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Self propelled vs. towed tank destroyer battalions, U.S. Army
Apr 11, 2006 3:03 PM
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The U.S. Army had self propelled and towed tank destroyer battalions in World War II. It would seem to me that a towed gun would be a sitting duck once it opened fire. A s.p. gun could scoot and run. And the towed gun battalion had almost 100 more men than the s.p. battalion (744 vs 655 men). So the s.p. battalion was more economical in terms of man power. Does any one know what the Armys thinking was in haveing both types of battalions?
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Re: Self propelled vs. towed tank destroyer battalions, U.S. Army
Apr 11, 2006 3:13 PM
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I don't know much about that.I remember reading that the Sherman's had a rather innefective 76 mm gun, the self propelled had apparently a more effective gun.Probably they used both (self and towed) because they couldn't manufacture many of the first ones.Anyway, a towed antitank gun has some advantages being hard to spot by the ennemy.The selfs were very vulnerable when hit, and they were easy to spot.
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Re: Self propelled vs. towed tank destroyer battalions, U.S. Army
Apr 11, 2006 3:51 PM
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Which army are you directing the question about? I ask this because every army in the conflict fielded towed anti tank guns, and while I am not up on my Italian and Japanese armor I can definitely remember that the remaining forces all fielded both. As already noted, while succeptable to enemy fire a towed gun can be concealed pretty well, even the big ones...though not as easily.
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Re: Self propelled vs. towed tank destroyer battalions, U.S. Army
Apr 11, 2006 4:01 PM
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17thfabn,
Towed weapons can we moved by a number of different vehicles, where as the sp is at the mercy of it's own engine. Also infantry can move and aim a towed weapon on their own, which can't be done with a sp. A weapon towed by wheeled transport could move much more quickly and silently than a sp, especially along a road. A sp is too large to be used in a glider, whereas a towed weapon can be airdropped along with paratroopers.
B&B
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Re: Self propelled vs. towed tank destroyer battalions, U.S. Army
Apr 11, 2006 4:30 PM
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> I don't know much about that.I remember reading that
> the Sherman's had a rather innefective 76 mm gun, the
> self propelled had apparently a more effective
> gun.
The M36 used the 90mm gun later mounted on the Pershing. The M10 and M18 tnak destroyers used the same 76mm gun mounted on the Sherman. Half the Shermans had a 75mm gun though not the 76mm.
>Probably they used both (self and towed) because
> they couldn't manufacture many of the first
> ones.Anyway, a towed antitank gun has some advantages
> being hard to spot by the ennemy.The selfs were very
> vulnerable when hit, and they were easy to spot.
Towed are cheaper and easier to produce thereofre more of them, easier to hide, easier to transport overseas and to certain locations, and a few other advantages. There are still towed guns used today that should say something, there are advantages and disadvantages to each. Thus both are employed.
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Observations on Tank Destroyers...
Apr 11, 2006 5:18 PM
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From: http://www.insigne.org/TD-Forces-I.htm
"Confirming the rule that armies always prepare to fight the previous war, the idea of tanks fighting tanks was an anathema to the U.S. Army of the 1930s, just as it had been to the combatants of the First World War, who used tanks supported by infantry to assault positions held by infantry, not to fight other tanks. Defense against massed enemy armor was just that - defense. Aggressive anti-tank tactics was a doctrine forced on the American army by the Wehrmacht's romp across Poland in September 1939. Within nine months of the Polish campaign, German armor had breached the antiquated defenses of the Low Countries and France, rolling up their forces and precipitating the British withdrawal to, and evacuation from, Dunkirk. The German triumph owed much to the Wehrmacht’s successful application of the heretofore discounted theories of Fuller, de Gaulle and others, combined with the lessons learned by panzer leaders over years of maneuvers. The German’s success forced the Americans to build from scratch an anti-tank capacity, which culminated in the formation of the Tank Destroyer Forces.
Pushed by Army Chief of Staff General George C. Marshall and Lt. General Leslie J. McNair, head of General Headquarters, each a proponent of the concept of anti-tank forces, the U.S. Army's response to blitzkrieg was the formation of separate battalions specially trained and equipped to fight tanks. Three months after the partitioning of Poland, the U.S. Army constituted the 94th Infantry Anti-tank (AT) Battalion at Ft. Benning, Georgia. Expansion of the nascent tank destroyer force, however, proceeded at a snail's pace. By June 1940, on the eve of the fall of France, only two other battalions had been formed: the 93rd, at Ft Meade, Maryland, and the 99th, at Ft. Lewis, Washington. Mobilization of the National Guard added battalions 101 through 105 in January and February of 1941.
