Monty on Tanks

Thanks Tom (post above #153)

I've seen an account of the action of Smokey Smiths VC on the river at Cesena Italy with the Seaforths of Canada and it is an interesting read as regards the potential vulnerability of even large tanks against very brave infantry, and the great importance of their support.

I put “tank development during ww2” into the “Search WW2T With Google” space and there were plenty of threads there that I will have to digest.
There’s a short summary (to this huge topic) here: http://www.tanks.net/tank-history/tank-development-world-war-two.html
By “spectacular” I think (thinking back) I was probably having in mind some of the “Hobart Funnies”, wading tanks (with water going up to the turret), DD’s and flails and hedge cutters. Seeing a floating tank for the first time must have been a bit “spectacular” even if their record seems to suggest mixed success, as nothing is ever cut and dried, black and white, even WW2 newsreels are routinely colourised these days! As regards spectacular allied tank developments specifically designed with a mind to better combating one-on-one a German heavy tank, my guess would be a lot of people would suggest the Russian medium T-34, but neither it nor the US M4 were the equal to the German’s heavier tanks. For that I was taking a look at the US M26 Pershing, but this was rather a late arrival into WW2. As I said though, it’s a vast topic. Where thought was put into such for the Brits at least it was probably (I’m just guessing here) not enough. Perhaps the perception there (from the higher ups) was that the German heavies were less troublesome (and less commonly faced) than these days some make out. A lot of German heavies on the Eastern front were knocked out in the huge battles there. But Stalin didn’t care much about his troops and even less about his Generals, after the war many of whom he shot. Facing just one German heavy tank was horrid, just horrid I am sure, but the Germans had to face the whole allied force, and vast problems with supply which the allies were able to put in their way. It wasn’t my grandfather’s job to specifically seek out and destroy German tanks, he had plenty of other jobs to do for which his Sherman was better suited than a heavy tank killing machine I guess. I’ve been trying to see however how he managed against the Panzers and whilst he survived the war a great many of his dearest friends did not. Whether anyone was actually to blame for this I do not know. I do know that the allied bofins were working on enigma, jets, radar, sonar, the nuclear bomb and a whole lot else. Whether the tankies were uniquely let down by their political leaders, scientists and Generals etc. though is quite an interesting debate - from what I have seen - for those “not there” now. Hearing from those that were is why this is such a fascinating and informative place, and why it is such an honour for me to “be here”. My basic point though was that Monty was mercurial and able to change his mind, as lot of the best leaders are, since as such their enemies don’t always know what they are going to do next.

It is a fascinating debate and interesting to hear such different points of view, particularly as even after 70 plus years there still seems so much that seems contentious out there, although it's good too to see that some people are firmly of one mind.

 

For me the thing with the Sherman is that it was for the Allies about the right size and weight which in that way made it acceptable as a useful general purpose tank. But it was far from being the best possible in a lot of ways. It had a terrible ballistic shape, the suspension was not particularly good although the later HVSS was better, the aircraft engine used a lot of fuel although once again the introduction of the Ford V8 tank engine helped there, it certainly could have and should have been significantly up gunned........

The US story of tank development during WW2 is full of experimental vehicles that realistically were never going to go into production, messing around with various turrets, delays involving getting the Pershing into production, like the insistence that it had to have a fully automatic transmission, and much more. When really all that was needed was a better version of the Sherman which could have used it's powertrain for manufacturing and maintenance simplicity.

 

I think a point a lot of people miss is that the European part of WW2 lasted only five years from when land hostilities for the Western Allies really started (i.e. May 1940). It generally took about 3-4 years to develop a tank that was fully reliable. This is why so many tanks were either kept away from the fray for long periods (e.g. the Churchill and Cromwell) or had to be cast into the fray before they had been properly developed (e.g. Crusader, KV-1, Panther, Pershing). In combination with this was the fact that the rate of evolution of the tank during this period was also very pronounced, so that when tanks were pitched into battle for the first time they were often already approaching obsolescence. The tank programmes of all the major protagonists all suffered severe problems because of these factors.

 

Indeed. When the Sherman entered battle, the best the Germans had was the Panzer IVF/2, I think. It really didn't compare badly to that as far as I can tell.

What people also forget is that even the mighty Germans fielded Panzer III with the short 50L42 well into 1943, in considerable numbers too.

All the best

Andreas

 

Using the Sherman's powertrain for an improved version would have cut development time significantly though, there was no reason why work on an improved version could not have started straight away if they had wanted to. But the US seemed to think that once they had developed, tested and put a vehicle into service that was it, nothing more needed to be done. That worked with automotive type vehicles which did not change much but, as DJ points out, tank development during WW2 was significant and to keep up development had to be continuous. However the US seemed to have an attitude that their stuff was best without objectively considering if that was really so.

