Killers: The Most Lethal Tanks of World War II

Killers: The Most Lethal Tanks of World War II

It can be argued that the best tank is the one that destroys the enemy. Or, depending on your point of view, it's the one that isn't shooting at you. But otherwise, choosing the top tank is always a nightmare of technical and historical analysis.

The strange tanks that helped win D-Day

The strange tanks that helped win D-Day

On 19 August 1942, Allied armies put their plan for an invasion of Occupied Europe to the ultimate test - by landing troops on the beaches and trying to capture a French port. France had, by this time, been under German control for more than two years.

Weapons of the Tankers – Book Review

Weapons of the Tankers - Book Review

Book Review: Weapons of the Tankers: American Armor in World War II Zenith Press, 2006, Hardback. On VE (Victory Europe) Day in Germany the United States Army fielded 91 tank battalions grouped in 16 armored divisions and 49 separate tank battalions attached to infantry divisions.

The Rise and Fall of the American Heavy Tank

The Rise and Fall of the American Heavy Tank

The heavy tank never found a satisfactory role in the American military. A number of factors such as logistics, economics and evolving military doctrine eventually eliminated it from the formal inventory of the US armed forces in peacetime, but its role in wartime has never diminished.

British Armour/Weapons 1944

Sherman Firefly June 1944, France. German Anti-tank crews were trained to fire and focus their fire first on Armored command vehicles and the larger calibre Firefly to knock them out early.

For a variety of reasons tank design in the UK and, to a lesser extent in the USA, had one distinguishing feature. The tanks were always two years out of date. When the German armour had the equivalent of 4- or 6-pounder guns, the British tanks had 2-pounders. When the British upgraded to 6-pounders, the German tanks had the incredible 88 mm. When the three British armoured divisions and eight armoured brigades landed in Normandy their Churchills, Cromwells and Shermans were hopelessly outgunned.

Half the German tanks in Normandy were the Panzer Mark IV ‘special’. It weighed 25 tons, moved at up to 25 mph, and its 75-mm Kwk 40 gun could penetrate 84 mm of armour at 1,000 yards. Its own front armour was 80 mm. The Panzer Mark V or Panther accounted for nearly 40 per cent of German tanks in Normandy; that is, one of every two tank regiments in most German armoured divisions was equipped with Panthers. It weighed 45 tons, could move at 35 mph, and its 75-mm Kwk 42 guns with a 14-pound shell could penetrate 118 mm of armour at 1,000 yards. Its own front armour was 100 mm. The Panzer Mark VI, or Tiger, was very nearly impossible to knock out. It weighed 54 tons with a maximum speed of 23 mph and carried 100 mm of frontal armour. Its 20-pounder shell from a 88-mm Kwk 36 gun could penetrate 102 mm at 1,000 yards.

Many German tank units had one Panther per troop of Mark IVs, a situation similar to the British units, which had one Sherman Firefly per troop. The Allied Sherman tank weighed 32 tons and could travel at 25 mph, but its front armour was only 76 mm thick. It could be knocked out by any German tank at 1,000 yards, even at 2,000 yards, and so was known as the ‘Tommy-cooker’. Its 75-mm gun could at best penetrate 74 mm at 100 yards, 68 mm at 500 yards, and 60 mm at 1,000 yards. However, its Ford engine was reliable and easy to maintain.

Trooper John Thorpe was the ‘Jack of all trades’ in 4 Troop C Squadron, 2nd Fife and Forfarshire Yeomanry, equipped with Shermans:

I could be called upon to take any other crew member’s place and I was the disposable member of the crew. I was sent on foot reconnaissance to find the safest place to locate the tank without placing it in jeopardy when advancing slowly towards a vantage point in a hedge or out of a wood, or at a crossroads in a village, or to attach a tow rope to help extract a disabled tank in the thick of battle. I developed not only a sixth sense but a super sense, a soldier’s deepest sense, the sense to survive.

