Tank Battles of the Cold War, 1948–1991

Anthony Tucker-Jones

• Publisher: Pen and Sword Military
• Year: 2021
• ISBN:
  9781526778024
• Topic: Geschichte
• Subtopic: Geschichte des 20. Jahrhunderts

As Anthony Tucker-Jones shows in this highly illustrated, wide-ranging history, for most of the Cold War the tank retained its pre-eminence on the battlefield. The Arab-Israeli wars witnessed some of the biggest tank battles of all time, and tanks played key roles in conflicts in Korea, Vietnam and Afghanistan as well as in the Iran-Iraq War and the wars fought between India and Pakistan. But then in the mid-1960s anti-tank weapons became ever deadlier and the Mechanised Infantry Fighting Vehicle (MIFV), which was designed to support infantry and fight tanks, emerged and the heyday of the tank was over. Chapters cover each major phase in the evolution of the tank and of tank warfare during the period, from the battles fought in the late 1940s and 1950s with Second World War armoured vehicles like the T-34 and the Sherman, through to the designs common in the 1960s and 1970s like the T-55, Centurion, Challenger and M60 Patton, to the confrontation between the M1 Abrams and the T-72 during the Gulf War in 1991. Technical and design developments are important elements throughout the story, but so are dramatic changes in tactics and armaments which mean the tank has an increasingly uncertain role in modern warfare.

Chapter 1

Tanks in Indo-China

The First Indo-China War, 1946–1954

The French deployed at least half a dozen tank regiments in Indo-China during the early 1950s. France, with a long history of fighting colonial wars, saw Indo-China as just another inconvenient colonial revolt that needed to be suppressed in the usual manner. (This approach was a mistake, but once the Korean War broke out was perhaps more understandable. There the Communists had very much gone straight for the conventional warfare phase.) The result was that the French assumed they could bludgeon the Communist Viet Minh into submission through the use of superior strength and firepower. What they did not take into account was the strength of the Viet Minh’s ideology. In addition, they were fighting for their country, whereas the French were not.

The spearhead force for France in reclaiming her colonies was the Foreign Legion. It had a proud and colourful history and during its formative years had fought all around the world, including Indo-China. In 1883–84 Legionnaires took part in the storming of the forts at Son Tay and Bac Ninh that were held by Chinese irregulars. When the fighting finally came to an end a decade later, the Legion’s battalions formed the Régiment de Marche d’Africa au Tonkin, which helped to keep the peace largely undisturbed until 1941.

This tough force fought with distinction during the Second World War and afterwards there was no shortage of foreign volunteers trying to escape or forget their troubled pasts. The Legion was happy to turn a blind eye to criminals or those who had committed war crimes. During the Indo-China war the Legion would reach 30,000 men. In May 1945 their training and administrative base at Sidi-bel-Abbés, 100 kilometres south of Oran in northwest Algeria, started the creation of a régiment de marche to be sent to reoccupy Indo-China. Most of the Legion contingent in Indo-China, numbering 20,000 men, had been deployed in Tonkin during the second half of the war. Inevitably they were to play a key role in the fighting at Dien Bien Phu.

Although the French sought to regain control of Saigon and southern Vietnam in the summer of 1945, it was not until the following February that the French Expeditionary Force was able to enter northern Vietnam. In the meantime, in October 1945 General Leclerc arrived in Saigon with elements of the French 2nd Armoured Division and the 3rd and 9th Colonial Infantry Divisions. They were reinforced by the 2nd Foreign Legion Infantry Regiment (REI) that landed in February 1946, followed by the 13th Foreign Legion Demi Brigade in March and the 3rd Foreign Legion Infantry Regiment between April and June. A 3,000-strong naval brigade was also deployed to patrol Indo-China’s numerous waterways.