 

I think you would need to study the development of the T20 series (which begat the M26) in detail before making that kind of statement. I don't know enough about that subject - were the Americans dawdling? Did they put too much faith in the T20/T23/T25?, or did they try their best but came up against significant technological hurdles? Developing a tank from early 1942, you basically had 2-2.5 years to get it right in order for it to see maybe 6-9 months of action. If you made one false move, then even that opportunity was lost.

 

I've got a rough idea of the history of US WW2 tank development but have forgotten a lot of the detail and it's far too complicated for me to attempt to discuss it in detail without a memory refreshment. My overall impression is one of confusion as to which way to go, blind alley experimentation and a general lack of drive, urgency and intention to produce something with all the qualities of the Sherman but which avoided innovations that did not add much if anything and which it should have been forseeable could cause considerable development delay. Like the fully automatic transmission for the Pershing, something which had never been done before with such a heavy vehicle. Why? So the tank could use a lot more fuel and American boys could avoid having to use a 'stick shift'?

 

This article asks if Russia's T34 won the Second World War:
http://nationalinterest.org/blog/the-buzz/the-soviet-t-34-the-lethal-tank-won-world-war-ii-13889

They at least put a question mark in the headline of the article, and partly put success down to a numbers game, interestingly though they comment that the Soviets "never had enough crews" and "wasted the T-34's and its crews in vast numbers".

It does make me wonder if Stalin really was preparing to fight WW3 when he met his demise.

http://russianrulers.podhoster.com/index.php?sid=2742&m=04&y=2012
(Episode 86 - The End of a monster)

http://www.tanks.net/early-cold-war-tanks/index.html

"With the threat of nuclear warfare looming, tanks began to be equipped with NBC protection - protection from nuclear, biological and chemical weapons."

I half expected this to say...
http://www.tanks.net/21st-century-tanks/index.html

...that designers are preparing to do away with crewed tanks though, and opt instead for drones or wholly computer controlled machines.

But of course, the Germans had their V1's and V2's and had a "go" with this:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goliath_tracked_mine

...but it looks like the French were perhaps there first

I wonder what Monty would have said about that Tactically wherever he could he did tend to spare his men, not "just throw them away" as in the Soviet case, or as some American Generals pushed him to do.

I did "inadvertently" stumble into this debate, over who was the best allied general:
http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?f=12&t=35518#p319457

And I'm not sure if that's what the debate comes down to. Tactics vs. technology etc. or the best combination of the two.

The two tend to evolve in tandem though, hand-in-hand and you've got to keep moving forwards in order just to keep up.

It's like the dreadnought of the navy, once you've built it everything-else is practically obsolete so you have to keep developing/paying for something new if you want to have a hope of keeping up. That's fine if you've got plenty of cash.

Interwar the UK was quite short on cash. German funded a lot of it's war on tic, reneging on its WW1 debts and on massive amounts of slave labour and theft.

Soviet style economics (slave labour, theft and industrial scale espionage, along with generous loans/gifts from the US) helped to pay for their war.

UK had an empire to protect and pay for (most of which it subsequently freed/lost) and two WW's that it continued long after to have to pay for, all the while selling assets to keep paying the bills, and contributing to vast efforts of humanitarian support.

Who was most responsible for British tank development by the way? Just wondering if anyone knows yet who actually was there and hence can be held to have been at fault?

 

It would be interesting to hear some real British comment on their tank situation instead of the usual denial/excuse stuff. From a distance it seems that firstly the threat of German invasion resulted in some panic decisions, like the decision to continue with the 2 pdr AT gun instead of the 6 pdr or even 17 pdr. Then there was the obvious parsimonous attitude which seemed to infect parts of the war effort (but not aircraft for some reason) my 'favourite' example of which is using the Valentine for infantry support, apparently because it was available, cheap and reliable. That sort of decision making in war time is simply bordering on derelection of duty to me, to put it mildly. Other than to directly defend your own country in an emergency there is no excuse for knowingly issuing obviously inferior equipment yet this is what the British did with the Valentine.

Of course Churchill did not help things with his delusions of world majesty and no real consideration of the fighting man and his means of achieving what was expected. Maybe he did boost home morale but to those who suffered directly as a result of his delusions he was, or should have been, beyond contempt. If this seems harsh then consider the fate of those who ended up in Japanese POW camps as a direct result of his manipulations and ignorance.

