Back "British Junior Officer Tells Combat Experiences" from "Intelligence Bulletin"- August 1943 1. INTRODUCTION The following letter from a British platoon commander in North Africa to one of his friends in an officers school in England discusses German and British tactics, and makes a number of valuable suggestions. It is reprinted here for the information of American junior officers who may face similar combat problems. 2. "TIPS FROM THE FRONT" Dear Tom: You asked in your letter for a few "tips from the front." Here they are. In attack, get your platoon going on location of fire, observation, and intelligent use of all available information. Our initial tendency (and it wasn't altogether the platoon commander's fault) was to rush into the attack without a really thorough reconnaissance, and without going over with the noncoms every bit of information we had about the enemy's positions. Once you're in it, it's hell's own game trying to see where the bullets are coming from, unless you have a fair idea where the swine ought to be. Even then, it's not so easy. We have lost a lot of officers through platoon commanders being too eager and moving right up with their leading squad. You can fight your platoon a darned sight better by staying in a position from which you can maneuver your reserve (that is, your two rear squads) when you have seen what fire is drawn by the leading squad. The same applies to company commanders, of course. Practice lots of frontal attacks. Boche positions are so invariably mutually supporting that platoon flanking attacks are damned hard, especially as the bloke you are after is probably supported by medium machine-gun fire from somewhere out of range of your light machine gun. Approach marches are important. You nearly always have several miles to cover, probably in the dark, before you reach the place from which the attack starts. The condition in which your men reach that assembly area is going to make a whole lot of difference in their performance when the big moment comes. If the march has been a scramble, and if they are rushed into the attack as soon as they arrive, morale will be low. If the march has been orderly, with plenty of time to check up on everything and rest the men at the assembly area, they will start off confident and be much more likely to do a good job. Defense took rather a back seat at home—we were supposed to be "assault troops"—but, assault troops or not, most of your time will be spent in defense, because whenever you are not actually attacking, you have to be in a position to defend yourself. So it is well worth studying. However huge an area of country you are given, in placing your troops imagine that you have only three-quarters of your platoons. Put your spare quarter aside as a mobile reserve; then forget all the books and put the rest wherever your own common sense and your knowledge of Boche habits tells you. Whenever possible, you want to be on reverse slopes—any movement on forward slopes brings the shells down, and it is not easy to stay still all day. If the ground forces you to take up forward slope positions, keep the absolute minimum at battle posts to observe, and the rest in cover until you are attacked. It is then that your fire control comes in. The first time, unless you have been warning your men daily, everyone will blaze off at any range at the first Boche to appear, giving all your positions away. It is much more satisfying to let the Jerries come up a bit, and then catch them wholesale on some open stretch. If by chance they knock out one of your posts and start getting in among you, you can thank God for the quarter you kept in reserve and start your counterattack straight away. If you have got a counterattack properly rehearsed with supporting fire, and so on, for each of your posts, you should be able to get it in almost as soon as they arrive, or, better still, get them in a flank as they advance. In defense by night, the squad sentry should man the Bren in the same trench with the squad leader. The squad leader has his Tommy gun, a couple of grenades, and a Very pistol with plenty of cartridges, and is ready for anything. If a Boche patrol attacks, they will let off lashings of automatic fire at random, to draw yours, and when they retire, it will be under cover of mortars. The answer is, stay still and hold your fire until you can pick a certain target. At Djebel Abiod we were attacked by a patrol some fifteen strong. They fired literally thousands of rounds without causing a casualty. We fired about twenty rounds, and killed an officer and two enlisted men. I don't think it's worth chasing a retiring patrol—they want you leave your trenches, so as to catch you with their mortars. Instead, you can sometimes guess their line of retreat and chase them with your own mortar fire. The best patrolling troops we have come across are the Moroccan Goums, whose success as compared with any European unit is phenomenal. Even against the best of the Germans, they never fail. Why are they better than we are? First, because they are wild hillmen and have been trained as warriors from birth. Second, because the preparation of their patrols is done with such detailed thoroughness. No fighting patrol is sent out until its leaders have spent at least a day watching the actual post they are after, and reconnoitering exact routes and so forth. If the leaders are not satisfied at the end of the day, they will postpone sending out the patrol, and will devote another day to the preliminaries. Some of our men are a little too inclined to think of a patrol at four or five in the afternoon, and send it out that same night, To be worth a damn, a fighting patrol must start off with an odds-on chance of two-to-one—not six-to-four or even money, but a good two-to-one bet. To make this possible, your information has got to be