Tank Desant - History

History

Today, tank desant is considered a wasteful and human-costly improvisation, which, in the opinion of some writers, was adopted by the Red Army because they failed to appreciate the problem of tank–infantry co-operation. However, this is not supported by historical analysis, and there is evidence that tank desant was used as early as 1937 during the Spanish Civil War. On 13 October, during the Aragon Front advance in the area of the Fuentes de Ebro, the 1st Independent Tank Regiment (Republican Army), using BT-5 tanks, attached to the 15th International Brigade, conducted a tank-desant mission with the attached 24th Infantry Battalion of the Spanish army (24ta de Voluntarios, commanded by Captain Aquilla). But lack of coordination and communication between the Soviet crews (which had just completed a 630 km march) and the Spanish infantry resulted in sixteen tanks being either destroyed or disabled (some salvaged) and 37 tank crewmen becoming casualties.

Analysis of the Red Army's doctrine developed during the 1930s and documented in the 1936 Field Manual shows that the cavalry arm was expected to perform in the role of the supporting dismounted infantry, and this was repeatedly displayed during the operations on the Eastern Front through use of the cavalry mechanized groups. The idea of using infantry tank desant was, however, retained in the 1942 Field Instructions for the infantry (battalion)

Almost universal mechanization has rendered this tactic mostly obsolete among the more advanced armed forces, with infantry riding special-purpose armoured personnel carriers or infantry fighting vehicles into battle. The uses of explosive reactive armor, which creates a danger zone around an armoured vehicle by detonating an explosive charge when the tank suffers a serious hit, and gas turbine engines, with extremely hot exhaust, makes tank desant a dangerous and undesirable alternative.