The reality of this equation was very disturbing. Unless a 76-mm Sherman could get very close to the opposition or by chance catch it sideways on (Tiger had 80 mm of side armour, Panther 45 mm and Mark IV 30 mm) the contest was inevitably one-sided. Only the 17-pounder Sherman Fireflies were capable of a level fight. A limited number of Challengers – 200 in all – were allocated to Guards Armoured Division and 15/19th Hussars in 11th Armoured. A 17-pounder anti-tank gun was mounted on a Cromwell chassis and allocated on the basis of one per troop, with a crew of five. However, the German dual-purpose 88-mm gun (ground and AA) was reckoned to be the best available during the Second World War. Its muzzle power could destroy any Allied tank at 2,000 m and its airburst fuse could put a shell on top of a crossroads eight times out of ten. Bill Close, squadron commander with 3 RTR throughout the campaign, was wounded three times and awarded two MCs. As author of Panzer Bait, and having had no fewer than eleven tanks knocked out from under him, his views on tanks have much authority!

Our ordinary 75-mm gun could not knock out either a Tiger or a Panther except at about 500 yards range, and in the rear, and with a bit of luck in the flank! The 17-pounder Firefly was our best tank but even it could not penetrate the Tiger head-on at over 1,000 yards. Whereas all our tanks would be knocked out at 2,500 yards by the German 88-mm gun.

Steel Brownlie, troop leader with 2nd Fife and Forfarshire Yeomanry, also fought throughout the campaign, was wounded and awarded the MC. He wrote The Proud Trooper, a story of the Ayrshire Yeomanry. His comments are:

The great snag was that the Sherman, mechanically reliable and available in great numbers, was inferior in many ways to the German tanks. The armour was thin, the ammunition was stowed in open bins so that it exploded if there was any penetration. A hit almost inevitably meant a brew-up. Some boffin hit on the idea of welding bits of extra armour to protect the bins but their effect was to provide an aiming mark. I certainly saw many brewed-up Shermans with a neat hole in the ‘extra armour’. Even if you fixed spare track plates to the front of the Shermans, the basic weakness remained. You were in a ‘Ronson’ and if you were hit it was best to bale out p.d.q.

He also stressed the fear generated by the awareness of inferior armour: ‘My crews got almost obsessive about NOT having a thick, sloping glacis plate in front like the Panther. I recall deliberately backing into a firing position so as to have the protection of the engine. There was the added advantage that if you had to get out in a hurry you had all the forward gears.’

‘Sandy’ Saunders, troop commander with 2nd Northants Yeomanry, wrote:

The regiment had been training since 1939 as an armoured regiment in both an anti-tank and reconnaissance role. It was a pity that their equipment was inadequate. The Cromwell was designated a cruiser tank, fast across country but under-armoured and under-armed. The 75-mm gun was only capable of knocking out German Mark IV and Panther tanks at point blank range while their 75 mm and 88 mm (converted AA guns) could knock out a Cromwell at extreme range. We only started to get 17-pounder guns in the Challenger version of Cromwells in August – too late for 2nd Northants Yeomanry to try out in action.

Simon Frazer, 15/19th Hussars, commented:

My appreciation of tank v. tank situations was coloured by three oversized factors favouring the enemy, viz silence, muzzle velocity and thick sloped armour. We had to match this with the speed, manoeuvrability and camouflaged outline of our Cromwells. ‘David and Goliath’ I told my dispirited crew to cheer them up. Our 75 mm became known as ‘the sling’ thereafter.

Reg Spittles, 2 Troop Corporal A Squadron, 2nd Northants Yeomanry, described some of his tactics:
I found that if in doubt to stand back and put a couple of ‘smoke’ shells into the area. If it was a possible anti-tank gun or infantry ambush that would often resolve the situation and cause an enemy withdrawal.

