Armor in World War II

German Armored Theory and Doctrine

In his book, Achtung-Panzer!, published in 1937, Heinz Guderian laid out the principles for the use of tanks in battle which were to guide the German army throughout World War II. Even a cursory look at the stunning German assaults -- Poland in 1939; France in 1940; Russia in 1941; and the Ardennes in 1944 -- reveals the solidity of Guderian's insights. By the end of the war, both Britain and the United States were adapting their armored doctrine to more closely match the German methods. This is all the more interesting in light of the fact that Germany did not possess a single tank between 1919 and 1934 ².
       A military review of World War I showed that the combination of machine guns and artillery can create an almost impregnable defensive position. Such a defense can be overcome only through massive effort and horrific casualties³ . German tactical doctrine was developed with the express intention of avoiding a similar outcome in the next conflict. To that end, German armored tactical doctrine was intended to deliver a rapid resolution to battlefield operations.
       To the Germans there were three critical stages in an attack: breakin, breakthrough and exploitation. Breakin refers to the initial breach of the defensive lines. Breakthrough is the point when the advancing forces have finally gotten past the enemy's static defenses, and exploitation is doing something positive once breakthrough has been achieved. In the German view of World War I, both Britain and France successfully used tanks to breakin, and at the Aisne River the French managed a breakthrough, but neither country did a very good job of exploiting their gains.
       This failure to exploit, Guderian reasoned, resulted from a lack of infantry support for the tanks. Tanks alone could not totally reduce a defensive position since there are places tanks simply cannot go -- like into swamps where they sink, or across deep rivers and streams. Tanks could provide the breakin for the infantry but they needed the infantry by their side in order to keep on going.
       Guderian proposed four main requirements for a decisive tank battle: surprise, deployment en masse, suitable terrain and mobility.
       In World War I, massive artillery bombardments were regarded as a key to a successful attack. These bombardments could last a week to a month, or even longer, utilizing thousands of artillery pieces. By analyzing the bombardment pattern, the defender was able to determine the location, breadth and depth of the intended attack. Time and time again, the Germans were able to stave off disaster by preparing secondary defenses just beyond the limit of the opposing army's bombardment. In the German view, this had the effect of eliminating surprise, a time honored element of successful warfare. Guderian proposed eliminating the preparatory bombardment altogether, or failing that, reducing the bombardment to an hour or two prior to starting the attack.
       Additionally, surprise could be enhanced by hiding the build-up of attacking troops in suitable cover -- trees work wonderfully for this -- and moving the troops to their initial deployment areas under the cover of darkness immediately prior to the assault. It wasn't just Allied air superiority that caused the Germans to move their armies at night, they began the war with night movements as part of their offensive doctrine and they practiced it constantly ⁴.
       To achieve breakthrough, the Germans concentrated large forces along a comparatively narrow front -- the Schwerpunkt or hard place. The breadth of the attack had to be wide enough to prevent un-molested machine guns on the flanks of the schwerpunkt from interfering with the movement of un-armored infantry into the hole provided by the Panzers, and narrow enough at the same time to obtain overwhelming local superiority in order to breakthrough.

Blitzkrieg The word blitzkrieg is actually a journalistic invention and does not itself appear in any German military documents, or of any other nation for that matter. The term presupposes that the novel German armored tactics developed in World War II were only employed when dramatic breakthroughs, such as France in 1940 or Russia in 1941, occurred. Nothing could be further from the truth. As the accompanying article attempts to illustrate, the German tactical doctrine giving rise to the term blitzkrieg comprises the general principles with which armor is used on the battlefield, and while dramatic penetrations are possible, they are not a fundamental requirement nor a necessary consequence of armored assault.        Unfortunately while inaccurate, the term blitzkrieg has become synonymous with armored assault and so we're stuck with it.

Once into the enemy's defensive lines, the Panzers were to move forward to penetrate the static positions before the enemy could bring up his reserves. But as mentioned above, there are places tanks cannot go, and defensive positions tanks cannot hurt. Consequently, the Germans recognized early on that infantry had to be mobilized in order to keep up with the tanks. And not just the infantry, but artillery too needed to be mechanized -- there is no way that horse-drawn artillery could possibly keep up with a charging Panzer.

