A different armored doctrine

As the title says a different armor doctrine is developed and Mcnair's tank destroyer doctrine is shelved or thrown out. Instead it's formed around being a step ahead and being better than the competition?

What other alternative doctrines could be used instead?
How might this effect tank development up until present day?
Just how might US Army tanks be like in world war two and beyond?
 
The US might use heavy tanks as part of the mix.

m6.jpg
 
One tent of the TD doctrine was the TD battalions were to be held in reserve at crops and army level, in Brigades or Groups. When the enemy armored breakthrough occurred the TD Group or brigade would rush to the area and envelope the enemy in a ring of fire. It seldom worked well in training maneuvers in the US and most army commanders abandoned it in Europe. They farmed the TD battalions out to the division commanders, who usually handed them down to the regiment commanders. So every infantry regiment or Armored Div Combat Command had a dozen M10 TD on hand.

So one alternative would be to provide every division with a battalion of 36 TD as part of its permanent establishment. This is what the US Army did post war.

Another would be to alter the overall armored doctrine. Instead of two types of medium AFV, the M4 tank & M10 TD, just build one equipped for both roles. That is the universal tank of post 1945 British and US doctrine.

A less desirable alternative would be to keep the tanks the same in the form of the M4 Sherman, and weigh down the infantry with lots more towed AT guns, like the excellent 57mm six pounder, or the too heavy 3" towed AT gun.
 
If someone decides in 1941 to use the Sherman as some sort of universal tank, that's probably the best you can hope for. It's got a good enough gun (75mm gun) to handle the Pz IVs it'll encounter, armor heavy enough to compete with some heavies, weight right at the limit of what's practical in Europe at this point, and it's more reliable than almost anything else on the battlefield. The 76mm gun was ready in time for D-Day but it wasn't taken because of logistics issues with different ammunition (perfectly valid when you're staging a huge amphibious assault), but it might go into action a few weeks sooner if there isn't such a widespread idea of relying on TDs to take out enemy tanks. By the end of the war in Europe, you would see Shermans with a mix (3/1 or 4/1) of 76mm AT guns and 105mm howitzers (as in Korea). Shermans like these would be able to face Panthers and Tiger Is on a fairly level playing field (they won't be in 2km tank sniping matches on the Eastern Front), and only Tiger IIs would be a big problem (for artillery and air support to solve).

M6 heavies need not apply.
 
I would go with Heavy tank battalion replacing the Tank Destroyer Battalion - 1 for 1

So ultimately by 1943 you would have 1 Heavy Tank Battalion in each Division (along with one Medium Tank Battalion) as well as any independent TD unit now being an independent Heavy battalion

After the Russians, British and Germans all used heavy tanks so its not a massive leap for the US to do the same

The M6 with more resources thrown at it is likely to be the tank of choice with an earlier potential introduction of something like the M29 Heavy tank in 1944/45
 
I would go with Heavy tank battalion replacing the Tank Destroyer Battalion - 1 for 1

So ultimately by 1943 you would have 1 Heavy Tank Battalion in each Division (along with one Medium Tank Battalion) as well as any independent TD unit now being an independent Heavy battalion

After the Russians, British and Germans all used heavy tanks so its not a massive leap for the US to do the same

The M6 with more resources thrown at it is likely to be the tank of choice with an earlier potential introduction of something like the M29 Heavy tank in 1944/45

The pershing in time for Normandy. What post war and other conflicts? What kind tank developments would there be?
 
The problem which is ignored is that the US tank destroyer doctrine did not evolve in a vacuum. It evolved in response to the battlefield situations of 1940, when the Battle of France stunned American military observers and left them scrambling to figure out a doctrinal response to the idea of a rapid armored breakthrough as had happened at Sedan. The Americans designed their tank destroyers to provide units with the operational mobility to be able to plug exactly such a hole, and to be able to stop the catastrophe of 1940 from happening to them. Based on what happened in 1940, its an entirely reasonable idea and responds well to the disaster that the French faced, and for an army which had no experience in anti-tank warfare was hardly a bad idea.

Proposals for heavy tanks ignore this, because in addition to the objective shortcomings that incorporating heavy tanks into the US army would create, they don't match to an effective program of defending against the feared breakthrough and mobile war which the US was designing its forces to face in 1940. What would a heavy tank unit do do when a German tank corps breaks through at a specific section of the front and marauds into the rear areas, forming a giant encirclement and annihilating friendly forces? Trundle forwards slowly into combat after the battle was already over, just like how French forces had taken too long to move up themselves? More towed anti-tank guns, split up in penny packets along the front? Surely the French had shown that that was a bad idea, would be the response I am sure. What about more regular tanks? Well, the US army did that too - its armored division tables of organization had an absolutely ridiculous number of tanks in them, and it wasn't until later that they got a more effective and balanced schema.