Although these units were assigned to the infantry, in keeping with their fundamental mission of supporting the foot-slogger, many of the cadre for these formations were drawn from field artillery units orphaned by their elimination from the new triangularized regular army divisions or by the conversion of National Guard cavalry regiments to field artillery. Their initial armament, after all, was the 37-millimeter gun used by the two types of AT organizations: those that used towed guns and those that used self-propelled guns. This artillery background was commemorated in the red shields of the coats of arms of many tank destroyer (TD) battalions.
Tank Destroyer Command
After being tested in the Fall 1941 maneuvers, the anti-tank concept won a certain independence from the infantry and field artillery. This independence was limited due to a continuous and rancorous debate of the doctrine and use of AT forces. While there was agreement on the necessity of such formations, the head of each of the existing combat arms, except Armor, wanted responsibility for these new units.
In early December 1941, putting an aggressive spin on the "anti-tank" function, the battalions were renamed Tank Destroyer, and a Tank Destroyer Tactical and Firing Center was activated at Ft. Meade, Maryland. The Center was moved shortly thereafter to Camp Hood, Texas, where it was enlarged in March 1942 to form the Tank Destroyer Command, whose mission was to coordinate the creation and training of the new units.
The existing anti-tank battalions adopted the new title and a new numbering scheme. Since future tank destroyer battalions would be numbered in the 600, 700 and 800 series, the 93rd, 94th, and 99th Infantry Anti-tank Battalions became the 893rd, 894th, 899th Tank Destroyer Battalions; and the 101st through the 105th Infantry Anti-tank Battalions became the 801st through 805th Tank Destroyer Battalions.
Enamored with the practice of the German army of attaching an anti-tank battalion to each infantry division, the U.S. Army toyed a similar structure. This began in 1941 with the assignment 3rd and 5th Infantry Anti-Tank Battalions (Provisional) to, respectively, the 3rd Division at Ft. Lewis, Washington, and the 5th Division at Ft. Custer, Michigan. The new Tank Destroyer battalions were activated with this structure in mind, and renumbered 601 through 609 if based on the same posts as the 1st through 9th Divisions of the Regular Army. Those attached to the mobilized National Guard divisions were numbered 626th through 645th. These battalions, however, were not organic division units, and in most cases the early division associations were soon lost. Still, infantry and armored divisions at the front lines in the European Theater almost always had a tank destroyer battalion attached, and in some cases, the associations lasted through multiple campaigns.
Believing that concentrated armor attacks would require concentrated tank destroyer formations, Group Headquarters were formed for the command and control tank destroyer battalions. Experience in North Africa, where battalions were attached to infantry divisions and were parceled out in platoon strength to support small units, led to the abandonment of this concept. Only a few of the Group or Brigade Headquarters served overseas.
The attrition of Germany's armored capacity also led the U.S. Army to scale down the number of tank destroyer battalions. While over 200 TD battalions were anticipated, by 1944 only 78 were active: the rest had been broken up or converted, with many troops assigned as infantry replacements. Many of the first TD units to be converted were those that comprised black GIs.
Arming the Tank Destroyer Force
The aggressive spin that attached to the title "Tank Destroyer" was based on the mobility, speed, and tactics these units possessed in theory. Often, however, the practical function of motorized TD units was reconnaissance, a function inconsistent with two-thirds of their "Seek, Strike, Destroy" motto. Initially, lack of adequate firepower posed an unwarranted liability to the success of these units’ primary mission of combating enemy armor, and the Army's Ordnance Department never ceased its efforts to improve the armament of Tank Destroyer forces. (1)
There were many high-level discussions of "light" and "medium" versions of tank destroyer vehicles and weapons. With their low velocities and small calibers, both the 37-mm and 57-mm rounds were totally inadequate against enemy armor; German armor, in particular, which was specially designed to resist larger-caliber penetrating rounds. Ordnance test results were embarrassing: the tiny 37-mm shells were unable to pierce relatively thin wood even at a range of less than 100 yards, yet 37-mm guns were ordered in large quantities, probably to appease influential congressmen. The 37-mm and 57-mm guns had limited success against Japanese armor. Incredibly, the 37-mm guns were installed in the rear decks of M-6 trucks ("Fargos"), which were little more than stretch Jeeps. North Africa proved how vulnerable and unsuccessful these armed M-6 trucks were. Ordnance even experimented with a 37-mm half-track jeep, but that combination never left the proving grounds. Towed-gun battalions were subsequently armed with 76-mm cannons.
