Heinz Guderian: The Mastermind Of The Blitzkrieg | Tanks! | War Stories

[Music] during the inter War years the future commanders of the German pancer armies led a strange existence respectable professional soldiers like heints Garian were reduced to working in secret the Treaty of versailes had totally prohibited the use of tanks in the German Army but with the help of Soviet Russia and the covert assistance of a small team of engineering Specialists using disguised agricultural equipment garan and his colleagues managed to keep Pace with developments in tank warfare despite the difficult conditions they even managed to develop some new Innovations of their own they could see the advantages that the tank could bring to the next war and they developed new theories that centered on the use of the tank theories that would revolutionize the way Wars would be fought despite the problems of convincing his super I of the advantages of the tank Garian in particular stuck to his secretive task with determined persistence and the help of some impressive demonstration exercises he convinced both the German general staff and Adolf Hitler that the tank could help to win future Wars I'm standing here in bovington tank Museum in front of the Panzer 1 which was one of the Main Stays of the Panzer force in 1939 this is a command version so it's actually slightly higher than the normal Panza one but as you can see it's not the uh the great Juggernaut of Legend it's a very small machine in many respects it's not much larger than than say a modern Land Rover but this was there were probably 1500 of these in service in 1939 and in 1940 because there was no alternative there's no denying that a tank like the Panza 2 is a lightweight the gun 20 mm Cannon wouldn't really do anyone any serious harm armor thickness is not particularly brilliant it's probably as good an example of any of the fact that it's often how a tank is used or how armor is used collectively that is far more important than the actual might of the gun or the thickness of the armor as a result of garan's efforts in 1935 the first paner divisions were formed every arm had to be presented in the paner division to make the paner division almost a small army in its own right not to depend on anybody else these formations included a tank Brigade with 560 tanks to provide the main Firepower the tank Brigade was comprised of two tank regiments Each of which was split in turn into two battalions two motorized infantry regiments provided close support to the tanks a reconnaissance Battalion was added to scout out enemy positions and seize weak points a motorized artillery Battalion with 48 guns provided artillery support to provide defense against enemy tanks an anti-tank Battalion was also added to back up all of this the division had its own full Supply support and repair system Garian realized that uh tanks and armored Warfare were going to be the future um that uh hard-hitting fast moving spearheads of Tanks accompanied with infantry uh and artillery and all the other arms of service uh would pack uh a formidable punch you can really trace this back to two events that took place up on Salsbury plane in 1928 and 29 which were basically an attempt to test out the armored Warfare Theory what actually happened was that a unit known as the experimental armored force was created and this armored Force consisted of tank battalions light tanks for reconnaissance infantry machine gun carriers armored cars for scouting self-propelled artillery mechanized engineers in trucks and even the Infantry carried in half tracks and all supported by the Royal Air Force and what you ended up with was a small highly mobile very very strong fighting force now in these exercises on the plane they were pitted against a conventional infantry mounted Cavalry hor drawn artillery division which was huge by comparison in every single operation no matter how the umpires cheated and they did cheat to try and give the traditional alarms just a bit of moral support the armored element one every single action and the proof was there and the effect it had was amazing because in Britain one or two stuffy old officers actually began to talk about tanks if they might have a future the people who took notice and the people who learned with the Germans they could see that if a highly mobile striking Force could be created not just tanks not tanks alone you need intimate artillery support you need preferably armed infantry keeping up with you you need everybody Mobile in a package and you need equally immediate air support hence the stokers and that kind of thing and this sort of force sent against a conventional Army will go through it like a hot knife through batter discover the past with exclusive military history documentaries and adree podcasts presented by world-renowned historians all on History hit watch them on your smart TV or on the go with your mobile device download the app now to watch every everything from the gripping story of the Band of Brothers to operation Barbarosa and D-Day immerse yourself in the dramatic stories of this remarkable era by signing up via the link in the description the heavy tanks would be used as the spearhead to actually punch a hole through the Enemy Lines and the lighter tanks would be used on the flanks to actually protect them against infantry and artillery attack and maybe other tanks but the heavy tanks would be used primarily to push the way through and to keep going uh and to open the uh the Gap in the enemy defenses a great deal of accurate thought had gone into the development of this type of formation the resulting paner division was a well balanced force which could call on the support of any or all of the component parts to capture an objective the purpose of this organization was to launch a speedy Advance deep into enemy