Over the next few years the French parachute units who were to become famous in Indo-China began to arrive, including the 1st, 2nd and 5th Colonial Commando Parachute Battalions (BCCP) and the 1st Chasseurs Parachute Regiment. By the end of 1948 French paras had made forty combat jumps, three of which had involved over 1,000 paratroops. The 1st Foreign Legion Parachute Battalion (BEP) arrived late that year and the 1st Indo-Chinese Parachute Company was formed. By mid-1949 the French Union Forces in Vietnam totalled almost 150,000. Most of the fighting, though, was conducted by some 5,700 French paratroops. The most important arrivals that year were the 3rd and 6th BCCP, the 2nd BEP and the 5th REI.

France’s colonial forces were always regarded as the poorer cousins of the metropolitan French Army. In Indo-China this meant that the local commander-in-chief had no autonomy and was answerable to his military superiors in Paris and his political masters in Paris and Hanoi. Even when the roles of commander-in-chief and high commissioner were combined in 1950 under General Jean de Lattre de Tassigny, political interference continued unabated. In France the politicians played to the gallery with a war that was very unpopular with the electorate. This often led to extraordinarily foolhardy decisions. For example, in 1950, just as the Viet Minh were capturing the Cao Bang Ridge defences, the government cut the size of the forces in Indo-China by 9,000 men. Also to curry favour with the French public, conscripts could only serve in France, Algeria (considered part of France) and French-occupied Germany. The result of this was that all French citizens sent to Indo-China had to be volunteers. Inevitably this greatly restricted the French military contingent and meant they never accounted for more than half of the total of the French Expeditionary Force – the average was about 52,000, or slightly over a third. The bulk of the ethnic French units bore the brunt of the fighting, and they also made up most of the mobile reserve. In the mobile infantry role, French soldiers travelled in half-tracks with the support of American-supplied M4 Sherman and M24 Chaffee tanks, as well as armoured cars. The paratroop units which formed the cutting-edge of most operations were largely self-contained, though they relied on the French Air Force for transport. Initially, transport aircraft were always in short supply and it was not until the early 1950s that American-supplied C-47 Dakotas (or Skytrains) and C-119 Flying Boxcars were available to replace the last of the French-built Junkers Ju-52s (a hangover from the Second World War). By 1954 the first American-supplied H-19B helicopters also became available. The French Air Force’s main role, in addition to supplying the ground forces, was to provide direct support, especially for troops in contact. Principal aircraft included American B-26 Marauder bombers and F8F Bearcat fighters, along with Canadian-built Beaver and French Morane 500 Cricket reconnaissance aircraft. The French Navy provided coastal fire support and river patrols, along with Privateer maritime bombers and F4U Corsair fighters.

The paucity of French regulars in Indo-China meant colonial troops from other parts of the French Union had to be deployed. Throughout the conflict Algerian, Moroccan, Tunisian and Senegalese troops served in Indo-China. They were commanded by French officers and were organized and equipped the same as French regulars. One exception to this rule was the Algerian units, which were allowed native officers as Algeria was considered part of metropolitan France (although Algerian losses were lumped in with the 15,000 North Africans killed in Indo-China, indicating they were not truly considered ‘French’). At the close of 1952 there were around 175,000 troops in Indo-China comprising 54,000 French, 30,000 North Africans, 18,000 Africans, 20,000 Legionnaires and 53,000 Indo-Chinese. The French Air Force deployed 10,000 personnel and the Navy 5,000. Local national forces were also quite sizeable. At Dien Bien Phu nearly half the members of the 2nd Battalion, 1st Parachute Light Infantry, were Vietnamese.

The French employed Second World War-vintage tanks and armoured fighting vehicles. The standard tank of the French Expeditionary Force was the American M5A1 light tank; although it had been superseded by the Chaffee from 1944 onwards under the US Military Aid Program, it remained in service throughout the war. The Chaffees were dubbed ‘Bisons’ by the French troops and the Viet Minh knew them as ‘Oxen’. The French also deployed the ubiquitous American Sherman, the M36B2 tank destroyer and M8 self-propelled howitzers. Tank units included the 1st Foreign Cavalry, 1st Light Horse, 5th Cuirassiers, 6th Moroccan Spahi and the Far Eastern Colonial Armoured Regiments. Motorized infantry were transported in M3 half-tracks. The M8 variant of the latter, mounting a 75mm gun, was also used in Indo-China. The tank destroyers were initially deployed in case the Chinese committed armour to the fighting in Tonkin, but instead they ended up acting in a fire support role.