Tank maintenance itself gave few headaches because the Cromwell – Rolls Royce engine, transmission, tracks and traverse – was such a reliable vehicle. The 28-ton tank was reliable on the road, but its 75-mm gun shots bounced off Tiger full frontals. On dry hard fields Cromwell IVs and VIIs would do over 30 mph in fifth gear. But the story gets worse.

Every infantry battalion feared the noisy Nebelwerfer mortar, an ugly multi-barrelled brute on wheels, and easily towed. Its ‘moaning minnie’ stonks are said to have accounted for 75 per cent of infantry casualties in Normandy. They came in three sizes with a maximum range of 8,600 yards, and most of the five Nebelwerfer regiments (each of sixty projector-mortars) were concentrated on the British/Canadian front.

Only the British 25-pounder field guns with a range of up to 13,400 yards, and 4.5-in./5.5-in. medium guns meshed together in troop, battery and regimental and the larger ‘Uncle’ and ‘Victor’ targets were capable of inflicting dramatic large-scale protective barrages or defensive fire plans. Their pinpoint DF and DFSOS targets were praised by the infantry.

The Spandau was a faster firing weapon than the Bren, the Schmeisser better than the cheap little Sten gun. The Panzerfaust one-shot anti-tank missile was more effective than the British Piat. Major Ned Thornburn, Company Commander 4 KSLI, had these views: ‘The Bren was adequate, the Sten did nothing to heighten our chaps’ morale, the Piat was not reliable, often ineffectual – the Panzerfaust was better. Our 3-in. mortars were, however, as effective as their Nebelwerfers.’

The Germans laid hundreds of thousands of mines, mainly Teller mines, in roads or on verges. These could be gingerly excavated after location or lassooed with a long rope and towed away. Booby traps in houses were rarely defused by the REs, but simply blown up on the spot. But one of the greatest perils to infantrymen was schu-mines or S–mines planted randomly in fields and verges. The former were explosives contained in a wooden box more or less undetectable by the usual mine detectors. They exploded with the pressure of a foot on the buried lid. The latter were just as lethal – small anti-personnel mines activated by a trip wire, which exploded at waist height. The schu-mines would take your legs off and the S–mines would tear your whole body apart.

Field Marshal Montgomery, who had some capacity for deluding himself, wrote to Alan Brooke:

I have had to stamp very heavily on reports that began to be circulated about the inadequate quality of our tanks, equipment, etc. as compared with the Germans…. In cases where adverse comment is made on British equipment such reports are likely to cause a lowering of morale and a lack of confidence among the troops. It will generally be found that when the equipment at our disposal is used properly and the tactics are good, we have no difficulty in defeating the Germans.

Absolute rubbish of course, unless a ratio of five to one in tank losses was considered acceptable. Simon Frazer’s 15/19th Hussar troop peppered a Mark V tank west of Argentan and hit it twenty-two times. They found the Mark V the next morning. It had been abandoned by its very gallant crew because it had run out of petrol. Admittedly its turret superficially resembled a cheese grater, but not one hit had penetrated.

Lieutenent-General Horrocks, XXX Corps Commander, knew the score. He wrote: ‘Our Shermans and Cromwells had to approach within 500 m of the heavier Panther or Tiger tanks to knock them out, whereas the 88 mm or the Tiger could dispose of Allied tanks at 2 km. The Panther’s gun was superior to Cromwell or Sherman, and Mark IV was certainly their equal.’

With the benefit of hindsight, there should have been many more 17-pounder Sherman Fireflies available before D-Day. The meagre supplies were ‘reserved’ for British armour despite belated American recognition of their superiority in the field. Bill Close, 3 RTR, commented: ‘The Comet tank (finally issued early in 1945) was the last contributed by Britain’s tank manufacture during the war. With a maximum 100 mm of armour, 77-mm gun and speed of 30 mph, it could tackle all but the King Tiger.’