territory and keep going spreading confusion fear and panic in the enemy command and communication systems one further Innovation was the close links with the Luft waffer which could add even more Firepower when needed the Luft waffer and the Panza divisions had intimate links uh in terms of Luft vafa staff liaison officers who actually traveled on the ground with the Panza divisions this meant that at any time whenever Panza division came up against any particular trouble where it might need air support there were already uh radio communications established with the Luft Fafa which meant that the the taxi ranks of stukas and other lufafa bombers could be called into play very very quickly and this flexibility and again the rapidity um of the the calling up of of air support was vital um and indeed an intimate part of German Blitz Creek the training given to these new pants of Warriors emphasized speed and Independence of thought when these units were Unleashed they offered a very effective weapon that their enemies found impossible to master in Poland this new Force had the first opportunity to put their meticulous training into [Music] practice the Polish campaign was a Triumph for the verar and showed the potential of a tank in battle nonetheless some problems were encountered because events had moved on Far quicker than Hitler would have liked they had to press these things into Service uh they were used in the Polish campaign where the the weaknesses were very apparent and certainly by the time of France it was obvious that these machines had to be retired interestingly they were kept in service right through to 1941 and even later because it was simply not possible to produce enough machines in enough quantity to bring them onto the battlefield in the kind of time we're looking for on the 10th of May 1940 the tide of Hitler's Conquest turned to the West this time the Germans will be fighting more modern armies that were equipped with at least equal or sometimes Superior Equipment the magin line that stretched along the majority of the French border to the east was bypassed when German pancers Advanced through the Arden region in Belgium by a combination of careful planning surprise and some very daring new Innovations the Germans were able to make these fortifications almost obsolete once past here they Advanced all the way to the coast with little in their way to stop them what had proved proved impossible in four years of trench warfare during World War I was accomplished in the space of 6 weeks the value of the tank in Modern Warfare was well and truly [Applause] established [Music] the tanks that helped win these early victories and create a new Legend in Warfare comprised four main German machines supplemented by two tanks manufactured by the Czech manufacturer scoda the Panza 1 and the Panza 2 were mainly used as reconnaissance Vehicles the Panza one had a two-man crew driver and a commander was armed with two 7.92 machine guns the Panza 2 had a three-man crew and was armed with a 20 mm automatic Cannon the Panza 3 and the Panza 4 were much larger tanks they had a fiveman crew which was normally a driver and a gunner in the hole and then a gunner commander and loader in the turret the Panza 3 was mainly used as a fighting tank the Panza 4 was used more as a support tank with its 75 mm gun but the interesting thing is that after the fall of France in 1940 the Americans decided that if the German tank the Panza 4 had a 75 mm gun then that would have to be the minimum size of the of the gun that was used in the Sherman tank so it was actually the Panza 4 which led to the development of the guns in the uh in the American tanks during the second world war the first of the new German tanks was the tiny paner one it had its roots in the turretless tractor developed in secret between the wars it weighed just less than 6 tons and had a crew of two machine guns provided the Armament the main armor protection was provided by 13 mm thick steel although its limitations were exposed in Poland this vehicle was used extensively during the campaign in the west the paner 1 was designed as little more than an armored machine gun carrier and as such did not present a great threat to enemy armored machines as you can see it's not a very tall vehicle I'm not particularly tall and I come up to to head height on the thing um it's it's very lightly armored and very flimsy but in 1939 this was the kind of vehicle you would face and in 1940 these were the machines that swamped France and took part in that lightning campaign it was basically a training vehicle to get used to tank for the different drivers who would have to drive the heavy and bigger tanks and uh they were quickly built they had ordinary engines in it nothing special and we're not very fast either then the paner 2 was designed to run alongside the paner 1 and provided a tank with armor piercing capabilities the first models weighed in at just less than 8 tons with later models increasing their weight to just over 10 tons this vehicle had a crew of three one mg34 machine gun and one 20 mm gun provided the Armament the armor protection ranged from 13 mm in the model A to 30 mm in the Model H the paner 2 was a very reliable tank and had a top speed of 35 mph like the paner 1 this tank was effectively obsolete even at the start of the war it lacked sufficient armor protection and the 20 mm Cannon was not effective against the Allied tanks the paner 2 was to be used as a reconnaissance vehicle but found itself in the thick of the fighting performing the role of a battle tank the Panza 2 is equipped with a 20 mm automatic weapon which will pump out rounds in a fairly steady rate next to it a typical German machine gun mg34 with a very very high rate of fire that's it the other thing I would point out which I think is is