Ultimately, a French 75-mm gun was installed in a half-track. The 75-mm gun was woefully outclassed by the infamous German 88-mm gun, which featured a 28" to 30" high-velocity round. The thinly-armored half-tracks were not as fast as German armor, and they presented very high silhouettes as targets. Additionally, the half-track had to face the target during firing: its gun could not traverse.
Gen. Lucian Truscott, who rose from command of the 5th Cavalry Regiment to command of the 5th Army during the war years, used the Kasserine Pass debacle to underscore the inadequacy of the TD units’ firepower:
"My Tunisian experience also provided me with an outstanding example of how American soldiers can be indoctrinated in training. Our tank destroyer battalions, organized only a few months previous, with no historical prototype, equipped with an improvised weapon - an almost unarmored half-track mounting an entirely inadequate 75-mm gun - had been taught during their training that it was their duty to seek out and destroy enemy tanks. The number of half-tracks which these gallant units left on the Tunisian deserts was mute testimony to the superiority of German armor, and antitank guns. It was also evidence of the efficacy of their indoctrination, a mark that I was to note among these units throughout the war." (2)
The performance of the half-tracks, nick-named "purple-heart boxes" by their crews, forved the Ordnance Department to look for a solution to the problem in the inventory of the Armored Force. Sherman tank hulls and chassis were accordingly used in the development of the M-10 and M-18 tank destroyers. The M-10s were armed with the 75-mm gun; the M-18s were armed with the higher velocity 76-mm gun, and were called "Hellcats" by their crews. The 76-mm gun fired tungsten-carbide-cored HVAP ammunition. The number of guns fielded by both towed and self-propelled TD battalions was also increased, from 24 in 1942 to 36 by 1944. (3)
Because of the design of German armor, the range of their 88-mm gun, and the low velocity of the 13" 75-mm rounds, TD units were as vulnerable as tank battalions. To be effective, the 75-mm and 76-mm guns of U.S. units had to operate at only 200-300 yards - well within the range 3,000-yard range of the German 88. Initially, U.S. tanks and tank destroyer guns fired from greater distances, aiming high and hurling their rounds in looping trajectories. Frontal assaults against German armor were extremely high-risk; consequently, TD units and tank battalions learned to use encircling movements and tactics of distraction, and to rely on first-shot accuracy against the sides and rear of German tanks. One advantage that the tank destroyer crews had over the tankers was that their M-10s, M-18s, and M-36s were diesel-fueled.
The finest contribution of Ordnance, the 90-mm gun of the M-36, was installed on the M-26 tank, which arrived in the ETO in limited numbers during the last weeks of the war. The M-36s were the best weapons supplied to the TD units. A new chassis, wider treads, improved engines and hull designs supported powerful 90-mm guns, which were versions of anti-aircraft cannon and were modeled after the infamous German 88. The guns fired very high velocity rounds in flat trajectories. The M-36s were very popular with their crews.
Due to their appearance, the M-10, M-18, and M-36 tank destroyers were often considered to be "tanks" by friendly forces. Massed German armor attacks never occurred, but because of the success of the TD units, the fear of German armor by GIs was reduced. The TD forces’ ingenuity, courage and success against enemy armor proved, if indirectly, that a tank was the best weapon against another tank. (4)
The War in Europe
Given the limited use of tanks in the Pacific, it can be said that the deployment of Tank Destroyer battalions was relegated almost exclusively in the Mediterranean and European Theaters. TD battalions were first employed in North Africa, where four Tank Destroyer battalions landed with the invading forces at Casablanca and Oran in Vichy-held French Morocco and Algeria in November 1942. Sweeping into Tunisia, the US Army finally went head to head against the Germans. In February of 1943, occupying some of the forward positions at Kasserine Pass, three TD battalions - the 601st, 804th and 894th - were roughly handled and rudely evicted from their positions by Rommel's Afrika Korps. The units learned from the experience, and the next few weeks saw the 601st and 899th battalions blunting German assaults, including one near El Guettar, where these units destroyed 30 enemy tanks. The loss of dozens of towed guns in the battle demonstrated that such units were often as vulnerable as the self-propelled formations.
