Paperback: 352 pages Publisher: Grub Street (May 2004) Language: English ISBN-10: 1904010644 ISBN-13: 978-1904010647

ALL WONDERFUL EXCEPT ITS AMOST ALL LIES!!!

Allies = All Lies.

The truth is that we have totally botched up our understanding of WW2 and writers like Macksey writing from their faulty understanding were just doing the best they could with the framework they had and its our own damn fault for being lazy and accepting the cliches' without examining the facts on the ground for ourselves. At the end of Macksey's career in Tank versus Tank, he realizes heavy tanks have become way too heavy and expensive and calls for the revival of the classic German-style turretless tank destroyer he called "Goliath".

Fortunately, early Macksey at least reports events accurately even if he himself doesn't fully understand them.

The failure to understand the battle against the earth (TBATE) loses wars; in 1940 the Allies ASS U MEd the Ardennes forest was not passable by German light tanks and had no Maginot line forts there. The Germans poured through and France fell within weeks and the British were forced from the continent.

Germany panzers primarily in excellent Czech-built T35/T38 Light Tanks Swarm through Ardennes Forests Allies Thought were "No-GO" terrain

www.youtube.com/watch?v=g4MD3-fzglM

PART 2: light tanks gobble up Poland, Stukas help with CAS, France, Germans concentrate all their light tanks in 200 mile frontage to bust through Ardennes forests, main battle tank BS, still LIGHT tanks, Panzer IV are infantry fire support role, leadership on the scene to exploit fast-moving situations, attack a village: commanders able to decide how/when to do it, GFAC liaison officer radios to Stuka pilots where to attack,

Another benefit of light tanks is simplified mobility engineering;

River Crossing: German Assault Pioneer Style

Part 1: Fascinating conceptual presentation using animation; engineers act as terrain cavalry for main body, More excellent outboard motor to push assault boats fast across the water to the far bank means less exposure to enemy fire than paddling as 82^nd Airborne had to to cross Waal to take Nijmegan bridge, minimalist ferry concept pushed by motor assault boat at least gets towed AT guns across, ferries become pontoon bridge

Part 2: pontoon bridge enables excellent Czech-built 38T light tanks and pioneers in motorcycle sidecars to cross, Dragon's teeth tank obstacles blown up, rubber boat to cross another small river where a girder bridge is projected across, minefield encoutered they launch some form of smokescreen shell to mask themselves as the bangalore torpedo some wire and mines to make a breach, smoke grenades used liberally, flamethrower and pole charge against a pillbox

Hobo seems to understand that in the battle against the earth (TBATE) that there are closed terrain and open terrain types and that two distinct types of tanks are needed to be mobile in these environments--lighter ones and heavier ones. This is in stark contrast to today's morons who ignorantly classify terrain as either GO or NO GO for medium-to-heavy tanks to conveniently create a terrain type for foot sloggers who will ostensibly fight the SNCs while the "real wars" are fought by the heavies; watch the video below for a vivid example of such foolishness:

Hobart wants EVERY vehicle in the armoured force to be tracked and armored--which is what a "tank" is. Idiots from his own time period wrongly thought "tank" meant only tankers with vehicles with turrets fighting mounted and their combat arms abolished---so to correct their stupidity he began calling his force designs ALL ARMOURED. All armoured meant a tracked tank to carry infantry, a tracked tank to carry artillery, a tracked tank to carry supplies, in other words complete mechanization that today, the U.S. with all the industrial might required has no excuse for "heavy" mechanized formations still 50% in wheeled trucks of their Jessica Lynch underclass and its light formations without ANY light tanks.

Hobart has been criticized for not thinking far enough ahead for tanks to duel other tanks in the gun/armor race that pre-occupies the minds of most of today's "mech pussy" armored "tank" warfare pundits who want to only fight mounted in a safe cocoon and don't know jack shit about what NSW/SNC war is really about. His fault is not that he did not anticipate tank dueling; it was he did not understand the vehicle design/performance inefficiency of the 360 degree revolving turret until after WW2. The Germans did. The Germans wanting to realize Hobart's all cross-country mobile "tank" force realized that artillery needed to be tracked so they created a small light tank with a hull-mounted gun called the Sturmgeshutze or "STUG". This light "male" tank not only took out enemy dug-in infantry, it could lay low in tall grass and ambush turreted tanks. STUGs and clones like the Czech 38T chassis based Hetzer assault gun had very thick frontal armor proof against many direct hits which is where the armor is needed most. In fact, THE MOST SUCESSFUL TANK OF WW2 WAS THE TURRETLESS STUG LIGHT TANK. STUGs killed more allied tanks and armored vehicles than the less mobile but vaunted medium Panthers and heavy Tigers with turrets and high silhouettes did. Even the late great Macksey got this and wrote it as his conclusion in his book Tank vs. Tank.