 

I'll bite. Which tank should they have issued instead? How was it inferior? To what?

The Valentine entered frontline service in November 1941, and soldiered on throughout North Africa. Churchills were sent out as they became available I believe, with the first coming around August/September, and served in considerable numbers in Tunisia I believe. They didn't get rid of the last Matilda IIs until the fall of Tobruk, if not later.

All the best

Andreas

 

It's hard enough unravelling the tales of the tanks we did produce, it seems pointless to try and document the supertanks we never had.

There's a fair bit of published information on British tank development for those that can be bothered to look or ask - the Profiles, Forty/Fletcher books, and now DJ himself. However, the increasing technical detail in which these stories are told might be at the expense of the 'why'.

There's perhaps a good reason for this - the RAC were one of the few corps that didn't produce an official 'staff history'. A three volume series on the design and development of vehicles was planned, but only the general and unarmoured vehicle volumes saw the light of day. There is a post somewhere with some correspondence on the repeated but unsuccessful efforts to gee-up the armoured volume. For some reason, the 'User' was reluctant to discuss the issue.

Even more tellingly, you'd think the RAC would be the first to criticise failings in 'procurement' - why didn't they? I think it's because the buck stops with them. Their concept of war was basically wrong. They condemned the nation to trying to produce two classes of tank and unit* when we'd have struggled with one. Yet they have been quite happy to sit back and let the War Office, industry and the Cavalry take the flak - or should I say pak?

* Montgomery relevance alert!

 

That may be correct or incorrect, but without any primary source information or evidence of a real understanding of what actually happened, this comes across as "this is my uninformed opinion."

 

I do love to wonder where this thread is going to go next....

There are plenty of threads about all sorts of topics to discuss separate things like...

"Could Britain have won the Battle of Britain with just better tanks rather than better planes?"

"Should Churchill have been shot or sent to a concentration camp/gulag (as in Russia / Germany) for any of his perceived failings during his entire career?"

"Was Britain parsimonious or just plain broke?"

As I'd far rather not pass any real British comment or any of the usual denial/excuse stuff here

I did manage to find this late last night - I've scanned the intro etc. but haven't yet had a chance to digest much else:

British Tank Production and the War Economy, 1934-1945 : By Benjamin Coombs (2013)
https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=1fF6AAAAQBAJ&pg=PA1932&lpg=PA1932&dq=British+Mechanization+Board+WW2&source=bl&ots=Z_6_M0ZGIS&sig=D6fr3V7sZL9mCTRx85DdrHgOG_k&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjR7t2Zj73KAhWHlA8KHXndDxkQ6AEIMjAD#v=onepage&q=British%20Mechanization%20Board%20WW2&f=false

Churchill was half American (on his mother’s side) and dearly loved and trusted the US. Always knowing eventually that they would help tip the balance firmly against the axis, hence Britain had to hang on in there until the Cavalry (US tanks et.al) came.

Monty was not much liked by the Americans, perhaps for his abrasive personality, and stubborn attention to detail more than anything else? (see that bit about Monty in "Saving Private Ryan" that for Brits rankles a bit as it's like the blast of a broadside that comes straight at us from an ally as if out of the blue), but I always thought Churchill was pretty popular over in the US?

There are a lot of podcasts about Churchill from a US perspective here: (pre, during and post WW2)
Hillsdale Dialogues Podcast : HILLSDALE COLLEGE - HIGHER EDUCATION
http://www.podbay.fm/show/663872027

I always thought he was an asset both to us and to the rest of the world, and the US can justly claim to at least a half share in that! though his reputation in India (thanks to his very pro-Empire stance) is still not that he was totally one of the best.

But I don't think we can blame Churchill for nearly losing us the tank war? He practically instigated the things during WW1! :wink:
And anyhow a lot of people had to listen to him, but didn't necessarily have to do exactly what he said.

On the other hand, there's some pretty damning info in here...

HITLER's SECRET WEAPONS The Super Tanks
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GO5GmwlItac

...about Hitler's big tank / super tank policy and its overall effect on the German tank war. And I'm pretty sure when the Fuhrer said "jump" you had to comply or else be arrested, or perhaps even shot.