relevant is that German tanks even from the almost the outbreak of War were of welded construction and the difference this makes cannot be overemphasized it means that the tank is integrally much stronger that it doesn't have a subframe to add weight and in addition to that it's pretty well waterer type the Panza 3 was classed as a medium tank by the Germans but by the standards of the day it was still fairly light the weight of the Panza 3s used in the western campaigns varied around 20 tons it was crewed by five men all of the Panza 3s that saw action in the western campaign of 1940 had a 37 mm Cannon as their main Armament this was backed up with three mg34 machine guns two were placed in the turret at each side of the main gun and the third was situated in the front of the hull this tank had 30 mm armor protection and a top speed around 25 mph however the main problem was the 37 mm Cannon it was a poor match against the heavier armor of the Allied machines the decision to fit the early paner 3s with a 37 mm gun had angered garan who had forcefully argued that the Panza 3 needed a main armorment of at least 50 mm caliber if the shells would have any realistic chance of piercing the heavy armor of the British and French tanks of the war later model G's were fitted with the better 50 mm main gun but were too late for their inclusion in the western campaign the Mark 3 only came out because the development of what was later known as the paner 4 took very much longer as anticipated and so they brought this paner 3 out which was a smaller version of it in a way and uh performed excellently in in France but in Race Pro it wasn't all that much better than say several of the British or even French tongues in addition to to the paner 3 the German paner division also included an infantry support tank these early paner 4S had the low velocity short muzzle 75 mm main gun this was backed up with two mg34 machine guns one was situated in the turret and the other in the front of the hull armor protection ranged from 15 mm to 30 mm the speed was the same as the paner 3 at 25 mph this tank was a good design although the versions used in this stage of the war had the low velocity l24 gun which was only designed to fire high explosive shells and lack the real hitting power which was needed for tank-to-tank contact nonetheless once it was upgraded it was to become the main battle tank of the German forces throughout the war this is an early War version of the Panzer 4 which was the Infantry support tank which was used by the German forces early in the war H and threw into the desert campaign you can tell it's the early version by the the extended Commander's Cupa up on the top there which looks almost like a Dustbin that's been stuck on the tank uh as you can appreciate this wasn't a particularly good Innovation because in action it represented a an easy target and they were frequently ripped off by enemy artillery which left the tank vulnerable so by 1941 these had begun to disappear around at the front we see the 75 mm infantry support gun it wasn't a high velocity gun so it didn't give it the kind of tank killing power which it needed in the Russian campaign but certainly for the early desert years it was it was more than adequate we can see here the the thickness of the armor by this stage in the war it's about 40 mm thick and it would get progressively thicker as the campaign wore on one of the ways to uh upgrade the Panzer 4 was to add on extra spaced plates in front of the in front of the turret which gave it a lot of extra strength again some uncompromisingly flat armor at the front here and as tank design improved over the War years they soon realized that what you need is sloped armor that deflects shell away from the vehicle so this was very much a wrong design in tank terms but those lessons still had to be learned and still had to be assimilated when the Germans annexed the regions of bohemia and Moravia in early 1939 they took possession of the main battle tanks of the Czech Army at the manufacturing plants these machines were incorporated into the Germans existing lineup of Tanks they consisted of two designs the 35t weighed in at 10 tons and had a crew of four he was armed with a 37 mm l40 main gun which was very accurate together with two 7.92 mm machine guns the armor protection was 35 mm thick which was very adequate for a light tank the engine produced a top speed of 25 mph the second Czech design used by the Germans was the 38t it weighed less than the 35t at 9.5 tons it also had a crew of were four its main Armament was a 37 mm gun backed up with two machine guns the armor protection was 30 mm thick it had a top speed of 26 mph unlike the 35t this machine was renowned for its reliability and ease of Maintenance these two light tanks made a very valuable addition to the range of tanks already available to the Germans it has been argued that without these two machines Germany would have been unable to conduct the offensive in the west the 35t B of 1940 was quite an old tank um so it was phased out after 1940 but the 38t was a very successful tank used by the Germans very successfully in the fall of France it was capable of taking on the British Matilda and some of the French Vehicles it was quite a fast quite well armored and with a reasonable siiz gun on it being able to cope with the Matti as I said it was such a good vehicle that was still used later on the war and was developed into other forms of armored vehicle which later in the war you will see as various self-propelled guns and tank destroyers the 35t was issued to the sixth paner division while the 38t was the main state of the seventh and e8th paner divisions for the campaign in France these Czech tanks were involved in the thick of the fighting as the seventh paner division provided the main thrust for the