A "regiment" was the
standard unit of armour, equivalent to a battalion in the infantry.
It was composed of, in general, three squadrons of tanks.
A typical Canadian armoured regiment
serving in the
4th Canadian (Armoured) Division or
5th Canadian (Armoured) Division in combat in the Second World
War would have been
organized as such:
-
Regimental Headquarters
-
"A" Squadron
-
"B" Squadron
-
"C" Squadron
The Armoured Reconnaissance Regiment
of the 4th Canadian (Armoured) Division was also equipped as a
standard Armoured Regiment before moving to
Normandy in the summer of 1944.
Tactics
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|
Infantrymen of the 1/5
Mahratta Light Infantry jumping from a Sherman tank of
The Calgary Regiment during a tank-infantry training
course, Florence, Italy, 28 Aug 1944. In the last half
of the war it became very common for soldiers in all
armies to ride as far as possible directly on top of the
tanks, though usually not past the
Start Line. LAC Photo |
The Canadian Army
benefited from the experience of the British Army, who spent long
years fighting in the Western Desert against German and Italian
armoured forces.
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Only rarely did an
armoured regiment go into battle on its own, since, when it did,
disaster often occurred. Usually it was supported by artillery
and accompanied by infantry and engineers whose task was to deal
with opposition beyond the easy reach of tank weapons. When the
tank commanding officer received his
orders for an operation he was given far more information
than the mere objective which he had to reach. He was told about
the known or estimated enemy opposition which was to be expected
and provided with intelligence describing the activities of
flanking units or those which were to follow him into action and
exploit such successes as he won. He was also given a list of
the
units and
sub-units allocated under his command or in support.1
Macksey lists a "typical" battle
procedure for British armoured regiments in 1944 that would have
been no different from that followed by Canadian armoured units. In
his example, he cites an armoured Regiment with a
Field Battery (8 guns) committed to support, and an
Infantry Company with a section of engineers under command,
ordered to attack "a German outpost position prior to advancing as
rapidly as possible against an enemy who had shown signs of
preparing a withdrawal."
- Outline Plan
The Commanding Officer of an
armoured regiment would study the map and if time permitted
reconnoitre, along with the commander of the artillery battery
and Officer Commanding the infantry company. The three would
formulate a plan of attack, and brief their subordinates in a
Orders Group. The Armoured Regiment CO would brief his
Squadron Commanders, who in turn would hold their own "O Group"
to brief their troop leaders, who in turn briefed the other tank
commanders in their troops. Likewise, the infantry and artillery
officers initiated chain reactions of briefings amongst their
units and sub-units.
Time was the
controlling factor. With plenty to spare every level could
indulge in careful discussion and study of the ground so
that each man eventually knew the part he had to play: the
less to spare, the scarcer became the briefing of the
lowlier members in the team and the more that had to be
passed over telephone and radio with a consequent loss of
accuracy during dissemination. Moreover the use of
telephones and radio gave rise to the danger of the enemy
intercepting and understanding even coded messages. Indeed
an increase in the number of radio sets under intensive use
was a sign that an attack was impending. Furthermore, prior
to an attack the extensive armoured regimental radio net had
to be checked, resulting in a proliferation of tuning calls
which not only identified the sort of unit using the air
but, through cross bearings by direction finders, fixed
locations in detail. Sometimes
netting was done by reference to a master oscillator
(called a wave meter) and sometimes with aerials detuned,
but to be sure that all was working properly, each set had
to be made to respond to calls from the control station.
Usually wireless silence was maintained to within an hour or
so of the start time (called
H Hour) in the hope that, by then, the enemy would be
aware too late to take effective counter measures.2
Approach to Battle
The regiment's approach to
combat was done in successive stages governed by routine. The
first step was to muster in an
Assembly Area, with final maintenance and refuelling done. A
move to a
Forming Up Point (FUP) followed. Here, the regiment was
joined by the infantry, and communications between them was
finalized.
In 1944 the
infantry carried rather ineffective pack radios which failed
more often than they succeeded in maintaining touch with
tank radios. Sometimes they would talk to tank commanders
through the telephone carried on the back of each tank, but
as often as not the tank commander had either to climb down
from his turret or the infantryman scramble up to talk to
the commander. The whole business was haphazardly perilous
because of the tank's tendency to attract enemy fire.3
In the minutes leading up to the
crossing of the
Start Line at
H-Hour, final preparations for battle were made; hatches
were closed (though tank commanders often remained exposed in
the turrets to increase their field of view), weapons loaded,
and final supporting fires from the artillery (either
concentrations of high explosive or smoke) were made.
Notes
-
Macksey, Kenneth. Tank
Tactics (Almark Publishing Co. Ltd., London, UK, 1976)
ISBN 855242507 p.25
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ibid pp.25-28
-
Ibid pp.28-29
