WWI counter tank tactics

After looking at the idea of more widespread use of tanks in WWI, I was curious about the opposite of of that. WI the Germans, as they faced more tanks then any other nation, came up with ways to stop a tank during WWI?
In my mind it is everything from antitank rifles becoming more wide spread, molotov cocktails showing up sooner, or even a spring loaded artillery shell.

The purpose here is what effects are on the world if tank tactics, are developed alongside counter tank tactics? Does the Blitz simply peter out thanks to a more widespread use of the antitank gun? Or does nothing change?
 
There were in fact lots of anti-tank weapons in service by 1939. In those days common field guns were quite effective against tanks. Specialized light anti-tank rifles, artillery, mines were also developed precisely because tanks were seen as a serious threat and the armies of the superpowers prepared accordingly.

The problem is that while tanks were vulnerable (always have, even today), they still dominated the battlefield (still true today). Wars had become campaigns of maneuver and the tank allowed armies to seize the initiative. Anti-tank weapons could attrit the attacker and perhaps win some engagements, but by themselves they cannot win campaigns.

If WWI had seen more development of anti-tank weapons and tactics then I would expect those to be more developed and ubiquitous by WWII. But short of some revolutionary advance, the technology of the day would still favor the attack.
 

Markus

Banned
The purpose here is what effects are on the world if tank tactics, are developed alongside counter tank tactics? Does the Blitz simply peter out thanks to a more widespread use of the antitank gun? Or does nothing change?

In WW1 the Germans used field guns to kill tanks and as a result of an insufficient number of such guns relied on infantrymen to remain "cool", pin down the enemy infantry and than go after the tank with a mine or some hand grenades.
Relatively early one german General suggested building small, light guns of 37mm caliber to counter this new threat. But he was ignored, the High Command did not think these unreliable and slow contraptions were that much of a danger.
 
Fortified lines are pretty good

Also the development of primitive tank destroyers, self-propelled guns etc

Best Regards
Grey Wolf
 
In WW1 the Germans used field guns to kill tanks and as a result of an insufficient number of such guns relied on infantrymen to remain "cool", pin down the enemy infantry and than go after the tank with a mine or some hand grenades.

Just so you know, when the famous M2 50-cal. Browning machine gun was introduced in 1921 it was classified as an anti-tank gun. For that matter, an elephant gun would probably do the trick.

Relatively early one german General suggested building small, light guns of 37mm caliber to counter this new threat. But he was ignored, the High Command did not think these unreliable and slow contraptions were that much of a danger.

Actually, they did make a 13.2mm anti-tank gun: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/13.2_mm_Rifle_Anti-Tank_%28Mauser%29
 

Markus

Banned
@CDurham: I knew that, but Fenwick asked if different AT-tactics in WW1 would change things in WW2. Certainly not on the german side. In 1939 they got both the AT-rifles and AT-guns they wanted in WW1.
 
The main thing about this is not the guns, but the tactics. It was not really anything more then "see that tank? Well shoot it!" WI instead the Germans went about training their soldiers to stop the effectivness, and fear factor iof the tank.

Uhh... infantry is told to just shoot infantry and ignore the heavy tank, AT rifles are taught to fire in tandem at a single target to stop it, etc. For if during WWI the tank is not only stopped, but the tactic of massing them is not the end all thing many saw it as, then post-war tactics will lose the tank centered direction I belive. Would Fuller praise the tank, and speak of massive machines which would destory the trenches and strike at the capital cities if in the back of his mind he could point to the Germans countering such a move?
 
They did, in both wars.

In WWI they never came up with a real anti-tank tactic for a company, platoon, or squad. In truth it was nothing more complex then see a tank, get someone with a AT rifle and shoot it. WWII saw actual methods to fight against the Blitzkrieg. Its not the tank as a lone item I am getting at but the tactics of using the tank to force a breakthrough. Some can view a 20mm gun as anti-tank tactics but I see it as just a weapon. WI someone countered the tactics of how the tank was used?
 

bard32

Banned
ITOL, the tank didn't appear on the European battlefield until 1916, and it was
soon forgotten. Armored tactics didn't come about until after World War I
ended. Men like Basil H. Liddell-Hart, Heinz Guderian, and ironically enough,
Charles DeGaulle, all wrote books on armored tactics. Guderian's, Achtung, Panzer!, is the seminal work on armored warfare. Unfortunately, at this time, the United States was a year away from entering the war, and that said,
there aren't any American ideas on how to use the tank.
 
