"ATG used by the Americans" Topic

How often did the US deploy ATG guns in Normandy and beyond? Was it mainly 57mm? I mean, they had to quickly realize those guns weren't too effective against German armor right? Did they use many 3" ATGs?

Appreciate a history lesson folks! :)

The 3" anti-tank guns were assigned to tank destroyer battalions. Some of them were attached to divisions. See link

As for the 57mm see link
Towards the end of the war the 57mm gunners were deployed as infantry.

They were still running into a lot of Panzer IVs, StuGs, and other AFVs with less armor than Panthers or Tigers, so I wouldn't be too quick to write off the 57mm as an ATG round, or as a "blow up that farm house" round.

As long as they weren't trying to slug it out with the big boys, it looks like the inability to operate while on the offense was a bigger issue to deal with.

As an aside, I was at a dinner a number of years ago and one of the guys at the table was in an AA unit during WWII in the ETO, and he was turned into a replacement infantryman.

From my limited reading it really sounds like the US didn't use a lot of ATG. We had enough tanks on the ground and airpower did most of the damage AND we're were usually on the offensive and I find ATG's to more defensive…..

Early war German divisions had a pile of ATG – I'd hardly refer to them as 'defensive'.

That's true, but am I right in assuming the American's didn't use them much?

Every US division (other than airborne) had a TD battalion more or less permanently attached. General rule in Normandy would be 3" towed with infantry divisions and M-10 or M-18 with armored divisions, but as the war went on a lot of the towed units were re-equipped with M-10's or M-18's, so you really have to check for each engagement--what was the attached TD battalion, and what was it equipped with at that time.

Oh. And use varied as well. Often there wasn't a lot of German armor. (You'll notice a lot of what we fought in Normandy was recycled French rather than Tiger II's: it's a history vs miniature warfare thing.) So those 57mm guns were used on MG positions, and TD's were used as supplementary tanks or for indirect fire. When you check ammo expenditure, often a TD unit looks like additional artillery support.

Actually, various units had quite a few of them, and they were used whenever the Germans went on the offensive, which wasn't too often.

Normandy, and the Bulge.

Our mobile tank destroyers got more use, since they could be used both offensively and defensively, since they were much more mobile – M10s, M-18s, and M36s.

I was wrong to slight the M-36. Thresher is quite right, though I would add Lorraine as well. The nice thing about the TD's as opposed to towed AT was that if you did have a bad day, it was much easier to pull back the "can openers" while towed guns were generally lost. This caused speeded up reequipment in the last months of the war in Europe.

Here is a bit of history on TD doctrine.

YouTube link

Thank you all for the history! I'll grab a few of them. Can't hurt to have them in my inventory.

Many of the tracked TD units were used as artillery. This is a unit history (pdf) of the 614th TD Battalion (towed). You might find it interesting. PDF link

Towed ATG are mainly defensive weapons and if you read about USA in defensive battles such at the bulge, Mortain and Kasserine you'll read plenty about AT guns.

Back in 1990, I interviewed a WW2 veteran at the VA home. He had served in a TD company deployed to Italy. Plenty TD actions but as as just stated, the TDS were mainly defensive. There biggest danger was land mines. Some would explode and flip the lighter weight Open top TDS which would injure the crew. He stated that they had only one KIA in Italy in his platoon and it was due to a land mine.

Along with TD units assigned to divisions, Infantry units had integral AT platoons, which in NWE were usually equipped with 57mm AT.

The 57 was a decent gun, same as a 6pdr, and far easier to move and conceal than a 3" and with a better AT performance than the 75mm in the Sherman.

Charles Mcdonald was very pleased when the battalion AT platoon came to support his company, as he was terrified of German tanks and thought bazookas were useless.

Another use for US towed ATGs was in city fighting. They were pretty darn good for taking out enemy positions (to include MGs and snipers) in buildings.

There's a rather amazing scene in the movie "The Story of GI Joe" (which was made during the war and used real soldiers as extras in some of the scenes). It shows a battle in an Italian town. There's a pillbox holding up the advance and a halftrack brings up a 57mm ATG. They edge the gun around a corner so it has a shot and then the crew forms a sort of bucket brigade to bring up ammo to the gun and I swear the thing was popping off a round every two or three seconds. Very impressive!

US armoured infantry units after Normandy (mainly because of their deployment as quick advancing units), quickly "lost" their 57mm guns and used the crews as additional infantry. Infantry units because of their more methodical advance/use generally kept their 57mm until the end of the war, though most guns ended up as part of regiment/battalion columns rather than at the tip of the spear. Certainly during the defensive fighting around the the Bulge/Colmar pocket, 57mm guns in infantry units were highly valued. Towed TD battalions with their heavy 3" (76mm) guns were usually attached to leg infantry units.

Look at about 35 minutes into this film, to see the 57mm action Scott describes:

YouTube link

Extremely well-drilled unit. I believe the vehicle may be a 3/4-ton truck.

