CHAPTER XXXIV — GERMAN ANTI-TANK TACTICS

FROM September 1916 onwards to the conclusion of the war, German anti-tank tactics passed through three phases. Firstly, the enemy had no anti-tank defence at all, or what he devised he based upon a misconception of what the tank could accomplish. Secondly, having learnt but little about tanks, he considered that only a small expenditure of effort and matériel was required to deal with weapons of so limited a scope. Thirdly, from August 1918 onwards, he took panic and over-estimated their powers; his efforts at anti-tank defence became feverish and he appeared to be willing to make any and every sacrifice to combat this terrible weapon.

Captured documents clearly show that the introduction of tanks was as great a surprise to the German General Staff as to their fighting troops. It is true that certain vague rumours had been circulated that the Allies might use some new weapon, but, as such rumours have throughout the war been current on all sides, no particular importance was attached to them. In spite of the fact that tanks were used on several occasions between September 15 and November 13, 1916, and that the enemy held in his possession near Gueude-court a captured tank for some fourteen days, he formed a most inaccurate idea of it.

During the winter of 1916 and 1917 instructions were issued on anti-tank defence. These were based on the following entirely erroneous ideas:

1. That tanks were largely dependent on roads.
2. That tanks would approach the German lines in daylight.
3. That tanks were impervious to machine-gun fire.

These led to the Germans depending on road obstacles such as pits and indirect artillery fire; as a matter of fact, at this time the most potent weapon which could have been used against tanks was the machine gun firing A.P. bullets. That the Mark I tank was not proof against these bullets was not discovered until April 1917, after the British failure at Bullecourt. This discovery was of little use, for by the time the next battle was fought, Messines, a tank with thicker armour, the Mark IV, had replaced the Mark I.

It is evident that throughout this period the German Higher Command gave little thought to the tank question and quite failed to appreciate the possibilities of the machine. Prisoners were questioned and rough sketches, many grotesque in the extreme, were obtained from them and published for information. What information they imparted was misleading; in fact, the whole attitude of the German General Staff, during this period, may be summed up as “stupidity tempered with ridicule.”

During 1917 the German grew to realise that artillery formed the chief defence against tanks. Great prominence was given to indirect fire by all types of guns and howitzers, and in spite of several dawn attacks the enemy laid great stress on what he called “Distant Defence.” As actual operations proved, indirect artillery fire produced little effect save on broken-down machines. Partially learning this, the Germans resorted to special anti-tank guns, and on an average, two, protected by concrete, were emplaced on each divisional front; these were in certain sectors supplemented by captured Belgian and old German guns. Fixed antitank guns proved, however, of little use, for though a few tanks were knocked out by them, notably at Glencorse wood on the first day of the Third Battle of Ypres, they generally were destroyed by our terrific initial bombardments. Curiously enough, though both indirect fire and fixed guns proved a failure, little consideration was, at this time, given to the simplest form of artillery action against tanks, namely—direct fire by field guns.

Infantry anti-tank defence, during 1917, was negligible and chiefly consisted in instructions how to “keep its head” and to leave the rest to the artillery; the use of bundles of stick bombs was recommended, and though A.P. bullets received no great support, the effect of the splash of ordinary S.A.A. was not realised in the least degree.

Prior to the battle of Cambrai (November 1917) the true anti-tank defence had been mud, mud produced by gun fire and rain. At this battle the enemy was caught completely unawares, his anti-tank defence was slight; but a feature of the operation was the improvised defence put up by a few of the enemy’s field guns, which inflicted heavy casualties on tanks, especially at Flesquières. In general, however, the enemy realised the ineffectiveness of his anti-tank defence, yet curiously enough he at present showed no decided inclination to adopt direct field-gun fire as its backbone. In spite of the fact that the incident of a German battery, served by an officer, putting a considerable number of tanks out of action had received mention in the British dispatches, still the enemy’ remained oblivious to the utility of direct fire, and in place of praising his gunners, as we did, he praised troops from Posen who had put up a determined resistance against tanks in Fontaine Notre Dame.

The German counter-attack on November 30, 1917, which resulted in the capture of a considerable number of tanks, seems to have entirely allayed any anxiety created by the attack on the 20th; for though the question of anti-tank defence was given rather more prominence than heretofore, no greater practical attention was paid to it during the winter of 1917-1918 than during the one previous to it.

The German offensive in the spring of 1918 put all defensive questions into the background. This period, however, produced a new weapon, the German anti-tank rifle.