Macksey's "Goliath"

We today still don't get it. Hobart breaking new ground for the first time cannot be faulted for not anticipating that the turret is a functional easy-to-spot high silhouette liability and weight inefficiency that can be ill afforded on the light tanks you need to have maximum all-terrain cross-country mobility for non-linear war in the open. Today we know better and have no such pioneering excuse. Hobart did realize this later stating that "Economy in space is of paramount importance in limited weight" and wrote in his final Specialized Armour Establishment (SAE) report in 1951 he called for an innovative tank design with "Ground pressure - 8 lbs per sq. in." that only today's light tanks like the M113 Gavin achieve:

"It is apparent that further development of armoured fighting vehicles, if continued on present orthodox lines, will impose unacceptable restrictions on fire power and will reduce tactical and strategic mobility to a dangerously low level...The greatest economy in space and weight is obtained by getting rid of the orthodox turret and housing a solid gun in a mounting...The original specification given in War Office Policy Statement No. 1 was in its essential points by FV 201, but only at a weight of 55 - 60 tons and a width of 13ft. The transportation of vehicles of this weight and size present great difficulties in that not all ships are constructed to lift such weights, and transporters for land movement have to be so large as to cause traffic difficulties. In addition, such vehicles aggravate the military field bridging problems and the width may severely hamper the tactical movement of armies in the field. If components such as armour, armament and power plants, in their present stage of development are utilized, there would appear to be only two possible methods by which an A.F.V., which is an advance on present tanks, could be produced, viz:-

(a) The addition of armour to provide better protection.

(b) A reduction in size whilst retaining the present specification.

The F. V. 201 Series gun tank is now in the region of 55 tons in weight. Any appreciable increase in weight to give thicker armour would lead to all the well known troubles associated with overloading.

The second method would be to reduce the size whilst still retaining the armament and armour thickness. A worthwhile reduction in size can only be obtained by reducing the size of the fighting compartment which would mean less ammunition and a more cramped fighting chamber.

The number of rounds at present carried is considered to be a minimum and space available for loading and fighting cannot be reduced to any worth-while extent without seriously affecting the fighting efficiency.

It is therefore clear that unless some fundamental advance is made in either armour of less specific weight, or armament of less bulk, or power plants with greater power/weight ratio, we are unlikely to achieve an A.F.V. which is superior to the present series.

Any big improvement in performance, therefore, can only be achieved by breaking away from existing ideas and practice.

German High Explosive Ammo in WW2

The Germans would pay dearly for not having a medium tank with wide tracks over the exposed open terrain of the Russian steppes on top of invading Russia with a partial blitzkrieg ie; a partially mechanized Army that still had horses and way too many high ground pressure wheeled trucks that got stuck in the Russian winter's snow and mud. They had overlooked TBATE.

Meanwhile, the Germans now on the defensive turned to re-equip with complicated-to-manufacture turreted DEFENSIVE TANKS which are medium to heavy to have a gun/armor advantage over the allies' light offensive tanks coming their way. The Germans should have kept their tanks light, widened their tracks and placed 88mm guns in turretless STUG hulls and mass produced these simpler vehicles to counter the Russian T34s. When the allies slammed into them with their methodical, plodding WW1 linear battle, they whined that their own self-fulfilling prophecy against lighter tanks manifested itself when the truth is they refused to pay for a breakthrough in confined western Europe to give them the open field running space they require. After heavy losses in the French farmland bocage (box) country, the allies finally told the Douhet air power nuts to do something useful and carpet bomb ahead of them as an Army enlistedman welded the combat engineering attachments needed to bust through the hedgerows since the American Army refused Hobart's funnies. With Patton's 3^rd Army now flowing through the St. Lo COBRA breakthrough, entire German units were encircled and annihilated while the British who broke through with Hobart's funnies plodded along with at times WW1 mentality General Montgomery from disaster-to-disaster. Clearly, Montgomery should have been fired and replaced with Hobart to be their "General Patton" or "Guderian" waging non-linear 2D war backed by the Allied Airborne's 3D maneuver collapsing the enemy quickly. Supply lines would have been reduced by taking Antwerp sooner to fuel both Hobart and Patton. Some grognard should war game this alternative WW2 course of action to explore this.