But at least the Allies had almost total superiority in the air. Although at one time or another most units were bombed by the Luftwaffe and the RAF, and almost inevitably were shot up by USAAF prowling Thunderbolts, the universal view was ‘Thank God for the Tiffies.’ 155 Typhoon pilots were lost over the Normandy battlefields engaging in a very close support against Boche strongpoints, tanks, or dug-in 88-mm anti-tank guns, but many individual ‘little’ battles were won and precious lives saved by the RAF intervention. LIMEJUICE was the magic radio call that produced – often from a cab-rank of circling predatory Typhoons – almost miraculous support. The FOOs who were given the opportunity of calling for LIMEJUICE via the regimental radio network, had a feeling of power, of waving a magic wand. There is no doubt that the RAF was very highly regarded by the front line troops despite the occasional ‘incidents’.

Revision or Correction

The Allies enjoyed a 3:1 superiority in tanks deployed in Normandy, and the vast majority of German tanks were of the same quality as British and US tanks. The powerful German Panthers, Tigers and King Tigers, some armed with improved 75mm and 88mm guns, were available only in small numbers, though the Panther was nearly as common as the Panzer IV, the most common tank. The Germans deployed only some 650 Panthers and 120–30 Tigers in Normandy. The Allied forces had over one armoured formation to two infantry, whereas for the Germans it was 1:4; for the British the ratio was about 1:1.

The million-strong British-commanded 21st Army Group that fought from Normandy to Germany (excluding attached US forces) was an extraordinarily armoured force. It had seven armoured divisions (four British, two Canadian, one Polish) and six armoured/tank brigades (three British, two Canadian and one Czech), as well as eleven infantry divisions. In terms of gun-power the German tanks were matched by the Sherman Firefly, a British adaptation of the Sherman to take the new British 17-pounder 76mm anti-tank gun. The 17-pounder was apparently superior to all German guns and with the new but rare discarding sabot round could destroy even the heaviest German tanks. The 21st Army Group had around 300 Fireflies at the beginning of the Normandy campaign, one for every three Shermans. The proportion of Fireflies increased to 50:50 as new HE ammunition for the 17-pounder became available. It was not until the very end of the war that Britain produced the Comet tank, armed with a gun related to the 17-pounder, firing discarding sabot shot if necessary, which was close to the Panther in overall performance. This is not to say that British tanks before the Comet were necessarily inferior in armour: the Mark VII Churchill was more heavily armoured than the Panther or Tiger.

Just as surprising is that British tank forces were better equipped than US ones. The US forces also acquired a Sherman with a 76mm gun, but this was inferior to the 17-pounder as an anti-tank gun. The Cromwells and the Churchills of the Anglo-Canadian forces were regarded as equal or superior to the Sherman. Except when they carried the 6-pounder these tanks had essentially the same gun as the Sherman; the Cromwell was just a little bit lighter than the Sherman, but faster and similarly armoured. The Churchill was considerably heavier, better armoured but slower. When mounted with the 6-pounder 57mm gun, the British tanks had a more effective anti-tank (though single-purpose) gun than the 75mm. 

Hobart's Funnies were a number of unusually modified tanks operated during World War II by the United Kingdom's 79th Armoured Division or by specialists from the Royal Engineers.

There was one other distinctively British aspect of the Normandy landings and the campaign in North-West Europe. Churchill appointed the pioneering tank officer Percy Hobart to command a special very large armoured division (the 79th) to hit the beaches of Normandy, and then proceed, with a whole series of wonderfully adapted tanks. Among them were swimming ‘Duplex Drive’ or ‘DD’ Sherman tanks, which could make it ashore on their own power; Sherman Crabs, with anti-mine flails attached; AVREs, Churchills armed with a spigot mortar, firing a ‘Flying Dustbin’ of explosive a short range to remove concrete obstacles; Crocodiles, Churchills armed with flamethrowers; and Grant CDL tanks, which had powerful searchlights to dazzle the enemy. Some of these machines were clearly useful in particular contexts, but whether they warranted the investment involved is not at all clear. The scale of the 79th Division was extraordinary. It had – at D-Day – three brigades: one of engineers with AVREs, one of Sherman Crabs and one CDL, its DD Sherman brigade having been attached elsewhere for D-Day. It would later have five brigades: one of AVREs, one of Sherman Crabs, one of Sherman DD swimming tanks, one mainly of Crocodiles and one of US-designed and US-built tracked landing craft. It is striking that the much larger US forces, while they adopted the DD tank for the D-Day landing, did not take up most of the other devices. As in the case, possibly, of Mulberry, and certainly of PLUTO, it is evidence of both the plenitude of resources available to British forces, and their tendency to go for complicated devices which the Americans avoided.

