Charging Artillery

Just as Field Marshal Rommel used a sandspit in the Baltic to practice for desert warfare (see p. 22);, so the U.S. Army is using 108,000 bumpy acres of Texas to practice to beat Rommel. There Army tacticians are trying out new ways to fight tanks with new weapons: World War II's tank destroyers-self-propelled, forward-pointing guns of .75 caliber and up. Army men, giving the devil his due, admit that the guns are inspired by Germany's self-propelled 88s, used successfully by the Germans in Poland and ever since.

This charging artillery has developed because ordinary artillery leaves plenty to be desired in fighting tanks on the ground. Tanks are mobile, will not stay put until artillery can get set to attack them. Tanks even go around big guns and cut them off from behind. Artillery towed by fast trucks and half-tracks is more mobile than old horse artillery. But tank destroyers have greater maneuverability, can roll into position and begin fighting without unlimbering or facing around.

Tank destroyers can even outrace their 30 m.p.h. foe, take a devastating crack at close range or lob shells from five miles away, with the help of small, low-flying planes to direct fire (see cut).

Once enemy tanks are disposed of, destroyers are simply mobile field artillery.

Another possible use for the new guns, fancied by football-minded U.S. generals, is to run interference for tanks by "taking out" enemy tanks, leaving home-team tanks free to get at enemy infantry, fortifications, communications-the job that tanks are best for.

Bruce and the TDs. Man in charge of the U.S. rehearsal theater, which he chose for its limestone cliffs, mud and general orneriness, is quiet, resourceful, 47-year-old Brigadier General Andrew D. Bruce, chief of the Army's new Tank Destroyer Command. The General went from a course in dairy husbandry at Texas A. & M. into border fighting and World War I, emerged with a D.S.C., Legion of Honor, Croix de Guerre with Gold Star (twice). No martinet, he picked the site of Camp Hood not only for its mud and its sweaty climate, but because he liked Cow House Creek which runs through it, providing seven fine swimming holes where parboiled tankers can cool off.

The camp sites are still unfinished. The first 300 officer-pupils had their first class under a tree last May. Few enlisted men, except those needed to run demonstration equipment, will come until Aug. 15, when the camp will be ready.

The U.S. has long had men trained in anti-tank tactics, armed with stationary artillery to defend infantry positions, supplemented with a bag of tank-hampering tricks including "asparagus beds" (barricades) and traps borrowed from the engineers, "Molotov cocktails" learned from the Spanish, and "boom biscuits" (tank mines). At Camp Hood men learn to use all these, but most important, they are learning how to handle tank destroyers. The phrase "antitank" is disappearing in favor of "tank destroyer" (or TD).

A tank has two weaknesses: 1) blind spots; 2) slow speed. It is General Bruce's problem to figure out how destroyers can capitalize on these weaknesses. The TD's own weakness is lack of armor. Its strength is speed. General Bruce is figuring out tactics by which a destroyer can get in its dirty work with the least risk. He stands on a hill to watch half his men charge over the ground in tanks while the other half bedevil them with tank destroyers and all known anti-tank tricks. As all this goes on, Bruce and his officers are composing the Army handbook for Tank Destroyer battalions.

Hit Him Behind the Ear. So far, all the General's tank-destroyer equipment is improvised or highly experimental. There are guns on half-track trucks, machine guns and 375 on trucks, and peeps. He is even towing some guns until he gets something better. He will soon get some 755 mounted on chassis of medium tanks.

To enthusiastic TD men, all this is kid stuff. Except for some new, secret destroyers which the General is trying out for the Army, it is all too slow. Their dream is a 65-m.p.h. gun with practically no heavy protection. If it is fast enough to outrun the tanks, they argue, it will not need the armor anyway. Conversely, slowing a destroyer down with the weight of armor only makes armor necessary. As one of the General's men says: "The idea is if Joe Louis is sitting in the corner with his back turned, you hit him behind the ear with brass knuckles. You hit him with plenty. Then you get the hell out before all Harlem breaks loose."

The Army as a whole is not yet completely sold on tank-destroyer battalions. Tankers themselves often say that the best defense against tanks is tanks. Tank-destroyer men say that fighting tanks with tanks is like pitting bombers against each other. They believe that, just as the plane to send against a bomber is a fighter, the machine to send against a tank is a fast tank destroyer (which incidentally costs one-tenth as much).

Airmen argue for planes, insist that dive-bombers can blow a tank attack to smithereens. This is still partly theory, since nowhere in World War II have airplanes proved themselves able to stop tank attacks. Too often it is difficult to get enough planes into the air, and planes are often stymied by the bad weather that tanks thrive on. Tanks can be efficiently attacked from the air when surprised in big concentrations-but World War II armies have learned better.

After what Rommel has done even while the British have air superiority, General Bruce thinks there should be at least two, possibly four, tank-destroyer battalions with each combat division. He is quietly going about selling the idea to the Army. By autumn there will be 35,000 men at Camp Hood, and there will soon be half as many men in tank-destroyer outfits as in tanks.

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