Army of Steel

Tank Warfare 1939-45

Nigel Cawthorne

• Publisher: Arcturus
• Year: 2017
• ISBN:
  9781788284318
• Topic: Historia
• Subtopic: Segunda Guerra Mundial

'If the tanks succeed, then victory follows.'
General Heinz Guderian, 1937 When Germany attacked Poland on 1 September 1939, nothing like it had ever been seen before. Heralded by the insidious whine of Stuka divebombers, seven divisions of Panzers rolled across the border supported by motorized infantry.While tanks were punching gaping holes through Polish lines and racing on at speed towards Warsaw, fleeing refugees were machine-gunned mercilessly by the Luftwaffe and lines of communication were torn to ribbons as mayhem spread. This was Blitzkrieg (or 'lightning war'), the art of mechanized warfare.After seeing the success of the British tanks in the First World War, the Germans decided that the future of warfare lay in the Panzerkampfwagen, the armoured fighting vehicle, later simply known as the Panzer. Army of Steel: Tank Warfare 1939-45 explores the development of the Panzer concept, and the building and deployment of the Corps through the eyes of those who fought in it, and of those who fought against it. It tells the story of the singular breed of men who formed the spearhead of the world's most ruthless and efficient military machine, and how they ultimately came to be defeated.

1

The Plains of Poland

The Second World War began with a terrific gamble. At dawn on 1 September 1939, a huge German army rolled across the 1,250-mile Polish border. The attack was spearheaded by Panzers, seven divisions of them. No one had tried such a strategy before. It was not one of the terror tactics that the Germans had perfected during the Spanish Civil War that had raged for the previous three years. The deployment of Panzers in Spain was considered largely a failure. When German tanks rolled over the border into Austria in 1938, at least 30 per cent had broken down before they reached Vienna. Things went little smoother during the occupation of Czechoslovakia the following year. The crews lacked the experience to fix mechanical problems on the spot and a tank broken down on a bridge or a narrow road could hold up a whole brigade. They also destroyed the surface of the roads they used, slowing those who followed. Fuel was another problem. The Wehrmacht, the German army, quickly realised that there was more to tanks than guns and armour. They were going to have to learn a whole new discipline – the art of mechanised warfare.

However, there were a handful of men who believed that tank warfare would work on the plains of Poland. Hitler was among them. The proper use of the Panzer, he believed, was something that would have to be learnt in war itself.

The first lesson, it was believed, should be easy. The Poles had just one armoured brigade, 660 tanks in all versus Germany’s 2,100. Although the Polish army would outnumber the attacking Germans once it had all been mustered, the Poles started out with seventeen ill-equipped infantry divisions, three infantry brigades and six cavalry brigades – real cavalry brigades with horses, not the armoured units cavalry later became. However, the German High Command was not 100 per cent confident of victory. Orders issued in Berlin in 1939 stated:

1 September 1939: the German invasion of Poland. The battle for Poland was over in just six weeks. The Second World War it started would last for six years.

No tanks must fall into enemy hands without the crew and the crews of neighbouring tanks doing their utmost to rescue or destroy it. A crew may abandon an immobilised tank only if they have run out of ammunition or can no longer fire, and if other vehicles cannot be expected to save it… If there is a risk that the tank may fall into enemy hands, it should be destroyed. Waste wool, combustible material, ammunition, etc. inside the vehicle should be soaked with fuel (possibly by ripping out the fuel pipe) and the vehicle is to be set on fire.

The German Panzer spearhead would be followed by four motorised infantry divisions, four light divisions and forty regular infantry divisions. The Germans also had overwhelming superiority in the air. The Polish Air Force had just 842 obsolescent planes, while the Luftwaffe, the German air force, could put 4,700 modern aircraft in the air. One tactic the Germans had perfected during the Spanish Civil War was the terror bombing of civilian targets, including, infamously, the Basque market town of Guernica.

The Poles also believed that the French would attack Germany in the rear, across Germany’s western frontier. When they finally did, they sent insufficient forces and it was too late. The Soviet Union – Russia and its Communist satellites – would be no help. It had signed the German-Soviet Non-Aggression Pact of August 1939, which publicly guaranteed that the two nations would not attack each other and privately divided Poland between them. Poland was on its own and its cavalry lances would be matched against the monstrous new machines of war: the Panzers.

The Luftwaffe wiped out the Polish air force in the first two days. This left the sky clear for German Stukas to dive-bomb Polish columns which did more to dent the morale of raw Polish recruits than inflict physical damage. What tanks the Polish did possess were dispersed throughout the army, which itself made the fatal mistake of trying to defend the entire length of the border. The Panzers concentrated on weak points and broke through. They penetrated deep into the country, then fanned out, isolating and encircling Polish units. When they came across Polish strongpoints, they simply bypassed them and allowed the bombers to take care of them later. And if they could not simply outflank a heavily fortified Polish position, they waited for the infantry and artillery to catch up, then launched a conventional assault on the stronghold.