forthcoming battle the 38t stayed in German service throughout the war under various Gees and finally ended up as the basis for the excellent hetzer tank destroyer in the blitz cre of 1940 the seventh Panza division that was rumble's Panza division was almost entirely equipped with 38 T's and 35 T's in fact there was nearly 400 Czech tanks took part in that battle now the Czech tank the 38t had actually been offered to the British Army and was actually tested in England in chy in 1938 1939 and the British found it wanting for various reasons but the Germans were perfect perfectly happy to use it and it was a great success in the battle for France in [Applause] 1940 without the restrictions which have been placed on Germany the main Allied countries of Britain and France had also been engaged in developing their weapons during the 20s and 30s they did however take different routes the other major Nations had not recognize the full potential of the tank and therefore design and innovation in this aspect were rather more limited France had relegated the tank to the role of an infantry support weapon Britain had seen the potential of this new machine and set about devel veloping new designs this is the tank known as the light tank Mark 6B and they are really no more than a tract reconnaissance vehicle you might say an armored car on tracks the armor thickness is minimal the average anti-tank rifle will go through it easily so it's job is to keep a low profile to move about the country rapidly and gather information they are not strictly speaking a fighting machine it's basically a small light tank very similar to the German pens are one in performance and capabilities some people say one of the best things about this vehicle was that we left them all behind in D Kirk because they were by that time an obsolete design the Matilda Mark 1 was designated a light tank and weighed 11 tons he was crewed by two men the main Armament was provided by a vica's machine gun like the paner 1 this tank was little more than an armored machine gun carry areer however unlike the paner 1 this vehicle had very good armor protection that was 60 mm thick this was double the thickness of the best German tank at the time it had a very low top speed of 8 mph the Tank's limitations were shown up in the French campaign although it protected its crew well it was no match for the determined German paner Cruz the one-man turret was a major drawback over 40 of these machines were sent to France but all of them were lost in that campaign is an example of a tank built down to a price it was ordered from Vicor Armstrong in about 1936 and the designer was told we've got about of £15,000 to spend build us a cheap tank and the only consideration they put on it was it must have armor thick enough to resist any known anti-tank gun the idea was was an infantry tank and the Infantry tank in the British sort of ideology of armor was a tank that would move slowly that the Infantry would follow when they're making an assault upon a fixed enemy position so we're not talking about roaring across country at high speed we're talking about moving slowly probably attracting a lot of fire hence the need to be bulletproof and just to see the Infantry onto their objective now this is fine if the enemy is prepared to play ball if they're going to um set themselves up in a nice defensive position allow you to attack great if these are going to be used in open country with enemy armor Milling about they are in a very sorry State and of course that is the situation in France in 1940 we've got the Germans on the move all the time not standing still not waiting to be attacked and therefore these tanks cease to have a a useful role the Matilda 2 was designed to mount a two-man turret and came about after the realization that the Matilda 1 could not accommodate this requirement the Matilda 2 weighed 27 tons and had a crew of four it was armed with a two pounder gun backed up with a vica's machine gun it was very well protected with 78 mm armor thickness the speed was a maximum 15 mph this is probably the best known British tank of World War II this tank performed well and remained in service throughout the war on all fronts this tank which is the the better known of the two matildas was the replacement for the little infantry tank mark one we wanted a tank that could support the Infantry and would therefore travel slowly and be resistant to enemy fire for that reason the frontal armor is 80 mm thick this was unheard of at that time no one had built a tank with armor this strong so in terms of its ability to survive on the battlefield immensely high but it was also equipped with the British 2 pounder anti-tank gun which I think we've already established probably one of the best anti-tank weapons in the world in 19 1940 it's interesting to ask yourself why we used an anti-tank gun in a tank that was primarily for infantry support a lot of people asked that question because they basically believe that a howt are firing high explosive would have been far more useful on the kind of Battlefield they expected to see the war office argument was that by equipping the tank with an anti-tank gun it not only supported the Infantry onto their objective it then mov through the objective stopped the other side and held off enemy tank counterattacks that was the logic behind it the Matilda Mark 1 um was a fairly basic infantry tank um with only a a vicker's machine gun as its main Armament but nonetheless its armor over 60 mm of armor plate was very impressive for the time the Matilda Mark I um was an even more heavily armored tank with upwards of 80 mm of armor plate um protecting it but still armed with only a two pounder gun which could only fire armor piercing rounds not terribly impressive as an infantry support tank nonetheless given the level of armor