To facilitate amphibious operations in Indo-China’s flooded paddy-fields, vast river deltas and swamps, the Expeditionary Force operated American M29C Weasel amphibian cargo carriers (known to the French as ‘Crabs’) and tracked landing vehicles known as Alligators. Both these types were likewise veterans of the Second World War. The LVT(A)4, armed with a 75mm howitzer, packed a particular punch. The Crabes, although only armed with a machine gun, were eventually formed into effective amphibious fighting units by the Foreign Legion, which likewise deployed the LVTs.

At the start of the fighting the tanks were parcelled out in penny packets to protect vulnerable convoys and static outposts. This made them difficult to maintain and reduced their effectiveness. Only after General de Lattre de Tassigny took charge in 1951 were the armoured units reorganized with their own supporting infantry. This led to the creation of the sousgroupements blindées, comprising a squadron of tanks and two mechanized infantry companies, and groupements mobile, with up to three battalions of infantry, an artillery battery and up to a squadron of tanks.

France attempted to tap into the huge manpower reservoir in Indo-China, but the French commanders were wary of training a fifth column and local units were never fully trusted. It did not help that the Vietnamese and Cambodians were traditional enemies, while the Vietnamese viewed the Chinese in much the same manner. General de Lattre in 1951 instructed each French unit in Vietnam to form a locally recruited second battalion. He also opened an officer cadet school, followed by two more for reserve officers. A small Vietnamese National Army was formed under French command, along with anti-guerrilla units raised particularly amongst the mountain tribes. By 1952 the Vietnamese National Army numbered 50,000 men, the Laotian Army 15,000 and the Cambodian Army another 10,000.Although the full potential of these Indo-Chinese forces was never realized, some 27,000 Indo-Chinese died fighting for the French.

French training efforts for local Vietnamese units were concentrated in the north. In late 1948 they established the Vietnamese National Military Academy in the city of Hue. This was designed to train infantry platoon leaders with a nine-month officers’ course. It moved to Dalat two years later, where the weather was better. Dalat had been home to the armour school, but this moved to Thu Duc, along with the engineer school. By the end of 1951 there were 800 Vietnamese officers serving with the French Army. The French also set up the national non-commissioned officers academy in Quang Yen Province, Tonkin, in 1951. The following year this was followed by a staff college in Hanoi. This was as a result of the French Expeditionary Force setting up a tactical instruction centre designed to train mobile group, battalion and company commanders. Notably, intelligence and logistics schools were not established until the late 1950s. This was to prove to be a serious omission on the part of the French.

French forces in Indo-China included a postscript from Korea. The French Bataillon de Corée (Korea Battalion), which was raised from volunteers from all branches of the French Army – metropolitan, colonial and Foreign Legion – to serve in Korea, arrived in Indo-China in October 1953 and formed the cadre of the two battalion-strong Régiment de Corée. This was practically destroyed in the central Highlands around An Khe and Pleiku while operating with Groupe Mobile 100 in June–July 1954.

The French logistical supply chain, stretching all the way back to Algeria and France, proved to be the Expeditionary Force’s Achilles’ heel. In Paris the war was not a priority and many either did not support it or simply saw it as an overblown police operation. Shipping or flying ammunition and weapons to Indo-China was a lengthy and expensive process and again was unpopular for this reason. Once in-country, the high command in Hanoi struggled to distribute supplies to the troops. In the immediate Red River delta area around Hanoi, and indeed in the south, it was not such a problem, but getting supplies to the outlying garrisons and to large-scale operations was another matter.

