I picked up this doc the first time more than 10 years ago. Have read through it several times to inform my understanding of what TDs were supposed to be, and how they did, or did not, work.
> I've always thought that assessment [ie: "fundamentally flawed" -Mk1] was a bit harsh… When allowed to fight in the manner they were designed tank destroyer units with larger than 57mm guns did respectably.
While I agree they did "respectably", I have to push back on the "bit harsh". The conclusion was correct. TD doctrine was flawed, and was abandoned after the war.
Please note, there is a difference between a failed doctrine, and failed equipment.
Failed doctrine does NOT mean that TDs were not useful pieces of kit, nor that TD units did not perform well. Nor does it mean that light highly mobile vehicles optimized for anti-tank work, with crews trained to that task, disappeared from the US Army arsenal of equipment. Far from it. But separate TD formations held as a reserve did.
> On paper the concept sounded right. In actual reality, the maneuver capability and one shot kill capability is specious and arguable.
On this I disagree. The concept of the vehicles was not so bad. In fact almost EVERY major army of WW2, and even since WW2, developed some equivalent lighter armored vehicles with higher-powered AT weapons. And the US Army TDs, in terms of equipment, were better than any of those.
If you don't think the M10 was better than a Marder, an Archer, or a Semovente, or that the M18 was better than a Hetzer or an SU-85 … well you aren't paying close enough attention.
From the paper, Conclusions, p.69:
The historical evidence does not show that the tank destroyers tried to implement their doctrine but failed for the lack of proper equipment. Rather, it is clear that tank destroyer doctrine was never really executed because it rested on false premises and thus had little application on the battlefield.
What was the failure in doctrine? Also from the Conclusions section:
FM 18-5 (1942) exhorted the single-arm tank destroyer elements to defeat the single-arm threat through "offensive action" and "semi-independent" operations. The formula for potential tragedy was thus laid, for the real enemy was a master 'of combined arms warfare, not a single-arm threat. Experience in battle quickly showed that tank destroyers were, in reality, highly dependent on other arms for support …. FM 18-5 (1944) perpetuated the notion of massed, mobile tank destroyers but at the same time advocated closer coordination with the other arms, a policy that implied some degree of dispersaL Predictably, commanders in the field rectified this contradiction by quietly abandoning the theory of massing tank destroyer forces.
the inadequacy of equipment was not a fatal blow to the tank destroyer concept. Even the finest weaponry would not have compensated for the conceptual and doctrinal flaws deeply embodied in the tank destroyer program. As evidence, witness the fact that the advent of the well-armed M-36 did little to reverse the abandonment of tank destroyer doctrine in the field. On the other hand, U.S. tanks were even less well armed than the tank destroyers, but because the armored establishment possessed a sound doctrine by 1944, armored formations succeeded on the battlefield in spite of their equipment.
>"The Tank Killers" by Harry Yeide is a good battle history of the USA tank destroyers.
As Yiede states in his book, the TDs were the most successful failure of the war. By the stats, TD performance against enemy tanks was excellent. But it was simply not a useful doctrine to give a commander, who was ordered to perform offensive operations, a substantial force of armored vehicles and tell him the doctrine was to hold them back as a defensive counter-force. Ain't gonna happen. He's going to give them offensive missions. That was not in the doctrine. So the doctrine was flawed. And so it was abandoned post-war.
Or so I've read. (And even cited.)
-Mark
(aka: Mk 1)
