September 25, 2024 • 9 mins
On this episode of Our American Stories, tank strategists involved with winning World War I favored a supporting role for tanks. In the 1930s, the losers were about to get aggressively creative. Hear from Stephen Ambrose about the "Queen of the Battlefield," and the realities of war and victory.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:10):
And we continue with our American stories. Stephen Ambrose was
one of America's leading biographers and historians. He passed in
two thousand and two, but his epic storytelling accounts can
now be heard here and our American Stories thanks to
those who run his estate. Our next story is the
story of weapons used in World War Two. Here again
(00:33):
is Stephen Ambrose.
Speaker 2 (00:35):
A lot of improvement in the tank by the time
the Second World War came along, and then a lot
of improvements were made in the tank during the Second
World War, so the tank became the queen.
Speaker 3 (00:42):
Of the battlefield, the decisive weapon of ground warfare.
Speaker 2 (00:49):
Everybody had their own tanks, and their own tank design,
and their own ideas about tank tactics. The first to
come along with a doctrine that was put into practice
and proved to be in its initial use at least
extraordinarily effective, was the Blitzkried method that the Germans used.
(01:13):
There had been dispute between theorists all through the period
after World War One and before World War Two over
what the proper role of the tank was. This grossly
simplifies the argument, but in general, the old line regular
infantry officers, the men who were in their thirties and
(01:34):
World War One, who would be the general officers in
World War Two, tended to regard the tank as an
auxiliary to the infantry, whose function was to support the
infantry any attack or in defense. So that the right way,
the first uh the the to make that the sickness say,
the the the right use of the tank is to
(01:56):
support the infantry. Then then dictates the design of your
tank if that's so. So, if that's the role you're
going to use.
Speaker 3 (02:02):
The tank for. You don't want speed in a tank.
Speaker 2 (02:04):
You don't want a tank that's going to go faster
than marching infantry. Which you do want is an awful
lot of heavy armor, so that that tank becomes practically
a moving fortress that creeps its way along the battlefield
at about the pace of an advancing soldier and provides
protection for them and provides he can get in behind it,
and provides firepower form in front.
Speaker 3 (02:25):
You want as much firepower as you can get.
Speaker 2 (02:27):
You're not concerned about how many miles to the gallon
that tank's going to get or what its range is.
You want a tank that is designed less for operating
on a road at high speed. Then you want a
tank that is capable of getting across ditches and through
muddy fields. And most of all, you organize the tanks
by spreading them out. If their role is to protect
(02:48):
the industry, you got to spread them out with the infantry,
so that there's a battalion of tanks in every division
of infantry, and they're divided up into their respective companies
and fed out among the regiments the battalions of the infantry,
and the tanks operate then directly with the infantry as
individual weapons. Again, I know I'm grossly oversimplifying here, but
(03:10):
the other way of looking at tanks was the proper
role of the tank is an independent one. That the
great advantage of the tank brings to you is mobility
and speed. And the way to utilize mobility and speed
is to build light fast tanks that can operate on
roads and get a lot of miles to the gowns
so that their range is very great, and put them
(03:33):
all together into armored divisions and let the infantry break
through the enemy's prepared defensive position. But once the entry
is broken through, then you bring the tanks in as
units and they pour behind the enemy lines and encircle
the enemy and cut off as front line troops and
separate them from their headquarters and from any hope of reinforcement,
(03:55):
and shoot up headquarters back in the rear, and in short,
have this independent function.
Speaker 3 (04:04):
The victors of World War One tended to.
Speaker 2 (04:06):
Look at the tank in the first way, that is,
its proper role was with infantry, because after all, they
won the First World War, and they won it with infantry,
so they didn't see much point in changing tactics or doctrine.
The people who lost the First World War figured they'd
done something wrong and they'd better figure out some new
doctrines and some new tactics, and the Germans did. Even
(04:29):
though it was British authors Liddell Hart and JFC Fuller
most of all, who foresaw the role of the tank
as an independent weapon, it was the German serving officers
who picked this up. Gadarion Ronald and Hitler was a
revolutionary in his attitude towards weapons. Hitler had been at
(04:50):
the cutting edge of the First World War. He'd been
a runner in the trenches on the Western Front. It
had an appression, made it a pression line, like did
anybody else that was in that hell. That was the
trench system of the First World War. It was determined
to avoid that if at all possible, And he was
very keen on new ways of doing things and new ideas,
(05:12):
and he was thus receptive to what his tank commanders,
his younger tank commanders, were telling him about the possibilities
of the tank. And so Blitzkrieg became the doctrine of
the German army and the tank took an independent role,
and the German tanks of nineteen thirty nine forty were
characterized by lightness, speed, maneuverability, durability and range. Germany's strategic
(05:41):
needs changed in the course of the war. By nineteen
forty two, Germany was on the defensive, no longer on
the offensive, and for defensive warfare those light fast tanks
were inappropriate. Now the Germans needed big, heavy tanks they
could both to an infantry position and take on a
(06:04):
defensive role. So that Germany's tanks tended to grow during
the war, and then grow some more, and then grow
some more until they doubled and then doubled again in size,
and the armament went up from fifty caliber machine guns
to seventy five millimeter cannon to eighty eight milimeter cannon,
and the armor thickness increased on them, and they got
bigger and bigger and bigger, up to sixty eight tons,
(06:26):
and then even bigger than that, and consequently they got
less and less miles to the gallon, and so their
range was reduced drastically, until by the climax of the war,
the winner of forty four to forty five, the Germans
were turning out their new Tiger tanks, which were twice
as big as any tank that the Americans had, and
almost four times as big as the tanks Germany was
(06:48):
using the Mark one and two at the beginning of
the war, carrying an eighty eight millimeter cannon, a formidable
weapon that German Tiger tank, but terribly clumsy and awfully slow,
with very little range to it. The Sherman tank, the
(07:08):
basic American tank of the Second World War, was a
relatively light, relatively lightly armored, not really very well armed.