The Poles did not grasp the full extent of the threat posed by the German armour and believed that, once they had fallen back to a defensive line, they could hold it. But the speed and depth of the Panzers’ thrusts caused confusion and the dive-bombing of undefended towns choked the roads with refugees. This was all part of Panzer theory. The idea was to prevent the enemy from using the road network to bring up reinforcements or regroup its forces. After all, civilians on the roads were no hindrance to the advancing Panzers. The refugees were simply machine-gunned from the air, producing further panic – and further obstacles to advancing Polish forces.

After the First World War, Poland had been recreated with two million Germans living within its borders. Some were involved in active sabotage. Others spread rumours of German victories, the inevitability of Polish defeat and the cowardice and deceit of Poland’s leaders. This tactic, known as Schrecklichkeit, ‘frightfulness’, again sapped morale.

The Panzers led four deep thrusts into Poland. Two came directly from the German Reich itself, led by the XIX Panzer Corps and the XVI Panzer Corps heading for Warsaw, via Bydgoszcz and Lodz respectively. A southern thrust from Slovakia, led by the 2nd and 5th Panzer Divisions, headed through Chelm to Brest-Litovsk, where they were to meet up with the Third Army, led by elements of XIX Panzer Corps. This came via East Prussia, a part of Germany separated from the Reich by the ‘Polish Corridor’ which, under the Treaty of Versailles, gave Poland access to the Baltic. The Southern Army Group was under the command of General Karl von Rundstedt, whose chief of staff was General Erich von Manstein. The Northern Army Group was commanded by General Fedor von Bock.

The attack began at 0445 on Friday 1 September when the German naval training ship Schleswig Holstein began bombarding the Polish Corridor. The Luftwaffe then bombed the Polish airfields. At 0800 a large formation of tanks from the German 4th Panzer Division arrived at the positions held by the Polish cavalry brigade Wolynska Brygada Kawalerii. They came under fire from machine guns and anti-tank weapons, and retreated to the village of Wilkowiecko. The Polish cavalry were then divebombed, causing the horses to stampede. A swarm of Panzers then left Wilkowiecko to attack the Polish 21st Lancers, who were now fighting on foot along the edge of Mokra Wood, but they were forced to withdraw, leaving four burning tanks behind them. Renewed Stuka attacks and an artillery barrage left the villages of Mokra I, II and III in flames. Polish casualties were high. Nevertheless, when the Panzers went in again, several were hit and caught fire, and escaping crews were captured by the lancers.

The Germans aimed their main attack at the 4th Troop of the 21st Lancers. But at 1100 hrs, shortly before they reached the lancers’ position, the Polish Armoured Platoon arrived and began bombarding them with 10cm howitzers and 7.5cm field guns. The Germans retreated behind Wilkowiecko, leaving crews behind on the battlefield in their wrecked tanks to be captured by the Poles. This was going to be no pushover.

Around this time the Reich Press Chief, Otto Dietrich, issued an edict that the word ‘war’ was to be avoided in press reports at all costs, stressing that the Polish ambassador was still in Berlin. Even the Polish News Agency said that the fighting was ‘confined to border zones’. But the German First Lieutenant W. Reibel took part in the attack and described the scene:

The bow waves crashed around the tanks, spraying a cool shower over many a driver who crosses the river too fast. To our left is a blown-up railway bridge, at the edge of the road is a dead Polish soldier. It really is a strange feeling to know that now we have left Germany and are standing on Polish soil. Far away we hear the weak barking of a machine gun. Somewhere there is a hollow thunder of cannon – the first signs of war. Ahead of us lies a village. According to the map it must be Mokra III. The name means nothing to us yet. It’s just a village like any other. But what would we have done if we had known? There! Arriving at the last houses in the village we hear rifle and machine gun fire, then comes the order: ‘Prepare for combat.’ The shooting steps up… projectiles strike the tank with a bright clang. Trenches crisscross our attack zone, marshy meadows impair our progress. Yet we roll on relentlessly… Slowly we reach the edge of the wood and push into a forest lane, my company ahead of me. All hell has broken loose here. Ahead of us is an embankment with an underpass. Bullets are cracking and roaring like mad… A lot of vehicles from 2nd Company and our company are now standing in the forest lane. Suddenly a tank that had already pushed through the underpass goes up in flames. Damn the lot of them. It’s an anti-tank force… Many a dear comrade was missing when we assembled. Their tanks turned into iron graves. Our company too has suffered its first deaths… A short time later our company too marched back to the resting area… The burning villages lit the horizon with a red glow. Then came a sudden cry: ‘Polish cavalry approaching to the left’ and we seized our weapons again. But it was a false alarm. Herds of riderless horses were searching for human beings.

Nevertheless, the Wolynska cavalry brigade succeeded in holding up the advance of the German 4th Panzer Division for a whole day.

Official sources in Germany told a different story. After reporting ‘an almost grotesque attack on some of our tanks by a Polish lancer regiment with what annihilating consequences one can easily imagine’, the army propaganda sheet Die Wehrmacht went on to say:

Even the anti-tank guns which the Poles believed could easily halt the advance of our tanks were soon revealed as too weak. In one battle a single German heavy tank annihilated two gun crews with a single shot and then crushed the guns themselves under its heavy track chains. Incidentally, the tank driver, a very young second lieutenant, shortly afterwards stopped a railroad train loaded with Polish reservists, forced them to climb out and herded them along – 400 men in all – in the van of his tank.