protection uh both marks of Matilda uh really uh any anti-tank gun of the day um had real difficulty in penetrating the armor uh and this meant that the matildas in 1940 could range about the battlefield uh with relative immunity uh against the the first line of defense the the anti-tank gun the British used a variety of tanks in France in 1940 they had the light tanks like the Vicor Mark 6 and BR gun carriers they had the Infantry tanks such as the Infantry Mark 1 and two which was the Matilda 1 and the Matilda 2 and they had the cruiser tanks which was the cruiser Mark 1 on the Vicor suspension and the cruiser mark four which was on the Christie suspension mechanically this is a very very important tank as far as British tank design is concerned it features an American suspension system by a Maverick inventor chap named Jay Walter Christie christe started started designing tanks in the mid-20s by 1928 he produced a tank which was putting up some amazing performances by 1932 he had a tank which would do 60 M an hour on its tracks and by taking the tracks off and running it as a wheel vehicle he got 120 mph out of it it was a sort of tank dragster if you like Christie however was a cussed sort of individual and he fell out with just about everyone in the US Administration so much so that the Americans built six of his tanks and gave up the Russians however purchased a Christy tank found it was all they required in basic mechanical terms and copied it I the thousand and it was two British officers visiting these Red Army Maneuvers in about 1935 who saw these tanks came away amazed and persuaded Lord nuffield the Morris Motors Chief to buy a tank of Christie from which we would develop our own design and really the only Christie feature that we retained in the design of the tank was the suspension and the key to it is this large diameter road wheels each wheel is on a short sort of swinging arm bearing against an enormous coil spring which is hidden behind this armor and that allows the wheel a tremendous amount of free movement you won't find many tanks anywhere with a gap this great between the track and the Tim workk and it's to allow the wheels to move it means you can get terrific speeds out of it 60 would be ridiculous to be punishing but this tank could do 30 comfortably and that really gave the crew a pretty comfortable ride and it is more important still because in the British way of doing things we believe tank Crews should shoot on the move it meant that between the wars just down the road from the museum here at lorth Camp they trained firing on the move against moving targets and reach standards that were absolutely exceptional for their day but remember this is a small trained Army of highly motivated professionals now you take our a13 Cruiser the gun is in free elevation it literally just waves up and down inside the tank but what it means is that the Gunner becomes the stabilizer and it means that he's standing in a sort of half Crouch position inside the turret he's got one hand on the trigger of the gun he's got his eye pressed up against a telescope and his other hand on the traversing mechanism here and it's his knees bouncing up and down which to the stabilizer for the gun you can see the problem a well-trained soldier who was used to the motion of the tank who have been trained well at lorth to shoot on the move at moving targets would be a prize worth having but the man who's just come back from the reserve a territorial Army soldier a new volunteer you are never going to train him up to those standards in the time allowed the A9 Mark 1 Cruiser weighed in at 13 tons and was crewed by six men the main Firepower was the 2 pounder gun but this time it was backed up with three Vicor machine guns it was thinly armored at 14 mm but had a good top speed of 25 mph like the cruiser markv the structural design consisted of many angles that trapped the armor-piercing enemy shells this coupled with the thin armor resulted in many of them being lost in the French campaign the A9 tank um in some respects showed the sorry state of British tank design in the inter War years it wasn't that the British couldn't design good tanks it was more the fact that uh with budgetary restraints placed on the Army um and and the fact that the Army actually came in third in terms of budget as opposed to the Air Force and the Navy um the A9 tank was very much designed uh on a very tight budget this meant that it's neither its armor um nor its engine uh made it capable of fulfilling a true Cruiser function um but nor was it heavily armored enough or well armed enough to act in the in in the the Infantry role thus it was a a strange mixture of features um and really wasn't a terribly impressive design uh and did not fear terribly well in battle this is a typical example of modled thinking in tank design it's totally transitional for a start and the most damning feature of all are these little turrets it's in addition to the main turret which has got the 40 mm the 2 pounder gun and a co-action machine gun you've got two tiny turrets flanking the driver's position each with its own Vicor machine gun this kind of thing appeared on many tanks built in the late 20s and early 30s and of course it has all kinds of problems for a start some poor wretch is bottled up in here the other main problem with the turret is that you cannot increase the armor thickness because the way these two turrets are mounted either side of the driver's cab with virtually no clearance any thickness increase in the armor will immediately Jam them solid so the 14 mm armor to which this was built in the first place is all you're ever going to get there's other problems the tank requires a crew of six so it's labor intensive if you like three in the main turret driver in the cab there and an individual in each one of