Despite this, some officers in Normandy claimed that British tanks were once again much inferior to German, and once again questions were raised in the House of Commons by Richard Stokes. Once again, historians followed, condemning British tanks and holding their low quality responsible for setbacks suffered by British forces. More generally, historians have overplayed the differences in quality between British and German equipment, systematically neglecting the good, sometimes superior qualities of the former. To an even greater extent they have underplayed the comparatively lavish scale of supply of weapons to the British army. It was not just a matter of tanks. The British forces had ample supplies of transport of all kinds, from lorries to jeeps to universal carriers, Weasels, Kangaroos, Buffaloes and Terrapins. The Germans relied on horses and carts. Although German infantry units had a notionally higher proportion of machine guns and submachine guns, in 1942 and 1943 Britain alone out-produced Germany in these weapons by a factor of four to five and both were producing about the same in 1944, without even taking account of overseas British production. In Britain, submachine gun (Sten) production was in peak years much greater than rifle production; German submachine gun production was never more than about a third of rifle production. Sten guns were not just used by British forces, with some 600,000 sent to resistance units by the SOE, but it seems highly unlikely that this explains the apparently low proportion in British units. The Sten was similar, though perhaps slightly inferior, to the German MP40, and both were copied by the Americans in their M3, introduced late in the war to replace the Thompson (or ‘tommy gun’).

WW2 Belgian armor

In September 1939, Belgium was not a negligible or token force. It held the seventh place in armored strength in Europe, just after Poland and the Czech Republic. This force was constricted by a limited budget, the result of the long-run 1930 financial crisis, and to be first and foremost a purely defensive force, according to the "non-provocation" policy of 1936 regarding the Kingdom relations with bordering Nazi Germany. This very firm neutral position was also required to keep at bay ever-present tensions between the two very different cultural majorities of Belgium, the Walloons, Catholics, related to the French, and the Flemish, Protestants, and culturally nearer to the low countries and Germany. This was accompanied however by energic measures such as a 15% defense budget increase, the national service military training being stretched from 8 to 12 months and modernization of all fortifications, highly rated by military experts in 1939.

Belgian armored forces were spread into several cyclist border units (notably the elite "chasseurs ardennais"), cavalry and infantry units. The fully motorized ones were supposed to act as "flying units" to defend major communications lines between five strategical strong points like the Namur and Liege forts, and above all, Eben-Emael. These thoroughly modernized fortifications -in the Maginot line style- were designed to serve as a buffer against German attacks, repelling assaults for at least five days, and at best two weeks, a delay thought long enough to allow the French and their British allies to move into place and built their own defensive line, closing the gap between the north sea and the Maginot Line itself -with the notable exception of the so-thought impassable Ardennes forest.

For these reasons, Belgium never tried to acquire or build medium tanks until 1936 -seen as an offensive or provocative gesture by the politicians. The bulk of the armored forces comprised towed AT guns, mostly those of the excellent SA-FRC (which stands for "Fonderie Royale de Canons") 47 mm (1.85 in), or modele 1931, of which over 750 were delivered to infantry and cavalry units. Tractors were of the Vickers "Utility Tractor" type, unarmed, small, stocky, of which two types largely produced, for cavalry and infantry. Their armor, equipment and speed differed accordingly. British Vickers designs also formed the basis of the two main Belgian tanks type. The British Vickers Mark VI served for the light scout tanks (T15) and Vickers unarmed tractors as tank hunters (T13) which evolved through three variants and formed the backbone of the Belgian antitank units. These were complemented -until 1939- by a handful of vintage FT 18s (a Belgian slightly modified FT 17 of WWI fame), scheduled for replacement by the recent ACG-1, of which only a dozen were delivered in time.