really good and up to date. As regards composition of fighting patrols, there is a wide divergence of opinion. In this battalion we go on the principle of maximum fire power with minimum manpower, and our patrols have usually consisted of an officer, a noncom, and nine men—in other words, an assault group consisting of an officer, three grenadiers, and three Tommy gunners, and a support group of a noncom and three Bren gunners. The type of reconnaissance patrol which has produced the best result is the one composed of an officer or sergeant and two men who go out at night, remain awake and observe all the next day, and return during the second night. Slit trenches deserve a paragraph all to themselves. A few days after we landed, we spent literally a whole day at Tabarka being dive-bombed and machine-gunned from the air. This went on intermittently all the following week at Djebel Abiod, plus more than enough shelling. Since then, the men have dug slit trenches automatically, even if they arrive at a place soaking wet at three in the morning. Their trenches are a full 5 feet deep, too. Anyone will tell you tales of miraculous escapes due to slit trenches—shells landing a couple of feet away without hurting the bloke inside, and so on. I don't think you could ever shell our battalion out of a position—if only because we know we are safer in slit trenches than out of them. Incidentally, machine-gunning from the air is perfectly bloody—worse than bombing or shelling. The accuracy of it is something I never imagined. An unopposed fighter can guarantee that he'll hit a solitary car. But, on the other hand, if you have dug good slit trenches, you don't suffer casualties from this type of attack, and you find that, after all, the noise was the worst part of it. The Boche does much more air reconnaissance than we do. Every morning "Gert and Daisy" take a look at us, and if camouflage is bad, I suppose a photo of our positions goes into the album. You can almost tell how long a unit has been out here by looking at its camouflage. It is worth learning something about antitank mines. There are usually plenty to be had, and if all your men can lay them, you are ready for the enemy's tanks almost as soon as you get into a new position. If you're lazy and wait for the Royal Engineers to lay them, you may never be ready! All our men carry Hawkins antitank grenade-mines. Somebody once said, "Warfare consists of boredom punctuated by occasional moments of excitement." This is absolute rot! When you're living out in shocking weather, with nothing but a gas cape over your head and with thirty men expecting you to okay their letters for censorship, dish out NAAFI (Navy, Army, and Air Force Institutes) stuff, make the best of the rations, and get them gear from the "Q," there's too much to do to get bored. When you, in turn, have got to see that they are always ready to fight, that they are in good heart, that they are clean and healthy, and that the noncoms are doing their jobs, you may get fed up but never bored. Discipline is the hardest and most important thing to keep going. You and the noncoms spend 24 hours a day with the men, and discipline is almost certain to slacken if you're not on your guard. I find that the best way is to keep a strict routine, however rotten the conditions. That is, I stipulate a definite timetable for everything which must be done daily. If you keep a firm hold on the men in these small day-to-day things, you'll find that you've got them under control when the trouble starts. Finally, remember that "there are bad officers but no bad troops." This is horribly true. We have often seen it out here--second-rate men fighting magnificently because they were under a first-rate officer, and vice versa. It makes you realize the vital importance of your job. Motto—"It all depends on me." "Soviet Tanks in City Fighting" From "Intelligence Bulletin"- June 1946 "Berlin shall remain German!"—that's what the sign on the wall claims, but the crew of this Red Army 122-mm self-propelled gun had something else to say about it. It was with artillery of this type that the Red Army fought into Berlin. In the battle for Berlin, a large city converted by the Germans into a fortress for a last ditch stand, the Russians used massed mechanized units in street battles. However, Soviets do not recommend that tank units be sent into the city, where movement is usually restricted and channelized, barricades and obstacles easily prepared, and every building becomes a potential strongpoint and direct-fire gun emplacement, but the lessons learned during the battle of Berlin are worthy of attention. Writing in "Red Star," an official Red Army publication, a Major N. Novskov details what was found in Berlin, the difficulties encountered, and some of the methods used to overcome the stubborn German defense. For the battle of Berlin, the Russians organized combined assault detachments, consisting of one tank battalion, a rifle battalion, a company or platoon of engineers, a battalion of artillery (not less than 122-millimeter), and a platoon of flame throwers. Fundamentally, the defense of Berlin was based on three defensive belts, with intermediate strongpoints: the outer ring of defense along the line of lakes and canals: the ring of defense in the outskirts and suburbs; and an inner ring in the city proper. The Germans had expected the assault to be made from the East and had concentrated their defenses in that area. Soviet tank units, however, attacked from the south, cutting off the Berlin garrison from the southern German armies which were to have constituted its defense in that sector. The attack in the southern sector moved swiftly, with the Soviets by-passing the main centers of resistance and driving quickly through the outskirts and into the suburbs. One big obstacle that had to be countered in