GdeP

It's not my era, but I believe there were more 57mm guns in the Armored Infantry battalions than in the conventional infantry divisions. Troops were carried by half tracks, also pulling the guns. Good for protecting the inantry as they advanced, or for firing into the sides of rear of German armored equipment.

I recall a 3" anti-tank gun as a "stray," deployed by accident with a small engineer init, holding back a German column of Kampfgrupp Piper as the engineer blew the bridge to deny a crossing to the Germans.

GdeP

As others have described, there were organizational and doctrinal differences in how AT guns were deployed in the various US Army formations.

The 57mm Gun M1 was integral to the Infantry Division. Each Rifle Battalion had a platoon of 4 guns, organized into two sections of two guns.

(From US Army FM7-5: The Rifle Battalion.)

The 57mm AT gun was about as big as the Infantry was willing to go, as among the requirements for guns at the battalion level was that they could be moved by their crews over a distance of hundreds of yards. The 57mm gun was about as big and heavy as you could go while meeting that requirement.

(The German Pak40 75mm guns deserves high marks for how small and light it was given its punch. but it was really just beyond the level of being man-portable over hundreds of yards.)

After the war the 57mm M1 was replaced by the 75mm RCL, then the 106mm RCL, and eventually by ATGMs. The Rifle Battalion kept it's man-movable requirement, and never went to bigger, heavier AT guns.

It's not my era, but I believe there were more 57mm guns in the Armored Infantry battalions than in the conventional infantry divisions. Troops were carried by half tracks, also pulling the guns. Good for protecting the inantry as they advanced….

The Armored Divisions deployed the same gun at a wider, more distributed level. But it was not just carried along behind infantry carriers.

(From US Army FM17-42 The Armored Infantry Battalion)

In the infantry formations that were integral to the Armored Divisions, there was an AT gun platoon in each infantry company. In practice (to my readings) these were most often distributed out to the platoons, so that each of the 3 Armored Infantry Platoons, and the company HQ, each also had an ATG. So a platoon would have had the 3 M3 Halftracks full of squaddies, 1 M3 Halftrack with the platoon HQ (effectively another squad), and 1 M5 Halftrack with a gun crew, towing a gun.

But then, as many have noted, the guns were often left behind. In that case, it seems (again to my reading) that it was most common to treat the AT platoon as another infantry platoon -- that is to say keeping the AT platoon "squads" together rather than parceling them out as one extra squad to each of the other platoons.

The US 3-inch gun M5 was another beast altogether. It was a quick hatchet-job of an AT gun, putting the 3-inch gun that went into the M10 TD (a re-birth of an AA gun used by the shore defense artillery in 1918) onto the carriage of an M1 105mm howitzer, with a bit bigger shield. It was about as big and heavy as a British 17pdr, but no where near as powerful. It was about as powerful as a Pak40, but no where near as low and light.

It was only issued to Tank Destroyer battalions. These were issued 4 guns per battery, 3 batteries per company (as with the self-propelled TDs). They too were usually towed by M5 halftracks (as the armored infantry used). The TD battalions (towed or SP) were not integral to any divisions, but were organized to be kept as a GHQ reserve. In practice they were parceled out to the divisions on an almost permanent basis. How the divisions used and distributed them differed from division to division. Often, as others have said, they were parceled out. So each regimental combat team (or combat command in an armored division) might have received a company of TDs. Each battalion might have received a platoon of TDs. And the battalion command might have parceled them out further, giving one TD to each company. Or not -- they might have been kept as a company to be applied by the combat team on the main axis of advance/threat. It just depended.

Or so I have read.

-Mark
(aka: Mk 1)

In practice (to my readings) these were most often distributed out to the platoons, so that each of the 3 Armored Infantry Platoons, and the company HQ, each also had an ATG.

There were only three 57mm ATGs in the anti-tank platoon so usually each rifle platoon would get one when they were farmed out, but not the company HQ.

So a platoon would have had the 3 M3 Halftracks full of squaddies, 1 M3 Halftrack with the platoon HQ (effectively another squad), and 1 M5 Halftrack with a gun crew, towing a gun.

In the 1943 TO&E (which established the separate anti-tank platoon), each rifle platoon had five HTs – carrying the platoon HQ, two rifle squads, mortar squad and light machine gun squad. So the total increased to six when they were allocated one of the ATGs from the AT platoon. And it would not have been towed by an M5 btw.

And it would not have been towed by an M5 btw.

Yikes. Right you are on that point. Don't know how I managed to make that mistake … twice in one posting even.

M2s -- not M5s. White M2s to tow the guns. No M5s, nope nope nope.

Think I'll go take a nice big bite of fresh crow now…

-Mark
(aka: Mk 1)

On paper (1943 TO&E), the anti-tank platoon was allocated three M3A1s as carriers / prime movers. These mounted one .30 cal and two .50 cal machine guns between them. But if an armoured infantry company still had some M2s or M2A1s kicking around, these would typically be found in the mortar squads, company HQ and/or anti-tank platoon. Least comfortable for the latter as each anti-tank squad had ten men, equal to the maximum seating capacity.