As the war wore on, Tank Destroyer battalions and companies were only occasionally employed as integral units. Usually assigned temporarily to a division, small teams of four or six tank destroyers were parceled out to battalions, or even to companies, as needed. A good example of their use was the action of a platoon of the all-black 614th Tank Destroyer Battalion (Colored) (Towed) in the Vosges Mountains campaign in France in late 1944.
On the morning of 14 December, as the leading elements of Task Force Blackshear rounded a curve in the road leading into Climback from the south around La Schleife hill, they came under fire by 88-mm dual-purpose guns and tanks of the 21st Panzer Division, arrayed in the surrounding 1,300 to 1,600 foot heights. For most of the day, the gunners of the 614th Tank Destroyer Battalion fought from an exposed position south of the town, sustaining 50 percent casualties and losing three of their four 76-mm guns. While the Germans focused their attention on the American guns, Task Force Blackshear's infantry (from the 411th Regiment, 103rd Division) outflanked the German defenses and, moving forward behind a rolling artillery barrage, seized the town. (5)
This battle, which won the 614th a Presidential Unit Citation, was out of the ordinary in another respect: by this late in the war, most TD battalions - unlike the 614th - had been converted to self-propelled units that used M-10, M-18 or M-36 tracked vehicles. This "penny-packet" type of action was repeated many times throughout the Northern European and Mediterranean campaigns.
The War in the Pacific
A few TD battalions saw service in the Pacific, where they were used primarily as highly mobile field artillery against entrenched enemy positions. With their ability to bring firepower close to bear on Japanese positions, the contributions of the TD battalions were necessary and successful. Tank against tank operations did not occur until the Americans reached the Luzon plain, where the lightly armored and armed Japanese tanks proved no match for U.S. armor and tank destroyers.
The U.S. Army TD units were armed with towed 37-mm guns, M-10s and M-18s, while the U.S. Marine Corps TD elements were armed with M-3 half-tracks and the towed 37-mm. Unlike their counterparts in the ETO and MTO, Army TD battalions in the Pacific were attached to infantry divisions and, for the most part, remained with the same division for the duration of the war, fighting as integral units.
Although Marine elements employing M-3s and 37-mm guns and drawn from Marine special weapons platoons fulfilled TD roles in support of various Marine operations, there were no Marine TD units per se.
Demise of the Tank Destroyer Forces
With the exception of Lt. Gen. Leslie J. McNair, no senior officer of the Army Ground Forces really understood, supported, or provided tactical leadership and direction for the use of TD forces. This lack of understanding of the objective of TD units (coupled with the inadequate firepower Ordnance provided initially) led to early high losses and to much debate concerning their use. General McNair was the only staff officer who remained firmly committed to the role of TD forces, and he was challenged continually by Armored Force Headquarters. Following General McNair’s death in Normandy in July 1944, a ‘friendly-fire’ victim of a disastrous bombing, one of several, conducted by our own Air Corps, no other high-ranking officer stepped forward to champion the TD forces. By 1946, all TD units had been inactivated."
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Re: Observations on Tank Destroyers...
Apr 11, 2006 6:39 PM
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The basic reasoning for the towed battalions was that they would be used defensively with the infantry in situations that were more or less static. The problem was that this really was never the case. Call it a case of incorrectly reading the tea leaves.
In service, the towed battalions operated effectively only where their guns could be properly dug in and supported. The next best alternative was to at least dig in the wheels up to the axle to lower the sillouette. Where the guns usually failed was once their position was discovered they were very vulnerable to counter fire and rarely able to bring their prime mover (usually an M2 halftrack) up to extract the gun. This is extremely difficult to do under fire as one can easily imagine. Compounding this was the problem that the M6 3" gun was very heavy. This made it nearly impossible for the crew to prolong (move it by hand) any distance to help with extraction.
On the plus side towed tank destroyer battalions had an relative abundance of extra men in reconnissance, security and, foot (bazooka) anti-tank teams giving them a built-in ability to fight off infantry etc to some degree. On the whole, it was quickly decided to replace the towed battalions with self-propelled ones based on the flaws listed above.
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Apr 11, 2006 9:52 PM
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The Germans had the same problem with the PAK 75. While a very effective weapon against armor, the increase in weight over the PAK 50 meant the weapon was hard to move by hand and quickly reposition.