       In this regard the German's fell apart. They began the war without a decent armored personnel carrier and were never as lavishly supplied with them as were the American armored divisions with their half-tracks or the British armored formations with their carriers. Instead they were forced to rely on the standard military truck which had decent road capability, but was abysmal off road and vulnerable to both machine gun and light infantry weapons. Rommel's 2^nd Panzer division was forced to halt its advance in 1940 at Arras due to lack of infantry and artillery support giving the British additional time to complete the evacuation at Dunkirk.
       A tank's full potential is realized only when it is given full freedom of movement. Unsuitable terrain negates the tank's potential shock value. The Germans understood that the poor grunt would still have to cross the river the hard way to establish a bridgehead for the Panzers. Terrain was a key limiting factor in armored operations for both sides throughout World War II.
       Finally, exploitation. In Guderian's view, the chief target of the tanks, once they had broken through, was the enemy's artillery. This had to be silenced in order for the following infantry to make it to the enemy's rear area intact. Once the artillery was silenced, the Panzers were free to roam in search of other targets, like enemy command posts, road and communications nets.
       It was at this point in the battle that the Germans expected to encounter enemy armor. Committing tanks closer to the front was viewed as a waste by Guderian and his fellow Panzerfüheren. A tank placed in the middle of the defensive lines was as hampered by the defensive works as was the attacker, and easily bypassed or overwhelmed by the armored onslaught. This was German defensive doctrine -- to meet the enemy's armored attack at the moment of breakthrough with concentrated armored reserves -- and it worked repeatedly on both fronts, sometimes spectacularly in the east.
       Guderian was convinced that the number one enemy of a tank was another tank. This is not revolutionary today, but at the time Germany stood alone in that view. A German tank commander was expected to punch through enemy lines, take out machine guns and support weapons as he went along and then go toe-to-toe with enemy armor after having smashed through the enemy lines. Reflecting the increasing sophistication of the enemy, German tanks got heavier, thicker armor and bigger guns as the war progressed.
       German Panzer divisions were equipped with anti-tank weapons as well. Guderian called for mechanization of the anti-tank weaponry but this was never fully realized by any participant in the war. Eventually, the Panzer divisions received their Jagdpanthers and Jagdtigers but for most of the war, the anti-tank guns were towed behind trucks.
       A German assault was to use the coordinated efforts of all the arms available to the Wehrmact: infantry, artillery, anti-tank forces, combat engineers, airplanes and, of course, Panzers. This was the principle of einheit (literally one-ness).
       In theory, a battle was to go like this. First the combat engineers (Pionieren) went forward to clear enemy mine fields. Next the Panzers attacked along with infantry to open up the front -- the breakin. The infantry stayed to mop up centers of resistence and the Panzers continued ever deeper into enemy lines. Here, the mechanized infantry came into play by accompanying the tanks and disembarking at the last possible minute to deal with defensive strong points as the were encountered. All the time, the artillery was on call by mobile observation posts to assist in the attack. Finally when the breakthrough was achieved, the anti-tank forces moved forward to support the tanks in the anticipated armor clash deep in enemy territory. At this time the Panzers were probably beyond the reach of the army's fixed artillery positions, so the Luftwaffe was expected to be on hand to provide artillery like support during the interval when the artillery was moving forward and unable to fire.
       In practice, the Germans were able to pull it off time and time again.

Mini German Lexicon Panzerkampfwagen Literally, Armored Fighting Vehicle Panzerpähwagen Armored Reconnaissance Vehicle Panzerabwehrabteilungen Anti-tank detachments Panzerabwehrkanonne Anti-tank gun (PaK) Tankbüchsen Anti-tank rifle Panzersicher Tank proof terrain: heavy woods, deep water, etc. Panzerhemmend Tank restrictive terrain: cities, built-up areas Panzergünstig Good ground for tanks: open, lightly wooded with variable cover Panzerpioniere Combat engineers specially trained and equipped to support tank operations Panzertruppen Armored forces Jagdpanzer Tank destroyer Schwerpunkt Literally, hard point, this is the point of attack, not the resulting salient into enemy positions. Sturmgeschutz Assault gun

Unless otherwise stated, images accompanying this article were taken from "Design and Development of Fighting Vehicles," R.M. Ogorkiewicz.

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2. Perhaps not having tanks was to the German's advantage in that they could develop armored theory with out the distraction of playing with the big clanky things.
3. Losses on the western front in the first five months of World War I: 667,440 German, 854,000 French and 84,575 British troops.
4. The Germans also practiced strict radio silence during their movements. When Patton turned his army 90°and attacked the south shoulder of the Bulge the Germans were both amazed at the rapidity of the march and disgusted at the fast and lose radio traffic that Third Army utilized to coordinate the road movements.

Page Last Updated 05/09/00