Inferno - Max Hastings [341]
Whenever the Germans attempted to attack, they were devastated by artillery, fighter-bombers and antitank guns; but the strategic imperative to advance rested upon the Allies. The British lost vast numbers of tanks in a series of unsuccessful attempts to break through to Caen and beyond. Local successes were often undone by enemy counterattacks. “We were essentially defensive and the Germans essentially both attacking by nature and also fighting for their existence,” wrote Maj. Anthony Kershaw. “We are not very dashing soldiers and the English cavalry has never been very good.” Allied infantry assaults were unimaginative, coordination with armour poor.
MASS, GENERALSHIP and the institutional effectiveness of armies chiefly influence battlefield outcomes, and so they did in Normandy. But the quality of rival weapons systems, especially tanks, also played an important role. The British and U.S. armies had excellent artillery. The Americans equipped their infantry with a good automatic rifle, the M‑1 Garand, but a poor light machine gun, the BAR. Their 2.36-inch handheld “bazooka” antitank rocket—named for a weird wind instrument invented by American comic Bob Burns—lacked adequate penetration. The British Army boasted a reliable rifle, the .303 Mk IV single-shot Lee-Enfield, and the much-loved Bren light machine gun.
The Germans had better weapons; in particular, they could generate extraordinary violence with their belt-fed MG‑42 machine gun, known to the Allies as the “spandau,” of which some 750,000 were produced. On the battlefield, the MG‑42’s rasping 1,200-rounds-per-minute (rpm) rate of fire sounded far more lethal than the slow hammer of the Bren’s or BAR’s 500 rpm. The British and Americans also had Vickers and Browning heavy machine guns, but the MG‑42, easily manufactured from metal stampings and capable of changing barrels in five seconds, was a key factor in the German army’s tactical performance. So too was the Panzerfaust handheld antitank projector: deadly at close range—much more so than the U.S. bazooka or British PIAT—and produced at the rate of 200,000 a month, the Faust played an important part in checking Allied armour in 1944–45, when the Wehrmacht was short of antitank guns. The 88mm dual-purpose gun and Nebelwerfer multibarrelled mortar were also used to formidable effect.
All the European armies had submachine guns for close-quarter fighting. The British 9mm Sten was an adequate weapon produced in millions at a cost which fell to under £3. The U.S. Army’s .45-calibre Thompson was valued for its reliability, but cost £50 apiece to manufacture. Most American units in 1944–45 used the cheaper and simpler M‑3 “grease gun.” Allied soldiers were envious of the German MP‑38 and MP‑40 machine pistols. They called these Schmeissers, though that designer had nothing to do with their creation—they were made at the works of Berthold Giepel. Towards the end of the war, the Germans also acquired small numbers of an excellent assault rifle, the MP‑43, forerunner of a generation of European infantry weapons thereafter.
BUT THE ALLIES’ most serious problem was the inferiority of their tanks: numerical advantage counted for little when British and American shells often bounced off well-armoured German Panthers and Tigers, while a hit on a Sherman, Churchill or Cromwell was almost invariably fatal. “A sheet of flame licked over the turret and my mouth was full of grit and burnt paint,” wrote a shocked British tank officer after his Cromwell was hit by an 88mm shell from a Tiger. “ ‘Bale out,’ I yelled and leaped clear … There were my crew, hiding under a currant bush, miraculously all safe. Joe, the driver, white and shaking, crouched with drawn revolver. He looked like a cornered rat … The Tiger drove