LESSONS OF LIBYA

Waihi Daily Telegraph, Volume XXXI, Issue 8839, 2 November 1942, Page 4

LESSONS OF LIBYA

GERMAN TANK TACTICS ' ‘ SKILL & DETERMINATION ■ . ' STRONG STRIKING POWER ; In the shuttling warfare of the Libyan and Egyptian deserts, Field-Marshal Rommel has more than once shown the astonishing striking power of the German panzer divisions, when they are used with skill and determination. But Rommel is no magician, nor is any other German general—not even Hitler, unless we seek a superstitious explanation of his malignant 'genius (writes Harold Denny in the New York Times). Those awesome tank attacks can be met and beaten. They have bfeen met and turned into scattered funeral pyres by the Russians. In many a 'battle the British also have smashed German tank attacks, though in North Africa Rommel has usually been able to bring up -a last column of tanks or invoke some other lightning stroke to rob the British of victory in the end.

Rommel, rough, red-haired, and raucous, is a good general, a very good general; perhaps by now as able a field commander as any in Hitler’s employ. 'But he is no mystic genius. He has gained his successes almost wholly by employing elementary tactics as old as the Punic Wars, though executed at the high speed of blitz warfare and implemented with more effective equipment than his enemies could put into the field at the time. The armoured column warfare, which perfectly suits Rommel’s fastthinking, aggressive ego, is essentially the massed cavalry attack of Tamerlane or Sheridan—the rapid delivery of an overwhelming shock at a vulnerable point. As the Germans have developed it, panzer warfare is the most formidable and appalling method of land warfare yet developed on this planet. Yet, like most revolutionising inventions, it seems obvious once it is comprehended. Cavalry Tactics The Germans simply seized upon the tank as the most formidable new ground weapon and formed their land warfare structure around it and the aeroplane. They did not merely add the tank to their equipment and tactics, as the French did. They made it the keystone of their offensive arch and developed round it tactics taken largely from cavalry manuals. The Germans have welded into one co-or-dinated machine assault tanks, motorised infantry, motorised artillery, in-

cluding anti-tank guns, ground-straf-ing( troop-carrying, and bombing airtt -raft, and even naval units to con-shbll-fire when a battle is close enough a coast. And, no mistake, the German handling of these mechanised forces is masterly.- j jmve seen much, and at close hanc,/ German armoured warfare, or /, en to captured in an attad £ ] e( j jj omme ] himself, in Libya. The German war machine, as se< tfn j n ac tjon, is powerful and smooth running, and displays at every tur n the care and foresight which the lavished on it in the years of'German rearmament.

" Handled as Rommel or any other competent commander can handle them, tanks can lay a concentrated fire on a given area which paralises the bravest resistance, unless that resistance is munitioned with a superabundance of artillery of adequate calibre and range and is determinedly manned. In an open field such as the Libyan desert or the wide, treeless spaces of the Russian steppe, infantry alone or with inadequate artillery

or tank support, is helpless against a tank attack. Single Command

But the tank force is only one arm Of the attack as Germany has developed it. When a German general is ordered to conduct an operation, he is asked what forces he needs, on the ground, in the air, and, in some instances, on the sea. If possible, these forces —so many armoured divisions, so many infantry divisions, So many squadrons of the appropriate types of aircraft, so many naval units—are assigned to him and are under his direct and exclusive command for the period of that operation. In the field, then, in the midst of battle, the German general can, instantly and directly, order aeroplane support or the shelling of a fort or a road or a troop concentration by naval vessels. There are no delays caused by sending requests iip and down two chains of command. And when battles are moving at 20 miles an hour in the swirling inferno of mechanised warfare, minutes count as hours did in the previous war. The Germans increase the effectiveness of this system by extremely fast radio communication, instantaneously linking armoured vehicles, infantry units, aeroplanes and warships. In battle, message are sent by voice “in the clear” to save critical minutes which would be lost in coding and decoding. And in battle the generals no longer do their fighting on a map in a comfortable chateau. They go into the thick of it and give their orders by radio. The German technique is masterful and overwhelming. Yet it has nothing 'which we cannot match or excel. Indeed, British units before my own eyes have matched and beaten it in individual engagements, even when out-generalled as the British invariably were up to the last time the German panzers permitted me to see war in the Western Desert. Better Co-ordination Sound tactics and excellent co-or-dination have won for the Germans thus far. Faulty co-ordination has lost for the British. The British understand the need for swift co-ordina-tidn and have tried to achieve it, though with insufficient success thus far. Though the Royal Air Force was markedly superior to the Axis forces in the battles I witnessed, the liaison between British ground and air forces was markedly slow.

As the methods of warfare now stand, German panzer attacks can be met effectively in only one way—by confronting the Germans with more and better tanks and artillery and air forces, properly co-ordinated and manned by courageous and welltrained troops.

Sitting in a prisoner-of-war camp, and, with British officers who had been captured in the same Rommel tank attack, fighting on paper the battle that had cost us our freedom, this correspondent conceived an idea which he thought was unique. It was this: That Germany, by casting this war in its present highly mechanised pattern of tanks and aircraft, had chosen the one mould best suited to American capabilities: that America could outbuild Germany in tanks and aeroplanes and cannon and all the other delicate monsters of pres-ent-day -warfare and that America could decisively out-produce Germany in the men to fight in them. First-hand examination of the tanks which the United States is now building and conversation with armoured division officers, show that our armoured services have profited well by the lessons England has learned at such high cost. United States military attaches, military observers and technical experts have long been going to the Middle East in relays to study at first hand the conduct of