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Not having a heavy-caliber, high explosive delivering weapon but having the tracked armored fighting vehicles to mobilize such weapons is the tragic mistake of the "A Bridge Too Far" fight for Arnhem bridge over the Rhine river in 1944.
Thanks to Keith Flint's book, Airborne Armour we now know what went wrong on the way to Arnhem bridge: unlike the British 6th Airborne Division that took both Tetrarch/Locust light tanks with turreted 37mm-40mm-3 inch guns and Bren gun armored personnel carriers into D-Day and the later Operation Varsity---the 1st Airborne Division only glider-landed 18 x Bren gun carriers to move SUPPLIES for the infantry---but without the light tanks did not even have a single "Universal Carrier" outfitted with a large caliber gun in a ready-to-fire mode when they bumped into a mere pair of German armored cars. While the walking infantry fanned out and hit-the-dirt, the Germans blasted their 1st Reconnaissance Squadron's unarmored jeeps towing 20mm Polsten anti-aircraft cannon before they could unlimber and fire.
Had just a few of these Bren gun carriers been carrying a fixed mount 20mm, 37mm, 40mm, 57mm, 76mm antitank or 75mm pack howitzer gun as the photos below show were actually tested and proved functional---they would have enabled the men inside to save the day on "Tiger Route" to Arnhem, reinforcing LTC Frost's men there so they could have held on a few more days until XXX Corps link-up. The pay-off?
WW2 would have ended 1 year sooner, Berlin would have been entirely in Allied instead of half communist hands. Untold deaths, sufferings and atrocities would have been prevented...no Battle of the Bulge debacle....you get the point. A technotactical failure had STRATEGIC consequences for the entire world resulting in millions of people suffering. It wasn't one bridge "too far", it was a case of NOT BRINGING ENOUGH.
So why didn't Brens have big guns?
Because the egotistical infantry has and continues to refuse to admit it needs high explosive (HE) building/bunker/dug-in enemy blasting firepower help from a VEHICLE because it smacks of a "tank". Well, they are correct. Anything that is tracked and armored is indeed, a TANK, and a Bren gun carrier with a BIG gun would be a tank---which is too ing bad. That's what they needed on the dusty road to Arnhem when they chose to glider-land 6-8 miles to avoid anti-aircraft fire that would decimate a daylight drop of airborne or glider infantry directly on to the bridge. Paradoxically, infantry will tolerate HE firepower if its coming from a fellow narcissist on foot--but just barely. They don't like it and don't embrace HE firepower with lots of RPG gunners and yearn for kinetic energy bullet gun-slinging to carry the day. Any HE weapons carried by infantry have to be low-key and not grab the limelight from the rifleman. When the 82nd Airborne kicks German ass in WW2 they don't let us know it was greatly assisted by captured German panzerfaust disposable rocket launchers because its bad for their Superman image. You have to read carefully into LTG James Gavin's writings to learn this secret. So if Western infantry in love with bullet garden hosing the enemy is reluctant to employ HE rocket launchers from their own shoulders, how do you think they'll look upon HE from one of their tracked infantry carriers making it into a defacto tank obvious for everyone to see?
They will not like it nor want it.
This is why you can see APC/AFVs all over the world armed with only machine guns and weak cannons when they can clearly have a large HE weapon fitted--because infantrymen are little penis egomaniacs who want all the glory to themselves via dismounted foot action--blasting an enemy position is "un-heroic". This is indeed true as an ignorant, corrupt and incompetent practice but its moreover tragic and battle-losing. History is filled with accounts where hand-carried firepower was not enough since the earth can easily absorb it if the enemy skillfully employs fortifications and denies the KE bullet shooter access to a line-of-sight (LOS) on him. The disastrous amphibious raid on Dieppe in 1942 was Eban Emael--but without the gliders 3D maneuvering infantry into LOS access---and the medium-heavy Churchill tanks stuck on the beach were unable to render vehicular fire support. Arnhem was APCs/AFVs being there with the infantry by virtue of their tracked, armored mobility but not having the meeting engagement and dug-in enemy defeating firepower to carry the day. The infantry rice bowl protector reader will remark, "but that's the job of the tankers to provide us shock action". Well, did Armor branch get this memo? They appear to be only interested in dueling other tanks in the heaviest tanks pos |
