Task Forces for the Army

Now that the test of war had put the tank in its proper niche -- a powerful but not a supreme weapon -- even devout Armored Forcemen took a new view of its employment. No longer can the armored divisions, immoderately proud of their dashing cavalry background, expect always to go into battle in the full strength of their organization.

Instead, the division is likely to be used more often as a pool from which armored battalions can be drawn to form task forces with infantry and artillery.

So potent have anti-tank defenses be come (TIME, March 29) that the Panzer division's infantry (one regiment) is no longer powerful enough against strong resistance to clear the way for its tanks.

This lesson the Russians taught the world first. Before the Germans' massed Panzer assaults of two years ago the Russians set up defenses in depth, teamed infantry with anti-tank teams and smashed up tank assaults.

Lesson Learned. The Germans took the hint. They broke up Panzer divisions and teamed tanks with more infantry support. Last year, against Montgomery in Africa, Rommel cut his armored divisions in half, merged them into task forces with infantry.

Montgomery had learned the lesson, too. His example was Ritchie's failure before Tobruk: a massed and disastrous assault by British tanks without infantry support. (Said one American observer: "He sent the backfield into the game but kept the line on the bench.") At El Alamein it was different. Montgomery's spear head of armor burst through a breach made by artillery and infantry.

In Tunisia (where unsupported armored force before Kasserine Gap was smashed by German artillery) U.S. task forces are now formed around infantry divisions.

Each has drawn a battalion or more from the 1st Armored Division pool. The amount of armor has varied with the job done. In mountain warfare one infantry division can hardly use more than one attached battalion, since the tanks must use the passes. For warfare on the plains, three to six Panzer battalions might be attached to an infantry division.

Lesson to Come. For the armored division, operating as a unit, there may still be many a job to do. When the Allied invasion of Europe unfolds full scale, fast armored divisions may be able to fan out over great stretches of terrain, chewing up opposing infantry and communications. But even that can happen only after Allied infantry has disposed of the German anti-tank artillery, which is poison to spearheads of tanks.

For training purposes and for what may still come, the U.S. Armored Force still keeps the divisional organization. Armored infantry and armored artillery within the division are being augmented.

In such a change Lieut. General Jacob L. Devers, Chief of the U.S. Armored Force, like any other sound soldier, sees no reflection on his tanks, only the result of the ebb & flow of battle doctrine. Said he: "While capable of smashing through the severest obstacle, [the armored division's] most important use is against vital enemy rear areas . . . air, armor, artillery and infantry must be properly combined and their individual capabilities exploited. ... The tank, like the battleship and the airplane, is merely a means of carrying fire power to the enemy."

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