Notice that even after the BEF were expelled from France at Dunkirk, the French and British generals reform another LINE to try to stop the Germans from taking the rest of France. The Allies form their artillery into "Hedgehogs"--defensive clusters with indirect fire artillery but no anti-tank guns to stop German panzers who simply bypassed them. In 20-20 hindsight, perhaps the Allies should have withdrew to the coast for a "Dunkirk II" and prevented 400, 000 men being captured if THEIR WAR FORMULA COULDN'T BE CORRECTED to thwart another infiltration attack. Truly, in some cases discretion to fight another day is better than falling on your sword unready today. However, just a year later after their conquest of France, the Germans was still not yet fully tracked mechanized and with many wheeled trucks and no Airborne 3D to act as cavalry ahead of the main body fell short of Moscow due to severe winter mud and snow---and Russian bypassed troops and inserted paratrooper and light tank resistance.

Partially-Mechanized German Army on wheels and horses defeated by TBATE

The irony is that today, TBATE is ignored by the techno-narcissist U.S. military with increasing regularity as it emasculates itself into wheeled trucks under the delusion that help by mouse-click will solve physical problems in the mud.

The Americans, British and Germans all had walking infantries that refused to mechanize in WW2 using the convenient lack of cross-country mobility of heavy steel tracked tanks as an excuse. After WW2 with the advent of the aluminum armored M113 Gavin that could go nearly everywhere the "NO-GO" terrain excuse ended but the walking infantry persisted and refused to light mechanize. Its my theory that the real reason is narcissism--the man does not want to lose limelight to a machine even if its only giving him only a temporary ride to his self-appointed place to dismount and self-validate. If that machine is too capable like light tracks that can go most places he will have less excuses to walk and if the track has a heavy cannon to blast the enemy less opportunities for him to charge on foot and receive the glory. Parachute dropping from fixed wing planes, hopping or running from an airlanded helicopter or stumbling out from a wheeled truck are ok for the walking line infantryman's ego because he still is the center-of-attention. Even if he's dropped into a non-linear situation, he hunkers down and creates a line that's easy fore him to understand in a circle. What infantry can do is essentially clear & hold. Line infantry wants to clear only if it can then hold some kind of line to ease its mind. Line infantry narcissists lack the wherewithal to just clear and keep moving in non-linear, mobile warfare because it doesn't want to be in tracked tanks that rob them of peer and self-adulation.

As WW2 continued Hobart's armored formations became distorted from his intent of being balanced with a complete combined-arms team to a turreted tank-centric mob that slammed blindly into the enemy to establish a line, then waited for truck mounted infantry to catch up to clear and then hold the line. WW1 mentality had returned. Instead of breaking through the enemy line and fighting non-linearly to collapse him, we engaged in a slow infantry slog to Berlin slowly moving the line forward as the enemy was attrited by firepower. Hobart wanted his turreted tank units to be backed by a "pivot" group of infantry, artillery and sustainment supplies ALL IN TRACKS so they all moved as one unit through the breakthrough created by the big gun turreted tanks. Due to the failure of the British tank industries to provide a breakthrough medium tank that could move at 30 mph which was 3 times as fast as the I-tanks, the British Army accepted mass-produced American Sherman medium tanks and replaced light tanks that should have been probing for enemy strengths and weaknesses in favor of just blindly slamming into the enemy who was waiting with medium to heavy Panther and Tiger tanks and turretless STUG assault guns. Taking heavy casualties from this blunt movement pitting their breakthrough tanks against German lines that were not broken, the Allied advance in the North stalled beginning at Caen and extending all the way up through the port of Antwerp. In contrast, General Patton in the south massed his artillery, directed P-47 fighter-bombers and used his open-top turret M10 and 36 Jackson tank destroyers with guns large enough to defeat heavier German tanks to first get a breakthrough, then he poured his medium Sherman tanks through to collapse the enemy with non-linear warfare.