In actuality, towed AT guns were anachronisms once tank guns became large enough to fire HE rounds. Guderian wanted the AT guns in infantry divisions to be self-propelled like the StuG III or Hetzer.
Harold
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Re: Self propelled vs. towed tank destroyer battalions, U.S. Army
Apr 12, 2006 4:17 AM
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Biggest problem with a/t guns towards the end of the war clearly was the very rapidly growing size of the guns (both calibre and overall weight). In what it was at late 30's, regular a/t gun could be moved by it's crew to firing position and out of the position with relative ease and quickly, but by the end of the war the size of the gun necessary to provide required stopping power was such that purely towed gun had lost much of it's previous edge. As they had became practically immobile fire posts which required heavy towed vehicles to move around too there were much less initial advantages left (of conceleament, of selecting fire posts, particularly of moving them around) and less battlefield survivability left too. Most serious disadvantage though was the fact that by the end of the war many nations had some experience and were quickly adopting and experimenting with new mobile fighting techniques which negleted the advantages of even powerful a/t assets as they simply were outmaneuvered.
Due to their low cost and still relatively little evolved doctrinal insight and tactics a/t gun remained to be practical choise for whole war though. Actually it was for every nation the only one since the volume needed to fullfill a/t needs of all fielded troops couldn't be met nowhere near with mounted guns. US army with small fielded troop count compared to its very large equipment output was rather exception, even that would have been different with larger amount of troops fielded. And even in how it was now, for most of the war towed guns still amounted very considerable and major portion of a/t firepower deployed.
But actually neither the mounted a/t gun proved to be such a feasible and long-lived design. With both fixed gun and turret tank destroyers the problem was similiar - why build t/d when with little more effort one could have a real tank which anyhow clearly surpassed the overall combat capabilities of this class of vehicles. Then again it seems that to fullfill needs of very large army it could be after all best choise to opt for medium tanks and medium towed a/t guns.
After WWII things have evolved such that gun t/d concept rather quickly vahished. Infantry a/t gun problems have been reduced considerably few times, with recoilless guns, and with ATGM's which both provided (or regained) more of the same original virtues of a/t arm, better mobility and vastly increased firepower. Like with WWII tank destroyer concept, also these new developments have been quickly followed by carriages for the systems too.
Mikko
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Re: Self propelled vs. towed tank destroyer battalions, U.S. Army
Apr 12, 2006 6:11 AM
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Very good posts, everyone! I would just like to add a few comments on the US Army experience in the ETO. In Normandy, concealed German anti-tank guns were a real problem for our forces on the offensive, and this encouraged the belief that our own towed tank destroyers could function similarly whenever we were on the defensive. At this time it was suggested, I think by Bradley among others, that TD forces should be about half-and-half towed and self-propelled.
The Battle of the Bulge showed that while towed guns could be effective on defense, they were at a critical disadvantage if that defense proved unsuccessful. By the time evacuation was necessary, it was difficult to bring prime movers forward to limber up the guns. As others have noted, AT guns by 1944 were too heavy to be manhandled any significant distance. Towed TD units suffered heavy losses early in the battle. After this it was decided to reduce the proportion of towed units. At one point it was suggested that approximately 12 towed TD battalions out of 50+ in the ETO could cover the situations in which they were the weapon of choice.
As noted, a quality tank destroyer was comparable to a tank in size and production cost. The TD's large open turret did allow the US Army to field the 90mm at a crucial time in the war, several months before it was available in the Pershing tank. On the other hand, the 76mm and 17pdr, which armed most US and British TDs in 1944-45, were also available in tanks. Once the urgency of war was over, TDs offered little advantage over investing one's resources in full-fledged tanks. Except for a few special applications, tank destroyers basically ceased to be built - although the concept was revived with anti-tank missiles.
McNair's tank destroyer concept seems to have assumed that through long range, maneuver, or some other factor the TDs would be able to engage tanks without themselves coming under fire. This proved unrealistic starting in North Africa where TD units suffered heavy losses. My thought is that having a bigger gun than the enemy but lighter armor offers little relative advantage.
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From:
Houston
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Re: Observations on Tank Destroyers...