these [Music] turrets French thinking in tanus was influential in the design of their new machines like the British they had four main designs available at the start of the French campaign the sh somua S35 was a medium tank weighing 20 tons a crew of three manned it a 47 mm main gun backed up with a 7.5 mm machine gun provided the main armorment the armor protection was very good at 55 mm it had a top speed of 25 mph this tank was more than capable of tackling the enemy and was welld designed in fact the Germans made use of them in their army after the campaign was over this is a tank for a medium regiment for fighting other tanks therefore more attention is paid to armor thickness and shape and to fighting capability now unfortunately the two tanks the shet and the somua have the same turret so you've got exactly the same problem repeated you've got one man in there who in addition to commanding the tank is working the main gun and the coaction Machine Gun the outstanding feature of the Som without any doubt is this use of cast armor it is said that this was one of the features that appealed to the designers in the United States when the Sherman first appeared and they adopted cast armor for some of the versions of the Sherman tank and there is some influence here mechanically again like most French tanks it's brilliant the suspension system there's the springs is somewhat complicated and you'll notice that the um French in particular go to a lot of trouble to hide the suspension something you won't see later in the war but they Shield it to prevent it being damaged but in all respects except its fighting capacity and that is really more down to Manpower and human resources than Design This was a very good tank in its day the sh B1 was the heaviest tank in use by the French weighing 32 tons it was manned by a crew of four the main Firepower consisted of one 75 mm gun situated in the hull this was was backed up with a 47 mm gun located in the turret in addition there were two 7.5 mm machine guns on board also the armor protection was an excellent 60 mm the speed was limited to 17 mph the weight being a deciding factor this was a very good tank and it gave a good account of itself in the fight against the Germans the main restrictions were the hull mounted 75 mm gun that could only be fired Straight Ahead in addition although the arm was very thick the Germans found that this Beast could be easily knocked out by a well-placed shell in the ventilation Grill at the start of the French campaign this was probably the most formidable tank in use before the war it was always regarded as one of the best tanks in the world but there are one or two features that stand out um in the first place the main Armament which is a 75 mm hoit is located here in the hull alongside the driver and although it will Elevate and press it has no lateral movement at all every millimeter or degree if you like of lateral movement is made by swinging the whole tank around and in a tactical sense that ain't a terribly good idea the problem is that in order to swing the tank accurately to get the gun laid as directly on target as you can required a very sophisticated steering system this tank has it it has a Hydra static steering system which literally allows the tank to be nudged around a degree at a time but but that means the driver is intimately involved in laying the gun which you don't have in a turret now the French are an eminently logical race and they therefore said fine if we're going to have the driver lay the gun by traversing the tank he might just as well do elevation and depression as well so the driver using his right hand and using a little hand wheel winds the gun up and down they then take that logic to its ultimate length and say right he's aimed the tank he's elevated the gun he might just as well fire it so it's the driver's Duty in this tank to the tank to get the elevation set and fire the gun for which reason the sights for the gun are built into his driver's visor and that is really probably asking a lot of a driver he's got a loader who's who's working behind him there and way at the back of the tank the radio operator the guy you got to feel sorry for is the fellow up there in the turret he's the Tank's Commander he's got the job of commanding the tank and maintaining orders to the crew he's got to relay messages to the radio operator he's got an anti-tank gun to aim load and fire and a coaction machine gun which he's got to aim load and fire and clear stoppage is in because machine guns love jamming up so in terms of sort of ergonomics the tank doesn't seem eminently practical it's quite interesting that if you study the war daries of the Germans who came into that part of France where they met these things and they were going to meet a tank which they believe was one of the great leviathans of of the battlefield they tend to say that they got remarkably Coast to the French tanks before they were noticed now you could say that's because everyone in here is so busy they haven't time to notice what's going on outside I think it's more likely that the vision facilities in the tank are probably not as good as they might be the Hotchkis h35 was one of the two light tanks in use by the French it weighed in at 12 tons and had a two-man crew like most of the French tanks the Germans used them after their victory in this campaign the Renault R35 was another one of the French light tanks however the top speed was only 12 mph on balance the Allied machines and particularly the French tanks outclassed the Germans in armor protection and Main Armament the Germans were surprised to find that their 37 mm anti-tank gun was ineffective against the thick armor of these tanks the downfall of the Allied tanks was the way in which they were employed tactically and the French tanks were probably