What 20-20 hindsight reveals is that Hobart made one critical lack of observation: that the key to breakthrough is having powerful enough assault guns to not just bust up dug-in infantry but to kill enemy heavy tanks in the gun/armor competition. If industry cannot get a powerful enough gun into a turret that would give at least range and lethality from any direction parity with the German 88mm, then ditch the turret and put a 90mm or 105mm gun in the HULL, STUG-style and at the same time help your armor protection problem by not having a turret to armor that gives away your presence to be hit. A British STUG tank could even be light enough to be 30+ mph fast to accompany and lead non-linear maneuvers once the breakthrough was created. The "cruiser" tank the British wanted was within their grasp if they only ditched the 360 degree revolving turret to get powerful enough armament and save weight/complexity. The Germans with their Jagdpanther and the Russians with their JU122 assault guns by war's end seemed to understand this. The modern turretless Swedish medium S-tank has in mock war games prevailed against heavier turreted tanks even in meeting engagement tank duels where turret proponents say the swiveling to fire gives a targeting advantage on the order of many seconds, but the simpler tank enables the crew to stay ahead of it in the changing situations so that it can be brought to bear on the larger tanks while itself is undetected.

This walking infantry mentality has had horrific consequences in war. At Omaha beach, the Americans refused Hobart's "Funny" tanks and were cut down by German dug-in defenders losing 2, 000 men and nearly ruining the entire invasion had the American Airborne behind the beaches not stopped German counter-attacks. WW2 was prolonged by at least 1 year because the British 1^st Airborne walking infantry refused to glider land light tanks to bust through to hold Arnhem bridge in force and the allegedly mechanized infantry of XXX Corps was in wheeled trucks and nowhere to be found after Nijmegan bridge was taken to shield British tanks to link up with the one battalion that did hold the bridge. Years later in South Korea, walking infantry from wheeled trucks again failed to bring the M24 Chaffee light tanks it did have to bolster Task Force Smith which was over-run by 100 x T34/85 medium tanks. Even the snobby British infantry at least knew it needed slow-moving "I-tanks" to render enemy resistance busting fire support; if you are going to foot slog at least do that right. The British 6^th Airborne Division under General Gale knew it needed its own light I-tanks and took them to Normandy and Operation Varsity, the 1^st Airborne under General Browning did not---and the result was the Arnhem debacle. The American Airborne despite its creator, General Gavin's pleas refused to employ recoilless rifles on light tanks to even get I-tanks and the result was the Korean War debacle. After Korea, General Gavin created the Airborne Armored Multi-Purpose Vehicle Family as an all-terrain, amphibious infantry carrier as well as potentially an I-tank for fire support using the M113 chassis. The M113 light tank is excellent for light mechanized infantry to deploy by aircraft and then operate in closed terrains to include swimming across lakes/rivers--acting on its own or as a functional cavalry for heavier units operating on open terrain. However, the American Airborne persisted in wanting to walk and only used M551 Sheridan light tanks to be their I-tanks at a walking pace until they were taken away from them by the heavy tanker dominated Army staff.

Every infantry track should have a backhoe or a dozer blade to dig fighting holes for men and dig-in their vehicles into hull-down positions, the front dozer blade acts as a swim trim vane and extra frontal armor. This is one of the lessons from the Falklands war--to hold in the defensive what you took by offensive movement:

www.geocities.com/usnavyindanger/falklandslessonsnotlearned.htm

This basic earth digging and scraping can also build short runways and landing zones for their aircraft to pick them up/resupply etc.

October 19, 1940

Prime Minister to Chief of Imperial General Staff:

When Churchill conducts his "tank parliaments" to get his generals to talk candidly so he can get to the bottom of the situation, the lead General, Martel racketeers and forces them to toe to his party line of lies...only Hobart had the integrity to tell how he truly thought. Churchill fired many generals, but what if there is no competent ones to replace them because the entire institution is corrupt? The corrupt British generals then sought to destroy Hobart again using a flimsy medical excuse, which he countered on September 4, 1942:

Prime Minister to Secretary of State for War:

I see nothing in these reports [of the Medical Board report on General Hobart] which would justify removing this officer from command of his division on its proceeding on active service.