Apr 12, 2006 7:59 AM
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> There were many high-level discussions of "light" and
> "medium" versions of tank destroyer vehicles and
> weapons. With their low velocities and small
> calibers, both the 37-mm and 57-mm rounds were
> totally inadequate against enemy armor; German armor,
> in particular, which was specially designed to resist
> larger-caliber penetrating rounds. Ordnance test
> results were embarrassing: the tiny 37-mm shells were
> unable to pierce relatively thin wood even at a range
> of less than 100 yards, yet 37-mm guns were ordered
> in large quantities, probably to appease influential
> congressmen. The 37-mm and 57-mm guns had limited
> success against Japanese armor.
...
> Ultimately, a French 75-mm gun was installed in a
> half-track. The 75-mm gun was woefully outclassed by
> the infamous German 88-mm gun, which featured a 28"
> to 30" high-velocity round. The thinly-armored
> half-tracks were not as fast as German armor, and
> they presented very high silhouettes as targets.
> Additionally, the half-track had to face the target
> during firing: its gun could not traverse.
...
> The performance of the half-tracks, nick-named
> "purple-heart boxes" by their crews ...
I know several Iwo Jima half-trackers, and they will get a kick out of that.
> A few TD battalions saw service in the Pacific, where
> they were used primarily as highly mobile field
> artillery against entrenched enemy positions. With
> their ability to bring firepower close to bear on
> Japanese positions, the contributions of the TD
> battalions were necessary and successful.
...
> The U.S. Army TD units were armed with towed 37-mm
> guns, M-10s and M-18s, while the U.S. Marine Corps TD
> elements were armed with M-3 half-tracks and the
> towed 37-mm. Unlike their counterparts in the ETO and
> MTO, Army TD battalions in the Pacific were attached
> to infantry divisions and, for the most part,
> remained with the same division for the duration of
> the war, fighting as integral units.
> Although Marine elements employing M-3s and 37-mm
> guns and drawn from Marine special weapons platoons
> fulfilled TD roles in support of various Marine
> operations, there were no Marine TD units per se.
On Iwo Jima the Regimental Weapons Company of the 5th Division had the French 75mm half-track he mentions and the 37mm anti-tank guns, which they brought inland on weasels: carried, not towed. The 28th landed theirs immediately after the first assault infantry of the 1st Battalion had completed their landing. For the better part of the first day the 3 half-tracks and two 37's they were able to get off the beach were the only land-based artillery the infantry could count upon. The 75mm half-tracks were especially effective against the fortified concrete pillboxes and bunkers the Japanese had built around the base of Mt. Suribachi.
The 75mm half-tracks did have some traverse.
I called my dad and asked him how thick the half-track's armor was, and he says it was 1/4 inch.
After Iwo Jima they replaced the half-tracks with a fully tracked vehicle, which is what they trained with during their preparations for the invasion of Japan: possibly the 90mm mentioned. I don't know which was used on Okinawa.
Post was edited by:
sonofsamphm1c
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Re: Observations on Tank Destroyers...
Apr 12, 2006 8:20 AM
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"could not traverse" is an exagerration; IIRC the halftrack's gun could train 21 degrees each side of center. The author's point was that the entire vehicle has to be pointed in the direction of the target, as opposed to a fully-rotating turret. You often see phrases like "fixed forward-firing gun" when what is meant is that the vehicle has a narrow arc of fire forward, which imposes tactical limitations.
There is at least one vehicle with a totally fixed gun, the postwar Swedish S tank. This has a sophisticated suspension system which allows the entire vehicle to move to train - or elevate - the gun. To me this seems like one of those neat ideas that might not be practical in combat.
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Re: Self propelled vs. towed tank destroyer battalions, U.S. Army
Apr 12, 2006 8:24 AM
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After the war the U.S.tank destroyers were replaced by heavy tank batallions?
In fact U.S. renonuced diesel subs, and look what the germans and others did with them!I mean the latest developements, type 212/214, Scorpene, Gotland and other A.I.P. subs.
Pact of Warsaw countries used for decades after the war towed antitank guns.
http://www.fas.org/man/dod-101/sys/land/row/t-12.htm
Post was edited by:
radu
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Towed AT scored huge hits in defense.
Apr 12, 2006 8:50 AM
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The Red Army took out scores of German tanks from concealed static positions in the battle of Kursk.
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Re: Towed AT scored huge hits in defense.
Apr 12, 2006 9:15 AM
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125mm Rapira AT-guns were used in Transnistrien conflict even in the 90s.
However tank destroyers, both towed and self-propelled became obsolete immediatly after introduction of ATGMs.
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