ARMY: Tank Destroyers

The Army had some real mechanized artillery to show last week—artillery that was actually self-propelled and could, at a pinch, fire on the enemy while racing into action. Experimental and soon to be improved though they were, these new weapons represented a tremendous advance over the Army’s earlier, so-called “mechanized” artillery, most of which is still hauled along backwards, like Civil War guns, except that trucks and tractors are hitched where horses used to be.

First purpose of the new artillery is to destroy tanks, and last week’s show was put on by GHQ’s Provisional Tank Destroyer Battalion, three weeks after it was organized at Ft. George G. Meade, Md.

On display were 36 75s, converted to anti-tank fire and mounted in armored trucks with tractor treads which could take them nearly anywhere a tank could go (see cut). On tiny “jeeps” and swamp buggies—jeeps with enormous wheels and bus-size tires for mushing through mud and snow—were 18 ordinary anti-tank guns (37 mm.).

The new battalion (like others soon to be organized and equipped) is essentially a hit-&-run outfit. Theory is that its fast, ultra-mobile weapons will dart at and around enemy tank formations, get in a death punch at the closest possible range, then scurry away from enemy fire. This mobility is about all the protection the crews of the open, unarmored 3 7-mm. carriers have. Even the semi-armored 75s are open at the top, thus are vulnerable to “plunging fire” from enemy aircraft, artillery, machine guns. Army designers had deliberately decided not to enclose crews and guns in armored turrets. The Army’s reasoning: in anti-tank warfare, speed is vital, and more weight is bound to mean less speed.

Watching the new weapons perform last week, remembering that new U.S. tanks carry equally heavy guns and are well armored to boot, civilians asked: why not fight tanks with tanks? Answers: The “destroyers” use standard guns and truck chassis which are easier and cheaper to make than tanks. In some spots they can run rings around lumbering tank formations can be equally effective against enemy troops, truck convoys, fortifications.

The Army will need a lot more tank destroyers than it had last week. It soon will have them: the armored trucks which carry the 75s are in quantity production; 75-mm. guns are one thing the Army has a lot of. Henry Ford, American Bantam Car Co. and Willys-Overland are turning out thousands of jeeps, although 37-mm. gun production is still far behind theneed. Still newer versions of destroyers are on the way, including a bigger-calibre anti-tank gun which eventually will relegate the 37 to the status of a third-line weapon.