First employed to punch holes in the metal plates protecting enemy machine-gun and sniper positions, the K-round, when fired from German machine guns, would pierce 6mm- to 12mm-thick armored protection, causing injuries to crewmen inside and stopping the proper operation of the tank. This was a bullet with a tungsten carbide core instead of the soft alloys used in normal small-arms rounds. One of the more effective was the K-round. Taking into account the great risk to a trooper using the grenades-in-a-sack method, safer alternatives were sought. A mustachioed German solider flings a Geballte Ladung, or bundle of grenades, at an Allied tank or bunker. A swift improvement on the weapon took the form of a half-dozen grenades being put in a sandbag with one grenade’s fuse pulled just prior to placement on the tank. This was made by wrapping around a German “potato masher” hand grenade the heads of six other grenades to be thrown into one of the tank’s many openings. An early frontline improvisation, the Geballte Ladung, or baled charge, was introduced. To eliminate, or least dampen down “tank fright,” German infantry were drilled in assaulting knocked-out armored vehicles to learn the tank’s weaknesses and instill confidence in the attacking foot soldiers. The tank by itself was also vulnerable, and the initial German tactic was to throw everything they had at the steel monsters. Tanks drew fire from everywhere, sufficiently intense to strip away any friendly infantry support in the vicinity. One of the first and most effective antitank measures sprang from the natural tendency of men in combat to shoot at the enemy with everything they had. Within a week of the first appearance of the tanks, German planners had gained from captured tank crews and documents a good appreciation of the new weapon and its abilities and limitations. For example, the early French practice of installing extra fuel tanks on top of their armored fighting vehicles in order to extend their range guaranteed the prompt incineration of both tanks and crews by accurate enemy fire.Īfter the debut of the tank on the modern battlefield, German infantrymen took on tanks like any other targets: aiming for openings in the armor, throwing hand grenades and using direct fire from field guns over open sights. They were aided by the moonscape terrain of the Western Front, the mechanical unreliability of the first tanks, and some bizarre attempts to make the new weapon more effective. Adapting to Armored WarfareĮxaggerated stories of the Germans being dumbstruck and running for their lives in their first encounter with the new British “land cruisers” belied the fact that the German Army moved quickly and effectively to develop antitank techniques. Realizing this, the Germans looked for ways to combat the unnerving new threat. Although the first British use of tanks proved to be premature, its employment by the Allies would no doubt continue. The battle petered out by mid-November, and the front returned to its prior stagnant condition. The first ever use of tanks on the battlefield so unnerved the Germans facing them that, according to a British soldier witnessing the event, “ were frightening the Jerries out of their wits and making them scuttle like frightened rabbits.”ĭespite the surprise their appearance caused to the Germans, the small number of underpowered, slow steel behemoths failed to gain a decisive victory for the Allies. Spearheading the new effort were tanks, a British secret weapon designed to crush the German barbed-wire and machine gun-laced trench system that had brutally resisted all Allied attempts to end the bloody stalemate on the Western Front. Hoping to revive the attack, the British Army launched another major offensive on September 15. The Somme offensive, which began on July 1, 1916, had by late that month deteriorated into a series of small, costly actions.
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