost guns and close to the main line of
defence.
Throughout the last two years of the war occasional successes were
gained by the Germans by various means of anti-tank defence, these
usually being due to a combination of the following circumstances:
(i) The use of tanks outside their limitation.
(ii) A hitch or failure in carrying out the plan of attack.
(iii) An exceptional display of resource, initiative, and courage on
the part of some individual German soldier.
In general the keynote of the German anti-tank defence was lack of
foresight, the development of tanks not being appreciated. Among the
very large number of captured orders dealing with anti-tank defence
there is no recorded instance of any anticipation of superior types
of tanks to those already in use. The German General Staff lacked
imagination and the faculty of appreciating the value of weapons that
had not been explained to them whilst at school; obsolescence dimmed
their foresight.