This rifle was first captured during the battle of Hamel on July 4. It had only just been issued to certain divisions; other divisions were equipped with it later on,

This weapon was 5 ft. 6 in. in length, it weighed 36 lb. and fired single shots, using A.P. ammunition of •530 calibre. It was too conspicuous and too slow a weapon to be really effective against tanks, though it could easily penetrate them at several hundred yards range. Its chief disadvantage was that the German soldier would not use it; not only was he not trained to do so, but he was afraid of its kick, and still more afraid of the tanks themselves. It is doubtful if 1 per cent. of the anti-tank rifles captured in our tank attacks had ever been fired at all.

The French counter-attack between the Aisne and the Marne in July, followed by the British victories of Amiens and Bapaume in August, struck through the opacity of the German General Staff like a bolt from out the blue, with a result that a complete volte face was made as regards tanks. The instructions now issued gave anti-tank defence the first place in every project; the eyes of General Ludendorff were now opened, and, realising the seriousness of the tank problem, on July 22 he wrote as follows:

“The utmost attention must be paid to combat tanks—our earlier successes against tanks lead to a certain contempt for this weapon of warfare. We must, however, now reckon with more dangerous tanks.”

This is a more human document than those subsequently issued by the German Chief of the General Staff. Ludendorff now clearly realised that anti-tank defence had been neglected; he probably realised also that this neglect would be difficult to explain to the army and the public, which, as a result of failures, were about to become far more critical of their leaders than ever before.

It is not clear, however, whether Ludendorff realised a still more serious aspect of the tank problem, namely, that it was now too late to organise an efficient defence against the “more dangerous tanks.” Such a defence might have been created before these tanks were available in effective numbers; it could not be organised now unless the pressure the Allies were now exerting could be relieved. This was impossible, for the motive force of this pressure was the tank .

The steps which the German General Staff now took to combat the tank are interesting. Special officers were appointed to the staffs of Groups of Armies, Corps, Divisions, and Brigades, whose sole duty it was to deal with anti-tank defence within these formations. The field gun was at length recognised as the most efficient anti-tank weapon available. These guns were organised as follows:

1. A few forward and silent guns in each divisional sector —outpost guns.
2. Sections from batteries in reserve were allotted definite sectors. On a tank attack taking place, they would gallop forward and engage any tank entering the sector allotted to the section. These sections of guns proved the backbone of the German anti-tank defence.
3. All batteries (howitzers included) were ordered to take up positions from which advancing tanks could be engaged by direct fire. The most effective range for this purpose was first considered to be over 1,000 yards; this was gradually reduced to about 500.

Batteries in (i) and (ii) were to be employed for anti-tank work only, in (iii) they were available for other work, but in the event of a tank attack the engagement of tanks was their chief task.

The duty still allotted to the infantry was “to keep their heads” or “to keep calm,” actions which at this period were impossible to the German Higher Command directly tanks were mentioned. Other orders laid down that in the event of a tank attack “infantry should move to a flank.” How this was to be done when tanks were attacking on frontages of twenty to thirty miles was not explained. A.P. ammunition had to a great extent fallen into discredit, and, curious to record, the effect of “splash” as a means of blinding a tank was still hardly realised, and this after two years of tank warfare.

As artificial obstacles had proved of little use from the end of July, when the Germans withdrew behind the rivers Ancre and Avre, until the signing of the armistice every effort was made to use river lines as a defence against tanks. Road obstacles and stockades were still in use, but though they proved a hindrance to the movement of armoured cars they proved none to tanks.

A great deal of energy and explosive material was expended in laying minefields. At first, special mines in the form of a shallow box were used; later on these were replaced by shells. Lack of time, however, prevented the enemy from developing sufficiently large minefields to produce an important result.

The idea of combining the various forms of anti-tank defence under one command in such a way as to form an anti-tank fort had been dealt with on paper, but was only in a very few cases put into practice. The idea was a sound one, and if well combined with natural obstacles it would have formed the best defence against tanks that the enemy could have created with the means at his disposal.

An anti-tank fort was to consist of:

Four field guns, 2 flat-trajectory minenwerfer, 4 anti-tank rifles, and 2 machine guns firing A.P. ammunition. The fort was to be sited several thousand yards behind the outpost guns and close to the main line of defence.

Throughout the last two years of the war occasional successes were gained by the Germans by various means of anti-tank defence, these usually being due to a combination of the following circumstances:

1. The use of tanks outside their limitation.
2. A hitch or failure in carrying out the plan of attack.
3. An exceptional display of resource, initiative, and courage on the part of some individual German soldier.

In general the keynote of the German anti-tank defence was lack of foresight, the development of tanks not being appreciated. Among the very large number of captured orders dealing with anti-tank defence there is no recorded instance of any anticipation of superior types of tanks to those already in use. The German General Staff lacked imagination and the faculty of appreciating the value of weapons that had not been explained to them whilst at school; obsolescence dimmed their foresight.