T15 light tank
The T15 was a version of the British "Commercial Light Tank Vickers Carden-Loyd 4 ton". They had a two-man crew and were armed with a 13.2 mm French Hotchkiss machine gun mounted in the turret. A total of 42 of these tanks were assigned to Belgian units.

T13 tank destroyer, models B1, B2, and B3
The T13 series was very similar to the T15; the only major difference was that the main armament was a 47 mm anti-tank gun instead of a machine gun. They were regarded as tank destroyers; except the first model (B1) all had fully rotating turrets.
Total production for the T13:
    T13 B1 - 35 produced.
    T13 B2 - 14 produced. These started their life as unarmed Carden Loyd tankettes which were modified and equipped with a turret with a C.47 gun in 1936.
    T13 B3 150 produced. Entered service in 1937.
The Wehrmacht operated some captured T13s during the first years of the war, as the T13 had a more powerful main gun than the Panzer I and Panzer II, common German tanks in the early war years.
There is a T13 B2 on display at Brussels Tank Museum.

ACG-1 tank
The Renault AMC 35 tank, also designated ACG1, was armed with a 47 mm gun and a coaxial machine gun. 25 of these tanks were ordered although only 12 were accepted into the Belgian army due to supply problems. The Belgian ACG1 and the AMC 35 had different turrets. The Belgian Army disliked the layout of the AMC 35 turret, and so designed their own. Instead of waiting for the other tanks to arrive the Belgian army created the T-13 B3, also armed with a 47 mm C.47 gun. Eight of the ACG1 were in front line units at the start of the 1940 campaign. The ACG1 had a reputation for mechanical difficulties which caused a dispute with the French manufacturer, and slowed deliveries until the problems were solved. The 47 mm main gun in the ACG1 was the same anti-tank gun then in service with the Belgian Army.

Renault FT tank
The Belgian army had 75 Renault FT tanks (of World War I vintage) at the start of World War II. The Belgian Army had two types of FT tanks, the Char canon armed with a short 37 mm Puteaux SA-18 gun and the Char mitrailleuse armed with a machine gun. Unlike the French Army, the Belgian Army had withdrawn all FT tanks from front line service before World War II. They remained in storage depots during the 1940 campaign.

Belgian forces in May 1940
In May 1940 the Belgian army could deploy 22 divisions (mostly infantry ones - 100,000 men for the standing army, 440,000 mobilized recruits in 1939, and 900,000 total with reserves in May 1940, an astonishing feat for a 8 million population) and about 200 AFVs spread into "penny packets" among divisions, and nearly 700 towed antitank guns either by artillery tractors, trucks or Ford-based Marmon Herrington armored cars. Total strength was only 2 fully mechanized divisions, one armored regiment and two motorized divisions. Following the Mechelen incident (a plane crash involving a German Major in Belgium near Meuse river), German plans detailing upcoming operations were found, and brought to the Allies. As it was, this plan called for a simple invasion trough Belgium, targeting western coast harbors, virtually repeating 1914 Schlieffen plan. However both King Leopold and General Raoul Van Overstraeten, his aide de camp, suspected some trick and rather firmly thought a wide encirclement using the Ardennes forest was more probable, but General Gamelin ignored the warnings and stuck to his Dyle plan. The Belgian army was supposed to hold the Antwerp - Liege - Namur line on the borders as long as possible to allow the main French forces to take positions, and withdraw afterwards to make junction with French forces, theoretically presenting a narrower front, easier to defend