The US army tank destroyers were logical for the situation they were designed against. Historically, they proved unnecessary, and only really got to be used in their intended role in stopping a massed enemy tank advance once, in North Africa (where they performed entirely decently at El Guettar), but the Americans are designing for what they had just seen happen in front of their eyes, the vaunted French army melt under a decisive armored thrust which they lacked the mobile reserves to respond to, and were writing up their doctrine and building their equipment to respond to exactly that sort of problem, not to what would happen in a relatively distant future which the Americans had no way of knowing would happen. An American force with a vast preponderance of armored forces advancing across Europe into an enemy sordidly equipped with their own armored units and incapable of conducting the same mobile war which it had a few years before is what we know happened, it had no reference to what Americans were planning their army to confront in 1940.

If you want to have a different armored doctrine for the Americans, you probably need a very different Battle of France that shows the value of other units and devalues that of mobile anti-tank forces. But that leaves many more butterflies on the world in all possibility than what sort of anti-tank doctrine the American army has, since the American army would probably never see a battle in Europe anyway with such butterflies.
 
Except that a stug III-IV type vehicle isn't so well off on the offensive plus there a chance of friendly fire. And besides if the IDF can mount a 105mm, a 9cm cannon armed M4A2E4 Sherman isn't far fetched either.
 
What if the US Army hadn't formed the doctrine and used a more logical step that didn't involve T.Ds reevaluate, study, practice and foresight?

The doctrine and stubborness actually effected tank forces until the 1970s by that time every European power had tanks carrying 120mm all the US Army had was the 90mm armed M48.
 
What if the US Army hadn't formed the doctrine and used a more logical step that didn't involve T.Ds reevaluate, study, practice and foresight?

The doctrine and stubborness actually effected tank forces until the 1970s by that time every European power had tanks carrying 120mm all the US Army had was the 90mm armed M48.
First of all, the Rheinmetall 120mm gun only entered service in 1979 with the first Leopard 2A0 tanks, and the huge number of Leopard 2s that were spread across Europe came primarily from Bundeswehr stocks in the 1990s.

Second of all, through the 1980s, most European armies used Leopard 1s, Centurions, or American M48s and M60s with 105mm L7 guns.

Third of all, the M60 entered US service with the 105mm L7 in 1960, just a few years after the gun was introduced in the Centurion.
 
Tanks for clearing that up for me I was admittedly under the impression that US Army didn't use 105mm until the 70s

In regards to American heavy tanks just how would they stand up to a tiger I? The Churchill was tough but undergunned in fact the allies had only used 75mm to 17 pounder the biggest gun goes to the M36 Jackson.
 
... in fact the allies had only used 75mm to 17 pounder the biggest gun goes to the M36 Jackson.

That was in part the low priority given to the US 90mm gun project. Several other weapons, including the 76mm gun had priority in the US. The TD corps was for many months the only group that wanted it. So they had priority when production started.

By 1943 doctrinal misteps and lck of focus resulted in three or four major upgrade projects for existing tanks and TD, and at least one replacement project. Two replacements in some cases. Some simplification would have been beneficial.
 
Tanks for clearing that up for me I was admittedly under the impression that US Army didn't use 105mm until the 70s

In regards to American heavy tanks just how would they stand up to a tiger I? The Churchill was tough but undergunned in fact the allies had only used 75mm to 17 pounder the biggest gun goes to the M36 Jackson.


The M6 was capable of mounting the 90mm AA gun that was put into the Pershing. The infamous German 88mm gun was also a repurposed AA gun. And that 90mm gun could wreck Panthers (as the film of the tank duel in Cologne shows)
 
The M6 was capable of mounting the 90mm AA gun that was put into the Pershing. The infamous German 88mm gun was also a repurposed AA gun. And that 90mm gun could wreck Panthers (as the film of the tank duel in Cologne shows)

The M6 would have to be reworked in order to be problem free, the M4 jumbo strained its suspension systems and made it slower while making it more survivable. The problem with the 9cm was the shells you'd still have to target the rear and sides.

In all the M6 becomes the pershing heavy Tank.
 

Driftless

Donor
The problem which is ignored is that the US tank destroyer doctrine did not evolve in a vacuum. It evolved in response to the battlefield situations of 1940, when the Battle of France stunned American military observers and left them scrambling to figure out a doctrinal response to the idea of a rapid armored breakthrough as had happened at Sedan. The Americans designed their tank destroyers to provide units with the operational mobility to be able to plug exactly such a hole, and to be able to stop the catastrophe of 1940 from happening to them. Based on what happened in 1940, its an entirely reasonable idea and responds well to the disaster that the French faced, and for an army which had no experience in anti-tank warfare was hardly a bad idea.

That's a logical reaction to the events of 1940. But that line of thinking also has another element of reactive human nature: to expect the same set of conditions in the next occurrence. How much anticipation of planning for offensive warfare went into the doctrine and weapons development?
 
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