[SIZE=10.5pt]Perhaps if [/SIZE]Rommel had survived WW2 we could have heard more about "Rommel on tanks"? And if at the end after he'd lost his opinions might have changed?

http://www.history.com/news/8-things-you-may-not-know-about-erwin-rommel

[SIZE=10.5pt]Rather than his being forced prior to Hitler's demise to take his own life:[/SIZE]

[SIZE=10.5pt]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erwin_Rommel#Death[/SIZE]


I was interested to see at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heinz_Guderian

That it wasn't as if the Brits were not willing to learn from their foes, both during and after the war... i.e. see also his later life:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heinz_Guderian#Later_life_and_death

As "After the war he was often invited to attend meetings of British veterans' groups, where he analyzed past battles with his old foes"

& Guderian himself had disputes with Hitler etc.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heinz_Guderian#Controversies

With "The result was that a great number of German formations were surrounded and destroyed unnecessarily. Guderian was outspoken in his opposition to these policies which placed so little value on the lives of the German soldiers."

So I just don't see how an argument can truthfully be made that Monty or the Brits generally were uniquely bad at tank warfare during WW2, cared less about their men, or that the foe itself was not deficient in its thinking, practice and designs in some essential respects.

Morally too I think you'd have to go a very, very long way down before anyone managed to get "beyond" the "contempt" deserved to those whom we allies had to oppose during WW2. But Churchill did say that "if Hitler invaded hell he'd consider offering a favourable reference to the Devil" - though it was pretty clear he meant Joe Stalin in that oft-quoted "off-colour" remark.

Also I really can't see much evidence of any signs of "ignorance" here: (He received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1953)
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Winston_Churchill

Again though, this is perhaps a whole other thread:
http://www.armchairgeneral.com/was-winston-churchill-to-blame-for-the-fall-of-singapore.htm

That we can only mull over now ourselves, with the huge added benefit of hindsight so long after the event. And be relieved perhaps not to have been there ourselves, or have had to make these critical decisions, daily with very little in the way of evidence as to whether their long term consequences would prove us right or prove us wrong.

I'd tend to agree with the basic conclusion there though i.e. that "Churchill made the correct decisions." & "they were taken as part of the overall war effort."

After all, thank heavens, we did win the win... if Hitler had won it wouldn't have been utopia. He'd have probably declared war on the Swedes and Swiss (to get back the gold) and then realise he wanted to take on the Japanese killing everyone on earth and everything in order to get more quickly to whatever hell he was heading to next... :Hydrogen:

When you work out economically the amount of money Hitler's government owed, in order to finance its war, even had it succeeded in winning, or been granted peace with its foes by some miracle perhaps, it would have been catastrophically bankrupt and facing its people with some huge ponzi-esque default. Not parsimonious enough perhaps?

The Nazi German govt. always spent far more than it earned (or even stole) on the cost of its war machine. Even the Germans that bought people's cars through a stamp based hire purchase scheme prior to WW2 were cheated from ever seeing their beetles:

http://www.pre67vw.com/history/

So... "With the money diverted to the Nazi war effort, none of the thousands who had collected their stamps ever received their beetle."

And... "By 1943 over 12,000 prisoners of war were working at the factory, which was by now mostly repairing aircraft.
For most of the war, the KdF plant had managed to escape heavy bombing, the new town was not on many allied maps. Near the end of the war the factory was used to manufacture the V1 'buzz bomb'. This bomb was an unmanned aircraft, powered by an air-breathing pulsejet engine that had the ability to reach Britain from Germany, and the factory became a main target for the allied bombing raids. It is estimated that over 3500 V1 bombs hit London before several daylight bombing raids by the US left the factory in ruins."

Those aircraft the US paid for did that.

 

I looked into this a while back whilst tracking down the actual problems with Monty's 'Bulge Speech' that was supposed to be insulting to the US Forces. Turns out the actual words used by Monty were anything but insulting and the problem was Bradley trying to re-write history over losing an Army to Monty. Anyway it appears Monty was very popular in American Newspapers and this had become a sore point with Marshall who believed the US General's should assert their numbers and grab more of the limelight.

Sample:

17 August 1944
MARSHALL TO EISENHOWER
"Stimson and I and apparently all Americans are strongly of the opinion that the time has come for you to assume direct command of the American contingent because reaction to British criticism has been so strong by American journalists that it could become an important factor in the coming Congressional Elections. The astonishing success has produced emphatic expressions of confidence in you and Bradley but this has cast a damper on public enthusiasm."

There bulk of US newspaper reports that were very complimentary to Monty and this did not change until Jan 1945. Post war the trashing on Montgomery seems to have become de rigueur in every US memoir.

 

I wasn't sure what the best thread on Monty was.

I don't mind taking any discussion about him there though.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernard_Montgomery

Has quite a bit about his "lack of diplomacy" partly during the 2nd world war but mostly thereafter it seems, which would I guess have a great bearing on how he is "seen" on the whole now: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernard_Montgomery#Montgomery.27s_lack_of_diplomacy

& later life: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernard_Montgomery#Later_life

With a lot of PC / non PC issues highlighted there.

