Tank Destroyer Battalion (United States) - Northwest Europe

Northwest Europe

By far the largest employment of tank destroyer units was in the north-western Europe campaign through France, the Low Countries and Germany. They were employed from the very beginning of the campaign, with one battalion being landed on Utah Beach in a follow-up wave on D-Day.

A revised version of Field Manual 18-5, introduced in June 1944, broadened the doctrine of tank destroyer operations. It allowed for a more dispersed deployment of the battalions throughout a force, and recommended that when enemy armor was only expected to be deployed in small groups, tank destroyers were to be distributed among forward units. It became general practice to attach a tank destroyer battalion semi-permanently to a division; this meant that it was locally available for emergencies, and that it would be able to train alongside "its" division when out of the line.

The most significant employment of tank destroyers in Normandy was in early August, at the battle of Mortain, where the 823rd Tank Destroyer Battalion (towed 3-inch guns) was on the defensive alongside the 30th Infantry Division. The division, which was in temporary positions and not prepared for a defensive engagement, was attacked by elements of four panzer divisions on 6 August, under heavy fog. The 823rd put up a strong defense—knocking out fourteen tanks—but took heavy losses, being mostly overrun and losing eleven guns. This served to reinforce misgivings about the effectiveness of the towed units, and a report delivered to the Pentagon in December recommended they be phased out in favor of self-propelled units.

In December 1944, and January 1945, the Battle of the Bulge put American ground forces on the operational defensive for the first time in Europe, as a German army group of 24 divisions (including ten panzer divisions with 1,500 armored vehicles) launched a major offensive in the Ardennes forest. The main thrust fell on the 99th and 2nd Infantry divisions which jammed the northern shoulder. A secondary attack hit two overstretched infantry divisions, both with attached towed tank destroyer battalions. Once contact was made, the towed guns were unable to reposition themselves or withdraw, and were often overrun by the enemy advance, or simply outflanked by infantry. The gun crews, unlike their self-propelled counterparts, had no protection against small-arms fire, and could easily be driven back by a squad of infantry. This lack of mobility was aggravated by the cold wet weather, and the rough conditions, which tended to bog down wheeled vehicles and immobilize fixed guns. Throughout the 1st Army as a whole, three-quarters of the tank destroyers lost were towed rather than self-propelled. One battalion, the 801st, lost 17 towed guns in just two days, while the M10-equipped 644th, which fought alongside it, found ideal opportunities for close-range ambushes and claimed 17 tanks in the same time period. It was clear that the towed guns had proved ineffective and on 11 January 1945, the U.S. War Office approved Eisenhower's request to convert all remaining towed units in the theatre to self-propelled guns.

Tank destroyers were to be found throughout the fighting in the Battle of the Bulge, fighting at close range in broken terrain much as they had done in Italy. The 705th, equipped with M18s, fought alongside the 101st Airborne at the siege of Bastogne, and played a key role in the defense of the town. Four M-18s and a platoon of infantry occupied Noville, just north of Bastogne, and stopped a German armored attack with flank fires, killing 30 heavy tanks (Panthers and Tigers). The battle was also the first major engagement of the M36, with its 90 mm gun; the three battalions employed proved highly effective.

While the tank destroyers were broadly used in their intended role in the Ardennes—being used as a reserve to counter a massed armored attack—there were two significant differences between their use and the original doctrine. Firstly, there was no central strategic reserve—most tank destroyer battalions were assigned to divisions and kept near the front line, rather than massed in the rear. Secondly, the battalions were rarely committed as a whole; as had become common, they were effectively used as local anti-tank assets, with a platoon or a company assigned to an infantry battalion to bolster its defensive strength.

After losses in the Battle of the Bulge, German armored capability in the West had effectively collapsed, both through combat losses and through logistical limitations. As such, the tank destroyer battalions spent the closing months of the war as mobile support units, parceled out into secondary roles.