The French were reliant on two methods of supporting their soldiers. The first was land-based, using roads and rivers. Whilst this was relatively easy to do, both forms of movement were always vulnerable to ambush. Viet Minh attacks on supply barges on the Black river trying to reach the garrison at Hao Binh contributed to General Salan’s decision to abandon the town. The second method was by air, but French air lift capabilities were simply insufficient for the task. Initially they had to rely on old Ju-52s but even with the arrival of newer C-47s and C-119s they could never muster more than 100 transport planes. These were required to run supply flights, move reinforcements and drop paratroops. By the time of Dien Bien Phu they were stretched to the limit.

Under General Leblanc the French gathered some 10,000 men for Operation Camargue, a combined ground, airborne and amphibious operation that was intended to trap the Viet Minh. The 3rd Amphibious Group deployed 160 tracked Crabs and Alligators to get their men ashore and into the dunes. Camargue commenced on 27 July 1953 with the landings unopposed. The first resistance was met at Dong Que when the 6th Moroccan Spahis with their M24 tanks, supported by the 1st Battalion Moroccan Rifles and the 69th African Artillery Regiment, were ambushed. The Moroccan Spahi cavalry regiments had been equipped by the French as light armoured reconnaissance units during the Second World War to support the Moroccan infantry divisions. The Moroccans managed to destroy almost an entire Viet Minh company, but the delay enabled the rest of the 95th Viet Minh Regiment to retreat into the southern portion of the developing pocket.

At 1045 hours the 2nd Battalion, 1st Parachute Light Infantry Regiment, were dropped near Dai Loc to block the Viet Minh’s retreat, and began to push towards the mouth of the Van Trinh Canal to close the pocket. Despite hazardous drop conditions caused by 48km/h winds, the 3rd Vietnamese Parachute Battalion dropped near Lang Bao. This helped seal the southern escape routes. However, during the night of 28/29 July most of the Viet Minh managed to slip the net. The ambitious operation was ended on 4 August having achieved modest success.

At Dien Bien Phu, despite any reservations he may have had, General Navarre, having made his decision to fight, poured men and equipment into the valley to ensure that it would be the rock upon which the Viet Minh tide was finally broken. During December 1953 and January 1954 infantry, armour and artillery units streamed into Dien Bien Phu by air. The garrison at this stage numbered around 10,800 men, backed up by two groups of artillery with 75mm, 105mm and 155mm guns, ten Chaffee light tanks and nine Bearcat fighter bombers stationed on the main airfield. The French showed great ingenuity in getting some of their heavier equipment to the base. When base commander Colonel de Castries requested a squadron of tanks this posed a particular problem as they were simply too heavy to be air-dropped. The 18-ton Chaffee tanks had to be dismantled and flown into Dien Bien Phu. Each was broken down into 180 parts that took six C-47 sorties and two by British Bristol air freighters requisitioned from a commercial Indo-Chinese airline to deliver. The latter were the only aircraft capable of taking the tanks’ hulls. Foreign Legion mechanics re-assembled the Chaffees beside the main runway, completing one every two days. Similarly, each 155mm howitzer needed two C-47s and one Bristol flight, plus another seventeen C-47 flights for the gun crews and ammunition. The tanks served with the 1st Light Horse Regiment. They were too few to prevent Dien Bien Phu being overrun on 7 May 1954. The last remaining operational Chaffee supported a final futile French counter-attack that day. When the Viet Minh occupied Isabelle, the last French strongpoint, on 8 May they found the garrison had blown up their tank rather than let it be captured. After this catastrophic French defeat, the Viet Minh were left in control of northern Vietnam, sowing the seeds for the Vietnam War in the 1960s.

Chapter 2

Beg, Steal or Borrow

The First Arab-Israeli War, 1948

During all the Arab-Israeli clashes, armoured vehicles played a very prominent and usually decisive role. An extraordinary range of Second World War and post-war tanks, armoured cars and armoured personnel carriers were deployed by all sides; to counter the Israeli Shermans, Pattons, Centurions and AMX-13s, the Arabs fielded the Russian T-34s, SU-100s, T-54/55s, T-62s and T-72s.