better than ours and better than Germans but they were spread so thinly over the whole length of the French border that when the Germans attacked there were so few tanks available to counter those attacks that the Germans with their Superior Tactics could just steamroll through the French High command used its armed forces in support of the Infantry units and most of the losses of the French tanks were caused by either stooker attack by artillery by mines or anti-tank guns there were very few instances when large numbers of French tanks met large numbers of German tanks this was mainly because the German tanks were in the spearheads and were moving onwards and ever onwards towards the coast the French tanks were used to attack the flanks of the German armored spearheads and so most of their opposition was only softskin vehicles or anti-tank [Music] guns [Music] the campaign itself was codenamed Operation yellow the plan had been devised by Von manstein but had been credited to Hitler it was a variation of the schen plan from World War I the schen plan had the objective of drawing the Allies into the low countries they would follow this by swinging through behind the allies and ending up in Paris thereby encircling the Allied Forces the plan had just failed in World War I but the Germans were confident that it would bring them Victory this time however the plans for operation yellow had fallen into the hands of the Allies through an unfortunate accident this meant that the German staff had to rethink their plan of attack this time manstein envisaged a spoiling attack in the low countries like the original plan the main change was the direction of the main thrust it would be delivered through the Arden region that was thought to be tank proof for the attack the Germans split their forces into three Army groups Army Group B would Advance through Holland and Belgium thereby providing the bait for the Allies Army group a would move through the ardens and they would provide the main thrust Army Group C would be opposite the majino line and they would keep the French Defenders busy the main thrust had the objective of racing through the enemy positions and on towards the French Coast near bin and Cal the Allies anticipated a rerun of the World War I plan and they distributed their forces accordingly the bulk of their forces was positioned North in read for the attack through the low countries they had two further lines of reserves one of these was positioned in the Arden region the Allies grossly overestimated the tank strength of the Germans and estimated that they had over 7 ,000 tanks the reality was that the Germans had just over 2,400 tanks for the attack in the form of the paner 4 over 1,400 of these were no more than armored machine gun carriers the Allies had over 3,300 tanks to field against the Germans in the important areas of main gun and armor protection the Allied machines outclassed the German tanks when the attack began in the early hours of the 10th of May it caught the allies by surprise the Germans made quick gains and good advances this was helped considerably as the Allies strength was in the north whereas the bulk of the German strength would smash through the Arden further south the Allied thinking had lulled them into a false sense of security and they felt confident that they would destroy the Germans easily although the Germans lacked superiority in machines they had been training hard on their new Concepts and had tested the coordination of their for es the concept was fairly simple but very effective and advanced for the time a point of impact would be chosen that was small in width the armor would concentrate on the central point and the weight of Firepower would be used to overwhelm the enemy once a breach had been made the rest of the division would rush through the Gap and into the rear enemy areas the tanks would continue in the race deep inside the Enemy Lines whil the Infantry and artillery would deal with any pockets of resistance and capture key objectives the anti-tank Gunners would set up a defensive screen to protect the areas already captured under this well-coordinated attack the Allies fell back in confusion and panic they were still thinking of the last war and were prepared for a defensive battle the Germans had proved that a rapid deep Advance into the Enemy Lines provided its own defense we looked up there was these German tanks coming down the road we started moving out we didn't know where we were going we got away from the Germans who were pushing hard and they they were they were traveling miles every day and catching the British troops up and the troops were on the run the British troops were running away there's no doubt they were running away and uh the French civilians wa when when we were going back they were lining in the road and they they cheered they spited us us you know the British no good you know the most significant Advance was made by the seventh paner division commanded by General wiwin roml his tank force Advanced quickly through the lightly defended areas in Belgium when they ran into heavier defended areas in France they used their speed surprise and weight of fire to overwhelm the enemy this unit became the first AC cross the river Mur once across they continued their Advance towards ARA the seventh pancer division was advancing so fast that they were given the unofficial nickname of the ghost division when they Advanced further they came into the area held by a mixed British and French force the British who were to the north of the German Advance decided to mount a Counterattack from the direction of ARA they were under the impression that the French who were south of the German Advance would also attack on the 21st of May the British launched their attack into the flank of the Germans this was uh mounted by