In WWI they never came up with a real anti-tank tactic for a company, platoon, or squad. In truth it was nothing more complex then see a tank, get someone with a AT rifle and shoot it. WWII saw actual methods to fight against the Blitzkrieg. Its not the tank as a lone item I am getting at but the tactics of using the tank to force a breakthrough. Some can view a 20mm gun as anti-tank tactics but I see it as just a weapon. WI someone countered the tactics of how the tank was used?

I think the major problem is that up until the final months, the tank WAS used as just a lone item for a given streach of front. If you had 10 within a 1 mile streach that would considered a high concentration. And anyway, with those ten, the Germans figure at least 2 will stop running due to engine trouble in no-mans land (becoming armored crates for the artillery to open), another 2 or 3 are liable to wind up stuck face-forward in a trench or shell hole, and the rest are scattered along the front having artillery rained down on them.

And if the artillery didn't get them, one of those elephant-gun sized AT rifles or a heavy-caliber machine gun/light cannon would probably get the 2 or 3 that MAYBE make it within a few yards of the German trenches.
 
I think the major problem is that up until the final months, the tank WAS used as just a lone item for a given streach of front. If you had 10 within a 1 mile streach that would considered a high concentration. And anyway, with those ten, the Germans figure at least 2 will stop running due to engine trouble in no-mans land (becoming armored crates for the artillery to open), another 2 or 3 are liable to wind up stuck face-forward in a trench or shell hole, and the rest are scattered along the front having artillery rained down on them.

And if the artillery didn't get them, one of those elephant-gun sized AT rifles or a heavy-caliber machine gun/light cannon would probably get the 2 or 3 that MAYBE make it within a few yards of the German trenches.

Okay! Take that idea of a lone tank and expand it to the interwar period. People wrote of how it could not be stopped by anything if they are in a large group. Now take the AT gun, or even elephant gun if you like and follow a similar path. Fuller writes of mass armor offensives, and Blah Blah writes of the semiauto AT gun. If during WWI even an instance of three tanks being used and stopped by AT fire that is enough, to me at least, to form the idea that a tank can be stopped with the right weapon and tactics.
 
Sure you could have more sophisticated anti-tank tactics. But will that really change the course of history? The Finns developed excellent AT tactics during the Winter War. These tactics were widely reported in the world press at the time. Yet it didn't do the French and the BEF much good, nor were the Soviets able to counter Barbarossa with infantry AT tactics. In fact even by the end of the war, the German and Japanese infantry were still at the mercy of Soviet tank armies. Their tactics and weapons had gotten much better, but this wasn't enough. Tank anti-anti-tank tactics had evolved as well.

If all of this did not change the balance in favour of the infantry, why would a few extra tank KOs in WWI make any significant difference?
 
Sure you could have more sophisticated anti-tank tactics. But will that really change the course of history? The Finns developed excellent AT tactics during the Winter War. These tactics were widely reported in the world press at the time. Yet it didn't do the French and the BEF much good, nor were the Soviets able to counter Barbarossa with infantry AT tactics. In fact even by the end of the war, the German and Japanese infantry were still at the mercy of Soviet tank armies. Their tactics and weapons had gotten much better, but this wasn't enough. Tank anti-anti-tank tactics had evolved as well.

If all of this did not change the balance in favour of the infantry, why would a few extra tank KOs in WWI make any significant difference?

Finland was a significantly different environment to fight in then France though.
 
Finland was a significantly different environment to fight in then France though.

Also is a year enough time to lay down the proper systems for such tactics? If the British, who focused on the aeroplane over the tank, decided to put research into defeating the mass tank column around the time the Germans are designing tanks with that in mind I can easily see a great improvement in fighting WWII. Think of the Blitzkrieg being stopped six months earlier in Africa, or even half of tanks that made the push into the low countries being taken out. Heck picture the Soviets with a set of ideas on how to stop the ability of the tank by 41'.
 
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