It carried a seventy five millimeter cannon. But it was fast,
it was maneuverable, it was small. It was half the
size of a tiger. The Tiger got a third of
(07:30):
the mile to the gallon of gasoline. The Sherman was
close to three miles per gallon of gasoline. That's a
three times that's nine times better. And the Sherman was
small and compact relatively, so that for the same deck
space that would get you one hundred t thirty fours
across the Europe and into the battle with the Sherman.
Speaker 3 (07:51):
You could get two hundred into the battle.
Speaker 2 (07:54):
American tankers complained all through the war and have complained
to this day about being inadequately equipped to fight against
Panzer regiments and divisions because the Tiger and the Panther
that preceded it, and German tanks in general were tank
for tank better than the American tanks. But you didn't
(08:18):
have to fight the Tiger face to face gun to gun.
You could slip around. You can move so much faster
than it could. It had sech a slow traverse to it. Also,
you had so many more Shermans. The tactics were developed
by the tankers in the course of the Second World
War that two guys would spot a Tiger and they'd
call it in two more Shermans, and they would circle
around and keep it occupied, and guys would get in
(08:40):
on the side of it and then fire into the
boogie wheels and decommission that tank, and it was done
over and over again.
Speaker 1 (08:50):
And what storytelling by Steven Ambrose on the weapons of war,
and terrific explanation of the differences in these tanks and
their very functions, and my goodness, the difference in what
the Germans were looking for in the beginning, speed and
as time went on size. It's like David and Goliath.
In the end, huge opponent, the other guy's got the
(09:10):
sling shot. There are ups and downs. You have to
make choices and trade offs in the weapons of war,
and that's what we learned here. The Germans in the
end went for the size. We went for the speed
and the mobility and the range. The stories of the
weapons of war with Stephen Ambrose here on our American
Stories
And we continue with our American stories. Stephen Ambrose was
one of America's leading biographers and historians. He passed in
two thousand and two, but his epic storytelling accounts can
now be heard here and our American Stories thanks to
those who run his estate. Our next story is the
story of weapons used in World War Two. Here again
(00:33):
is Stephen Ambrose.
Speaker 2 (00:35):
A lot of improvement in the tank by the time
the Second World War came along, and then a lot
of improvements were made in the tank during the Second
World War, so the tank became the queen.
Speaker 3 (00:42):
Of the battlefield, the decisive weapon of ground warfare.
Speaker 2 (00:49):
Everybody had their own tanks, and their own tank design,
and their own ideas about tank tactics. The first to
come along with a doctrine that was put into practice
and proved to be in its initial use at least
extraordinarily effective, was the Blitzkried method that the Germans used.
(01:13):
There had been dispute between theorists all through the period
after World War One and before World War Two over
what the proper role of the tank was. This grossly
simplifies the argument, but in general, the old line regular
infantry officers, the men who were in their thirties and
(01:34):
World War One, who would be the general officers in
World War Two, tended to regard the tank as an
auxiliary to the infantry, whose function was to support the
infantry any attack or in defense. So that the right way,
the first uh the the to make that the sickness say,
the the the right use of the tank is to
(01:56):
support the infantry. Then then dictates the design of your
tank if that's so. So, if that's the role you're
going to use.
Speaker 3 (02:02):
The tank for. You don't want speed in a tank.
Speaker 2 (02:04):
You don't want a tank that's going to go faster
than marching infantry. Which you do want is an awful
lot of heavy armor, so that that tank becomes practically
a moving fortress that creeps its way along the battlefield
at about the pace of an advancing soldier and provides
protection for them and provides he can get in behind it,
and provides firepower form in front.
Speaker 3 (02:25):
You want as much firepower as you can get.
Speaker 2 (02:27):
You're not concerned about how many miles to the gallon
that tank's going to get or what its range is.