uh really uh a very small Force um of about 60 British infantry tanks um and a b great Brigade of of British infantry um with the uh constant Stuka dive bombing the British infantry were actually delayed and this meant that uh the Matilda tanks the mark 1's and Mark 2s rolled forward against ral's 7eventh Panza division more or less unsupported nonetheless given their extremely uh thick armor um the Germans were astonished to find that their anti-tank rounds from their 37 mm uh anti-tank guns simply bounced off these British tanks and the British tanks were able to roll forwards from ARA crushing anti-tank guns under their tracks and uh destroying many uh German tanks and vehicles of of rl's division the threat they posed by storming across country in two sort of left and right Hooks and attacking this German column was such that roml himself left his position with the leading tanks came rushing back because obviously if he'd been completely cut off inside France with the Brits and possibly the French across his tail he would be in serious trouble so he then called up literally every gun in the area from anti-aircraft guns the dreaded 88s through the field artillery and anti-tank guns and brought the British attack to a stop by a sort of last ditch effort with these weapons and in that role although it wasn't their chosen role actually for a few hours they had a bit of Glory a moment or two of glory and did quite well the Germans had estimated the attacking Allied Force to number hundreds of Tanks when in fact it was considerably less than this although the attack was determined it could not halt the advance of the enemy it did however give the Germans a bloody nose and caus them considerable concern this attack had showed what could be achieved if the Allies had been better coordinated the day before this attack the Germans had reached the coast any coordination that the Allies possessed had been lost the Germans were close to defeating the enemy in the climax to this stunning campaign they' successfully penned the Allies in around Dunkirk however after Hitler's famous order to stop the advance the bulk of the Allies escaped to England once this area was secured the Germans surveyed the Mayhem that have been left behind by the retreating allies they' had been forced to abandon all of their equipment and the majority of this lay in ruin around the port the German victory was not yet complete and the next phase required them to turn South and concentrate on the remaining French and British forces that numbered some 66 divisions we got down to the docks and then these German these uh meas Smits machine gunning all the boats there lot of boats in the dock there they were machine gunning these boat these these people in the boats and of course a lot of our chats got killed but when we got on this boat we had the chance to go on the bigger boat and we saw this this measure SMI come down dive bombing and it put a bomb right down the funnel of this big line it was the lancastria they killed there was many troops in there this part of the advance began on the 5th of June 1940 Less Than 3 weeks later the enemy was complet defeated the Armistice was signed by the leaders of the destroyed French forces in the same Railway Carriage that they themselves had used at the end of World War I this was the perfect end to what was almost a perfect victory for Hitler and his new paner Army the German Victory had been spectacular and had been a Vindication of the blitz Creek concept the part played by the German tanks had been crucial in the space of 6 weeks they destroyed the armies of Holland Belgium France and Britain the confidence of the Germans was at an alltime high they had complete faith in their men and machines in particular the tanks that had helped secure the victory the close support of the LT waffer had also been a deciding factor and helped to instill Terror upon the fleeing enemy soldiers Hitler now regarded the war as almost One new weapons development was restricted after this time due to the strains on the economy and resources were rooted to anti-tank weapons and the cheaper costing assault guns the deficiencies that were apparent with regards to armor protection and Main Armament in these early campaigns were to resurface in later campaigns but with greater consequences with a sense of invincibility fresh in everyone's mind a complacency and lack of UR emergency set in although Hitler was already looking to undertake the biggest gamble yet the equipping of the Armed Forces did not undergo any serious redesign after the French campaign uh Hitler actually demobilized certain sections of the German Army he was not interested in building up uh his Panzer Force um really much further uh and did not put uh any real effort into into designing new vehicles or tanks indeed uh the infamous furer order uh of late 1940 which for forbad any work on any technical development uh which would take more than one year to complete um really stunted uh German technical development um for the next campaign for operation Barbarosa Adolf Hitler plunged ahead with the planning for the mighty invasion of the Soviet Union he was confident that his army would deliver Victory once more the men on the front line would quickly discover just how inadequate their tanks would be against the [Music] enemy

Channel: War Stories

Views: 337,240

Keywords: Matt Lewis stories, War Stories, Waterloo battle, World War II, ad-free podcasts, armored divisions, battlefield brilliance, battlefield tactics, documentary series, dramatic battles, engaging stories, mechanized warfare, military innovations, renowned historians, speed in war, strategic planning, tank warfare, war geniuses, war legends, warfare revolution, wartime masterminds

Id: znwJww2pBx0

Length: 53min 15sec (3195 seconds)

Published: Fri Jan 05 2024