Israel came into existence on 14 May 1948 and immediately found itself under attack by hostile Arab neighbours. The Israelis literally stole the armour to form the basis of their very first armoured brigade, attempting to take four Cromwell tanks from under the very noses of the British Army before their withdrawal from Haifa Airport, but only got away with two of them. The Israeli forces – now renamed Zvah Haganah Le Israel (Zahal) or Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) – set about completing two armoured units, the 7th Mechanized and 8th Armoured Brigades. The latter’s order of battle consisted of a Daimler armoured car, an Otter reconnaissance vehicle, the two Cromwell tanks and a solitary Sherman. These formed the ‘English Company’ of the 82nd Tank Battalion, and ten newly arrived French Hotchkiss tanks formed the ‘Russian company’. Syrian tanks were rebuffed at Degania Kibbutz, but Egyptian armour fared better at Yad Mordechai and Nitzanin kibbutzim.

When fighting broke out, the Israelis began to buy old German guns from Czechoslovakia, with 4,400 rifles and machine guns arriving in two shipments. As a result, towards the end of the conflict the Israeli forces were better equipped, although still outnumbered. The army had Czechoslovak and French weapons and the air force had British-built Spitfires and Czech-built Messerschmitts. Ironically, a ship carrying much-needed armoured vehicles and other weapons imported by the Israeli terrorist group Irgun was sunk by the Israeli government for fear of an armed revolt by dissidents. Just as important as the hardware were Czech-Jewish volunteers who were allowed to emigrate to Israel; these included tank crews and pilots.

On the outbreak of the war in 1948 the Egyptians were able to muster about 200 assorted British hand-me-downs, including a few Matilda, Valentine and Sherman tanks, as well as Humber, Marmon-Herrington and Staghound armoured cars. The Syrians and Lebanese were equipped with second-hand French light tanks. Officially subject to an arms embargo, the Israelis initially managed to get hold of a few M3 half-tracks and French light tanks, all of which were Second World War veterans.

In mid-1948, during the third stage of the War of Independence, Israel was invaded by the armies of five Arab countries: Egypt, Iraq, Lebanon, Syria and Transjordan. Field Marshal Montgomery estimated that the Israelis would not be able to withstand the Arabs’ heavy weaponry and they would be crushed within two weeks. However, the Israelis launched a tenday counter-offensive on 9 July 1948, with their tanks spearheading the attack on the vital Lydda Airport. Yitzhak Sadeh’s 8th Armoured Brigade drove southwest from near Tel Aviv and took a number of Arab villages and Lydda, north of the city. However, they became bogged down in fighting with the armoured cars of the Arab Legion near Beit Nabala. The Arab Legion from Transjordan (modern-day Jordan) was eventually driven back, as were the Egyptians and Syrians. By the time of the truce, Israel held the initiative. The 8th Armoured Brigade was bolstered with half-tracks mounting 20mm, 2-pounder and 6-pounder guns to provide a much-needed self-propelled anti-tank capability. When the fighting renewed three months later, the Egyptians were pushed back once more.

By October 1948 the Egyptians were deployed mainly in defensive strips running along the main roads in the Negev. These defences, some 3 to 8 kilometres deep, were held by 15,000 men from two regular infantry brigades, nine volunteer battalions, a reinforced brigade, two regiments of artillery and an armoured battalion. Starting on 4 October, the Egyptians counter-attacked six times, throwing away their entire armoured battalion, equipped with Bren gun carriers and armoured cars.

These attacks convinced the Israelis that they needed to conduct an all-out attack on the Negev. The Israeli High Command decided to commit the Givati, Negev and Yiftach Infantry Brigades, supported by a battalion from the 8th Armoured Brigade, some 15,000 men in total. On 15 October the Israeli tanks, including four ex-French Hotchkiss tanks and the two old British Cromwells, struck...