General Hobart bears a very high reputation, not only in the service, but in wide circles outside. He is a man of quite exceptional mental attainments, with great strength of character, and although he does not work easily with others, it is a great pity we do not have more of his like in the service. I have been shocked at the persecution to which he has been subjected. I am quite sure that if, when I had him transferred from a corporal in the Home Guard to the command of one of the new armored divisions, I had insisted instead on his controlling the whole of the tank developments, with a seat on the Army Council, many of the grievous errors from which we have suffered would not have been committed.

One of the whines of the Arnhem post-mortem excuse-mongers is that the 1^st British Airborne Division had a break-down in radio communication and couldn't coordinate their actions. This again shows inexcusable INCOMPETENCE on the part of General Browning/Urquart.

The British Army had Lysander liaison planes that could STOL land to relay messages or if they couldn't land they could drop and pick-up messages. Lysanders could have easily landed and took-off from any of the British drop or glider landing zones. Browning/Urquart should have had Lysanders ready to resume communications if radios failed and then they could have shifted their 1^st and 3^rd battalions to take the water's edge route to reach Arnhem bridge to reinforce Frost, and flown all the way back to England to shift where the resupply drops were taking place to land where their new defensive perimeter was at Osterbeek. The Lysanders could have acted as radio relay aircraft and even dropped ammunition to Frost's men directly.

Again this is all yet another example of the lack of flexibility on the part of Britain's WW1 mentality linear war Generals who persecuted the non-linear mechanized war Generals from the ranks; Hobart etc. so by the time WW2 began even Churchill couldn't fire enough of them to find someone competent. Hobart had constantly used liaison aircraft during WW1 to achieve battlefield C2 and was a huge proponent of actions on the ground backed by close air support (CAS) attack aircraft. Had Hobart been running the Arnhem battle, he would have insured Typhoon fighter-bombers were on-call to the 1^st and 3^rd battalions who were stopped on the way to the bridge by using Lysanders as radio relay planes probably with himself inside ascertaining that his men were being blocked from the bridge--just like LTC John Paul Vann did overhead in an O-1 Bird Dog at the battle of Ap Bac in 1963, and Rommel (Storch)/Patton (L-4 Piper Cub) did during WW2.

Lysander STOL observation/attack/liaison aircraft

The answer has to be "NO". All the British maneuverist generals were denied top command in WW2. Hobart only got to lead his "funny" combat engineering tanks at the behest of Churchill and then to help WW1-style plodding linear war tactics. There's no doubt that the British were far better fighting WW1 style than Americans were as Omaha beach proves. One can only think of General O'Connor as having fought successful mechanized maneuver warfare against the weak Italians in North Africa, and General Slim in CBI using Wingate's long-range 3D maneuver penetration groups (Chindits, Air Commandos, Merrill's Marauders), the rest all slammed into the enemy slowly and advanced front lines on a command post map.

Of the Americans, Generals Patton, Ridgway, Gavin and MacArthur all used non-linear maneuver to collapse their foes achieving startling successes in North Africa, Sicily, France and southern Germany in Europe and a hugely successful "tri-phibious" campaign in the south Pacific leading right up to the Japanese home islands. In contrast, the British Generals in Africa and Europe waited until their enemies were bombarded and then slowly advanced by an arbitrary map line, and this WW1 mentality was emulated by the American marines and Navy in their central Pacific blood bath of assaulting heavily fortified Japanese islands not even necessary or vital to the war effort--but good publicity for service racketeering.

It wasn't in the narcissistic, small penis, self-validation frontal assault, advance-a-front-line USMC until William S. Lind convinced them to put it into their books.

My concern is that just having mechanized infiltration, non-linear war tactics in the books and NOT HAVING THE EQUIPMENT TO DO IT means you are BSing yourself as the USMC does, look at the invasion of Iraq in 2003, following what few tracks they had the 75% wheeled truck clusterfuck was continually stopped by mere Iraqi rear guards and they were 6 days late reaching Baghdad allowing Saddam and his subordinates to escape and start a rebellion against us that continues to bleed us to the current day.

Frontal assaults and advancing a front line isn't the answer all the time; remember Grant at the fortress of Vicksburg? He used a TURNING MOVEMENT to win there--attacking between Vicksburg and Jackson he placed both positions in jeopardy and "turned them" out from their defensive positions and collapsed them because without supplies they couldn't hold. Today you can't do this foot slogging or trucking along roads/trails against an alert enemy or even using slow boats like Grant/Sherman did at Vicksburg.