"Montgomery was harshly critical of US strategy in Vietnam, which involved deploying large numbers of combat troops, aggressive bombing attacks, and uprooting entire village populations and forcing them into strategic hamlets. Montgomery said that the Americans' most important problem was that they had no clear-cut objective, and allowed local commanders to set military policy." & "At the end of their meeting, Montgomery asked Dayan to tell the Americans, in his name, that they were "insane" "

Keeping it just to WW2 and "Monty on Tanks" though it is interesting to hear that "Anyway it appears Monty was very popular in American Newspapers and this had become a sore point", it's pretty usual these days for anyone lauded at one time in the press to face a publicity backlash and a trawl through their character / by way of assassination thereafter I guess. By way of mitigation for Monty, I'd say it was only fair to judge him truly on the aspects of his career that pertain to the job. All that other biographical stuff is interesting but not of relevance now to Monty during WW2.

I've read more of
https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=1fF6AAAAQBAJ&pg=PA1932&lpg=PA1932&dq=British+Mechanization+Board+WW2&source=bl&ots=Z_6_M0ZGIS&sig=D6fr3V7sZL9mCTRx85DdrHgOG_k&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjR7t2Zj73KAhWHlA8KHXndDxkQ6AEIMjAD#v=onepage&q=British%20Mechanization%20Board%20WW2&f=false

Now and it seems quite detailed and it's conclusions seem (to me) to be pretty fair and just. Not sure of the opinions of others out there?

And:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GO5GmwlItac

To me at least seemed an interesting watch?

Any comments about this documentary too?

It did make me wonder if Monty was "responsible" for tanks - it seemed like the buck rested elsewhere? He was doing a job with what he had got. If he asked for something else he had to get in line and wait in the queue for whatever the various tank boards and higher ups dished out. if he was told to just "attack" with what he had got he could delay and delay for a bit but faced getting sacked and replaced if he waited and didn't go for the "off".

All the best,

Rm.

 

Some interesting quotes for you and others to digest here: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-1208032/Were-troops-cowards-Churchills-concern-lack-fighting-spirit.html

Otherwise I'll let you get back to your self-congratulation.

 

Ah yes the way every time Hastings has a new book out one or two controversial sentences are hyped and taken completely out of context in order to try and boost sales. Do people still read the German-centric 1950's crap Hastings keeps churning out-I mean apart from those who also believe the 1950s German uber-soldier crap.

 

Otherwise I'll let you get back to your self-congratulation.



Thanks,

Interesting, I read it.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-1208032/Were-troops-cowards-Churchills-concern-lack-fighting-spirit.html

Not really pertaining to "Monty on Tanks" - but C'est la vie!

Perhaps when we are not at war, we are avid to avoid it, and too often appeasement wins out:
"Live by the sword, die by the sword"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Live_by_the_sword,_die_by_the_sword

But ultimately I guess:
"No matter how big a guy might be, Nicky would take him on. You beat Nicky with fists, he comes back with a bat. You beat him with a knife, he comes back with a gun. And if you beat him with a gun, you better kill him, because he'll keep comin' back and back until one of you is dead."
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0112641/quotes

Churchill was our Nicky. I look at it like that. Here was a guy who got beaten with fists, knives and guns and still came back and got the job done.

He could have thrown in the towel, kept most of the Empire with brutal force, maybe even joined the Nazi's and combined with them and the Japanese and Italians and with the French fleet.

And we are all darned lucky he was better than that.

(I didn't mind reading the Hastings bit, but still not really "Monty on tanks" ) - plenty of Hastings and Churchill threads to follow out there...

 

Good bite too but the simple answer is, keep the Matilda until the Churchill is ready, don't rush into another 'quantity over quality' deal. The Matilda was a good 'I' tank, it was much better armoured than the Valentine as indicated by it's 25 tons -v- 17 tons weight for the Val which was really a light tank. The Matilda could carry a bigger gun than the puny 2 pdr the Val was stuck with and it had a three man turret too. The Valentines were simply slaughtered at Alamein so depriving the infantry of the close support they so desperately needed. Not good.

 

Err, the Val was converted to the 6-pdr. I don't think that was feasible for the Matilda II, which was the one stuck with the puny gun.

The Matildas would have been slaughtered just the same, by Alamein they were not the invulnerable monsters that they had been in 1940.

Look here:

http://rommelsriposte.com/2010/04/27/german-firing-trials-against-the-matilda-ii/

Both the L42 and L60 50mm gun could handle it at combat ranges.

All the best

Andreas