You want a tank that is designed less for operating
on a road at high speed. Then you want a
tank that is capable of getting across ditches and through
muddy fields. And most of all, you organize the tanks
by spreading them out. If their role is to protect
(02:48):
the industry, you got to spread them out with the infantry,
so that there's a battalion of tanks in every division
of infantry, and they're divided up into their respective companies
and fed out among the regiments the battalions of the infantry,
and the tanks operate then directly with the infantry as
individual weapons. Again, I know I'm grossly oversimplifying here, but
(03:10):
the other way of looking at tanks was the proper
role of the tank is an independent one. That the
great advantage of the tank brings to you is mobility
and speed. And the way to utilize mobility and speed
is to build light fast tanks that can operate on
roads and get a lot of miles to the gowns
so that their range is very great, and put them
(03:33):
all together into armored divisions and let the infantry break
through the enemy's prepared defensive position. But once the entry
is broken through, then you bring the tanks in as
units and they pour behind the enemy lines and encircle
the enemy and cut off as front line troops and
separate them from their headquarters and from any hope of reinforcement,
(03:55):
and shoot up headquarters back in the rear, and in short,
have this independent function.
Speaker 3 (04:04):
The victors of World War One tended to.
Speaker 2 (04:06):
Look at the tank in the first way, that is,
its proper role was with infantry, because after all, they
won the First World War, and they won it with infantry,
so they didn't see much point in changing tactics or doctrine.
The people who lost the First World War figured they'd
done something wrong and they'd better figure out some new
doctrines and some new tactics, and the Germans did. Even
(04:29):
though it was British authors Liddell Hart and JFC Fuller
most of all, who foresaw the role of the tank
as an independent weapon, it was the German serving officers
who picked this up. Gadarion Ronald and Hitler was a
revolutionary in his attitude towards weapons. Hitler had been at
(04:50):
the cutting edge of the First World War. He'd been
a runner in the trenches on the Western Front. It
had an appression, made it a pression line, like did
anybody else that was in that hell. That was the
trench system of the First World War. It was determined
to avoid that if at all possible, And he was
very keen on new ways of doing things and new ideas,
(05:12):
and he was thus receptive to what his tank commanders,
his younger tank commanders, were telling him about the possibilities
of the tank. And so Blitzkrieg became the doctrine of
the German army and the tank took an independent role,
and the German tanks of nineteen thirty nine forty were
characterized by lightness, speed, maneuverability, durability and range. Germany's strategic
(05:41):
needs changed in the course of the war. By nineteen
forty two, Germany was on the defensive, no longer on
the offensive, and for defensive warfare those light fast tanks
were inappropriate. Now the Germans needed big, heavy tanks they
could both to an infantry position and take on a
(06:04):
defensive role. So that Germany's tanks tended to grow during
the war, and then grow some more, and then grow
some more until they doubled and then doubled again in size,
and the armament went up from fifty caliber machine guns
to seventy five millimeter cannon to eighty eight milimeter cannon,
and the armor thickness increased on them, and they got
bigger and bigger and bigger, up to sixty eight tons,
(06:26):
and then even bigger than that, and consequently they got
less and less miles to the gallon, and so their
range was reduced drastically, until by the climax of the war,
the winner of forty four to forty five, the Germans
were turning out their new Tiger tanks, which were twice
as big as any tank that the Americans had, and
almost four times as big as the tanks Germany was
(06:48):
using the Mark one and two at the beginning of
the war, carrying an eighty eight millimeter cannon, a formidable
weapon that German Tiger tank, but terribly clumsy and awfully slow,
with very little range to it. The Sherman tank, the
(07:08):
basic American tank of the Second World War, was a
relatively light, relatively lightly armored, not really very well armed.
It carried a seventy five millimeter cannon. But it was fast,
it was maneuverable, it was small. It was half the
size of a tiger. The Tiger got a third of
(07:30):
the mile to the gallon of gasoline. The Sherman was
close to three miles per gallon of gasoline. That's a
three times that's nine times better. And the Sherman was
small and compact relatively, so that for the same deck
space that would get you one hundred t thirty fours
across the Europe and into the battle with the Sherman.
Speaker 3 (07:51):
You could get two hundred into the battle.
Speaker 2 (07:54):
American tankers complained all through the war and have complained
to this day about being inadequately equipped to fight against
Panzer regiments and divisions because the Tiger and the Panther
that preceded it, and German tanks in general were tank
for tank better than the American tanks. But you didn't
(08:18):
have to fight the Tiger face to face gun to gun.
You could slip around. You can move so much faster
than it could. It had sech a slow traverse to it. Also,
you had so many more Shermans. The tactics were developed
by the tankers in the course of the Second World
War that two guys would spot a Tiger and they'd
call it in two more Shermans, and they would circle
around and keep it occupied, and guys would get in
(08:40):
on the side of it and then fire into the
boogie wheels and decommission that tank, and it was done
over and over again.
Speaker 1 (08:50):
And what storytelling by Steven Ambrose on the weapons of war,
and terrific explanation of the differences in these tanks and
their very functions, and my goodness, the difference in what
the Germans were looking for in the beginning, speed and
as time went on size. It's like David and Goliath.
In the end, huge opponent, the other guy's got the
(09:10):
sling shot. There are ups and downs. You have to
make choices and trade offs in the weapons of war,
and that's what we learned here. The Germans in the
end went for the size. We went for the speed
and the mobility and the range. The stories of the
weapons of war with Stephen Ambrose here on our American
Stories
Host
Lee Habeeb
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