On 2 September, the Polish army was forced to retreat under intense pressure from the XV Panzer Corps under General Hoth and the XVI Panzer Corps under General Hoepner who threatened to encircle it from the south. Meanwhile at the head of the XIX Panzer Corps, the armoured spearhead of the Northern Army Groups, was General Heinz Guderian, the great theorist of Panzer warfare.

Now, at last, he could now see his theories being put into practice. He believed that it was essential for a Panzer commander to be in the forefront of the action with his men. Reporting the situation back to an HQ in the rear then waiting for orders to be sent forward again would slow progress.

The fast-moving nature of this new type of mechanised warfare meant that troops were liable to shoot first and ask questions later. Consequently, Germans ended up firing on other Germans who had turned up in unexpected places. Nevertheless Guderian soon proved the worth of his ‘command from forward’ system.

All the armoured unit commanders were kept as far forward as possible, allowing them to issue commands by radio direct to the Panzers and infantry troops following. This meant they could take rapid advantage of any situation. However, stationing the commander forward when the lines are fluid had its own dangers. Guderian found himself under shellfire from his own artillery who were firing haphazardly through the mist and was lucky to escape with his life. The Luftwaffe general in charge of close air support was also fired on by his own troops, even though his plane clearly carried German markings.

The Poles also claimed some initial successes. On 5 September, their news agency reported: ‘A successful Polish counter-attack has been reported against motorised divisions advancing towards Bieradz in southern Poland. The enemy abandoned considerable numbers of assault vehicles and motor cars whose occupants were taken prisoner. There were many captives.’

There were other setbacks. Panzers outran their fuel supplies, blocking the roads when they ran out of petrol. Again there was a high level of breakdowns. No less than a quarter of the tanks were out of action at any one time. This was an improvement on the 30 per cent breakdown rate they had experienced before, though all the vehicles needed an overhaul by the end of the campaign. However the Panzers played a decisive role in the remarkable success of the Polish campaign. The Wehrmacht, under another important advocate of the Panzer, General Walther von Reichenau, covered the 140 miles to the outskirts of Warsaw in just seven days. Guderian made even more ground in lightning thrusts with two Panzer divisions and two motorised divisions moulded into a single corps. His XIX Corps covered 200 miles in ten days cutting through the Narev Operational Group and destroying the Polish Eighteenth Army for the loss of only 4 per cent of its strength: 650 killed and 1,586 wounded and missing. And General Wilhelm Ritter von Thoma, Panzer commander in Spain, managed to infiltrate 50 miles though thick, though undefended, woods to turn the Polish flank at the Jablunka pass.

But the Panzers acted as a cutting edge rather than as an independent force. Their six armoured divisions comprised just 11 per cent of the Wehrmacht’s strength and they were given strict orders not to outpace the infantry. The Panzers were still strictly under the command of their larger army groups. Training regulations maintained that tanks were only allowed to open fire independently ‘when breaching the enemy or to ward off impending attack’.

It was only on 8 September, when it became clear that the Southern Army Group had not managed to occupy Warsaw that Guderian’s XIX Panzer Corps were allowed to leave the Third Army behind and race south-eastwards to take Brest-Litovsk, a hundred miles beyond the Polish capital to the east. But Guderian’s success, according to von Manstein, was due to Germany’s success in the air, rather than the Panzers themselves.

‘What decided the battles,’ he wrote, ‘was the almost complete elimination of the enemy’s air force and the crippling of his staff communications and transport network by the effective attacks of our Luftwaffe.’

But Die Wehrmacht lauded the success of the 15th and 16th Panzers, who had fought their way through to the outskirts of Warsaw on 6 September: ‘Our spearhead rapidly reached the hills on the side of the river. The enemy artillery fired but our tanks rolled undeterred towards their targets along roundabout routes, under cover of farmsteads and underbrush. As the sun sank towards the west, our tanks penetrated the city under their protective fire, German combat engineers crossed the river so as to get behind and destroy the enemy still resisting in the city. While the armoured spearhead was still securing the river crossing, the second wave of tanks was already rolling up. It was led by a general travelling in a command tank studded with antiaircraft machine guns. Reinforcement Panzer units and mobile divisions rolled up in an irresistible train over twelve miles long.’

A defence of the city had been hastily prepared. But by 8 September, Panzers had entered Warsaw. However, the 4th Panzer Division met dogged resistance in the city and 57 of the 120 attacking tanks were lost in just three hours.

On the 11th, there was a report of a Polish counter-attack which claimed to have smashed eighteen tanks. Although the Poles claimed on 14 September to have set more tanks on fire, and captured several anti-tank guns in skirmishes in the capital, the German thrust into Poland had been so swift that it was impossible for the Poles to pull back enough of their army to mount a concerted defence of the city.

While resistance inside the capital continued, th...