Logistical and C2 dislocation of enemies after breaking through their lines and encircling them only seems to work against pampered western armies that need logistical umbilical cords--against the Russians who didn't give a damn if they had supplies who could live off the land with minimal air drops for ammo DEPLOYED DEFENSIVELY IN DEPTH, blitzkrieg didn't work. Today with justly waning nation-state dulce decorum est fascism is it likely to get mass armies to get the force density required to do a defense-in-depth? Hitler had a chance to beat the Russians if he took Moscow quick before such a defense was put into place and showed benevolence to the Russians wanting freedom from Stalin's communism---but he was not FULLY MECHANIZED so his horses and wheeled trucks got stuck in the mud and snow and he didn't use his Airborne for 3D maneuver to get there before the winter struck--the battle against the earth being decisive yet again.

Neither Macksey or the official 79^th Armoured history says much of anything about the Arnhem debacle unlike every other human on planet earth who studies WW2 in Europe history--this means they are skirting around an issue we are meeting head-on.

WHERE THE HELL WAS HOBART'S AMPHIBIOUS FUNNIES WHEN ALL THIS WE-CAN'T- CROSS-THE-RHINE-TO-SAVE-THE-1ST-BRITISH-AIRBORNE DRAMA WAS PLAYING OUT?

The unspoken truth until now is that It was not despite of the success of Hobart's "Funnies" on D-Day that British General Montgomery tried to cross several major rivers by 3D Airborne maneuver coup de mains, its was TO SPITE Percy Hobart so they could show him and others that well-equipped 2D maneuver forces with complete combining of arms was extravagant and unnecessary. We could parachute drop foot sloggers if we needed bridges. The conservative British officers wanted to win without adapting---using their much beloved linear-war, walking infantry since such simpletons during peacetime have a simplified existence of garrison lawn and building care with not much war practice other than employing hand weapons---so as to not interfere with the social life of the ranking racketeers. This "From Here to Eternity" walking infantry so-we-can-back-stab-each other racket continues today in Britain's extended family, the American Army Light infantry and their uber narcissist-incompetent marines.

The obscene criminality of the incompetent British officers has no bounds--as WW2 began they forced Hobart out--the man who created non-linear mechanized warfare--out of pure envy and spite--their country and their countrymen be damned. Hobart wanted a leadership that is immersed in the technotactics of their profession who are egalitarian with the "Tommy" Soldier enlistedman---where ALL THINK and all work, ALL get their hands dirty. The WW2 British officers like many today, want to play the French effete' work-is-dirty-for-the-underclass snob game. So Hobart had to go---even as his war theories were being employed by the enemy to kill and maim thousands of Tommies at places like Dunkirk, Crete and Tobruk. One of the sad truths of war is that even the pressures of survival in combat and as a nation-state are NOT A GUARANTEE that what's best is going to over-ride prejudice and malpractice of racketeers. The British people had to demand Winston Churchill be their leader and it was he who brought back Hobart to active-duty to save the day on D-Day. With the Germans on the run after the Normandy break-out, the British generals thought they could "pull a fast one" and not even have a PLAN B a Hobart-lead detachment of amphibious tanks to if necessary swim and fight their way across reinforce an Airborne unit if stranded on the far side of one of the rivers. This would be intolerable--for Hobart to be the hero, no way. They'd rather have Tommies and Paras die--which they did needlessly. All for general officer weak ego considerations. WW2 ended sooner by 6-12 months with us reaching Berlin before the Soviets would have saved MILLIONS of lives and prevented there being a "Berlin Wall".

The irony was to cross the Rhine belatedly in 1945, it was Hobart's Funnies that swam across to link-up with the American and competent British 6^th Airborne--which brought their light tanks, too.

After the war, both Churchill and Hobart were discarded after they had unselfishly saved their countrymen. It is the reformers and the men in the arena who should be empowered not the greed and ego racketeers. Until we realize this and actively fight against racketeering, more disasters like WW2 will come our way and there's no guarantee that a champion like a Churchill or a Hobart will be among us next time to save us.

The People we should emulate are Forgotten....but NOT HERE, NOT WITH US, NOT EVER, we REMEMBER