{"id":13876,"date":"2016-03-30T20:00:15","date_gmt":"2016-03-31T01:00:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hcstx.org\/?p=13876"},"modified":"2016-03-30T20:00:15","modified_gmt":"2016-03-31T01:00:15","slug":"world-war-two-history-u-s-tank-destroyer-tactics-in-ww2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thetacticalhermit.com\/index.php\/2016\/03\/30\/world-war-two-history-u-s-tank-destroyer-tactics-in-ww2\/","title":{"rendered":"World War Two History: U.S. Tank Destroyer Tactics in WW2"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2 class=\"post-title\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"aligncenter size-large wp-image-13877\" src=\"https:\/\/hcsblogdotorg.files.wordpress.com\/2016\/03\/1200px-american_tank_firing.jpg?w=620\" alt=\"1200px-american_tank_firing\" width=\"620\" height=\"310\" \/><\/h2>\n<h2 class=\"post-title\"><a href=\"https:\/\/foreignpolicy.com\/2016\/03\/30\/rules-of-innovation-10-dont-build-your-doctrine-on-incorrect-lessons-drawn-from-poorly-researched-and-designed-exercises\/\">Rules Of Innovation (10): Don\u2019t Build Your Doctrine On Incorrect Lessons Drawn From Poorly Researched And Designed Exercises<\/a><\/h2>\n<p>That\u2019s the cautionary lesson of the tank destroyer, which was meant to be a relatively inexpensive, light, mobile weapon to counter German tanks. It became one of the most famous failed\u00a0<strong><a href=\"http:\/\/foreignpolicy.com\/2016\/03\/28\/rules-of-innovation-9-chandler-on-why-it-is-a-major-mistake-for-leaders-to-focus-too-much-on-their-operational-level\/\">innovations<\/a><\/strong>\u00a0in U.S. military history.<\/p>\n<p>In exercises the tank destroyer proved adept at picking off single aggressor tanks and then moving quickly. But the people designing it didn\u2019t understand how the Germans were using tanks. They expected Panzers to be found singly and ambushed by tank hunters, either mounted or on foot with RPGs. Alas, \u201cneither the German panzer divisions nor the U.S. Armored Force after 1942 conducted the sort of blindly aggressive all-tank operations\u201d used in the exercise, writes Christopher Gabel.<\/p>\n<p>The problem, he wrote in his 1985 study, \u201c<strong><a href=\"http:\/\/tankdestroyer.net\/index.php?option=com_content&amp;view=article&amp;id=166:seek-strike-and-destroy-us-army-tank-destroyer-doctrine-in-world-war-ii&amp;Itemid=86\">Seek, Strike and Destroy: U.S. Army Tank Destroyer Doctrine in World War II,<\/a><\/strong>\u201d is that those designing the weapon and writing its doctrine were incorrect in their understanding of what was happening on the battlefield. Even in North Africa in 1942, he notes, the Germans mounted \u201can integrated, combined arms force.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The British could have told the Americans that \u201cGerman tanks almost invariably operated under the protective fire of a superb antitank screen. Typically, fearsome 88-mm antiaircraft-antitank guns, flanked by lighter pieces and protected by infantry, covered all German tank movements from concealed overwatch positions.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><span class=\"image-credit\">Photo credit: Archives Normandie\/Wikimedia Commons<\/span><\/p>\n<p>Read the Original Article at <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/foreignpolicy.com\/author\/thomas-e-ricks\/\">Foreign Policy<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Rules Of Innovation (10): Don\u2019t Build Your Doctrine On Incorrect Lessons Drawn From Poorly Researched And Designed Exercises That\u2019s the cautionary lesson of the tank destroyer, which was meant to be a relatively inexpensive, light, mobile weapon to counter German tanks. It became one of the most famous failed\u00a0innovations\u00a0in U.S. military history. In exercises the&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[1286,1894,4418,17,6166,1898,1899],"tags":[1779,10760,10761,10762,10763,1782,3122],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thetacticalhermit.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13876"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thetacticalhermit.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thetacticalhermit.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thetacticalhermit.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thetacticalhermit.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13876"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thetacticalhermit.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13876\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thetacticalhermit.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13876"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thetacticalhermit.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13876"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thetacticalhermit.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13876"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}