this first phase was the crossing of the Teltow Canal, where the Germans had demolished all the bridges or had prepared them for demolition. After a thorough reconnaissance, a well organized and coordinated assault was made on the canal and a crossing effected. In the suburbs, the tanks had a certain degree of maneuverability, due to the larger number of gardens, squares, parks, and athletic fields. They were able to by-pass and envelop separate centers of resistance, to attack some defense fortifications from the rear, and to complete enveloping movements in some cases. Once enveloped, the defense zones in this area quickly collapsed. In the center of the city, the nature of the fighting was quite different from the fighting in the suburban area. Many-storied buildings in solid masses reduced the maneuverability of tank units. The only avenues of advance were along the streets from building to building. Maneuver was not entirely prohibited, however, for heavily barricaded streets and strongpoints could be enveloped by way of adjacent buildings. During the battle for the center of the city, the tanks were used in a supporting role to reinforce the infantry and artillery. The infantry cleared the buildings of antitank gunners who were concealed in the basements or in the lower floors. After the buildings had been cleared, the tanks would advance. It was in this battle for the center of the city that the combined assault detachments proved their worth. The combined detachment was able to attack with well protected flanks, and could maneuver within the limits of two or three buildings. The general plan of operations of the assault detachments was as follows: If the detachment met with obstructions, it by-passed the obstruction, or the sappers would blow up the obstacle under the cover of tank and infantry fire. At the same time, the artillery placed fire on the buildings beyond the obstruction, thus blinding the enemy defense and providing additional cover under which the flame throwers set the buildings afire. After demolition of the obstruction, the tanks then rushed forward and tried to get past the enemy defense zone, while the infantry cleared the enemy from the zone itself. Flanks were protected along the side streets by self-propelled mounts or by tanks. This basic plan was, of course, subject to variation. Depending upon a number of elements, such as the nature of the enemy fortifications, the enemy power of resistance, and the composition of the attacking elements, the tank battalion can attack along two or three streets. Major Novskov asserts that it is better to attack along three streets, keeping the reserve in the center. When the attack is successful along any of the streets, the attacking force is then able to maneuver and envelope the stronger portion of the defensive zone. A tank attack along a larger number of streets leads to a dispersal of force and a reduction in the rate of attack. Each tank brigade ordinarily had as a main objective the envelopment of from four to six buildings. In the accomplishment of its mission it was found to be of special importance to have a mobile reserve capable of commitment in the direction of the main effort. Major Novskov states that the boldness of the tankmen played a great role in the street battles. When artificial obstructions were not present, the tanks, with motorized infantry dismounting at high speed, dashed through certain buildings to intersections, squares, or parks, where they took up positions and waited for the infantry. When the infantry had cleared the enemy from the buildings that had been passed by the tanks, the tanks again moved forward in the same manner. When a defended obstacle was encountered, the tank first tried to by-pass it. When it proved to be impossible to by-pass the obstacle, and only when it was impossible, they would begin assault operations. An example of the action of one assault group is cited by Major Novskov. "While attacking in the direction of the Ringbahn (loop railroad), the tank battalion was stopped in the northern part of Mecklenburgische Strasse by a reinforced concrete wall 8 meters wide and 2.5 meters high. The barricade was protected by strong machine gun and automatic fire and also by antitank grenade launchers installed in houses at the barricade itself. There were no detours. The commander decided to break through the obstacle. He first sent out a group of submachine gunners whose mission was to annihilate the grenade launchers, which was accomplished in a short period of time. Then 122-millimeter guns opened fire on the houses where the enemy firing points were located. The tanks, advancing simultaneously with the artillery, also opened fire on the buildings on the other side of the barricade. Under cover of the artillery and tank fire assault engineers climbed up to the barricade with explosives. After three explosions in the barricade, a breach was made through which tanks and infantry rushed. The well organized mutual support guaranteed the success of the attack." In the case of Berlin, used as an example of a large modern city turned into a fortress, the Russians emphasize the importance of mobile reserves; the formation of cooperating teams of tanks, infantry, artillery, and engineers; the importance of heavy artillery ("not less than 122-millimeter"); and the fact that maneuver though restricted by the channelized avenues of advance, can still be performed on a limited scale. The Soviets further note that the use of massed tanks in the streets of a modern city is not recommended, but that it has been done, and tanks can be used effectively if it is done correctly. They emphasize the importance of not dispersing the attacking force too greatly, and of attacking on a relatively narrow front for each assault detachment.
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